The Orphan Choir Part 8

'That's ridiculous,' I say, wondering if she's right. 'It's loud noise you can't control that's the problem.'

'Quite. But many people are unimaginative and ... well, a little bit stupid,' says Pat. 'Mr Clay strikes me as a prime example. Which is why when he told me that he wasn't going to risk making you angry again if that was how you were likely to react, I believed him.' She leans forward again, stares down at her shoes. 'I don't see him as being cunning enough to dream up a spiteful plan like the one you've described in your noise diary. I honestly don't.'

I'm too furious to speak. Furious with myself. A voice in my head is whispering: She's right. You know she's right.

'Louise, I think you ought to make an appointment with your doctor.'

'No! So what if he's unimaginative? He's got friends, hasn't he? A girlfriend? Anyone could have suggested the choral music to him who says it was his idea?' Too late, I realise she might only have meant my eyes: that I should see a doctor to sort out the skin eruptions.

'Where are you going?' Pat asks out of the blue.

'What?'

She points at the car keys I'm clutching. 'You said when I arrived that you were on your way out.'

'Oh. I ... just ...' I don't want to tell her. I don't have to. It's none of her business.

'I hope you're not planning a long drive,' she says. 'You don't look anywhere near well enough.'

'I'm going to the Culver Valley. For a sales tour of a second-homes development. I'm thinking of buying a place there. So that I get can away from here, at least at weekends.'

Holidays will be trickier, because Stuart won't always be able to take the time off work. It won't be a problem for me, thankfully; as soon as I heard that Joseph had got a place at Saviour, I reorganised my work schedule so that I could work longer days in the office during term time and from home during school holidays, when I would also take all my annual leave. I didn't think work would agree, and was planning to resign if they didn't, but to my surprise they said it was fine.

The tricky part will be confessing that my plan is for Joseph and me to live at Swallowfield whenever he's not at school, even if that means leaving Stuart behind in Cambridge, as it often will.

Am I trying to stealth-leave my husband, subtly and by degrees? Trying to make a point by insisting on taking Joseph as far away from Saviour as I can, whenever I can, just to prove to Dr Freeman that I'm in charge?

Whatever my motivation is for wanting to leave Cambridge, I would prefer not to know. It's as if I'm receiving my instructions from an authority that has nothing to do with me and isn't even part of me one I trust absolutely. I know what I need to do and that's enough. It's a weird feeling. Like none I've ever had before.

I need to buy a house on Swallowfield Estate.

'I'd advise against,' says Pat. For a minute, I forgot she was there.

'Sorry?'

'Now's not a good time to be making important decisions, Louise. Trust me. It sounds to me like you're trying to run away. What you should be doing's sorting things out here at home.'

'Excuse me?' I laugh. 'First, I did trust you, to a ridiculous degree, and look where it got me you believe my neighbour's lies over me. Second, who are you to tell me how to arrange my life? I don't even know you. You know nothing about me.'

'I know you shouldn't drive to the Culver Valley. Don't do it, Louise.'

The room has darkened, as if someone has adjusted the dimmer switch, but that's impossible. Pat and I are the only people here. Shaking, I haul myself to my feet and say, 'I'd like you to leave now, please.'

Pat stands too. 'Stay here,' she says, looking past my shoulder, at the wall behind me. 'Get some sleep. Forget buying a second home. The noise will stop. It already has. Mr Clay won't bother you again. Please take my advice.'

'That's not true! You've not listened to anything I've said. Look, just ... go.'

She nods, apparently unoffended, and begins to rock her way to the door, tilting from side to side as she goes.

'Ring me if you need me. You know where I am,' she says before leaving. 'And keep writing the diary.'

5.

It is like falling in love. It is falling in love. I knew it was going to be. I knew Swallowfield would be the right place. Two hours ago, as I drove past the sign that says 'Welcome to the Culver Valley', I imagined myself doing the journey with Joseph, his happy voice asking, 'How much longer?' from the back seat. He'll be beside himself with excitement whenever we come here, desperate to get out of the city and back to his other house in the beautiful countryside outside Spilling.

Of course, I didn't know for sure, on my way to Swallowfield, that I'd want to buy: this is what I tell myself and, although it doesn't feel true, it must be. I hadn't seen the estate yet, or any of the houses. I hadn't been on Bethan's sales tour. All I knew was that I felt drawn, as if by a magnet, and couldn't resist. Didn't want to resist.

As I drove along the approach road to Swallowfield, I imagined that it might have been rolled out, brand new and only seconds ago, for my sole use. There were no other cars on it going in either direction. I lowered my window to see if I could hear traffic in the distance; I couldn't. The only sound, apart from my car's engine, was that of the birds so many and so varied that it made me realise I'd never really heard or listened to anything like it before. People say birds chirp they call it 'song' but I heard no tunes and all kinds of other strange utterances, most of which couldn't be summed up so easily. It was like listening to an uncoordinated orchestra playing above my head, one that contained dozens of different instruments.

When I saw, coming up on the left, the large pale green sign with 'Swallowfield' printed across it in lower-case white letters, I had a crazy idea. I was a little early for my meeting with Bethan Lyons, the sales director, so I decided to try something that, in Cambridge, would be regarded as a suicide attempt: I slowed down, drove into the middle of the road and parked horizontally across the white line that separates eastbound traffic from westbound.

Nothing bad happened. No other cars came. I wasn't worried that they would, either. I felt utterly calm and at peace, as though nothing could happen here that would threaten my safety or happiness in any way. It was the oddest feeling. I opened the car door and looked to my right at the fields, hedges and trees at the hills in the distance with white and pastel-coloured cottages, warm beige stone farmhouses and black-painted barns dotted across them and I almost closed my eyes and fell asleep on the spot. Finally, I could relax. I was home. (Technically, the opposite was the case, but I didn't, and don't, and never have cared about facts when they don't feel true.) It was cold and still is but the sun was shining brightly, lighting up patches of vivid green everywhere I looked. It was as if I'd strayed into some kind of magical other-world, a sparkling alternative reality that most people knew nothing about. And this was before I'd set foot on the estate itself. I don't know how I'd have dealt with the disappointment if Swallowfield had turned out to be hideous. All I can say (and Stuart won't believe me, unless he feels the same way himself, which he won't) is that I knew it wouldn't happen. I knew Swallowfield would exceed my expectations.

'So, the nature-only part of the estate starts here,' Bethan says, bringing me back to the moment. We have been round the stunning gla.s.s sculpture of a show home, the cafe and the shop, and now we are in the official crested Swallowfield Range Rover, about to go through wooden gates, off the gravelled lane and on to a wide gra.s.sy path that has a lake to one side of it. Swallowfield has five lakes, and residents are allowed to swim and fish in all but one of them. Three of them, the smallest, have houses around them and still a few bare plots for new houses to be built, and the two largest lakes are in the purely rural bit that Bethan is driving me around now, on the land that will never be developed, Swallowfield's residents' own private cultivated wilderness. I want it for myself, and for Joseph, with a desperation that verges on hysteria, though Bethan wouldn't be able to guess from looking at me. I stare out of the Range Rover's window at the ripples on the surface of the water and the wooden jetty, and I can see Joseph throwing off his clothes and diving in on a stifling hot day. I picture myself leaping in after him, Stuart shouting after us, 'Rather you than me! I'll save my swimming for the spa, thank you very much.'

I can't wait to see the spa. Bethan says I can have a swim and a complimentary half-hour back, neck and shoulder ma.s.sage. Well, it's only complimentary if I end up buying a house here, but I already know that I will. I made up my mind for certain when Bethan buzzed me in and I drove through the gates on to the estate; my feeling of 'This is right, this is the one and only right thing in my life' intensified, and has been intensifying ever since.

'So, this is the rural idyll bit,' Bethan says, laughing. She has an odd habit of looking in her rear-view mirror every time she addresses me, as if she's talking to someone sitting in the back instead of beside her in the front pa.s.senger seat, as I am.

Maybe she doesn't understand that I would only be able to see her eyes in the mirror if she could see mine. I think about Pat touching the mirror in my lounge with her index finger ...

Am I such a frightful sight at the moment that anybody would prefer to look at their own reflection than at me? Actually, I wouldn't blame Bethan if she felt that way, even if the skin beneath my eyes weren't such a mess; she's got thick shoulder-length hair the colour of dark honey, big brown eyes, perfectly straight teeth, flawless skin. Her only not-ideal features, if I'm being strict, are too-thin lips and a too-small nose that looks sharp, even though it wouldn't be if you touched it. In spite of these minor physical blemishes, ninety-nine out of a hundred men would choose her over me, I'm sure.

'Honestly, it sounds silly, but it is an idyll, this part of the estate,' she gushes. 'It's the heart and soul of Swallowfield, really that's what all our homeowners say. This is where you and your family will come when you want a purely rural experience no houses, no car noise, hardly any people you might b.u.mp into one or two walkers or picnickers, but most of our residents tell us they never b.u.mp into anyone out here. And no one who isn't a resident can get in, obviously, so you'll have five hundred acres of beautiful countryside all to yourself.'

'Wow,' I breathe. 'It's like paradise, it really is.' Privately, I am thinking, 'All to myself apart from having to share it with all the other homeowners, and there are at least fifty houses here.' I don't care; if anything could put me off, it certainly isn't that. Stuart and I could buy a holiday home that we wouldn't have to share with anyone, but it wouldn't have 500 acres attached to it, or an award-winning 10-million spa, or a helipad (not that we'll ever need it) or a concierge service, whatever that is. No doubt I will find out.

It must be satisfying to be Bethan, I think to myself, especially when the person she's trying to sell to is me. I'm a sure thing. She is peddling desire to someone who is already head over heels, and I can't imagine that anyone would come here and not be instantly smitten. Bethan's job-satisfaction levels must be sky high.

'Unlike a lot of gated second-home communities, we don't allow subletting or holiday rentals,' she tells me, 'so the only other people you'll ever see anywhere on the estate are the staff and other residents. Our homeowners love the exclusivity of Swallowfield.' She laughs. 'To be honest, they love everything about it the beauty, the incredibly fresh air, the quiet, the absolute safety. We're gated, obviously, and there's a discreet but constant security presence, so from a lock-up-and-leave point of view, you won't find better, and the best thing is that it's totally safe for children to roam around unsupervised, and where else is that possible? Not even in a village these days. Course, the other thing with a village is that people resent you, don't they? City folk buying up the houses to use as second homes here you don't get any of that because it's a community where it's everyone's second home. And what everyone forgets about villages is that they can be incredibly noisy all that agricultural machinery, farmworkers going about their daily business. There's none of that here.'

Her use of the word 'noisy' has unsettled me. There might be no agricultural machinery at Swallowfield, but there are other people. What's to stop Mr Fahrenheit buying a second home here? Or someone like him?

'And all the amazing animal and plant life we've got!' Bethan goes on. 'Fascinating though many of our homeowners are, they're unlikely to be your most interesting neighbours there's all kinds of rare species living here. You'll be amazed by what you see when you nip out for a walk rabbits, deer, dragonflies, frogs, all different kinds of birds. And almost the best thing of all is watching the changing of the seasons at Swallowfield. You just don't notice it in a city in the same way, but here ... oh!' She half closes her eyes, as if in ecstasy. She is overdoing it, but I don't mind.

'You said the homeowners love the quiet. Is it always quiet here?'

Bethan giggles. 'So much so, it'll freak you out.'

Good. And no, it won't.

'Most of our homeowners are city dwellers like yourself, and so many say they find it spooky at first, the silence. You hear birds and animals and, apart from that, nothing.'

We have driven nearly all the way round the lake on the way to another one that looks even bigger. 'What's that little wooden building?' I ask. 'Is that for the security staff?'

'No, that's a bird hide. That's where you'll come with your son how old did you say he was?'

'Seven.'

'Perfect age,' Bethan says, making me wonder what's wrong with six and eight. 'What's his name?'

'Joseph.'

'That's a beautiful name. And it won't matter here that he's an only child he won't be lonely, I can a.s.sure you.'

I do an internal double take. What an extraordinarily tactless thing to say. For all Bethan knows, Stuart and I desperately wanted more children and couldn't have them.

It doesn't matter anywhere that Joseph's an only child, I want to say but don't. It only matters that Dr Freeman has stolen him.

'You can bring Joe here in the evening and watch all the birds, try and catch a glimpse of the beavers.' Bethan turns to face me, briefly, before looking back at the track ahead. 'Swallowfield's what childhood ought to be,' she says. 'Parents let their kids wander out of the house without even saying where they're going or when they'll be back. I bet you can't believe you'll ever be willing to do that, but I promise you, once you get used to life here, you will.'

Joe? For a second, I almost say, 'Who's that?' We've never called him Joe.

'It's unimaginable in the city, but here children head off into the woods, meet up with friends at the trampolines or by the climbing frame we've got an amazing playground, I'll show you on the way out-'

'I'm just thinking about noise,' I say, interrupting her. Rude, no doubt, but I can't help it.

'I told you, there is no noise.'

'Yes, but ... let's say I were to buy a house and the person in the house next door starts to play his stereo too loud '

'Ah!' says Bethan knowingly. 'I see what you're driving at. You've no need to worry, honestly. Ensuring that Swallowfield is peaceful and quiet at all times is our number one priority. All our homeowners come here to escape from the noise that you just can't get away from in a city, so we take it very seriously indeed. No one's allowed to make any noise, at any time of day or night, that disturbs anybody else. It's in the lease that everyone signs. We've not needed to yet, but, believe me, we'd be rigorous about enforcing it if we had to. If you're ever sitting on your balcony or on your terrace, or inside your house, and you're disturbed by the sound of anyone's television, or even a too-loud conversation, you'll just give Bob a ring and he'll deal with it straight away. There was an incident last year one of our homeowners had a hen party in her house. The noise was audible to the house next door, who rang Bob, who was straight in his van and driving round to the hen-night house to very politely remind the lady of the rule about absolute peace and quiet. She was mortified and switched the music off straight away. That's quite honestly the only noise issue we've had in the seven years Swallowfield has existed. And I promise you, everybody here everybody cares as much about preserving the tranquillity as you do.'

I doubt it. What about the hen-night woman? Why did she need Bob to mortify her before she realised that her music was too loud and might annoy people?

'We don't even play music in the gym or at the swimming pool,' says Bethan. 'The spa rules are very strict about noise. If children shout and scream in or by the pool, they're asked to get out. Jumping in isn't allowed that's a new rule since last year. Some of the homeowners complained about children jumping in and making loud splashing noises while they were trying to have a quiet, relaxing swim.'

I smile. These are the kinds of neighbours I want to have: ones who regard a loud splash as unreasonable and are not willing to put up with it. I will have to explain to Joseph that he must enter the swimming pool silently, via the steps. He won't mind.

'Similarly, the rural parts of the estate. If you and your family go out into one of the fields for a picnic and you happen to b.u.mp into a homeowner who's having a little disco, making a bit of a racket not that that would ever happen give Bob a ring and he or one of his men'll be straight round. If children are shrieking as they leap into the lake, call Bob. Not allowed. That's in the lease too, at the insistence of certain homeowners.'

All right, now I'm impressed. No noise allowed, even in the wilderness. Have I found, by some miracle, somewhere I can live and be the least-obsessed-with-noise member of the community? The idea makes me want to explode with joy.

'Of course, it's something you'll need to think about before you sign on the dotted line,' says Bethan, as we drive through what looks like a river into a field bordered on two sides by tall evergreen trees. 'Source of the River Culver right here in Swallowfield,' she tells me as an aside.

'What will I need to think about?'

'The requirement not to make noise. I mean, obviously you're not expected to glide silently from your house to the spa the normal sounds of everyday life are fine, but we do expect homeowners to keep in mind that Swallowfield is a tranquil haven for all of us, so to keep noise to a minimum. So, if you're on your way from your house to the spa or the shop and you're chatting to your husband or Joe, do it with consideration for others rather than at the tops of your voices that's all we ask so that if someone's coming along in the opposite direction and seems to be lost in their own thoughts, you won't intrude on their peace of mind.'

I can't wait any longer. I need to live here, as soon and as much as I can. 'You said on the phone that I could buy and be in within a couple of months. Can a house be built that quickly?'

'Oh no, I meant if you bought one of our resales and if you were a cash buyer you could maybe be in that quickly. But if you want to buy a plot of land and have a bespoke-'

'A resale's fine,' I say, not knowing what one is. I a.s.sume the clue is in the name: houses that were bespoke built for other homeowners who now want to sell. 'How many do you have available? Vacant possession, ideally. Or someone who can move out quickly.'

Bethan laughs. 'Wow, you're keen, aren't you? Are you sure you don't want to go the bespoke route? Most people who buy here-'

'I need to be in by the fourteenth of December at the latest,' I tell her. 'That's when my son breaks up for the Christmas holidays. I want to pick him up from school and drive him straight here.'

'Oh ... well, yes, then a resale it's going to have to be.' I hear the enthusiasm in her voice dip, and the way she then tries to resurrect it artificially. Less money for Swallowfield with a resale, presumably; less commission for her. 'We've got three at the moment. If you like, we can go back to the sales office now and-'

'Are any of them all gla.s.s, like the show home? Or anything like the show home?'

'Two of them are actually barn-style homes, so, no wooden, not gla.s.s. The third has a whole wall of gla.s.s at the front, covering all three storeys, so it's completely gla.s.s-fronted.'

That's the one I'm buying.

'It's a lovely light house perfect for a tidy family, I'd say!'

'Tidy?' I wasn't expecting that. I can't think what she might mean.

'The Boundary that's its name overlooks Topping Lake. If you buy it and your living room or your bedroom's messy, it'll be seen by swimmers in the summer, and sailors out on their boats, and paddle-boarders.'

'Oh, I see. That won't be a problem. I'm pretty tidy. My husband and son aren't, but ...'

I break off. Does Bethan honestly imagine I would care what another Swallowfield resident in a pa.s.sing canoe thought about the state of my house? I wonder if this is her subtle way of telling me that the lease has issues with domestic disorder as well as noise. I wouldn't be altogether surprised; homeowners who complain about splashing noises in swimming pools might well object equally to the sight of a dishevelled duvet as they sail on the lake.

The Boundary. Topping Lake. That is my house, my new address.

'Can I look at The Boundary today? Now?' I ask Bethan.

6.

Noise Diary Friday 12 October, 9.20 a.m.

We have entered a new phase. Last night, for the first time since my noise war with Justin Clay started, my husband was away overnight. Which Mr Clay knew, because when Stuart's at home his car is parked in one of the residents' bays on the street rather than in Stansted airport's short-stay or long-stay car park.

I couldn't sleep. Not that I've been sleeping particularly well since all this unpleasantness began, and since the house has been full of builders' dust. Predictably, I have turned out to be far more sensitive to the dust than Stuart, who it seems is not very sensitive to anything. Most nights I find myself waking four or five times, either needing to cough or jerking to attention in a panic after dreaming that Mr Clay is playing choral music. Which, recently, he hasn't been. Having told Pat Jervis he'd never done it in the first place, I knew he would stop completely for a while to make me wonder if he might have been telling the truth if Pat could be right and I'd imagined the boys' voices coming through my bedroom wall.

I understand Mr Clay's psychology better now than I did before. He's not a little bit stupid, as Pat said. He might present as cra.s.s and dense when he's coasting along happily on autopilot, but lurking somewhere beneath the cannabis-fugged surface of his brain is a shrewd strategic sensibility that he is able to access when he applies himself. And, despite the current poor state of my own exhaustion-eroded mind, I am obviously capable of similarly astute calculation, because I knew he would choose last night for his first attack in a while. That's why I couldn't sleep. Well, to be more accurate, I decided not to sleep. I sat in bed and waited. I thought about the expression 'going to the mattresses'. I first heard it in The G.o.dfather movie and it stuck in my mind. It means preparing for war: moving out of your house, going to hide in a warehouse with nothing but mattresses to make it more comfortable. Not an exact a.n.a.logy with my situation, but close enough.

I wanted to prove or disprove my own theory, to try to catch Mr Clay's few seconds of loud music designed to make sure I wake up before he turns the volume down to audible-but-inoffensive. That was the only thing I turned out to be wrong about. This time he went for full-on loud. Two in the morning, a boys' choir blasting out 'King of Glory, King of Peace'. Of course, I should have antic.i.p.ated this too. There was no need for Mr Clay to bother with the quiet phase last night, since there was no possibility of engineering a row between me and Stuart: 'But it's so quiet, you can hardly object.' / 'I don't care how quiet it is, it's still the middle of the night and he's only doing it to hurt me.'