The People Next Door (13 page)

‘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.

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.

Justin’s cousin, who worked as a barman in town, was going to wear a dinner jacket and pour champagne, and they’d ordered a selection of canapés from the local deli and a cake from a little bakery off the main street. If the evening was fine, they’d be out on the patio.

Kathryn had spent far too much on a silk top and skirt that the sales assistant assured her looked wonderful and that she was hiding from Justin until the night. She was taking the afternoon off and getting her roots done and then she was having her face made up by the lady Yvonne had been so impressed with.

Everything sorted, a nice, no-fuss affair – yes, she was definitely looking forward to it now. Best of all, Grainne wasn’t happy.

‘Don’t you think a sit-down dinner would be more appropriate, rather than this’ – she made a face – ‘bits of food on trays? That’s more suitable for young people, surely?’

Oh, she was so predictable, bringing up age wherever she could. It was laughable, really.

Kathryn had shaken her head, careful not to smile. ‘Oh, no, buffets are the in thing now with every age group. And the canapés won’t be on trays, they’ll be properly spread out on a table and everyone can help themselves. It’s less formal than a dinner. People prefer it, really.’ She’d be charming and reasonable if it killed her.

Grainne wasn’t finished. ‘But you can’t serve food outside: it’ll be overrun with flies and it’ll go bad in the heat.’ She turned to Justin. ‘Tell her, dear.’

Much to Kathryn’s relief, Justin had had the sense not to get involved. He lifted his hands and said, ‘Nothing to do with me, Mother. This is Kathryn’s night, she’s in charge.’

No, Grainne wasn’t a bit happy now that it looked as if Kathryn had decided to embrace becoming forty-five. It had been that easy after all to get the better of her. Now maybe she’d begin to accept that her son had chosen an older woman, and learn to live with it.

She might even decide to move back to her own house, now that she couldn’t annoy her daughter-in-law any more. Kathryn smiled – talk about wishful thinking. It would take more than one setback to shift Grainne.

She threw the perfume receipt into the kitchen bin, added Justin’s jeans to the washing machine and closed the door. She poured detergent into the drawer and started the cycle. As she straightened, something caught her eye outside, some movement on next door’s patio.

She glanced across, but all she could see from that angle were a shoulder and an arm. She heard the clank of metal, someone whistling. Funny, she hadn’t taken Dan for a handyman.

She walked upstairs with the laundry basket, put it back in the bathroom. Then she crossed the landing to her bedroom and peered out the window.

There was Dan’s tenant, standing by a higgledy-piggledy heap of bricks. As she watched, he slathered
something from a white bucket onto Dan’s barbecue with a trowel – something grey and gloopy; was that some in his hair? – and positioned a brick carefully on top. Of course – he was finishing it. About time; must be at least a year since Dan built the first half.

Kathryn looked carefully at the growing barbecue. Were the new bricks a little lopsided? Did it lean slightly to the left? Maybe she was imagining it. What did she know about building anything?