The Good Neighbour (9 page)

It couldn’t have worked out better if she’d planned it. Dr Ogueh looked at Cath.

‘My new relationship,’ Cath said quietly, ‘is just another thing Davey is coping with right now.’

‘I understand,’ the doctor said, keen to show off his egalitarian attitude. ‘Difficult times for you all.’ He glanced over again at Minette, and back at Cath; was he looking at her with respect for her pulling power? ‘Thinking about it,’ he said, ‘it would probably be best for Davey if we go ahead quickly with the referral. Get him into the system.’

‘Thank you so much, doctor,’ Cath said. Yes! You beauty. ‘Say goodbye, Davey.’

Davey grunted. Cath turned to Minette. ‘Ready to help me round up the children, lovie?’ She touched Minette’s arm and smiled to herself as Dr Ogueh backed hurriedly into his office.

NO ONE, INCLUDING
Minette herself, realised she couldn’t see properly until she got into trouble at school, aged six, for copying from the girl next to her. ‘I didn’t copy her answers,’ Minette protested, ‘only the questions, because I couldn’t see the board.’

Minette’s mother often described how guilty she felt at Minette’s first eye test, when the optician looked at her, over his own glasses. ‘She’s extremely short-sighted,’ he said, bluntly. He didn’t add, but didn’t need to, ‘How could you not notice?’

Minette’s parents acknowledged ruefully that there had been a few signs: the way Minette sat so close to the television, for instance, or her uncertain responses when things were pointed out to her – ‘Look at that blue bird, Minnie!’ – but she was a bright child who had compensated for her poor vision in other ways. When the optician put the heavy test glasses onto her face, and slipped in the correct lenses, Minette cried out, ‘Oh, I can see lots of things!’ and her mum burst into tears. Minette couldn’t understand why. Hadn’t she just been given the precious gift of sight?

She loved her glasses, though they were chunky blue National Health ones that got her teased throughout primary school. If Tilly needed glasses, thought Minette – hopefully she wouldn’t – it would be such a different experience. When Minette went to the optician now, to get new contact lenses, she admired the children’s glasses wistfully. Post-Harry Potter, glasses were cool, and even the free frames were attractive. She still had a pair of glasses, more flattering than the ones of her youth, for the brief periods without lenses first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

But one of her great pleasures, since she was six, was to remove all visual aids and allow herself to sink into Blur World. She could only do at it home, in a familiar setting, but oh, the comfort of it. Abe didn’t understand it. He felt sorry for her poor mole-like state, said if he was half as short-sighted as her, he’d have laser surgery like a shot. But when Minette took out her lenses, and the room lost its edges, shifted to a colourful fog, she felt herself relax. It wasn’t just, as Abe suggested in one of his amateur psych moments, that she’d regressed to childhood, to that time before anyone knew she couldn’t see. It was more than that: it was also an abdication of responsibility. ‘I can’t see,’ says the inhabitant of Blur World, ‘don’t ask me to do anything.’

Abe was at work, and Tilly was having a nap, worn out after a stressful trip to Toys R Us. She’d got upset in the soft toy aisle because Minette wouldn’t let her keep hold of a cuddly tiger. Minette quickly pushed the buggy into the next section. But Tilly’s wailing got louder, her arm stretching back towards the aisle where the tiger was, body twisting against the buggy straps. Minette felt that other parents were judging her. One woman pushing a toddler glanced at Tilly and then stroked her child’s hair, as if thinking, glad I haven’t got a spoiled brat like that.

‘I’m going to take you out of here if you don’t behave,’ Minette snapped, and when the crying didn’t stop she made good on her threat. But as she pushed the buggy hurriedly through the exit, Tilly’s screams became even more desperate, and people in the street turned round to look. Minette started crying too. ‘Will you shut up if I get you that stupid tiger?’ she hissed, and stormed back to the shop. As they went back in Tilly’s sobs slowed down, and by the time Minette had bought the bloody thing and shoved it into her hands, she was smiling broadly, the tears still wet on her cheeks.

Now that Minette had finally made the decision not to go back to work, there were going to be a lot more days like this. She sighed. But Cath was right – she wouldn’t get this time again. She took out her lenses and lay on the bed, gazing at the ceiling, which in Blur World was a fuzzy white expanse, with a blue sparkly blob in the centre (the lampshade).

We’ll all be dead in a hundred years.

No one had ever said anything like that to her before, and it was a revelation. Minette had always been a high achiever. Her glasses excluded her from the cool gang, so she naturally formed alliances with the geeks and nerds, the hardworking kids. She never really had a rebellious phase. Not when her parents split up; and not even in her teens. She went to university, got a good degree while working hard at a series of part-time jobs, and settled down into a career with a pension and a steady relationship with Abe. They had a very conventional life. He worked, she looked after the baby, they saved a little money each month, did the recycling and sponsored a child in Africa. Minette had never been too drunk to brush her teeth before bed, had never left her seatbelt off, never slept on a beach.

One of the few times she’d ever thrown caution to the wind was when she suggested to Abe that they stop using condoms. Even that wasn’t much of a risk. Both agreed it would be nice to be parents while they were still young. She got pregnant the third or fourth time, and after a heart-stopping moment of uncertainty, staring at the little white stick, they’d quickly got used to the idea.

Minette relaxed her eyes until the circles of fuzzy light around the blue blob danced and split apart into little stars. Yes, life had been pretty smooth, until Tilly’s arrival revealed the Miltons to be neighbours from hell. Minette told herself she’d been pushed into a weakened state by their persecution, because otherwise surely she would never have contemplated kissing Liam. Such recklessness was out of character.

And yet, all the time, there existed a parallel universe she hadn’t known about, a world in which she could have been guided by the straightforward philosophy of ‘we’ll all be dead in a hundred years’. Minette was honest enough to admit to herself that she had seized on Cath’s attitude to justify what she wanted to do anyway. But imagine if, instead of working hard at her homework, maintaining a steady Grade A, she’d gone out dancing and boozing like the majority of her classmates. So many of them had dropped out of education completely, got work as shop assistants and hairdressers and gardeners. What if Minette hadn’t gone to university after all, but had remained in her Saturday job in the chemists, asked to be made full-time? They’d wanted her to stay, had given her such a lovely send-off, presenting her with a bag full of the make-up she’d admired when she tidied it on the shelves each weekend. She still had some of it: an eye pencil in the most perfect grey, now little more than a nub, and a Chanel lipstick, which she only ever used on special occasions.

What if she’d lived in this parallel universe? What if she’d thought, it doesn’t really matter what job I do? Shop assistant, tourism officer, brain surgeon: we’ll all be dead in a hundred years, after all. If she hadn’t gone to university she wouldn’t have moved to Brighton, or met Abe, or had Tilly. But she would have done other things. Travelled round South America on a motorbike, perhaps. Or become a burlesque artiste. Met a crazy man, maybe met her animus, with fair hair and brown eyes, and fallen tumultuously in love. And not cared, because ‘we’ll all be dead in a hundred years’.

I’m lucky, thought Minette, snapping her eyes back to attention so that the orbs of lights stopped dancing around the blue blob. I have a lovely man, and a gorgeous daughter, and, and, and. She conjured up a Kodak moment of Abe, him holding Tilly as a tiny baby on Brighton beach last year, father and daughter squinting into the wintry sun and, in their woolly hats, looking very much alike.

Her mind drifted away from Abe, to the recent encounter with Liam. Snogging like teenagers on her sofa, as she’d said to Cath, while Tilly slept upstairs.

‘I’m bored with making this macramé bikini,’ he’d said as she opened the door to him.

‘Is there even such a thing?’ she laughed, resigned to the fact that, yet again, he looked as hot as all get out and she looked rank. Tilly had spat up milk on her sweatshirt, and her hair was in its home-day pineapple top-knot. It was this moment, in fact, that made her resolve to book a hair appointment for the next day and ask Cath to mind Tilly.

‘In my head, there is. You can model it and I’ll take a picture for the front cover of Macramé Masturbators Monthly.’

‘What have you really been doing?’

‘Listening to my mum on the phone, being upset about my gran.’

‘Oh no, why, what’s happened?’ She stood aside to let him pass.

‘My mum saw her yesterday and Gran said she wanted to go home, and when Mum said, “You are home,” she cried.’

‘Poor them.’

‘And poor me for having to listen to it. I need a treat after that, so I thought of you.’ He smiled. ‘Where’s Tilly?’

‘Asleep.’ She showed him into the living room.

‘This is a posh sofa.’

‘Heal’s. Abe’s parents bought it for us.’ Shut
up
, Minette.

Liam sat down. ‘How long till Tilly wakes up?’

Minette, flustered, glanced at her wrist, though she wasn’t wearing her watch. ‘Half an hour? Maybe a bit longer?’

‘Perfect.’ He patted the seat next to him.

‘Shall I make tea?’ Minette said, hesitating.

‘No thanks. Sit down please, Minette.’

She sat abruptly, looking at her lap so she couldn’t see his face, his eyes, the path of wrongness they would lead to.

‘You look worried.’

‘I look a mess.’

‘Yeah, you’re a right old scruff-bag.’

That made her laugh. He put his hand on her cheek and gently turned her face towards him, so she had to look at him. ‘You’re beautiful, you know,’ he said.

‘Oh, I’m not …’

He leaned in, in his movie-star way, and kissed her, first lightly, then more urgently, until he was pushing against her, pressing her against the sofa. She felt overwhelmed, and she liked that feeling. In moments they were somehow lying down, him more or less on top of her.

‘Liam …’

‘I’ve still got one foot on the floor, so we’re legit according to the 1950s film censors.’

‘I don’t think …’

He silenced her with kisses, glorious kisses, and she found herself just submitting, sinking. When his hand moved to her breast, she let it stay, because he didn’t make any further moves, just caressed her over the top of the dirty sweatshirt. She wondered if, through the layers of that, her T-shirt underneath, and her padded bra, he could feel her nipple, sticking out like the word ‘yes’ made flesh.

Clearly he could, for he honed in on it, circling it tighter with his fingers, and as he pressed against her, she felt his erection, and made disloyal comparisons in her head about its size compared to Abe’s. Like a steel pipe, she would have said if she was ever going to describe it to anyone, which she wasn’t. She moved her hand down, deliberately not thinking about what she was doing. It’s just touching the outside of his clothes, she told herself. Just kissing-with-extras.

They never moved their lips apart, the kind of long-term, in-it-for-the-duration kissing Minette hadn’t experienced since Jamie, her first proper boyfriend. Liam once tried to move his hand from on top of her clothes to under, but she replaced it where it had been, again reminding her of Jamie, him moving his hand repeatedly from over to under. Yes, and she lost her virginity to him so her prevention strategy clearly wasn’t very effective, was it?

She submerged herself in the here and now, keeping her eyes closed so she couldn’t see what she was doing. Her senses focused instead on Liam’s lemony scent, the warmth of his hand, the sound of his ragged breathing. She had no idea how much time had passed when she thought she heard another sound: a faint cry from upstairs. It couldn’t be Tilly because she’d hear her much more clearly on the monitor and … bollocks! Minette’s eyes snapped open and she struggled to a sitting position.

Liam, a dreamy expression on his face, said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t think I put the monitor on.’ She craned to listen.

‘Monitor?’ Liam was still far away.

Yes – that was definitely Tilly crying. Minette pushed Liam away and bounded up the stairs in what felt like two steps. Tilly was sitting up in her cot, an accusing look on her red, tear-stained face.

‘Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.’ Minette grabbed her and held her close, pressed the hot wet face against hers. ‘Silly mummy didn’t turn on the monitor.’

She carried Tilly downstairs, talking gently to her all the while about what a bad mummy she had been. It felt good to castigate herself, though which aspect of her recent behaviour she most needed to be told off about, she wasn’t sure. Her voice soothed Tilly who transitioned, in classic baby style, from outraged sobs to smiles by the time they reached the living room. It was Liam’s fault that she hadn’t turned on the monitor, really. He’d knocked on the door just minutes after she’d laid Tilly down for her nap, distracting her from her usual routine. But when she saw him, looking concerned, and so devastatingly beautiful, her kisses practically still damp on his mouth, she smiled at him.

‘Is she OK?’ he said.

‘She is completely fine. Aren’t you Tills?’

‘Hey, sweetheart. Sorry we didn’t hear you. We were, uh, busy, weren’t we Minette?’

Minette wasn’t sure about risqué banter in front of Tilly. ‘I’d better give her some milk,’ she said.

Liam said, ‘Oh, I’d like to see that.’

‘I’m not breastfeeding anymore,’ she said, feeling an odd mixture of affronted and titillated.

‘I know,’ he said, eyes wide and innocent. ‘I find all the baby routines fascinating. Even milk in a bottle is of interest, rather than in those charming receptacles it has been my immense good fortune to have just been fondling.’