She was very careful with her vases and bottles, of course she was. But every now and again, one decided that it had had enough of life and flung itself to the floor. Shards of broken glass had embedded themselves in Amy’s feet a number of times, until she’d made the wise choice to invest in rubber-soled slippers.
She made her way down the stairs, holding tight to the handrail to make sure she didn’t lose her footing over the boxes and crates that had somehow ended up squatting on the staircase. Edging through the hallway and sighing at the sight of the newspapers littering the floor, Amy went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea.
The choice of mugs was a favourite moment in the day. So many beautiful options lined her counters. She’d just decided that today was a china teacup with a gold rim sort of day, when the doorbell rang.
It gave her a bit of a fright. It didn’t ring often and was never who she hoped for. It didn’t help that the bell delivered an ungainly rendition of the first bars of Beethoven’s Fifth that would make the great man turn in his grave. Amy added a new doorbell to her mental shopping list and decided to wait it out and hope whoever it was went away.
The person outside, finding the bell ineffective, started pounding on the door.
Then silence.
Amy peered into the hallway in the hope that whoever it was had given up. A pair of brown eyes stared back at her, framed by her letterbox. There was a clatter as the eyes disappeared and a mouth adorned with a peachy shade of lipstick came into her rectangular field of vision.
‘I can see you,’ said the mouth. Of course it was all a lie; mouths can’t see. ‘Please open the door.’
Amy debated opening the door only to the extent that the chain would allow, but that always made her feel like a paranoid old lady. She hadn’t yet turned forty. Instead she extracted her keys from her handbag, opened the door just enough to squeeze outside, then deftly swung it closed behind her before her visitor could see any more of her hallway.
Her next-door neighbour, Rachel, was still crouching with her mouth pressed to where the letterbox had just been and it left the women awkwardly close, Rachel at crotch height to Amy. It was a position neither relished, and Rachel stood up and stepped backwards, looking put out.
‘Can I help you?’ enquired Amy, with the least helpful tone she could muster.
Rachel made a sighing sound that reminded Amy of a horse. ‘Smudge found another mouse,’ she said. ‘He dragged it across our new ivory carpet last night and left a trail of blood. I can’t get it off.’
Amy glanced at her front garden, deciding that it was time to water her potted geraniums again. The plants had grown leggy and the flowers, once postbox red, were rather brown, but the glazed pots they lived in were still a beautiful shade of crimson. Her rose had little green buds of promise that matched its own green pot and she could smell her honeysuckle, clinging to the front of her house as it snaked up from the large, deep blue pot that reminded her of the ocean.
‘Amy!’ said Rachel. Amy looked back at her neighbour. ‘Are you even listening to me?’
‘I’m sorry for the mouse, poor little thing,’ Amy replied eventually. ‘But Smudge is your cat. I really don’t know why it’s got anything to do with me.’
‘You know why.’
‘Of course I don’t,’ replied Amy, wondering why Rachel blamed her problems on Amy. Too much time on her hands, she suspected.
‘I’ve had enough. It’s the final straw. Things have to change.’
‘You’re getting rid of Smudge?’ suggested Amy.
‘No,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m going to call the council. The mice are coming from your house. I know they are.’
Amy was sure Rachel could know no such thing, unless she spent her evenings tracking mice through the cellars of Ivydale Close. The walls were thin enough for Amy to know that that was not what she did of an evening. She argued with her husband, watched EastEnders and then had noisy sex, presumably with said husband. The smell of cigarette smoke used to follow all three activities, but recently Amy had smelt something sweeter. She wondered briefly if Rachel had made the unlikely transition from smoking to baking, until she realised it was the saccharine flavour of a vanilla vape wafting through the air.
‘I’ve never seen a mouse in my house,’ Amy replied.
‘They’ll be hiding under all your rubbish.’
‘There is no rubbish in my house,’ said Amy, with pride. Her house was fairly full, of course, but that was because it was filled to the brim with treasures.
‘We both know that’s not true,’ replied Rachel.
‘And I’d thank you to keep that cat away from my property,’ continued Amy. ‘I hate to think of the damage he could do to my birds.’
Rachel rolled her eyes at the mention of Amy’s birds and opened her mouth, but her words remained unspoken. Both women were distracted by the growl of a large engine. Their little street of suburban terraced two-up two-downs rarely saw much traffic, and they both turned to watch as a large moving van pulled in.
‘Old Mrs Hill’s place. It must be,’ said Rachel. The women enjoyed a temporary truce as they watched the van attempt to park.
Amy missed Mrs Hill. She’d been a perfect neighbour, quiet and undemanding. Even when Amy had shared the house with Tim and Chantel, they’d never made it beyond a gentle nod of greeting and an occasional muttered ‘hello’ if either was feeling particularly gregarious. In fact, she didn’t even notice that Mrs Hill was gone until her grown-up children turned
