Литагент HarperCollins - Shadow Sister

‘Excuse me, are you trying to say that it’s my fault? That I asked for this?’

‘No, of course not.’ Raoul leans over the table towards me and places his hand on top of mine. He asks if I can deny that I work in the kind of environment where this kind of thing happens. He’s always been worried about something like this, he says, and he hopes I’ll finally see sense.

‘See sense?’ I repeat.

‘You can start at Software International right away if you like.’

I sigh and study the congealed curry on my plate, the grains of rice on the white tablecloth, and the yellow stains around Valerie’s place. I’ve never managed to convey the satisfaction I get from teaching to Raoul. He only seems to see the problems. He calls my work ‘farting into the wind’. If I were to transfer to Saint Laurens College, a private school in Hillegersberg, he might be able to understand it, but a poor, state school.

‘It’s not all trouble at school,’ I say. ‘I have a great time with most of the students. I feel like I can affect their lives in a positive way, and I don’t just mean in terms of their education. You know that.’

Raoul doesn’t look like he does know. He remains silent.

‘So you’re just going to carry on,’ he says eventually. ‘Despite the students you’re working your ass off for coming at you with knives. Are you surprised that I find your logic hard to follow?’

‘I do understand your point, but every profession has its risks,’ I say. ‘If you were a policeman, I wouldn’t keep banging on at you to find safer work, would I?’

‘I sell software,’ Raoul reminds me.

‘But you wanted to be a pilot and you would have been if your eyesight had been good enough,’ I say. ‘That’s not a job without risks.’

Raoul raises his hands in the air and lets them drop. ‘Fine! Go and teach those half-wits tomorrow. Pretend that nothing has happened. But tell me how I’m going to explain it to Valerie when her mother gets seriously injured one day.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Raoul. You’re acting like this happens on a daily basis.’

‘Once is enough as far as I’m concerned.’

I’m bewildered. I’d have been better off saying nothing. Instead of being worried and supportive, he’s twisted it into proof that I shouldn’t teach. Don’t get me wrong, I love Raoul dearly, but sometimes he’s got the sensitivity of a grizzly bear. A memory flashes through my mind: Valerie wanting to cycle without training wheels and being too impatient to wait for Raoul after he’d unscrewed them. She rode off and of course she crashed. There she was on the ground with a bloody nose and grazed knees. The first thing Raoul did was to ask her why she hadn’t listened to him. He picked her up and consoled her afterwards, but I would have done it the other way round.

I stack up the plates and dishes and take them to the kitchen where I rinse the scraps of food off the plates. I finish clearing the table with agitated movements and shake out the tablecloth outside. Raoul doesn’t get up or come over to me until I’ve put the vase of peonies back on the table and pushed the chairs in. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me towards him. I let him kiss my neck, but don’t react to his tenderness.

‘I’m upset by it, don’t you understand that?’ Raoul says softly.

I lean back against him and feel his body warmth through my clothes.

‘I’m upset too,’ I say. ‘A bit of understanding and support would be nice.’

‘Sorry,’ Raoul says, his cheek against mine. ‘Have the police already done anything?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I didn’t report it.’

‘Oh?’

I hear the amazement in his voice and brace myself, but his reaction takes me by surprise.

‘Oh well, I don’t suppose there’s much they could do.’

Raoul pulls me even more tightly towards him, ‘If he’d really stabbed you, he’d have gone to prison, but I think they’d only caution him and let him go for this.’

I study the bright peonies on the table. ‘Yes,’ I say finally, after my day of turmoil, reflection and changes of mind. ‘That’s what I think as well.’

We go to bed late. I have a hot, soothing shower and as I dry myself and apply night cream, I hear Raoul checking the locks more attentively than usual and I’m glad that he’s here to make me feel safe. I snuggle against him in bed and close my eyes with a deep sense of security.

‘Sleep well.’ Raoul kisses me on the forehead.

‘Sleep well,’ I murmur.

I’m exhausted, but after an hour I’m still curled up against Raoul, waiting to fall asleep. I roll onto my other side. Raoul is snoring lightly and I tap him before it gets any louder. I know what’s coming next.

‘What is it?’ Raoul mumbles, drunk with sleep.

‘You’re snoring,’ I say quietly. ‘Lie on your other side for a bit.’

‘I’m not snoring.’

‘You were snoring, I could hear it.’

‘I’m not even asleep,’ Raoul says.

‘You were asleep.’

‘So why didn’t I hear anything if I was awake then?’ Raoul asks, also irritated.

‘Because you were asleep! You were asleep and snoring!’

Raoul mutters, turns over and after a few minutes is asleep again. And snoring.

I sigh and get some earplugs from the bedside drawer. But even my earplugs can’t combat the number of decibels Raoul can produce at night. After fifteen minutes I give up and take my pillow to the spare bedroom. I set the alarm clock on the bedside table and close the curtains with a single swipe. As I’m doing it, my subconscious registers something strange. I open the curtain a chink. Someone is standing outside our house, on the other side of the street. A dark figure with a cigarette in his hand. I presume it’s a man – I can’t imagine that a woman would stand there smoking a cigarette in the middle of the night.

Bilal comes to mind.

I try my hardest to make him out, but I can’t from this distance. Finally the figure moves off, with the slouchy, indifferent walk so typical of my students. Shivering in the cool night air, I watch until he has disappeared. What should I do? There’s no point calling the police – even if they find him, there’s nothing illegal about staring at a house in the middle of the night.

I turn back the duvet and slide into bed, but the chances that I’ll fall asleep now are virtually nil. The image of the sharp point of the knife forces itself into my mind and is amplified many times in the darkness.

I’m up at the crack of dawn the next morning and leave the house half an hour earlier than normal. Raoul and Valerie are usually getting up when I put on my coat, and I give them a quick kiss before I get into my car. This morning they are still asleep, but I enjoy the quietness of my departure. Thoughts race through my mind: I want to go to school and yet I’m dreading entering the building. What am I going to do if I come across Bilal? Jan might have suspended him, but that won’t necessarily keep him away.

I drive through the misty Rotterdam rush hour with a sense of foreboding. A grimy figure jumps out in front of the car at a red light. He holds up a sponge and a bucket. I nod, and he washes my windscreen with sweeping strokes. It only takes him a minute. I gaze sympathetically at his neglected appearance, his long knotted beard and worn-out army jacket. I let my window down slightly and say, ‘Hi, Tom!’

Tom gives me a smile that’s missing at least two teeth and holds out his hand.

I press five euros into his hand. ‘Get yourself a good meal for once, Tom.’ Sometimes I give him one euro, others two and occasionally even a ten euro note. It depends how cold it is outside and how bedraggled he’s looking.