1 July 2023
1
July 2023
The first thing I thought when the doorbell rang was that Rose, my twelve-year-old daughter, must have lost her keys, just as I’d lost track of time. We’d only given her the keys last month, when we moved into this house. Keys and a phone, encouraging her to be more independent, which involved getting the bus home from her new school rather than being picked up in the car.
Could it really be four o’clock already? I’d taken the day off to sort out my home office, and if Emma got home and found it in this state she would know I’d allowed myself to get distracted. So predictable , she would say. But it was just too easy to get sidetracked when sorting out my vinyl collection. So many treasures I hadn’t listened to in years. Records I’d forgotten I had, like the one spinning on the turntable now, a surprisingly rare copy of The Cure’s Bloodflowers , which was much better than I remembered.
The doorbell rang again and I hurried downstairs. Through the frosted glass, I could see that the caller was not Rose. It was a woman. My heart skipped. Rose should be home around now. Had something happened to her? An entire scenario played out in fast motion: Rose running through the school gates, excited about it being the last day of term, not looking where she was going; a car taking a corner too fast ...
I yanked open the door, a little breathless suddenly, and found myself face to face with a woman. She was tall, about five-ten. Blonde hair. Late thirties, I guessed, six or seven years younger than me. Undeniably attractive, with a smattering of freckles across her nose, and large hazel eyes. The only other thing I noticed about her was that, despite being slim, she had impressive arm muscles, like a tennis player’s.
Beside her stood my daughter. I couldn’t read Rose’s expression, which was something that was happening more frequently these days. When she was little I had always known exactly how she felt. Joy and anger shone out of her face. I put her recent inscrutability down to the upheaval of the move, like a shield she’d put up to protect herself from her own emotions.
‘Hi, sweetheart. Is everything okay?’
The woman answered for her. ‘I saw her being hassled by these bigger kids when she got off the school bus?’ Her voice went up at the end of the sentence, and it took me a moment to recognise that she had a faint Australian accent. ‘Teenage boys. I told them to clear off and then thought I’d better walk her home in case they came back.’
My attention snapped back to my daughter. ‘Oh. Are you okay? What did they do?’
I put my hands on her shoulders. She had the same light brown hair as Emma, the same hazel eyes, shot through with green. A ‘lucky’ gap between her front teeth, which she got from me. My little girl.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It was those two brothers.’ She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the houses across the road. ‘They were just being idiots.’
‘Looked like typical teenage dickheads to me,’ said the woman. Yes, she was definitely Australian, the accent more prominent when she spat the insult.
I looked across to the house Rose had pointed at. Number 36. We were number 27, Snowdon Close, one of several streets – all named after mountains – on this recently completed estate in South Croydon. All the houses were semi-detached, arranged in pairs, with small front lawns and rectangular back gardens. I hadn’t met the family who lived at 36 but I’d seen them. The dad was a big guy and the mother looked fierce. Their two sons, who must have been around the same age as Dylan, our fifteen-year-old, had a dirt bike which they’d ride around the fields behind the estate, the buzz cutting through the summer air like a hornet.
‘Can I go inside?’ Rose asked.
She pushed past me without waiting for an answer, dumping her school bag by the coat rack and heading for the kitchen. I heard her greet our dog, Lola.
The Australian woman met my eye. ‘She’ll be all right. The boys were just teasing her, you know? Nothing major.’
‘I’ll talk to their parents,’ I said. ‘Thank you for bringing Rose home.’
‘No worries. Just trying to be a good neighbour.’ She tilted her head to indicate the house attached to ours. The empty one. ‘I’m moving in this weekend.’
‘Oh! Welcome to the neighbourhood.’ I realised I hadn’t yet introduced myself. ‘I’m Ethan. Ethan Dove. And that was Rose.’
She put her hand out. ‘Nice to meet you, Ethan Dove. I’m Fiona Smith.’
She stood there, looking at me, and I found myself saying, ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? Or a cold drink?’
Fiona grinned. ‘Yeah, actually, tea would be lovely. Thank you.’
I led her to the kitchen. Rose had already vanished up to her room. Lola, our cockapoo, came over from her bed in the corner and sniffed the newcomer, tail wagging.
‘She likes you.’
‘She’s cute.’ She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. ‘Better not tell her I’m more of a cat person.’
I put the kettle on and Fiona looked around the kitchen. It was still a little like a kitchen in a show home, all shiny tiles and clean chrome. We hadn’t made our mark on it yet.
‘So you’re moving in?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Tomorrow.’
‘We haven’t been here that long. We were living in south London before and decided it was time to get out of the city.’
‘But not too far out, eh?’
‘Exactly. I wouldn’t want to live too far from a Starbucks.’
She laughed harder than the joke merited. Being polite. I asked if she wanted milk and sugar – yes and no – then gave it to her in the mug with the Rolling Stones lips logo.
‘What do you do?’ she asked.
‘I run a record shop.’
‘Oh, really? You mean vinyl?’
When I told people I owned a record shop they either started listing all the vinyl they owned, asking me if it was worth anything, or told me they had assumed records were a thing of the past. I’d seen a lot of eyes glaze over. But Fiona seemed genuinely interested.
‘I must admit I haven’t got a clue when it comes to recent stuff,’ she said. ‘I used to date a guy who was the singer in a band but I haven’t listened to anything new for around ten years, and even that would have been a download. I still have some old records in crates back in Australia, though.’
So I was right about her origins. ‘How long have you lived over here?’
‘I came here straight after uni.’ If she was late thirties, that would have been, what? Fifteen years ago?
She told me that she originally came from a little seaside town called Fremantle, close to Perth in Western Australia.
‘Is your wife into vinyl too?’ she asked, then quickly added, ‘Sorry, I’m assuming you have a wife. Rose said something about her mum but ...’ She trailed off.
‘It’s fine. I do have a wife. Emma. I also have a fifteen-year-old son called Dylan. And no, Emma doesn’t really share my enthusiasm for vinyl, but she does love music. We all do.’
‘That’s cool.’
There was a sudden awkward silence.
Fiona broke it: ‘So, what are you going to do? About those boys?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll follow Rose’s lead. She might not want me to make a fuss.’
Fiona raised her eyebrows, apparently surprised that I wasn’t planning to steam over there with my sleeves rolled up and my fists clenched. Did she think I was a chicken? The truth was that, yeah, the family across the road were a little intimidating, but I wasn’t scared of them. I just didn’t want to fall out with our new neighbours and ensure years of awkwardness ahead of us.
But I could feel Fiona judging me as all this went through my head, and I found myself saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll talk to the parents, let them know it’s not the kind of behaviour we’ll put up with.’
Had I really just made my voice deeper?
‘I think Rose would appreciate that.’ She put her mug down on the side. I noticed she’d only drunk half of it. ‘I should go. I came here to do some measuring up and I’d better get on.’
She looked out through the kitchen window at the back garden. It had been a rainy July so far and the grass needed cutting. Her garden would be on the other side of the fence.
‘If there’s anything we can do to help, just let us know,’ I said.
‘I sure will.’
We passed the bottom of the stairs on our way back to the front door and something occurred to me. I asked Fiona to hold on a moment and called Rose, who came to the top of the stairs.
‘Come down and thank Fiona,’ I said.
I expected at least a tiny eye roll, but she trotted down the stairs and, rather shyly, said, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re very welcome.’
‘Fiona is going to be our new next-door neighbour,’ I told her.
Rose, who had been looking at the carpet, lifted her head to regard Fiona. ‘Really?’
‘That’s right. If those boys ever give you any bother again, I’ll be right there.’ She put her fists up, like a boxer, and jabbed the air.
‘Cool.’ Rose seemed genuinely pleased.
‘I’ll be here too,’ I said. ‘I’m going to speak to their parents later. Put a stop to it.’
Rose groaned. ‘Please don’t. It’ll make it worse.’
I’d known that would be her reaction. Not returning Fiona’s gaze, I said, ‘Let’s talk about it later.’
I opened the front door to see Fiona out. ‘Like I said, if you need any help with the move or anything else, just give us a shout. And thanks again for helping Rose.’
‘It’s absolutely no problem.’ She looked at Rose. ‘We girls have to stick together, don’t we?’
They locked eyes. It was a strange moment, like they were communicating, saying something I couldn’t understand. Female bonding. Something I would never truly understand.
‘Great to meet you, Ethan,’ Fiona said. ‘I think we’re going to get along and be great friends.’
She didn’t look at me as she said this. She looked directly at Rose, holding eye contact.
Then she walked away, calling, ‘See you later,’ as she went.