Harriet can just about read the word ‘Kindness’ glued in cutesy letters above an enlarged copy of the class photograph. There, by the school gate, is Cheryl, a lone sentry with alarming nails, an enormous card and a black marker pen. She braces herself and starts to cross the road, but immediately swerves. A man wearing orange shorts steps out in front of her, polishes his windscreen with an old cloth, then promptly turns around and disappears back inside. Paying no heed, she walks on, past the perfect cottages with their perfect gardens and perfectly connected occupants. The air is thick with hanging, acidic tones, as though even the flagstones have closed ranks. Taking measured, careful breaths, she steps out into the predatory quiet of the afternoon. She can be there and back long before the onslaught of the afternoon pickup. Everyone will be at home and it will only take a couple of minutes. If she goes now, she thinks, it will be alright. It is a pleasant enough way to pass the day, but as time wears on, cabin fever beckons and she remembers she has a parcel to collect from the post office. Picking up a library book, some cushions and some crisps, she settles down where she cannot be seen. Harriet decides it is best not to go out.
She knows full well that Harriet is there, but Harriet has locked the door and makes patterns with the crumbs on the carpet until her legs grow numb and Cheryl remembers she will be late for the World Kindness Manicure. Cheryl knocks, a brisk, efficient knock, waits, and knocks again. By the time her silhouette darkens the mottled glass of the porch, Harriet has sought refuge behind the sofa. Clutching a thick wad of purple notes, she trips, triumphant, across the road. Cheryl turns slowly around, as though looking for someone. ‘Anyone who approaches me in this,’ she says, ‘is a person worth talking to.’ Not that she owns a dog she just takes her fleece and rubs it over the neighbour’s terrier every time she goes out. Esther stands in the middle of the playground, wearing a fleece covered in dog hair. Esther does not hide behind the window in her dressing gown. At precisely one minute to nine, she ducks into the hall, picks up a child’s coat and schoolbag, thrusts them at her daughter, and launches her, alone, in the direction of the school. Outside, a shrill voice pierces the air, ‘Twenty pounds! Twenty pounds for kindness, twenty pounds from every child!’ It is nearly time for the bell to ring, and Cheryl, owner of the voice, is stalking the yard like a rooster. One wants to build a wall around the social housing, and the others are swingers.’ I just think you should know that there are two committees running this village. ‘That,’ replied Esther, narrowing her eyes, ‘is the problem. ‘Look,’ said Martin, putting on the special voice he saved for awkward clients, ‘I don’t know who you are or what you’re saying, but we are a normal family with a normal daughter and a normal double-fronted period house.’ For as long as it remains that way, you are unsafe.’ You have no history, no allegiance, and no knowledge of how anything works. ‘You have yet to come out and declare your cards. ‘You are vulnerable, new, floating outside the community.’ ‘You are being marked,’ she replied, turning to Harriet. ‘Trust no one,’ she hissed, handing Martin a sprig of dill and standing back, away from the window. She had four sons, two of whom were still at the school. ‘It’ll be so us,’ enthused Martin when they first moved in, anticipating a plethora of quiz nights and boozy village fetes, ‘a home at the heart of the village, and so handy for the school.’ But their first visitor was Esther, a stout woman in her late forties with short, unwashed hair and a mulish grimace. Harriet pulls the tin of Heinz tomato from her daughter’s bag and slides it into her dressing gown pocket.
For once, like a Christmas truce, the issue of the missing ukuleles has been put aside, replaced by a succession of competitive soup tureens paraded through the gate, each one larger and more ethnic than the last, until finally a caretaker is called to free a two-person cauldron wedged up against the step. A knot of parents gathers force in the main yard. Each sight brings fresh horror to Harriet, standing in her dressing gown in the front window of the Stone House. Today is World Kindness Day, and special things are being lifted from cars. It labours heavily now through the leaves, its tiny wheels wobbling round the village green, until by 8.35 there is total gridlock in its wake, its doughty rider setting her chin against the Range Rovers like a Boudicca of the North.
Not an ordinary bicycle, but a strange, fold-up contraption, built for the commuter of the 1980s to whip from a raincoat at London Bridge and zip over cobbles to the Strand. At 8.20am every day, a woman with church hair climbs astride a bicycle.