The Perfect Neighbours: A gripping psychological thriller with an ending you won’t see coming
Rachel Sargeant
The perfect neighbours tell the perfect lies…*** A TOP TEN KINDLE BESTSELLER *** A dark and twisty psychological thriller from a rising star in the genre, perfect for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR. When Helen moves into an exciting new neighbourhood, she finds herself in a web of evil with no escape.Behind the shutters lies a devastating secret…When Helen moves abroad with her loving husband Gary, she can’t wait to meet her fellow expat teachers from the local International School. But her new start is about to become her worst nightmare…As soon as the charming family across the way welcome Helen into their home, she begins to suspect that all is not as it seems. Then Gary starts to behave strangely and a child goes missing, vanished without a trace.When violence and tragedy strike, cracks appear in the community, and Helen realises her perfect neighbours are capable of almost anything…
The Perfect Neighbours
RACHEL SARGEANT
Copyright (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
KillerReads
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Rachel Sargeant 2017
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
Rachel Sargeant asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008276737
Source ISBN: 9780008276744
Version: 2018-11-29
To Fergus, Gillian, Jenny, Peter and Karen
Table of Contents
Cover (#u37305efb-0ac6-58c8-beca-9f2b20959258)
Title Page (#u25f45b16-ade2-52bc-a815-0a2777b60453)
Copyright (#u7e30f15f-a9a6-5cae-a2d3-01eccb4a6d34)
Dedication (#u0ce74c42-67e3-5d73-ac58-b33876780b98)
Part One (#u162fd73a-287c-5830-8ffa-5f750be30171)
Chapter 1 (#u18b8b0d1-d8b4-5e17-abd8-c0c494c945bc)
Chapter 2 (#ua342bf4f-0853-5ca4-9877-6cb7c91f1726)
Chapter 3 (#uc22b5edf-a525-5b77-9e5d-6078425f1adf)
Fiona (#ub3d38a1e-8d82-5326-bd27-c121b2f2a3f8)
Chapter 4 (#uf8cb5441-77c2-517b-a797-8a424d5dc069)
Chapter 5 (#u41acd540-b554-51a7-bda4-1569029d0431)
Chapter 6 (#u7735089a-d436-5899-b82c-7d87c5da3cc7)
Fiona (#ue11f29c4-7f4e-5e07-8370-c154d8fbdb7a)
Chapter 7 (#u433b8431-bfba-5ee4-a0fb-a25278ea0cf7)
Chapter 8 (#u012bc0ff-03ea-50a9-816a-80df6cba2b68)
Chapter 9 (#u952167f3-64e0-5380-8aab-35ab7bc01220)
Chapter 10 (#ud4293652-0f06-593c-9868-baade05883f4)
Chapter 11 (#uee716c5d-f209-517e-a040-dae274b0d17a)
Chapter 12 (#u033c3676-a6d5-5364-986d-431c465b9ddf)
Fiona (#u21980882-e60c-5da7-80f6-e9933dab634c)
Chapter 13 (#u254b98fd-030f-5d55-bc08-6927a233c912)
Chapter 14 (#uf04308a0-f2f7-5200-88fc-677127a8c454)
Chapter 15 (#u4ec342bc-d0d0-51af-8e31-b1d2345be260)
Fiona (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Fiona (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Fiona (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Fiona (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Fiona (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 62 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 63 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading... (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
1 (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
Sunday, 19 December
The spotlight is set into the ceiling so prisoners can’t get at it. Helen’s head hurts from the glare but she doesn’t shield her eyes. The moment she closes them, the images will flood back. Jagged photos in a digital picture frame, moving upwards and sideways, repeating and holding. She doesn’t know which one will torment her first. If she’s lucky, it’s the child’s cello, on its back, neck broken, blood smeared around the sound holes.
But it could be the blood-cherry cheesecake. Or the matted, pink-black belly fur of the dead dog. Or the gaping crew-neck sweater oozing its obscene innards onto the parquet floor. Or Gary.
She sits on the edge of the bed, her arms cradling her knees. If she could focus on the cello, the rest might fade. She must grab the sticky instrument; drag it into view; admire the thickening stains on the polished wood; remember the small, expert hand that once pressed against the fingerboard; and strain to hear the soothing sound of his playing. But it won’t be enough to block out the other images. Seventeen days so far and nothing has dimmed.
She stands up and paces the floor, her joints grating from lack of exercise. They let her walk in the yard at the back of the police station, but the snow piled at the fence reminded her of the cell so she asked to go back in. White room. White loo in the corner, no seat or lid. The only stab of colour is the green button by the door. She presses it.
“Please, sit yourself. Your lawyer will visit you in a little time,” the desk sergeant tells her through the intercom.
No point in arguing; it’s doubtful his English is up to it and, even after eight months in the country, she’s still another expat Brit who can’t be bothered to learn German.
She flops onto the bed. The mattress smells like Marigold gloves. Washing-up, Gary doing the drying. But another view of Gary invades – folded ankles, empty expression, crimson shoulder. She fights the vision and tries to see Gary at their kitchen sink. Tries to make him smile. Make him speak. She curls up, exhausted by the effort.
The door bolts deactivate but she stays foetal. It’s the lawyer, Karola. The ruddy-faced neighbour who keeps spaniels in her back garden and waves at her on Mondays when they put their dustbins out. She’s Frau Barton to her now, the only bilingual German-trained lawyer the school can find at short notice. These days she’s more used to picking up dog poo than counselling women charged with murder.
Helen rolls towards the wall.
“Why didn’t you mention Sascha Jakobsen?” Karola asks.
The name shoots through Helen. She says nothing.
“He’s told the police that you were with him at the outdoor pool in Dortmannhausen.”
Helen sits up. “He said that?”
“The police searched the frozen pool site again. You’d better tell me everything,” Karola says, perching on the bed. Dark trouser suit, darker soul.
Helen draws her legs up, away from her. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“How long have you known Jakobsen?”
Why ask when she knows the answer? The school is a goldfish bowl and they both swim in it. Karola Barton knows every bit of her business. All the neighbours do, all the neighbours that are still alive.
Helen says: “It wasn’t like that.”
Karola stands up. The crease of her trousers is plumb-line vertical. “What was it like, Mrs Taylor?”
2 (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
Monday, 5 April
Eight Months Earlier
Gary squeezed Helen’s hand. “Excited?”
She said nothing. Was she excited? New start in a new country. As a full-time wife. She managed a smile and nodded.
They drove off the A road – the Landstrasse as Gary called it – into a grey, built-up area. She thought of the coach trip she’d made with a Year 10 class to Bulgaria; communist-built apartment blocks on the outskirts of Sofia.
Gary pulled up at traffic lights and pointed. “And behind there is the Niers International School.”
Through the spike-topped metal fence on the right she made out rows of full bicycle stands. It looked like a provincial railway station.
“But you can’t see it properly from here,” he added.
A pot-bellied man in a dark uniform was standing by a sentry hut, the wooden roof scabby and cracked.
“You have guards?” she asked.
“Don’t mind Klaus. We have two full-time security men to patrol the site. The parents like it. Except our guys spend most of the time playing toy soldiers in their little house.”
Helen laughed until she noticed Ausländer Raus spray-painted on a bus shelter. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
The light went green, and they turned left.
“Foreigners Out – but you hardly ever see that stuff. Most of the Germans love the international school,” he said. “Lots of locals work here in support roles, and the parents spend good money in the town.”
He’d told her about the parents before. Most worked for big international companies in Düsseldorf, and others were rich locals prepared to pay for an English-speaking education. And some were teachers.
“Think about it, Helen,” Gary had said when they sat down with their pros and cons sheet on one of his weekend visits, agonizing over where to live. “Not yet, but in a few years, if we have children, it could be their school. There are so many perks, as well as the salary.”
That had been the clincher: Gary could earn more staying out here than the two of them put together in the UK. Helen had stopped being stubborn in light of the cold hard figures. She quit her job and put her house up for rent.
He went over a speed bump, and she felt the seatbelt rub against her collarbone.
“Have you noticed the street names?” He pointed at one, multisyllabic, a jumble of Ls and Es. “Can you read them?”
She shook her head. They had been driving non-stop since Calais. The traffic signs after the border into Germany had become a strident Teutonic yellow. Here the street names were in white, more like British ones, but they were unpronounceable.
Gary crawled along at 20 mph and seemed unfazed by the need to slalom his way around parked cars, playing children, and speed bumps. She glanced at his profile – round cheekbones, smooth jaw, patient eyes. Who would have thought affability could be so magnetic? Her stomach settled.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“About Birmingham.” Where they first met.
At the teachers’ conference in the university bar after the speeches, he’d been the gentle-faced man in the noisy crowd. The one everyone wanted to talk to. A kind of jig took place as people vied for a position next to him. And when he caught her looking and smiled, Helen – never normally part of a pack – took it as her cue to join the reel. By the end of the evening she and Gary were the only people still dancing.
“No regrets?” he asked.
Was she still scared about the move? It had taken her long enough to make up her mind. She stroked his arm and smiled. Not scared now; a little apprehensive, maybe.
“Nearly there,” he said. “You’ll love the neighbours. Polly and Jerome are great. They live across the way with their two girls. Jerome Stephens is head of science.”
After a couple more turnings he made a right into Dickensweg, a cul-de-sac of identical semi-detached houses. Unlike the grey of the Bulgarian patch they’d driven through, the houses had been painted lemon in the last decade and, as if by some unwritten rule, all the cars were parked on the left side of the road. Bicycles, trailers, and pushchairs were propped up against almost every front door as if soliciting at a car boot sale, and large yellow dustbins lurked on front lawns like Tupperware daleks.
A pink-faced man with big, white hair climbed out of a red sports car. Gary beeped the horn and gave him a thumbs up. “That’s our next-door neighbour, Chris Mowar. He’s head of art.”
The man crossed the road in front of them, bowed theatrically and disappeared into a house on the other side.
“Is everyone round here head of something?” she asked.
Gary nodded. “We’ve got the head of geography at number 4, although he’s hardly ever at home, and the school’s public relations manager at number 1. And the head teacher, of course.”
He touched the brake and pointed up the street. “Through that copse is Hardyweg, where the rest of the heads of department live. The weg bit means way. Dickens and Hardy. The town council re-named the streets in honour of the school thirty years ago. A nice gesture, don’t you think?”
Helen smiled. It did sound nice, welcoming. She felt mean for thinking the street looked shabby.
Three boys, dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and wellies, were playing with remote-controlled trucks in the road. Maybe they didn’t feel the cold. Helen zipped up her jacket.
Gary braked again. “I’d better not run them over; they’re the head teacher’s kids.”
The boys waved at the car and moved out of the way. Gary waved back and drove to the end of the road. Instead of another pair of semis, there was a large detached house with a magnificent wisteria that framed the front door, and sunny yellow shutters at every window. Number Ten declared the carved wooden plaque, with no sign anywhere of the ugly metal house numbers that Helen had seen on the other walls.
Warmth sped through her. Moving here was the right thing. They couldn’t have maintained a long-distance marriage for much longer. She was bound to get another teaching job. It might not be head of PE again but there would be something. In the meantime she could enjoy living in this beautiful house.
Gary reversed into the turning circle and moved back down the street.
“That one’s Damian and Louisa’s. Number Ten, that’s what we call it, like the prime minister’s place. We’re at number 5.”
“Damian and Louisa?”
“The head and his wife. Remember I talked about them.”
Helen swallowed her disappointment as he pulled up opposite a house displaying a lopsided metal 5, weed-ridden flower beds and a knocked-over bin. Twenty yards from her husband’s boss and his executive home.
3 (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
Tuesday, 6 April
Something disturbed Helen. The warm mound under the bedclothes beside her was fast asleep. She turned over.
The ringing noise sounded again.
“Gary.” She nudged the duvet. “Doorbell.”
She’d woken up once already, and Gary had been standing by the window. Too tired to ask him what he was doing, she had gone back to sleep. Now he snuggled further down the bed.
“Gary?”
She climbed out and padded around in search of her robe. She slipped it over her naked body and headed downstairs. The doorbell rang again.
A perfect woman stood on the doorstep – sleek shoulder-length hair a shade of chestnut that only a top salon could make look natural, and flawless made-up skin. The woman’s eyes did a tour of her tousled hair, bare face, and ancient towelling dressing gown. Helen tugged at its hem but could do nothing to stop it ending mid-thigh.
“I’ll come in so you don’t catch cold,” the stranger said, stepping into the hall. She closed the front door and filled the air with eau de Chanel. Helen found herself apologizing for being in bed at eight thirty. Heat spread across her neck and cheeks. Why the self-conscious idiocy? It was her home now and she could sleep all day if she wanted.
“You’ve had a long journey, Helen. It’s understandable,” the woman said.
Helen tugged at her dressing gown again; the woman knew so much about her. Were they all nosy neighbours here? God, she hoped not.
“I’ve called round to let you know that I’m throwing your welcome party tonight. It’s seven for seven thirty. You don’t need to bring anything, this time. I’ve got Polly helping me, and Mel, of course, bless her.” She rolled her eyes. Without waiting for a response she opened the door to leave.
“But where …? I didn’t catch your name?” Helen called.
The woman turned. “Hasn’t Gary mentioned me? I’m Louisa.” She headed down the path, stepping over the weeds between the paving slabs.
***
Helen squeezed Gary’s hand as they walked over the road to Louisa and Damian Howard’s house that evening. “Should we have brought something? It seems rude to turn up empty-handed.”
“Don’t worry about it. Louisa likes to make a fuss of new people. I suppose it’s what head teachers’ spouses do.” He pulled her towards him, smiling. “Come on, I can’t wait to show off my gorgeous wife.”
One of the children she’d seen in the road the previous day, a boy of about eight, opened the door.
“Hi, Toby,” Gary said.
The child was wearing a white shirt and black bow tie. “Super to see you,” he said, as if quoting from a script. “Let me take your coats. Oh, you haven’t got any.” He looked at a loss at this departure from what he’d rehearsed.
“Don’t worry, mate,” Gary said, patting his shoulder.
The hallway was vast and had the most amazing smell – some kind of herb. No sign of the functionally beige carpet that plagued the floors in Gary’s place. Louisa and Damian must have ripped theirs out and put down vinyl. When Helen looked closer, she realized it was solid wood. So this was Number Ten. She found herself placing the words in capital letters.
“Gary, darling.” Louisa appeared in the hall and kissed Gary on both cheeks. She was wearing tailored brown trousers and a cream chiffon blouse, every inch a prime minister’s wife and living up to her house name.
She eyed Helen’s jeans. “You wear casual so well,” she said as her head moved in the general direction of Helen’s in an air kiss.
Helen stiffened but Louisa seemed oblivious to the offence she’d caused. “Toby, poppet,” she said, “move your school bag; it’s a deathtrap when you leave it on the stairs. Put it in the cellar and then get ready for the recital.”
“Yes, Mummy,” Toby groaned.
The wooden floor continued into the lounge, a sumptuous cream rug at the centre. Did all head teachers live like this or only those in international schools? A gold and yellow striped wallpaper adorned the far wall. The French windows were draped in blue velvet curtains, half closed, but Helen could make out a trampoline in the large back garden beyond. The other lounge walls had modern art prints mounted on them. Sliding doors through to the dining room were pushed back to reveal an elegantly laid table.
“I know those doors are ghastly,” Louisa said, appearing behind her with a bowl of salad. “Our next project is to have them removed and the surrounding wall knocked out. It’s difficult for Damian when he has to entertain important visitors in such a tiny space, isn’t it, darling?” She patted the arm of a tall, blond man who had walked in with two glasses of champagne.
“It seats twelve, Louisa. It’s fine. You must be Helen. I’m Damian.” He turned the sigh he’d aimed at his wife into a smile at Helen. He gave both women their drinks and kissed Helen on the cheek. The kiss was chaste but his hand stayed on her waist. Damian Howard struck her as someone who might spend a lot of time kissing other people’s wives.
“Darling, why don’t you take Gary to choose a beer? I’m sure he’d prefer it to champagne. Helen, come and meet Jerome and Polly. Jerome’s our head of science.” In a slick manoeuvre Louisa separated her husband from the new female guest. She ushered Helen over to a couple who had just arrived.
Jerome shook Helen’s hand.
His wife, who was holding a baby monitor, smiled in greeting. “Gary’s told us so much about you. It’s super to meet you at last,” she said. She was wearing jeans. Had she been on the receiving end of Louisa’s “casual” jibe too?
“Do you think I could put this down?” she asked her husband, holding up the monitor. She turned to Helen. “We’re next-door – at number 8 – so we’ll hear the girls on the baby alarm if they wake up. That’s the marvellous thing about living here. You always know who’s about.”
Helen nodded but was surprised these middle-class parents left their children under the supervision of a piece of Mothercare kit.
The doorbell rang and Louisa brought another couple into the room. It was the man Helen had seen climbing out of the red sports car. He took her hand. “I’m Chris Mowar and you must be my new lady next door. It’s going to be a pleasure.”
He held onto her and his shiny eyes scrutinized her face. She decided it was time to tug her hand away, but as she did so, he let go, making it look as if she had pulled harder than necessary. She had the unpleasant sensation that she’d reacted exactly as he had wanted her to.
“This is Mel,” he said, as if introducing someone he’d met in the hallway.
The woman tried to balance the large plate she was carrying in her left hand to free her right for a handshake but she couldn’t manage it. Beads of moisture gathered on her hairline. When Damian appeared with Gary’s beer and more champagne on a tray, she tried to give him the plate of food she’d brought.
“Sorry, Mel, I’m just the bartender. I’ll put your drink over here.”
“I can hold that plate while you have your drink,” Helen said.
Mel shook her head. She must be about thirty-five years old, around the same age as her husband, Chris, but he’d aged better despite his white hair. He dressed better too; his silk shirt must have had a tidy price tag. But looking at Mel, Helen wondered whether Louisa had told her as a joke that this was a Vicars and Tarts party. Dimples of cellulite showed on her thighs through overstretched leopard-print Lycra.
When Louisa came back, Mel offered her the plate.
“Hot cross buns. Lovely,” Louisa said. “Put them in the kitchen.”
Polly looked down at her baby monitor. “It’s Purdy I’m more worried about. She’s chewed her way through two cushions this week already.”
“Purdy is their Dalmatian,” Damian said, topping up Helen’s glass. “We’re a doggy street. Karola Barton at number 1 gave up a legal career to breed springer spaniels. At the last count, she and Geoff had six in kennels in the back garden. And we’ve got a dog although Louisa makes such a fuss of him he thinks he’s our fourth son. He’s in the music room at the moment.” He nodded towards a door beyond the dining room. “No doubt he’ll join us for the recital.”
Before Helen could ask what he meant, Louisa tapped a spoon against her glass. Everyone fell silent and she made her announcement: “It’s super to see you here to greet our newest arrival, Helen. Please join me in giving her a traditional Niers School welcome.”
The guests erupted into applause. It was like being received into a religious cult. Helen’s glance stayed on the parquet floor until the ovation subsided. When Louisa stopped clapping, the others did too.
“And now the boys are going to perform for us,” Louisa said. “Toby has been begging me to let him play ‘Kalinka’, haven’t you, Toby?”
Toby gave a bemused smile and opened the door beyond the dining table to the music room. Out bounded an enormous polar bear of a dog. It sniffed round the assembled guests, its wagging tail slapping their legs. Mel Mowar gulped and backed into a coffee table.
Louisa grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled him across the floor. “For goodness’ sake, Mel, you know Napoleon won’t hurt you. He’s just being friendly. Everyone, go through to the music room.”
Mel’s breathing sounded erratic, but no one paid her any attention, not even her husband Chris.
“Shall we go through?” Helen whispered to her.
Mel gave a relieved smile.
The tiny music room was kitted out with an upright piano, a bookcase of music scores and now three small boys, sitting behind a cello, violin, and tambourine. As the guests squeezed in, the smallest boy waved his tambourine at them.
“Murdo, don’t play until I nod,” Louisa told him.
“Noh, noh,” the boy said.
Helen decided he was younger than he looked, and cute. She smiled.
Louisa’s elegant fingers glided over the keys. It was obvious that Toby hadn’t begged to play the piece at all. She’d chosen it to show off her musicianship.
Helen glanced at the bookcase, at the TV in the corner, at the other guests in the cramped room – anywhere to avoid watching the self-satisfied expression on Louisa’s face. There was a small window out onto the garden. Something caught her eye at the back fence. A dot of orange light and a dark, moving shape. She squinted hard for a better look.
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.
“You need to lighten up, mate. Club Viva’s in the past. What’s done is done.”
And Gary’s reply, “Steve texted me again.”
They were standing around a pool table, holding cues. Gary rubbed the bridge of his nose.
They looked shocked when they saw her, as if she’d caught them in the act of something. Was it because a female had invaded their beer den, or something else?
Gary coughed awkwardly. “Are you ready to go, love?” he asked, resting his cue against the wall. “It’s time we called it a night.”
Whenever they caught up with friends in England, he’d party into the small hours until she dragged him away. But tonight he seemed ready to leave his colleagues. Maybe he wasn’t as fond of his neighbours as she’d assumed. The thought of how in tune the two of them were was exhilarating. She couldn’t wait to get him home.
***
They made love for the first time since her arrival and she fell asleep in his arms. She woke in the night. Was Louisa at the bloody door again? But it wasn’t the doorbell; it was a staccato tapping noise. Her mind flickered to the face at the Howards’ back fence. An intruder? No, she was being hysterical. The sound must be from next door; Gary had warned her that the walls between the two semis were thin. Chris must be filming night shots for his documentary.
But the sound was coming from their spare bedroom, the one Gary had set up as a study. She realized she was alone in the bed.
“Gary?” There was no one else in the house to disturb, but she whispered as she went to him. In the light of the computer game on the screen, he looked grey and there were hollows under his eyes. He was hitting the hand-held controller with his thumbs.
“You’ll be wrecked in the morning. Come back to bed,” she said.
He jumped when she spoke. “Sorry, I forgot you were here.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
He’d got up both nights since she had arrived in Germany; now he didn’t even remember she was there. “Are you happy about us living together?”
He reached out for her arm. “How can you even ask that? It’s what I’ve wanted ever since we got married. I can’t sleep, that’s all. It’s nothing that you’ve done.”
“You looked serious in Damian’s cellar tonight,” she said. “What were you talking about?”
“Can’t remember now. Politics probably. Men don’t only talk about football you know.”
“What’s Club Viva?”
In the light of the computer screen, Gary’s face grew paler. He thumbed the games controller, ignoring her question.
“Gary?”
“Actually that was football talk,” he said and forced a chuckle. “You caught us out. Did you enjoy the evening?”
“Polly and Jerome were nice,” she conceded. “And Damian was friendly.” She thought of his lingering smiles across the table. Too friendly maybe. “Is he a bit of a, you know, wanderer?”
Gary’s eyes shot up from the computer screen. “How would I know?” He sounded defensive, then he shrugged. “Why would he play away when he’s got Louisa? She’s great, isn’t she? What did the two of you talk about?”
Helen sighed. “I listened more than talked. Are you coming back to bed?”
“I’ll just finish this,” he said, a desolate look in his eyes.
Fiona (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
“You’re on the home straight now,” Dad said. “Come July we’ll have a graduate in the family.”
He lifted my heavy suitcase onto the bed and winced, letting out a sharp breath.
“Sssh, Dad, don’t tempt fate.” I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, pretending not to notice the twinge when I pressed against his chest.
Mum found some wire coat hangers in the empty wardrobe and opened the suitcase. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you get an Upper Second. Your French is so good after your year in Lyons.” She started putting my clothes on the hangers.
“Thanks, Mum, but how do you know? You don’t speak French,” I said, taking over the unpacking.
She kissed me on the nose and we giggled.
Dad rattled the bookcase. “You’d best put your big books on the bottom so it doesn’t wobble over.” He walked to the window. “Nice view of the bins.”
Mum joined him. “She doesn’t need a view. She’ll either be working or sleeping when she’s in here.”
“How far is it to the student bar?” Dad said, standing on tiptoes to peer out. “We could check out the route with you before we go.”
“No, thanks,” I said quickly. I wasn’t in with the in-crowd at the best of times, but arriving at the uni bar with my parents would make me the uncoolest student outside the computer science faculty.
“Do I take it you want your personal chauffeurs to hop it before we damage your street cred?” Dad said. He was smiling, but there was that penetrating twinkle in his eyes. Even when he’d been ill he had kept his unerring ability to read me like a kiddies’ comic.
I hugged them both, breathing in the smell of them.
“See you at Christmas,” Mum said.
We hugged again, not knowing that Christmas would never come.
4 (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
Monday, 12 April
Gary pecked her on the neck, shoved a slice of toast in his mouth and headed for the kitchen door.
“I was thinking I might paint the lounge this week. Any preference on colour?” Helen called after him.
He came back in. “Up to you as long as we paint it back to magnolia if ever we move out.”
“What about the Howards’ house? They’ve virtually taken a bulldozer to it. Will they have to put it back when they leave?”
“Eventually. I don’t know who the landlord is – some German Herr Money Bags no doubt – but we have to leave things as we find them. I can’t see Damian quitting Niers International in a hurry. Where else would you have every child’s dad in full employment? A bit of a difference from the comp you worked in.”
Helen said nothing but wanted to point out he’d never been to her school. Shrewsbury Academy had more than its fair share of success stories.
“Number Ten is something, isn’t it? Louisa has a real eye for design,” he said. “You could try a bit of painting if you want to.” He gave her another peck and left.
Helen dropped the breakfast pots in the sink and wondered what she could do that wouldn’t involve an unfavourable comparison with the decor queen across the road.
She and Gary had spent the previous week like tourists: Cologne Cathedral, a boat trip on the Rhine, and Kaffee und Kuchen in several chintzy cafés. Days wrapped in the mist and drizzle of a North German spring, but burning with the same light as their Jamaican winter honeymoon. They’d discovered the Caribbean together, but here Gary was her personal guide, showing off, proud and impatient for her approval. And she’d given it, teasingly at first, watching uncertainty flicker in his eyes before letting her kiss reassure him.
She pointed the tap at the dirty plates. Her mind wandered to the welcome briefing she’d endured the previous Friday. The school employed a nurse, a smart, thirty-something German woman called Sabine, who doubled as the staff and pupil welfare officer. She’d invited Helen and two new teaching assistants into her treatment room. Helen sat between the two gap-year Australians, facing a medical examination table. Above it was an instruction poster on how to conduct a smear test.
Over instant coffee and custard creams, Sabine told them, in her impeccable English, about registering with a local doctor and what school facilities they were entitled to use. When Helen had asked when the school swimming pool was open to staff and families, Sabine shook her head. “It’s only for the children. The nearest indoor swimming pool is over the border at a Center Parcs in Holland.” A door banged shut in Helen’s head; she lived for her daily lane swim, but not if it meant dodging round splashing holidaymakers.
“Of course, there’s the open-air pool in Dortmannhausen village,” Sabine added. “We Germans don’t swim outdoors unless there’s a heatwave, but one of the British wives got a campaign going and persuaded the Kreis authorities to open it from early May, so you won’t have to wait long.”
Now Helen grabbed the tap and let water gush over the crockery, some splashes hitting her. May was still three weeks away. She opened the herbal oil that Louisa had foisted on her at the dinner party and coughed at its biting, acidic scent. She added a few drops to her bowl and watched the pale liquid spread in the running water and mingle with her crockery. It looked like pee. She grabbed the bowl and emptied it.
She watched out of the window as various neighbours set off for school, some on bikes, some walking. She stepped back from the window when Louisa swept past in an enormous four-by-four, powerful enough to cross the Serengeti plains. She slammed the herbal oil bottle into her pedal bin.
By nine the cul-de-sac was deserted. She must have missed Chris next door at number 7 although his sports car was still parked in the street.
She tipped out the rest of her coffee. Now what? Mop the floor? Rearrange the fridge? She could ring Mum. They’d exchanged several texts and she’d sent a postcard from Cologne, but they hadn’t spoken since she left Shrewsbury. If she phoned, Mum would read her mood from a thousand miles away. And she’d say that thing she always said. Like she did when they came back married from Jamaica. Like she did when Helen announced she was giving up her job to join Gary in Germany – “Just as long as you’re happy.” It was the soundtrack through the unauthorized version of her life. When she refused to eat peas; when she chose swimming over ballet; when she changed universities halfway through her degree. She decided to wait a few more days before ringing, do it when she was settled.
A key rack on the wall caught her eye. She picked up the key labelled “Shed”.
***
Inside the concrete construction at the bottom of the garden she discovered a decent set of tools and a lawnmower. She thought of the manicured shrubbery around Louisa’s house and her competitive instinct took hold. But something about being in the back garden unnerved her, and not just the yapping dogs in the nearby kennels. A dark copse of trees grew behind the gardens in Dickensweg, separating them from the gardens of the next street. It joined up at right angles with the wood behind the Howards’ fence. The whole estate enjoyed a similar leafy arrangement. Her skin prickled. An intruder could pass through the network of copses and climb into any garden unnoticed. She gathered her tools and headed to the front of the house.
She stabbed the spade into the flower bed under the kitchen window but only broke off the stalks of a few weeds. She dug harder, but the dense greenery fought her off and she couldn’t reach the soil. Another lunge, and the bones in her arms juddered as the spade hit bedrock. Rubbing the sweat off her forehead, she contemplated how else she could tackle the task.
“Slacking already?” Chris said, coming out of his front door. His voice made her bones rattle more than the bedrock had done.
“Not working today?” she asked. School would be well into the registration period. Didn’t the head of A and D have a form class?
He stepped across their joint path towards her. “Tough job turning your garden into Number Ten.”
She felt him sizing her up. She knew what he saw: damp fringe, ruddy cheeks, traces of snot and grass stain where she’d rubbed her nose.
“A bit of weeding,” she said.
He shook his head. “It’s more than that. You’re a competitive woman.” When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Gary’s told us all about your coaching and your swimming career. You like to be the best, don’t you?”
She lifted the spade again, undecided on whether to sink it into the soil or to bring it down on his head. How dare this stranger pronounce on her life? “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Louisa likes to be the top wife round here, that’s all I’m saying.” He sauntered towards the sports car, gave her a wave and drove off.
She dug faster, scratching and gouging, and turned over a good third of the bed before she heard a car pull up.
“I see Gary’s got you earning your keep.”
In any other tone Helen would have taken the comment as a jokey conversation opener but this voice was as piercing as Chris’s eyes had been.
“Morning, Louisa,” she managed to say. The top wife climbed out of the Serengetiguzzler. Pastel pink tracksuit, spotless trainers, full make-up.
“I stopped to ask whether you wanted to come for a run but I can see you’re busy. How about tomorrow at nine thirty?”
“I’m not much of a runner,” Helen said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
“Gary said you ran three miles a day when you lived in England.”
What the hell else had Gary said? “Maybe, once I’ve settled in.”
“Make it soon. It’s bad for the metabolism to stop exercising. You’ll put on weight.”
“I’m sure the gardening will compensate,” Helen said, not snapping.
The door of number 7 opened and Mel backed down the step with a pushchair. She was wearing the same leopard-print leggings that she’d worn at Louisa’s party the previous week.
Glad of the distraction, Helen called out: “I didn’t know you had a baby. Who’s this then?”
The pushchair was empty. Helen assumed the child was still in the house, but Mel’s strained features instinctively told her there was no child.
For once she was glad of Louisa, who said: “Is that another pushchair for HFN? What a knack you have for finding them. Pop it in the boot and I’ll take it up later.”
Mel’s face bulged with colour. “I’ll walk it round. Thanks.”
“If you’re sure you can walk that far,” Louisa said and added for Helen’s benefit, “Mel suffers from shortness of breath.”
Helen gave Mel a smile. “What’s HFN?” she asked for something to say.
“Home Front Network. The Elementary division of the school starts at nursery age, but we do our bit for pre-school families too. Some young mothers, living so far from their home countries, become a bit overwhelmed and need a helping hand to get organized. I’m the branch chair,” Louisa said.
Helen pitied the harassed mums who found Louisa Howard on their doorstep offering to organize them. “Are you a volunteer, too?” she asked Mel.
“Mel is an absolute stalwart but we prefer volunteers who are mothers themselves. Unless you’ve had a baby, you can’t know what you’re dealing with.” Louisa clasped her hand to her chest, no doubt an I Endured Childbirth gesture.
Mel, who’d been admiring the pavement, walked off without saying goodbye. Helen got the impression she’d heard Louisa’s pronouncement before and knew she’d reached the end of it. She trudged along Dickensweg, shoulders hunched over the pushchair. An elderly man came round the corner, tipped his felt hat to her and went towards the door of number 2.
“Manfred, come and meet your new neighbour,” Louisa called out to him.
If the man was irritated at being summoned, he didn’t show it. He walked towards them. Although he was tall, he stooped so he didn’t tower over Helen the way many German men did. He lifted his hat in greeting, revealing a smattering of liver spots at his hairline. How old was he? Seventy? Nearly eighty? He gave her a firm handshake.
“Angenehm. Pleased to meet you,” he said.
“Where have you been this bright and early?” Louisa asked.
“Every morning I go for a healthy walk along the river.” As he spoke in his thick guttural accent, he gave off the tinny fumes of alcohol.
“I’m glad you’re keeping busy. Do let me know if I can do anything for you. You’re always welcome here.”
Welcome in his own country? What a cheek. He must have caught Helen raising her eyebrows but his face remained impassive, his own heavy eyebrows and thick moustache doing much to conceal his expression. When Louisa turned away from him, he took this as his dismissal and headed back up the street.
“He does his best, poor chap, a bit of a drinker,” Louisa said. “Don’t worry, he can’t understand; his English is pretty ropey. Anyway, must dash if I’m to fit in five miles before lunch. Let me know when you’re ready to join me. Remember what I said about the weight.” She climbed back into her car.
Helen was sure Manfred had hesitated on his porch, listening. His English sounded pretty competent to her.
By noon she’d turned over the front bed. The street was silent. Sun glinted on the shutters at the Howards’ house, reflecting their yellowness onto an open upstairs window at number 8. She shuddered, imagining the same colour might be projected on her own house. A crow cawed and swooped at the window. It clung onto the bottom of the frame, claws scrambling and scraping, wings flapping. Its beak banged against the glass, fighting with its own image. Pulse racing, Helen dropped her spade and backed to her front door. The battling bird lost its footing and flew off. She went back to work but, as she dug, kept looking around, unable to shake off the feeling that someone was watching, standing over her.
She was glad when it was three o’clock and busy in the street. Mothers, bikes, and children used the path by Louisa’s house to cut through to the next cul-de-sac. Also striding up the road without the pushchair, at a pace which Helen previously assumed wasn’t possible for her, was Mel. She turned up her path and didn’t acknowledge Helen.
As well as clearing the flower bed, Helen mowed the lawn and pulled out the weeds between the paving slabs. Her shirt stuck to her underarms and her back was stiff, but she was happy-knackered; a good day’s work. She sat on the step with a coffee as some teenage girls moved through Dickensweg towards the cut-through. They tapped into their mobile phones. When Chris’s sports car roared up, the girls flocked around it, all their texting forgotten.
“Have you decided yet, sir?” one said, flicking her greasy side fringe behind her ear.
Chris brushed his hand through his own thick, white hair. “I’m still working on the casting.”
“What are you looking for?” a tall, elegant girl asked. Helen thought she was stunning.
Apparently so did Chris. “Strong features like yours might work.”
The girl lost her poise as the compliment reduced her to a giggling teenager. The girls crowded closer and all talked at once. Chris fed them with non-committal but encouraging one-liners: I have to get the balance right; everyone has a chance; I’ll let you know when I screen test.
As he walked past Helen, he said: “We only have to do the back gardens, you know. School maintains the front between May and October. Another three weeks and they’d have done it for you.”
She stamped the mud out of her wellingtons before going indoors. Prick, she stamped, prick, prick, prick.
***
That night her sleep was fitful. But as well as Gary’s frantic tapping on the games controller through the left-hand wall, other noises invaded her dreams. The face at the Howards’ back fence morphed into the crow at the Stephens’s window. Her heart raced and she sat up in bed until the dream left her. When fully awake, she ached her way to the bathroom, her back and knees complaining about the gardening. The sounds from her dream were louder through the wall. She sat on the loo, releasing her stream slowly to keep it quiet. A nosy git like Chris Mowar would get off on hearing her pee. She heard a cough, a gasping, empty-out-the-lungs noise, and sloshing sounds. She pressed the flush; Chris was making too much noise next door to hear her.
5 (#u95ab8fc3-95f1-5c8f-bdf8-aeb975d364f0)
Sunday, 2 May
Mel’s heart raced when the Barton couple at number 1 stepped out of their front door with their pack of yapping spaniels. But they turned left onto the main street, the dogs pulling against their leads to sniff the grass verge. Mel sighed with relief and knelt by Chris’s car to continue cleaning the tyres.
“Guten Tag,” a voice said, hard and guttural.
The young man was gaunt, scruffy-looking. He must have come from the copse that ran between their cul-de-sac and the one behind. She’d seen him once before, hanging around the edge of the wood, and she’d stayed indoors until he’d walked off. Now he squatted beside her and said something in German.
She didn’t know what he said, but she could smell him, taste him, tobacco. She leapt to her feet and felt her skin draw bone-white. Black dots floated in front of her eyes.
He stood up and put his hand in his jacket. She flinched. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, opened it and offered her one. She stepped further away, her eyes darting between the man and the packet. She wished Chris was here; he’d know what to do.
The man shrugged, lit a cigarette for himself and pocketed the pack.
What now? She was working a cotton bud between her fingers. Her fists were tensed in front of her although she knew she’d be no match if he got nasty.
He pointed at the cotton bud. “You British won’t get your wheels dirty.”
A deep heat rose up her throat and she felt dizzy. Hearing him speak English made him more threatening.
He ran his fingernails over the bonnet, not quite hard enough to leave a scratch. “Expensive car,” he said. “You like driving it?”
He stared at her. The cold intensity of his eyes pushed her into answering. “It’s my husband’s car.”
But she wished she hadn’t; her response only made him ask something else. “Where does he drive you?” He drummed his fingers on the bonnet and turned them into a fist when she didn’t answer. “To the Rhineland?”
She watched his fist and shook her head.
“Or the Mosel or the Sauerland? Or the Black Forest or the Ahr Valley?” He fired off the place names like bullets.
She carried on shaking her head. When would this end?
“You must go somewhere.”
“I …” she faltered.
His eyes narrowed and he snarled: “Or is only England good enough?”
She flushed crimson, panic rising. The man looked unstable; she’d have to say something. How was she going to get away? She couldn’t run into the house; he’d see where she lived. Maybe if she’d accepted the cigarette, he’d have stalked back to the copse and left her alone. Her refusal had made him angry.
“We go to Austria, to the Grossglockner, in spring. The Whitsun holidays.” She held her breath. Why had she said all that?
His eyes pierced her, made her shake. It was better when he spoke. Why was he silent?
“The neighbours. We go with the neighbours,” she blurted out.
A dog barked up the street, the couple returning with the spaniels. The man darted into the trees and disappeared.
6 (#ulink_c1f5ea88-8730-57d5-b626-5ec55aefb183)
Helen and Gary sprawled on the sofa, replete after the roast pork they’d prepared and eaten together. She’d phoned her parents before lunch. It turned out to have been an easy, excited call. They’d booked a cruise to celebrate Dad’s sixtieth in December.
She moved onto Gary’s knee and kissed him. They snuggled together. He still had the soapy clean fragrance from his morning shower but some of the Sunday cooking smells had seeped into his T-shirt.
He returned the kiss and said: “I’ve worked out why you’re in a good mood: the outdoor pool opens tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait. With all the free time I’ve got now, I can set myself a proper training schedule. I could aim for a decent time over 100 m crawl. What do you think?”
“I love it when you talk athletic.” He pulled her down and manoeuvred himself on top. Contentment came over her as he unbuttoned her shirt. Things were great; she adored Gary, Germany was fine.
The doorbell chimed, and Gary dropped to the floor, struggling with his zip, “bugger” coming loud through clenched teeth.
“I’ll go.” She could guess who it was. She fastened her shirt but resisted the urge to scoop stray hairs into her ponytail.
Louisa. “It’s the wives’ breakfast at my house tomorrow. I’ve put you down for a dozen cookies. Aldi ones will do if you can’t bake.”
“I’ve arranged to go swimming tomorrow.”
Louisa paused, and Helen savoured her hesitation. She felt like she had when her squad had won the Midlands swim championships. Triumphant.
But her victory didn’t last.
“I hope you’re going to the village pool. I managed to get 400 people to sign my petition and I convinced the town hall officials to open it for us.”
As Helen listened to Louisa’s account of how she asserted herself, she gripped the door, longing to slam it in her neighbour’s community-spirited face. Eventually Louisa remembered she had more breakfast invitations to deliver and left.
“Is there nothing that bloody woman doesn’t do?” Helen asked Gary. “Do all the neighbours kowtow to her?”
“I’ve heard her coffee mornings are fun. All the wives who don’t work are happy to help. And it’s thanks to her you’ll get to swim tomorrow.”
“I think I’ll drive to Center Parcs instead.”
“Don’t be silly; it’s thirty kilometres away. Not even someone as stubborn as you would hack off their own nose in spite.”
Fiona (#ulink_7f58707b-861c-5590-af63-26ae6b40ae92)
“Hi, it’s me.” I was out of breath after dashing from the languages block to get a signal.
“Shall I phone you back?” Mum said. “Save your credit.”
“I’ve got a lecture now. I just wanted to tell you something.” I cradled my mobile under my chin and got out my lit folder. “Do you remember that extended essay I had to write when I was in Lyons?”
“I think you mentioned it. Eight thousand words, wasn’t it?”
“That’s the one,” I said, almost dropping the folder in my excitement to get my words out. “I got a First for it.”
“That’s brilliant.”
I propped the folder against the wall. “Listen to what my tutor said: ‘This is one of the best undergraduate analyses I’ve read. I have high hopes for your results this year.’ Can I tell Dad now?”
“He’s having a nap, love, but I’ll tell him later.”
“Is he all right?” I couldn’t keep the alarm out of my voice. He’d slept in the daytime during his treatment. But he was better now, wasn’t he?
“Of course. He’s just taking it easy.”
“If that’s all it is …”
“Definitely. Stop worrying. So are you celebrating in the uni bar tonight?”
“I don’t think I’ve got time.” I still had a business case study to finish and some vocab to learn.
“You can give yourself one night off.”
“I suppose I could go to the George.” Liz and Cheryl preferred the pub to the uni bar. I tagged along last week but left when the engineering lads moved in for a flirt. I had an essay to write anyway.
“Go on, love,” Mum said, “you never know, you might meet the man of your dreams.”
7 (#ulink_5ecd4c90-fce6-5321-8d48-b6540abffefe)
Monday, 3 May
Cold pinched Helen’s arms and thighs as she stepped out of the changing room into the open air. It turned to tingling, comforting heat as she slid into the water. She dropped under the surface and set off at a gentle crawl.
It felt like home.
She quickened her stroke, her hands cutting deep through the water. Of course, Gary had been right to insist she came to this pool, but he’d called her silly and stubborn. He’d never said that to her before, not even when she wanted to stay in England. Their marriage, so serene during the weekends they spent in Shrewsbury, was changing. She looked up at the clock by the exit. The last 200 metres were not far off her personal best.
The exertions of the early lengths caught up with her and she slowed her pace. There was no sign of Louisa’s 400 petition signatories and they couldn’t all be at the wives’ breakfast; even Louisa’s catering had its limits. On the far side of the pool was an elderly couple, floating from one end to the other, the full 50 metres, at a rate too slow to be classed as swimming. The woman was on her front with her flowery swimming cap so high out of the water she was almost standing up. Her husband was on his back, also head high, as if sitting in a favourite armchair.
The only other swimmer was a man who, with the whole pool to swim in, chose to carve out lengths a mere three feet away. He was constantly in her field of vision, keeping pace. Just like Louisa – wherever she turned, she found her. Louisa must have sent her envoy to the pool to stalk her. She smiled to herself, knowing how ridiculous she was being. She upped her speed to shake him off but was surprised he didn’t stay with her for a second length. She slowed down, despite all her competitive training telling her not to, and finished the length at a leisurely rate.
When she looked back, he set off from the far end swimming butterfly. His technique was good: arms sweeping wide and low, allowing his shoulders to clear the water, conserving energy. He was veering to the left, towards Helen, as his stronger arm pushed deeper. She should move out of his way but she was annoyed at the invasion of her space and stayed put. His left arm reached the wall about six inches from her shoulder.
“Entschuldigung,” he said, lifting his goggles. “Mein Fehler.”
“I don’t speak German,” she replied although she was pretty sure his unfamiliar words were an apology.
His shoulders stiffened. “You are from the international school.” It sounded like an accusation. He climbed out of the water and slipped on the flip-flops he’d left on the poolside.
He walked towards the shower on the grass area behind the pool. Tall and rangy. In swimming trunks his arms and chest were sleek with good muscle definition. In clothes he would appear skinny. How old was he – 21, 22? He’d fill out with age. He turned around in the shower and saw her looking. She blushed. He came back and squatted on the poolside behind her. “You are from the school,” he said again.
“I’ve just arrived from England,” she conceded.
His shoulders relaxed. “So you are new. Do you like it?”
“I’m looking forward to getting to know Germany.”
“Germany. But not the school?” He shook his head. “It’s okay you mustn’t explain. I work there also, IT support, but I live here in the village. My name is Sascha Jakobsen.” He had an accent, although he pronounced “village” with a v rather than the w favoured by most Germans trying out the English word.
He pushed the wet fringe out of his eyes. A tiny wave of something unexpected rippled through Helen’s body. He was waiting for her to introduce herself but to talk for longer would stop them being strangers and she sensed danger in that.
“Bye then,” she said, preparing to glide away.
“Tschüs,” Sascha said. He walked towards the changing room.
Helen launched both arms over the water and dolphin-kicked her legs. He wasn’t the only one who could swim butterfly. She wondered whether he was watching her but told herself to stop.
8 (#ulink_69367703-2144-5494-b8fc-aea22126c931)
When Gisela went to get the second bottle of Sekt from the kitchen, she saw Sascha on the balcony. He was hanging out his trunks and towel. It wasn’t that long ago he would have left them in his bag on the floor, expecting that his washing would reappear clean and dry on his bed. But he no longer expected that of his mother; he no longer expected much of her at all.
He turned round, and she darted into the lounge. With the first bottle already inside her, she had to grab the doorframe to keep herself upright. She fell into an armchair and hid the new bottle under a cushion. She lit a cigarette and inhaled so hard that she hacked up phlegm.
He put his head round the door on the way to his bedroom. “Hallo, Mama.”
Gisela coughed again, for longer this time. The two of them inhabited the same apartment but different worlds. He never greeted her, so why now?
She felt for the neck of the bottle under the cushion. Her mouth was so parched it hurt but she couldn’t open the Sekt because he’d hear the cork pop. She crept over to the Schrank wall unit and eased out the bottom drawer. Verdammt! The vodka wasn’t there and neither were the miniature fire water bottles she’d bought at Lidl. Sascha! She should hammer on his door and demand an explanation. I’m the parent here. But when she heard his door open, she jammed the Schrank drawer half shut.
“I’ll make coffee,” he said, coming in to help her with the drawer. He slid it back into place and left the room, whistling.
She slumped into her chair. Heilige Maria Mutter Gottes (Holy Mary Mother of God), since when did this scowling young man whistle? Judging by the wet swimming things, the Freibad must have opened for the season. Perhaps he was exhilarated after exercising in the fresh air. Good. He spent too much time brooding in his bedroom or in the car.
He came back into the room, smiling, and she felt a pang of fear. “Have you been to the school?” she asked.
His face hardened. “Why would I go there?”
“I just thought …”
“What did you just think?”
“Nothing. How was your swim?”
“I met a woman.”
“Oh?” There’d been no one since Julia, since he’d cancelled dates with her to park outside the metal fence of the Niers International School instead.
His face remained hard but he said: “She’ll be useful, maybe open doors for me.”
9 (#ulink_7a968937-65e9-5ed3-9ca3-46fe84610e01)
Helen got home on a high after the swim, her blood buzzing with exercise hormones. And then the drudgery of her new life settled on her shoulders. She spent the afternoon signing up at the school library. She had trouble tracking it down; for all its solid frontage, the school had camouflaged its library in a Portakabin at the back of the campus. Eighties temporary units neglected into permanence.
She found the Elementary School’s second-hand uniform shop first and went in to ask for directions. Sabine, the school nurse, was working behind the counter. Helen laughed and asked her if she did every job in the school.
“I’m usually only here on Friday. It should be the head’s wife’s shift today but she has a breakfast party. Do you know Louisa?”
Helen’s whole face clenched. Of course, Louisa volunteered in the school shop. She thanked God that the wives’ breakfast had given her a narrow escape.
“I know her slightly,” she said. She turned to leave but noticed a pretty velvet top hanging from the rails.
“Try it on,” Sabine said. “We don’t just sell second-hand uniforms, we have clothes for everyone. It was Louisa’s idea.”
Helen dropped the blouse sleeve as if it was on fire.
***
When she finally found the library, the assistant told her she had to get her membership form signed by her husband before she could borrow any books. “You’re his dependant. School rules.” Helen stuffed the form in her pocket and stormed outside, silently vowing to order her books from Amazon.
“I’ll come to yours at eight.” A voice she recognized was coming from the other side of the Portakabin.
Damian Howard. For once she’d be pleased to see a neighbour, this one in particular. As head teacher, he could make the stupid library assistant give her a ticket. But she stayed out of sight when she realized he was on the phone.
“I can only stay an hour … Shelly, Sweetheart, please. It’s better than nothing … You know I do. I can’t wait …” His voice was getting nearer.
She moved away briskly in case he came round the corner. Something told her Shelly Sweetheart wasn’t a pet name for Louisa.
***
Later, back at home, she wanted to plant up the front flower bed with the marigolds she’d bought from Aldi but, when she peered out of the kitchen window to check the street was clear of nosy neighbours, she saw Damian and Chris in conversation by Chris’s car.
There wasn’t a day that went by when Chris, or Mel, didn’t polish the sport car’s paintwork. A wave of irritation came over Helen: Gary was still at school whereas Chris was long since home.
And Damian was home too. Head teacher and family man, who made private calls in work time. She’d wait until he’d gone back to his side of the road. The thought of making social chit-chat with him made her sick.
But she stayed at her window, watching. Damian faced Chris, his fists clenching while Chris ignored him in favour of washing the car. Helen was turning into a curtain twitcher and she hated herself for it. But she was fascinated. There was no sign of the peace and harmony that Gary swore reigned supreme in Dickensweg. She thought for a minute that Damian was going to thump Chris. Hating herself even more, she opened the window to listen.
“What about it?” Damian snapped.
“I want to make some changes.” Chris was still polishing the car.
“You bastard,” Damian said and walked away.
“Don’t forget I’ve got the Chateau Petrus at eight,” Chris called after him.
Helen pulled back from the window. She’d heard of Chateau Petrus. It was a wine that cost over five hundred pounds a bottle. Where did Chris get the money for expensive plonk? And why offer to drink it with a man he’d just argued with? She wished she’d opened the window sooner.
When Chris had gone indoors, she took her box of plants to the flower bed under the kitchen window. As soon as she knelt down and turned the soil with her trowel, a feeling of comfort came over her. She was deriving as much pleasure from gardening as she did from swimming. But the pool had the advantage of being five miles from Dickensweg.
“Hi, Helen” Louisa’s voice said above her.
Helen jumped. The woman could join the SAS with those ambush skills. She gouged a deeper hole in the soil.
“I should have told you about the garden centre in Dortmannhausen,” Louisa said. “So much better than the bargain packs the supermarkets do. I stocked up two weeks ago.”
“And you’ve been hardening them off ever since.”
Louisa hesitated, as if unsure whether Helen intended an insult or a compliment.
Before Louisa could re-start, Mel came out of her house, looking like Andy Pandy. Helen couldn’t think beyond the ancient TV puppet’s romper suit that was a dead ringer for the blue and white thing Mel was wearing.
“Murdo wants his Mr Tumble boxers for school tomorrow. Will you have my load ready tonight?” Louisa called out.
Mel nodded and came across to Helen. “Have you got any washing or ironing?” It was the first time Helen had heard her volunteer a question. “You will have to pay me but I’m quick.”
The last thing Helen wanted was a neighbour rummaging through her washing, but at least Mel had the gumption to run her own business. And going back inside to find washing would give Helen an excuse to get away from Louisa.
She told Mel she had some of Gary’s shirts to iron. “Come in the house and I’ll get them.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“Don’t be silly. Come in and I’ll show you what needs doing.”
Mel hesitated but Louisa took her arm. “In you go, Mel. Helen doesn’t want her dirty laundry aired in public.”
Helen was prepared to ignore the double meaning but anger rose inside her when Louisa followed them into the house uninvited. She went upstairs to find the shirts. When she came back down, Mel was peering into the drawers of the hall cabinet and Louisa was looking on. Mel snatched the laundry from Helen and made for the door.
10 (#ulink_d73bf81b-2d55-5756-af08-4749d0ffb972)
Tuesday, 4 May
The water rippled as Helen lowered herself into it, the misty atmosphere absorbing her splash. She was tempted to float there like the old couple the day before, to clear her mind. But she couldn’t shake off the sticking, spiky thoughts she had about her neighbours. She stretched into a steady crawl, upping the pace after two lengths.
What the hell was going on last night? Some kind of Stepford Wives’ pantomime? Mel was certainly dressed for comedy. And the blatant way she rifled through Helen’s hall, was that some kind of prank with Helen as the butt of the joke? She jabbed her hand deep below the surface, challenging the water’s resistance. But the water won and broke the rhythm of her stroke.
Or was Mel the stooge? It was more likely that Louisa rather than Mel wanted to nose around. Was the whole “have you got any ironing” set-piece a scam masterminded by Louisa? Helen rocked from side to side as she tried to get control of her arm pulls. There was something not right about that woman, about both women. She wouldn’t be giving Mel ironing again however well she did it. And it wasn’t any wonder Damian was playing away. Louisa must be hard to live with.
Creepy Chris must know what Damian was up to. Helen slowed her leg kicks to give her arms time to settle. That would explain Damian’s angry body language by Chris’s car last night. Maybe he’d caught Damian on his phone to Shelly Sweetheart like Helen had. Was he threatening to tell Louisa?
The lot of them had been in their expat bubble so long they’d forgotten how normal neighbours behaved. She would never become like them. Thank God she had this pool to escape to. She pushed her hand down and this time hit the catch point. The water worked with her and her rhythm came back. She kicked hard and stepped up the pace. She settled into a twenty-length speed swim.
She was resting when the young man – Sascha – got in beside her. Already flushed from her swim, her face got even hotter.
“How many laps have you made?” he asked, fixing his goggles on his forehead.
She knew her distances to within five metres but she couldn’t think. “I’ve … just started.”
He took off his goggles and fiddled with the strap. “We could make a few laps together.”
Her gut told her to decline and glide away; to accept would land her in the heat of something she couldn’t control. But, before she answered, he said: “I’ll get the Schwimmbretter. I don’t know the name in English.”
He pulled his lean body up onto the poolside and headed over to the cage of swimming floats. A baby brother, nothing more.
She matched him over several lengths but, when they sprinted the final four, she hadn’t raced so hard in months and thought blood would burst through her eardrums. She gulped for breath and put her head down for the last push. When her fingertips reached the wall, he was already standing up.
“Unentschieden,” he panted. “We both won.”
“A draw? How chivalrous,” she said, heart racing.
“Schiffalrus?”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s swim.”
Their last set degenerated into a leisurely breaststroke as they lifted their heads to recapture the air that racing had taken out of them. He told her he’d captained the school swim squad. She played down her own swimming career, saying she’d won the odd race now and again. For the first time in weeks she didn’t feel the need to assert her capabilities. Her companion accepted her as an equal. Condescending Louisa and belittling Chris faded out of her mind and she relaxed.
***
Sascha was waiting by her car when she came out to the car park. They’d said their goodbyes poolside. A chill crossed her shoulders and she fastened her jacket. Why was he still here?
“Are you going back to school?” he said. “The office needs me in work. It will save much time if you drive me there.”
A lift to a stranger? She hesitated. She’d enjoyed their swim but it had to end there. She could lie, say it wasn’t her car but Gary’s England footie badge on the windscreen would give her away.
“I’m not going straight home,” she said.
“Of course. You don’t know me. I shouldn’t ask.” He tucked a strand of wet hair behind his ear. The gesture was cute, innocent. She reminded herself he was just a boy. And he worked at the school like Gary. He was one of them. There’d be no harm in giving him a lift.
She climbed in the driver’s seat and leaned over to open the door for him. She immediately regretted her decision. Burnt tobacco invaded the air. Drawn cheekbones, Adam’s apple, zip-up jumper bobbled with age, her passenger looked spare and eager. He didn’t belong in Gary’s car.
She kept her eyes dead ahead as she set off, feeling like a learner driver on the German highway. She hadn’t driven with a passenger apart from Gary since she arrived. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. The pool was beyond the village and there were wheat fields on both sides. She imagined Sascha studying every ear of corn as she crawled past. When the silence grew too awkward she asked him how long he’d worked at the school.
For a moment he didn’t answer, then he said: “How are you finding it? Living there?”
Her foot slipped on the pedal. The needle on the speedometer nudged up. She found a sort of answer. “Fine. I’ve cleared the front garden, but there’s competition in our road. One woman’s managed to trail a whopping great wisteria round her door.”
“Wisteria,” he mouthed.
“It’s a purple climbing flower that sort of hangs …”
“I know what it is.” His shoulders stiffened. Then, aware of her looking, he relaxed into his seat.
She drove the rest of the way in nervous silence.
They reached the turning for the school and she drove past the community noticeboard. For once not defaced by graffiti, there was a poster for half-term activities. Gary would have a week off school so they could go away. He was always talking about the lakes in Southern Germany. Time for themselves. Away from Dickensweg. She glanced at her passenger. Away from everything.
She drew up to the traffic lights and signalled right for the school campus.
“Wait,” Sascha said. “I want to see the garden you told me about, with the wisteria.”
Offering this man a lift to work was one thing, but driving a complete stranger past her house was something else. As the lights changed, she flicked her indicator to the left and decided she would drop him outside Louisa’s garden. She would remember another errand and ask him to walk to his office. Drive off without him ever finding out which house was hers.
“So you live at number 5,” he said as they went past the mown lawn and cleared flower bed that betrayed which garden had enjoyed her attention. But he seemed to lose interest in her answer. His eyes fixed on the house at the end. He got out of the car, walked up the path to Number Ten and cupped one of the wisteria blooms in his hand.
Helen went after him. “I’m not sure the owners would like that.”
“She will get angry.”
“She? Do you know her?”
He let go of the wisteria petals and moved back to join her on the path. He took out a cigarette.
Louisa’s front door flew open. “What the hell are you doing? Get away from here. Now.”
Helen gasped. She’d been on the receiving end of Louisa’s bossiness before but this was fury. Then she realized that the woman’s rage was aimed at Sascha.
“This is my country,” Sascha said. His voice sounded calm but his hands trembled as he brought his lighter up to his cigarette.
“You’ve got three seconds to get out of here then I’m calling the police. They’ll arrest you for unlawful access,” Louisa said.
“How is it unlawful?” He aimed a ring of smoke in Louisa’s direction. “Helen brought me here.”
“You. I welcomed you into our street and this is how you repay me.”
Helen’s limbs twitched as Louisa’s anger turned on her.
Sascha blew another smoke ring towards Louisa. The veins in his neck started to bulge.
“Get out of here,” she shouted.
He clenched his fists, and for a moment Helen feared he’d attack Louisa, but he threw the cigarette into one of the shrubs and disappeared up the cut-through.
“What was that about?” Helen asked, but Louisa, murderous below her make-up, stared her down. She felt hollow and shaky and was relieved when the woman stormed back inside and shut her door, causing the wisteria trellis to quiver.
11 (#ulink_d791db95-84a7-55fa-9b3c-e1ce0dce9a53)
Gisela squatted with the dustpan and brush, and overbalanced. She put her hand down and felt a pricking sensation somewhere at the end of her arm. She ignored it and focused on sweeping up the broken glass. Her heart raced when the door opened and, like a child, she braced herself for the reprimand.
It came quickly. “Verdammt! Schon wieder! And you’ve cut yourself. Come and sit here.” Sascha reached into the First Aid cupboard.
He grimaced as he tied a bandage around her hand. His mouth was clamped shut and his eyes were angry. Her head thumped with alcohol and shame. It should be her role to tend the family wounds. What a scheiß job she’d made of that. Their seeping scars could never heal.
She slurred. “How was your swim? Did you see your girl?”
He tore the end of the bandage. “Leave it alone,” he growled.
12 (#ulink_49fc181d-ed43-5596-b3c1-d4d3c64d421d)
“What the hell were you thinking?” Gary said when Helen broached the subject that evening. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to talk to strangers?”
His coldness shocked her. She thought after a meal and a glass of wine he’d listen. But he sounded as mad as Louisa.
“He said he worked at the school, in IT.”
“Come on, Helen. If he’d said he was the deputy head would you have believed him?”
“I would expect Louisa to say something like that, not you.”
“I’m just scared for you, Helen.”
“Scared?”
He shrank away. “I mean concerned.”
She folded her arms. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. And he was harmless.”
“Don’t be stupid, Helen. You can’t just trust people. He could have done anything. Any man can …” His voice tailed off. “Some men.”
“Who is he anyway? What’s he done to get you and Louisa so paranoid?”
Gary looked away again. “I don’t know him.”
He had replied too quickly. Was he lying?
Helen turned towards the hall. “I’ll go and ask Louisa.”
Gary grabbed her arm. “Don’t.” His fingers were digging in. He realized and let go. “Sorry, I didn’t mean … It’s probably best if you give Louisa some space for a while.”
“So tell me why that man sent her into meltdown?”
“It sounds like the same man who trashed her garden a few months ago. He pulled up all the plants and smashed the fountain in the pond. He was about to hack down the wisteria in the front when they came home. It cost Damian a fortune to put it right.”
She thought of the first time Sascha had spoken to her, blunt and accusing when he realized she was English. She could see that anger turned on a British garden. “Did they call the police?”
“Damian told him to get lost. As far as I know he hasn’t returned until today, although I think I saw him parked up outside school once.”
The face she saw at the Howards’ fence, was that Sascha? She ought to have told Gary but it seemed a bit late to mention it. “Will they call the police now he’s come back?”
“No idea.” He looked away.
He was doing it again, shutting her out. She was sick of him withholding things. “I’ll ask Sascha when I see him at the pool,” she said.
“God, Helen, you know his name? You need to keep away from him. You can’t go there after this. He might be dangerous.”
“I was alone in the car with him and he was fine until we got to Number Ten. Whatever his quarrel with the Howards, it doesn’t involve me.”
“Of course it involves you. You’re part of this community whether you like it or not. We owe it to our neighbours to show some solidarity.”
He sounded like Louisa again. Helen was surrounded by the neighbourhood mafia and Gary was doing his best to join it. Her resentment boiled over. “Why don’t you show me some solidarity? Don’t you dare take the pool away. I’m bored brainless here. You’ve taken everything else. My career, my house, my swim squad.” She broke down and sobbed.
Gary rested an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard for you to give up your career. But it’s not forever. Why don’t you ask Damian about the supply list for teachers?”
She shook off his arm. “How nicely do you want me to ask Damian Howard? How high up the waiting list do you want me to go?” She looked him in the eye. Surely he knew about his head teacher’s extracurricular antics. His face hardened, then he nodded. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
He pulled her towards him and she felt his lips on her hairline. “I shouldn’t have said that about the pool. It’s up to you.”
She wanted to stay mad at him despite the warmth of his breath through her hair. She forced herself not to respond.
He held her at arm’s length. His fingers played on her shoulders, soft and conciliatory. “I want you to be happy.”
“I want that for both of us,” she said. She kissed him.
She felt him relax, let out a sigh. He must be as relieved as she was that the squall had passed.
“I was going to tell you about something that you might like, but it can wait,” he said.
“What? Tell me.” She suddenly thought of half-term. Perhaps he was going to surprise her with a trip. She still hadn’t mentioned her idea of visiting the German lakes, maybe he’d come up with the same thing.
But he looked away. He was still bloody doing it.
“Just tell me, Gary.”
He sighed again but didn’t look at her. “The Elementary School runs an after-school swim club. They need more volunteer teachers.”
It wasn’t what she was expecting, but it was still good news. “That’s amazing. How do I sign up?”
“It’s not coaching and the kids are beginners mostly.”
It sounded like a lifeline. She’d be teaching again.
“So you’re interested then? You’ll give them a call? No backing out?”
“Why would I want to back out?”
He fetched his briefcase, handed her the school newsletter and studied her face.
She read the headline: Swim Club Needs Helpers. Below it was a colour photograph. She recognized the perfect chestnut hair before she read the caption: Club Chair Louisa Howard. She threw the newsletter at him.
Fiona (#ulink_13d4b3a0-7aec-53b0-b8b4-68c5091ed2c8)
I offered to get the first round while Liz and Cheryl hunted down an empty table.
I hovered at the back of the bar scrum, reckoning on a fifteen-minute wait and wishing I had sharper elbows. When someone got served, a gap opened and the crowd regrouped. My arm bumped against the tall man next to me.
He smiled down. “Is it always like this?” he said.
“I’ve only been once before so I don’t know.”
“It’s my first time,” he said, taking a £20 note out of his pocket and waving it at the bar staff. He must have landed in this undergraduate watering hole by mistake. I concluded it would be his last visit too.
“Hello, can you serve me, please?” he called out when a harassed-looking barmaid came within range.
It was worth a try but all the staff were feigning deafness and not catching anyone’s eye. But to my surprise the girl looked up and took the money from his outstretched hand.
He turned to me. “What’s your order?” It was kind of him to save me queuing longer.
When the barmaid passed over the tray of drinks, she giggled and gave him a broad smile. He thanked her and refused to let me pay him back. “Where are you sitting?”
I pointed to where Cheryl and Liz had found the last free booth. When he put the drinks on our table, the girls shuffled along to make room for both of us. They must have thought I’d picked him up. I stayed standing and thanked him for the drinks. A blush grew on my neck and face. What must he think of three little girls assuming he’d be interested in one of them? But it was the second surprise of the evening: he sat down next to Cheryl and asked her name.
When I sat opposite him, he turned to me. “Where do you usually drink, then, if not here?”
“Union bar,” I said quickly. I didn’t want him to know this was a rare outing for me.
“I’m glad you came here tonight,” he said.
I smiled and happily melted into my drink. He liked me, didn’t he? I asked him his name.
He grinned. “You can call me Shep.” But then he leant over to Liz and asked her about her course.
A bubble of disappointment rose and popped inside me but I made a show of flicking my hair behind my ear, telling myself there were plenty more postgraduates in the sea. He had to be a postgraduate; he was definitely older than us.
When Liz told him we were on the same course, he turned to me. “Have you done a sandwich year in France yet?”
I told him about Lyons, but it was like playing ping-pong. His attention moved back and forth between Liz and me. Then he looked at Cheryl, and she launched into a monologue about her set books. His eyes flicked to me. I waited. It was as if he had an invisible thread that could draw me wherever he wanted.
My patience was rewarded. “Do you miss Lyons?” he asked. When had any boy asked Liz or Cheryl an intelligent question like that? Shep was treating me like a grown-up.
I paused, deliberating on how to be intelligent back. “On the one hand, I miss the opportunity to speak French. But, on the other, it’s time to finish my degree and go out into the wider world,” I said, sounding like a GCSE essay.
“You’re wise,” he said, nodding. “You’ve got your head screwed on.” He picked up his glass, and I admired his hands. He was the only drinker with well-manicured nails, and an ironed shirt. I asked him about his course.
His expression grew serious. “I’m not a student.”
Had I blown it? Miskeyed the conversation? What would a grown-up do now? “What’s your job?” I asked.
“Civil servant.”
What now? Could I ask what that meant?
“My dad’s in the civil service,” Liz called down the table. “What branch are you?”
“I’m a shepherd,” he said.
Liz laughed and made a joke about his name. As we listened to her account of her dad’s admin job, Shep whispered to me: “I’ll explain what I do later.”
I blushed; there was going to be a later.
Two engineering students stopped at our table, and Liz and Cheryl went into all-out flirt mode. My eyes strayed to Shep. Every time one of the others spoke, he listened intently and nodded. He had the most beautiful eyes and he trained them on whoever was speaking. I sighed, feeling jealous, and tried to look away. But he caught me staring.
Eventually the girls went to the bar with the engineers. It was just Shep and me at the table.
“Was it hard to find a flat when you came back from France?” he asked.
“I’m in a student hall,” I said and realized that made me sound like a baby who couldn’t live on her own. “But it’s Moser Hall. There are only third years on the first floor. And fourth years, like me.”
“Let me get us another drink,” he said. He found his way through the crowd to his friendly barmaid. Liz, Cheryl, and the boys were still queuing and looked peeved at his success. I gave them a thumbs up and we all laughed.
“Did you miss home when you were in Lyons?” he said when he returned with my wine.
“My father was ill. It was hard not being there.”
His face was full of concern. “But things are fine now?”
I shrugged, blinking back tears. “I think so but you know how it is with cancer.”
“You’re a caring woman, Fiona.” He rested his hand on mine.
I think I smiled. I meant to, but how was I supposed to function after he did that? Although a million watts of power surged through me, I didn’t move my hand away. My blood thundered round my body, but I managed to sit still. Two grown-ups together in companionable silence. A couple.
He fetched out his phone. “I’ve got to read this.”
I watched his face as he looked at the text. When his expression didn’t change, it gave me hope that it wasn’t important. But he put the phone away and said he’d been called into work. He gave a tight smile that showed how annoyed he was. “Will you be here next Friday?”
“I might be,” I said. Grown-ups played it cool.
13 (#ulink_bce00171-25e6-5b5d-af97-2aa7e2452742)
Wednesday, 5 May
Helen expected to have trouble getting into the school campus out of hours, but Klaus, the security guard, opened the gate and waved her through from his sentry box. He must have recognized Gary’s car. He didn’t look surprised to see a woman driving it. Did he know Gary’s wife was living here now? Probably. She stiffened and pressed the accelerator; the entire school knew her business.
She parked in the main car park and took the path round the science block. She knew where the pool was as she’d found it when she was looking for the library. But she would have located it anyway; the chlorine smell was a guiding beacon. It was a favourite smell. Home. She smiled and broke into a jog.
The door into the pool foyer was open. She stepped in and embraced the heat. There was no one about but she followed voices to a group changing room and went in.
“Come and sit anywhere, Helen. We’re casual here,” Louisa said, bestowing her with a smile that lengthened on the word “casual”.
Helen waited for two young men to move along the bench to make room for her. In pressed polo shirts and shorts, they resembled army physical training instructors, all cropped hair and muscles. The seat was lower than she judged so she made a crash landing and her handbag slammed into her hip. No one noticed because they were looking at Louisa.
“I’m sure you know everyone,” Louisa said to her.
The only familiar face was Mel Mowar’s. Mel a swimming teacher? She didn’t see that one coming, but it fitted Mel’s default position at Louisa’s right-hand side.
Helen scanned the other faces, looking for identifying marks, a habit she picked up as a school teacher. To avoid the embarrassment of not recognizing a pupil or a parent in the street, she made sure their features were imprinted on her memory. It was going to be much harder to memorize this lot with no distinctive clothing style to go on. Louisa was the only one not in a white polo shirt. Hers was coral pink and it enhanced her skin tone.
Sweat pooled at Helen’s armpits. Hoping there’d be a chance for a few lengths in the school pool after the meeting and before the lessons started, she’d put her swimsuit on underneath her tracksuit. The row with Gary had continued until they both lost interest and saw how stupid it was. As part of their passionate making up, she’d agreed to stay away from the open-air pool, so she was now in dire need of a substitute swim. It hadn’t been a difficult compromise to make in the end because she was in no mood to face Sascha again. She couldn’t care less about his feud with Louisa – if anything that lifted him higher in her estimations – but she’d trusted him and he’d taken her for a mug. She caved in about the after-school swim club too. Gary had her interests at heart and persuaded her to go whatever her view of the chairwoman.
“You need to put in your DTS claims to FD,” Louisa was saying.
Helen took a deep breath. Acronyms, it was like being pelted by a typewriter. She felt like a complete outsider. It was another Aldi moment – whenever she ventured out to shop in Dortmannhausen village, she felt an acute sense of foreignness. She’d only ever felt alien once before moving to Germany and that was on a student holiday in Sri Lanka where the people had stared and smiled, and some had asked to have their photo taken with her. It had been a good-natured curiosity and she went home feeling exotic and beautiful. But being foreign in Germany meant awkward supermarket visits where unsmiling cashiers scanned her shopping, rang up her bill and had her change ready before she’d even opened her purse. And now this meeting, on the supposedly home territory of Gary’s school, was pocked with jargon she didn’t understand.
“Let’s move on to Item 4: Paired Teaching,” Louisa said.
Helen checked her watch. Item 4, the bloody woman had started the meeting without her.
The bloody woman was still speaking. “Now this is a new initiative of mine. Darren. I assume you’re working with John?”
The man next to Helen nodded.
“And I’m with Kate.” Louisa paused, her gaze lingering on Helen.
Helen, partnerless, looked down, pulling her sleeves over her hands, feeling like a teenager picked on by the mean girl. Then a shoot of defiance grew in her. “Mel, have you got a partner yet?” she said, pushing a tone of confidence into her question which she didn’t feel.
Mel flushed. “I …”
“Do you want to work with me?” Helen said before Louisa could intervene.
Mel smiled, blushing even redder. Helen smiled back, trying to hide the smugness of her victory over Louisa. This was more like her old self – assertive; inventive; no problem too large; no petty-minded, coral pink chairwoman too small.
But her triumph was short-lived. Louisa trumped her. “Mel’s the changing room monitor. She’s here to take the minutes.” Mel picked up her pen obediently. “But you won’t need a partner, Helen, while you’re observing classes.”
“Observing? I’ve got several years’ experience. I don’t think …”
“Not here you haven’t.” Louisa tapped the edge of her papers against her knee to straighten them out.
“But you’re desperate for teachers. I read the newsletter. Some of you are having to double up classes. What do the rest of you …?” Helen’s voice trailed off; no one was looking at her. She’d been the head coach of the most successful junior squad in the West Midlands but here in this stupid drain of a swimming pool, she was an invisible nobody in over-heavy sports kit. Roll on half-term; she was getting the hell out.
14 (#ulink_bd35b431-f02d-5fe7-8f07-1e95121f3a7a)
Thursday, 6 May
Helen stood on the doorstep to see Gary off to work. Her smile made her face ache; she was turning into a proper housewife. Gary’s mobile rang on the hall table. The screen said: Steve C calling. She grabbed the phone and caught up with him by the car, but Gary cancelled the call.
“Not important then?” she asked.
“It’s just some insurance guy who rings me now and again,” he said, starting the engine. “I’m surprised he bothers; I never buy anything.” He drove off, waving his arm out of the window.
Helen waved until he disappeared round the corner, and she thought it was strange that he’d added an insurance salesman to his list of contacts. But then he was a sociable man with twice as many Facebook friends as she had.
She darted away from the kitchen window when Louisa came across the road. She was carrying a file of papers. The woman lived her life in other people’s houses. What was it this time: Parents’ Association agendas for Audrey Garcia, the American teacher at number 3; spaniel-masking aromatherapy brochures for Karola Barton at number 1; or corrections to the swim club minutes for Mel at number 7?
She cursed herself for hiding – so what if Louisa saw her? She was in her own home. Louisa didn’t control everything; the swim class last night proved that. Louisa had deposited her with the instructor called John, insisting that she couldn’t possibly be let loose with a group of her own until she’d been “assessed”. But John had different ideas and gave her five children out of his class of twelve to teach front crawl.
“You’ll warm to Louisa in the end,” he said.
“How long will that take?”
“Until the Christmas social. She holds it at her house. All the booze you can drink. Best club chair I’ve ever worked for.”
The swimming class had been an excitable bunch of 7 year olds. She recognized one of them as the dark-haired boy from number 6, the house opposite hers. Afterwards his parents introduced themselves in the foyer.
“My name is Dimitris and my wife is Maria. I am an exchange teacher from Greece. I normally run the history department at a school in Athens.”
Helen smiled. “You speak excellent English and I think your son must do too; he understood his swimming lesson.”
“Alexandros learns quickly. Only my wife has no chance to learn.”
“I’m sure she’ll pick it up.” An idea occurred to Helen. “I could help. I’m a teacher too but I’m not working at the moment.”
“You would do that for Maria? I can pay you.”
“I’m sure we can work something out.”
Dimitris spoke rapidly to his wife. She beamed and took Helen’s hand.
She’d driven home knowing she’d turned a corner in her frame of mind. The swimming lesson and the prospect of teaching English made her feel fulfilled. Her contentment lasted into the night as she made love with Gary.
She peered through her kitchen window again but could no longer see Louisa. She must have gone into Mel’s. If the lessons with Maria worked out, she could offer something similar to local German people. She smiled as more warm feelings of usefulness came over her.
The doorbell had a way of shrieking whenever Louisa pressed it. Helen stood still. She’d ignore it, pretend to be out. But she was curious about the paperwork Louisa was carrying. A teeny bit of her ego wondered if the visit was to do with the swim club. John must have reported back how well the newcomer had done and Louisa was calling to offer her more classes. She answered the door.
“I hear you intend to teach English. Are you qualified?” Louisa said, stepping inside without a greeting.
“I was head of PE at my last school,” Helen said and savoured the surprise on Louisa’s face.
But it didn’t last. “The Niers School is clamping down on people who set up businesses for which they aren’t trained.”
“It’s hardly a business; I’m helping a neighbour.” Helen balled her fists. If Louisa thought she was the job police, she could think again.
“Well, I’ve brought some brochures about TESOL courses anyway,” Louisa said. “And while I’m here I can collect your balance.”
“Balance?”
“The skiing trip payment. Surely Gary mentioned it? I organize a trip to Austria. It’s an annual event during half-term.”
The leaflets shook in Helen’s hand. Half-term. Another prison door slammed shut behind her. But who the hell went skiing in May? Didn’t people need snow or was one look from Louisa enough to freeze rain?
“First I’ve heard of it, and I don’t remember Gary mentioning it last year so I don’t think—”
“He excused himself last year to visit you.”
Helen felt annoyed and proud at the same time. Annoyed with Louisa’s insinuation that Gary needed permission to drop out, but proud that he had the balls to stand up to the Dickensweg mafia.
“In that case, I can’t see him fancying it this year either,” she said.
“Oh dear, have I ruined the surprise? He’s already paid the deposit.”
***
She knew she was thrashing, using far more energy than her progress through the water warranted, but there was rage in her limbs and she wanted it out. How could he think of booking a holiday without consulting her? Is that the way their marriage would roll: he made the decisions and she did as she was told? Well, he could forget it. She’d show him and start by returning to this pool despite her promise.
Half a dozen other swimmers were there, word having got round that the pool had opened for the season. Disapproving eyes bored into her as she caused the water to splash and chop. She smashed her wrist against the side, having misjudged her finish. She stood up as the pain throbbed through her arm, adding more fuel to her fury. She pushed off again, narrowly missing a woman who drifted over on her back. She managed a lopsided arm pull with her throbbing hand and speared the water with her good one.
It hadn’t only been the ruddy ski trip that made her mad. Top honours had gone to the tiny white business card that slipped out of the teaching leaflets when she flung them across her hall. Louisa Howard, RELATE Counsellor and on the back she’d written: Call me if you need to talk.
She cleared her goggles but they were misted with tears. That poisonous woman, who tried to tell her what to wear, when to exercise, how to teach, was now saying her marriage was in trouble. How dare she when her own husband was unfaithful?
What could Louisa have seen to make her think it? The sleepless nights? The arguments? Louisa couldn’t know about them. They were nothing. She and Gary were solid. She gripped the goggles with both hands and twisted them. The action hurt because of her bruised wrist but she kept on twisting, squeezing, wringing. If it meant losing the deposit, so what? No way were they spending half-term with Louisa as she scrutinized their marriage.
A figure dived in beside her, making her drop the goggles. Sascha. How dare he come near her? Another one she couldn’t trust.
“Why did you lie to me?” she demanded when he resurfaced. “Why are you hounding my neighbours?” She rubbed her throbbing hand and fought off the urge to slap it against his face.
He ducked under to retrieve her goggles. When he came up she shouted, “Give me those.”
The elderly swimmer glared at her and paddled away.
Sascha hooked the goggles round his finger. “Louisa Howard is a hard woman, isn’t she?” He offered them to her but, as she took them, he snatched them back. “And her husband – what do you know about him?”
She tugged at the strap on the goggles with her good hand.
He tightened his grip and said: “He’s dangerous.” His wet eyelashes had clumped in peaks making his expression deranged.
The menace in his voice made her shudder. She tugged at her goggles, but he yanked them harder and pulled her towards him. She felt his breath on her shoulder. “You know what he’s like, don’t you?” he hissed.
He gave one last pull on the strap. She put out her hand as she fell forward. He put out his. They met palm to palm. The connection tingled through her arm, across her skin. The pain in her wrist intensified and she had to break away.
“Don’t tell me what to think,” she gasped. “Everyone here tells me what to think.”
His eyes were everywhere except on her. Had he felt it too? Eventually he said: “But all people must control their thoughts and actions, all people, Helen.”
She tried to summon the emotions that she knew she should feel – anger, indignation, even fear – but her head echoed with the sound of her name on his lips. She tingled again, not just her arm, all of her felt it. Palm to Palm. What should she do now? To leave would be sensible but why should she? She was fed up with being sensible. Sensible meant sitting through Ordeal by Coffee Morning, watching Louisa dismantle Mel bit by bit. Sensible meant letting the vile woman cross her threshold with her poisoned business card. Sensible meant listening to her instead of making up her own mind about Sascha.
“Would you like to train some lengths?” she heard herself ask.
He handed back her goggles and nodded.
15 (#ulink_4dd99ca5-af65-5b3e-97e6-8ebd71bd3740)
The face staring back in the mirror had clown lips that bled into the surrounding flesh. Mel didn’t know how long it had been since she’d last applied lipstick but it had been a while.
Chris had come into the bedroom while she was dozing after her heavy meal – an extra egg tonight, and the portion of chips seemed big. She was tired after picking up Murdo from school. It was nice to spend time with the youngest Howard boy while Toby and Leo were at their music lessons and their mother had a governors’ meeting. She once heard another mother telling her child: “Murdo doesn’t speak because he doesn’t understand.” But the woman was wrong. Murdo understood things very well.
When Louisa had returned home, she was still tense about the man in her front garden. Was it the same man who’d accosted her by Chris’s car? Thank God he ran off. She never told Chris, although she knew she should have done. What if he was dangerous? At least three times he’d been loitering in the close. What if he broke into a house next or approached a child?
“Come on,” Chris had said when he interrupted her nap. “It’s time you and me made a night of it. There are some clothes on the chair, and I’ve seen the lovely Helen wearing this shade of lipstick so let’s see what it does for you. The table’s booked for eight.”
Her heart pounded at the thought of going out. It was hard enough going to swim club every week. She could tell him she was a bit off colour. He’d believe her because she so often was ill: headaches, wheezing, palpitations, every cough and cold Louisa’s boys brought home. But he’d already changed. The silk shirt looked new and expensive. She didn’t want to let him down.
She slipped on the kaftan he’d left for her. The coarse cloth chafed her nipples. She would get sore again. It wasn’t a colour she would have chosen. It even smelled yellow, sort of sickly, but at least it hid a lot of bulges. She was more conscious of her weight when they went out. The German waitresses would be goddesses, wearing crisp blouses and money bags strapped around their slender hips. She turned sideways to look in the mirror and blinked away tears. She looked pregnant.
***
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go back.” He’d been home for all of five minutes when he spotted her swimming things on the washing line. “Was he there?”
Palm to palm. Helen suppressed an urge to lie. “Yes, I spoke to Sascha Jakobsen. Why shouldn’t I?”
He shrugged and looked disappointed rather than angry. He seemed ready to drop the subject, but she was still boiling about the ski trip and Louisa’s business card, and wanted a fight.
“He could be a terrorist, a bigamist or a serial killer for all I know, but maybe he had a reason to destroy Louisa Howard’s garden. Maybe she sent him one of her RELATE cards.” She gave a short bitter laugh. “That nearly had me reaching for the garden shears. Only it wasn’t her wisteria I wanted to deadhead.”
She sighed at the bemused expression on Gary’s face. “Let me explain. She thinks our marriage is in trouble. In her expert opinion we need counselling. So what are you waiting for? You better give her a call.”
Gary opened his mouth but she continued, “Or maybe it’s too late for that. Should we skip that neighbour and go direct to Karola Barton at number 1? I hear she’s a trained lawyer.” She started to sob.
Gary held out his arms and she collapsed into them. But she pulled away again.
“How could you book us a skiing holiday without even telling me? We really are in trouble, aren’t we?”
He gasped, sounding close to tears himself. “Don’t say that, don’t ever say that. The holiday was meant to be fun, a chance to get out of here and see Austria. I thought you’d be pleased.”
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