The Wrong Neighbour by Caleb Crowe

Author:Caleb Crowe [Crowe, Caleb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

31

INVOICE

I’m woken by voices. This isn’t the usual buzz and thud of power tools. This is something different – a chorus of men’s voices which appear to be coming from our garden. Nick is asleep and seems dead to the world. My guess is he’s still exhausted by his arrest and interview, and so I get up and leave him crashed out. I go quietly downstairs and into the kitchen.

Looking through the back window I can see exactly what is going on. A team of men are erecting a fence along Ron’s boundary line. But this isn’t the normal sort of fence you’d see in a domestic garden. This is a dense, thick wire mesh, the kind you’d put around a tennis court in a park. Lengths of heavy wire netting are being unrolled from a huge tube and stretched between thick metal supports, several of which have already been dug into the ground. The tops of the supports bend over at an angle, to make it difficult for anyone who tries to climb the fence. The only thing missing is barbed wire.

All I can think is that our garden looks like a tiny, feeble prison yard.

Ron is directing the action, pacing out the line for the fence, barking at the workmen, spurring them on. It’s not yet 8 a.m. and the sun hasn’t got that hot, but he is beetroot red and sweating copiously from all his marching about, his moist t-shirt clinging to the thick ripples of his body. He grabs one of the men by the collar with his sausage fingers and indicates the location of a pillar. As he does so, he catches sight of me looking out from my kitchen. He beams a broad smile at me and gives a cheery wave.

I step back from the window. There’s something even more upsetting about his apparent friendliness than his hostility, acting as if Nick’s arrest and Dermot’s injury are some trivial spat that can be brushed under the carpet. He’s gloating, of course, trying to provoke a reaction, enjoying the chaos and hurt he’s caused.

By the time Nick gets up it’s nearly lunchtime and the fence is practically finished. He just stands in the kitchen, staring at it. I’m trying to work out what he’s thinking. He knows the reason we are trapped here is down to him. Maybe he doesn’t want to draw attention to the situation because it will reflect badly on him.

When I realise he’s not going to say anything, I head upstairs to my workroom. I need to throw myself into my work. We need the money. Some orders have come in on my website, and I check the stock I have, parcel a few packages up, and set about making some more earrings. It feels good to be doing something constructive.

Early in the afternoon I head downstairs, planning to go out and post my orders. Nick isn’t around. I guess he must have headed off to see his solicitor or something.

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