Eyes Rounder than Black Moons.

 

We were sitting side by side on the settee when there was a sudden pounding noise.

We listened trying to work out exactly where the noise was coming from.

It was from next door.

The pounding became heavier, louder, angrier.

It was a woman and there was no doubt about it, she was furious.

I wondered if perhaps she’d tried to find a passport form or a passport photo or perhaps she was going through some last final stage of an itchy rash caused by an allergic reaction to a spider bite; but no it was none of these.

This woman was incandescent. So angry was she that nearly every other word she yelled began with an F.

“I ----- want my ------ son back. You ------ sent me a ------- text saying that I was an -------- bad mother so I -------- want my son back. I ----- want my ------ son back. You ------ wrote all that on --------- my ---------Facebook page saying that I was an -------- bad mother and I -------- want my son back.

There was then some sort of scuffle on the doorstep after the door was opened and my neighbours joined in the argument with their side of the story. Then the door was slammed shut.

The angry woman then seemed to know all the people my next door neighbour had been rather too intimate with, and began to list them:

“ A ------- lap dancer. A ------ nineteen year old. Her ------- mother and her -----best friend. I ----- want my ------ son back. You ------ sent me a ------- text saying that I was an -------- bad mother and I -------- want my son back. He can’t -------- stay here.”

In all this I learnt for the first time my neighbour’s name first, last and an assortment of middle names. “Rhys you ------- Bastard,” she yelled. “I’m calling the police.”

She pounded on the door, and kept it up even though we could hear her son inside pleading with her to go away. She kept up the banging until flashing blue lights announced the arrival of the police.

It was amazing how quickly they turned up. We heard a policeman go inside while a policewoman remained outside to speak to the angry woman.

The police woman was impressive, though with their arrival the angry woman had instantly changed her demeanour. She laughed a little. The police woman seemed to have an instant grasp of the situation and calmed her down as she took her details and checked on the informal custody arrangement which apparently had previously been working quite well.

The aggressive woman had now dropped her rather glorious overuse of the ‘F’ word as an adjective and was speaking calmly.

“They said because he hadn’t had any dinner that I was a bad mother,” she explained. “His girlfriend sent me a text.”

The police woman listened, but managed to get more of her own sensible words and suggestions into the conversation. Then her colleague emerged from the house and said that the arrangement should stand as it was the father’s turn to have custody and that the thirteen year old boy also wanted to stay there. He then allowed the boy to speak to his mother briefly before it all resolved when he added:

“And your ex husband says he won’t press charges for the scratches on his face.”

At this the angry woman laughed a little nervously, she became even quieter, and then she left.

The door next door was closed, and the flashing blue lights also eventually went away.

And we, The Teenager and I, were left in our hallway, sat upon the floor where we’d been listening with eyes rounder than black moons.