He glances back at me then walks towards the front door. ‘Oh, it’s you. I’ll just get Tessa.’ He goes into the house. Then I remember what the letter sent to them said, it was something on the lines of Tessa’s husband would rather sleep with me than her. My stomach jumps at how this must have sounded to Tessa. No wonder her husband doesn’t want to speak to me or be alone with me for a whole two seconds.
‘Gemma from across the road. It’s you.’ Tessa steps out wearing a long, black tailored coat buttoned up to the neck, military in style. I didn’t take her in much on the first day but she is quite tall and elegant. Her shiny ash-blonde hair has been wrapped in a messy bun. I feel a state in my dungarees again. Everyone around here is definitely so much classier.
I struggle to get the chocolates from my bag with Cora in my arms, so I place her on the ground. After pulling the gift from my bag, I grab Cora’s hand and walk her over to Tessa. I give Tessa the chocolates. ‘I know we haven’t got off to a good start.’ What do I say next? Your nephew is a menace.
She holds a hand up. ‘I’m diabetic.’
Great. She looks sour and the chocolates didn’t work their magic, so I’m going in cold now and she already looks pissed off. ‘I, err, I wanted to ask you, did you send a hamper to us, the day after we moved in? It had some biscuits and veggies in it. It was like they’d come from an allotment or maybe they were organic, from a farm shop, something like that.’ I hate that I’m waffling. It’s obvious I’m nervous.
She hesitates with her answer. After opening her mouth to speak, she pauses then answers. ‘No.’
Okay, this isn’t going well. ‘We didn’t write those letters, you know. This is why I’m here. We received a hamper with veggies in it and they were hiding a load of worms.’
She raises her brows. ‘Well, sometimes fresh veggies can be like that. You get insects and the occasional wriggler. That’s what it’s like, living in the country, but I guess you wouldn’t know that.’
Great, make me feel like I don’t belong yet again. ‘There was also a note, like the letters you all got.’
‘Oh, what did it say?’
‘It said that the hamper was a welcome gift, that it was important to fit in and they hoped we’d fall for the place.’
‘It sounds like the sender meant well. It’s not nasty, like our letters.’
‘The word fall was in capital letters. My aunt fell from our balcony. It felt threatening.’
She lets out a long breath and smiles. ‘Well then, it wasn’t the same person who sent the nasty letters. They were written all in capital letters, obviously used to disguise their handwriting.’
That figures. I wish we hadn’t binned the note. The letter I stole from Quinn was in capitals. Maybe our hamper and note had nothing to do with the letters, but there is still the matter of Tessa’s nephew.
‘Why did you think I sent the hamper?’ Tessa folds her arms. A breeze catches us and she shivers. I know me keeping her on the drive is making her cold.
‘Because…’ I’m breaking Morgan’s confidence now and it feels wrong. ‘My daughter Morgan has befriended Harry, next door.’
‘Oh him.’ She sniffs, quick and sharp.
‘What does that mean? He seems a lovely lad.’
‘Seems. That boy spent three years at school getting my nephew into trouble. He’d lure him into something, they’d get caught and that little shit would complain that it was James, so James always got punished. He’d be on detention after detention while Harry – poor little vulnerable-looking Harry – would get away with everything.’
Damn, this isn’t what I expected to hear. Harry sounds a bit like Quinn when we used to hang out as kids, but still, we were kids and kids do silly things. Tessa is taking all of this too seriously. ‘Is that why James put worms in Harry’s boots?’
‘So, this is why you came. It’s pathetic, really it is. You think a fourteen-year-old could write those letters. Putting a worm in a boot is such a juvenile thing to do, wouldn’t you say? But, writing a letter to me, telling me that my husband would rather…’ She shakes her head. ‘With you… It seems to me like you’re attention seeking. You love drama, don’t you, Gemma? I remember you from all those years ago, when you used to stay with your aunt. I remember.’ She points to her head.
I’m shaking and Cora is asking me to pick her up, so I lift her into my arms.
‘You were such a little troublemaker all those years ago. Are you still a troublemaker, Gemma? The letters only started on the day you arrived.’
‘Letters?’ I have to stop her. Does she mean the letters everyone received or letters she’s received? I don’t know why but I feel she means the latter.
She storms into her house and comes out with two letters.
‘I mean, you don’t exactly need to read them because you wrote them, didn’t you, Gemma?’
She passes them to me then snatches one back.
‘They’re ugly as you can see.’
HELLO LOVELY NEIGHBOUR. YOU’RE DISGUSTING. YOUR HUSBAND DESERVES BETTER THAN TRASH, THAT’S WHY HE LOOKS ELSEWHERE. AND IF HE KNEW THE REAL YOU, HE’D HATE WHAT HE SAW. I REMEMBER EVERYTHING SO DON’T FORGET IT.
