Joanna watched the clock. When enough time had elapsed she took the picture from the tray, washed it and placed it on the small mounting wall. She used a squeegee to remove the excess water from the print, and then stood looking at it for a moment. Mercedes made a striking figure. Joanna thought again what an interesting model she would make with her sultry Spanish looks. Beyond the darkroom, she heard her mother move about. She removed the latex gloves, binned them and followed the sounds to the kitchen.
Her mother was standing by the counter making coffee. Joanna was surprised to see that she had her coat on. Her bag was lying on the table too, as though she’d just come in.
‘You’re up and about early, aren’t you? Did I just hear you come in?’
Her mother turned, surprised. ‘Oh, I nipped down to the shops. We were just out of milk. Fancy a coffee?’
‘No thanks, I had one already when I came in.’ She didn’t mention that there had been plenty of milk then; enough anyway not to necessitate an urgent visit to the shops.
Her mother spooned coffee into the cafetière. ‘Are you long in?’
Joanna shrugged. ‘A while. I was just doing some test prints. I thought you were still in bed. I’m just going to go up to my room; I have a few things to get ready for college this afternoon.’
‘Okay.’ Angela took off her coat, sat down with a magazine and her coffee.
Joanna wondered as she climbed the stairs if her mother really had gone out to the shops earlier. Could she have been out all night, and if so, where? She glanced into her mother’s room. The bed was made, everything immaculate. There was nothing unusual in that. Her mother always made the bed as soon as she got up.
Joanna went into the bathroom. She checked the shower, no droplets of water – her mother’s towel was dry, and her toothbrush was conspicuously missing from the cup.
TWENTY-NINE
Oliver felt disgruntled about Joanna spying on him. He couldn’t be sure that she believed his story about Mercedes only having returned for her things either. And if she thought there was something going on, there was every probability that she would go looking for proof. That was not the kind of person he could afford to have around him right now and that was a pity because he liked her. He’d surprised himself by getting upset at the thought of her walking out – but he hadn’t been himself since the accident. There were times when he couldn’t bear to be alone with his thoughts, and Joanna was a distraction from the Hernandez sisters and the mess he’d got himself into. He’d just have to be more careful in the future.
It had been two days since he’d heard from Carmen. Her silence made him wonder what she was up to. Could she have returned to Spain without having said anything? He doubted it. He thought of her last visit, her hand on his arm and her voice soft. ‘We don’t have to be enemies, Oliver.’ What she’d said was right: at least, not overt ones. He didn’t trust Carmen one bit, and with that in mind he decided to find out what was behind her silence.
The phone rang several times before she picked up.
‘Carmen, it’s Oliver. Are you at the hotel?’
A stifled yawn. ‘No, I checked out. I’m at a flat.’ Her voice groggy like she’d been asleep.
He paused for a beat. ‘A flat?’
‘Yes, a short-term let. It works out less expensive than the hotel.’
‘I see. Well, I’m just phoning to see if you’d like to meet. I was thinking about what you said the other night, and well, you’re right, we don’t have to be enemies.’
Silence.
‘Carmen, are you still there?’
A moan, another yawn. She was definitely in bed. He pictured her stretching like a cat.
‘Si, I’m here,’ she said. ‘Where do you want to meet?’
He thought for a moment. He wanted to see where she was staying exactly and for how long. ‘Well, if you give me the address, I could come over. Where are you?’ He grabbed a pen as Carmen called out the address. ‘I’ll be about half an hour,’ he said. Carmen, surprisingly uncommunicative, hung up. Maybe she wasn’t well, he thought. She’d sounded very vague, or at least distracted.
The flat was on the third floor of a redbrick building close to the city centre. The entrance door was ajar and he let himself inside. He pressed the button and waited for the lift. A few minutes later, when there was no sound of it rattling its way towards the ground floor, he decided to take the stairs. He looked at the numbers on the doors of the flats. Down the hallway a door opened and a guy came out, shrugging into a leather jacket as he walked. His head dipped slightly in acknowledgement as he passed.
The numbers increased as Oliver continued along the corridor. He paused at the door from which the guy in the leather jacket had emerged. Number twenty, Carmen’s flat. He tapped on the wood. There was the sound of shuffling inside. The door opened and Carmen ushered him into a narrow hallway. Through an open door he could see an unmade bed. Clothes lay scattered on the floor. Carmen hadn’t wasted much time in making the place her own.
‘Who was that?’ Oliver asked.
‘Who was what?’
‘The guy I just saw leaving.’
Carmen smiled. ‘Just a guy,’ she said.
She sat at a small table by the window and tapped a cigarette from a tattered box. The air already smelled of cigarettes despite the ‘no smoking’ signs that he’d seen in the corridors of the building.
‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ she said, as she flicked a lighter and held the flame to her cigarette.
‘I thought I’d show you this. I forgot the other night at the house.’ He clicked the Facebook app on his smartphone, opened up the message from Mercedes and handed it to Carmen. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything else?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t look like she’ll come back any time soon, does it?’ She blew smoke at the open window, drew her legs up to her chest. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a sweater that hung off one shoulder. She flicked her ash onto a saucer. ‘I’ve been thinking. I should go to Belfast; maybe I can find her.’
This caught him by surprise. ‘To Belfast? But you heard what she said; she doesn’t want either of us to contact her. Besides, it would be impossible. How would you find out where she was staying?’
She held the phone out to him. ‘I could make some calls,’ she said. ‘There can’t be that many hotels in the city. If I could talk to her, maybe I could get her to listen.’
‘You saw the message, Carmen. She doesn’t want to listen. You’d be wasting your time.’
She stood up, drew on the cigarette and exhaled to the side. ‘So what, that’s it then? You’re not even going to try? You give up so easily, you Irish men.’
She had one hand on her hip and was staring up at him intently. She reminded him so much in that moment of Mercedes. He shrugged, and tried to still the panic rising inside him.
‘I can’t force Mercedes to come back. Going after her like that would just drive her further away. You know her, she’s stubborn. The only thing to do is give her time to cool off.’
‘Well, you do what you want. I’m going to find her. Maybe you don’t deserve her to come back if you give up so easily. Maybe I did you a favour making you a free man.’
‘Don’t be absurd.’
There was a fire in her voice that made him want her. It was the same fire that he’d seen in Mercedes. He wondered how and if he could get it under control. ‘Look, Belfast is a big place. You’ll probably never find her.’
‘It doesn’t matter; at least I’m doing something.’
Oliver wondered again about the guy in the leather jacket. Where had Carmen met him? The jealous feeling that gripped him at the idea of her with someone else surprised him.
He watched her flick the cigarette, sweater hanging provocatively off her tanned shoulder, and he thought of that night they’d spent together. It was the only night that he and Mercedes had been apart since they’d been married, and Carmen had been a willing substitute. Merced
es hadn’t had any qualms about leaving her sister and husband alone together when she’d left that morning. She’d gone to Cork to attend a training seminar for work. It was only one day. Carmen had spent two weeks with them sleeping in the spare room, and he had to admit there were nights when Mercedes had turned away from him that he had thought about Carmen sleeping beyond the wall.
Carmen had been a different kind of lover to Mercedes. She had no inhibition. There was urgency in her mouth and hands that was exciting and, sometimes, painful. She’d teased him the next day about telling Mercedes, but when she returned they acted as normal – at least he thought they had. Mercedes asked him if they had argued. When he asked her why, she said that she’d detected tension between them, that he had answered Carmen sharply when she’d spoken to him that day. He said they’d had a minor disagreement, but that it was nothing to worry about. Carmen was just being her usual provocative self. He was relieved when, a few days later, Carmen had returned to Spain without having said anything about what had happened between them. He had no idea that several months later she would decide to tell her sister the truth.
He looked at Carmen now, determined to go to Belfast to find her sister. Had she lost interest in him since that night? Had she got what she wanted, a fait accompli? He changed his tone, determined to win this fight. ‘Maybe I’m starting to accept the fact that Mercedes is not coming back,’ he said.
Carmen exhaled, not bothering now to turn her head to the side; the smoke stung his eyes.
‘And what will you do if she doesn’t?’ she said.
‘Carry on, I guess. There’s nothing else to do.’
Carmen stubbed the cigarette on the saucer. Her feet were bare, no bra strap showed beneath the sweater. He wondered if she’d dressed hurriedly as soon as the guy had left. Had she been pulling on her jeans as he’d knocked? He took a step closer, gave a short laugh.
‘You know I admire your ferocity?’
He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes stared into his, but he couldn’t read her expression.
‘Do you think if it were the other way round Mercedes would look for you?’
‘Of course she would. We’re sisters.’
He wound the strand of hair around his finger. ‘You weren’t too eager for her to come back that weekend though, were you? I haven’t forgotten, you know. In fact, I’ve thought about it a lot.’
Carmen put a hand up to stop him playing with her hair. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing that we don’t want,’ he said, taking her hand and placing it to his lips.
He ran a thumb along her throat. She eased her head back and he caressed the nape of her neck. When he kissed her, her mouth was hot and tasted of cigarettes. He thought of the guy in the leather jacket and he wondered if she’d just had sex with him, but he didn’t care. He wanted her. He wanted to feel the ferocity of her lovemaking that he’d felt that night. He pulled Carmen towards him and she yielded. Seconds later she was on top of him on the sofa, tugging at his belt. He put a hand on hers to stop her.
‘The bedroom,’ he said.
She stood, took his hand and led him to the room, where he pushed her down onto the already tangled sheets.
THIRTY
Joanna observed her mother closely over the next few days, but there was nothing unusual in her behaviour. If anything, she seemed warmer, more like herself than she had been since Rachel Arnold had dropped her bombshell that night. She was hiding something, of that Joanna was sure. There was the furtive phone call when she’d said she was talking to Pauline and then said it was Helen, the shopping trip that hadn’t happened, and now the fact that she had stayed out all night. There was only one answer: she had met someone but didn’t want to say.
Joanna could understand that. She knew how cautious her mother had been since her experience with Vince Arnold. It was evident from the advice she’d given her about Oliver that she didn’t believe in rushing into things, so she wasn’t about to go telling her prematurely about some man she’d met, particularly if it was early in the relationship.
She thought back. When had her mother’s absence from the house become obvious? She had been busy herself for the last few months preparing for the photography exhibition, so she couldn’t quite tell. She’d certainly been missing a lot in the two weeks since Rachel had turned up. And as far as she knew that was the first time her mother had stayed out all night. That must mean that things were getting serious.
Joanna was happy for her mother. She hadn’t been involved with anyone since Vince Arnold, and now that Joanna knew the circumstances surrounding her birth she could see why. Her mother was still a young woman, fifty years old. She was in good shape and very attractive. Joanna used to think it amusing growing up, the attention her mother got from men. Angela usually curbed it with an icy stare that they would laugh about later. Even some of the boys from school had crushes on her.
She wondered where her mother had met this man. At the gym, maybe, or the amateur drama club she’d got involved in last year. She didn’t act, didn’t dare to, she said, but she enjoyed working backstage, helping with the set, or sometimes doing the line call. Whoever he was, Joanna prayed that he treated her well and that he knew how much her mother deserved it.
The photography exhibition was to take place at the end of the week. Joanna was mostly happy with her collection of Runaway Brides. She’d been toying with the idea of inviting Oliver, but she didn’t want to call him; she was determined to wait until he contacted her. Hopefully, by that time it wouldn’t be too late; for all she knew he might already have other plans.
That morning she was free. Her mother had already gone out, left her at the breakfast table eating toast, calling out that she’d see her later. Joanna decided to take a trip into town. She needed to pick up some materials in Evans Art Supplies, and she didn’t feel like getting down to work straightaway.
She had picked up what she needed and was strolling back down Capel Street towards the quays when she saw her mother through a café window. She was still wearing her gym clothes, and her sports bag was at her feet, but that wasn’t what interested Joanna: it was the dark-haired man sitting opposite her mother who looked vaguely familiar.
Joanna stopped walking in order to observe them, but there was nowhere really that she could stand without looking conspicuous, and she was terrified that her mother would look up and find her staring in at them. She crouched on the pavement and pretended to rummage in her bag for something as passers-by veered around her. Now that she had a better view of the man, she realized that it was Patrick Arnold. Shocked, Joanna continued to observe them. What was her mother doing drinking coffee with her father’s brother? More to the point, she’d said she didn’t know him. Another lie? It seemed there was no end to them.
People were beginning to look at Joanna. She couldn’t search endlessly in her bag hunkered down on the pavement. She needed to make a decision. She could either go into the café, feigning surprise at meeting them, or she could wait until they came out – follow them and see what happened next. She got up slowly, glancing at the café window again, and crossed the street. She entered a bar on the corner of Capel Street, and took a seat that was close enough to the window to enable her to see the pair when they left the café. The waitress approached and asked her if she could get her anything. Joanna ordered a Coke and settled down to wait.
She thought about her mother and Patrick Arnold. Surely, he wasn’t the one she’d become involved with. No, it couldn’t be that. But what then, and why would her mother have pretended never to have met him? She thought of their body language when she’d spotted them through the window. Did they look close? She couldn’t tell. Maybe she should have just marched in and asked them what they were doing, but they might not have told her the truth. She thought about what Oliver had told her about Patrick – struck off as a solicitor for committing fraud. Did her mother know that? And Rachel, his own sister-in-law, w
hat was it that she had said – that he wasn’t someone she would trust. Joanna truly hoped that her mother wasn’t about to be burned by Vince Arnold’s brother.
She’d been sitting in the bar for about fifteen minutes when she saw Patrick and her mother go by. Quickly she grabbed her bags and prepared to follow them. They were stopped by the traffic lights waiting to cross over to the Liffey. Joanna stopped to look in the window of a music shop until the pedestrian light turned green, and then, keeping a moderate distance behind, she followed them. They strolled down the boardwalk; Joanna stayed on the opposite side of the road, careful to keep them in sight. They walked apart, no hand beneath her mother’s elbow, no arm round her shoulder. That at least was good. They walked the length of the boardwalk until they’d reached O’Connell Bridge and then crossed to the Southside. Joanna paused to examine the contents of a stall on the bridge, and then continued her pursuit. The pair turned left, continued along the quays, past the immigration office, and finally, turned right into Tara Street station. Joanna paused, trying to decide whether or not she should follow. She could do it, board a different carriage to see where they got off, but it might be difficult, and so she decided to leave it. She was glad she did because, a moment later, Patrick Arnold reappeared without her mother and began to walk back along the quays. Joanna turned her back to him as he passed and looked into the river. So, it was her mother who had taken the train, but where to? She didn’t ever have reason to use the Dart as far as Joanna knew. She thought of the stations along the line: Howth to Greystones, north to south. Where was her mother bound?
The Girl Behind the Lens: A dark psychological thriller with a brilliant twist Page 13