Joan pinged open the door to Mags’s salon in time for her fortnightly shampoo and set. This week, she noticed, Janine’s hair was pink. What was wrong with blond... or even brunette?
‘Hiya, Joan,’ said Janine. ‘Here for your usual?’
‘Yes, ta.’ Joan took a seat and waited for Mags to finish with her previous customer. After about five minutes Mags finished and Janine offered Joan a gown to put over her clothes.
‘How have you been keeping?’ asked Mags as she settled Joan in front of the sink and got her to lean her head back.
‘Oh... you know, OK-ish.’
‘Haven’t you been well?’ Mags squirted on some shampoo.
‘Mustn’t grumble. Getting old, that’s my problem. Still better than the alternative, I always say.’
It took Mags a second or two to understand Joan’s meaning. ‘I suppose.’
‘There was a break-in round our way yesterday.’
‘Get away.’
Joan nodded as Mags’s fingers lathered up the suds.
‘There was one down our road too,’ chimed in Janine from by the reception desk. ‘Couple of days ago. The burglar got in through a vent that had been left open. Gives you the creeps, don’t it, to think of a stranger in your house when you’re asleep.’
‘It certainly does,’ said Mags. ‘Did your neighbours lose much, Joan?’
‘Don’t rightly know.’
‘My mum,’ said Janine, ‘says our neighbours lost a laptop, jewellery and cash. They said it could’ve been worse.’
‘Sounds bad enough to me,’ said Joan.
‘I suppose they could’ve been murdered in their beds,’ said Janine. ‘I mean, I watch Midsomer Murders and there’s always a stack of bodies in that. Nothing exciting ever happens here.’
‘And let’s hope it stays that way,’ said Joan with a shudder. ‘You be careful what you wish for, young lady.’
*
Later that afternoon, Olivia Laithwaite made her way up the hill to her house on her bike. At the top of her drive she got off and wheeled it over the gravel then let herself in.
‘Zac. Zac? I’m home.’ Silence. He was late, where was he? She shrugged her jacket off and hung it on the coat rack when she heard the clatter of the letter box and the thump of something landing on the mat. She went to get whatever had been delivered – the local paper, as it turned out. She took it back to her open-plan kitchen, hitched herself onto a stool by the breakfast bar and scanned the front page. There was nothing of import – a woman was going to do a run to raise money for a cancer charity and the local MP had reopened a café in the town centre after a major refurbishment. And why hadn’t she been invited to that last event? she wondered. As a member of the local council it would have been a courtesy at the very least. She sniffed. Of course, she wouldn’t have gone – she had far too many things in her diary as it stood without adding anything as trivial as that. Although, on second thoughts, she might have made an exception... after all, the MP had been there and it never hurt to press the flesh of those more influential than oneself. Still, water under the bridge.
She turned the page to the letters column – the usual mix of complaints about dog mess and potholes and locals moaning about empty wine and beer bottles up at the park. Well, she’d done her best by reporting it to the police – there was little else she could do, short of taking a bin bag up there herself and litter-picking and she wasn’t going to do that. Lord alone knew what she might find. She shuddered. No, now it was up to the police.
Her eye moved down the page to the planning applications: Application for residential development for up to 60 new dwellings at Coombe Farm, Rowan Road, Little Woodford. Coombe Farm was McGregor’s place. Sixty? Olivia boggled. Sixty! That was a huge development. And why hadn’t Cynthia at the town hall rung her to let her know? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t made it plain that she was interested. She scanned the application for further details. She noticed who the developer was – a local company who’d done some other projects in the surrounding villages. They had a reputation for building high-spec, well-crafted, well-designed and well-finished buildings. If it wasn’t for the size and position of the development Olivia might almost be tempted to back it but no... Too big and in the wrong place. She scanned down the rest of the details... vehicular access off Rowan Road, blah, blah, blah, landscaping, blah, blah, children’s play area, forty per cent affordable and social housing. Hah! That last was a sop to try and sweeten the pill for the trendy-lefty-do-gooders. In Olivia’s opinion, the last thing Little Woodford needed was another load of council homes – even if they were nicely built ones. The ones at the other end of town caused quite enough trouble. No, no, that was the tin lid. She was definitely going to fight it all the way.
‘No!’ she said out loud, and slammed her hand down on the counter. ‘Over my dead body,’ she added as she reread the notice in the paper.
The front door banged open and Zac slouched in.
‘Hi, Zac,’ she called. ‘Nice day at school? Tea?’
Zac glared at her. ‘It was school, Mum. Of course it wasn’t nice. And I’m still getting the piss ripped out of me because I’m the only kid in my year who didn’t go away at Easter.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Olivia.
‘Ha. Everyone else went skiing or somewhere hot and had proper holidays and what did we do? Fuck all.’
‘Don’t swear, dear. You know your father doesn’t approve.’
‘I look like a real loser.’
‘Does it matter? Your father was busy at work and couldn’t take the time off.’
‘He never takes time off – and d’you know why? Because he hates spending time with us.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Olivia, mildly. Really, where did Zac get his ideas from? Yes, Nigel could be tricky, but that was because he worked so hard. Of course he didn’t hate his family. Although she would prefer it if he got home earlier in the evening, and now he’d taken up this badminton club nonsense... Which reminded her, he’d be late back tonight because of it.
‘Anyway, you’re late home. Did you go into town?’
‘Jeez, Mum, I’m fifteen, what’s it to you if I did?’
‘I was only asking,’ said Olivia, nettled.
‘Well, don’t.’ And with that Zac stormed off to his room.
It’s his hormones, Olivia told herself. Except she couldn’t remember her other three being quite so volatile.
*
Nigel picked up his sports bag as he stood up, pushed his swivel chair back under his desk and hit the button on his computer to put the terminal to sleep.
‘Bye, guys,’ he said to no one in particular as he left the office. He was one of the first to leave but he’d worked through his lunch hour so it wasn’t as if he hadn’t put in the hours.
‘See ya, Nige,’ someone called after him as he made his way through the ranks of desks.
Out on the street he swung his bag over one shoulder and clutched his briefcase in his free hand as he headed for the Tube and then the mainline station. The streets were thick with people making their way home and the Underground was smelly and fetid and hot. As a rule Nigel travelled home later than this and he loathed the awfulness of the rush hour but it couldn’t be avoided as he had something he wanted to do.
He was lucky to get a seat on the train back to Little Woodford and, with his sports bag between his feet, he put his briefcase on his lap and hauled out some papers, a bunch of bank statements and a calculator. He was so engrossed in his work that he almost missed his stop and he had to make a mad dash to get his papers put away and get off before the train pulled away again. Panting, he sorted out his possessions on the platform while all the other commuters streamed to the car park. Unlike his fellow travellers, Nigel turned left and went over the bridge across the railway to the new development and the show house in its manicured garden beside a huge advertising hoarding telling anyone who was interested that COMING SOON stunning 3- and 4-bedroomed executive houses from as little as £475,000.
*
It was late when Nigel got back home.
‘How was your badminton club?’ asked Olivia as he threw his sports bag down on the stairs and then headed to the kitchen to pour himself a drink.
‘OK.’ He got out the gin bottle and looked at the level. ‘Have you been hitting this, Oli?’
‘Me? No, I had a glass or two of wine.’
Nigel shook his head like he didn’t believe her as he made his drink.
‘So what is it? A league, a ladder...?’
‘What?’ Nigel took a swig of G & T.
‘Your badminton club.’
‘Oh... it’s a ladder.’
‘So how are you doing?’
‘God, Ol, I’ve just got in. What’s with the Spanish Inquisition?’
‘I thought you’d like me to take an interest.’ Olivia got off the sofa and went to join her husband in the kitchen. ‘Zac and I had lasagne for supper. There’s plenty left for you. It won’t take me a mo to heat it in the microwave.’
‘Sure, yeah, whatever.’
Olivia pinged her husband’s supper and took it to him where he was now sitting on the sofa, plipping through the channels on the TV, then she put the dirty gratin dish into soak in the sink.
Nigel found an episode of Family Guy and settled down to watch it.
Olivia loathed the show. She grabbed his sports bag and took it upstairs where she took out his trainers then tipped the rest of the contents into the laundry basket before going through the laundry bag to find enough other whites to make up a load. She returned downstairs to shove the washing on. The forecast for the next day was for dry weather so she could peg it all out first thing.
‘I think I might have a nice long soak before I hit the sack,’ she told Nigel.
Nigel shovelled in some of his supper and mumbled something unintelligible before he wound the volume up another notch on the TV.
Olivia went upstairs, grabbed her book and then went into their en suite and turned both taps on.
It was only when she was stepping into the hot scented water and sinking down with a contented sigh that she realised that Nigel’s badminton kit had looked remarkably uncrumpled when she’d stuffed it into the washing machine.