Inside the Moots’ porch, shadows treacle thick. Tom can’t see the underside of the conical canopy above his head. Wood painted black appears tarred and fashioned to absorb all light, to momentarily dip a visitor into night. Easier to feel consumed than welcome here.
A frilly curtain of purple wisteria droops symmetrically about the edges, like swamp grass woven by fairies then neatened by artisans. An embellishment blocking more of the daylight. Below the floral skirt, the iridescence of the garden dazzles.
Before the front door, Tom squints to read what shouts from a sign beside the doorbell. He saw it once before, when he was measuring up and called round, but never bothered to read this elaborate warning to trespassers. It’s almost a novel. NO COLD CALLERS. NO SALESMEN. NO JEHOVAH WITNESSES. NO FREE PAPERS. NO PAMPHLETS OR CIRCULARS… The list goes on.
He’s made it this far on an upsurge of adrenalin but now he’s in the porch, nerves puncture his gut and drain his vigour. He also remembers what he promised Fiona that morning.
But the Moots are only people. Older than him too. Early seventies at a guess, though sometimes they appear much younger and lithe. Their aura of dismissive impatience is the best indication of their vintage; a tendency to look askance at anyone not settled in their station in life, as if the young have made a mess of things. But what are they doing here and what’s the point of them? All this combing the bloody grass and shrieking about borders? Though people are also visiting regularly and taking something away. Packages. There’s a mercantile element to what he’s observed from Gracey’s window. What are they selling? Something the Moots grow round the back? Tom suspects there’s more to it than growing and selling veg but the major share of his mystification is occupied by the peculiar quality of the exchanges: the obsequious deference, the hand-kissing. Until the chap who just left here with a serious grievance. A visitor who claimed the Moots were ruining him.
Tom muses on what he is going to say but now he’s here, his mind is opaque. He feels woozy and sun-blinded by the glare blasting upwards from the polished flagstones of the empty drive. But he can’t possibly withdraw and powerlessly observes his grubby finger depress the bell buzzer.
There is a pause before a curious pan-piping chime on the other side of the black door. His takes a step back, his confidence taking an extra two steps. Annoyed at the thud of his pulse and at the rash of prickling sweat at his temples, he waits.
There is no response. Tom rings again.
Pan-pipes.
A few more seconds lapse and he’s about to abandon ship when a muffled shuffle encroaches at the edge of his hearing. Moments later, a latch is scraped away on the other side. Then, as if the occupant is furious at being disturbed, the door is yanked wide.
Tom retreats another step.
Against the darkness, two grim faces probe forward: Magi’s familiar mask of amusement with added disapproval, his wife’s features carved from consternation. ‘Yisss!’ she yaps in her clipped, queenly voice.
Tom clears his throat. ‘It’s me. From next door.’
The Moots glare.
‘I just wanted to clear the air. Don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.’ Bit late for that. Tom tries to laugh but the noise he makes is loathsome to his ears, a school boy snigger. ‘We want to get along with our neighbours. Only I have a couple of problems. Things I’d like to address. Number one, I don’t appreciate you telling my daughter that she can’t play in the woods. They’re not yours.’
The old woman’s eyes flare. Probing rays of light pick out whiskers on her chin. Pubic curls. Having noticed them, Tom’s recalcitrant vision won’t leave them alone. His vision attaches to the bristles.
‘As a parent are you not concerned with your daughter’s safety?’
‘That’s not something you need to question.’
‘A child’s safety. Paramount,’ Magi Moot intones, dismissing Tom’s reassurance as insufficient.
Tom feels the first glow of the hot ashes smouldering in his gut. ‘It’s a wood. A few trees. It ain’t the Amazon, mate.’
Mrs Moot is quick to counter. ‘It’s a very old wood. An area of outstanding conservation. Not a playground.’
The condescending tone fans Tom’s coals. ‘What kind of damage could a four-year-old girl do? I—’
She cuts him off. ‘Children are so attuned. Their imaginations. They get all kinds of odd fancies in old woods. And that one is twelve thousand years old.’
‘Fancies? That’s the whole point, isn’t it? And being outdoors is an essential part of a child’s development. We want nature to be a part of our daughter’s life. So maybe you’ve lived here a bit longer and developed some sort of proprietorship over that wood at the back—’
Magi inches forward. ‘A sanctuary for serpents. Adders. What if she trod on one?’ He’s talking down to Tom again, as if to a child in some old film. The fool must think he’s on stage. A performance. They think you’re thick.
Today, the man’s tight trousers are buttercup yellow. A linen shirt gapes at the neck, the laces loose, revealing a thicket of white chest hair. So much hair that Tom is tempted to wonder if it’s real. Magi must be thin under those clothes and covered in white hair, like a skinny rodent or monkey. Reluctantly, Tom imagines the Moots together in bed, naked. An image swiftly chased out of his mind by the shudder of revulsion that follows.
From Mrs Moot’s hirsute muzzle, framed by that thicket of hair cut like an ornamental shrub, darts a barbed comment that finally flicks off Tom’s safety catch. ‘We scolded her for her own benefit.’
Tom’s coals flame and he is shouting before he knows it; abruptly and wildly free of the deference that has dogged him near this pair. He even takes a step forward, emphasising his point with the jab of an index finger. ‘Scolded her? You don’t scold my daughter! Ever!’
Magi’s eyes flash wide as he withdraws behind his wife, before retreating deeper inside the gloomy hall. But Mrs Moot’s face stiffens into a mask of outraged defiance. She stands her ground and Tom pulls up.
‘Look—’ He tries again. ‘This is getting out of hand. I didn’t come here to argue. But no one can “scold” and frighten someone else’s child and then justify it. What’s wrong with you? From day one—’
The woman’s little frame trembles. ‘No! You look! That wood is not a recreational area. It is no place for children. It is a protected environment. We don’t want it spoiled! Trampled over! We—’ Glancing at Archie, her mouth twists with revulsion. ‘We don’t want it littered.’
‘Own it, do you? Yours, is it? Whole village too maybe? Bit entitled, aren’t you?’
‘We observe boundaries here. Borders you’ll learn to respect.’
‘Respected the fence did you? My fence!’
‘A little prompt. So address the gap. The last thing we want is an open-plan garden … with that mess at the back of yours.’
‘It’s your bloody trees that are hanging over the length of the—’ The door slams in Tom’s face and he’s left blinking and stunned.
From behind the door seeps Magi’s muffled tittering.
Tom tries to settle back into his mind as if he’s just suffered an out-of-body experience. He blinks the bright shimmer from his eyes, clueless about his next move until he sees Archie. The dog is squatting on a patch of grass, groomed like a snooker table, and curling out a crap. Behind the little quivering tail drifts a hint of steam and a plop of putrescence.
Tom panics and bolts from the porch, his head scattering purple blossom. ‘No. Archie. No.’ Fearfully, he peers at his neighbours’ windows, patting his pockets for bags. But doesn’t have any. The Moots’ windows are sealed by curtains.
Tom’s relief swiftly transforms into a churlish glee. Perhaps he will have the final word after all. ‘That’s my boy. Squeeze it out, lad. All of it.’
He trots down the drive and whistles to Archie, who crashes through the flowers and groomed plants like a drunken oaf. Only then does the drapery twitch behind the Moots’ front window. Fingers and a dim suggestion of Mrs Moot’s face become visible in a slit.
Tom turns the corner and jogs onto his property, failing to suppress laughter. Archie, excited by this change in his master’s demeanour, pads alongside, smiling.
From the neighbours’ side comes the sound of a front door yanked open. Followed by a scuffle of feet on the smooth path before Mrs Moot’s regal shriek pierces the air like a burglar alarm. ‘The … dog!’
‘Disgraceful! Remove this! You hear!’ From Magi, stentorian.
‘Spread it round the bloody dianthus,’ Tom calls back and calmly strolls home.