Cold Light

Nine

Dana hadn’t given much attention to the compliments being paid her at their Christmas Eve function. Not at first, anyway. The usual remarks about what she was wearing, her hair, her natural contours, the comparisons with Madonna. “Someone’s giving you Sex for Christmas, I’ll bet.” “Come on, Jeremy, you can see, she’s already got it.” For some of them, some of the men she worked with, it came as naturally as breathing. Especially the married ones: all the things they no longer said to their wives. She didn’t even think of it as sexual harassment. She didn’t feel threatened, hardly ever embarrassed; it was constant, within the bounds of the generally acceptable, and even if it did become a little wearing, well, it was better than spending your time with a bunch of yobbos who were likely to break into “Get your tits out for the lads!” at the first opportunity.

The other thing was, she did like to be noticed. And by men. It wasn’t that she flaunted herself in front of them, but it did please her when they knew she was there. As she’d said to Nancy, if you’re never allowed a little sexual repartee, if the flower didn’t attract the bee-well, how was anything ever going to happen? And she had this certain feeling: too much repression was harmful. Tiptoe around each other pretending you’ve got blinkers on, not a word or a glance out of place, and then, suddenly, there’s this guy, can’t control it any longer, hurling you down behind the color photocopier, leaving his unrequited passion all over the floor. “Mmm,” Nancy had said, uncertain, “maybe there’s something in between.”

Well, Dana had thought, when Andrew Clarke, hand just touching her elbow, had guided her out on to the floor, maybe there was.

Andrew was a senior partner, Victorian house in the Park, all the original architraves, things like that. Family car was a BMW, but Dana had noticed recently this little Toyota MR2 in his slot in the parking lot. Red, something to run around in now the days of public school fees were coming to an end. The most provocative remark he’d ever made to her in the office was about the air-conditioning. No, he was scrupulous, correct; she’d never even caught him looking at her as she walked away, admiring her backside.

“Not very good at this, you know. Even though my daughters try to teach me at family parties.”

There were so many crowded on to the small circle of polished floor, it didn’t matter that Andrew Clarke’s attempts to boogie resembled the final struggles of a man trapped in quicksand. In fact, there was something about the earnestness with which he went about it which Dana found almost endearing.

So, when the music switched to some old Stevie Wonder and he pulled her into some kind of smoochy waltz, she didn’t object. Though she was surprised, after a while, to feel something remarkably close to an erection pushing against her thigh.

She was on the steps outside the cloakroom, after one o’clock, when she saw him again. He had on his Crombie overcoat, a little nicked up at the collar, and his car keys in his hand.

“Going home alone?”

It looked like it; Nancy, despite her earlier protestations, seemed to have found congenial company.

“Still in that place on Newcastle Drive, aren’t you? On my way. Why not let me drop you off?”

The inside of the car smelt of leather polish and cologne. She was ready for the invitation to coffee when it came, had determined to say no, the exact tone rehearsed inside her head so as not to offend.

“Yes,” she said. “A quick cup. All right.”

The family, of course, had headed north that morning, getting an early start. “Little place off the Northumbrian coast. Had it for years. Nothing special.” Dana noticed a photograph of Andrew and his sons in front of what looked like a small castle, Andrew and the eldest boy with their shotguns, smiling as they held up dead birds.

“Still …” pressing a large glass of brandy into her hands “… their not being here, affords us a bit of privacy. Chance to get to know one another better.”

When Dana limped out forty minutes later, her bra strap was round her neck, unfastened, her tights were torn, she had lost the heel from one of her shoes. Andrew’s mood had switched from amorous to angry and back again and when finally she had slapped him hard, pushed him clear, and told him to grow up, he had astonished her by bursting into tears.

Back in her own flat, Christmas Day was already two hours old and no sign of Nancy. Dana only hoped she was having a better time than herself. Quickly, she undressed and showered and made herself some camomile tea. Cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV set, she raised a cup to her reflection in the blank screen. “Happy Christmas to you, too.”

At some point she must have woken cold and found her way into her bed, but when she came round beneath the floral duvet at what felt like half-past six, she couldn’t remember it. The digital clock on the floor read 11:07. The telephone was ringing. Dana stumbled towards the bathroom, rubbing the residue of makeup from around her eyes. On the way, she lifted the receiver from the body of the phone and set it down, unanswered. In the mirror she looked fifty years old.

Thirty minutes in the bathroom reduced that by all of five years. Great! Dana thought. Now I look like my mother just back from a fortnight on a health farm. She pulled on a T-shirt, sweater, and old jeans. There were two mandarin orange yogurts in the fridge and she ate them both, washing them down with some stale Evian. Well, Nancy, midday-must be having a pretty good time.

When she remembered the phone, a woman’s recorded voice was instructing her to replace the hand set and redial. The moment she put the receiver back in place, it rang again.

“Hello?”

It was Nancy’s mother, calling from Merseyside to wish her daughter a merry Christmas. From the background noises, the rest of the family were waiting to do the same.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Phelan, she’s not here now.”

“But we thought she was spending Christmas Day with you. She said …”

“She is, she is. It’s just …” It’s just that she’s not back yet from getting laid. “She’s popped out. A walk. You know, clear her head.”

“She’s not ill?”

“Oh, no. No. Just last night, we went to this dinner-dance …”

There was a silence and then, indistinctly, the sound of Mrs. Phelan reporting back to the family. “Be sure to tell Nancy I called,” she said when her voice came back on the line. “I’ll try again in a little while.”

Which she did several times over the next few hours. And on each occasion the questions were increasingly anxious, Dana’s responses increasingly vague. When she was fast running out of excuses, Mr. Phelan spoke to her himself. “Enough of this pissing about, right? I want to know what’s going on.”

Best as she could, Dana told him.

“Why on earth didn’t you say that before?”

“I didn’t want her mother to be upset.”

“The minute she drags herself back in,” Mr. Phelan said, “you tell her she’s to call us, right?”

Right. At the far end of the line there was a sharp swerve of breath before the connection was broken.

Dana looked at the turkey taking up most of the refrigerator, the black plastic vegetable rack overloaded with several weeks’ supply. She pulled a frozen broccoli lasagna, only two days past its use-by date, from the freezer and put it in the microwave. In the time it took to cook, she had looked at her watch, at the clock on the kitchen-diner wall half a dozen times. When Nancy’s father next phoned, she had the directory open on her lap and was about to try the casualty department at Queen’s.

“Is it like her?” Mr. Phelan asked, no attempt to disguise the anxiety he was feeling. “Not to let you know where she is?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re living with her, girl.”

“Yes, but I mean … Well, it’s not as if there’ve been a lot of occasions …”

“So being down there hasn’t turned her into a tart, her mother will be pleased. Now have I to get in the car and drive down there or what? Because it seems to me you’re not treating this as seriously as you should.”

“I really don’t think we have to worry, I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yes? That’s what you’d want our Nancy thinking if you were the one not come home, is it?”

A pause. “I was about to phone the hospital when you called,” Dana said.

“Good. And the police, I dare say.”