She scratches her temple, struggling. “He can be quite nervy.”
“Tom? Come off it, Vick.” And yet I know exactly what she means. Underneath the composed exterior, there is a definite edge.
And that lost look.
She seems suddenly as nervous as me, blinking, snatching at her coffee as if it’s medication for pain control. I don’t push it. I want to, but hope Vick will fill in the gap in her own good time. I can tell she finds the subject awkward and sensitive, and dread drips sweet nothings in my ear. The wait is almost intolerable and I nearly botch it, but then she takes a breath and shifts her weight in the chair.
“For a man who doesn’t socialise, he was well out of his comfort zone at the magazine bash. Every time the photographer got within sniffing distance, he literally slid off into a corner.”
Into the shadows. Feeling his way through the darkness or crouching in it? Goodness, where did that come from? I remember he made a deal about wanting to leave early, complaining of a headache. But that’s not what Vick is trying to tell me.
An anxious, face-saving smile breaks out, lighting her eyes. “Remember, we used to joke that he was the ‘doesn’t do’ man.” Another frown of bewilderment from me ensues. “Doesn’t have a passport. Doesn’t socialise. Doesn’t use social media in the accepted sense,” she explains.
“Mildly strange.” I force myself to sound relaxed, no sweat.
“Doesn’t have a driving licence either.” Her pupils suddenly dilate.
“It’s not a hanging offence.” She thrusts me a startled look and I realise that my volume control is switched to full. I dial it back. “Aren’t we speculating too much?”
“Yeah,” she says, pushing a smile, eager to roll the conversation to a less- contentious footing. “Probably,” she adds in a soothing tone that is usually mine to dispense.
I glance at my watch and stand up, my coffee unfinished. “Better fly. Dinner with Tom,” I remind Vick. In the past it would have elicited pleasure and thrill and anticipation. Now, I regard it with trepidation and fear. “Oh shit,” I burst out.
“What?”
“I forgot to ask Reg to make himself scarce.”
“No problem, I’m more than happy to feed him.” I catch the slow smile on her face. Vick doesn’t admit it but, in common with many women, she has the hots for Reg. I’d like to let on that offering to mother him is not the way into my brother’s heart, let alone his pants, but it would be too cruel.
“You make him sound like he’s five.”
Vick hoists an eyebrow. “In his head, he is.” But to your mind, he’s all man, I think.
We both grin at shared anarchic memories of my Peter Pan-like brother. Vick instantly relaxes. She sees me to the door, slides her arms around me and gives me a hug that would crush stone. “You know where I am if you need me.”
Hot and shiny with sudden tears, I wonder if my body is kick-starting into action and I’m about to have a period. “Thanks,” I say thickly, clinging on as if Vick is my surrogate mother.
“Don’t forget to tell Reg that I’m cooking pasta tonight.”
“I won’t.” Still I cling.
“Go,” she says, loosening my grasp with a firm smile. “Have a lovely lovely time. It will sort itself out, you’ll see.”
Weakly, I smile back. Why don’t I believe her?
I pause and catch the wary expression on my face in the hall mirror. Little Miss Horizontal is no more. Little Miss Vertical took her place.
No welcoming smell of spice, or meat cooking, or sweet aroma from onions caramelising in butter, the air feels dead. Inert. There is no sound, not even from the spare room inhabited by Reg. I glance at my watch. It’s past six-thirty. He can’t still be asleep. Everything is silent. Then it dawns on me. Tom is at work. Emergency cover for a chef calling in sick, possibly, or perhaps the crisis that morning was not averted.
I briefly consider driving to the hotel restaurant and pleading for his return. The thought shakes me. I’m not needy and yet events of the day and Tom’s atypical behaviour make me so.
Numb with disappointment, I wander through to the kitchen, expecting a note scrawled on the shopping pad we keep by the fridge-freezer. It’s blank. This is how our home feels. Vacant. Gone. Something missing. A bubble of panic floats up from my tummy, pings off my heart and pops the moment I hear movement from upstairs. Tom, I think, yet the tread is not his. Tom’s is soft, like a panther stalking prey. This is clunky and shouty and ‘I’ve got enormous gonads.’ Has to be Reg. Dim of me, but it doesn’t occur that it might be a burglar.
Reg bursts in. I don’t fancy my brother but, with his slim, snake-hipped physique and his angular looks and dangerous eyes framed by jet-black hair, I admit that he is breathlessly good-looking. The facial ironmongery – nose and tongue stud – and cross hanging from one ear and tattoos on his arms – do nothing to detract from his film-star features. Even his tangled teeth look sexy.
“Hiya,” I say. “Vick says you can eat at hers tonight, not that it looks as if I need you out of the way.” My eyes drift around the empty-looking kitchen.
Reg doesn’t speak, but draws up a chair, twists it around and sits on it astride. Poser, I think. Then I catch his troubled expression.
“You may need to sit down, Roz.”
I follow his eye-line to the comfy chair squashed in the corner, and spike with alarm. “It’s not mum or dad, is it?”
He snatches a smile and his thick eyelashes flicker. “No worries. They’re fine.”
“Well, what then?”
“It’s Tom.”
“Has something happened? Has there been an accident?” Tom travels everywhere by bicycle. I permanently worry that a reckless lorry-driver or motorist will knock him off and splatter him across the road.
Reg clears his throat. His musician hands, with their impossibly lithe and dexterous fingers, grasp the top bar of the chair and the knuckles show white. Christ. “He’s gone,” Reg says bluntly, which is Reg all over.
“Gone where?”
He shakes his head. “Cleared out. Scrammed. Vamoosed.”
“What?” I don’t gasp. I pull a face and smile at the sheer preposterousness of Reg’s words. “No,” I say, “that can’t be right. We only had a minor disagreement, nothing serious. Nothing …” I run out of negatives.
Reg awkwardly pushes a box of tissues in my direction, as if he thinks it’s the done thing to do. Too shocked for tears, I shake my head. Stubborn. Resistant.
“I don’t believe it.” Searching his face for a positive sign, I find none.
“It’s true, Roz.”
“You’ve misunderstood. You’ve got it all wrong.” My voice is hoarse and shaky and vulnerable, something that Reg detests almost as much as I do.
“I haven’t.”
“You have.”
Reg issues a sharp, uncompromising look.
“All right, where did he say he was going?”
“He didn’t.”
“Well, what the fuck did he say?”
My brother’s jaw flexes.