The Woman Next Door(4)

She is unrecognizable now.

Surely.

Melissa settles back in the seat as the car pulls away and tries to think calming thoughts. No one is watching her. No one is following her.

No one knows.

Her mobile trills, making her jump a little and she inwardly curses herself for her jumpiness.

‘Babes, it’s me.’ Saskia’s husky voice pours into her ear like warm oil.

Despite having been educated at an elite girls’ boarding school, and growing up riding ponies and skiing, Saskia’s diction wouldn’t be out of place at a gathering of Pearly Kings and Queens.

Her Mockney affectation sometimes irritates Melissa, but she is also one of the warmest people she has ever met. She laughs like a navvy and can infect Melissa with a dose of humour when she is otherwise unable to feel it. Her loyalty during the Sam episode will never be forgotten by Melissa. Saskia knows all too well what it is like to be cheated on, and the father of her teenage son was sent packing a few years previously.

‘What’s up?’ she says, stifling a yawn. The idea of lying down on the scuffed, smelly seat of the car and taking a nap feels worryingly tempting.

‘Not much,’ says Saskia. ‘Just wondered if you need any last-minute help? I know you have caterers in but I’m about if you need me.’

‘That’s really sweet, Sass, but I think I’m all sorted.’

There’s a brief silence before Saskia speaks again. ‘And has there been any change of heart …?’

Melissa sighs. ‘Nope. He claims it’s “totally unavoidable”. Can you believe him?’

Saskia groans and then Melissa hears the suck and pop of her cigarette.

‘Fuck Mark,’ says Saskia. ‘I’m going to be there to make sure it’s the best damned party ever. Nathe is coming along and he can be your barman or something.’

Melissa smiles. ‘I can always rely on you.’

‘Love ya.’ Saskia hangs up.

The car has been stuck in a jam for the last few minutes and Melissa cranes now to see what is going on.

‘Some sort of hold-up, is there?’ she says to the driver, whose eyes are now framed in the rear-view mirror as he looks back at her.

‘There’s a lorry that was fannying around unloading something at the back of Asda, but it looks like we’re moving now. In a hurry?’

Melissa nods and then turns to the window. She has no interest in chatting through the rest of this journey. As the taxi hums back into movement again, the driver doesn’t attempt any further conversation.

They turn down leafy streets where the houses are set back from the road. Several of the houses have original stone sculptures on the gateposts, and when Tilly was little she loved what she called the ‘stone piggies’ that stand sentry at Hester’s gate.

Melissa swears under her breath as she sees the other woman walking just ahead. Hester has managed to get back before her. Not prepared to risk being stuck with her on the doorstep, Melissa switches on a smile for the driver.

‘Could I ask you to pull over just here?’ she says and she sees his rectangular gaze, harder now.

‘Sure,’ he says.

She spends some time pretending to look for money, until she is sure Hester is safely inside.





HESTER


I am starting to wonder whether I did the right thing in leaving the library so hastily.

The afternoon has trickled by in a succession of mindless television programmes, which flicker and squawk away in the background. I’m not watching any of them really, but I’m loth to turn them off. They provide a buffer against the silence.

I keep picturing them all in the pub, getting steadily more inebriated. Faces will be flushed now with alcohol, bulbous elderly noses spidered with red veins, mouths open and revealing yellowing dentures as they laugh and laugh and laugh. At me. I’m sure they will be having a right old time of it. ‘Silly, funny old Hester,’ they’ll say. ‘Isn’t she the strange one?’

Damn them all.

I know full well what Terry would have made of this.

He was always telling me I was too quick to act, too rash. He’d get that look, the one that seemed to suggest he was a man who required a superhuman level of forbearance.

‘Hester, you need to give people a chance,’ he’d whine. ‘You’re so quick to judge.’

What he really meant was, ‘Hester, you should let people walk all over you.’

I never anticipated how much he would still haunt me, fifteen years after he died. He seems to be there, yacking away in my head, almost all the time.

My mouth feels stale and I go to pick up my cup of tea but discover that it is quite cold. I must have been sitting here even longer than I had realized. This happens sometimes. I sit down to watch television, and before I know it, it’s time to put Bertie out and I don’t even remember what I’ve been watching. I gulp it down anyway, wincing a little at the way it coats my mouth with a milky film.

It is then that I hear the purring of a vehicle stopping outside. I get to my feet and go to the bay window that looks out onto the street. An Ocado van has just pulled up outside, directly below my window. The driver, a balding coloured man of indeterminate middle age, hefts himself out of the front and noisily opens the doors on the side of the van. I part a gap in my nets, noticing the sickly greyness that tells me it’s time I washed them again, and stand to the side of the window just so. From this position I can clearly see the contents of the large plastic crates as they are disgorged from the back.