The Woman Outside My Door

by Rachel Ryan

  It took Georgina’s brain several seconds to understand what she was seeing.

  There was somebody standing behind Anthony’s shed. Holding a long implement. A stick? They were moving it rhythmically. Scrape—scrape—scrape.

  Then she realized the scraping sound was a shovel in the earth.

  The person was digging.

  Her eyes, adjusting to the dark, made out gray hair, broad shoulders—

  It was Anthony himself.

  No longer frightened but utterly fascinated, Georgina watched him for a moment. What on earth was he doing?

  Then she remembered that Bren was waiting for her and guiltily pulled the window shut, hurrying back to the bedroom.

  When she described the scene to Bren, he seemed amused. “What an oddball. Neighbors, eh?” He slid his arms around her waist. “What d’you reckon, Georgie? Bit of midnight gardening? Or maybe he’s burying a body?”

  His lips brushed her neck. She could tell he didn’t really care what oddities the neighbors were up to.

  “It’s so strange,” she said, whispering now. “Don’t you want to see for yourself?”

  “Honestly,” said Bren, pulling her a little closer, “no.”

  His mouth was moving down to her collarbone now in a way that was particularly distracting.

  “I’ll get the lights,” she said.

  They got under the covers. For a moment, it was almost awkward, trying to find each other’s faces in the dark.

  Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

  Bren pressed against her and her body began to melt. Her hips pushed up to meet his. She could feel herself falling into that headspace where she could think of nothing else—

  Does he ever think about Emma when we do this?

  The unwanted thought came out of nowhere.

  “Something wrong?” Bren asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” She tried to force the image of Emma’s green eyes out of her mind. Let it go, Georgina, for God’s sake. “I’m fine.”

  Willing it to be true, she kissed him hard—but now she found she was faking. The flow had been broken. Bren, still lost in the moment, groaned against her neck. Eyes closed, she tried to get back to where she had been—

  The shadows. The clock. The stuffed toy.

  She broke away from Bren, heart pounding. Why would she think about that now?

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m fine.” She couldn’t articulate it, even if she had wanted to. “I just—can’t get in the mood, for some reason. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” said Bren, perfectly evenly. “It’s okay, Georgina.”

  But if his secret thought was You can never get in the mood these days, Georgina could hardly have blamed him. The room seemed empty without his boyish excitement of a moment ago.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just feel—”

  What did she feel?

  “Georgina,” Bren said with more emphasis, “it’s okay.”

  He sounded like he meant it, but the shapes their bodies made beside each other were awkward that night, and it made her feel painfully lonely. Why was her subconscious sending her these memories? To sabotage the moment? Maybe on some level she didn’t want to save her marriage. What is wrong with me? she wondered.

  Chapter 10

  “Vera,” said Georgina, “how long were you and Frank married for?”

  Her afternoon studying had been interrupted by a rapping at the window. She’d looked up to see Vera’s round face peering in at her. Now the two women were sitting at Georgina’s kitchen table, sharing tea and cake and stories.

  Since Vera’s family had moved away, Georgina always tried to make time for her, and on this occasion, she was glad of the distraction from her books. She’d been having trouble concentrating. Her unsuccessful attempt to reconnect with Bren kept flashing across her mind.

  Of course, it didn’t hurt that Vera had brought over a Tupperware box full of freshly baked brownies.

  “Frank and me were married thirty-six years.” Vera sat back comfortably as Georgina poured her a fresh cup of tea. “We were two months shy of our thirty-sixth anniversary when he had the heart attack, but I always count the thirty-six.”

  “Wow,” said Georgina, daunted by the thought of such a huge stretch of time.

  “Thirty-six years, and he was gone just like that,” said Vera, shaking her head. “I was in the garden—two sugars, please, Georgina—and I heard a terrible shout. I went rushing in, and there he was on the floor.”

  “Jesus. That’s awful.”

  “A normal Saturday morning, and by the afternoon I had no husband. You never know which day will be the one that changes your life.”

  Vera spoke quite cheerfully, but Georgina, not exactly heartened by this gloomy proclamation, moved back to the original topic.

  “What would you say is the secret to a happy marriage?”

  “Ohhh, now. Let me think.” Vera clasped her fresh cup of tea in both hands, clearly enjoying herself. “Appreciation,” she said. “And affection. Make it a habit in your marriage to show each other appreciation and affection every day.”

  Georgina immediately began to worry about the levels of appreciation and affection in her own marriage.

  “If you’re about to start an argument with your husband,” Vera continued, “ask yourself first if you’re hungry or tired.”

  “Okay,” Georgina smiled, picking up her half-eaten brownie, “that’s pretty spot-on. Half the time Bren and I get snippy with each other, it’s lack of sleep.”

  Vera pushed her owlish glasses up her nose. “And have lots of sex,” she added.

  Georgina choked on a bite of brownie.

  “Well, it’s very important in a relationship.” Vera grinned wickedly at her. “Young people nowadays are always talking about it—well, I hope you’re all doing it half as much as you talk about it.”

  Georgina was still laughing, but inside, she winced. If Vera knew how close to home that one had landed…

  After Vera left, Georgina cleared the table and returned to studying until an alarm reminded her it was time to collect Cody from school.

  On the drive there, she mulled over Vera’s advice. Appreciation. Affection. She tried, didn’t she? Have lots of sex…

  Georgina parked and joined the other parents at the school gates. How much sex d’you think she’s having? she couldn’t help wondering when another mother waved at her. How about her over there?

  She was distracted when Cody appeared, carrying a shapeless papier-mâché creation.

  “Wow, Cody. That’s really—something.” She couldn’t guess what it was supposed to be.

  “It’s Dad,” he supplied helpfully. “Look, the cotton wool is his hair.”

  Georgina hid her smile. “Ah,” she said. “Yes. I see it now.”

  In the car home, Cody kept up a monologue about his artwork. “The pasta is teeth,” he explained. “And I didn’t know how to do ears, so he doesn’t have ears.”

  Georgina made vague sounds of interest, trying to seem like an engaged, involved parent.

  “Mom. You’re not looking.”

  “I’m trying to drive, Cody. I’m looking as best I can, okay?”

  By the time they reached their street, Cody had moved on to detailing a plan he and Patrick had hatched to sabotage Team Purple’s star chart and prevent them from winning the weekly lollipops. Half amused, half wondering how serious this plot was and whether she should intervene, Georgina was distracted, and Cody noticed before she did.

  “What’s that, Mom?”

  Something was strewn across their driveway.

  “Mom, it’s your plants!”

  Georgina jerkily pulled the car in on the road outside the house.

  “Wait here, sweetie.”

  She jumped out. Cody was right. It was her plants. The pots that flanked the front door, the hanging baskets, they’d all been smashed to pieces. Broken ceramic and scattered soil littered the concrete.
>
  “Oh, God.”

  She crouched down to inspect the debris. The petals she’d chosen for their winter bloom were shredded and destroyed, stamped into pulp.

  “Who did this, Mom?”

  Cody, ignoring her warning, had followed her out of the car.

  “I don’t know,” Georgina said, straightening up. But as she stood among the ruins of her flowers, she saw again the image of the figure at the window.

  “Maybe it was a ghost,” Cody suggested.

  “Maybe,” she replied, striving to keep her tone light. “Let’s go inside, shall we? It’s cold.”

  Cody poked at the ceramic shards with a toe.

  “Cody. Come on.”

  But he didn’t move. He was looking down at the broken pots thoughtfully.

  “Maybe it was New Granny,” he said.

  Georgina struggled to hide the flutter of fear she felt at those words. “Why do you say that, Cody?”

  “Because she’s angry at you.”

  Georgina glanced around the street. All she saw was a stooped old man she didn’t recognize, walking a dog. And a crow, cawing and flapping its wings in a nearby tree.

  “Why would New Granny be angry at me, Cody?” she asked, moving him towards the house. She wanted, badly, to be inside. To put the solid weight of the front door between herself and the street.

  Cody shrugged. “I think because you said I shouldn’t take sweets off her.”

  The crow cawed again, jostling the dead leafless branches of the tree as it took flight.

  “Inside, Cody,” said Georgina sharply. “Now.”

  Chapter 11

  Georgina felt on edge all afternoon at home by herself with Cody. The broken pots and soil remained scattered across the driveway. Georgina didn’t want to go out there to sweep up. Not alone. Not with dusk rapidly descending.

  Even in the cheerfully cluttered rooms of her house, in the yellow glow of the crooked lamp, she couldn’t relax. Shadows seemed darker than usual. Her nervousness lent an unfamiliar edge to her own home. When she heard Bren’s key in the door, she jumped up in relief.

  “What the hell happened to your plants?” was his first question.

  Georgina glanced meaningfully into the front room, where Cody was engrossed in a game on the iPad. She beckoned Bren to the kitchen, where, on the sofa in the corner, she told him everything, ending with what Cody had said.

  She felt shivery when she’d finished, and perhaps Bren noticed, because he took the knitted blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said comfortingly. “We can buy new hanging baskets. It’s not that big a deal.”

  Georgina felt like they’d gone offtrack. “I know we can replace the pots. What I’m wondering is—who broke them?”

  Bren frowned. “What d’you mean? Georgina, this is Dublin. Random vandalism happens.”

  “You really think this is random? What about what Cody said?”

  “Of course it is. Look, I’ll have a chat with Cody. Maybe that was his way of saying he’s angry at us for not taking his game more seriously.”

  “Bren, you didn’t hear him. The way he said it… it was creepy.”

  Bren looked thoughtful. “All right, then,” he said in a reasonable voice. “What’s your theory?”

  “What?”

  “Who do you think broke the pots? What exactly do you think is happening?”

  “What exactly? I don’t know.” Georgina pulled the blanket tighter around herself, feeling ridiculously put on the spot. “I just think that maybe something… strange is going on,” she finished lamely.

  Bren let that hang in the air between them.

  “Look, I don’t have a theory,” she admitted. “But… Cody’s game. The person I thought I saw. And now this. Aren’t you worried it might all be connected?”

  “Of course not.” Bren began to stroke her back. “There’s no logical reason for it to be. Look, I’ll talk to Cody. But we have to let him—”

  “Grieve in his own way. I know.” Georgina closed her eyes.

  “It’s a shame about your plants, Georgie. But it’s just one of those unfortunate things. It’s not worth getting upset over.”

  He was still rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. Moving away, Georgina opened her eyes—and noticed the time.

  “God, I almost forgot!” She got to her feet. “I told my dad I’d go around this evening and help him with those boxes. I’m going to be late.”

  She paused. The thought of leaving Cody now made her uneasy. But that was silly, of course. Bren was here.

  “I’ll sweep up the garden,” he said. “You go.”

  “Thanks,” said Georgina, pulling on her coat. “There’s some of that curry left in the fridge for dinner.”

  “Do you want us to save you some?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You know my dad. He’ll probably insist on ordering pizza.”

  As she left the house, Georgina tried not to look down at the broken pots.

  Maybe it was New Granny.

  But on the drive to her father’s house, she couldn’t get the image of them out of her head.

  She’s angry at you.

  * * *

  “You all right, love?” Jimmy asked when she got there. “You seem a bit off.”

  “What? No. I’m grand.”

  “D’you want a bite to eat before we get started?” Instead of going upstairs, where the boxes of his late wife’s things were waiting, Jimmy headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to make myself a sandwich.”

  Georgina had predicted her father would invent reasons to procrastinate.

  “You have one, Dad,” she said gently. “I’ll head up and start.”

  She walked upstairs alone, mind drifting back to her conversation with Bren.

  Random vandalism… Not worth getting upset over…

  Was Bren right? Was it just a string of unsettling coincidences? That must be it, she told herself. After all, what else could it be? The broken pots had unnerved her because being the victim of any crime, even petty vandalism, was upsetting. It was natural that she’d been shaken. Especially on top of Cody acting so strangely…

  She reached the cluttered hall and took a deep breath. Right. She had a job to do.

  She knelt down on the carpet, opened the nearest box, and tried to focus on the task at hand: unpacking and folding her mother’s old clothes. She took out a beautiful lace dress. A pair of velvet shoes. A houndstooth coat Rose had worn a lot last winter—her last Christmas.

  Georgina took out her phone and pulled up the photos. Herself and her mother, standing outside a Dublin restaurant in their winter coats, arm in arm, eyes crinkled with laughter.

  “Georgina?” Jimmy called from downstairs. “You sure you don’t want that sandwich, love?”

  “I’m fine,” she called back.

  She put her phone away and kept sorting. A pair of elegant silver earrings. A woolen jacket.

  And then, among the clothes, she found a framed photograph. Taken at a party, decades ago. Her parents looked to be in their thirties. They were laughing with her uncle Billy, heads thrown back. Rose, holding a champagne glass and wearing a fitted black dress, wouldn’t have looked out of place alongside the Hollywood starlets of the film noir days. And Billy, clearly recognizable by his prominent nose and ears, must have only been twenty-five or so. Face smooth, shoulders broad and strong. It was jarring to see him like that—a man who’d been turned slow and senile by early-onset Alzheimer’s, who barely recognized visitors to his nursing home anymore.

  Georgina felt, like a physical ache, an awareness of the passing of time. Her parents and Billy had been like this, once. Vibrantly alive. Now Rose was gone, Jimmy was alone, Billy was wasting away in a home…

  She began to cry, big tears rolling down her nose.

  “Georgina.” Jimmy’s footsteps creaked on the stairs. “I brought you up a sandwich just in case you changed your… Georgina
, are you crying?”

  Leaving the sandwich by the top of the stairs, he hurried over as fast as his legs would allow. Georgina got to her feet, clumsily. The confusion and panic she’d felt over these past days, the unrelenting ache of grief in her chest… it was all released in huge, uncontrollable sobs.

  Her father put a big arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight. “What’s the matter, love?”

  She wiped her nose and sniffed. She wanted to say, “I miss Mom,” but she didn’t think she could handle it if Jimmy crumbled too, not at this very moment. She was still holding the photo.

  “I feel bad that I don’t visit Billy more often.” That might not be the deepest reason for her tears, but it was true, and just saying it made her feel weepy again.

  “Ah, Georgina.” Jimmy’s arm tightened around her. “I’ve told you not to feel bad about that. I’m the only person Billy remembers now. He just gets confused by other visitors.”

  “I know, but… I still feel awful that I don’t see him more often.” Georgina had never been that close to Billy, but had felt an obligation to visit him nonetheless. However, after Rose’s diagnosis, other obligations had seemed to fall away. “I’m a bad niece,” she said, and with those words she began to bawl again.

  “You’re not, Georgina,” said her father, “not at all! Shush now. You’re a great girl.”

  But the tears kept coming. It wasn’t just Billy. It was Cody’s strange game, and the shock of the broken pots earlier, and how exhausted she felt, every day, and—

  “I miss Mom.” As soon as the words blurted out, she was glad she’d said them. “I miss her so much.”

  “Oh, Georgie.” Jimmy hugged her hard against his chest. They stood like that for a while. “I miss her too. Every minute of every day.”

  When her tears had dried, Jimmy helped her move the remaining boxes into the spare room. She’d leave the rest until another day.

  “Will you hang around and watch a bit of telly, Georgina?”

  “ ’Course.”

  “We might as well order some food, mightn’t we? How about pizza?”

  She had to smile. “Go on, then.”

  As she put the photograph away, she felt tears threaten once more. I should go and visit Billy soon, never mind what Dad says. When she had the time.