But it hadn’t passed. Clara had never come back, or not in the same way. Of course they got on fine. Nobody seeing them together would have said there was a problem, but Yvonne sensed a lack of closeness, an invisible boundary between them, that try as she might, she couldn’t penetrate.
Kathryn told her to count her blessings. ‘She could have broken your heart – look at all the girls who go totally off the rails after they hit their teens. She could have gone on drugs, got pregnant, anything. I’d say keeping things to herself is a very minor offence. And I know she doesn’t tell you about the boyfriends, but eventually they put in an appearance, don’t they?’
Working in the hardware section of Belford’s only department store, Clara had plenty of opportunities to meet men – and with her looks, she was rarely without a willing escort on a night out. But if it weren’t for her opening the door to them now and again, Yvonne would never have known they existed.
She sighed again. Clara was who she was, just not given to confidences – or not with her mother at any rate – and Yvonne would have to live with it. She turned up the radio and switched her mind to the evening ahead.
She’d been to the restaurant twice before – once for dinner with Clara for her nineteenth birthday, shortly after it opened and everyone was talking about it, and last year for lunch with Bernie, an old friend, between trawling through the end of the summer sales in Charleton’s various boutiques.
The menu was nicely imaginative, using local ingredients wherever possible. Yvonne hoped they still served the goat’s cheese and berry roulade that she and Bernie had discovered there last time.
Thinking about food made her realise how starving she was. Normally she and Clara ate around half six. Hopefully Peter wouldn’t object to a woman with a healthy appetite.
She passed the sign that told her she’d reached Charleton and drove slowly through the narrow streets to the restaurant. She pulled into a parking space and turned off the engine.
What time was it? She pushed up the sleeve of Kathryn’s top and checked her watch. Ten past eight. She felt a skitter of nervousness. What if he wasn’t there yet? She’d have to sit and wait for him without even a gin and tonic to give her a bit of courage – she daren’t, not on an empty stomach, not with that drive home.
She hoped he wouldn’t mind that she hadn’t used her real name. She’d meant to tell him before they met, but hadn’t been able to figure out how to put it without sounding ridiculously paranoid. She’d just have to come clean tonight. Hopefully Peter wasn’t his proper name either.
She studied her reflection in the rear-view mirror – no lipstick on her teeth, face still looking good. She should buy that shade of lipstick and maybe that green eyeshadow and the mascara too, it made such a difference. Clara would show her how to put them on properly, and she’d pay attention this time.
She checked her neckline – show him what’s on offer – and ran her fingers through her hair. Had that last cut been a bit short? She smiled at the woman in the mirror.
You look ten years younger. You’re a confident, sexy woman. He’s lucky to have your company for the evening.
She wondered if she had a flirtatious smile. She practised batting her eyelashes, then stopped in case she messed the mascara.
She slung her bag over her shoulder and opened the car door. Nobody on the street – hopefully he was sitting inside, feeling just as nervous. She locked the car and started walking towards the restaurant door.
The evening was cooler than recent ones. She should have brought a shawl or a jacket. But it would be warm inside and she’d probably be going straight home afterwards.
Unless they hit it off. Unless, right from the start, they clicked and they went for a drink afterwards and sat in some cosy bar for hours because neither of them wanted the date to end. Unless they ended up booking a room in one of Charleton’s hotels. She pushed open the door of the restaurant, tingling with anticipation.
And there, at a little corner table, looking every bit as nervous as Yvonne felt, wearing a navy suit she’d never seen on him and the yellow buttonhole rose they’d agreed on in their last email, sat Pawel Tylak. Her boss.
When Yvonne’s daughter Clara was ten, she had gone on a school tour with her twenty-six classmates, their teacher, the special needs assistant for Mark, who had ADHD, and three parents. They got the bus to a smallish city, fifty-three miles from Belford.
Part of the tour involved a visit to a museum, which was full of skeletons of animals, ancient weapons and dummies dressed in musty-smelling clothes from years ago. When they went in, they were met by a man with no hair, a red face and a wide bottom that made the girls elbow each other. He wore grey trousers and a navy blazer with gold buttons, and led them around the main room, telling them about the exhibits. Clara was soon bored.
She edged away from the main group, pretending to be fascinated with whatever was under the glass cases she was passing – dirty arrowheads, rows of dusty medals, yellowing pictures of old people in black clothes, tattered pages covered with scratchy, blotched writing that she couldn’t read.
She reached an open doorway. Nobody called her name, nobody put a hand on her sleeve and told her she had to come back. There was no one else in the main room with them, apart from one man in a dark green coat and a brown hat, who was studying one of the dummies and didn’t seem to notice her.
She slipped through the doorway and found herself in another room with no glass cases, just lots of paintings on the walls and wooden benches in front of them. She snorted at the thought of sitting on a bench staring at a painting. How dumb was that? Like pausing a DVD and watching the still screen.
She moved on, through a second doorway that led out into a corridor. She passed a door with ‘Toilets’ written on it, thought about whether she needed to go and decided she didn’t. Just past the toilets was another doorway to her left. She turned in.
It was smaller and more dimly lit than the previous rooms, with a big screen on the far wall. She stood behind the benches – more benches, three rows of them – and watched what was happening on the screen.
A head-and-shoulders picture of a man appeared with floppy black hair, a pale face and round glasses. That was replaced, a few seconds later, with another. Same glasses, more black hair and a small, tidy moustache. Both men were vaguely familiar to Clara. Everything was in black and white. A woman appeared on the screen then, in an old-fashioned dress with a wide lace collar and hair that looked as if it had been folded up, like an accordion, then released. A string of pearls hung around her neck, resting on the lace collar.
Just as Clara was about to turn away – this was almost as boring as watching a painting – a bit of moving film came on, a man carrying a briefcase, walking down a street in quick motion. It reminded Clara of the old Charlie Chaplin films they sometimes showed on TV on Sunday mornings and she giggled.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’
Clara swung around. The man with the brown hat was standing behind her. She hadn’t heard him come in. She couldn’t see his face properly because of the shadow the brim made and because of the dimness of the room. She thought he might be a bit like Graham, who worked in the newsagent’s at the corner of their road. She liked Graham – he let her take whichever sweet she wanted from the Pick ’n’ Mix when she went to get milk.
‘It reminds me of Charlie Chaplin,’ she told the man, and he nodded.
‘Yes, you’re right – I’d never have thought of that.’ He stepped closer to her. His voice was soft. ‘You’re with the group in the other room, aren’t you? On a school tour, is it?’
There wasn’t much point in denying it, with her uniform on. While Clara was wondering if he was going to tell the teacher and get her into trouble, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell them you escaped. It’ll be our secret.’
Clara smiled, relieved. She wondered if he was Graham’s brother. ‘Do you know Graham?’ she asked him. ‘In Belford?’
He nodded. �
��He’s a great friend of mine.’ Then he pointed to the screen. ‘I bet a smart girl like you can recognise some of those people. They’re all famous Irish writers – but I’m sure you knew that.’ He pointed to a small box on the wall beside the screen. ‘You can get headphones to listen to a commentary. Next time you’re here you can do that.’
Clara watched the black-and-white people hurrying around. She didn’t know what a commentary was, but she liked that he thought she did.
It was mostly men on the screen. One was quite fat, his nose was bumpy and his hair looked like he never washed it. Clara didn’t think he could be a writer with dirty hair like that. Another wore a tweed coat and had a face like a school inspector’s.
‘That’s Flann O’Brien.’ The soft voice was right behind her now. ‘He wrote funny books, about policemen and bicycles. I bet you’d like them.’
His hand came to rest lightly on Clara’s shoulder. He was pointing to the screen with the other hand. ‘And that man, he’s James Joyce. He wrote a very famous book called Ulysses. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Maybe when you’re older, you’ll read it. Only very clever people can understand it.’
She nodded, even though she hadn’t heard of Ulysses. She felt grown up – he was talking to her like a grown-up. James Joyce’s moustache was a little bit like Hitler’s. Maybe she should say that, so the man would know how good at history she was.
A man with a shock of upright white hair came on the screen.
‘Now that one—’ he bent towards her ‘—is Samuel Beckett.’ His mouth was practically touching her ear. It felt ticklish, his breath was hot, but not unpleasant. His fingers smelled of soap. He squeezed her shoulder, just a small squeeze.
Samuel Beckett had the same hair as Grandpa Gavin.
‘What did he write?’ Clara’s shoulder gave a tiny twitch. The man didn’t seem to notice.
‘Oh, lots of things, stories and plays.’ His hand slipped from her shoulder and trailed lightly down her back. She felt the tiny weight of it running along the length of her school jumper, down to the place where her skirt began. She took a tiny step forward, and her knee bumped into the nearest bench.
‘The most famous play he wrote was Waiting for Godot.’ Such a soft voice he had. His breath kept tickling her ear. She could feel a giggle somewhere inside her, but for some reason it didn’t come out.
‘Waiting for what?’
‘Godot.’ His hand rested on the curve of her bottom now. Clara felt a stirring of unease low in her tummy – he wasn’t hurting her, but all the same it was making her feel a bit funny. He wasn’t supposed to touch her bottom. She tried to edge sideways, but his foot was suddenly blocking hers.
‘G-o-d-o-t.’ He began to stroke her bottom softly, making circles with his hand. ‘He died in Paris.’
Clara could feel her skirt riding up. Every circle was lifting it higher. She wondered if he was trying to see her knickers. She couldn’t remember which ones she was wearing. She was trapped now between him and the bench. Her heart thumped against her chest. She pressed her knees against the bench.
‘Waiting for Godot.’ His voice was different now, faster and softer. He was almost whispering. ‘A very famous play.’ Then his hand ducked suddenly under her skirt, and she felt him scrabbling around, pulling her vest out of her knickers. His breath was loud in her ear – ‘It’s about two men’ – hot breath now on the back of her neck, hot fast breath—
Clara found her voice: ‘Stop—’ She tried to pull away, but his other hand, the one not under her skirt, slid around her waist. ‘No, stop—’ She squirmed and he held her tighter.
‘Two men who are waiting for someone to come along, but he never comes.’ He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her knickers.
‘No, stop—’
Suddenly he yanked her knickers down over the cheeks of her bottom, making her gasp, and in the same soft voice, he said, ‘I won’t hurt you unless you scream. If you scream I’ll hurt you.’
‘Please, I won’t—’ She was shaking now, with terror and humiliation.
‘Aaah.’ He pushed her knickers down further, then slid his hand right underneath her, forcing it between her legs, pushing her thighs apart. ‘Ah, there now. There we are now.’
‘Please stop, don’t—’ She tried to wriggle away again, but she couldn’t escape his fingers, going where nobody went, not even her mother. Her face was burning hot, her heart almost bursting out of her. ‘Please—’
‘Oh, you’re a dirty girl,’ he breathed. ‘Oh, there’s a dirty girl now.’ He used a knee to slide her knickers further down her legs and she felt them dropping to her ankles. ‘Ah, now. There we go.’
Clara’s eyes flooded with tears, blurring the faces on the screen. She couldn’t turn, she couldn’t move. Somebody waddled quickly down the road again with his briefcase.
‘Dirty … dirty …’ The man kept breathing out the word, as his fingers went back and forth underneath her, as he pushed himself against her back, thumping steadily against her, half grunting now, ‘Dirty … dirty … dirty—’
Clara squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to squeeze everything shut. She wanted to go to the toilet, badly. He was forcing his fingers upwards now, burning her, hurting her. She tried to push her legs together, but his hand was in the way. The tears spurted from between her tightly closed eyes and rolled down her face. She could smell herself and she burned with shame and fear.
She tried again to wriggle from his grasp, but his free arm was clamped around her waist. She was completely trapped.
Then he gave a sort of jerky shudder and slumped against her, leaning heavily, almost toppling her over the bench. His fingers stopped moving.
Was he dead? No, she could still hear him – feel him – breathing harshly against her. Clara struggled to turn her head, but she was still pinned too tightly to move. Then, abruptly, the man shoved her away from him. Clara stumbled forwards, half toppling over the bench, her hands flying out to break her fall, her knickers still around her ankles, her heart still hammering inside her.
And then, as she lay sprawled there, shaking all over, she heard him walking out of the room. When she couldn’t hear his footsteps any more, she pushed herself away from the bench, jerked her knickers up with trembling fingers and smoothed down her skirt. Then her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the bench.
She smarted, she stung down there. It felt horrible. She felt dirty. She wiped her wet face with the back of her hand. The urge to go to the toilet was almost overpowering, but she was afraid to leave the room. What if he was still outside? She squeezed her thighs tightly together, and that helped a bit.
She could still feel his hand. The echo of it was still down there, doing what it had done.
She wondered suddenly if she’d been raped. They’d learned about good touches and bad touches in class, but nobody had mentioned the word ‘rape’ – that was something she’d picked up somewhere along the way. She wasn’t sure what it meant exactly, but she knew it was something bad to do with sex that men did to women.
It hadn’t worked the way her teacher said. She was supposed to say no, to get away, to tell someone she trusted, but none of that had happened. She’d said no, but he hadn’t listened. She couldn’t get away because he had been too strong, because he’d said he’d hurt her if she screamed. There was no way she could tell anyone what the man had done – she’d be killed for leaving the group if she said anything. They’d probably tell her it was her own fault for leaving the class and going off by herself.
Anyway, she wasn’t hurt, not really. Just scared and a bit sore, but that would go away, wouldn’t it? It was her own fault. She tried to steady her breathing, tried to take deep breaths.
Her knickers felt damp. She must have wet them a bit. She squeezed her thighs closer together. She’d have to move soon, go back to the group before they missed her.
Suddenly her teacher’s face appeared in the doorway. ‘Oh, Clara, there you are. You know you were supposed to
stay with the class – you can’t just wander off on your own like that, you gave me an awful fright. Anything could have happened.’ She looked crossly at Clara. ‘Come on, quickly. We’re going to go for lunch.’
Clara stood up, glad of the dimness in the room. ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said.
The blood on her knickers terrified her. Had he cut her? Had he had something in his hand? She flushed the toilet, took off the knickers, dipped them into the toilet bowl and scrubbed hard until the red was almost gone.
Then she squeezed them out as much as she could and put them back on. They felt pleasantly cool against her still burning skin. She left the toilet cubicle and washed her face and hands. Then she walked out carefully to join her classmates for chicken and chips.
NUMBER NINE
Kathryn unrolled the navy socks and added them to the pile in the washing machine. What else could go in with darks? She rummaged through the laundry basket and found Justin’s jeans at the bottom. Turning them inside out, her hand brushed against a bundled-up something in one of the front pockets. Money, probably. He was so careless with money. She put her hand in and pulled it out.
It wasn’t money, it was some kind of receipt. She unscrewed it and read ‘fragrance €65.00’. It was dated last Wednesday. He’d paid in cash and got five euro change.
Kathryn smiled. A bit predictable, but he’d know he was on safe ground with perfume. She hoped he’d got her usual Yves St Laurent and not taken a chance on anything new. She remembered him coming home from Dublin once with a Jo Malone one she really hadn’t liked – hopefully he’d learned from that.
A week to her birthday, and she was actually looking forward to a bit of a fuss, now that she’d decided to go for it. They weren’t inviting a big crowd, just seven including Yvonne, who was coming on her own as Clara wasn’t free. Dan wouldn’t be there either – he’d told Kathryn he had plans, which she doubted.
The People Next Door Page 10