“She’s going to leave,” one of us sighs.
“No, she’s not,” says the idiot.
“Ttthhhhhtttt,” says the one who sucks on his teeth.
We look at Jane’s reflection in the cabinet glass to gauge her mood and see the aching space of our absence. Twenty-five rows of chairs are cast back at us, along with the lectern where William will stand and a tall ceramic vase stuffed with oriental flowers.
“I’ll wager you,” says the musician.
“Wager us what exactly?”
“She took a diazepam in the bathroom,” the theologian says, “while you were all out here gaping at the quiche.”
“Our mouths divined with heaven,” intones the poet.
“Vrrrooooooom,” drones the boy, as if he’s a jet fighter.
“Shhh, everyone, give her a bit,” the one with the soft voice says, watching Jane study the glass-blown rose, the wilted edges of its thin petals.
What Jane remembers most vividly about the last time she saw William was the constable’s desk where she was told to sit and wait. It was in the part of the police station she had never imagined — a brown-panelled backroom area where the officers piled their everyday coats on racks and kept outdated family photos on their desk, where coffee mugs emblazoned with phrases like “World’s Best Dad” were clustered on a card table next to a well-used coffee maker. The nameplate at the desk said Shaun Holmes in brass, and this made her think of the Sherlock books that her brother, Lewis, liked, and so, to distract herself, she tried to remember if Sherlock was the character’s real first name, the one his mother gave him when he was born, or some kind of nickname. Shaun Holmes had a frame on his desk with a photo of an Alsatian that Jane thought probably came from a calendar of dogs. Maybe October was Alsatian month, and if she opened the frame and peeked at the back of the image she’d find the squares of September with notes like Sara’s birthday or dinner at K’s written in the boxes. But then Jane rationalized that if “Sara” or her birthday mattered to Shaun Holmes, he’d have a photo of her in the frame instead. Constable Margaret Mobbs, the woman who’d brought Jane to the desk after her statement on the trail, after it became clear that Jane couldn’t stop crying, came by after a while with a book for twelve-year-olds, milky tea from a vending machine and a packet of plain crisps. She stood there a moment and then touched Jane’s head, said, “I’ll leave you to it?” Instead of replying, Jane reached out her finger and tapped the last silver ball of a set that hung from strings on a stupid contraption on Constable Holmes’s desk. The ball clicked with a light tock into the next ball, which tocked its neighbour in turn, the effect diminishing as it moved along.
“Newtonian,” Mobbs said. She wiped what appeared to be a line of dirt off her sun-baked cheek and a strand of dull-brown hair slipped out of its ponytail. “Inertia.”
Jane had to concentrate to remember what that was, because she knew that she knew it, but didn’t right then. What it meant then was that Lily was out in the woods and Shaun Holmes and everyone from everywhere was looking for her, and that one click could lead to another and at the end everything would be okay.
“Or cause and effect,” Mobbs added, then shrugged. “Actually, I’m more of a history of the ancient world kind of girl.”
Hours later, long enough that Jane’s grandparents would have arrived if they’d driven straight up from London, if they’d been home to take the call and not out at the ballet and having a drink after with the director of the symphony orchestra, Jane looked up from the Alsatian — who was a real dog after all — and saw William. He was hunched in his jacket behind a desk on the other side of the room, a survey map open in front of him, a Styrofoam cup that was still steaming placed on top. His gaze was directed down at the cup, and it stayed there for a long time, and Jane both wanted and did not want him to look up at her.
To test the sound, the cellist with the cropped red hair begins to play from the music sheet in front of her. The guests will start arriving soon and the musicians have yet to check the acoustics properly. The violinist, a gangly man with a boyish expression, folds his legs under his chair and joins in. Jane recognizes the piece: a Dvořák quartet her father had encouraged her to practise, suggesting once that if she got good enough at it they might try to play it together. And it’s this — the memory of her father’s dissatisfaction, and the aching swell of the notes the cellist is playing so beautifully — that makes her start toward the front door of the Chester. If she failed at Dvořák and at the cello, and if what happened with Lily made her a disappointment to her father and to her mother, why should things be any different now, with William? That day in the police station, William had known that Jane was sitting across the room, and for more than an hour he refused to glance up at her. By the time her grandparents arrived, the room was so full of volunteer search-party members being handed maps, flashlights and headlamps that Jane hadn’t known if he was still there. Besides, she reasons now as she puts her hand out to the door, if she were meant to see William it would have happened — there have been conferences and lectures, probably a hundred near misses. In the years before her grandmother died Jane was in his end of the city every Sunday, two blocks down the road. Jane grabs the handle and opens the door onto the street. If Gareth sees her now, or Duncan or Paulo, she’ll say she’s just stepping out, going for a walk before the party.
As we move to go outside a second violinist picks up the thread of music and the movement swells.
“I know this piece!” the musician amongst us exclaims, and he begins to nod along. After a few bars he hums loudly, matching the violinist note for note, and even though the cellist has stopped to adjust her music stand he keeps singing and whirling around. We get like this sometimes, when what is happening to Jane becomes less important than what we can learn about ourselves. “It’s number twelve! Listen, listen!”
Outside, the evening air is surprisingly cool. Jane stands on the pavement, lifts her chin and watches as the clouds pull their veils over the city. Rain, she thinks, and squints skyward. Unsure of what she’ll do, a few of us start to worry, and we argue about fluttering her again. Then the one singing Dvořák picks up the melody, his voice swaying loudly as if he’s remembering the best piece of music on earth.
“Shut it!” the theologian shouts.
“Leave him be,” says the idiot.
“I can’t think with the distraction,” the theologian seethes.
“Folly,” says the poet, “on the hill behind the seat.”
The theologian exhales, and Cat says chirpily, “Right. I’m going to go back in and poke my fingers into the sweets.”
The girl amongst us whispers, “Wait,” with little-girl urgency. She turns to Jane and tries to wish her back inside, but Jane stays where she is, and what we know of the girl — her brightness, the soft plane of her presence — turns to us for help. When we don’t do anything, she takes Jane’s hand, flutters her own fingers over the open curve of Jane’s palm, tracing and retracing the same path with such focus we can almost see her bent into her work.
“What are you writing?” we ask.
Jane lifts her hands and rubs them together.
“Is it a letter?”
“No.” The girl sighs, and when Jane drops her hands back to her sides the girl returns to what she was doing.