The Neighbour – Lydia Marchant

 

Every couple of hours or so she thinks about the things she has lost. Never people. Not yet. Warm chicken nuggets in the car park with the radio turned up and the rain hammering down. Starchy Premier Inn bed sheets. Condensation on pint glasses. Pressing her forehead against train windows.   

The sensations swallow her like waves before she can work out what is happening. When they do, she goes outside. She rubs her palms against the rocks. Wrists on the ice. Her toes on the moss. Listens, relishing the silence between the gusts of biting wind. She forces herself to be present. Like she heard once from a therapist or TV show. Reminds herself that this is what she wanted.  

After it all happened, she used to lie in bed every night and picture the cabin. The single-storey simplicity of it. 5 rough stone slaps lead up to a wooden door – painted a calming sage green – which opens straight into the kitchenette. Single hob, sink, fridge, pantry cupboard. Nothing else. Bathroom to the right. Sink, toilet, shower. Compact. Log burner on the left, table, armchair, bed. A window past her feet looking out onto the rocks and the brown and yellow moss and the mountain so close it could stamp her out in a second.    

She makes herself remember back when things were really bad. Waiting three hours, four, five for fevered sleep to take her. She used to imagine going through her day, more or less like she goes through it now. Simple breakfast. Coffee and an egg maybe. Simple lunch. Soup and bread. And a simple fish dinner. Household tasks in the morning. Walking in the afternoon. Nothing unsolicited. No iCalendar pings, rush hour standstill, nutritional wheels, splitting the bill, coffee shop queues or Facebook events to decline or ignore. No one breathing, judging, small talking for miles. No one knowing what she did.  

Once she has done everything – the being present and the reminding – she feels calm again and can pick up her day where she left it. 

Today she is on her walk. She doesn’t silence her thoughts with a murder podcast anymore because there is no noise to silence. She doesn’t track her 10 000 steps or input her route into her Apple Watch. She just walks ‘til she feels something. Tiredness. Boredom. Today, like most days, it is hunger.  

‘Evening.’ She’s turning to go back to the cabin. Dusk is setting in. In her mind the log fire is already spitting, the Ocean Perch is wrinkling and puckering.   

‘Evening.’ The casual way he says it makes her teeth grind. Her spine goes rigid. ‘Evening.’ The casual audacity of it. Like it’s not just the two of them. Like she didn’t get a plane and a boat and a rented Land Rover that smelled like lemon and then cockle up the steep track with pots and pans jangling off her rucksack. Just to get here. Like her hut isn’t supposed to be the only building for as far as her lungs will let her walk. Like he’s not supposed to be here. Like he’s not fucking ruining everything. Her hand folds into a fist.  

She says ‘good evening’ back and hates herself.  

Her neighbour’s face is mostly nose. His skin juts out in ridges. Dry, chapped crevices cut by acne scars. His thin black hair parts around his ears – so pale they’re almost white. He holds a crumpled white and blue striped supermarket carrier. Almost full. A tin of mackerel and a fat weekend newspaper peer out the top. He has little eyes. She hates the way he looks at her.  

He says ‘I’ve disturbed you.’  

He speaks from his nose.  

She protests like a reflex. 

He tells her ‘You’re walking fast.’ 

His legs are small and thick. But he’s managing to keep up with her.  

She protests again. This time adding a mumbled apology.  

He asks her ‘What are you doing? Living all the way out here?’  

She tries to play him off with polite melodic noises.  

But he keeps going. ‘What are you looking for?’  

She shrugs. 

‘Then what are you hiding from out here?’ His face shines like he’s just won a prize. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ 

This time she doesn’t trust herself to answer.  

He pants. ’Slow down. You’re running.’  

She stammers ‘no…’  

She is. Her chest is starting to rattle. But it’s in an awkward, straight-legged way like she’s trying to pretend that she’s not.  

He nods at the hut. ’This is where you live.’ 

It’s too late to say it isn’t. Why did she have to run home? 

‘Yes.’  

He asks again. ’So why? Why are you hiding? What happened to you? Or what did you do? It’s that, isn’t it? Your eyes are all over the place.’  

She apologises. ‘I really have to…’  

But it’s not like she can say she’s late for brunch with the girls – all the way out here.  

‘Darling, you’re crying.’  

She has to do it all in one move, the five steps, the door, the lock.  

He knows it too. ‘Don’t look at the door. Look at me. What are you so afraid of?’  

She takes two steps at once. He matches her pace for pace. She sticks out her arm to block him.  

He presses his weight against her. ’I only want to talk.’  

She twists the handle on the calming sage green door. Until now, she didn’t know she had a reason to lock it. Squeezes through the smallest gap. She’s inside. She slams the door. It bounces back.  

He chuckles. ‘You slammed that hard.’ 

His foot is in the doorway. It looks too big for his body.  

His shoulders are thick and she’s surprised she has the strength to push him. There’s a soft thud when his head strikes the first stone step. 

As she watches the dark blood matte his thin black hair. She can’t help thinking, wasn’t there a second, when his arms were spinning in windmills, that she could have reached out and saved him?  

She bolts the door. Calming sage green. But the still nothingness is gone now and her ears are flushed with noise. She should have saved him. She should not have run home. Her voice was too high pitched when she said ‘good evening.’  

The noise fills up everything. It tears through the kitchenette and fills up the log burner. Sits in her armchair and slides underneath her bed spread. She tidies and scrubs until her hands redden and flake. But everything feels like it’s in the wrong place.  

She runs outside. Stepping over him. Rubs her palms against the rocks. But she rubs too hard and the skin catches. She yelps. The blood trickles down her arm thin and fast like when she catches it shaving. Wrists on the ice. The cold stings the skin. She slips awkwardly on the moss. There is no biting wind.  

Inside, the noise is louder than ever. She kicks the pantry cupboard. It holds for several minutes. Then one of the hinges snaps. It sags slightly. Begins to split in two. She closes her eyes. Splinters brush her cheeks. She runs the tap until the sink spills over. Jumps on the bed until the slats crack. Fills the burner with logs until the door won’t close and throws in the match.  

She cockles down the steep track, with pots and pans jangling off her rucksack. She didn’t bother to close the calming sage green door. The flames had already reached it.