Chapter 10
‘Don’t start, Lottie. Please. I feel bad enough without you tearing a strip off me.’
She slams the door, conspicuously drawing both the top and bottom bolts as if to make a point to Tim.
‘You should be extra careful while we’re away from home,’ she says. ‘None of us are used to this space, especially Josh. And that’s without that bloody deathtrap of a situation going on next door.’
Tim runs a hand through his dark blond hair, which looks like it always does when he has just rolled out of bed. ‘And there’s me presuming that I might actually be allowed to relax while I’m on holiday,’ he says.
‘Wake up, Tim. I need to be able to rely on you when I’m not around.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ he says through gritted teeth, lowering his voice as their son sits in the lounge surrounded by a circle of wooden bricks.
‘But it’s my holiday too and soon enough I’ll be back to school and work and all of that shitshow, so can we just calm down and try to enjoy ourselves while we’re here? ’
‘You’ve had the last five weeks off, Tim. And most of that time you haven’t even had to look after Josh as he’s been in nursery. I, on the other hand, haven’t had a break in months. I work too, y’know. My job isn’t easy either.’
‘That’s not fair, Lottie,’ he says, looking wounded. ‘You know how stressful teaching is. How much I need the school holidays to recover.’
Lottie feels her eyes roll as she pushes away from the kitchen counter.
‘I’m going for a shower. Can I trust you to keep an eye on our son?’
‘Of course you can,’ he says and she hears him sigh as she stomps through to the bathroom.
It was only a matter of time before this happened, she thinks, feeling entirely vindicated.
A toddler living next door to an open building site and nobody but herself seemingly aware of the dangers.
She steps into the shower, turns it to a cooler setting, steeling herself against the shock of the water, and scrubs at her head with controlled ferocity.
How long before another incident occurs, possibly much worse?
And it’s bloody outrageous that they are working on a Sunday.
There are rules about this stuff, she’s checked.
With that, she decides: something has to be done.
She can’t rely on Tim. Or the landlord, who hasn’t responded to her email or phone messages.
She certainly doesn’t trust the owners next door.
As usual, she is going to have to take matters into her own hands.
She continues to seethe, alone in the shower, her mind running overtime.
She considers the events of the morning, her conversations with the locals.
That pompous man next door, who clearly doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself and his property.
He’s the problem round here. Him and people like him.
Of that she’s sure. What she wouldn’t give to see him taken down a peg or two.
To put a stop to his greedy, inconsiderate renovation altogether.
She emerges from the shower, towelling her head.
The benefits of having such a cropped haircut is that it takes minimal effort.
She cut it short when she had Josh, felt the need to simplify everything in her life when she became a mother.
It’s the only way she can juggle her life, her work.
To make everything as efficient and ordered as possible.
But, she admits, she does find it hard to relax.
By rights, they should have booked a two-week holiday in order for her to truly unwind.
But the cost, as usual, dictated what they can do.
She finds Tim in the lounge, patiently placing one brick on top of the other to make a tower of rainbow-coloured wood, before Josh reaches out to knock it over.
Her son loves this game, giggling his infectious laugh as Tim feigns shock at the demolition.
It is a game they are both able to play endlessly, it seems. And as she pauses in the doorway to consider this, Lottie has to admit that Tim is by far the better parent.
Particularly when it comes to the mundane and manual entertainment of their child.
Lottie knows how to plan, to predict, to comfort and console.
But after half an hour of carpet-based play she is bored senseless and ready to head outside, go for a walk or take the bus.
Anything to get away from the four walls, the encroaching constriction of parenthood.
Softening, she is about to say as much to Tim, to sit down even and join in the game but then a huge walloping thump reverberates through the flat. She and Tim catch each other’s eye and she throws back her head in exasperation.
‘Try not to let it get to you, babe,’ Tim says gently, continuing the game with Josh.
‘But it’s our holiday. It’s not fair!’ She realises she has just stamped her foot, every bit like a precocious toddler.
Josh looks up at her, large brown eyes agog and Lottie is suitably shamefaced.
She is behaving like a child. In front of her own child.
But then, so is their next door neighbour.
She pictures his smug, smirking face as he turned and disappeared back indoors earlier, knowing that he had won the point.
Again. ‘Right, that’s it. I’m reporting the owner.
We must be able to escalate this. Who else can we complain to?
Airbnb customer services? ABTA? There must be some kind of holiday watchdog.
And I’m logging this with the council about the unsociable hours,’ she adds.
‘I can’t stand it. It’s the principle of the thing. It’s just not right.’
Tim looks at her warily as he strokes the top of Josh’s head.
‘Easy, tiger,’ he says, trying to keep the mood light as a power saw can be heard through the adjoining wall of the lounge.
Josh looks up and around the room. ‘What tiger, Dadda? Where?’
Tim laughs, dropping a kiss on his son’s head and Lottie smiles in spite of herself.
‘I mean it though,’ she says. ‘We can’t put up with this all week. I’m going to put a stop to this, one way or another.’
‘Careful, Lottie. We don’t want to get caught up in any kind of trouble. It’s private property at the end of the day. He could get the police involved.’
‘Good,’ spits Lottie. ‘I’ll tell them how dangerous it is next door.
What happened just now with Josh. I bet that building site is breaking all sorts of health and safety rules.
You know, they shouldn’t even be working at weekends.
It’s a bloody Sunday, for goodness sake.
And who knows if all of them are even legal, paying tax.
It might be good to get the authorities sniffing around a bit more. ’
‘No, Lottie,’ Tim says, a hint of warning in his voice. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea.’ He casts his eyes down. ‘Not after what happened before.’
She crosses her arms, feeling her scalp prickling.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And anyway, that was years ago. All in the past.’
He looks up at her then and she holds his gaze. A look of fear – or is it sadness? – moves across his features. Then Josh reaches out, swipes at the tower of bricks in front of him and the whole structure comes tumbling down.