I do not push Arabella out of the doorway and sprint down the street, baby-voicing Blue’s name into bushes. I wait. Becausehere,in this new life, here I am not worried about all the things that might go wrong next, here I am the best version of myself.
Old me—middle-aged, middle-class, mid-career, muddling through—is not allowed to make the decisions anymore.
Besides this is the only person I’ve managed to interact with so far and I don’t want to mess it up.
I’m immediately vindicated in my decision, as Arabella leans in with a thrillingly conspiratorial edge to her voice. “It’s so great that someone’s finally moved in here,” she says. “It was such a waste; sucha beautiful building and it’s been just sitting here empty for well over a year now. Criminal. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have new blood on the street. A fresh face. Everyone’sdyingto meet you.”
I don’t believe a word of it, not one.
The neighbors I’ve seen so far do not in any way appear pleased to see me, unless they were so happy to see me that they needed to argue about it, and then stare at me like hawks.
“Aw, that’s nice,” I tell her. “I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone, too.” This is also a lie.
The last thing I need right now is to meet lots of very rich, very successful, very contented people and be forced to tell them everything about my private life. No, I need a few days, weeks, months. I need something to show for almost forty years on this planet, even if it’s only a beautifully furnished house. “Is it a close…community?” I ask tentatively, testing the waters.
“Close…Good Lord, no. Well, I mean, you get to know people, for sure, but no. It’s hardly acommunity. I mean, it’s London. We’re all very different. But you’ll get a feel for it.”
Will I?
I take her in: she’s dressed impeccably—if I had to guess, her children are in private school, her family and his probably come from money, there’s a holiday home, and more hired help than I’ve seen….
She is smiling at me; I realize I haven’t said anything for a while.
“Sorry, moving-in brain. You said the house had been empty for a while, but the owners were overseas, and it was being renovated, wasn’t it?”
She looks at me blankly, clearly playing back her own words internally.
“Oh, yes,” she says finally, “I believe so.” Her energy brightens as she suddenly recalls something. “Oh. I can add you to the neighborhood group chat, if you’d like. That way you can pop a photo on and we can all look out for the cat?”
The group sounds terrifying, and yet the fastest way to inclusion. I tap my number into Arabella’s phone, and when I hand it back, I notice she is looking past me and into the house, as if looking for something. She bites her lip, cheeks instantly reddening at being caught.
“Can’t lie—I’m dying to see inside,” she confesses. “What they’vedone to the place, with the renovation, you know. I remember it from before. How are youfindingit?” she asks with an inference that I can’t quite place.
Her words hang in the air. It’s a weird series of things to say, or maybe it was the way she said them. It’s clear that she wants to snoop around, and the entrance fee is clearly my flowers and sparkling wine.
“Oh, of course. I’d love to have you over, once I’m all settled and—”
“Of course,” she interjects. “Yes, I’m sure you’re still unpacking—such a slog. What goes where, do I still need this…and it’s just you. Listen, let me know if you need any help. I’m just over the road, and very open to bunking off on work-from-home days. Oh, andI’dlove,we’dlove, to have you over to ours for coffee, too. Best avoid the kids if you value your hearing. But you’ve got my number.”
A text from her pings onto my phone right on cue. God, she’s smooth. If I could cut her out and paste her onto a vision board, I would. I have no idea how she’s making me like her so much, but Ido.
After goodbyes, I shut my door, blocking out the bright summer glare, enveloped once more in the cool of my new hallway. All I can think about is Blue, and how I’ll find him and get him back in the house before he’s lost forever. My thoughts immediately leap to him a week from now, shivering and starving, as he shelters under a London underpass, dreaming of his soft cat bed.
I try to wait long enough for Arabella to get back into her turquoise front-doored house, before opening up my front door again and searching for Blue; the last thing I want is for her to think I’ve forgotten to tell her something—or worse, that I’m a completely mad cat lady. I count to ten in my head, then ten again, then grab my keys and pull open my gleaming new front door.
I briskly make my way down both sides of my new street, before circling back and peering closer into people’s front gardens, looking behind bin stores and singsonging, “Blue!” Every now and then I catch the eyes of someone behind a window, someone with AirPods in, at a laptop in the middle of a Monday-morning e-meeting, another sipping tea, a cleaner washing the dishes through a low basement kitchen window. They crease their brows.Look elsewhere,their eyes seem to say. I know how I must look, skulking from front gateto front gate, peering into bushes: vaguely suspicious, or completely unhinged. I do only one proper loop of the street—it’s all I can reasonably get away with without causing a scene. But Blue does not emerge.
The whole idea of moving here is to start again. I am supposed to be a new person—not an anxious, unemployed, scorned woman who can’t even keep hold of a cat.
Blue will come home, I know that. Arabella was right, he is clever. He’s also always hungry, so he won’t go far. I let myself head back home.
—
I spend the rest of the day unpacking, in between sessions of calling out for Blue, but this time from the back garden, not the street, at hourly intervals until 10 p.m., by which time I realize there’s a chance he’ll be out gallivanting for the whole night now. Which in the Cotswolds I never worried about but here feels so much more dangerous. After a delivery driver brings me my first-night celebration pizza, I resign myself to eating alone and lock the front and back doors before heading upstairs.
I lock my bedroom door, it’s habit now. I’ve been doing it since the night I confronted Ben about the messages. And now, since living alone, I can’t sleep at all unless the door is locked.
In bed, my concerns and creeping anxieties slip over Blue and the new street to my deflated life and totally uncertain future. But I am too physically tired from lifting and moving boxes and cabinets and heavy-hangered clothes to keep it all going. I slip almost unwillingly into sleep.
