‘Irrelevant, since that’s in the past.’ Zan snorts dismissively. ‘What, you think she’d have spilled everything she knows if I’d worn a Bambi T-shirt instead? Anyway, there’s an asterisk, so it’s not even a swear word. Which house shall we start with?’
‘Let’s just go door to door.’
‘Let’s definitely not do that. We should pick the ones that look most chilled.’
‘Chilled? Oh, you mean—’
‘Not refrigerated. Most of them look uptight and closed off – walls, fences, high gates. Kind of like luxurious prisons. There’s no way people who live in houses like that are going to invite two strangers in and start chatting to them, answering a load of weird questions.’
‘So shall we start with the only one up this end that doesn’t look like that?’ I point at it through the car window. On one of its gateless gateposts, there’s a sign saying ‘No. 3’. There’s a wall, but it’s low and crumbling. There’s nothing to suggest that its owners want to hide themselves from prying eyes.
‘Number 3 looks a good shout,’ Zan agrees. ‘Especially as it’s got a wheelie bin at an angle outside its front door.’
‘Why? How’s that relevant?’
‘Think about it, Mother.’
We sit in silence for a few seconds. Then I say, ‘Thought. Still don’t know.’
‘It can’t be bin day, or everyone’s bins would be out on the pavement. Or a good few still would, at least – the ones belonging to people who aren’t yet back from work. All these houses have massive gardens, loads of space on either side. But number 3’s owners couldn’t be arsed to wheel the bin a few feet further and put it there, in that wooden bus-shelter type thing attached to the side of the house that’s probably a bin store. They’d rather make the least possible effort, and leave it at the top of the driveway, where it makes the house look worse to anyone who passes by. I mean, who cares, right? I wouldn’t either. There are bins in the world – deal with it.’
‘But that’s your point,’ I say, getting it at last.
‘Uh-huh. Number 3’s owners can’t be arsed with trivial shit. All their neighbours hate them for lowering the tone with their noticeable bin, and they don’t care. Maybe they also won’t care that it’s not the done thing to tell strangers about what secret, twisted things your neighbours get up to.’
‘Okay. Number 3 it is.’
I lock the car and we walk up the driveway. It’s a wide house, as enormous as all the others on Wyddial Lane, painted the colour of buttermilk, with a red-brick chimney attached to its front. Next to the front door there’s a sign that says ‘Low Brooms’.
I ring the bell and we wait. ‘We might have to wait a while,’ I mutter. ‘Getting to the front door in a house this size …’
It opens surprisingly quickly. A woman who looks around my age, wearing cut-off bleached-denim shorts and a pink long-sleeved top, smiles at me and Zan and says, ‘Please say something nice!’
Not the response I was expecting.
Her frizzy brown hair has streaks of grey in it. Round her neck, on a leather cord, she’s wearing a huge silver pendant that looks like a jellyfish, with a shiny dark green stone at its centre. ‘I like your pendant,’ I tell her, hoping that’s nice enough.
She beams at me. ‘That’s the best thing you could have said. You can come again!’ She laughs. ‘I couldn’t adore it more, and I’ve worn it every day since I bought it and, do you know what? No one has said anything about it apart from you. No one’s spontaneously said, “What a beautiful piece of jewellery!” Look, it’s two-sided. Nautilus with a malachite eye on one side, ammonite fossil on the other. Oh – that wasn’t what I meant when I said, “Say something nice!” I wasn’t fishing for compliments!’
‘Jellyfishing for compliments,’ I say, trying to present myself as the sort of person this woman would get on well with.
‘Huh? Oh! No, a nautilus is very different from a jellyfish. Though in the grand scheme of things, they’re both in the sea, so … hey!’ She shrugs. ‘I’m sorry. You must think I’m high on drugs. I’m really not. I’m just kind of excited. I don’t normally … wow, I mean, shut up, Tilly, stop blathering on at these poor people!’
‘Hi, Tilly. I’m Beth Leeson. This is my daughter, Zannah.’ I hold out my hand. She shakes it. ‘Please don’t stop blathering on our account. We came here to blather, as a matter of fact, so … if you blather first, I’ll feel less guilty about my own blathering!’
I can feel disapproval radiating from Zannah. As soon as we’re alone, she’s going to list all the ways I handled this wrong.
Tilly from number 3 appreciates my act, anyway. She’s laughing like a drain. ‘Okay, well, do you wanna come in?’ she says. ‘Assuming you’re not serial killers, or canvassers from an evil political party? They’re all evil these days, let’s face it. I’d vote Lib Dem but there are only about three of them left and one’s a golden retriever.’ She throws back her head and cackles again.
‘We’re neither murderous nor political,’ I tell her.
‘Fantastic. Come in, then.’ We can’t. She’s blocking the doorway. ‘I’ll tell you what I meant. So. For months, I’ve not been answering the door when the bell rings. Justin and the kids are out all day during the week, and I’ve got those hours and only those hours to do all my work – I work from home – and clean, and cook, and the rest, you know how it is. So, my New Year’s resolution was: no more rushing to the door when the bell rings. I stuck to it, too. Religiously. Unlike my other resolution, which was to cut out sugar and flour and alcohol, but hey! And at first it was so liberating. Understanding for the first time in my life that my doorbell – like my phone, like my email inbox – is there to serve me. Not the other way round! You know? And it’s been amazing, I’ve been so productive since January, but … lately, I’ve started to think it’s a shame. Who knows what those doorbell rings might be, you know? What if I’m too willingly closing myself off to new, fantastic experiences? So today, on an impulse, I thought to myself – I needed a break, to be honest – “Get off your arse and open that door.” And immediately panicked in case it was something dull like a survey about shopping habits. I never shop, anyway. Hate it. Waste of a day.’
‘If you want the opposite of dull, you’re in luck,’ I tell her. ‘I rang your bell in the hope that you’d answer a whole load of … unusual questions that no one else will answer honestly – about Wyddial Lane.’
‘What kind of unusual?’
‘It’s a long story. The short version is, I had some friends who used to live at number 16, and—’
‘Number 16. That’s the Caters, right? And before that …’ She stops. Her eyes widen. ‘Lewis Braid? Is he your friend?’
‘Not any more, no. Not for twelve years.’
‘But you’re here to ask unusual questions about him? Please say you are! That man is crying out to have unusual questions asked about him. Well, the opposite actually – he’s not crying out for it, he’d hate it, but the world is, or at least, I am.’