‘I understand that, Dan. I really do, but—’
‘My advice is to do whatever you have to do to get this finished, and get it finished on time. Switch your brain off. Bottle your feelings. Take something, if you have to. Just get it done.’
‘But you see—’
‘Do you want all this to go away before it even gets started?’
‘No, of course—’
‘Payment is on delivery.’
‘I know, it’s just that right now—’
‘Kevin Williamson wrote Scream in a weekend.’
‘Actually, that’s a myth. It was just the treatment.’
‘You don’t even need to write anything new. You are rewriting. A hundred and twenty pages of mostly negative space. If you pulled out all the stops, you’d have this done in two or three days’ time, and that’s if you hadn’t started it yet. But you have started it.’ A pause. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Of course I have,’ I lied. ‘But the thing is, my girl—’
‘Whatever’s happening over there, Adam, it’s not going to be happening forever. It will come to an end. This too shall pass. And what will you be left with then? Nothing, if you don’t get this done.’
‘But, Dan, it’s serious. She’s—’
‘I’m hanging up now. I’ll call again tomorrow, same time. Answer your phone when I do. You’re going to thank me for this.’
‘But she’s missing, Dan, okay? My girlfriend is missing! How am I supposed to think about a bloody screenplay when I don’t know where my girlfriend is? And haven’t known for nearly a week?’
Silence.
‘Dan?’
I pulled the phone from my ear. He’d hung up.
Shit.
I dialled Sarah’s number.
‘Sarah, for fuck’s sake,’ I spat as soon as the voicemail kicked in. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Call me when you get this message. Just call me, okay? I know you’re checking your phone. I saw you read that WhatsApp message. This has to stop. Your parents are in bits, the Gardaí are involved, I’ve just had Dan Goldberg on the phone. You know how much this means to me, how long I’ve waited for—’ The room blurred. I realised I had tears in my eyes. ‘Sarah, please. I don’t know what’s happening here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Just call me. You don’t have to talk to anyone but me. I won’t even tell anyone we spoke if you don’t want me to. But please. Call me. Please.’ I took a breath. ‘Sarah, you’re scaring me.’
There was a gentle knock on the bedroom door. It swung open, revealing Rose carrying a steaming mug of something and a plate of toast.
I quickly ended the call and put the phone down on the bed.
‘Your mother sent me,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure.’
‘Did I hear you on the phone?’
‘My agent,’ I said. ‘Don’t ask.’
Rose handed me what I now saw was coffee. She placed the toast on the nightstand, pushing my mother’s panic paraphernalia to one side so she could.
‘It’s good you slept so long,’ she said. ‘You needed a rest.’
‘Any news?’
‘No, nothing.’
Something crashed in the kitchen.
‘Who’s out there?’ I asked.
‘Your parents. And Moorsey. Jack and Maureen are on their way over – your mother called them, apparently. She wants to force-feed them dinner, make sure they’re okay.’
The substance in my cup was flecked with black flakes. Mum didn’t drink coffee. If I’d to guess, I’d say she’d prepared fresh grounds the way you were supposed to make instant.
Rose moved to go.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Can we talk?’
After a beat she sat down, perched on the very edge of the bed.
‘Moorsey told me that Sarah read the WhatsApp message,’ she said.
‘She did.’
‘And that she’s not with the American guy.’
‘Doesn’t seem like it, no.’
‘She does love you, Adam.’
I laughed softly. ‘Yeah. Seems like it, doesn’t it?’
‘She does. But not like . . . Not in the same way she used to. She cares about you.’
‘Is she going to leave?’
Rose bit her lip. Then: ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘When the money comes in. Your money. When you can afford to live here by yourself.’
‘Why?’
‘She just isn’t . . . She isn’t sure any more. That you and her are the way it’s supposed to be. You’ve been together for ten years, Adam. Ten years. And she’s only twenty-nine. She was nineteen when she met you.’
‘I can do maths too, Rose.’
‘Are you the same person you were when you were nineteen?’
‘Who else would I be?’
‘You know what I mean. Sarah and you, you’ve grown up since you first met. That’s what you do in your twenties. If you do it with someone you met before any of that changing even began . . . Well, what are the chances that you’ll both come out the other side, having grown into two people who still want to be together?’
‘I did.’
‘That makes one of you then.’
‘Sarah and I had a deal. Did she tell you that?’
‘You mean the arrangement whereby you had the luxury of avoiding the responsibilities of adulthood while the rest of us were forced to figure out how to carry them on our backs? That one? Yeah. She did tell me that. God, how nice it must be to be a man. No deadlines.’ She waved her arms. ‘Here, have all the time you want.’
‘I’ll give Sarah all the time she wants too.’
‘That’s nice of you, but Mother Nature isn’t as generous.’ Rose pointed her index finger, waved it back and forth. ‘Tick-tock, biological clock. If you’re a woman and you ever plan on having kids, your time to run off and have adventures and chase your dreams comes with a best-before date. Sarah’s worried about hers. That’s normal. You don’t seem worried at all. I’d bet you haven’t even thought about it. That’s not.’
‘But why didn’t she just talk to me about it? We could’ve figured this out.’
‘I think her mind is made up.’
‘Then why not just tell me?’
‘She doesn’t want to hurt you, Adam. Or embarrass you.’
‘And this isn’t hurtful or embarrassing?’
‘If Sarah came in that door this minute and said she wanted to break up and you had to leave, where would you go?’
‘I’d figure something out.’
‘She was waiting until you wouldn’t have to figure something out, until the money was in your account. Until you’d taken care of yourself. Could take care of yourself, after she left you to your own devices.’
‘Then where is she? Hiding out until that happens?’
‘I don’t know where she is,’ Rose said. ‘She was supposed to come back.’
‘Why send the passport?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What does the note mean?’
‘I don’t—’
‘Why hasn’t she called?’
She threw up her hands. ‘Adam, I don’t know.’
‘Do you think she’s in trouble?’ I asked quietly.
‘The Gardaí don’t seem to think so,’ Rose said after a beat.
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘I think . . .’ She inhaled, exhaled slowly. ‘I think we’re all going to be smacking ourselves in the forehead when we find out what’s actually going on here. It’s like the time a few years ago when my sister – she was just nineteen or twenty then – didn’t come home from a Saturday night out. My mother could never fall asleep until she did, so she lay awake, three, four, five in the morning
. She started calling her. Texting her phone. Got no reply. No response. When it reached a reasonable hour we called the friend she’d gone out with, and she told us that she hadn’t seen Ruth since they’d got separated in the club around midnight. Ruth had work at eleven and her uniform was at home, so by ten o’clock we were all really worried that she hadn’t come back. We rang the place where she worked as soon as they opened, thinking she might have gone straight there, and they hadn’t heard from her either. She’d never missed a day of work in two years. My mother was literally just about to call the Gardaí when Ruth walked in the door, looking for cash to pay the taxi driver. Her bag had been stolen in the club – so no phone – and she’d slept at a friend’s. They were drunk, so they’d overslept. She’d only woken up fifteen minutes ago and had no idea that we were all at home, panicking, imagining a future of missing posters and sub-aqua teams. It was so real, Adam. My mother was about to dial 999. We were all convinced something awful had happened, and we started thinking it because someone wasn’t answering their phone. But absolutely nothing had.’
‘Sarah’s been gone a lot longer than a few hours.’
‘I didn’t say it was exactly the same.’
‘What if she never comes home? What would you have done if your sister didn’t?’
‘Let’s not indulge in the hypothetical,’ Rose said. ‘Worry is the most pointless human emotion. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that? Want to guess who told me that? I’ll give you a clue: she wrote it in a “Thinking of You” card she gave me back when I was convinced I’d failed my final-year exams.’
‘Yeah, well.’ I sighed. ‘Easy for her to say.’
There was another knock on the door. This time it was Moorsey, waving his iPad. I could see from the blue banner at the top of the screen that the device was logged onto Facebook.
‘Adam,’ he said. ‘You need to see this.’
Romain
Marly-le-Roi, Paris, 1993
The snow in Paris was different to the snow that had fallen over their old house. Out in the countryside, snow lay undisturbed on the ground for days, thick and pure. Here in the city, council workers started ploughing paths through it just as soon as it fell and, with so many people around, it didn’t take long for what was left to turn into a dirty, slushy mess.
The day before Christmas Eve, Romain picked his way through the slush, en route to school. Temperatures had dropped to freezing overnight, so there was a good chance that some of what looked like harmless melted snow was actually rock-hard ice. He’d reminded Mama again and again that he needed new winter boots, that he’d outgrown the pair he’d worn last year, but unless it was something about Mikki – which pills he was supposed to take at which time, how to clean the feeding tube, when the battery on the back of his chair needed changing – nothing seemed to take root in her head these days. She’d forget.
That morning he’d told Papa, who’d promised to pick up a pair for him on the way home from work later.
‘These will do in the meantime,’ he’d said, pulling a pair of his own thick, knobbly woollen socks over Romain’s trainers. ‘Just go slow, okay? And be careful.’
Romain did go slow – so slow he didn’t get to school until after the bell – and he was careful, but the wetter the socks got, the more slippery the ground beneath them felt. Right outside the school gates, his left foot slid off the path and all his balance went with it.
He yelled out. He fell over. He hit the footpath hard, coming down on his right side. Tears sprang to Romain’s eyes. His hip throbbed. His elbow stung and the skin on his both palms was grazed.
He could feel the cold wetness of the snow seeping into his trousers. With a sinking feeling, Romain realised that when he stood up he was going to look like he’d wet his pants.
He pulled himself into a sitting position, waited for the pain to subside a bit. At least he was late. Everyone else was inside already. The only thing that could make this worse was—
‘Hey, look! It’s Romain the Retard!’
Bastian Pic was coming down the path with two of his friends following behind. Bastian was in quatrième, two years ahead, and lived in the house directly opposite Romain’s. He was mean to all the boys in the younger classes – he was always getting into trouble with the teachers for it – but, for some reason, he was especially mean to Romain.
‘What the fuck happened to you?’ He was standing over Romain now, kicking him with one of his heavy boots. ‘I think you’ve been spending a bit too much time with that little brother of yours. Should I go and get his wheelchair for you? Or’ – a burst of laughter – ‘is it his nappies that you need?’
The other two boys started laughing too.
Romain tried to haul himself up, but Bastian pushed him down again.
‘You better stay there,’ he said. ‘Wait for the retard ambulance to come and collect you.’
‘Boys?’ One of the teachers was standing at the gates. ‘What’s going on over there?’
‘Nothing, madame,’ Bastian called out. But when he turned to say this to her, he revealed Romain sitting on the ground. The teacher came rushing over.
‘What happened? Are you alright?’ She helped Romain up, then turned to Bastian. ‘Are you trying to get another suspension?’
Bastian held up his hands in a show of innocence.
‘I was just helping him up, Madame Berri.’
‘Oh, you were, were you?’
‘I was.’ Bastian looked to his two goons for back-up. ‘Wasn’t I?’
The two other boys nodded obediently.
Madame Berri turned to Romain and demanded that he tell her what happened. Behind her, Bastian was glaring at him.
‘I want to go home,’ Romain said. ‘Can I just please go home?’
‘Tell me what happened first. And I want the truth.’
Romain was cold and wet and his side was really hurting. He just wanted to be back in his bedroom, to crawl under the blankets on his bed and wait in the darkness for Papa to finish work.
‘I fell on the ice,’ he said flatly. ‘He was helping me up.’
‘Romain, look at me.’
Reluctantly, Romain lifted his eyes.
‘Now, tell me again. What happened here?’
‘I fell on the ice,’ he repeated. ‘Bastian was just helping me.’
‘See?’ Bastian snarled. ‘I told you.’
Madame Berri ordered Bastian and the other two boys inside, then helped Romain into the school and to the principal’s office. He could walk okay, but the pain in his side was getting worse.
They told him they’d called his mother and that she was going to come pick him up. He was to wait for her in a chair outside the principal’s office. They gave him a cup of hot chocolate to drink and a scratchy blanket to put around his shoulders, and told him his mother wouldn’t be long.
They only lived a few streets away. She shouldn’t have been long.
But Mama took more than an hour to get there and, when she did, she didn’t ask him how he was or what had happened. She just hurriedly thanked the principal’s secretary, grabbed Romain’s hand and said they had to hurry back because it was nearly time for Mikki’s bath.
——
Christmas was okay. Romain got a PlayStation and some new books and clothes. Jean got a set of WWF action figures he’d yet to leave out of his sight; he was even sleeping with them. Mikki had what Mama called A Good Day, which meant that nothing went wrong with his chair or his medicine or his food, and that he remained calm for the most part and didn’t get stressed or agitated. It was the first Christmas they’d had him at home; he’d been staying at a special hospital for kids like him until a few months ago. That’s why they’d moved from the countryside, to be closer to him. Now they were all back together and Romain suspected that this was why even Mama seemed to be in a good mood. She drank wine in the
evening with Papa and hadn’t shouted at anyone or got upset.
A deep-purple bruise had spread all over Romain’s right side, but it didn’t really hurt any more. Not as much as it had, anyway.
He hadn’t shown it to anyone.
‘Hey, Romi,’ Papa said to him the day after Christmas. ‘I hear the park is open again this morning, and all the kids are in there making as many snowmen as they can. They’re trying to build an army of them. Want to head down there?’
Romain shook his head, no. If ‘all the kids’ really were there, that meant Bastian Pic probably was too.
‘Why not?’ Papa asked.
‘It’s cold.’
‘Building snowmen is hard work. You’ll soon warm up.’
‘I don’t want to build snowmen.’
‘Then you can just watch.’
Romain shook his head again.
‘Ah, come on,’ Papa said. ‘It’ll be fun. You can take Jean with you.’
Jean looked up from his action figures at the mention of his name. The toys were all laid out on the floor of the living room around a plastic wrestling ring, except for one, which was lying flat on his back inside it. Pink and black gear. Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart.
‘I don’t want to go,’ Jean whined.
‘Listen, boys, you two have been stuck inside since school ended. You need to get outside. Romi, what did I buy those boots for? It wasn’t for the living-room carpet. And, Jean, you can take the wrestlers with you. They can fight on the ice, can’t they?’
‘No,’ Jean said sullenly.
But Papa was adamant that they go outside for a while. He dressed them both up in heavy layers, slipped Romi a few francs so they could buy sweets in the shop and told them to stay out for at least a half-hour.
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