The People Next Door

by Roisin Meaney

  And what if Ali came back and discovered what he’d done? That would be enough, surely, to send her straight off again. She’d be horrified, and rightly so.

  Not that there was much chance of her coming back.

  Not that he wanted her back, after what she’d done.

  His black mood deepened. He could smell cow dung in the car. The empty cat carrier eyed him accusingly in the rear-view mirror. He remembered with horror that Picasso was wearing a collar with the house phone number on it – if he was found, alive or dead, Dan would be traced and shamed. He wondered if abandoning a cat was an arrestable offence.

  By the time he got home, it was almost pitch dark. He parked the car and walked towards the house. And there, on the doormat, was Picasso, washing himself at his usual unhurried pace.

  Dan stopped dead and stared in disbelief. Picasso took no notice of him, went on licking a paw and running it over his face.

  Just as Dan was trying to decide how exactly to murder the cat – properly this time, innocent animal my foot – Kathryn came out of next door’s kitchen with a bin bag and saw him.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Dan.’ She walked over to the chest-high hedge. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I gave Picasso a few leftovers a little while ago. He was mewing on our deck, looking a bit hungry.’

  With a great effort, Dan managed not to guffaw out loud. Not only had the cat covered about eight miles in record time, he’d also managed to pick up dinner. ‘No problem – I mustn’t have left out enough this morning. Thanks a lot.’

  As soon as he opened the back door, Picasso streaked into the kitchen and Dan forced himself not to chase him straight out again. He’d had a long walk; maybe he’d earned an hour on the window seat.

  So it looked like they were stuck with each other. And now Dan had just invited a cat lover to live with them, making it two against one: great.

  He ran lukewarm water over his plate and propped it against one of the glasses on the draining board. Better get in some washing-up liquid – the tenant would probably expect it. And he’d have to pick up more paint for the sitting room; he couldn’t leave it half done now. He opened the back door and stuck out his hand. When it came back dry, he turned back to Picasso. ‘Come on, you. Hop it.’

  Going upstairs a few minutes later, he heard a car door slam. He glanced out of the landing window as he passed, and heard rather than saw next door’s back gate clicking open. He turned away and went into the unnaturally tidy bathroom to brush his teeth.

  Just before half past one in the morning, Kieran Delaney parked his seventeen-year-old Ford Escort outside a hardware shop in Castlebar and opened the dull green door that led to the little flat upstairs. Be nice to live in a house again, have a bit of space and a garden. Ten years was quite enough to be without one.

  He’d been happy enough to move in here, after he’d sold the house. Relieved, really, to be rid of all that responsibility. Glad not to have to worry about things breaking down and needing to be replaced. Things seemed to break down a lot, in Kieran’s experience. Break down or have bits fall off or just refuse to start, for no reason that he could ever see. So the apartment had suited him fine. He’d been quite happy here, really. But it was time for a change – and now that he’d made the decision, he looked forward to it.

  And the cat. He smiled. The cat was a definite bonus. He hadn’t lived with a cat for years.

  He thought about the half-full bottle of dark orange nail varnish and single silver earring on the bathroom shelf. He considered the half-painted sitting room, the half-built barbecue. None of his business.

  Be nice to have the barbecue going for the summer, though. Nothing like the smell of a chargrilled steak on a sunny day. He might tactfully suggest finishing it himself, once he was settled in. Not that he was handy that way – he’d never built anything in his life. But it couldn’t be that hard, surely. Bit of cement, a few bricks. Not exactly the Pyramids.

  He eased off his brown shoes – should really replace them soon – and shoved his feet into the navy slippers that someone had barely used before donating them to the charity shop. They’d been a real find, and only half a size too big. No harm for slippers to have a bit of room. Let the feet ease out after the day.

  He went from the bedroom to the open-plan space that was his kitchen, dining and sitting room.

  He took his violin from the case on the couch, picked up the bow, closed his eyes and began to play a Norwegian lullaby from a CD he’d bought on a long-ago holiday. He let the notes wash around him, he swam in them.

  He stood in the middle of the room, oblivious to the darkness outside, unaware of the breeze that played with the scraps of litter in the street below, the car that slid past, headlights slicing through the black air. He stood in the room and played on.

  New beginnings, he thought. Everything behind him now. Adam safely in the past, where he belonged.

  NUMBER NINE

  From the sitting room, Kathryn heard them coming up the path. She pressed the off button on the remote control and stood up, arranging her face, rehearsing her lines. Everything alright? How are you feeling, Grainne?

  She opened the kitchen door as they were coming in, Justin’s hand cradling his mother’s elbow.

  ‘Everything alright?’ Kathryn walked over and took Grainne’s handbag from Justin. ‘How are you feeling? What did they say?’

  Grainne’s face twisted with irritation. ‘Ah, what would you expect? They haven’t a clue at that hospital. Sure, half of them aren’t even Irish – you’d wonder are they qualified at all.’

  So they hadn’t pandered to her like Dr Lynch did. Probably told her she had a cold and suggested bed and two Panadols, which wouldn’t have gone down well at all. Grainne never had a cold. It was flu or a chest infection or, on a good day, a touch of pneumonia.

  Justin steered her around the table. ‘We’ll put you straight up to bed, will we?’

  Grainne sighed, leaning heavily against him. ‘I think so. I’m totally exhausted.’

  You’d think she was ninety, the way she went on, instead of just twenty-two years older than her son’s wife.

  ‘I’ll make you a cuppa, Grainne,’ Kathryn said. ‘And I have your blanket plugged in.’ Winter or summer, Grainne had to have the electric blanket on full before she’d get in. That bed would be like a furnace tonight.

  Alone in the kitchen, Kathryn filled the kettle and set a tray with the china cup and saucer Grainne preferred and a small plate with two shortbread biscuits on it, one for Grainne to eat and the other for her to leave, proving how unwell she was. Two years under the same roof had taught Kathryn a lot about her mother-in-law.

  ‘I’ll take that up.’ Justin reappeared and waited while Kathryn poured water into the little teapot.

  ‘What did they say?’

  He shrugged. ‘The heatwave could be causing the headaches. They told her to leave a window open in her room, drink lots of water, have cool showers, that kind of thing.’

  No, that wouldn’t have gone down well. Justin looked tired tonight, and older than he was. A stranger seeing them together mightn’t notice the age difference. Kathryn wanted to smooth the lines from his forehead, wipe away the dark smudges under his eyes.

  She poured milk into the little striped jug and held the door open for him. He lifted the tray. ‘Back in a sec.’

  Kathryn filled two glasses with the end of the Burgundy they’d opened earlier at dinner – ‘Just a tiny glass for me,’ Grainne had said. ‘I have a splitting migraine’ – and brought them into the sitting room. After more than two hours sitting in the A and E department on a Saturday night, his third trip to the hospital this month, Justin could use it. She slid Brahms into the CD player and pressed play.

  No point in trying to talk to him again about Grainne. What could he do anyway, when she complained regularly of stomach pains, backaches and headaches, always splitting and always migraines, and refused to take a tablet and just go to bed? She was his mother, he couldn’t
ignore her. Couldn’t tell her to cop herself on and stop being such a bloody—

  The door opened and he came in. Kathryn patted the sofa beside her. ‘Sit.’

  He smiled tiredly. ‘God, are you a sight for sore eyes.’ He sank down next to her, dropping his head onto her shoulder, resting one of his hands on her thigh, yawning. ‘Jesus, that place would make anyone suicidal’

  ‘Poor you. Was it terrible?’

  Ah, a few drunks, quiet enough. A couple of stretchers came in, couldn’t see – someone said there was an accident.’ He yawned again. She felt the lift of his chest against her side.

  ‘There was nothing on the news.’ She played with his dark hair, twisting it slowly through her fingers, pulling it gently, running her nails lightly along his scalp, the way he liked it.

  He groaned, turning his face into her neck. ‘Have I told you lately that I love you?’

  Kathryn smiled. ‘You might have, once or twice.’ His hair smelled of the almond shampoo they both used. He’d always been good at telling her how he felt, right from the beginning, when it was the last thing she’d expected to hear. She leaned back and closed her eyes, her fingers still moving in his hair.

  He’d been with the insurance company only about three weeks, working in the same big open-plan office as Kathryn. He was in the IT department, she was a research analyst. In his first week, he’d fixed a small computer problem she had. Since then, they’d exchanged maybe half a dozen remarks, passing in the corridor, choosing the same moment to fill cups from the coffee percolator, the only two people in the lift once.

  She thought he was quite attractive. She liked his high cheekbones, thought it gave him a Native American look, especially with his almost black hair. She had no idea what his second name was. When he wore suits, he reminded her of a little boy dressing up in his father’s clothes. She suspected he was more at home in jeans. He didn’t cross her mind after she left work in the evenings.

  And then, one afternoon, she collided with him coming around a corner. Walked right into his arms practically, and spilled a just-filled paper cup of water all over the jacket of his little-boy’s suit.

  ‘Oh!’ She jerked back, too late to avoid the splash. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ He smelled of nutmeg, something spicy. The front of his jacket was splotched a darker blue than the rest. The stain was in the shape of an upside-down Italy. ‘It’s just water, though.’

  He inspected the damage, opening the jacket and pulling the wet side up towards his face. ‘Damn.’

  Kathryn fished a tissue from her pocket and held it out to him. ‘Here, you can blot it – I’m sure it’ll be fine when it dries.’ He wasn’t going to make a fuss, was he? The suit was hardly expensive.

  He ignored the tissue. ‘No – I mean damn, why couldn’t you have thrown coffee over me, or tomato soup or something?’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him. He wasn’t smiling.

  ‘So I’d have to get the suit cleaned and you’d feel you had to offer to pay and of course I’d refuse.’ His eyelashes were unfairly long and very dark. He was about the same height as her, maybe an inch taller. ‘And then you’d be feeling so guilty you’d say yes right away when I asked you out to dinner.’

  Kathryn laughed. ‘You’re daft.’

  ‘Quite possibly.’ He stood, hands in his pockets, watching her. Still no hint of a smile. ‘So, tell me, was it coffee or soup?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you just spill coffee or soup over me?’

  And Kathryn McElhinney, thirty-four years old and tired of sitting in watching The Late Late Show every Friday night, stopped laughing and said, ‘It was beetroot soup, actually. I’m terribly sorry – it’ll leave an awful stain, I’m afraid.’ She hoped to God nobody was near enough to hear them.

  He looked down at his jacket again. ‘Beetroot – damn, my good suit’s ruined.’ His teeth were slightly too big and very white. ‘It’ll have to be dry cleaned, I’m afraid.’

  Kathryn tried her best to look apologetic. ‘Well, I insist on paying.’ What was she saying? This wasn’t a bit like her. She wasn’t the kind of person who flirted with someone she barely knew – least of all someone who was clearly quite a bit younger than her. ‘It’s the least I can do.’ What the hell? She hadn’t been out on a date in more than two years.

  ‘Absolutely not, I won’t hear of it.’ He paused. ‘But maybe you’d like to come out to dinner with me sometime?’ It was like the notion had just occurred to him.

  Kathryn smiled. ‘You’re not really serious about that, are you?’ And then, all of a sudden, she hoped he was. Now that he’d planted the idea in her head, she realised how pathetically in need of being taken out to dinner she was, by anyone.

  ‘Of course I’m serious – going out to dinner is not a joking matter. In fact, I won’t take no for an answer.’ He considered. ‘Will we say Friday? That’ll give me time to get the suit cleaned.’

  Kathryn nodded solemnly. ‘Friday is fine, thank you.’ She turned and walked back to the water cooler, hoping he was watching her. Glad she’d decided on the black skirt that morning. Showed off her legs nicely.

  And it had been on Friday evening, on the way home from the restaurant, after mussels and rack of lamb and strawberries, that twenty-five-year-old Justin O’Connor – wearing not the awful blue suit but grey denims and a black shirt – had told her for the first time how he felt about her.

  ‘I’ve wanted to ask you out since we met, since that time I fixed your computer, but I was sure someone like you would be attached.’

  She didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or amused. ‘How do you know I’m not?’

  He took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. ‘I made a few enquiries.’

  She tried not to look too pleased. ‘I suppose I should be flattered.’

  He didn’t respond. He drove carefully, indicating well in advance, slowing as he approached traffic lights, whatever colour they were. She’d found it touching. There was a small frayed rectangle just below the left knee of his jeans. He wore dark grey canvas shoes and no socks. His hair ended in tiny curls at the nape of his neck. He’d cut himself shaving, a short red line just under his chin.

  They turned at the shopping centre where she’d spent far too much on tonight’s green top. They passed a young couple, his arm around her shoulders, her hand in the back pocket of his jeans, leaning in against him. Further on, a small dog sniffed at the base of a lamppost, then hop-trotted on.

  After a while Justin had said, ‘Don’t laugh at this. There’s something about you that I find … completely fascinating.’ He turned into Miller’s Avenue and pulled up outside number nine. Also, you’re beautiful.’ He switched off the engine and leaned back in his seat, lifting her hand from her lap and holding it. ‘And you smell gorgeous.’

  His hand was warm and dry. It had felt safe to her.

  How could someone so young be so confident? It wasn’t Dutch courage – he’d drunk water at dinner. She looked at his hand, holding hers lightly. Also, you’re beautiful. It should have sounded corny and contrived – she wasn’t beautiful, far from it, mousy hair, pale grey eyes and extremely ordinary – but it didn’t.

  I’m years older than you was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say it. She wondered if he’d enjoyed the evening half as much as she had. She’d forgotten how lovely it was to be made to feel attractive.

  She wished he was older. No, she wished she was younger.

  ‘Well …’ She eased her hand from his and reached for the door handle. They’d had a good time – better just to leave it at that. ‘Thanks for dinner, I really enjoyed it.’

  He didn’t seem to mind not being asked in. ‘You’re very welcome. Feel free to splash water over me anytime.’ Before she had a chance to react, as she was pushing down the handle, he leaned across and put a hand to the side of her head and turned her face back towards him and kissed her goodnight, a warm quick kiss that caused something to flicker pleasantly inside her. He tas
ted of strawberries.

  ‘See you on Monday.’

  She watched him drive off, back to his mother’s house across town, in the black Honda Civic he’d bought when he’d got his first job three years earlier. At least it didn’t have L plates. At the age of thirty-four, Kathryn McElhinney had just been out to dinner with a man who was still on his first car, who still lived at home with his mother.

  She suddenly wondered who she was closer in age to – him or his mother. Not that it mattered in the slightest. The evening had been a pleasant blip, but that was all. A one-off, something to laugh about with her friends – as, no doubt, he’d be doing too, first chance he got.

  But that wasn’t what had happened.

  The music stopped just then. Justin sat up and stretched. ‘Come on, let’s go to bed – I’m half asleep already.’ He turned to her. ‘What are you smiling about?’

  ‘I was just thinking about when we started going out.’

  He grinned. ‘I remember. You ran a mile any time I tried to get close. I had to practically drag you out a second time.’

  He’d waited until she’d run out of excuses – meeting friends, headache, evening class, because what was the point? – and then, one afternoon, he’d made his way over to her desk and peered at her computer screen. ‘Pretend you’re showing me a problem.’

  Kathryn glanced around. Nobody was taking any notice of him. ‘My computer’s working perfectly, thanks.’ His hand, planted on the desk beside her, was lightly tanned. His fingers were slim for a man’s. The small button on his pale blue shirt cuff was sewn on with black thread. She remembered his hand on the side of her head, turning her face towards him, and felt the same lightning shiver in her abdomen.

  He raised his voice slightly. ‘I’m not sure why it’s doing that.’ In the next cubicle Fiona turned briefly towards them, then went back to her screen.

  Without changing his stance, his eyes still on Kathryn’s computer, Justin reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, pulled something out and set it on her desk. ‘I’m going anyway – are you going to make me seem totally pathetic with an empty seat beside me?’