The Nameless Wife

Marcus Bradbury stood in the garden of his family home. His feet planted on a grey paving slab, while aimlessly and loosely holding a trickling hosepipe.

In front of him, a three-metre square patch of perfectly level and perfectly green lawn.

But Marcus wasn’t watering. He was nosing.

A one-inch gap between the second and third wooden fence panels afforded Marcus a perfect view into next door - Number 18 Livingstone Road.

He feebly held the trickling pipe and silently stepped closer to the spyhole. His eyes were now able to focus much clearer.

He could see fully through the patio doors and into the living room of Number 18.

Then he dropped the hose.

A man stood amongst a selection of boxes, facing away from Marcus’s curious eye. No furniture. Only boxes upon the wooden floor.

He was very tall and Marcus noticed just how wide the man’s back looked. It reminded him of a Strongman.

As the stranger turned and looked out of the patio doors, Marcus flinched and ducked.

What am I doing? He can’t see me, he thought. He continued his nosiness - pressing closer still.

The patio doors opened outwards. The block paving of Number 18′s garden was layered with moss. Weeds breaking the perimeter.

Christ, the man was big. His arms seemed as wide as Marcus’s legs.

As the giant man stepped out of the room and onto the slabs, he could now see his thick blonde hair and blue eyes.

Was he looking at Marcus? No. He reminded himself of the security of his peephole.

But the man did notice…

“Do you need help?” came a deep voice. This time, Marcus did duck down.

“You’re leaking”, the voice added calmly.

Fuck. The hose. The nozzle had unfurled and was pointing a slow but clear trickle, under the fence and through to next door’s garden.

“Oh. Ha. I just dropped it. Sorry.” Marcus replied awkwardly. Too awkwardly. His voice, barely audible behind the fence panel and somewhat higher in pitch than his new neighbour.

As the enormous man stepped closer to the fence, Marcus realised that he hadn’t been seen at all– but the hosepipe had given away his presence.

He looked up. The man’s thick blonde hair was just about visible above the fence line. He must have been almost two metres tall.

A sound came from Number 18′s patio doors. An indication that the person of interest had gone back inside.

Marcus took one final, brief peep, to ensure he was alone again, before breathing out in a sigh of relief.

“What on Earth are you doing?” A well spoken, smooth and feminine voice came from behind him. It carried an almost patronising undertone.

Eva Bradbury. Just twenty-nine years old and almost ten years Marcus’s junior. Although she spoke with a well-structured, received English accent, Eva was in fact Lithuanian.

Marcus and Eva had married on her twentieth birthday. Nine years of comfortable living had kept her close to him, albeit with the attraction dwindling as Marcus’s podgy stomach became more prominent over the last three years. Too many business dinners and not enough exercise.

In contrast, Eva worked hard and capitalised on dialling in her natural shape with a good diet and a commitment to fitness. Her hips curved inwards and outwards like an hourglass. She stood now, wearing black leggings and a small T-shirt which exposed her tanned, flat mid-riff.

Marcus looked up at her. Craning his neck around, while looking prone, half kneeling on the floor as though getting up from prayer. He grunted, as though the effort to stand was a struggle.

“Come on,” Eva said. “I’ve roasted that lamb which you said you’d cook but never did.”

As she turned, Marcus looked at her spherical, thick arse cheeks. Accentuated by the tight leggings. Despite not being intimate for over a month, he still admired her as a goddess, proud that she married him.

He turned off the outside tap and left the hosepipe on the ground, before following Eva to the dining room table.

“What did you find out then?” she asked him. “Who has the agency rented it out to this time? Not a noisy bitch like that last one, I hope.”

“No, not a woman. It’s a man. A giant, I should say.” He awkwardly laughed, almost to himself.

Eva placed the lamb roast down on the table. A carvery dish, perfectly adorned with herbs in a way he could never quite prepare it. Her thumb, dipping slightly into the juices as she let go. She sucked it dry and looked at him. Marcus wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was too busy staring at the lamb.

“A giant?” She asked with a hint of curiosity. “Like Hagrid, from Harry Potter?“

“What?” Marcus was distracted by the food. “Oh, er, no. More like a bloody Viking or something. I saw him through the fence. Looks like he was chiselled in Valhalla.”

Eva let out a very discrete sigh. Partly out of interest for what Marcus was saying, but partly from disappointment that he was paying no attention to her.

“What is his name?” she asked as she began slowly cutting a generous portion of the meat.

“I have no idea. I, er, well, I didn’t find out.”

Eva stood up straight and raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t ask him his name? Did you tell him yours?” Eva’s curiosity was raised beyond what should have been a light chat before dinner.

“Well. No. I…” As Marcus began tangling himself up with an unnecessary over-explanation of his nosiness, the doorbell chimed.

“Are you going to get it?” Eva asked expectedly. “I’m serving your dinner.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry.”

Marcus opened the door to the porch and looked at the silhouette at the front entrance door. The frosted glass panel was completely filled, top to bottom. Was it? As he opened the latch and pulled the door inwards, he quickly saw that it was indeed the neighbour.

Andrew was 198cm tall, or 6′6" in old money.

As the front door to Number 17 opened inwards, he saw the face that belonged to the barely audible voice just a few minutes ago.

A man perhaps the same age that Andrew was, but a foot shorter and looking unsure of himself.

The greeting was awkward.

“Oh Hi! The new neighbour! Sorry about the water, I was erm. I was just watering the flower pots while checking my phone and I, I er. Anyway, sorry about that. I’m Marcus. Marcus Bradbury. And you are?” After Marcus’s nervous introduction had finished, he feigned a confident stance and stretched out his hand.

“Andrew. My name is Andrew.” He firmly took the offered hand and shook it calmly, recognising that the hand he was gripping was hesitant.

Andrew held a passive gaze, almost nonchalant.

“Who is it, Marcus?” Eva’s voice came from further back in the house, with a slight shout. She followed her question up by peering towards the front door and pausing for a moment to take in the sight.

He is indeed a big man, she thought.

Staring at her husband’s posture and then looking at the posture of Andrew, it was clear that Marcus felt uncomfortable. She decided to soften the interaction.

“Oh, hi there,” she said, walking towards the open door “Are you our new neighbour?“.

–“His name is Andrew. Yes, we just got introduced” Marcus interjected awkwardly, half looking backwards towards her and half at the floor, to avoid Andrew’s eye contact.

“Indeed. I moved in this morning. I knocked because your front door key is sticking out of the lock.” His voice matched his frame. Deep, but also rich and smooth.

“Oh, so it is”, Eva replied, then she glanced at Marcus. The second time in a week he’d left the key in the lock.

“Nice to meet you Andrew,” Marcus used the sentence to passively turn away and head back toward the dining room, out of sight.

Eva looked up at Andrew.

Andrew looked down at Eva.

She had a cousin his height, but not half as well built as this man.

Within less than a minute, she’d assessed a lot of his physical presence.

Andrew wore a long-sleeved, thin black T-shirt. At the cuffs of his wrists, the edges of black swirling ink crept from under the cotton. His arms were wide, shoulders broad and his entire stature was muscularly proportional.

His hair was thick ash blonde and his eyes, an aqua blue. His face was unshaven, but not quite that of a full beard.

Andrew did the same, assessing her physical presence but with the contrast of a more relaxed and uninterested stare.

Eva took a deep breath. One that may have intentionally been to show discrete admiration.

“Thank you,” she said, after their mutual, visual exchange.He smiled from his eyes and she couldn’t help but smile back deeply, before watching him walk the short distance away to his front door.

Taking the key from the lock, then closing the door - she took it with her back into the dining room where Marcus was digging deep into the delicious food.

“Second time this week, darling”, she said.

He chewed up some potato and replied with his mouth half full.

“Bloody hell, I am sorry! I need an early night, I think”. An early night on a Saturday. What fun.

Late nights working. Finishing touches on complex reports. Presentations in the early hours.

His safety consultation business was doing well, but increasingly at the cost of his health and more recently, their intimacy.

Eva watched disappointedly, as a few drops of gravy drizzled down his top.

She noticed his hair beginning to thin. Something she’d not noticed before.

Traits that she would expect from her father, now in his sixties, somehow seemed to be creeping in to her husband. A man who, despite being older, was once fun with a dash of virility.

Eva had just stood at the door facing an avatar of physical masculinity, and it projected like a template over Marcus.

The differences were striking.

“Enjoy your food, darling”, she said to him. Though indeed he was enjoying it, he didn’t seem to hear her words.

She stood up from the table, having not eaten, though originally intending to. Her appetite suppressed a little by her thoughts of disappointment.

“I’m going upstairs for a while. Leave everything when you are finished, darling. I’ll clean up later”. She feigned a half smile and walked towards the stairs.

This time, Marcus didn’t stare at her arse.

Eva stood in the master bedroom of their three-bedroomed, semi-detached home.

Located at the rear of the house, it assured a night-time serenity, in an already quiet, modern neighbourhood.

The unexpected downside was last year’s sale of Number 18, to a landlord intent on renting the property to just about anybody. This included Rachel - a very single, alcoholic solicitor, who only left the premises after countless run-ins with surrounding neighbours.

Eva breathed a sigh of relief. If only a brief encounter of a single minute, Andrew at least appeared sane, and quite the eye-candy.