As soon as Tom powers down the floor-sander, tipped heels strike and ricochet against the stripped stairs descending to the hall. Fiona appears a moment later, dressed in her uniform: charcoal suit, printed blouse and name tag, high heels, hair styled, pretty make-up. First day back at the bank after a week’s leave to move house.
Tom whistles. With a hand turned into a gauntlet by a protective glove, he pushes his goggles over his forehead and into his hair. His face, jeans, hoodie and work boots are filmed with a powder of sawdust. ‘Ever have builder fantasies?’
Fiona cocks an eyebrow, smiles saucily.
Upstairs a toilet seat slams. Fiona turns and raucously shouts up the stairs. ‘Gracey! Done your teeth? And if that was a poo, you have to flush!’
Tom winces. ‘Illusion dispelled.’
The upstairs toilet goes clank clank clank . Then produces a rinsing trickle more than a flush, followed by a chorus of groans reverberating between the bathroom floor and hall.
A bump, bump, bump of small feet passes through the ceiling before Gracey thumps her way down wooden stairs. Alert, Fiona watches her daughter’s descent. ‘Not so fast. The steps are steep. You ain’t used to them, love.’ Gracey fell the day before. She was unhurt but frightened herself. ‘Remember what Mommy said about us being a long way from A&E. Got to be careful.’
Tom feels the sting of an accusation within his wife’s good sense, as if he’s been fingered for something else that he overlooked when he insisted they bought a house that will probably remain a building site, filled with hazards, for the best part of a year.
Any reminder of what is required to make the house habitable is ever accompanied by the cold spectre of their finances. ‘When your boss’s back is turned, fill your bag with money. Fifties. No fives.’
Gracey makes the foot of the stairs safely. ‘You find Waddles, Daddy?’
‘Soon, my love. Today. He’s fine.’
Tom and Fiona’s eyes meet briefly, conspiratorially: the express delivery cannot arrive soon enough.
‘Too dirty to give you a bye-bye kiss, Peanut. So I’ll blow it from here.’ Tom kisses the air.
Around her smile, Gracey returns a louder kiss to her dad.
Fiona gently raises her chin and one eyebrow, catches Tom’s attention, then nods at the neighbours’ side. ‘Don’t go wrecking anything while I’m at work.’
‘You have my word. It’s gonna be the new cold war from now on.’
Tom suspects the Moots’ tactics will continue. Probably revolving around harassment, from their side, at the border. Underhand tactics. Provocative attempts to shame and bully their neighbours into doing their bidding. Operations directed from the advantage of home turf. But he suspects they will balk at direct confrontation. Easier to bang on a wall than get into someone’s face.
And yet he remains deeply mystified about the source of the sounds the Moots produced against the wall of the front room last night – the scratching, the thumping of hard feet in a circular pattern. They were the first thing he thought of after waking that morning; the sounds trapped inside his ears. Noises he now wants, if not urges, to fade.
Fiona searches her husband’s face for insincerity and he thinks how lovely his wife’s eyes are when stern and fully made up. ‘Exactly. Radio silence,’ she says in a tone he finds too similar to the one she uses when explaining things to headstrong Gracey. ‘Big walls. Let the other side get on with it.’ Fiona turns and motions Gracey towards the front door.
Tom watches through the window as his wife teeters down the drive. Gracey follows, dawdling, picking at dandelions. She raises a stalk, blows the seeds. Tries to catch a handful.