Tuesday

Halfway home from town, Audrey’s phone began to ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s Michael Browne,” he said.

Audrey stopped dead in the middle of the path, causing a minor obstruction among Carrickbawn’s pedestrian population.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes,” she said, running a hand through her hair, tweaking her blouse collar. “Where did you get my number?”

“You phoned me,” he said. “About the playschool. I had it from then.”

“Oh…but didn’t I call your landline?”

“I have caller ID.”

“Oh.”

Foolish, asking him that. What did it matter where he’d got her number? She was prattling because she was nervous, which was ridiculous. She stood in the middle of the path and people walked around her.

“I’m calling,” he said, “to let you know that I’m having a sale.”

“A sale?”

Did pet shops have sales? Was he ringing all his customers to tell them?

“Tomorrow,” he said. “A one-day sale. Everything reduced. I just thought I’d let you know, in case you needed anything.”

A kennel. She needed a kennel. Silly really, to go all the way to Limerick if she could get one right here. “Do you have kennels?” she asked. Wouldn’t kill her to go and look. Daft to turn down a bargain, if it was on sale.

There was a short silence. Had he heard?

“I do,” he answered then. “Twenty percent off tomorrow.”

Twenty percent off. She’d be foolish not to at least check them out.

“Right,” she said. “I’ll call in.”

“Right,” he repeated. “I’ll see you then.”

She heard the click as he hung up. She remained standing there, the phone still clamped to her ear.

“Excuse me.” A woman with a double buggy was attempting to maneuver it around Audrey.

“Sorry.” Audrey stepped out of her way and moved on slowly. He’d rung her to tell her he was having a sale.

Business must be slow. This was a strategy to boost his sales, nothing more.

But he’d rung her, he’d taken the trouble to look her up on his caller ID and he’d rung her. And she was calling in to his shop tomorrow, to check out kennels that were 20 percent off.

She paused in front of a boutique she never went into because it was too dear. There was a green-and-white skirt on the mannequin in the window. A card on the floor read Skirt €85.

Eighty-five euro. Scandalous.

She pushed the door open and went in.

“Hi, Audrey.” Jackie smiled. “Fancy meeting you here.”

—————

It is cold today, Zarek wrote. Winter is coming to Ireland. I will see how it compares with the Polish winter.

In the past few days he’d taken to wearing both his sweatshirts at the same time. He’d visited the local charity shop and picked up a navy wool coat for €9. There was a small cream stain on the underside of the left sleeve, about the size of a walnut. Zarek presumed it was the reason for the coat’s presence in the shop, but he was happy to overlook it.

My flat mate Anton is moving back to France soon, Zarek wrote. He will begin working in his uncle’s new restaurant. We will miss him.

They were going to put a notice in the porch of the local church, whose priest was active in helping newly arrived immigrants to Carrickbawn, and where flat-sharing adverts could often be found. They were going to look for a replacement for Anton.

I was glad to hear that Mama’s varicose vein operation went well, Zarek wrote. I hope the bruising will quickly fade.

Pilar had already laid claim to Anton’s bedroom, which was the biggest of the three. Zarek hadn’t argued. What did it matter who slept where, what did any of it matter when Anton was gone?

I am sorry to hear that cousin Ana and Mieszko are to separate, Zarek wrote. It is sad for the children, especially Danek, who is still so young. Perhaps they will reconsider.

Anton knew. Zarek hadn’t needed to say anything because Anton knew. He had looked straight at Zarek and asked him to come to France. He’d talked about Zarek getting a job in Anton’s uncle’s restaurant.

Zarek finished the letter and put it into an envelope and added his bank draft, full of a shaky, terrified hope.

—————

The last, and smallest, life drawing class. Audrey stood by the table of the only student who’d shown up and wondered what had happened to the rest. She cast her mind back to enrollment night, and her first meeting with them all.

She remembered how struck she’d been by Zarek’s good looks—​well, anyone would be—and her dismay when the older couple had reacted so negatively to the notion of someone undressing in the name of art. She recalled her relief when Meg had arrived, her second enrollment. And soon afterwards Fiona had appeared, and it began to look like the class might fill up after all.

She recalled Irene striding into the room, all glamour and confidence, and James’s late arrival, practically at the last minute. She remembered how she’d fully expected a dozen or so to enroll, and how glad she’d been to get five in the end.

And going home afterwards, she remembered wondering how they’d all get on. Whether any romances would strike up, whether there would be clashes. As far as Audrey could see, nothing dramatic had happened at all. They’d interacted at the break, they’d chatted politely with one another, and that had been that.

But she’d enjoyed the classes, she didn’t regret offering them in the least. She’d done her best and that was all anyone could do. Maybe she’d take a break now, maybe she wouldn’t think about another course for a while. But after Christmas she was quite prepared to give it a second go—life drawing intermediate, maybe—and see what happened. Maybe next time she’d get more than five, maybe she’d get ten.

Jackie looked a bit glum this evening. She might be sorry the classes were over. They were certainly an easy way to make a few euro, if you had the courage to let everyone see you in all your glory. Audrey thought of how terrified poor Jackie had been on the first evening, cowering in the toilet block, ready to bolt. How terrified Audrey had been too, that her first class would have no model. But Jackie had gotten over the nerves and now it was no bother to her. She’d probably be delighted to come back for another round after Christmas.

Audrey regarded the bowed head of her single student. “Another minute with this pose,” she said, “and then we’ll have the break.”

Zarek looked up and smiled. Such a wonderful smile he had.

—————

“Listen,” he said, “I know it’s short notice, and I know I said I wouldn’t need you tonight, but something’s come up and I wonder if I could ask you to come around and sit for half an hour, forty minutes tops. Charlie’s asleep so it would be just a matter of watching telly, or…whatever.”

“Of course,” Eunice said, “that’s no trouble, dear. Let me just leave a little note for Gerry and I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said, “I wouldn’t ask only it’s important.”

“I assumed that, dear,” she said placidly. “See you in a bit.”

James hung up and reached for his jacket. Determined not to analyze what he was about to do, afraid it might take away his resolve. Only knowing that he suddenly wanted to tell her everything, and see where that took them.

He had to tell her, he’d never sleep again if he didn’t. And she had a right to know, hadn’t she? If she ran a mile when he told her what had brought him and Charlie down from the North, so be it. And if she told his story to the whole of Carrickbawn, he’d have to live with that too—but either way, he had to tell her, and he had to tell her tonight. She was taking up too much of his head space, she was there all the time.

He paced the sitting room floor until he heard Eunice’s footsteps on the path outside. He opened the front door before she had a chance to ring the bell.

“Thanks a million,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, help yourself to anything in the fridge, or make tea, or whatever.”

Five minutes to drive to her house, and the same to get back home. That left half an hour at the most to spill his guts, half an hour for her to take it all in. Talk about mission impossible.

—————

“I just wanted a word,” James said as soon as she opened the door. “I won’t keep you long.”

Jackie cursed the fact that she’d already cleansed her face. Not a scrap of makeup on, not even a dab of lipstick. At least she hadn’t gotten into pajamas, which she’d been tempted to do as soon as she’d come home from the art class.

She stepped outside, pulling her cardigan closed. “Maybe we could sit in your car,” she said. “My parents are inside.” Her palms were suddenly damp. She wiped them on her jeans as she followed him down the path.

In the car she sat upright, her back pressed against the door. James was turned away from her, looking straight ahead. She smelled licorice.

“You weren’t at the class,” she said.

“No.” He hesitated. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

She had no idea what to make of that. She waited, but nothing more came.

“Where’s Charlie?” she asked, just to say something.

“At home in bed. A neighbor is there. I said I wouldn’t be long.”

Another silence. She hugged her cardigan more tightly around her.

“I want to explain,” he said then. “I want to tell you about…​my situation.”

His situation? Jackie kept her eyes fixed on his profile, wishing he’d turn and look at her.

“First of all,” he said, “my name isn’t James. At least, James is my second name. I started using it when we moved down here. My name’s Peter.”

He’d changed his name. He was a fugitive from justice because he’d killed someone up north, and now he was in hiding. He was in the Real IRA, or he was a loyalist paramilitary. Either way, she didn’t like the direction he was taking.

“The reason we moved, and the reason I changed my name,” he said, turning at last to face her, “is because two years ago, my wife—” He stopped.

His wife. Jackie felt a dull lurch in her abdomen. She could feel the cold of the car door through her clothes.

“Two years ago my wife disappeared,” he said. “She left the house one day to go shopping, and she never came back.”

Jackie drew in her breath. Charlie’s mum is lost, Eoin had said, and she’d assumed that meant dead. But it didn’t mean dead, it meant lost. His wife was lost. She gave an involuntary shiver.

“You’re cold.”

“I’m okay,” she said, but he turned the key and switched on the heater, and in a few seconds she felt warm air at her feet and on her face.

He turned away from her again. “After she disappeared,” he said, staring straight ahead, “the police launched a massive search. They dragged lakes and sent divers off the coast, and combed woodlands and mountains. They interviewed me so many times I lost count.”

She thought she vaguely remembered a young mother going missing in Donegal. It had made the headlines for a couple of days, till something else had taken its place. Nothing very newsworthy about someone still missing.

Had there been a mention of it on the first anniversary? Maybe. There was usually a mention, a fresh appeal for information.

“Some people decided I’d done away with her,” James went on. “I got anonymous letters, people spat at me in the street, or crossed over to avoid me. When they started asking Charlie if she knew what her dad had done, I decided it was time to move. So we came here.”

“And she was never found?”

He shook his head. “Not a trace.” He hesitated. “You’re the only person I’ve told, down here. I wanted you to know, because…”

He might have killed her. He might have killed his wife and disposed of her body so well that nobody had found it. But he didn’t strike Jackie as a killer.

“I’m glad you told me,” she said.

“I’m not free though,” he answered. “Until a body is found, or until she turns up, I’m still married. For seven years, apparently.”

“I know,” Jackie said. “I know that.” She did know that, without having a clue where she’d heard it. One of the thousand pieces of random information that had found a place in her head.

Was he asking her to wait? Was that what he wanted? It was what she wanted, she was sure of that.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said then. “I’m staying here in Carrickbawn.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Eoin would be sorry if you moved.”

He turned to look at her again. “Just Eoin?”

“No,” she answered, her heart thumping in her chest. “Not just Eoin.”