dark eyes that looked out at you, but didn’t let you look in. You rarely guessed what he was thinking.
‘Can we go for a pizza now?’ asked Jordy. ‘You said we could have lunch out.’
‘Well, I’m certainly not cooking anything,’ Dipa said, ‘so you’d better. I’ll call the charity shop first, in case it rains and ruins all this lot. Ben, can you give the kids some money, then go and tip the removal men? They’re sitting in the cab of their lorry, waiting.’
Dipa didn’t stop for replies. She bounded through the front doorway and up to their first-floor flat. Their new home was in one of those big Victorian terraced houses which had been owned by a Mr Grantham before the conversion to two flats. Mr Grantham, a very elderly man, now lived on the ground floor, having sold the upstairs flat to the Wilsons.
Dipa telephoned a charity shop, told them where to find the furniture, then went to join Ben. The pair followed their children into the city and to a pizza place they had found earlier. Jordy, Chloe and Alex were in a much better mood now that they had fizzy drinks and food inside them.
‘Hey, here they are,’ cried Jordy, as Dipa and Ben entered, ‘fresh from battles with sofa and sideboard.’
Right at that moment Ben’s mobile phone rang: the theme tune from the TV programme ER. He answered it, then said, ‘Sorry, folks, gotta go. Stuart’s not turned up for his shift this afternoon. Sick or something.’
The children groaned, but they were used to this. Ben was a paramedic and Dipa was a doctor, so their parents were often called away. At least Dipa was not starting at the hospital until the day after tomorrow, so she was safe for forty-eight hours. She jammed a piece of Chloe’s pizza in her husband’s mouth and told him to get a takeaway later. Then once he’d gone she settled down with the kids to enjoy their company.
Mr Grantham was a solitary and distant person. In truth he was not a happy man, though his life had not been a terrible one. He had fought in the Second World War, had been married for fifty years, and had for most of that time been reasonably content. But now there was nothing to do but sit and think, and for some reason he could not dwell on happy times, but rather on those occasions when he was treated badly.
‘Noisy bunch,’ he muttered, as he heard his new neighbours going up the stairs. ‘No consideration.’
Then the television went on upstairs. Loud at first, but then turned down lower.
He had his own television of course, but he rarely switched it on these days. Half of it he didn’t understand: these ‘reality’ shows as they called them. Youths and girls draped over chairs, yelling at one another. The other half was full of very young, gaudy and loud presenters too full of their own self-importance. Every programme seemed to be crammed with confrontations. Mr Grantham didn’t much like his own company but he cared even less for the ghostly company of spiky-haired young men and bouncy, grinning young women. They didn’t even speak the Queen’s English, most of them. No, he preferred the radio these days.
Mr Grantham was not looking forward to sharing his house with these strangers, but financial difficulties had forced him into it.
Two weeks after the move a hot, bright day came to bless the Wilsons in their new home. It was the summer holidays. Jordy was playing a computer game in his bedroom, Alex was making a huge and complex kite out of a kit, and Chloe had decided to take a book to read outside.
The back garden was communal. Mr Grantham had retained the right to use it, while at the same time conceding that the new occupants would also like to enjoy it. Not that there was much to it, in the way of flower beds and shrubs. There was a rough-looking lawn of sorts, and apple trees at the bottom, and what used to be a vegetable plot. Mr Grantham’s back would no longer allow him to dig, though he still mowed the grass. He was out there sitting in a deckchair watching the butterflies and birds, when Chloe came with a canvas seat and plonked herself nearby.
‘Hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr Grantham?’ she said, flashing him one of her famous smiles. ‘I won’t make a sound, I promise.’