Mom was right to bring you to me. I know that after today. I wouldn’t have been able to die in peace without having seen you, just one last time. I couldn’t mentally say goodbye to you. I couldn’t let go of that amazing experience we’d had together. That night in Vegas was the first night in my life where I’d really understood the connection that everyone talks about. You were finishing my sentences, I was finishing yours. I could have said anything in the world to you, and you’d have known where I was coming from. I’ve never had that with anyone before. At least now, I can die knowing what that feels like.
But it wasn’t just about seeing you. I was reluctant to let you go because I wanted – I needed – to do something for you. Why? Because you will never, ever know how much you’ve done for me. I’ll be honest about this. It did my dying ego a lot of good to see this beautiful, wild girl that everyone has fallen in love with professing her undying love for me – little old me, the guy who couldn’t get through an ad break without sicking up his dodgy medicine. It was like a warm blanket that I could hug around myself when I felt at my lowest. In the moments when the pain consumed me so completely that I wished I was dead rather than have to take the agony for one second longer, the sight of you messing around on TV always pulled me back from the brink. And it made me feel good to think that someone amazing like you – a fun person, but most importantly, a good person – wanted to be with me. It’s a strange old business, this dying. It can make you feel worthless. You made me feel like I had a value. And because you did so much for me, I had to do something for you too.
You told me you’d never told anyone about what happened with Elaine before. I’m glad you told me. I would say that I don’t know what it was about me that made me so special, but it wasn’t me that was special, it was us. And because of how we were together, I know why you told me. If you told anyone how amazing those few hours together were, they would never get it. Only you and I will ever know. When someone you feel so strongly about is upset, you’d do anything in the world to help them, and that’s how I felt when you came to visit me and I found out that you hadn’t made any progress in moving on from what happened.
The being-understanding approach hadn’t worked, so I had to try a new tactic. I’d imagine you thought my change of behaviour was down to me sulking over you falling for this Colm guy, but it wasn’t. Well, there may have been just a little bit of sulking involved – yes, I’m jealous as hell about the guy, but if I can’t be around to make you happy, I want somebody else to. Anyway, I took the tough-love approach with you to try to make you realise for once and for all that you weren’t to blame for what happened to Elaine. I also realised that if you’re still this hung up on blaming yourself for Elaine’s death, you’re doubtless going to find some way to be hard on yourself for mine too. And not only that, but if I hadn’t sent you away, I know you’d have felt like you had to stay around until I took my last breath, because you’d have considered yourself a bad person otherwise. I was very tempted to let you – very, very tempted. But Andie, I knew you weren’t mine to have at that stage. I had to make you feel like I wanted you to go, because I wanted you to work on sorting out the rest of your life. I’m hoping that you’ve done a lot of thinking since you visited me. You’ve wasted enough time on things you can’t change. If I came across as a bastard, I apologise. And yes, I did kick myself after you left for sending you running off into the arms of another man, but I have a feeling you would have gone there sooner or later anyway.
So, there you go. I’m almost done, but I have one big ask of you before I go. If this guy Colm means something to you, if what you have with him is anything near as special as what you and I had, tell him about Elaine, if you haven’t already. And then, will you for the love of God get over yourself and forgive yourself? Now, and you thought I was a bad cop the day I sent you packing, huh? I mean it though, Andie. Stop putting yourself at the centre of what happened to Elaine. None of it was about you. You can tell yourself for the rest of your life that it was, or you can find the nearest beach and draw a line in the sand under this. You choose. Either way, you won’t get her back. Elaine is gone, but you’re still here. So do her, and yourself, a favour. Live your life as best you can. She didn’t get that opportunity, and if you’re her friend, you owe it to her. And for God’s sake, do it for me, while you’re at it.
Now, I just hope my nerdy skills don’t let me down, and this email actually gets to you – I’ve practically written a new testament of the Bible at this stage. I hope it’s of some use to you, beautiful one.
Goodbye, Andie. Thank you so much.
All my love,
Leon
The tears had begun sometime after ‘Dear Andie’. By the time I’d reached the end of Leon’s email, they’d formed sprawling pools on the table.
What had I done to deserve such love?
I re-read the main body of the email again and again. I’d known from the start that Leon was an amazing person, but this was incredible, even by his standards. His generosity of spirit when his death was impending was mind-blowing. I closed my eyes and let an image of Leon walking towards me in the MGM wash all over me.
“Thank you, Leon,” I whispered before I opened my eyes.
And when I did, I realised that after eight long years, I was willing to allow myself to move on.
Chapter Forty
It was shortly after reading Leon’s email that I found Colm’s passport on the top shelf of my wardrobe.
I stared at it, wondering if I was going mad from the stress of the past few days. My life was becoming a study in surrealism. This, of course, meant that Colm definitely hadn’t gone home to Ireland. That fact was completely eclipsed by the notion of me having his passport in the first place . . . how in the name of all that’s holy did it come to live in my wardrobe?
I racked my brains, and eventually I came up with an explanation that seemed plausible. I had no idea whether it was the real story or not, but the only thing that made sense was that Colm gave me his passport for safekeeping some night that we were out, and just hadn’t asked for it back yet. I didn’t remember it because I was blind drunk. Yes, that definitely made sense. I thought back to the night we went for the dinner Colm had won in the Leon competition (which hurt me to even think about now – it must have looked so crass through Leon’s eyes). Colm had his ID out that night, because despite being in his thirties, he looked much younger and was always asked for ID (I was never asked – maybe I should devote some time to being concerned about that at some stage, but as I was slightly busy with a million other neuroses, now wasn’t that stage). He wouldn’t have been drinking himself, of course, but he’d bought a few rounds for me when we went to a bar after we’d dragged the arse out of our free dinner for as long as we could. I had ended up blind drunk, so that was that box ticked. Why he’d never asked for it back though, or even made any reference to it in the interim, I didn’t know, but then, it was Colm we were talking about. Since when did he ever do anything that was expected?
Still, at least I had something to go on now. After reading Leon’s email, I’d promised myself that I’d do whatever it took to sort things out with Colm. I owed it to Leon. And there were plenty more things I had to make good on as well, but this needed to be dealt with first. And I wouldn’t rest for one minute until I’d found him. This time, I was determined to find what I was looking for.
On impulse, I grabbed the swipe for my door and made my way back down to Colm’s room. He was still in the country, so he could well be staying in the hotel – and it wasn’t as if he could leave the country without me, so surely he wouldn’t go too far away from here?
I stopped outside his room, and just as I was about to knock I heard feet trundling inside the door. The relief I felt was overpowering. But soon, all too soon, fury rose in me for how Colm had handled the last few days. And doubtless he was going to put me through the whole rigmarole of knocking my knuckles raw all over again right now. It was too much.
“Open up!” I slapped the door with the palms of both of my hands. “You have some neck, do you know that? Do you think you can just disappear off the face of the earth whenever you feel like it? Did you ever stop to think that I might be worried? Did you?”
Some glimmer of self-awareness warned me that I sounded like a total psycho, but it was too late.
“Fine! If you haven’t the guts to speak to me face to face, I’ll say what I have to say right here!” I was shouting at the top of my voice now to make sure he heard me. “I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you. But I’m not the only one who messes up, am I? Why did you have to run away the first time we hit a wall? But I can forgive you for it if you can forgive me. Please, stop shutting me out!” There wasn’t so much as a scuttle on the other side of the door, so I continued unabated. “You have yourself so convinced that you’re alone in the world and that nobody cares about you, but that’s just not true! You’re not alone – you have me! Didn’t you listen to me before? I’m in love with you!”
There was silence at the other side. I oscillated between embarrassment and anger at the lack of response.
“And now that you know that, surely you’ll open the door like any man worth his salt!”
I heard footsteps approaching the door. My feelings swayed from relief to fear that Colm might open this door and just tell me to go away. What would I do then?
“Thanks for your declaration of love, but I think my wife might have something to say about it.”
A middle-aged man in a suit stood in front of me. Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t sure if he was amused or annoyed by my interruption. His suitcase stood upright not far behind him, and he hadn’t even taken his suit jacket off.
“Oh, I’m so sorry – I was looking for someone else, obviously – he must have just left this room. As in, checked out earlier – I’m not suggesting he was hiding under your bed up until a few minutes ago or anything –”
“Hmm. I think I’ll check under the bed after you’ve gone, just in case.”
“Ah ha ha ha!! Yes – yes, good idea – right – well, I’ll just go then. Sorry about all that.” I cringed as I backed away from the door and ran down the corridor to my own room.
Good God. All of that emotion had taken it out of me, and it had all been for nothing – not to mention the mortification – I couldn’t take the time to indulge in my embarrassment, though. It was time to think. So, Colm was no longer in the hotel. Unless he’d changed rooms to get away from me? I’d get Philippe to check that out, but surely that was unlikely. Assuming he wasn’t in the hotel, he must still be in the country, given the whole passport issue. He hadn’t palled up with anyone since we came to Vegas, not surprisingly for Colm, so he wasn’t hanging out drinking beer and eating pretzels in someone’s sitting room. The only other avenue of possibility was that he was avenging himself with Lindy, but I refused to seriously consider that. Even though I had given the thought some headspace when he’d first gone missing, I’d considered it on the way back from Arizona, and realised that I had more faith in Colm than that.
I sighed. Perhaps Vegas wasn’t exactly a lucky spot for me. I seemed to spend all my time here looking for a man.
A short while before I had reasoned that he would stay close by – close to his passport at any rate – but now I was suddenly convinced that I could comb the length and breadth of each hotel in Vegas and I still wouldn’t find him. He’d never expressed much interest in being here, after all.
So, left to his own devices, where would he go?
Then it hit me. We went to Hoover Dam because Colm hadn’t felt well enough to make the big journey to the Grand Canyon. He had been determined to go there before he left for home. My mind went into overdrive as I tried to formulate the best plan. I could pack a bag, hire a car, drive to the Canyon and be there before the end of the day – but then what? I hadn’t managed to find Leon after a fire drill. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to find Colm hanging around the Grand Canyon late at night with only a pair of binoculars to help me out. The whole world knew that finding people wasn’t my forte.
I’d have to work out the specifics later. For now, it was time to visit Reception. There was only one man for the job of helping me out with my next move.
Philippe looked up suspiciously when he saw me. We’d had a chat before I’d left Vegas for the funeral and he’d forgiven me for giving him such a hard time when he tried to stop me going to the airport, but he’d seemed slightly apprehensive of what I was going to do next ever since. I didn’t blame him. I felt exactly the same way about myself.
“What drama is going on now?”
“The one that’s the soundtrack to my life, Philippe. Missing men.”
“Poof!” He made a French-sounding sound. “Perhaps they go missing because they are chased away.”
I hadn’t time for philosophy, but I had to tread carefully so that I didn’t annoy him again. But before I could say what I had in mind, he opened his mouth.
“And–ee, did you see the entertainment news last night?”
“No – I’d never watch that shite.”
Philippe didn’t get my attempt at sarcasm, and just threw me a confused look. “I’ve been slightly busy with funerals and the like, Philippe. Why do you ask?” I had a horrible feeling this wasn’t going to be something I wanted to hear.
“Lindy had another trick up her sleeve. It is now down.”
“What do you mean?”
“She did a report on her show about how you and Colm had been together all the time you were pretending to be looking for Leon.”
“Oh my God.” The cow. The sad, pathetic, vindictive cow. “Has she no respect for the dead? That’s a total lie, Philippe. Colm and I only just got together!”
“I know that. You know that. The rest of the world won’t believe that for a second, though.”
He was completely right. My thoughts instantly turned to Bridget and Liam. Would they believe it?
I’d have to deal with that later. Time was running out.
“I need your help just one last time, Philippe. I know it’s getting kinda old, but this truly is the last time I’ll ask you for anything.”
“Hmm. We’ll see about that. But go on. I am bored and ’ave nothing else to do.”
I glanced over at the queues of people before the reception desk, and the other busy staff members diligently processing requests.
“I need you to check on your computer system to see when Colm checked out of his hotel room, and if by any chance he checked into another room in the hotel instead.”
“So, you are asking me to violate customer privacy.”
“I hate to ask you to break the rules, but Colm’s missing and there’s no way I’ll find him without some more information.”
He shrugged. “If you know me at all by now, you will know that I do not care about breaking the whules. Whule-breaking is the making of my day. I go out of my way to break at leest one whule every day.”
“Good – then maybe I’m helping you out too!”
He gave me a slanty look. “I’ve already reached a respectable quota of whule-breaking today, so I can take or leave this one. Also, you asked Nicole to do exactly the same thing for you when Colm went missing. This does not make me feel very special.
When she’s told me to keep schtum about that, I’d assumed she would too! I took the moving-on-swiftly approach.
“Philippe, please! Don’t make me beg.”
“I think you just did, achshuly . . .”
“Philippe, please, don’t be an asshole.”
He smiled. “That is more like it. My fiery And–ee is back. Now, we can talk business.” He hauled himself up from the depths of his armchair and went out to Reception to disturb one of the staff that was actually working so that he could take over their computer.
“He checked out of his room at nine this morning. He is not in another room,” he said upon his return.
“Where are you going?”
“Next door, to check with the rent-a-car crowd if Colm rented a car from them this morning, and also to rent one myself.”
“Where are you going after you get that information?”
“The Grand Canyon.”
“Please, Andee, don’t do a Thelma and Louise over a man!”
“No, no.” I filled Philippe in on my theory.
He shrugged when I finished speaking. “I suppose it’s as good a place to start looking for him as any ozer. You do know that the rent-a-car crowd probably won’t give you details on who has rented their cars? Not everybody is as relaxed as Nicole and me, you know.”
My thoughts again turned to the harassed workers at the reception desk who could have done with a bit of help from their relaxed colleague, but Philippe had been so good to me that it would have been rude to have even made a joke.
“It doesn’t matter if they don’t tell me. I’ll just check the forecourt to see if the red Alfa Romeo Spider is missing. If it is, Colm has it.”
“What about accommodation? You will not sleep in the car, surely?”
“Possibly. I’ve done a lot of strange things in cars.” I smiled, thinking of Leon and me in the car in the MGM. Philippe gave me an odd look, and I suddenly realised what he was thinking. Time to swiftly move the conversation along again. “No, I’m joking – I’m going to stay in a hotel called Crumbler’s Lodge. Colm mentioned it before. I’d bet the arse of my trousers that he’s there.”
“Ah, yes, I ’ave ’eard of that ’otel. It is in a good location.”
“It seems to be, but that’s completely incidental. Knowing Colm, he wouldn’t care if it was a ten-mile uphill trek away from the Canyon as long as it was a cool hotel.”
[2014] Looking for Leon Page 35