The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (11 page)

He turns on the TV but keeps the sound off. The cameras keep flipping between countries where fresh-faced young people smile and dance and look so hopeful. 1990 really is going to be a new world for them all to live in. But how will he live in a world without Dani?

At five minutes to 1990 he switches on the sound and watches while the world calls in to show what an amazing decade the nineties will be. It can’t be worse than the eighties, surely.

Finally it’s time to countdown from Trafalgar Square as Big Ben winds up for the momentous dongs.

The crowd begins its chant.

Ten

The phone rings. Jim grabs it.

“Patty?”

Nine

“Jim,” she sobs.

Eight

“Where are you?”

Seven

“I thought I had him, Jim. Thought I’d found him.”

Six

“Who, Patty?”

Five

“The killer, Dani’s killer.”

Four

“But it wasn’t him?”

Three

“I can’t find him, Jim. I can’t find him.”

Two

“Let’s just let … I love you, Patty.”

One

The crowd roars. Otherwise there is only silence.

Monday, June 14, 1982

He cannot take his eyes off her, this lovesick, pale boy. For about another minute that will be fine, watching her is acceptable while she runs. But soon she’ll finish the race, and then he’ll have to stop, peel his eyes off her skin and look elsewhere. She’s coming into the final stretch, miles ahead of the competition, she runs fluidly, seemingly with little effort.

He’s watched her for a long time—years—since they started school together at five years old. His first real recollection of her was as Mary, mother of our Lord. She was chosen to lead the nativity and for a glorious day and a half he was to be her husband, Joseph. Mr. Chinns explained the story to them, and Tom tried to imagine what living with Dani and their child would be like. On the run on a donkey: romance, tragedy and adventure. This was the first time his creative imagination had swung into gear and it flipped a switch in him. They were bonded, and it was strong; a desire to protect and love Danielle Lancing was etched on Thomas Bevans’s young heart.

It was only a day and a half of married bliss. There wasn’t even a rehearsal, so they never got to stand next to each other as husband and wife. Instead, he began to itch, and broke out in red welts that were diagnosed as chicken pox. He missed three weeks of school, had a pretty miserable Christmas, and it was all over. He was lucky—there wasn’t a single scar from the pox. At least, none on the outside. Inside, it felt like there was a tiny little arrow embedded that cut every time he thought about or saw Danielle Lancing.

Despite the dig of pain, he watched her whenever he could. In
the eight years following their doomed nativity they barely spoke, even though they continued to be in the same class all the way through primary and into secondary school. Tom was too shy, Dani too popular.

Then at the start of this school year, when they were both assessed and found to be in the top twenty percent of the population in terms of intelligence, they were placed in English Literature One. Together, at the same desk, they were forced to talk about love. John Keats.

She breaks the tape, no one anywhere near her. He claps, watching her swing around the extra bend as she slows, her limbs powering down. He must stop gazing now … now … now! He pulls his head away with some effort, and looks across the stand. Her father’s there; he’s still watching her and clapping hard. He seems not to know the decorum of school sports day. A few other parents look at him with some distaste. They believe he’s gloating, although Tom thinks he’s merely a man visibly filled with pride. For a second he wonders what it would be like to have such a father. Then the man, still clapping, looks sideways and sees the boy staring at him. For a second their eyes lock and then the boy holds up both of his thumbs signaling he too is in the Dani Lancing fan club. The man smiles, then turns back to admire his daughter once more. The boy can feel himself turn red. Even at fourteen he knows the double thumbs is juvenile (for a short while Arthur Fonzarelli had made it fashionable, but anybody actually cool knew that time had long gone).

He picks up the briefcase his mother insists he uses, even though he is mocked for it, and walks down the line of seats toward the exit. He’ll not look back at her. He knows that by now she will be surrounded by handsome athletes. He walks away. There’s a kiosk nearby that sells ice cream, cake and drinks. He doesn’t feel like
going home just yet, so he heads over and buys a Zoom. He sits on a bench overlooking the bowling green and bites into the cold. He replays the race in his head, watching Dani stretch and—

“Excuse me,” a voice calls out from a little way off.

The boy does not look up, assuming someone else is being called.

“Excuse me … Mr. Briefcase.”

Tom looks up and sees it’s Dani Lancing’s father calling him. The man half-waves, then walks across the bowling green toward him.

“I’m sorry, sorry to shout. I don’t know your name so, Briefcase. Nice case by the way. My grandfather had one just like it.” The older man reaches the younger one and stops. “Jim. Jim Lancing. I’m Danielle’s father.”

“Tom,” the boy says, not standing. Jim holds out his hand and awkwardly they shake.

Though it is still a pretty warm afternoon, Tom can’t help but feel a chill run down his back. Is it obvious, can this man see how Tom feels about his daughter?

“How can I help?” Tom asks.

“You seemed to know Dani.”

“A little. We’re in English Lit together.”

“Well, have you any idea where she might have gone? I was meant to be taking her home, at least I thought I was but …”

There was a party for the sporty and attractive kids, something Tom would never be invited to. He was about to tell her father the address but some alarm bell went off in his head.

“No. No, sorry, I don’t know where she is,” he lied.

“Okay.” They both just stand there. Tom feels his Zoom begin to drip. Finally the older man says, “Well, thanks.”

Jim Lancing walks off, a little unsure about where to go and
what to do. Tom watches until he disappears. Then he picks up his case and heads toward Islington and the party. Obviously he wasn’t invited, but now he bears a message. That is his ticket to get in and get close to her. It’s slight, he knows that, but maybe it’s just enough to allow him entrance to the inner sanctum.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Patty walks to the cafe, all the while feeling the pull of his blood. There is only one customer, a cab driver, sitting alone in the far corner. Patty looks him over. People-watching is still one of her favorite ways to pass the time and she can’t resist trying to unpick his life story. They make eye contact for a moment. He has a haunted look, like a man who is pushed or pushes himself very hard. Does he need the money to fund some addiction? Or does he just need to keep moving, keep awake like a shark, desperate just to keep going, no time to think? And what might he see in her—does she stink of desperation? Can he tell that she has lived and breathed revenge—has stayed alive for one purpose: to catch the man who took Dani’s life and pitched them all into this everlasting, ferocious winter of grief and loss?

From behind the counter a figure emerges. A bleary-eyed young man, dark and handsome.

“Tea, please.”

“Ereogo?”

“I don’t understand.”

He mimes, pointing at the seats or out the door.

“Oh, yes, of course. I …”

She would like to sit there and drink the hot tea, cradle the
ceramic bowl in her hands and let the heat seep through into her icy fingers. But the blood is in the car and what if someone tries to steal it?

“Take-away, please.”

He takes a Styrofoam cup and fills it from the urn, then splashes a little milk into it before sealing it with a white plastic cap. Patty takes it from him with a mumble of thanks and drops two coins onto the counter. She turns on her heel and walks back to the door, immediately sorry for her decision to opt for take-away as the heat is dampened by the foam of the cup and her fingers stay cold. Outside, on the street, she pours some of the tea directly onto her skin and it turns a bright and angry red, but she can’t feel it.

Patty perches in the doorway of the lab, waiting for the staff to struggle in, the blood cradled in her arms. Her anxiety is building but she tries to keep it in check.

“Just wait,” she tells herself. And she can wait. She is the queen of waiting. It seems like all she has done for the longest time. Finally, her patience pays off. The first staff member arrives. He looks at her nervously.

“Can you stand back?” he asks.

“Oh, of course. Yes.”

Patty steps away from the stairs and the keypad. The staff member taps in his code and then edges in, keeping his eyes glued to Patty. It’s only once he’s inside that Patty realizes he thought she might try and force her way in to get drugs or start begging for something. When the next staff member arrives, Patty moves away and immediately launches into her best Hilary Clifton-Hastings, non-threatening cheery voice.

“Hello. Just waiting to have someone run some tests. That’s all.”

They look at her like she’s crazy. That may be better than fearing she’s an axe-wielding junkie.

Finally the door is open to the public and she can walk inside. Roberta is there, the woman she’d met with the week before. At that meeting, she had given Patty the slide and refrigerated box as well as instructions on how to take the sample. There were two options, she had said. The easiest was with a swab inside the cheeks, Invasive but did not hurt in any way. The other option was a blood sample—a prick was all that was needed. Patty had decided on blood, but a little more than just a prick. Patty hands her the box with the slide of blood. Roberta checks it is sealed correctly.

“Please take a seat.” She motions to two chairs in the corner and then she punches digits into a keypad and disappears into the main part of the lab. Patty can’t sit. She stands. After about twenty minutes Roberta returns.

“The sample is well collected and seems clean. It can be matched with the sample you brought in before. We will have the result tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry.” Patty tries to keep the scream out of her voice. “We had agreed a four-hour test time.”

“I know. Normally that is possible but we are understaffed today, the sn—”

“I understand there may need to be an extra fee for expediting the result. Needless to say I will be happy to pay it.” Patty smiles.

“I see.” Roberta nods. “Four hours. And the expedited rate is an extra fifty percent.” She smiles a snake-like smile.

“I’ll come back for the result.”

She begins to retrace her steps to the cafe, following the breadcrumbs of memory, but finds a modern coffee shop open on the
way. It’s a corpo-chain shop but all the better for anonymity. Plus it offers bagel and baguette breakfasts, as well as superskinnysoymoccacinolattes. Patty orders and pays. The staff do not make eye contact, they have no interest in her life story, why she is there, what she wants. Perfect. She sits and closes her eyes. Immediately tiredness sweeps over her. She’s exhausted but must not sleep. Soon she will be able to. Then she can catch up on more than twenty years of sleep. She sips her coffee and feels her mind slip back twenty years—that last Christmas won’t stay out of her thoughts.