Photographic (18 page)

Marta ran her tongue around the outside of her teeth and nodded. She looked at Jane for a few moments longer, longed to take more pictures of her as she looked at that moment—not as an absolute of beauty by some standards—but as someone she had come to care about, to see as someone good and always trying. Today she was magnificent and Marta wanted it captured. It was a moment in time she didn’t want to forget: Jane as a wild Amazon, a sibyl, as her own alter-ego. The hidden self she couldn’t show to the world. When Jane’s head was turned away Marta had her hand on the camera, having set the correct settings in the bag, and snatched it out for a few more bullet-like hails of photos. Jane got furious then and raised her voice, grabbed Marta’s arm, dragged her out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, down the stairs, and out the door. Without a word she shut the door in Marta’s face. 

She hadn’t asked for the card, though. So the pictures were safe. Marta wondered how they’d turn out. Practically combat conditions in that bathroom. What had gotten into the girl?

Later the same day, after seeing the shots and fortifying herself with some espresso, Marta showed up again. She had some concern for Jane’s well-being. Jane didn’t even seem surprised to see her. This time she found the Jane she knew, or thought she knew. Her face was bare. Only this Jane seemed a shade of her former self. Selves. Her backcombed mane had been pushed back into a ponytail. She had none of the warrior queen’s strength to battle Marta’s will.

“I have to get away.” 

They sat at the kitchen table. Marta made some coffee and put it in front of her. Telling Ian to leave, then Marta, had taken every bit of energy Jane had left. She couldn’t stand to think about him. Marta being back in town seemed both ominous but also a source of strength. Jane knew Marta sensed trouble like a bloodhound on old footprints, but she’d never guess. Who would believe the truth? An affair--anyone might guess that. What would they call something like this?

Marta wasn’t asking a lot of questions. She didn’t even know Ian had been home and left.

Her hawklike gaze fixed on Jane. “I have it. You need a break. You can use the flat. My place in London.”

“London.”

“You’d be private. Give you time to think. It’s near Kensington Gardens—you and Tam could walk there as often as you liked.”

Jane chewed on her lips. “Kensington Gardens.” She remembered what was in London. Or rather who.

“I’d like to do something in return for the trouble I’ve caused you. This would be little enough.” Marta sat back in her chair and appeared to have already settled it in her mind. 

“Ian will hop over in a second if I don’t ask him not to.” She was resigned to Marta knowing there was strife between them. 

“So don’t tell him the address.”

Jane ran her finger down the lines of the grain in the oak table. She picked up her ceramic coffee cup and took it to the sink to wash and dry. After hanging the cup with others like it on a hook under the cabinet, she turned and leaned against the counter, her expression set.

“I’ll go. Can you get me the keys?”

“I can give it to you right now.” Marta dug into her bag and rooted out a star keychain with a half dozen keys on it. She sorted through and slid off one, which she snapped on the table. “It’s yours for as long as you need it. I don’t have to be there. Use it as you see fit.”

“What are you so happy about?” 

“I’m not. No, I take that back. I am. Aside from the fact that you look miserable, I think it will be good for you. Good medicine.”

“I don’t know how I got to this point.” Jane studied the greening field behind the house, the swaying trees edging the lake. Not a bird in sight. A magic bird, that was what she needed, to swoop down from above and lift her back into the sky. “Somehow I’m trusting you.”

Marta was silent, looking down at the key shining on the table. She shifted and spoke with apparent reluctance. “You don’t have to worry. Listen, I’ve got a job to do, it’s true. You and I have a conflict of interest. Somebody’s going to find out you’re there. But I won’t tell them, all right? I can do that much for you.”

Jane turned away from the window.

“Don’t wear sunglasses or anything at the airport in case there are any photogs trolling about. That just tips them off. I think you’ll get in under the radar. No one will recognize you. You’re not a celebrity. And you never go anywhere. They’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to recognize the likes of you.” She snickered. “If they manage you at Heathrow I say they deserve the shot.” 

Jane stared into space.

“They won’t make you, don’t worry. Such bloody remoras, the lot of them. Don’t panic and you’ll blend. But, Jane.” Marta hesitated. She seemed to be forcing herself to speak further. “Once they…”

Jane roused herself. “What?”

“Ah…nothing. Just be yourself. Low profile.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

Marta sucked her lip. “Right.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

O
NCE
M
ARTA
HAD
given her directions to the flat and left with reluctance, Jane packed. Mechanically she folded sweaters, trousers, jeans, and underwear all into the suitcase she hadn’t used in a long time. Finally it lay full on her bed. Last she tucked her travel alarm clock into a sock and put it in a side pocket. The clock had been a gift from Ian, from a time when they thought she’d keep traveling with him, as she had in the beginning. She would pack her toiletries in the morning. Tam’s things took no time at all to pack. She had a rolling suitcase, too, of a smaller size. Since she wasn’t there to ask what toys or books she wanted Jane just put in the recent favorites and counted on buying new things if they needed them. She didn’t want to be weighed down with a lot of luggage. 

“Where are we going again?” Tam asked for the third time, after she got home and was swooped into the seldom used Land Rover, before she could formulate a question. The barn was filled with vehicles Ian tinkered with in his off time. The Land Rover was the one Jane liked best and was, relatively speaking, the least conspicuous. She wasn’t making her getaway in the huge pickup or the touchy Shelby, the two other most likely possibilities. The cars got only more outlandish from there. Ian could pick up the Rover later if he wanted it.

“London, honey.”

“Where is Da? Why isn’t he coming?”

“He gets to stay home this time. We get to go on a trip and he’ll stay and take care of the house. Won’t that be fun? We’re switching places. We’ll get to tell him all our adventures.” She felt her voice waver and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

“We’re going to Dublin.”

“No, honey, that’s where Da is from. This is LON-don.”

“Have I been there before?” 

“No, sweetheart.”

“I went there when I was a baby. I remember.”

Jane glanced in the rearview mirror at Tam in the backseat, who was leaning as far forward as the shoulder strap of her carseat would let her. Jane relaxed her rigid grip and focused back on the road. “What do you remember?”

“There were lions. And they went around and ate some people who weren’t looking. And some babies in their baby carriages, too. And nobody could stop them. Not even the police.”

“My goodness.” The prickles she had begun to feel at the back of her neck as they finally got on the empty entrance ramp to the highway, closer to the airport, subsided as she wondered what to say to Tam. 

“Yep. They ate those people right up.” She rocked in her seat with grim satisfaction.

“Where we’re going it’s perfectly safe. There aren’t any wild lions in the London we’re going to. It’s mostly people. And maybe dogs and cats. The occasional fish in a bowl. All right? Everything’s going to be fine.”

Tam bounced her head against the seat repeatedly. “I’m hungry. Hungry as a LION.”

“We’ll have something at the airport.”

Tam kicked the back of the front seat.

“Stop that, please.”

“I’m hungry n-o-w.”

“We don’t have time to stop so you’ll have to wait.”

Tam started, uncharacteristically, to cry. 

“Tam, we’ll be there in 45 minutes.” Jane heard her voice getting high, strained and angry. “I’m sorry but we can’t stop. Please pull yourself together so I can concentrate on the road.” 

Tam kept on with a few half-hearted whimpers, then silence. Jane checked in the mirror. She had fallen asleep. 

The miles rolled by. Jane deepened her breath to keep herself calm. By the time she pulled into longterm parking and pushed the button for a ticket, stamped with their entry time, her collar and the hair at the back of her neck were damp. Getting out of the car, pulling out the suitcases, checking that she had everything, Jane piled the cases next to the car in a hurry. She woke Tam and got her unbelted, out of the car, and positioned next to her case. They would have to wait for the shuttle to pick them up. Tam stood next to her, one hand gripping her suitcase handle. 

Each stage brought them closer to the plane. They were going to have to get on a plane at the end of this rigamarole. The shuttle, check-in, the wait to get through security. As she took off her loafers and placed them in a gray plastic bin to go through the security X-ray machine, she felt like she was going past a point of no return. Staring at everyone’s feet in line next to her, she saw how vulnerable they looked without their shoes. A few anticipatory sparks crinkled up her spine, but she talked herself through them and forged ahead when it was her turn to go through the scan. She felt the cylindrical pill bottle in the pocket of her trousers. Would she have to take it out and put it in that little gray bowl for keys, or could she go through the little security arbor with it hidden? It wasn’t metal.

Tam had perked up a bit but was still sleepy and hungry. Jane practically dragged her down to their gate, half-carrying her, feeling like she was encumbered with a large octopus, and bought Tam a pretzel, apple, and water. When she checked the time she saw they still an hour and a half until their flight. She checked in at their gate, making sure of its location and the boarding time. The bottle had stayed safely in her pocket the whole time.

Then, while Tam was chewing on her pretzel and they were walking back away from the gate considering what to do, Jane remembered the Key Club. It was a private club for frequent flyers and special visitors to the airport who needed facilities. She knew Ian went there at times and she had been inside once. Perhaps if she went in and mentioned his name? It would be peace and quiet for the next hour, which she needed. Nothing bad could happen in a Key Club. She headed in the direction she thought it was. Tam now trotted beside. 

She passed by it twice, but then there it was; a blue door with a circle of stars decorating it. After pressing the round button to the right of the door she was admitted. Inside, the floor was cool marble and the furnishings elegant and plush. A stark contrast to the noisy, utilitarian airport. She walked up to the chest-high desk in front of her. The woman behind it, with smooth wavy auburn hair, dressed in a navy suit, smiled at her. “Can I help you?” 

“I believe my husband is a member.”

“Do you have your husband’s card?”

“No. He’s the one who does all the traveling. Can you look it up?”

“That’s no problem. If you just give me the phone number I can look it up for you.”

“Oh…okay.” Jane rolled through Ian’s numbers in her head. There was his personal cell, his work cell which he gave to people he didn’t want to have the other one, the home landline, and the accountant’s number he sometimes gave out as a business number. Which one would he have given in this case? 

“Excuse me, but is there any way you could check on it by name? I’m just not sure which number he would have given.”

“It’s a national database. We keep records by number, not by name. It’s okay, I can check all the numbers. It’s really no problem.” The receptionist had shiny burnt sienna lips. Her eyebrows were perfect arches. The Key Club must keep up a pretty high standard, Jane thought, despite herself. She judged those who judged by appearances, but she caught herself doing it with uncomfortable frequency.

An inviting couch, in an open space against a wall, washed in light, invited her to go sprawl and chug a big bottle of water. 

She’d have to pull the card. Hating herself, she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “My husband is Ian Reilly. Maybe you remember him coming in before? He travels through here frequently. I don’t know if he uses the Key Club that often but I know he’s a member. I don’t know what number it’s under, he has so many.”

She saw the woman’s eyes widen and her mouth make an “O.”

Jane dug in her handbag for her driver’s license while the woman made various faint protesting noises, but she was damn well going to establish credibility. She passed it to the women, who took it from her like it was made of glass, and studied it for a good fifteen seconds. 

“Excuse me, Mrs. Reilly.” She rose as she handed it back. “Please make yourself comfortable, and if there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all, it will be my pleasure. Have your seat assignments been taken care of? Do you prefer the front of First Class or the back?”

Jane stood with her driver’s license in her hand, imagining being on the plane. Trapped in the back corner, unable to put her seat back, or in the very front, unable to prop a discreet foot on the seat in front. She felt a molten flow of lava ooze from her solar plexus out to the nerve endings of every extremity.

“I guess in the middle will be fine. Give Tam the window. My daughter. Give her the window and me the aisle.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She got herself over to the couch by a sheer force of will, Tam’s hand in one hand, carry-on bags in the other. Settling down into the soft seat she felt a couple notches of tension ratchet back down, lava cooling, and her shoulders drooped. Tam bounced up in an instant to get some orange juice she had spied on a buffet table. She came back, wobbling her way across the room, carrying two glasses. Jane took hers and sipped it, grateful, and thanked Tam. She tucked Tam in next to her and stroked her hair as they drank their juice and looked out the window at the planes. Jane opened the bottle and took out one pill, swallowing it with a sip of juice.