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.