Maggie Helwig - Girls Fall Down

She put the cup down again. ‘He’s my twin, Alex. He doesn’t cut off from me.’

‘You mean he hasn’t before.’

‘Let me tell you. When I went to Vancouver? He phoned me every day. Sometimes three, four times. In the middle of the night, whenever. He’s always – he phones me, he comes to my house, God, I used to wish he would leave me alone. I mean, Derek didn’t break up my marriage, I did that all by myself, but it can’t be much fun having your brother-in-law going through the fridge throwing out all the food that’s been injected with mind-control chemicals. But the point is, Derek does not cut me off. If he has – well, he has, this time he has, and that’s got to mean it’s really bad. I have to find him.’

Alex stared at the table and took a breath. He thought of not saying what came next, what was obvious. ‘You realize,’ he looked up at her, ‘that he could be dead.’

She looked back, not angry, just very concentrated, very precise. ‘Yes. Of course I do. I know that he hasn’t picked up his disability cheques. And it’s not like I have these twin-magic superstitions, like I would automatically know if he died. But if he were dead there would be a body. There’d be an unidentified body of the right age, with the right dental work, and I do have a missing-persons report in. If he were dead, I think I would have found him. I think he has to be alive to hide this well.’ One hand moved back towards her mouth, but she stopped it, and gripped the coffee cup instead. ‘I will find him. That’s not even the part that bothers me. I’m just – honestly, Alex, I’m scared. This is different than it’s been before. I don’t know what sort of shape he’ll be in, I don’t know what to expect.’

Their hands were very close on the tabletop. She wouldn’t ask him for what she wanted. He would have to say it himself. And of course he would say it.

‘I could help you.’

She pinched her lips together, as if this were something she wanted so much she could hardly agree to it.

‘Really?’ she said softly.

‘Sure. I could come with you. I don’t mind.’

‘God, Alex. Thank you.’

‘I mean, if you want me to.’

‘Yes. I really do.’

‘Well. Then obviously.’

He knew he was a bad choice, a foolish complicating choice. He thought of Evvy and Adrian, the people who understood these things, who would have useful ideas. But he knew well enough why she hadn’t gone to them. Evelyn would have been perfect, she would have dealt with it calmly and efficiently and kindly, and she would have done it exactly the same way for anyone, anyone at all who walked through the door. Alex would do this, if he did it, not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was for Susie. Because still, even now, he would do anything she needed.

‘Are you taking pictures tonight?’

They were standing just outside the door of the coffee shop in a raw wind, wondering again what should come next.

‘The weather’s a problem,’ said Alex. ‘It’s harder inside, I mean you have to get permission more inside.’ He folded his hands into his armpits. ‘Look. If there’s some other way I can help – trying to find him… ’

‘You don’t have to worry about that part. Really. I talk to so many people on the street. Somebody’s bound to have a lead on him eventually.’

‘Yeah, just, if I can help, you know?’ He felt the sting of freezing rain on his face.

‘You could do one thing.’ Susie reached into her pocket. ‘The last address I had for him was a rooming house around here, kind of your neighbourhood. You could just knock on the doors there and ask if anyone knows where he went. I mean, I already tried, but not everyone was home, so it’s worth trying again.’ She fished out an old receipt from a bank machine, and pressed it against the wall of the building to scribble an address on the back. ‘Anyway, I was thinking about your photos,’ she went on. ‘Harbourfront’s a semi-public space that’s indoors. We could go down there together if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay, sorry. I shouldn’t interfere.’

‘It’s not that.’ He thought again about what could happen if he touched her, and it was like a wave of vertigo, the abandonment of the rational world. ‘It’s really not that. I’m tired is all.’

‘Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean…’ She pressed the button to cross over to the streetcar stop, the car weaving towards them along its worn tracks.

‘Another time maybe?’ said Alex, as she flashed her Metropass at the driver. She was already halfway up the step, the doors sighing closed.

‘I’ll let you know when I find Derek,’ she said.

Alex turned on College and started walking to the west, his hands in his pockets. He only meant to go home. But his route took him past the little church again, and Adrian was standing outside leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I thought you might come back this way.’ He exhaled smoke, rubbing one slender arm with his free hand. ‘I’m taking a break from my duties as hired muscle.’

‘I find it hard to imagine you as muscle.’

‘I’m about as close to muscle as we get around here. We’re the church of the tiny weak saints.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and held out a pack of cigarettes, but Alex shook his head.

‘You know I live just over at Grace? It’s funny I’ve never seen you in the neighbourhood.’

‘We’ve only been at this church a couple years,’ said Adrian. ‘And it’s not like anyone’s standing on the street with a megaphone.’ He dropped the cigarette butt and ground it out with his boot, and he and Alex stood for a minute in the wind.

‘I noticed a phenomenon at Mass on Sunday,’ said Adrian eventually. ‘Even before these latest girls at Jarvis. I noticed three or four people wouldn’t drink from the cup. There’s this little old lady who usually sits behind me, she’s the angriest little old lady in the world, and the whole time she was muttering, “There’s no excuse for this! It’s a terrible shame! Why don’t they use a disinfectant !” Because it would be very healthful to be ingesting disinfectant. But everything makes her angry. She gets angry because there’s singing at Evensong. “I can’t tell you how mad it makes me! All that singing !”’

‘I suppose it’ll only get worse.’

‘They’re going to be looking for someone to blame soon. That’s the aspect that causes concern.’

‘So tell me. What do you think is actually happening?’

Adrian pulled up the collar of his jacket as a gust of frozen rain shrilled down on them. ‘My sense is that there’s a curse on the city,’ he said.

‘Okay, that’s original at least.’

‘Actually, it’s more early-classical. Like yellow fever as a consequence of civic wrongdoing. Somewhat Hellenic.’

‘And we’re cursed on account of what?’

‘Don’t ask me. Maybe somebody on city council killed his father and married his mother.’

‘I guess that’s as plausible as anything else.’

‘I have to go back inside soon,’ said Adrian. He folded his arms and scuffed the dirt with one foot. ‘You should stay in touch, Alex. I was sorry you kind of disappeared.’

‘I never did.’

‘Did so. Nobody knew where you were, even.’

‘I keep telling you I’m in the phone book.’

‘Yeah, that’s really not quite what I meant.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway. They probably need me for some manual labour. I’ll talk to you?’

‘Are you guys some kind of conspiracy?’

‘I hardly know Suzanne, actually. She and Evvy have got quite close, but I’ve never really known her. I did know you, though. And I was sorry not to see you. So I’m just taking advantage of a chain of circumstance.’ He pulled open the door of the church and ducked inside, glancing backwards. ‘Do try to stay in touch.’