With Brenda and her family in residence, Melanie could hear constant signs of occupation. From Melanie’s side of the dividing wall it was very much like having a television on somewhere in the house that you couldn’t find to switch off. Usually Mrs Jenkins was the quietest possible neighbour, but now Mel was being treated to a kind of running, thumping commentary on this long-awaited visit. This was a family that existed at full pelt. Their footsteps pounded up and down the stairs, the front and back doors were crashed shut, the TV was on day and night at a volume that ensured it could be heard from any room in the house, and Barty and Lee-Ann preferred to share their teenage taste in music with everyone within a hundred-yard radius, rather than selfishly keeping it to themselves via headphones. Perfect Patty commented with disapproval to Mel that the neighbourhood was becoming ‘rowdy’. Mel couldn’t find it in her to agree (they were only visiting for a short while, surely a bit of leeway wasn’t much to ask), but it was true that when the family all ventured out, taking in London’s sights in the quiet post-tourist-season days, the silence felt unnaturally and eerily profound.
