She seems a nice woman. Her kids are well-behaved, and he feels a little ashamed this is the first time he has spoken to his neighbour in the two years since she moved in. He feels even worse that he has an ulterior motive. Her husband, he knows from the van usually parked in their expansive drive, is a landscape designer.

‘I just don’t trust myself in the garden,’ he says. She is midway through relieving her boot of Waitrose shopping.

‘No problem,’ she says. ‘I’ll get him to pop over after work.’

He is about to say ‘thank you’, when something in the rounded estuary vowels of her reply surprise him and ‘thank you’ becomes ‘wicked’ and so, as she carries her shopping inside, he laments another straightforward human interaction gone awry.

**

Not strictly a 100-worder, but thought I’d have a quick go at the WordPress Daily Prompt. Today’s is Nuance.