Till the Dust Settles

by Pat Young

  She was well dressed, this young woman, in clothes that looked more expensive than anything Lucie had owned. Her hair was shorter and looked shiny and soft, cared for in a way Lucie’s hadn’t been for a long time. She’d got into the habit of tying her hair up in a permanent ponytail, not caring how it looked. Also, this girl had a dark mark on her neck, like a birthmark she tried to hide with make-up.

  Dylan had to look away. Not because his mother had always said it was rude to stare. Because it hurt, deep in his chest, to watch this Lucie lookalike. The strength of his feelings came as a shock. He knew he was grieving. He knew she’d left an unfillable hole in his life but he hadn’t realised, when she was alive, just how strongly he felt about her. She’d always been Curtis’s. End of story. So he’d switched off his emotions around Lucie and tried to treat her as a friend.

  But the way his heart leapt in his chest when he saw this girl, the blush that was flooding his face, the deep, devastating sense of loss proved she’d meant much more to him than friendship.

  He tried to focus on his coffee cup and raised it to his lips, but the coffee that had seemed so necessary five minutes ago had lost its appeal. Besides, he was feeling nauseous. The moment he put his cup down his gaze returned to the girl. She was leaning on the table, her face in her hands. The man said something to her and she raised her head to looked him.

  Dylan felt like he’d touched a live cable. He’d know that profile anywhere. He’d studied it often enough when Curtis and Lucie had been so engrossed in each other they hadn’t even noticed he was in the room. The curve of her cheek that he’d always longed to stroke. Her cute little nose that wrinkled when she smiled at something he’d said. Her hair so dark, and skin so pale it looked like porcelain. Her bone structure so fine it made him wonder how she didn’t shatter when Curtis hit her.

  He had to go to her. She was obviously upset and in need of comforting.

  As Dylan approached their table, the man spotted him. His expression changed. The message was easy to read. This is private.

  34

  He became aware of people at neighbouring tables watching the little drama unfolding at his own. A tall guy, his face flushed, rose from his seat and walked towards them, coffee cup in hand. He seemed very intent on the young woman, as if he recognised her. God Almighty, could this be the bozo he’d hired? Still stalking her? Coming over to check him out?

  He leaned over to pat the young woman on the back and flashed the guy a look. He hoped it said, ‘Back off.’

  ‘At least you got the chance to see your mom,’ he said to her, his eyes still on the bozo, making sure he got the message.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She started to cry again and reached into her pocket.

  ‘But didn’t you just come from seeing your mother right now?’

  She gave a huge sob, and wailed, ‘I was too late. I didn’t see her. Didn’t get the chance to speak to her. To tell her I love her. No matter what happened in the past.’

  This was becoming more intriguing by the minute. But interesting though her story might be, there was only one piece of information he needed. And he’d already got it. There was no vestige of doubt left in his mind. Whoever she was, this girl, she wasn’t Charlotte Gillespie. He’d got it wrong and so had the idiot who’d been watching her. It was clear now that he’d spotted this girl and mistaken her for Charlotte. An easy enough mistake, perhaps, for someone with only a description and a brief glimpse at a photo to go on. But this wasn’t Charlotte. Charlotte had no family. She was alone and a loner. At least that’s what she’d always told him.

  He couldn’t hang about here all day waiting for this kid to stop crying. So he drank his coffee as quickly as its temperature allowed then said, ‘I’d better be going. Will you be okay by yourself? Is there someone who can come and fetch you? Your husband or boyfriend, maybe?’

  The young woman looked up at him, her eyes overflowing. She was really quite appealing, in a childish way. ‘No one,’ she whispered. ‘I’m all alone now. An orphan, I suppose.’ She gave him a sad little smile.

  ‘I’m afraid I really must be going.’ He got to his feet and held out his hand to her. As she took it, he said, ‘Again, I’m very sorry for your loss. But I’m pleased to have met you, Miss?’

  She hesitated, as if wondering whether she ought to reveal her name to a stranger. She appeared to make up her mind, smiled a teary smile and said, ‘Sorry. Rude of me when you’ve been so kind. My name’s Gillespie.’

  35

  Straightening his jacket, he stepped up to Intensive Care reception, where a man stood, watching him. Suspiciously, he thought.

  Time for a smile and a helpless look. ‘Sorry to trouble you, but I think I just saw someone I know leave ICU.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said the man, with a straight, serious face. He did not sound encouraging.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t find her anywhere in the hospital. Could you tell me if she came back in here?’

  The guy shook his head. ‘No idea, sir.’

  ‘Her name’s Gillespie?’

  No response.

  Scratching his chin in fake puzzlement, he sought a different approach. ‘I wonder, could you tell me the name of the lady who passed away in here about an hour ago?’

  ‘Yes sir, I could.’

  ‘Oh, that’s super,’ he said, trying to sound grateful.

  ‘But I’m not going to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I’m not going to disclose information about any patient unless you’re a close relative. Got it?’

  ‘Hey, come on,’ he said, reaching for his wallet.

  The man tensed, as if he expected a gun to appear.

  ‘Steady, fella. I’m just reaching for my billfold. Thought maybe you could use a few dollars. Call it a tip, if you like.’ He removed a fifty, folded it in half and held it out.

  The guy glanced down, quickly, but his eyes lingered long enough to register the value of the note. He would take the bribe. They always did.

  ‘Sir, I’d sure like to help you.’

  Gotcha. He’d never seen anyone refuse a fifty-dollar bill in his life.

  ‘But, if you don’t get outta here in five, I’ll call security and have you removed.’

  Not the reaction he’d expected. ‘Come on, bud.’ He held up the note. ‘I’ll double this. All you have to do is tell me the answer to one question.’ Sliding another fifty dollars from his wallet, he said, ‘You don’t even need to speak. Just nod and you’re a hundred dollars richer.’

  He could see the guy hesitate. Almost hear him doing the math in his head. Working out how much fun he could have with a hundred dollars. Or how many pairs of shoes it could buy his kids. Or how it would help pay for his momma’s medication.

  He went in for the kill, ‘The woman who just died? Mrs Gillespie?’

  The guy looked him in the face, reached for the money and without dropping his gaze, took it. Then started to count, ‘Five.’ A heartbeat later, ‘Four.’

  On three he dropped the money.

  On two the green bills fluttered silently to the floor.

  So there was still one incorruptible man in New York City.

  He was surprised. And more than a little impressed. But no wiser.

  36

  Lucie sat on for a while after the kind stranger left. She drank her water and wiped her tears. Each sip she swallowed seemed to recycle itself as a teardrop and roll down her face.

  Notes of conversations from surrounding tables floated to her like barely heard fragments of music. Upbeat voices, happy laughter, delighted chuckles from a toddler hiding behind his mother’s chair.

  Lucie looked around, in search of another tearful face, another sad, bereaved soul. She’d never felt so desolate and unattached in her life and longed to see someone else suffering as she was, just so she’d know it was normal to sit in a café and weep into a stranger’s handkerchief. She unfurled the damp cotton, looking for a dry corner to wipe her eyes. One section f
elt less soggy than the rest and she spread it out between her fingers, preparing for another mighty nose blow. Feeling an embroidered monogram, she flattened the fine material and examined the letters. Three cursive initials intertwined, just like the ones Granny used to stitch every year for her son-in-law. It was a Scottish tradition, when Lucie was small, maybe it still was, to give hankies for Christmas. Lucie had owned a collection of little monogrammed squares of her own, but they’d been lost long ago, used as bandages for broken dolls or parachutes for teddies, anything but their intended purpose.

  The kind stranger’s initials were so delicately worked, she had difficulty making them out. As if she were reading braille she traced each letter through the maze of scrolls and curls, deciphering a double s and a very elaborate m. Feeling a little guilty for defiling such beautiful craftsmanship, Lucie blew her nose as hard as she could, rolled the handkerchief into a ball and stuck it into the pocket of Charlotte’s jacket.

  On the journey back to the apartment, Lucie stared at the reflection of her sad face in the window of the subway carriage. How had it come to this? On September eighth she had a mother, a father and a husband. Now she had no one. For the first time since the bust-up with her parents, Lucie realised that she’d been expecting a reconciliation at some point in the future. Maybe not so much with her father, those bridges had gone up in flames long ago, but with her mum, surely. She’d never stopped to consider the details of that reunion but she’d been confident it would come about one day. Ironically, she’d always imagined a touching scenario at her sick father’s bedside, as he lay there asking her forgiveness, but some vague premonition had stopped her imagination in its tracks. A dark, superstitious ‘be careful what you wish for’ warning had drawn curtains over the scene before she could take it to its conclusion.

  There would be no reunion now. If only she had made some attempt to contact them sooner, instead of staying silent, like a sulking child.

  At first, she’d been fired up by a mixture of anger and righteous indignation. It was bad enough that her father had tried to stop her coming to the States. If it had been up to him, she’d have given up running and got stuck into accountancy textbooks. How dare he tell her how to live her life? What right did her father have to dictate her choice of partner? Given a chance he’d have treated her like a Third-World bride, promised to the son of a local business associate. Curtis had made a costly mistake, but Dad wasn’t prepared to give him a chance. Who knew, maybe if her parents had made an effort to welcome Curtis, things would have turned out differently. They could have been one big happy family by now, looking forward to the holidays. She could see them all tucking in at a big dining table, in a joint celebration of Thanksgiving and St Andrew’s Day. Curtis and Lucie, smiling at their beautiful seven-year-old daughter and adorable twin boys. She could see those kids, in cute tartan outfits, and her parents, doting on them, hardly able to believe their good fortune.

  The train pulled into an above ground station and Lucie’s reflection vanished, and with it the dream of what might have been. When she was pregnant, Lucie had been sure her mum would try to stay in touch. But apart from sending a big money order, she’d obeyed her husband’s command that she sever all contact with their daughter. At the time Lucie thought the cash was a salve for her mother’s conscience, but she’d taken it anyway. She’d spent it, thank God, on a health insurance plan that covered her and Curtis and their family for any eventuality. Curtis couldn’t have paid for her care when she lost the baby. At that tragic time, when Lucie needed all the support she could get, she had missed her mother terribly. It felt like a double loss.

  Lucie was glad she hadn’t mentioned the miscarriage yesterday. Better Mum died thinking she had a living grandchild.

  The terrible months that followed the baby’s death seemed like a grey blur now, best forgotten. Lucie began to feel better, physically and emotionally, but things had started to go downhill with Curtis by then, and shame had kept her from contacting her parents. The thought of her father crowing that he’d been right all along was too much. Each time she dialled their number, she killed the call before it could connect. Finally, she’d let it ring through only to find their number was unobtainable. It was a clear message: ‘We’re out of your life.’ She and Curtis had been forced to change apartment soon after and the link was broken.

  And now Mum was gone. If only she’d stayed at home. What Lucie wouldn’t give to have her parents, estranged from her or not, alive and happy in Scotland.

  And what about Curtis? Did she wish him alive? Was it better to have one person who cared about her, even if he had a strange way of showing it, than this desolation?

  37

  ‘Is everything as you wished, sir?’

  He looked around the ballroom. On a dais at the far end, where, on happier occasions, a band might play, a modern lectern had been set up with microphone and lighting. An overhead screen bore the brightly projected name and logo of his company. Large, round tables, surrounded by golden chairs, had been set up. Each was prepared, not for a wedding feast or a corporate banquet, but with a plain white cloth and an unlit candelabra which held aloft a numbered sign. The numbers corresponded to the floors occupied by his company at its World Trade Center headquarters in the North Tower. More than two hundred people were thought to have reported for work on those floors on the morning of 9/11. None of them had been seen since.

  ‘It looks great,’ he said. ‘Can you just make sure there are plenty of refreshments on offer and keep the food coming, please. As long as they’re eating, I’m paying.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. I’ll see to it personally.’ With a Prussian snap of his heels, the manager gave the tiniest of bows and excused himself.

  Waiters, immaculate in white shirts and waistcoats, carried trays of sandwiches and laid them on tables at the side. Bottles of Coke and Evian reclined in huge buckets of ice. Had there been bubbly chilling too, it might have looked like the firm’s annual Christmas party.

  Just inside the main door, a table had been set up with information packets, including lists of hospitals and investigative tips. He’d managed to get a hold of several grief counsellors who were standing by, should anyone wish to speak to them, and some small seminar rooms had been set aside for that purpose. Another table was piled with missing person reports and a place had been provided, with pens, to fill them out. Already a few people were gathering around it and many more were streaming into the ballroom. Some went straight to a numbered table and sat there, as if waiting to be served. Others worked their way around the room, speaking to one and then another as they went. Yet more were pinning up home-made posters of their loved ones with a ‘Have you seen?’ heading in bold pen or print. One young woman, a stars and stripes bandana covering her hair, was directing two children to a space where they might pin up their hand-crafted poster.

  He coughed to clear a lump that had inexplicably formed in his throat. Although he believed his actions were absolutely the right ones, it was hard to be this close to the bereaved. He turned away and left the ballroom. He’d find a quiet place to look over his speech and return when people had settled and got some of that raw emotion out of their system. This wasn’t going to be easy for anyone.

  As he made his way through the main doorway, a woman caught his arm. ‘You’re Michael’s big boss, aren’t you?’

  His face must have made it clear he had no idea who Michael was.

  ‘Michael Mulholland? My son? Worked on the ninety-seventh?’ She pointed at the table marked ninety-seven as if that might jog his memory. ‘You probably knew him as Micky?’

  When he smiled and nodded, although he’d never heard of the guy, she grabbed his hand. ‘Have you seen him? Have they found my boy?’

  Cradling this stranger’s hand in his, he said quietly, ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Mulholland. I haven’t seen Micky. But I do know him. Great guy! Real asset to Langdon.’

  With a final shake of her hand he extricated himself and walked away. He
could do without any more encounters of that sort.

  In the lobby he met Diane, who was hugging a sobbing woman as if she were a close relative. Diane was so good at this stuff. It was a gift, an innate ability to empathise with people and give them comfort. She smiled at him over the woman’s shoulder, just the briefest raising of her lips to let him know she’d seen him. Nothing overt that might be noticed by others and cause offence. He waited until she was free then went to her side.

  ‘God, Diane, this is awful.’

  She gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Well, of course it is, honey. But just imagine how much worse it is for these poor, unfortunate folks here.’ In an elegant gesture she pointed out the people who were still making their way into the ballroom.

  ‘How am I going to get up there on that stage and speak to them?’

  ‘I’ll be right there with you, for moral support.’ To prove her point she took his arm and squeezed it tightly as she walked with him through the wide doorway. She was as calm and collected as if they were sweeping into a ball, guests of honour arriving after the others. ‘Remember, honey,’ she whispered, ‘you’re here to help these folks. They all know none of this was your fault.’

  The room was noisy, everyone talking at once. A child crying, another giggling hysterically. But there was an atmosphere in the room that he found hard to identify. A group of women near the door moved aside to let him and Diane through and as they passed one of them grabbed his arm and said, ‘Have you seen my husband, Graham Carter? He was real strong, a bodybuilder. I believe he may have made it down to the basement.’

  He shook his head and tried for a sorrowful look. ‘I’m so sorry, ma’am. I haven’t seen Graham.’

  The woman looked as if he’d just taken away her last shred of hope and he realised then what was creating the buzz in the room. It was hope. These people had come here in the hope that he could tell them something or do something that would help them.