Everybody Needs Good Neighbours : The Return 

 The first sign that the retired couple at number eight were probably alive was the morning the ‘For Sale’ sign was erected at the front of their house by an enthusiastic estate agent. The racket from banging the wooden post against the hardening ground, at just about ten o’clock, had the residents, working from home, dashing to their curtains. That certain neighbour went further and cracked opened their front door to check the scene. But was it the McCoy’s selling their house or someone else? That question was answered that same day when the ‘black’ neighbour found Mrs McCoy, with a flashlight in hand, on the pavement, bent over, peering into the twenty-one-point-five centimetres diameter hole that housed their gas meter. She was a short woman and wrapped in a thick, long, greyish-black cardigan, she looked like the back of a huge sheep. As strange as the sight was, it would have been stranger, still, for her neighbour to walk past without asking her what she was doing. It was also likely the only opportunity to find out from her where she and her husband had been all over summer. 
“Have you lost something?” The neighbour asked her. 

“I’m trying to read the meter. I prefer to send an actual reading rather than get the estimated bills because I think it’s always more than I use.” She said. 

“Can you see anything?” The neighbour asked. 

“Not too well, not even with my flashlight”. She replied. 

“Shall I try?” The neighbour asked. 

Mrs McCoy nodded her head and handed the neighbour the flashlight. With a bit of adjustment the younger neighbour was able to read the numbers out to Mrs McCoy. She wrote them down on a small notepad with a pencil. Handing the flashlight back to Mrs McCoy the neighbour broached the subject. 

“We missed you over the summer. The children sure did miss their supply of plums”. 

Mrs McCoy cocked her head to the right and move back slightly so she could look into the neighbour’s eyes. Her facial expression, raised eyebrows squeezed together, was pure sarcasm. The neighbour wasn’t deterred. 

“Well, it’s not hard to notice when someone is away for a long period of time. And you and your husband missed out on the lovely hot weather we had.” 

“We didn’t miss anything. If you must know, we were in Florida and Jamaica, so, we had the best weather. Thank you for your help.” 

And with that, Mrs McCoy turned and marched towards her house. She didn’t open the front door wide enough so she had to literally squeeze her frame into the house. From the pavement the neighbour just about caught a glimpse of peach painted walls, cream coloured carpet and a healthy green plant which had grown past the height of the door frame.  

As can be imagined, no sooner had the estate agent left, the McCoy’s neighbours were on the estate agency’s website to see what the inside of the McCoy’s home looked like. They weren’t going to miss the chance to see what was behind the white front door with the frosted glass. But those who visited that day were disappointed because the details nor pictures had been uploaded to the website. It was another two days before anyone would be able to indulge their curiosity. At least three of their neighbours would have an idea of what the building consisted of because they had the same style of house. For others they would find that the house was spread over three floors including the ground floor. There were five bedrooms, two bathrooms, one was an ensuite, a cloakroom, a study, a kitchen/diner, and utilities area. The entire house was painted in one shade of paint, pinky-peach, and light coloured carpeting covered every floor.  What was most notable about the house was the state it was in. With a selling price of almost four-hundred-thousand pounds it would be expected that it would be arranged and styled for the pictures. But it didn’t appear that an effort had been made to tidy up. In the living room, the cushions on the indented black leather sofas had the imprints where more than one body had been resting for way too many years. The books in the bookcase where leaning or stacked rather than standing at attention. The clear glass coffee table was to the side rather than in the middle of the room and was bare except for an unrecognisable ornament. Not a single picture hang on the walls. The kitchen/diner was clear and tidy. Nothing was out of place, it practically gleamed, likely Mrs McCoy’s realm. On the top floor were the five bedrooms. Of the two bedrooms in the series pictures the only one that was well presented looked like to was not being used. The furniture was minimal, a double bed covered in printed flowered duvet, and a multi-drawer dark wood dresser that was empty on top except for a glass vase of what looked like artificial flowers. In the window hung net curtains but no drapes. The other bedroom was the master bedroom and its ensuite. The room was cluttered with a King-sized bed, four-door wardrobe, two five-drawer dressers in the similar dark wood, an armchair, two bedside tables, stacks of boxes and a table with a large lamp. 

Outside in the back garden was the pollarded plum tree, it’s previous large branches now  short and bare. A cherry tree also had endured the same treatment. Gooseberry bushes propped themselves against the garden shed which was located at the back of the garage. The garage was used for storage like most other homes on the street because no family car could fit inside any of the garages that came with the houses.  And growing from a corner, through the lawn, were raspberry and strawberry bushes. The paved area just outside the backdoor had a few potted evergreen plants and garden furniture.  

With the McCoy’s house was on the market the neighbours keep a watch for any prospective buyers. There was a steady stream of them. The area was one of the safest neighbourhoods with very good schools. It was close to the city centre and the main railway station into London and other big cities, including Cambridge. There were good walking paths, and the only river in the area was meters away.  Farms and woodlands were just a fifteen minute drive.  

As the weeks turned into months the flow of buyers reduced to a trickle. Everyone knew that if the McCoy’s house sold, and if they got close to their asking price, that would indicate that the area was still attractive to buyers.  They also hoped it would be the right kind of people who would eventually move in. No one wanted a family that would disturb the tranquillity of their street.  So everyone who came to view the house was viewed too; how they were dressed, the vehicle they drove, their ethnicity, how many children and any animals.  

But Christmas came and went and still the McCoy’s house didn’t sell. And with hardly any viewings it looked like it would take longer than what was normal in the area, for it to sell.  Most houses were snapped up within weeks of going on the market. The fastest was sold within a week.  In the time it was taking the McCoy’s to shift their house another house on the opposite street had been sold. 

Then in early spring the sound of banging again brought the McCoy’s neighbours to their curtains. The estate agent was back planting a new sign. ‘Sold’ with the small, printed text, stc (subject to contract). Now everyone’s curiosity moved to the next level. Who would their new neighbour would be? 

They were made to wait a few months for the answer. It wasn’t until the tress were sporting brand new leaves and the daffodils and tulips were their magnificent best. When vegetables seedlings could be removed from windowsills and planted in bed boxes. And roses teased with what was to come. As everything in nature sprang back to life and the days lengthened and the warming sunshine tickled the skin. That was when. When spring was in bloom that  the McCoy’s neighbours got the answer they were waiting months for. Well, not really. Finally, the sale sign had disappeared from the front of the house at number eight and everyone was on high alert to see the removal vans arrive to take the McCoy’s away and deliver the contents of the new owners to number eight. Because by observing what was being unloaded from the vans that would give an indication of who the neighbours were likely to be. Furniture and white goods and even the removal company would be an indicator of the new owners social status. Fingers were crossed. Eyes were glued. Hearing heightened. 

But as the days turned into weeks nothing happened. The house was still on the estate agency’s website and labelled as sold. The McCoy didn’t appear to be like a couple who were leaving their home any day soon. They came and went about their daily business as normal as did their neighbours. Not having any actual information didn’t stop the McCoy’s neighbours from coming up with their own answers. They surmised that there could only be one reason, the sale of the McCoy’s house had fallen through. And it was no surprise. Because all who had viewed the house online, regardless of the state of their own, thought that the McCoy’s house needed at least a bit of refurbishment and redecorating to make it appealing to home buyers. A fresh coat of paint, clean the carpets and declutter was all it would take. 

One early morning, around seven o’clock, the sound of a lorry delivering a heavy load disturbed the residents from their daily routines. A large skip was left on the pavement in front of the McCoy’s house, leaving their neighbours intrigued to see what would happen next at number eight.
(May 2024)

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Everybody Needs Good Neighbours: Missing 

The retired couple living at number eight disappeared this summer. Their house suddenly went quiet and was shut tight like a miser’s purse. The first sign something was amiss was their burglar alarm. Like a grieving mother it wailed day and night until it too eventually fell silent. It was all very suspicious. That was the first time that had happened in all the years they lived on the street. Because, whenever they would go away, for any length of time, they would create quite the commotion. The wife would be in the front garden shouting to her husband, “Minster McCoy, hurry up please”.  Heavy suitcases would be dragged out the front door and hoisted on their car’s roof-rack. It was their way of informing their neighbours to keep an eye on their house. And, if their behaviour appears strange it is because residents on the street weren’t particularly neighbourly. There were no coffee mornings, no evening soirees, no invites to birthday parties, no barbeques, no nights in the pub. Their neighbour-to-neighbour interactions was basic but courteous. There was the obligatory morning or evening doorstep handwave or the ‘how are you?’ or the quick conversation about the weather or at a push, picking up each other’s parcels. There was also a time, back when their children were younger and in primary school. In those days during the holidays screaming youngsters would dash in and out of houses chasing each other or grabbing ice-lollies and ice-creams from mothers. The unspoken rule was never to buy from the ice-cream van because no one trusted the hygiene of the ice-cream van. A lack of sale, though, didn’t stop him coming regularly, blasting out the ‘Happy Wanderer’ tune. The children are now secondary school sour-faced teenagers who are in self-imposed isolation in their bedrooms on social media. So, though, the neighbours noticed that the McCoy house was unexpectedly vacant of life they didn’t show any concern about their unannounced absence. If they were worried it was in the ‘Very British Problem’ kind of way. No one wanted to be that ‘nosy’ neighbour. 

The long sizzling summer wore on and an unusual heatwave threatened to create dustbowls of every inch of grass. The Government declared it was the worst drought since nineteen-seventy-six. Water companies issued hosepipe bans for millions of homes, enforced by a thousand-pound fine for any breaches. Windows were flung wide open in a futile attempt to embrace any breeze. The sales and prices of fans was record-breaking. Roads melted. Reckless teenagers and young people, fatally jumped into rivers and lakes in failed attempts to cool off. But the house at number eight remained closed tight like a pressure cooker. Its curtains firmly drawn. The family car, covered in a light spray of dust, sat forlornly behind the padlocked gates. Spiders sensing the desertion weaved their cobwebs freely among the dried-out plants, iron gates, window frames and sills. 

One day, the hottest day recorded in decades when temperatures were comparable to Dubai. Hot, hot, hotter than the Caribbean. When every breath of wind was like a blast from a NASA rocket and breathing difficult. When schools finished early and sensible people wore hats and some even had umbrellas or parasols. A neighbour did happen to see the couple’s last child, a son, aged around twenty-eight, leaving the house. But they didn’t approach him because he was allegedly a drug dealer, although no one had actual proof of that. To them it was obvious that he was unemployed, he didn’t appear to do the nine-to-five. They never considered that he could be self-employed, was an artist or author. The assumption was made based on the unusual times he came and went and the fact he wore a hoodie top regardless of the weather, including that stifling hot day. He was known to leave home to live and work in London, only to return a few weeks or months later. It was his mother who  hadn’t the strength to throw him out, permanently. Had he done some sort of harm to his parents? That thought wasn’t far from everyone’s mind. 

Though, the McCoy’s neighbours didn’t miss them in the genuine sense of the word. They did, however, miss their yearly supply of plums from Mrs McCoy. Her plum tree was quite large and certain neighbours had filed complaints with the city council to get her to cut it back. These very same neighbours who gladly accepted a plastic food bag, full, of the sweet juicy fruits she freely gave to them. One even shared images of their plum jam on Facebook but never, once, gave any credit to the supplier. In some years, the fruit tree’s yield was so abundant Mrs McCoy would distribute at least three bags to each household. This summer was another bumper crop. The heavy-laden branches hung low over her back-garden fence but no one got any. Well, no one except for her immediate neighbours. They didn’t share, not wanting others to know that they were essentially helping themselves to their missing neighbour’s plums. It seems, just like Mr and Mrs McCoy, the ripen plums were there and then they weren’t. 

Every night the house at number eight was dressed in darkness. Not even the security light came on. On Sundays when the couple would normally leave, at exactly nine-thirty for their Baptists Church service, curtains twitched in vain for a sighting. Nothing. 

As the days grew shorter, people on the street continued to look to the house for any signs of life. Day and night they kept a kind of undisclosed vigil. Nothing stirred at number eight. No one had received a package for them. There was no mail in the letterbox, not even unsolicited leaflets or flyers, from the troupes of leafleteers that plagued the street. 

Who was to know if the couple had not planned their disappearance? The coronavirus pandemic had all but ended so they may have taken the opportunity to go to visit friends or relatives. Maybe, they had gone to visit their two daughters in London, to spend the summer with them and their grandchildren who they hadn’t been able to visit. They may have gone to visit relatives abroad. Who knew. 

But as summer drew to a close everyone on the street was getting concerned that the retired couple had not been seen once. Their alleged drug-dealer son was also missing. Someone had taken it upon themselves to water the plants in the front garden and so had saved them. One neighbour, using another as decoy, stole a chance to peep through their letterbox. But even with brilliant sunshine, inside was dark and they could not distinguish any foul odour other than that of a house with a kitchen that had cooked many meals and had not had air circulate through it for a length of time. 

Eventually, the children on the street, along with the rest of the country, returned to school. To new classes, in brand-new uniforms and shoes having all grown a few inches over the school break. Most people were spotting a healthier glow from either a packaged holiday or from the sunshine filled summer. Nature, too, began saying its goodbye to the endless days of warmth, though that was earlier than normal. The trees started to cut back sustenance to their leaves creating the human version of salt and pepper heads. And everyone felt relieved for the cooler temperatures having struggled with sleep during the very hot nights. Still, there was no sight of the couple from number eight. 

Only then did people consider that it may be the time to call the police, anonymously of course, to carry out a welfare check. But in the same way people assume that someone else has reported a fire or an accident, the McCoy’s neighbours thought another would do it. It should be the Black neighbour because the couple was ‘one of their own’. Or the other retired couple, across from them, because they had moved in around the same time. Possibly their disputing neighbour, on the left-side, upset because the McCoy’s plum tree was, once again, depositing its leaves in their garden. Maybe the neighbour on the right-side who had no doubt been keep awake by their burglar alarm. Most likely, it would be the nosy neighbour who acted like they weren’t nosy but everyone know that they were. It was unlikely to be the loud music playing, multi-occupancy tenants in the rented house who no doubt would not have noticed if aliens had landed on the street. 

But, instead, the McCoy’s neighbours watched and waited. 

(August 2022)