The Strangler's Honeymoon (3 page)

He smiled and patted his stomach.

‘I couldn’t even force down another raisin. Is it your mum who’s taught you how to cook? That was really delicious. An old bachelor like me isn’t used to feasts of this quality, believe you me.’

‘Oh, come off it!’ she managed to come out with, and could feel that she was blushing.

‘Let’s put some foil over the remains, so that we can warm them up when your mum gets back. I’ll see to the washing up.’

‘No, I . . .’

‘Enough of that. Sit down and watch the telly, and I’ll sort all this out. Or read a book. Incidentally, speaking of books . . .’

He stood up and went out into the hall. Fished around in a plastic carrier bag he had left on the hat shelf, then came back in.

‘Here you are. A little present as a thank you for the meal.’

He placed a flat, gift-wrapped little parcel on the table in front of her.

‘For me? But why?’

‘Why not?’

He started clearing the table.

‘You might not like it, but you sometimes have to take a chance.’

She ran her finger over the fancy ribbons.

‘Aren’t you going to open it? I’ve got something for your mum as well, so she won’t need to feel jealous.’

She slid the ribbon over the corner of the packet and tore open the wine-red paper. She took out the book, and couldn’t conceal her delight.

‘Blake!’ she exclaimed. ‘How did you know?’

He came over to her and stood behind her with his hands on the back of her chair.

‘
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
. I happened to notice that you had
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
pinned up on your noticeboard – it was your mum who insisted that I should take a look at your room – forgive me for intruding. Anyway, I thought he must be a favourite of yours . . . And it’s a beautiful book, with all the paintings and so on.’

She started thumbing through, and when she saw the mystical illustrations and the ornate script, she could feel that tears were not far distant. In order to keep them at bay she stood up and gave him a hug.

He laughed, and hugged her as well.

‘So there, little lady – that wasn’t much, let’s be honest! Time to leave me in peace now here in the kitchen.’

‘You’re so nice. I hope . . .’

‘Well, what do you hope?’

‘I hope everything goes well with you and my mum. You would be so good for her . . . For us.’

She hadn’t meant to say that, but it was done now. He held her shoulders, at arm’s length, and eyed her with a somewhat confused expression on his face.

‘We’ll see what happens,’ he said.

Then he steered her out of the kitchen.

When he came and sat beside her on the sofa, it was twenty past ten. There was over an hour to go before her mother would arrive. She had started watching a French film on the telly, but switched off after a quarter of an hour. She switched on the reading lamp and went over to Blake instead.

‘Read something for me,’ he said.

She suddenly felt her mouth go dry.

‘My English isn’t all that good.’

‘Nor is mine. But I think all young people speak like native Brits nowadays. Do you have a favourite poem? You don’t need to feel embarrassed if you slip up.’

She thought for a moment, then leafed back through a few pages.

‘Maybe this one.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

She cleared her throat, closed her eyes for two seconds, then started reading.

‘
O Rose thou art sick

The invisible worm

That flies in the night

In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy
’

She closed the book and waited for his reaction.

‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘And sad. It’s called “The Sick Rose”, isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘But it’s really about people. I realize that you’ve had a bit of a rough time. If you want to tell me about it I’d be glad to listen.’

She knew immediately that that was exactly what she wanted to do. But was it appropriate? she wondered. And if she did tell him, how far should she go? And where should she begin?

‘If you don’t want to, then of course you shouldn’t. We can sit here in silence, Or talk about football. Or ropey TV programmes, or the perilous state of hedgehogs in the contemporary world . . .’

‘You are just like my dad,’ she said with a laugh. ‘You really are. We used to sit here on this sofa, reading aloud to each other. When I was little, that is – he did most of the reading, of course. I used to sit on his lap.’

Three seconds passed before she burst out crying.

Then she sat on his lap.

Afterwards she had trouble in remembering what they had talked about.

If they had said all that much in fact, or just sat there in silence for most of the time.

Probably the latter.

But she remembered that he smelled nice. She remembered the rough texture of his shirt, and his regular, deep breaths against her back. The warmth he radiated, and his strong hands that occasionally caressed her arms and her hair.

And she remembered that it was shortly after the old wall clock over the television struck eleven that she felt that sudden movement inside her that ought not to have stirred at all.

And that at almost exactly the same moment a part of him also moved and made its presence felt, in a way that was absolutely forbidden.

3

He rang to apologize the very next day.

In the late afternoon: her mother was at some preliminary meeting for people who had been out of work for quite a long time, but were now being launched back into the labour market. Perhaps she had told him about that, so that he knew when it would be a suitable time to phone her.

‘Please forgive me, Monica,’ he said. ‘No, you shouldn’t do that, in fact. It was unforgivable.’

She didn’t know what to say.

‘There were two of us involved,’ she said.

‘No,’ he insisted. ‘It was entirely my fault. I don’t understand how I could have let it happen. I was a bit tired, of course, and I’m only human – but for God’s sake, that’s no excuse. It’s probably best if you don’t ever see me again.’

He fell silent, and she thought she could hear his bad conscience in the receiver.

‘We didn’t go all that far,’ she said. ‘And I must accept some of the blame. You’re not a child any longer when you’re sixteen years old.’

‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘I’m in a relationship with your mother. This is the kind of thing you read about in dodgy magazines.’

‘Do you read dodgy magazines?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t realize that.’

He burst out laughing, but checked himself.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But maybe I should, in order to discover what I shouldn’t do. But it won’t happen any more, I promise you that. It’s probably best that I put an end to my relationship with your mother as well . . .’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that.’

He paused before responding.

‘Why not?’

‘Because . . . Because you are good for her. She likes you and you like her. I like you as well – not like last night, that was an accident.’

He seemed to hesitate again.

‘I rang to apologize, and . . . and to say that I thought it was best to accept the consequences and leave both of you in peace from now on.’

‘But you didn’t tell Mum that?’

He sighed.

‘No, I didn’t tell your mum that. That would have been the correct thing to do, of course, but I didn’t know how she would take it. And if you’re a coward, that’s what you are. So you see what a shit I am.’

‘You’re not a shit. Pack it in now, there were two of us on that sofa and I’m not utterly unaccountable for my actions.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Silence once again. She could feel thoughts buzzing round inside her head like a swarm of bees.

‘I must say I think you are treating this less seriously than you should,’ he said in the end. ‘Maybe we should meet and talk it over properly.’

She thought for a moment.

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t do any harm. When and where?’

‘When do you have time?’

‘Whenever suits you. I don’t go back to school until next week.’

He proposed a walk in Wollerims Park the following evening, and she thought that sounded like a good idea.

The following evening was a Wednesday, and one of the hottest days of the whole summer. After quite a short walk they sat down on a bench under one of the weeping willow trees next to the canal, and talked for over an hour. Afterwards they went for a walk through the town. Along Langgraacht, through Landsloorn and out to Megsje Bojs. She did most of the talking. Spoke about her childhood, her father’s death, her mother. About her difficulties at school, and her girlfriends who kept letting her down. He listened and asked a few questions. When they turned off onto one of the pedestrian paths through the woods, she linked arms with him; when they had come deeper into the woods where there were no more lights, he put an arm around her shoulder, and by shortly after midnight they had become lovers for real.

And they carried on meeting.

After the evening and the night in Megsje Bojs, she heard nothing from him for almost four days. Then he rang late on the Sunday evening when she was alone at home again. He apologized once again, insisted that what he had done was unforgivable, and that what they had been doing must stop before it ended up disastrously.

They talked for about ten minutes, then arranged to meet for one last time and sort everything out. He collected her from school on the Tuesday, they drove out to the coast in his car, and after a long walk along the beach they made love in a dip among the dunes.

When they went their separate ways neither of them said a word about putting a stop to what was now happening, and during the first couple of weeks she was back at school he came to visit them in Moerckstraat twice. On both occasions he spent the night with her mother, and in the badly soundproofed flat she could hear them making love until well into the early hours.

But she knew that one of these days he would come back to her. It’s madness, she thought. It’s sheer lunacy.

But she did nothing – nothing at all – to put a stop to it.

Not yet.

School was the same old story. Her hopes that things would change now that she was starting in the sixth form were soon shattered.

At the venerable old Bungeläroverket Sixth Form College – which her father had attended in his day – she found herself in a class consisting mainly of new and unknown faces. But there were quite a few well-known faces as well, and it wasn’t long before she realized that these old so-called friends from the Deijkstraaskola had made up their minds to keep her in the role they had carved out and assigned to her alone, once and for all.

It was not difficult to see that her new classmates had been informed about various things. That they knew quite a bit about her already, despite the fact that they were only a few days into the new term. Her home circumstances, and the state of her mother, for instance. The story about the vomit in the bathtub that she had confided to a very reliable girlfriend a few years ago was by no means a thing of the past just because she had moved to a new school. And the same applied to her mother’s masturbation lesson. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that such stories had acquired new legs.

In other words, her reputation was already established. Monica Kammerle was a bit odd. No wonder. With a mother like she had. Not surprising that she tended to keep herself to herself, the poor thing.

And when she thought about Benjamin and what went on in her home, she had to admit that they were right.

She really was odd. She was different from the others.

She and her mother as well.

Possibly even Benjamin. When she made love with him for the third time – at home in Moerckstraat one morning when her mother was attending her work experience course and she was playing truant from a sports day – it struck her how little she knew about him.

His name. Benjamin Kerran.

His age. Thirty-nine. Exactly the same age her father would have been, and one year younger than her mother. The occasional strands of grey hair around Benjamin’s temples might have led most people to assume that he was a little older than that. Forty-odd, perhaps.

Job? She didn’t really know. He worked in local government – she didn’t recall his ever having been more precise than that.

Home address? No idea. Surely it was preposterous that she didn’t know where he lived? They had never met in his home – only outdoors, or at her flat in Moerckstraat when her mother was out of the way. Surely it was a bit odd that they had never made use of his home – always assuming that he lived alone. She decided that she would find out his address the next time they met. He wasn’t in the telephone directory, she had established that as soon as she had started to wonder about the question.

Of course, she could ask her mother about such details. Obviously, Monica had legitimate reasons to know some details about her mother’s lover no matter what the circumstances.

Even in circumstances that were rather more normal than these.

And what about his life in general? What did she know about his life?

Hardly anything. He had been married, he had mentioned that: but it was evidently a long time ago. He had never said anything about any children.

So presumably there aren’t any, Monica thought.

It’s strange, she thought. Strange that I know so little about the only lover I’ve had in my life. Still have.

But at the same time she realized that it wasn’t really all that odd. The main topic of conversation between them had always been her. Every time they had met.