Claire waves her fingers away from the scorching heat and licks her finger, as she places the last mince pie on the wire rack. ‘Asbestos fingers’ is what Pim calls her, with her ability to withstand intense temperatures, but it’s actually just laziness on her part. She’s never got the correct utensil so uses her fingers instead. She wonders how long it will be before the boys rip themselves away from their screens and come down. Not long, she reckons, knowing the aroma will be floating through the house right now. She takes the last pie – the runty little one – and pops it in her mouth. Chef’s treat.
She waits for the usual barrage of mental self-abuse about her inability to stick to her calorie count, but now it’s the last day of the year, she’s excited about starting on her new regime tomorrow. She has a whole stack of resolutions and she’s been writing visualisations. She felt a bit silly writing them down, but she was listening to a podcast about putting your wishes out into the universe and so she’s sent out a request for a whole new her. It’s worth a shot.
It’s been a bit dreary weather-wise – the long days stretching between Christmas and New Year are never her favourite – but now, as she wipes a porthole in the steamed-up kitchen window, she can see that the sun has come out.
She takes the phone out of her apron pocket and texts Jenna to tell her she’s almost ready and that she’s bringing mince pies. She tries to adopt a breezy tone as she writes and re-writes the text as if going for a swim is something she does every day. But a sunset swim on the very last day of the year feels symbolic and grand – two things in her life that have clearly been so lacking she feels rather giddy with excitement.
She bumped into Jenna when she came back from Aldi the other day and agreed to accompany her on a sunset swim today. Jenna is a Wim Hof evangelist and, having looked up The Iceman online, Claire has turned the shower to the cold setting for the past few mornings, although she can only stand such masochistic torture for a few seconds. But the sea? At this time of year? Can she really do it?
But then she thinks of the women she saw playing in the waves. How hard can it really be?
She presses send and puts the phone down, before taking some of the energy balls she made from her new clean-living cookbook Siobhan sent her for Christmas and wrapping them in greaseproof paper before putting them in a Tupperware box. Her phone pings.
Perfect. I’ll call for you.
Claire smiles, feeling vindicated that her baking session will now have a proper purpose. She goes to the airing cupboard by the ironing board, which is stacked with a to-be-ironed pile, and pulls down a towel.
She’s packed everything into her bag and is just making a flask of tea when Pim comes into the kitchen. He’s wearing stained grey jogging bottoms and a hoodie. Why hasn’t he put on the fresh ones from the pile of clean washing she put on his side of the bed earlier?
He waves a piece of paper he’s printed off the computer in her face. She’s about to comment that she can see he’s used the coloured ink mode (something he’s expressly banned the boys from doing) when she sees that, beneath his glasses, he’s frowning heavily.
‘Read it.’ His tone is ominous.
Claire wipes her hands on the apron and takes it. ‘What is it?’
‘I wouldn’t have found it,’ he says, pacing across the chequered kitchen lino in front of the sink. ‘I just happened to find it by chance.’
Claire tries to fathom out what she’s looking at and what’s made him so cross.
‘Just read it, Claire,’ he says sharply, and she feels a lurch in the pit of her stomach. She hates it when he uses that tone, like he suspects that she’s stupid. It digs right into the psychological compost of her mind, unearthing age-old insecurities, hard and as tangible as bulbs. Because he went to university, and she dropped out. Something he’s somehow never let her forget. ‘It’s an application for planning permission. Your friend Jenna and Rob are planning on extending their house next door. It’ll block out all our light. Not to mention the noise and the mess.’
‘An extension?’ Claire says, staring out of the window to the cherry tree. It’s on Jenna’s side, officially, although most of the tree falls across their boundary. They won’t cut that down, will they? She loves that tree and the robin she’s affectionately named Sam is on its bare branches right now. Claire wonders if the robin looks in on her, observing her life, the way she observes his.
‘Didn’t she mention it?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I think I’d remember a conversation about her wanting to put an extension on the back of her house, wouldn’t I?’ She can’t keep the resentment out of her voice. Maybe she is forgetful, but not about something like this.
‘That’s why she’s been so nice to you.’ Pim wags his finger, as if he’s puzzled something clever out. ‘That whole swimming thing. She’s just trying to butter you up.’
His theory hurts. ‘I’m sure it’s not like that—’
‘It’s exactly like that. They’re just people who think they can take take take. I’ve put up with Rob clanking around at dawn on his pushbike for the whole of lockdown, but I won’t put up with this.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Claire asks, realising from the scorn in Pim’s voice that he’s just as envious of Rob as she is of Jenna.
‘I don’t know. But you’re not to see her until we’ve worked out our position.’
‘You can’t just ban me from—’
‘You’re not to see her. Do you understand me?’
‘But I’m going swimming with her.’
And, right on cue, there’s the ding-dong chime of the doorbell. Claire and Pim glare at each other.
‘That’s her,’ Claire says in a small voice.
She wants to defy him and go to the door to see Jenna herself, but Pim beats her to it. She shrinks out of view in the kitchen, wanting to cover her ears like she did as a child, when Da came home drunk and fought with her mother. She hates confrontation of any sort and this is making her feel horribly queasy.
Pim and Jenna are talking and then she hears Pim’s tone change.
‘Yeah, well, she’s not coming now,’ Pim says. ‘Because of this. You think you can just slip this under the radar?’
‘The council were supposed to put a notice up.’ Jenna sounds surprised, but she’s sticking her ground. Claire moves a fraction so that she can see a small sliver of Jenna standing below Pim on the doorstep. She has perfect blonde hair, poking out beneath a stylish hat. She’s in her camouflage Dryrobe, but even in such an oversized garment, you can tell she’s slim. Her perfect chin juts out now. She’s not intimidated by Pim. ‘I thought you’d have seen it.’
‘There wasn’t a notice.’
Claire slinks back and presses herself against the cooker and her bum makes the gas ignition click. She should go to the door. She should make peace and smooth things over but she’s too frightened to confront either of them. To be fair, Pim is hardly a confrontational type. He’s usually so mild-mannered and polite. That’s what attracted her to him in the first place – because he was such a gentleman. But lockdown has made everyone exposed and raw and this is all escalating too fast. She has to stop it.
‘There’s plenty of other houses with extensions in the street, so I really don’t think it’s worth your time or energy making a fuss. We’re going to fight to make it happen, no matter what you say.’ Jenna sounds steely. Her voice has become posher.
A moment later, Claire hears the door shut forcefully. Pim goes into the den and flicks on the TV.
‘Pim. Oh my God! That was so rude! Did you just slam the door in her face?’
Pim wriggles back in the recliner in a self-justified manner. He’s pretending to watch a game show – the type he can’t stand.
‘You can’t be so aggressive. She’s our neighbour. She’s my friend.’ Claire is aghast.
‘She’s the aggressive one! And anyway, you’re supposed to be on my side.’
Clearly annoyed that she’s criticised him, he gets up and stomps upstairs. The boys are next door in the lounge on the game, oblivious to the drama.
Claire stands in the corridor, feeling the pulsing male energy of the house. She’s tempted to go straight around to Jenna’s to make peace. She walks into the kitchen and, on a whim, picks up her swimming bag. There’s always a chance that Jenna might go to the beach anyway.