“Hello, Mrs. O’Connor.”
“Who’s that?” She scrunched up her face and stuck her head in the window. Wiry hairs escaped from her jawline. Her false teeth unclamped themselves from her gums and moved around in her mouth as she spoke. “Do I know you?” she shouted, spit landing on Jack’s lip.
“Yes, Mrs. O’Connor.” He wiped his lip and raised his voice, knowing she had bad hearing. “I’m Jack Ruttle, Donal’s brother.”
“Merciful hour, baby Donal’s brother. What are you doing sitting out here? Get out and let me have a look at you.”
She shuffled away in maroon-colored velvet slippers, her jaw moving as she looked him up and down, teeth still sloshing around in her mouth. She was dressed in the same outfit she appeared to have been wearing since the forties. “Make Do and Mend” had always been a part of the O’Connors’ way of life, recycling textiles around the house to clothe the twelve children she had reared without their father, who came for one thing and left when he got it. Jack remembered Alan coming along on a day out with Donal when they were kids, wearing white shorts made from pillowcases. Donal never seemed to care, refusing to mock his friend as the other kids did. Not that Alan endured the taunts, instead choosing to knock the bejaysus out of anyone who even looked at him the wrong way. But he protected Donal from everyone, and his friend’s disappearance had hit him particularly hard.
“Com’ere to me, aren’t ya all grown up?” She rubbed Jack’s hands and tousled his hair as though he had just reached adolescence that very day. “You’re the image of your father, God rest his soul,” she said, blessing herself.
“Thank you, Mrs. O’Connor. You look great too,” he said, though it was a lie.
“Ah, I don’t.” She waved her hand dismissively and began to shuffle back toward her ground-floor flat in the high-rise building. Two bedrooms and twelve kids; he wondered how she had managed it. No wonder Alan had spent so much time in the Ruttles’ house, being satiated with food by Jack’s mother.
“Is Alan here? I came to talk to him.”
“No, he’s not. He finally moved in with that young thing. In a house now, wouldn’t you know. He’s only with her because of the house but she only gets it because of her kid, mind you. Fancy houses they get nowadays, the single mothers. I had nothin’ like it in my day, not that I was single, but I was as good as, and all the better for it,” she continued, shuffling to her door.
Jack laughed. Alan was always involved in something, landing on his feet no matter what the circumstances. Donal had named him “The Cat.”
“I won’t disturb you, Mrs. O’Connor. I’ll go over to Alan at the house if that’s OK.”
“You think he done something wrong?” She looked worried.
“Not to me, anyway.” Jack smiled, and she nodded, relief written all over her hard face.
Alan must have received a phone call from his mother, because he was outside in the driveway waiting. He looked thin, thinner than usual, and his face was pale and drawn, paler and more drawn than usual. But didn’t they all, hadn’t everyone and everything been affected by Donal’s disappearance? It was as if, when he left the chipper that night, bumping against the door frames in his drunken state, he had managed to bump the earth off its axis, causing it to swirl at top speed in the wrong direction on the wrong path. Everything felt out of place.
They greeted each other with a hug. Alan immediately began to cry and Jack fought the urge to join him. Instead, he stiffened, allowing the younger man to weep on his shoulder, swallowing back the lump in his throat, blinking back the tears and trying to focus on everything around him that was real and that he could touch-everything except Donal.
They sat in the living room. Alan’s hands shook as he tapped ash from his cigarette into one of the empty beer cans piled alongside the couch. The room was deathly silent; Jack wished they could put on the television as a background distraction.
“I came here to see if a woman had called by today, she’s helping me out with looking for Donal.”
Alan’s face brightened. “Yeah?”
“She just wanted to ask you questions about the night, you know go back over everything again.”
“I’ve been through that a million times with the guards, and a million times every day with myself.” He inhaled deeply on his cigarette and his nicotine-stained fingers rubbed his eyes wearily.
“I know, but it’s good to have a fresh eye and ear go over everything again, maybe there’s something they missed.”
“Maybe,” he said in a small voice, but Jack doubted he believed that; he doubted there was any moment of that night that Alan hadn’t analyzed, overanalyzed, and then dissected all over again. To tell him there was maybe something he was forgetting must surely be an insult.
“She didn’t call by?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been here all day, was here all day yesterday, and I’ll be here all day tomorrow, too,” he said angrily.
“What happened to that last job of yours?”
He made a face and Jack knew not to ask any more questions.
“Do me a favor, will you?” Jack said, and handed Alan his phone. “Ring this number and make an appointment for me with Dr. Burton, I don’t want them to recognize my voice.”
Alan being Alan, he didn’t ask any questions. “Hi, I want to make an appointment with Dr. Burton,” he said, opening another beer can.
He raised his eyebrows and looked at Jack. “Yeah, for a counseling session.”
Jack nodded.
“When do I want the appointment?” He repeated the secretary’s question, looking at Jack.
“As soon as they can,” Jack whispered.
“As soon as you can,” Alan repeated. He listened and looked at Jack. “Next month?”
Jack shook his head wildly.
“No, I need it sooner than that, my head is really messed up, you never know what I might do.”
Jack rolled his eyes.
Seconds later he hung up. “You got a cancellation for noon on Thursday.”
“Thursday?” Jack asked, jumping up from his chair as though moving now would have him there on time.
“Well, you said as soon as possible,” Alan said, handing him back the phone. “Has that got anything to do with finding Donal, by any chance?”
Jack thought about it. “In a way, yeah.”
“I hope you find him, Jack.” His eyes filled up again. “I keep going back over that night again and again, wishing I’d left with him. I really thought he’d be OK getting a taxi down that way, you know?” His eyes looked tortured and his hands shook. Around his feet on the floor lay sprinkles of ash he constantly flicked with his nicotine-stained thumb.
“You weren’t to know.” Jack comforted him. “It’s not your fault.”
“I hope you find him,” Alan repeated, opening another can of beer and slugging it down.
Jack left him sitting there in the silence of the empty house, staring into space, knowing he was rethinking and reliving that night all over again, looking for the vital piece of evidence they had all missed. It was all they could do.
27
Missing person number one, Orla Keane, entered the great Community Hall, the light shining in from the open door spotlighting her presence. She stopped at the entrance, trying to get her bearings, looking like Alice in Wonderland who had just swallowed an “Eat Me” beside the monstrous oak door. I cleared my throat nervously and its amplified sound bounced off the walls, raced to the ceilings, and back down again like a Ping-Pong ball let loose. She turned to where I had made the noise and began to make her way toward me, high heels on the wooden floor echoing loudly.
Joan and Helena had set up a table for me to sit behind on the far side of the room and, much to Joan’s disappointment, they stepped outside to give me privacy. As Orla approached me, I felt starstruck. I couldn’t believe that this person had stepped out of my “Missing” photographs and was now a living, breathing person walking directly toward me.