Rachel Sargeant - The Perfect Neighbours

When Louisa tackled a tricky chord, Jerome Stephens stepped forward to applaud and obscured Helen’s view of the garden. She tilted her head and saw elbows and hands on the back fence. A face appeared, spat out a cigarette and vanished.

She was about to warn her hosts, when Toby came in on the cello. It would be rude to interrupt the child; she’d wait until the end. She’d expected him to be rubbish, assuming that Louisa was a deluded, selectively deaf mother who couldn’t hear the screeching tune being murdered on the half-size instrument. But Toby could play. He wasn’t Jacqueline du Pré but he was better than the kids who performed solos at the school where Helen used to teach. And they had been teenagers; this was a boy of eight. When he finished she clapped as enthusiastically as the other guests.

Louisa announced that they would play the last part again so that Toby’s brothers could join in. She hit the piano keys harder this time. Leo, the middle child on the violin, hadn’t inherited his brother’s talent. Napoleon retreated to the dining room to escape the highpitched whining. Louisa nodded at Murdo but he continued chewing his tambourine. He joined in the applause at the end.

“Why didn’t you play, Murdo?” Louisa asked. “Didn’t you see Mummy nod?”

Damian ruffled his youngest son’s hair. “It doesn’t matter, matey. Let’s have supper.”

Helen opened her mouth to tell them about the intruder, but the view from the window was serene and the idea seemed ridiculous. Had she really seen someone on the fence? It was getting dark outside and she was two glasses into the Howards’ quality champagne. When she saw Gary looking at her quizzically, she smiled and followed him into the dining room.

She was sure of two things: Louisa would seat her as far away from Damian as possible and she’d end up next to Mel’s husband Chris. She was right on both counts. Chris was to Helen’s right and beyond him was Polly, still holding her baby alarm. Louisa took her place at the head of the table, on Helen’s left. Damian was at the far end, but still managed to smile in her direction every time she looked up. She found herself blushing.

When Chris put down his glass and asked, “So, Helen Taylor, tell me about yourself,” she didn’t want to answer. There was something unnerving about him, as if he might use whatever she said against her one day.

“Not much to tell. What about you?” she said. “What do you teach?”

“I’m head of A and D. That’s Art and Design. Hardly rocket science but it passes the time until my project is complete.” He faced her but raised his voice to address the whole room. “Have you heard of Michael Moore?”

Before she could answer, Louisa leaned forward. “He’s an American documentary maker. Chris intends to follow in his footsteps.”

Chris shook his head. “Louisa, my darling, a Chris Mowar Production doesn’t follow . What I’m working on will turn the documentary film industry on its head.”

“Chris has a big plan to expose con men but I think it’s been done before,” Louisa said, looking at Helen.

“Not with the treatment I’m giving it.” Chris tapped the side of his nose. “It’s all about the long haul. Con men take their time to exploit people’s weaknesses. They’d exploit yours,” he said, leaning back in his chair and staring at Louisa.

“How droll you are,” she said and gave a forced giggle.

Chris stretched out his arms. “Take this room, for instance, with its statement yellow wallpaper.”

“It’s savannah and gold. What about it?”

“Whatever you want to call it, it’s not school-issue. You’ve practically rebuilt this house from the inside out. A con man could send the whole thing tumbling down.”

Louisa didn’t reply. She concentrated on picking a crumb off the table and depositing it on the side of her plate. The only sound was Napoleon chomping on his bone under the table.

“So, Helen, what do you think of our little neighbourhood?” Damian called down the table. She wondered if he was asking to deflect the spotlight from his wife. But Helen was now the one feeling the heat. Polly and Jerome looked at her. Louisa was watching too.

“It’s delightful,” she said, banishing parochial from her mouth.

“This street is a real community, like Britain in the 1950s,” Damian said.

“Even though we have some foreigners in our midst.” Chris laughed.

“Poor old Manfred,” Polly said, moving the baby alarm nearer to her plate. “He must miss his cottage.”

“He was jolly lucky the German Government gave him a house in perpetuity. We get our rented houses but once we leave the school we’re on our own,” Jerome said.

“But isn’t that the point?” Polly replied. “He was given that house for life. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that arrangement, the school shouldn’t have demolished it.”

“I think we’d better explain to Helen,” Damian said. “Manfred Scholz lives at number 2. He’s our groundsman – looks after the school site. One of the perks of the job was his own cottage inside the campus. We wanted the land to build a new gym so he and his wife had to be re-housed in Dickensweg.”

“He’s a super chap. Dignified,” Jerome added. “But probably time the old boy retired.”

“He’s been lonely since his wife died but I do what I can to include him,” Louisa said.

Chris folded his hands behind his head. “If you ask me, he’s no lonelier than he was before. With all that obsessive cleaning, the only way to get attention from a Hausfrau is to lie on your back covered in dust.”

Helen was shocked at the open insult to the German locals. She glanced across the table to Gary. He stopped smiling and winced. She thought it was apologetic; it damn well ought to be. What kind of neighbourhood had he brought her to?

After dessert, Louisa took coffee orders. Helen stacked the plates and followed her into the kitchen. The room was space age: white units, black granite tops, built-in cooker. She opened the bin to scrape the plates and saw a heap of hot cross buns at the bottom. So that’s what Louisa thought of Mel’s food offering.

“Where shall I put this?” Mel appeared with leftover gateau.

“Bio bin,” Louisa said.

“I’ll do it.” Helen took the plate from Mel to prevent her seeing inside the bin.

Jerome came in to say goodbye; he was leaving before Polly to be with their girls. When Helen went back to the dining room, there was no sign of Gary, Damian, or Chris.

“They’ve gone to the den, in the cellar,” Louisa explained. “It’s very much Damian’s lair; it stops the men making the lounge untidy.” She gave a little giggle. It sounded like a hiccup.

She invited the women into the lounge but didn’t ask them to sit down. As if at some late-night cocktail party, they stood in the middle of the room. Helen longed to sink into one of the cream sofas which beckoned her like a bubble bath. The herbal scent that she’d encountered in the hallway was stronger here.

Louisa noticed her sniffing. “It’s lavender. I’ll give you a sample before you leave. I’m a qualified aromatherapist, but only work part-time now that I’m chair of the Parents’ Association and on the Board of Governors.”

“I don’t know how you do it all,” Polly said.

“I try,” Louisa said and smoothed down a chiffon sleeve.

Helen glanced at her watch. Midnight. How much more of Superwoman could she endure? She excused herself to go to the loo and went to find Gary.

***

The cellar in Gary’s house was about as attractive as a multistorey car park, but when she stepped over Toby’s school bag and descended into Damian’s den it was like heading into a nightclub. Red tiles on the walls and another wooden floor. The first room was decked out like a cinema with a huge flat-screen TV, easy chairs, and a popcorn machine. She could hear the men in the room beyond. As she approached, she heard Chris’s voice.