Chapter 10: The Neighbour

Just as Mum and Dad were speechlessly trying to absorb the news of my impending twin births, the front door bell rang, not just the once but insistently, like there was a mad axe-man at the door desperate to get in to chop us up for some imagined slight.

I didn’t think the parents would want to deal with any visitors right now, not until the shock wore off and they started the expected barrage of questions. So, while I tried to reassure them that everything will be fine, I asked Kay to go to the door, see who it was and get rid of them.

She was back two minutes later and she closed the parlour door behind her.

“Who was it?” I asked.

“Your neighbour, Andi, she said her name was, the name you mentioned before? She said she was visiting her parents this morning and they told her they’d seen you drive past, so she popped through the garden gate to see you ... I told her you were having an important discussion with your parents and couldn’t be disturbed right now, but she insisted that you’d see her, because you’re best friends forever?”

“Damn it,” I said, “yes, Andi is my best friend, I’ve known her all my life and I guess we can’t put her off. I’ll go see her and ... blimey, I don’t even know what to say to her.”

“I told her you’ve got to have an operation,” Kay said, “vaguely referring to it as something to do with urinary tract or bowels, as nobody wants to talk about that sort of thing, but that you need to finish talking over your business arrangements with your parents while you are maybe out of action for a few weeks while you are convalescing, and that you’ll ring her tomorrow and arrange to meet up and chat in the near future.”

“Okay,” I said, “that sounds plausible.”

Then I thought about it a moment longer and added, “No, she’ll never buy it, I better go see her myself.”

My closest friend really is a woman, Andi or Andrea Smyth, who is, or was, literally the girl next door. Our parents are also best friends and have been next door neighbours since before either of us were born. Andi is four months younger than I am and we have known each other ever since we could crawl and spent a lot of time together in one house or the other as kids.

Whenever the neighbours had social events we would be creched together, play together every day and been indisputable besties ever since. We were each others first boyfriend and girlfriend when were were 15 and lost our virginities to each other as soon as we reached the legal age of 16 in the UK but soon decided that we both preferred being friends rather than lovers in a meaningful relationship. Actually, thinking back it was Andi who decided that we should spread our network of sexual experiences and persuaded me to pursue other partners while she did the same, only she shared with much more gusto than I did in our late teen years.

Unlike me, who shied away from committed partnerships, Andi had thrown herself wholeheartedly for all the wrong men she drew into her sphere and her heart has been broken many times over the last 18 years or so. Andi tends to have relationships with men that last about two to three years before break-ups that became ever more spectacular. She had been engaged to be married, well how many times I’ve lost count but two of her engagements got as far as sending out invitations for the weddings before being called off.

When I last had a long conversation with her concerning relationships, about four months ago, she had just split up for her then-beau of three years’ standing, and reported to me that she had decided that marriage and motherhood were simply never going to be on her horizon.

Today, Andi looked good, like she always did. She is a tall, slim brunette with hints of red highlights in her hair, which reflected her dark wit and fiery temperament. Her attractive face with cute button nose was painted with a huge smile as she saw me emerge from the parlour, but I still had an instant of seeing her angry face just before the smile appeared. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Kay had been sent packing at the front door. Andi could be very frightening at times, especially where I was concerned, and there was no way that she would be put off from doing whatever she wanted to do.

“Hi And,” I said brightly, reducing her name t a single syllable as usual, as we moved towards each other and tugged each other into a warm welcoming best friends embrace, “I didn’t know you were even home today. How are you keeping?”

“Well, I’m absolutely fine as ever, Drew,” Andi replied looking me in both eyes when we held each other, out faces half a nose apart, “but what about you, you bastard? The maid said you were having some waterworks problems down there among your unmentionables and due for a fucking operation that you had told me, your fucking bestest ever fucking friend, absolutely fuck-all about, is that right?”

Andi swears a lot, about hell of a lot.

“Yes, something like that,” I said, “and I was only diagnosed yesterday. Look And, let’s not blow this out of proportion, it’s just a bit ... well ... personal, really, embarrassing even, having an issue below the belt sort of thing. It is really nothing serious. Saw my doctor yesterday and we’re going back early next week to get the verdict from the results of the various bodily fluids that he took for testing. The Doc hinted, only hinted mind, that an op could be on the cards, and if it is, well, he says it’s a common procedure done by most hospitals up and down the country on a daily basis with a near 100 percent success rate.”