I don’t believe I’ve told you about my neighbourhood.
We live in what is usually—and somewhat inelegantly—referred to as a “cul-de-sac”. It is a dead-end street, a blind alley; an impasse of sorts. Those are funny words when you consider them. The place is either the bag’s ass, the street where even the end is bereft of life, where nothing can be seen, or a predicament without any solution. Everything is locked at a standstill.
It is an awkward cul-de-sac at that: on the left-hand side (that is, if you’re going down the street) are eleven houses with their front yards and mailboxes and actively napping cats; on the right-hand side are the garages and backyards of the bigger, more town-like houses of the street that runs parallel to ours.
To us, who live on the left-hand side, the cul-de-sac is our street; to them, who live on the main road, it is a mere alley that they only use to get into their cars, and where they drop their garbage bags for collection on Sunday night, because, of course, who would want for their façades to suffer the indignity of being adorned with trash until the garbage truck comes on Monday morning? From time to time, I think that’s what we are to them: a dump site, and nothing else.
The truth is, we do not know the right-hand side people very well, and they do not really know us. I’ve only talked to those whose kids play in the cul-de-sac as it is safer than playing in their own street, what with the speeding cars and whatnot. There are two families, and they are actually very nice. One has a little boy, Oscar, and the other, a little girl, Amara. They’re roughly the same age, and they spend all of their time together, running from one garden to the other via the garage doors. Last week they pretended to be a guard of honour and held long willow branches on either side of our car as we were leaving the impasse. Of course, we bowed and waved diligently.
* * *
N°349
Although n°349 physically and resolutely sits on the cul-de-sac, of which it should be considered the first house on the left, city planning and tradition regard it as the last house of the avenue before our impasse (and hence, technically belongs to the right-hand side). I have no idea who lives there, which is strange because we pass by their front yard every time we enter or leave our street, as there is no other way in or out. They have the largest, most densely green front yard in the neighbourhood, hidden behind a tall hedge made of thick yews which the owner maintains with the precision of a high-end nail technician. There is a large steel gate through which you can glimpse an abundance of French lavender, and on very hot evenings, it smells like Provence at the top of the street. No one ever mentions n°349 in the impromptu conversations that take place almost daily on the side of the road.
N°1
In the first house that actually does belong to the cul-de-sac, at least according to the authorities (but we all know the truth), lives a middle-aged couple who never returns our greetings and never waves back, not even to Oscar and Amara. In their front yard, they have a large trailer, a blue Lotus that’s always shiny, a Jaguar that is kept under a thick tarpaulin, and a Kia. That last one is her car. There was a McLaren at some point, but it appears to be gone now. When we first moved in, I was curious about them. Not that I ever really wanted to meet them, but I was wondering why people who could afford such expensive cars would live in this neighbourhood, in that house. I still don’t know to this day. We sometimes get a glimpse of their daily existence on our way in or out. He seems to spend all of his time in the trailer, filling in garbage bag after garbage bag with empty beer cans. She seems to try to shrink into the ground whenever she sees anyone from afar; that way she can better hide the black eyes, the bruises, and the scratches on her arms.
N°3
There are a couple more garages where n°3 should be. Their owners rent them out to the people on the right-hand side who, more often than not, have two cars but only one garage of their own. The whole situation appears to give rise to disputes on a daily basis between the garage owners and their tenants, amongst tenants, between tenants and the people who do not live here but still park in front of their garages, and amongst owners. I like to believe that the plot is cursed, but in all actuality, the constant turmoil is only the result of a combination of greed, difficult economic circumstances, carelessness, and inflexibility — in a nutshell, an expression of human nature.
N°5
That house was empty for a long time. It used to belong to an old man who had been a professor of physics at the nearby university. I used to refer to him as Benjamin Button, because he was very old but looked like an overgrown baby. When he passed away, a private company came to empty his home before it was sold. They took whatever had some resale value, and threw everything else in a container. One night, I climbed into it and stole a couple of technical drawings that were rolled up in one of those cardboard tubes. Another neighbour took an antique trunk and a lamp. Then the container was gone, and with it, the entire life of a man as if he had never been there at all. The house turned into an assisted living facility for disabled adults. Three men live there, but I’ve only ever seen one of them; he usually stands at his window in the evening, surveying the street, and I call him The Batman.
N°7
The house just next to Benjamin Button/Batman has been empty for a couple of years. It used to belong to a very rich woman, though you would never have guessed it by looking at her or at her house, which has been decrepit and neglected for as long as I can remember. It looks as though it is held together only by peeling paint, and I never get too close to it for fear that it might collapse if there’s a strong gush of wind. The woman loved owning property, like her parents before her, so at the time of her unexpected demise, she owned three houses and three plots, all in our cul-de-sac. To put it plainly, she owned half the street. Her daughter, who inherited it all, has sold everything in the last three years to fuel her shopping addiction, which is one of the most disturbing cases I’ve ever seen. She only buys Gucci, Prada, and Chanel (in that order) and according to some neighbours, she typically wears her clothes once and then throws them away because washing them would be too much of a hassle. I don’t give too much credit to that sort of gossip, and as far as I am concerned, I’ve only ever seen her in her faux-fur pink bathrobe or in a silver sequin dress that makes her look like a sad disco ball, which is appropriate given the fact that she only seems to listen to French Disco. She owns 22 cats, none of which is allowed to go out, and when she opens her door, an acrid smell spreads in the entire neighbourhood.
N°9
In (technically) the fourth house lives an older couple. Together, they raised six children, only one of which still lives with them, though he just graduated, so he might be leaving any minute now. His father told me that he was in no hurry to see him go, and I guess they’re a little scared of finding themselves in an empty nest. The father himself, Mr Duy, arrived in Belgium in the 1970s as a refugee from Vietnam, met his wife soon after, and they have been living in the same house ever since. I rarely see her, but he speedwalks up and down the cul-de-sac every day to make his FitBit happy and keep his heart in working order. Because he is older than us — and much wiser (you’re bound to be after raising that many children) — he sometimes gives us pieces of advice, most of which can be summed up by “Breathe. Just breathe.” I cannot help thinking he’s right. It got him through living next to a house that’s been a constant danger to the integrity of his own for the past twenty years without complaining once or shouting at anybody. Though he once picked up a chainsaw, walked straight to n°7, and cut down a tree that was obscuring his windows and lifting up his roof tiles, all without saying a single word. He was done in less than five minutes and no one ever discussed the matter afterwards.
N°11
Nextdoor lives a woman who inherited her parents’ house, never married, never had children, and seems to be perfectly content to live in a place that is filled to the brim with ghosts of the past in the form of old pictures, ancient laceworks, and various types of artefacts that previous generations decided were in good taste. Everything is spotlessly clean, and everything is in its place. It looks like a museum. She owns a pet tortoise that will definitely bite your feet if you try to approach it, and she hates foreigners of all kinds with a fire I’ve rarely seen in anyone else.
N°13
That family I know a little better. Paul used to be a union rep, and he has now ceased all political activities in order to focus on his hobbies, which are numerous but mainly revolve around all things cycling. It is slightly unclear to me how many daughters he and Victoria actually have because some of them have moved out to their own dwellings and still visit very often while some others still live there, and I feel that after eight years, it is a bit late to ask the question in a casual manner. They have a dog, a funny little beagle named Paco that escapes at least once a week and causes quite a commotion as the entire family chases him to prevent him from getting to the main road where he would undoubtedly meet his maker under the wheels of a speeding lorry.
N°15
The house next to theirs too was sold not long ago, after much drama. The original owner (who had inherited his house too; people don’t seem to be too keen on exploring the world here) sold it in order to escape his mistress—a tall sixty-something biker with a vague resemblance to Kathleen Turner named Loulou—who had turned violent all of a sudden and threatened to murder him in more or less creative manners on a daily basis after he attempted to kick her out. I didn’t know the new owners at all until very recently when I saw them try to pry open their garage (on the right-hand side, of course) with crowbars. Apparently, the previous owner had forgotten to give them the key, which is very out of character. Rumour has it that the man used to work at a UN station in Africa, but again, I take everything those people say with a grain of salt. I’m not going to tell you what the racist woman who lives on n°11 calls his wife.
N°17
There is no house on n°17; only a large plot. It belongs to a man whose last name sounds like a first name and whom I’ve caught standing in the middle of the street staring into the void more than once. He too drinks. It is a thing here. He’s rarely ever in the impasse, except for planting beans that he immediately proceeds to forget until they’re dead and dry. He rents the rest of the plot to Hans.
I guess I need to tell you about Hans. It is not his real name, of course; it’s what I called him in my head before I knew what he was actually called, which is surprisingly close to Hans anyway. I’ve never really understood his living arrangements, but he used to shack up with a much older woman who paid the rent while being married to another one who lived someplace else. But since the house (n°21) belonged to n°7, both he and the older lady were kicked out by Pink Bathrobe (n°19) so that she could sell the house, and they now live in a village nearby, which doesn’t prevent him from being in the cul-de-sac every day. He is a retired docker who fancies himself as the neighbourhood’s handyman, keeps ponies and exotic birds, and wears nothing but a pair of speedos from May to October. To put it plainly, he is the main character of the film of his life, and the rest of us are mere extras. He is very friendly with Racist Lady (n°11), as they bonded over their shared dislike of anyone who does not look like them, and he probably is the biggest gossip I’ve ever met.
He brings me eggs when he wants something from me, whether it be my help with writing a letter, or to know what the other neighbours have been up to. We do not eat the eggs because fifty per cent of them smell like death when you crack them open, and there’s no way to know when he collected them or how long they stayed in the chicken coop before he did. I also do not feel that I deserve the eggs because I regularly feed him horse crap in lieu of the information he is trying to extract from me.
He also still rents a garage from Racist Lady between n°1 and n°3, on top of the plot where he keeps the ponies and assorted animals, which belongs to the guy who likes to stand in the middle of the street. He uses the plot mainly for digging. He owns a rather formidable excavator which he operates from 7.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, weekends included. No one knows what he’s digging for, but my personal theory is that he’s trying to make his way to New Zealand through the centre of the earth. And the noise is constant. Sometimes I daydream about using the excavator to dig one last hole.
N°19
And then there’s the house where Pink Bathrobe lives. The last house she owns. It’s on its way to being as decrepit as her mother’s. That’s where the 22 cats live too, packed at the windows, looking outside, not unlike The Batman at n°5. Like Hans, she likes to spend her time in a swimsuit, in her front yard, drinking rosé and occasionally sneering at people. We haven’t been on speaking terms for a while, though I tried my best to overlook her rudeness when her mother died and welcomed her to my house. I was taught a valuable life lesson there and then, and I haven’t tried to be nice to her ever since.
N°21
There’s another empty house, the one where Hans and his partner, a woman who hardly ever left her armchair named Nana, used to live. It is going to be turned into a shared house; I guess people would rather collect three rents than one. The contractor has been at work for the better of the past eight months because everything had to be redone. When Hans lived there, there was no convincing Pink Bathrobe that it wasn’t normal for a house not to have a bathroom and for the kitchen to functionally be a rainwater collector, but now it has been sold, and apparently, it hasn’t occurred to anybody involved that it would be cheaper to simply tear it down and build a new one. It’s just going to turn into another of those rentals where the tenants can never be happy and escape to a much better place as soon as their first lease agreement comes to an end.
N°23
The tenth house is that of a widow, Elizabeth. She has children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who visit her frequently. She used to be a piano teacher, and she still plays every day; mainly Chopin. When I find a scorebook that she might like at the flea market, I buy it and bring it over to her with a piece of pie (she will tell me off if I forget the pie), and then she plays for me. In the summer, when all our windows are open, I can hear her play from my patio, despite the constant noise of the excavator. She’s generally lovely, but she’s been depressed lately and I’m quite worried about her.
N°25
Then one more plot without a house on it, a formidable island of green that isolates us from the rest of the alley. It belongs to two brothers who have never really decided what to make of it, and only tend to it when it crosses their minds, which is about twice a year. One of them lives abroad, and the other’s daughter rents one of the houses on the right-hand side. There, on plot n°25, three generations have planted small Christmas trees that have become big, as well as alders, prickly ashes, birches, and boxwood. It’s a joyful space made of pure chaos where a whole population of blackbirds, sparrows, robins, wrens, and hedgehogs go about their lives as if they were in the middle of the countryside. There’s no entering the land without a machete. I love it.
N°27
And then there’s us. I don’t know what people think of us, and I don’t much care. If you ask Pink Bathrobe, she’ll tell you that I am a bitch; if you ask Elizabeth, she’ll tell you that I’m charming. I guess the truth is somewhere in between. The consensus on my partner is much easier to describe as everybody loves him wherever he goes, which, of course, annoys me no end. We painted our gate blue, and our front yard is a little unkempt. We like being left alone. Most people in the neighbourhood have a hard time understanding the concept of working from home, and some of the older folks believe that we both are unemployed because they do not see us leave for work in the morning.
N°29 & n°31
Next to us, the last two plots of the street used to be similar to those that belong to the two brothers at n°25. We were in the middle of an ocean of green that sheltered us from the ugliness of the town. But they belonged to Pink Bathrobe, and about three months after her mother’s death, she came to us to inform us that she was selling them and that if we wanted to continue to enjoy our peace, we’d better buy them. The price that she was asking was grossly inflated, and we did not have that sort of money lying around, so we passed up on the opportunity. And I told her where to stick it in no uncertain terms. Those plots have since been bought and sold half a dozen times, each time by developers, and around the third or fourth time, one of those buyers had all the trees cut down and the plots turned into a lifeless lawn. The current situation is that the plans to build two houses (to rent out, of course) have just made their way to the city planning offices.
And then the street ends, quite anticlimactically, with a storm sewer grate and a couple of wild bushes.
* * *
I guess that by now you’re acquainted with all the actors of our little theatre of human misery, tragedy, and comedy. In our next episode, I will tell you about that one time Hans attacked the Apple Maps car with a shovel. I will also have to tell you about some of the right-hand side people.
A few details have been changed so as not to make the identification of the inhabitants of the cul-de-sac too easy for you, as well as all the names and the house numbers (we wouldn’t want tourists to invade the neighbourhood, would we?). I only know what those busybodies tell me, and fill in the blanks where they exist. For these reasons and many others, you should definitely regard me as an unreliable narrator, and this, as a work of fiction.