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.
3
“Can’t Get Bitter”
It’s so easy to be cynical, you just turn on your TV screen
and everyone tells you who you should be.
When I feel stupid, disenchanted,
those pretty flowers that he planted,
the pollen comes floating down the breeze.
Jack L, Broken Songs
December 2007
It was just after eleven on the morning of New Year’s Eve and Elle was standing at the back of her garden, knotting her long brown hair before picking up the shovel from the ground. Her ritual had changed from late evening to late morning many years previously on account of it getting in the way of her social life.
Jane emerged from the big house and made her way down the patio steps and toward her sister, who was unaware of her and busy staring into the middle distance. Jane often noticed Elle staring at something unseen by anyone else, but she was sure that whatever it was her sister was looking at, it was real and interesting to her. Weirdo.
“Morning, soldier,” she said affectionately while patting her sister’s back before crossing her arms, hugging herself tightly, and waiting for the ceremony to commence.
Elle saluted Jane while holding the shovel in one hand and a cigarette between her lips. Jane waited for Elle to begin shoveling dirt, but Elle was slow to start.
“What are you waiting for?”
Elle dropped the shovel and walked backward toward their mother’s rosebushes. “I’m just double-checking. I know the spot should be five feet from Mum’s rosebushes and eight feet from Jeffrey’s grave, but five feet from Mum’s rosebushes appears to be only six feet from the bloody grave.”
She began walking forward toe to heel and counting.
“But those aren’t proper feet,” Jane said. “As in twelve inches, one foot.”
“I’m not taking about ‘proper’ feet—I’m talking about my feet,” Elle said.
The recount was the same. Elle was displeased.
“Well, does it make a difference? Just dig a bigger hole,” Jane said.
“Can’t,” Elle said, circling the point where she believed her box to be buried. “Last year I nearly lopped off Jeffrey’s head.”
Jane laughed. “Jeffrey died when you were six.”
“So?”
“So that was twenty years ago.”
Elle pretended to be confused. “What’s your point?”
Jane spelled it out. “Jeffrey’s head is long gone.”
“I’m telling you it was Jeffrey.”
“Not Jessica, Judy, or Jimmy?” Jane asked, laughing.
“Definitely Jeffrey,” Elle said before counting her steps again. After a third recount she was utterly baffled. “It should be five feet from Mum’s roses and eight feet from Jeffrey’s head, so
how the hell did the garden lose two feet all of a sudden?”
“Maybe it’s the shoes you’re wearing,” Jane said helpfully.
Elle considered this and took off her shoes. In socks she re-counted and bizarrely gained one foot. Christ, no wonder my toes look like stumps.
“You need to get your feet seen to,” Jane said, staring at her sister’s hammertoes.
“Will do,” Elle said, nodding and flexing them, hoping they would stretch back into toe shape. They didn’t.
“And you need to give up wearing high heels.”
“Won’t do,” Elle said before refocusing on the ground.
After another minute or two of standing around and arguing over the lost foot, she carefully shoveled out dirt, retrieved the old biscuit tin, and walked the short distance to her small cottage situated at the very back of the long garden with Jane in tow. They headed into the kitchen. Jane made coffee while Elle battled to open the rusty old tin.
“You need a new tin.”
“No way. It’s this vessel or no vessel. It’s all about tradition, Jane,” Elle argued before screaming “Bollocks!” after nearly losing her middle finger to a sharp end of the rusted vessel.
A few minutes passed before the coffee was made, the tin was open, the girls were sitting opposite each other, and Elle was reading silently. Elle always read the letter silently while sipping her coffee before reading aloud the parts she was happy to share. Elle laughed, and Jane smiled although she didn’t know what she was smiling at, and it was always at this point in the procedure that she remembered that sometimes she didn’t like what she heard. Elle put down the letter and nodded to herself with a sheepish grin.
“Well?” Jane asked a tad nervously.
alexandra, gone Page 4
