1
‘Visitor!’ Trevor announced. ‘Visitor!’
I eased my foot off the sewing machine pedal and looked towards the lounge window, but I couldn’t see anyone outside.
‘Are you sure, Trevor?’ I wasn’t expecting any deliveries and I never had visitors.
‘Visitor!’ he repeated. ‘Come in!’
I abandoned the patchwork quilt I was making on the dining table and headed to the window, spotting a branded carparked outside my next-door neighbour’s house.
‘It’s Betsy’s estate agent, Trevor. She must have another viewing.’
Betsy and I had been neighbours for twelve years but had only become friends after my husband, Cliff, died unexpectedly nearly five years ago. Betsy and her husband, Eric, were such a support and comfort and I’m not sure how I’d have got through it without them. Eighteen months later, Eric passed away too and I supported Betsy through her bereavement. Aged seventy-five, Betsy was sixteen years older than me and had been struggling with her balance for a while. After falling down the stairs at the start of the year, it didn’t surprise me when she announced she’d be leaving Pippinthwaite – a village a few miles outside Keswick in the Lake District National Park – to live closer to her children and grandchildren in Derbyshire. Her house went on the market in the spring and she’d had an offer reasonably quickly but the sale had fallen through. While I wanted my friend to be happy, settled and safe with her family, I couldn’t help hoping another offer wouldn’t follow too quickly because, without Betsy, I had nobody to talk to. Except Trevor, but my conversations with my thirty-eight-year-old African Grey parrot were a little one-sided.
Betsy was staying with her daughter, Caroline, at the moment, while she viewed some retirement flats. She’d told me the estate agent would continue with viewings while she was away so I expected him to head towards the house but, instead, he retrieved something from the boot.
‘Visitor!’ Trevor repeated.
‘I know, Trevor, but he’s not coming here. He’s… oh no!’ My stomach sank as the estate agent stopped beside Betsy’s ‘for sale’ board and attached a red ‘sold’ sign to it.
‘Betsy’s leaving,’ I murmured, the words catching in my throat.
Trevor dipped his head several times and I liked to think he understood. He shuffled along his perch and I released the catch on his cage door so he could hop out onto the towel beside it. I picked up the plant mister filled with rainwater and sprayed the air above him. Trevor loved being misted – something I did several times daily to more closely emulate the humidity of an African rainforest climate – and the little wiggle of delight he gave as the mist landed on his feathers never failed to lift me.
A car door slamming returned my attention to the window. The estate agent was back in the driver’s seat and, moments later, the car was gone. While Trevor admired himself in the mirror propped up beside his cage, awarding himself a wolf whistle, I did a swift calculation in my head. It was the last week of August now so Betsy would likely be gone before Christmas, which meant we wouldn’t be together for our usual pre-Christmas activities – a festive afternoon tea where we laughed like naughty schoolchildren when our shared love of cake meant eating our desserts before the savoury selection, and making Christmas wreaths for our doors, sitting at my dining table while listening to Betsy’s favourite Christmas songs from the likes of Andy Williams, Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby.
Tears slipped down my cheeks and I tutted as I wiped them with the back of my hand. ‘You’d think I’d be used to being on my own by now,’ I said to Trevor. ‘And, before you say anything, I know I’ve got you, but it is nice to have a human conversation sometimes.’
‘Pretty bird!’ he squawked.
‘Yes, you are. Very pretty bird. What would I do without you?’
Movement in the street drew my gaze towards the window once more.
‘That’s Christian back on his bike. It’ll have been a lovely day for a ride.’
Christian Wynterson, a retired teacher, lived opposite me. He was in his late sixties but looked younger and, with all the cycling and hiking he’d embraced since his retirement, was probably fitter than a lot of men half his age. As he dismounted at the end of his drive, he looked towards Betsy’s house.
‘I think he’s just spotted the sold sign, Trevor.’
I considered going outside to say ‘hello’ but I didn’t want to get a reputation as the woman who lurked by her window ready to pounce on the neighbours the moment they arrived home. Christian removed his cycling helmet and wheeled his bike round the back of his house and I sighed. Today would be yet another day without any human interaction.
There were only seven houses in Mallard Close – a 1970s-built cul-de-sac of three- and four-bedroom detached properties on the edge of the village – so it should have been possible to know all my neighbours, but I didn’t. Not anymore. Betsy and Christian were the only ones I knew by name now although, in fairness, they were the only residents in my age bracket. All the other houses were occupied by young families and I was increasingly feeling as though I didn’t belong here. Betsy had felt the same, making the decision to move away a little easier. She’d lamented thegood old dayswhen everyone knew their neighbours and there’d been a stronger sense of community and, although I’d enjoyed hearing her talk about her childhood and early motherhood, I’d never experienced anything like that myself. I’d been raised in a remote hamlet consisting of a farm and four former farmworkers’ cottages and I’d only known the Kellermans in the house attached to ours. We’d had nothing to do with the owner of Hayscroft Farm, Eli Farrow, despite Dad working on the farm for many years before buying a piece of land from him and running it as a smallholding. The people in the other pair of cottages kept themselves to themselves so I’d concluded that some people deliberately chose to live in tiny communities because they didn’t want to be around other people. Or didn’t know how to be.
Leaving Trevor pecking at a slice of apple, I returned to my quilt. I never used to sew at the dining table. With having a three-bedroom house but no children, the smallest bedroom was a dedicated craft room. A couple of months after Cliff died, it struck me that I spent more time than ever in there and Trevor must be lonely downstairs, so I brought my sewing machine down to the dining table to give him some company. It was meant to be temporary while we both came to terms with the loss of a wonderful man, but the dining room had great light and the table was much bigger than my sewing desk upstairs so it had become my permanent creative space. It wasn’t like I used the dining table for eating anymore – so much easier to eat off a folding table or a lap tray in front of the television.
Betsy rang a couple of hours later.
‘I’ve accepted an offer on the house this morning,’ she said after we’d exchanged pleasantries. ‘The estate agent will probably be round in the next few days to put the sold sign up so I wanted you to hear it from me first.’
I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was too late and the sign was already up. ‘Congratulations! I’m really pleased for you.’
‘Thank you. I might have found somewhere to live down here too. I’ve got a second viewing on Friday.’
I lightly stroked Trevor’s plumage as Betsy told me about the retirement apartment. It sounded as though she loved it and Friday’s viewing was more of a formality.
‘The couple buying my house are moving out of a rental so there’s no chain. She’s expecting a baby in November so they’re keen to be in before the baby arrives.’
