Page 28 of A Slow Fire Burning

He was trying to extract a cigarette from the pack with one hand, but he kept dropping the pack on the floor, which was making the bouncers laugh. “You can’t smoke in here anyway,” the jacketless one said.

All this while, Laura was silent—the outbreak of mayhem had sobered her up, frightened her—until the man said: “You’re going to get done for assault, you mad bitch, you know that? You’re getting locked up.”

At this point, she turned to look at him and replied, “No, I’m not. I defended myself.”

“You fuckingwhat?”

“When did I say you could touch me?” Laura demanded to know. “You assaulted me,” she said. “You put your hands on me.”

The man’s jaw dropped. “You took your top off, you mental bitch!”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, but when did I say thatyoucould touchme?”

“She’s got a point,” the bouncer said. Fork boy squeaked in disbelief.

Laura smiled sweetly. “Thank you,” she said.

“Yeah,” he went on, “it’s a fair point, love, but still. You can’t just stab people in the hand with a fork. It’s disproportionate, innit?”

Laura held her gaze in the mirror. She was still in the bathroom, still holding the phone to her ear. There was no sound from the other end, no one said anything. No one was listening. Laura took the handset from her ear, tapped the screen, and scrolled to her mother’s number. She listened to a familiar beeping sound, to a woman’s voice telling her,You have no credit available for this call. She placed the phone on the edge of the basin. She tried to smile at herself in the mirror, but her facial muscles didn’t seem to be working properly; she could only grimace, at her ugliness, at her loneliness.

SEVENTEEN

Theo knocked on Angela’s door again, louder this time. “Carla? Are you in there?” There was an edge to his voice; his mood had been veering all morning between irritation and panic. He’d not been able to reach Carla for two days now—she’d not responded to his messages and if she was at home, she’d not answered the door to him. So, irritation: because she did this sometimes, she dropped out of circulation without thought for the consequences, without caring how much others—he, mostly—might be worrying about her. Once, she disappeared for a whole week. It turned out she was in France; she wouldn’t say who with.

On the other hand, panic: her sister was gone. So too, Daniel. And in a week’s time it would be Ben’s birthday. Would have been Ben’s birthday, had he lived. His eighteenth. Their little guy, an adult. An actual adult. Talking about going off to university, bringing home girls. Or boys. It hurt to think about, who he might have been, who they might have been, if not for the accident.

If not for Angela.

Theo had been to Carla’s home, he’d been to the graveyard, he’d called her friends. If he failed here, he might have to call the police. It had crossed his mind, more than once, that she might be with the police already. That she might be sitting in a room, right now, answering questions. Because if they’d come for his fingerprints, his DNA, then they’d have come for hers too, wouldn’t they? And what might they have found?

He knocked again, more loudly still, and called out, desperate: “For God’s sake, Carla, let me in!”

The front door of the next-door house opened a fraction. An elderly woman poked her wizened face through the crack. “There’s no one there,” she said curtly. “It’s empty.”

The nosy neighbor. Carla had mentioned her; Theo couldn’t remember her name. He beamed at her. “Oh, hello. I’msosorry to bother you,” he said, stepping away from Angela’s front door and walking over toward the old woman. “I’m looking for my wife. Carla Myerson? She’s Angela’s sister, I was just wondering if you’d seen her at all...?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Carla?” he repeated loudly, enunciating clearly. The woman’s brow furrowed. He had the feeling she might not be quite all there. “It’s all right,” he said, smiling again, “don’t worry, never mind.”

“You,” the crone said, suddenly, pulling the door open, pointing one gnarled finger at his chest. “It was you. Of course! I should have recognized you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Theo said.

“Wait here,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere.” And off she went, disappearing down her hallway, leaving the door wide open.

Theo stood for a moment, unsure what to do. He looked up and down the street. He called out, “Hello? Mrs.... uh...” Whatwasher name? Senile old goat, he seemed to remember Carla callingher. He stepped into her dark hallway, glancing briefly at the pictures on the walls, cheap prints, naval scenes. Perhaps the husband was into ships? He took another step farther into the house.

Suddenly, out of the gloom, she appeared, and he jumped. With a pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose she peered at him, eyes narrowing.

“Itisyou! You were here before, you were out in the lane, with Angela.”

“Uh, no... I—”

“Yes, yes, it was you. The police officer asked me who the man was and I couldn’t say, I didn’t recognize you at the time, or I didn’t remember anyway, but it was you. You were here, with Angela. You made her cry.”

“I did not,” Theo said emphatically. “You have me confused with someone else, I’m afraid.” And he turned away, heading quickly toward the main road.

“You had a dog with you!” the old lady called out behind him. “A little dog.”

Theo walked briskly along the lane, around the corner, and straight into the Sekforde Arms. He ordered himself a whiskey. He drank it swiftly and went outside to smoke. Breaking the rules, no spirits before six p.m., this cigarette disallowed under his own regime. Still. Extenuating circumstances, he thought, crushing the half-smoked cigarette against an ashtray, turning to look back down the road toward Hayward’s Place, as though the old woman might be following him.

---