Читать книгу A Year Less a Day - James Hawkins - Страница 11

Trina is brimming with mischievousness and hiding behind oversized shades as she sidles up to Ruth in the café’s kitchen a week later. “I’ve got you into the cancer support group. Tonight at seven,” she says, darkening her voice.

“Only you could make it sound like a fucking adventure,” snaps Ruth, though she’s not ungrateful. “You didn’t give them my name did you?” she asks quickly.

“Nope. Just said you were a friend.”

Ruth climbs down a notch. “Jordan will kill me if he finds out.”

“I dunno why.”

Ruth tries to fix Trina’s eyes through the dark glasses—desperate to convey the delicacy of her situation. “Jordan borrowed some money, and if the lender discovered he was ...” she pauses, but the word “dying” is too much for her.

Trina finishes the sentence, sneering, “I suppose the bastard would want it back.”

Ruth nods, though she has no intention of explaining that the bastard is Jordan’s mother.

“It’s not Tom, is it?” asks Trina as she takes off her glasses to stare quizzically at Ruth.

“Tom?” Ruth questions in surprise. “The Tom who comes in every morning? Why him?”

Trina freezes. “That’s three questions, Ruth.”

“So?”

“Golden rule, Ruth. If you ask someone a direct question and they come back with three or more in return, you’ve got your answer.”

“You could be wrong ...” starts Ruth, but Trina isn’t listening as she rants about Tom.

“The greasy little turd’s a shark. ‘Borrow as much as you like,’ he says, but he never tells you he charges, like, a gazillion percent interest a week.”

“How much?”

“A gazillion. Plus the arranging fee he tacks on the first week so you get hammered with the interest on that as well.”

Ruth pales. “I didn’t know ...”

“Oh yeah. He’s a skunk.”

“What happens if people can’t pay?”

“He doesn’t care. It’s not his own money—he hasn’t got any.” Trina drops her voice. “He’s just a front man.”

“For who?”

Trina shrugs. “I don’t know. But you can bet it’s not the sort of person you’d ever invite to a Tupperware party.”

Ruth had spent the rest of the day cowering in the kitchen, trying to keep her hands off the sharpest knives, and by the time she arrives at the group meeting she needs all the support she can get. Trina takes her, and Erica—the soft-haired, soft-bodied coordinator—welcomes them with a face-splitting smile as a group of wretched women shuffle morosely in.

“You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to get men here,” says Erica. and Trina takes a quick look around at the slump-shouldered matrons and unthinkingly mutters, “I’m not surprised.”

There’s an edge to Erica’s tone as she looks at Trina and explains, “We don’t usually allow visitors, but if you’re quiet you can stay.”

The semicircle of dejected participants introduce themselves, reciting their husband’s afflictions mechanically, like addicts at Alcoholics Anonymous. “My name is Joy. My husband has stage-two, grade-four, prostate cancer,” says one woman, her face now permanently fixed in anguish. “He’s had a bilateral orchiectomy, but his legs are swelling and he’s down to a hundred and ten pounds. But I’m strong. I will survive.”

It’s Ruth’s turn, and Trina gives her a nudge. But Ruth’s stuck to the chair. Her mind is whirling. Jordan’s cancer is somewhere, but where precisely? He’s never told her. “Cancer,” is all he’s ever said and she’s never pushed for more ... never wanted more. His cancer is the other woman—the one tearing them both apart and taking him away, and it’s not something easily discussed over dinner—it’s more a topic for a surprise breakfast attack when the offender is too bleary to defend himself after a night’s partying. But Ruth and Jordan haven’t partied for a very long time.

Erica encourages her. “Just tell us where the cancer is, Ruth; how aggressive; how advanced; some symptoms—weight loss, hair loss, etcetera.”

“He’s usually tired,” says Ruth under pressure. “He just lies around.”

“Huh ... Men!” utters Trina and catches a warning look from Erica.

The disclosure that Jordan is going to Los Angeles for the experimental treatment brings a skeptical look from Erica and censure from Trina.

“You never told me that,” Trina complains, but Erica shushes her and turns to Ruth. “Maybe you should keep a journal. Something we can work through together. Questions, fears, the good things and the bad.”

“Something cheery to read later on,” mutters Trina, risking eviction.

“The main thing is to keep your spirits up.” Erica pauses with a grin that looks like a grimace. “And try to be positive, Ruth. Look on the bright side.”

“Yep. You’ll soon have your own bedroom back,” murmurs Trina sotto voce with her head in her purse.

The meeting slowly falls apart as weary participants head back to their nightmares, while Trina drags Ruth into a pub.

“Keeping up your spirits,” insists Trina ordering large gins, and she gives Ruth a playful shove as a man at the bar takes his time looking her over.

“Could be your lucky night,” whispers Trina irreverently and Ruth looks up, startled.

“Did you see that?” she says, as the man gives her an obvious wink.

“Well, you’re a good looking woman, Ruth.”

“Rubbish. It’s the dress.”

The dress wasn’t from Marcie’s collection. The continual strain and the demands of running the café single-handedly have reduced Ruth to a point where she can fit into some of Trina’s baggier outfits. Ruth may still fill the full woollen skirt and ballooning blouse with wholesome curves, but virtually all the curves are now in the right places.

As their drinks arrive, Ruth’s concern over money bubbles to the surface and she starts, “You know you said that Tom’s a shark ...”

“I knew it,” spits Trina. “He’s hooked you hasn’t he?”

“Just a bit,” Ruth admits ruefully.

“Pay him back, the moment you see him.” says Trina earnestly, “Before you get too deep.”

Ruth is already sinking, and Tom circles for a few days, trying to catch sight of her as he moves around the café flourishing his flashy magazines like a badge of honour. Ruth busies herself in the kitchen with the door closed and prays he won’t knock.

I thought you’d stopped hiding, mocks the voice inside, and she doesn’t disagree, but what to do? You could ask him how much you owe, but what then? Whatever his answer she has no means to pay—even the interest. A quick calculation brings her close to fifteen thousand dollars, though that doesn’t include the arranging fee or accumulated interest, and Jordan still needs more than they make each month.

The approach of Detective Sergeant Phillips’ robust figure has saved Ruth from Tom on several occasions.

“Hi, Mike. You’re getting to be quite a regular,” she tells him one day, and he smiles and gives her hand an affectionate squeeze. “It’s like ‘Cheers,’” he says. “Everybody knows my name.”

Ruth turns peach, drops her eyes, and slides back to the kitchen. Trina is shoulder-surfing the crossword gang as they scrunch tightly around a small table in a corner, but Ruth’s hurried departure catches her eye; so does the policeman’s satisfied glow.

“I think he likes you,” she tells Ruth a few minutes later, but Ruth feigns deafness as she pummels some whole-grain dough and slaps it into baking pans. “Have you paid Tom yet?” Trina continues as she helps herself to an apple. Ruth’s affirmative nod is a lie. Trina knows, but doesn’t push the point.

It’s over a week since Trina’s warning, but Tom’s meter is still running. Ruth knows there will be a judgment day—the day after Jordan’s funeral, when she stands to survey the wreckage of her life—then the greasy little man will pop up with his hand out.

You could run. You’ve done it before, Ruth tells herself, thinking of the times her mother had forced her out of basement windows and dragged her from motel rooms before dawn, and she keeps it as an option. But there is an alternative. The date of the Los Angeles experiment has not yet been finalized. Could she beg Jordan to give up his hopes and reclaim the enrolment fee?

The need for action comes sooner than expected when Tom nails Ruth the following morning.

“How much?” she shrieks, though knew it was coming.

“Over eighteen thousand,” Tom repeats. “I’m not worried personally, Ruth, but my people in London ... I’m sure you understand.”

It’s only a few weeks to Christmas, and Jordan seems to be responding well to the relentless regime of treatment. He’s away three or four days a week, and even appears somewhat rejuvenated on his return.

“You’re looking good,” says Ruth and, burying her guilty conscience, she brings up the Los Angeles experiment. “I want you to go if you’re absolutely certain it will help,” she tells him, hoping to trigger a question mark. She certainly has reservations herself, particularly after the skeptical response she’d been given at the support group.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Erica had admitted, “but there’s a lot of quackery out there.”

However, Ruth’s hopes crash as Jordan announces that he is actually deteriorating, despite outward appearances, and his only remaining prospect is the experiment.

Ruth immerses herself in work as she tries to blot out the future and, despite Trina’s encouragement, spends her days hiding in the kitchen and sinking under the weight of her loneliness and grief. But the loneliness is not confined to the days Jordan is absent; it is with her every day. Erica at the support group had warned her: “The problem with cancer is that you can lose the person long before they die.” And Ruth has lost Jordan. In-between his weekly treatment sessions, he hibernates in his smoke-filled room. Now she knocks and waits. Sometimes he’ll answer and call her in, but more often she is forced to creep quietly away.

“Depression,” says Erica at the next meeting. “He’s trying to come to terms with it. You’ll just have to give him time.”

“He doesn’t have time,” blubbers Ruth.

Downstairs, in the café, Ruth smiles and makes light of inquiries about Jordan’s health as she tries to keep a sheen on their shattered life, while upstairs the chasm between them has become almost insurmountable. Only during Jordan’s weekly treatment sessions is Ruth able to enter his room to clean and change the linen, but it is becoming increasingly painful for her to look at his empty bed. Feeling like a visitor to a mausoleum, she tiptoes around, touching Jordan’s possessions with reverence—and she never pries.

The accidental discovery of a box of pills doesn’t initially bother her, but as she goes to replace them in the drawer, she notices that the box is clearly date-stamped. “September the twenty-first,” she reads aloud and, intrigued, she opens the box, but finds nothing other than a full blister-pack.

A few minutes later she is downstairs in the café’s kitchen, shoving the box in Trina’s face, yelling, “He’s not taking them! He thinks we can’t afford them and he’s trying to kill himself!”

Trina takes a look, seeking the reference number on the label, but it has been torn off. “Give me his health card number and I’ll check,” she says. “Though don’t tell anyone, or I’ll lose my job.”

Jordan phones that evening, his muffled voice sounding more distant than usual, and Ruth is taciturn as she fights to keep back news of her find.

“I asked the doctor how I could avoid falling hair, and he told me to jump out of the way,” jokes Jordan, as he tries to cheer her up, but her mind is elsewhere and she forgets to laugh.

“Well, I thought it was funny,” he says, but senses tension and cuts the call short. “You’d better get some sleep, Ruth. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Subconsciously, Ruth knows that sleep is just another nightmare waiting to torment her, and avoids the torture by staying awake in a chair. She succumbs eventually, and the nightmare morphs to reality when the phone rings and she leaps up, convinced that Jordan has died during treatment. But it’s Trina, whispering hoarsely, “Ruth, is that you?”

“It’s nearly three o’clock,” Ruth groans.

“I know,” says Trina excitedly, as if they are on a sleepover. “I’m on night shift at the old-folks’ place. I’m checking the ministry computer, but Jordan hasn’t bought any drugs in the past month.” She pauses to scroll down. “Hold on,” she whispers. “There has to be a mistake. He’s not on the system at all. This can’t be right ... Oh, gotta go. Someone’s coming.”

Ruth makes some coffee and fights to stay awake as she tries to make sense of the information. Trina must be wrong, she thinks, but then has another thought. Maybe Jordan has used a nom-de-plume in his determination to prevent his mother from discovering his ailment and reclaiming her money.

Cindy opens the door at seven, and Tom hits the washroom at full speed. Trina, in his wake, veers off and heads straight for the kitchen.

“Then why didn’t he take the pills?” Trina wants to know, when Ruth lays out her suspicions about an alias.

“He’s given up. I knew it,” says Ruth as the truth sinks in. “He’s so sure of this thing in Los Angeles that he’s just not trying anything else.”

“But these pills are from September,” says Trina. “Jordan didn’t know about the Los Angeles experiment back then, did he?”

Ruth takes a moment, then bursts into tears. “He’s worried about the money. It must be the money.”

Ruth’s financial lows hit bottom when Tom finally corners her as she makes a crunchy-cashew salad. He has a dark look as he tells her, “My people need some money now, Ruth.”

“But I can’t ... Not yet,” she says, dicing carrots and celery. “I’ll soon be able to pay. This place is making money. I’ve just got a few things ...”

“Ruth ... When my people say ‘now,’ they kinda mean now.”

“But, Tom. You said ...”

Tom stops her with his hand. “Ruth. You don’t understand. Now means now.”

“I can’t pay,” Ruth says boldly, as she fiercely attacks a cucumber. “What can they do, take me to court?”

Tom laughs wryly. “Ruth. These people don’t use courts—they use bricks and razors.”

Ruth freezes and weighs up the carving knife in her hand, wondering if it might be easier in the long run to slit Tom’s throat and plead insanity.

“I thought they were in London,” she scoffs, but, in truth knows that semantics won’t help. “If I could do anything about it I would,” she says. “I just can’t give you any money.”

“There might be something ...” says Tom, eyeing Ruth’s fulsome physique.

“What? Anything,” she replies, throwing in the cashews and drizzling vinaigrette, though she could never have imagined what she was agreeing to.

Ruth is back hiding in the kitchen again. She’s been there for three days with hardly a break, but this time she is avoiding Trina. “Tell her I’m at the cash and carry,” she warns Cindy. It’s nothing that Trina has done, she just has a way of wheedling the truth out of people, and Ruth doesn’t want to take the chance.

Trina revolts eventually and slips past Cindy, calling, “Just checking the kitchen. I think I left my tampons there the other day.”

Ruth is teasing her hair in the burnished stainless steel range hood as Trina hustles in.

“Oh, you are here,” says Trina as Cindy breaks through on the intercom.

“Sorry Ruth. Trina just ...”

“I’m here,” shouts Trina, slamming her hand on the “Talk” button.

Ruth turns from the mirror, guessing she’s been found out, and fluffs her lines. “I was just ... You know ... just ... um.”

“You’ve got a date,” breathes Trina, taking in the heavy lipstick and indigo eye shadow. “Is it Mike, that nice policeman?”

“No ...” starts Ruth, then changes her mind and apparently confesses. “Yes. All right. If you must know. But I don’t want you telling a soul. Absolutely no one, do you understand?”

“Don’t worry, Ruth. I don’t blame you, really ... although others might.”

“I was doing all right up ‘til now. I knew I should’ve locked that door. I knew you’d ruin it,” cries Ruth.

“Sorry,” coos Trina, sweeping the tearful woman into her arms. “Come on upstairs. Let’s do that makeup properly. You look as though you’ve had an accident.”

An hour later Trina stands Ruth in front of a mirror and proudly exclaims, “Ta-dah.”

“Where’s my glasses?” says Ruth squinting.

Trina picks up the glasses from the table, hesitates for a moment, then races for the door. “Don’t move,” she calls. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I can’t move,” yells Ruth. “I can’t see without them.”

Twenty minutes later Trina re-appears, out of breath.

“You said a minute,” moans Ruth, still standing.

“Sorry about that,” gushes Trina, “but look.”

“What? I can’t see ...”

“Oops, sorry,” says Trina, and she hands Ruth a funky pair of octagonal glasses with opal highlights.

“Mine are special ...” begins Ruth, but Trina stops her.

“Just try them.”

The overall effect is magical and Ruth peers disbelievingly into the mirror. She even pokes out her tongue a little just to make sure it isn’t a trick. Silent tears slowly appear like dewdrops on rosebuds, and Trina dashes to mop them with a tissue. “Hey, stop that,” she says, “You’ll ruin the mascara.”

“Sorry,” mumbles Ruth, but she takes off the glasses and hands them back. “Trina, I can’t afford these. How much do they cost, for chrissake?”

“Nothing,” lies Trina. “A friend makes them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s still your old glasses—it’s an optical illusion. He just puts new frames over the old ones. He’s a sweetheart.”

Ruth’s “date” is still an hour away as she sits on Jordan’s empty bed trying to rationalize her planned exploit. You could’ve waited until he was in Los Angeles, she tries telling herself, though she knows that is just a delaying tactic. There’s got to be other ways ... Go on then—name one.

Ruth switches on Jordan’s computer and pulls up his last few sites. It can’t be that bad, she’s convinced herself, but as she scrolls through page after page of pornography she has to force herself to watch, and her heart sinks as she thinks of the loss Jordan has endured, and his pathetic attempt to regain his manhood through images on the Internet.

“You have thirty-seven new messages—Hard Drive,” pops up on the screen and she quickly turns it off, feeling she has already violated his final moments.

Ruth’s edginess has her dancing around the apartment like a teen before the prom, inspecting her face and hair again and again, until, with a quick check to make sure the alley is clear, she slips out the back door and walks three blocks before picking up a cruising cab.

The driver seems particularly familiar with the downtown address and drops Ruth at the side door. “Good luck,” he says, and gives her an appreciative whistle as he drives off.

Ruth stands back, surveys the old industrial building, and takes a deep breath. Running is still an option. It’s nippy under the clear evening sky, but walking to the aquabus terminal might sharpen her mind and enable her to find a better solution.

She inches forward. There’s a number on the door, but no name. She manages to ring the bell on her third attempt, and jumps at the sharp buzz of the intercom. The latch clicks open. “Come up—second floor,” says a man without query, and it takes her a second to spot the overhead security camera.

Ruth’s footsteps are slow as she clangs her way up the bare metal staircase. It’s not too late, she tells herself at each landing. Going down is much easier than going up.

“Ms. Jackson?” confirms the same man as she finally reaches the top. She nods and he waves her into a room with a couch and a couple of cameras on tripods. “I’m Dave,” he says, using his forefinger to click an imaginary camera in front of his face.

“Ruth,” she responds as she sizes him up: early twenties, pimply, with straggly hair, and the start of a cameraman’s hunched-back. Her pulse is racing and her hands won’t stop, but Dave looks harmless and she takes some steadying breaths, fights back the feeling that she is going to vomit, and asks, “Have you been here long?”

A door slams open and a tattooed English gorilla in studded leather ambles in.

“Jessica,” he booms, giving Ruth a cursory sweep.

“Jessica?” she echoes.

“Yeah. You gotta have a name—know what I mean? You look like a Jessica. I’m Mort.”

“Hi, Mort,” Ruth starts conversationally, holding out her hand, but he cuts her off, and she shrinks at the realization that he has nothing to shake with.

“First time?”

“Yes,” she mumbles, unable to take her mind off the shrivelled stump that should have been a right hand.

“Thought so. Well, take off your clothes, Jessica. Time’s money—know what I mean?”

Ruth is slow as she peels off her sweater and blouse, and Mort watches impatiently as he massages the truncated wrist with his good hand.

“C’mon lady. We’re on a schedule—know what I mean?”

“Yes. Sorry ... Should I take my bra off as well?”

“Everything, lady. Dave ain’t in kindergarten, even if he looks like a kid.”

Ruth stops with her bra in her hand, “I didn’t ...”

“Look lady, excuse the pun, but jugs aren’t as big today as they used to be—know what I mean? Guys want the whole juice machine today. That’s the only thing that sells—know what I mean?”

“Yes, but ...”

“Did you bring something to work with?”

“Tom didn’t say ...”

Mort waves her to stop with the stump and calls to Dave. “Get out a couple of dildos for the lady, Dave.”

Sweat’s running off her brow as Ruth starts to rise. “Tom only mentioned breasts.”

Mort throws up his arms. “Lady, please. Listen to me. This ain’t a debating contest. Do you need the money or not?”

“Yes, but ...”

“Good girl. Now take ’em off, jump up on the bed and give Dave some smiley wide shots for your portfolio—know what I mean?”

Two hours later Ruth is still trembling as she climbs the stairs to an empty apartment. Jordan will be back tomorrow and, while she would almost prefer to die than ask, she has no choice—he will have to get the money back from Los Angeles.

Tom crashes through the door at seven the following morning and heads straight for the kitchen.

“You screwed up, you silly bitch,” he hisses at Ruth, “Mort’s f’kin furious you wasted his time. All you had to do was take your f‘kin clothes off. What’s so hard about that?”

Ruth still has a carving knife in her hand, but figures he’s not worth the effort; anyway, she has made up her mind. “Don’t worry, I’m getting the money back—well, ten thousand, anyway.”

“My people don’t like being messed around, Ruth.”

“Your people?” laughs Ruth as she peers into the weaselly little man’s eyes and sees right through him. “You don’t have people, Tom,” she spits. “You don’t even have a pot to crap in; that’s why you use ours every morning. And somebody’s been stealing the toilet paper. Is that you?”

“No ...”

Something snaps, and Ruth suddenly finds all her suffering, fears, and worries enveloped in a roll of toilet paper. “I said, ‘Is that you,’ Tom?” she shouts and backs him against a fridge with the knife. “Is that you?” she screams into his face.

“Ruth,” he pleads as the knife presses at his throat.

“I said, ‘Is that you’ taking the toilet paper?” she hisses as the knife starts to cut.

“Ruth, please.”

A bead of blood oozes from Tom’s neck. “Have you been stealing the toilet paper?” she demands.

“You don’t know what they’re like,” Tom bleats, and Ruth realizes that his head is on the block alongside hers.

“The toilet paper, Tom. What about the toilet paper?” she yells as the crimson welt begins a slow leak.

“Yes ... Alright, alright. I took a roll of toilet paper.” “Rolls,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “Rolls of toilet paper.”

“Yes. OK. Rolls of toilet paper.”

“Thank you,” she says calmly, and slowly withdraws the knife. Tom’s hand goes to his throat and he takes a breath of relief and starts to say, “Sorry,” when she slams her knee into his groin with enough force to lift him off the ground, and he drops to the floor with eyes full of tears.

“That’s for the toilet paper, Tom. Now tell your people to wait a few days, OK?”

“Oh, my balls!” Tom cries, writhing in agony on the kitchen floor, but she sneers, “You’re lucky I didn’t cut them off after what you set me up for. Now get up and get out.”

Ruth is still pumped as she waits in the apartment to confront Jordan. She has disconnected the phone line to his computer and mentally practices her tactics for over an hour before she hears his footsteps up the back stairs.

“I’m tired,” he says, his voice dragging the ground as he slumps into the room.

“The computer’s not working at the moment,” she tells him firmly as he heads to bed. “I need to talk to you first.”

He drops into a chair, asking, “What is it, Ruth?”

Ruth brings out the box of pills and carefully places it on the table between them, like an exhibit. “Why haven’t you been taking your pills?” she inquires.

“They’re expensive ...” he starts, but she’s ahead of him.

“If you needed more money you could have asked, but that doesn’t answer the question. Why didn’t you take these? You’d paid for them.”

“They upset me, so I got something else.”

An alarm bell is ringing in the depths of Ruth’s mind, but she forges on. “I spoke to the support counsellor. She says that Los Angeles thing is probably a scam.”

“What does she know? My doctor really thinks it will work.”

Ruth brightens momentarily at the news, then folds as she sees her plan to repay the money coming apart. “Is he sure?”

“Pretty sure. He wants me to go as soon as possible.”

“Just before Christmas?”

“Probably.”

Ruth sits back, her future full of open-crotch photo shoots, and she hits on an idea. “Who’s your doctor?”

“Benson ... Why?”

“I’m going to talk to him tomorrow.”

“I don’t think you can,” says Jordan. “I don’t think they’re allowed to discuss my case with anyone else.”

“They can if you give me permission,” she says, then grumbles, “I always feel like such an idiot at the support group when I don’t even know the type of cancer, or what you’re taking. I am going to see Dr. Benson tomorrow to get some answers. And I’ll find out more about Los Angeles while I’m at it, all right?”

Jordan starts, “I’m not sure ...” but she shushes him.

“No arguments, Jordan. I’ll reconnect your computer, but first I want your signed consent ... Deal?”

Ruth’s plans start unravelling in the early hours of the morning when Jordan begins a prolonged bout of sickness. “I must be getting worse,” he explains weakly, his voice hoarse from retching. “Will you stay with me, Ruth? I’m frightened,” he adds, and she spends most of the night sitting at his bedside listening to the reassuring sound of his snores. She creeps away before dawn and has most of the lunch menu prepared before Cindy and the new girl, Marilyn, arrive at seven.

Jordan wakes early, and his thumps on the floor above the kitchen send Ruth scurrying upstairs.

“Don’t leave me, Ruth. I’m really scared.”

“You’d better come with me back to the hospital,” she suggests, but he shakes his head. “I’ll be OK in a day or so. It might be the chemo.”

With her mission on hold, Ruth has the coffees made by seven when the staff and Mike Phillips arrive. Ruth smiles as Tom U-turns on the threshold and heads to Donut Delight with his head down.

“Thought I’d pick up a coffee on my way to the city,” Phillips tells Ruth. “But I’m not in a rush.”

“I was going this morning, but Jordan’s not well,” says Ruth as Trina turns up.

“Pity. I could’ve given you a ride,” says Phillips.

Trina catches on and quickly jumps in. “I’ll look after Jordan, Ruth. That’s my job. You go—everything will be fine” Then she drops her voice. “Another date already?”

“Trina ...” warns Ruth with a trace of amusement.

“I hope your husband doesn’t mind me taking you,” says Phillips as he opens the car door for Ruth.

“Not at all,” she replies, failing to mention that Jordan doesn’t know. She would have told him, but feared he would freak out when he discovered that she’d taken Trina into her confidence. In any case, as she’d told Trina, he’ll probably sleep all day. “Just put your ear to the door every so often,” she had said. “Don’t go in unless he calls.”

It’s more than an hour’s drive, and Ruth’s tenseness comes through as she fiddles with her purse and stares stolidly ahead.

“You OK, Ruth?” Phillips asks. “You look as though you’re going to snap something.”

“Going to the doctor,” she tells him truthfully, though he gets the wrong impression and looks concerned.

“Nothing too serious, I hope.”

“Oh, no,” she says, thinking that it will be if Dr. Benson insists Jordan should go to Los Angeles.

“So what do you actually do, Mike?” she asks to change the subject.

Phillips gives her a sideways glance. “You’re not in league with the Hell’s Angels are you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Just joking, Ruth,” he laughs. “I’m on the anti-gang squad: money laundering, drugs, pornography, gambling, prostitution—you name it.”

It actually had taken them an hour-and-a-half, battling the morning traffic, but Mike Phillips had dropped Ruth at the front door of Vancouver General.

“I’ll be fine,” she’d assured him when he’d wished her luck, but she had quickly found that she was in the wrong building. “The oncology department is way over on West 10th,” a helpful nurse had told her, and she ended up two blocks away after walking a maze of corridors with scary signs and frightening smells.

An hour later, Ruth sits in the soothingly decorated waiting room of the Cancer Agency surrounded by a dozen equally anguished relatives and wipes tears from her eyes.

“Mrs. Jackson ...” calls the receptionist, and Ruth leaps to her feet.

“Yes?”

“The administrator will see you now.”

Martin Dingwall has had years of experience delivering devastating news and has switched off his computer, blocked incoming calls, and turned down his smile. “Come in, please,” he greets Ruth at the door, and solicitously guides her to a chair.

Ruth sits with the anxiety of a convict waiting for the switch to be thrown as Dingwall deliberately settles himself behind his desk and picks up a single sheet.

“I really don’t know what to tell you, Mrs. Jackson,” he begins solemnly, looking deeply into her eyes. “We simply have no record of anybody named Jordan Jackson fitting your husband’s profile.”

“I know that,” she cries. “The receptionist told me that ages ago. But there has to be a mistake. He’s been coming here for months.”

“Not according to our records.”

“But what about Dr. Benson? He’d know surely.”

“Mrs. Jackson ... May I call you Ruth?”

She nods.

“Ruth. We have no Dr. Benson registered here.”

“I might have got it wrong. Jenson—What about Jenson?”

“Ruth. We’ve checked all of our records; we’ve even had someone phone all the other hospitals in the region. Nobody has any record of your husband whatsoever.”

“Wait,” says Ruth, with an idea. “He’s probably using a different name. He didn‘t want anyone knowing he had cancer.”

The administrator’s face lights up in hope. “OK. What name? We’ll check.”

Ruth’s face falls. “I don’t know ...” Then she brightens, “But Dr. Benson will know.”

“Ruth. There is no Dr. Benson,” says the administrator with more than a hint of exasperation.

“I could give you a description of Jordan,” enthuses Ruth.

“We have thousands of patients,” says Dingwall shaking his head. “Though a photograph might help,” he adds doubtfully.

Ruth bites her lip and doesn’t bother to look in her purse. She has no photographs. The ones she had taken with the new camera had vanished into cyberspace.

“Sorry Ruth. The computer crashed,” Jordan had sheepishly explained a few days after his birthday when she was anxious to view them. “It seems to have mucked up the camera as well,” he’d claimed, though insisted that he’d be able to fix it when he was better.

“Do you have any other information?” continues the administrator. “What type of cancer? What treatment he was receiving? Are you sure he has cancer?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’ve been going to the support group. They would have known.”

Dingwall shakes his head again as he puts down the single sheet bearing only Jordan’s name, address and date of birth. “I can only suggest that you go home and ask your husband,” he says with a tone of finality. “But I have to warn you, this isn’t the first case like this that I’ve dealt with.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes people have delusions about illnesses, Ruth. They may even believe something is seriously wrong with them ...”

Ruth’s mind has been racing out of control from the moment she arrived, but suddenly everything is clear. “I know what you’re doing. You’re lying to protect Jordan’s privacy, aren’t you?”

“No ...” he tries, but Ruth angrily flourishes Jordan’s authority.

“I’ve got permission ... Here—that’s his signature. You can check.”

“I know. You’ve already shown it to me. Believe me, Ruth, that is not the problem. I’m trying to help. Even if I couldn’t give you specifics, I could certainly confirm that he was a patient. Why don’t you just phone him? You’re welcome to use my phone.”

Ruth can’t explain her reluctance to phone Jordan, even to herself, but decides to take action. “I’m going to the other hospitals,” she declares. “Your computers must be wrong. I know he’s been treated somewhere. He had pills ...”

“OK. What was the name of the drug?” asks Dingwall with a final ray of hope. “We might be able to track the prescription.”

“Zofran,” says Ruth remembering the name Trina had found on the pack.

Dingwall sits back, shaking his head again. “I was afraid of that.”

“What?”

“It’s too common. Most of our cancer patients take it to quell nausea. We’d never trace an individual dose.”

Three hours and nearly two hundred dollars in cab fares later, Ruth is back at Vancouver General, admitting defeat. There is no record of her husband, or a Dr. Benson, in any of the Vancouver area hospitals, and if Jordan has used an alias there is no way of tracing him. Bewildered, and destitute of ideas, she finally seeks a payphone.

Trina picks up on the first ring, and sighs in relief. “Ruth. Thank God it’s you. Jordan’s gone missing—he’s not with you, is he?”

“No, of course ... What do you mean, ‘missing’?”

“I couldn’t hear anything from his room, so I had a quick look in to make sure he was all right ...”

“I told you not to.”

“I know, I know. But it was lunchtime, and I thought he might like some of my cauliflower–banana soup. Honest, Ruth, he’s not here.”

“Banana soup?”

“I ran out of cauliflower, but banana’s the same colour. Anyway, he’s not here, Ruth. We’ve looked everywhere. Cindy hasn’t seen him either. He’s gone.”

“Stay there. I’m coming back.”

“I gotta get the kids from school—the guinea pig’s having babies—but Jordan’s mother’s on her way over. I found her number ...”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Trina. Did you have to? Why couldn’t you just do what you’re asked for once?”