“She sent Social Services around. Remember? She said I wasn’t fit to live alone.”
“And are you still living alone?”
“So far.”
“My money’s on you in this contest. I figure you’re far more tenacious than any difficult neighbour. And speaking of tenacious, let’s talk about your resistance exercises. How many repetitions?”
“Twenty of each with the five-pound weights.” I take a sideways peek at him to see if he’s falling for it. Those weights would probably be a piece of cake compared to the clean-and-jerk with the bags of sheep manure I needed for my spring maintenance. It seems a fair substitute to me, but I keep the details to myself.
“Excellent. What about the flexibility regime?”
“Fifteen minutes of stretching, twice a day.” It seems prudent not to mention this takes the form of reaching to prune, deadhead and transplant. Bend, reach, bend.
“Great. And cardio?”
“Got myself a pooch from the Humane Society. Brisk walks twice a day.” This is not the highest form of truth, since I fail to mention Silent Sam is down to three legs and blind as a mole. Getting him to the nearest fire hydrant feels more like resistance work than cardio.
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Wouldn’t surprise me to see you in the 10K race one of these days.”
Once again, I’ve failed to convince him of the danger presented by Mrs. Sybil Sharpe. That’s the problem when your doctor remembers you as his childhood art teacher. He’ll go through life thinking you are inclined to colour things to suit your own purposes.
“My money’s always on you, Miss Ainslie. Always.” He is smiling. I am not, since I have lost another round. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe: 1, Miss Callista Ainslie: Zip.
He calls out as I near the clinic door, “You’ll live to a hundred.”
Not likely. And I won’t even rate an inquest, I’m sure. Pretty straightforward for the coroner. Seventy-eight-year-old woman, recovering from quadruple bypass and with a whopping melanoma in remission, pitches into the day lilies following a stroke. A kindly neighbour’s attempts to get help are unfortunately too late. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe’s broad face would blanket the City section of the paper bemoaning the slow response time of paramedics in our community. I can see it all now.
The animal control officer takes me by surprise. I am concentrating on finding just the right spot to relocate the rosemary, now that Mrs. Sybil Sharpe’s shadowy deck has stolen the sun from the west side of the garden.
“Sorry to disturb,” he says, “but we’ve had a complaint about your dog here.”
“This dog? Are you sure?”
“I think so, Ma’am.”
“What kind of complaint?”
“Excessive barking.”
I laugh merrily. “You must be mistaken.”
He wrinkles his brow. “Are you Miss Callista Ainslie?”
“Yes.”
“And would this be your dog?”
“That’s right. Meet Silent Sam.”
Silent Sam takes a shine to the animal control officer right away, and it’s hard to hear ourselves with the thumping of that tail. I fill in my side of the story, being careful to insinuate that Mrs. Sybil Sharpe is as crazy as a polecat and twice as mean. Besides the innuendo, I have a key fact on my side.
The animal control officer is impressed. “A barkless dog? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of one.”
“Feel free to check my story with the Humane Society. According to his rap sheet, Sam had debarking surgery some years ago.”
He bends over to scratch Silent Sam behind the ears. “Nice old fella. With a tail like that, who needs to bark?”
I relax a bit. “Better than any alarm system.”
The animal control officer looks around. “Nice neighbourhood.”
“Used to be,” I say.
“You have a wonderful garden.”
A close call, but I am not foolish enough to believe this minor victory will divert Mrs. Sybil Sharpe for long.
There was a time when I could have turned to my neighbours for support. But the old ones are in Florida or mildewing in some hole of a nursing home. The few remaining are caving in to the relentless ring of the developers. The new ones have a tendency to scuttle through their front doors the second they see me. Their expressions suggest Mrs. Sybil Sharpe has put out the word I’m some elderly female version of the Antichrist, accessorized with the Baskerville hound.
I have tried in vain to pinpoint the moment when everything changed. All I know is the neighbourhood is going fast. Post-war bungalows and fifties-style duplexes have been flattened by spreading brick homes, gangling town houses and something called lofts. Where children played jump rope and street hockey, now huge, lumpish vehicles cut off the view. Instead of laughter across fences, now I hear the swish of leather cases and the beeping of small phones.
Gentrification, they call it. Real estate agents ogle our remaining properties with dollar signs in their eyes.
I can take that. It’s only Mrs. Sybil Sharpe who pushes things beyond endurance. She has the light of battle in her eye tonight as she rages on about the spread of weeds, as she calls them, from my garden. It was naughty of me to plant mint so close to the boundary of our property, but I have derived a certain amount of pleasure watching it sneak onto her manicured Kentucky blue. I enjoy the resulting puce mottling on her neck when she spots the latest clump.
The woman from the developer sports a pair of python boots. How fitting. She feigns sympathy for the plight of the elderly abandoned in the increasingly dangerous and hostile urban jungle. That would be me. Her hooded eyes give her away. Doesn’t fool me. I know whose prey I am.
She would like to help, she says. To take me away from this. Set me up with enough cash to fund a retirement residence. She has brochures conveniently on hand. No worries. Round the clock attention. Nurses. Communal dining. Bingo. Naturally, a suitable family could be found for Silent Sam. I am fascinated by the way her tongue flicks in and out as she spins her tale. She makes coy references to the amount I could be offered for my small war-torn property. I am expected to feel lucky.
“What led you to me?” I ask, all innocence.
“It’s a booming market. We keep our eyes open.”
“There’s an excellent property next door,” I point to the pristine expanse of Mrs. Sybil Sharpe’s house. “A fine view of the river from the upper stories. I would think your buyer would find that of interest.”
The heavy lids close and open again. What does that mean? Could the so-called developer be none other than my enemy next door?
“I’m more interested in yours.”
“What company did you say this was again?”
“It’s a numbered company. I am not at liberty to say.”
“Really?”
“It’s not significant. Guess what they choose to offer,” she hisses.
“An apple?”
Certainly the randomness of my garden outrages Mrs. Sybil Sharpe. But logic tells me it is the house that causes her eyes to bulge out so dramatically. She’s not one to appreciate the sexy curl of the roof tiles, the holes in the screens that beckon to adventurous bats and the lovely weathered grey shingles under the peeled paint. I will not be able to afford to paint properly