We could walk into this pub, and see him. He could be behind the bar, serving customers, charming them with his accent and his smile. He could be having a drink, or singing karaoke, or sitting in a booth with his girlfriend. He could be here, with no idea that I am about to walk through the door – if he is, it’s going to be a total ‘of all the gin joints’ moment.
We can see a neon sign ahead, and Michael glances again at his phone, and tells us it must be the place. We walk on, all of us now silent, all of us feeling the intensity of potentially reaching our journey’s end.
The neon sign, though, flickering on and off in the darkness, isn’t for Madigan’s or Hanigan’s or even for a pub. It’s for a Lebanese restaurant.
Michael looks at the details on screen. He looks at the building, through the window to a small space that hosts a crowded room packed with tables and people. He looks up at the top floor, where Joe used to have his one-room flat. And he looks at the place next to that – which is covered in wooden boards and decorated with graffiti.
The walls around the boards are coated in what looks like soot, and the upper windows are grim holes, black and empty, blind eyes looking out onto the street.
There is a sign above the shuttered-up space where a door would have been, and we can make out random letters – an ‘M’ and an ‘a’ at the start, half an ‘s’ at the end. The rest has been damaged, peeled away by rot and ruin. The restaurant is bright and busy – but this place is dead. Dead and almost buried.
The three of us stand and stare, lost in our own thoughts, probably each piecing together the implications of what we are seeing.
‘It looks like a fire,’ says Belinda eventually, echoing my own thoughts. You can see scorch marks on the exposed brick; weeds somehow managing to grow out of the burned edges of former window frames, draping over singed wood.
It’s not hard to imagine it: to see the flames licking across the structure, hear the crackle of wood and paint blistering, feel the heat on your face, sense the panic of anyone still inside as they fought to get out onto the street.
I feel my legs totter, and my pulse rate speed up, and I reach out to grip Belinda’s hand. I need contact. I need reality. I need to ground myself, and keep my mind in the here, the now – and not let it reel right back to another dark night, in another big city, when I was trapped in a burning car tearing my body into pieces as I tried to reach my dying daughter.
She squeezes my fingers, and mutters soothing sounds, and turns me physically away from the ruined building so that I am looking at her, and not this gaping wound where Joe’s pub used to be.
‘It’s OK,’ she says, stroking my hair back from my face. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a building. It’s not Joe. We don’t know what happened.’
I nod, and let her continue to think that my reaction is based on that – on a fear for Joe’s safety. Of course, that is part of it – but the rest? Pure flashback. I breathe, and I count, and I hold onto those fingers so hard I see a grimace dance across her face.
Michael knocks on the window of the restaurant to attract the attention of a member of staff. A tall, thin man with flowing black hair eventually comes outside to see what we want. His features are Eastern, but his accent is pure New York as he tells us he’s sorry, but he won’t have any tables until tomorrow.
‘No, no, that’s not what we want,’ Michael splutters. ‘We need to know what happened to this pub? To Madigan’s?’
‘Oh! Right. Sure. Well, there was a fire.’
‘We kind of figured that part out.’
‘Well that’s really all I can tell you. We opened last year, long after – in fact it’s probably why the rent on this place was so cheap. From what I heard it was bad. Electrical fault, we were told. Someone died, the barman maybe. After that the owner couldn’t face it again, just took the insurance money and left it. It’s been like this ever since. Why do you wanna know, anyway?’
‘There was a man,’ I say, ‘who lived in a room above your restaurant. He worked there. Do you know what happened to him? Is he still there?’
Belinda’s face is grim, her skin somehow looking grey in the streetlights. Michael’s mouth is still open. I am refusing to be dragged into their shock – refusing to acknowledge the fact that a man died in this fire. Until I know more, I won’t let it take hold. Compartmentalising isn’t always bad – sometimes it allows you to function.
‘No, he’s not,’ he replies, looking at all our faces in turn, starting to realise that something important is happening. ‘We were given the whole building with … vacant possession.’
Vacant possession. Something about that phrase repels me. I imagine Joe, living here, in his small room, tidy and frugal, working hard, saving, making the best of very little. I imagine the fire, and him risking his own life to help others. I imagine the result, encapsulated in those two words: vacant possession.
‘Can I see it?’ I ask, pleadingly.
‘Why?’ he replies, frowning slightly, the usual urban caution kicking in. ‘Was this guy a friend of yours?’
‘He was my best friend,’ I say simply.
Of course, there is more I could have said. I could have said he was the father of my child. My first and only love. The most important person in my life. My salvation. Somehow, though, best friend seems to cover it – and it works.
‘OK,’ he answers, after weighing us up for a few more seconds. ‘Come on then. I’ve gotta warn you, it’s just a storeroom now. My name’s George, by the way.’
‘Thank you, George,’ I reply, as we follow him into the restaurant. It’s blessedly cool under the air-conditioning, the room full of chatter, and the powerful aroma of spices and exotic food.
George leads us through past a small bar area, and up a steep, narrow staircase. He opens up one of the doors at the top, and gestures us in.
I don’t really know what I expected. Perhaps some trace of Joe. Some remnant, a ghost clinging on to give me hope. A still-pinned picture of Gracie, a left-behind book, anything at all that would connect me to him.
Instead, there is a small room lined with shelving, two grimy windows looking out onto the alleyway. I see multi-gallon plastic containers of oil, and stacked piles of napkins, and large boxes arranged in neat rows. I see a desk, scattered with papers, and a metal lock-box, and a calendar. I see nothing at all to imply that Joe ever lived here. He has left no echo. He is gone.
‘Thank you,’ I mutter, turning and leaving as quickly as I can, urgently needing to be away from this place. I dash down the steps, and through the restaurant, past the candlelit tables and the people sitting at them. The people whose lives are still intact.
Belinda and Michael catch up with me outside, both of them twitching with concern. I know how I look right now. I know I am pale, and trembling, and disconnected. I know I look like a zombie version of myself. That’s the thing about the disconnect, though – when it happens, you really don’t care.
I let them lead me back along the street, and silently walk with them to the nearest bar. It is a small, dark place, with a man playing Billy Joel songs on a piano, and a barman who looks like a Viking with a vast red beard.
‘She OK?’ he asks, nodding in my direction as they order. My eyes flicker across him, and Belinda replies: ‘She’s fine.’