The People Next Door (9 page)

Dan didn’t know much about classical music – he and Ali had shared a devotion to Pink Floyd, the Kinks and early David Bowie – but he was taken with this piece. It dipped slowly, the notes coiling themselves into a wonderfully haunting melody, then soared up again dramatically, each phrase more poignant than the one that had gone before.

Dan was entertained for twenty minutes or so as one piece followed another, with a slight pause between each. They seemed to be played with the same instrument – it sounded like a violin to Dan, or something else with a bow. Very pleasant.

After a while it stopped and Dan got up and went into the kitchen to make tea. As he plugged in the newly replaced kettle (Kieran had insisted, although Dan was perfectly happy with the saucepan), the back door opened and his new tenant walked in carrying a violin. ‘Hello there.’

Dan stared. ‘Was that you? Were you playing the music?’

‘You heard me?’ Kieran laid the violin on the table. ‘I went right to the bottom of the garden.’

‘I thought you were the radio. You’re very good. You don’t have to go outside.’

Kieran smiled. Actually, I like to play in the open – it gives the music room to breathe. I was stuck inside when I lived in the flat and the sound always felt too big. It’s much better here.’

Dan put a teabag into his mug. ‘Have you been playing long?’

Kieran took a glass from the draining board and filled it with water. ‘All my life, just about. Mother sent me for lessons kicking and screaming when I was eight. It was a good few months before I could admit that I actually liked it. Now I think I’d die if I couldn’t play.’

‘What was that piece you played first, the one that kept going up and down?’

Kieran thought. ‘I’d say it was ‘The Swan’, from
Carnival of the Animals.
It’s really a piece for piano and violin. Do you play anything yourself?’

Dan laughed. ‘No, apart from air guitar at the discos about twenty years ago – I was good at that.’ He ran his hand along the curves of the violin. ‘I was afraid you might turn up with a drum kit.’

Kieran laughed, unwrapping a strip of chewing gum from its foil cover. ‘No danger of that.’

The funny thing was, Kieran hadn’t a note in his head. Dan would hear him humming sometimes in the bathroom, horribly off key. His whistling, equally toneless, set Dan’s teeth on edge. How could he play so well and be utterly tone deaf?

But, all things considered, Kieran’s arrival had been a good thing. Not the ideal scenario, of course – in Dan’s perfect world, Ali would still be there and Brendan would have emigrated to Australia ten years ago – but for someone Dan had been forced to take in, Kieran was perfectly OK.

When Dan came downstairs, showered and changed, the fish pie was out of the oven and Kieran was ladling bubbling, creamy chunks onto two plates.

‘That looks good.’ Dan’s fried egg and sausage dinners seemed so pathetic now. He wondered suddenly how he’d go back to them if Kieran decided to move on – he might have to learn how to cook. The thought, surprisingly, didn’t terrify him.

‘Oh, almost forgot. This arrived for you today.’ Kieran took a blue envelope from the worktop and held it out to Dan.

Ali’s slanting, spiky handwriting jumped out at him.
His stomach somersaulted. ‘Thanks.’ He folded it and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. The first letter she’d written since she’d left, just over two months ago now. The first contact since she’d driven off, crying, in her navy Golf … He took an open bottle of wine from the fridge, splashed some into a glass and shut her out of his head. Or tried to.

He tasted his fish pie. The sauce was buttery and rich with onions. The cod flaked in his mouth, just firm enough. ‘This is great, really.’

They’d met on holidays in Ballybunion, Dan and Ali. He was twenty-eight, Ali was two years younger. She’d been with her sister, he’d been with two friends he’d known since secondary school.

They’d gone swimming at the same time and she’d saved his life – or so she always insisted.

‘I was just fooling around.’

‘You were going down for the third time. I’d hardly call that fooling around.’

‘I was only doing it to get your attention.’

‘Well, you certainly managed that – I could hardly miss you, spluttering and waving like a mad thing.’

He’d been trying to impress her, of course, showing off out of his depth, pretending to be a much better swimmer than he was. The wave had caught him off guard, had swept him up and thrown him down. His mouth had filled with rushing, salty water. His ears thundered with the sound of the sea. He could see nothing, felt himself being dragged by the current, broke the surface briefly, gasping for air, flapping his arms frantically, and sank back under—

And then he was being pulled upwards, someone was grabbing his hair, a hand came around his neck and cupped his chin. He broke the surface again and thrashed his arms, trying to get his balance back.

‘Hold still, would you? Just relax, for fuck’s sake.’

She was competent, Ali. One of those people who got things done instead of just talking about doing them. She’d sailed through law school, had her pick of companies when she’d flashed her first-class honours degree at them.

He took another determined bite of pie. ‘What’s the flavouring in this again?’ If Ali’d heard him, asking about flavouring.

‘Dill, mostly, but a little parsley too.’

She was Dan’s third girlfriend and he was the fourteenth man she’d slept with. They married in Ali’s home town and all of Dan’s family were there.

Including Brendan Fitzpatrick, his mother’s youngest brother.

Well, whatever she had to say now could wait. Dan was in no hurry.

He reached for his wineglass. And the sauce?’

‘Just flour, butter, milk, black pepper, salt – and a bit of wholegrain mustard to give it some bite.’

The corner of the envelope pushed against his hip.

‘I’m copyediting a book on fishing at the moment. It lists the best places to fish around the country, how to contact the licensing authorities, that kind of thing. Might try my hand at it some time – fishing, I mean.’

‘Yes, I’ve done a bit, in Loch Corrib mostly.’

It wasn’t as if she could have anything to say that he wanted to hear. She was hardly writing to tell him she’d made a mistake. Hardly begging him to let her come home.

He pushed back his chair, picked up his plate. ‘Sorry, I just remembered an email I need to send – better do it while I think of it. I’ll put this in the oven. It won’t take long.’

In his room he tore open the envelope, still telling himself he didn’t care. Whatever she had to say didn’t matter now.

Dear Dan,
she wrote.

Yeah, right.

I hope this finds you well—

Oh, very well. Extremely well. Never been weller, in fact. He raced ahead.

—and I’m sorry again that things went the way they did.

Like she’d had no choice. Like Brendan had been holding a gun to her head, forcing her to leave him.

I’m writing now because there are things we need to sort out.

Things we need to sort out?

I’ll give you a ring in the next few days and we can arrange a mutually convenient time to meet, if you’re agreeable.

A mutually convenient time. If you’re agreeable. Like she was writing to one of her clients instead of to the man she’d slept beside every night for more than two years.

Naked, she always slept naked, winter and summer.
He pushed the image out of his head.

Take care,

Ali.

Not
love Ali,
obviously. Never
love Ali
again.

He screwed up the single blue page and flung it at the wastepaper basket beside the wardrobe. Then he went over, picked it up from the floor. He opened it, smoothed it as best he could and read it through again.

…
there are things we need to sort out.
What did she mean by that? Did she want to collect the CDs and books she’d left behind? Was she going to say they’d have to sell the house they’d bought together because ‘they’ no longer existed?

He read it through a third time, searching for the tiniest hint that she was unhappy, the most minute suggestion that her letter was really a cry for help.
I’m sorry again that things went the way they did.
Would she say that if she was perfectly happy now? And
take care
at the end – didn’t that sound almost like an endearment?

And
Dear Dan.
She could have just said Dan, couldn’t she?

He dropped the crumpled page onto the bed and went downstairs to finish the dinner he suddenly didn’t want. He’d have to wash it down with a whole lot of wine.

Kieran tried to let it go. He pushed Adam away a hundred times a day. He did his best to keep his mind from going over and over that night in his head, inventing a dozen different endings except the one that had actually happened.

The one that maybe he could have prevented if he’d tried. And it was that thought, the terrible, unforgivable fact, that he couldn’t shake out of his head – that maybe he could have made a difference, if he’d tried. But he hadn’t. He’d just stood there and let it happen. He’d done nothing, nothing.

It kept him awake in Dan’s red-brick house. Kept him pacing his room, and when that became too small, kept him wandering through the house, too tired to read, flicking through the TV channels for anything to shorten the night.

If he’d been alone he would have played the violin, like he used to in the flat. That had worked sometimes. But he couldn’t play music with Dan upstairs, so night after night, he switched off his bedroom light and closed his eyes and waited for sleep.

And night after night, Adam kept him awake.

‘Only a month to go.’ Grainne cut a carrot disc in half and smiled across the table at her daughter-in-law. ‘You must be getting excited.’

‘Not really.’ Kathryn reached for the dish of potatoes. ‘I don’t take much notice of birthdays any more.’ She touched her chin. ‘You’ve got some gravy there.’

‘Thank you, dear.’ Grainne lifted her pale blue linen napkin, one of a set she’d given Kathryn and Justin at Christmas, and dabbed lightly around her mouth.

Listen to them, you’d think they were the best of friends. You’d swear they never had a cross word between them – and, of course, they didn’t. Grainne was much more subtle than that.

‘Pass the butter, love.’ Justin, as ever, trying to keep the peace. Sensing the atmosphere, feeling the tension, as he always did. The two women closest to him, walking on eggshells around each other.

‘I suppose you’ll have a bit of a do.’ Grainne looked enquiringly at Kathryn. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make myself scarce.’

Oh, she was so clever. Waiting for Justin to say, as of course he did, instantly, ‘Now why on earth—’

And Kathryn butted in hastily: ‘But we’re not planning anything.’ The last thing she wanted was a big fuss, another opportunity for everyone to be reminded of how much older than Justin she was. Because that was exactly what Grainne wanted, to keep twisting that particular knife in Kathryn’s side. To keep punishing her.

‘Oh, but you’ll have to mark it in some way. Your forty-fifth – that’s quite a milestone.’ Grainne beamed across the table. ‘Even just a small crowd. You could invite your friend from number seven—’

‘Yvonne.’ Grainne had met her several times. She knew very well her name was Yvonne. Why pretend she didn’t?

‘Yes, and maybe a few people from work – they’d know both of you, after all.’ Grainne turned to Justin. ‘What do you think, dear? Shouldn’t we do a little something to celebrate?’

We. So much for making herself scarce.

Justin was saying, ‘Whatever Kathryn wants Ever the diplomat.

‘We’ll think about it. There’s plenty of time.’ She’d wait till they were alone, convince him that she’d rather spend money on something more worthwhile than a few hours’ partying – a weekend away, maybe, just the two of them.

Not, she realised, with a familiar dart of anger, that there was much chance of them getting away on their own anytime soon. Justin would worry about
how his precious mother would cope without them, when in reality Grainne was as well able as Kathryn to look after herself. Perfectly able to cook, perfectly capable of walking after a Hoover or making a bed.

But when she’d broken her hip two years ago, Grainne had needed someplace to convalesce when the hospital released her, so of course they’d taken her in, just until she became fully mobile again. And in the few weeks it took for that to happen, Grainne managed to drop enough subtle hints to Justin to convince him that it would be cruel to send her back to her own home.

‘She hates the thought of living alone again – she’s got used to the company.’

She’d got used to being looked after, more like it. Got used to having her washing done and her meals cooked and her doting son around to ferry her to hospital every time she felt a little twinge.

At first, Kathryn tried to be tactful – Grainne was his mother, after all. ‘Of course she’s welcome here, but darling, I think it would do her good to be independent. She might begin to feel useless if she stayed here with us doing everything for her. She’s still very capable of being on her own.’

And when that didn’t work, when Justin kept trying to convince her that Grainne just needed company – ‘I’m sure she doesn’t expect us to wait on her hand and foot, I’m sure she’ll make herself useful’ – Kathryn, dreading the thought of living full-time with Grainne, changed tack.

‘But it’s our house. It’s not fair of her just to land in on top of us when she doesn’t need to. We’ll have no privacy – she’ll be here all the time.’ It sounded childish and selfish, but she didn’t care.

Justin’s face had hardened. ‘Not fair? It’s not fair for her to feel lonely, to want a bit of company? That’s a bit mean, don’t you think? We’ve plenty of space here.’

‘We haven’t got that much. This house isn’t exactly—’

‘So are you saying you don’t want her because we haven’t enough room? I thought you were worried about her losing her independence. Make up your mind.’