The New Neighbours (11 page)

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. Knowing 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.

“Even so, Oliver, they were too expensive really. Still, just this once, eh?” His father pulled out five ten-pound notes from his wallet and handed them over, saying as he did so, “Sorry I couldn't make the cricket today, Ollie. We will do before you go, I promise.”

“Doesn't matter, Dad,” Oliver said generously and putting his hand into his pocket he produced a penny. “Here's your change, the trainers were only £49.99, I wouldn't want to do you out of a penny.”

Shirley and David Redwood turned off the motorway and took the main road into Belcaster. They were both tired as it had been a long journey, and they had been having interrupted nights ever since theyhad been in their daughter's home.

“It'll be nice to get home,” Shirley said. “I can't wait for a cup of tea.”

“I wonder how the garden will be,” David mused. “Everything grows so fast at this time of year.”

Shirley smiled. She knew David hated to be away from his garden for very long at any time of the year, but this trip away had been special. They had gone to be with their daughter, Melanie, for the birth of her second child, their new granddaughter, Suzanne. However, they had stayed on longer than they had originally intended, to help with Todd, their three-year-old grandson, who, finding that a baby sister was a vastly overrated commodity, had been demanding all the attention that, until her arrival, had naturally been his.

“Do you think she'll cope all right?” Shirley wondered for the hundredth time. “It isn't easy at the best of times, but she does seem to be having difficulty…”

“She'll be fine,” David reassured her as he been doing for days. “She's much stronger now, she'll be fine.”

“Yes, physically she is,” Shirley agreed, “but it's her mental state I'm worried about. I think it's postnatal depression. She doesn't seem to have any energy for anything, even looking after Suzanne.”

“She'll soon get over her baby blues,” David said cheerfully. “She'll have to now that we're not there to rally round. Peter gets home quite early some days, so he can deal with Todd at bedtime.”

Shirley wasn't convinced, but she said no more. She knew David tended to dismiss “baby blues” as he called them, as all in the mind. It was not that he was unsympathetic towards his daughter, but he really believed that all Melanie had to do was pull herself together and everything would be fine. Shirley wished she could believe it too, but she was sure this was something deeper than just simple tiredness. She would keep in close touch with Melanie and see how things went. If necessary she'd have to go back, but for a few days it would be bliss just to be at home and slip back into their quiet, retired routine.

David swung the car into the Circle and pulled up on to their own drive. There was a red van parked on the drive of number seven with the words Nicholas Richmond, General Builder, on the side, and a man was puttying new panes of glass into the open front door.

“Look at that,” said David. “Don't say Ned's having some work done on the house at last.”

“The For Sale board has gone,” pointed out Shirley. “David, do you think he's finally sold?”

“Don't know. I'll ask this chap.” David got out of the car and spoke to the man mending the door.

“Hallo,” he said, “has this place been sold?”

“Think so, mate. My boss has bought it.”

“Oh, I see. Is that…?” David glanced again at the name on the van,

“Mr Richmond, the builder?”

“That's right.”

“Is he here, now I mean?”

“No, not today. Should be over tomorrow with the chippies.”

“Chippies?”

“Carpenters, to do the stud partitioning.”

“I see, well, thanks. I'll keep an eye out for him tomorrow. I'd like to meet him.”

“Yeah, well, I'll tell him if I see him,” said the man and turned his attention back to his glazing.

David collected their suitcases from the car and having carried them into the house and upstairs for his wife to unpack, he wandered out into his beloved garden to see how everything had fared in his absence, and was happily employed until Shirley rapped on the window, and held up a mug of tea to encourage him indoors.

When he went in, he found she had sorted the heap of post that awaited them into two piles, and he sat skimming through his pile as he drank his tea.

“There's a very odd note here from Sheila,” Shirley said. David looked up from his own post. “Sheila?”

“Sheila Colby.”

“Hmm.” David was not interested. He didn't like the woman, and couldn't imagine how Gerald put up with her.

“She says to phone her the moment we get back as she has some important news. What on earth can that be?

David shrugged: “Can't imagine. Just her usual busybodying I expect.

Ring her if you want to know.”

“Not this evening,” Shirley said firmly. “I'm too tired to cope with Sheila Colby today. If I ring her now I'll never get her off the phone. The trouble is, if she once sees we're back, she'll ring me.” Shirley put down her mug with sudden decision. “Give me the car keys,” she said.

David handed them over. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“To put the car in the garage,” Shirley answered. “There's just a chance that she hasn't seen it yet, then she won't know we're back. I really don't feel up to her today.”

Shirley hurried down to the car, drove it into the garage and hauled the door closed behind her. There had been no car parked outside number six, so perhaps Sheila was out and Shirley's strategy would buy her an evening's peace. She even considered taking the phone off the hook, but decided against it in case Melanie wanted to ring.

Whether Sheila did not realise the Redwoods were home, or whether she herself was home too late to call, they were left in peace that evening. There were no phone calls at all, so Melanie must be coping as well. Shirley and David had the first night's unbroken sleep they had had for more than three weeks, and when they woke in the morning, Shirley felt greatly restored and looked forward to getting back to her normal life.