‘Who will I like?’
‘Peggy,’ said Mrs Shelley, raising her voice a bit, as if she thought he might have gone deaf.
‘I don’t know any Peggys. Wait a minute … is this somebody who’s moving into the upstairs flat?’
‘Of course. I told you it was all arranged.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Well, it’s all arranged anyway.’
‘Who is she, Mrs Shelley?’
‘Quite by chance, I have a friend who lives in Chicago. She emigrated to the USA with her family nearly thirty years ago.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘We’re old schoolfriends. I was very sad when she left. But her husband lost his job here during the seventies when the company he worked for went out of business, and they wanted to make a new life for themselves. I can’t blame them really. He’s in research.’
‘Very interesting.’
Cooper had learned just to make neutral noises while Mrs Shelley was speaking. Eventually, she might get round to telling him what he wanted to know, with a bit of nudging. But it was best to let her talk and get there at her own speed, otherwise she felt harassed and got irritable.
‘And this is the lady who’s taking the upstairs flat?’
‘No, of course not. Peggy is her daughter.’
‘I see.’
‘Now, Ben, I don’t want you to be rude to her.’
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Cooper raised his hands. ‘Why on earth should 1 do that?
‘Well, she’s American, you know.’
There’s nothing wrong with Americans.’
Mrs Shelley looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure about that. She seems rather, well … exuberant.’
Cooper smiled. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
‘She doesn’t seem anything like my old friend, considering she’s her daughter. I don’t know what could have happened to her in Chicago. I suppose she must have got it from her father’s side. What do you think of this? I bought it in a craft gallery in Buxton, near the Crescent.’
Mrs Shelley opened the striped bag and showed him the contents.
‘What on earth is it?’
It looked like an empty wooden shuttle from a cotton mill, but with dozens of little openings along its length, like tiny mouths with pouting lips. There was something slightly obscene about it. But maybe that was just his own imagination.
‘It’s an Australian Banksia nut,’ said Mrs Shelley.
‘A what?’
‘Well, that’s what the label said. An Australian Banksia nut. It” cost me 4 pounds pence
‘A bargain.’
‘Do you think she’ll like it?’
Cooper raised her eyebrows. ‘Is this for my new neighbour?’
Mrs Shelley hesitated. ‘It’s a house-warming present. I thought it might make a talking point.’
Cooper looked again at the object. The tiny mouths pouted and smirked, as if they were forming lewd words.
‘Well, I suppose that’ll work,’ he said.
As soon as he had settled in at Welbeck Street, Ben Cooper had asked Mrs Shelley if he could have bolts put on the front and back doors of his flat. The locks were OK, but they didn’t give much security on their own. Diane Fry had warned him about living too close to the patch where he was so well known, and had advised him to have a spy-hole fitted on the front door, too, so that he could never be surprised by a caller. But that seemed to be going a bit too far; it was a little too paranoid. This was only Welbeck Street, Edendale, after all.
When the ring came on his bell, Cooper almost jumped with
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surprise. He had not thought a spy-hole was necessary. Now, though, he experienced a strange reluctance to open the door without being able to see who was on the other side. He couldn’t call it foreboding exactly, more a need to be careful, a suspicion that opening the door could change his life.
The woman who stood on the doorstep was a complete stranger. She was in her thirties, thin, with straight fair hair. A battered blue rucksack was slung over the shoulder of her cotton jacket.
‘Oh, I think you rang the wrong bell/ said Cooper. ‘You’ll be for the upstairs flat, won’t you?’
She looked confused. ‘Are you Ben? Ben Cooper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then, it’s you I’ve come to see.’
‘Aren’t you my new neighbour?’
