“Do you ever wonder about fate?”
“Not really.”
“I do,” he said. “I think about that night in the lift and what would have happened if I’d taken the stairs or decided to give the gig a miss. If I’d gone home with my little bag of leaflets, I think I’d have lost the will and I’d be gone.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
After dinner they sat in the sitting room and Jane told Tom about Kurt’s birthday present of a motorbike and how she’d wrestled with it. Dominic had finally broken her, but she feared that she might now never sleep again. He laughed and told her she’d find a way—after all, he had. He didn’t mention the way he’d found was getting pissed.
At the end of the night she thanked him for a really nice evening and one she had needed badly. He was getting her coat when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was her taxi, she answered it.
A girl stood in the doorway, looking quizzically at her.
“Who are you?” the girl asked.
“I’m a friend,” Jane said. The girl’s aggressive tone put her on edge.
“Jeanette, go on into the kitchen and I’ll join you in a moment,” Tom warned.
“No,” Jeanette said, and it was apparent she’d been drinking. “I’m Jeanette, Tom’s girlfriend,” she said, and she put her hand out to shake Jane’s.
Jane got such a fright she shook Jeanette’s hand and told her it was lovely to meet her. This took the wind out of Jeanette’s sails. Her aggression dissipated and she told Jane it was nice to meet her too, and all the while Tom was biting his lip and praying he was dreaming while at the same time trying to work out a plausible lie to salvage the situation.
“Jeanette, please, go wait for me in the kitchen,” he begged.
Jeanette said good-bye to Jane, who was still smiling like a simpleton, and went into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
“Jane—” Tom attempted to explain, but Jane just shook her head.
“No.”
She walked out of his open front door, and he followed her to the gate.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“Oh, I understand,” she said. “You’re a man, and men are selfcentred, lying, cheating bastards. I thought you were different. I thought you were decent. But you’re just like the rest of them.”
“Jane—”
“Don’t ‘Jane’ me!” she said, and now she was crying. “In fact you’re worse than the rest of them because you pretend to be better, you pretend to give a shit!”
“I do!” he shouted.
“Your wife is missing, she’s alone and lost or hurt or hurting or dying or dead, and what are you doing? You’re fucking, that’s what you’re doing.”
She moved to open the gate and he grabbed her arm. “Please,” he said.
“Go fuck your girlfriend,” she said, “and let me worry about my old friend!” She pulled her arm away and ran to the taxi that had arrived.
Tom watched her disappear.
He walked inside his house, grabbed Jeanette’s coat from the banister, and went into the kitchen. He wrapped it around her shoulders and pushed her through the hall and front door and closed the door in her face without saying one word. She banged on his window and door for a few minutes, then gave up. She knew that whatever sweetness they had once shared had turned sour.
The next night she’d tell her friends all about it over dinner, and they’d tell her he was a user and a jerk and that she was too good for him anyway because he was a broken man.
“Throw him on the pyre and light a match,” Davey would say, and Jeanette would laugh and decide that although she would miss him, she wouldn’t miss his problems, and so she’d drink to finding a man her own age—sexy, funny, uncomplicated, and without a tragic past.
When Leslie didn’t call, Elle decided to visit her in her apartment. She buzzed, Leslie let her in, and she bounded up the stairs. She sat with the cat while Leslie looked for some tea bags because Elle was attempting to cut down on coffee.
“Well?” Elle asked.
“He didn’t come.”
“Well, he probably couldn’t. I mean, I’m not a doctor but, sperm lives in balls and he is ball-less—ergo no come.”
“I mean he didn’t turn up.”
“Oh. What happened?”
“About an hour after he was due he phoned and told me he was sorry but that he wasn’t ready,” Leslie said, dropping a tea bag into a mug of boiling water.
Elle preferred it when the bag was placed in the teacup before the boiling water, but she wasn’t about to argue.
“Sorry,” Elle said.
“The man has lost his wife, his kids, and his balls all in the space of a year. He’s just finished chemo. I was mad to think anything could happen.”
“Not mad. You were just trying to open yourself up, and maybe you rushed it with Mark, but that’s okay. Next time will be better.”
Leslie smiled at her new friend, because what she said was true. Leslie had rushed into something with Mark. She had been so desperate to move on and to be with someone who really understood what she was going through, and it had all been a little too simple. The poor man had his own issues, his battles to win and lose. Elle was right, next time it would be better because next time she’d know better. I’m not ready and that’s okay.
“How’s Jim?” Elle asked.
“Do not bring Jim into this,” Leslie warned.
Elle put her hands up. “Okay, Miss Touchy.”
“I am not Miss Touchy!”
After Elle left most of her tea in the cup and Leslie was fortified with a nice hot coffee, they decided to take advantage of the bright, warm day by going for a stroll in Phoenix Park. Leslie was at her mailbox when Deborah from Apartment 8A entered the main door. Deborah had managed to maintain a safe distance from Leslie since the cat shit incident. She mumbled hello.
“Well, hello, Deborah,” Leslie said loudly.
“Hi,” Deborah said.
“Yes, this is my friend Elle. Say hello to my friend, Deborah.”
“Hi,” Deborah said again.
Elle grinned. She’d heard the story more than once because for some reason Deborah’s misguided concern for Leslie had really hit a nerve.
“You see, Deborah, loners don’t have friends.”
Deborah nodded and looked around to see if there was anyone around who could possibly save her if Leslie decided to physically attack.
“I’m going now,” Deborah said, and she made her way to the lift.
“Lovely seeing you!” Leslie called.
Deborah disappeared into the lift.
“You need help,” Elle said.
“Yes,” Leslie said, “I really do.”
They took a stroll in the park and ended up in the zoo and enjoyed a perfectly charming day together that both women would remember with fondness for a very long time.
On May 29, 2008, the television show Crimeline featured a reconstruction of Alexandra’s last movements. In the week that had passed, Tom had attempted to call Jane, but she didn’t pick up the phone, nor did she respond to his messages. In one of those unanswered messages he reminded Jane of the date and time of the show and he once again thanked her for all her support and help getting him this far along the track. Then he apologized for not being a better man. Jane had listened to his message a number of times, and her anger turned to regret and embarrassment because as much as she was disappointed that Tom had turned out to be a human being with actual faults, the person she was really shouting at that night was Dominic. Of course, that was Jane’s problem. She couldn’t scream and shout at Dominic. Because she had always been so desperate to win his love she never allowed him to see who she really was and how messed up and sad and lonely and sometimes bitter and hateful she could be. Because to show him that would be to go against the image of cool, great, kind, anything-goes Jane, the Jane she had spent the last eighteen years creating for Dominic and Dominic alo
ne. She took out her pain and aggression on Tom—poor, desperate, haunted Tom—and she felt really sick about it.
The only silver lining was that she hadn’t told Elle or Leslie about her encounter with Tom’s whore. Her reasoning had simply been that she didn’t want them to be as disappointed in him as she was. She didn’t want them to stop searching for her friend just because her husband was a selfish dick. But now it dawned on her that neither Leslie nor Elle would have been as disappointed as she was because neither of them was a silly, stupid romantic, and while she had seen Tom as some sort of hero, they merely saw him as a man.
The night of the reconstruction she sat in her sitting room with Elle and Rose, and even Kurt and Irene took a break from pretending to study so that they could all follow Alexandra into the ether and, with any luck, beyond. She had thought about calling Tom just before the show aired, but she didn’t have the nerve, so she left it.
Breda sat on her favorite green-velvet chair surrounded by her family—Eamonn and Frankie, Kate and Owen. Even their five-year-old, Ciara, was sitting there quietly waiting to see Auntie Alexandra, or at least the actress who would be playing her.
Alexandra’s father smoked a cigarette in the garden and then came inside and sat down in the midst of his family, finally about to face what had gone so wrong.
Despite Breda’s invite, Tom watched it alone.
An actress with brown hair, dressed in black trousers and a black shirt with a large bow and carrying a black tote bag, appeared in the doorway of Alexandra’s home. The camera followed her walking along her street. An actress in her midfifties was brushing the step at No. 14. Mrs. Murphy had been asked if she’d like to play herself but she had been too shy and had felt an actress would be better. The fake Mrs. Murphy called out to the fake Alexandra, saying what a lovely day it was. The fake Alexandra agreed that it was perfect, and she walked on toward the station and through the turnstiles and stood waiting for the DART. The same three teenagers who had seen the real Alexandra sing James Morrison badly had agreed to be part of the reconstruction to win cool points—the eleven months had done wonders for their skin, especially the girl’s. The fake Alexandra started to sing James Morrison’s “The Last Goodbye” badly. The teenagers acted as though they were laughing, and one of the boys even slapped his thigh. The fake Alexandra stuck out her tongue and they pretended to laugh harder, ensuring that the camera moved away from them quickly. When the DART arrived, she stepped onto it and sat beside an actor in his midfifties. Across the way an actress in her forties was looking out the window. The camera returned to the fake Alexandra and fake old man. He asked her to wake him at Tara Street if he slept. She agreed. There was a shot of the DART moving along the track before a return to the inside shot. The DART pulled into Tara Street Station and the fake Alexandra nudged the old man and told him it was time to get off. He got off, and she jumped out of the DART and followed him and handed him a bag. He thanked her and she returned to the train. The fake stranger sitting opposite, who had been looking out the window when the fake Alexandra had gotten on the train, grinned at her and told her that her own dad was as bad. The fake Alexandra mentioned that the doddery old man had been sweet, and then they looked away from each other and out the windows. Another shot of the DART on tracks and Dalkey Station appeared. Inside again, the fake Alexandra picked up her bag and stood up and fixed her clothes before disembarking. She made her way through the station and out into the sunshine. She continued straight on to the main street and took the left at the end of the street; after that she took a right and then another left, and after that the fake Alexandra faded from the screen and was gone. The presenter appeared in front of the screen showing an empty street in Dalkey. He reminded the viewers of the date and time of the incident. He reminded them of the woman’s name and reiterated what she had been wearing, her height and weight. He asked people to cast their minds back to that day.
“The twenty-first of June 2007—a bright, warm day, a day when Alexandra Kavanagh née Walsh, daughter, sister, friend, and wife, turned a corner in Dalkey and vanished from plain sight. Someone knows something. If you’re that someone, please call.” He gave the hotline number and the e-mail and postal addresses, and then he moved on to a robbery in Carlow.
Jane, Elle, Kurt, Irene, and even Rose sat quietly. Rose was the first to get up to leave, shaking her head and sighing.
“She was a cheeky pup in her day, but nobody deserves that,” she said, and she made her way back to her basement apartment and to a well-needed drink.
Irene and Kurt made their excuses and returned to their studies. Elle and Jane sat together in the dark. “Wanna go to the pub?” Elle asked.
“I’ll get my bag,” Jane said.
Tom sat alone in his sitting room, ignoring the sounds of the texts buzzing on his phone. He drank from his whiskey glass and prayed that the someone who knew something would phone the hotline, because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on.
Alexandra’s father cupped his face in his hands and cried like a baby. This distracted Eamonn, Kate, and their spouses from Breda, and while they soothed and calmed him Breda stood up quietly and, unseen, walked up to her bedroom and took off her cardigan and folded it on the bed. She pulled down her duvet and she got into her bed, and except to go to the toilet, that was where she stayed.
10
“Lost in Limbo”
Here we are blind but trying to see
and here we are speechless but trying to sing,
and here we are paralysed but trying to tango,
lost in limbo.
Jack L, Broken Songs
June 2008
Jane was doing her accounts in the gallery. When she looked up from her computer screen it was just in time to see an extremely glamorous woman in her late forties enter the premises. It was a hot day but the woman wore gloves anyway, and she took one off as soon as she entered.
“Jane Moore?” she said.
“Yes?”
“I’m Martha, Irene’s mother.”
“Oh,” Jane said, standing, “hello.”
“Hello,” she said and smiled a wide smile, revealing perfect porcelain teeth. “I thought it was about time we met.”
“Okay,” Jane said.
Martha pulled a chair that was resting against the wall up to Jane’s table and sat down. Jane put her hand out to shake Martha’s but she didn’t seem to notice it, so Jane sat.
“Well,” Martha said, “Irene is so enchanted by you I honestly don’t know who she has a bigger crush on—you or your son.”
Jane had no idea how to respond to the woman’s statement or her passive-aggressive tone, so she remained silent. Martha took another moment to remove her second glove.
“It seems she is determined to stay with you,” she said, “but then how could I compete with a party house where anything goes?”
She again smiled a wide smile, and Jane could feel her temper rising and her face twisting, the way her mother’s did before she spewed bile.
Martha’s smile remained fixed. “So I was hoping you’d give me some tips on how to get her to come home.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d noticed she’d gone,” Jane said in a tone that matched her mother’s at her very snottiest, “but then, you were preoccupied with a boy young enough to be your son. I guess mine isn’t the only party house in town.”
“Funny,” Martha said. “I suppose you think I’m a bad mother because I needed to take some time out to recover from a broken marriage. I suppose you think that you’re a better mother than me.”
“I do and I am,” Jane said, channeling Rose.
“Oh really. I know that you’re allowing them to sleep together under your roof, allowing them to drive around on a motorbike together, and don’t think I don’t know about the drinking.”
“In case you failed to notice, your daughter had a birthday in February, and as they’re both eighteen, everything I let them do, they’re entitled to do. I also feed them, c
lean up after them, listen to them, encourage them, and watch over them, so if you ever want to come into my gallery again it will be with the intention of thanking me for caring for Irene. Understand?”
“You know, I met your mother once at a bridge club. She was a nasty bitch and you’re exactly like her.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Jane said. “Now get out.”
Martha stood up. “My daughter belongs with me.” Her bitchy I’m-better-than-you façade was slipping. “How the hell can I compete with you?”
“I don’t know how to help you, Martha, and to be honest you haven’t inspired me to want to,” Jane said.
Martha walked out, leaving Jane to stare after her.
What an ungrateful tart.
It turned out that Martha had split with her boy toy, and in his absence she missed her daughter. A few days earlier she had approached Irene about coming home and Irene had told her she was happy where she was and didn’t want to move as it was so close to her exams. Martha had tried everything in her emotional arsenal to encourage her daughter to return home, but Irene was adamant that she was happy, safe, and secure, and that it was nice to be in a house where she was cared for. Martha had shouted that Irene was ungrateful and cruel to use the past few months against her, but Irene insisted that Martha had always been the kind of mother who had been absent whether she was there or not.
“It’s not your fault, Mum. You are what you are.”
Martha was selfish, the whole world revolved around her, but despite these failings she was also kind and charming and fun to be around, and Irene wasn’t angry at her mum, she wasn’t venomous, she didn’t want to cause her pain. All she wanted to do was stay with her boyfriend and Jane until her exams.
“And then?” Martha had said.
“And then I don’t know.”
“Please come home to me then.”
“No, Mum, I’m going to Greece with Kurt.”
“For how long?”
“A couple of weeks.”
“And then?”
“And then you’ll probably be back together with whatever his name is or someone else.”
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