Chapter 6 - Simon, Saturday

“Hello?”
“Hello Simon”
“Hi Mum, how are you?”
“I think my neighbours are spying on me.”

This wasn’t quite as mad as it sounded. They had a history of minor arguments, made worse by the fact that Mum didn’t have enough to do and tended to brood about things and make them worse. But they appeared to have reached some kind of truce lately, so this wasn’t a welcome development.

“What makes you think that?”
“Every time I look out of the dining room window they’re looking out of theirs at me.”
“How often has it happened?”
“About a dozen times”
“This week?”
“No, this morning”
“This morning! Mum, it’s hardly 10 o’clock. Have you spent all morning looking out of the window?”

Silence. An ominous silence. This wasn’t going to be good.

“Mum? I thought things were better between you?”
“They were”
“Were? What have you done?”

More silence. Oh God.

“Mum?”
“Well… You know their apple tree?”
“Yes of course I do, we practically lived off the apples from it when we were kids.”
“Well, it’s got a lot bigger since then and needed a bit of a prune.”
“You pruned their tree?”
“Yes, a little”

Was she mad? This was an old apple tree, and from what I could remember it was too big to prune. I dreaded to think what was coming next, but I said nothing hoping she’d just spit it out.

“You know there’s a law or something that says you can prune your neighbour’s tree if it hangs over your garden, but you must give back the bits you prune ?”
“I think I’ve heard that, yes.”

I thought of Mum standing on their doorstep brandishing a dismembered bough and was surprised they hadn’t phoned the police!

“So you gave it back?”
“No! it was too heavy to carry”
“Jesus Christ Mum, you cut off a branch that was too big to carry? Have you gone mad?!”
“It needed doing Simon! Don’t shout at me! Someone has to do it since your father left!”

No, please not the father thing. It was her ‘get out of jail free’ card - any madness could be absolved by the fact that her husband left her, and she wasn’t shy about using it. It was bollocks of course, she’d behaved in odd ways for as long as I could remember, but just liked to make people feel guilty.

“OK Mum, the tree”
“Well, I couldn’t carry it so I dropped it over the fence.”
“Why didn’t you just leave it for me or Nick to chop up?”
“It was untidy, you know I don’t like mess”
“So why are they being funny with you?”

More silence. Now we’d got to the bottom of it.

“what happened?”
“I dropped in on their cold frame. How was I to know it was there? They didn’t used to have one there! Squashed some plants or something, I don’t know, Jim didn’t make much sense when he shouted at me.”
“Oh Mum, why do you keep doing this kind of thing?”
“I’m just trying to look after myself Simon, I’m not going to sit inside and let everything fall apart because your father ran away with the post woman!”
“Mum, that was thirteen years ago!”

At that point the doorbell went, so I promised Mum I’d ring her later, then went to see who it was. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and John was at work as usual, so it was unlikely to be for him. Probably kids messing about.
So it was a bit of a surprise to open the door and find Gay Dave standing there. We started calling him Gay Dave at college, to differentiate him from Straight Dave, although oddly no one ever called the other Dave Straight Dave anymore, yet somehow Gay Dave had stuck. He looked tired, and slightly overdressed for a Saturday morning, but it was always nice to see him so I let him in.

“What are you doing here?!”

He grinned that cheeky grin of his, the one that gets him out of any scrape he’s been in, the one he uses to charm the boys to bed. Fucker. He’d been shagging, it was written all over his face.

“I was in the area although I’d pop in, it’s been ages since I saw you.”

More grinning.

“In the area at this time of day? Since when did you do the suburbs on a Saturday morning? You look like you’ve not been home”
“True enough, but it’s still good to see you. I need a shower, can I jump in yours while you make me a coffee?”

This was so Dave. You always ended up doing what he wanted, you just couldn’t help yourself. And he was right, it was months since I’d seen him, although there had been plenty of emails from him, with increasingly lurid tales of drunken nights out. Of all our group he was the most outgoing, although it was starting to look a lot less like youthfulness and more like immaturity. Love him as much as I did, I wished he’d slow down before he got into trouble. No sign of it happening any time soon though if this morning‘s appearance was anything to go by, and in the mean time he took great pleasure in recounting his adventures in more details than most of us needed.
The coffee was cooling and I was flicking through the paper by the time he came out of the bathroom with his shirt off. Nice. Except I shouldn’t think like that, he’s an old friend, it’s not right. He grinned again - he’d clearly caught me looking.

“You got a shirt I can borrow? Mine stinks of cigarette smoke, which isn’t pleasant with a hangover.”
“Help yourself, you know where they are, although I expect they’re a bit dull for you.”
“Were you staring at my chest?”

Rumbled. Bugger.

“I just wondered when you started shaving it?”
“Liar. Couple of months ago. Someone at the gym said you look more defined if you shave. I think he just said it as a chat up line, but funnily enough it’s true. A bit of a chore though, so I might let it grow back”

And off he went to rummage for a shirt, whistling something as he opened draws and cupboards. He was never going to find anything he liked - I didn’t possess anything with a designer label on it. I expect he was just rummaging to see if he could find anything incriminating. He’ll be lucky!
Five minutes later he emerged from the bedroom in my best shirt, and annoyingly it looked better on him than one me. He’d obviously found hair gel as well, as his hair was back up where it belonged. He looked ready to face the world again, and would no doubt be out of here in search of adventure in no time.

“Hmmm, good coffee, I needed that. Now I feel more human.”
“Late night?”

That grin again.

“Oh yes. It was stupid to stay though, didn’t sleep a wink, and had to make awkward excuses to get out of there this morning.”
“What was he like?”
“Make me some toast and I’ll tell you all the gory details! Not much butter, loads of jam, thanks!”
“Make yourself at home why don’t you!”

But I already had the bread in the toaster, and was wondering which type of jam he’d prefer. Strawberry would be too dull, although he could be going through one of his retro phases where he embraced the old-fashioned and quaint. I settled on raspberry, because it was all I had. I think the rest had vanished in a late night jam eating frenzy - one of those “I hate my life, where’s the food?” moments when the shops are shut and you’ll eat anything that look remotely like food. I seem to remember eating butter once, although the good thing about having a flatmate is that there’s always someone else’s food to raid if you get desperate. Luckily John had a sweet tooth and a bad memory, so he never noticed the odd chocolate bar going astray. Or if he did he never said anything. Perhaps the toothpaste thing was his way of evening out the score?

“Your toast your ladyship, now tell me about last night’s victim.”