Neighbours

The road lines on my forefinger had increased over the past couple of years more quickly than I had a chance to notice. The rim of my wine glass felt so smooth as I played the same note, going round and round and round. To think my skin had felt this smooth once upon a time.?

‘Rog, are you still playing at that thing? And why do you insist on using a wine glass for orange juice? I’ve got a proper orange juice glass.’ Mary pottered about, getting our old people’s underwear off the line. I knew it was old. We’d embraced it. At least, I had. Mary eyed the neighbours’ not-so-large knickers on our right side of the conker-brown fence. Black lace. Mary had worn a pair once upon a time.?Might?have been when we conceived Tom. Those were the days. ‘Rog?’

‘Mmm?’ I stopped the tune with my finger and took a swig of the orange juice. ‘Yes, yes.’ I thought it better than to ask her to repeat what she had said. That never went down too well. I’d been getting more distant than ever recently. And it worried her. No matter what I said, I knew it did.

She paused with arms full of white laundry and smiled down at me with that beautiful expression of stern love – the one she used on me when we first met in the?hospital,?and I had the pleasure of being one of her patients. Although, at the time, it didn’t feel like pleasure. In fact, I disliked her very much indeed. But that all changed when she started talking about a classic car show she’d been to at the weekend. My whole body jolted up in interest, and suddenly?her?stern approach grew on me.?

It got us talking, and we found we had so much in common. When I got out of the hospital and healed from my shoulder injury, I asked?her?out to a show I knew about. And every year after that, we?went to?the same one and shared a picnic. There was a proposal, pregnancy announcements, arguments, laughter, moments with the children, family bereavements, celebrations, and then again, just us two.?

‘Do you think we should offer to help them with the new baby?’ Mary asked, almost to herself than to me. She peered over to their garden as screaming erupted?inside the house, followed by a groaning woman and a low male voice.?

‘Would you have wanted help back then?’

Mary shrugged her shoulder. ‘I would’ve been too stubborn to admit it, but yes. We still hardly know them. I told you we should’ve made more effort when they moved in.’

‘You got ill and didn’t want to pass it along.’

‘S’pose. Still though…’

I cocked my head at her, squinting from the sun. Waste of money, that fancy parasol.

‘We should’ve made more of an effort. It’s been six months.’

‘These young’uns don’t linger outside like we used to. Remember we’d all sit in camping chairs on the front lawn?’ I chuckled, remembering when this street was full of young couples raring to raise families, and we’d come and go from each other’s houses like we were family. ?

‘Covid changed that,’ Mary replied somewhat sadly. She shrugged. ‘And…’

She couldn’t say it still. The passing of our friends next door that made a way for this young couple to move in.

‘Things change,’ she said.

The screaming stopped, and Mary and I raised our eyebrows. They’d done it.?Within five seconds, it flared up again, and so did the groaning.

‘Just whip up a lasagne for their tea,’ I suggested. ‘Then you can ask if they want more help.’

She nodded. ‘Right then.’ Her gaze shifted to my finger running over the rim of the glass again. ‘It’s you making that blasted noise that’s causing the baby to scream. Just drink the thing!’

‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on.’ I downed it in one, pulled my hat over my eyes, and leaned back in the chair, the dolce tones of the little one making me feel forty years younger.