The Forgotten Dead: A dark, twisted, unputdownable thriller

‘But it does exist,’ said Leia. ‘Of course it exists.’

I sank down on the chair next to her, meeting her eyes in the mirror above the make-up table. My face pale, with dark circles under my eyes. We’d worked until two in the morning, and afterwards I couldn’t sleep. I’d lain in bed, sweating, as I thought about how Patrick was about to leave me, and my child would be born without seeing his father. I realized I was more exhausted than I’d thought.

‘I was once pregnant too,’ said Leia.

I fixed my gaze on the table. She was the last person I wanted as a confidante.

‘I had an abortion,’ she went on. ‘I didn’t want to ruin my career. It wasn’t the right time to have a child. And the guy was a real jerk. He never would have helped out with the baby. But you’re married, right?’

I nodded.

‘He was too,’ said Leia.

I slowly turned to look at her. The cleansing cream had spread the make-up into big splotches. Right now I really needed to see about getting her on stage, or else Duncan would never trust me again as the set designer.

‘Do you ever regret what you did?’ I asked.

‘You mean that I’m not sitting in some suburb as a single mother? I never could have taken this job.’

She spun her chair around so she was facing me.

‘So, does he want it?’ she said. ‘The father?’

I nodded. ‘There’s nothing he wants more. He’d like to have a whole baseball team.’ My voice quavered. I could hear Patrick speaking so clearly, as if he were standing right next to me, whispering in my ear. ‘A mixed team, both boys and girls.’ Speaking in that gentle voice of his.

‘Well, at least you don’t have to go on stage,’ said Leia. ‘You only have to build things. It’s OK for you to have a big belly. So what’s the problem?’

I took a tissue from the box on the make-up table and blew my nose. I’d also had an abortion, when I was twenty, after a one-night stand. Back then it had seemed such a simple and matter-of-fact decision. This was something else altogether.

‘It would have been born by now,’ said Leia, tugging at the elastic band holding back her hair. ‘I know I shouldn’t think about that, but sometimes I do. Even though I didn’t want it.’

I grabbed a towel from a hook and tossed it to her.

‘Wash your face,’ I said. ‘Then go out there and dance. That’s what matters.’

Leia put the towel under the tap to get it wet, then washed her face. Her smile became a grotesque grimace in the midst of the splotchy make-up.

‘Good Lord, why must I be a human being?’ she said as she rubbed her face hard and stood up. ‘Rather an ox or an ordinary horse, as long as one is allowed to work.’

Irina’s lines from her monologue in the first act. Leia was back on track, and I should have sighed with relief, but my body was as tense as hers as she assumed the pose. She was all sinews and muscles and nearly transparent skin.

‘Oh! I long to work the way one occasionally longs for a drink of water when it’s very hot. If I don’t start getting up early in the morning to work, you’ll have to end your acquaintance with me, Ivan Romanovich!’

‘Hurry up now,’ I told her, and then went straight to the production office, shutting the door almost all the way, and burying my face in my hands.

Don’t cry, don’t show any sign of weakness. That was such a deep part of my psyche that I hardly knew how other people did it. Those people who cried.

‘Have you heard anything from Patrick?’

Benji had opened the door. Now he stood there, giving me a searching look.

‘I need to go through all this stuff,’ I said, looking down at the desk. I picked up a pile of receipts that needed to be entered in the books. Props and nails and fabric.

‘Are you starting to worry?’ Benji persisted. ‘Haven’t you got hold of him yet?’

I slammed the stapler with my hand as I fastened the receipts to pieces of paper. Benji caught sight of the postcard and snatched it up.

‘Aha! Tour d’Eiffel,’ he said. ‘If he was my husband, I would never have let him go off to Paris.’

‘You don’t have a husband,’ I said.

‘It says here you don’t need to worry.’ He waved the Eiffel Tower and smiled. ‘He probably just wants you to miss him. That’s why he hasn’t called.’

I shook my head. ‘That’s not what this is about.’

‘Isn’t that what it’s always about?’ said Benji. ‘About who does the calling and who does the waiting? And the person who doesn’t call always has the upper hand. That’s what’s so unfair.’

Benji’s perfect pronunciation of Tour d’Eiffel rang in my head.

‘Do you speak French?’ I asked him.

‘Oui, bien sur,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I spent a year in Lyon as an exchange student. I love that country.’

‘France is a shitty country,’ I said, and I meant it. It occurred to me that I’d been feeling annoyed ever since Patrick had announced that he was going there. Maybe my antipathy had been all too evident. Maybe that was why he’d told me so little. And why I hadn’t asked any questions. I had once lived in France, in a hovel out in the country, during several dark years of my childhood. I remembered almost nothing of the language.

‘Listen to this.’ I concentrated hard on recalling what Patrick had shouted on the phone while I was standing in that stairwell in Boston.

‘Mais qu’est-ce qui est en feu?’ I said the words slowly so as not to leave out a single syllable. The words meant nothing to me. ‘Quoi? Maintenant? Mais dis-moi ce qui se passe, nom de Dieu!’

‘Who said that?’

‘Do you know what it means?’

Benji ran his hand through his hair, black and styled in a blunt cut that made him look slightly Asian, which he was not. But he’d explained it was the current fad in the club world now that we were entering the Asian era. He asked me to repeat what I’d said.

‘But what’s burning?’ he translated haltingly. ‘What do you mean? Now? But tell me what’s going on, in God’s name!’

He scratched his hand, which was chapped from all the washing of delicate fabrics.

‘Although actually we might say “for God’s sake”, or “what the hell is going on”. What’s this all about?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This has something to do with Patrick. Am I right?’ Benji squatted down so he was looking me right in the eye as I sat at the desk. He put his hand on my knee. ‘Has something happened? You can tell me. Come on, Ally. It’s me. Benji.’

‘Benedict,’ I said, getting up.

Benji made a face.