Alexandra, Gone (22 page)

“I’ll go, then.”

“I think you should.”

“So you’ll still mind the cat?”

“Yes, I’ll mind the stupid cat.”

“Will you be nice to her and give her at least one hug a day?”

“I’ll be nice as in I won’t kick her when I see her, but I will not hug her.”

“Will you let her rub against your leg?”

“Fine. I’ll let her rub against my leg.”

“Good,” Leslie said. “I’ll bring you back something special.”

“It better cost more than twenty euros.”

Leslie laughed and entered her apartment.

Jim picked her up in his car and they drove to the long-term car park and got a bus to the terminal. Leslie checked her handbag for her passport and tickets so many times that Jim took them off her. They put their bags through and went straight to their gate, where they had time for a small lunch.

Leslie was extremely nervous and kept tapping her fingers on the table.

Jim placed his hand on hers. “Relax,” he said, “we are going to have a great time.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’ve just remembered I hate flying.”

Jim laughed at her and promised that if she got too nervous he’d share his stash of Valium.

“Why do you have Valium?”

“Oh, the doctor gave them to me after Imelda died.”

“That was over ten years ago.”

“Yeah but pills don’t go off, do they?”

“I think they do, Jim.”

“Oh.”

“Still, give me one anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay, but only one.”

“Fine,” she said.

He opened his bag and tapped a few Valium into his hand, she grabbed two and swallowed them without water, and an hour later she floated onto the plane.

Jane spent the day with the party organizers. The tent had arrived and was being erected in the back garden. Rose had spent much of the morning shouting at the men to watch her various plants. The booze had arrived and the catering team had set up a good-sized bar. The dance floor had lights flashing around it, and the DJ arrived good and early to do a sound check. Dominic kept Kurt entertained for the day because although his belated eighteenth birthday party was no surprise, Jane wanted everything to be perfect when he walked through the door. Irene arrived late in the afternoon to see if there was anything she could help with, but Jane was pretty happy that everything was right on track, and instead they enjoyed coffee on the patio together because thankfully in September it had stopped raining. They talked about the party plans, and Irene was so excited she broke into a clap every now and again. When they were all talked out on the party theme, Jane broached the subject of how Irene was getting on at home.

“It’s good,” she said.

“You can come back here anytime.”

“Thanks, Jane. I know you don’t think much of my mum, but she’s not half as bad as you think.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“She doesn’t make a good first impression.”

Or a second
, Jane thought.

“She was painfully shy up to her early twenties, so sometimes when she’s nervous she overcompensates. She was really upset when we got back from the airport.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She thinks everyone is laughing at her. She feels foolish. She was married to my dad for twenty-five years, he meets someone online, and she’s a laughingstock. It’s hard for her.”

“She’s not a laughingstock.”

“I wish she believed that.”

“She’ll recover.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because people do.”

“I hope so,” Irene said. “I hate seeing her so sad. That guy might have been a user, but at least he was a distraction.”

“I really like you, Irene.”

“I really like you too, Jane, but next time you meet my mum, go easy on her.”

“Promise.”

“And Elle?”

“I’ll hold her back.”

Piped music played from eight onward, people started to arrive around nine, the caterers served drinks to anyone with a passable fake ID, and the kids were going through canapés like there was no tomorrow. Jane was dressed and ready to join the guests, but she waited for her son and his dad. They arrived just before ten. The place was full, lights were flashing, and the music was rocking. Kurt jigged down the steps into his back garden, where his friends were sitting around drinking and having a ball. The group of his closest friends all howled when he approached, and they bent over with arms stretched in honor of his excellent party. He played it cool, kissing his girlfriend and slapping his pals’ hands. Jane watched from the kitchen window with Dominic over her shoulder.

“You’ve done a pretty good job there,” he said.

“Despite myself.”

“You’re always so hard on yourself.”

“He’s special, isn’t he?”

“I think so.”

“My heart is full,” she said.

Tom appeared behind Dominic with a large boxed present, and Jane spotted his reflection through the glass.

“Tom!” She turned to him. “Thanks for coming.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

She hugged him. “You didn’t need to bring a present.”

“Yeah, well, I hope he likes it,” Tom said while maintaining eye contact with Dominic.

“I’m Dominic.” Dominic offered his hand.

“Tom.” Tom took Dominic’s hand and shook it.

“I was really sorry to hear about Alexandra,” Dominic said, putting his arm around Jane. “She was a good friend to us.”

“She was a good friend to
me
—she hated you,” Jane said.

Tom laughed.

“Only toward the end,” Dominic said.

“No,” Jane said, shaking her head, “way before that. She thought you were a vain stuck-up brat.”

“I’m leaving now,” Dominic said. “It was nice to meet you, Tom.”

“You too.”

Tom turned and smiled at Jane, and Dominic noticed a look in her eye that had once been reserved for him. He walked down into the garden and said hello to a few of Kurt’s friends, and once he made sure the caterers were happy and all was well, he snuck down to Elle’s cottage and knocked on her door.

Tom and Jane mingled with Kurt’s friends, and when she asked him to dance he was horrified and she made fun of him until he relented. Two minutes on the floor and she agreed that it had been a bad idea. They sat and watched Kurt and Irene dance wildly around the floor with their hands in the air.

“It seems like a lifetime ago,” he said.

“For me it was a lifetime, Kurt’s lifetime.”

“Alexandra was so desperate for a baby. We tried everything. I wanted to just skip it all and adopt, but she was determined to have her own. She wanted to feel life inside her.”

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago, but I hated it. The sickness, the constipation—my God, no one tells you about that—the gas, the heartburn, the backache, the pressure on your bladder …oh, the hemorrhoids, and did I mention the heartburn?”

“Yes.” He laughed. “You paint such a beautiful picture.”

“I don’t remember enjoying one bit of my pregnancy and, if I’m honest, the first year or two of Kurt’s life were from hell, but after that something inside me clicked. It took its time to click, but when it did I could never go back to a time without him, you know?”

“No,” he said, “but I’d like to experience that someday.”

Alexandra had been missing sixty-four weeks and three days and it was the first day that Tom had expressed a wish for the future, and it was a future in which he envisaged himself with Jane and not his wife. The thought was momentary but profound.

Jane wasn’t living inside of Tom’s head and so didn’t perceive the juggernaut of emotions that had borne down on him with that statement and the accompanying vision that he hid so well.

“I just don’t know if I could do it again,” she said, staring at her son mooning a friend. “My God, I have no idea how I did it the first time.”

“You’re a great mother, despite forgetting him outside a shop when he was a baby and threatening to beat up his bully.”

“And don’t forget breaking my toe when I was kicking down his door—that was an especially proud moment.”

“How could I? That image will last a lifetime.”

The clock turned to midnight, and the caterer approached Jane and asked her to step outside. Standing there, with a cake the size of a shopping center, was Dominic.

Elle was lighting the eighteen candles. The lighter had run out, and she kept shaking it and cursing. “We should have just got the one and the eight. Eighteen actual candles are so tacky.”

“I want to see him blow out eighteen candles,” Jane said, and she grabbed the lighter from Elle and shook it hard. She got a few more lit, and then she began lighting one off the other.

“My back is breaking,” Dominic said.

When all eighteen candles were lit, Elle signaled to the DJ and he played “Happy Birthday,” and Dominic and Jane walked in holding the cake. Kurt was left standing in the middle of the dance floor alone as all his friends abandoned him. He covered his face and then blew out his candles. Everybody clapped, and Jane and Dominic took the cake over to the side, where the caterer started to cut it.

“This is where we decipher who’s drunk and who’s stoned,” Dominic said. “Cake eaters, stoned; non—cake eaters, pissed.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“You’re such a square, Janey,” Elle said, gorging on cake. “Yum,” she said, and she giggled.

After midnight everything got a little crazy. Jane was surrounded by sixty drunk teenagers and was feeling a little worse for wear herself. Tom was on his fifth whiskey, and even though there was plenty of food he wouldn’t touch any of it.

“Do you want to get some air?” she asked when the tent got so hot there was steam coming off the teenagers’ heads.

“Yes, please.”

They walked outside into the cool air.

“That’s better,” he said. “You know, I’d love a cup of coffee.”

“I’d love a cup of tea,” she admitted, “but I haven’t seen Elle in a while, so first I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“You mean you’re checking up on her.”

“Did you see how much wine she was pouring down her throat? It was like looking at Rose.”

“Where is Rose?”

“Her pal’s house. She doesn’t like groups of teenagers—says they bring out the devil in one another.”

“Right.” Tom headed up to the house to put the kettle on.

Elle’s light was on, so Jane walked inside. The kitchen was empty, as was the sitting room. She called out and heard movement coming from the bedroom. To make sure that Elle wasn’t getting sick, she opened the door and saw Dominic attempt to cover his face with the duvet. Elle just sat there as though Dominic wasn’t in the bed beside her, hiding when he’d already been seen.

“Hi, Janey,” Elle said.

“I don’t believe it.”

Dominic took the duvet down from his face. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t mind, do you, Janey?” Elle said. “You’re over him, you’ve moved on.”

“Shut up, Elle.”

“Jane, look …”

“Shut up, Dominic.”

“Janey, relax!” Elle said.

“I’m finished with both of you,” Jane said. “Completely and utterly finished.”

“What does that mean?” Elle said.

“It means that you are on your own.”

She closed the door and walked out of the cottage and through the garden past all the drunken teenagers, two of whom were puking in her mother’s rosebushes and one of whom was taking a pee on the graves of Elle’s dead gerbils, Jeffrey, Jessica, Judy, and Jimmy. She walked into her kitchen, and Tom was waiting with fresh coffee and tea and was surprised when she slammed the door. She covered her face and then her mouth, and then she sniffed and sat down.

“What happened?”

“Dominic and my sister happened.”

“They were together?”

“Yes, Tom, they were together in bed postcoitus.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Everybody is always sorry. Don’t you get pissed off with people being sorry?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Me too. I am so fucking sick of being sorry, feeling sorry, and having people feel sorry for me.”

“Me too.”

“Dominic is an asshole, he can’t help it, I’ve always known and I’ve always put up with it. But Elle, it’s not her. Elle may be a lot of things, but she has always been kind, never cruel, and this is cruel—she doesn’t even like him.”

“Drink some tea.”

“I don’t fucking want any fucking tea.”

“That’s two ‘fucking’s in the space of three seconds. I think you need some tea.”

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay, you’re just upset.”

“I don’t love him.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t understand why Elle would do that.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I’m finished with her. I have picked up after her since she was a kid, I’ve put her ahead of me every step of the way. I didn’t ask for much, in fact I don’t remember ever asking for or wanting anything but Dominic. She knew what she was doing. So I’m finished with her.”

Tom handed her the tea. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

She shook her head. “No, I won’t.”

“It’s going to be fine,” he said.

“How could she do that?” she said.

And it was then that she burst into tears and sobbed and rattled in Tom’s arms until she was empty, and when she stopped crying he kissed her and it took her aback, especially as he was in such close proximity and she had puffy eyes, tear-burned cheeks, and, she suspected, a runny nose. It felt really nice and so she kissed him, and then they were both kissing each other for a minute or two or ten, and then he pulled away and under his breath he said he was sorry.

“Yeah,” she said, and she sniffled a little. “Of course you are.”

He walked out of the kitchen and out of her house, leaving Jane alone staring out at her son and his pals having the time of their lives. She walked into her bedroom and locked the door and laid her head on her pillow and cried into it until it caused her actual physical pain to continue.
Where the hell did it all go wrong?

Two days after Kurt’s party, Leslie returned home from holiday. She was tanned and relaxed and even happy. Despite being sore, tired, itchy, and sometimes emotional, she’d had the time of her life. They laid on the beach, and while she slept under the sun her body and mind healed themselves. They drank wine in the evenings, ate beautiful food while looking at beautiful scenery, and armed with the clothes carefully chosen by Elle she didn’t feel odd or weird or freakish once.