The house in Smithy’s Loam had a lot going for it. Being of such recent construction, it was commendably easy to run. And the inevitable teething troubles of all new houses had been dealt with by the previous owners.
Also the development had the inestimable advantage for Mrs Pargeter that its residents were not all elderly. Her experience of private hotels, like the Devereux in Littlehampton, had made her eager to avoid being compartmented into another geriatric ghetto. Though she had no illusions about the fact that she was in her late sixties, Mrs Pargeter retained a lively interest in the world about her, and had come to the conclusion that this would be stimulated more by the company of younger people than by her contemporaries.
¦
She had encountered so much distressing defeatism amongst the old, too many of whom seemed to regard their remaining years as a spiralling-down process. This was not Mrs Pargeter’s approach to any part of her life. Though she could not possibly know how many more years she would be allotted, she was determined to enjoy every one of them to the full.
She did not rush her furniture-shifting. Though in remarkably good condition for her age, Mrs Pargeter recognised that now she had to husband her energy. So she worked in short bursts, with plenty of tea-and biscuit- filled intervals.
She had bought the Cottons’ kitchen appliances, as well as their thick-pile carpets and Dralon curtains, all brand new a mere eighteen months before. Though they did not coincide exactly with her own taste, she could live with them. The time to make changes would be when her self-imposed six months’ probation was over. If then she had decided that Smithy’s Loam was for her, she would invest in decorations more expressive of her own personality. No point in splashing out all at once. In spite of her considerable wealth, Mrs Pargeter was not careless with money. It was one of the many qualities in her which the late Mr Pargeter had admired.
¦
As she worked in the house that first day, and on her one necessary expedition down to the Shopping Parade (conveniently adjacent, a fact of which the original brochure for the development had made much), Mrs Pargeter absorbed the atmosphere of Smithy’s Loam. She was a woman of unusual perception and, though people were rarely aware of her scrutiny, little was missed by those mild blue eyes.
The main quality of the development which struck her was its neatness, its decorum, almost its formality. Though the houses were all of different designs and their plots of different shapes (indeed, that had been one of their chief selling points when first built), they had about them a uniformity.
Each lawn was punctiliously mowed and, though the clocks had already gone back to denote the end of Summer Time, the plants in the front gardens defiantly resisted the raggedness of autumn.
Each house was beautifully maintained. On each the paintwork and windows gleamed. So did the Volvos, Peugeots and Renault hatchbacks that stood in the drives, and so, when seen at the weekend, would the BMWs, Rovers and Mercedes that the husbands brought home.
The absence of men was another striking impression that Mrs Pargeter received from Smithy’s Loam. By the time she had woken on that first day, all of the husbands had left for work, and the early darkness ensured that the only evidence she would see of their homecomings would be the sweep of powerful headlights. All were of the aspirant classes; all worked long, ambitious hours to maintain the acquisitive executive standards of Smithy’s Loam.
As a result of this, Mrs Pargeter wondered whether she had moved into another kind of ghetto, a ghetto of women rather than of the old. Behind each immaculate, anonymous house front lay a female intelligence, with its own secrets, desires and ambitions. She was glad she had accepted the invitation for the Friday coffee morning. Already she was intrigued to meet the women, to find out how they spent their gender-segregated hours of daylight.
¦
Darkness had fallen by half-past six when Mrs Pargeter decided to call it a day. She was satisfied by what she had achieved. Already the careful disposition of her furniture had drawn attention away from the Cottons’ carpets and curtains. Already the sitting-room at least bore a distinct Pargeter imprint. She felt she deserved a drink before she cooked her steak.
It was comforting to see bottles back in the glass-fronted corner cupboard which had been delivered to their Chigwell home one night at three a.m. after another of the late Mr Pargeter’s more spectacular business coups. She opened the doors, took out a glass and poured in generous measures of vodka and Campari. Then she went to the kitchen for ice and lemon.
It was there that she became aware of how cold the house had become. She went to the cupboard under the stairs, where the central heating controls were, to remedy the situation.
She switched the heating to ‘Constant’. No indicator lights came on, but she gave the system the benefit of the doubt. It had worked perfectly to give her a hot bath that morning. She went into the sitting-room to enjoy her drink and wait for the house to warm up.
It didn’t. After half an hour it was colder rather than hotter. She felt the largest radiator in the sitting-room. No heat at all.
She checked those in the hall. They were the same.
She opened the fusebox in the kitchen. But all the fuses were intact.
She looked again in the cupboard under the stairs. Still no indicator lights. More ominously, there was not even the softest hum from the boiler.
She paused for a moment in the hall. This was a nuisance. Of course she could ring up an emergency repair service. Or she could wait till the morning and summon someone less expensive to check the system out.
But, like anyone else in a new house, her first instinct was that she was at fault. She was unfamiliar with the controls and must have switched something off by mistake. If she did call a repair man, he would most probably walk straight in and, after the patronising flick of a single switch, overcharge grossly for her embarrassment and discomfiture.
It was probably something very simple. But, as the evening got chillier, Mrs Pargeter wanted it sorted out. She hadn’t paid all that money for a house to sit and freeze in it.
Of course the simplest thing would be to ring the former owner. Mrs Pargeter didn’t really want to do that on her first day of residence, but, on the other hand, Theresa Cotton had seemed an extremely amiable – if anonymous – young woman who, if it were a simple matter of one switch, would be only too ready to help out.
Mrs Pargeter looked through her diary for the Cottons’ new address. The husband, Rod, she recalled, had got some promotion which involved being based up North for a few years. Near York. Yes, that was right. Mrs Pargeter found the address.
But there wasn’t a phone number. Of course, she remembered now. Theresa Cotton had said the phone was only being connected the day they moved, and they hadn’t yet been given the number.
Still, they’d been there nearly two days now. Mrs Pargeter rang Directory Enquiries.
“What town, please?”
“It’s near York. Place called Dunnington.”
“And what name?”
“Cotton. The address is ‘Elm Trees, Bascombe Lane’.”
There was a silence from the other end of the phone.
“‘Cotton’ you said?”
“Yes.”
“No. Sorry, no one of that name at the address you mention.”
“They only moved in yesterday, and had the phone connected then.”
“Just a minute. I’ll check.” Another silence. “No, no record of a new number for anyone by the name of Cotton. Sorry.”
“Are you sure there isn’t anywhere else you could check?”
“Certain, Madam. Maybe you were given the wrong address…?”
“Hmm. Maybe. Thank you, anyway.”
After she had put the phone down, Mrs Pargeter looked thoughtful. She still looked thoughtful as she went through into the kitchen and started preparing her steak.
Must be Directory Enquiries’ mistake – the service had gone downhill so much since privatisation, she
