Day 112

Writing exercise

…

The Smithsons had always lived in a house at the middle of the cul-de-sac on the nice side of the neighbourhood, where they never quite made the grade.

That’s not to say they didn’t belong there, and they might well have fitted in if it had not been for the rather gregarious behaviour of Mrs Smithson.

Or so my mother said, many times in hushed tones, when stealing a glance out the front window, and Mrs Smithson would be standing in the front yard in attire that, as my mother so bluntly described it, a decent woman would not wear inside the house, let alone out.

My father, being the polite man he was, would also glance out the window, but I always thought his look was one of appreciation. I know my older brother had the same look, but with a different set of feelings. I was too young, at the time, to understand such things.

Where had they come from?

Why had the realtor sold them the house, especially when he knew that only a certain type of person would be welcomed into the neighbourhood, or was it for some other reason?

Years later, when my home for many years was finally handed down to the last family member, me, I got to discover the truth.

…

The Smithsons had a daughter, well, that’s another story, but a girl about my age turned up one morning outside the front of their house, in a rather strange manner.

Or given how the neighbourhood perceived the Smithsons, perhaps it was in character for them.

A rather posh car stopped out front, and my mother, not to miss anything that happened there, happened to be peering through the blinds.

“Come and look at this,” she said, excited, to my father, who was about to leave for work.

“Jenny, don’t you have better things to do?”

Like take us to school, of course, but for the gossip session later…

He didn’t join her but continued on his way out. I went over instead.

Just in time to see a man get out of the driver’s side and come around to open the door for a lady who was dressed differently from us. The man had a hat and a suit on.

Then a girl got out of the car, about eight or nine, with a small suitcase. The woman who I assumed was her mother grabbed her hand and literally dragged her to the front door of the Smithsons’ residence, then started pounding on the door.

When there was no answer, but I did see movement of one of the curtains indicating someone from within was watching, she yelled out, “Daniel, you’d better get out there and collect your little brat, because I’m leaving her here. You hear me, Daniel? You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”

She waited a minute, said something to the girl that made her start crying, then stomped back to the car. The man opened the door for her, she got in, and then they left.

Only then did the front door open, and the girl and the suitcase dragged her in and slammed the door.

And from that point, there were nothing but heated arguments that often spilled out into the cul-de-sac, until one morning, it all ended. Mrs Smithson left with her own suitcase.

…

I used to play by myself because most of the children in the cul-de-sac were much older, in a field behind the Smithsons’ house, and gained access to it by a narrow walkway between the Smithson house and their neighbour.

Sometimes Smithson was waiting for anyone who dared to use that walkway, or his two eldest boys, who were bullies. It became a game in itself to get past them, and one I succeeded in doing more often than not.

Once, I ran into ‘the little brat’, named Eloise. That much I knew from the shouting matches. She was hiding down in the makeshift hut I’d built out of builders’ waste, a summer holiday project.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The owner of this hut.”

“It doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“It’s not yours.”

“I’m here.”

“So am I. Who are you?”

“Eloise. What’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“You live over the road. Does your mother always peer out from behind the curtains? My mother says she should mind her own business.”

“That’s what my dad says. What do your parents argue about all the time?”

“Me.”

“Why?”

“I’m supposed to be the result of my Daddy’s sordid affair with my mother. Now my mother no longer wants me, and neither does Daddy.”

“You could come and live with us,” I said without thinking and without knowing the ways of the world. To me, it seemed an easy thing to do.

“That would be nice, but I’m being sent to a relative in New York. That will be better than staying here where I’m not wanted. I’d better go before they send those two horrible boys to find me.”

When I came home from school about a week after Mrs Smithson left, my mother told me that ‘obnoxious little brat over the road’ had been taken away. I didn’t bother telling her just how wrong she was about Eloise.

…

By a quirk of fate and a very bad year, I found myself the new owner of the house I grew up in.

How it happened was another of those stories that fitted into that category, ‘you wouldn’t believe if I told you’.

I was surprised when the lawyer called me, and even more surprised to learn of both my parents and brothers’ passing.  We had a falling out, some years before, over something quite trivial, but pride and stupidity on both sides created and perpetuated a stand-off that was never bridged.

The pity of it was that I did not feel the loss as keenly as I should have, and for a month or so, I dithered about returning.  In the end, I decided the happy memories outweighed the despair, and I decided to move back home.

Now, standing in the lounge, I stole a glance towards the window that my mother had spent so much time at, stickybeaking at the neighbours.  For a moment, I was tempted.

But, the moving boxes weren’t going to move themselves, the movers running out of time, and had dumped the last twenty in the foyer.

Until there was a knock on the door.

Was this the neighbourhood welcoming committee?  There had been one when we first moved in. I went over and opened the door.

“Hello, Jack”

A woman about my age but very familiar stood on the front porch, looking back towards the Smithsons’ house.

“I know you, don’t I?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Then give me a minute… Oh, yes.  Eloise?”

She smiled.  “Very good.  I see you have just moved in.  I’m loath to say I was watching through the front window.”

“A regular pastime in this neighbourhood.  God, the number of hours my mother wasted.  I apologise for her behaviour.”

“It doesn’t matter.  Never did, for me anyway.  I wasn’t there long enough for it to matter.  Are you staying or passing through?”

“Staying.”

“Your family?”

“Passed.  A car accident a while back.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.  When did you return?”

“About a week ago.  A quirk of fate, really.  Last relative standing.  Parents divorced and passed, both to cancer, and those two beastly boys died in Afghanistan.  I guess being the result of an affair sometimes has its advantages.  So, here I am, and so are you.  I never forgot that moment of kindness.  I thought, if it were you, I would invite you over for dinner.  Unless you have other plans.”

I looked around at the mess.  “It can wait.  What time?”

“Now.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025