Across The Street

It was her first Christmas alone, so she had time to notice her new neighbour’s odd behaviour...

Emily took the cardboard box and her B= of steaming tea to the bay window, and her gaze flitted to the house opposite. It was still and dark, but it was no longer deserted.

He had been there for a month, now. She could still remember the day he’d arrived. The rain had been coming down sideways, and she had thought that the house, which had been standing empty for six months, looked even more depressing than usual, its darkened windows like gaping maws. There was a jaunty Sold It! sign outside, and the other residents of Wisteria Road had been in a flurry of speculation since it had gone up.

Then a lorry had trundled up the suburban street, and in the back-and-forth of boxes and furniture going inside, the owner had, initially, been indiscernible from the removal men. But Emily had spotted him, his glossy, dark hair flattened the way that, in amongst the perpetual motion of the others, he would stop and stare up at the house, as if he couldn’t feel the rain, as if he was wondering whether he’d made the right decision. 

Her gaze had snagged on the way his wet jumper clung to his torso, the broad line of his shoulders.

She had seen him several times since then, as dark November slid into twinkly December. They both tended to put their bins out at the last moment, they always nodded hello to each other, but every time she’d gone to say Welcome to Wisteria Road, the words had stuck in her throat like a humbug.

Her confidence wasn’t what it had been, and this time last year, she hadn’t been alone. It had been Emily and Ed, a happy, contented twosome she thought.

This year, she wondered what the point was: of baubles and sparkles and tins of chocolates that, if she ate them all by herself, would make her feel sick as well as pathetic. All that shimmering tat, filling up front rooms and adorning windows.