Alexandra, Gone

5

“Authentic Fake”

Pillows bursting at the seams,
feathers floating like dreams,
naked on the wooden floor,
night porters banging at the door,
and we just turn the music up.
Jack L, Broken Songs

January 2008

Although it was cold, the sky was blue and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Jane particularly favored cold dry days, and they were so few and far between. She wasn’t a fan of central heating, as it made her skin itchy and dry. She liked a nip in the air and couldn’t understand when her son complained that he was cold, because she had spent so much money on clothes for him to wear and yet he had the audacity to stand in front of her in a T-shirt and boxer shorts wondering what it would take for her to put on some heat. The kitchen was warm because she had spent the morning baking. Kurt came in, rubbing his hands together and blowing into them for effect.
“Put on a sweater and jeans,” she said with her back to him.
“Who’s coming?” he asked, ignoring her and putting on the kettle.
“Tom and Leslie.”
“Oh them.” He made a face.
“‘Oh them,’” she repeated, amused. “What’s wrong with them?”
“He’s haunted and she’s a bit of a freak,” he said, spooning coffee into a cup. “Oh, and Gran thinks he’s a murderer.”
“Oh for God’s sake, stop listening to that twisted woman!”
“Well, you can’t say it hasn’t crossed your mind.”
“I can say it hasn’t crossed my mind,” she replied. “Alexandra disappeared when Tom was at work, and he has witnesses.”
“So it has crossed your mind, but you’re satisfied with his alibi.” Kurt pointed his spoon at his mother.
“Fine.” She put her hands up. “I’m satisfied by his alibi.”
“Lots of people have good alibis, and then those alibis turn out to be crap.”
“Kurt,” Jane said, “please stop calling Mammy’s new friend a murderer.”
Kurt laughed a little. “Okay, but be careful—you don’t want to be a Nicky Pelley to his Joe O’Reilly.” He poured boiling water into the cup and then gripped it tightly. “God, Mum, it’s freezing in here.”
He went to his room to sit at his computer with his duvet strategically wrapped around his body and arms while his hands remained uncovered and unencumbered. Jane remained in the kitchen cleaning the spilled coffee grounds from the counter while keeping an eye on the oven and clock.
This would be the third time Leslie and Tom had come to her house to discuss their project’s progress. Elle had been there both times before, but she was taking her breakup with Vincent pretty hard and so when Jane spotted her GONE FISHING sign on her door earlier that morning, she knew it meant that Elle might be gone a week or a month. She wasn’t sure how she was going to break this news to Tom.
Tom had become incredibly excited at the last meeting when Elle had revealed the painting she had done of Alexandra. He had previously given Elle a box of photos of his wife, and she’d gone through all of Jane’s from when Alexandra was younger, and after spending a week looking at the woman’s face, she spent another week working on capturing it. According to Tom, Jane, and even Leslie, she had done so beautifully.
“I made her look sad,” Elle said. “I hope you don’t mind because I know she is a happy sort, but I think she needed to look sad.”
“I don’t mind—she’s beautiful,” Tom said, staring at the painting that leaned against Jane’s kitchen wall. “How did you do that? How did you make her look lost?”
Elle stared at the face she had come to know so well and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Tom bit the side of his mouth so hard there was an indent in his cheek. He nodded and looked at Elle. “You’re incredible.”
Elle loved it when people complimented her. She’d blush and say she hated it, but her heart would flutter, her pulse would race, and for a moment she’d feel a great high that she’d come down from all too soon.
Leslie had created a fantastic website—www.findingalexandra.com—that incorporated Alexandra’s most recent photos and a map of her last movements. She’d even managed to attach the CCTV footage from Tara Street and Dalkey DART stations. She created a blog space for Tom to update if and when he wanted and a chat room for anyone who wanted to post a comment, and of course there was an e-mail address for anyone with information. Tom was overwhelmed, especially when Leslie revealed the link to Jack Lukeman’s website, and when she clicked on Jack’s site there was a link to Finding Alexandra. Tom was dumbfounded. Jack’s website even mentioned Alexandra and asked his visitors to check out the Finding Alexandra site to see if they had seen her.
“How?” Tom asked.
“I designed Jack’s site.”
“Wow, that’s fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.”
“And you said you couldn’t help!” Elle teased.
“Well, I’m glad you’re happy,” Leslie said, a little pleased with herself.
“How did you get Jack to agree?” Jane asked.
“Alexandra’s a Jack fan, and I got Myra in his office to agree, and once she agreed it was pretty much done and, by the by, they asked if there was anything else that they could do.”
“You are shitting me!” Elle said.
“No,” Leslie said. “And I’m not sure I even know or care to know what shitting a person is.”
“Of course there’s something else they can do,” Jane said suddenly.
“Yeah,” Elle said, beating Jane to it. “Jack can sing at the Missing Exhibition opening.”
“It would make the PR a cinch,” Jane said.
“I’ll talk to Myra,” Leslie said.
Tom didn’t know what to say. He was bowled over. In the few short weeks he had known these three women, his search for his wife had taken on a whole new life, and he was so grateful that he found it hard to express it.
Jane smiled at him when he became tongue-tied and slightly teary. “We’ll find her,” she promised.
Now, less than a month later, her promise appeared slightly premature if not a tad arrogant. Elle was missing in action, and that meant she wasn’t painting, and if she wasn’t painting the exhibition might not happen in April as had been planned, and if the exhibition didn’t happen in April Jack wouldn’t be available to play at it again until after he’d finished with the European festivals in September, and he was key to publicity. She had tried to call Elle, but to no avail. GONE FISHING meant no contact.
Jane felt sick about having to disappoint Tom and Leslie after all the work Leslie had put into promoting the exhibition on the website, and she wasn’t even sure if she should tell them. Maybe I’ll give it a week, she thought. I’ll give it a week and see what happens and then, if I have to tell them and break Tom’s heart, I’ll do it. Damn it, Elle, this is no time for your selfish crap. Come home.
Leslie was the first to arrive. Jane opened the door, and Leslie pointed to the basement and asked if Jane knew who the old woman was.
“My mother.”
Leslie nodded. “Oh,” she said. “She has Tom.”
“Sweet Jesus! There’s coffee made. I’ll be a minute.” Jane took off down the front steps like a hare before Leslie could even respond.
Tom was sitting in a chair opposite her mother when she burst into the room as though she was a gangbuster.
Rose was swirling liquid in her mug, and Jane prayed it was tea. Tom was silent and had his hands clasped and resting on his knee.
“What has she said?” Jane asked Tom.
“I asked him if he’d killed his wife,” Rose said. “I further inquired whether or not he had any intention of killing you.”
“Oh God.” Jane sighed and closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself.
“I said no on both counts,” Tom said, and thankfully he seemed a little amused.
“You see, Jane,” Rose said, “we are only having a nice quiet chat. There’s no need to run down here like your anus is on fire.”
Tom laughed a little.
“Tom,” Jane said, “time to leave.”
Tom stood up.
“Rose, I’ll talk to you later,” Jane said.
Tom said good-bye to Rose and followed Jane out into Rose’s small hallway, where he managed to kick over her stack of unsolicited mail. He stooped to pile it all back together, and before Jane could tell him to ignore the mess and move on, her mother shouted from her sitting room.
“And Tom dear!”
“Yes?” He moved back to the doorway.
“If my daughter happens to go missing, you’ll die roaring. I’ll make sure of it,” she said in an airy and sweet tone as though she was promising to take him out to dinner.
“I understand.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jane apologized as she drew him away from the door and slammed it shut. “I really am so very sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Tom said.
“You need locking up!” she screamed at her mother through the closed sitting-room door. She opened Rose’s front door, and Tom followed her into the cold air. He was both a little miffed and a little entertained.
Jane was pissed off. “Sorry you had to witness that.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Worth it. After all, without you and Elle I’d still be handing out leaflets at gigs.”
Oh God, Elle! Come home for Christ’s sake, just come home!
Jane smiled at Tom and pretended everything was okay. He followed her up the steps and into the house and to the kitchen, where Leslie was hugging her cup of coffee.
“Is the heating broken?” she asked.
“I’ll just put it on.” Jane went into the hall and turned on the heat.
Kurt heard the familiar clicking and came out of his bedroom dressed in his duvet. “Oh yeah, Mum, you’ll put on the heat for visitors but not your only son. Nice.”
Jane ignored her son, and after taking a detour into her bedroom to quickly smear her face with moisturizer for extra-dry skin, she made her way back to the kitchen in time to hear Leslie inform Tom that the hits on the Finding Alexandra site had increased by seventy percent since they’d linked up with Jack Lukeman’s site.
Jane offered them a choice of carrot cake, chocolate log, or coffee cupcakes and brewed fresh coffee, and once they’d munched on cake and complimented Jane on her baking skills, Leslie revealed that before she’d left her apartment she’d received an e-mail from someone who believed that she’d spotted Alexandra at a Jack Lukeman gig in London the previous week.
“I think it’s important not to get excited,” Leslie warned, producing a printout of the e-mail. “It could have been anyone.”
“But it could have been Alexandra,” Tom said. “Please read it.” He lowered his head so that he could focus on the floor.
Leslie began to read:
“Hi, my name is Michelle Radley. I work at the Pigalle Club in London. Last month Jack Lukeman was playing. It was a busy night, two of the girls were off sick, and the toilet attendant didn’t show up. There was a young girl who’d had too much to drink and she was getting sick in the toilets. I was called in to help her but the club was so busy I couldn’t really stay with her. So a woman who looked exactly like the one in your picture said that she would. We talked for a minute or two. She said her name was Alex. She really did look like the woman in your picture, but she was thinner and her hair was shorter. When I returned to the toilet, she and the sick girl were gone. My phone number is 20 77326531 if you want to talk about it. Jack Lukeman is returning to play a show on Saturday, March 1, and I’ll be working so I’ll watch out for her. If you would like to give me a telephone number, I could phone you if she returns. Regards, Michelle.”
Leslie looked at Tom, who was still staring at the floor. She looked at Jane, who was wiping her hands on a tea towel for a little longer than necessary.
“This could be it,” Jane said, and she threw the towel on the counter.
“It’s her,” Tom said.
“Hang on,” Leslie said, “hang on one second. This is a thin, short-haired woman who just looks like Alexandra.”
“She called herself Alex,” Jane said.
“But Tom told us she hasn’t called herself Alex since she was a teenager,” Leslie said.
“But helping some drunken girl in the toilet is something she’d do,” Tom said.
“It’s something a lot of people would do,” Leslie said. “I really think it’s important not to get ahead of ourselves here. We should just pass the information on to the police and let them handle it.”
Tom looked up from the floor. “I’m going to London for the show.”
“I’ll come with you,” Jane said.
“Really?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” It’s the least I can do considering my sister has gone AWOL.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Leslie said. “You pair haven’t listened to one word I’ve said.”
“We have,” Tom said. “Look, Leslie, I will pass on the e-mail to the police, but I can’t just leave it at that. We’re so close!”
“But you might not be,” Leslie said.
“But we might be,” Jane said.
“I give up!” Leslie got up and cut herself another slice of carrot cake even though she’d been watching what she ate since Elle had sat her down in a coffee shop the week before Christmas and told her that not only did she need her hair dyed and styled and a complete new wardrobe, but she also needed to lose a minimum of six pounds. When Leslie had argued that she was happy the way she was, Elle was having none of it and asked her new friend one simple question: “Do you ever want to have sex again?”
Leslie had thought about this question for a long time before answering, because she really wasn’t sure. It had been so long since she’d had sex with anything that wasn’t battery operated that it seemed like it might be a little too much work. After serious consideration, during which time Elle had managed to finish her cappuccino, order another one, go to the loo, and send two text messages, she had admitted that yes, she probably would like to have sex again in her lifetime.
“Well then,” Elle said, pointing to Leslie’s head and moving her finger downward toward her toes, “sort yourself out.”
“I’m not that bad!” Leslie argued.
Elle agreed that she wasn’t that bad, going so far as to comment that in fact for a woman in her early forties she looked quite good.
“Thanks a lot,” Leslie said, once again wondering why she was allowing herself to be friends with a girl in her twenties.
Elle smiled at her and, after rummaging through her bag for a few minutes, took out a bent card that was covered in bag dirt. She cleaned it off and straightened it out and handed it to Leslie. “That’s my hairdresser. She’ll take care of you.”
After thinking about it for a week, Leslie had decided to get her hair done but had put it off until after Christmas to avoid the crowds. Her appointment was for later that afternoon. She halved the slice of cake and then ate half of the half because since Elle had mentioned her thickened midriff she’d become conscious of it.
“Where is Elle?” she asked after pinching some crumbs together and popping them in her mouth.
“Working,” Jane lied.
“I’m really looking forward to her exhibition in two weeks,” Leslie said. “Elle showed me some of the paintings last time we were here, and they are stunning and just a little bit frightening. Love them.”
“Yeah,” Jane said, “she’s a genius.” She said this while nodding. Stop nodding, Jane.
“Would it be okay if I called in on her for just a moment before we leave?” Leslie asked.
“No,” Jane said, “I’m sorry. She’s just really busy with the exhibition pieces.”
“But I thought she had finished those paintings,” Tom said. “Is she working on the Missing Exhibition already? I thought you were still waiting for permission from the families.”
“No, she still has some work to do for this upcoming show—she’s a perfectionist. And we are still waiting for permission from the families, although that man missing from Clare, Joe something, his family has come back and would love to be involved.” Oh Christ, I hope she comes home in time for the show in two weeks.
“Okay,” Leslie said, “I’ll call her later.”
“Fine,” Jane said, “but don’t be surprised if she doesn’t answer. When she’s in the zone the whole world could be collapsing around her and she wouldn’t notice.”
“Right,” Leslie said, and sensing Jane was nervous she let it go at that. “Probably better to leave her be.”
Jane nodded enthusiastically. Stop nodding, Jane.
Tom left soon after. He had promised to go online to book the tickets and accommodation for the London gig and insisted on paying for it. Jane had then insisted that they both take home slices of carrot cake, chocolate log, and a biscuit cake she spotted in the fridge that she’d made two days previously and forgotten about.
Tom hugged both women before he left. “Thank you,” he said, “thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” He sighed and smiled, then turned and walked down the steps, leaving Leslie and Jane standing together at the door. They waved to him as he drove off.
When he was out of sight, Leslie turned to Jane. “So what’s really going on with Elle?”
For somebody who didn’t spend a lot of time with people, she was incredibly intuitive.
“You’d better come back in,” Jane said.
Jane brewed another pot of coffee and began by telling Leslie about Elle’s New Year’s Eve and Vincent’s note.
“Good God,” Leslie said. “Could she go to prison for that?”
“I have to meet that sniveling little snot Vincent next week to sort out compensation. Basically if we buy him a new car he won’t press charges, and if he doesn’t press charges hopefully the DPP won’t either.”
“‘I want you, I need you, but let’s face it, I’m never going to love you,’ ” Leslie repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. “Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water.”
Jane explained her sister’s inexplicable passion for the man who had mistreated her from the day they met and how, having an inexplicable passion of her own for the father of her child, she understood and sympathized with her sister’s misguided love.
“You can’t choose whom you love,” she said.
Leslie thought about it and it made her crave more cake. After that, Jane explained that whenever things got on top of Elle she would hang the GONE FISHING sign on her front door. This signaled that she needed peace and quiet, time away from everything and everyone, and until she was ready to face the world again she would be off the radar. Leslie was aghast that Elle would just disappear like that and couldn’t understand why Jane indulged her.
“That’s extremely selfish,” she said. “What if you need her?”
“I leave a voice message and hope she picks it up,” she admitted before dismissing Leslie’s concerns, noting she was simply happy that Elle gave her a clear indication of what she was up to so she didn’t have to worry. Although of course she did worry, but not as much as she would if Elle disappeared without warning.
It took Leslie a few minutes to realize the significance of Elle’s latest fishing trip, and it became clear only when Jane recounted the time two years earlier when she had failed to return for two months.
“Will she paint while she’s away?” Leslie asked.
“She hasn’t before,” Jane admitted.
“But the Missing Exhibition is scheduled for April!”
“She’ll be home, it’s important, she’ll get it done,” Jane said, but Leslie could tell she wasn’t convinced.
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Well, we’ll just have to find Alexandra in a club in March,” Jane said, and she knew her proposal sounded weak.
“It’s not her,” Leslie said, “and even if it was it doesn’t mean she’s going to turn up in the same place again.”
“Don’t be so negative.”
“Can’t help it—it’s my default setting,” Leslie said, and smiled.
“Elle will come home,” Jane said. “Hopefully in time to deliver twelve stunning paintings, and if not we’ll sort it out. I’ll sort it out.”
“I should warn the Jack camp.”
“No, don’t say anything, please just give it a week! Let’s get over this exhibition first and then we can worry about what happens in April.”
Leslie nodded and asked Jane how she would cope if Elle didn’t turn up for her own exhibition.
“Actually, sometimes it works out better,” Jane admitted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, my sister can be a bit of a handful.”
Leslie had noticed, and so the conversation ended there. It was too late to get her hair done, so she phoned the hairdresser to reschedule while enjoying a brisk walk through the park to negate at least some of the cake she’d inhaled at Jane’s.
Tom’s business was suffering and not just because he’d lost interest in it. His company had finished a large development in South Dublin in mid-2007, and he’d been looking for more land since then, but planning was getting tougher and, if he were to be honest, the houses in the development he’d just finished hadn’t been as quick to sell as those in the previous two. He had decided to bide his time and wait for the right project, and then Alexandra had disappeared and after that the only thing he’d been looking for was her. He’d lost most of his building staff in the second quarter of ’07, retaining only a few men for snagging. The plumbers and electricians he’d contracted had moved on to work with others, and by the time he’d gotten stuck in a lift his company had been reduced to himself and Jeanette in the office. It was quite clear that the business was dead, and Jeanette received her severance pay a week later. The risk-taking and swagger that were needed to build and preside over the successful business he’d built from nothing had left with Alexandra, and in an environment where growth rates were falling and the clouds of economic recession were gathering, Tom Kavanagh had simply lost his nerve. After ten years of blood, sweat, and tears, when the doors of his company finally closed on Christmas week, Tom walked away without even looking back once. Tom’s only focus was finding his wife. He spent hours online on his wife’s website, blogging and adding pictures just as Leslie had shown him. He looked at missing sites every day and made calls to shelters all over Ireland and the UK and sent them e-mails attached with pictures of Alexandra’s face. He ensured that Interpol had all his wife’s details and insisted on following up on every tiny piece of information the police were investigating and was so hands-on that in the end his liaison officer, Patricia Lowe, had to tell him in no uncertain terms to back off. He still handed out flyers and tacked them to mailboxes and trees.
When he wasn’t searching, he visited with Breda and told her about all the things people were doing to get Alexandra back.
“You’re a good man,” she’d say, “and we will get her back.”
Breda was sure that Alexandra was alive and well and just a little lost, and she knew this because she’d prayed to God to keep Alexandra safe and in sixty-odd years God had yet to let her down. Tom hadn’t believed in God until his wife disappeared, but afterward he found his mother-in-law’s trust and hope comforting.
“She’s not alone, Tom,” she said over and over. “She’s never alone.”
Alexandra’s father didn’t talk about God or anything at all. Instead he sat in the garden and smoked one Marlboro after another. In the evenings he went out to the pub with his friends and they talked about football and politics and the state of the world and anything but his missing daughter because every time he thought about her his guts twisted, his head ached, and his heart threatened to stop dead.
Tom always made it his business to go into the garden and say a few words to Ben, and Ben was polite but a little cold in his response.
“How are you doing?” Tom would ask.
“Fine.”
“It’s freezing out here. Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off inside?”
“I’m fine.”
“Breda seems good today.”
“She’s fine.”
“Can I do anything?”
“You’re doing all you can.”
“I’m sorry.”
Tom would end every short interlude with his father-in-law with the words “I’m sorry,” and every time Ben nodded and said nothing at all.
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In the car on the way home from Jane’s, Tom wondered whether or not he should call his in-laws with the good news, but then he thought better of it. He’d wait, and maybe in March he’d be bringing his wife home. He knew in his heart that Leslie was right to be cautious, and he knew that the likelihood of finding Alexandra in a club in London was a million to one, but he didn’t care because a million to one was better odds than a million to none.
Tom had never been much of a drinker, but since his wife vanished he drank every night because he couldn’t sleep without being intoxicated, and even then he was restless, kicking and sometimes yelling out. When Tom didn’t drink, he’d lie in bed afraid to close his eyes for fear that he’d go to the dark place. The scenarios were always different and yet they were the same: his wife was hurt, she needed him, and he wasn’t there. In one Alexandra was tied up and dirty. She was facedown on the floor and her arms were twisted behind her back. Her face was streaked with dirt, blood, and tears, she had a hole in her head that was caked in blood, and she was crying out, calling his name, and over her a shadow loomed, a monster playing with a knife, and Alexandra would beg Tom to find her before the monster cut into her again. In another he’d see her in a tiny, windowless room with concrete walls and a black steel door with a tiny flap at the bottom. She was in the corner hugging the wall, and there was nothing but silence and a tray still full of slop that Alexandra couldn’t eat, and she was so thin her bones stood out, and she’d call to him and tell him that if he didn’t find her soon she’d be gone. There was the one where she was drugged and tied to a bed and men were coming and going, screwing her, and her head would roll and her red raw eyes would call to him to save her, but he couldn’t because he couldn’t see where she was. He’d claw at his face and hit the side of his head, and he’d roar and bawl and scream and rock until he was so tired that all he could do was lie so very still and stare at her smiling picture hanging on the wall. And with each night that passed, he’d live another and more twisted and painful nightmare.
Since Tom’s secretary, Jeanette, had lost her job three weeks earlier she had called on him several times on the pretext of checking up on him. The first time he was drunk and wearing what appeared to be uncomfortably snug tracksuit bottoms.
“I didn’t know you even owned a tracksuit.”
“I don’t. They’re Alexandra’s.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to walk a mile in her shoes, but they didn’t fit.”
“How drunk are you?”
“Very.”
She’d come into his house and run a bath, and when he refused to get into the bath she insisted, and her insistence and freakish upper-body strength ensured that ten minutes later he was soaking in bath oils while she ran around and cleaned his kitchen and sitting room of take-out cartons and empty bottles. He’d fallen asleep and she woke him, and when he realized that he was naked and in the bath he became embarrassed, but she made light of it and handed him a towel.
“I’ve seen worse on-site,” she said, and she wasn’t lying, having caught a plasterer taking a dump behind a tree, and when she closed her eyes she could still see ass hair and excrement. She’d also walked in on the bricklayer Barry Brady receiving a blow job on his lunch hour, not once but twice, and he was a pig about it, winking at her and asking if she wanted to join in, and even thinking about it made her want to go back in time and punch him.
Tom asked her to leave the bathroom while he covered himself up, and he briefly wondered how to dissuade her from coming to his house again.
Jeanette had worked for Tom for four years, and she’d developed a crush on him within a week of her joining his company, and of course he knew it. Before Alexandra went missing, Tom was warm and funny. He was the kind of man and boss who didn’t need to feel that he was superior to those working for him. He’d drop a cup of coffee on her desk as he was passing, always remembering how she took it—no milk, one sugar—and every now and then he’d bring her something sweet. It wasn’t just her—he did it for the others too. In fact, when she thought about it, for a man who ran a profitable company he spent a lot of time making coffee. He would listen to her when she spoke, and he’d tell her what a great job she was doing. He wasn’t available back then, he wasn’t even looking for sex. More was the pity, because Jeanette would have done him on the photocopier week one if he’d asked her.
At least that’s what she’d told her pals Lily and Davey in the pub the night before she’d decided to visit him at his home that first time.
“Uncomfortable,” Davey said, “and technically impossible. He’d be the one doing you, and you’d only be leaning on it. But I suppose you could say that you’d invited him to do you over the photocopier.”
“Shut up, Davey!” Lily said.
“I was only saying.”
“Yeah, well, don’t say. Go on, Jeanette, you’d have done him on the photocopier week one ….”
“Well, that was it, really.”
Lily punched Davey in the arm. “You always do that! Interrupt someone when she’s saying something interesting just to say something totally boring, throwing off the person who actually has something to say!” She punched him again.
Davey rubbed his arm and then said something interesting. “Okay then, elephant in the room: he offed his missus.”
Jeanette didn’t believe it possible. “No way.”
“Of course he did. Nobody just disappears.”
“People disappear all the time, faggot!” Lily said.
Jeanette shook her head. “Nothing could make me believe that he did anything to her.”
“Well, my advice to you is to stay away until we know that for sure,” Davey said.
Lily nodded her agreement. “He has a point. Better safe than headless in a suitcase floating down the Dodder.”
Jeanette had no intention of staying away, and even though the sparkle in Tom’s eye had been replaced with a terrible sadness, God help poor Jeanette, she fell deeper in love.
She waited for Tom to emerge from the bathroom, and when he did and he was clean and his house was clean and there was real food cooking in his oven and she was talking about the job interview she’d just had and looking for some music, he felt normal and calm, and it was nice, if only for a while. When he sobered up, she poured some wine, and they sat together and ate. When they’d polished off the bottle and were halfway through the second, and after she’d served a dessert that neither of them ate, she gazed at him across the table and slowly and hesitantly took his hand in hers.
“What more can I do?” she asked. While retaining his hand, she walked around the table and sat on a chair at his side, and now he was facing her with his hand still in hers, and her other hand was sliding up his thigh. His pulse raced, and her heart was racing too, and she asked him again, “What can I do?” and he was staring into her face and eyes, and the kitchen fell away as he reached for the back of her head and pulled her into him, and they kissed.
The next night in the pub she reenacted it for Lily and Davey.
“Jesus, that’s like in a film,” Lily said.
“Exactly like in a film,” Jeanette said. And she believed herself.
Davey was less impressed. “You’re playing with fire.” But he was ignored.
“What happened then?” Lily asked.
Tom had pulled Jeanette onto the floor, and they kissed and her pants were off before she could say, “Take my pants off,” and his were around his ankles and he was on top of her and inside her, and their tops were still on and it was over quickly, which was a good thing because the tiles were freezing. When he was done, she could see his regret and shame, and so she acted fast before he could ask her to leave and file their encounter under “mistake.” They both pulled up their pants. She took two cigarettes out of her bag and lit both of them. She asked him to sit next to her on the floor. He complied out of a combination of guilt and a genuine desire for a cigarette, despite having been off them for five years.
When he was sitting and puffing, she straddled him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
“I doubt it,” Tom had said.
“You’re thinking, ‘Jeanette is a nice girl and I’m grateful for the tumble, which was badly needed, but how the hell do I get her out of here without making her cry?’”
He shook his head, and she smiled. “Something like that,” he admitted.
“I like you,” she said.
“I’m a mess.”
“I know.” She shook her head. “I’m not blind.”
“I’m married.”
“She’s not here.”
“Please go home,” he said, and she knew she’d spoken out of turn.
“Okay.” She nodded. “I’m sorry.” And she was sorry. She was sorry he was so sad, and she was sorry for poor Alexandra, and she was sorry for herself because although she was desperate for him to love her, she knew he never would. I had to try, she thought as she closed the door behind her.
“Jesus, you could have waited,” Davey said the next night.
“He’s right,” Lily agreed.
Jeanette knew she’d blown it, so a phone call from Tom came as a shock. He phoned her from his car on his way back from Jane’s.
“Tom?”
“Good news,” he said. “I have a lead on Alexandra. It’s not much, but it’s something.”
“Oh that’s great,” she said, brightening. “I hope it works out.” She meant it.
“Look, I wanted to apologize for that night,” he said. “I should never have done that.”
Jeanette thought about how kind he was to call. After all, she had preyed on him—he had been vulnerable, lost, and drunk, and she’d seduced him. God, I love you. “It wasn’t you, it was me,” she said, “and I appreciate you apologizing, but you’ve nothing to apologize for.”
“I wasn’t that drunk.”
Jeanette’s heart leaped a little.
“Could we be friends?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, “I’d love that.”
“Would you like to come over tonight?”
“I’d love to.”
When she put the phone down, she jumped around the place, because even if Tom genuinely thought that he was looking for a friend, he wasn’t, and he might be na?ve enough to think the night would end with a kiss on the cheek, but she wasn’t.
I need to shave. Whoohooooooooo!
Jeanette arrived soaked to the skin. It had been raining on and off since six o’clock, and she had left her second umbrella in a month on the bus. Tom opened the door, smiling. She shook herself off in the hall before noticing that he was wearing an apron.
“What’s going on?” she asked, following him into the kitchen.
“I cooked.” He grabbed a pot holder and a large fork, opened the oven door, and turned a roasting leg of lamb.
“I can see that,” she said, sitting at his counter while he opened some wine. She poured it into two glasses and handed him one.
He clinked his glass against hers. “I’m going to find her,” he said.
“Alexandra?”
“No—Amelia Earhart,” he said, and he grinned the way he used to grin before he lost his wife.
She wondered who Amelia Earhart was while he tended to the vegetables.
Jeanette drank until her wineglass was empty, then held out the glass for some more. Tom topped it off.
“I’ve met these women,” he said, “and they’re amazing, they’re helping me. I don’t even know them.”
“That’s weird. Why?”
“Jane was Alexandra’s best friend years ago when they were kids, and her sister, Elle, is an artist and she’s going to do an exhibition. She’s painting the faces of missing people. She’s already painted Alexandra and it’s really beautiful. And Leslie, she’s set up an incredible website, and they’ve got Jack Lukeman on board and now this lead in London—”
“Jack Lukeman the singer? What is he? A part-time private eye?” She was being sarcastic, and although Tom noticed, he didn’t care.
“No, he’s going to sing at the exhibition. Jane says it will increase media interest.”
“Well, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of new friends, so why did you call me?”
“I missed you.”
He wasn’t lying. He had become very fond of Jeanette during the four years they had worked together, and if he was really honest with himself he missed the attention she gave him. He missed feeling like a man, a sexual being, and even though he promised himself that he would never allow what had happened before to happen again, it was nice to be around someone who was attracted to him. Tom missed many things about his wife, and one of the things he missed most was being wanted.
“I missed you too,” she said, and in her head she was singing, “Here comes the bride, all dressed in white ….”
Later, after they’d indulged in passionate sex, the kind of sex that Jeanette had always suspected Tom was capable of, they lay there in silence and darkness just breathing.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“It’s blissfully quiet in here,” he said, pointing to his head.
She smiled at him and leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You’re welcome,” she said.
She went into the bathroom to take a shower, and he reminisced about the last time he had lain in bed and listened to the shower running; his wife had been singing “I Can’t Stand the Rain” and attempting a very bad impression of Tina Turner. Tom closed his eyes, just as he had done when he was having sex, and for the second time that night he pretended the woman who had been in his bed and was now in his shower was his wife, and for the first time in thirty weeks and one day, Tom slept peacefully.