“My hair’s fine,” Laika said. She sounded sulky. I glanced at my father. His eyes moved briefly between my mother and sister, his mouth set in a line.
“Well,” my mother said, “you’re definitely going to need one before you go back to school.”
“What a beautiful garden,” Sheila said, “and a swimming pool too. You lucky things. We’ve only got a tennis court.”
“Count your blessings,” my mother said. “A tennis court is so much easier to maintain. All that faffing around with test strips and the like—it’s a total pain.”
“Really?” Sheila said. She sounded amazed. “Don’t you have a little man?”
“Oh, I don’t have help.” My mother’s eyes flashed fleetingly toward my father. She instantly gathered herself. “What I meant was, we don’t need help.” She smiled warmly at Sheila. “But, believe me, those chemicals are filthy. One time I accidentally wiped my face after I’d been handling the chlorine and the pain was excruciating. I honestly thought I was going to lose an eye.” No one said anything, so my mother added, “And the pool house is a bit of an eyesore as well.”
At the mention of the pool house, Laika looked at me and rolled her eyes. Whatever it was, a “pool house” it was not. Rather, it was a squat, airless bunker used to store chemicals, with a roof so low you couldn’t stand up inside. It didn’t even have any windows.
My mother went on, “We only really keep it for the girls.”
There was a moment of silence. Sheila Bowman gave my mother a mild smile.
My mother said, “Have you moved from very far?”
“From Cambridge. It’s been forced on us really, to put distance between us and Graeme’s job. It’s all very tiresome.” Sheila made a face at my mother.
“Oh?”
“Graeme’s a director at Huntingdon Life Sciences.”
My mother looked blank.
My father said, “Biomedical research.”
My mother said, “Oh.”
Laika’s eyes moved from my father to Graeme Bowman.
“It all became terribly uncomfortable,” the woman said. She widened her eyes at my mother, as if they shared a common understanding.
“Oh?”
“Bleeding-heart activists, that’s the problem,” Graeme said. “The animal-rights people. They’re a complete bloody menace. Roadkill on our doorstep. Broken glass. Feces through the letter-box. Couldn’t get away from them. Obviously I’m telling you all this, but even here we’ll keep a low profile. You wouldn’t believe the tactics they use to find out where you live.”
“You’ll be all right here,” my father said. “That’s the primary advantage of a gated community. Makes for a very safe neighborhood.”
“What do you do?” Laika said to the man.
“Why don’t you girls run inside?” my mother said.
Graeme Bowman looked at Laika. “Various types of animal research: medical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic. Mainly we use rats, mice, rabbits, beagles of course, chimps, pigs. Cats. And don’t believe that rubbish you hear about our sourcing them from shelters or stealing people’s pets: that’s a load of nonsense. We’ve a substantial on-site breeding facility: we produce our own guinea pigs, as many as we want. The fact is, it’s important work, necessary, and, dare I say it, a number of the experiments are genuinely fascinating. But try telling the sodding campaigners that—excuse my French, ladies—they’re completely obscene.”
Laika said, “You experiment on animals. Isn’t that obscene?”
A beat of silence, then, “I apologize for my daughter,” my father said; “she really can be exceptionally naive.”
***
Two days later the entire road knew exactly who the new neighbors were. Somebody had thrown a couple of bricks through their kitchen windows.
The news arrived with us at breakfast on the Saturday. Graeme Bowman came round, driving up to the house in a large black Lexus. He pulled two pale yellow bricks out of a bag and my mother quickly produced a kitchen towel for him to put them on, so they wouldn’t scratch the glass table. He said he hoped my parents wouldn’t mind the intrusion, but he’d remembered that our extension was being built from pale yellow brick. Would my parents mind if he checked to see if these bricks matched those? It was such an unusual color. But of course not, my mother said, what a dreadful business it was, and how unfortunate to think how quickly those awful people must have located their home—and to think of the lengths they must have gone to, and how concerning it was to think they had perhaps even been on our property as well, stealing bricks.
My father collected a brick from the pallet. He placed it next to the others on the towel. It was a perfect match.
“Would you like a coffee?” my mother asked. Mr. Bowman wouldn’t—he had to get home. They had a glazier coming.
“But Sheila’s feeling pretty low,” he added. “No doubt she’d like a bit of company. Come back with me, have one there with her. I’d appreciate that. It would do her good.”
“Now?” my mother asked. She blinked rapidly.
“If you’ve got the time.”
My mother glanced at us, then at my father. “I would, of course,” she said, her voice unnaturally slow. She paused, her eyes still blinking rapidly, then added in a rush, “But I was just about to take the girls out.” When neither man replied, she added, “To the hairdresser.”
“Go on, Bianka,” my father said, his voice indulgent and warm. “Of course she’d love to go for coffee, Graeme. Perhaps Willa would like to go too?”
“I’ve got stuff to do.”
Looking flustered, my mother gathered her things. She spoke, looking more at Laika than at me.
“I won’t be long,” she said.
My father smiled. “Take your time.”
