‘Is Danny into computers?’
Paul shook his head. ‘He doesn’t get it. Danny’s good with mechanical things – cars and stuff. He likes using computers, but he doesn’t
love
them.’
It was fairly transparent that Paul pitied his brother.
I
felt similarly uncertain about how computers actually worked – email and online shopping were about as much as I could manage – but I didn’t want Paul to lump me in with the semi-skilled users like his brother. It was important to me to gain his trust. I was starting to think I might be able to help Paul. I could rescue him, set him on the right track. All he needed was a little encouragement.
‘And so Danny goes out to work, and you stay here, is that right?’ I asked gently, careful to keep any criticism out of my voice.
‘Yeah. Don’t have to go out any more. I do the shopping and stuff online and they deliver it. Danny gets anything else we need. He looks after me.’
There was looking after and looking after. Danny had given his brother a roof over his head and supported him when he dropped out of school. He obviously encouraged the boy in his computer studies. He’d probably been more of a dad to him than his own father. But set against that was the catastrophic weight gain he had done nothing to stop. Paul had been allowed to run away from the problems he’d had in school rather than dealing with them. It wasn’t ideal.
As I watched, Paul absorbed two more biscuits and flicked to the index of the book he was holding, completely engrossed. Maybe it wasn’t fair to Danny to criticise him. There was something steely running through Paul, disguised though it was by his soft, swollen appearance. If he wanted to eat, was there anything anyone could do to stop him? It wasn’t as if I had ever been able to prevent my mother from drinking. Could I expect Danny to do better for his brother?
I had been supporting my chin on my hand, watching Paul read. I must have made some small movement, because my elbow skidded on a loose piece of paper and shot into a pile of books, knocking them to the floor with a clatter. I jumped out of my chair and started to gather them up, smoothing out crumpled pages and stacking them neatly. With some difficulty, Paul bent down to retrieve a couple of sheets of closely written foolscap that had slid under his chair. The effort made him grunt like an old man, and I fiercely regretted whatever had driven him to find comfort in food. It was wrong that a twelve-year-old boy should be almost unable to bend down to pick up a piece of paper.
When I finally straightened up with the stack of books and slid them on to the table, I noticed a copy of the local paper that had been hidden under the pile. Under Carol Shapley’s byline, there was an account of Jenny’s death beside a large colour picture of the girl. I lifted the paper and laid it to one side, not wanting to put the books down on top of Jenny’s photograph. It felt disrespectful, somehow. Paul was gazing at the paper too, an odd expression on his face.
‘You were her teacher.’
I was surprised. ‘Jenny? That’s right. How did you know?’
‘I knew her from primary school.’ On closer inspection, his eyes weren’t piggy as I had assumed, but dark brown and rather beautiful. They were almost lost in twin canyons of flesh that creased to his temples, and as I watched, moisture slid along the folds. He rubbed at them with a grubby paw. ‘Do you know what happened?’
I shook my head. ‘The police are investigating, though. I’m sure they’ll find whoever did this to her.’
He flashed a look at me, then stared down at the paper again. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’
‘Did you see much of her?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Now and then. Used to help her with her maths when she needed it. She was lovely. Never said anything nasty about me. She didn’t care about … about this.’ He gestured at his body, his movements suddenly awkward. I bit my lip as his face twisted and he buried his head in his arms, shoulders shaking. I reached across the table and patted his arm, trying to comfort him. After a minute or two, he looked up at me, his face red and shiny with tears.
‘I just … I just
miss
her.’
‘Me too,’ I whispered, on the edge of tears myself. ‘Me too.’
As I left the house, I told Paul that he needed to do more than sit in front of a computer all day.
‘You should think about going back to school.’
‘School’s boring.’
‘School’s the best place for you,’ I countered. ‘There’s more to life than computers. When was the last time you read a book that wasn’t about maths or machines?’
He rolled his eyes expressively. ‘OK, teacher. I’ll read something else.’
‘Make sure you do.’ I waved and headed back across the road, starting to think about novels that he might enjoy – I could borrow them from the school library. He was clearly
such
a bright boy, but he needed to broaden his horizons. I would talk to Danny about it, I decided. I could follow up by asking about Charlie. Out of all of these shattered lives – Charlie’s, mine, Danny’s, Mum’s even – Paul’s might be put back together.
The smell of the Keanes’ house stayed on my clothes and in my hair for hours afterwards. Without really analysing why, I found myself cleaning the whole house obsessively – dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, the works. I cleaned the bathroom and my bedroom, but not the living room, where Mum was spending the day watching television, the glass in front of her refilling, as if by magic, every time it got within a swallow of being empty. When I put my head around the door, she gave me a look Medusa would have been proud of. I withdrew.
It was only when I was on my knees cleaning the oven that it occurred to me that I was reacting to the grimy house across the road, where everything I touched had had a film of grease on it and crumbs dusted every surface. I couldn’t live with the thought that our house would look like that to an outsider – unkempt, ignored, barren. I watered the plants on the kitchen windowsill, even though they were half dead and wholly unlovely. I made the windows gleam and the floor shine, and I replaced the mustiness of undisturbed air with lemon-scented chemicals and an unseasonably sharp breeze from outside. I even took everything out of the kitchen cupboards and cleaned them, getting right in to the back. Appliances that I barely recognised, let alone knew how to use, stacked up along the counter, straggling plugs that hung off the end of
tortured
flexes. I doubted that any would pass contemporary safety testing; they looked as if they would burst into flames as soon as you plugged them in. I found blenders, mixers, even what I identified incredulously as a yoghurt-maker. Without a second thought I filled a box with out-of-date kitchenware. We’d had a charity leaflet through the door asking for donations. They were in the area collecting early on Saturday morning and were looking for unwanted household goods. These things definitely counted as unwanted. In all honesty, I couldn’t imagine anyone else wanting them either, but surely it was better than just throwing them away. At the back of another cupboard, behind a stack of pink-flowered plates I didn’t recognise and couldn’t remember ever having seen in use, I found a small plastic plate and cup decorated with a strawberry motif. I sat back on my heels by the open door and turned them over and over. I hadn’t seen them for years. These were the only utensils I would consider using until I went to school. There was even a photograph in the album of Mum and me in the garden, when I was about three. I was eating a sandwich off my special plate while she held a toy parasol over my head to shade me from the sun, and laughed at me. It must have been high summer; she wore a striped sundress with spaghetti straps. The memory of sitting on the grass with Mum was sharp and bright. Love, indulgence, care, tenderness – I had known these once. It was just that my luck had run out when Charlie’s did.
I blinked back tears. For some reason, it went right to my heart that Mum had kept the plate and cup. Of course, she had obsessively preserved a lot of things in our house,
but
that was to do with Charlie, with trying to pretend that nothing had changed since the day he disappeared. This was different. This was about me. More than that, it was the kind of thing a normal mother might do. It was one tiny, fragile link with a woman I had never known, something that I might have laughed about with her if things had been different. If things hadn’t fallen apart. I put the little plate and cup back in the cupboard with a sigh, and carried on.
It was getting dark by the time I’d finished. I hefted the box of fossilised electrical goods down to the end of the path, where the charity collectors couldn’t miss it. I straightened up, hands on hips, and at that moment, a car door slammed. I whipped around, sure as I could be that someone was behind me, my heart thumping. The adrenalin ebbed away at the sight of the empty road, the blank-windowed houses like so many false fronts in a Wild West town. Nothing moved. No one spoke. I peered to left and right, squinting to see if anyone lurked in the shadows, then headed for the house. I felt slightly ridiculous as I scanned the view from the front step before shutting and bolting the door, but after all, I still had the bruises to show for my last display of witless bravado. From now on, I had decided, if I felt threatened, I was going to react accordingly. Ignoring my instincts could have got me killed.
Of course, it doesn’t matter how many locks and bolts you have on a door if you open it just because someone rings the bell. I knew this. But in spite of myself, and in spite of the fact that it was after ten and I wasn’t expecting
anyone
to call, I hurried to answer the front door while the air still vibrated. The sound had set my nerves jangling too and my heart was thudding as I opened the door, leaving the chain on, still wary. Through the narrow gap, I could see a huge bunch of lilies and roses wrapped up in shiny cellophane and curling florist’s ribbon. The flowers quivered invitingly, hiding the person holding them from my view.
‘Yes?’ I said, and was somehow not surprised, but still disappointed, when the bouquet was lowered to reveal Geoff’s face.
‘Not the welcome I was hoping for, but OK.’ His eyes were bright with excitement and he was grinning as if we were sharing a joke, just the two of us. ‘I wanted to give you these.’
I stared back stonily, not charmed. ‘Why?’
‘Does there have to be a reason?’
‘For you to buy me flowers? I would have thought so, yes.’
Geoff sighed. ‘I saw them and I thought they were as beautiful as you, then.’ He pushed at the door, and the chain thrummed. He frowned. ‘Aren’t you going to open the door properly?’
‘I think I’ll leave it as it is,’ I said, resisting the urge to slam the door on his hand.
He gave a somewhat strained laugh. ‘Well, the flowers won’t fit through that gap, Sarah. Unless you want me to slide them through stem by stem.’
‘Please don’t. Look, Geoff, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I don’t really need any flowers.’
‘No one
needs
flowers, Sarah. People like to have them, though.’
I held on to the latch, trying to sound firm. ‘Not me.’
‘That’s too bad. No flowers for you, then.’ Before I could say anything else, he threw the whole bunch over his shoulder. I heard them crash to the ground behind him. I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it again, nonplussed.
Now unencumbered, he leaned against the door frame. Before I had time to react, he had snaked a hand through the gap in the door and ran it down my hip, pulling me towards him. ‘Unorthodox, but if you want to play it that way, OK …’
I stepped back smartly, out of range. ‘I don’t want to “play it” any way. What the hell are you doing?’
He pushed against the door again, hard. His face had gone red. ‘For God’s sake, I’m just being friendly, that’s all. Why are you acting as if I’m threatening you?’
‘Maybe because I feel threatened?’
‘I wanted to give you some flowers,’ he went on, as if I hadn’t said anything. ‘Just a bunch of flowers. There’s no need to be such a bitch about it.
You
said you wanted us to be friends. You said it yourself. This isn’t very friendly, Sarah.’
‘Well, maybe I was wrong about being friends.’ I realised with a sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to get Geoff to go away and stop bothering me by being nice. I’d tried ignoring him. I’d tried being friendly but firm. It was time to be blunt. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve misled you about how I feel, Geoff. I’m just not interested in you. I don’t even really
like
you, if I’m honest. I think you should just leave me alone.’ There wasn’t much that he could misinterpret about that.
He bit his lip, then punched the door frame so hard that he must have hurt his hand, but he didn’t seem to notice. I retreated to the foot of the stairs and hung on to the newel post, my heart fluttering in my chest.
‘It’s always about you, isn’t it? Never what
I
want.’
‘It’s
always
what you want! You don’t listen. I’ve never encouraged you to feel anything for me. I would never go out with a colleague. And even if you weren’t working at the school, I would never have been interested in you. We have nothing in common.’ I shook my head. ‘For God’s sake, Geoff, you don’t even know me.’
‘Because every time I try to get near you, you run away.’ He sighed. ‘Just stop fighting me, Sarah. Why won’t you let me get close to you? Is it because you’re afraid of being with me? Afraid of actually feeling something for a change?’ His voice deepened. ‘I know this ice-princess routine is all an act. I could make you happy. I know what women like. I could teach you to love yourself – and your body – the way I do.’
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. ‘Do you really think I’m frigid just because I don’t want to sleep with you?’
‘Well, what’s the problem, then?’ He sounded affronted. He honestly couldn’t understand how I wouldn’t find him attractive.
‘I don’t like you. I don’t fancy you. And to be honest, I don’t trust you.’
‘That’s lovely, that is. Charming. How do you think
I
feel? I go to a lot of trouble to be nice to you, I make every effort to be there for you, and I get nothing in return. I’ve always liked you, Sarah, even though you can be a stuck-up bitch sometimes, but I’ve had enough, quite frankly.’