Is She Really Going Out with Him?

Chapter 26

Google searches:

Can foxes move bricks off bins?

Videos of foxes moving bricks off bins

If there are no blue ticks on a WhatsApp message, does that mean they haven’t read it?

How do you know if they have disabled read receipts?

Will Havers, LinkedIn

That night, lying in my newly arranged bed, I check my phone for the fiftieth time that evening. Will must have switched his phone back on by now, but still he hasn’t replied to my WhatsApp. Not that I need him to text me, but it would be polite. The ticks have not gone blue, but when I scroll back to previous messages I see none of the ticks have gone blue, so maybe he has disabled read receipts. Is that something people do? Should I be doing that in order to retain an air of mystery? I close my eyes and groan in frustration.

Dating anyone is fraught with risk—the risk they might be a psycho like Neil, a fraud like Parma ham Richard, or a creep like Ryan Stirling. But getting involved with someone like Will, who I know is leaving, who I know doesn’t want anything serious, that is a different kind of dangerous. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to have a weekend like we just had and then be fine about his not texting me back. I distract myself by sending Michael two Janeites I have found on dating apps: Olivia from the Cotswolds and Jane (I know) from Bradford-on-Avon. They both seem keen to meet Michael, and I have high hopes for Jane, whose bio contains a quote from Persuasion .

Beep. What is that? A high-pitched beep, just one sharp sound, then roughly five minutes later another one, beep . Now I can’t sleep until I find out where that’s coming from. Beep. How are Jess and Ethan sleeping through that? It’s so loud and so annoying. Shuffling along the corridor, I locate the source of the noise—it’s coming from the smoke alarm. A red “battery” light is flashing. It’s plugged into the mains, but maybe the backup battery is running low. Whatever it is, I can’t reach to turn it off.

Maybe I can ignore it until morning. It hasn’t woken the children. But once I’m back in bed, all the earplugs in the world won’t block out the high-pitched “yip” sound. I’m going to have to try to reach it.

Taking a chair from my room, I head back out to the landing, but stretching up on tiptoes while standing on the chair, I’m still a foot away. Just as I’m about to climb down, Jess opens her bedroom door, then screams when she sees me. The shock of seeing her sets me off too, and both of us screaming wakes Ethan, who comes out of his room armed with a giant Squishmallow.

“Why are you standing right outside my room like that?” Jess asks, trying to catch her breath.

“The smoke alarm is beeping. It’s driving me nuts,” I explain, pointing up at the box, which beeps again as though to illustrate my point. “I can’t reach to turn it off.”

“So ignore it,” Jess says with a shrug, slipping past me to use the bathroom.

“I can’t ignore it. I have tried to ignore it. These things are designed to be unignorable.”

“Can we use a ladder?” Ethan asks, sensibly.

Yes, a ladder. Dan bought a ladder to clean the gutters. I run down to the garage to see if I can find it. But as I open the garage door I remember; Dan took the ladder in the spoils of divorce.

“No ladder,” I tell the children as I come back upstairs. Beep.

“Why don’t we call Dad?” Jess suggests.

“It’s one a.m. I’m not calling your dad,” I tell her. I would rather check us all into a hotel than call Dan . I briefly consider calling Will, but that would be even more pathetic. Ethan goes into his room, then comes out again holding one finger in the air, his way of communicating he’s had an idea.

“What?” I ask.

“Noah’s light is on,” he says.

“Oh no, no, no. We’re not asking Noah.”

“Ask Noah or I’m calling Dad,” Jess threatens. “I have a math test tomorrow.” Beep. “Mum, please!”

Why? Why did I give up the ladder when we were dividing up our possessions?

Throwing on my coat, I trudge over to Noah’s front door, simultaneously hoping both that he answers and that he doesn’t. I knock quietly, tentatively, then hear footsteps in the hall. Noah opens the door, glowering at me. He’s wearing plaid pajamas and moth-eaten snow boots. It doesn’t look like he’s been asleep. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m so sorry to knock on your door in the middle of the night, but it’s an emergency.” I expect his face to soften, for him to ask what nature of emergency I am having, but he doesn’t. “Do you have a ladder I could borrow? My smoke alarm is beeping, and I can’t reach to turn it off. It’s driving us all mad.”

There’s a long pause before he reacts. I can see from his expression that he doesn’t consider this to be the kind of emergency that requires a swift reaction.

“Backup battery’s probably gone,” he says.

“I had guessed as much,” I say, reining in the urge to say something sarcastic as it might jeopardize my chances of procuring a ladder. “My kids can’t sleep through it,” I add, feeling he’d be more likely to help for the children’s sake rather than mine.

“I have one in the basement,” he says, making no move to fetch it.

“Great,” I say. “Could I borrow it?”

He opens the door wider. I have never been in Noah’s house. It’s a similar layout to mine, only mustier, more utilitarian. There are no plants, no art on the wall, and cardboard boxes line the hall. I give an involuntary shiver. I really don’t want anything to do with this man. The way he’s acted over the hedge tells me he’s unhinged.

“This way,” he says, leading me through the house. I notice a framed photo of Noah with a woman. I assume she must be his wife. In the picture they are both in a field, wearing wellie boots and binoculars. She has long dark hair, a freckled face, and a wide smile. She looks lovely, and Noah looks significantly younger and less cranky. Noah pauses in the hall, then opens the creaky door to his cellar as though he wants me to go down there. “I need you to hold the torch. Cellar light’s broken.”

No way. I am not going into a dark cellar with Noah. Then an unpleasant thought takes root in my mind: What if Noah’s wife didn’t die? What if he killed her and she’s buried in the cellar? Why does Noah even have a cellar? My house doesn’t.

“I’d rather not go down there,” I say, my hands balled into fists at my sides, ready to punch him if he tries to push me down the stairs.

“I can’t carry the ladder and hold the torch,” Noah says, holding the torch toward me.

“Maybe I don’t need a ladder. Maybe I can live with the beeping,” I say weakly, and he glowers at me. “Or I could just move house, then we’d both be happy.” I laugh at this, but my laugh comes out like I’m hyperventilating.

“What’s the problem here?” he asks.

“I’ve got a thing about cellars,” I explain.

Shaking his head, Noah makes a “humph” sound, then heads down the steps alone. I hear some bashing and crashing, then a couple of expletives from Noah, then eventually him coming back up the stairs with a ladder in his arms and the torch in his mouth.

“Thank you, sorry,” I say, feeling bad because clearly, he did need someone to hold the torch for him, and it would have been a lot easier if we’d both gone down there. As I reach for the ladder, he shrugs me off. “I’ve got it now.” He’s cross, rightly so. I’ve disturbed him in the middle of the night, asked for a ladder, then refused to help him get the ladder. I’m the worst neighbor imaginable.

When we eventually get back to my house, Ethan opens the front door holding a bag of crisps.

“Ethan! Why are you eating? It’s the middle of the night,” I cry, grabbing the bag from him. Salt before bed is not good for his bladder regulation. But I don’t have time to get into it because Noah is marching up the stairs, banging the ladder into my lovely wooden banisters.

“Ooh, mind the banisters, you just—” I start to say, and Noah turns to give me another of his trademark glowers. “Never mind. It’s fine. Just a scratch.”

Once the ladder is up and Noah has reached the smoke alarm, it takes him several attempts and two screwdrivers to pry it open. Finally, blessed silence reigns.

“Noah, thank you so much. You’re a lifesaver, I’ll relinquish all hedge-cutting privileges as a gesture of my gratitude.” I say it with a smile, but his steely gaze tells me it’s too soon to be making hedge jokes.

“Mum wants to ask you something,” says Jess, now wide awake.

“Not now, Jess,” I say, shooting her warning daggers. I’m not asking Noah out, not after tonight. It will have to be Kenny’s grandad.

“Mum wants to ask you out,” Ethan says, with the subtlety of a chain saw.

“Ha,” I laugh, as though this is 100 percent not what I wanted to ask him.

Noah’s glower softens. “What?”

“Well, no—well, yes. Not like that. It’s for work, for my column.” I stumble over the words, my face aflame, wishing I had the sweet refrain of beeping to block out any need for this conversation.

Jess jumps in to rescue me. “Mum’s dating men we choose for her. People from real life, not online. It’s for her magazine,” Jess explains.

Noah looks to me, to confirm this is true, and I nod.

“She hasn’t liked anyone we’ve picked so far, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t like each other,” Ethan adds.

“Thanks, Ethan,” I say, clearing my throat.

“And you can’t go to the pub. You have to do something interesting,” Ethan explains.

“And she doesn’t want a boyfriend. She’s happy on her own,” Jess adds.

How am I in this situation, where my children are pimping me out? And how did no one think it was weird when the boy in Sleepless in Seattle did it?

“Fine, sure, if you like,” Noah says, nodding wearily, then picks up his ladder. “Night, all.”

Ethan and Jess high-five each other as soon as his back is turned. Noah scrapes the banister with his ladder on his way down the stairs.

“Just please mind the—” I start to say, but the angry hunch of his back tells me to leave it. “It’s fine. It looks better that way, more lived in.”

And then he is gone, without a backward wave or a word of good-bye. “Thanks again!” I call to the closed front door.

Sitting down on the top stair, I take a moment to check my phone. Still no reply from Will. It’s the middle of the night, so it’s hardly surprising. I hate this. I don’t want to be the person who obsesses over a reply. I also don’t want to be the person who has to ask a neighbor for help in the middle of the night. I promise myself that tomorrow I will buy myself a ladder and all the DIY tools I might need, because if I’m going to keep telling people that I am fine on my own, then I want it to actually be true.