New subscribers short story competition 2017 - Winner

The idea came to Lucy during the washing up. She would undertake a midnight raid on the leylandii. The problem of the hedge had been niggling her for months. It had gone past the point of just being unsightly. Now it hung in heavy clumps over the fence. Joyce, the silly old woman next door, refused to cut the hedge and any request from Lucy fell on deaf ears, literally.
She would hop the back fence into Joyce’s overgrown garden after the children were in bed. The hedge problem would be fixed with sharpened clippers, the evidence stuffed in the brown garden waste bin. Lucy also decided then and there that when she was eighty she would not be as self-absorbed as the old ladies on the road seemed to be. She would pay attention to her hedges and her neighbours. She was just about to look in the shed for the tools necessary for the raid when the doorbell rang.
Two police officers nodded to Lucy. ‘Good evening. Have you got a moment?’
‘Er... yes’ She shrugged her cardigan tight and reminded herself that the midnight raid was just a fantasy, the police couldn’t read her thoughts. She stood back from the door and waved them in. ‘Come out of the cold.’
The officers squeezed into the narrow, cramped porch stacked with scooters, old kites and skateboards. One officer crinkled his nose and looked around the enclosed entryway, as if he expected to find a dead body under the tennis rackets. Lucy grabbed the offending welly boots and tossed them into the house.
‘We’re investigating a report of a missing person on your road.’
‘A missing person?’ Lucy felt a sinking resignation. The news wasn’t a surprise. She made a mental tally of the neighbours. Most of them were elderly women like Joyce; frail, bent creatures who drifted up and down the road to the bus stop. They seemed to be in a constant state of confusion. Conversations with them became stuck on minutiae like whether or not it was going to rain.
The officer prodded a stubby finger at a computer tablet and held it up. ‘Sarah Jones from number 12.’ A smiling, middle-aged face peered at Lucy from the screen. ‘She’s been missing since approximately ten o’clock this morning. Her husband, John, is very concerned for her welfare. Have you seen her today?’
‘No, I didn’t see her today.’ Lucy shook off her surprise at not seeing the face of one of the old ladies. ‘But I did notice something odd.’
The officers leaned forward. The one with the tablet swiped at the screen and pulled out a stylus, ready to take notes.
‘It was bin day today. Every week the bins are left strewn about our road after the collection. Well, the moment they’re emptied, Sarah is out to tidy the bins. She doesn’t just put hers away. She tidies up everyone’s bins, especially the old ladies’. I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are lots of old ladies on the road. They struggle with lifting and moving the bins so Sarah helps: putting them out, putting them away, making sure everything is neat. She goes out of her way to help the poor elderly neighbours because they need lots of support.’
The officers glanced at each other. Lucy quickly got to the point.
‘But today, Sarah’s bins were left out. I’ve lived here for years and it’s never happened before. I waited a couple of hours, just in case, you know, she was out and wanted to collect them when she came back. But then I walked down the road and tidied up all the bins myself.’
She laughed with embarrassment. The officers weren’t interested in the bin etiquette of the road. A mystery isn’t solved with bins. Bins are not a reason to go missing. The officers thanked her and handed over a card with a number to call if she had any more information, bin-related or not.
Lucy and her husband bought their ugly 1960s detached house three years ago because it was in a good school catchment. Many of their neighbours were the original residents of the road, a time when pockets of bungalows and houses were built on the green fields hugging the town. As the remaining elderly women faded into care homes or died, families like Lucy’s repopulated the road. The circle of life in suburbia rolled on.
Lucy observed the old ladies’ slow-motion routines as if reading a warning label on a dangerous product; if you talk about the weather for more than five minutes, immediately seek medical attention. The poor things didn’t seem to have much going on in their lives so Lucy suffered through the painful chit chat. The weather, late buses, the cost of stamps – the same catechism of statements repeated again and again. Their delicate frailty came as a shock to her after her children’s boisterous robustness. She understood, expected even, that an old lady might go missing.
But the missing woman, Sarah, wasn’t an old lady. She and her husband tended an immaculate allotment and took walking holidays in the Lake District. She kept a close eye on the Margarets, Joyces and Helens of the road. She bustled into their homes for coffee or drove them to the shops. Recently an ambulance arrived at one of the bungalows. Sarah showed the emergency services where the spare key was kept so they could get into the house. Now the emergency services were looking for her.
The morning after the visit from the police officers, Lucy went next door. She pressed the doorbell. After some time, she heard the rattle of keys and then the dead bolt. Then a chain was unhooked. Lucy cringed and promised herself that she would never end up like this.
‘Good morning. Have you heard Sarah is missing?’ she shouted. Joyce was dressed in a smart navy blue trouser suit circa 1995. Bright red slippers on her bunioned feet completed the outfit. The smell of boiled cabbage lingered in the air.
‘Yes. Such sad business.’
‘I’m so surprised.’
‘What’s that? You have to speak louder, dear.’ Joyce’s hearing aid whistled feedback.
Lucy bent forward so that her face was level with Joyce’s and repeated, ‘I...am... surprised.’
‘I’m not. She’ll turn up.’
Lucy wondered if Joyce was having a funny turn. ‘Do you feel well, Joyce?’
‘I’m perfectly well, thank you.’
‘Please don’t worry.’
‘Polly? Yes, she’s late. She’s coming to cut my hair today.’ Joyce peered past Lucy to see if the hairdresser was hiding behind her. ‘I’ll call her again. Must go.’
Any conversation with Joyce ended in this confusion of mistaken words and crossed wires. Lucy watched as the door was swung shut and the bolt and chain rattled back into place. ‘When she’s done with your hair, ask her to cut your hedge.’ She murmured and then crossed the road.
Margaret was dressed to go out, with a black leather handbag hooked on her arm. Arthritic fingers clasped a walking stick. For a brief moment, Lucy was mesmerised by Margaret’s face, unable to speak. Her make-up looked like a child had applied it. Eyebrows drawn on in a shaky line. Smudged metallic eyeshadow. She felt a shiver of disgust and dragged her eyes away from the candy-floss pink lipstick that seeped into the deep wrinkles around her mouth.
‘I’m just on my way to the bus. Have you heard the news about Sarah?’
‘Yes. When the police said someone was missing, I thought maybe it was Joyce or you...’ Lucy stopped.
‘Me?’ Margaret sent her younger neighbour a sharp glance.
‘No. Not you, of course. I mean, maybe Helen. She has dementia. Well, you know, Sarah’s not an...’ Flustered, she closed her mouth.
‘An old lady?’ She smiled. ‘Do you think only people like me go missing?’
Lucy backtracked. ‘No, of course not. It’s just that Sarah is so organised. She’s in charge of the road. She checks up on everyone, especially the...’
‘The old ladies?’ She was clearly enjoying her neighbour’s embarrassment. ‘It’s not the first time, you know.’
‘Who went missing before?’ Lucy tried to remember the names of the women who no longer lived on the road. It must have been before her time.
‘Sarah.’
The wind pushed past Lucy and filled the empty space of her puzzled silence.
‘Don’t look so surprised, dear. When Sarah doesn’t take her medication, things go wrong. Last time, the police found her miles away at a 24-hour Tesco.’
‘But I thought she looked after you and the other old, um, neighbours.’
‘What made you think that?’ Margaret shook her head. ‘No, no. We look after her.’
‘What?’
‘We look after her. We do need help, I’ll admit that much.’ She shook her swollen hand at Lucy. ‘But Sarah needs help too. Perhaps more than us. So we keep her busy. We have a rota. One week I invite her to coffee. Then Helen invites her over. She drives Joyce to the grocery store. We ask her to bring in our bins.’
‘The bins?’
‘The bins are just one of the little jobs we give her.’
Margaret closed her door and shuffled past Lucy. ‘We knew something was wrong. She cancelled coffee with Helen. She didn’t drive Joyce to the grocery store. I called the police when the bins were left out.’
She grabbed Lucy’s arm and gave it a warm, friendly squeeze. Then, head down, she started towards the bus stop. ‘I hope the bus isn’t late again. It looks like rain.’