The New Neighbours

by Costeloe Diney

  She had never told them about Scott, even when they were raging at her about her having done no real work for weeks. She had just shrugged and refused to say where she had been and what she had been doing.

  Annabel sat beside Isabelle watching the party. Chantal seemed determined to make herself the centre of attention, sitting with the students, making extravagant gestures, laughing loudly and flashing her darkly encircled eyes. Then, Oliver Hooper, who had been sitting with his sister and the Callow boys, suddenly got up and wandered over to where Chantal was holding court. He flung himself down by Chantal and grinned at her.

  “Hi,” he said to the group at large. “Hi, Chantal,” he said. “Get you another drink?”

  Chantal stopped in mid-flow, glowered at him. “No,” she snapped, and turned her back on him.

  Oliver laughed and said, “Come on, Chantal, don’t be like that. We had good fun together at the New Year’s party.”

  “No, we didn’t,” she replied between her teeth, “and I hope I neversee you again.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid you will,” Oliver said lazily pulling at the grass. “Me and Em are going to live at Dad’s now. My mum’s got married again so we’re living here.” He got to his feet. “See you around.” He grinned down at her, pleased with the way he had delivered his awful news, ignoring Chantal’s retort, “I’m not surprised she doesn’t want you to live with her, no one would.” He wandered off as if he hadn’t heard, but he stored the remark in his memory with revenge in mind. He knew that Chantal was afraid of him, and he enjoyed the knowledge.

  “Oh no,” muttered Chantal.

  “Problem?” asked Mad casually.

  “No,” Chantal shook her head. “That’s Oliver Hooper. His dad’s doing the cooking? He lives at number two. Him and Em, his sister, used to live with their mum, now they’re coming to live here.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Cirelle.

  “Yeah, he’s a real creep. Em’s OK, she’s over there,” Chantal pointed,

  “but I loathe him.”

  At that moment, Dan emerged from the house and having collected a beer, wandered over to join them. He flopped down on the grass beside Mad, but his eyes ran appreciatively over Chantal and he grinned at her. “Hi,” he said, “didn’t we meet the other night?”

  Trying to match his casual tone, Chantal said, “Yeah, I’m Chantal, from number four.” She got to her feet to give him the benefit of her long legs and mini skirt, and said, “I’m going to get another drink, can I get one for anyone?”

  No one else wanted one, and Chantal didn’t either, but she’d made the move now, so she went across to the bar and asked Anthony for another coke. Jill Hammond was talking to the only other student that Chantal hadn’t yet met, so she joined them with her refilled glass.

  “Hello, Chantal.” Jill smiled at her. “Have you met Ben yet? He’s in the student house.” She turned to the tall man next to her, “Ben, this is Chantal Haven.”

  Ben said hello, and then continued with what he’d been saying before she’d joined them. “So I’ll be finished this summer and then out looking for a job.”

  As he went on talking Chantal was able to study him. She approved of his dark good looks, his thick hair caught into its ponytail, but he was a bit old, and he was taking no interest in her. Nor was Jill, so after a moment or two she moved away and went back to the student group in the garden.

  Mike Callow went over to her. “I’m taking my lot swimming after this, Chantal. Want to come too?”

  “Is Oliver coming?” Chantal asked, seeing him sitting with Emma and the Callow boys.

  “I don’t know,” Mike replied, “I think Emma is, but I don’t know about Oliver.” He looked at her speculatively. “Does it matter?”

  “No, of course not.” Chantal replied quickly, feeling her face redden. “Thanks anyway, but I’ve got some homework to do,” and she turned away.

  Mike watched her go back to the student group. He had seen the colour flood her face and was sorry for her. He hadn’t realised how much the fiasco at the New Year’s Eve party had affected her. He’d assumed she would shrug it off and it was best forgotten, but now he wondered if he ought to have told Angela and Steve what their children had been up to. It was too late now, of course, but he decided to keep an eye on young Oliver himself, since he was now living in the Circle on a permanent basis. He looked across at where Peter and Oliver were sitting, laughing together and wished, not for the first time, that they weren’t such good friends. There was something unpleasant about Oliver, and he didn’t want him around Peter too much.

  Just then, Andrew called for attention. Everyone gathered round and Sheila brought out Madge’s cake. Andrew proposed a toast and they drank her health and sang happy birthday, while she sat beaming, among them.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said. “You’ve made my birthday a very special day. I think I’m a very lucky person to be surrounded by such good friends and neighbours. I’m going back inside now, but do go on enjoying yourselves. I shall be watching you from my window.”

  “As usual…” commented Mike Callow in a loud aside, and everyone laughed as Madge agreed. “As usual, Mike Callow. So behave yourself!” Soon after she’d gone in, however, people did begin to drift away. Mike took the promised swimming party and Isabelle took over the care of the younger children again as the Forresters, Hammonds and Hoopers began to clear up. Annabel disappeared indoors, but Chantal sat around with the students as they finished their drinks.

  “We’re going to the Dutch this evening,” Dean said to her. “Want to come?”

  “The Dutch?”

  “Flying Dutchman. You know, in Francis Street?”

  “Yes, I know it,” Chantal agreed, though she’d never been inside it.

  “What time?”

  “ ’Bout half seven to eight I suppose. Shall I pick you up?”

  “No,” Chantal tried to sound casual. She knew there was no way her mother would let her go to the pub with a crowd of students so much older than her, but she would get round that problem in her own way. “No, don’t worry, I’ll see you there.”

  Twelve

  Jill and Anthony cleared the last of the bottles away and Jill stowed them in the boot of her car to take to the bottle bank in the morning. It had been a good party, she thought, as she slammed the boot shut, andas far as she could tell it had achieved its aims.

  They had well and truly celebrated Madge’s ninetieth birthday, with excellent food and drink, and more to the point Madge had thoroughly enjoyed herself, talking to everyone, and cutting the beautiful chocolate cake that Sheila had made. Everyone had congratulated Madge and chatted with her until she had finally admitted she was a little tired and allowed Andrew to take her back into the house and people had begun to drift away.

  They’d also had a chance to meet the students in number seven. Jill hadn’t met all of them, but she had spoken to Madeleine, whose house it was, and the pretty little West Indian girl and the older of the two young men, Ben, with the ponytail and the penetrating dark eyes.

  “I told one of the students,” she said to Anthony casually when they were finally indoors, “Ben, I think his name was, that we could probably give him some gardening work. He’s putting himself through university and needs some extra casual work.”

  Anthony was already reaching for his briefcase. “Fine,” he said absently, extracting a file and opening it.

  Jill felt a stab of hot anger at his disinterest, it was almost as if he had heard her speak, but had no idea what she’d said.

  Stock answer number one, she thought angrily, suitable for ninety per cent of the comments I make! She was tempted to say, “I’ve decided to have an affair with him.” Would that get stock answer number one, “Fine,” or stock answer number two, “Oh, really?” or would Anthony actually hear her if she said anything so outrageous? However, she simply said, “Anthony, you’re not listening to me.”

  He glanced up at the sharpness of her tone and sa
id, “Yes I am, darling. You want Ben to help you with the garden. Fine. You fix it upwith him.” He gave her a quick smile and his eyes returned to the paper in his hand.

  Frustrated, Jill left him to it and went into the kitchen, but a shepherd’s pie was already made for supper, cauliflower washed and cut ready in a saucepan, and there was nothing for her to do there.

  She went upstairs and looking out of the children’s bedroom window, she saw Isabelle and the children still playing in the Circle garden. For a moment Jill leaned her hands on the windowsill and laid her forehead against the cool glass of the window. She felt so useless—no one needed her. For a moment she allowed this idea to nestle in her mind, then she gave herself a mental shake.

  “Don’t be so damn stupid, Jill!” she said aloud. “Anthony needs you, the children certainly need you and self-pity is going to get you nowhere.” She turned away from the window and went into her own bedroom. On the dressing table stood a photograph of her and Anthony together on a hilltop that summer in Ireland. Anthony had an arm round her shoulder and she was laughing up into his face. Jill picked up the photo and looked at it, recalling the day that it had been taken.

  Nancy had been as good as her word and moved into Dartmouth Circle for two weeks in June. Jill and Anthony had taken the car across to Ireland on the Swansea-Cork ferry and meandered their way around Cork and Kerry, bed and breakfasting wherever they ended up each night.

  At first Jill missed the children dreadfully and found herself looking round for them, but this quickly slipped into an uneasy feeling that she’d mislaid something, then after a few days she gave herself up to the freedom of having no one to think of but Anthony and herself. They could drive or stop, sight see or swim, walk or sunbathe, entirely as the mood took them and as they did all these things, they gradually rediscovered each other. To begin with they were very careful to ask, “What would you like to do today?” but after a week they had regained their ability to decide things together without more than a suggestion, a word or a look.

  The day of the photograph they had been in West Cork. The weather had been perfect, she remembered, and they had set off from the B and B where they were staying, in their walking boots with a picnic in the rucksack. There was an iron-age fort on the top of a hill above the village, from which the views of the coastline were said to be stupendous. They had left the coast road and scrambled up a track through gorse, heather and the occasional bog and finally reached the top.

  The fort was a complete circle of stones, piled like dry-stone walling, shoulder high and four feet wide. A small gap in this allowed them to wander inside, where they found a souterrain, an escape passage down through the hill. The entrance to it was blocked with a grating, but they peered down through the bars to the darkness below.

  Jill shuddered. “I’d hate to have to go down there,” she said. Anthony laughed and hugged her. “Bet you’d go fast enough if theenemy was clambering over the walls behind you,” he said, still holding her in his arms. He kissed her nose and then hand in hand they wandered outside again. The view was even more stunning than promised, the sea shimmering blue, the coastline edging it in smooth sweeps of green and jutting rocky headlands. On the top of one in the distance, a lighthouse gleamed white in the sunshine; inland were fields and farms and beyond them the misty grey of distant hills.

  “You really couldn’t be taken by surprise here, could you?” remarked Jill. “You have the most amazing view on every side.” Coming round to the seaward side again, they sat down on the grass looking out at the sea, the sun warm on their faces, the countryside below them ablaze with golden gorse.

  “This is just beautiful,” Jill breathed, lying back on the grass and closing her eyes. The warmth soaked into her body and she wriggled her fingers in the cool grass beside her.

  Suddenly she felt Anthony unlacing her boots and her eyes flew open as he pulled off first one then the other and then her heavy walking socks. She saw he had already discarded his own and now he lay beside her and kissed her gently.

  “Can’t make love in walking boots,” he murmured as he slid his hand inside her cotton shirt.

  “Anthony,” she protested feebly as she felt her body respond to hisfingers on her breast, “we can’t make love here.”

  “Why not?” he whispered as he undid her shirt buttons and let his lips take over from his fingers, which had moved to the waistband of her shorts. “Seems the perfect place to me.”

  “Someone might come,” Jill said weakly even as she reached for him.

  “Let them,” he said huskily as he eased her free of the last of her clothes, “and they’ll see how much, how very much, I love my wife.”

  All resistance gone, they both surrendered to a perfect giving and taking of love, passionate, tender and satisfying, and when at last they lay side by side once more, relaxed on the grass in the shelter of the age-old fort, Jill felt she had never been as happy in her whole life. She raised herself up on one elbow to drink in the view, to remember exactly how it had been.

  Suddenly, some way below, where the path dipped through a clump of bushes, she saw a movement and realised people were coming up the hill.

  “Someone’s coming, Anthony,” she giggled and poking him with a finger said, “Get dressed! Come on, quick, before they get here.”

  Anthony opened one eye and glanced down the hill. A man and a womanwere negotiating the boggy patch before the last climb up to the fort.

  “Suppose you’re right,” he said reluctantly, and gathered up his scattered clothes.

  By the time the newcomers reached the fort, Jill and Anthony weresitting decorously side by side, admiring the view, fully-clothed except for their boots and socks. The other couple said good morning and disappeared inside the stone circle. When they came out again, the woman approached them carrying a camera.

  “Would you mind?” she asked, indicating the camera. “Would you take a photo of us together up here?”

  “Of course,” Anthony got to his feet and the couple posed beside the entrance to the fort.

  Jill rummaged in the rucksack and produced their own camera. “Perhaps you could take one of us,” she said smiling, “with the view behind us.” The photo was taken and the other couple wandered off down the far side of the hill.

  “If it comes out well,” Jill said, “I shall have it enlarged and framed, and then every time I look at it I shall remember today.” She put her hands on his shoulders and reaching up, kissed him gently. “I do love you, Anthony.”

  The holiday continued its blissful way; the weather stayed perfect, long sunny days with the light lingering until eleven or later. Their happiness in each other’s company was completely re-established, and though Jill longed to discuss her need to be more than “just a housewife” she was reluctant to spoil their new-found happiness and she said nothing, putting the conversation off, leaving it for a better moment; but in Ireland that moment never came. Their two weeks away together, away from home, away from the office, the telephone, the fax machine, had brought them closer than they had ever been. There seemed to be a new understanding between them, and Jill decided to wait until they were home again before bringing up the subject of a job.

  She sighed now, as she replaced the silver-framed photo on the dressing table. It had been a mistake, she’d been wrong to wait, for the moment they’d got back, Anthony was sucked into the morass of work that had accumulated in his absence. The closeness they had known dissipated in the routine of family life and normal living. There were times, but for the photo, that Jill would have thought that the day at the hill fort had been a dream. She remembered his words, “they’ll see how much, how very much, I love my wife”.

  “But not enough to let me be myself,” Jill muttered resentfully.

  She had finally seized the moment one evening, when, sitting on the floor, leaning her back against his legs, she said, “Anthony, I really do want to go back to teaching… part-time of course.” She felt him stiffen, and turning round s
he laid her arms on his knees and looked earnestly up into his face.

  “I can’t spend all day in the house, Anthony, it’s driving me mad. I must get out, do something.”

  “It’s too soon,” Anthony said firmly. “The children need you.”

  “And the children have me!” Jill cried in frustration. “I’m here when they need me. Isabelle’s here for them too. I need to do something out of the house. I need to contribute something to life.”

  “Your contribution is being a wife and mother,” protested Anthony.

  “What greater contribution could you be making?”

  “I know that,” said Jill fighting to sound calm and reasonable, “but it isn’t enough. I don’t feel fulfilled as a person. Other women have jobs and families, other wives cope with both.”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to. I don’t want a wife who’s a part-time worker and a part-time mother. I want a full-time wife for me and a full-time mother for my children.”

  “But what about what I want?” demanded Jill. “They’re our children, not just yours, and I think I’d be a better mother to them if I felt fulfilled myself.”

  “Perhaps we should try for another baby,” suggested Anthony.

  Jill felt a flash of anger. “I don’t want another baby, Anthony,” she said between clenched teeth, “I want a job.”

  “Well, it’s too soon,” Anthony repeated stonily. “We agreed, not untilboth the children were at school.” He put his arms round her shoulders and touched his forehead to hers. “I thought we’d sorted this out in Ireland.”

  Jill drew back and stared at him in amazement. “In Ireland?” she repeated. “We never mentioned it in Ireland.”

  “I didn’t think we had to, not make an issue of it. I just thought you understood how I felt, how I want our family to be. We were so close there, I thought…”Anthony’s voice trailed off.

  “You thought if you told me you loved me, I’d do everything your way. Be a good little wife and do as I’m told.” Jill pulled away from him, got to her feet and turned away. She was near to tears, but she was determined not to let them fall, not to cry. When she cried her voice didn’t work properly and she felt the urgent need to finish this conversation, now that at last it was being held at all.