You Can't Park There

Cynthia hears him before she sees him, his clompy old boots unmistakable, stomping angrily up the garden path. She had been lost in thought, hands deep in warm, bubbly, lemon-scented washing up, thinking about making some kind of crumble for dessert tonight. A bit luxurious just for the two of them but she has apples that want using and after all, why shouldn’t they have a nice treat every now and then? The door bangs open, shaking the little curtain she had sewn by hand to fit perfectly over the windowpane.

‘Unbelievable!’ Harold booms, storming into the kitchen, ‘Absolutely, un– Cynthia, it is absolutely unbelievable, you won’t believe what he’s done now!’

‘Hm? What’s that, dear?’

‘Him! Next-door!’ Cries Harold, gesturing in the direction of next-door with a rolled-up newspaper, as if she wasn’t aware where next-door was.

‘Shoes, Harold,’ she says. ‘You mean Brian?’

Harold makes a meal of stepping out of his boots, fumbling with the laces, grabbing the kitchen counter and then his bad knee, and cursing under his breath.

‘Of course Brian! He’s only gone and parked on the front verge with that thing!’

Cynthia dries her hands and puts the kettle on. Once Harold gets started, he doesn’t half go on, sometimes a cup of tea will at least stop him talking between sips. He sits down heavily at the kitchen table, puffing and panting as if he’s had a very hard and taxing day at the office, something he hasn’t done for nearly eleven years now. Instead he spends his days warring with the neighbour and generally getting under her feet.

She wonders if she has everything she needs for an apple crumble, or whether she needs to nip out.

‘That old pile of scrap, that “Land Rover”,’ Harold puts it in air quotes even though that is actually what it’s called and that’s not how air quotes work, she has told him time and time again.

‘A risk to the public if you ask me,’ he continues, ‘forever bits of it falling off all over the place. Diesel, Cynthia, can you believe it? What does he think he’s driving, a train? It’s ridiculous, I mean what is the world coming to? What’s next?!’

Cynthia isn’t sure if she knows what a diesel is, exactly, but she is certain she doesn’t care a jot.

‘Could you see if we’ve any cinnamon, Harold?’ she asks.

‘What? Have a what?’

‘Cinnamon, Harold, behind you. On the spice rack.’

Harold turns, bewildered, as if she’s asked him to check for a racoon. He wouldn’t know a spice rack if it clambered across the kitchen table and hit him over the head with his old, clompy boot. She goes around him and looks herself.

‘And that cat,’ he goes on, unfolding his paper noisily, ‘I’ve a right mind to get rid of it myself.’

‘Oh, leave that cat alone, he’s a dear old thing,’ says Cynthia.

‘It is a menace, Cynthia, and I won’t stand for it!’

Cynthia plonks a cup of tea down in front of him just in time for him to launch into a rather long speech about cats and the native wildlife, not that Harold has ever seemed to be interested in the native wildlife before. Years, the feud has been going on, she can’t even remember how it started now. When they first moved in the four of them were very friendly, Brian and Lily were lovely, they would have dinner together often. It was nice for some company once the kids had all grown up and moved out; “empty nesters” they were all together!

Then there was a discussion about the correct height of a fence, which seemed to get under Brian’s bonnet, and then there was a comment about Harold’s car.

‘A Honda! Petrol, is it?’ Brian had said. ‘Jeepers. Couldn’t drive one myself, good old-fashioned diesel for me, all the way.’

That was it, really. Things snowballed, and here they are. Feuding for sport. Cynthia is slipping her shoes on when Harold looks over the top of his newspaper, still going on about that cat.

‘Spraying on everything, it’s barbaric is what it is– where are you going?’ He has dropped his paper in disbelief that she could have anywhere more interesting to be than here, listening to him explain all that is wrong with the world.

‘Nipping to the shop, we’re out of cinnamon. Do you want anything?’

‘Cinnamon? Cinnamon, Cynthia, did you not hear what I said? He has parked on the verge!’

‘I heard you, dear.’

‘Well, what do you propose we do about it? This can’t go on, it is absolutely outrageous!’

‘Oh, Harold,’ she says in exasperation, ‘it’s a verge, he’s not blocking the driveway or the road, what does it matter?’

Harold is choking on his tea now and follows her out of the kitchen spluttering down the path behind her in his socks. He hasn’t even thought to put his cup down and follows her out with it, sploshing tea into the petunias.

‘What does it matter?’ He says, ‘What does it matter?! I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My own wife, I can’t believe–’

‘Hellooo!’ trills a cheery voice from over the hedge.

‘Lily! How lovely. How are you?’ says Cynthia. Cynthia thinks Lily looks lovelier every time she sees her, some people really do grow old graciously. She’s had a tint, or a rinse, or something.

‘Oh, I am just fine,’ says Lily, ‘how are you? What a beautiful cardigan! Is that Millers?’

‘It is Millers!’

Harold is rolling his eyes now but has gone very quiet, for all the anger he has toward Brian he still cannot abide bad manners toward women.

‘And how are you, Harold?’ says Lily, ‘Your tomatoes are looking nice and plump aren’t they, have you put a bit of Seasol on them? Mine always seem to get snapped up by caterpillars before I get a chance to have a go myself, greedy things.’

Harold mumbles something and has become very interested in picking some stray brown leaves out of the hedge, Cynthia wonders if it has anything to do with the fact she caught him tipping a little pot of something that looked suspiciously like caterpillars over the fence last spring.

Lily’s back door bangs, and then comes trouble.

‘Hello, Brian,’ Cynthia says, ‘How are you?’

Brian grunts and nods, his ruddy cheeks flushed, because he also cannot bring himself to be rude to a woman.

‘Never mind how are you,’ pipes up Harold, ‘What’s all this about parking on the verge, eh? It’s not a car park, you know! Don’t you have enough space on your drive?’

‘I’ll have you know,’ booms Brian, ‘I need to leave space for an exterminator this afternoon to get rid of rats that have been brought in by your bloody birds! Scattering their seed everywhere!’

‘They’re bloody not after my birdseed, they’re after your bloody huge grape vine!’

‘I’m making a crumble,’ Cynthia says to Lily, ‘shall I drop some over later?’

‘Oh, how nice!’

Then there is a strange sound that makes all four turn toward the road. A strange, whooshing, gravel-crunching sound. They are dumbfounded to see a car rolling up to the kerb. The body is sleek and low to the ground, the windows tinted, the paintwork metallic, and once the tyres stop moving, not a single sound comes from the engine. They watch wordlessly, Harold and Brian’s mouths gaping open, as a young couple emerge from the vehicle and look up and down the street. When they close the doors, they make a kind of “shoop” noise instead of a “clunk”.

Brian blinks. Harold spills a bit of his tea.

‘Hellooo!’ Trills Lily with a little wave.

Brian nudges her in the ribs and hisses, ‘What are you doing, woman?’

But it is too late, the couple come over.

‘Hi there! You must be our new neighbours,' says the young man, ‘we are moving into number eighteen.’

Lily and Cynthia immediately jump into action with introductions and welcomes and ‘How lovely!’ and ‘Isn’t that lovely?’ and ‘I’m making a crumble! I must bring you some! Lovely!’

The couple turn out to be a charming newly-wed pair from twenty minutes the other side of town, and Cynthia is already brimming with excitement at the possibility of having young children on the street again, cycling their trikes up and down, knocking at Halloween all dressed up, how sweet.

It is only a few minutes into the welcome when Harold can no longer hold it in. He doesn’t even wait for a gap in the conversation, just points to the car and says, ‘What… is that?’

‘Hm?’ says the young man, ‘Oh, the car? That’s our little runaround. Electric, you know.’ He gestures up at the sky, the sun glinting off his sunglasses. ‘Charges off solar.’

Harold looks at Brian. Brian looks at Harold.

‘No,’ says Brian to the new young man, ‘I’m sorry but we won’t have any of that around here.’

‘Absolutely not,’ says Harold, ‘we simply won’t stand for it.’

‘Outrageous,’ says Brian.

‘Unbelievable,’ says Harold.

And off they go together to draft a letter to some association or other, leaving the new neighbours to back away down the driveway and the two ladies to enjoy a moment of peace and quiet in the sun.

‘I’ll see you later for some crumble then, Lily?’ says Cynthia.

‘Lovely!’