He pulled up outside his mother-in-law’s house and beeped. She appeared at the door, and he ran up the path and put his arm around her shoulders.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
She smiled at him. “You’re a liar but I appreciate it.”
Alexandra’s father had decided not to attend the exhibition. He didn’t feel comfortable in arty circles. Instead he would spend the evening as he always did, with his friends in the pub avoiding his new reality. Alexandra’s sister, Kate, and brother, Eamonn, were attending with their spouses and traveling separately.
Tom helped Breda into the car and walked around to his side, got in, and took off down the road.
“It’s very exciting,” Breda said, “all this good work in Alexandra’s name.”
Tom agreed. Jane had been very pleased with the media interest, and when Elle had insisted that any proceeds earned would go to the National Missing Persons Bureau, it had been a major coup for them and a news story worthy of reporting. The fact that Jack Lukeman was taking time out of his busy touring schedule to come and play led to further interest, including a TV magazine show that wished to film a song from Jack and an interview with Tom. He was pretty sick at the notion of having to talk to a camera, but Breda assured him he would be great and that Alexandra would be so proud.
Jane was waiting at the door. She greeted Tom and Breda with hugs and ushered them inside. They were early enough to see the pieces hanging from the wall without interruption. Breda stood in front of the painting of her daughter for the longest time. Silent tears rolled down her hollow cheeks. Tom took her hand.
“I still feel her,” she said. “She’s still with us.”
“I know,” Tom said, but he didn’t know, and every time he ventured into the dark place, he left it hoping she was gone rather than enduring ongoing torture.
Leslie appeared with Mark a few minutes later. Jane welcomed them both and then asked Mark to excuse Leslie for a minute.
Leslie followed her into the back room.
“What is it with you and bald men?” Jane said.
“Is that why I’m back here?”
“No. Elle’s missing. I was hoping you had talked to her today.”
“No. I haven’t. I don’t believe it.”
“The press is relying on her being here.” Jane was starting to freak out. “I can’t let everybody down now.”
“You’re not letting anyone down, bloody Elle is. I’ll kill her.”
Just then Elle appeared in her short dress and high heels. “Kill who?”
Jane let out a sigh of relief. “Where were you?”
“I have no idea. On a boat and a long way from land, if that helps.”
“You nearly gave Jane a heart attack,” Leslie said.
“Sorry, Jane. Sorry, Leslie.”
“Don’t be smart,” Leslie said.
Elle hugged her. “I met a boy and I liked him. Of course he’s gone now, sailing away on the high seas as we speak.”
“Well, good,” Leslie said, “good for you. Now go home, change out of the dominatrix gear, and have a wash while you’re at it.”
Elle saluted, and Tom was given the job of driving her home to wash and change before the exhibition.
Jane introduced Breda to Leslie and explained who she was and what she had done to help them find Alexandra. Breda was very grateful, Leslie humbled, and Mark incredibly impressed by his altruistic new friend.
Then Eamonn, Kate, and their spouses arrived, and Jane welcomed them and offered them wine and watched as they migrated toward the picture of their sister. Eamonn and Kate stood together, shoulders touching, looking into Alexandra’s eyes. When they turned to face the crowd, Kate’s eyes were damp and Eamonn looked like he was in physical pain.
Mark wasn’t drinking, so Leslie merely sipped on a glass of wine. She asked him if he felt well enough to stay, and he said that he did. She told him she wouldn’t ask him again so if he wanted to go he had a mouth and he could tell her. He liked that she didn’t fuss over him. Dominic appeared with Kurt and Irene in tow. Jane was delighted to see her son and wondered what had brought about his sudden interest in one of Elle’s exhibitions.
“What you and Elle are doing for your friend, well, it’s really cool, Mum,” he said.
“Yeah, Jane,” Irene said. “Every girl could do with a friend like you.”
Jane was taken aback. “Thank you.”
She was still a little miffed, as Kurt had known about the show for months and he’d never seemed particularly interested or impressed before.
“Dad showed us pictures of you and Alexandra when you were our age,” Kurt said.
“Can’t believe you were a Megadeth fan,” Irene said. “I love Megadeth.”
Jane looked at Dominic. “What’s this?” she asked, feigning a smile.
“Your mother wasn’t half sexy in her day,” said Dominic.
“Too much, Dad,” Kurt said, “seriously, too, too much.”
Irene explained that Dominic had shown them the pictures of the Megadeth concert in Antrim that they’d gone to one year before Kurt was born. Jane remembered the pictures: she was smoking and straddling Dominic, and Alexandra was drinking from a bottle of cider and giving the camera the finger.
Kurt nudged his mother and grinned at her and followed Irene to the drinks counter. They picked up a glass of wine each and raised them to her. She turned to Dominic and shook her head.
“What were you thinking?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Showing them those pictures.”
“Why wouldn’t I? They are part of our past.”
“Kurt sees me and you and cigarettes and booze and—”
“And he’ll run off and get his girlfriend pregnant?”
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“I would never do that. Look, all I’m saying is your life isn’t his life, so just relax.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about.” Jane pointed to Irene, who was rubbing the back of Kurt’s neck and whispering in his ear. “It’s her.”
“What will be, will be, Janey.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said, and went to talk to a representative of the National Missing Persons Bureau.
Jack Lukeman arrived on schedule. He was dressed head to toe in black and his long coat swung behind him. Leslie greeted him with a hug and introduced him to Jane.
He put his hand out and she shook it. He cupped her hand, tipped his head to the side, and viewed her as though he was viewing a painting. She blushed. He grinned and let her hand go. “Nice to meet you, Jane.”
Jane told him how lovely it was to meet him and about the many times she’d seen him play, the where and when, how she had gotten there, whom she had gone with, and how fantastic each show had been. Jack nodded as though he cared.
Leslie sighed and shook her head. “Jesus, Jane, as if he gives a shit.”
Jack laughed a giddy, dirty laugh and put his arm around Leslie.
“Sorry,” Jane said.
“You’ll have to excuse her,” he said. “She doesn’t mix well.”
Later Jack and his guitarist played an acoustic set, surrounded by paintings of the Missing, to a captivated crowd. They sat on chairs under a painting of Alexandra. The guitar player strummed gently and Jack leaned forward, closed his eyes, and sang “Metropolis Blue” into his microphone.
Sometimes I ask myself how did I get here?
Country boy with no change for his fares and city girls are so expensive.
I wanna go back to the girl that I love, I would go back there if I could.
I know I should. I need you. My lips ache for your kiss.
I need you and not this hungriness.
I just spend my time hanging around here with the boys, drinking whiskey drinking beer,
Fool I was thought adventure was near, those easy thrills are so elusive I fear.
My heart sings for the one that I love. I would go back there if I cou
ld, I know I should.
I need you, my tune lacks your melody.
I need you, my eyes no longer see.
I am floating like an autumn leaf, on the whim of a breeze I float
I would give almost anything, a thousand jewels, an enchanted view, a billion poems but I’m a fool.
I can barely write a note but we live in hope. I need you for all eternity.
I need you, you are you my destiny. I need you. I need you.
The audience was silent as though in church and clapped and cheered only when Jack opened his eyes and smiled. Tom wiped tears from his eyes. The TV cameras rolled. Elle was back, clean and in a subdued black outfit, standing quietly and respectfully to the side with Jane. When Jack had finished his set and the photographers were snapping and the crowd was clapping, she leaned in toward Jane and whispered, “We’ve done well, Janey.”
And Jane looked at Alexandra’s mother smiling a genuine smile and her sister and brother clapping and charmed by the talented Mr. Lukeman, who had managed to make them forget their loss if only for a few minutes. She caught Tom’s eye, and they smiled at each other. She turned to Leslie, who was laughing with the latest bald man in her life, and Jane felt happy.
Jane was about to go to bed when the doorbell rang. She looked through the peephole and it revealed Dominic. She thought about ignoring him, but he pushed on the buzzer again and held it down. She opened the door.
“Go away.”
He held the door open. “Please let me in.”
She let him in.
He sat on the sofa and hugged a cushion. “I think my marriage is over.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“The bitch just kicked me out of my own house. I mean, is that even legal?”
“Well, it’s her house too.”
“My arse it is! I’ve had that house ten years—we’ve only known each other five minutes.”
“Which begs the question as to why you married her in the first place.”
“She was pregnant. She lost the baby at eleven weeks.”
Jane was shocked. She hadn’t ever guessed.
“As soon as I found out, I proposed, because I didn’t want to be the same fucker I was to you. I wanted to be a good dad, a good man, but I suppose it wasn’t meant to be.”
“I’m really sorry.” She sat down beside him.
“Don’t say anything,” he said, “just kiss me.”
“Dominic.”
“Please, Janey.”
And so she kissed him and she straddled him like she had done so many years ago at the Megadeth concert, and they had sex on her recently re-covered sofa.
After he came and the condom was quickly disposed of, they sat together and he looked into her eyes and asked her, “Do you think we should try for another baby?”
For a second she thought he was talking about him and her, but then the truth dawned. He was talking about his wife, the woman he had married, baby or no baby, and something inside her died. She stood up and fixed her skirt and asked him to leave.
“But I’ve nowhere to go,” he said.
“I don’t care.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“I loved you for all these years. I was in love with you, but no more.”
She walked him to her front door. She handed him his shoes. She bade him good night. She closed the door and walked to her bedroom, and once in bed she covered her head. She didn’t cry because she had done that too many times before. Instead she just lay there and embraced the pain in her heart and told herself, enough now.
Elle had smiled for photographers and made nice with the interviewer. She had shaken Jack L’s hand and they had posed together. When her work was done, she joined her pals Fiona and Lori at a private party in a club she used to frequent.
“Well, if it isn’t Elmore,” one partygoer said. “Long time no see!” Two air kisses followed. Elle signed all her paintings “Elmore,” but only the biggest assholes within her circle referred to her as anything but Elle.
She moved through the club and toward the pool table where some guys were playing, and she sat on the sofa nearby, and a waitress took her drink order. She drank and watched the guys play. One guy in particular interested her. When he finished his game she asked him to join her and had a drink waiting for him.
“I’d really like to have sex with you,” she said.
“I’d like that too,” he said.
“Of course you would.”
“Are you playing with me?”
“Absolutely not. Tell me, do you like doing it outdoors?”
“It depends,” he said. “What have you got in mind?”
“Come with me,” she said, and he followed her through the club, outside, and down the street. They crossed the road and as they approached the police station he began to wonder about her, but she pressed a finger to her lips and when the coast was clear she opened the gate that led to the back of the station.
He pulled away from her. “You’re insane,” he said.
He heard some noise out front and she pulled him onto the ground under a window through which he had seen five or six men and women, some sitting at desks, some roaming around, one at the coffee machine, and another kicking the fax machine.
“We can’t,” he said, but she could tell that he was excited because he was leaning against her, and so she unzipped his pants and released him. After that there was no going back, and if any of the officers had taken a moment or two to look up and out the window, they would have seen a white, freckled bass player’s ass appear intermittently. Afterward, invigorated, she returned to the club, where she joined Fiona in the loo for a few lines of coke. She drank shots with Lori, and as it was a celebration she paid for six or seven bottles of champagne for all twenty of her new best friends.
Kurt woke up around seven. He yawned, stretched, scratched his balls over his boxer shorts, and headed into the main bathroom. He peed, shook himself off, and flushed. It was when he turned around to leave that he saw Elle. She was lying in a bath filled with water. She was completely naked, her lips were purple, and she was either asleep or dead.
Kurt roared. “Mum! Mum! Mum!”
Jane woke up with a start. Kurt was still roaring. She jumped out of bed and followed his yells to the bathroom, where he had remained frozen.
“Oh my God,” Jane cried. “Oh my God, Elle!” She ran to her sister and touched her cold skin and shook her hard.
Elle’s eyes opened, and she yawned.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Oh Jesus,” Jane said, and sank to her knees. “I thought you were dead.”
“I am really cold,” Elle said, realizing that she was in a bath of freezing water.
Kurt exhaled and sat on the toilet seat. “Holy shit, Elle.”
Jane asked Kurt for a towel. The only one he could find there was a hand towel, which he handed to his mother. She responded with a dirty look.
“Come on, Elle, time to get out,” Jane said.
“I can’t seem to move my legs,” Elle said, and she giggled.
Jane looked at Kurt.
“Oh no,” he said, because lifting his naked aunt out of the bath was above and beyond the call of duty.
“I need your help,” Jane insisted. “I have to get her out now.”
Kurt nodded at his mother and walked over to the bath, flexing his neck and trying not to focus on his aunt’s bush. Elle gave him her hand and smiled at him, and her purple lips partially stuck to her teeth. Jane took the other arm, and together they pulled Elle up.
Kurt closed his eyes when he felt his aunt’s breast against his chest. “Oh Mum, this is so wrong.”
Elle giggled again.
“Here,” Jane said, “I’ll take her from the front, you go around—”
“Don’t even say it,” he said.
Jane and Kurt pulled Elle out of the bath, and while Jane held her up Kurt ran to the towel warmer and piled his arms high with bath towe
ls. Jane wrapped Elle in a towel, and Kurt helped his mother carry her into Jane’s room. Once she was dry and safely snuggled in bed with the electric blanket on, Jane went to the kitchen and boiled the kettle to make some tea for Elle.
Kurt followed his mum into the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” Jane asked her son.
“My eyes, Mum, my eyes!” he said, covering his eyes and pretending to be blinded.
He was playacting, so Jane relaxed, content that he wouldn’t be scarred for life.
“I’m sorry, Kurt. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”
“It’s fine, Mum. If it ever happens again I’m moving to France, but it’s fine.” He was smiling, which suggested he was joking, and after his coming into skin-on-skin contact with his naked aunt that was the best she could hope for.
“I got lucky with you,” she said, and Kurt blushed just like his mother often did.
“Whatever,” he said.
“Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit weird that Irene didn’t wake up?”
“She wears earplugs. She says I snore like a pig and you should have had my adenoids out when I was a kid.”
“How does she hear you snore from the spare room?”
“Oh crap!” He grinned and held up his hands. “She’s on the pill, I wear condoms, and I’m turning eighteen in two weeks.”
Jane sighed. “I give up.”
“About time.” He waved her away and headed back to bed to sleep off the image of his aunt’s tits and ass.
Jane handed Elle the tea. It was too hot, burning her frozen hands, so Jane kept hold of it and fed it to a shivering Elle until it was gone.
“What’s going on, Elle?”
“Just wanted a bath, Janey.”
“You could have frozen to death.”
“I was just really tired. Big night.”
“Did you take something?”
Elle nodded. “I was having a good time—but I won’t do it again.”
“Do I need to call Dr. Griffin?”
Elle shook her head. “No. I’m just cold, that’s all.”
Jane sighed and tucked the blanket up under her sister’s chin. “What am I going to do with you, girly girl?”
“Just love me, Jane, even though I don’t deserve it,” Elle said, and then she turned around and fell fast asleep.
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