Mother shakes me out of my melancholy.
‘Fancy a cup of tea and a biscuit, love?’ Her voice floats upstairs.
I don’t answer. If I stay quiet, she’ll go away; she always does.
At that moment, I hear a scraping noise outside. I move over to the window and press my face close to the glass to get the right angle.
I can see a young woman down there. In Mrs Barrett’s yard.
She potters around, staying close to the back door, which makes it quite difficult to see her from my current position. I twist the handle and push the side window slightly ajar.
I take a step back, in case she suddenly looks up at the glass, but then relax a little when I see she seems fully absorbed in her task. She’s stuffing clothes, or something similar, into a large black garbage bag.
Mother and I have lived adjacent to Mrs Barrett for more years than I care to mention. To my knowledge, she doesn’t have any adult children, and in all the years I’ve known her, she has never so much as had guests to stay over for a night or two.
Keeping slightly back from the glass, I focus in on the visitor. I am pleasantly surprised.
It is unusual, these days, to find a young woman with a preference for plain, modest clothing and minimal make-up. She is of slim build, with shoulder-length brown hair, and seems purposeful, with a pleasing economy of movement. I can’t help noticing she has dainty hands, which appear to like keeping busy.
At least that’s the impression she gives as I watch her through my binoculars.
So far, I’ve only seen her from behind and in profile. It proves difficult to study all her features in detail when her hair keeps falling over her face like a dark caramel-coloured curtain.
Something about her reminds me of someone.
Quite unexpectedly, she straightens up, pushes flat palms into the bottom of her back and shakes the hair from her face. A pert nose, full lips and astonishingly dark eyes and brows reveal themselves.
Using the back of her hand, she briskly wipes her forehead and looks down the long, narrow yard. She sighs, her small breasts rising and falling beneath a silky biscuit-coloured blouse.
I swallow hard and lower the binoculars, stepping back into the room until I’m well away from the window.
I take a couple of deep breaths and close my eyes.
I don’t have to feel bad about this, I tell myself calmly. I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong.
I lay down the binoculars and walk slowly downstairs.
Strains of a televised football match emanate from the lounge as I enter the kitchen. Mother stands washing dishes at the sink.
‘Ah, there you are, David.’ She lifts out her sud-covered fingers for a moment or two and looks at me, her sharp, avian eyes narrowing at my expression. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I say faintly.
‘I called up earlier and asked if you’d like a cup of tea. I’ve bought your favourite arrowroot biscuits from—’
‘Have you spoken to Mrs Barrett lately?’ I cut in.
‘Mrs Barrett? I’m afraid not.’ She turns back to the sink. ‘I really ought to pop round there at some point. Perhaps you might come with me, David.’ And then her hands stop moving in the sink and she turns round again to face me. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘It looks like she might have a visitor. She hasn’t got any grown-up children, has she?’
To avoid Mother’s incisive glare I pick up Brian’s tabloid newspaper from the counter and stare blindly at the front page.
Mother coughs.
‘No. No, she hasn’t got any family, though I don’t think it was through choice. She once told me it was a regret of hers but something she had just learned to accept.’
‘It might be her niece, then,’ I offer.
‘The visitor is a girl?’
‘A young woman.’ I nod. ‘Quite a bit younger than me by the looks of it.’
‘I see.’ Mother swallows hard. ‘There’s… not going to be a problem, is there, David?’
I feel a rush of heat in my face but I say nothing.
‘It wouldn’t do for her to think you’ve been…’
‘I was looking out of my window and she came outside, into the yard,’ I say quickly. ‘I was already looking. I didn’t…’
‘That’s all right, then.’ Mother is relieved. She pulls her hands out of the sink and flicks off the soapy bubbles. ‘Well, perhaps Mrs Barrett’s taken in a lodger. That house is far too much for her to manage now.’
‘Yes. Perhaps that’s it.’ I step back into the gloom of the hallway. ‘I thought I might go round there now and ask Mrs Barrett if she needs any help… ask her if there are any odd jobs that need doing. It’s been a while.’
Mother opens her mouth as if to comment, but then closes it again.
* * *
In the event, I don’t go to Mrs Barrett’s house. Instead, I go back up to my bedroom and stand at the edge of the window.
It’s important to consider the situation logically.
I don’t know who this person, this visitor of Mrs Barrett’s, might be. I can hardly go blustering round there offering my help. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.
Besides, I’m wearing my old checked slippers and my comfy cardie with the worn cuffs and missing buttons.
First impressions are very important; everyone knows that.
The young woman is no longer in the yard, but the bag full of clothing is still out there, gaping open like an abandoned coal sack. I hope this means she’ll be coming outside again before too long. Wind and rain are forecast for this evening, so if she leaves it there, the contents will doubtless get wet and scattered all over the yard.
While I wait for her to reappear, I pluck out a blank card from the Rolodex and fiddle with the settings on my camera.
About ten minutes later, my patience is rewarded when the young woman appears and proceeds to tie up the bag, before walking halfway down the yard to the bin and dumping it in there.
She’s wearing a brown wool cardigan now, which she pulls closed across her body as she returns to the house. She doesn’t pause, doesn’t look around, and within seconds, she is back inside. I hear the door close behind her.
Although I’m a little disappointed, it doesn’t matter. I have what I wanted.
Using my powerful zoom lens, I’ve managed to get some nicely detailed images with the camera.
I flip out the small memory card and pop it into the side of my laptop. While it loads, I pull out the old grey suitcase from under my bed and begin to search through the photographs.
Chapter Four
Holly
Holly Newman stood at the window of Mrs Barrett’s kitchen and filled the kettle for the umpteenth time since she’d arrived.
It felt so strange, being in the area again. Especially since nothing seemed to have changed around here at all in over ten years.
Take this very crescent, for instance. The mostly detached houses, built in the sixties, stood proudly on their modest plots. Small front gardens led to longer, narrow yards at the back.
Aside from the odd neat porch, and the ostentatious white Grecian pillars that the people at the end had added, the facades were unchanged.
Holly used to pass by here on her way home from school when she travelled to college each day. The third house in still had a front garden full of gaudy and, Holly had always thought, rather sinister-looking gnomes.
National newspaper headlines constantly screamed of local corner shops shutting down in favour of the sprawling superstores that seemed to be springing up everywhere, but here, at the top of Baker Crescent, it was a different story.
Fred Crawley the butcher, Mr Timpson the greengrocer, and Mr and Mrs Khan’s general store, complete with its small integral post office, all stood in a line. Immovable as ever.
Holly had been just eighteen years old when she’d left the area for the bright lights of Manchester and the ‘amazing opportunity’ she’d been persuaded to chase. What she’d give now to rewind that decision.