Thin Air (13 page)

‘What?’

‘He’s been trying to get in
touch with Jay Samuels. She’s had some crank calls. I bet it was
him.’

Lorrance visibly blanched. ‘Her
magazine would love this story.’

‘Wouldn’t they! It seems to me
you can’t just sit around doing nothing. You must act. Jay’s
ambivalent about Dex, but I don’t think it would take much for him
to have her firmly back in his ranks.’

‘I’d like to hear what you’d do
in my shoes.’

She laughed. ‘I’m sure I can
think of something.’

‘You hate him, don’t you.’
Lorrance grinned at her. ‘One that got away, I suspect. Did he
never fancy you, Gina?’

She pantomimed a growl. ‘He’s
not my type, never was.’

‘Didn’t realise that was a
criterion.’

‘You don’t know what any of my
criteria are.’

‘I know
you
, Gina. You’re
a she-wolf, one of the tribe.’

She sauntered back to him, stood
over the bed, hands on hips. ‘Then just be grateful I’m running
with your pack,’ she said.

In the evening,
Julie took Jay to The Haymaker, a square modern pub in the middle
of the estate, with no hay fields in sight. They sat across from
one another at a new table designed to look old and drank gin and
tonics. Julie had chattered on about herself, occasionally nodding
hello to the regulars. Jay now knew all about how Cora had finally
run off with a computer salesman (a considerable rise in status for
Cora - and one which she no doubt thought was long deserved), and
how she was singing again, in working-men’s clubs. Julie confessed
that her mother was not a great singer, but if she enjoyed it, so
what? Julie saw her perhaps once or twice a month. She then went on
to describe her disappointing parade of temporary boy-friends, two
of whom had lingered long enough to spawn Melanie and Kylie. Gary
was a black sheep, forever haunting the fringe of criminal
activity. He was sometimes quite rich, sometimes destitute. Julie
discouraged him from visiting the house, afraid the police might
look for him there one day and upset the kids. Her father, Ted, had
disappeared from her life completely. He could be dead, for all she
knew. She avoided the subject of Dex, and for the time being, Jay
did not push it. Julie’s family were like ghosts; she might as well
be alone. Jay considered the Banners were extraordinarily adept at
losing people, especially each other. Perhaps, one day, Julie would
wander out into the garden, where she had left Baby Melanie mewling
in her pram, only to find empty blankets, still warm.

Then Dex came into the
conversation. Julie’s reminiscences wandered into the enchanted
fields of childhood. She related what Jay considered to be a stream
of fantasies concerning the fierce and indomitable relationship
she’d enjoyed with Dex. Jay, unlike many of Dex’s London friends,
had few bad memories associated with his character, but even she
found it difficult to believe in Julie’s primrose vision of the
past. Dex, apparently, had been noble, fearless, imaginative and
sensitive. These attributes did not quite fit in with the image
Julie had painted of her brother earlier in the day. ‘We used to
play up where the new estate is now,’ Julie said, her eyes misty.
‘There was woods there, and a stream. I fancied myself as a right
little princess!’ She laughed. ‘Chris’d be a cowboy, or a space
man, or a knight, but I’d always be a fairy princess. It was best
when Chris was the knight because princesses have knights, don’t
they. They don’t have space-men!’ She laughed even more.

Jay felt hollow. She remembered
times like that in her own childhood, playing in the sun, wearing a
couple of old curtains and believing herself a queen.

‘What about your family?’ Julie
asked. ‘I bet yours are all rich, aren’t they.’

Jay shook her head. ‘No, Julie.
Like you, I’m alone. Both my parents are dead now.’

Julie frowned. ‘Oh, sorry.
Haven’t you any brothers and sisters?’

‘No. There’s just me. I think
there are some cousins somewhere, but I’m not in touch with
them.’

Julie smiled shakily. ‘Well,
families can be trouble, can’t they? We’re probably best off as we
are.’

Jay nodded, then shrugged,
sighed, and took a drink. ‘It’s not something I think about, to be
honest. I keep busy.’

‘What about kids?’

Jay pantomimed a shudder. ‘Oh
no. That’s just not me.’

Julie looked introspective for a
moment. ‘It would have been nice if Chris’d had kids.’

The idea, which flashed across
Jay’s mind in a series of shocking and repellent images, seemed
grotesque. ‘He’d have still disappeared, anyway,’ she said.

‘Yeah, I s’pose he would, if my
situation’s anything to go on!’

They shared a conspiratorial
smile and Jay went to the bar to get another drink. When she
returned, she asked, ‘So, did Dex always have trouble with his
brother?’

Julie thought about it for a
moment. ‘To tell the truth, I can’t really remember when it all
started. Must have been slow, like.’

‘Did Gary bully Dex?’

Julie pulled a face. ‘I suppose
you’d call it that now, yeah.’

Then, it had probably been seen
as fairly normal behaviour between siblings. ‘What happened?’

‘Chris’d run away like a rabbit.
That’s usually when I got to hear about it. I’d be upstairs or
something, then there’d be some sounds downstairs, and the back
door slamming, and Gary bellowing down the street. There’d be no
sign of Chris by then. I used to wait a bit, then I’d go to find
him.’

‘How did your parents cope with
the squabbles?’

Julie sneered, took a sip of
gin. ‘Dad’d gone by then, and Mum was hardly ever there. If she saw
anything, she’d just clobber the pair of them. It didn’t happen
much when she was there. We kept our heads down then, all of
us.’

Jay had a vision of Cora, her
Playtexed bosom jutting fiercely, her mouth a severe slash of red,
her eyes like those of a battlefield goddess.

Julie laughed. ‘One time, us
kids all got drunk. Mum had gone out to the pub. Gary was about
twelve then, I was eight and Chris was six. Gary used to look after
us when Mum went out. We raided the whisky, and when they got back,
there was Chris being sick and us other two pissed as newts. We
didn’t like the taste much, otherwise we might have had more.’ Her
face clouded. ‘We got a right tanning for that, I can tell
you.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘She wasn’t that bad,’ Julie
said. ‘She was unhappy. Got up the duff and had to marry a man she
didn’t love. Life was a disappointment to her. I don’t blame her. I
s’pose she’s happy now.’ Julie went quiet for a moment, then leaned
forward. ‘Anyway... about Chris. He speaks to me all the time.’

Jay didn’t know how to react. ‘I
thought you said he wasn’t dead.’

Julie looked puzzled. ‘He
isn’t.’

‘Then... he
calls
you on
the phone?’ Jay didn’t dare to hope.

Julie shook her head. ‘No. It’s
not like that. Like I told you, phone’s cut off anyway.’

‘Then how is it?’

Julie pulled back, her eyes
narrowed. ‘I might tell you. I might not.’ She paused. ‘I like you,
Jay. You seem OK. I’m glad Chris was with you.’

Jay felt embarrassed, wondering,
with her silent judgements, what she had done to deserve this
accolade.

‘Tell you what,’ Julie said.
‘Stay at ours tonight. There’s some stuff I could show you tomorrow
- if it feels right.’

For a brief moment, Jay felt
afraid of staying in the house where Dex had lived. Julie must have
misinterpreted her pause.

‘Look I know it ain’t the Ritz,
but I cook a mean breakfast. You won’t get one better in any fancy
hotel.’

Jay smiled. ‘I’m sorry. Of
course I’d love to stay with you. I was just thinking about how
I’ve reserved a hotel room, that’s all. I haven’t got all my things
with me. Still, it doesn’t matter. I can get them tomorrow. I’d
better call The Ship though, otherwise the indomitable Bella might
not be pleased!’ She leaned down to pull her mobile phone from her
shoulder bag and ferret around for the card Bella had given her
with the hotel’s address and phone number on. After this quick
call, she remembered Gus, which prompted an involuntary sigh. ‘I’d
better just try my boyfriend again and let him know I won’t be back
tonight.’

‘You’ve got another bloke now?’
There was slight note of reproachful surprise in Julie’s voice.

Jay chose to ignore it. ‘Yeah.’
She punched in her home number, but Gus still wasn’t there.
Relieved, she left another short, breezy message on the answering
machine, vague about her location and activities. Gus was used to
her travelling about, so it shouldn’t concern him too much.

Julie was still staring at her
suspiciously, as she stowed her phone back into her bag. ‘I met Gus
eighteen months ago,’ Jay said. ‘It doesn’t mean Dex’s
disappearance doesn’t still hurt me, Julie, because it does, but
life goes on.’

Julie nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. It’s
easier to replace a boyfriend than a brother.’

‘Dex is irreplaceable, Julie,’
Jay said, quite sternly.

Julie ducked her head, waved it
from side to side. ‘Yeah, yeah. But it’s different for you.’

The spare room in Julie’s house
was chilly and damp. Julie stripped down the bed, swathed it with
clean bedding and stuffed it full of Kylie’s hot water bottles, but
later that night, when Jay went to bed, she was aware of the cold,
clammy breath oozing from the sheet and the duvet. There was a
faint smell of must. This had once been Julie’s room. Dex had
shared a room with Gary, now occupied by Kylie. There were no
ghosts in the walls.

Earlier, she and Julie had
returned from the pub after closing time, Jay hugging a bottle of
wine she’d bought for an extortionate price as a ‘take-out’. Jay
felt slightly drunk, and could tell Julie was heading the same way.
All they wanted to do was keep drinking. Jay thought this might
elicit more confidential remarks from Julie, but unfortunately, the
baby-sitter - a loud teenager who lived up the road - proved
difficult to expel and wanted to share their wine.

The baby-sitter finally left
about half mid-night, and Julie went to make coffee. Jay sat on the
floor in the front room, hugging a cushion against the slight
draught that whispered under the door from the hall. The room
seemed cosy in dim lamp-light, the gas fire hissing comfortably in
the grate. Jay looked around the room and wondered why Dex had
never sent money to his sister, his protectress. She made do with
very little: benefits, hand-outs, second-hand furniture and charity
shop clothes. My God, he could even have bought her a house, Jay
thought muzzily, feeling great empathy for a woman she’d met only a
few hours before.

When Julie came back in, Jay
said, ‘It’s really weird, but since I’ve been here with you, it
seems like it was only yesterday that Dex disappeared. I don’t feel
the same pain, exactly, but in a way you’ve made him come alive for
me again.’

Julie pursed her mouth slightly,
perhaps feeling Dex should never have seemed dead for her,
anyway.

Jay felt she’d committed a faux
pas. Her remark had supposed to be a compliment. She couldn’t
really say anything more. To add that everything had been so
difficult back then, what with the journalists and photographers,
would sound crass, almost bragging. If she’d known Julie then,
maybe she would have come here to recuperate and would have
recovered so much sooner. Perhaps. Maybe she’d have only seemed
spoiled; rich and drunk and with a hundred potential Dex
replacements just around the corner. She had always been her own
woman. Dex’s disappearance had not burdened her with survival
fears. The loss of a man could only affect her emotionally. When
Julie’s boyfriends had enacted their own vanishments, she’d been
left with debts and the expense of children, with no way to
increase her income.
Drink puts a gloss over everything
, Jay
thought, suddenly completely sober.

The evening ended on a tense
note. There were no more confidences, or mentions of Dex being in
touch, and because the atmosphere had changed, Jay knew she
couldn’t broach the subject. She wondered whether Julie was having
second thoughts about her. Other than Dex, they had little in
common. Perhaps, in the morning, she could repair the damage.

The smell of cooking bacon woke
Jay around eight, and shortly afterwards, Julie came up with a cup
of tea, Kylie peering round her track-suited knees. To Jay, this
hour was obscene, a time when usually she was fast asleep. She was
also used to the delicate flavours of orange juice, croissants and
continental cereals for breakfast. The heavy, oily aromas filling
the house reminded her of childhood weekends at her grand-parents’,
when she’d wolfed down ‘one-eyed-gypsies’; fried egg beneath a
piece of crisp fried bread with the centre cut out, drenched in
tomato sauce.

It was too cold to sit up in bed
and enjoy the tea, so Jay dressed quickly and went downstairs. A
Radio One DJ hectored the kitchen, and fat spat in the frying-pan.
All the windows were misted with condensation. ‘Sleep well?’ Julie
enquired, shovelling dripping bacon onto a plate with a fish
slice.

‘Fine,’ Jay said, smiling. The
sunlight beyond the foggy windows was clear and hard. The street
seemed full of children and mothers. She wondered whether she
should check on her car.

Julie plonked a laden plate down
before Jay. She thought she’d feel sick at the sight of it but was
pleasantly surprised to find it made her mouth water. ‘Sauce on the
side,’ said Julie, nodding at the cluttered work surface beside the
sink.

Her baby, a terrifying gnome,
wobbled in a high chair across the table, drooling copiously and
staring at Jay with piggy eyes, occasionally emitting an
ear-splitting shriek, which Jay supposed was designed to attract
attention. She ignored it. Kylie, however, to whom Jay had taken a
wary shine, sat quietly beside her, drawing with blue crayon in a
school exercise book. Julie noticed Jay looking at it. ‘She’s got
some of Chris in her, bless her,’ she said. ‘The artistic
type.’