Like a TV switched off. But then …
A FEW MINUTES LATER, 9.39 P.M.
Martian Music And Warm, Buttery Toast on canvas
The woman must have heard my shout.
She darted across the room to the beanbag. Bigger, bolder, glittering neon sounds belted out from the iPod.
Martian music.
These colours are alien visitors that only I can understand – colours that people like Dad don’t know exist. They don’t look like they belong in the real world. They only exist in my head – impossible to describe, let alone paint.
Silver, emerald green, violet blue and yellow simultaneously, but somehow not those colours at all.
‘She likes her house music, doesn’t she?’ Dad said. ‘The neighbours will be thrilled.’
It sounded like a question, but I had no answer. I didn’t know who ‘she’ was or what ‘she’ was doing at 20 Vincent Gardens.
Dad’s other choice of words was accurate for once. I was thrilled, along with all the neighbours. Not only did ‘she’ like dancing and loud classical music, she loved Martian music even more.
I sensed we could be friends. Great friends.
‘This won’t go down well,’ he said. ‘She’s already wound up David by parking directly outside his house.’
‘Who is she?’ I asked. ‘Why doesn’t she have any proper clothes? Why did the men take away her furniture in a van?’
Dad didn’t answer. He watched her wild dancing, throwing her hair from side to side. I think he felt sorry for her because she couldn’t afford furniture or curtains. She wore a slippery bright floral dressing gown, which kept wriggling down her shoulders and falling open at the waist. It felt wrong to look at her bare, alien-like skin, with or without binoculars.
This wasn’t the elderly woman Dad said used to live here. This ‘she’ – The Woman With No Name – didn’t remind me of an old person. At all. I don’t normally pay too much attention to hair, but hers was long and blonde and swinging. She moved gracefully around the room, twirling like a ballet dancer or a composer, conducting an orchestra of colour.
‘Who is she?’ I repeated.
‘I don’t know for sure,’ he replied. ‘Pauline Larkham died in a home a few months back. This woman could be a friend or a niece or something. Or maybe she’s the long-lost daughter. I don’t know her name. She’d be about the right age. David mentioned her a while ago. Said she never bothered to come back for Mrs Larkham’s funeral.’
This was news to me. I didn’t know the old woman who used to live over the road was called Pauline Larkham or that she’d died in a new home. Maybe she didn’t like this one much.
‘Well, which one is this woman? Is she a friend or a niece or a long-lost daughter who didn’t come back for the funeral and doesn’t have a name?’
Dad was infuriating. He didn’t grasp the importance of getting the facts straight. I knew one woman couldn’t be two or three people at the same time. She was either someone’s friend or someone had lost her and needed help finding her again.
‘I don’t know, Jasper. Do you want me to ask her for you?’ He fiddled with the strap of the binoculars, which made me itch to snatch them back before he scuffed the leather. ‘It would be neighbourly of us to welcome her to our street, don’t you think? To help her find her feet?’
I stared out of the window, confused. It was obvious where her feet were and she didn’t need his help finding them. She flitted about on the tips of her toes.
I didn’t want to point out the stupidity of his question. Instead of concentrating on her feet, he should have run out of our house and up the path to hers. I could have watched from the window because it was too soon to meet her in person. I hadn’t had time to prepare for the conversation.
Too late!
A man walked up the path to 20 Vincent Gardens, wearing dark trousers and a dark top. I guessed he was a thrilled neighbour, welcoming the new arrival to our street.
He banged hard on the door. Irregular circles of mahogany brown.
The music stopped abruptly.
I instantly disliked this visitor. He’d prevented Dad from introducing himself to The Woman With No Name. Worse still, he’d disrupted her palette of colours.
‘Uh-oh,’ Dad said.
‘Uh-oh.’ I agreed; this man looked like bad news.
The Woman With No Name tied up her dressing gown. Hard. Like she was fastening a parcel at Christmas to deliver to the Post Office. Fifteen seconds later, she appeared at the front door. Her mouth opened wide as if she’d sat down in a dentist’s chair. She took a step backwards, further away from the door. Maybe he wasn’t a thrilled neighbour after all. I didn’t like the way he’d made her mouth change into an ‘O’ shape.
‘Why is she walking backwards?’ I asked. ‘Has he frightened her? Should we call the police?’
‘No, Jasper. That’s just Ollie Watkins from number eighteen. He came home last week to look after his mum. Mrs Watkins is very poorly so I doubt you’ll see much of him on the street.’
‘Are you sure the woman over there’s OK?’
‘Absolutely. Ollie doesn’t mean her any harm. He’s taken her by surprise, that’s all. She probably wasn’t expecting any visitors on her first night here.’
Again, my hands longed to rip the binoculars back. Dad gripped them hard. He didn’t want to let go, but they didn’t belong to him. They were mine. I was about to point out this Important Fact when the man’s hand lunged out. I gasped. I took a step back too, convinced he was about to grab the belt of The Woman With No Name.
‘Don’t worry, Jasper. He’s not threatening her or anything like that. He wants to shake her hand. Remember, people do that when they’re introducing themselves to each other for the first time. It’s polite.’
The woman didn’t want to shake his hand. Perhaps she didn’t know Dad’s rules about what to do in social situations. She folded her arms around her body as if she needed to tie up the parcel even tighter, with especially strong brown vinyl tape, for the long journey ahead.
‘Ha! That went well,’ Dad said.
‘I know. It means we can’t welcome her now that he’s welcomed her.’ The crushing disappointment felt like a huge weight on my shoulders, drilling into the carpet, through the wooden floorboards and plunging me into the sitting room below. The man had stolen our introduction.
‘I doubt he’s the welcoming committee,’ Dad said. ‘I mean, he probably has welcomed her to the street, to be polite. I don’t think that’s his real reason for visiting tonight.’
‘Why? What is it?’ I stared at the mysterious man, Ollie Watkins, with the mysterious motive for wanting to jump the queue and meet The Woman With No Name before us.
‘He probably wants to have a chat about the music. The noise passes right through the walls of terraced houses. He and his mum must be able to hear everything magnified in Technicolor.’
That’s when I felt another, strange emotion.
Jealousy. The word’s a wishy-washy pickled onion shade.
Ollie Watkins and his mum didn’t suffer an annoying dilution of colour. It could absorb through the walls into their front room.
‘Lucky, lucky them,’ I said.
Dad