I confirm it is, and he continues.
“I didn’t get the vibe that she wanted kids, but who knows? She seems to be pretty ‘structured,’ if you know what I mean.” He stops suddenly. “Why are you asking? Did something happen?”
“I saw someone arguing with Marina,” I tell him. “A man who I assumed was her husband, Chris, but then I saw Chris today, and the man I saw arguing with her was definitely not him.”
Matt looks at me, askance. “Hang on—are you spying on people?”
I pull up short, unexpectedly exposed, but Matt’s expression softens.
“No judgment—I get it—they basically live opposite you. It’s hard to miss stuff sometimes, working from home. Especially for an anthropologist, I’d imagine.” He grins. It’s a playful jibe but under it I see his slight concern that I might be fully mad.
“So, this other guy?” he continues. “What did he look like?”
I hesitate before answering. “He was bigger than Chris, taller,broader, ashy-light hair. Imposing, very serious-looking. They obviously knew each otherwell.”
Matt’s eyes widen in interest. “Oh.Okay. So”—he pauses and shifts into a whisper—“an affair, you think? Wow.” His tone is suddenly serious. “Poor Chris.”
I consider telling Matt that I have skin in this game, that I was in Chris’s position just months ago and somehow this all feels tied together in my mind. But I don’t.
“Yeah, it looked like a pretty intense thing,” I confess, careful not to disclose too much.
“A stormy affair, very salacious,” he mutters, before leaning in to say, “Yep. It’s hard not to pick up on weird stuff like this when you work from home. I’ll be honest—I’ve seen some stuff. Not that stuff, but…stuff.” He stops a moment, unsure whether to continue. “I know way too much about people here, without even trying. It’s nuts. So, freedom of information and all that: pretty much everyone our end of the street works in offices, or wherever, so out by eight, home by six or seven. Then you’ve got the school-run gang, some parents, but it’s mainly nannies or whoever. Arabella Number Nineteen works out of the house on and off, not clear on all that. Then you’ve got the retirees: Pam at Number Seventeen and Malcolm at Fourteen, and Gloria at Ten. But they’re usually out doing something or other during the day—wild swimming most mornings, park clear-up, ushering the fun run most weekends. Then there’s Aoife, Number Twenty-one, which is obviously a thing in itself; she’s mostly out. Then the Malones, at Nine, and Harrisons, Twenty-two—they are larger families, do weekends at the grandparents’, Sussex and Devon, in that order. Richard, Number Eleven, runs a hedge fund and has houses in Switzerland and Tuscany and New York, so you’ll rarely see him. He’s got a wife in one of them.”
“Does he have a Bentley?” I interject.
Matt nods. “Yes, Richard has the Bentley. And then there’s Greg, Number Twelve, who is kind of in the Richard bracket but with way more macho swagger and brown hair, not gray. He runs every day…bitchy vibes.”
I nod deeply; I know Greg. “Apparently, he tried to buy my house?”
Matt’s face drops suddenly. “What?” he says, as if he must have misheard. “How did you know that? Someone told you that?”
He looks genuinely concerned by the revelation.
“Pam mentioned it. I saw him arguing with her and Marina the first day I arrived, they seemed to be trying to stop him from coming over. He was angry, with me or them, not sure.”
Matt’s expression has slipped from concern to thinly veiled anger.
“Jesus. That guy. Wow, I’m surprised Pam told you that, though. She’s not usually…Anyway, I’d say stay away from Greg. He’s a loose cannon. What a dickhead, your first day. What was he even planning on saying?”
“No idea,” I confess. “But I heard him talking to someone at the deli about how I wouldn’t have moved here if I knew something.”
“Knew what?” he asks, genuinely curious.
I’m relieved to see Matt doesn’t seem to know what theterriblethingis.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Anyway, where was I…Oh, yeah, there’s also Lucy Kiefler at Number Twenty-three. Have you met her?”
I shake my head.
“She had a sort of…breakdown, so she’s having a year off. But she’s never in: cold-swimming with Pam around seven a.m., then you’ll see her volunteering at the church café, and then the charity shop next to the greengrocer, and pretty much everywhere, really. She does a lot of walking. She’s nice, but intense.”
“You’ve basically got a running schedule of everyone’s lives.”
“Not consciously. I’ve just lived here a long time now,” he says, with an uncharacteristic air of weariness. Then he taps both hands down on the table between us. “So, an intense affair at Number Fifteen. Kind of surprised I missed that. What’s your plan? Tell Chris? Storm into their bedroom, ‘gotcha’-style?”
I snort a laugh and it feels good. “Imagine. Of course not. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with me. I plan to do nothing. Not my life,” I protest, hands up in surrender. “No. Each to their own. I’ve got quite enough on my own plate. I just want to know who I’m living around, I guess, who to trust.” I cringe internally at my own brutal honesty.
