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‘No thanks. I shouldn’t be too late home.’
‘Okay, have a nice day,’ she said, like a cheerful American waitress at a burger joint. Even that seemed to offend him because he slunk out like a kicked dog. She heard his van revving out of the drive as if making a statement about his present mood, which she suspected wouldn’t even have been lifted by finding Nigella Lawson waiting for him in the passenger seat.
In college, all the girls had the book,Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. She, Tan and Les would read out passages to each other in the common room. She remembered the revelation that men disappeared into caves to avoid things they’d rather not address, or stretched away from you like rubber bands. And she remembered Tan saying, ‘Except they’re not really rubber bands are they, they’re just twats,’ because she saw straight through that bullshit. It was no excuse to blame it on innate behaviour, she declared. It was just a cover for rudeness and inadequacy. But what the book did get right, Tan conceded, was that women had to suppress their own urges to mope over and mollycoddle men. They should use the time while the man was sullenly dragging his knuckles all over the floor of his cave to concentrate on themselves and their own needs. That way, when he did emerge into the sunlight with his club in his hand, the woman would feel better about herself and he’d be grateful that his wishes were respected. Win-win – everything tickety-boo. Shay couldn’t in all honesty remember her dad being in the slightest bit moody like Bruce. But then, there was a lot in her dad’s life she didn’t know about, so maybe he wasn’t the best comparison.
She had quite a few assignments to do for Colin that morning too, trains to book, a car to hire, expenses to tot up, invoices to send. She got as much out of the way as she could because she wanted to devote the week to sorting out what was going on with her mother and if that involved physically lobbying someone at the council or chaining herself to a railing, then so be it. First stop, though, the ‘civilised chat’ with Mr and Mrs Balls. Well, first stop after chasing up her mother’s recent blood tests, booking her in for her check-up at the dentist and calling in at the supermarket for her weekly shopping. Her mum needed a PA every bit as much as Colin Parks-Davis did.
When Shay got there that afternoon, Merriment Close was once again overflowing with surplus vehicles, all of them servicing number 1A. She parked up, pasted on her best ‘friendly neighbour’ smile and knocked on Drew Balls’s door, waiting a respectable interval before knocking again. This time, the front door opened slightly and there stood a slice of man, pasty, lineless face, small round glasses, wearing a knitted brown sleeveless cardigan.
‘Mr Balls?’ she enquired politely.
‘Who wants to know,’ he replied, his voice reedy and nasal. He opened the door a touch wider and behind him Shay could see a woman hovering, whip-thin with a concrete grey block of hair just like her sister Paula’s, which biased her still further.
‘Hello, I’m the daughter of Roberta next door,’ Shay introduced herself.
Drew Balls didn’t reply, just stood there waiting for her to continue.
‘Can I ask what work you’re having done here?’
‘Do you mean “can” or “may”?’
She tried not to bite at his smart-alec reply.
‘Well… may I ask?’
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ he answered, his voice a curious mix of bolshy and nervy.
‘Well, that’s my mother’s party wall and you’re not really allowed to touch it without asking permission for starters.’ She kept it polite but she could feel her blood begin to heat.
‘I’ve knocked on her door a few times and she’s never answered.’
That was an obvious lie and Shay hated liars with a passion. Lies had a potency far greater than the mere content of their words. Lies destroyed.
‘She would have answered if you’d knocked, Mr Balls. But I’m here now so you can tell me what you’re doing.’ She widened her smile but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Balls nudged his glasses up his nose with a pointy finger. ‘I don’t need to ask anyway and I don’t need to tell,’ he replied. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. It’s all above board.’
‘Don’t need to?’ Shay questioned. ‘Not even as a matter of courtesy? To let an old lady know that your workmen are going to be banging against her property at all hours of the day?’
‘Can’t do anything about the noise, sorry.’ It wasn’t an apology.
Shay felt her smile too heavy to hold up now. ‘Do you have planning permission for that extension at the back?’
‘Don’t need it.’
‘You’ve got an aperture for a window in it. You’ll take all my mother’s privacy away if she sits out in her garden.’
‘Is she, then?’ Balls asked, now aware of eyes on him – thebuilders working on the garage roof, neighbours on their doorsteps.
‘Is she what?’ asked Shay, confused by the question.
‘Is she going to sit out in her garden?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said,’ Drew Balls replied, using a tone one might use to address a village idiot with no powers of comprehension, ‘is she going to sit out in her garden?’
‘Well, what difference does it make if she is or isn’t?’ Shay’s volume button was cranking up now. ‘The window will not only look onto her garden but directly into her house.’
