The New Neighbours

by Costeloe Diney

  Chantal opened her eyes and the world swung crazily past her. Oliver was holding out a bottle of wine towards the glass she still held clutched in her hand.

  “I feel funny,” she slurred. “Peculiar. Perhaps I’m drunk. D’you think

  I’m drunk, Oliver?”

  “Nah,” Oliver shook his head. “You’ve only had a couple of glasses of wine. Have some more, it’ll make you feel better.” He settled himself beside her, legs across the bed, back to the wall and filled her glass up before setting the bottle on the bedside table and taking a pull at his lager. He could feel the heat of her body against his, the heat of his own body burning from the heat of hers. He could feel himself grown hard and aching. He swallowed more beer.

  “Drink up,” he said, and obediently Chantal emptied her glass.

  “Hot,” she remarked vaguely. “Hot in here.”

  It was the opening Oliver had needed, been waiting for, offered to him unasked.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Take your shirt off.”

  As a suggestion, it lacked finesse and subtlety, but Chantal was passed the subtle stage. She looked him blearily. “Take my shirt off?” she repeated. “Too difficult.” Her words ran into each other.

  “I’ll help.” Oliver reached over and began to unbutton the shirt.

  She pushed him away angrily. “I can do it,” she said, enunciating her words carefully, “I can do it for myself.” With great deliberation she undid and removed her shirt, pulling it down over her shoulders and off her arms, one at a time, until she had it in her hands. With a giggle she draped it over Oliver’s head, but not before he had seen the rounded curves of her breasts pushing up from the lace cup of her bra. He pulled the shirt off his head and looked again. Chantal has closed her eyes again and was leaning her back against the coolness of the wall. Oliver reached out with both hands and touched the skin below the bra. He saw it quiver and the feeling of power, promised by Drew Elliott, flooded through him. He drew his hands upward and grasped the rounded flesh, pushing the lace of the bra downwards and squeezing the emerging breasts between his fingers. For a moment, he stared at the taut nipples, like ripe raspberries, jutting and inviting. He needed now to do more than feel and press—he bent his head to taste… and then, as far as Oliver was concerned, it all went pear-shaped.

  Behind him the door opened and Mike Callow had appeared. Chantal, who had ignored Oliver’s fumblings and graspings in an effort to fight the rising waves of nausea, gave up the fight and was suddenly and violently sick, all over Oliver’s head, all over her exposed tits, all over Peter’s bed, all over Emma and Peter still unaware of anything except the Vindicator stalking the red light district of Chicago.

  Mr Callow had been pretty good about it really. He’d pulled Oliver unceremoniously off the bed, grabbed a towel from the rail and wrapping it round Chantal, had half-carried her into the bathroom, ran a bath and told her to get into it. He went back into the bedroom and switched on the main lights.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at, Oliver Hooper?” he demanded, as Oliver scrabbled with a pillowcase to get some of the vomit from out of his hair and the back of his neck. “Peter,” he bellowed at his own son. “Turn off that bloody video and go into my shower and get cleaned up. Emma, go into the bathroom with Chantal. See she’s OK and get clean yourself. Oliver, go with Peter. You’ll have to lend him a shirt, Peter. Then get back in here and clean this room up. Strip the bed and put all the dirty stuff in the bathroom for now.” He grabbed Oliver by one vomit-covered shoulder. “And if you don’t want your parents to hear about this, you be back here tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock, to get this room properly cleaned. When you’re washed and clean yourself, go home. I want no arguments or explanations tonight.” Mike Callow had been as good as his word. None of the various parents, Hoopers or Havens, heard a whisper of what had happened that night. Angela, in no mood for New Year celebrations, had gone home early. Steve and Annie had been to a different New Year’s Eve party and when they finally awoke on New Year’s Day, they were nursing their own hangovers, and expressed only a passing interest in Oliverand Emma’s evening.

  Oliver admitted to Emma that he had spiked Chantal’s drinks because she had been spiteful to Emma, and Emma, grateful for her elder brother’s championship had agreed that the incident should never be mentioned again. Indeed, she was a little hazy herself as to what had actually happened, as she had been consumed several cans of beer, which would have been forbidden at home.

  The following morning Oliver had arrived at Mike’s at eleven o’clock, and he and Peter had scrubbed the floor and the mattress of Peter’s bed. They had put the sheets and the duvet cover into the washing machine, they had hung the duvet and the pillows out to air. They spent the rest of the morning helping to clear up the party. Of Chantal Haven there was no sign. She had not been summoned to clear up the mess. Emma told him that Chantal had gone home in one of Mike’s shirts over a pair of his jogging pants. Her clothes went home in a plastic bag. “She was going to tell her mother someone spilled beer all over her and put them into the washer herself, so her mum wouldn’t know it was sick and not beer.”

  Since that day, Chantal had given no sign that she even knew Oliver existed. If they did chance to meet, she passed him with her head in the air, ignoring him with a haughty indifference that infuriated him. They didn’t often meet of course, because Oliver didn’t really live in the Circle, but now as he lay on his bed, he wondered what would happen if he bumped into her this time. As there had been no repercussions from any direction, Oliver assumed that Chantal, too, had kept her mouth shut about that evening, and he found it gave him a strange feeling of power to know something about her of which she was ashamed. When the guys at school were discussing women these days,

  Oliver said nothing except to Drew Elliott; and to him he simply said,

  “You were right, Drew, it’s great to have power.”

  When Annie had called him for the third time to get up and come up for breakfast, Oliver crawled off the bed and dragging on his T-shirt and jeans, went upstairs.

  “Hurry up, Oliver, do,” Annie snapped as he walked into the kitchen.

  “ I want to get the kitchen cleared before I go to work.”

  Oliver pulled open a packet of Shreddies and piling them to overflowing in a bowl, slurped milk over them, splashing some on to the table. Annie’s lips tightened, but she managed to bite back a retort and said instead, “There’s a note for you from your dad. He had to leave early.” She passed across a piece of folded paper. With a mouthful of Shreddies, Oliver unfolded the paper and reading it threw down his spoon in disgust.

  “That’s not fair,” he muttered. “He promised.”

  “He says to tell you he’s very sorry,” Annie began. “He got a call from work this morning, some crisis or other. He said to tell you he’d take you on Saturday, instead.”

  Oliver pushed his unfinished cereal away. “Doesn’t matter,” he shrugged. “I didn’t really want to go anyway.” He picked up the note and ripping it across threw the pieces back on to the table.

  “Oliver,” began Annie, “He’s very sorry…”

  “Forget it,” snapped Oliver. “I’m going out!”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “But you haven’t finished your breakfast…” but Annie was speaking to an empty room, thudding feet on the stairs and a slamming front door.

  “Bloody boy,” she expostulated through clenched teeth, and sweeping the unfinished Shreddies into the dog bowl, she rammed the bowl into the waiting dishwasher and set it off.

  Annie had never found either of her husband, Steve’s, children easy. Emma wasn’t too bad; with Emma she had an uneasy truce, Emma didn’t actually set out to be awkward, but Oliver made her life as difficult as he could. Annie knew that, encouraged by his mother, Oliver blamed her for the separation and divorce of his parents. He believed that Annie had entered an idyllic marriage, where all was
sweetness and light, and had ensnared his father luring him away from his family. Annie knew it wasn’t like that. Annie knew, because Steve had told her, that his life with Lynne had been hell on wheels. Unending rows and tears andrecrimination for imagined slights; all because he was working every hour God sent to establish his business.

  “You’ve no time for me and the children!” Lynne cried. “You leave me to cope with everything.”

  “No time for you and the children?” bellowed Stephen. “Why the hell do you think I’m working myself into an early grave if it’s not for you?” The anger and the bitterness went both ways and ran deep.

  Steve ran his own security firm, Hooper Security Consultancy, and like most men running their own businesses with all their financial eggs, plus many belonging to the bank, in one basket, he worked extremely long hours and took little time off. Business was steady rather than buoyant, but by working very hard he managed a comfortable living and was able to send his children to independent schools. Oliver was now in his first year at Chapmans, a large senior school outside Belcaster, and Emma had another year at Beechlands before she moved on to Belcaster High. The strain on his marriage, however, had become almost unbearable, Lynne wanted the lifestyle his dedication produced, but resented the dedication needed to achieve it. Thus it was when Steve met Annie, a store detective, at a meeting with Harper and Hill, the big department store in town whose account he was trying to win, he was instantly attracted by her calm, quiet manner, so different from Lynne’s bitter moaning.

  After the meeting, he took her out to lunch, followed soon after by dinner and the quiet sanctuary of her flat. Steve had found himself a haven of peace, and it was a haven of peace to which he returned more and more often until he decided to make the break and stay for good.

  The ensuing divorce proceedings had been bitter and vicious. Oliver and Emma ceased to be the children of loving parents, and became their pawns, moved across the chessboard of the divorce at the whim of either parent, used as weapons to wound and hurt. At the ages of five and seven, Emma and Oliver’s world disintegrated round their ears and they, understanding nothing except that everything was wrong, were pulled and pushed about in a war of attrition.

  Once everything was finalised, life settled down to some sort of pattern. They lived with Lynne, but visited Steve and Annie at weekends and in the school holidays. Recently though, there had been hints from Lynne that she thought the children ought to see more of their father.

  “Oliver needs a father figure at his age,” she would say, “and Emma was always Daddy’s girl.

  The present arrangement had suited Annie well enough, as she agreed the children needed to see their father. She had never wanted children of her own, but was prepared to do her best by Steve’s. Not too difficult when they were younger, but the last few visits had not been at all easy, and she wasn’t looking forward to Oliver’s extended stay these holidays.

  She knew he was disappointed that his dad had had to cancel their proposed afternoon at the County Ground watching Belshire play Essex, but it couldn’t be helped. Work had to come first if you ran your own business, and Oliver, at rising fifteen, ought to recognise the fact. There was nothing to stop him from going to the cricket on his own if he wanted to, Annie had been about to offer him the money for his ticket when he had walked out.

  She sighed, and having given the kitchen surfaces a quick wipe, picked up her bag and went out. She was already running late, not only because of Oliver, but because Mrs Colby from number six had been on the phone, something to do with students moving into number seven. Mrs Colby had started off the rigmarole in great detail, but Annie had had to cut her short.

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs Colby,” she said, “but I’m late for work. Could we discuss this some other time?”

  “Of course, Mrs Hooper,” Sheila Colby said. “I quite understand. But what I’m telling you is quite important, if I could just pop over and see you and your husband some time…”

  “Yes, anytime,” Annie agreed. “Just call round. I must dash now. Bye.” With luck, Steve would be home when she did come and he could deal with her. Annie had little to do with any of her neighbours, but Sheila Colby she had long ago decided should be actively avoided.

  She pulled the front door closed behind her, wondering as she did so whether Oliver had his key. Deciding that quite frankly she didn’t care, she got into her car and drove to work.

  From a seat in the gardens, Oliver watched her go. His anger and resentment still burned hot, and his toes curled up with rage. He hadn’t got his key, and now he was shut out with no money and nothing to do all day. He heard voices across the Circle and saw Mrs Colby coming out to her car. Its front door was open, and having dumped her basket and handbag on the front seat, she went back indoors, still calling to someone inside.

  Oliver got up and ambled across the Circle towards the car. The handbag was lying, unzipped, on the front seat and Oliver could see a purse stuck into the top. He approached the car casually, but his eyes flicked round the Circle and up to overlooking windows. In the next house, he caught sight of Mrs Jarvis, sitting in her window. She waved to him and he raised a hand in reply.

  Christ! he thought, that was a close one. He hadn’t actually extended his hand to snatch the purse, but if he had, she would have seen him. With his heart pounding he sauntered on to number ten, as if he’d always been headed there, and ringing the doorbell, asked Mike Callow if Peter was there.

  “No,” Mike answered shortly. “Sorry, Oliver, not expecting him this week.” As the door closed on him, Oliver turned on his heel and set off into town, slouching along the streets and peering into shop windows. He wanted new trainers, but Mum had told him to ask Dad. There were some in a basket outside a shoe shop and he stopped to look at them. They were cheap ones, not the expensive Nikes he wanted. As he stood looking at them, a woman with three small children, one in a baby buggy and the other two holding on to the handles, stopped beside him. The woman’s handbag dangled from the back of the buggy. Shepeered into the basket of trainers and pulled one out.

  “Come here, Nigel,” she was saying, “let’s see if these fit you. Put your foot up here.” As she held the trainers against her son’s foot, her daughter began demanding trainers too. Her attention was entirely taken up with the two of them as the little girl reached into the basket for herself and had to be restrained.

  Oliver didn’t hesitate. Smoothly he unhooked the handbag from the buggy’s handle, slid it under his jacket and moved unhurriedly away. Once round the corner he legged down a side street and dived into a gents’ toilet. He went into one of the cubicles, and collapsed on to the toilet seat. His heart was pounding with exhilaration and he wanted to laugh aloud. He felt the usual surge of power sweep through him as he sat gripping the bag in his hands. It had been so easy.

  Quickly he rifled the contents of the bag. There was a purse containing£55 in folding money and some silver and a bank debit card. He was about to throw this away as useless without the pin number, when he saw a diary. He thumbed through it and there, amongst the telephone numbers was one Cassie Carde 0743. Clearly not a phone number. God, this woman, he glanced at the name on the card, Mrs D Hawkins, this Mrs Hawkins was as stupid as his mother, who had hidden her pin number in much the same way.

  Oliver stuffed the cash into one pocket of his jeans and the card into another; then checking that there was no one else in the toilets, he emerged from the cubicle, wiped the handbag with a paper towel, dropped it into the bin and sauntered out into the sunshine.

  Once back into the city centre, he went to a bank cash point and inserted the card. As the machine swallowed the card, Oliver felt a quick flash of panic. Surely the woman couldn’t have reported the card stolen yet. Even so, Oliver kept a wary eye on the door of the bank, ready to run if anyone came out demanding to know where he’d got the card. Nobody did. He tapped in the Cassie Carde number. The machine accepted it. He asked for a balance. One hundred and ten pounds. Knowi
ng that cards sometimes had a limit of a hundred pounds on them and not wanting to attract attention, Oliver drew out a hundred pounds and adding it to the cash in his pocket, continued on his way. Safely round the corner, he again felt the power course through him. It had been so easy. So fucking easy. He wanted to shout to the world what he had done, but he managed to contain his exhilaration and set off to find a sports shop that sold Nike trainers.

  That evening Steve Hooper noticed the expensive trainers his son was wearing. “Those are new, aren’t they?” he enquired. “Where did you get the money for those?”

  Oliver looked up at him, ready for the question and ready with the answer. “Mum said to get some new trainers,” he said. “She said you’d buy them for me. I saw these in a sale today, so I bought them before someone else did. Good value, eh? Half price!” His eyes met his father’s, smiling easily as he lied. “I used the pocket money Mum gave me, I knew you’d pay me back.”

  “How much do I owe you?” asked Steve, reaching for his wallet.

  “They were £99.99, reduced to £50,” Oliver replied. He had decided on the amount he would ask for after some careful thought. It would be no good going for the full amount, Dad would know Mum hadn’t given him £100 pocket money. They were top-of-the range trainers, so their being in a sale was the way round that. “They were good value, weren’t they?” he repeated.