Alexandra, Gone

2

“Fear Is the Key”

All the shapes in the dark are playing with your heart,
fear is always near.
It’ll never set you free, it’ll never let you be,
once you let it in all the fun begins,
‘cos fear is all you’ll breathe.
Jack L & the Black Romantics, Wax

October 2007

The night was damp and overcast. Jane had thought twice about whether she actually wanted to go out. It had been a long and tiring day, but she had promised her younger sister, Elle, and Elle did not handle disappointment well. The gig had been due to start at nine. It was just after ten. They had missed the supporting act, and Jack Lukeman would already be onstage. The venue didn’t have a car park, and because of a lack of inner-city knowledge and a pathological fear of driving the wrong way up one-way streets, Jane had parked the car miles away. They were already late and so were forced to run from the car park to the venue, and just as they turned the first corner the rain came tumbling down. Neither sister had an umbrella. Elle had a hood, but as she ran it insisted on falling back off her head. She held it tight around her face and continued to run, with Jane doing her best to keep up in heels and praying she wouldn’t break an ankle.
At the door they fumbled for their tickets and, once they had presented them to the bouncer with the build of a silverback gorilla and the manner of a brick, he waved them through.
“Move,” he said.
“Charming,” Elle said, and Jane widened her eyes and tightened her mouth, which signaled to Elle to shut up.
They passed a disheveled man who was considerably drier than they were. He was standing behind the box office and between the lifts and the stairs. He handed them each a flyer with a picture of a woman on it.
“If you see her, there’s a number you can contact me at,” he said.
Neither of them looked at the flyer because they could hear Jack singing “Don’t Fall in Love.” Elle spotted the lift. “We’re in the gods, let’s get the lift.”
“I hate the lift.”
“We’re missing the show.” Elle pouted.
Jane sighed, and Elle knew that she had gotten her way. She pressed the button for the lift just as the silverback charmer looked at his watch and started to close the main doors. A woman in a full-length plastic see-through raincoat that was pulled tight around her face and knotted with a toggle under her chin pushed her ticket against the window and her foot in the doorway. The bouncer considered whether to let her in or to attempt to amputate her foot for a second or two before he opened it, took her ticket, and allowed her to enter.
Elle smiled as the walking condom approached her. Well, that’s one way of keeping dry. The human condom ignored the leaflet man’s attempt to hand her a flyer and stood behind Jane, who was busy mentally preparing to encase herself in a small space. Don’t freak out. It will all be over in seconds. The silverback charmer bolted the front door. The leaflet man packed away his remaining leaflets into a briefcase and stood behind Elle, waiting for the lift. The red light appeared over the doors and they heard a ding. Elle was first in, followed by the human condom and the leaflet man. Jane was frozen, but only for a second. When she realized that her sister and the two strange strangers were staring at her, she made her legs move toward them to avoid embarrassment. The doors closed, and Jane breathed in and out slowly and surely. Ten seconds and it will be over. Count back to one. Ten …nine …
Elle could hear Jack singing clearly: “Don’t fall in love with the girls around here, you give them your heart they soon disappear.” She sang along quietly: “They come from country towns and live on Crescent Street and all that they share are the secrets they keep.”
Jane counted in her head: …five …four …
Elle became slightly louder as the song was reaching its conclusion, “La, la, la, la, la, la, la!”
The human condom and the leaflet man stared forward, ignoring the tone-deaf girl who was compromising their enjoyment of the song by obscuring Jack L with her off-key wailing. Jane continued to breathe and count: …three …two …
The lights went off. The lift ground to a stop with such a jolt that all four passengers automatically braced themselves. Jane stopped counting, Elle stopped wailing, and outside the music stopped playing. Only Jack L continued to sing. He finished the last line of the song without mike or music. The crowd cheered and roared, and Elle found herself staring from her sister, whose legs had gone from under her and who was suddenly sitting on the floor, to the human condom hanging on to the rail, to the leaflet man who seemed to be holding on to his briefcase for dear life. Outside the crowd was still roaring, and it was all so strange, and she liked it.
“What’s going on?” she asked with a grin spreading across her face. “Do you think it’s a fire?”
Jane’s breathing was becoming shallower and faster, and so she was in no position to respond. The leaflet man shook his head before telling her that if there was a fire, the alarm would ring. The human condom undid her toggle and pulled her see-through raincoat from her head to reveal short black hair streaked with gray and sprinkled with white.
“It’s a power cut,” she said, “probably the damn weather. I knew I shouldn’t come out tonight, but I just wouldn’t listen to myself.” She took off her coat and rolled it up and put it into her oversized bag and sat on the floor next to Jane, who was trying her best not to hyperventilate. “Is she okay?” the leaflet man asked Elle, referring to Jane.
“She’s got a thing about lifts,” Elle said. “Hang in there, Janey.” She squatted and brushed her sister’s wet blond hair from her face. “It won’t be long now.”
For some reason the human condom found it necessary to correct her. “Actually, it could be hours.”
Jane grabbed Elle’s hand and squeezed it hard.
Elle looked at the human condom and shook her head. “Not cool, Condom. Not cool at all.”
The human condom and the leaflet man stared at her quizzically, and both wondered if they had heard her correctly, but their musings were interrupted by a man using a loudspeaker to address the audience.
Jane looked around the lift, wide-eyed. “What’s happening out there?” she asked breathlessly.
“Shush,” the condom said, placing her finger to her lips.
Onstage, Jack L and his band stood back, allowing the manager of the venue to fix his handheld microphone before making a second attempt to speak to the crowd without the loud screeching he’d nearly deafened himself with on his first attempt. The crowd was mumbling and shuffling and waiting for him to get off stage. Jack began to bounce behind him, and the audience laughed. The manager was taking too long to get the mike working, and Jack was in performance mode. He bounded across the stage like a puppy and threw his arm around the manager, who was now red-faced and fumbling. The man was scared. He was scared because Jack was well known for being as unpredictable as he was energetic and as mischievous as he was hypnotic. He prayed he wouldn’t be the butt of one of the singer’s jokes and sighed with relief when he got the mike working well enough so that it screeched only intermittently.
He explained that the entire street was experiencing a blackout. He wasn’t aware how long the problem would last, and he apologized because for some reason the backup generator wasn’t working as it should.
Back in the lift, the human condom’s ear was to the door.
“What?” Elle said.
“As I said, it’s a blackout.”
“So what now?” Elle asked.
“Shush,” she said, “and I’ll tell you.”
Onstage, the manager assured the audience he had someone working on it and that if the generator didn’t kick in within the next ten minutes they could have their money back, but they booed him and that was when Jack took the mike from him. Jack was fired up and ready to play, and electricity was not something he was short of. He paced the stage like a caged panther before placing the mike to his mouth.
“I’m not ready to leave,” he said, and the crowd roared its approval.
Jack would often be described as anything from sexy to forbidding, one commentator even going so far as to describe him as the result of a struggle between a vampire and a wolfman. That night his mood and demeanor could only be described as a hybrid of Jack Nicholson’s malevolent Joker and Johnny Depp’s playful pirate.
Jack bounded toward the side of the stage. In the blink of an eye he had scaled the wall and was hanging out of the balcony.
“So are we going to do this?” he shouted. The audience screamed to signal it was. His dark arched eyebrows rose, his big wide grin appeared, and he jumped back onto the stage from the considerable height. “Let’s do it, then!” he said, and the crowd roared. He handed the mike to the manager, who was still standing on the stage and staring at the wall the singer had seemingly walked up, his mouth slightly agape. Jack patted him on the back. The manager walked offstage, thinking that he was going to have to put a sign up in the dressing rooms asking artists not to walk on the walls, while ruminating as to how the man had managed it.
Jack pushed his hand through his shock of thick black hair, then turned to his guitar player and unplugged his guitar, and the crowd roared. The roadie handed the guitarist an acoustic guitar, and he fixed it around his neck. Jack looked toward the drummer, who took out his brushes and held them high.
The crowd roared again.
In the lift, the four captives wondered what was going on.
“He’s not going to play, is he?” Jane said between deep breaths.
“I think he is,” Elle said.
Onstage, Jack nodded and leaned into the guitar player and said something unheard. The guitar player picked out the familiar chords to “Move On,” and Jack opened his mouth and his haunting, mythical voice emerged as clearly as though it was still amplified, and in that second he silenced the crowd.
And as soon as he began to sing, inside the lift his voice resonated as though he was in there with them.
“Ah Jesus, I love this song!” the condom said, punching the lift door. She slumped to the floor, leaving leaflet man as the only one still standing.
Makes no difference who you are, love will find you, yeah,
Opera or movie star, love will find your path.
All the money in the world won’t save you from that.
All the beauty in the world you can’t just cover your tracks …
The audience joined in for the chorus:
And if you move on it will keep up
And if you jump town you know you’ll be found.
“Should we make some noise?” Elle asked after a minute or two of the group sitting in silence save for Jane’s panting and Jack’s singing.
“The bouncer will realize we’re in the lift,” the leaflet man said, hoping that the bouncer was slightly more conscientious than his earlier encounter with him had suggested.
“The silverback?” Elle snorted. “Fat chance.”
“She’s right,” the condom said. “He was probably too busy picking fleas out of his ass to notice us getting in.”
Elle laughed, clearly entertained by the condom’s crudity and her ability to pick up on and run with the primate theme. Leaflet man looked at the doors and decided to try to force them apart. He couldn’t get his fingers between them, though, and when he’d established that none of the women carried a crowbar or anything remotely like a crowbar in her handbag, he started to bang on the doors instead, which shook the lift, and that in turn made Jane pant harder, shake, and cry.
“Breathe, Janey,” Elle said. “You’re all right, everything is fine.”
Jane wasn’t fine. She was experiencing chest pain and fighting the urge to run through the wall.
“If you don’t stop shaking the lift, that woman is going to have a full-on panic attack if she’s not already having one,” the condom said to the leaflet man.
He turned and looked at Jane’s ghastly face. He stopped shaking the lift and sat down.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Jane tried to smile at him but she couldn’t breathe, never mind smile.
“Does anyone have a paper bag?” Elle asked.
The condom said no immediately, but leaflet man checked his briefcase.
“No,” he said, “but try this.” He took out a large poster and fashioned it into a sort of paper bag. He handed it to Elle, who placed it around Jane’s nose and mouth and once again instructed her to breathe. It didn’t work. Jane pulled the poster away from her mouth and held it tightly against her chest, then lay down on the floor, cursing herself for wearing white linen, which was now rain-soaked and filthy.
Oh my God, I’m going to catch a flesh-eating disease from this floor. Oh sweet God, whatever happens, let my face be last to go. I don’t want my child saying good-bye to an open wound. Good-bye, Kurt, Mum loves you. Good-bye, Dominic, you’re a selfish bastard, a waster, and an ass. God, I love you. Why can’t you love me? Good-bye, Mother, you are a bitch in your heart but I don’t hate you so that’s something. Good-bye, Elle, focus on your career and stop doing stupid things and you’ll be fine without me.
Elle viewed her sister prostrate on the floor, rubbing her chest, sweating profusely, and breathing at a rate that couldn’t be good for a person. Jane had often talked about the possibility of this happening when Elle had bullied her into getting into a lift, but she’d never actually experienced it before, and aside from the paper-bag idea, Elle had no clue what to do.
“What can I do?” she asked Jane, who was busy watching herself float up toward the ceiling. At least I’m off the floor.
The condom made a hah sound and stood up and then repositioned herself on the other side of Jane, making the leaflet man move over in the process. She took Jane’s hand from Elle because Jane’s other hand was holding the poster against her chest.
“You are having a panic attack. You are not dying. No one dies from panic attacks,” the condom said.
Jane stopped floating and returned to her body and the floor.
“You can deal with this. Just let it happen and it will pass,” the condom said, and Jane listened and believed her. “It’s okay to feel anxious. You’ll be okay.”
Jane’s breathing slowed, and for the next ten minutes the condom repeated the mantras and Jane began to feel normal again. By the time Elle and the leaflet man had all but lost the will to live, she was able to sit up, and once her breathing was controlled enough to allow for speech, she thanked the condom.
“I’m Jane.”
“Leslie,” the condom replied.
“Elle,” Elle said. “That was extremely impressive. Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Do you suffer from panic attacks?” Elle asked.
“No.”
“So how did you know what to say?” Elle asked, refusing to be put off by Leslie’s monosyllabic answers.
“My sister used to suffer from them.”
“Used to?” Elle said. “She got over them?” She looked from Leslie to Jane and was about to put her thumbs up.
“She died,” Leslie said, and Jane’s cheeks once again lost color, “but not from a panic attack.” She smiled at Jane, who nodded gratefully and sighed.
Elle focused on the leaflet man, who was sitting quietly in the corner. “So what’s your name?”
“Tom.” He turned to Jane. “Sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have rocked the boat, so to speak.”
Jane smiled at him. “It’s fine. I’m just being silly.”
Onstage, Jack had been talking and the audience was laughing. He began to sing “Taste of Fall” a cappella.
Take me back to your old ma’s place
where the bedspring squeaks and your body shakes
and I lose myself before the morning takes me home.
Love me in the doorway I’ll love you on the stairs …
Elle started to snap her fingers. “I love this song.”
Leslie also loved the song. Please, please don’t sing it and kill it.
Jane straightened a little and decided to sit on her bag.
“It’s a bit late to be thinking about ruining your suit, Jane,” Elle said while still snapping.
“I know.” Jane sighed, looking at the filthy floor. “I’m going to need a tetanus shot after this.”
Elle noticed Leslie moving to the music, and Jack was heading for the chorus. “Sing it with me, Leslie!” she said.
“No,” said Leslie.
“Is ‘no’ your very favorite word?” Elle asked.
“No.”
Elle laughed. I like you. “Come on, I know you want to.”
And Leslie did want to and if she didn’t she’d have to listen to Elle murder it anyway. So when the chorus hit, she found herself in a lift singing with a total stranger. This is not me, but I like it.
Oh come on down while we’re in full bloom
It’s a big bright night, let’s howl at the moon.
Tom laughed at the women, and even Jane forgot her anxiety for a moment or two to enjoy the sight of her sister and Leslie howling.
Whoa come on down we’re in full bloom,
Howl at the, howl at the, howl at the moon.
They howled and howled, and by the end they weren’t half bad.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Tom stood up and pressed his hand against the door. “Hello.”
“How many are in there?” the voice asked.
“Four of us,” Tom said.
“Okay, sir, we hope to have the generator up and running soon.”
“Thanks,” Tom said.
“Is everyone okay?” the voice asked.
“We’re fine,” Tom said, looking at Jane, who nodded to signal she was feeling better.
Before the man got a chance to ask another question, Jack began singing “Georgie Boy,” and the whole audience was singing along, drowning out the lone voice.
Tom sat back down.
Jane finally loosened her grip on the poster that was crumpled against her chest. She opened it and saw a picture of a woman she recognized. She was older than Jane remembered her, but she was unmistakable. “Alex? Alexandra Walsh?”
Tom stared at Jane. “You know her?”
“I used to.”
“They were best friends,” Elle said, “but then my sister got pregnant at seventeen and Alexandra disappeared. So maybe not best friends after all.”
“Elle,” Jane said in a tone that meant shut up. “She’s missing?” she asked Tom.
“Since June.”
“My God, that’s terrible!” Jane was genuinely upset. She raised her shaking hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
Elle took the leaflet out of her pocket and looked at it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said she disappeared. Sometimes I’m an ass. It’s genetic—you’d have to meet my mother to understand.”
Tom attempted to smile at her, to assure her that she was forgiven.
“What happened?” Jane asked.
“She went to Dalkey and vanished.”
“As in gone?” Elle said.
“Gone.”
“Is it possible she …hurt herself?” Leslie asked.
“No,” Tom said firmly, “it’s not.”
“I know it’s been a long time, but I agree with Tom. That just doesn’t sound like the girl I knew.” Jane sighed and shook her head. Her eyes filled, but she didn’t cry.
“What do the police say?” Leslie asked.
“They say they’re doing the best they can. They’ve been very good to us really.”
“How’s Breda?” Jane asked, referring to Alexandra’s mother.
“Devastated, completely and utterly devastated.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jane said. “Breda was always so kind to me. When I had my son she knitted him a blue blanket. He didn’t go anywhere without that blanket for years.”
“I remember that. He called it ‘manky,’” Elle said.
“We were trying for a baby for a long time,” said Tom. “Alexandra gave up work after Christmas hoping it would help …” He trailed off as if he’d already said too much. Alexandra would kill him if she knew he was talking about their private life to strangers, even if she had been friends with one of them when she was young. And already so much of their private life had been laid bare.
“It’s a nightmare,” Leslie said. “An absolute nightmare.”
“She was wearing black trousers, a black blouse with a bow, and black boots,” Tom said, repeating the information he had repeated so many times before. “She took her handbag. She never really kept a lot of cash on her, but she hasn’t used her cards since. She was fine that morning, in good humor—she had planned to meet her friend Sherri in Dalkey at five. She was fine.”
Suddenly Elle felt the urge to cry, but she couldn’t because it would have been deeply inappropriate, and yet it was becoming harder to fight the tears. She stayed silent and breathed in and out much like her sister had earlier. The full enormity of Alexandra’s disappearance and Tom’s desolation was causing her actual physical pain.
“I’d like to help you,” Jane said to Tom. “I know we’re strangers, but if there is something I can do?”
Tom shook his head. “That’s kind of you, but I just don’t know how you can help.”
“We’ll think of something,” Elle said, and she looked at Leslie, who stared at her blankly.
“What?” Leslie said, after enduring Elle’s stare for what seemed like an eternity.
“Aren’t you going to help?” Elle said.
“I wish I could,” Leslie said, “but if the police can’t, I can’t, and unfortunately neither can either of you.”
“I disagree,” Jane said. “I’d rather try than stand by and do nothing.”
“Well, good luck,” Leslie said, and she meant it.
“Leslie’s right,” Tom said, moved by the two women’s kindness, “but thank you.”
“We’re going to help whether you like it or not,” Elle said. “Besides, you look like you could do with some direction. Handing out leaflets at a gig? What’s that all about?”
“If you can think of something better, I’d be happy to give it a go.”
“I’ll put my thinking cap on,” Elle said. “I take it postings in Dalkey are taken care of?”
“Yes.”
“Right. I had to ask.”
After that Jane reminisced about Alexandra making others laugh. She told them about the time Alexandra had insisted that they sneak out of her parents’ house during a sleepover. They had to get out of a second-story window, jump down onto the extension, and shimmy down the pipe, and when they finally made it to the ground without killing themselves and were busy high-fiving, they failed to notice Alexandra’s father standing on the porch having watched their every move. When he made himself known to them, Alexandra stuck out her arms in front of her and, zombielike, she walked toward her dad, pretending she was sleepwalking.
“And what did you do?” Tom asked.
“I wet myself,” Jane admitted, “but Alexandra kept up the act until her dad laughed, and once he did we were off the hook. She could always get out of anything.”
“What about the time she stayed with us, and Mum caught you both drinking her stash of wine?” Elle said.
“Rose threatened to call the police,” Jane said.
“Rose is our mother,” Elle clarified for the group.
“But Alexandra told her that she’d call the police because our sitting-room carpet was a crime against taste.”
“Mum nearly lost it,” Elle said. “I could hear her screaming from where I was in my bed, but Alexandra didn’t care.”
“Alexandra was too drunk to care,” Jane said. “She called Rose an old lush and challenged her to a drinking competition.” She started to laugh. “I’ve never seen Rose turn purple before or since.” Jane laughed some more before falling silent. “Rose walked away. Of course I got it in the neck for the next couple of weeks, but it didn’t matter because Alexandra had got the best of the old bat. That kept me going for years.”
“Again, you’d have to know our mother,” Elle said.
“She did talk about you,” Tom said to Jane, having remembered some of Alexandra’s stories involving the girl who dropped off the grid after having a baby. Alexandra had felt guilty about losing the friendship with Jane. She had talked about reconnecting with her but never found the will or the time.
Leslie was smiling. “She sounds interesting.”
“She is,” Tom said. “She’s amazing.” He fell silent, and his mind traveled to the dark place, and the weight of his worry permeated the small space.
His sadness was overwhelming, and Elle became desperate to change the vibe. “What about you, Leslie, do you have a story to tell?”
“No,” Leslie said, and she smiled because during their short acquaintance she had come to realize that Elle was not the kind of person to take no for an answer.
“Liar,” Elle said. “Everyone has a story.”
They fell into silence again, lost in their own thoughts. Tom was still lost in the hell he’d created in his head. Jane’s mind took her into the past before Kurt, when she and Alexandra were making plans to travel the world. Elle was busy working out what she could do to make everything better.
“I could set up a website,” Leslie said. “We could go viral.”
“Now you’re talking!” Elle said, and she clapped.
“I’ve no idea what ‘going viral’ means,” Jane said, “but I like the sound of it.”
“Jane?” Elle said. “When is my next exhibition?”
“First week in February.”
“How soon could we do another one?”
“What have you got in mind?” Jane asked.
“Faces.” Elle grinned. “How about I paint the faces of missing people, a collection of twelve to include Alexandra. I could start as soon as I’ve finished this last painting for February.”
“I could definitely get media attention,” said Jane.
“Good,” Elle said. “Let’s do it.”
After seventeen weeks and two days of hopelessness, recrimination, confusion, frustration, fear, and suffering, three strangers opened their hearts to Tom, and they were kind enough to pretend they didn’t notice when he cried.