by Helen Grant
The thing she had with Kris, it wasn’t about that – the everyday crap: school, home, problems with your parents. It was about stepping right out of that life for a while, shrugging it off like a particularly dowdy and restrictive piece of clothing. She couldn’t imagine ever bringing him home to meet her mother, even if Claudine had been an easier, more sociable person, any more than she could imagine introducing him to her school friends. There was simply too much that would always have to remain unsaid. So she had kept the two things apart, Kris and her other life.
Now, however, she could see that they were on a collision course.
I can stop her locking me in again, thought Veerle. I’ll just hide the key. I’m never letting my mobile phone out of my sight again either. But I still have to explain why I didn’t turn up tonight. And I can’t just say, my mother locked me in my room. It sounds crazy.
‘It’s difficult,’ she said into the mobile. Then she told him what she wanted to do.
29
THE NEXT MORNING Claudine wouldn’t look her in the eye. Veerle came downstairs with her school bag slung over her shoulder and went into the kitchen to grab a slice of bread and butter, and her mother was in there already, standing by the coffee maker. When Veerle came into the room, Claudine turned her back with an audible sniff.
She’s angry with me, Veerle realized with incredulity. She probably thinks I ought to apologize.
There was no way she was going to do that, so instead of the bread and butter she took a cellophane-wrapped sweet roll with jam in it out of a packet in the larder and walked out of the house. She could eat it on the bus if she kept out of the driver’s line of vision.
It was a mild dry morning. Spring was in the air, and it was already fully light. Veerle unwrapped the roll and broke off a piece as she walked to the bus stop. She was thinking that spring and eventually summer were going to present some interesting challenges for her excursions with Kris.
It won’t be so verdomd cold any more, but nor will it be so conveniently dark in the evenings.
The bus was four minutes late, and she had eaten the whole roll before she climbed on. It was nearly full. She showed her bus pass to the driver but he wasn’t interested; all he wanted to do was offload his rowdy passengers at the high school in the town.
Veerle looked down the bus and saw Lisa sitting almost at the back, along with a couple of other girls from her class. She began to push her way down the aisle. It was difficult because there were so many people and bags in the way, and a couple of boys from her year were deliberately obstructive, dodging this way and that when she tried to get past.
Veerle sighed. She supposed this was inevitable; she hadn’t exactly been running with the crowd recently. In the end she shoved her way past them with an ironic ‘Sorry’ when her elbow caught one of them in the ribs. She ignored the remarks that followed her down the bus to where Lisa sat.
There was nowhere to sit so she simply leaned over, pulling an envelope out of her school bag. ‘Lisa, will you give this to Mevrouw Verheyen?’
Lisa took the envelope, turning it over to look at the name on it. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m not coming in this morning. Hospital appointment.’
‘Hospital?’ Lisa looked up at her, squinting in the early sunshine.
Veerle shrugged. ‘Just a check-up.’
‘Hmmm. Are you sure you’re not bunking off?’
‘Quite sure.’ Veerle wasn’t rising to the bait. ‘Will you take the note in for me, then?’
‘OK.’ Lisa sounded bored. ‘Are you coming in later?’
‘Maybe. It depends how long the appointment takes.’ Veerle dared not prolong the conversation. ‘Look, I have to get off the bus at the tram stop. I’ll see you later, OK? Or maybe tomorrow.’
She fought her way back down the aisle to the doors. The boys didn’t get in her way this time, but they still made a couple of comments, just loud enough for her to hear. Veerle wasn’t really listening, though. She was wondering whether Mevrouw Verheyen would suspect the same thing too, that Veerle was simply bunking off for the day. I hope she won’t call the house, she thought.
Writing the note hadn’t presented a problem; since Claudine didn’t speak Flemish, let alone write it, the school were used to Veerle composing her own sick notes and Claudine signing them. The only bit of forgery involved had been the signature, and Claudine’s was a scrawl anyway; she wrote the way she spoke, in a wavering, nervous-looking script that was easy to reproduce.
If they phone, though . . .
It was a relief to get off the bus. Veerle stood on the pavement and watched it pulling away in a cloud of evil-smelling fumes. Lisa coasted past, but she was already deep in conversation with someone and didn’t glance out at Veerle.
Don’t forget to deliver the note, Veerle willed her silently. Then she turned and crossed the road to the tram stop. She went and stood right under the shelter, making herself as inconspicuous as possible; the last thing she wanted was for a teacher driving past on their way to school to notice her standing there. She looked at her watch.
I’m going to be hours early.
Veerle was trying her best to keep anxiety at bay but it was like being attacked by a pack of small but irritating lapdogs; as fast as she kicked one away, another one would come darting in from a different angle.
What’s he going to think when I tell him what’s going on at home?
She saw herself turning into a kind of Cinderella-in-reverse, shedding the glittering plumage of the thrill-seeker who could scale the front of apartment blocks and morphing into just another girl with messy home-life problems.
But what option do I have? she thought. I have to explain why I stood him up.
He sounded different when I asked him to meet me today; maybe he’s annoyed with me.
And then there was the question of Hommel . . . Veerle grimaced.
The tram ride seemed to take for ever, and at the other end she had to walk. The address Kris had given her was surprisingly urban considering what he did during the working week; she looked at the grimy old buildings and scruffy shops, wares spilling out onto the pavement, and wondered where there could be any plants growing. But Kris had said they were doing some work for the council; perhaps they were trying to coax a few flowers into bloom amongst the cigarette ends and drinks cans that sprouted like weeds in the municipal flowerbeds.
She spent a bit of time browsing in the shops but in the end there was nothing to do but go and wait for Kris. The place he had suggested was a little café and bakery squeezed in between a dry cleaner’s and a tobacconist’s. The trade seemed to consist mainly of people coming in to buy pastries or coffee in polystyrene cups to take away; Veerle was the only customer who elected to sit down, so she had a choice of tables. She considered sitting by the front window where she could look out at the street, but the thought of carrying on a private and possibly awkward conversation while framed in the café window like a couple of Jan Klaassen and Katrijn dolls in a puppet theatre was not an appealing one. She chose a table near the back and ordered an iced tea.
The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Lisa will have given that note to Mevrouw Verheyen by now. Veerle sipped the iced tea and watched the door.
At the back of the café the light was dim but outside the morning was suddenly sunny, so that when Kris finally appeared it was as a dark silhouette against the bright rectangle of the glass front. It took Veerle a moment to be sure it was him, and when he slid into the seat opposite her she was dismayed. His face was grim.
‘Hi,’ she said, keeping her tone light.
‘I took an early break,’ said Kris. ‘I’ve got half an hour.’
They looked at each other. Veerle was acutely aware of the strangeness of the situation. We never meet anywhere like this. A normal place. We never go to Quick for a burger or take the bus to Leuven to see a film or hang out at each other’s houses. It feels weird sitting here together at a table in an ordinary café.
It was though she had suddenly found herself sitting opposite a fictional character, someone from a book or a film.
The solitary waitress came out from behind the glass-fronted counter and took Kris’s order. When she had gone, Veerle said: ‘Did you do the house last night?’
Kris shook his head. ‘No.’ He looked as serious as she had ever seen him. He was dressed pretty much as he always was, the familiar black leather jacket slung over a work shirt, but when she looked down at his hands she saw that the nails were grimy with earth.
He’s going to end it, Veerle thought suddenly with horrifying clarity. She felt a sickening lurch in her stomach. Maybe Hommel’s moved back in already.
An appalling thought occurred to her. Supposing he called her when I didn’t show up?
She had to push on anyway. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Look, it’s my mother. I think she’s actually sick or something.’
Then it all came pouring out. The fretting that had turned into worrying that had turned into obsessive anxiety. The health scares, the security scares, the letting down of shutters and locking of doors before night had even fallen. The fact that Veerle seemed to have less freedom, less privacy – now, at the age of seventeen – than she had had all those years ago when she was only seven and Kris was nine. The questions, the constant questions. And finally the attempt to stop Veerle going out altogether, by locking her in her room.
The waitress came with Kris’s coffee and went away again and Veerle barely noticed. She didn’t cry – she hardly ever cried and hated it when she did – but the words poured out of her, as hot and irresistible as tears. There was a reckless compulsion to it; she suspected she was burning her boats with Kris, exposing the sickly underbelly of her life, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
She looked down into her iced tea while she was talking, and then she looked sideways at a faded photograph of the Atomium on the café wall, and then she looked over Kris’s shoulder at the dazzling rectangle of window. When she finally finished talking she looked at Kris and she was amazed.
The grim expression had gone. He was listening to her very carefully; his face was grave, but some dark cloud had lifted. Then he sat back, thinking about what she was saying, and although he still looked serious his posture was relaxed, his shoulders were down, his fingers were toying with the coffee spoon. He looked . . .
Relieved.
Now he was leaning towards her across the table and was asking her something about her mother, about whether she had talked to anyone else about her, like maybe the GP, but she wasn’t listening one hundred per cent because she was cradling a new realization as though holding a newly hatched fledgling in her hands.
He’s relieved because he thought I was going to end it.
It was not possible to fully savour the implications of this in the midst of her woes, any more than it is possible to look up from the desert floor where you lie prone under the shadows of circling vultures and lose yourself in admiration of a butterfly that lands a hand’s reach away. She still had a big problem: the fact that her mother was rapidly turning into her jailer and she had no idea what she was going to do about it. Still, she felt a small and sudden surge of happiness, because now she knew.
He was afraid of losing me.
Kris had stopped speaking; he was waiting to hear what she would say.
Veerle shook her head. ‘I haven’t told anyone before now. I mean, she wasn’t always this bad. It’s been getting worse for a long time and you get used to it, you don’t realize how insane it all is. But anyway, I don’t know who I’d tell. I suppose I could try the doctor.’
‘What about your father?’
‘She hates him. There’s no way she’d listen to anything he said. She calls him ce salaud de Gand.’
‘Harsh.’
‘I guess so. I never see him – I mean, she won’t ever see him so neither do I. He could be a total bastard for all I know.’ She shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen him since I was about eight.’
‘Look.’ Kris held her gaze. ‘You could move out. You don’t have to stay with her.’
Veerle sighed. ‘I still have to finish school. I couldn’t afford to live on my own while I’m doing that. And anyway . . . I couldn’t just leave her, not while she’s like this. She doesn’t speak Flemish, she can’t read her own letters, she can’t even renew her own ID card at the Administratief Centrum. She has a job, but only because the woman who runs the business is a French speaker. If she lost it she couldn’t even read the job ads.’
‘Why doesn’t she move back?’
‘To Namur, you mean? I just don’t think she could cope with the move – all the paperwork and everything. I suppose my dad did that when they bought the house.’
‘Veerle’ – Kris’s voice sounded urgent – ‘she’s going to have to cope without you sooner or later. You can’t stay there for ever.’
‘I know. It’s just . . . she’s never been as bad as this before. I really think she’s actually . . . sick.’
‘Then she has to get help.’
‘I know.’ Veerle smiled at him ruefully. ‘I suppose I’ll try the doctor. Look, I didn’t mean to get into all this really heavy stuff. I just wanted you to understand why I couldn’t come last night.’
‘Do you think she’ll try it again?’
‘No. I took the key out.’ Veerle fished in her pocket and flourished it in front of him. ‘It’s the only one. She can’t lock me in again . . . well, not unless she nails the door shut.’
‘Well, keep your phone with you, OK?’ Kris looked at her seriously. ‘If she does anything like that again, you can always call me.’
They exchanged a glance, and although no further words were spoken on the topic of Claudine, something passed between them, as fleet and intangible as a nerve impulse passing along a neural pathway.
Outwardly nothing had changed. Veerle did not expect that they would meet like this again, in the prosaic environment of a café, he in his work clothes and she carrying her school bag, any more than the bear and the wolf can meet on a city street. The next time they met it would be in the old castle, or in an expensive suburban villa full of strangers’ photographs. That was their natural domain, the place where they existed together most intensely.
All the same, something is different.
It was though they had stretched out to each other and broken through some gossamer barrier.
It’s her, thought Veerle. Mum. She’s not standing between us any more.
The half-hour was up, and Kris had to go back to work. They paid for their drinks and embraced briefly on the pavement outside the café, and then Kris was striding away down the street, and Veerle was watching him go, with her fingers to her lips and her eyes shining, silently repeating the words he had murmured into her hair before parting.
30
OH MY GOD. It’s that house.
Veerle froze with a forkful of pasta on the way to her mouth. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened in shock. A pasta twist dropped back onto the plate unheeded as she stared at the television screen.
It can’t be. It just can’t be.
But it was. She began to fumble for the remote control, wanting to turn up the volume, before realizing that Claudine had it. She made herself sit still then, not wanting to draw attention to herself, but she simply could not stop staring. The shock of recognition was like an icy wave flooding the labyrinthine spaces of her body, overtopping every defence, lapping into every corner.
They must know, she thought, not stopping to define them clearly to herself, and her mouth was dry with the acrid taste of panic, as bitter as bile. A searing sense of injustice swept over the glacial sense of shock, a fresh wave breaking over the ebbing remains of the first. We didn’t even go inside that one. We didn’t do anything!
She gazed at the screen, at the fancy villa very clearly visible behind the windswept RTBF presenter. She could remember the night she and Kris had visited th
at house, could remember it with painful clarity. Walking from the tram stop at Oudergem Woud, trying to make themselves inconspicuous. The large tree in whose deeper shadow they had concealed themselves. The elegant portico and the door flanked with the little windows, one of them with the imperfectly closed shutter whose chinks had revealed the light on inside. She could even spot the corner of the house, and although you couldn’t see what was round there, she remembered the path and the wrought-iron gate. If Claudine had turned to her suddenly and said, What a lovely house, I wonder what the back garden is like? Veerle could have told her that too.
It has a beautiful ornamental pond, but there’s a stone wall right in the wrong place, and it hurts like hell if you run into it in the dark.
She’d had the yellowing bruise for ages. Absently she put her hand to her hip and rubbed at the spot through her jeans.
She was terribly tempted to leap up, to make an excuse to escape to her room, to call Kris, to ask him what on earth they were going to do, but she made herself sit still and listen to the presenter. She had to know what they knew.
As she listened, it gradually dawned on her that there was trouble all right, but it was somebody else’s trouble, and she and Kris had skirted it like explorers picking their way around a green swamp filled with venomous snakes. The matter of their having trespassed in the villa’s garden one night paled into insignificance; indeed, she began to think how ridiculous it was that she had thought all this might be for that – the television reporter’s earnest words, the shots of the house, the little inset of a face she didn’t recognize.
A girl had vanished, and not just any girl, it would appear, but the almost-grown daughter of the wealthy director of an international company headquartered in Brussels. The company’s logo appeared briefly on the screen, as though the girl were some valuable corporate asset that had been stolen.
