She had been a reporter in her twenties, covering stories for local, and later national, newspapers. But after they had children the long, unsociable hours and constant travelling went from being an adventure to a logistical, guilt-ridden nightmare. Eventually, she’d thrown in the towel and become a freelance writer. Now her old dressing table doubled as a desk and her kitchen was the staffroom for one. She enjoyed the flexibility, but she missed the colleagues terribly.

They mopped up their leftover curry sauce and cleared away the takeaway together in companiable silence, then relocated to the living room to watch TV. Alan turned on an old nineties comedy show and within minutes he was chortling away, glancing at Sophie occasionally to see if she was laughing too. But although she smiled back at him, she was distracted, hot and bothered. As she reached for her cold glass of wine, her mind wandered back to earlier that day and the new voices she’d heard from next door. The woman had sounded well-spoken and fairly local. The man definitely had a northern accent – Manchester, maybe, she thought.

Restless, she got up and walked over to the window to open it, desperate for even a puff of breeze. That curry had been a bad idea. As she returned to the sofa, she spied the card and Prosecco that she’d bought earlier, sitting on the dining room table ready to be delivered by hand in the morning. Oh well, I’ll meet them soon enough, she thought, and with that she grabbed her wine and portable mini fan, curled up next to Alan and switched her attention to the TV.

2

Angie was rinsing coffee cups in the sink when the doorbell rang. She glanced at her watch. It was 9am. Jack thundered down the stairs and opened the front door before she’d even had a chance to dry her hands.

‘Hi, we’re the neighbours at number 47. We just wanted to come over and introduce ourselves,’ a woman’s voice said.

Christ, they’re keen, Angie thought, before wiping her hands on her sundress, plastering on her best smile and heading out to greet them.

In the hallway stood a woman about her age, maybe few years younger, and two children. The boy seemed to be vibrating with excitement, like an overeager puppy, as his eyes searched the house. Angie suspected he was looking for signs of other boys his age. The girl hid behind her mother’s leg, peering out shyly before quickly withdrawing when she caught Angie’s eye. The woman was barefoot, apparently having crossed the driveway with no shoes on. She was dressed in a T-shirt and khaki shorts, her fair hair scraped back into a bun and a friendly, open, freckly kind of face that made Angie warm to her immediately.

‘Sorry for the early intrusion,’ she said, looking a little sheepish. ‘The kids were just so excited to meet you, they’d have come round at 6am if they could. You’d have thought Father Christmas had moved in next door.’