She’d wanted to kiss him that night, she had. Only when he had pushed her backwards onto the bed and tugged at her dress, it was more abrupt and with greater force than seemed necessary. And never before had a man pressed his hand over her mouth as he reached greedily into her knickers. When he entered her, he had knelt hard with one knee onto her thigh, and kept her face pinned fast against the pillow, and even if she had wanted to scream out, she would have been unable. So she’d pretended that she had not wanted to scream, and that yes, she’d enjoyed it, and even allowed him to kiss her goodbye, then left herself the following day with her parents without telling anyone.
Veronica shook her head. She had barely thought about that night since, other than to laud her affair with an older man over her teenage schoolmates. Of course, with hindsight, it was easy to see why. If she had allowed herself to think about it, then she would have had to acknowledge that she had not actually intended to sleep with the older, influential friend of her father’s. And if she’d admitted how powerless she had in that moment been, then she would have had to acknowledge all the other areas in her life where she felt powerless too, and it was much better to feel strong and brazen, and to be in charge of herself and everything and everybody. Besides, she’d told herself then, and again now, she wasn’t underage, she hadn’t resisted, he hadn’t even been her first.
Yet the night was pushing its way back into her head, and there was a new thought too: had she been the first girl he’d taken that way? Had others followed after she said nothing?
Slowly, Veronica pulled a plastic bag from her blazer pocket and, in case of rain, tied it around the saddle of her bike. Then she spent a long time gathering her various bags and rummaging through them for her house key. At last, the boy crossed over.
Up close, his face didn’t look anything like his mother’s. Though hers had been pale and a little gaunt, the complexion disturbed by patches of red, her eyes had been strikingly large and blue, her lips full. The boy’s upper lip barely existed. His eyes were beady and too close together. His skin was darker than his mother’s, but instead of the luxurious olive or velvet tones she often admired, his had come out a dull fawn that gave a sense of poor health. He was the kind of child to whom, if he’d turned up in her class, she would probably have taken an early and irrational dislike. Though she would of course have tried not to.
“Hello,” she smiled genially as he reached his doorstep. “I’m your new neighbour, Veronica.”
The boy didn’t look at her. “Hi,” he muttered in a show of haste, but despite having key in hand, he waited a moment in front of his door.
Veronica took this as a sign to continue. “I met your mother yesterday,” she said, glancing up to his flat. “Is she in now?”
“I dunno,” said the boy. “Sometimes she’s not.”
“Oh, does she work?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders. Still he didn’t make to go inside.
“Is your dad home? I haven’t met him yet.”
“He’s not my dad,” the boy declared, quickly, before, as though correcting his openness, shrugging again.
“What’s your name?” Veronica asked. She was watching him closely, the frail hunch of his skinny shoulders, the sharp darting of his eyes. He gave the impression of one of those meerkats you see in zoos – small and furry, but deeply alert, likely to bite.
“Dom. Dominic, but Dom.” The boy was finally looking at her, and now that he was, there was an unnerving focus to his stare. Though she was used to talking to children, Veronica felt an odd wariness.
“And how old are you, Dom?”
“Eleven. It’s my last year in primaries.”
“I teach in a primary school,” said Veronica. “What subject do you like?”
At this, Dominic returned his eyes to his door. Again, he shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Well I like English,” Veronica continued hastily. “I love books. Don’t tell my students, but I’m awful at maths.”
Dominic looked at her again, the focus still intense. “I won’t tell,” he assured her.
She smiled at him with exaggerated gratitude.
He didn’t move. His eyes held hers.
“Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Dom.” Veronica said this with forced breeziness. Part of her wanted to keep talking, to keep the boy outside with her, to find out what was going on in that flat, to make sure the boy’s mum was alright, and the baby; but another part of her was suddenly compelled to get away. “I’ll see you later,” she said. “Please send your mum my best.”
She trod the single step up to her own door, and he nodded. Simultaneously, they turned their keys. From inside Dominic’s house came the sound of a TV blaring. From inside Veronica’s, the beeping of the alarm.
By the time George arrived home, Veronica had already made her signature Thai green curry – one of a handful of dishes that she had learned the recipe to, didn’t require too much cooking nous, and she produced in rotation; she had enjoyed a first bath in their new freestanding tub, the water thankfully dulling the leg itch; and she had texted Sarah. It was a carefully crafted text, offering three dates over the next two weeks for dinner, and alluding gently to their friendship of old. It had only lasted a short time, during their first year at secondary school, before the move to Oman and the start of her boarding, but it had been an intense affair, all endless love and drama, and Veronica often thought of that year as one of her happiest. Perhaps it was because she’d been living at home with her parents, or because she’d liked her school, or any number of other factors, but in her mind it had always been because of Sarah. Veronica conjured her as somebody who made her feel strong, stronger than she was, and over the years there had been more than one occasion when Sarah had sprung into Veronica’s mind: her sincerity and gravity; or the ease with which she’d argued with and adored her sister and parents; or the taste of her mother’s Bolognese. So it was a genuine joy for Veronica to see her again. There was something about it that lifted her. Strengthened her. It seemed serendipitous that she had reappeared at this particular juncture.
George seemed largely unfazed by the coincidence. “I suppose it’s not that surprising. Most people tend to stick around the areas they grow up in.”
Veronica took a sip of her wine – still three days clear of ovulation. “Yes, but out of all the people I could have seen – her, my absolute best friend.”
They were sitting in the living room, drinking wine while they indulged in a Netflix box set. It was almost midnight and George would be up again in less than six hours, she in seven, but on nights when he came home as late as this, if they didn’t stretch the hours of evening, they would barely see each other. Wine helped to mask the cracks in this joint gesture of sacrifice. There was a time when their legs would have been intertwined on the sofa, a time when their hands and lips would have been light with small caresses, a time when the depth of their conversation had felt endless.
“Your best friend for a year.”
“A year is a long time in the life of an eleven-year-old.”
“When I was eleven, I was best boys with Richard Darfus. Do you know what he does now? He’s a brain surgeon. An actual brain surgeon.”