The People Next Door (17 page)

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.

‘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 her 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.

‘I forgot to ask what Kathryn thought of your birthday present.’

Yvonne dried the last plate and hung the tea towel on its hook. ‘She was delighted. She said she’d never had a proper massage.’

Clara peeled off her rubber gloves. ‘Oh, I’d say that good-looking husband of hers obliges every now and again.’

Yvonne smiled. ‘Possibly.’

Clara brushed the crumbs from the table into her hand. ‘He’s years younger than her, isn’t he?’

‘Well, eight or nine. But they’re obviously mad about each other.’

‘You think?’ Clara emptied the crumbs into the bin and got the brush. ‘I can’t understand what he sees in her, to be honest.’

‘What?’ Yvonne frowned. ‘Why not? I think they’re perfectly suited.’

‘Well, he obviously didn’t pick her for her looks – I mean, she’s OK, but nothing to write home about. And she’s probably too old now for kids. I just thought he’d go for someone younger, that’s all.’

Yvonne took off her apron and hung it on a hook by the sink. ‘Well, all I know is that they’re mad about each other – it’s obvious when you see them together.’

There was silence in the kitchen while Clara swept the floor and Yvonne wiped the draining board and squeezed out the cloth. Then Clara said, ‘I meant to tell you, I met Dan coming home, the night of Kathryn’s party. It was early, I was just going out, and he was a bit drunk.’

‘Was he? Poor Dan.’ Yvonne draped the cloth over the edge of the sink. ‘I was sorry he didn’t come to the
party – it might have done him good. He probably couldn’t face trying to be sociable.’

‘Looks like his wife is gone for good, doesn’t it? And who’s that man staying with him, with the funny hat?’

‘He’s a tenant. Dan probably needed some help with the mortgage after Ali left.’

‘Was there another man?’ Clara took the dustpan and brush from their hook.

Yvonne looked at her, amused. ‘Why the sudden interest in the neighbours?’

Clara collected what she’d swept and emptied the dustpan into the bin. ‘No reason.’

‘Well, I haven’t a clue why Ali left – you’d have to ask Dan that. And speaking of break-ups, what about poor Barry? I’m assuming he’s gone.’

Clara’s face took on the closed look so familiar to Yvonne. She’d strayed into personal territory again. ‘Yes, we’ve broken up, and I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind.’ She lifted the plate of scraps from the worktop and turned to the back door. ‘I’ll give these to Magoo.’

And that was that. Shutters down again. Yvonne checked that the cooker knobs were turned off – a habit she’d picked up years ago after she’d gone to bed one night and left the oven on. Then she glanced around the tidy kitchen, took the newspaper from a chair and brought it into the sitting room.

He dialled her number and waited, counting the rings. Three, four—

‘Hi, Dan.’

So his number was still in her phone’s address book. He still existed there. He closed his eyes. ‘Hi.’

A pause, and then she said, ‘I’m glad you rang.’

‘I just wanted to say sorry. There was no call for the stuff I said last night.’

‘That’s OK.’ She spoke quickly. ‘I can understand—’

‘Yeah, well,’ he didn’t want her understanding, ‘I just wanted to say that.’

He hung up quickly. That was all he could handle for now. He pictured her slipping her phone back into her pocket. He wondered if she was in Brendan’s old farmhouse. Maybe she was walking into another room right now and saying, ‘You won’t believe who just phoned.’

He’d often been in that house. Brendan had bought it when Dan was in his mid-teens, and he remembered calling over with his parents shortly
afterwards, with the dark blue lamp they’d bought as a housewarming gift.

Brendan had given them tea in blue mugs and thick slices of Battenburg cake, and they’d walked through the house together. He remembered Brendan telling him he was welcome to stay the night anytime he wanted. Winking at him behind his parents’ backs and Dan smiling at him. Man to man.

In the car on the way home, his mother had got cross with his father for saying that Brendan had bought a pig in a poke, that he could smell the damp as soon as they’d walked in.

The last time Dan and Ali had visited Brendan was about two months before Ali walked out, when they’d called around to see Brendan’s two new lambs. They’d eaten wedges of the shop-bought apple tart they’d brought with them and Brendan had joked with Ali about giving him the recipe, and she’d said it was a family secret, that she’d have to kill him if she told him.