7191 (7 page)

A voice suddenly descended to her ear, gently advising, ‘The ambulance’ll be here soon, ma’am.’ Why these words filled her with dread, she couldn’t define. She would have to think about it, in a methodical, orderly way, organizing each piece of information as Bill would, step by step.

She began with: The ambulance must not come. Which led to: Why must it not come? Because…

And here she faltered.

Backtrack!

She had been … where?

With whom?

Bypass it!

She had been in an accident. Of that she was sure.

She had been sitting in a cab, going … somewhere … A wire screen separating the driver from the passenger had impeded her vision somewhat. Even so, she could see what was going to happen fully a minute before it did. The corridor between the traffic on the left and the Number 5 bus on the right was much too narrow to slip through. Certainly, the cabdriver must have realized it. If he attempted it, the cab would be sandwiched between them and crushed. It was inevitable. Janice reenacted the scene in her mind, reprising the same shock of terror she had previously felt as the cab lunged madly forward at full speed, ploughing ahead in total disregard of the consequences. She recalled the metal scraping against metal sounds as the cab skidded bouncingly off traffic from left to right, the crunching collision against immovable forces, and the sudden, jarring halt that sent her hurtling forward into the wire screen … into blackness.

There was a fraction of a second, just before she fell into the soft cushion of darkness, when Janice experienced a fear, no, it was more a terror, so overwhelming that she thought her heart would stop beating.

Sitting on the kerb, sorting about the hazy corridors of her memory, Janice had the distinct feeling that the terror she had felt in the minuscule moment of time related to something quite apart from the accident. Some other issue, not the accident, was involved. Some issue or duty that the accident was preventing her from completing. Duty. Yes, it was a duty.

‘Keep it movin’,’ a policeman was saying. ‘Give her some air.’

A gauzy parade of faces milled sluggishly past her in double images, a grotesque montage of mixed genders; painted eyes; scarlet lips, pursed, smiling; the head of a man, bristling with red facial hair; a child, a girl, gawking wide-eyed down at her— The girl! Janice’s eyes widened in alarm. The girl!

‘Oh, my God!’ Janice stammered aloud and struggled to her feet, clinging to the litter bin for support. Ivy! She’d be out of school! She’d be waiting! Alone! With the man! What was his name? Oh, God!

‘Take it easy, ma’am,’ the policeman was saying to her. ‘The ambulance’ll be here soon…’

Janice clutched her shaking hand to still it as she strove to focus her vision on the small, numberless Lucite wristwatch, trying to decide whether the hands were pointing at the two fifteen nubs or the three fifteen.

‘Please, what time is it?’ Janice sobbed, grasping the policeman’s jacket and spinning him around.

‘Easy, ma’am,’ the officer urged. ‘It’s just a little past three o’clock.’

‘Oh, my God! I’ve got to go!’

‘Now, now, you just take it easy—’

‘But I must go, Officer!’ Janice was shouting into the young Irish face. ‘It’s an emergency!’

‘Oh? What kind of emergency?’

‘It’s my daughter. Ivy. She’s been let out of school. She’s alone, waiting for me!’

‘She’ll be all right, ma’am,’ the policeman soothed. ‘They’ll keep her in the office till you get there.’

‘No!’ Janice shook her head at him in a crazy, wild way. ‘I must go now! Please!’

Her tears and hysteria were beginning to score points with the policeman. After a moment’s thoughtful consideration, he asked, ‘Don’t you think you should have a doctor look you over, ma’am?’

‘No.’ Janice wept. ‘I’m all right, really. Absolutely all right. Please, help me find a cab! Please!’

‘Well - If you think you’ll be all right—’

‘I’ll be fine. Thank you.’

Janice swayed only slightly as the policeman led her through the circle of faces, clearing their path with shouts and threats. He halted a cab with his whistle and opened the rear door. A man was seated in the back.

‘Please leave this cab, sir,’ the policeman ordered, using the proper Delahanty-approved words. ‘I am a police officer, and under Section One Hundred and Fifty of the Penal Code of New York, it is necessary for me to use this vehicle.’

The flabbergasted occupant of the cab quickly emerged, and Janice climbed in.

‘Remember the name Donovan, Twenty-eighth Precinct, in case you need me,’ the policeman shouted as the cab pulled away. Janice heard him, but her mind did not record the information.

A strange and invigorating feeling of buoyancy was working itself through the various levels of Janice’s body as the cab skittered and swerved through the maze of slippery streets, selecting the least encumbered route to their destination. She found her dizziness a distinct comfort as it mitigated orientation and reduced awareness of the terrors that lay in wait at the end of their journey.

The time was three thirty when Janice, maintaining a frail hold on consciousness, counted out four dollar bills, which included the ejected passenger’s fare as well, and shakily turned them over to the cabdriver. He had plotted bis course so that Janice would be discharged direcdy in front of the school building, which, she noted with a sinking heart as they approached it, was totally deserted.

A few flakes of new snow were falling on the cleanly swept sidewalk as Janice left the cab. She started towards the school entrance, but the moment she did, she saw the sidewalk slide away from her and felt as if consciousness might depart at any moment. A nearby fire hydrant became her support, and she stood, stooping over it, clinging hard for several minutes, commanding her vision to cease whirling and her heart to stop pounding.

A sharp, rapping noise emanating from somewhere within the precincts of the school building guided Janice’s eyes back to the red stone facade and up to a tall window, behind which a woman, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, stood watching her with concern. Janice recognized the face but could not think of her name.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Templeton?’ The woman had opened the window slightly and was shouting down at her. ‘Do you need help?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I do.’ Janice laughed helplessly.

The woman vanished instantly and in the very next moment was clambering down the icy steps, her hands extended towards Janice in a helping gesture.

‘I suddenly felt faint,’ Janice explained, allowing the woman to take her arm and cautiously walk her across the pavement and up the concrete steps.

‘I came to pick up Ivy; a bit late, I’m afraid.’ Janice dreaded asking the next question. ‘I hope she waited for me in the office?’

‘No,’ the woman said. There’s no child in the office.’

She sat Janice down on a hard oaken bench just inside the registrar’s office and went to fetch aspirin and water.

The room was deserted. The copper nameplate on the desk said Mrs Elsie Stanton. The wall clock read three forty-one.

Janice saw a telephone on a nearby table and lunged at it, swaying slightly as she dialled her home number. There was no answer. She let it ring ten times, then hung up and dialled the desk number in the lobby of Des Artistes. Dominick answered.

‘This is Mrs Templeton, Dominick. Is Ivy in the lobby by any chance?’ Janice made the words sound light and casual.

‘Just a minute, Miz Templeton.’

Janice felt the cold sweats and the feelings of dread encroaching subtly as the seconds swept by on the Western Union clock above her.

‘No, Miz Templeton,’ Dominick said regretfully upon his return. ‘She ain’t in the lobby or outside on the street.’

‘Thank you, Dominick. If you should see her, please keep an eye on her until I arrive.’

‘Sure thing, Miz Templeton.’

Janice stood there, shakily readjusting the belt on her raincoat, which had become twisted somehow, concentrating on straightening it out, in a futile effort to forestall the consideration of topics of greater importance. But her mind would not cooperate, kept fielding the darts of anxiety battering through the frivolous defence. Ivy was not at school! Ivy was not at home! What alternative was left? None! She had been met by the man! He had taken her! It was that simple, really. Simple? Oh, my God! Janice felt a scream begin to well up from somewhere deep within the core of her despair, felt herself yielding to a blinding impulse to run screaming from the building.

‘Take them with the full glass of water,’ Mrs Stanton prescribed, placing the aspirin and glass in Janice’s trembling hands. ‘They’ll work faster that way.’

As Janice swallowed the pills, refreshed by the cool liquid which eased her parched throat, she knew what her very next step must be.

Without asking permission, Janice picked up the receiver and dialled Bill’s office number. She was put through to his secretary, who told her that Bill was at an important outside meeting and would not be returning to the office.

It was while she was listening Jo the secretary’s full-bodied, authoritative voice that Janice remembered something that sent a sudden surge of renewed hope coursing through her. Once before, less than a year ago, Janice had been delayed and Ivy had waited for her across the street in the park. Of course, it had been a beautiful spring day then, but still, perhaps the snow had worked its own kind of spell on Ivy and she was there right now, waiting for her, just beyond the wall, building a snowman.

Mrs Stanton’s cautionary recommendations scarcely registered as Janice desperately propelled herself towards the exit doors and out into the cold afternoon. The concrete steps were covered by a layer of slippery snow, forcing Janice to descend slowly and cling to the frigid metallic railing for support. The snow was falling densely now, in large quarter-sized flakes. At the kerb Janice strained hard to see across the sluggish traffic, seeking a glimpse of Ivy on the park side of Central Park West. But the thick wall of white made it impossible to see beyond the centre of the street. With single-minded objectivity and total disregard for personal danger, Janice plunged ahead into the heavy traffic and crossed the wide boulevard in the centre of the block. Squealing brakes and blasting car horns followed her fool’s march across to the other side.

In the brief time it took to reach the edge of the low rock wall which separated the promenade from the park, the snow had turned to frozen sleet. Tiny pellets of ice were stinging at Janice’s face; still, she found herself perspiring as she daintily picked her way through drifts of crusting snow which had gathered along the wall’s edge. With the aid of her hands, cupped tightly around her eyes, Janice scoured the immediate area of the park, squinting hard to penetrate the opaque shield of wind-whipped ice falling madly about her. Once, when the wind shifted slightly, she thought she saw the figure of a girl gambolling amid the falling snow on a hillock a short distance away. But she couldn’t be sure and decided to climb over the wall in order to gain a ‘closer vantage point. She felt a number of things ripping as she straddled the wall and gradually lowered herself down on the other side, her hands clinging to the slippery ledge. Hanging there, her feet seeking purchase and finding none, Janice had the sinking feeling that her body was dangling over a gaping hole and would be swallowed into the earth if she ever let go. She would have remained fixed in this position had not her fingers lost their hold on the frozen concrete. Her feet met the ground a few inches below her, but the slant and slickness of the terrain upset her balance and sent her plunging sideways down a gentle embankment, rolling uncontrollably down the crusted snow to the edge of a pathway. Janice sustained the ordeal in total silence, accepting it as the next logical step in the day’s insanity.

The sleet was descending in hard, twisting sheets all around her as she rose unsteadily to her feet and gently flexed the muscles of her body, briefly checking for possible injuries. She felt stupid and foolish and was thankful that the impenetrable curtain of sleet had obscured her mad antics from the prying eyes of any passers-by. It was then she realized that her purse was missing, but she couldn’t take the time to look for it now.

Turning towards the hillock where she thought she had seen the child romping, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, ‘Ivy! Ivy! Can you hear me, Ivy?’

But the wind-driven sleet threw the words back into her face, forcing her to trudge on ahead through wet clumps of ice-blistered snow.

‘Ivy!’ she shouted, hurling the word forth at the top of her failing voice. ‘Ivy! It’s Mother!’

‘Ivy is at home,’ said a man’s quiet, courteous voice beside her. ‘She waited for you until three twenty-five, then left.’

The voice spoke at Janice’s left side, close enough for her to see plumes of steam accompany each word. She must not look at him, Janice commanded herself, her bruised body shivering. Above all, she must not look at him or acknowledge him in any way.

‘She’s quite all right,’ the voice continued softly, factually, and with no sign of aggression. ‘She’s waiting for you in the lobby.’

Janice stood rooted, feeling the flush of terror rise within her, hearing her respiration coming faster and faster. She would not look at him, nor would she enter into conversation with him.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘You dropped it when you fell.’

Janice’s purse entered her frame of vision, slightly below and to the left, hovering there, disembodied among crumbs of whirling ice. If she took it, she would acknowledge his presence, motivate an encounter, lay the groundwork for discussion. Yet how could she not take it? It was her purse. He had trapped her.

Janice accepted the purse without a word.

‘We must talk,’ the man said. ‘I’m certain now, and we must talk. Tell your husband.’

Janice’s eyes remained steadfast on a small patch of brown earth which had somehow resisted the encroachments of snow and sleet. She tried to concentrate on the ultimate cause of this phenomenon in an effort to obliterate the sound of the man’s voice, but his words persisted in coming through.