Still the question bubbled up inside of him, impossible not to ask. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Kettering. I wonder, have you seen Miss O’Dea?’
‘Not for days,’ she said. ‘More than a week, I’d say. Not a glimpse of her nor a peep from her. Here’s hoping she’s run off with some bloke her own age.’ She bestowed one last, hawk-like glare before slamming the door behind her and stamping down the stairs. There are too many women in the world helping men with their dirty work. But so many more taking each other’s side in unexpected moments.
Equally unexpected, Archie would find the moment of reprieve he’d wanted. For the first time in days, his mind went blank with sheer perplexity. The question eclipsed emotion, for just one moment. Where had Nan gone?
He hurried down the stairs to the street. Walked quickly, his breath coming out in gusts. Willing his hands not to rise and cover his face. Any tears in his eyes could be explained away by the cold. Miles away in Harrogate, I wasn’t thinking of Archie. Hardly a bit. Hardly at all.
While he was thinking: How peculiar, and what has precipitated this? The Age of Disappearing Women.
The age of disappearing women did not begin with Agatha Christie. It had begun long before Agatha hopped into a car and motored away from Newlands Corner with Finbarr. And it would continue for quite a bit longer. We disappeared from schools. From our hometowns. From our families and our jobs. One day we would be going about our business, sitting in class, or laughing with friends, or walking hand in hand with a beau. Then, poof.
What ever happened to that girl? Don’t you remember her? Where did she go?
In America we went to Florence Crittenton homes. In England to Clark’s House, or any of the various homes run mostly by the Anglican Church. In Australian hospitals, babies were taken from mothers who were drugged, incapacitated, unwilling. And, of course, some of us didn’t go anywhere at all. We bled to death on butchers’ tables. We jumped off bridges.
The age of disappearing women. It had been going on forever. Thousands of us vanished, with not a single police officer searching. Not a word from the newspapers. Only our long absences and quiet returns. If we ever returned at all.
Before Agatha disappeared, before I knew Finbarr had returned to Britain, the plan I’d authored was well underway. In the Owens’ house, in the borrowed bed, my arms wrapped tight around Archie. The overriding element was mercenary, true. But there were other elements.
‘I love you, Nan,’ Archie said, as if he couldn’t say it enough, as if the words needed to be repeated ad infinitum until the world conspired to let this moment last, the delicious, breathless secret of it.
I loved him too. If that’s what you’d like to call love.
The Disappearance
Day Eight
Saturday, 11 December 1926
IN THE MIDST of all the maelstrom, Agatha’s work was another place for her to go. A world to visit apart from her own. She could lose herself there no matter what occurred. In the Timeless Manor the typewriter keys clicked and clacked. Let them search. Let Archie worry. When her fingers flew over the typewriter keys it was the whole world that vanished. Not her.
I was not so lucky. In Harrogate, in the moments without Finbarr, my mind assaulted me with fear, worry and misgivings. I tried to concentrate on reading the novel Chilton had given me. I’d barely fought my way to the second chapter when a rap came on my door. I opened it to find Mrs Leech.
‘There’s a man downstairs to see you.’ I knew from the way her brow cocked, not sure of the propriety, that it was Finbarr, and my face changed so suddenly – lighting up – that Mrs Leech smiled.
‘You’re not really married, are you, Miss O’Dea?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I’m not.’
‘There, there.’ She patted my shoulder to comfort me. Anyone who’s been in love knows it’s a state that requires comforting. ‘You go on downstairs. Tell him to cheer up, that’s all. And you mustn’t bring him to your room. We’re not that kind of hotel.’