The Perfect Neighbours. Rachel Sargeant

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СКАЧАТЬ – the Landstrasse as Gary called it – into a grey, built-up area. She thought of the coach trip she’d made with a Year 10 class to Bulgaria; communist-built apartment blocks on the outskirts of Sofia.

      Gary pulled up at traffic lights and pointed. “And behind there is the Niers International School.”

      Through the spike-topped metal fence on the right she made out rows of full bicycle stands. It looked like a provincial railway station.

      “But you can’t see it properly from here,” he added.

      A pot-bellied man in a dark uniform was standing by a sentry hut, the wooden roof scabby and cracked.

      “You have guards?” she asked.

      “Don’t mind Klaus. We have two full-time security men to patrol the site. The parents like it. Except our guys spend most of the time playing toy soldiers in their little house.”

      Helen laughed until she noticed Ausländer Raus spray-painted on a bus shelter. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

      The light went green, and they turned left.

      “Foreigners Out – but you hardly ever see that stuff. Most of the Germans love the international school,” he said. “Lots of locals work here in support roles, and the parents spend good money in the town.”

      He’d told her about the parents before. Most worked for big international companies in Düsseldorf, and others were rich locals prepared to pay for an English-speaking education. And some were teachers.

      “Think about it, Helen,” Gary had said when they sat down with their pros and cons sheet on one of his weekend visits, agonizing over where to live. “Not yet, but in a few years, if we have children, it could be their school. There are so many perks, as well as the salary.”

      That had been the clincher: Gary could earn more staying out here than the two of them put together in the UK. Helen had stopped being stubborn in light of the cold hard figures. She quit her job and put her house up for rent.

      He went over a speed bump, and she felt the seatbelt rub against her collarbone.

      “Have you noticed the street names?” He pointed at one, multisyllabic, a jumble of Ls and Es. “Can you read them?”

      She shook her head. They had been driving non-stop since Calais. The traffic signs after the border into Germany had become a strident Teutonic yellow. Here the street names were in white, more like British ones, but they were unpronounceable.

      Gary crawled along at 20 mph and seemed unfazed by the need to slalom his way around parked cars, playing children, and speed bumps. She glanced at his profile – round cheekbones, smooth jaw, patient eyes. Who would have thought affability could be so magnetic? Her stomach settled.

      “What are you thinking?” he asked.

      “About Birmingham.” Where they first met.

      At the teachers’ conference in the university bar after the speeches, he’d been the gentle-faced man in the noisy crowd. The one everyone wanted to talk to. A kind of jig took place as people vied for a position next to him. And when he caught her looking and smiled, Helen – never normally part of a pack – took it as her cue to join the reel. By the end of the evening she and Gary were the only people still dancing.

      “No regrets?” he asked.

      Was she still scared about the move? It had taken her long enough to make up her mind. She stroked his arm and smiled. Not scared now; a little apprehensive, maybe.

      “Nearly there,” he said. “You’ll love the neighbours. Polly and Jerome are great. They live across the way with their two girls. Jerome Stephens is head of science.”

      After a couple more turnings he made a right into Dickensweg, a cul-de-sac of identical semi-detached houses. Unlike the grey of the Bulgarian patch they’d driven through, the houses had been painted lemon in the last decade and, as if by some unwritten rule, all the cars were parked on the left side of the road. Bicycles, trailers, and pushchairs were propped up against almost every front door as if soliciting at a car boot sale, and large yellow dustbins lurked on front lawns like Tupperware daleks.

      A pink-faced man with big, white hair climbed out of a red sports car. Gary beeped the horn and gave him a thumbs up. “That’s our next-door neighbour, Chris Mowar. He’s head of art.”

      The man crossed the road in front of them, bowed theatrically and disappeared into a house on the other side.

      “Is everyone round here head of something?” she asked.

      Gary nodded. “We’ve got the head of geography at number 4, although he’s hardly ever at home, and the school’s public relations manager at number 1. And the head teacher, of course.”

      He touched the brake and pointed up the street. “Through that copse is Hardyweg, where the rest of the heads of department live. The weg bit means way. Dickens and Hardy. The town council re-named the streets in honour of the school thirty years ago. A nice gesture, don’t you think?”

      Helen smiled. It did sound nice, welcoming. She felt mean for thinking the street looked shabby.

      Three boys, dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and wellies, were playing with remote-controlled trucks in the road. Maybe they didn’t feel the cold. Helen zipped up her jacket.

      Gary braked again. “I’d better not run them over; they’re the head teacher’s kids.”

      The boys waved at the car and moved out of the way. Gary waved back and drove to the end of the road. Instead of another pair of semis, there was a large detached house with a magnificent wisteria that framed the front door, and sunny yellow shutters at every window. Number Ten declared the carved wooden plaque, with no sign anywhere of the ugly metal house numbers that Helen had seen on the other walls.

      Warmth sped through her. Moving here was the right thing. They couldn’t have maintained a long-distance marriage for much longer. She was bound to get another teaching job. It might not be head of PE again but there would be something. In the meantime she could enjoy living in this beautiful house.

      Gary reversed into the turning circle and moved back down the street.

      “That one’s Damian and Louisa’s. Number Ten, that’s what we call it, like the prime minister’s place. We’re at number 5.”

      “Damian and Louisa?”

      “The head and his wife. Remember I talked about them.”

      Helen swallowed her disappointment as he pulled up opposite a house displaying a lopsided metal 5, weed-ridden flower beds and a knocked-over bin. Twenty yards from her husband’s boss and his executive home.

       3

      Tuesday, 6 April

      Something disturbed Helen. The warm mound under the bedclothes beside her was fast asleep. She turned over.

      The ringing noise sounded again.

      “Gary.” СКАЧАТЬ