22

Robert’s house sat in silence—the curtain’s drawn, the car idle in the driveway. “You’re just a troublemaker, is what you are,” the voice spoke again.

The two lovers realized it was coming from the house across the street. They saw an elderly, hunchbacked woman staring back at them, the cane in her right hand thrust at them like an accusatory finger.

“Excuse me?” Abi uttered, baffled by the comments, a fear rising deep within her.

“You heard me,” the old woman persisted as she scuttled forward like a wounded crab, using the cane to aid her movements before thrusting it back at her victims when she spoke, “troublemakers!”

Steven calmly turned to Abi, his hands still stuffed in his pockets, his expression still hazy and half asleep. “Who is this crazy old woman and what is she talking about?”

“You want to watch yourself, young man.” The old lady was now just half a dozen feet away, having shuffled her way from the end of her drive to the middle of the road. She wore slippers that had seen better days and were probably older than Abi was, but despite that, and her clear mobility issues, she didn’t have a problem traversing the tarmac to make her point known.

“Are you talking to me?” Steven asked, his voice low.

“Yes. She’s not right. Watch what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I don’t think—”

“She’s a wrong’un,” the old lady continued, cutting Steven short, the cane still raised. “Get out while you can. Wrong in the head, if you ask me.”

The fear that Abi felt was ushered to one side, her hatred of confrontation kicked to the touch by a raging anger that activated her darkest side. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she yelled, seeing both the old woman and Steven flinch.

“You—you heard me,” the elderly woman replied. “I’ve been around long enough to tell good from bad, young lady, and I know you’re tainted. I know who you are, I’ve heard the—”

“Watch your fucking mouth!” Abi took a step forward and felt Steven’s hand clamp onto her arm, holding her back. She resisted, showing the old lady her anger and her purpose and causing her to take a cautious step backward. “Or you will regret it.”

The old lady looked shocked—stuck rigid in the middle of the road. “It’s true. You are crazy,” she said eventually, biting back. The cane came out again, thrusting at Abi, wobbling frantically in her fragile grasp. “I’ve been watching you. I’ve heard you. I’ve seen you. In and out at ungodly hours, doing God knows what.”

Steven shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

“I know what you’re up to,” the old woman continued.

“I’m glad you do,” Steven said, loosening his grip on Abi’s arm as the situation turned from confrontational to absurd. “Because we don’t have a fucking clue.” Steven looked to Abi as if to confirm and she shook her head in reply.

“Last night,” the old lady replied. “I heard you in the yard. Shouting, raving, arguing.”

“My yard,” Abi reminded her. “I was in my yard.”

“Late at night, when everyone was trying to get some sleep!”

Abi shrugged and shook her head in disbelief.

“I heard you …” She looked up and down the street. “Having coitus.”

Steven laughed. Abi’s jaw hung open.

“Only hussies and hobos have sex in the open like that.”

Abi exchanged a glance with Steven, who seemed highly amused by the situation. Over his shoulder, she could see that Robert was also watching, standing brazenly by the window, the curtains now pulled apart to expose him and the room beyond.

This time the sight of him didn’t send Abi’s heart racing, it didn’t make her legs feel weak, because his attention was fixed on the old lady, not her. He was glaring at her, a deadpan, clinical expression on his face.

“I think this one may have lost her mind,” Steven told Abi. “We should call the men in white.”

Abi ignored him. “We didn’t have sex in the yard,” she said plainly. “You should get your hearing checked. Or learn the difference between a quiet conversation and full-blown fucking.”

“How dare you!” she snapped in reply, darting her head this way, and then, “there are children on this street!”

Abi rolled her eyes. As far as she knew, there was only one, and he was in his mid-teens.

“And I know what I heard,” the old lady continued.

Abi turned back to Steven, who merely shrugged. She fired another cursory glance at Robert and saw that he had barely moved—his posture still rigid, his attention still focused on the mad old lady.

“And he’s not the first, is he?”

“Excuse me?” Abi asked.

The old lady nodded vigorously, looking like a nodding dog ornament caught in gale-force winds. “That nice man who moved next door. He told me you went on a date with him. Polite, he was, very nice. Didn’t say a lot, but I could see it in his eyes. I’ve been on this earth a long time—”

“No one’s disputing that,” Steven interjected calmly.

“—and I know what you’re like, I know people like you. You led him on, made him believe that you had something, and then shacked up with someone else only a day later. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t—”

“You’re all the same,” the bitter woman pushed, finally lowering her cane. “And knowing your family …” She shook her head and spat on the ground, a dry ejaculation that exposed her fake teeth and bitterness “It doesn’t surprise me.”

The old lady turned around and slowly staggered across the road, down her driveway, and into her home. She never looked back, and Abi watched her methodical movements with anger that bordered on disbelief. It was hard to accept that the woman who took several seconds and several attempts to climb a second concrete step outside her front door, a woman who was even older than her gran and just as rigid as the knobby cane she thrust so menacingly, could spout so much hate.

“Well …” Steven turned to Abi when the old lady’s front door silently clicked shut and the street fell silent. “That was …”

“Unexpected?” Abi offered.

He shook his head. “Weird is the word I’m looking for. Let me guess, prudish old lady encounters your mad grandmother, takes an immediate disliking to her, and tars her granddaughter with the same brush.”

Abi nodded, her unblinking gaze still fixed on the house opposite, her jaw set rigid.

“I’m surprised she didn’t wake your gran up.”

“Surprised and lucky. She would have been out here in an instant, ready for war. It wouldn’t have been pleasant.”

“Two old ladies beating each other with canes while arguing about coitus and trying not to wake the neighborhood children? Pleasant is an understatement; it would have been fucking epic.”

Abi managed a forced smile in reply.

“Don’t worry,” Steven assured her, “I’m met her type before. Don’t let her get to you. After all, a big, strong, mature, handsome hussy like you doesn’t have anything to fear from a frail old lady.”

Abi pulled her gaze away from the old lady’s house, her expression softening. “You’re a dick, you know that?”

“Very much so. Now—” He threw his arm around her, checked his watch. “We have a few minutes left. Should we wait here for the Uber or should we nip inside for some more coitus?”

Abi laughed. “Maybe just a hug, for now. Wouldn’t want to give the crazy old bat any more ammunition.”

The two embraced and Abi shifted her attention to Robert’s house. The curtains were drawn, the occupant nowhere to be seen. It was like he had never been there, but Abi knew otherwise, and the image of him standing there, glaring at the old woman, his expression still, his eyes alight, would remain in her mind all morning.