by Helen Grant
But you have to go one day, said a hard little voice at the back of her mind. What about university? One day you’ll be gone. She has to get used to that. And anyway . . .
Now she was coming to it, the real reason she was going to go out, whatever Claudine said or did.
. . . I have to see Kris. She did her best to push away that feeling of creeping guilt. I’m just going to meet someone. That’s not a crime. It’s what people do.
‘Look,’ she said, rubbing her face with her hand as though trying to massage away a headache. ‘I have to go. It’s nothing you have to worry about, Maman. I’m just meeting a friend.’
But Claudine had already turned her face away. This time when Veerle pushed past her she didn’t try to stop her. She simply stood there, not looking at her daughter, with her shoulders hunched and the dowdy cardigan pulled as tight as a bandage. A picture of reproach and misery.
Veerle could feel a tight little knot of anger way down inside herself. She knew that Claudine was trying to apply the pressure, to make her stay home, to prolong the scene. She could have taken her by the skinny shoulders and shaken her until her teeth rattled.
At the same time she felt a truly terrible pang of pity for her mother, as she would for any lame and hopeless creature. She swallowed her anger, leaned over and kissed Claudine’s papery cheek. Claudine showed no reaction other than to close her eyes, as though shutting out the sight of her disobedient daughter.
Veerle pulled away and looked at those closed eyes, at the face that was like a marble statue of a martyr, at once suffering and unyielding, weak and yet hard as stone. She touched her mother’s arm gently. ‘I’ll see you later, Maman,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be quite late, but don’t worry. I have my phone, OK?’
There was no reply.
Veerle turned and left the house, shutting the front door gently behind her. She kept calm until she had reached the end of Kerkstraat and turned the corner. Then she stood at the bus stop with her hands over her eyes, fighting back tears, thankful for the cover of darkness.
23
BY THE TIME she changed from the bus to the tram, Veerle had recovered a little and even begun to feel resentful towards Claudine. She can’t keep treating me like a kid.
All the same, she could not shake off her mother’s influence as easily as that; Claudine seemed to hover close to her, like a pale ghost. If Claudine had reacted so badly to Veerle’s going out, how much worse would it be if she knew whom Veerle was meeting? She could almost hear the words of fear and worry that spilled from those thin lips.
Verstraeten? Not one of those Verstraetens?
I told him to keep away.
Men. You can’t trust them.
Your father, ce salaud de Gand . . .
Veerle knew it was no use listening to that voice; it was the voice of a sickness that ran as deep as cancer, rotting everything away from the inside. To Claudine, the world was a terrifyingly dangerous place, its inhabitants divided into helpless victims and stalking monsters.
In a way she’s right, thought Veerle. We had one of those monsters in our own village. Joren Sterckx. But I can’t live like that, always looking over my shoulder. It’s not really living at all. It’s like being in prison.
There was no joy in life for Claudine, she thought. The best that could be hoped for was a degree of safety, to be achieved by constant vigilance, by withdrawing into the fortified cocoon that was home.
She stared out of the tram window, but it was dark outside and they were passing through the woods now; there were no lights. All she could see was her own reflection, her pale face with its large hazel eyes gazing solemnly back at her, the glossy dark hair parted at the side.
She shivered. It will be all right, she told herself. You’ll see Kris on the platform at Montgomery and you’ll forget all about her and her worries.
She couldn’t relax though. The twenty-minute journey to Montgomery seemed to take for ever. When the tram veered down into the underground station she was on her feet, fingers drumming a restless beat on the pole by the door.
Veerle saw Kris even before the tram had come to a halt. He was leaning against the tiled wall, clad as usual in black: leather jacket, jeans, boots; hands in pockets, head tilted to one side, dark hair falling into his eyes.
She got off the tram and went towards him, her heart pounding in her chest. She looked at him, at his sharp features, his bold eyes, the wry twist at the corner of his mouth, and felt a rush of nerves so strong that it was exhilarating. Stage fright. Can I possibly carry the whole thing off? What if someone catches us entering the flat? What if Kris rejected the offering – would he do that? I can’t take him anywhere that has a private swimming pool or a lobby as big as a cathedral, that has seventy bottles of champagne in the cellar.
She went up to Kris and he put his arms around her. There were people pushing past them, hurrying to get onto the tram, to find a seat before they had all gone. More than ever Veerle had a feeling of swimming upstream, going against the flow. What would they think, all those commuters scurrying home after their week’s work in some ordinary little office, if they knew what she and Kris were up to?
Kris’s lips were warm on the side of her temple near the hairline. He said, ‘Do we have to take the metro?’
‘No,’ said Veerle into the front of his leather jacket. ‘We can walk from here.’
They took the stairs up to street level. There was a kind of sickly twilight created by the streetlamps and the dozens of car headlights. In the distance Veerle could make out the great triumphal arch of the Jubelpark.
Most people were driving to their destinations but there were a few pedestrians hurrying along Tervurenlaan, heads down as though the frigid night air were a barrier they had to push against. There was no logical reason for anyone to take particular notice of Veerle and Kris, and yet Veerle was anxious that they would somehow draw attention to themselves. She was torn between the urge to run to Tante Bernadette’s place, to get off the streets as soon as possible, and the opposing desire to put off their arrival as long as she could.
‘Down here,’ she said to Kris, and they turned into a side street between two imposing nineteenth-century apartment buildings, their tiny but perfectly manicured front gardens guarded by black railings. The route to Tante Bernadette’s took a dogleg down several smaller streets.
Kris said very little as they walked. He had an arm around Veerle’s shoulders and sometimes he toyed with the ends of her dark hair. He seemed relaxed, even a little preoccupied. It was Veerle who felt almost sick with tension. The keys on their plastic fob were warm, the temperature of blood, because she kept sliding her hand into her pocket to clasp them, to check that they were still there.
Long before they reached the apartment building she was looking for it, her gaze seeking it out. There was a low stone balcony on the second floor, where the flat was. It usually housed a profusion of flowers spilling out of their pots, but now there was nothing. Either someone had cleared them away when Tante Bernadette went into hospital, or perhaps she had done it herself when autumn came. Their absence threw Veerle, and while she was trying to make up her mind whether she was really looking at the right building they had come right up to the front door.
She couldn’t help glancing up and down the road, although she knew it probably made her look furtive. Apart from her and Kris the street was deserted. In the yellow light of the streetlamps the ornate façades of the buildings had a strangely artificial look, as though they were a stage set, convincingly depicted but with nothing of substance behind the walls. This thought gave her courage; she fumbled the keys out of her pocket and approached the green-painted front door.
She had tried three times to slide the key into the lock before she realized what had happened, and even then she didn’t want to believe it.
No, she thought. No. She fumbled with the keys. I’ve tried the wrong one – I’ve been using the flat key, not the outside door key . . . But even before she tr
ied the other key she knew it wasn’t going to work. She could see by the yellow light of the streetlamps that the lock had been changed. It was new and very shiny, as though it had been lifted off the shelf of a hardware store that very afternoon and fitted to the street door.
‘Verdomme.’ Just for a moment she allowed herself the luxury of despair. She sagged against the shabby green paint of the door, letting her forehead rest against the wood. She felt like pounding on the panels but she knew it wouldn’t do any good, might even attract unwanted attention. The street was deserted at present, the circles of yellow lamplight as still as limpid pools, but she didn’t want anyone twitching at their curtains, peeping out to see who was making a racket down below.
Then she looked at Kris and said, ‘Change of plan.’ She turned to stare up at the balcony above, and let her gaze slowly drop to the ground floor of the building, assessing what she saw.
The balcony of Tante Bernadette’s apartment looked a horribly long way up if you stood right underneath it.
I’ve climbed higher, Veerle reminded herself. Not without a rope, you haven’t, argued a voice in the back of her mind, but she ignored it. If she started to think like that she would never even get off the ground. I can do this.
There were very few potential holds on the ground floor of Tante Bernadette’s apartment building; Veerle could see that just by looking at it. The floor above, the first floor, was considerably better; there was a kind of oriel window with rounded stone columns between each arched section. At the point where each column began to curve up and over, there were carved stone projections that looked sturdy enough to take at least part of her weight. If she were able to climb high enough to stand on one of those projections, she could reach the bottom edge of the stone balcony of Tante Bernadette’s apartment. She thought that if she could get a good grip on that, she wouldn’t need to worry too much about footholds; she could smear her way up the stone façade. Once she was on the balcony there would be no problem at all about getting into the apartment. The folding shutters were ancient and one of the window catches was broken; it had been broken ever since she could remember, so it was unlikely that Tante Bernadette had done anything about it in her infirm state. Besides, nobody expected intruders on the second floor. Not with a drop of some metres onto a stone pavement – assuming, that is, that you missed the railings.
Don’t think about that.
The big problem, thought Veerle, is how to get to the first floor. The bottom of the oriel window created an overhang with little of substance underneath it. The ground-floor flat was dark but unshuttered, so a swinging foot could easily go through a windowpane, with disastrous consequences. The lack of shutters bothered her too. Supposing there were somebody home: they only had to wander into the front room to see her silhouetted clearly against the light of the streetlamps.
The adjacent building held more possibilities. There was a flight of stone steps leading up to the front door, and alongside it a broad bay window with sturdy stone supports. Veerle was pretty sure she could get from the top of the steps onto the nearest stone pillar, and from there onto the top of the window. After that she had only to traverse the width of the window and she would be able to climb over onto the oriel next door. She stared up at the stonework and she could almost feel the route, feel the stone under her fingers. I can do it.
She glanced down at her boots. Normally she climbed in rock boots; climbing in street shoes was going to present a few difficulties of its own, but at least these boots had profiled soles. Quickly she knelt down and tightened the laces.
‘Veerle?’
She stood up and for a moment she gazed into Kris’s face. Her heart was beating savagely fast, as though she had been running a sprint race. I can do this. The anticipation, the excitement, the fear were intoxicating. Suddenly she felt truly alive, tingling, as though every pore in her body were opening to the cool night air. She couldn’t wait to start climbing.
‘Wait here,’ she said. She’d have to climb quickly, because she was going to be doing it in full view of the street and anyone who chanced to come down it.
She didn’t wait to hear what Kris had to say; she turned swiftly and ran to the steps of the next-door apartment block, as lightly as a cat. She stuffed the keys to Tante Bernadette’s apartment back into her pocket, thrusting them down as far as they would go to make sure they didn’t tumble out if she took a swing. Then she was on the stone steps, grasping the black-painted iron railings with her hands and fitting the toe of her boot into one of the spaces between them, putting her weight on the narrow crossbar. She pushed up, and now she was able to climb onto the top of the railings, steadying herself on the corner of the bay window.
Feeling secure, she couldn’t resist glancing mischievously at Kris, but she had hardly focused on his face, noticing with some satisfaction his raised eyebrows, when she felt her foot slipping on the painted surface of the railing. All the struts were cylindrical, and thickly coated in glossy black paint; she had thought the tight fit of her boot between the uprights would stop her slipping, but now she realized to her horror that it wouldn’t. Her foot began to slide backwards, and all of a sudden she was fighting to keep her balance, a sick cold feeling of terror washing over her as she pictured herself going over, legs shooting out from under her, torso or maybe – God forbid – her face coming down on the spiked ends of the railings with the finality of a cleaver hitting a side of beef. The splintering cracks as the points hit ribs, the sickening sound of them sliding into her flesh. Her eyes. Oh God. For several seconds she teetered there, while adrenalin fizzed through her veins like an electric current, and then she flung out an arm and grabbed one of the ornate posts that supported the building’s little porch. The metalwork dug painfully into her hand but she arrested the slide.
She was hunched over now. She made herself straighten up – carefully this time, not wasting any of her attention looking at Kris. You won’t impress him if you spill half your internal organs on the pavement. Concentrate, for God’s sake.
It was not difficult to do so. The shock had had the sobering effect of a dousing with freezing cold water. Veerle balanced on the railings with her fingers curled around the porch post, waited until she was sure that she was secure, and then stepped over onto the little stone lip that ran around the base of the bay window. She began to look for holds. If she could once get her fingers over the matching rim at the top of the window she would have little difficulty in getting up there; the biggest problem was finding a toehold that would enable her to reach that high. For once, however, Fortune had smiled: the stone column that ran up the corner of the bay window was badly chipped in several places. It was no harder than climbing some of the routes at the wall.
In a few moments Veerle had scaled the window and was crouched on the top, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She stood up and moved with great care along the top of the window; it looked solid enough, but you could never tell. A bay window was not designed to bear fifty kilos of active human being moving unevenly over its upper surface. She tried to keep to the edge where she knew the top was supported by the windowframe.
At the other side she was able to step easily across to the oriel window, where there was an obligingly placed stone lip. She could rest her forehead on the cold glass and peer into the darkened room within, trace the dim shapes of furniture. But there was no time to waste. The chill night air was beginning to bite; very soon her fingers would be stiff. She did not look down at Kris; she concentrated everything on the problem in front of her. The riskiest part would be getting high enough to put her weight on the stone boss at the neck of the window arch. Once she was there, the rest would be easy.
She would have to scale one of the stone columns between the windows; they were too far apart for her to attempt to bridge a pair of them.
She ran her fingers over the stone, feeling for cracks, for places between the slabs where the mortar might have come out.
A car purred down a parallel stree
t and she froze, clinging to the windowframe. There was no sound at all from Kris down below her.
Verdomme, she thought. Get a move on. Someone will see you, or your fingers will freeze off.
She put her head back and scanned the window arch, and as she turned to the left she spotted a metal strut protruding from the wall. She put out a hand and touched it; it was firmly fixed. She supposed some past owner of the apartment had had a hanging basket of flowers there or some such thing. The basket was long gone – don’t think about it plummeting from the hook and exploding on the paving stones! – but the bracket was firm enough. She placed her left boot on it, stood up smoothly and then it was right toe on the nearest stone boss, fingers hooked over the upper rim of the oriel, and she was swinging herself up onto the balcony above.
She stood there for a moment drawing the chilly night air into her lungs, but she didn’t waste time looking down or waving at Kris; the less attention she drew to herself the better. She forced the ancient shutters apart without too much difficulty, and to her relief the window catch was still broken; she was easily able to open the window and step inside.
24
THE APARTMENT HAD a doleful smell about it, a mixture of old furniture polish and the ashen scent of stale coffee grounds. It was cool and almost silent, the only sounds the ticking of a clock and the whisper of Veerle’s own breathing. She took a few moments to let her eyes adjust. Familiar items of furniture gradually solidified out of the darkness: an overstuffed upright armchair with claw feet; a marble-topped table; a gilded console bearing a Chinese vase.
Veerle went through to the hallway and felt for the old-fashioned light switch. Then she dragged the keys out of her pocket and went to open the front door. To her relief, the key to the apartment seemed to fit perfectly well; she supposed the downstairs lock had been changed since Tante Bernadette’s departure, perhaps at the behest of another tenant.
