Page 63 of The World Outside My Window

Faye sighs and rolls her eyes. The way her mother goes on you’d think she is always out, gallivanting around, when the sad truth is that here she is, a forty-five-year-old woman, living with her mother, no family of her own, and stuck in the house at least twenty hours a day. Her only escape is the odd trip to the corner shop or, if she’s feeling really daring, a drive down the A road to Safeway. Sometimes she stops for a cup of tea when she’s finished her shopping and even that makes her feel guilty because her mum hates being left on her own.

Faye suspects that her mother is far more capable than she lets on. But she’s been mainly wheelchair-bound for three years now since her hip operation, and so Faye has become even more trapped.

‘I’m only going to get a few things. We need more teabags and bread and I thought I might get a nice cake for tea.’

Marjorie shrugs. ‘Well, if do you insist on going then some carrot cake would be nice. And maybe some of those marshmallow things, the round ones, what are they called?’

‘Tunnock’s tea cakes?’

‘That’s them. Good to have them in just in case.’

In case of what exactly? An invasion of aliens who are allergic to marshmallow? Faye bites her tongue and just says, ‘Okay,’ then shrugs her coat on. ‘Right, I won’t be long. Will you be all right? Have you got everything you need?’

‘Yes, I’ll be fine, don’t fuss, dear. But do try and get back before it’s dark, won’t you?’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Faye kisses her mother on the head and is almost at the front door when Marjorie shouts out. ‘Faye, Faye, quick, come here!’

Heart racing, Faye runs back to make sure her mother hasn’t hurt herself. But rather than the catastrophe she imagined, Marjorie is simply staring out of the window, her face pressed up against the net curtain, peering over the glasses perched on the end of her nose.

‘What’s the matter?’

Marjorie looks up briefly, her face bright with excitement. She points to where she was staring.

‘Look.’

Faye glances out of the window but can’t see anything out of the ordinary.

‘What am I meant to be looking at?’

‘Her.’Her mother’s voice has gone all wobbly and Faye turns to look again, puzzled. She can make out two women walking across the street, one slightly behind the other. She doesn’t think she knows either of them.

‘Who?’

‘It’sher, the woman from across the street.’

Faye must still look confused because Marjorie gives an over-dramatic sigh. ‘Jim’swife. The one that never leaves the house. Except now she has.Look!’ Her finger points towards the street again and Faye realises that the two women are making their way towards their house.

‘Oooh, she’s coming here, I knew it! Carol said she would. I’ve seen her going into a couple of the other houses and I wondered if she’d come here too.’ Marjorie is almost shaking with excitement. She loves nothing more than a good bit of gossip, and this is certainly more than a bit. Faye remembers now, Carol coming round the other day. She sat in with Marjorie for ages, and they talked non-stop about this chap, Jim, who lives across the road, having gone missing, and about his wife who has some sort of weird condition that means she never leaves the house – but who, despite all of that, is apparently now going round talking to all the neighbours.

‘She’ll be over to see you soon, I should think,’ Carol said. ‘She wants us all to help her.’

Faye barely listened either at the time or afterwards, when her mother harped on endlessly about it. It didn’t seem like that big a deal. It wasn’t as if she knew anyone involved. But then what does someone like her know about the important things in life? It’s not as though she has anyone to care whether she goes missing or not. Well, apart from her mother, of course, but that’s only because she needs someone to buy her Malted Milks, make her endless supplies of tea and help her in and out of the bath. Apart from that, Faye has no one. She sighs. She’ll probably have to delay her shopping trip now until she’s seen off these women. Her mother doesn’t need excitement like this. It makes her heart funny and she feels faint for hours afterwards. No, she’ll make sure they don’t come in and disturb them.

Faye starts to make her way to the front door to pre-empt the doorbell. Her mother’s screech stops her in her tracks.

‘Don’t you dare stop them from coming in, young lady!’

Faye turns to find her mother twisting her wheelchair away from the window and straining to push it across the thick carpet.

‘Mum, what on earth are you doing?’ Faye races across the room to help but Marjorie bats her away. ‘There’s no way you’re getting rid of them, Faye.’ Her voice holds a hint of threat and Faye knows there’s no arguing with her. ‘I’ve been waiting for her to come round fordays. Don’t you dare spoil it for me now.’

Faye takes a step back, her hands held up in surrender.

‘Okay, okay, I’ll let them in.’ She peers out of the front window. ‘But I’ll at least let them ring the doorbell first, shall I?’

At that exact moment the doorbell peals through the house.

‘Well, go on, go and let them in, then.’ Marjorie shoos her daughter away and Faye huffs heavily as she makes her way to the front door, sweltering in her winter coat. She pulls open the door to be faced with an attractive woman with blonde hair pulled back into a high ponytail and a smaller, skinnier woman with a grey face and dark curly hair puffing up round her sunken cheeks. They both look surprised, probably because she opened the door about two seconds after they’d rung the bell.

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