I groaned. It was meant to be a silent, inward groan but it forced its way out of my mouth. “I’m going to the bathroom and when I get back you will be gone.” I picked up what I assumed were his clothes and threw them onto the bed. I picked up my own stray clothes that were resting on a chair, hugged them close to me and banged the door shut. Almost immediately I returned and grabbed my wallet, much to his disgust. I wasn’t about to leave that there.
Not after the last time.
I stayed in the bathroom down the hall for as long as I could until Mr. Rankin from next door began pounding on the door and telling me and everyone else in the building how he was going to burst an area of his body that I didn’t care to think much about. I opened the door immediately and went back to my bedsit hoping the hairy stranger had vanished. No such luck. He was closing the door behind him.
I walked toward him slowly, not knowing what to say. He didn’t seem to know either, but nor did he care, his smirk still on his face.
“Did we…?” I asked.
“Twice.” He winked and my insides churned. “By the way, before you throw me out of your building, some guy came by when you were in the bathroom. I told him he could wait if he wanted, but you probably wouldn’t recognize him when you saw him.” He grinned again.
“What guy?” I racked my brain.
“See, I told him you wouldn’t remember him.”
“Is he in there?” I looked toward the closed door.
“No, I guess he didn’t feel like hanging around a bedsit with a naked hairy man.”
“You answered the door naked?” I asked angrily.
“I thought it was you.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he left this card for you.” He handed me the business card. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in me giving you my number?”
I shook my head, took the card from his hand. “Thanks, eh…” I began weakly.
“Steve,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Nice to meet you.” I smiled and he laughed. He was kind of cute but still I watched him walk down the stairs.
“We met before, by the way,” he called up to me, not turning around as he made his way down the steps.
I was silent while I tried to remember.
“At Louise Drummond’s Christmas party last year?” He stopped and looked up hopefully.
I frowned.
“Ah, it doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You didn’t remember the next morning then, either.” Then he smiled and was gone.
There was a moment of guilt until I remembered the business card in my hand and the bad feelings vanished. My knees went weak when I saw the name.
It seemed Mr. Burton had set up a clinic in Dublin, Scathach House on Leeson Street. Wait a minute, Dr. Burton; he’d passed his exams at last.
I danced around excitedly on the spot. I heard the toilet flush and Mr. Rankin left with a newspaper in his hand and caught me dancing.
“You need to go again? I wouldn’t go back in there for a while.” He wafted the newspaper.
I ignored him and went back into my bedsit. Mr. Burton was here now. He’d found me three years after I’d moved away and that’s all that mattered. At last, one odd sock had showed up.
26
Oh, Dr. Burton.” Jack sat up in the car seat and pressed the phone closer to his ear. “I remember why I’d made a note of it now. Actually it’s not me that I’m enquiring about. It’s about a friend of mine who had an appointment yesterday with Doctor…” He stopped, already forgetting the surname.
“Burton,” the secretary finished for him, and he could hear another phone ringing in the background. “I’m sorry, could you just hold for a moment, please, sir?”
“Yes.” Jack waited and listened to Duran Duran playing over the phone while he tried to formulate some sort of a plan. He scribbled Dr. Gregory Burton’s name and address into his notebook. Later he would go through Sandy’s missed calls, received calls, and dialed numbers that her phone had recorded over the last few days and he would try to piece together where she had gone, even if it meant ringing everyone in her phonebook.
The secretary returned on the line. “I’m sorry, it’s very busy here today. How can I help you?”
“I was wondering if you could tell me whether my friend Sandy Shortt showed up for her appointment yesterday?”
“I’m sorry, Mr…?”
Jack thought fast. “Le Bon.” Not fast enough. Le Bon?
“I’m sorry, Mr. Le Bon, but we can’t give out information about our clients.”
“Oh, of course you can’t, I understand that, but I’m not looking for any personal information. My friend has been terribly sick lately but she has been afraid to do anything about it in case it’s more serious than she anticipates. It’s her stomach; it’s been giving her trouble for months. I made an appointment for her and she says she went to Dr. Burton yesterday but I’m afraid she’s lying to us all. The family are all so worried. Could you at least just let us know if she arrived for the appointment? I’m not asking for any personal details.”
“You’re enquiring about Sandy Shortt?”
He sat back relieved. “Yes, Sandy,” he replied happily. “Her appointment was for one o’clock.”
“I see. Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you as this is not a medical clinic, Mr. Le Bon. It’s a counseling center, so you can’t have made the appointment for her regarding stomach problems. Is there anything else I can help you with?” Her voice was firm, angry even.
“Em,” Jack said, his face red with embarrassment. “No.”
“Thank you for calling.” She hung up.
He stared in embarrassment at the appointment made for one o’clock in Sandy’s diary. Suddenly Sandy’s phone began ringing and the name “Gregory B” flashed up on the screen. Jack’s heart thumped like a drum. He ignored the ring tone, relieved when it finally stopped and beeped to signal a message. He picked up the phone and dialed into her messaging service.
“Hi, Sandy. Gregory here. I’ve tried calling you a few times but there’s no answer. I presume you’ve gone wandering the deep abyss again. I was just calling to let you know that a man named…” He moved his mouth away from the phone. “Carol, what was his name?”
Jack heard the secretary’s voice saying “Mr. Le Bon.”
“Right, yeah.” Gregory came back on the phone. “A Mr. Le Bon, I assume that’s not his real name,” he said laughing, “rang our offices looking for you. He was wondering if you’d made your appointment yesterday for your stomach problem?” His voice got quieter. “Just be careful, OK? I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ve considered getting a real job yet, waitressing or something. There’s little chance nuts would be chasing you then. You could go door-to-door, selling bibles; in fact a nice woman dressed head to toe in tweed came to my door last night, which quite obviously made me immediately think of you, so I took her card. Think about calling her. It’s a fine, uplifting card with Our Lord looking miserable on the cross. And it’s recycled paper so she really must care.” He laughed again. “Anyway, if you don’t think you could endure the tweed, get a nine to five. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s this thing that people do. It allows them to have a life outside of work hours. That’s ‘life,’ L-I-F-E, you can look it up in your dictionary when you get the chance. Anyway…” He sighed and was quiet for a while as if deciding what to say, or more likely he knew exactly what to say and was deciding whether to say it or not. Jack knew that silence well. “Right,” his voice suddenly got louder and more businesslike. “Talk to you soon.”
Knuckles rapping loudly on the glass of the passenger side of the car caused Jack to jump and drop the phone. He looked up to see Alan’s mother, a round-faced frump of a woman glaring in the window. He leaned over and rolled down the window.