‘The game,’ he announces seriously, ‘is still afoot!’
Chapter 34
We fly into Newark, and take a bus to the city centre. Even the bus seems to be throwing a party, with groups of people chattering in different languages, laughter ricocheting around the interior as we make our way across suburbs and through tunnels and across bridges.
I’ve never been to New York. In fact, I’ve never been to many places. There were some holidays with my parents, but mainly to the Norfolk Broads or, when they were feeling especially adventurous, the Channel Islands. I did go on a hen weekend to Barcelona with one of the teachers from school a few years ago, and I helped escort a group of year six children on a trip to our twin school in the Loire Valley, but that’s the extent of my globe-trotting.
Joe and I dreamed of travelling, all those years ago. We’d lie in his Fiesta, with the front seats cranked down as flat as they would go, and gaze at the stars through the windscreen, imagining how big the world was and how much of it we would see together. He’d hold my hand, and tell me tales, and all would seem possible. The galaxy was a place of wonder, and it was ours to explore.
Then, of course, I got pregnant with Gracie – and we embarked on a completely different journey together. One that was less exotic than visiting the pyramids or walking the Great Wall of China, but that was even more satisfying in its own way.
Now, I am here with Belinda and Michael, in a city that doesn’t sleep – even though I desperately want to.
I’d stayed in London while Belinda and Michael dashed back north to put their affairs in order. In Belinda’s case that meant sorting out some professional matters and making sure her friend could carry on watering her cheese plant and feeding her cat, the grandly named Mr Poopy Pants Gonzales. In Michael’s case it meant moving the rest of his stuff from his friend’s house to mine, and retrieving passports.
Both of them had been fielding calls throughout our trip, replying to messages, laughing at things their friends had sent them, looking at photos from Malachi. I’d noticed it, this completely normal social interaction, because it contrasted so vividly to my own. My phone had pinged twice – once from Sean, the pub owner in Ireland asking how I was getting on, and once from Vodafone, telling me about an exciting new tariff they were offering.
School is out for the summer, and it is a bitter truth that if I fell off the edge of the planet nobody would miss me now my mother has gone.
My world is small, in all possible ways, and I have realised that this is something I need to fix. For the time being I am focused on finding Joe, but whatever happens with this quest, I know that I need to start to engage with my own life more. I need friends, and hobbies, and people who send me GIFs of Disney characters to cheer me up. I need to reach out, and take risks, and break free of the bubble.
New York, I decide as we clamber off the party bus at our stop in Midtown, seems like a good place to start.
We check into our hotel, drink coffee, and fight off our jet lag to wander the nearby streets. It’s just going dark, the familiar landmarks of the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings beckoning, making me feel like I’m on a real life film set.
Everything here is vivid and loud: the skyscrapers, the yellow cabs and honking horns, the vans selling gyros, the flashing traffic lights telling us to walk/don’t walk.
There is a constant flow of people, a tidal wave of humanity, sweeping us along sidewalks and across roads and past coffee shops and bakeries and bars.
The people we see come in every possible type: homeless men with sleeping bags rolled up on their backs, street musicians playing Beatles covers, business types in smart suits talking into mouthpieces, stupidly glamorous women in black clothes with red lipstick, tourists like us, gawking, eyes upwards, bumping into lamp posts.
We eventually find ourselves in a pub, something with an olde English name, like Clarence’s or Clive’s, sitting at a long bar in a room dominated by TV screens showing baseball and basketball and golf. Michael is fascinated by the exotic-sounding beers, by the sports he’s never usually interested in. He’s perched precariously on his stool, fizzing with energy, like an overstimulated child on a sugar rush.
‘I bet they don’t call it American football here, do they?’ he says, pointing at one of the screens, a tray of mini-burgers they call sliders in front of him. ‘I bet they just say football. Gosh, that looks scary … at least they have all that padding. I was forced to play rugby at school, and I hated it. Though it did improve my sprinting technique, trying to avoid getting battered by the big brutes chasing me …’
Belinda and I share an eye roll as he witters on, his two exasperated parents after a busy day.
‘Bless him,’ she says, patting him on the shoulder, ‘he’ll probably conk out soon.’
‘No I won’t – never!’ he replies, then dramatically pretends to collapse, his body going limp and his head resting on the bar.
He emerges, grinning at his own gag, and asks: ‘So, what next, oh wise ones? Assuming we’re not just here to enjoy ourselves? Though I could really enjoy myself here. Did I tell you about the man I met outside earlier? He said he’d just got out of Rikers Island! Doesn’t that sound exciting? Like somewhere they’d film a reality TV show, or a place where planes would crash and get lost, or the location for a secret lab where a mad scientist makes hippo-human hybrids?’
‘It’s a prison,’ Belinda says simply.
‘Oh … well, that’s still exciting, I suppose. And maybe a bit weird. But anyway, what next?’
‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be any point randomly wandering around one of the biggest cities on earth, so I think we should try and find Jennifer and Clara. We’ve got their names, and the college she moved to, so tomorrow we should try that.’
‘You could have tracked them down from the UK, couldn’t you?’ Belinda asks, head leaning on one side.
‘I could, yes,’ I reply, biting my lip. ‘But … I didn’t. For reasons.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like … OK, like I just didn’t want this to end maybe. I didn’t want to hear that he was happily married and settled on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and have to decide whether to come here or not. I didn’t want them to tell me they had no clue where he was, so it would feel pointless heading to New York. I didn’t want this to end.’
She takes this all in, and nods her understanding.
‘There’s no guarantee that Jennifer and Clara are still in the same place, though,’ she points out helpfully, ‘or that they’re still in touch with Joe.’
‘I know that,’ I reply, my tiredness leaking into my tone, ‘but we don’t have anything else to go on. We’ve never had much to go on at all – we’ve just followed vague trails, spoken to a lot of people, pieced things together. All I can hope is that we manage to get that lucky again.’
She nods again, and stares at one of the screens, at men in red and blue hitting a small ball with a bat, her eyes screwed up as though she is seeing an alien life form.
‘I know. You’re right. I’m just knackered. We’ve come this far, which wouldn’t have seemed possible when you walked into my office that day. You’ve done good, Baby Spice.’