The Sudden Departure of the Frasers (11 page)

Steph turned to survey her new territory. ‘Obviously we’d have loved to buy a whole house, but not with the prices on this street. You have to compromise on something, don’t you?’

‘You do.’ Staring her own compromise in the face, Christy tried to judge how many months pregnant Steph was; the bump looked solid and established. Soon there was going to be a tiny baby next door. How easy would it be then to suppress her desires?

‘Garden flats on this road hardly ever come on the market,’ Steph continued. ‘We’d been looking for months and months.’

‘I think it’s only our two properties that have been up for sale recently.’ Christy paused. ‘Did you happen to ask Felicity why she was moving out?’

‘Felicity?’

‘The woman who owned your flat before you.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. No, we never met, but the agent said she was getting too old to live on her own and was moving to the country to be closer to her daughter.’

It sounded reasonable enough, though Christy remembered a perfectly sprightly woman manoeuvring with ease into her friend’s car; she’d looked to be in her early seventies, which was not elderly these days.

‘I wish I
had
met her, though,’ said Steph. ‘We’ve got a couple of questions about the boiler and the solicitor doesn’t have her new address or phone number.’

Christy frowned. The fact of the Frasers and Felicity having put their houses up for sale at the same time was a plausible enough coincidence, but for neither to have left a forwarding address when they went, was that not remarkable? And what was more, both parties had moved out weeks earlier than they were legally required to, well in advance of their completion dates; having first-hand experience of the time-sensitive juggling act demanded of most Londoners vacating one property and installing themselves in another, Christy knew this to be a highly unusual luxury.

Steph tugged half-heartedly at a dried twig in her privet. ‘I have a horrible feeling the garden might end up being my department – when I can bend over again properly, that is. Felix is about as far from green-fingered as you can get, but kids need outside space, don’t they? And Rob’s offered to mow the grass, which I’ll definitely take him up on.’

‘Rob upstairs?’ Christy said doubtfully.

‘Yes, have you met him yet?’

‘Well, I’ve
seen
him.’ She decided to leave it at that. ‘Do you share the garden then?’

‘No, it belongs to the lower flat. But he’s always mowed the lawn, he says.’

He must have done it as a favour to Felicity, Christy thought; before their dispute. The grass now was calf-height.

‘I should invite you all for a drink one evening, but to be honest, I’m in bed most nights by nine-thirty.’ She and Felix were both accountants, Steph said, working for the same Blackfriars-based firm. She asked Christy what she did and, when presented with the information, offered the standard platitudes, while Christy, in turn, felt the already-familiar sadness of having been dispossessed by the working world.

‘Well, if you’re still off when I go on maternity leave, we’ll have to have a coffee,’ Steph said.

‘That would be great,’ Christy said, meaning it. Steph was by anyone’s standards bright and friendly, exactly the sort of neighbour she’d hoped for. ‘Or if I’m back at work, one weekend, perhaps?’

Another two months, she thought. I’ll be working again by July, surely. And maybe, by then, Rob will be cutting
my
lawn.

The next time she saw him she astonished herself with a childlike explosion of indignation. Approaching each other at the park gates, they would have collided had she not scuttled aside at the last minute.

‘Excuse me!’ she cried, but he did not acknowledge her,
let alone apologize, and she turned on her heel to hurry after him, damned if she wasn’t going to be treated civilly as Steph had been. That amiable exchange over the garden wall had reminded her she had every right to expect common courtesy from those who inhabited rooms just metres from hers. ‘Excuse me? It’s Rob, isn’t it?’

He spun abruptly, causing her to come to an immediate standstill if she was to avoid a clash a second time, and bore down on her with an unnerving glower. All that hair created a barrier, which was, she could only assume, the purpose for its having been grown in the first place. His eyes, however, were easy enough to read: bleak, wary, expectant of irritation. And there
was
a bruise, at least the last faded remnants of one. She wondered what he would say if she mentioned Kenny’s name, that bandaged hand she’d noticed, and felt a shiver of fear.

‘What?’ He took a step closer and she caught his smell, earthy, damp, male.

She swallowed, grappling for the right key. ‘I wanted to introduce myself properly. Christy Davenport. I’ve just moved into the house next door. Did you ever get our note? We invited you for drinks, but we didn’t hear back from you.’

‘Don’t know anything about it.’ Though his voice was soft, no more than an undertone, it was sullen, unrepentant.

‘I posted the card myself. We’re at number 40, the Frasers’ old house? I don’t know if you knew them very well?’

‘Is there a particular reason you’d like to know?’ He scowled now, wariness replaced by naked antipathy.

Though taken aback, Christy did not show it. She knew a bully when she met one and had no intention of serving herself up as his victim. ‘No, of course not, it’s just a friendly question.’

The scowl deepened. ‘Well, you’ve picked the wrong man. I’ve got no interest in “friendly questions”, especially when I’m the subject of them.’

‘You’re not the subject of any questions,’ she protested.

‘Yeah, right.’ He spat the words at her in disdain. ‘That’s fucking credible.’

‘Credible?’ (
Fucking
credible?)

There was a tense silence, during which she had the idea he might actually strike her. She wished her chest were not heaving so visibly. ‘Look, whatever your problem is, it’s nothing to do with me and it would be nice if you could speak to me with a little more respect since we’re new neighbours.’

‘Take it easy,’ he said, as if it were she who was out of order – more than that, deranged, causing him to calculate the most effective means of withdrawal from a dangerous situation. ‘I think you’re getting yourself a bit worked up, love.’

Love
? Though his face rearranged itself more favourably, there was a subtle attitude of cruelty to his expression, as if it entertained him to toy with her.

Courtesy and respect forgotten, she cried, ‘Oh, screw you!’ and turned from him in indignation, marching past her own house and down the Sellerses’ path, her pulse throbbing painfully. Rob did not pursue her, of course, he couldn’t have cared less; by the time she’d reached the
door of number 42 he’d doubtless already cast her from his mind.

At the second ring, Caroline Sellers came to the door, one hand dangling a scorched Cath Kidston double oven glove. ‘Hello?’ She looked doubtful that the interruption was going to be worth her dereliction of domestic duties.

‘I won’t keep you long, Caroline, I know you’re very busy, but I have a question, one question, and I’d be very grateful if you would answer it.’

‘OK,’ Caroline said.

‘Is there something I should know?’

Caroline just stared at her in mild horror.

‘I mean, about my house? Is there something wrong with it, something our search didn’t pick up on that’s caused bad feeling? Did the Frasers drive everyone mad with their building works? Because there
has
to be a reason why people are being so weird with us.’

It was necessary, that plural, though she was under no illusions as to its dishonesty, for Joe remained untroubled by the Lime Parkers’ lacklustre welcome; he said he had no desire to socialize with a whole new group when he barely had the time (or the finances) for the old one.

‘There’s nothing wrong with your house,’ Caroline said at last, her energy as contained as Christy’s was unstable. ‘And everyone was perfectly civilized about the renovations. The Frasers handled it very sensitively.’

There was a child’s cry from inside the house, followed by the sudden appearance of a sticky-faced boy at Caroline’s side, his hands groping her clothing as he pleaded to get back to the chocolate crispy cakes they were making.
As if to signal the end of the exchange, Caroline slipped her free hand into the other pocket of the oven glove and crossed her arms, giving the appearance of having been put in a straitjacket. ‘Look, maybe we can talk another time, but right this minute I’m a bit …’ She was being tugged backwards; there were three children now, Christy saw, possibly four. One was Rupert; did that mean Liz was here too?

‘Sure,’ she said, ‘you don’t have time. Future taxpayers and all that.’ And having apparently lost all sense of the decorum she demanded of others, she turned from her neighbour and left the premises without saying goodbye.

As soon as she got home she went to her laptop and typed ‘land registry’ into the search bar. An easy succession of pages later and there it was, the price paid data for 40 Lime Park Road. The Frasers’ purchase had been registered in April 2012, their own in March 2013; the Frasers had been in residence for three weeks short of a year. Not only that, but they had paid more for the house than they’d sold it for. Percentage-wise, their loss was tiny, but given the six-figure sum they must have invested in the refurbishment, it did not, as Amber’s friend Imogen had so starkly pointed out, make any sense at all.

‘You
still
have no blinds on the windows? After six months?’

In a welcome reunion Skype with Yasmin, Christy couldn’t help noticing similarities between her friend’s temporary apartment in a high rise of ex-pat apartments in the Far East and her own permanent ‘dream’ home.
The general effect was of luxury – immaculately finished walls, lakes of pristine flooring, door after door promising spacious zones beyond – but the details were missing. The bits that made the space home; the soul.

‘No,’ Yasmin said, laughing. ‘There’s nothing to hide behind when I’m spying on
my
neighbours.’

To Christy’s great relief and pleasure, Yasmin had responded to her speculation about her new neighbours with all the sympathy – and keenness to pry – that Joe preferred not to demonstrate.

‘It all sounds
very
suspicious. If I were you, I’d go straight to the horse’s mouth and phone this Fraser guy at his office. I can’t believe you haven’t done that already.’

‘But what would I say? “I’m incurably nosy and demand to know why you sold your house at a loss and disappeared off the face of the earth”? It’s none of my business.’

‘So what? Explain that you’re struggling to settle in. Ask him what you asked oven-glove lady: is there anything wrong with the house?’

‘He’ll think I’m mad,’ Christy said.

‘Then let him!’

Ending the call, she sat at the kitchen table for all of sixty seconds before pulling up the Identico.UK website and locating the contact details. Her fingers tapped in the number for the main switchboard.

‘Identico.UK?’

She inhaled, throat as dry as if she’d breathed in sand. ‘Jeremy Fraser, please.’

There was a moment of terrified anticipation as the call was put through – should she really be doing this without
having consulted Joe? – but the sensation dissolved in an instant when a second female voice came on the line. For this was one of those discreet, apologetic women who tended to be used for acts of diplomacy, such as the breaking of bad news: ‘You’re looking for Jeremy, I hear? Can
I
help?’

‘Er, no, I need to speak to him directly,’ Christy said.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He’s on a sabbatical at the moment.’

She hadn’t expected
that
. ‘What sort of a sabbatical?’ she asked boldly.

The woman paused. ‘It’s a long-service award. Can I take your name? I’m sure someone else here will be happy to look after you.’

‘No, it’s Jeremy I wanted. How long will he be away for?’

‘I don’t know for sure, but a little while longer, certainly. Who shall I say called?’

‘No one. Thank you.’ Christy rang off, fingers already emailing Yasmin with an update.

And though she couldn’t say why, she was faintly relieved to have ended the exchange none the wiser.

Caroline Sellers had been mistaken: there
was
something wrong with the house, as a subsequent spell of wet weather soon revealed. A leak in the roof had saturated the wall of the front room at the top and the plasterboard was bowing. Joe poked a hole into it and collected the dripping water in a bucket, which Christy was responsible for emptying twice daily (at last, structure to her day!). Roofers came and quoted sums the Davenports couldn’t
possibly afford, while the insurance company declined to have any involvement, which came as no surprise since they’d scrimped on their policy.

In a fit of exasperation, she phoned to complain to the solicitor who’d handled their conveyancing, but he as good as told her the house had been a bargain and she’d be well advised to quit while she was ahead.

‘But shouldn’t the Frasers have declared it on the forms if there was something structurally wrong?’

‘Not if they didn’t know about it. It would have been for your surveyor to pick up on and if he didn’t draw it to your attention then he can’t have thought it significant. Perhaps the damage is new?’

Christy seemed to remember that the surveyor had not had access to the roof the day he called. She and Joe had galloped on with the purchase regardless. ‘The roofers say it’s old storm damage,’ she said stubbornly.

‘Well, be that as it may, I’m afraid your options are limited. All I can do is contact the vendors’ solicitor and express your concerns.’

‘Don’t get cross,’ Joe told her, later. ‘We’ll work something out. Dad said he’d ask around for a cheap roofer who might come south.’

‘I just feel so
frustrated
, Joe.’

‘It’s all part of having a house and not a flat. There’s no management company to do this boring stuff for us. No need to stress out.’

She sighed. ‘Yasmin says it’s part of the emotional process of redundancy. There are stages, like grief. This stage
is anger. Next comes paralysis, apparently – I’m looking forward to that.’