The People Next Door (36 page)

‘Will you be alright?’ Yvonne felt miserable – just when it had seemed she was getting her daughter back.

Clara hugged her. ‘Of course I will – eventually.’

‘You can always come back if it doesn’t work out.’ The apartment was poky – Clara’s room was about half the size of her one at home.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Clara held Yvonne’s hands. ‘Thank you. I never tell you thank you.’

Yvonne smiled. You don’t need to – just doing my job.’

And last week, almost six months after moving out, Clara had come home for her usual Saturday
afternoon visit, and had given Yvonne the news she’d been hoping for. ‘He’s someone I knew before, but we’ve only just started going out.’ She wore a sky blue lacy smock over a yellow top and faded jeans. ‘It’s early days,’ she said. ‘Nothing might come of it.’

Yvonne put biscuits on a plate. ‘But he’s nice.’ And not complicated.

‘He is.’

She’d lost some weight since she’d moved out, her face was thinner, and in unguarded moments she still looked lonely. But she ate three shortbread biscuits and smiled at Yvonne and said, ‘No need to ask how you are.’

Kieran had moved out of Dan’s house when Dan had told him Ali was coming back. He’d taken a six-month lease on a studio flat four blocks from Miller’s Avenue. He told Yvonne it took him seven minutes to walk to her house and fifteen to walk back to his flat.

They spent at least three nights together every week, mostly in Yvonne’s house. On Sundays, they stayed in bed till late afternoon, reading the paper and watching television. Then they came downstairs in pyjamas and cooked dinner and brought it back to bed.

‘You’ve turned me into a floozy.’ It wasn’t a complaint. She had no complaints, these days.

She stretched out under the sun, pointing her toes, inhaling the grassy scent of her garden. On the blanket beside her, Magoo yawned widely.

‘This is the life,’ Yvonne told him. ‘This is how it should always be.’

He wagged his tail and inched closer to her on his belly. He missed Clara, looked hopeful anytime the kitchen door opened, welcomed her enthusiastically every Saturday.

Kieran had tackled number seven’s herbs. He’d replanted the mint in its own separate space, added marjoram and sage and surrounded everything with a low picket fence. He’d pruned the gooseberry bushes at the bottom of the garden and planted a climbing rose next to the shed.

One afternoon Dan had come out to his back garden and seen Kieran over the hedge in Yvonne’s. From the kitchen, she’d watched them talking.

‘Did you tell him?’

‘I did.’

‘What did he say?’

He eyed her over his glass of water. ‘He says you’re a lucky woman.’ He ducked, barely missing her slap, spilling water. ‘He said, “How did you manage it?”’

She
was
a lucky woman. She was in love, truly in love, for the first time in her life. After forty-two years – forty-three since April – it had been worth the wait.

She heard sounds from the house and smiled at Magoo.

‘Here he comes,’ she said.

She added eight tiny white T-shirts to the suitcase and six pairs of leggings in dolly-mixture pinks, yellows and greens, then ten pairs of socks. So far, Emily’s luggage was taking up slightly more space in the case than Kathryn’s. No more travelling light when you had a baby to pack for.

Emily had arrived two weeks early, in the middle of a sunny May morning. Kathryn had felt vaguely uncomfortable going to bed the night before, had wondered if the twinges she was getting were anything to worry about. Four hours later she’d woken in considerable pain, and nine hours after that, when she was on the point of collapse, Emily had been born.

Healthy, intact, all seven pounds of her. Yelling to be fed in the first five minutes, mouth pulling greedily at Kathryn’s nipple as soon as she’d been offered it. Roaring anytime they changed her nappy, waking every two hours demanding attention, grabbing every ounce of energy they possessed, day and night.

Dark blue eyes, delicately pointed nose, permanently open mouth. White blonde hair that
curled at the back of her neck. Tiny fists that thumped Kathryn’s chest as she sucked noisily, gulping down the milk. Belching loudly – Justin was very proud of her belches – a few minutes later.

Kathryn couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be exhausted. Each muscle in her body ached for sleep, her eyes were permanently sore from lack of it. Mealtimes had become an almost-forgotten luxury; food was bolted, usually standing up, when either she or Justin got a chance.

If it wasn’t for Marzena coming in twice a week to clean, the house would have been as neglected as the garden, with weeds springing up willy-nilly in Kathryn’s once carefully tended beds, and the grass almost long enough to conceal Picasso when he wandered over.

‘This baby’s a tornado,’ Kathryn told Yvonne. ‘The house is in shock.’

Yvonne patted Emily’s back and the baby immediately produced a large belch. ‘Good girl, that’s what we like to hear. Now, give your mother a bit of a break so she can talk to her friend.’ But Emily began to whimper and squirm in Yvonne’s arms.

Kathryn opened her shirt again. ‘Here. We’ll have no peace till she’s full, believe me.’ Emily settled to her right nipple and sucked determinedly.

Yvonne smiled. ‘You look totally done in, but in a good way.’

Kathryn yawned. ‘I am. Totally done in. But in the best possible way.’ She stroked the top of Emily’s head. ‘I had no idea it was possible to love someone so much.’

‘I know.’

‘Not to care about any of the things you’d cared about before, you know?’

‘I do.’

‘About keeping the house clean, or getting the washing done, or cooking proper meals. None of it matters.’

‘No.’

‘I’m so lucky.’ Kathryn gazed at her daughter. ‘What did I do to deserve her?’

‘What do you mean, what did you do? Wasn’t she long overdue? You should be asking what kept her.’

Kathryn smiled. ‘I suppose so. Isn’t it funny that there are two babies next door to each other all of a sudden, after years of just grown-ups in the three houses?’

‘You’ll be arranging play dates in a couple of years.’

‘I wonder if it was the baby who brought them back together.’

‘Who knows? I met Dan the other day, and I must say he does look happy.’

Emily came off Kathryn’s nipple, still making loud sucking noises. Kathryn propped her against her shoulder and rubbed her back. ‘Imagine if they got married.’

‘Dan and Ali? They are married.’

‘No, I mean Emily and Colm. He is the boy next door, after all.’

Pause. And some people just can’t resist the boy next door, can they?’

Another pause. ‘I love how you still blush when we talk about him.’

‘Shut up – I never blush.’ Yvonne put the backs of her hands to her cheeks.

Kathryn laughed. ‘Tell you what – why don’t you have a baby next year and we can open the Miller’s Avenue crèche?’

‘I’ll see what I can do. By the way, did I tell you that Clara has someone new?’

‘Has she?’ Emily belched again. ‘That’s good news. You never found out who the last one was, did you?’

‘No, and I don’t suppose I ever will. Not that it matters now. I hope this one doesn’t let her down.’

‘Hopefully.’ Kathryn laid the half-asleep Emily carefully in the carry cot on the table. ‘OK, we should be good for another cup.’

Yvonne plugged in the kettle. ‘So … how’s Justin?’

‘Great. Looking forward to the change.’

The sale of Grainne’s house had closed a month ago. The surprisingly high sum had been split three ways between William, Justin and Ann. Justin immediately handed in his notice at work and was finishing up in three days’ time, just before he, Kathryn and Emily travelled to Spain for a fortnight with Ann and Suze.

And when they got back, he was going to start the online teaching course, and in September Kathryn was going back to work and Marzena would take care of Emily five mornings a week while Justin studied.

In the afternoons, he’d said to Kathryn the other
night, he and Dan could take it in turns to look after both babies.

‘We’ll be two stay-at-home dads – we need to help each other out. Maybe we could do every second week or something.’

She’d laughed at him, saying they could hardly cope with Emily on her own – how would he manage Colm too? But maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe he and Dan would work something out.

The idea was appealing. The Miller’s Avenue crèche.

In the meantime, they were off to Spain. Ann and Suze would look after Emily, and Kathryn and Justin would sleep. Kathryn hadn’t told Ann that there was a fairly strong chance they’d sleep for the entire two weeks, that she would only wake up for long enough to feed Emily.

As she squeezed her sleeveless tops into a corner of the suitcase, she heard a wail from the cot in the next bedroom. She closed the case and opened her shirt.

‘So what time are you expecting lover-boy?’

‘Any minute now.’ Clara slipped the wide silver bangle – a moving-out present from her mother – onto her wrist. ‘And I wish you wouldn’t call him that.’

Sometimes Siofra got on her nerves a bit. Clara knew you had to put up with that when you shared with someone. And, to be fair, Siofra had her good points. She was fanatical about cleaning the bathroom, she made a great lasagne and she never objected to Clara borrowing from her impressive collection of handbags.

‘Will you bring him to Matty’s after the pictures?’ Siofra dipped her brush into the white varnish and stroked it carefully along her nail tips.

Clara considered. ‘Maybe.’

No need to keep him hidden. No reason to hide him from anyone. He didn’t have a wife or a child – nobody to pull him away from her.

They’d bumped into each other in the health food shop. Clara had been leaning over the cereal bins, scooping muesli into a plastic bag, and he’d said,
‘Well, hello, stranger.’

She’d looked up and smiled. ‘Hi, how’s it going?’

She hadn’t seen him since the last night of the cookery classes, when they’d all gone to the pub. Months ago now.

‘No complaints. And you? How’ve you been?’

‘Fine. Still cooking anyway.’

He grinned. ‘Glad to hear it. How’s young Dan?’

The wrench of pain whenever Clara thought of him shot through her again. She shook her head, turned back to the muesli. ‘Dunno. I haven’t seen him in a while. We split up.’ Still hard to say, still needed to be tossed out quickly or it would get stuck.

‘Sorry.’ He wore a crumpled checked shirt and black jeans. His hair was longer and he needed a shave. ‘Me and my big mouth.’ He was interestingly scruffy.

Not that Clara was interested.

She knotted the top of her bag. ‘It’s OK, don’t worry about it. Happened quite a while ago.’ Then she began to turn away. ‘Well, nice to—’

And he said quickly, ‘Hey, d’you fancy a coffee?’

She hesitated. No, she wanted to say. No coffee. No anything. But it was only Douglas, who’d made them laugh with his stories of the cruise ships, who’d pretended to be cross when their cakes hadn’t risen. And it was only a cup of coffee.

And, whether she liked it or not, life went on.

‘OK, that’d be nice.’

She had a latte, and he had a black regular, and he told her about the student in his last group who’d misread the quantities in a recipe and ended up with
‘gingerbread you could break rocks on’, and the man who’d knocked a cheesecake off the table – ‘guess which side it landed on’ – and the Vegemite he craved when he wasn’t in Australia. ‘Listen, you can laugh, but it’s an addiction, I swear.’

And she told him about living with Siofra: ‘It’s a challenge sometimes. I suppose I’ve been spoiled, having all the home comforts until now,’ and about her mother acting as godmother for the first time in her life. ‘It’s her friend’s baby, she cried all through the christening – my mother, I mean, not the baby.’

And afterwards, when Douglas asked if she’d like to go out sometime, Clara gave him her phone number.

That hadn’t been in the plan. The plan had been never again. After Dan, after the night he’d sat beside her in the car and stammered that he was sorry, that he hated what he had to do—

She’d made a complete fool of herself. She cringed when she thought of it now. Not understanding him at first, not able to take in what he was saying – and then her dawning horror, and pleading with him, begging him not to leave her, bawling her eyes out. God, she’d really laid it on thick.

‘I trusted you. You said you’d look after me—’ Gasping it out, her breath coming in painful, sobbing bursts. ‘How can you just sit there and – I can’t believe – no, no, you
can’t—’
Thumping in despair against the dashboard, digging her nails into her palms to make the other pain go away. ‘No, no,
please
—’

And she’d still been aching for Dan, still scraped
raw from his rejection, when her mother had told her she wasn’t going to marry Greg after all.

‘What?’ They were sitting in the kitchen, it was Clara’s first visit home since she’d moved out. She’d walked past Dan’s house, praying that she wouldn’t meet him – or worse, his wife – and praying, at the same time, that he’d suddenly appear and beg her to take him back. ‘The wedding’s off?’

Yvonne didn’t seem upset. She didn’t look like Clara felt, as if her heart had been ripped out of her, as if Dan had torn her in two.

Yvonne picked up the teapot and refilled their cups. ‘Well, it was a mistake really. It would never have worked out – we’re better as friends.’

‘So … it was a mutual decision, then?’

‘Hmm … not exactly.’ Yvonne poured milk into her cup. ‘To be honest, it was mine, really. But Greg took it well.’ She smiled. ‘It’s for the best.’ Then she put a hand over Clara’s and said, ‘But how are you?’

And there was a time when Clara would have looked steadily back at her mother and said, ‘I’m fine.’ But those days were gone. She said, ‘I’m heartbroken. But I’m surviving.’ Because what else was there to do?

And a few Saturdays later, Yvonne told her the real reason she wasn’t marrying Greg. Kieran seemed perfectly pleasant, and the two of them certainly looked happy together.