Andrew Pyper - The Guardians

The Old London Steakhouse used to be—and likely stil is— Grimshaw's one and only so-caled fine dining restaurant. We would come here, my parents, brother and I, for special birthday dinners, squeezing ourselves into itchy dress shirts and affixing clip-on neckties for the occasion. When I find the place now and push open its door, I see that nothing has changed. Not even the lightbulbs, apparently: the place is impossibly underlit, not to create a mood (though this may have been the intention when it opened forty or so years ago), but to hide whatever crunches underfoot on the carpet.

I have to wait something close to a ful minute for my eyes to adjust to the near darkness. There is nobody to welcome me, so I must endure the muzak version of

"The Pina Colada Song" alone.

"You'l be joining your friend?" a voice eventualy asks, the low growl of a chain-smoker. And then the outline of a man in a shabby tux, backlit by a fake gaslamp.

"I guess he's already here?"

The maître d' has stepped close enough for me to see the grey cheeks in need of a shave, the bow tie pointing nearly straight up, like a propeler snagged on the bristle of his chin.

"Your friend," he says with a sadness that seems connected to the ancient past, the suffering of ancestors in a lost war, "he is having a cocktail. A Manhattan."

"I'm not one to rock the boat."

He leads me into the dining room—or dining rooms, as the space is divided into a warren of nooks and private booths separated by hanging fishnets and "log cabin"

wals with peekaboo windows. Other bits of maritime and frontier kitsch are scattered throughout, but aside from the framed print of the Houses of Parliament glowering over a moonlit Thames set above the stone fireplace, there is nothing "Old" or "London" about it. Not that this stops Randy from speaking in a particularly bad cockney accent through the first drink of the evening.

"'Elo, gov!" he cals out, and there he is, waving me over to an enormous round table. "Set yourself down and warm your cockles!"

"What's a cockle, anyway? I've always wondered."

"I don't know," Randy answers thoughtfuly, pushing his empty glass to the table's edge. "But mine are certainly warmer now than they were five minutes ago."

The maître d' returns with our drinks in the time it takes me to pul out one of the throne-like chairs and sink into its overstuffed seat. Everything is slowed in this dark—every search for the men's room, every reach for water goblet or butter dish. It is like being able to breathe underwater.

The Manhattans and joking at the expense of the escargot appetizers pass pleasantly enough, a testimony to how much, despite everything, we enjoy being together, particularly given that the initial conversation concerns updates on Tracey Flanagan's disappearance. No sign of the girl. Todd refusing to leave the house in case the phone rings or she comes home expecting him to be there. The boyfriend claiming he didn't see her after work last night, now taken in for questioning and described by police, in their first press conference, as a "person of interest." And to reconstruct a narrative of her evening, authorities are asking al patrons of Jake's last night to come forward to provide their accounts of the bar's comings and goings.

"I guess we should go down there tomorrow," I say.

"I've already spoken to them," Randy answers. "They're expecting us at eleven."

"It does kind of remind you of Heather. Doesn't it?"

"So what if it does? People go missing sometimes. Even in smal towns," Randy reasons. "If it's two missing persons over thirty years, Grimshaw is probably below the per capita national average."

"Not just two missing persons. Two women, early twenties, look kind of similar. Fits a profile."

"Listen to you. 'Fits a profile.' You auditioning for some crime show?" He reaches for his wineglass. "Actualy, I auditioned for a crime show a few weeks ago."

"You get the part?"

"Are you trying to hurt my feelings?"

When the maître d’, who took our order, is also the one to pour the first bottle of "Ontario Bordeaux," it becomes clear that he is the only front-of-house staff on tonight—and that he is the only one needed, seeing as we're the only customers. This fact, combined with the Old London's velvety gloom, gives us the sense of cozy seclusion. Anything might be said here and it wil never pass beyond these stuccoed wals. It seems that Randy shares this impression, because soon he is turning the talk toward topics we would be better off avoiding, yet here, for the moment, feel are merely intriguing, the sort of thing you light upon in reading the back pages of the paper and harmlessly ponder over the morning coffee, protected by the knowledge that it has happened to someone else, not you.

"Don't you think it's weird?"

"This is Grimshaw, Randy," I answer, employing my ful concentration to guide a chunk of rib-eye past my lips. "It's all weird. And if you're talking about Tracey Flanagan and how—"

"I'm not talking about her. And I'm not talking about Grimshaw. I'm talking about how we've been here for almost two days now and we haven't even mentioned it."

"You're going to need to be—"

"The coach. The coach. The coach! "

I stop chewing. "There's good reason we haven't brought that up."

"But it's just the two of us, in the same place at the same time, for the first time in forever. Who knows when we'l be together again like this?"

"I get it." I swalow. "Seeing as we're sitting here enjoying ourselves, we might as wel bust out al the bad memories for the hel of it?"

"I'm not sure I deserve the sarcasm."

"I'm just trying to understand you, Randy."

"Understand me? Okay, here's a start: I'm scared. Haven't slept a good night's sleep since before I could shave. And it's only going to get worse now that I've seen that house again and know it's stil there."

"Do you want to talk about it? I mean, do you feel you need to?"

"Want to? No. Need to? Maybe. It's a lot to carry around al the time, al on your own, don't you think?"

"I've done my best to pretend it's not even there."

"And how has that worked for you?"

"Couldn't say. It's the only way I've ever known how to be."

"But that's not true," Randy says, lowering his fork to the table with an unexpected thud. "Once upon a time, you were yourself We al were. But since then, we're something else. We got so good at holding on to what we knew that even coming back here—even what Ben did to himself—won't let us bring it up."

Randy looks around to make sure no one is listening, though in the Old London's murk there could be a guy six feet away holding a boom mike over our table and we wouldn't be able to spot him.

"What we did was a crime," I say.

"You're the one blabbing about the past into a Dictaphone. So why are you talking to a machine about it and not me?"

"That's different."

"Realy? Haven't you ever wondered if we al would've been in better shape if we'd just shared what we were going through instead of trying to bury it?"

"I'm not sure sharing something that could send us to prison is great therapy. I'm wondering if you forgot that part."

"I haven't forgotten."

"Good. Let's not start forgetting it now. We're supposed to give a statement to the police tomorrow about being in the bar last night. Once that's done, and so long as Betty doesn't need more help in clearing up Ben's things, I plan to get the hel out of here."

"Isn't that tidy?"

"I happen to like tidy."

We busy ourselves with our steaks. Hoping for our tempers to even, for the bad wine to bring back its initial good feelings. We just chew and swalow. Or in my case, chew and spit a mouthful out into my napkin. It turns Randy's attention my way. And I am about to explain that with the Parkinson's, griled meat can sometimes be a chalenge to choke down. But instead I say, "I saw something."