Come a Little Closer

by Karen Perry

  She has a few minutes to spare, and decides to use the opportunity to hang out the laundry. In the time it has taken her to shower and dress, the clouds have cleared and the sun is beating down, even though it’s only ten past eight. The wet clothes tumble out of the drum into her basket and she hurries outside, stepping up into the grass and through the garden to where the washing line is strung between two trees. She works quickly, pegging the things to the line, conscious all the time of the house behind her. She cannot resist taking small glances up at the windows.

  They haven’t yet met or even glimpsed the occupant of the upstairs rooms, although there have been noises. The old plumbing of the house echoes down into the basement, and both Leah and Jake have been disturbed in the night by the rattling of pipes, the odd creak in the floorboards. Yesterday, when she was sitting at the piano, struggling through the opening chords of ‘Clair de Lune’, a dragging sound overhead made her stop suddenly and withdraw her hands from the keyboard. The suggestion of a listening presence upstairs had made her shy. She had closed the lid and stepped away.

  Now, she hurries to finish so that she can retreat into her own space. It’s hard to escape the feeling of trespass. But as she picks up the basket and turns quickly towards the house, her shin strikes an obstacle hidden in the grass and she cries out in pain. Dropping the basket, she stoops to examine the offending article, and sees a child’s tricycle long-abandoned to nature, rusting amid the weeds. Her leg is bleeding from a deep gash, bright red rivulets rushing towards her ballet flat. Half hopping, she hurries now towards the sanctuary of her kitchen where she slips off her shoe and raises her leg so that her foot is in the sink, cold water rushing over the wound. A hurried search of still-packed crates in their bedroom turns up a box of plasters with a Winnie the Pooh pattern. She patches herself up as best she can, then grabs her bag, conscious now of being late.

  She is locking the door when she hears the voice above her, at the top of the stone steps. A man’s voice, but not one she recognizes.

  ‘Come on, Anton. Open up. Just for a few minutes?’

  She hasn’t mastered the knack of the fiddly lock yet and struggles with it for a moment, all the while aware of the one-sided conversation upstairs.

  ‘Look, I know you’re in there,’ the man says. ‘If you open up we can have a quick chat and I’ll leave you in peace. Five minutes, that’s all. An opportunity to give your side of the story.’

  The lock clicks. She puts the key into her bag and hurries up the steps, glancing quickly to where the man leans into the closed door, his mouth held close to the letterbox.

  ‘I’m not going away you know. I’m just going to keep on coming back,’ he warns.

  He has his back to Leah, but when the gate clangs shut he turns and looks down at her. Fifty-ish, she guesses, in a summer shirt and nondescript slacks. His face has the reddish-purple hue of a drinker.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he says, when he sees her, and there’s interest in his voice.

  But she just nods and hurries away, troubled by the incident on the doorstep, wondering what the man upstairs is being hounded about. The image that comes to her is of an elderly man sitting still and quiet in his own house while his heart flutters with nerves, waiting for the voice to go away.

  By the time she reaches work, the image has dissipated. The morning is busy, and she welcomes the well-worn familiarity of the tasks before her. Since leaving school eight years ago, she has worked for Castle and Maine Patents and Trademarks Attorneys, starting off in the post room before being promoted to an administrative role upstairs. She has a reputation in the office for being quiet but efficient, reserved but dependable. ‘Whatever would we do without you?’ the senior partners sometimes say to her.

  One of them, more recently, had taken her aside and asked if she would consider studying towards the trademark attorney exams. There was a professional career path if she wished to pursue it. No doubt it would be a big commitment, he had warned her, several years of study and exams. But the rewards would make it worthwhile when she eventually qualified, he’d said, adding that he had every faith in her ability and that she would receive full support.

  Leah can recall the flash in his eye when she had told him that she had no wish to go down that path, preferring to stay where she was. He hadn’t pushed her much, instead accepting her decision graciously, but she could see it in the look he gave her, the way his eyes lingered on her face, speculating, no doubt, on what lay behind her lack of ambition. And she knew he could see it in her: the fear. It is, after all, the commanding emotion in her life. It was hard to explain to a man like him, a man who had striven and studied and pushed his way up the career ladder to reach the fruit hanging ripe on the tree, that for someone like Leah it was necessary to stay small and safe, to remain within the confines of the familiar. To go outside – to push herself – meant the risk of exposure, and she couldn’t countenance that. What she had was enough.

  ‘I’m happy where I am,’ she had told him.

  It wasn’t a lie. Not really.

  At lunchtime, the girls from the office head out into the sunshine and walk to the pizzeria in Ranelagh – a pay-day tradition. Mostly, Leah joins them, but today she takes her sandwiches and goes to sit alone in the railed park beside the office. There’s a small bench there where she can take out her phone without risk of being disturbed.

  She dials the number and listens to the ringing tone, imagines the sound of it echoing around the house, up through the hall to the bedrooms above. She imagines her mother in the kitchen, hurriedly wiping her hands on a tea-towel, or her father sitting up in bed and putting down the newspaper, listening. As always when she makes these calls, she feels a murmuring of sadness deep in her chest, the pull of something painful.

  ‘Hello?’ Her mother’s voice, breathless with enquiry.

  ‘Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Leah.’ The name breathed out with something like relief. This is chased with instant anxiety: ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. How are you? How’s Dad?’

  What follows is her mother’s cheerfully brisk monologue about her father’s continuing health woes – complications from a heart attack some years ago keep him largely an invalid – before moving on to fill Leah in on various pieces of gossip that currently permeate the small town where they live. Leah listens, trying to picture it all, but sometimes the descriptions are lost on her. Her recollections of home have faded in the past eleven years, although some things remain stark and vivid. Not everything can be erased.

  ‘And how are things in the office?’

  Leah can hear in her mother’s voice the effort involved in keeping this conversation light. Trying to act normally. What hard work it must be for her mother, trying not to frighten her away.

  ‘Fine. Good.’

  ‘Dad wants to know are you playing?’

  The thought of her father concerned about her music threatens to bring on emotion, so she says quickly: ‘Actually, the piano has found a new home.’

  ‘Oh?’ Sharpness in the question, yet she knows her mother is trying to hold back. These phone-calls between them are delicate.

  ‘I’ve moved, Mum. I’m in a new flat. In Dún Laoghaire.’

  ‘Well. That sounds lovely, sweetheart,’ she says cautiously.

  ‘The thing is,’ Leah says, arriving at the real purpose of the call, ‘I’ve met someone. His name is Jake. We’ve moved in together.’

  She waits, and into the silence that follows she reads her mother’s pain and disappointment and anxiety. The distance between them – the necessary distance – is bearable, but at times like this, she must wonder at Leah, at why she shuts them out, punishes her parents, when, really, they don’t deserve it.

  ‘This is all very sudden.’

  ‘Not really. We’ve been together for a while now,’ Leah says, deliberately vague. She doesn’t tell her mother that it’s a whole five months since she met Jake. Five months
since she fell head over heels.

  ‘Is he a good man?’ her mother asks then, her voice softening. ‘Is he kind to you?’

  ‘Yes. He is, Mum. He really is. He’s kind and warm and open.’

  ‘And you? Can you be open with him?’

  The question feels pointed, and Leah hesitates before answering: ‘I love him, Mum.’

  She senses her mother absorbing this careful response.

  ‘I’m happy for you, sweetheart,’ she tells Leah, and the words are quietly warm and heartfelt. ‘Does he make you feel safe?’

  ‘He does.’

  When I’m with him, the demons go away, she thinks. But she doesn’t say this to her mother. Doesn’t want to frighten her.

  ‘We love you, Leah – Dad and me. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘All we want is for you to be happy. For you to find peace.’

  ‘I know. I’m trying to.’

  They talk for a few minutes more, and while it is companionable and pleasant, neither suggests a visit. Neither mentions meeting up.

  ‘Take care, sweetheart,’ her mother tells her, just like she always does.

  For a few minutes after the call ends, Leah sits still with her eyes closed, turning her face up to the sun.

  Later that evening, when she gets home, she finds a business card has been fed through her letterbox. She carries it into the kitchen, puts her groceries on the counter before scanning it quickly. On one side is printed the name Ed McDonagh, Daily Mail, and on the back in a spidery crawl are the words: ‘Sorry if I startled you this morning. I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call. Ed.’

  Her heart gives an involuntary kick, an old feeling of deep unease coming over her.

  She shoves the card far down into the kitchen bin, then scrubs her hands under the tap, wishing Jake would come home soon.

  Clouds are gathering in the evening sky and the washing remains outside. The gash on her shin is healing – she can feel the tightness of the skin gathering there, the itch of it knitting together as she hurries out into the garden. She reaches for the clothes, plucks them from the line, working quickly as she drops them into the basket. It is only when she retrieves the basket and holds it to her waist that she looks about in the grass and sees that the rusting tricycle is gone. A bald patch in the weeds is the only indication of its recent presence. Her eyes snap up towards the windows of the house. She scans them quickly, her pulse quickening, looking for a face. There is nothing but the panes of glass reflecting back at her the milky-white bank of clouds.

  5

  Anton

  Anton wakes to the snapping sound of his letterbox closing. He blinks in the new day, feels the weight of heat in the air already bearing down on him. For a few moments, he just lies there, feeling the emptiness of the house, the hours of the day stretching ahead of him.

  The ceiling above him shows cracks running through the plasterwork from one side of the room to the other, snaking right through to the cornicing. Anton thinks of the materials of this house standing solidly for more than a hundred and fifty years. A century and a half enduring winters and summers, expanding and contracting with the seasons, the elements taking their toll. No wonder there are cracks. No wonder the edifice is crumbling. He feels a bit like the house. In need of some support. A bit of underpinning.

  In the bathroom, he assesses his reflection in the mirror. Not bad, he thinks, parting his lips to examine his teeth, still strong, still whitish. His eyes – always his best feature – are a little bleary this morning, but after rinsing his face with water some of their clarity returns, the irises a muddy green. ‘Like looking into a deep pool,’ Janice had once told him – or was it Helen? He towel-dries his face, which in recent days has started to tan. Perhaps he should dig out some of his old summer clothes, if the moths haven’t ravaged them. He needs a haircut. Today might be the day for it. His birthday. He is sixty years old.

  Downstairs, he picks up the post. No birthday cards, no surprise packages, just a postcard from an estate agent and a begging letter from a charitable organization, the envelope adorned with photographs of little African children, their bellies swollen, flies crawling around their eyes. In the kitchen, he throws the post into the bin, then changes his mind and fishes out the estate agent’s card. He sits at the kitchen table contemplating it.

  Dear Property Owner,

  Thinking of moving? We have clients in the area who would love to make an offer on your house! Don’t delay. Contact us today on blah, blah, blah …

  Perhaps he should give it some thought. Maybe Phil might have an opinion – he’ll ask his advice when he sees him this evening.

  They were golf partners back in the day – Anton’s handicap was four while Phil had played off scratch, but even though they were unevenly matched in their abilities, the friendship between them compensated for it. He had called Phil yesterday, suggesting they meet for a small birthday celebration in Finnegans. Anton had heard the surprise in his voice, the hesitation before acceptance of his offer, and it reminded him of how Phil had barely ever visited him in the hotel. Once or twice a year for the first couple of years, but after that nothing. Still, Anton won’t hold it against him. He resolves not to bring it up when they meet for pints. Let sleeping dogs lie.

  The doorbell rings, startling him from his thoughts. Perhaps it is Mark, he thinks hopefully, come with a present or a cake. He finds himself hurrying to the door full of happy expectation, but when Anton opens it, he finds that it is not his son, but a man who is short and blocky, his torso encased in a striped short-sleeved shirt. A clipboard is slipped casually under his arm, both hands in his pockets.

  ‘Hello there, Anton,’ the man says loudly, a broad smile pushing the flesh of his cheeks upwards to make narrow slits of his eyes.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jim Buckley.’ He takes a hand from his pocket now and offers it to Anton, who accepts it gingerly. ‘Your parole officer,’ Jim clarifies. ‘Okay if I come in?’

  Anton’s hand hurts from the other man’s crushing grip. He rubs it, pushing the metacarpals back into their places, turning away from the door so that Jim Buckley can follow him into the kitchen. ‘Tea?’ he asks, over his shoulder.

  ‘Smashing.’

  Anton fills the kettle, takes down the cups, and tries to quash the disappointment that it wasn’t Mark at the door. Perhaps he will call later, he thinks. He’s a good lad, a dutiful son. Yes, Anton thinks, yes, he’s sure Mark will be here.

  ‘Nice place you got here, Anton,’ Jim remarks. ‘Big enough for you?’

  His large house seems to shrink with Jim’s presence in it. The new voice is too loud – it shatters the silence. The corpulent bulk of him fills the room in a way that’s intrusive. Anton tries to concentrate on making the tea, white noise buzzing in his brain.

  ‘Milk, no sugar,’ Jim instructs.

  There’s a small fireplace in the kitchen, the mantelpiece a magnet for the detritus Anton is unsure what to do with. Old postcards, bowed with age, still sit there, twenty years after they were sent. Postcards from a different age, a different life. Jim is sniffing around them now, plucking the occasional one out with his fat fingers, squinting to read the words tooled on the back.

  ‘Bit of a hoarder, eh, Anton?’ he says, with a chuckle. ‘Would you not clear some of this stuff out?’ His eyes roam the cluttered surfaces with barely concealed horror. ‘You’d fill a good few bin bags in this room alone.’

  Anton puts the tea on the table, doesn’t answer.

  ‘Ah, don’t mind me,’ Jim says. ‘I can’t stand clutter, that’s all. More of a minimalist. The bare essentials. Still. Each to their own, eh?’

  On another day, Anton might have been tempted to fling the tea into the big dog-like grinning face, watch with pleasure as the cup bounced off the meaty snout. But he has been lonely since his release, the deep silence of the house making his days seem long and empty. It’s good to have some company, even if it’s o
nly his parole officer. He sips his tea while Jim Buckley takes a seat at the table opposite him and consults his clipboard, slurping from the cup.

  ‘Let’s run through this, shall we?’

  ‘If we must,’ Anton says. He gives the man the bare minimum of his attention, just sufficient to oblige the bureaucracy. He wonders a little at Jim Buckley, at his life. A small two-bed semi in Blanchardstown or Tallaght, he surmises, a few paltry sticks of furniture, a big-screen TV, no clutter – the minimalist look he so reveres. No ring on his finger so let’s assume no girlfriend or family. Lives near to his mum. A few older sisters with families close by. Spends his Sundays alternating between their houses – roast dinners and playing with the kiddies. Their favourite uncle. Such a cheery disposition – but what lurks beneath it? Anton wonders. He knows how fractured things can be once you peel back the happy surface.

  ‘Given any thought to employment, Anton?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I see here you’re a numbers man. A bit of a whizz at the old accounting.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Why don’t you let me put you in touch with a recruitment agency we use from time to time? See if they have a position that would suit a man with your background?’

  Anton doesn’t know if by ‘background’ Jim is referring to his previous career as an accountant or his criminal record. He doesn’t seek to clarify because it’s not relevant. He has no intention of contacting any recruitment agency. Not now. Not ever.

  What kind of person becomes a parole officer? He’s had the same thoughts about the screws in prison. As little boys, did they answer, when asked by a teacher or a relative what they wanted to be when they grew up, ‘I want to work for the prison service’?

  Mark wanted to be a vet. Anton remembers a painting coming home from school, some rudimentary daubs in primary colours that they were supposed to interpret as their six-year-old son with his animal patients. Charlotte had held it in one hand and laughed. ‘Mark? A vet?’ She had shaken her head, mystified. ‘The poor little pet’s frightened of his own shadow.’ Right there at that sink. Anton half turns his head to look, as if he might expect to find her there still.