An English Neighbourhood - davidlrattigan.com

The web page of David L Rattigan
Writer, designer & all-round creative

_________________________________________________

An English Neighbourhood

An ordinary day
in an ordinary English neighbourhood.
It is 9:15am
and the noise of children screaming at their mothers,
taunting their brothers and sisters,
and inventing silly games to play with their friends
has not been heard for twenty-five minutes now.

The gates at number two are wide open,
for Harry Marshall left for work at a quarter past eight
in his expansive-interiored, newly leather-upholstered Volvo.
Inside, his keys for the office
are sitting on the kitchen table where he left them,
and from where he will retrieve them
when he returns in half an hour's time.
Mrs Marshall, meanwhile, is preparing her speech
about how she told him to have an extra set at work,
but would he listen?

Nextdoor at number four,
little Jenny Saunders is tucked up in bed,
blissfully unaware that school started fifteen minutes ago.
Sweet dreams anyway, little Jennifer.

The tall evergreens in front of number six
obscure the front windows,
through which can be seen
the young postman
fucking Mrs Barlow senseless on the kitchen table
in full view of the cat.
(So much happens on kitchen tables in this corner of the neighbourhood,
and the cats see and hear everything.)
Their moans can be heard upstairs
by Mr Barlow,
but he is in the late stages of Alzheimer's by now,
and the noises mean nothing to him (or so she thinks).
Mrs Barlow is wavering between pain and pleasure,
but the tears and sniffles
as the postman thrusts in and out
betray the guilt and emptiness she feels.

At number eight,
young Katie is in the garden,
moving to and fro among the flowers at a leisurely pace,
and stopping every now and then to fix a petal
or adjust a stem.
She does not expect the phone call she will receive in five minutes
from her happy husband of three months
to tell her, discreetly from his desk at the office,
that he loves her more than anything.
She is happily ignorant of the drama unfolding

nextdoor at number seven,
where once again
Daniel takes out the frustration of a failed career
on his ageing mother.
The noise of breakfast TV
drowns out the sound of his fists.

In number five,
a girl,
whose name no one knows,
lies upstairs on the bed.
There is a smile on her face
and a twinkle in her eye,
exactly as she was a few hours previously
when she slipped silently, without fanfare, into death.
The empty pill-jar on the floor
provides the only clue that she died of a broken heart.
The family pictures about the dresser
certainly suggest no such thing.

Number three is empty,
for Mr and Mrs Warburton
did an utterly crazy and senile thing
on their fiftieth wedding anniversary three days ago.
They packed their bags
and set off to see the world.
He at seventy-three
and she at seventy-two,
the two young lovers
didn't give a rat's arse where they ended up
as long as they were together.
Sometime today,
Jean, their ever-so-worried daughter,
who still (in the innocence of her youth, God bless her)
gets all upset over things like money and bills and "responsibilities",
will call and leave a distraught message
on the answering machine.
Only the neighbourhood cat,
who wanders in and out at her leisure these days,
will hear it.

The ladies group at number one
is already in full flow.
The sujet du jour today
will be whatever was Ethel doing with Sidney
when Mrs Albright saw them together on the bus on Thursday?
to be followed swiftly by
what do people really think of the new vicar
and what if he wants them to sing
some of these new-fangled songs
all the children like nowadays?
Things are not like they used to be in my day,
comments Miss Quist,
receiving a round of ummms
and enthusiastic nods of agreement
in exchange for her time-honoured wisdom.
But do not fear,
for tea and biscuits await on the sideboard,
a national delight
guaranteed to quell the pains
of parochial existence
and soothe the aches
of modern-day English living.