The Noise Effect

By Stevie Turner

What lengths would you go to in order to ensure a peaceful existence? Newlyweds Eve and Leigh Chandler are thrilled to be given a council house on a recently built estate after living with Eve's parents for a year, and are eager to get to know their new neighbours. Eve quickly forms a friendship with Tessa Patterson at number 16, but things turn sour when Mark Denny moves into number 18 with his two teenage sons.

The Dennys enjoy playing their music loud enough for the whole street to hear. Leigh and Eve, both normally easy-going and placid, complain to the council after being driven to distraction by noise emanating from the house next door. However, this only serves to make them a sitting target for Mark Denny's anger, causing Eve to discover a previously hidden side of her new husband that she was totally unaware of.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stevie Turner
• Release date: Nov 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781386656333

Stevie Turner

Stevie Turner  began her writing career as far back as 1969, when she won an inter-schools' writing competition after submitting a well-thumbed and hastily scribbled essay entitled 'My Pet'. A love of words and writing short stories and poems has carried on all throughout her life, but it is only now in middle age that she has started writing novels full-time and taking the author business seriously. Stevie works part time as a medical secretary in a busy NHS hospital in the East of England. She is married, with 2 adult sons and 4 grandchildren. So far she has published 10 novels, 4 novellas, a collection of 18 short stories (Life) relating to significant life events, and more recently her memoir 'Waiting in the Wings'. Her novels are realistic, but tend to shy away from the mainstream somewhat and focus on the darker side of relationships. However, you'll find that she does like to add in a little bit of humour along the way. Stevie's third novel 'A House Without Windows' was chosen as a medal winner in the New Apple Book Awards 2014 Suspense/Thriller category, and in late 2015 it won a Readers' Favorite Gold Award.  It was also considered for filming by a New York media production company in early 2018. An excerpt from her novel 'Repent at Leisure' made the shortlist for the Escalator Writing Competition in April 2016, and a short story, 'Checking Out', made the top 15 of the Creative Writing Institute's 2016 competition, and was published in their December 2016 anthology 'Explain!' 'For the Sake of a Child' screenplay won a Silver Award in the 2017 Depth of Field International Film Festival. Stevie has also recently branched out into the world of audio books and translations.  Some of her books have been translated into German, Italian and Spanish, and many English versions are on sale as audiobooks.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

John has tried many times to gently steer me in the direction of counselling, but to me that means psychiatrists will want to begin prodding and delving into the past in order to open up the bag of worms that makes up my brain.  I am not ready for such an intrusion into my privacy. I smile at my husband and pretend I am just having a bad day, but in fact the bad days are increasing at quite an alarming rate.  John has also started calling me Evie, but I tell him not to; that was Leigh’s prerogative.  I am Evelyn or Eve; a phoenix risen from the smouldering ashes of 20, Primrose Court. 

Does one person really know another?  With age comes insight, and unfortunately over the years I have come to a negative conclusion to that question. I also realise that an inability to endure changes us all. The Leigh I thought I knew returns too often now and disturbs my dreams, but his features are twisted into some grotesque personification of evil.  I am trying to escape from the place they call a living hell, but now increasingly recurrent flashbacks ensure that I cannot. 

Primrose Court: Visions of faceless, middle-aged men mowing the lawns on Sunday mornings spring to mind, while their plump, motherly wives supervise the children at the same time as roasting a joint of beef to perfection.  However, as Leigh and I were to find out, in fact nothing was further from the truth.

CHAPTER 1 - 1977

We toasted our good luck on 8 th April 1977 as soon as we heard from the council that we were definitely going to be given a two bedroomed house on the new Bluebell estate.  Slabs of concrete had been metamorphosing into the shell of the estate for weeks, and with a growing excitement we began to make time for a daily walk up to where the main Foxglove Road was being dug out and tarmacked, to peer with anticipation over the rusty corrugated fencing to imagine where our little nest might lie.  With my ever-growing desire to stop taking the pill and start a family, it was going to be a relief when finally we could move out of Mum and Dad’s house and have a place of our own to create our first baby in peace and privacy. 

I can still see Leigh’s young features in my mind and the way the wind blew through his wavy blond hair as we watched cranes lowering the huge slabs into place. 

Our own place, Evie!  He sighed and put an arm around my waist.

A dream come true.  I nodded and leaned in against his shoulder. The trouble is, what do we do for furniture?

Don’t worry about that. He laughed. Let’s get in the door first. We can pick up some cheap stuff nearer the time.

I’ll ask Dad if we can store some things in his shed; there’s only garden tools in there.

And his porn magazines.  Leigh guffawed.

Don’t be nasty. I gave him a nudge. He took you in, didn’t he?

Only joking.  He kissed me. Look; can you see the street sign for Primrose Court, first road on the right along there? He pointed further up Foxglove Road. Next year you’ll be pushing our baby along here in his pushchair.

"How do you know it’ll be a he?  I looked into his pale grey eyes. Some babies are girls, you know."

I’ve got four sisters; I want a houseful of boys instead.  He gave me a wink. I’m sick of dolls, teddies, make up, sulking, and David Cassidy.  I want action men, train sets, footballs, and Farrah Fawcett. 

I’ll see what I can do, but you won’t get Farrah Fawcett.  I pouted and tossed my shoulder-length brown hair in Farrah-style. You’ll have to be content with me.

You’ll do.  He laughed. You can be my Kate Jackson instead.

What a Charlie you are; a definite Charlie.  I sighed and pinched his behind. I just can’t wait to move here. It’ll be great for work too; I won’t need to get the bus every day.

BUT IT WAS NOT UNTIL September that we could pick up the keys.  As we parked the car and ran along Primrose Court holding hands, I could see that number 20 was at the end of a terrace; each front garden separated from the one next to it by four upended concrete blocks embedded into the earth at waist height.  Similar slabs formed the boundaries of the gardens with the pavement, and wooden gates gave entrance to pocket handkerchief sized lawns; the individual turves still not fully settled in place.  In the right hand corner of each front garden was a concrete receptacle containing one large rubbish bin.

We’re at the end!  Leigh vaulted over the gate and opened it for me with a flourish. Less noise from the neighbours! Enter, my darling Evie; our own garden! 

Looks like we’re the first ones to move in; it’s like a ghost estate.  I looked about me at the obviously empty properties, and a nearby block of flats showing only one or two windows boasting frilly net curtains. There’s almost nobody about.

There will be. There’ll be loads of young couples arriving just like us to make friends with.

I looked into the kitchen window of the unoccupied house next to ours looking for signs of life, waiting patiently as Leigh wrestled with the unfamiliar keys:

Yeah; all broke just like us as well. I wrinkled my nose as the front door swung open. Is the Queen due to visit?

Not that I’ve heard; why?  Leigh looked at me in amusement.

The gloss paint; I read somewhere it’s what she thinks people’s houses always smell like.

Well, she’s not wrong then is she?  He suddenly picked me up, ignoring my screams of protest. Our new house!  I’m carrying you over the threshold!

Put me down, you mong!  I put my arms around his neck and laughed, happy that nobody was about to watch.

Only if you give me a kiss.  Leigh squeezed me tighter as he stepped into the hallway.

I was happy to oblige, and we kissed passionately at the foot of the stairs.  He released me from his warm embrace onto uncarpeted wooden boards speckled with paint and dust:

What d’you say we christen the floorboards right now?  He gave a leery grin as he ran his hands over my breasts.

I was young, in love, and eager to conceive his child after one year of marriage, and three months using no contraception.  I closed the front door, lifted up my dress and removed my panties:

I’m game, but I’m not laying bare-assed on the floor.

Then you can be on top this time.  Leigh unzipped his fly, stepped out of his trousers and pants, and dropped to the floor, reaching his arms out for me.

Giggling like two naughty schoolchildren I straddled Leigh in the privacy of our home, and for the first time in our marriage we could make as much noise as we liked.

CHAPTER 2

Mick, my boss, agreed to us borrowing one of the work’s vans for the day so that we could move over the few things we had stored away in Dad’s shed the couple of miles from my parents’ home in Nacton to our new abode.  Nearby was the Suffolk town of Ipswich, with its excellent range of shops