‘Oh my God!’ Emily Danes said. ‘I hadn’t realized just how hideous it is – daylight sort of masked it!’ She stared out from the front window of the living room, through the falling darkness, at number thirty-six. At the illuminated Santa’s grotto in the front garden, complete with Santa rocking from side to side and with flashing lights for eyes, and a string of elves frozen in mid-dance. ‘Can you imagine, we’re going to have to look at this until – the sixth of January, isn’t it, the date when you have to take decorations down or it’s unlucky? God!’
‘The curtains shouldn’t be too long.’
Emily leaned against a packing case and looked at her checklist. ‘Right. I’ve rung the window cleaner we were recommended and he’s going to try to fit us in before Christmas. He asked if we’d mind him coming at the weekend, this once – what do you think?’
‘Be good to get them done, they’re quite grimy.’
‘Probably dust from the construction going on all around us.’ She peered at the list again. ‘I’ve called Sky and that’s sorted. I’ve also gone on the council’s website and found what day the bins go out – recycling is every other Monday, but it’s all going to change after the New Year, so I’ll have to check again then. Oh, and there’s a post office counter in the village shop that’s open to eight p.m.!’
‘That’s better than in town.’
‘I know, brilliant!’
‘And I’ve finally found the stopcock,’ Jason said.
‘You’d better show me.’
‘Tomorrow, when it’s daylight. It’s out down the side of the house behind the bin store.’
‘OK.’
‘Right, time for a celebration, methinks!’
‘You said the curtains shouldn’t be too long – how long did she say?’
‘I spoke to the woman a few days ago – she thought about a month,’ he said, coming back in with two champagne flutes. He set them down on the glass coffee table in front of the two huge sofas they had splashed out on, and which were put together in an L-shape.
‘God, we’re going to have to stare at that awful stuff across the road right through Christmas until they take them down.’
He went back to the kitchen and returned with a cold bottle of champagne that the estate agent had left them in the fridge. ‘That’s a bit snobby, darling – I think we should at least give them a chance!’
‘With Christmas decorations like that? Hmmm. Perhaps we could hang a blackout sheet up in the meantime,’ she said with a grin. ‘Although I guess that wouldn’t exactly be very neighbourly – they might think we were doing it to stop them spying on us.’
‘They are spying on us,’ he replied.
‘What?’
‘They are, darling. I saw their blinds move when I got out of the car this morning, and every time I look across, I keep seeing the blinds in the same downstairs window twitching.’
‘Perhaps they’re curious, like we are, to see who their new neighbours are. They must be happy to have another couple on the estate. The agent said we’re only the second owners to move in. It must have felt like living in a ghost town.’
Jason frowned. ‘I think – what’s his name – Paul Jordan must be mistaken; there are people in the house directly opposite us – the one that looks like a small child’s drawing. I saw a couple and two children through one of the windows this morning.’
‘Oh, so my husband is a peeping Tom, is he?’ she said, peering across at it. ‘It’s a funny-looking house – two windows upstairs, two down, either side of the front door, and a pointy roof. You’re right, like something a child would draw.’ She hesitated. ‘Are you sure you saw people there?’
‘Yes, in one of the upstairs rooms.’
‘But there are no lights on, and no car outside.’
‘Perhaps they’re out.’
‘More likely they haven’t moved in yet, and were just there measuring up, or whatever,’ she said.
‘There! Number thirty-six, they’re looking at us again, I saw the blinds move!’
‘Shall I flash at them?’
‘Might be a lechy old perv living there who’d get off on that.’
‘Doesn’t look much like a lechy old perv’s house to me.’
He peered out. ‘No, too naff. It’s actually horrible – I mean, how did the same architect who designed this place ever think that house was a good idea? Or the one opposite. I mean, ours is a really pretty house – it’s like he designed this, got drunk, and came back to his drawing board and did that one and the Grotties.’
‘The Grotties! I like that. I think one of us should go over tomorrow and say hi, put them out of their misery so they can see we’re actually human. And tell them how much we like their Christmas lights.’
‘I’d like to see you do that with a straight face.’ He raised the bottle in the air. ‘Grrrrrrrrrr, we’re your new neighbours, we’re the cousins of the Munsters and we are very, very, very weird!’
Emily giggled.
He set the bottle on top of an unopened packing case the removals men had plonked there and began working on the foil.
‘Maybe he was just having a laugh,’ Emily said, flopping down on one of the sofas. ‘Like food critics every now and then describing something utterly disgusting as the most wonderful thing they’ve ever put in their mouth. Like, what is the most horrible house he could design that someone would buy. Or that portrait you painted of that politician whom you didn’t like, deliberately making him look about two hundred years old.’
‘I was just trying to show the wisdom of his years etched into his face.’ He held the bottle facing safely away from her as he untwisted the wire.
‘Of course you were.’ She lay back and kicked her legs in the air. ‘Woweeee, this sofa is sooooo comfy!’
There was a massive pop and the cork flew out, ricocheting off the ceiling, the champagne squirting and foaming out as if the bottle had been vigorously shaken. He stared at it, startled. Over half the contents had gone by the time it settled.
‘Bloody hell!’ he said. ‘This is a lively one.’
Looking up, she said, ‘It’s made a mark on the ceiling!’
‘We should leave it there – our house-christening mark! Our forever home.’
‘I like that!’
He filled their glasses and handed her one. Then he picked up his and, staring her in the eye said, ‘Cheers, to our forever home.’
‘It’s going to be a very happy home.’
‘It is, my darling.’
‘No it isn’t,’ said a sharp female voice.