Shortly before midday, Maurice Penze-Weedell pushed the fully laden shopping trolley across the busy car park of the garden centre. It had been as costly an experience as he had feared it would be, with Mrs P-W managing to rack up a bill of over three hundred pounds on plants they did not need, cheeses, Christmas tat, new gardening gloves and God knows what else she had bunged in when he hadn’t been looking.
Happy wife, happy life, he’d reminded himself.
And at least, he’d consoled himself, they’d had two free hot drinks – a hot chocolate topped with whipped cream for her and a tea for himself. She’d further splurged on a slice of Battenberg cake, which she had enjoyed so much she’d had a second. Now she strode ahead of him, holding out her arm imperiously as they approached her purple car.
‘Stop here, Maurice!’ she said and pressed the key fob.
As obedient as her husband always was, Claudette’s car reversed itself out of the parking space and stopped in front of them. And just at that moment, out of the corner of her eye, Claudette saw a familiar-looking bright pink van approaching. ‘Oh my God!’ she said.
‘Oh my God!’ Emily Danes said, as they drove through the rammed car park of the garden centre, looking for a space. ‘Look who’s here!’
‘It’s the Neighbours from Hell!’ Jason replied.
She gave his thigh a reproachful slap, hissing, ‘Be polite to them!’
‘I shall be all sweetness and light,’ he answered. ‘Here they come, the Addams family, about to meet their neighbours, the Munsters, for the first time. We like neighbours, don’t we? We like them fried with a little garlic, and some chilli peppers!’
‘Stoppit!’
The older couple were staring at them or, more accurately, gawping.
Emily braked to a halt alongside them and slid down her window. ‘Hi!’ she said, breezily. ‘I think you live across the street from us, in Lakeview Drive?’
The woman gave an awkward smile, and then in a very put-on posh voice said, ‘So nice to meet you. Claudette and Maurice Penze-Weedell!’ She pointed at her husband, who stood behind her.
‘Emily and Jason Danes,’ she replied.
‘Oh, we know just who you are,’ said the woman’s husband, stepping forward as if emerging from his own shadow and raising his hat, politely, revealing a shiny head. ‘So very nice!’
‘You must come and have a drink with us,’ Emily said enthusiastically, before her husband could stop her. ‘How about this evening?’
‘That would be delightful,’ said Maurice, his wife nodding and beaming.
‘About seven?’
‘Perfect!’ he replied.
‘Doing your Christmas shopping?’ Emily continued.
‘Oh, you know, a few last-minute additions to the decorations,’ Claudette said.
‘Such beautiful lights you have outside your house,’ Emily said.
‘Oh, I am so pleased you like them!’ she simpered.
‘See you later; seven!’ Emily drove into the space their car had vacated, waving gaily.
Jason waved gaily, too. Then, as she slid her window back up, he said, quietly, ‘Jesus, what have you lumbered us with tonight?’
‘Mr and Mrs Penze-Weedell!’
‘They look awful.’
Halting the van, Emily turned to him. ‘Who was it who said, Begin each day with a smile and get it over?’
‘W. C. Fields,’ he replied.
‘You should be on Mastermind, my love. You know every damn quote there ever was.’
‘“The Bible tells us to love our neighbours and also to love our enemies, because generally they are the same people” – G. K. Chesterton,’ he retorted.
‘Shut it!’
They got out of the car, smiled at the Penze-Weedells, who were loading the stuff from their trolley into the boot, and walked across to the stack of Christmas trees that flanked the entrance to the main building. They stopped and studied them.
‘Anything you see that you fancy?’ Emily asked.
‘You!’
She kissed him. ‘Trees?’
‘Something bigger than the – what’s their name – Pins-Needles?’
‘Penze-Weedell.’
‘We need something bigger than theirs.’
‘We’ve been moved in for twenty-four hours and already we’re playing keeping up with the Joneses? Come on! We don’t even know how big their tree is.’
‘Bet you they have one of those fake, shiny ones!’
‘Ssshhhh! Keep your voice down, Jason!’
‘We could pretend we’re Jehovah’s Witnesses and don’t do Christmas. Or, we could really piss them off and make an even bigger Santa’s grotto. How about a ten-foot high, fairy-lit, vibrating dildo for the front garden?’
‘You’re terrible!’
‘They’re bound to have a selection in here.’
‘Bound to!’