Alexandra, Gone (5 page)

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh my God, you’re pregnant!”

If she dug up the letter, Elle would find out and she’d never trust Jane again, so she couldn’t risk it even though she often stood on the spot that was five feet from her mother’s rosebushes and between six and eight feet from Jeffrey’s head and was sorely tempted.

For instance, there was the year that Elle promised the Universe she’d give money to Comic Relief. She watched the show, got drunk, and pledged a hundred grand. Jane had argued that although people all over the world were in need, Elle didn’t know if she’d sell another painting that year and although Ricky Gervais was funny he wasn’t that fucking funny. Elle had laughed and called her mean, but it was Jane who paid Elle’s bills when she’d squandered all her money by June and was waiting for three months for that next big check. There was the year she promised to rescue a dog and ended up rescuing ten dogs from different pounds across Dublin. Two weeks and two tons of dog shit later, it became apparent to all but Elle that she couldn’t care for them. It fell to Jane to rehouse them, and Elle took to her bed for two weeks mourning the dogs she couldn’t seem to remember to care for. There was the year she decided to run a marathon and forgot to practice. She made it twenty miles before she collapsed, suffering the effects of exhaustion and a speed overdose. Elle had felt that it was perfectly acceptable to take speed to run a marathon, going so far as to query the doctor as to how in the hell he thought she’d make it without speed. All of these incidents had caused Jane to deliberate on risking Elle’s wrath, but then she conceded that even if she knew of Elle’s plans in advance there would be no way of stopping her, as she was a law unto herself. Their mother said it was her creative nature that drove her to extremes and that neither she nor Jane could ever hope to understand the things that drove her. Jane and her mother didn’t agree on much, but they agreed on that. Elle was a genius, and everyone knew that genius was close to madness, and so as long as Elle painted the most beautiful and inspired paintings, she would be indulged.

Jane opened the back door, and before she got inside and had time to close it her mother was calling her through the intercom that linked her kitchen with her mother’s kitchen in the basement apartment downstairs.

“Jane? Jane? Jane? Jane, it’s your mother! Jane! Jane! Jane, have you gone deaf? I know you’re there. I saw you come out of Elle’s cottage. Jane, Jane, will you please answer me for God’s sake!”

Jane wondered how many times a day her mother shouted through the intercom and abused an empty room. She pressed the button. “I’m here.”

“Are you planning on starving me?”

“To be fair, Rose, I’ve heard that drowning is faster and less cruel.”

“I want eggs, scrambled, dry and fluffy. Not wet and slimy. If I see slime I’ll throw up.”

“I’ll be down in five minutes.”

“I’m hungry now.”

“Oh fine. I’ll go ahead and pull a plate of scrambled eggs, dry and fluffy, from my rectum then, shall I?”

“No need for vulgarity, Jane. You weren’t born in a barn.”

Kurt entered the kitchen in time to witness Jane give the intercom the finger. “Whatever she wants, I’m not doing it,” he said.

“Oh yes you are,” Jane said in a voice that her son recognized as his mother meaning business. The look that twisted her face suggested he was in big trouble.

“What?” he asked, trying to work out what he’d been caught doing.

“Skydiving, Kurt?”

“I’m going to kill Elle!” He flopped onto the chair and pulled his hood over his head, covering his blond curls, and pressed his hands to his ears.

“Skydiving. You know how I feel about skydiving. I said no. Every time you asked me I said no. No means no. It doesn’t mean maybe, it doesn’t mean I’ll think about it, and it sure as Shinola doesn’t mean go behind Mum’s back with Elle!”

“Mum, please stop saying ‘sure as Shinola.’ It sounds retarded. The expression is ‘You don’t know shit from Shinola.’”

“I don’t give a shit if it is, and that’s not the point.”

“You said it the other day in front of Paul, and he thought you’d hit your head.”

“Really, I don’t give a Shinola. You cannot get away with deliberately disobeying my rules.”

“Ah Mum, back off. It was last April. It’s done, over, it was a laugh, it was safe, and nobody died.”

“Well, you can forget about tonight.”

“You can’t stop me from going out on New Year’s Eve!” he said with scorn.

“No, probably not, but I can withhold funds.”

Kurt pushed his hood back off his head. “You can’t do that. I’ve promised Irene.”

“Tough.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me on New Year’s Eve!” he shouted before storming out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, well, believe it, and you’d better storm back here in ten minutes flat to bring Rose’s eggs to her or you’re going to be poor for all of January!”

“I hate you!” Kurt screamed at his mother.

“I hate you too!” Jane screamed back while breaking two eggs into a bowl.

Ten minutes later Kurt stormed in, picked up the plate of eggs, and stormed out without a word.

Although Jane’s authority had been briefly undermined, her power was restored, she was fifty euros richer, and she had managed to avoid Rose, so her mood brightened considerably.

Kurt made his way down the steps to his grandmother’s basement flat with the tray in one hand, fishing for the key with his other. Inside, the place smelled of air freshener, cigars, and wine, making his eyes water a little. In the small hall he nearly tripped over a stack of unsolicited mail that she kept piled up against the wall. It was stacked so high that the pile kept falling over. He had once asked her why she kept it, and she had told him that she was waiting for a member of the Green Party to call at her door so that she could throw the paper at him, douse him in alcohol, and then set him alight. She had been drunk at the time and so Kurt had hoped she was joking. He opened the door to the sitting room, and his grandmother sat up straight in her chair.

Her face broke into a smile. Kurt’s relationship with his grandmother was far different from what he had with his mother. She idolized her grandson and saved all her grace for him. He laid the tray on the table that she kept near the big chair that dominated the room. The chair was referred to as the “throne” by her daughters, and she spent most of her time sitting in it. No one dared sit on Rose’s chair—not her daughters, not her friends, not visiting dignitaries, and not even her grandson, who was one of the very few people Rose actually liked. While poking at her eggs, she asked after Jane, and he lied and told her she felt fluish.

“Well, then, she may stay away—I prefer you anyway,” she said, smiling and winking. She sampled her eggs and made a face to suggest that she was less than impressed. She always made that face. Usually it was for Jane’s benefit, but as it had become habit she did it whether Jane was there or not. She sniffed the plate.

“Just eat the eggs,” Kurt said.

Rose took a forkful and popped it into her mouth, rubbed her tummy, and made a “yum” sound. Kurt laughed.

“How’s Irene?” she asked.

“She’s good,” he said, and he sat down. “Better; she’ll be fine.”

His grandmother nodded and winked at him. “Of course she will. So her father’s an ass. She has you, doesn’t she? So, is your mother still determined to go to the Walsh household tonight with Alexandra’s husband?”

“She’s dreading it.”

“Of course she’s dreading it. The Walshes have always and ever been complete lunatics. Alexandra was the cheekiest pup I ever met. The mother is one of those holier-than-thou types, the father hasn’t done a real day’s work since the seventies, and as for her brother, Eamonn, that little snot was trying to get into your mother’s pants when she was thirteen!” She stopped and took a breath. “And anyway she has no business there—the family is grieving the loss of a child.”

“She’s missing, not dead,” Kurt reminded his grandmother.

“Of course she’s dead,” Rose said. “She’s Valley-of-the-Dead dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know this: if someone vanishes without a trace in this day and age, she is buried somewhere, and it’s usually someone closest to her who’s done the burying. For all we know, your mother’s next.”

Kurt laughed at his gran. “Now I know where Elle gets her imagination.”

“Mark my words. Your mother is getting herself involved in something very bloody sinister there.” She pushed the remaining food on her plate to the side and put down her fork. “I’m finished.”

Kurt told his grandmother about his run-in with his mother, expressing how annoyed he was that she was punishing him for something he had done eight months previously. For once his grandmother was on his mother’s side; she felt that anyone who jumped out of a perfectly good plane deserved to be crippled for life. Having said that, she felt that Jane’s withdrawal of funds was an overreaction, bearing in mind what night it was.

“How much do you need?” she asked.

“Seventy?” Kurt said, knowing full well he was pressing his luck.

“Fifty it is,” she responded.

Rose took fifty euros out of her handbag and handed it to him.

“Cheers, Gran!”

She waved him away. He left the basement flat, and she watched him through her window as he turned on his iPod, searched for some noise, pressed Play, and walked down the street while probably deafening himself.
Kids are mad,
she thought. Then she picked up the open bottle of red wine that was resting against her chair. She drained her teacup of tea and poured in the wine. She took a sip and smiled.
Happy New Year, Rose.

4
“So Far Gone”

I’m so far gone that it seems like home to me.

I’m so far gone, have I lost my way or am I free?

Jack L,
Universe

It was just after eight thirty on New Year’s Eve when Leslie got off the train, returning from the family bungalow she owned in the country. Her apartment was located conveniently beside the train station, so she wheeled her suitcase past all those queuing for a taxi, turned the corner, and she was home.

In the lift, she heard crashing and banging, and it became louder the closer she got to her floor. She exited and walked toward a bunch of five people whom she recognized as neighbors. They were blocking the way, so she mumbled “Excuse me.” They didn’t notice, as they were wrapped up in what was going on around the corner. It was then that Leslie noticed a fireman. He was standing in front of the group as though he was there to hold them back. Leslie couldn’t smell any fire. She said “Excuse me” again, but this time the banging was louder.

One of the girls whom she recognized but didn’t know turned to her and looked her up and down. “Oh shit,” she said, “she’s here!”

Leslie wasn’t one for pleasantries, but the girl’s response to her arrival was slightly shocking. The others turned and gaped at her. The fireman called to his buddies.

“Lads, it’s a false alarm!”

The gaping neighbors parted and she was allowed to walk through them with her case rolling behind her. She rounded the corner to be met by two firemen standing in the space where she used to have a front door.

“What the hell?” she asked.

“It’s my fault,” the girl who had uttered “shit” in response to her arrival said. “I haven’t heard your music in a few days, and there was a smell.”

A fireman walked through the doorway. “Well, the good news is we have no dead body; the bad news is the cat has shit all over the place.”

“I was down in the country,” Leslie said, a little shocked at the scene.

“I’m really sorry,” the girl said, to the fireman as opposed to Leslie. “She rarely leaves the apartment,” she went on, her tone sliding from apologetic to accusatory, “and for the past few days no music, and then that awful smell.”

“You smelled cat shit and you thought I was dead?” Leslie said in a voice that was laced with contempt and disbelief.

The girl turned to face her with her hands raised in the air. “Look, I was just being a good neighbor. You hear about these people left to rot all the time, and to be fair I don’t know what death smells like.”

“Well, it doesn’t smell like cat shit—and what do you mean ‘these people’?”

“Well,” the girl said, becoming a little uncomfortable, “loners.”

Leslie stood dumbfounded.

“She thought you’d killed yourself,” a random man said.

The girl nudged him and mouthed the words “shut” and “up.”

“Well,” he said, directing his speech toward the firemen, “everyone knows that New Year’s Eve is a big night for suicides.”

“Am I going to get charged for this call out?” the girl asked.

“Don’t give them your name, Deborah!” the man said.

“Brilliant, Damien,” she said, walking away and shaking her head. “Thanks for that.”

The firemen gathered their gear; the five people disappeared.

Leslie entered her doorless apartment and sat on her sofa, and her cat, who had apparently recovered from her gastrointestinal malady, jumped on her lap, and together they surveyed the pile of cat shit matted into her carpet near her electric fire. Then the realization of how she was perceived in her building hit Leslie like a ton of bricks.
I’m the crazy loner cat lady who drops dead and rots in her apartment.
The irony was not lost on her, as she had only recently rejoined the society she had shunned for so long.

A mere two months before this night, Leslie had been sitting in a chair opposite her oncologist. He was the oncologist who had cared for her mother and both her sisters through their cancer. He had also been testing Leslie twice a year for more than twenty years. He was smiling.

“Good news,” he said. “You are clean as a whistle.”

“Right,” Leslie said. “Fine. Thanks.” She stood up to leave.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing. Apparently I’m clean as a whistle.”

“You sound disappointed.”

She sat. “Well, would it be odd if I said I was?”

“Very odd.”

“I’m sick of waiting,” she said. “I’m sick of waiting for this stupid ticktocking time bomb to go off.”

“Oh,” he said, and he nodded. “I see.”

“The truth is, when Imelda died, I stopped living.” She hunched her shoulders. “Now I’m a woman about to turn forty with a cat for company. I thought I’d be well dead by now, yet here I am, alive and lonely.” She smiled at her doctor to assure him she wasn’t going to cry. He must have been shocked at her revelation, possibly the most she’d ever said to him.

“You know that you might never get cancer,” he said. “But a lot has changed in recent years, and although I’m not a huge advocate of preventative surgery, I can give you some brochures.”

She looked at him. “We talked about this years ago. You were adamant it was just self-mutilation.”

“A lot has changed,” he repeated, “and, besides, I might have thought differently if I had known how you were feeling or if you’d given even the slightest indication of the effect this worry was having on your life.”

“How could it not?” She stared at him and asked abruptly, “Are you talking about a double mastectomy?”

“Yes. And in your case I’d recommend a full hysterectomy also, for peace of mind.”

“Wow,” she said. “Jesus. Holy crap.” She nodded. “Give me the information.”

This new prospect was daunting, but even as Leslie pulled out of the hospital car park she had made up her mind.
I’m going to do it.

It was around that time that Leslie had also decided she’d had enough of being lonely, and she had tentatively stepped back out into the world. As she was a Web designer who worked from home, she decided instead to rent an office in a building in town. She had yet to move on this, but the plan was in place. As she had no friends, she decided to visit museums and art galleries so that, even if she was alone, at least she would be outside and partaking in life.

It would be a slow road back, but thanks to that night stuck in a lift, not as slow as she had first envisioned. Elle had become a fixture in her world over the past two months, and to a lesser extent Tom and Jane. She had created a website for Alexandra and was in contact with Tom with updates, and Jane filled her in on how the exhibition idea was coming along so that she could blog about it.

But Elle wanted more than her help. Elle wanted her friendship, and although it was unnatural to Leslie to be a friend to a woman half her age, she had become fond of Elle early on.

So the fact that she had so recently ventured back into the world and actually made friends meant that the comments from her annoying neighbor really bugged her.

“I’m not a loner, Deborah!” she shouted at the wall. “I have friends. I go out. I have a life.”

Someone coughed. It was the caretaker. “Sorry to disturb you,” he said.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I was just talking to the wall.”

“I’m here to fix the door.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “Please forgive the smell. I’m about to clean.”

“Will do,” he said, and he got to work.

Much later and after a new door had been hastily fitted by the caretaker, Leslie poured a glass of wine, picked up her phone, and dialed a number she hadn’t dialed in over ten years.

“Hello?”

“Jim?”

“This is Jim.”

“Hi, it’s Leslie Sheehan.”

“Leslie. Jesus. I can’t believe it’s you!”

“I know. It’s odd. I hope I’m not intruding.”

“No, I’m just sitting in.”

“Me too.”

“Happy New Year, by the way!”

“Happy New Year.”

“So what made you call after all this time?” he asked.

“I don’t know …well, it sounds stupid.”

“You’re sick?”

“No, no, not sick,” she said. “I’m thinking about having preventative surgery, actually.”

“I think you should,” he said without missing a beat.

“Wow.”

“If Imelda had had that choice I know she would have done it.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Have you got anyone in your life?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to be there for you?”

Leslie couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t spoken to Jim in so many years and before that she had usually been rude or standoffish.

“That is really kind of you,” she said, “but no.”

“So why have you called?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” she said, and she laughed a little. “People are mad, aren’t they?”

Jim laughed. “Yes, Leslie, people are mad.”

After that she asked him how he was and what he was doing and if he’d ever remarried. He was fine, doing well, and no, he hadn’t. He’d been seeing a Russian woman for a year, but she’d returned to Russia when her father died six months earlier.

They spoke for about fifteen minutes, and before she hung up she promised to call him to arrange to go out for a drink.

“You see, Deborah! I’m going out for a drink, with a man, very soon!” she shouted at the wall once more. “I am not Crazy Dead Cat Lady, not today and not tomorrow!”

The cat stared at her from her freshly washed and pine-scented bed. Leslie looked at her watch. It was only nine, so she opened her computer and watched three episodes of
Desperate Housewives
season one before hitting the hay around eleven thirty.

“Yeah, happy New Year, Deborah, and up yours!”

Tom beeped the horn, and Jane appeared within seconds. She ignored her mother’s face pressed to the basement window when she turned to close the gate. Tom had gotten out and opened her door. She thanked him and buckled up while he made his way around to his side of the car. He got in and thanked her for agreeing to come to the Walshes with him, explaining how awkward it was since Alexandra disappeared. She wondered why he put himself through it, and he admitted to having a soft spot for Alexandra’s mother, Breda.

They got to the house just after nine, and Alexandra’s younger sister, Kate, opened the door. She hugged Tom and said a polite hello to Jane. Kate vaguely remembered Jane. The last time she had seen her she had probably been no older than ten. They entered the hallway, and it was as though Jane had stepped back through time. The carpet was brown with red diamonds, the telephone table still had two yellow telephone books under it, and the walls were still dotted with holiday photos from the seventies and eighties and at least three of them included her. She was ushered quickly into the sitting room.

There, sitting on the green velvet chair by the window, was Breda. The chair was the same, but Breda had aged well beyond her years. Having begun her family at a young age, Breda couldn’t have been any older than sixty-five, but she looked ninety. Her face was wizened and her tall frame shriveled. Her hair was white and cropped. Her hands, clasped and holding rosary beads, were so thin they were transparent, revealing blue and purple veins and knuckles that appeared knotted.

She smiled and held out her hand. Jane took it and felt a little weak.

“Jane Moore,” said Breda, shaking her head, “you’ve grown into such a beautiful woman.”

“Thank you, Breda. It’s lovely to see you again.”

“And Tom tells me you’ve been so good helping him find my Alexandra.”

“I’m only setting up a benefit to highlight her case and the Missing of Ireland.” Jane was embarrassed and wished she was in a position to do more.

“You were always such a lovely girl. Alexandra will be so pleased to have you in her life again.” She was crying, but her tears were silent.

Jane noticed Eamonn enter the room from the corner of her eye, but Breda still had a firm grip on her hand, and she felt Breda deserved her full attention.

“Still so blond,” said Breda, and she flipped some of Jane’s shoulder-length hair.

“I have some help these days,” Jane said.

“Do you remember Alexandra’s hair?”

Jane nodded.

“She had the richest chestnut hair, thick and glossy,” said her mother. “It was just above her shoulders when we saw her last, but the police say it could have changed now. I hope it hasn’t. She had the most beautiful hair.”

“Mam,” Eamonn said, “Jane doesn’t want to hear that.”

Jane turned to Eamonn and nodded hello. “It’s fine,” she said. “I understand.”

Breda let go of Jane’s hand. “You should get a drink.” She looked at Tom, who was still standing at the door. “Tom, you should get Jane a drink.”

Tom took Jane into the kitchen, where Kate and her husband, Owen, Eamonn’s wife, Frankie, and Alexandra’s father, Ben, were standing around the counter. Frankie welcomed Tom with a hug and Ben nodded to him. Kate offered him a drink, but Tom said he’d make it himself.

Ben shook Jane’s hand and thanked her for coming. “It’s great to see you. How’s that boy of yours?”

“He’s fine. He’s seventeen.”

“My God, time passes quickly. It seems like only yesterday yourself and herself were giving us a run for our money.”

Jane grinned. Although Ben was older than his wife, he still managed to look ten years younger. He sported a full head of gray hair and he rubbed at the gray stubble on his chin. He was heavier than he had been years before. She remembered him as being fit and sportive, but those days were long gone. His shirt buttons strained over his paunch, and when he’d approached her he walked with a limp.

Some neighbors arrived and sat in the sitting room with Breda. The house seemed full and empty at the same time. Tom handed Jane a glass of red wine. Tony Bennett was playing on the stereo. No one talked about the fact that Alexandra was gone. They referred to her often and included her in stories about the past, which was where it seemed her parents now resided. Tom talked with his in-laws’ neighbors and Frankie and Owen, but it was difficult not to notice the coldness between him and Alexandra’s brother and father. He spent some time with Breda, who hugged him warmly and whispered something in his ear.