She ran down the drive in her bare feet and dressing gown. Her hair was whipped up by the wind, the strands flowing out behind her. Her small soles slapped the tarmac. She felt the slice of her flesh on the stones, but she didn’t care. She had to keep going. There was a wild expression in her eyes, the kind that’s only seen in the utterly terrified. Her dressing gown came loose as she ran, spreading out like wings. She focussed on getting away from the house. She focussed on the man. He was dead ahead, and she was going to run into his arms. He was wearing reflective gear, and he had his arms outstretched, waiting for her. She allowed herself one brief moment to glance behind her for a final time. When she turned back towards the man, she felt the heat on her skin, still tingling, still smouldering. Her small body folded into his arms, and she was safe.
Chapter One - Hannah
Cavendish Street is like any other residential road in the suburbs. It appears a little worn at first glance, but when you really scrutinise the place, you start to notice how much strength there is beneath the surface. The terraced houses are old and Victorian. The pavement is unyielding. There are tough faces staring out from behind the panes of glass. A few roads down looms a cold copse of trees on the outskirts of a wood. The streets are bare on the way into the small shopping area. There’s a dirty, run down park with a single swing in it.
In the summer months, the smell of roast dinners floats down from number 68. The residents of Cavendish Street open their windows, letting their flavours out into the muggy air. My mouth waters as I poke at the plate of oily noodles resting on my knees. But worse still, the smell of beef gravy brings back memories I’d rather forget, of a different time and place, where I had an oak table and a white table cloth and laughed until my abdomen cramped. Then comes the sound of Edith Clarke’s phlegmy cough and I’m back at number 73 with chicken stir fry on my lap, and a radio play about farmers blaring out in the background.
The road is narrow, so that the houses almost lean over the pavement. Tall and sturdy, they stand like judgemental parents, with their large windows offering a peek into the lives beyond brick, shaming you into glancing swiftly away, rather than lingering on the pot plants and ornaments, or whatever TV programme is on; glimpses into the lives of others. The front door is in the living room, and it opens straight onto the pavement. I often sit on the sofa and watch the joggers go past, meeting each eye, daring them to stare. The back door opens into the kitchen. Beyond that, you’re forced to share a garden with your neighbour. Good old Edith, with her milky eyes and smoker’s cough. She keeps the whole thing tip-top while I sip wine on the door step. She potters and fusses around, adding garden gnomes to her ever growing collection, telling me about the gossip from the other houses—72 has been sold, and the paperwork is in motion, the couple at 65 are divorcing, there are rumours he had an affair—while her old bones shuffle along, veiny hands clutching the watering can.
Edith’s husband died before I moved to Cavendish Street. She’s lived here all her life and likes to tell me about it. When George was alive… Before all those foreigners moved in… I never used to lock my door, y’know. I knew everyone on the street by name. Everyone. I smile and nod and tell myself that it’s good to listen to another human being. I spend so much time on my own that there are days where I don’t even speak aloud. So in these fleeting summer months, I force myself to sit outside and listen to whatever Edith has to say, whether it’s generational racism or a boring story about her trip to the doctor’s. But today I can’t even face Edith. My hands have been shaking all afternoon, and the noodles slither off the trembling fork before reaching my mouth. My thoughts are black. Everything is something to be afraid of: the slight niggle in my calf is a blood clot, the heartburn is a heart attack, the headache is a brain tumour. I have to place down my fork and take a deep breath. In and out, in and out.
“Hannah, you are not dying,” I say. There, I spoke today. It was to myself, but I spoke. “There is nothing wrong with you. Eat your noodles.”
Cavendish Street is more than the place I live, it’s my whole world. There was a time when the entire planet was my whole world, but I stopped going abroad years ago. Gradually, my world shrank smaller and smaller until the end of the street felt like a marathon. And it’s not something I consciously changed. It just sort of happened, like a habit I re-routed. It’s so easy to stay in now. I can order anything online. I work from home. I have a treadmill and a bike in the spare bedroom that serves as my office (they gather dust, but I have them for the times I begin to panic about having a stroke in my forties). There’s only me so the bills are inexpensive, and I can make a living writing articles and editing stories for clients. It’s not so bad, really. I have a trip to the co-op on the days where I feel up to it, when the world doesn’t seem to be imploding on top of me and pushing me down until I can’t breathe.
I sigh and stand up. The noodles will have to go. I’m too wired to eat. I scrape the cold, congealed mess into the bin and rinse the plate under the tap. The water spurts out twice before flowing, which I should get fixed but never feel like arranging. I don’t like people in my house. I hate the gas men who appear unannounced, waving their lanyards in my face and calling me love. I hate the sound of knuckles on the door, and the people who ignore the doorbell or my polite request for visitors to use the back door. The letterbox jars me on the days I’m not expecting mail-order books or catalogue bras. The loud thunk has my heart pattering beneath my cardigan.
There’s too much noise in this place. The radio is off with a click from my jerking finger, then the window is slammed shut, trapping me in a house that smells like soy sauce and oil. At least it blocks the sound of the baby crying three doors up.
I need a distraction from this creeping anxiety. I know the warning signs now. I know to watch out for the waves of panic and the dark thoughts, but what I don’t know is how to stop it for good. So I turn back to the kitchen, pour a finger of chilled vodka into a tumbler, and turn on the kitchen taps to finish the washing up. The vodka is gone before the sink is full of water.
Pan scraped, plate cleaned, cutlery placed on the drainer. I’m not a natural cleaner, but the chore is familiar and reassuring. My shoulders drop a little as I’m drying my hands on the tea towel. But then there’s some commotion outside that catches my attention.
For the last month, all Edith has talked about is the potential new owners of Number 72, the house directly opposite mine. Edith is obsessed with this house, because the last owner died. Every time I think about it, I shiver. There was nothing unusual. Not in the way he died. The old guy was in his seventies and had a heart attack sat in his armchair. His name was Derek. He’d always seemed like a kind man, even though we didn’t really talk. Every now and then he would wave to me through the window, and he used to chat to Edith on his way to the co-op.
What’s unsettling is how he was found. His son’s family—including two children under ten—walked in to find a three-day-old corpse sat upright on the antique velvet armchair.
I shudder. If Derek had died anywhere else I probably would have seen his body and called an ambulance. But his grey head poking up above the back of the armchair was a normal sight for me. He could have been taking a nap, or watching television. I don’t spend a whole lot of time in my living room—I’m usually in my office on the other side of the house—otherwise I might have noticed that he hadn’t moved. The whole thing shook me up. I still feel guilty. I often peek into that house—which is empty and redecorated—and wonder if I hadn’t been so caught up in my own problems that I might have spared the family that last trauma.
But then, sometimes our problems aren’t so easy to set aside. Sometimes they cling on to us, filling us up until we can’t see anything else.
I shake the thoughts out of my head and move into the living room. Edith will be pleased, because finally she can stop speculating about who will be moving into 72, and actually see for herself. The thought of her net curtain twitching makes me smile. I imagine her pretending to polish the window sill ornaments so she can get a good view.
But who am I to judge, because I stand here gawking myself.
The removal men are in blue overalls and they hop up and down from the lorry in large work boots. Box after box is taken in through the doorway, and I can’t help thinking of those boots trampling all over Derek’s house, over the spot where he died. Another wave of guilt-fuelled panic washes over me, but I force it back down. A woman hops out of the house, weaving around the removal men, and opens a four-by-four parked behind the lorry. Hah! Edith won’t be happy about that. She’s always complaining about her daughter not being able to find a parking spot. Another large vehicle on the street will make the situation even worse. Then I remember my own car parked outside my house, the one that hasn’t moved for over a year, and I realise that more hints about me selling it will fly my way.
The woman is petite, moves on her tip toes, and smiles at everyone in her path. I get that jolt of female jealousy. That pointless competitiveness that makes us compare ourselves to others. She’s far prettier, far slimmer, and seems altogether nicer than I am. But even still, there is nothing too remarkable about her. She doesn’t dye her hair; it’s a mousy brown rather than a highlighted blonde. She’s wearing jeans and an oversized shirt, though what I expect someone to wear when moving house, I don’t know. It’s not exactly going to be a ball gown. Her head disappears into the car, while she rummages around on the back seat. As she’s half in the car, with her backside sticking out, at least two of the removal men hazard a glance in its direction. I actually make a strange noise of disgust, like I can’t believe that those men are ogling her. But then I realise they aren’t really ogling her. They didn’t say or do anything. They just checked her out for a second. It’s me. I’m jealous. When was the last time a man looked at me like that? I don’t remember.
The man I presume to be her husband, or boyfriend, strides out of the house. He’s in jeans and a T-shirt, which is stretched across a muscular chest. It’s not the kind of body I find attractive on a man, it’s too wide, too bulgy, like the kind built from extensive weight training. His skin has a red tinge to it, and his hair is cut into one of those fashionable “wedge” styles that footballers have caught onto. A strange hooligan form of smart 50s cut. He grabs the woman around the waist and drags her back. I take a step back, surprised by the almost aggressive action. She kicks out her legs, squirming in his arms, and my heartbeat quickens with a sort of voyeur anxiety. But then he puts her down and she spins around and slaps him hard on the arm. The guy laughs—I can hear the laughter through the window—before flicking her on the shoulder. I let out a long breath, realising that the two of them are being playful. For a moment I smile along with them.
But it’s not my joke to laugh at. I move away from the window, suddenly aware of how intrusive I’m being.
I’m about to leave the new owners to unpack without my rubbernecking, when a young girl steps out from the house. The sight of her makes my stomach lurch. She’s around twelve, maybe thirteen years old, and she walks with a stiff back. Her hair is long, and dark—almost black—and flows over her shoulders and rests down her back. She stops walking, stands on the pavement with her back to me, and then turns slowly towards my house. The panic rises up once again. I clench my fists and let out a little gasp. I want to move away from the window but my feet stay planted to the floor. The girl is pretty, but she has a serious face. For a brief moment, I feel protective when I think about all the people who will tell her to smile more, who will pinch her cheek and say “you’re pretty when you smile”. I shake my head and force those thoughts away. She’s not my child to be protective about.
Slowly, the girl raises one hand and waves at me. I back away from the window and shut the curtains.
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