SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! - Exclusive for Steemit story - FICTION

Since the day they moved in, they caused trouble.

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The wife, heavily pregnant, running around after two little girls was harried and spent if her expression was anything to go by.

“Hi, new neighbour,” Donna called over the fence. “I’ll not disturb you while you’re moving in, but if you need anything, anything at all, just knock on the wall, I’m sure I’ll hear you.

The pregnant woman looked up and glared. Not exactly the expected reaction, but, she must have been taken by surprise, Donna thought.

Over the following few weeks, the pregnancy drew on, stress levels heightened and arguments could be heard through the walls. The girls, in particular, screeched rather than talked.

Eventually she came home with a bundle of new baby.

Donna kept herself to herself, not interested in gossip or standing at the front gate chattering, she enjoyed pottering in her garden at the back.

She learned a few things by accident. One of the girls, for example, was not the neighbour’s daughter, but her sister. The girl’s father wasn’t in the picture, not that it made any difference to Donna, she’d made an offer of friendship that hadn’t been taken up and that was ok.

“Donna, can I have a word?” the neighbour said over the fence, taking Donna a little by surprise.

“Yes, dear, what can I help you with?”

“We’ve got a rat,” she said. The tone she used was harsh, almost sharp. And Donna didn’t think she was having a friendly gossip.

“Have you?” Donna said.

“Yes, and the exterminator said it most likely came from your side.”

Ah, that explained the animosity.

“Oh? Well, I have four cats and they’re all pretty good exterminators themselves, which is why I don’t allow them out. So you see, any rat wouldn’t have come from my side, as you put it.”

“Well he said it’s because you feed the birds, rats come for the seed and you feed your fish in the pond.”

“I feed the birds on the table at the bottom of the garden and there’s never any left-overs, as you can see,” Donna pointed down the garden to the pecked-clean table. “The pond fish are the same. I give them only what they’ll eat in a few minutes. If you want to have a think about it, your house was empty for a couple of years before you bought it.”

Donna may be mild-mannered and polite with everyone, but she also had what her son called ‘balls of steel’ and wouldn’t allow anyone to walk over her.

The screaming from next door escalated during the summer months and Donna learned to block out the arguments, banging and screaming.

Even the DIY didn’t really affect her. Drilling like they were trying to come through until late at night. When it became too much, Donna would go out. She went out a lot that one summer.

Donna spotted a weed in her garden that made her frown. Ragwort, lethal to horses and sometimes unpleasant if you got it on your bare skin. She rooted it all out of her own garden, but knew it had come from somewhere.

She saw a ragwort plant in next door’s border and the guy was mowing the lawn right next to the fence.

“Hi, excuse me?” she called. He ignored her.

“Hi, excuse me!” she said when he came back. She waved and she must have caught his eye that time. He stopped pushing the noisy electric mower, took out one of his earphones and looked at Donna.

“Hi,” Donna said again. “I just wanted to point out that plant. It’s ragwort and can be an irritant if you get it on your skin. I recommend wearing gloves when you handle it.”

He looked in the direction she pointed, nodded, put the earphone back in and continued mowing.

“No, you’re welcome,” Donna said to herself.

She couldn’t, for the life of her, work out what she’d done to them, but she was determined that was it, no more friendly neighbourlyness.

And it was, until the next spring.

A knock on the front door and Donna went to answer it.

A man with ID hanging around his neck introduced himself.

“Hello, I’m from the council, I’ve come about your fence,” he said.

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“My fence?” Donna asked. “What about it?”

“It’s in bad need of repair, madam. I’d like to see it if I could?”

“Well, yes, ok, if you must. Come in,” Donna said, stepping back.

As they walked through to the back, Donna asked more questions.

“What’s wrong with my fence?”

“If we can go and see it?” he said in a rather brusque manner.

Donna nodded, but her son would have recognised the set of her jaw. Donna had an idea what was wrong and she wasn’t going to be bulldozed.

She allowed him to lead the way down the garden.

He walked across to the left hand side as you look at it from the house.

The fence was indeed in terrible state of repair. It leaned at an alarming angle and to his surprise, was built more like a wall than a fence. The concrete plinths used to keep a wooden fence panel off the ground made the whole fence. There were no wooden fence panels and that was what caused the fence to lean, the weight over the years was too much for the holding posts and they were sinking, much like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

“May I ask who sent you to look at the fence?” Donna asked.

“Your neighbours did. They said it’s dangerous.”

Donna nodded, mulling over the information.

“Oh yes, that looks very dangerous, madam,” the man from the council said.

“It does indeed,” Donna agreed with him.

“Yes, that really does need repairing, pushing back, or probably completely replacing.”

“Yes, I suppose I have to agree with you. It certainly needs something doing.”

“So when will you have it done?”

“Me? Why would I do anything with the fence?”

The man from the council looked at Donna as though she were dense.

“It needs repairing,” he said as though that would be enough of an answer.

“Yes it does and when my fence needs repairing, I repair it. Look.” Donna pointed to the opposite side of the garden where an almost-new fence panel could be seen. “That side is my responsibility, this side is the neighbour’s responsibility. Could I ask you kindly if you would have a word and ask them when it will be done please? It’s rather an eyesore.”

Donna didn’t ask the man from the council if he’d like a drink, she didn’t feel particularly hospitable towards him. Maybe next time, he’d do a little digging in the deeds before making assumptions and accusations.

Maybe the neighbours would, too.

The fence didn’t get repaired, fixed or made-good that year – or the next.

Donna bided her time. The arguments next door became more frequent and louder. She could clearly hear words in the shouting, sometimes, whole sentences. The names they called each other! And no wonder the children did nothing but screech at each other when playing.

Sunday morning routine: “You’re NOT going out!” and out he went.

More rows when he came back and the kids joining in, possibly for attention, who knows.

Monday, the mother and the kids rolled in from school, screaming at each other before the front door slammed. The shouting would die down just in time to start up again as he walked through the door.

Donna turned up the volume on the TV.

At 06:45 or thereabouts, the whole screaming crew exited the house, slamming doors, screaming at each other and at the kids to get in the car and off they went, not minding any of the other neighbours that didn’t have to get up so early.

Donna sighed and mostly she managed to get back to sleep.

A pattern began to emerge early one year. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!” The man could be heard through the walls. Every weekend afternoon and early evening in the week.

The obvious routine disturbed Donna more than it should have. She was worried and had a knot in the pit of her stomach. Impending doom, her granny would have called it.

The early morning routine stopped suddenly. The car door slamming woke her sometimes, but not on a regular basis, not for a whole week.

The kids coming in from school didn’t scream and shout either and she wondered if the woman had taken the kids on holiday. He was still in the house, she heard him drilling and doing his usual DIY.

When the shouting recommenced, Donna had all-but got used to the quiet and relative peace.

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“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!” he screamed. But there was no response.

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!”

No wails from the kids, no return screams and shouts from his wife, just him, “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!”

Blue flashing lights took Donna even more by surprise. She actually looked out of the curtains.

Neighbours standing at their gates, watching the terrible scenes of Donna’s neighbour being man-handled from the house by two police officers, followed closely by three body-bags on gurneys.

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Donna's neighbour turned to look at the gurneys. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!” he screamed in their direction.

Donna closed the curtains and turned down the volume on the TV.