The Old House on the Corner

by Maureen Lee

  Victoria snorted. ‘You got married and had two children, didn’t you? That’s more than I’ve ever done. And I’m not all that young. I’m twenty-seven.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘Well, I am.’ The kettle boiled. Victoria got to her feet and made the coffee. ‘Do you take milk and sugar?’

  ‘Just milk, please.’ Rachel’s head drooped. ‘My husband and children don’t think much of me.’

  Rachel Williams was beginning to get on Victoria’s nerves, but she had a kind, generous heart and felt more sorry for her than irritated. The woman was badly in need of a kick up the behind. Having no idea how to respond to this rather gloomy assertion, she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Your children are very lucky to have a mum. Mine died when I was only two. I only know what she looked like from photos. Then me dad left because he couldn’t cope and I came to live with me gran and granddad.’

  Rachel looked as if she was about to cry. ‘I’m so sorry. What did your mother die of?’

  ‘Cancer. She was only twenty.’

  ‘That’s awful. You must have been very unhappy.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ Victoria said cheerfully. ‘I suppose I was sad at the time, I can’t remember, but I’ve been happy ever since living here.’

  ‘Gosh! I do admire you for not giving into things. I give in at the drop of a hat.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t.’ Victoria hoped she didn’t sound too brusque. She thought it was time to change the subject. ‘Have you spoken to any of the neighbours yet? I haven’t had the opportunity. I only left work yesterday – for good, that is. Next week, I’ll be getting ready for America.’

  ‘The people in Hamilton Lodge seem very nice.’ Rachel perked up a bit. ‘Gareth and Debbie Moran, though I can’t help but wonder how such a young couple managed to afford such an expensive house. He’s something to do with computers: a database developer, whatever that is. Frank, that’s my husband, said he wouldn’t earn all that much.’

  Victoria grinned, showing a mouthful of strong, white teeth. ‘I’m in the same field meself, except I design websites. I didn’t earn all that much either, although I will in America. Maybe the Morans have got a big mortgage.’ She felt slightly guilty for receiving such a whacking great sum for the land, thus adding thousands of pounds to the cost of each property.

  Rachel Williams said sadly that she couldn’t understand computers. Her children had one, Frank used one at work, but she was hopeless. Before she could list all her other inadequacies, Victoria forestalled her by asking if she’d met the people in Clematis Cottage on the other side of Hamilton Lodge.

  ‘Mr Burrows? He seems very nice, but I didn’t meet his wife, she’s an invalid. I’ve spoken to the pretty girl in one of the semis, Sarah. She has two young children and a baby. I got the impression she’d just separated from her husband and the poor girl doesn’t seem able to cope. I offered to babysit if she ever wanted to go out. The Irish family in the semi next door keep very much to themselves, and so do the couple in the other bungalow, number seven. Have you seen them? The woman looks about forty and she’s absolutely beautiful.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her, no. I saw the girl called Sarah. She looked terribly harassed. She has a hyphenated surname, Rees-James. The Irish family are the Jordans and they have two teenage boys. I don’t know who’s in the other bungalow.’ A speculator had bought number seven with the intention of renting it out and the empty bungalow had been the last to be purchased: she had no idea by whom. ‘If you’re wondering how I know so much, it’s because I’m nosy. I inherited it from me gran. She was the nosiest person in the world. I was dead miffed, being at work and missing everyone moving in.’

  ‘You’re just interested in people, that’s not being nosy.’ For the first time, Rachel allowed herself a brief smile, though it quickly vanished. ‘Anyway, I hope they all come to the barbecue. If it’s a wash-out, Frank will only say, “I told you so.”’

  Tell Frank to go screw himself, Victoria wanted to say, but it didn’t seem exactly tactful. ‘I’m sure it will be fun, even if not everyone comes.’

  ‘I thought we could have it on the communal lawn. We could put up a big tree there at Christmas, have firework parties, and that sort of thing.’ Her voice trailed away. ‘I suppose people will think I’m just being a nuisance.’

  ‘I think you’re marvellous. And if Gran were here, she’d think the same. It’s really nice, getting everyone together, making friends. I almost wish I wasn’t going to America and could become part of it.’

  Rachel’s cheeks flushed and her watery eyes brightened. Victoria wanted to throttle Frank Williams for not offering his wife more encouragement. Gran had always taught her she could do anything she wanted and Victoria had grown up believing this to be true.

  In Three Farthings, Rachel found Frank in his pyjamas in the kitchen reading a magazine. ‘The kids are still asleep. Where have you been all this time?’ he enquired in his booming voice. He was a big man, six feet tall, and heavily overweight. He was fifty-two and his sandy hair was rapidly receding, exposing more and more of his red, shiny scalp. Despite these signs of ageing, women continued to find him attractive, mainly due to his brash, outgoing personality and the fact that he flattered them mercilessly.

  ‘I’ve just delivered the invitations to the barbecue,’ Rachel said meekly, knowing he would disapprove.

  ‘And woken everyone up in the process,’ he sneered.

  ‘I was very careful not to make a noise, Frank,’ she stammered. ‘I slid the cards through the letterboxes as quietly as I could.’ He was only being awkward. Normally, he loved entertaining.

  ‘It took you long enough. It was barely daylight when I heard you leave.’ He grinned, but it wasn’t a very nice grin. ‘You woke me up.’ Everything he said held an accusation or criticism of something she had, or hadn’t, done, making her feel that she would never get anything right.

  ‘I’m sorry, Frank. The reason I was so long is I’ve been talking to Victoria Macara in the old cottage. She’s ever such a nice girl, old-fashioned. She works with computers, like Gareth next door; a web designer, I think she said.’

  ‘An old-fashioned web designer?’ Frank guffawed. ‘Bit of a misnomer if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ Rachel said doggedly. ‘Anyway, she thinks the barbecue is a brilliant idea.’

  ‘I’m glad someone does.’

  Rachel sighed and glanced around the dazzling white kitchen with its gleaming surfaces, matching cupboards and stainless-steel sink. It looked very clinical, like an operating theatre. ‘Later, when we go to the supermarket,’ she said, ‘I’ll get some plants for the window sill.’ She wouldn’t tell Frank she wanted her smart new kitchen to look a bit more like Victoria Macara’s time warp, he’d only laugh.

  The sound of the doorbell took them both by surprise. Rachel went to answer it and found a tiny girl outside wearing only a grubby vest and knickers. She carried a teddy bear close to her chest. It was Sarah Rees-James’s eldest child, Tiffany, who was four, and as heartbreakingly pretty as her mother.

  ‘Good morning,’ Rachel said brightly.

  ‘Mummy’s dead,’ Tiffany announced in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘I can’t wake her. I want a glass of milk and there’s none in the fridge.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Rachel’s hand went to her throat. ‘Did you hear that, Frank? I’m going over there.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Frank replied tersely, ‘as soon as I’m dressed.’

  ‘What about my milk?’ Tiffany wailed when Rachel raced down the path and across the lawn to number one where the front door was wide open and the house looked as if a hurricane had swept through it, although it had been the same when Rachel had glimpsed inside the other day. There were dozens of cardboard boxes and plastic bags in the hall and living room waiting to be emptied. She ran upstairs, doing her best to avoid the clothes and toys left dangerously on each stair, into the front bedroom, where Sarah lay, face
down in a froth of frilly bedclothes, wearing a dirty T-shirt, and apparently dead to the world.

  Rachel shook the inert woman vigorously and after a while a groan emerged. ‘You’re alive!’ she gasped, sinking thankfully onto the edge of the bed.

  Sarah groaned again, turned over, and screamed when she saw Rachel, whom she hardly knew, sitting on her bed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded shakily.

  ‘Tiffany said you were dead. She gave us a dreadful fright.’

  ‘I was asleep,’ Sarah said in a croaky voice, ‘fast asleep, having a lovely dream. I didn’t drop off until about three o’clock. Alastair’s teething. I need some of that stuff you dab on gums, I can’t remember what it’s called, and baby Aspirin and Calpol and hundreds more nappies, but before I can buy anything, I have to get money from somewhere. Are there any cash machines around here?’ She sat up, swung her legs out of bed, and looked around the untidy room, as if expecting to see one amidst the jumble of bottles and boxes on the dressing table.

  ‘I’ll find out,’ Rachel said helpfully. ‘There’s bound to be some on Smithdown Road. If not, I’ll lend you some money. And my husband and I are going shopping later. We’ll get the stuff for you and anything else you need.’

  ‘Thank you, you’re very kind – I can’t remember your name. I’ve no idea where Smithdown Road is. I don’t know anything any more,’ she wailed. ‘And I need all sorts of other stuff: a kettle, for instance, and an iron, not that I know how to use one, and one of those big flat things you fry things in.’

  ‘My name’s Rachel, dear, and what you need is called a frying pan.’ She patted Sarah’s hand. ‘Smithdown and Allerton Roads are no distance away. They’re full of shops and there’s a lovely big park directly behind called the Mystery where the children can play when they get older. You’ll find this a really convenient place to live. Liverpool city centre is only a bus ride away. It’s hardly worth taking the car.’

  ‘This time last week, I lived in a seven-bedroomed house and had a nanny for the children. I’m finding it hard to get used to this – but I will. I’ve promised myself that I will.’ Sarah brushed back her thick, fair hair with a determined gesture. Her dishevelled appearance, and the fact that she smelled a bit, couldn’t disguise how lovely she was, with perfect bone structure and huge blue eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes. Her legs were long and brown and as perfect as her face. She wore brief shorts to match the T-shirt. It was one of those modern sleeping outfits – Rachel’s daughter, Kirsty, wore the same sort of thing.

  Frank arrived. He came bounding up the stairs and into the bedroom, puffing slightly. ‘It’s bloody hot out there,’ he panted. Rachel noticed the way his eyes narrowed calculatingly when he saw the long-legged Sarah. It was a look she’d seen before. Frank had always been a flirt, but it was only recently he’d started to have affairs. Sarah would be perfect for him: just separated from her husband and feeling very vulnerable – and living right under his nose.

  ‘Well,’ Frank drawled. ‘You’re clearly not dead. That’s a relief.’ Sarah smiled tremulously and fluttered her eyelashes.

  ‘Where’s Tiffany?’ Rachel enquired.

  ‘I woke up Kirsty, she’s with her.’ Frank didn’t even look at his wife, having eyes only for Sarah’s shapely breasts – the nipples were enticingly visible through the thin cotton top.

  A little boy came wandering in, completely naked, sucking the corner of a scrap of blue blanket. It was Jack, who Rachel remembered was two and a half.

  ‘Oh, hello, darling.’ Sarah regarded him listlessly. ‘Is Alastair still asleep?’

  ‘Alastair not there,’ Jack said through a mouthful of blanket.

  ‘Perhaps he went walkies with Tiffany,’ Frank suggested.

  ‘He’s only seven months old,’ Sarah screamed. ‘I’ve just remembered. I had him in bed with me. I might have smothered him.’ She dragged back the duvet to reveal a plump baby lying with his face buried in the pillow. ‘Alastair, darling.’ She picked him up and clutched him to her chest. ‘He’s still breathing,’ she announced tearfully.

  ‘Thank goodness.’ Rachel suddenly felt very tired and wanted to go home. Sarah Rees-James and her offspring were very wearing.

  She therefore wasn’t quite sure how it happened that, two hours later, Frank drove to the supermarket with a list of groceries, accompanied by Sarah Rees-James, while Rachel was left to look after the children. Why couldn’t Sarah have written a list and looked after her own children? Come to that, how come the two women hadn’t gone and left the children with Frank?

  Why didn’t I think of that before? Rachel wondered, too late.

  Anna Burrows was sitting up in bed when her husband came in with breakfast on a tray. ‘There’s some children playing on the lawn, Ernie. They’re awfully sweet.’

  ‘I hope they’re not making a noise,’ Ernest growled. ‘That’s why we moved, to get away from the noise.’

  ‘Only of never-ending traffic, darling. I love the sound of children playing,’ she said wistfully. The Burrows hadn’t been blessed with children. All they had was each other. She surveyed the contents of the tray. ‘I’ll never eat all this, Ernie. Just the toast will do fine. Oh, you’ve got gooseberry jam, my favourite,’ she added gaily when she noticed his disappointed face. ‘You have the fried stuff. I know you can find the room.’ He had the appetite of a horse.

  ‘If you’re sure, luv.’ He took the plate. It held only a single sausage, one slice of bacon and an egg, but Anna seemed to be eating less and less these days. ‘Would you like to go for a walk later? It’s a lovely day outside, going to be another scorcher.’ They’d hardly been out since moving to Clematis Cottage a week ago – it had been Anna’s idea to give it a name. He’d been too busy laying carpets, arranging furniture, putting up curtains, making the house perfect for his beloved wife. Ernest was eighty-one, but had the health and strength of a man half his age, as well as a full head of silver hair and all his own teeth. He only wore glasses for reading.

  ‘I’d love to go for a walk. I’m longing to see where we’re living now. Can you get the lid off this jam for me?’

  ‘Sorry, luv. I should’ve done it before.’ He unscrewed the lid. A small child could have easily done it, but Anna had hardly any strength left in her hands. She’d had multiple sclerosis for almost a quarter of a century. At first, it hadn’t been too debilitating, but now she could hardly walk. There were days when her speech was slurred, she couldn’t concentrate, felt giddy, though today she seemed as bright as a button. She had borne her illness with infinite patience, rarely complaining.

  Ernie regarded her tenderly as she pecked at the toast like a bird. He was her willing slave, her cook, her nurse. When they’d first met, he’d risked his life on her behalf. Then, her hair had been pure gold and her cheeks as pink as roses. Now the hair was silver, like his own, and her face was lily-white and wrinkled. But Ernie still loved his darling Anna just as much, if not more.

  ‘I forgot to say, a postcard came this morning. The woman in Three Farthings has invited us to a barbecue next Saturday.’

  Her blue eyes glowed. ‘We’ll go, won’t we? I won’t find it too tiring, I promise. You know how much I love parties.’

  ‘I know, luv. As long as you’re up to it, we’ll definitely go.’

  An hour later, after Anna had washed and Ernie had helped her into a smart purple cotton dress and dangly red earrings – today, she had managed to put on lipstick and brush her lashes with mascara – they set off for a walk; Anna in her wheelchair, Ernest pushing.

  The children were still playing on the lawn, a little boy chasing a butterfly while managing to carry a piece of blanket, and a girl slightly bigger doing cartwheels, watched over by Mrs Williams from Three Farthings who was sitting on the grass nursing a baby and not looking very happy about it. The girl came running over. ‘Why are you in a pushchair?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Because I’m ill, dear,’ Anna told her. ‘I can’t walk, least not ver
y far. What’s your name?’

  ‘Tiffany. That’s Jack, he’s my brother. Alastair’s my other brother. He’s got a pushchair, ’cos he can’t walk either.’

  ‘Yes, but one day he’ll learn. Hello!’ Anna waved at Mrs Williams who was struggling to get to her feet while holding the baby. ‘Don’t get up, we’ll come to you. You’ve got a lovely family,’ she said when Ernie had parked the wheelchair beside the heavily perspiring woman.

  ‘They’re not mine. I’ve got three children too, but they’re much older. James’s twenty, and Kirsty’s nineteen. They’ve both gone into town.’

  ‘And how old is the other one?’ Anna enquired.

  ‘Oh!’ Mrs Williams’s moist face went very red. ‘I’m sorry, I meant two, two children. These belong to Sarah Rees-James from number one. I’m just looking after them while my husband takes her shopping.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s time they were back,’ she muttered.

  ‘It must be you who’s having the barbecue. Let’s hope the weather’s as good as it is today. Ernie and I would love to come, wouldn’t we, dear?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ernest mumbled. He hated socializing and wouldn’t have gone near the barbecue if it hadn’t been for Anna.

  A bright red car drove into the square and parked outside one of the garages, windows open, music blaring. The music was turned off and a young man got out. He wore heavy, horn-rimmed glasses that made him look rather owlish, jeans, and a T-shirt. His brown hair was tousled and he was badly in need of a shave. ‘Hi, Rachel – we’d love to come to the barbecue, by the way. Hi, kids. Hi, folks.’ He smiled cheerfully. ‘I’m Gareth Moran. You must be Mr and Mrs Burrows. Pleased to meet you.’ He shook hands with them both.

  ‘Call us Anna and Ernie,’ Anna trilled. This was what she loved, Ernest thought fondly, being surrounded by people.

  It took quite a while to extricate her from the crowd – it was a crowd by then, as Frank Williams had returned with the children’s mother, Sarah, who was a fine-looking girl, Ernest had to concede, though not a patch on Anna at the same age.