The Boy Next Door Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Authors

  Also by Josie Lloyd & Emlyn Rees

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Is it true what they say about first loves being forever?

  As the 1980s dawn in the sleepy English village of Rushton, Mickey and Fred are next-door neighbours and best friends, in and out of scrapes from the day they’re born. They’re convinced that nothing will ever keep them apart. But they’re wrong.

  Fifteen years later, Mickey is beginning a new phase of her life, with a small flower shop in London. Meanwhile, Fred’s life is also changing: he’s set to marry his girlfriend in just a few short weeks. Then he bumps into Mickey for the first time since their worlds fell apart.

  As they pick up the threads of their friendship, Fred and Mickey relive their glory days growing up in Rushton. But can they ever really overcome the devastating events that once tore them apart?

  About the Authors

  Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees each had novels of their own published before teaming up to write bestsellers together. Their work has been translated into twenty-six languages. They are married and live in London with their three daughters.

  Also by Josie Lloyd & Emlyn Rees

  Come Again

  Come Together

  Love Lives

  The Seven Year Itch

  The Three Day Rule

  We Are Family

  The Boy Next Door

  Josie Lloyd & Emlyn Rees

  For our Dads, for the sunglasses …

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to Vivienne, Jonny, Euan, Doug, Carol, Kate, Diana, Emma, Sarah, Gill & Karen at Curtis Brown; Lynne, Andy, Thomas (we’ll miss you!), Ron, Dave, Simon, Grainne, Mark, Glenn, Susan & Karen at Random House; Di for her support; Dawn Fozard for the word ‘drama’; David and Gwenda and the Savages for the getaways; Gina Ford for the book; and Tallulah for putting up with us.

  Chapter I

  Fred

  ‘Action,’ Eddie calls from outside, and I step through the living-room doorway and out on to the sunlit roof terrace.

  Despite being up here on the top floor of what’s a four-storey building, there’s not a breath of wind. I peer across the undulating cityscape of chimney pots and roof tiles and tower blocks. Shimmering in the distance, the slow-moving traffic snaking over the raised bulk of the Westway sounds strangely muffled, as if I’m observing it from behind a giant Perspex screen. My London: a city where you can be whoever you want to be, a city where thousands of lives are started and finished every day.

  Careful not to look at Eddie (he’s already told me twice not to), I sit down and face the lens of the camcorder he’s holding. ‘Hello,’ I say, ‘my name is Fred Wilson and I am –’

  ‘Cut.’

  This time I do look up at Eddie. Like me, he’s perched on a white plastic garden chair and is stripped from the waist up. A thin band of shadow cast by a telephone wire rings the biceps of his left arm like a tattoo. He’s a few years younger than me and his skin is slick with high-factor sun cream (Eddie doesn’t do tans; they’d clash with his black leather jacket).

  A gurgle of frustration rises to a growl at the back of my throat. This is the fifth cut I’ve sustained in as many minutes. Another, I fear, could well prove fatal.

  ‘What now?’ I explode, beginning to wish I’d refused his request to help him with this, his inaugural (and consequently slightly cringe-worthy) film-school project.

  Eddie screws up his face, embarrassed and trying not to laugh. It’s the kind of expression I’ve seen him use on girls in bars, the kind that melts away their defences and leaves them staring at him with helpless, adoring eyes.

  His own eyes are a dark denim blue, although more often than not their wide-awake glory remains concealed behind his scrunched-up eyelids. This is a result of his refusal to wear his prescription glasses for anything other than watching television and this, in turn, is a result of his assumption that he’s more attractive to women without them.

  ‘Only if they’re into squinty-looking weirdos,’ I told him a few months ago, an accusation which (unsurprisingly, in hindsight) he was quick to deny.

  And he was right to. Laid-back and sleazy works for Eddie. (Even Rebecca, my own beloved, has admitted as much.) His love life is spectacularly varied – particularly in comparison with my own – leading me to have wondered on several occasions whether it’s my general lack of squintiness which has tethered me to a far more stable existence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he finally says. ‘It’s just …’

  ‘Just what?’ I demand as his words peter out and this latter-day Lou Reed pushes his dark hair back from his face. ‘No, no,’ I continue before he has time to speak. ‘Let me guess. It’s my fingernails, right?’ I hold them up before my face. ‘They’re … too long?’ I hazard. ‘Or too grubby?’ But Eddie shakes his head to both suggestions. ‘Too naily?’ I suggest.

  He smiles, lopsided and knowing. ‘Your nails are just fine.’

  ‘What, then? Still my walk? My posture? My smile? The way I cross my legs?’ His brow furrows awkwardly. ‘Come on, Mister Scorsese,’ I tell him, leaning back in my seat, ‘give it to me straight. I can take it.’

  Eddie sighs. ‘You’re being too stilted,’ he says. ‘It sounds like … like you’re acting. And it’s not meant to.’

  This criticism comes as no surprise to me: I hate being scrutinised too closely, have done ever since I was a teenager. ‘I warned you I’d be no good,’ I say with a shrug.

  ‘You’re not … no good,’ he tells me. ‘You’re …’ But his words run out. ‘It’s just,’ he tries again, ‘that the words, “Hello, my name is Fred Wilson and I am …” … they’re coming out all wrong.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because people don’t talk like that.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘People like us.’

  ‘People like us?’

  ‘Yes. You know, real people … people on the street.’

  ‘But we’re on a roof terrace,’ I point out.

  ‘I was speaking metaphorically.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Just try sounding a little bit less like you’re reading the national news on the TV and a little bit more like yourself,’ he advises. ‘Like, “Hi, my name’s Fred Wilson and I’m …” Basically,’ he continues, ‘relax. It’s only a dopey college assignment. No one outside my tutorial group’s ever going to see it.’

  ‘Relax?’ I counter. ‘That’s easy enough for you to say. You went to acting school.’

  ‘And my agent hasn’t called me for six months,’ he reminds me grimly.

  Which is why he’s working nights as a bar manager at a club called Nitrogene in King’s Cross, I remind myself, and why getting something positive out of this film course is so important to him, and why, in turn, I agreed to help him out in the first place. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll give it one more try.’

  He mumbles something about adjusting the camcorder’s audio mix and I duck back into the living room, and lean idly up against the wall by the door and wait for my cue.

  Lime-green curtains are drawn across the two open sash windows, which face out across the street. To my right, a couple of bookcases stretch from bare-boarded floor to white-plastered ceiling. They’re stacked with CDs, books and magazines. Between the bookcases are the wide-screen television, video, DVD, satellite and cable hardware, as well a
s Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sega’s latest offerings. Games, in and out of boxes, lie ensnared in a tangle of wires. The furniture, what little there is, is mostly utilitarian. There’s a small pine table and matching chairs over by the kitchen doorway and in the centre of the room is a three-seater sofa, deliberately angled towards the television.

  Rebecca doesn’t like it here. The air of impermanence bothers her. ‘You are where you live,’ she once commented, somewhat cryptically, leaving me confused over whether she meant I smelt vaguely of mould and could do with a quick vac, or simply that I lived in a less than salubrious part of town. Not wanting to deal with either possibility, I did what I often do during our exchanges where I know I’m on a hiding to nothing: I kept quiet.

  Flat 3, number 9 St Thomas’s Gardens is the only property I’ve ever owned. I’ve lived here for four years now and, were it not for Rebecca, I’d be planning on sticking with it for another forty. It’s big enough for two (Eddie and myself), but too small for three (Eddie, myself and Rebecca). I don’t know why I’ve never made more of an effort with its decor, except that perhaps its very existence as a place to call my own is enough for me and that its appearance could never be anything other than secondary to that.

  I moved in here a few months before I started going out with Rebecca and, up until recently, its presence has been tolerated by her in the same way that other people’s partners might tolerate their more obnoxious old friends. It’s here for now, in other words, but sooner or later it will be nudged aside for the good of the relationship.

  I still sleep alone here a couple of nights each week (the rest of the time being spent at Rebecca’s altogether more bijou residence over in Maida Vale). This arrangement is a hangover from our early days, a part of the pattern of our fledgling relationship that I’ve never openly questioned and, up until recently, Rebecca has never seen fit to challenge.

  Truth be told, I think it probably suited us both to begin with, having some time and space to ourselves until we fully made up our minds about each other. All that ended with our engagement, of course. Ever since then, who sleeps where and why has been fully up for discussion, and I’ve found myself fighting an almost continuous rearguard action against Rebecca’s repeated attempts to persuade me to sell up and move out, and move in with her.

  A part of me, however, in spite of its inevitability, still resists this blending of our two universes into one. This place may not be much, is my reasoning, but it’s mine and I worked hard to get it. It’s my safety zone, my security and independence rolled into one. Rebecca doesn’t see it this way. She sees my flat as an asset, a means – when combined with the sale of her own flat – to a better and brighter future for us both. Her mind is made up and, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the past few years, what Rebecca wants she generally gets.

  I stare for a moment at my reflection in the mirror on the wall. My eyes are grey and my hair, cropped close against my skull, is hazelnut brown. That I look shattered comes as no surprise. I was up at the crack of dawn, on this my first day off in months, to drop Rebecca at Heathrow Airport.

  ‘Action,’ Eddie calls again, and I step outside and take my seat once more. ‘Er, hi,’ I say to the camera, feeling no less self-conscious than before, ‘my name’s Fred Wilson and … and Eddie here wants me to talk about myself, which has to be a first in all the time I’ve known him. So ... so here goes.’

  Only it goes precisely nowhere. Instead, I find myself hesitating, pondering the basics of my existence. Explaining myself – the hows and whys of who I am and what made me this way – is hardly my special subject. I’m not into gazing at navels, horizons being more my thing. Give me the future over the past any day.

  My gaze falls to my knee and I wave away a wasp that’s crawling there.

  ‘I’m a marketing manager for news as it breaks dot.com,’ I say, giving the camera a great big marketing grin and slapping on an American accent for effect, as I launch into the rather feeble script that accompanied our last television commercial. ‘You’ve probably heard of us,’ I continue. ‘If not, you should look us up. We’re a twenty-four seven on-line outfit, straight down the wire, into your home or your phone, tailoring up-to-the-minute news and a range of other top-quality services to your needs.’ I grin, breathless, and suck in air before concluding, ‘Trust me: you’ll never read a newspaper again.’

  My smile fades and, leaning forward, I dig out today’s edition of The Times from where I dropped it beneath my seat earlier. Opening it up before me, I peer conspiratorially over the top at the camera. ‘That last statement was, of course, a lie. But the rest of it’s pretty true, for an advert. My actual job’s not quite as slick and smooth as it sounds either,’ I admit. ‘Like the hours can be pretty hideous and we’re reliant on American investors who might pull out at any time … But it’s OK, you know? Nothing to write home about, or anything, but it’s a job.’

  It’s actually significantly better than that, but I don’t want to harp on about it in front of Eddie, whose own career has recently run into something of a brick wall. Truth be told, I actually enjoy what I do for a living. I mean, sure, the products and services we provide aren’t perfect, but that’s why it’s a challenge working there: to make things better, to make things happen. And that’s what they’re letting me do, bit by bit: expand our market into the youth sector, by providing access to on-line games and shopping via the site, as well as the news and current affairs that we already do pretty well.

  I lower the paper on to my lap. ‘Er, what else?’ I ask, drumming my fingers absent-mindedly on the paper, as I set about racking my brains for something to say. A few seconds later, still drawing a blank, I shoot Eddie a look of exasperation and he mouths ‘Rebecca’ at me.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I say, blushing involuntarily over this shocking oversight. ‘Rebecca. She’s the girl I’m going to marry in a month. Eddie here’s going to be my best man. She’s in Oslo at the moment on a business trip. She works in marketing as well … a magazine publishing company … that’s where we met … and … and she’s wonderful … my best friend and, er, soulmate … Soulmate? God, that sounds cheesy … Eddie?’ I feel the skin on my cheeks burning up. ‘Eddie, can we edit that bit?’

  But Eddie’s ignoring me.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ I grumble. ‘Now where was I? Work … Rebecca … cheesy comments … what next?’

  ‘Cut.’

  ‘What now?’ I ask, watching as Eddie lifts his finger from the camcorder’s red record switch. ‘I thought that was going quite well.’

  But Eddie’s smiling. ‘It wasn’t bad,’ he says coolly, flicking another switch which causes a shutter to slide smoothly across the camcorder’s lens, ‘but I need a leak.’ He puts the camcorder down and gets to his feet. ‘I’ll be back in two ticks,’ he tells me.

  I watch him duck inside, the shady doorway acting like a mystical portal, swallowing him up. Then, tilting back in my chair, I close my eyes against the glare of the sun.

  Rebecca …

  *

  Rebecca’s from an incredibly stable, loving and secure background, so different in every way from my own. It’s something she takes for granted, of course, but something which I’m drawn towards, with a mixture of envy and desire in my heart.

  Thorn House, her parents’ country home, stands on the summit of a flat-topped hill overlooking the small Oxfordshire village of Shotbury. It’s a vast Georgian mansion, boasting eight bedrooms, a hard tennis court and a converted stable block. In addition to all this there are about forty acres of land, most of which are rented out to a local dairy farmer for pasture, but some of which are taken up by the array of walled gardens and lawns which surround the main house.

  I was in the largest of the gardens not so long ago. It’s a flat area of at least two acres, surrounded by towering grey stone walls, and was heavy with the scent of lavender. From where I was lying – at the back, on the cool flagstones of the perimeter path – I could see apple and plum trees, runner be
ans, the glint of greenhouse glass and, perhaps more unusually for the time of year, Rebecca’s small bare breasts, pale against the late afternoon sun, moving gently up and down as she sat astride me.

  ‘God, I’ve been looking forward to this,’ she was telling me, scraping her auburn fringe back from her face with one hand. ‘I thought lunch was never going to finish.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Did you notice?’ she asked, beginning to buck. ‘The vicar kept looking at my cleavage. Even’, she continued, moving faster now, ‘when he was humming the opening bars to “Jerusalem”. It – got – me – all – horny,’ she grunted.

  ‘But he’s about seventy,’ I pointed out, picturing the kind, grey-haired old man, nibbling at his biscuits and sipping his tea.

  ‘I – don’t – mean – he – got – me – horny,’ Rebecca explained. ‘I – mean – the – thought – of – doing – it – with – a – priest.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, although – strictly speaking – I didn’t.

  Suddenly she slowed and leant forward, until her face was directly above mine. Drops of sweat fell from her brow on to my lips. ‘You’d wear a priest’s dog collar for me, wouldn’t you, if I bought you one?’

  ‘Uh, sure,’ I said, not wishing to derail her momentum.

  A smile crossed her face, momentarily accentuating her cheekbones. Combined with the emerald-green glint of her eyes, it brought out the feline in her oval-shaped face, leaving me feeling strangely at her mercy.

  ‘I knew you would,’ she said.

  She closed her eyes and I continued to lie beneath her, watching her enjoy herself. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t enjoying myself as well. I most certainly was. But still – putting my own pleasure aside for a moment – this was (and, indeed, still is) very much how I saw Rebecca during sex: her enjoying herself. Wherever her closed eyes had just transported her was somewhere I wasn’t invited and somewhere my presence wasn’t required.