We forced ourselves to stay awake until an acceptable New York hour, drinking in our hotel bar until just before midnight, then collapsed into our huge beds in our huge rooms in a Marriott.
I started today with a buffet breakfast, accompanied by Michael, who is as thrilled as can be with the fact that you can make your own waffles in a little machine. Simple pleasures.
We left Belinda to catch up on her sleep, and have stationed ourselves in a lounge, armed with a few details and the mighty power of the internet.
Jennifer Fischer, it turns out, is a big noise in gothic English literature academia, which isn’t something you find yourself saying every day. She is listed on the college website, along with a photo that shows a serious-looking young woman with wild dark curls and a spray of freckles across pale skin.
Her publications and qualifications are featured, along with an out-of-date schedule of seminars and events. There are quite a lot—clearly a whole world of gothic English literature fans are out there, living in an alternative universe where The Turn of the Screw and The Monk are the equivalent of the latest Lee Child or a new Marvel movie.
The public appearances, though, ended almost a year ago, when it was announced that Ms. Fischer would be taking a sabbatical to work on her own novel. I google it, and it’s not as highbrow as I expected—a dystopian young adult story about a remote fishing community on an island so secluded it escapes the doomsday virus that infects the rest of the world. Maybe it’s the modern-day equivalent of gothic—what do I know?
There is a page about her on her agent’s website, which tells us the book has been bought by a major publisher, will be released in December, and has already been optioned for a film. Way to go, Jennifer. A brief biography tells us she was born and raised in rural New Hampshire, studied at Princeton and in London, and now lives in Hawaii with her partner and young daughter. The “partner” aspect is gender-neutral, but I think it’s safe to say it’s probably not Joe.
We follow the link from the agent’s website to Jennifer’s own, which is a somber affair in shades of gray, the only splash of color coming from the bright red font of the book cover.
Hawaii is six hours behind New York, time-wise, but I send off a quick email via the contact form on the page. It’s almost eight a.m. here, which makes it the early hours of the morning on the islands—I feel a bit like I’m time traveling, coming from London time to New York time and now thinking in Hawaii time.
Michael fetches us both another coffee, and by the time he gets back, I’ve actually had a reply.
“She says I can Skype her,” I tell him, feeling wired and excited and tired all at once.
“What? She replied already? That’s so weird . . .”
“Maybe she stays up all night writing—that would be quite gothic of her.”
“Only one way to find out, I suppose,” he says, slumping down into his chair. He’s subdued this morning, possibly hungover. He’s like a toy that’s had its batteries removed, all floppy limbs and slow speech. His hair is a chaotic mess of tufts and strands, and he looks like an exceptionally tall sleep-deprived teenager.
“Thank you,” I say, reaching out to pat his knee. “For this. For coming with me. For keeping me company. For never letting me down.”
He manages a small smile, and replies: “You’re welcome, dear. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been . . . eye-opening. And I decided, last night, that I’m going to say yes. To Belinda’s offer. And to telling my parents that I’m an abhorrent freak of nature.”
“You are not an abhorrent freak of nature—don’t say that, even as a joke.”
“Well, that’s how they’ll see it. Dad will never mention my name at the golf club again.”
He’s making light of it, but I can see how troubled he is.
“They might surprise you,” I say, hoping I’m right. “You read that letter from my mother. You know a bit more about why your own mum is like she is. Maybe she’ll do the unexpected—at least let’s not assume the worst until it’s actually happened?”
“You’re right, of course, cousin,” he replies, sipping his coffee, lost in thought. “And really, how much worse could it be? I love my parents but I can’t sacrifice my own life to their respectability. You’ve been brave, Jess, doing this. You didn’t have to. You could have just put the past behind you, got on with your nice quiet life. None of this has been easy, our Joe hunt—but you’ve done it anyway. And Belinda is . . . well, she’s so unapologetically herself, isn’t she? You’ve both inspired me.”
“Does that mean you’ll blame us when it all goes tits up?”
“Of course! Anyway . . . shall we Skype, darling? Say aloha to Little Miss Hunger Games, she of the Sapphic persuasion?”
I nod, and log in to Skype.
Within a few rings, she answers, her face appearing on-screen, a darkened room behind her. I always find video chatting weirdly uncomfortable—it still feels like something from a science-fiction film, being able to see the person you’re talking to on the phone, never sure if you’re looking at exactly the right spot.
Jennifer is older now than she was in her official photo, but she still has the freckles, and the wild curls. She just has a few lines and creases added in, as well as a suntan—which makes perfect sense when someone lives in Hawaii. We are both silent for a moment, and I realize she must be carrying out the same assessment of my face on her screen. I smile, and ask if she can hear me.
“Hi! Yes! I can hear you . . . Just a word of warning, if you suddenly hear the sound of screaming, I’m not torturing anyone in a dungeon, OK? My daughter has an ear infection—at least I’m told it’s an ear infection, she’s behaving like it’s something fatal. I’ve only just got her down to sleep, and it’s not guaranteed she’ll stay that way. On the plus side, it meant I was still awake when your email landed.”
“That’s OK,” I say, “I completely understand. Kids live in the moment—which is usually joyful, but if they have a sore throat or a stomachache or their ears hurt, they only live in that moment, don’t they? How old is she?”
“Mary is almost three, and yeah—there haven’t been many good moments for the last couple of days . . . Anyway, Jess, it’s good to speak to you. How can I help? You said you were looking for Joe?”
The way she says my name, and the fact that she’s agreed to talk to me in the middle of the night, tells me that she definitely knows who I am. That like so many of the people I’ve encountered on this journey, she is aware of my past, of Gracie, of the way things ended with Joe. Or at least the way he thinks they ended.
It is, I realize, yet another tribute to him that none of these people—his mother, Ada, Jennifer, Geraldine—seems to present any hostility toward me. It could have been different. He could, quite rightly, have portrayed me as the woman who shut him out of her life—who turned her back on him. Yet, very clearly, he never did.
That realization gives me a sudden whoosh of warmth, an emotion so strong that it affects me physically, with a red bloom in my cheeks and a small flurry of butterflies unfurling their wings in my chest. He doesn’t see me as the bad guy in any of this, and I need to remember that. Maybe one day I can stop seeing myself as the bad guy too.
I briefly explain what we’ve been up to, and she is fascinated by our mission. She asks lots of questions, and gets me to explain it step by step, the way every scrap of information and every apparent dead end led us here, to a mid-priced hotel in the heart of New York, talking to a stranger in Hawaii while my cousin scarfs down his nineteenth cappuccino of the hour.
“Wow,” she says when I’ve eventually satisfied her curiosity, “that’s quite an adventure you guys have had!”
She is, I remind myself, a writer. She’s bound to be nosy—I’m sure it’s part of the job description.
“OK,” she continues, after I see her briefly glance behind her, presumably checking with one ear to make sure Mary is still asleep, “I think the coast is clear . . . I hate to let you down, Jess, but I don’t have the happy ending you might have hoped for. I’m so sorry. We lost touch a while ago . . . I don’t know why. I mean, I was busy with my career. Clara was busy with her studies—she managed to get a place at college too. Molecular physics. Joe was working hard. So, yeah, we were all busy, but . . . I still don’t really know why. He just kind of floated away, you know?”
My initial reaction is one of bitter disappointment—but I remind myself that we’ve been here before. We’ve had lots of people remember Joe fondly, but not know where he is. He has become a near-legendary figure in so many lives—he came, he helped, he left once his job was done.
I think, in a way, Joe has also been half living, like myself. Never fully engaging with the people around him, always holding something back. Never getting too close—because if you get too close, you have too much to lose.
“That’s all right,” I say, seeing the regret on her face. “Life does get busy—especially when you have kids. And from what I’ve heard, Joe was a hard man to keep hold of anyway.”
“He was,” she admits. “That’s a good description. We saw each other less and less, and our phone calls went further and further in between, and meetings we planned got canceled . . . but I also know it wasn’t always us doing the canceling. It was almost as though he was ready to move on—as though he wanted to break free? Which sounds a lot more unpleasant than I mean it to. He just . . . he was restless. Physically and emotionally—he could never stay in one spot.
“Maybe, if we hadn’t been so focused on our own lives, we could have tried harder—but it is what it is. The last time I was in touch with him was when we found out that Clara was pregnant. He was thrilled for us—genuinely thrilled. But I could also tell, somehow, that we wouldn’t hear much from him again—I just had this instinct that he felt like it was time to let us go. That we were going to be fine without him.”
“That sounds about right,” I reply, smiling sadly. Poor Joe. Always on the move, always searching. “Can you tell me where he was when you last spoke? Anything at all that could help us?”
“Not much. He was in New York, for sure. He’d worked for my parents for a while—they run an apple farm—and I know he enjoyed that. They overpaid him, let him stay for free; they were so grateful for what he’d done for me . . . and, obviously, he was a good worker.
“Then he traveled a little, and ended up working at a bar near Times Square. Madigan’s, or Hanigan’s, something like that. I know he was saving—Joe could always live on next to nothing, couldn’t he? Like, I’d buy a new sweater for the amount he’d need to live on for a month . . .”
She has laughter in her voice as she says it, but she’s right—he’d grown up with so little, and the habit stuck. When we moved into the flat, it didn’t faze him at all that we had no cash to speak of. He always worked, he always saved, he always had a plan to try to make things better for us.
“Anyway. He was saying he had some idea about trying to find a place of his own—somewhere that needed work, because he could do that himself. So he was living in a crummy room in a building next door to this Madigan’s or Hanigan’s, and working every hour God sends. I can’t remember the name of the bar, but I think I might have the address of his apartment somewhere, if that helps? I think we sent him a happy Hanukkah card there once in honor of Ada. I’ll still have his mobile number around as well, possibly?”
“That would help, thank you. Can you send me the details when you track them down?”
The prospect of having a working phone number for Joe is a strange one—equal parts tantalizing and terrifying. Ada didn’t have one—she refuses to speak to anyone on a mobile apparently, out of sheer contrariness—but now it seems possible that Jennifer might. “Sure,” she replies quickly. “I’m sorry I can’t offer more. Last time we spoke, he seemed happy, if that’s any consolation? Or at least he seemed OK.”
I nod, and tell her it is a consolation, and ask her again when that would have been. She figures out the timeline in her head, and comes to the conclusion that it was probably about three and a half years ago.
She becomes distracted then, and even over Skype I can hear the plaintive wails of a child.
“Give me a minute,” she says, and lays down the phone. I look at her ceiling for a while, then she returns, and settles with Mary on her lap. The little girl is flushed and feverish, her blond hair squished against chubby cheeks, rubbing bleary eyes.
“Say hello to Jess,” Jennifer says, holding the phone in front of her baby’s face. “She’s a friend of your uncle Joe.”
Mary, in the time-honored tradition of toddlers determined to prove they’re not show ponies, screams, “No, Mommy, no—don’t want to!,” and hides her face in her mother’s chest.
Jennifer starts to apologize, but I cut her off.
“Don’t worry. I know what it’s like . . . and look, I’ve kept you long enough. If you do think of anything else, you’ve got my number.”
She nods, and strokes Mary’s hair, a slight lag in the connection making her movements look jerky.
“Will do. And . . . if you find him . . .”
“I’ll be sure to say hello for you,” I say. “And from Mary.”
Another one for the list.