5 February 2010

Jean sat alone at the kitchen table where Detective Buchanan had left her, nursing a too-sweet cup of tea and straining to make out the low, soft sound of his voice floating down the corridor. He had been perfectly polite, excused himself to make his phone call in private, and Jean hadn't felt as if she could demand he stay where she could keep an eye on him, but it rattled her, not being able to hear what he was saying. Suppose he hadn't called the Ballarat police at all? Suppose he wasn't looking for Danny, wasn't trying to help her? Suppose that as kind, as courteous, as helpful as he seemed to be he was something else entirely, and she was in danger now?

For five full minutes she sat still and waiting, but when he did not appear her nerves got the better of her, and Jean rose from her chair, intent on seeking him out. Slowly, as quietly as she could manage, she tiptoed barefoot out of the kitchen. He wasn't in the foyer, but Jean could hear his voice, and as she drew near she caught sight of him in the mirror hanging over the entry table. The mirror was almost directly across from the open bedroom door, and provided Jean a perfect view of the hulking Detective Buchanan perched on the end of the bed, leaning over with his forearms resting on his knees and his head hung low between his shoulders. It wouldn't do to get too close - that mirror would give her away as much as it had done him - but she drew as near as she dared, and listened with all her might.

"I'm worried about her, Sarge," she heard him say. "If she'd lost her memories completely I'd just take her to hospital but she's got a whole new set instead. She thinks she's some '50s housekeeper. Told me her nephew works for the police in Ballarat."

Jean frowned; had he lied to her then? He'd told her that he would ring for Danny first, but it hadn't been so very long since he'd left her, and it didn't sound to Jean as if he were talking to Matthew. The only Sergeant in Ballarat was Bill Hobart, and she was certain that Bill and Detective Buchanan would not have been friends. Who then was he speaking to?

For a moment he was quiet, but then she heard his voice once more.

"I called Ballarat first. I thought maybe they might be able to get me some answers. They told me there's no one there named Danny Parks. I asked them to check and see if maybe there used to be a Parks way back, maybe in the 50s or 60s, and they said they'd look into it and get back to me."

Way back, maybe in the 50s or 60s.

What on earth? Jean wondered, leaning heavily back against the wall. It would seem he had rung Ballarat, but no one there had heard of Danny. But how could that possibly be? And why was he speaking this way - some '50s housekeeper, way back - as if the 1950s were a distant memory, and not only a few months past?

"I told Sergeant Ryan that Jen is going to take a sickie and I told him I was going to look after her. We're both on desk duty anyway, after yesterday. But I think she's going to need more than a day or two. There's something seriously wrong here. Do you think you could come and I dunno, evaluate her? I don't want to say the wrong thing and make it worse but I don't want to leave her and I think the hospital would just scare her."

He was right on that score; the idea of being taken to hospital, being poked and prodded, having to explain, again, who she was and her confusion, the thought of being taken away from Detective Buchanan, who had been so kind to her, was horrifying. She was grateful to him for doing what he could to avoid it, but the thought remained; he thought she ought to go to hospital. He thought there was something seriously wrong with her, and Jean was beginning to suspect that he was right.

For a moment he was quiet, listening. In the mirror Jean could see that he was holding his hand-held phone up to his ear. That strange phone, the clothes, the house, his easy way of speaking, it was all so foreign to Jean, and a terrible thought began to well up within her. What if she hadn't just woken up in the wrong place, but in the wrong time, as well?

That's absurd, she told herself. That's impossible. This is all just a dream. A misunderstanding.

"All right, thanks, Sarge. I'll see you soon."

With a sigh he pulled the phone away from his ear, pressed his fingers against its face and then tucked it into his jacket pocket. He ran his hand over the back of his neck once, wearily, and then he slowly raised his head, and as he did his eyes caught Jean's in the mirror.

"Mrs. Beazley?" he called softly.

There was no use pretending she hadn't been caught out, and so Jean marched out from her hiding place, came to stand in the doorway, and tried not to fidget in her strange clothes. There was something oddly intimate about it, standing there half naked, with no underclothes to speak of, in front of a man who was sitting comfortably on a bed. It certainly wasn't something Jean was used to; she was never so brazen, not even with Lucien. But Detective Buchanan's eyes were kind, and he did not leer at her, only smiled, sadly.

"You didn't find Danny," she said. He knew she'd been listening, and so she got right to the point.

"No," he agreed. "They're checking their records, though, to see if they have any way to reach him."

That was a much kinder way of putting than what he'd told the Sergeant on the phone; Jean rather got the feeling he was protecting her, though she had no idea what from.

"Are you going to call your friend? The psychiatrist?"

That prospect terrified her. It would be better to be lost than to be mad, Jean thought. Then again, she was beginning to feel quite mad indeed. Her face was wrong when she looked in the mirror and nothing around her made any sense at all and Detective Buchanan was watching her with a worried expression in his eyes like he feared she'd go to pieces at any moment.

"I already did," he said. "Her name is Claudia Lee, she works with Jen and me at the State Police. She's going to come round, talk to you for a little while. If that's all right."

"I don't really have much choice, do I?" Jean answered. She felt pitiful even saying it, but she didn't know what else to do. She didn't know where she was or what had happened to her and everything about this morning terrified her. But Detective Buchanan had been perfectly kind and he seemed to think this Claudia Lee would be helpful to her, and she had no choice but to trust him.

"Maybe you'd like to change before she gets here," he suggested.

"Change what?" she asked, confused, but then she realized he was referring to her ridiculous clothes, and blushed. "Oh, yes, I suppose I should. I just threw these on, when I woke up I was…"

She trailed off, horrified to realize she'd very nearly told him that she had been naked. However nice he might have been she didn't want him to know that, didn't want him to have that image in his mind.

"What made you choose that shirt?" he asked curiously. Curiosity, Jean had found, was an almost universal trait among the policemen in Ballarat, and she supposed that being a detective Nick Buchanan was much the same. They all wanted to find the answers to every question. So did Lucien, of course, but he always went about things in his own way. Oh, Lucien.

"It was comfortable and close to hand," Jean answered honestly. "Is there something wrong with it?"

She tugged absently at the hem of her too-large shirt, and did not miss the way Detective Buchanan's eyes followed the movement of her hand.

"No, of course not," he said. "It's just...that's my shirt."

It felt to Jean rather as if all the air had been sucked out of the room the moment he said it. Something flickered in his eyes - shame, perhaps, at having admitted to such a thing - but it disappeared as quickly as it had come. His shirt? She asked herself. It had been in a drawer full of women's clothing, clothing she assumed belonged to Jennifer Mapplethorpe. What was his shirt doing there? Oh, but he did know his way around this house, and he seemed so worried about her, had even, it would seem, gone so far as to call off work just to look after her, and he appeared perfectly comfortable sitting on the end of that bed. As if he'd done it before. There were no men's clothes in the closet, no men's shoes by the door, only one toothbrush at the sink, and it appeared as if Jennifer lived in that house completely alone, but if his shirt was in her dresser, then surely that meant...well...he must have been important to her, this Jennifer. Very important. The implications were salacious - how bold a man must be to leave his clothes in his lady friend's home! - and Jean didn't have the first idea what to make of it. Discomfort ran through her; there were plenty of people in Ballarat who...entertained themselves, and one another, in various ways, but Jean had always been a proper churchgoing lady and she had never allowed a man so many liberties. But Jennifer had, apparently, and that left Jean wondering just whose face she was wearing, just what sort of madness she had stumbled into.

"I've made you uncomfortable," he said quietly.

"No," Jean lied, but the word came out too fast, and she knew he saw right through her. "I'm just surprised, I suppose. I thought...well."

"I left it here a long time ago," he explained. "I'm just...I'm glad to know she kept it. Why don't we find something else for you?"

"Yes, thank you."

It was very kind of him, both the offer of help and the distraction he afforded her, but Jean's mind was whirring. His words made her think that whatever had been between Detective Buchanan and Jennifer was long over, but when he'd said I'm glad to know she kept it his voice had been so low, and so sad, that Jean couldn't help but wonder if he regretted their falling out. Not a current lover, but still a friend, he had come to her aid without hesitation, but how much must this wound him, to look at a woman he had once known so well that he left his clothes at her house, and yet see a stranger looking back? How much must that hurt, to be forgotten by someone he had once loved?

They went to the closet together, and he stepped inside with confidence, and Jean let him, her thoughts racing. It appeared that he intended to pick out her clothes himself, and Jean just watched, taking in the easy way he moved, the breadth of his shoulders, trying to imagine what Jennifer saw when she looked at this man, what he must mean to her. Had he been as kind to Jennifer as he was being to Jean now? And if he had, why were they no longer together?

Robert was a perfectly kind man, and you didn't want to marry him. The thought floated through her mind, and left her feeling if possible even more uncomfortable than before. She'd not accepted Robert because while he was a perfectly safe, perfectly acceptable option when she looked at him she did not feel love, or excitement, or desire, and she had turned that opportunity down, holding out for a dream she knew might not ever come to be. There had been a time when she'd thought that dream was within reach, when she'd looked at Lucien and thought maybe, but she'd made her arrangements to go to Adelaide and he'd made no attempt to stop her and now she knew she would not ever find the love that she had been waiting so long for. But that only reminded her that she was meant to leave Lucien's home today, that she was meant to go to the hotel, that she was meant to be on the bus to Adelaide in a few days' time. Christopher and Ruby needed her, but she was trapped in a strange place with a strange man and no way to reach them, to tell them what had become of her. Oh, were they worried about her? Did they even realize she'd gone? What on earth was happening to her?

"How about this?" Detective Buchanan asked. He walked back to her, carrying a pair of black trousers in one hand and a white blouse in the other. The blouse was soft, delicately feminine, and perfectly acceptable, but Jean drew the line at trousers.

"I'm sure that Jennifer would be perfectly comfortable in trousers," she told him. "But I've never worn them a day in my life and I don't intend to start now. Is there a skirt, or a dress perhaps?"

For one brief instant an amused sort of grin flashed across his face. Maybe he thought it was funny, the idea of her refusing to wear trousers. Maybe he noticed the hypocrisy in it, given that Jean was at that very moment wearing a very brief pair of shorts - trousers could hardly be less decent than what she already had on. But when she'd dressed she'd not thought about who she might encounter and now she knew a psychiatrist was on the way to see her, and she'd not leave that room looking anything less than her very best.

"It's a long shot," he said, "but there might be something. Let me check."

It was, Jean thought, a bit like shopping in the strangest department store in the world, with a very helpful clerk to assist. When she'd first examined the closet for herself she had noticed that there were a good many suits inside, and from what Detective Buchanan had told her so far Jean gathered that Jennifer wore those sorts of things most often. What sort of woman, Jean wondered, was a Detective with the State Police, and wore trousers every day, and started up an affair with a fellow officer only to end it and remain friends? Each new detail she learned about Jennifer Mapplethorpe only confused - and intrigued - her more.

From somewhere in the back of the closet Detective Buchanan made a triumphant sort of sound, and then he returned, this time holding a straight, knee-length black skirt.

"Will this do?" he asked.

"That will do very nicely," Jean agreed. She took the skirt and the blouse from him, and stepped back to allow him to exit the closet.

"Why don't you wait in the kitchen, and I'll get dressed and then come join you?"

"Of course," he said, and then he disappeared, slipped silently from the room, closing the door behind him as he went.

Jean carefully laid the clothes out on the bed, and then frowned to herself. She'd have to go back to the dresser and find some proper undergarments. That white blouse would not accept being worn without a brassiere.

From her earlier explorations she knew where the undergarments were hiding, and so she went there at once, and then stared down into the drawer for a moment, aghast. There were a good many pieces to choose from, but Jean wasn't sure that any of them were to her taste. Some were black, for goodness sake, and some were red, and pale pink, and pristine white. Some were lacy, and some were nearly transparent - Jean flushed scarlet just looking at them. There was one that caught her eye, however, a plain, perfectly serviceable piece nearly the same color as Jean's own skin, and she snatched it up at once. The knickers she wore would do just fine, but there had been no sign of a girdle when she'd dug through the drawers before. A slip at the very least would have been welcome, but Jennifer had none, and Jean would just have to make do.

As quickly as she could she stripped out of her clothes, and slid into that brasserie. It fit her quite well, for which she was thankful, but she tugged the blouse on quickly, not wanting to see herself so underdressed beneath her clothes. The skirt came next; Jean was chagrined to find the blouse not long enough to be tucked into the skirt. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be; it was soft, and flowy, and so very unlike anything else Jean had ever worn before. The skirt was sharp, however, and reminded Jean of her own things, though she almost never wore black. The art of dressing herself was comfortable, more familiar than anything else she'd experienced so far, and so she threw herself into it.

A pair of shoes would do nicely, she told herself, and so she went back to the closet and selected a pair of plain black pumps. It felt strange to slide them onto her bare feet, but she felt more herself with shoes on. Fully dressed, then, she elected to go into the bathroom, and see about fixing up her hair. A quick survey of the contents of the bathroom cabinets and drawers revealed no curlers, but she did discover an army of abandoned pins and one very pretty tortoiseshell clip. She let her blonde hair down from its loose hold and combed it, marveling at the length and the color of it, so unlike her own. But it was soft and fine, just as Jean's own hair was, and she felt a bit better about it once she'd caught it up in that pretty clip.

That's not so bad, she told herself, surveying her reflection in the mirror. A bit of lipstick, perhaps.

There was a little tube close to hand, and Jean reached for it at once, and smiled when she was done. Yes, much better, she thought. There were other cosmetics on the countertop and Jean meant to make a full inventory of them later, but for now the lipstick would suit her purposes. Fully dressed, with her hair seen to, with shoes and a bit of lipstick, she felt stronger, somehow. At home, in her own life, in her own skin, Jean never went about the house barefoot, without her face done up, and as ridiculous as it might have been just those little touches were sufficient to quiet some of her fears. Wherever she was, however she had come to be there, she was still Jean Beazley, and she would find her way through this mess.

Feeling rather pleased with herself then she marched out of the room and straight into the kitchen, where she found Detective Buchanan waiting for her at the table. At the sound of her footsteps he looked up, and a startled expression crossed his face, rather as if he'd just seen a ghost. It took some of the wind out of Jean's sails, to see him alarmed, and not smiling. Did her appearance really trouble him so?

"Do I look all right?" she asked, somewhat apprehensively. Do I look like her, that's what she really wanted to know, but she saw the answer written all over his face. It was a resounding no.

"You look lovely," he said, though his voice was a bit choked. "Why don't you have some tea? Claudia will be here soon."

There was nothing for it but to do as he had said, and so Jean settled herself primly in the chair opposite him, and reached for her tepid cup of tea. She would wait, and she would listen, and time would tell what the psychiatrist would make of her. She could only pray that this Claudia Lee might be able to provide her with the answers she so desperately sought.