need for a disguise more practical than melodramatic. The thought of adopting one still embarrassed her. The dark wig to conceal her blondness scarcely amounted to a disguise anyway. She added to it a hat with a veil longer than that Jane had worn at her father’s funeral and remained unsure about dark glasses beneath it, deciding to wait until she returned to the cabin to make up her mind. The black dress would have benefited from some minimal lifting at the shoulders but without time for alteration – and doubting she’d wear it ever again – Alice hid the problem beneath a black jacket that fitted better.
It was only when she was driving back from Paterson that Alice finally confronted what she had been refusing, until that moment, to bring into the forefront of her mind, where it should have been from the moment she’d acknowledged Jane to be in danger. The obvious, immediate and seemingly only resolution was to involve the police and the FBI protection. But upon what evidence, came the recurring, taunting question. She’d already decided the IRS printouts weren’t sufficient, quite apart from how she’d obtained them. From the attitude she’d encountered the previous day, the FBI wouldn’t respond without considerably more – which she didn’t have – and she’d never get by the desk sergeant in any Manhattan precinct house with accounts of murder masked as accident and accident fulfilling doubtless intended murder.
Jane, unaware of any danger, was the only person who could produce what was necessary to protect herself… what John had been taken back to Citibank to retrieve. Unaware, yet, where – or what – the secrets were that risked further shattering her already shattered life, as Alice was finally reconciled to hers being shattered. Was she thinking only of Jane? Alice asked herself, at last demanding personal honesty. Of course she wasn’t thinking only of Jane. What Jane had access to, as John’s wife, would provide her salvation, too. Was it the most obscene, unimaginably amoral cynicism, even to think as she was thinking? No, refused Alice. Jane’s marriage – Jane’s security, the fulness and completeness of her marriage – had never once been threatened by her affair with John. She’d genuinely, totally honestly, never seen herself competing with Jane. Alice would never expect anyone to believe her: she found it difficult, with total objectivity, to believe it herself. But without ever knowing it, without there ever having been a challenge, Jane had been the one who won. So it wasn’t amoral or obscene or contemptibly cynical to contemplate – although until now, climbing the low foothills at last, she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate – how she could properly guarantee her survival. Which was all she was thinking about. Survival, for herself and for Jane.
So how was she going to achieve it? How was she going to get to Jane and talk to Jane in such a way – in such words – that Jane would not dismiss her as the FBI had so far dismissed her? Alice didn’t know. She could think of no plan, no approach, that was halfway feasible. Jane would be in shock, grieving to breaking point. Hello Jane, you don’t know about me but I know everything about you. Your father, who worked for the Mafia, was murdered. John was going to be murdered and we’ve only got one chance to stop it happening to you and me. Oh, and by the way, Janice Snow was murdered, too. Now here’s what we’ve got to do…
As she turned off down the track, towards the cabin totally hidden in the riverside trees, Alice sniggered aloud at the sheer absurdity of it. But it wasn’t – couldn’t be – absurd. Somehow to keep them both safe she had to produce what John had hidden: to guarantee both their survival.
At the cabin Alice modelled her complete outfit in front of the full-length mirror, with and without dark glasses beneath the veiled hat, and remained undecided, glad of the hat because it lessened what she thought to be the artificiality of the ready-made wig, although after practice and careful pinning, again hidden by the hat, she became satisfied that it didn’t look as artificial as she’d first imagined.
When she left the cabin, early on the morning of the funeral, Alice still hadn’t thought of an approach to Jane that she considered remotely practicable and felt sick with the effort of trying.
Alice accepted she couldn’t use the garage space reserved in her own name and it took her longer than she’d anticipated to find a spot in one on East 40th, although she still had time to walk to the cathedral. It was a bright day, which justified the dark glasses. She arrived with the bulk of the mourners and was grateful for their concealment. The two books of condolences, on either side of the entrance, created a congestion that stretched back to the outer steps but in which it was easy for Alice to mingle to avoid signing, although she couldn’t isolate anyone standing too obviously close to either, checking names. Unwittingly echoing Carver’s thoughts at Northcote’s funeral, Alice told herself that those searching for her would be here somewhere, watching, looking. Would they have an identifying photograph of her, be comparing every woman coming in? The crush of people at that moment would make that impractical, she tried to reassure herself, although once past the condolence book bottleneck there was almost an immediate thinning-out in the vastness of the cathedral. She edged into a half-filled pew, relieved it was immediately filled behind her by other mourners, and at once bowed her head in cupped hands, further hiding herself in feigned prayer. She waited until she guessed from the noise that the pew behind her was occupied before raising her head. She stared directly ahead until she realized that the red cloth-covered stand in front of the altar was for the coffin and abruptly looked down at the order of service, her fogged eyes unable to focus on anything.
She sensed the family arrival from the movements of heads in front of her and turning with them she saw Jane, dressed as she’d been dressed for her father’s funeral, upright and unaided by those around her, whom she recognized from her research visits to the Northcote building, although she couldn’t remember the men’s names. The other woman in the group was Hilda Bennett, John’s PA. And then she saw the coffin following and her mind emptied and her eyes filmed and there was the rustle of everyone around her opening their service sheets and she automatically opened hers.
So did Jane. Who couldn’t see the words either. All she could see – nothing receding and returning, receding and returning – in crystal clear, unwanted clarity was a flower-festooned box with burnished brass fixtures containing the body of the man to whom she had given herself completely, whom she loved completely, and whom she could not conceive being without. Not having. Any more than she had been able – was able – to conceive not having her always-commanding, always-controlling father. Two indomitable supermen to whom nothing was insurmountable. Leaving her alone. Bereft. She didn’t know what she was going to do. How she was going to do it.
Jane anticipated the sitting down, without prompting. A man she didn’t know, from the firm, she thought, but wasn’t sure, ascended the pulpit and mouthed words she didn’t hear because she didn’t want to hear. She knew how wonderful John had been. She didn’t need the contrived platitudes and hypocritical insincerity. She knew John. Fully and completely knew John, which no one else did. He would have made the most wonderfully attentive, adoring father. Which he could still be, from beyond the grave. Not physically attentive or adoring. But a father. A father for their child. She didn’t care how many or what operations she had to undergo, what discomfort – pain – she had to endure: if John had left a sperm sample, she’d become pregnant by it. Was Rosemary Pritchard here: would she be at the wake? Urged by her own question Jane half turned, actually to look around the vast building, but didn’t see anyone properly. Good today, if they could talk. Not essential, though. She could definitely make contact tomorrow. Begin everything tomorrow. If it was a boy – it had to be a boy – she’d obviously call it John. Create an archive of photographs and anecdotes and whatever had been written in the obituaries, so that John jr would know what a very special, unique father he’d had. She hoped so much to meet Rosemary today.
There was another ebb and flow of awareness but Jane didn’t need Hilda’s supporting hand to rise for another unheard hymn or sit for another unheard reading or another unheard sermon about the cruel mysteries of God’s will beyond mere mortal understanding. She wished she’d seen John’s body: properly said goodbye. She wouldn’t have been persuaded against doing so if it hadn’t been for the goddamned drugs they’d fed her like candy, take this madam, take that madam. She wouldn’t take anything, when she had John’s baby. She wanted to feel everything, know everything. Like she knew how completely John had loved her, as she’d loved him. It wouldn’t be an empty life, from now on. She’d have John’s baby. Make him so proud of the father he’d never know. John Carver junior. It sounded good, strong, as John had been strong.
‘It’s over,’ whispered the attentive Hilda, at her elbow.
‘No, it’s not,’ smiled Jane, rising to follow the coffin from the cathedral.
Where was Martha, wondered Gene Hanlan, watching the procession from the back of the cathedral. She had to be here somewhere, among all these people. He’d spent the entire service studying the crowd without knowing what he was looking for, a woman crying, a woman furtive, a woman fitting his mental image of Martha, for whom he didn’t have any proper mental image, which made his being there a waste of time. He’d still go on to the wake, Hanlan determined. It didn’t make any more sense to do so than it had to come here but you never knew. There might just be something that would instinctively jar, although he couldn’t imagine what it might be. He was curious at the faint smile on Jane Carver’s face, as she passed. And wondered, too, why she was looking so intently from
