‘I just don’t like it.’
Henry turned the pages of his paper. The house at the end of the street was a bone of contention with the Housing Committee, what with the death of a long-forgotten somesuch making it a historical landmark, and the Preservation Society deciding not to touch it with a ten foot pole. As long as they’d been on the street, no one had ever lived there. ‘Evie, love, come away from the window.’
‘It’s not right,’ Evie said. Henry swore the lace curtain was permanently bent from all her years of peeking at the neighbours. ‘The way they get on at all hours. It’s not right at all.’
‘Just leave it, Evie. They’ll be gone by morning. Oh, they’ve opened that new skate park on the weekend.’ Meanwhile a young boy nearly died from an adder bite and fishing changes threatened to impact local industry.
‘Oh, sod your bloody skate park,’ Evie said. ‘We’ve got hooligans practically camped out on our doorstep!’
‘They’re just kids having some fun.’ He turned another page and tried to remember when he started to care what the big draw at the village fête would be this year or how to grow five-star petunias. ‘It wasn’t too long ago them’s were us, you know.’ Come to think of it, when did growing petunias become something he did? He didn’t even like petunias.
‘We were never like that,’ Evie said. ‘Look at them. Just disgraceful is what it is.’
‘Come away now, Evie. Miss Marple’s on the telly.’
Evie snored. She’d never admit it, and Henry would never tell – it just wouldn’t do for a lady to snore. But for 58 years, Henry had lain awake listening to the soft rumble through her nasal passages before he dropped off to sleep.
Tonight, this wasn’t happening.
He eased himself out of bed, careful not to disturb Evie – not nearly as easy a feat as he remembered it being – and shuffled down the hallway to the family bathroom. Evie nagged him all the time about using the en suite but between all the rose petals, tulle and chiffon he always felt like he was taking a piss in a dress shop.
He stopped at the kids’ room just like every night. Neither one had slept under their roof in thirty years, but he never seemed to shake the habit. Evie kept up with their daughter; they had things in common. Wifing. Mothering.
He kept meaning to phone Sam, but he could never remember what name to use, especially if that artsy-type answered, the one who went by something that reminded Henry of glam rock bands.
Lights flashed through the bedroom window from the street. Soft and strobey, like those parties the kids liked to sneak off to. He’d had to pick Sam up at one at 3 AM back when… Well. Back When.
‘Hmf.’ He took himself off to the toilet, perusing the collection of brightly-coloured plastic animals lining the safety-sealed tub. Evie had gotten them when Mary’d had her first, imagining this would suddenly make their house a haven for grandchildren.
It hadn’t.
He let himself linger on the way back. The lights were still going, but there was no tell-tale thwumpathump of bass to accompany it. Evie’s hooligans, in fact, for all their lurking about after dark, were quite considerate of their neighbours when it came to noise levels.
Those parties Sam went to always looked like fun.
The lights came from inside the house, peeking through boarded up windows and loose slats. It built up in pulses, throbbing brighter and brighter until it would drop off, leaving the street in darkness. Just after it went out, more of Evie’s hooligans would come out. Sometimes a few would go in just before. A handful scattered around the decrepit porch, unbothered by the comings and goings of their friends.
Standing at the end of the footpath in his dressing gown in the middle of the night, they seemed a lot less innocent than they had from the upstairs window. Still, he’d already come this far, hadn’t he?
A few of them looked at him as he came up to the porch. Must be family, he thought, with how similar they all looked. Nicer than those kids who’d just hang about in the city. Evie’s hooligans all had that fresh-faced, well-bred look that Henry associated with The Right Kind of People. He wondered if their parents knew what they were up to.
One of them stepped forward and leaned on the wobbly railing. She – at least Henry thought it was a she; it was so hard to tell these days – had long, pretty blonde hair and a sweet smile. ‘I think you got turned around there, hon,’ she said.
A group of three passed Henry and went through the front door. The light pulses started up, and this time Henry noticed a faint hum he hadn’t heard from across the street.
‘What’re you doing in there?’
The girl smiled again. ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that. You kinda have to see it to believe it.’
‘Hum.’ Henry liked the way she talked. There was something relaxing about it. ‘Can I look then?’
She glanced at the door. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘It’s the kinda trip you probably won’t come back from.’
‘Ah.’ That was a drug thing, Henry thought. He was pretty sure Sam had said it once. ‘I’d like to see, if you don’t mind.’
‘You sure?’
Henry nodded.
She stood up and held out her hand, leading him up the steps. ‘Well, alright then. The man knows what he wants.’
On the other side of the door, the light kept building and building, and now Henry could hear separate chords instead of just humming.
She positioned him in front of the door with her hands on his shoulders. ‘You ready?’
‘What do I do?’
‘Just walk through the door, hon,’ she said. ‘It’s heaven.’
