Page 24 of The Family Remains

16

June 2019

I awake the next day with a sharp headache. Not quite a hangover, I didn’t drink enough for a hangover, but more of a shrill prickle of jetlag and dehydration and stress. After breakfast I find a print shop around the corner from my hotel and I get the photo of Phin blown up to A4 size. I cannot bear one more stranger dragging their dirty fingertips across the screen of my phone. Then I put on my sunglasses and begin my day’s quest. For three hours I sweet-talk porters and concierges and stop busy people as they try to get in and out of their apartment blocks to get on with their lives.

I pause for lunch at a brunch restaurant with a vaulted ceiling hung with silk wisteria blossom and I order a Salvadorian quesadilla, a masala chai and a turmeric and saffron sparkler. I find I have a hearty appetite after feeling a little queasy earlier andscrape my plate clean. Halfway through, a boy with peroxide hair asks me how my breakfast is tasting. I tell him it is tasting very good and he looks delighted for me.

And then I am back pounding the streets, a sheen of sweat beginning to bloom on my skin. I feel so far from home. I’ve never before been further afield than the Canary Islands. But Chicago feels pleasantly European, and I can pretend that I’m in a cool corner of Paris maybe, or Berlin.

By 4 p.m. my phone tells me that I have walked nearly eighteen thousand steps since awaking. I sit on a bench with a bottle of water and take stock. How long can I keep this up for? How many more steps can I take? I’m starting to look bedraggled and slightly alarming. I really should head back to my hotel and take a shower. But I’ve invested so much time and energy into my search today, I can’t stop now. I take my phone from my pocket to check my email and see that I’ve missed a call. I do not understand how I’ve missed a call, but then I notice that I’ve had my phone on silent all day. I call up voicemail messages.

‘Er, hi. This is Lyle. We met last night? You were looking for a guy named Finn? Well, I don’t know if this means anything to you, but I have a friend named Joe who rents an apartment from a guy named Finn who lives in Africa? I described the guy in your photo and he said it sounds like him? I can give you his number? If you like? Call me.’

I blink. A huge smile is trying to break out all over my slightly sunburned face, but I rein it in.

I find Lyle’s number in my missed calls, and I press it.