1. Celebrities who have one baby then release a book about having babies, as though they’re suddenly an expert
2. Every agent in the UK who has rejected my novel The Alibi Clock
3. All my friends
Went over Mum and Dad’s again to make sure Julia was set up for two days – water, food, toilet access etc. She was giving me the silent treatment again but her body language was screaming guilt. Then I found it – a hole in the carpet. She’d started a tunnel under the bed. It was so sad it was almost funny – a tunnel to the second floor bathroom, which I kept locked on the outside. I said, again, that escape wasn’t an option and that I had someone watching her kids if she tried to leave or summon help. All she had to do was sit tight.
It’s a nice area where we used to live, when I had such a thing as a family. A THANKFUL VILLAGE, the road sign says. Neighbours are few, every note of birdsong can be heard, front gardens are mown on a Sunday and Harvest Home posters go up on telegraph poles mid-June. I like it. Well, I like the silence. Especially the garden. Mum was obsessed with it – she used to say gardening kept her sane. I’ve always associated the sights and smells of a healthy garden with happiness. When I was a kid it was packed with colour and smell. The aroma of a different herb greeted you with every new gust of wind. Rosemary and oregano. Mint and curry plant. Lemon thyme and sage. Pale yellow daffodils as blonde as my sister popping up in the beds in spring. Then cornflowers, as blue as Joe’s eyes. The lavender in late summer was the same I’d put in the little pomander that Mum kept in her handbag. The trees were like Dad – strong and tall. The beds are all empty now but the trees remain.
An odd anomaly was that even though the house was (ostensibly) uninhabited, the grass in both the front and back gardens was always neatly trimmed. This was courtesy of a neighbour, Henry Cripps, who had a ride-on mower and had come up to me at Dad’s funeral and said it was the ‘least he could do’.
Henry’s old-fashioned. He was still passing through the Stone Age when Emily Davison was throwing herself under that horse. His late wife Dorothy had been the quintessential 1950s housewife. Cooking, cleaning, child-bearing. The arranger of flowers. The beater of rugs. Henry used to time Dorothy when she went shopping. Fairly sure she only had a stroke to get away from him.
He could be nice. When I was a kid, he would let me climb over his fence to feed dandelions to his ancient tortoise, Timothy. And he’d keep newspapers back for mine and Seren’s rabbit and guinea pig ‘but not if they’re going to thump in their hutch all night’.
I made myself a black coffee and sat out on a deckchair in the garden playing ball up the lawn with Tink.
‘I say,’ came a voice. A grey head appeared over the fence. Tink went ballistic up the trellis.
‘Hi, Henry, how are you?’ I asked him, quickly remembering the rules of engagement and struggling out of the deckchair. I picked up Tink but she continued to growl and snarl, full on toothily, just as she did with rogue pigeons on the balcony.
‘Hello, there, Rhee-ann-non [he always accentuates every syllable], lovely to see you again!’
‘You too, Henry.’
Thankfully, Henry was the only neighbour around, but he was all the neighbour you needed. He’d lend you anything, knew all the local gossip and would water your plants or mow your lawn diligently when you were away. He also had the neatest garage ever. All the paint pots were labels out and alphabetically shelved, his tools hanging on the back wall with pencil lines drawn around them. His three classic cars were shone to perfection – one was kept in our garage as prearranged with Dad.
I also noticed every one of his daffodils faced the same way. I think that’s what happens to people who have nothing else to think about – their mind has time to dwell on shit it doesn’t need to, like paint pots and daffodils.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Rhee-ann-non, but I had some geraniums left over so I’ve put a couple of beds in over there, just to start them off…’
‘No, that’s fine,’ I said, looking back to where he pointed.
‘. . . and some runner beans as well, up the end there. Did you want the car moving out of the garage yet? Only last time you were here you mentioned an estate agent coming to look round.’
‘No, I’ve taken it off the market, just for the time being.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said. ‘Why’s that?’
Tink was pushing on my boob for attention like she had a right answer on Catchphrase so I put her on the ground where she chased after a woodlouse. ‘Just not the right agent. Thought we could get a better deal with someone else.’
Then I had to hear about his latest piano investment – he had four of them now, which took up two reception rooms in the ground floor of his house. He used to invite me and Seren round to listen to them. The pianos played themselves. It was unusual and interesting for about the first minutes. After a while, we were both looking round for the nearest gallows.
Still, I have to keep Henry sweet. Very sweet.
‘You came back last week, didn’t you? Thought I saw your car on the drive.’
‘Yeah, got to keep an eye on the you-know-what,’ I said, tapping my nose. He nodded. ‘And I’m just starting to clear a few things away for when it goes up for sale again.’ I chanced a desultory peep to the top of the house. It’s annoying when your body does that, isn’t it? Gives off little hints to the atrocities you’ve committed.
‘Ah, I thought I heard someone in there the other day.’
‘My assistant. Someone’s got to keep an eye on them when I can’t be here.’
‘Well as long as you’re all right. Just give me a shout if you need anything. I told your dad I’d keep an eye on you.’
‘Yep, I’m all right for everything, Henry, you don’t need to worry about me.’
He smiled, showing a line of neat yellow baby teeth, but was still standing there, as though waiting for something. Then I realised he was.
‘Oh, sorry, Henry, I completely forgot.’ I scurried over to my tote on the back of the deckchair and fished out the baggy of pot. I handed it to him over the fence.
‘Golly. This lot will keep me going for a few months!’ he chuckled, tucking it away inside his V-neck. ‘Much thanks.’
‘No problem, just let me know when you need more.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want paying for all this, Rhee-annnon? It seems like an awful lot. Terribly generous of you.’
‘No way. You were a good friend to my dad, Henry. It’s the least I can do. Got tonnes of the stuff growing up there. Mum’s the word though, OK?’
He tapped his nose and we left it at that. He practically skipped back down his symmetrical path, despite the rheumatoid arthritis in his joints.
Julia, on the other hand, didn’t seem quite so keen for me to leave this time.
‘But what if something happens to you in London and nobody knows I’m here? I could die of starvation.’
‘There are worse ways to lose weight, Julia. Try Davina’s Super Body Workout.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Just ration your food and drink and you’ll be fine. I’ve brought you some more magazines and a Puzzler. No need to thank me.’
She did the banshee impression again so I tied her back up and shut the door on her.
‘Jeez, chill out, woman I’ll bring the