The People Next Door

by Roisin Meaney

  ‘We can manage, can’t we?’ he asked Kathryn later that evening. ‘We can talk to those daffodil nurse people – we can get someone in to help if we have to. And Ann will come over to stay for a while if we need her later, I know she will.’

  And Kathryn had said yes, of course they’d manage.

  She wouldn’t have wished this on her mother-in-law for the world, no matter how strained things had been between them. What a horrible thing to happen to anyone. Hard to believe that this time next year, barring some kind of miracle, Grainne wouldn’t be with them.

  Justin had told his superiors the news at work and he’d been given compassionate leave for the next couple of weeks, and part-time hours after that for as long as he needed them. His plans for a career change had, of course, been put on hold.

  Funny how things worked out.

  Kathryn sipped her peppermint tea. Grainne wasn’t the only one who’d lost her appetite lately: none of them was eating right. When had she and Justin last sat down to a proper meal together? Kathryn found the peppermint tea soothing when she couldn’t face cooking or eating.

  She was looking forward to seeing her sister-in-law again. They hadn’t met since Justin and Kathryn’s trip to Spain two years before. She wondered how Grainne would react to the prospect of seeing the daughter she’d disowned so long ago. Maybe the knowledge that you were dying softened you, let you put aside old quarrels. They’d have to wait and see when Justin found the right time to broach the subject of Ann’s plans to visit her mother.

  Kathryn lifted her cup, inhaled the minty steam. The one good thing about all of this was how it put everything else into perspective. It made her realise that whatever had gone on with Justin over the last few months wasn’t the huge thing she’d made it out to be, not compared to this.

  From now on, Kathryn was going to look to the future, forget what may or may not have happened in the past and move on. Accept that she’d never know what Justin had done and live with it. She loved him, and she knew he loved her too.

  The oven pinged and she went to take out the tray of almond cookies that Grainne used to love.

  Three weeks later: 7 October

  NUMBER SEVEN

  She yanked out a clump of mint and added it to the small pile at her feet. The smell was heavenly – pity about the taste. And pity the plant didn’t behave itself. Crowding out the rest like that till they could hardly breathe.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ she told Magoo, and he wagged his tail at her.

  She sniffed the air. Was there a hint of autumn about the place? She enjoyed its tang, the smell of bonfires and the crackle of leaves, the frosty morning air.

  Magoo snuffled around her, sniffing at the grass. Pawing at the freshly turned earth.

  ‘What do you think?’ Yvonne asked him. ‘Will my herbs survive, or are they doomed?’

  His tail wagged again. He liked being spoken to.

  ‘So anyway, remember I told you about Greg?’ Yvonne said. Magoo sat, his tail thumping the ground. ‘You know Greg – he throws your ball.’

  Magoo barked.

  ‘Yes, you remember him. Nice man, comes and takes me out to dinner sometimes.’ She pulled out another clump of mint. ‘Well, he’s asked me to marry him. What do you think of that?’

  She put her head to one side, looking at Magoo.

  ‘What’s that? What did I tell him? Well, I said I needed time to think.’ She dug some more, then looked at him again. ‘That was OK, wasn’t it?’

  He barked again, pushed his head into her hand.

  She ruffled his hair. ‘So now I’m thinking about it.’ She pulled his ear gently. ‘But you know what, Magoo?’

  She stopped. The air was very still. Somewhere a bird was singing the same little tune over and over.

  ‘I’m thinking I might say yes.’ She put a hand around his long jaw. ‘But don’t tell anyone.’

  She hadn’t mentioned the proposal to Clara or to Kathryn – well, poor Kathryn had her hands full with Grainne right now. She didn’t want to say anything to anyone until she’d made up her mind, until she’d decided whether she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Greg.

  Was he her closest friend? He was certainly her closest male friend. She loved him, didn’t she? She looked forward to seeing him. He was good to her, very generous and dependable – oh, you could depend your life on Greg. He’d be good to Clara too, they’d always got on.

  So there was every reason for saying yes. It made perfect sense. She put down her fork and sat on the grass with an arm around Magoo’s neck.

  Greg’s wife. Going on holidays together. Sitting down to dinner every night, telling each other about the kind of day they’d had. Getting into the same bed a few hours later.

  She wondered what kind of lover he’d be.

  She heard a door sliding open on next door’s patio. Footsteps, then clattering. The tenant – what was his name? She’d forgotten – cleaning the barbecue. He was a great man for a barbecue. She heard out-of-tune whistling. Was he wearing that awful hat? The hedge was too high for her to see. Imagine, they hadn’t met yet – he’d moved in months ago.

  And Dan with his cookery classes, Clara doing them too, as if she needed them. She’d come home from the first class with a bag of lighter-than-air scones. She’d been baking scones since she was twelve. Yvonne asked her if she’d seen Dan and Clara said, ‘Yeah, he was there. We walked home together.’

  Yvonne heard the tenant’s footsteps going into the house again. She stood up gingerly, easing the pins and needles out of her calves. Then she picked up her fork and turned to Magoo. ‘I suppose you want feeding.’

  He barked again, happily.

  NUMBER EIGHT

  In the second class, they diced onions and carrots, crushed garlic, stirred cream into stock and made soup, then toasted cubes of day-old bread for croutons. In the third, they made dough, cut tomatoes, sliced mozzarella, chopped mushrooms, scattered herbs and went home with pizza.

  In the fourth, they beat eggs and sugar together, squeezed lemons and lined tins with pastry, then poured in the filling and baked tarts. And it was raining.

  People tended to keep to the places they’d taken up at the first class, so Dan and Judy had become a couple. Judy told him about her mother’s Christmas cakes. ‘She was famous for them, kept half the neighbourhood supplied. She baked them in August, two at a time. Took about a week. She put dark rum into them. The kitchen smelled like a brewery.’

  She told him about her husband’s potato allergy – ‘He can’t even take a tiny bit before he starts sneezing. I wouldn’t mind, but he loves them, the creature’ – and their trip to Lourdes two years ago, in the hope of curing his multiple sclerosis. ‘We said all the prayers, did all the treatments, and he was no better coming home. I suppose they have to ration the miracles.’

  He told her about Kieran. ‘He’s a great cook – he inspired me to come here, actually.’ Pity Judy was married. She might have suited Kieran fine, even if she was a good bit older than him. He wondered if her husband was going to last much longer. He asked her if she liked violin music and she told him she never listened to music, didn’t see the point of it, really, she’d much rather watch Fair City or Eastenders on telly, or a nice film.

  He thought maybe she and Kieran might not be so well suited after all.

  After every class Dan walked home with Clara. She told him she liked to hear Kieran playing the violin: ‘The first time, I thought I was dreaming.’

  He told her about the baby, his baby. He didn’t know he was going to tell her, it just dropped into their conversation.

  ‘God, that’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’ And he agreed that it was, definitely, a bit weird.

  After a few minutes, she said, ‘So – are you going to share the upbringing or what?’

  He shrugged. ‘We’re trying to figure that out now.’

  Ali had written to him after he’d hung up on her that last time. After she’d called him back three times over the f
ollowing few days and he’d hung up again, three times. The letter was short. He knew it by heart.

  Dan,

  Since you would prefer to go through solicitors, I’m sending you the name of mine. If you change your mind, please be in touch.

  Best regards,

  Ali

  And underneath, a woman’s name he didn’t recognise, an address and a phone number. Reading it, he’d felt bereft.

  On the evening of the fourth class, he’d come out of the house and realised it had begun to rain lightly since he’d got home from work. He decided to drive – might be pouring later. It hadn’t rained for a good while, except at night. He’d hear it pattering on the roof before he fell asleep, trickling into his dreams.

  Clara always went straight from her job to the classes – the department store stayed open late on Thursdays, like a lot of Belford’s shops. There was no sign of her when Dan walked into the long, narrow room. He crossed to his and Judy’s table. Hello. Lovely weather.’

  Judy smiled. ‘There you are, Dan. Ah, I don’t mind the rain. I’d rather that than live in a desert.’

  How’s your husband?’ He felt obliged to ask each time.

  And Judy’s answer hardly varied: Ah sure, as well as can be expected, the creature.’

  She’d told him they had two children, both living abroad. The son worked on an offshore oil rig somewhere in the North Sea; the daughter lived in Paris, married to a photographer. Judy’s husband had been diagnosed sixteen years ago, but had been in remission for twelve.

  As they whisked egg yolks for their lemon tarts, Dan told her about Grainne. ‘She’s been given six months, her daughter-in-law says.’

  ‘Tch, the poor woman, that’s terrible. How old is she?’

  Dan thought. ‘Around seventy, I’d say.’ He knew Judy wasn’t far off that herself. ‘Not old.’

  Clara arrived, shaking the drops off a grey scarf as she walked in. Her hair was tousled. She smiled and waved at Dan as she went down the room to her usual table.

  While the lemon tarts were baking, they learnt how to blanch and sauté, how to make a roux and how to keep sauces from getting lumpy.

  Dan was surprised at how much he was enjoying the classes. Cooking had never interested him before and he’d never put much thought into creating a meal. Now he was discovering a fascination with it, the idea that you could combine various ingredients, stir, blend and mix, until something new came out. You could experiment, change the flavours, try new combinations. He was hooked.

  At the end of the class, the room smelled wonderful. The lemon tarts emerged, marigold yellow speckled with a darker caramel, firm to the touch. Douglas went around doling out tinfoil. ‘You’re all doing very well. Now, when you get home you take a bowl of single cream and whip it until it stays in peaks for a couple of seconds after you pull the beater out. You have a slice of tart and cream, then do ten laps around the block. Next week we’ll be healthier, I promise.’

  ‘I’m driving,’ Dan told Clara as they walked down the corridor.

  ‘I had to wait for the bus,’ she said. ‘That’s why I was late.’

  He opened the passenger door first. ‘Hop in.’

  He was acutely aware of her, sitting less than a foot away from him in the car. ‘You’ve changed your perfume.’

  She laughed. ‘How observant of you. I’ve switched to my winter one now.’ It was warmer and flowery, and it still didn’t remind him of Ali’s.

  He’d gone back to the solicitors who’d handled the purchase of the house. He was told they didn’t operate in the area of family law, but that they could recommend someone who did.

  Family law – that was ironic. What would you call the kind of family his son was going to be born into? A mother who was living with his great-uncle, a father he might see only now and again. Some family.

  He rang the number they’d given him and arranged to meet the new solicitor.

  ‘David Burton.’ The handshake was firm. He was about Dan’s age. He listened while Dan spoke, scribbling on a pad in front of him.

  When Dan lapsed into silence, he tapped the page with the end of his biro. ‘It’s an unusual situation.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dan hoped he wasn’t being charged God knew what to be told what he already knew. ‘I’m wondering if I can apply for full custody once the baby’s born.’ He was sorry he hadn’t said ‘my baby’. Because hadn’t he as much a right as Ali to bring up their son, if not more? Wasn’t she the one at fault here, having deserted the marriage to shack up with her husband’s relative? If that didn’t show she was an unfit parent, nothing did.

  But David Burton wasn’t encouraging. ‘It simply doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. You can take a case, certainly – nothing to stop you applying for custody – but I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I pretended you had a hope of getting it.’ He saw Dan’s expression and said, more gently, ‘You have to understand that both you and your wife have equal ownership, to put it very crudely, of the child—’

  ‘But she deserted the marriage. She’s gone off with my uncle, for Christ’s sake. How can that be a stable home for any child?’

  The solicitor dropped his biro and rested his hands on the desk. ‘Dan, you need to let go of the fact that it’s your uncle. Believe it or not, that has no bearing on the case—’

  ‘No bearing? How can—’

  Dan’s interruption was ignored. ‘—and it won’t further your cause one iota if you become fixated on it. Your wife walked out on the marriage, end of story. Who she left you for is immaterial.’

  Dan glowered at the polished dark wood of the table that separated him from this man who was saying all the wrong things. What did he know anyway? He hardly looked as if he’d had a lot of experience. He might even be younger than Dan.

  ‘I can’t believe that he’d be allowed to raise my son just like that.’

  David Burton picked up his pen again, ran a finger along its barrel. ‘Dan, you must remember that the child is the innocent party in all of this. He’s had nothing to do with any of it. If you start a war with his mother, you’ve got no way of knowing what that’s going to do to him, or to your relationship with him in the future.’

  Dan glared at him. ‘So that’s it. I let her keep him. I get no say.’

  The solicitor spoke gently. ‘It’s not a question of her keeping him – as I said, you’ve got joint ownership. Ideally, it’s up to the two of you to work out a sensible arrangement whereby you share responsibility for his upbringing.’ He hesitated. ‘You need to understand, though, that from a legal point of view, the mother is commonly regarded as the primary carer and her place of residence will be seen as the most likely one for him to live in.’

  ‘So you’re pretty sure that’s what would be decided if I went ahead and took a case? That the child would live most of the time with … them?’

  ‘In all likelihood, yes, with you getting alternate weekend custody, say, and some holidays, possibly midweek access too.’ Again the solicitor paused, studying Dan. ‘Do you think there’s any possibility of you and your wife working something out between you?’

  Dan lifted his shoulders. ‘That’s what she wants.’

  ‘I’d strongly advise you to think about it. It’ll mean swallowing your anger and being prepared to compromise, but in the long run it’ll make things a lot easier. I can draw up a draft agreement, if you like, that you can run by her.’

  And that was it. All Dan was being offered was exactly the same as Ali had wanted. It took all he had to shake hands with the man and tell him he’d think about it. What was there to think about, except how much the idea of Brendan raising his son appalled him?

  ‘You’re miles away.’

  Dan changed gear, gave Clara a brief smile. ‘Sorry – a lot on my mind.’

  They got to Miller’s Avenue. Dan drove up the lane beside Clara’s house and stopped at her back gate. It was still raining, the drops splattering against the windscreen before the wipers swept them away.
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  Clara reached into the back seat for her lemon tart and wrapped the grey scarf around her head. ‘Well, thanks very much – I’d have got drenched if I’d had to wait for another bus.’ And before Dan could react, as he was about to say ‘Not at all’, she leaned across and touched the corner of his mouth briefly with her lips.

  ‘Goodnight, Dan.’ The softest of kisses, barely there at all.

  And she was gone, slamming the door, leaving her flowery scent behind. He drove the few extra feet until he was beside his gate. Then he switched off the engine, took his tart from the back seat and got out. The rain pelted against his face and made little metallic pings as it bounced off the tinfoil.

  He walked up the path. There was a light on in the kitchen. Kieran looked up from the newspaper as Dan opened the door. ‘Terrible night.’

  Dan ignored Picasso, who eyed him calmly from a kitchen chair. They ate two slices of warm lemon tart each, with a scoop of ice cream instead of cream. Dan told Kieran about the class. He told him about Judy’s cat having kittens in the drum of the washing machine, and Douglas’s confession that he could only drink Guinness with a dash of blackcurrant, and Judy preferring Eastenders to music.

  He didn’t mention Clara. He didn’t tell Kieran about her lips against his mouth for an instant, or his almost overwhelming urge, as she opened the car door, to pull her back, turn her face towards his and kiss her properly.

  NUMBER NINE

  ‘What?’ Kathryn’s hands flew to her face.

  Dr Lynch smiled. ‘You weren’t expecting it.’

  ‘No, it was the last thing I …’ She stopped. ‘The last thing.’ She lowered her hands slowly. ‘Are you sure? I mean, could you be wrong?’

  ‘No, you’re definitely pregnant. About seven weeks. You haven’t had a period in that time, have you?’

  ‘No, but I thought maybe it was my age – I thought it might be …’

  She had thought it might be the menopause, and the idea had been terrifying. The notion that she might be pregnant hadn’t occurred to her as the cause of her queasiness in the mornings, her sudden aversion to coffee, her general loss of appetite – because she’d never been sick before, had sailed through each of her doomed pregnancies, feeling exactly as she always did.