12
“Open Your Borders”
The summer days grow longer but life gets shorter
the heart starts growing cold.
If you remain a loner you gotta take a chance,
get up and dance, you know the song.
Jack L, Broken Songs
August 2008
Jane missed Kurt more than she could ever have predicted. Every few days she’d find herself standing in his room, looking around but afraid to touch anything in case he noticed and freaked out upon his return. One day she lay on his bed and, staring up at the ceiling, thought about where he was and what he was doing and what kind of time he was having. Is every day a new adventure? Will he be sorry to come home? Will he come home? Oh Jesus, he’ll definitely come home, won’t he? Calm down, Jane. He’s on holiday, he hasn’t emigrated. Jesus Christ, what if he emigrates?
Jane felt a great emptiness in her house and heart since his departure. She missed Irene too, because even though she’d been part of their household for a short time, she had made her mark. Jane understood that Kurt’s extended holiday was merely preparing her for the day he’d leave home for good. She prayed he would get Medicine in Dublin because he had applied to Cork, Galway, and Belfast as backups. If he didn’t get Medicine in Dublin, he’d be gone from home sooner rather than later, and the permanent loss of her son was too great to contemplate.
As the days passed into weeks, Jane also noticed an uneasiness creeping into her mind. All the thoughts of fleeing home that she had long ago put to the back of her mind began pushing themselves forward. If he goes, I could go. If he’s starting his new life, I could start mine. I could sell this house, I could put Rose into a home where she wouldn’t be allowed to drink herself to death, and I could set Elle up in a cottage in a pretty place somewhere inspirational, somewhere other than down the end of her sister’s garden. I could take my life back.
As much as these thoughts excited Jane, she didn’t dwell on them long, because to take her life back would be to put everyone else’s in a spin, and poor old Janey wasn’t capable of deliberately upsetting her nearest and dearest. Besides, they needed her. It was unspoken but accepted in the family that Rose would be dead and Elle would be in some sort of state-run facility and most likely a prison without Jane’s presence, patience, and care.
In the early days of Kurt’s life, Jane had remained at home because she had no money and nowhere else to go, and although her mother did not provide any kind of assistance when it came to caring for the baby, she did feed them. Those first few years of Kurt’s life were the hardest and most miserable in Jane’s life, but they also ensured that she and Kurt became the center of each other’s universe.
When he was four and in school and Elle’s talent had been fully recognized, Jane made a decision to learn the business. This was because, according to Rose, a number of people had queued up “to take advantage of Elle,” and after Rose had driven them away, Elle was left unrepresented and desperate. Jane combed the streets of Dublin looking for a gallery owner to take her on for four mornings a week, and when one day she walked into a small gallery near Clanwilliam Street, a man in his sixties greeted her with a warm smile, and she knew even before they spoke that she had a job. Initially he told her he had no work, but she pressed him and told him as long as he was prepared to teach her everything he knew, she would work for him for free for a full year. He laughed, believing she was joking, but she was deadly serious, and as long as he didn’t mind that she left by midday he had himself some free labor.
Albert liked Jane from the first moment he saw her, and being a man who spent a great deal of his time alone since his beloved wife died, he was thrilled by the notion of company. He was also happy to pass on his knowledge, and luckily for Jane he was a teacher capable of making learning fascinating. Jane had been working with Albert one month before she brought him Elle’s paintings. He was blown away, and after Jane read a book on PR they had a showing that, thanks to a few tips from the book and Elle having a genuinely interesting angle to encourage media interest, was packed and a huge success. Jane had been working with Albert only four months when she received her first paycheck, and they continued to work together further for five years and were as close as father and daughter when Albert passed away one cold autumn evening. Albert and his lovely wife never had any children and he was the youngest of his generation, all his family and pals having gone before him, and so he left his business and home to the girl who had brought light and challenges into his final years. As it turned out, Albert’s gift of a home and business couldn’t have come at a better time because Rose had refinanced her house and hadn’t paid the mortgage in a year, and the bank was set to take their home from them. Because Rose liked to stick her head in the sand and because she was arrogant enough to think that the bank would wait for her to decide when she was good and ready to get the job necessary to make repayments, Jane took over. She sold Albert’s house and used the money to buy her mother’s home from her. At first Rose screamed and roared at Jane for trying to steal her house, but when Jane’s solicitor explained to Rose in no uncertain terms that if Jane didn’t take over the mortgage Rose would be homeless and that in buying her out Jane would be paying her over €100,000 in cash, Rose became far more amenable. There was enough money left to fix up the basement flat, which Rose had let go to rack and ruin, and when the contracts were signed and the money changed hands she became the owner of a large Georgian property, complete with garden cottage, at the age of twenty-seven. By the time Jane was thirty she had sold the small gallery that Albert had left her and moved into a bigger premises and named it after him. Since then Jane had run a successful business, and some would say that if it hadn’t been for her, Elle might not have done half as well. But now, despite owning her own home and running a successful business, Jane wondered whether or not there was something more to life. She thought about all the things she had wanted to do, medicine being one thing, traveling being another. She’d never been out of the country longer than two weeks and never farther than a beach resort complete with a kiddies’ club in Europe. As a girl she had dreamed of adventure: trekking in Brazilian rain forests, surfing off the coast of Mexico, going on safari in Kenya. And although her desire to get into medicine when she was a teenager had been tempered by her desire to get into Dominic’s pants, over the years she had grieved her lost opportunity because she knew that given the chance she would have made a good doctor, and God knew she had the patience. Maybe I could still do it? Don’t be a dick, Jane, you’re ancient.
Jane’s intermittent thoughts of escape were always interrupted by Rose or Elle. Rose was still suffering with stomach problems, but of course she wouldn’t admit it because to do so would be to accept that she had to lay off the booze, and she had no intention of ever doing that.
“We all have our crutches, Jane,” she said.
“Yeah, but most people’s crutches don’t cripple them.”
“I disagree.”
Every now and then Rose would clutch her stomach and breathe deeply.
“What can I do?” Jane asked.
“You can distract me.”
Jane stood up and broke into an Irish dance.
“Yes, very funny, Janey, you really should have your own sitcom.”
Jane sat down.
“Why don’t you tell me about Tom?” Rose said.
“What about him?”
“Well, how is he getting on? Have they found anyone who knows anything about the wedding ring?”
“They sourced it to a guy from Kent, who said he bought it from a man from Clare, and when they knocked his door down he said that he bought it in a flea market in Rathmines. He had thought it would make a nice ring for his girlfriend, but she got confused, thought he was asking her to marry him, and when she noticed that it was engraved with Alexandra’s name, she thought he was a cheapskate and broke up with him.”
“Well, how did it get into a flea market?”
“The owner swears she doesn’t know. She has receipts and a paper trail for everything else she’s ever bought or sold. It’s like someone just left it there.”
“And what does Tom think?”
“He thinks it’s hopeful; maybe she’s leaving us a clue how to find her.”
“Balls. She’s dead, long dead.”
“Rose, please don’t say that.”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous, Janey. Of course she’s dead! And if Tom was honest with himself he’d say so, and you can be sure the police have mentioned the likelihood on more than one occasion.”
“Let’s just stop talking.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Tom—you like him.”
“He’s a lovely man.”
“Don’t play coy with me, Jane Moore.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Rose!” Jane got up from her chair and turned to leave.
“You be careful—you’ve been a gobshit with men for far too long.”
“It’s ‘gobshite,’ Rose—the word you’re looking for is ‘gobshite,’ with an ‘e.’”
“You say tomato, Janey, and the point still stands: don’t be an eejit all your life. And judging by the dark circles and lines around your eyes, you’re not going to be pretty for much longer. So if you want a man, get your skates on.”
Jane slammed Rose’s front door. God, I hate that horrible old woman!
Four weeks into her hospice stay, Leslie was battling depression. Her surgeon had warned her that it was a possibility and explained the reasons why, but reason was hard to hold on to when everything inside her was screaming. She didn’t feel like talking, and when she could no longer sleep she just sat staring at the TV with a remote in her hand. Elle would sit with her, and sometimes she’d talk and sometimes she’d say nothing at all. Jane tried little tricks to brighten the place up, including colored balloons, a big cuddly toy, and scented candles. Tom told jokes, which Jane laughed at. Mostly they were jokes that Alexandra had told him. She loved jokes, and once she heard one she stored it and could regurgitate it verbatim at will. He wasn’t good at telling jokes and often forgot the punch line, and so it wasn’t necessarily the depression that prevented Leslie from laughing. Jim came in every second day. He’d fluff her pillows even if she didn’t want him to, and he’d fix the bed and poke around her locker, which annoyed her so much she’d be forced to talk to him.
“Will you just leave it be?”
“No, you’ve an apple in there and it’s gone off.”
“Just leave it.”
“No.” He threw the offending fruit in the wastebasket. “I might clean your sink.”
“The cleaners will do it.”
“Yeah, well, they’re not here right now and if you won’t talk to me …”
“What do you want to talk about?” She sighed deeply, indicating she was not amused by his neediness.
“I don’t know. How about flash floods?”
“Flash floods?”
“In Clonee, can you believe it? Cars were floating down the M50.”
“Well, it has pissed rain day and night for the past month.”
“I hate the rain,” he said, looking out at the dark gray sky and the rain hitting the window.
“Yeah.”
“I was thinking about going away. A week in the sun before the end of September maybe.”
“Good.”
“We could rent a car.”
“We?”
“You could get some sun on that sickly body of yours.”
“Thanks very much.”
“You could walk on the sand and soak up the sun, eat well, sleep because you’re tired and not because you’ve taken a bucket-load of sleeping tablets.”
“Stop monitoring me.”
“We could go to Greece or Spain or France—I bet it will still be nice there.”
“You really want to go on holiday with me?” she asked.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
She nodded.
“And we both need something to look forward to.”
She nodded.
“So when you’re feeling better and when your hormones are adjusted, we’ll go.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Maybe is good enough for now.”
After that she slipped away from him again, but he was happy enough to have elicited some chat and on the matter of a holiday a maybe was better than an outright no.
Tom was beginning to realize that he needed to fill his days with more than checking the Finding Alexandra and Jack Lukeman sites and hounding his liaison officer. His business was dead and buried, and the way things were starting to shape up for his competitors he was glad to be out of it. He’d heard through the grapevine that demand for new buildings was disappearing at a shocking rate. One builder he knew was close to bankruptcy and another was barely treading water. Once his accountant had finalized his tax and VAT for the end of the business year, he had money in the bank, and because he’d only rented his offices, he was free and clear. Getting back into the business of building was certainly not something he could consider in the current climate, and he wasn’t really qualified for anything else, having left school at sixteen to work with his dad on sites around Dublin. Tom’s mother suffered from dementia, and unfortunately for her and her family it took hold when she was young, and so from when Tom was ten she had no idea who he was. His father couldn’t care for her, so he put her into the best home that money could buy. The problem was he couldn’t pay for the home and for him and Tom at the same time. That was when Tom left school, and together they worked to pay the bills. At night Tom would watch TV and his father would drink, and that went on for four years, when he died of cirrhosis of the liver. There was a year to go on the mortgage, and Tom paid it off and sold the house and started his business. He and Jane had discussed their similar backgrounds one night over dinner. She told him about the father she had lost to heart failure, and she didn’t need to tell him about her drunken mother because he’d met her. She talked about leaving school to have Kurt and how Albert had given her her life back. He talked about his poor mother who had lost her mind long before she lost her life, and his dad who, unlike Jane’s mother, was a falling-down drunk incapable of stopping once he started and capable of disappearing for days on end. He talked about school too and admitted that at the time he had been delighted to leave, not having been one of the most academic of students and not having had any lofty career ambitions, but in the years since he had developed a keen interest in human rights.
“I know it sounds weird,” he said. “A bit hippy-dippy for a developer.”
“I think the fact that you’re using the term ‘hippy-dippy’ is weirder.”
Jane confided in him about her fear of living in that big house without her son.
“It’s totally understandable,” he said.
“It keeps me awake.”
“You need to start living for you again.”
“I think you need to take some of your own advice,” she said.
Tom stayed quiet for a moment. “Yes, there’s a part of me that knows you’re right.”
Jane had told him about her doomed love for Dominic as part of the apology for roaring at him the night she found him with Jeanette. He asked her about him now to change the subject.
“His marriage is over,” she said.
“He told you?”
“No, Elle did. He’s staying away.”
“Good.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It is actually, the first time in thirteen years I’ve a break from my son and his father.”
“And you’re not the slightest bit interested in how he is?”
“Nope,” she said. “I’m moving on.”
“Good for you.”
“What about Jeanette?”
“Oh don’t! I’m so embarrassed.”
“Trust me, I know how that feels.”
After they ate they walked together on Grafton Street. They stopped in front of a band playing for coins and listened to them for a while, and then they pottered on. Initially they were looking for a taxi, but as the rain had finally stopped and they were entertaining each other, they ended up walking all the way to Jane’s. She asked him in.
“I shouldn’t,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s getting late.”
“Okay,” she said, “good night.”
“Good night.”
They both stood there rooted to the spot.
“We’ll do it again soon,” he said.
“Great.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Tom bit his lip and Jane exhaled, and in that moment they were so close to kissing and yet so far from it. They heard the knocking and they both turned to see Rose tapping the glass. When she got their attention, she wagged her finger and pointed at Tom and gave him the finger. Jane and Tom laughed at the crazy drunk, and thankfully the moment passed.
Elle knocked on Dominic’s front door. He opened it and grinned. She walked inside, and he grabbed her by the ass. She slapped his hand, and then she ran to his bedroom with him hot on her heels. He gave chase around the bed, which she jumped over, and she ran down the hall into the spare room and around a chair. He tried to grab her, but she bobbed and weaved and ran to the boxroom, where he cornered her. They were both breathing heavily, and Dominic pinned her to the wall.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.
“That’s why it feels so good,” she said, and he kissed her and pulled at her panties, and she jumped on his hips, and if it hadn’t been for his bad back they would have finished up there but instead he finished lying flat on the floor. Afterward, when she’d returned from her shower and he was still lying there, she wondered if he was going to be okay.
“Fine,” he said, trying to make light of it.
“Good,” she said, “get up.”
He sighed and she helped him up. He rubbed his back and took two painkillers with water.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said.
“That’s nothing to what Jane would do to you if she found out.”
“But she won’t,” he said with alarm. “You won’t tell her.”
“No. I have as much to lose as you, if not more.”
Elle sat down at Dominic’s kitchen table and poured salt on it.
“So why are we doing this?” he asked. “And don’t say for fun.”
“Because I’m compulsive and you’d swing a leg over anything that moves.”
Afterward, when she’d gone and he was cleaning salt from his table with one hand and rubbing the small of his back with the other, he promised himself faithfully that he would not sleep with Elle again.
? ? ?
Leslie came out of the hospice on a Tuesday. Jim had the summer off from lecturing, so he offered to drive her home. Her spirits had picked up a little and she was looking forward to seeing her cat.
Deborah was in Leslie’s apartment cleaning out the kitty litter.
“Welcome home,” Deborah said, and she seemed genuinely glad to see her, but then again she had been feeding and cleaning up after a cat for nearly a month, and she hated cats the way some people hated iguanas.
“Thanks,” Leslie said, and she sat down on her sofa, because getting out of the car, walking to the lift, standing in the lift, and walking from the lift to the apartment had felt like a ten-mile hike.
The cat jumped up on the sofa and rubbed herself against Leslie and purred. Leslie rubbed the cat’s head and looked around at her apartment. It was good to be home.
Deborah finished cleaning the tray and made her excuses to leave. “It’s good to have you back,” she said again.
“It’s good to be back.”
When she’d gone, Leslie lay on the sofa and Jim made tea.
“Will you come out with me on Sunday?” he asked.
“Where?”
“Surprise.”
“I hate surprises.”
“Indulge me.”
“Why should I indulge you? I’m the one who’s just been mutilated.”
“Will you stop saying that?”
“It’s true.”
He wasn’t getting anywhere, so he decided to start again. “Will you come out with me on Sunday?”
“Where?”
“Leslie!”
“Tell me where.”
“It’s a garden center.”
She sat up slowly because even though she’d spent five and a half weeks lying in bed it still hurt to move.
“A garden center?”
“Yes.”
“I may be in menopause, but I’m not in my seventies.”
“It has a really good restaurant and the forecast is positive for once. The gardens are beautiful.”
“I’d rather just stay in.”
“Please.”
“Oh.” She sighed heavily. “Fine, we’ll go to your poxy gardens.”
“Great. And Leslie?”
“What?”
“You’re going to love it.” He grinned and winked at her.
She made a face. “I’ll be the one to decide that, shorty!” She laughed a little. She loved calling Jim names, and he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
Sunday arrived, and Jim picked Leslie up at midday. The car radio was on. Jack Lukeman was talking to a DJ about his upcoming shows.
“Oh shit,” she said. “I forgot to post them on the Web.”
“Do it later.”
“No, can’t.” She opened the door. “Wait here—it will only take five minutes.”
“Leslie, I don’t want to be late.”
“Trust me, the garden center will go on without us.”
Fifteen minutes later Jim appeared in the doorway, and he was not happy.
“Move,” he said.
“Two seconds,” she said.
“One, two,” he said, and he shut her laptop.
“Ah come on!”
“Get to the car!” he shouted, and he pointed.
“Right. Fine. Keep your high heels on.”
They were twenty minutes late. Jim was having a nightmare trying to find a parking space and he kept swearing, which was unlike him, and Leslie was beginning to wonder what the hell he was rushing for. When they finally found a parking space, he practically ran into the restaurant with Leslie following behind slowly and muttering that he was a pain in the ass.
She saw John first. Beside him his daughter, Sarah, was eating a burger and opposite them was a woman Leslie didn’t recognize. John glanced up and saw Leslie, then stood, pushing his chair back. Sarah looked up at her father and followed his eye line to where Leslie stood.
John was completely gray and his face was so lined it made Gordon Ramsay look Botoxed, and even though Sarah was sitting, Leslie could tell she was tall, like her mother, Nora. She had her dark complexion.
Jim grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the table.
John put his hand out to shake hers and she took it.
“It’s lovely to see you, Leslie,” he said.
“Good to see you, John.”
“And you know Sarah,” he said, “although the last time you saw her she was only five.”
“Hi, Leslie,” the teenager said.
“Hi, Sarah.”
“This is my wife, Claire.”
Claire offered her hand and Leslie shook it.
“It’s great to finally meet you,” Claire said.
Jim pushed a speechless Leslie onto a chair.
“I hope you don’t mind,” John said. “We were starving, so we went ahead and ordered.”
“No,” Leslie said, “not at all.”
Jim went off to get them some food, and she was left with Nora’s husband, her daughter, and John’s wife, and she hadn’t a clue what to say.
“I didn’t know that Jim had kept in touch with you,” she said after a while.
“Yeah,” John said. “Together in the trenches and all that.”
“I suppose,” she said.
“Jim told us about your operation,” Claire said. “Very brave.”
“Thank you.”
“If you think I’m doing what she’s done, you’re mad,” Sarah said to her father.
“Sarah!” he warned.
“You’ve been tested?” Leslie asked her niece.
“Not yet,” Sarah said. “Don’t want to know.”
“That’s crazy,” Claire said.
“We keep telling her it’s for her own good,” John said.
“I understand how she feels.” Leslie smiled at her sister’s child, who was a stranger to her.
Sarah smiled back, glad that someone at least had uttered those exact words.
Jim returned with food, and Leslie nibbled on it and listened to Sarah talk about her life, her hopes and dreams.
“Law, definitely law,” she said. “Dad says I could win an argument with Bono on the topic of his choice.”
“Like Nora,” Leslie said.
“Very like Nora,” John said.
“If I don’t get law I’m going to repeat until I do get it,” Sarah said.
“Good for you,” Leslie said.
“What do you do?” Sarah asked.
“I’m a webmaster.”
“Cool. What kind of websites?”
“All kinds.”
“Would I know of any?”
“A few gyms, a radio station—”
“Which one?”
“It’s a country one that specializes in folk.”
“Oh.”
“Jack Lukeman.”
“The singer?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, I love him!”
“Really?” Leslie said. “I could take you to a gig if you’d like.”
“Backstage?”
“I’m sure I could arrange something.”
“Can I take my pal?”
“Absolutely.”
“Cool.”
“Is that okay, John?” Leslie asked.
“It’s great,” he said and he smiled at Jim, who was sitting with a big smug grin on his face.
“Hey, Leslie?” Sarah said.
“Yes?”
“You don’t know U2, do you?”
“No.”
“Okay, worth a try.”
On the way home Jim was still wearing his smug expression.
“I don’t know what you’re so smug about—that little surprise of yours could have gone very wrong.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“That’s what family’s for.”
“Is that what we are?”
“I like to think so,” he said.
“I’m pretty selfish.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I cut out John, Sarah, and you because I thought I was doing you all a favor, but the truth is I was just protecting myself.”
“How do you work that out?”
“Sarah is going through what I went through. She faces the same challenges. I should have been there for her.”
“So you’ll be there for her now.”
“Yeah. I will.”
“Nora would be happy,” he said.
“Yes, I think she would,” she said, lying back. “And, Jim, let’s do as you said—let’s get away to the sun in September.”
“Ha ha! That’s the spirit!”
When Leslie went to bed that night she thought about Jane, Elle, Tom, Jim, John, Sarah, Claire, and even Deborah. She had so many people in her life who cared and wanted to care. She no longer felt alone.