Andrew stared defiantly at his mother. It was a look full of hostility and hatred, guaranteed to wind her up.
Don’t be so damn selfish,’ snapped Claire Longridge, angrily straightening her son’s duvet.
‘You know I’ve got work to do on the computer.’
‘Which happens to be in my room.’
‘It won’t take long. Just a few hundred words.’
Andrew sneered. ‘The computer still happens to be in my room.’
Claire lost it then, and began yelling. ‘Which you never ever tidy. Look at this room. It’s a tip.’
Ignoring his mother’s outburst, Andrew stared into a mirror plastered with stickers, and began squeezing a spot on his chin. This total disregard for his mother’s presence made her feel worthless and she gestured dismissively at the computer games strewn untidily across his desk.
‘Stupid moronic games, that’s all you ever use the computer for.’
As soon as she said it, she regretted it.  She saw his vulnerable, wounded expression in the mirror before he bent down to retrieve his hooded top from an untidy heap of clothes on the floor.
‘Chloe’s twice as untidy as I am. You never say anything to her.’
‘How can I? She’s gone back to university.’
He stopped at the door and gave her the sulky, contemptuous expression.
‘God! You’re pathetic.’
She fought back the tears and tried to think of a reply. But he had already gone. There was a tremor in her voice as she called after him: ‘Where’re you going?’.
‘Does it matter?’ He stamped angrily downstairs. ‘The only thing that seems to matter in this house is your brilliant daughter’s education.’
She started to reply but stopped herself.  What was the point? The times they had argued like this, going round in circles.  And it always left her feeling drained.
The front door slammed and the house shook as if a gust of wind had attacked it.  She crossed to the window and watched her son, his shapeless but fashionably baggy clothes billowing in the icy wind as he shuffled along the road, no doubt heading towards the town centre.  She remembered him as he was aged six.  The sweet smell of his hair when she cuddled him; the cheeky grin and sparkling eyes.

Like the Terminator throwing off an assailant, Dave Whitby hurled open his neighbour’s gate, marched up to the front door and rang the bell. He saw the movement of the net curtain at the window and he knew it was deliberate. There was no way anyone could hem in his car like that without meaning to. ‘I know you’re in there,’ he yelled through the letterbox. ‘I saw you peering through the curtains.’
He rang the bell and waited. No sound came from within the house.
‘Right!’ he shouted. ‘You want to play games? Here’s a good game. It’s called keeping your finger on the bell until the battery runs down. And I bet you get tired of it before I do.’
After two minutes of continuous ringing, the door was flung open.
‘You see,’ gloated the comedian, ‘I said you’d get fed up before I did.’
His neighbour towered over him and was shaking with anger. Dave began to have doubts about the car parking war. The neighbour was also well-built. If it came to the crunch, he didn’t fancy his chances.
‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’ yelled the neighbour.
Dave took his finger off the bell and jabbed it angrily towards the street. ‘Your car is blocking me in. Move it!’
‘Don’t park outside my house then.’
‘When you bought the deeds to your house, it didn’t include parking space in the street. So move your car before I move it for you.’
‘You touch that car and...’
Having ascertained that his neighbour must be at least seventy five, maybe even older, Dave became fearless. The finger that had been used for the doorbell was now turned on his neighbour.
‘Shall I tell you what I’m going to do? he began. He was stopped by the sudden appearance of his neighbour’s wife, small, wizened and grey, like a stage granny.
‘Oh move it, Stan,’ she pleaded. ‘We don’t want trouble.’
Her husband glared at her.‘ Okay,’ he said, as if it was all her fault. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Dave returned to his car. After a few minutes his neighbour appeared, determined to have the last word.
‘I’m warning you,’ he said. ‘Don’t park here again. Stick to your own side of the street.’
The comedian brought his finger into play again.
‘And I’m warning you: next week you’ll come crawling on bended knees, begging me for forgiveness. What I’ve got planned for you, mate, is nobody’s business.’
As he drove away, he chuckled to himself, and did a mental action replay of the incident, but this time slightly altered by the witty ripostes he made to floor his opponent.

*

Marjorie knew Ted had a secret. He was a dark horse, that one. Furtive. And recently his behaviour had been more furtive than usual. Especially since they had moved from their Ramslye council house to their house in Molyneux Park Road.
Suddenly she made the connection. At Ramslye he had had his workshop at the bottom of the garden, and was never bothered by her. But here in Molyneux Park Road, from the large kitchen window she could see clearly into the garden shed which was close to the house. Whatever Ted was hiding, she felt, it must be here in the house. And she was determined to find it.
Starting upstairs, she searched every possible hiding place. And it didn’t take her long to find one of his books, cleverly concealed in the bottom of the sponge bag he always took on holiday.
She opened the book, which had been disguised with a brown paper cover, and turned the pages slowly. As her eyes scanned the words, her anger bubbled and boiled, and she hated him as she had never hated him before. But at least now she had the evidence to destroy his pathetic little secret.
She would show him that she knew. Place the book face up on the kitchen table and watch him squirm.