"The Rainbow House" an original work of fiction for #365daysofwriting challenge

This is today's offering (day 232) for @mydivathings' #365daysofwriting challenge (click here to see her current post)

Today's picture prompt (below) is a Photo by Jari Hytönen on Unsplash

Until the day of the murder - or rather the day after the murder - Joanne had always felt safe in the Rainbow House. It was such a lovely place to live, in a quiet but up-and-coming part of the town. Even Hilda said so. And Hilda rarely had a good word to say about anything. Or anyone. Although when she said up-and-coming Joanne wondered if Hilda had a slight sneer on her face. It was difficult to tell, with Hilda.

Even though its official name was The Old Wharf all the local’s knew it as the Rainbow House because of the colourful balconies that overlooked the canal below. Hilda said whilst she agreed it was colourful, it certainly was not as colourful as a rainbow. It was a misnomer, she said. “There are seven colours in the rainbow,” she said. “And when I look up I can only see four. It’s wrong to call it Rainbow House. I won’t have it, I certainly won’t do it.”

No one is making you call it anything, Joanne thought as she sipped her tea through her smile. But she didn’t say anything. Even though she considered Hilda her best friend, she frightened Joanne, just a little bit.

Hilda didn’t live in the Rainbow House, and not just because she didn’t like the name. Hilda lived out of town in what used to be a manor house. Or at least a part of a manor house. She actually lived in what used to be the gatehouse, the main house no longer belonged to her. The manor house had been in her family for centuries, but, after her husband died, Hilda had struggled with the upkeep. She had been forced to sell the main house - although she would have never put it in those terms. Hilda had decided it was best for the future of the House, and her family name if it were sold on. After all, Sidney and her were a childless couple - Joanne didn’t know if this was through choice, she had never asked and Hilda would never volunteer such personal information - and Hilda hated her nieces and nephews. “No sense of class,” as if that explained everything. Joanne, none the wiser, had just nodded.

Hilda had taken great pains to ensure The Right Kind Of Family were selected to buy her old family home. Joanne once joked that she could have made a successful television programme about it, but Hilda didn’t find that very funny. According to Hilda, television was vulgar. Even joking about such a thing made her shudder. She had employed an agency to do most of the groundwork, and then had personally interviewed the final shortlist of three. Joanne remembered the huge smile on Hilda’s face when she announced she had finally found The Right Kind Of Family. But in less than a year - and after “ruining the place with some rather appalling and inexplicable decorating choices” - they sold it to some Russians, turning a pretty tidy profit into the bargain.

Needless to say, Hilda did not approve.

It wasn’t that she was racist, she said. But Russians were not to be trusted. Look what they did to their royal family, for a start. But putting the Russians aside, she said that most of all, she felt used, and let down, by The Family (as she now referred to the first buyers: having lost the Right Kind Of).

“People of today have no honor.”

She blamed the agency, of course. She was thinking about suing them.

“The Russians? Well, yes, the Russians do seem very nice. New money, of course.” Hilda didn’t approve of people who had earned their money - however it was done - she seemed to think people who were lucky enough to be born into money somehow made better people. Another topic of conversation Joanne avoided discussing with Hilda. They were polite and just the right amount of friendly - that is they said hello when their paths crossed, and that was that. In fact, Hilda had not seen very much of them.

They were hardly ever in residence, so Hilda was rarely bothered by them, at all. But that was really not the point. If she had wanted to live next to Russians she could have moved to Moscow. And now, to top it all, they had just put in for planning permission for a helicopter pad, at the bottom of the garden, where the tennis courts used to be (they’d been ripped out by The Family). “A helicopter pad! Of all things. So very crass. Sidney would be spinning in his grave!” Hilda said, as she stirred her tea. Joanne thought Sidney would find it all rather amusing. He always did like to gently poke fun at his wife’s snobby side. Joanne had always suspected Hilda hadn’t noticed.

Sometimes, Joanne wondered why she was still friends with Hilda. They were from such different worlds, different backgrounds, different class. It had been Sidney and Roger who had introduced them, of course. They had met through one of those clubs that Roger used to go to. Lions, Masons, Joanne couldn’t remember. Roger said it was good to give back to the community. And good for business too. Joanne still remembered the evening when Roger came home and said he’d invited the Gotbury-Smythes to dinner. “You know, the Manor House lot.” Joanne had known, of course. She’d been filled with a mixture of pride, anxiety and excitement. And a little bit of shame, to be inviting the owners of the Manor House to their little suburban semi.

For some reason they had got on famously, and the two couples became firm friends. When Roger died - suddenly on a cruise around the British Isles - Hilda and Sidney had rallied. They had helped her organise the funeral, and Sidney had found a good accountant to help Joanne get to grips with her husband’s finances. And later they had both helped Joanne downsize into the Rainbow House. Joanne had done her best to be there for Hilda, when Sidney died too. Although Hilda was not someone who was happy to accept help. Even when she needed it. Hilda wanted to do things her way.

Joanne sipped her tea, and listened to her friend tell her about what she had heard about what had happened to The Family. And then, through the window, she noticed the flashing lights of a police car.