Love Thy Neighbour

Charlie

1

Tip tap. Tip tap.

I’m drawn from my dream, falling away as I focused my eyes to the room lit only by the dim streetlight outside. Tip tap. It must be the rain I hear, pitter-pattering at the window. Half in the dream, half awake, hoping I can return to sleep; I can’t bring myself to look in the direction of the light. At the mere thought of the sting, I keep my eyes tight shut and push my legs out to stretch over the arm of the sofa unwrapping the blanket that snugly enclosed me. I shuffle over to face the wall, almost foetal in my position and follow the plaster cracks down the bare main wall to the small bundle of fur curled at the foot of it, breathing softy, snoring not-so-softly.

Poor thing, I whisper. She’d not taken well to the vets today when she woke, slow and unsteady from the operation. She’s not to lick her wound, said the veterinarian, so keep an eye on her tonight. At her behest, I kept her close to me, though I’d not planned to drift off here on the sofa. I will pay for it in back pain tomorrow. She slept soundly off the medication. Dead to the world, as Mum would say.

Tip tap.

The rain is not that heavy, I can tell. A gentle pitter-patter-pitter- patter, I imagine the raindrops sulking upon the street, visible only against the streak of the streetlight. I hear then a whisper. A faint yet deep voice in the distance somewhere. I stare at the dog, undisturbed, and my gaze follows her little shadow across the floor, suddenly unto another. A long, thin crease of obscure blackness casts the bare flooring, leaking from the direction of the window. I glare at the shadow on the ground. A flinching pain wakes in my foot where I had earlier caught a splinter from the chipped naked floor.

Tip tap.

Go on, I tell myself, look towards the light.

I curl up tighter in my foetal position and shrink back into the deep curves of the sofa, away from the light, away from the shadow, plunging myself into the dark that somehow feels safer.

I pull the blanket slowly over me, the crochet coiling around my fingers. With one hand, firmly at the salve edge, like a child cowering under the covers, I peer over the edge of the blanket.

Tip tap. Tip tap.

A tall figure stands at the window on the outside. The silhouette of a raincoat, the hood pressed up against the glass, looking in. The darkness inside the room doesn’t allow me to see its face. Tip tap it goes as it shuffles along the window ledge, looking in here, looking in there. It’s whispering still, yet I cannot make out what it is saying.

I want to shake my head, pinch myself, and discover this is a dream. But as the figure pulls away from the window and begins to rustle the handle at the back gate, I daren’t move a muscle. All I can think of is… I left the back-door open.

Farleigh

1

Bill Farleigh saw nothing that was out of his league.

There wasn’t anything he couldn’t have, not a problem he couldn’t solve, not a person he couldn’t befriend, even as there were debts he couldn’t recover, insurance he couldn’t pay out, a wife he couldn’t satisfy and a yapping dog he couldn’t keep under control.

The key was to project success, or rather ‘mask’ the mounting matters, at least in the eyes of his neighbours. Even if it meant prying, in his loud and clumsy way – much to the discreet dismay of the other residents – to get the gossip that wasn’t substantiated, the details of your job (always for comparison) or the model and price of your new car because Yeah, I was going to get one that one for myself, actually.

And as he stood, in the dead of the night, at the window of No. 9, face pressed up against the glass, his large brawny figure at the window frame and peering into the lounge, he thought to himself: there isn’t a thing I don’t know about this new fella on the street. The shape of the young man, untangling from the sofa in the corner, his soft movements slightly distorting the shadows, would be enough to put off even a seasoned burglar.

Not Farleigh. There wasn’t a challenge he wasn’t up to. Especially one as rewarding as this will be, he thought, smirking as he made his way to the worn wooden white gate at the side of the house. Turning the circular iron handle as quietly as he could, its ageing bolts still screeched in chorus for the thirty years it had hanged there.

There’s not a lock he can’t pick either, or so he’d like to think. So when he first tries his luck for an open door, he takes a moment to count the blessing before gently pushing the back door open and, lifting one foot in at a time, crept into the pitch black of the kitchen, the streetlights out-back entirely suffocated by the thick mass of tress enclosed around the garden. No light, not a peak. Only the bright green digits of the cooker clock - flashing, floating - in the nothingness. No sound, not a squeak.

Farleigh stands, still as stone in the middle of the kitchen. Give it a minute for your eyes to adjust, he thought. The shimmer of the steel from the fan over the stove allows him enough coarse light to guide him to the counter top. He reaches up to the fan and fumbles for the farthest button to the right, the overhead light switch. He knew it’s whereabouts because he had asked: Where’d you get your kitchen? Oh yeah? I was thinking of ripping mine out and doing the same. Mind if I take a look?

A sly grin relishes his cheeks as he finds the button to push. Gently does it, he thought, but the button still gave off a rusty squeak as the light clicked on. By the colour of the splashguard, the cooker light reflects the room red. So far, so good he thought as he crept over to the adjacent counter by the hallway entrance. The kitchen counters were clear of contents except for the small sound system charging at the wall and scattered before it various envelopes and open mail. The thought of picking up the papers, unfolding them and reading someone else’s name and address and details on it excited him greatly.

Of being not where you are supposed to be, of doing what you are not supposed to do, is very seductive. The first mail he unfolds is an invoice for what appears to be decorator or plasterer of some kind. Farleigh would have liked to have shaken his head, laughed at the cost or even snubbed it, though he did not know the extent of the work being done, and here deprived him of this small pleasure. He carefully folded the invoice back into its envelope and figured he’d try his luck again, hoping for something more scandalous this time.

The second piece of paper he unfolds crinkles in his grip, almost crumbling as he reads along the lines, a tension in the pit of his belly tightens at his jaw.

A Pet Insurance bill to the amount of £700 to be paid by ‘this date’ via ‘this payment method.’ On and on, it explains a breakdown of the injury, the surgery and anaesthesia (always the costly part) and the recovery medication. Beneath the price breakdown is a professional diagnosis of the injury and the events that lead to it being treated. Farleigh cringed in shame at the listing of his name – more than once as the owner of the dog who – to little surprise, given its past behaviour - viciously attacked said victim, a harmless older dog, female. Farleigh squinted at the bill, another hindrance he denied he’d brought upon himself. He shook his head and folded the paper back onto the bench. Tut.

Not forgetting he is still in a position to extract a fantastic fuck you – however unplanned – on his young neighbour, Farleigh sneaks back over to the stove and with another rusty squeak, releases the overhead light to pitch black again. The night swallowed the room once more, and blackness was met with a faint groaning sound.

A panic stirred in Farleigh, he glanced over at the back door. Easy escape, he thought, and glanced over at the hallway entrance: but still worth a shot. Before slipping across the room to the hallway, Farleigh listened once more, carefully this time, for any sounds of life.

The groan persisted.

Farleigh moved into the doorframe, peering around the corner into the living room, his shadow now cast from the inside. He saw before him a stretch of bare floor space and walls, populated only by a chair, a television – standby light flickering – in the far corner by the window and, looking down to the right of him, a long sofa, larger than most furniture. It sizes speaks for the cost of it, he thought. Upon it a curdled lump rising and deflating beneath a thick, tightly crocheted blanket. The source of the groan: a faint, inconsistent snore. Farleigh exhales slightly; astounded he’s gotten this far even though he’s done this so many times before, to every house on the cul-de-sac. And he’d often worry the thrill would be gone with each invasion.

Not such. Not tonight, he thought.

Farleigh skulked past the sofa, head down and for the first time noticing his shoes. His wet, undoubtedly muddy shoes. Shit, he thought, and then: never mind, there’s no carpet anyway. And the thought of treading dirt here made him feel powerful, too. He stops at the foot of the stairway to assess the quietest way to reach the top. I’ve gotten this far and nothings creaked, he thought, and with that he began to ascend the staircase.

CREAK!

Farleigh leapt from his skin as the quake from his stupidity vibrated in the walls. The snoring groan continued, unevenly, undisturbed. I’m pushing my luck, he thought as he bent down to remove his shoes. The sofa lump shuffles a little and with this he freezes briefly.

The moment passed in silence. Stillness. Farleigh nods to himself that it is safe to ascend, keeping his eyes upwards to the landing. To the bedrooms, he thought, to the Holy Grail! A delighted smile bestowed his blushing cheeks, proudness he felt so often when he did this. Casing the place, tick. Breaking in, tick. Snooping around, tick! Planting a trap, tick! Getting away with it, TICK! Farleigh allowed himself a muffled, mischievous snicker though he managed to control the excitement in remembering all his success has not come without discipline and self-control and the gratification in the aftermath – watching Gillian from No. 8 hobble on her broken leg, and Ken at No. 3, puzzled by his slashed tyres, or Joe at No. 5 furious at his smashed windows - was too spectacular to cheat.

2

1995. The year Farleigh proposed to his then girlfriend - now wife – for the seventh time was his best year on record, he claimed (only to himself, of course). Farleigh broke into No. 1 to rob the lady of the house, Mrs Burrow, of her diamond wedding ring that he’d previously heard her bragging about at the local thrift festival that year. Thrift festivals were not for the rich, he thought as he eyed up the ring, flittering her bony index finger here, there, everywhere. The breaking, entering and taking of the ring was easier than he’d anticipated. She had not been wearing it recently. A sensible woman with a rational fear of the ring becoming too tight around her finger, as it does over the course of a long marriage, was incredibly ironic given her marriage track record. Of all her friends and neighbours, only Mrs Burrow hadn’t considered and betted how long this one would last.

Confident that this, his seventh proposal, would be the one, he knew the ring would eclipse any doubt that he was a worthy man and sure enough, as he got down on one knee and presented the rock, his girlfriend was so taken aback by the by the brilliant diamond setting, an elaborate interlocking knot pattern upon a cushion-cut encrusted with - yes, you guessed it - more diamonds, she didn’t even have to say yes! as she snatched the rock from the small box and squeezed it onto her index finger.

Farleigh, empowered by his accomplishment, psyched himself up for the next phase, one that would be the beginning of no end.

Farleigh and his wife married abroad. It was sticky and humid, more like the tropics than the sun kissed. Everyone hated it, including the bride and groom, though Farleigh knew as they returned to the cul-de-sac a week later, he would have the best wedding story to tell. Much better than Eleanor at No. 4 whose Tower Bridge ceremony was a selective and very privileged affair. And attended by minor royalty apparently, though Farleigh didn’t believe her and similarly couldn’t wait to trump her snobbery with the fantastic tale of their exchanging vows whilst sky diving from a mountaintop. Neither of which really occurred due a sudden and undiscovered fear of heights and to the humidity attracting a swarm of locusts. You can figure out the rest.

On their return, the new Mrs Farleigh was reminded – rather sadly – that she will be moving into the neighbourhood, into the cul-de-sac she’d almost forgotten about. And Mrs Farleigh wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten their place back home, for Bill himself realised, as the plane scorched the runway of a damp and misty Manchester airport, that they would be returning home to the inevitable pleasantries between the neighbours and namely, Mrs Burrow. A ring like that wasn’t designed to go unnoticed, he thought, and Burrow will spot it immediately.

After all, how could she not?

Burrow would have to go, he’d decided. Tormenting her with letters detailing the torrid affair between her husband and Cecil, the woman he’d invented to drive her away, he figured it would be easy to unnerve her insecurities of her own marriage by the power of pure suggestion. Still gone to this day, Mrs Burrow never had the privilege of meeting his beautiful bride. Such a shame, he thought, and then he’d guessed she’d taken off to the Maldives, like she always bragged she would.

Mrs Farleigh, still bored, insisted they move. After all that, he thought. But I’m bored, she’d exclaimed, there’s nothing here! A week later the wide screen television – the only one on the street – went missing from No. 2. The things I do for you! Farleigh thought as his new wife desisted... for now.

3

On the landing, peering over the banister, Farleigh double checks on his sleeping neighbour, by now – from this angle – nothing more than a snore, all physicality plunged into the still darkness swelling in the room as he climbed the stair. The house drowning in a noiseless night-time, Farleigh swimming comfortably until his momentum is abruptly disrupted by a faint, yet inexplicable noise: scritch-scratch. He peers over the banister again to see the crochet blanket rise up and down and up and down. The groan steady, he decides to forget the sudden sound in the silence.

Upon the landing were five doors: three beds, a bathroom and – directly ahead of him – a master suite which he went for immediately. Upon entering the room, Farleigh ignores the second unmistakable scritch-scratch. All consumed in brief what if... moment. What if he weren’t asleep downstairs? What if he were to have gone to bed tonight? This would be no fun then, he thought.

The master suite was smaller than he’d expected, a narrow walkway formed around the high up king size bed, much too big and impractical... comfy though, he thought as lay upon it. All four walls but one is mounted with a claustrophobic number of built-in cupboards and little openings. Farleigh lay content on the bed, gazing up at the ceiling fan directly over him. A violent image swam in his mind, of the fan at full speed, out of control – because they get that way sometimes – and unhinging suddenly, collapsing onto him, his body spiralling to pieces.

Scritch-scratch. Farleigh sprung upright.

Scritch-scratch, tip tap. Unmistakeable. He swivels off the bed, careful not to land to heavy on his feet. Tiptoeing to the doorway, he peers through the slit in between the door and frame: total darkness and the groan, now seeming further away. There was no sound of movement.

Tip tap.

There it is again! he thought, frustrated by the mysterious noise, preventing him from turning on any light. At present, he is annoyed that he must pause to investigate the sound, if only for his own safety and discretion, though more of him will be annoyed that he didn’t get to explore as much as he’d intended.

Even, as what is to come will have him regret ever being alive.

4

Farleigh waits impatiently for the noise to repeat itself, if only to gather where it is coming from. The sooner he finds it, the sooner he can get back to snooping, uncovering more truths in each of the four remaining rooms and – with a little more luck than he dared wish for – prepare a nasty trap of some design, somewhere in the house.

A minute or two goes by, an irritating silence endures, and Farleigh grows impatient for fear of running out of time. These nights can’t go to waste, he tells himself over and over, creaking along the landing, peering over to look down on the sleeping man again.

Tip tap. Tip tap.

The sounds, so faint, are to Farleigh an eruption, his nerves beginning to shred as he realises the scritch-scratch-scritch-scratch is impossibly near to him. Farleigh takes four large steps swiftly to the stairs and, with a descent into pure obscurity ahead, carefully presses one foot at a time onto the staircase. The steps creak, as they did not before. A door creaks as it had not before. Hadn’t it been closed the whole time? Something is not right, he thinks as he grips onto the banister tightly.

Scritch-scratch, tip tap. His heart in his ears, Farleigh feels his shoulder twitch and daring to let go of the banister to relieve the itch under his skin – the worst kind – he feels another sudden pinch!

Hello, a voice whispers from the darkness atop the staircase. Farleigh twists his body upwards to the origin of the sound yet sees nothing as he continues to descend the staircase as fast as his feet can carry him.

In the darkness, a whistling then tumbling then CRUNCH! Later, Farleigh will come to realise that, as he treaded down the stairs in the darkness, his foot came upon the carpet grips embedded in each step: 1.5cm spiked studs lay exposed yet curled away in the crevices, that sent him tumbling down the stairs and crashing into the corner of the wall, slumped and helpless.

Charlie

2

Farleigh, I voice gently, Mr Farleigh?

He stirs a little so I know he’s awake. Alive.

Wakey, wakey, I chant, placing my hand gently on his arm, my other hand waving rhythmically for a response. His eyes are slits, blood seeping in from the wound at his temple and trying to open them, Farleigh blinks fast, a double take of disbelief. The bright light from the ceiling fixture burns his sight but I need him to see me. I need his full attention. I push my arm into my sleeve to make a glove and wipe away some of the gushing blood. Farleigh stirs some more still too dazed to be afraid.

This will not do, I say aloud.

I look around now that the room is lit up by the golden, artificial light and survey the damage. In the midst of stripping the wallpaper for the decorators, I’d insisted on keeping my photo frames, my wonderful memories, upon the staircase wall. Stupid of me as Farleigh clearly grappled at something as he fell. Who wouldn’t? I look up the staircase now to the shards of glass and dented silver slain on the steps. I look to my feet as I’m perched amongst the debris, like a canary on a swing, and then to Farleigh who has invaded my cage.

Can you hear me? I ask as he comes to. Good.

He can’t move his neck it appears, so his eyes shoot back forth hectically, as if confused where he is.

You’ve had a fall. Don’t worry, it nothing serious. You’re lucky you’re not paralysed. He murmurs and his arm twitches slightly, a good sign. It’s most likely shock you’re feeling, that’ll fade shortly. Though the pain will then be unbearable… Or so I’ve heard.

Rather you than me, I thought but did not say.

I clear his eyes of the blood some more as he begins to shuffle his broken body, only to suddenly jolt and let out a loud cry. Farleigh throws his head back in pain. Looking to the heavens for a blessing, I’d imagine. I don’t try to stop the cries.

Before I get up – my toes now cramping at my crouch-like stance – I take Farleigh’s hand in mine, and my other I stroke gently across his knee, running the tips of my fingers over the uneven surface of skin. He squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth in pain.

He could chew his tongue, I thought as I recalled that scene in that movie where she bites a cloth between her teeth as he glazes over the gunshot wound with a small blowtorch.

The sensation of my hand on his knee I can only imagine to be a vibration of pain, more like an electric shock than a burning. I imagine the pain is cold and paralysing, unto him like a slow frost. I look straight into his eyes as I push a little harder on his knee. You see here? I look to the wound and admire it. This bone protrusion at your knee would suggest you’ve broken your leg, Mr Farleigh. I did my best to sound professional. So, you might want to mind your step on your way out.

Farleigh follows my gaze as I look to the floor again, my photos creased and buried under glass. Don’t worry about those, though I suppose I’ll have to dispose of them. I look for remorse in his expression though it is mostly numbed from the pain, my left hand now tightly gripped around the knee. And one, two, three... I squeeze at Farleigh’s knee as tightly as I can. I’m by no means a psychically strong person, so I was surprised when I heard a POP! And the bone scratched back into place. Reduced to nothing but a whimper, Farleigh met my gaze once more. I leaned in closely. I wouldn’t stick around here much longer, I said, I don’t want to have to dispose of you too.

I let go of his leg and unclutched my right hand from his arm. I gave his forehead and eye a wipe once more, the blood now thinning, diluted by tears. Back on my feet, I stretch out the cramp in my legs and move away from Farleigh, a lump at the foot of the staircase, to the lump on the sofa. I pull back the crochet blanket to the dog, stretching out. I disturbed her deep sleep. She gives herself to me, limply though always sweetly; I take her in my arms and carry her, past Farleigh and up the stairs, treading carefully amongst the glass. I’ll think about it tomorrow, I whisper to her. At the top of the stairs I stood once more, in full light and looked to the bloodied site at the foot of the stairs. Poor thing, I whisper, goodnight, Mr Farleigh.

I lay the dog down on the bed and she curls into herself. I strip down and take a shower, the blood has dried on my hands and arms. I don’t look to see if it’s on my clothes. Dispose of them too, I remind myself.

Once in bed, I lay on my back, head sunken in the pillows, the dog at my side, coiling my hand under her neck. I’m too alert to fall asleep and I wonder if my sofa nap was all I’ll get tonight.

Then, somewhere in the distance I hear a murmuring then a shuffling then a THUMP... then a whimper. He’s on the move, I conclude as I lay there listening contently to the sounds of Farleigh, dragging himself across the bare floor to escape his unknown fate. Occasionally I hear a higher pitched squirm. Ah, the splinters, I thought.

The noises disturb her, agitated in recovery, and at one point she lets out a growl. As I go settle her, I remind her: Shush now, leave him to lick his wounds.