‘What is it?’ Cat asks.
‘I know those people.’
Dieter sees him first. Noticing him stiffen, Sieglinde follows his gaze. There’s no escaping. ‘Alphonse!’ Her voice trembles.
Dieter hesitates, wondering whether or not to bring the trolley, then leaves it behind. ‘Hey, Fonzy,’ he says, apparently unaware that he’s moving his body back and forth as if at a wailing wall. ‘Nice hat.’
‘This is Cat,’ Alphonse says. ‘My partner.’
They shake hands. Dieter and Sieglinde laugh as if at a dirty joke.
‘We thought … ’ she starts. But she seems to have no idea what they thought.
‘We were … ’ says Dieter.
‘By chance … ’
‘Both suddenly all out of something!’
‘And we ran into each other here! Ha ha ha!’
‘Cheese!’ shouts Dieter.
‘He was all out! Ha ha ha!’
‘So I said … ’ Dieter gestures with his elbow in the direction of his neighbour. ‘Come on!’
‘Let’s go shopping!’
‘Okay,’ says Alphonse.
Five months, he thinks, but now he has to speak. They’re still grinding their teeth with those forced grins. ‘I’ve just finished the bedrooms. Hope you like the result.’
‘Oh, sure to! Absolutely! Thanks!’
‘Our place too! Very professional!’
‘Well then, let’s just carry on shopping,’ says Alphonse.
‘Yes!’ they shout in chorus.
Once they’ve percolated far enough between shelves insulated by bags of crisps, Cat plants a finger on his forehead. ‘Magnet.’
‘They’re neighbours. A few days ago they were still arguing like crazy,’ he explains, as quietly as he can.
‘And now they’re groping each other.’
‘You noticed?’
‘The only thing missing was a sandwich board saying “Affair”. They’re taking a risk, aren’t they? In a supermarket like this.’
‘They live even further away from here than we do.’
‘All the same! They were! Here! By chance!’
‘Shh. We’ll talk about it in the car.’
They spend the evening on a bed of harmonious gossip, casual affection, and shared vegetable-slicing. Cat is in the bath waiting for him when the telephone intrudes, the landline.
‘Let it ring,’ she says.
He picks up nevertheless and sits at the top of the stairs with the receiver to his ear.
‘It’s his,’ is the first thing Sieglinde says.
‘Dieter’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who knows that?’
‘You. Me.’
Why him? ‘I thought you hated each other till the other day.’
‘We did. But I always had more of a problem with Els. Dieter and I usually can’t stand each other either, but there is an attraction.’
‘Complicated.’
‘Horrendous.’
He can hear Cat getting out of the bath.
‘And Lana? Is she … ’
‘God, no! No, no no. It hasn’t been going on that long.’ She hesitates for a moment. ‘Haven’t you ever been in love with someone you could barely stand?’
‘No.’ He’s fairly confident of that answer.
‘Sometimes I think nature makes me fall in love with people to prevent me from murdering them. If I hadn’t been in love with them, I’d have murdered them, I mean.’
‘Does Ronny suspect anything?’
‘He’s at the doctor’s at the moment. With an insect in his ear.’
‘It was bothering him this morning. He asked if I could see it.’
A sigh. ‘There’s no insect in his ear. It’s psychosomatic. It always is with him.’
Cat walks past without touching or looking at him. She goes downstairs. He tries to grab the loose cord of her bathrobe but misses. Downstairs she turns on the television.
‘He could hear it buzzing, he said.’
‘Yes, yes,’ says Sieglinde. ‘He’s got a flat opposite that Delhaize supermarket. Dieter, I mean. Of course it’s not very clever to go shopping together. Business with pleasure, we thought. Since you caught us we’ve agreed that at the very least we’ll always take two trolleys in future.’
That dream of hers, he thinks. He has to wrap this up.
‘But about the baby, you’re no longer so frightened?’
‘I don’t know.’
The television is on in the living room.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Nothing. I just wanted to explain.’
‘Okay.’
‘The rooms look splendid, by the way.’
‘Thanks.’
They say their goodbyes. To explain. He fails to imagine anything specific about the attraction between Dieter and Sieglinde.
Cat has already fallen asleep on the sofa, nodded off in her bathrobe, her open laptop in her lap. On the coffee table is a bottle of white wine with only a centimetre left. She started it in the bath. He turns off the television and cautiously wakes her, aware that there’s little she dislikes more than being woken in the first phase of sleep. This evening is no exception. After sitting upright with closed eyes for a while, she goes upstairs without saying anything. When he puts his arm around her under the down cover, she shakes him off.
‘Your patients,’ she mumbles. That’s what she calls his clients sometimes.
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25
The
