The Second Life of Sally Mottram. David Nobbs

Sparling was walking towards her with his Labrador, and she knew the sort of thing he was going to say, and she dreaded it.

      ‘Not a bad day.’

      She thought of the shock there would be if she told Peter Sparling to piss off. Or worse. Something sarcastic was needed, though. She had to bleed this sudden overwhelming feeling of frustration.

      ‘Yes, not bad at all,’ she said. ‘Very little thunder, the lightning scarcely forked, and not a tsunami in sight. Mustn’t grumble, eh, Peter?’

      Peter Sparling gave her a puzzled look, said ‘Come on, Kenneth’, as if urging his beloved dog out of the contaminated area surrounding this madwoman, and walked on.

      Sally walked on up Oxford Road, past ‘Windy Corner’, the home of the town’s only psychiatrist, the overworked Dr Mallet, and past the trim, neat, lifeless garden of ‘Mount Teidi’, where her neighbours the Hammonds were so silent that she often thought they must be in Tenerife when they were in fact at home.

      Everything was silent today. The silence oppressed her.

      She opened the gate into the immaculate garden of ‘The Larches’, just as lifeless at this early moment in the year, but full of the promise of bloom. She noticed a weed or two, and decided to let them live a little longer; she wasn’t obsessive, she wasn’t a Hammond.

      She put her key in the lock, turned it, opened the door, entered the hall.

      Inside the house it was silent too. She saw him straight away, and, that day, he was definitely not being a stickler for his tea. That day he had done something that was definitely dramatic, and might even be considered by some people to be brave. He was hanging from a beam at the top of the stairs. There was a rope round his neck. He was very, very dead.

       TWO

       In the cul-de-sac

      ‘They’re old,’ said Arnold Buss in a low voice.

      ‘And we aren’t?’ said Jill, also in a low voice, although it was absurd to feel the need to speak so quietly, as their new neighbours had only just pulled up behind the furniture van, and were busy getting things out of the ample boot of their silver VW Passat.

      The Busses were standing a little back from the window, Arnold further back than Jill, in the cold spare front room on the first floor of number 11 Moor Brow, which was always referred to as ‘The Cul-de-Sac’, as if Potherthwaite was actually rather proud of having such a thing as a cul-de-sac. They didn’t want to be caught peering out. Arnold had taught history, and Jill had been in the forefront of the world of the colonoscopy in the District Hospital. It wouldn’t do to be seen to be curious about their new neighbours.

      The man, now carrying two small suitcases, suddenly looked up to examine his new surroundings. Jill and Arnold hurriedly stepped back even further from the window.

      ‘I don’t like the look of their standard lamps,’ said Arnold.

      ‘What’s wrong with them?’

      ‘Ostentatious. They’re going to be materialistic. I know the type.’

      ‘And what did they do for a living?’

      ‘I don’t know. How could I possibly know that?’

      ‘I’d have thought their occasional tables might tell you.’

      ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Jill. Where are you going?’

      Jill Buss was striding towards the door with a sudden sense of purpose. It unnerved Arnold when she showed a sense of purpose.

      ‘I’m going to tidy my make-up, if you must know.’

      This was dreadful news. No good could come out of Jill tidying her make-up. Arnold was not sociable.

      ‘And why might you be going to tidy your make-up at this moment?’

      But Jill was far ahead, out of earshot. She had marched across the landing, now she burst through their large bedroom – the rooms were big in these old houses – strode into her en-suite – they had separate bathrooms, the en-suite was her stronghold – and shut the door in Arnold’s face. She didn’t like him in the room when she was doing her make-up; he could never resist sarcasm. ‘We’re going to the pub for the early bird, not Buckingham Palace.’

      He hesitated, then plucked up his courage, opened the door, and went in.

      ‘Arnold! I might have been on the toilet.’

      ‘You aren’t.’

      ‘But I might have been, that’s the point. You couldn’t know I wasn’t.’

      ‘I’m surprised that …’ He stopped. What he had been about to say wasn’t wise, wasn’t wise at all.

      ‘You’re surprised what?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘No, come on, Arnold, what?’

      He sighed. His sighs were deep and frequent.

      ‘I’m surprised that a woman who earned her living giving people colonoscopies should be so ladylike about going to the toilet in front of a man who has known her and her body for forty-four years. Why are you touching up your face, Jill?’

      ‘I’m going round to see them, if you must know.’

      ‘See them? See who?’

      ‘Arnold! You aren’t stupid. Don’t pretend to be. Them. Our new neighbours.’

      Arnold’s mouth dropped open. He looked as if he’d had a stroke. He could see his appalled face staring out at him from behind Jill’s still-lovely face in the mirror. It was a bad moment. He was terrified of having a stroke, and ending up looking as he looked at this moment, and it was painful to see his face there, haggard, rigid and grey, just behind hers. She looked infuriatingly attractive still, the softness of her auburn hair, the strong curves of the nostrils, the elegance of the upper lip. Even the lines of her face, because they came from smiles more than from grimaces, enhanced her charm. He looked so much older than her. He was older, but only by a year, seventy-three to her seventy-two. No, the picture he saw in her mirror in her bathroom did not please him. But worse even than that was her announcement. Going round to see them!

      ‘See them, Jill? Why?’

      ‘Welcome them. See if they need anything. Don’t you want to be friendly?’

      ‘Of course I do. If they’re the sort of people we want to be friendly with. But they might be Jehovah’s Witnesses. They might be shoplifters. They might be Liberal Democrats. They might be Catholics. They might be vegetarians. They might be Welsh.’

      ‘They might be Welsh vegetarian Liberal Democrat Catholic shoplifters.’

      ‘Exactly. Now do you see why I don’t want you to just charge round there?’

      ‘So how do you propose that we find out if they’re our sort of people? Do we send them a questionnaire?’

      ‘Don’t be silly. We observe them. We listen. Do they argue? Do they shout? What sort of music do they play? Does he put the box on when he mows the lawn? Do they hang out the washing in a seemly manner? What quality are their underclothes? Do they put the bins out properly? Do they have dogs?’

      ‘How many times do they pee in the night?’

      ‘You’re not taking this seriously.’

      Jill turned round, away from the mirror, to give him a sober look.

      ‘I am, you know,’ she said. ‘We’ve been attached on to an empty house for more than two years. This means change, this could be the