He checked his watch, peering in the almost-dark: nearly ten. He wondered if Kathryn had believed his excuse – a night out with friends – and then he decided that he really didn’t care. She’d probably only asked him because she felt sorry for the deserted husband. Dan got on fine with Kathryn and Justin, but he’d hardly call them his bosom buddies.
And who would he have known there anyway, apart from Yvonne? He’d never been any good at small talk, had hated trying to make conversation with Ali’s solicitor colleagues at their Christmas parties. At least he wouldn’t have to endure that any more.
He hadn’t intended going out tonight, was planning to park himself in front of the telly as usual. Kieran was away for the weekend, visiting a cousin in Donegal, and Dan had bought a six-pack and a frozen pizza. But somehow the empty house had got to him. It felt like it had just after Ali had left and he couldn’t bear it, he’d had to get out, had to be somewhere busy enough that it would stop him thinking his same bitter thoughts.
So he’d walked the three blocks to a pub he and Ali had often been to. He could have gone further, made sure he wouldn’t bump into anyone they knew, anyone who might ask him why Ali wasn’t out with him. But he had to meet people eventually, they’d have to learn what had happened. Might as well get it over with.
As it turned out, the pub was pretty quiet. Not surprising, really, when he thought about it. Middle of summer, most people were probably away, lying on a beach somewhere or strolling through a gallery or doing whatever normal people did on holidays.
He and Ali had talked about going to Italy this summer.
He nodded at the barman – Jim? John? Dan could never remember – and pointed to the Guinness tap. ‘One of those.’
‘Haven’t seen you in a while.’ Jim/John held the pint glass under the stream of stout. ‘Where’s herself?’ There it was.
‘We’ve split up.’ The first time he’d said it out loud. ‘She ran out on me.’
The barman shot him a sympathetic look. Ah, hard luck, mate. Sorry about that.’ He put the half-full glass on the counter to settle and turned to take a bottle of Scotch from the shelf behind him. ‘Here.’ He poured a measure and put it in front of Dan. ‘Chaser on the house.’
‘Thanks.’ A free drink for the abandoned husband. Dan never drank whiskey, apart from an occasional hot one on a bitterly cold winter’s night. He sipped, and it hit the back of his throat and he felt the warmth as it slipped down. ‘That’s good.’
‘Twenty years in the making. You won’t get much better.’
Three pints and two chasers later, the pub had filled up a bit and Dan had met a few regulars who asked him about Ali. The more he said it, the easier it got. His wife had left him – so what? It happened every day. Two other couples they used to socialise with had split up too, one after just eight months of marriage.
He didn’t mention the pregnancy. He wasn’t ready to share that item yet.
In the end, hunger got the better of him – that, and the knowledge that one more pint would have him out for the rest of the night, and he didn’t fancy holding his head all day Sunday.
He got a takeaway from the Indian restaurant two doors down from the pub – another regular haunt of his and Ali’s, but the man behind the counter was unfamiliar and Dan didn’t have to tell him why his wife wasn’t with him.
As he reached Miller’s Avenue, nicely mellow, and turned in at his gate, the door of number seven opened and Yvonne’s daughter walked out.
‘Hi, Dan.’ She wore a deep green mini-dress. Her legs were very long. Dan tried not to stare at them. What was her name again? Heidi? Johanna? Ali had called her the Bombshell.
‘Hello. Off out for the night?’ Great, very intelligent. It’s ten o’clock on Saturday, she’s walking out of her house done up to the nines, and you ask her if she’s going out. Brilliant. No wonder you’re going home with a chicken korma.
She smiled. ‘Just the cinema with a few pals. We’re going to see the new James Bond.’ She raised her beautifully arched eyebrows. ‘Want to come?’
Oh, he was tempted. For a few seconds, Dan almost said yes. To be surrounded by sweet-smelling young women who’d help him forget about Ali for a few hours – it was almost irresistible.
But then she said, ‘Oh, you have a takeaway.’ She sniffed. ‘Mmm, smells like Indian.’
Dan nodded. ‘Chicken korma.’ He wished he could remember her name. ‘My dinner.’ In the streetlight, her hair was extremely shiny. Her lips were shiny too, and dark. He wondered what she’d do if he grabbed her and stuck his tongue between those shiny lips. Probably slap his face. He grinned at the thought.
Clara laughed. ‘I’d say you’ve had a few drinks, Dan.’
‘Just a few.’ He must look pathetic, rolling home half sloshed on a Saturday night with his dinner in a paper bag. Just his luck to be spotted by the best-looking woman in the neighbourhood.
‘Well, I won’t keep you – wouldn’t want your chicken korma getting cold.’ She touched his arm briefly. ‘Maybe I’ll drag you to the cinema another night.’ And then she was gone, leaving a sharp, fruity scent after her. Much lighter than Ali’s heady perfume, which he’d sometimes felt he was drowning in.
He watched her walk towards the alley that led to the main street. What was she? Nineteen? Twenty? When she’d rounded the corner, he turned back towards his front door, rummaging in his pocket for the keys. Food, before he dropped with the hunger.
As he was tipping the chicken onto a plate, her name leapt into his head.
Clara.
One week later: 18 July
NUMBER NINE
Kathryn pushed her little fork further into the softened earth and slowly teased up the dandelion root. Amazing how long those roots were, even the young dandelions. Nosing down deep into the ground, determined not to be disturbed without a struggle.
She threw the weed into her trug and shifted the green foam kneeler a bit further along the flowerbed. She loved gardening, loved trying to get the better of the dandelions and the bindweed that kept coming back, no matter how often she pulled them up. She had to admire their stubbornness, even as she battled with it.
The only trouble with gardening was that it gave you time to think. What else could you do in the soft, twittering late-afternoon atmosphere, with little to distract you, your hands working automatically, no need to concentrate on what you were doing? Was it any wonder, when it had nothing else to do, that your mind began to play with the thoughts you kept bundled away the rest of the time? Began to unfold them and shake them out, allowing them to fill every space in your head and torment you all over again?
She eased up another budding dandelion, pushing her fork into the earth, rocking it slightly. The perfume was a mystery, no doubt about that. But there could be an explanation. Justin might have bought it for somebody’s birthday, some relation maybe or someone at work, and forgotten to mention it. A bit unusual, certainly – he was normally very anxious for Kathryn to help him out with any presents that had to be bought – but it could have happened.
The perfume wouldn’t have been for Grainne – her birthday was in October, and anyway she never wore perfume: she said it gave her a headache. And Justin’s sister Ann’s birthday wasn’t until January – and Kathryn always bought her present.
Maybe it was for Suzannah’s birthday. But would Justin even know when his sister’s partner’s birthday was? And why would he buy her a present out of the blue when they never had before?
No, it made no sense, whichever way you looked at it.
But maybe it wasn’t perfume he’d bought at all. ‘Fragrance’ could as easily mean aftershave or cologne he’d bought for himself. But he wasn’t out of aftershave – the half-full bottle was on the bathroom shelf. And she’d checked the presses in the bathroom and in their bedroom and found nothing else. No new bottles or jars, nothing that would explain the receipt.
Round and round, filling your head, tormenting you.
If it was ju
st the perfume, she could have lived with it – she’d have given him the benefit of the doubt, assumed there was an innocent explanation and forgotten about it in time. She trusted him, after all. He loved her. Wasn’t he always telling her he loved her? Hadn’t Yvonne said, at her party, there’s a man in love with his wife?
But then, two days ago, Kathryn had been polishing in the hall and had seen something white, a piece of paper, under the phone table and she’d stooped to pick it up. She’d read ‘goods €35’ and ‘delivery €5’. She’d looked at the top of the receipt and seen the local florist’s name.
Flowers, bought and delivered somewhere, a few days before. Someone in the house had bought flowers in Blooms Day and asked for them to be delivered. Not Kathryn, and surely not Grainne – she’d said often enough that bouquets were a shocking waste of money.
So it must have been Justin. He must have gone to the florist’s and ordered a bouquet and had it delivered.
But Kathryn hadn’t had any flowers recently, apart from the potted orchid one of their work friends had brought to the birthday party. So whose house had this bouquet been delivered to?
Perfume, and now flowers. Oh, there could still be an innocent explanation, and Kathryn prayed that there was. But what was she to think, kneeling there beside the dandelions?
She was nine years and seven months older than him. Since their marriage she’d had a stillbirth and two miscarriages. Chances were, she wouldn’t give him children. He was still in his thirties, still a young man. She was facing her fifties.
And yesterday she’d looked out of the sitting room window and seen him chatting to Yvonne’s daughter on the path in front of the three redbrick houses. Clara, in her early twenties. Attractive, vivacious, laughing at something Justin had said. Wearing a pink gingham top and denim shorts that stopped six inches above her perfect knees.
Clara could give him babies, lots of them. Clara had years of having babies ahead of her.
Kathryn threw her fork into the trug and got awkwardly to her feet. Time to put the dinner on; she and Justin were going to the cinema later. She wasn’t a big James Bond fan, but Justin loved him.
She walked towards the house, pulling off her pale yellow gardening gloves and stamping her feet once or twice to get rid of the pins and needles.
NUMBER EIGHT
‘Hello?’
‘Dan, it’s me.’
‘Yeah?’ His heart jumped. He ignored it.
‘Well, I just thought I’d give a ring to see … how you are.’
How thoughtful of you. ‘I’m fine. Did you want anything else?’
He heard her sigh. ‘I wish you weren’t like this, Dan. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry how things turned out.’
‘Yeah, me too. I’m sorry you’re having our child. I’m really sorry that happened.’ He didn’t know where it was coming from, this rage. It was pouring out of him. He could do nothing to stop it. ‘I’m sorry I made you pregnant just before you decided you preferred my uncle.’ Stop it, shut up. He leaned against the wall, phone pressed to his ear, heart rattling against his ribs.
Silence for a few seconds, and then her voice, thick with tears. ‘I’ve got to go.’ A click, and a soft buzzing.
He stayed leaning against the wall, kept the phone to his ear. After a while the buzz changed to a thin beep. He hung up and walked into the kitchen.
Kieran turned from the cooker, saw Dan’s face and turned back. Something sizzled in the pan. The room smelled of garlic.
Dan sat at the table and put his face in his hands. ‘I’ve made a right mess of things.’
Kieran shook the frying pan and lowered the heat under one of the saucepans. ‘It’s a shame things didn’t work out.’ This was the first time they’d mentioned it since the night Dan had come home drunk.
Dan kept his eyes on the table. ‘I told you she’s pregnant, didn’t I?’
‘You did, yes.’
‘It’s mine. I told you that, didn’t I?’
‘Yes.’
Dan lifted his head. ‘What a fucking awful state of affairs.’
‘It is. It’s awful.’ Kieran sprinkled something from a bottle onto the pan and stirred. ‘Have you talked about – you know, after it’s born?’
‘No. I can’t. I can’t face it.’ Dan put his head back into his hands. ‘He’ll be raising it, I suppose. I’ll see it at weekends and stuff.’
‘Mmm.’ Kieran poured milk into a saucepan. ‘I was left at the altar – I never told you that, did I?’
It was so unexpected that Dan lifted his head out of his hands. ‘No, you didn’t.’
Kieran stirred. ‘I was thirty-eight. She was a waitress in a little café where I’d go sometimes for breakfast on a Saturday. Geraldine, that was her name.’
Dan watched him, stirring steadily.
‘I finally plucked up the courage and asked her out. She could have been married for all I knew, but she wasn’t. She was a few years older than me.’
He turned off the ring and poured the sauce into a jug.
‘She had a son, about fifteen. I don’t think he took to me, really. Not that I’d blame him – I wasn’t good with that age group, didn’t know how to talk to them.’
He opened the oven door and lifted out the dish with the salmon steaks.
‘We went out for a few months and then I proposed, three times in the space of a week. The third time she accepted.’
Dan got up and took cutlery out of a drawer and began to set the table. Kieran turned off the gas under the frying pan. Dan put salt and pepper on the table. Kieran took two plates from the oven and lifted a salmon steak onto each one.
Dan looked at him. ‘What then?’
Kieran shrugged, added stir-fried vegetables to the plates. ‘Nothing. On the day, she didn’t show, and after a while everyone went home.’
‘Did you ever see her again?’
Kieran nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I went back to the café after a few weeks and she was still there.’ He brought the plates to the table.
‘But …’ Dan searched for the words. ‘What did she say? Did she explain? Did you ever find out … ?’
‘Oh yes. It was because of Adam, the son. She didn’t feel she could go ahead with it, you see, when he was so against the idea.’
‘But he was only—’
‘I know, yes, but obviously he was old enough to influence her.’ Kieran handed Dan the little jug. ‘Sauce?’
And that was that. Nothing more to be said, it seemed.
‘Thanks.’ Dan took the jug and poured the creamy sauce over his fish. ‘By the way, there’s a James Bond film on at the cinema. Fancy going tonight?’
‘James Bond?’ Kieran considered, a forkful of salmon halfway to his mouth. ‘Yes, why not?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really am.’
He’d known she’d be sorry. She was a good woman. He’d seen her face when he’d walked in, the way her hand had flown to her flushing cheek. The way she’d come straight over when he’d sat at his usual table, the way she’d said ‘Kieran.’
‘It’s OK,’ he told her, picking up the menu.
‘It’s nothing to do with you.’ She lowered the coffee pot and rested it on the table. ‘At least, it’s not that I didn’t want to.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘It’s … well, it’s because of Adam – he … he just couldn’t get used to the idea …’ She trailed off.
Kieran watched her fingers smoothing the front of her apron. Red from washing up. ‘It’s OK.’ He would have liked to reach out and take her hand, fold her red fingers in his. ‘Really, it’s OK. I’m OK.’
‘I’m sorry. I really am.’ Her yellow pencil stuck out of her pocket. There was a pink rubbery bit on the end of it.
Kieran nodded. He looked at the menu and said, ‘I think I’ll have poached eggs this morning, for a change. And no sausages, just rashers and white pudding. And some brown bread.’
She looked at him for a second with an expression he couldn’t read, then pulled out he
r pencil and notebook and scribbled. He could see the other waitresses watching them. One of them, the red headed one – Carmel, was it? – had been at the church.
Geraldine slipped the notebook back into her pocket. Kieran wondered what she’d done with the engagement ring he’d given her.
He remembered his mother’s angry tears at the church, after they’d finally had to admit that Geraldine wasn’t coming.
‘What did she have to say she’d marry you for?’ she kept demanding. ‘Why did she have to do that to you?’
He remembered the embarrassed faces of their guests, the twenty or so people they’d mustered between them, how some had avoided his eye as they’d shuffled out.
It wasn’t until the church was almost empty that he’d realised her parents hadn’t been there. Or Adam, her son.
He watched her lift the coffee pot and walk back behind the counter. Carmel said something to her that he couldn’t make out. Geraldine shook her head, tore his order from her notebook and handed it through the hatch to someone.
He’d forgotten to say soft poached eggs. He hoped they wouldn’t be too hard when they arrived. He hated them hard. He opened his paper and began to read about the latest peace deal in the Middle East.
NUMBER SEVEN
Greg,
Thanks so much for the offer, but I couldn’t possibly let you pay my flight to Italy. It’s much too generous, and I’m much too proud! Seriously, I’m very touched, but I just can’t. You’ll have to soldier on in Tuscany without me, but thanks again for the offer – I really do appreciate it. Have a great time, and see you when you get back.
Love Yvonne xx
Barry –
Look, you have got to stop this. I’m not going to change my mind. I’ve explained that it’s nothing you’ve done, we’re just not right for each other. You’re a nice guy, I’m sure you’ll meet someone else soon. You need to move on now and forget about me. Please stop texting me all the time, and stop sending flowers. There’s no point.
Clara
Hi Joe,
The People Next Door Page 13
