The Missing Husband

by Natasha Boydell

  She travelled south the next day, not wanting to stay in Paris any longer without Pete there with her. She checked into the B&B they had stayed in together just a few weeks before and walked down through the village to her father’s house. The front door was stiff and she had to use her shoulder to push it open.

  Inside, she looked around at the dark, dusty rooms, running her fingers along her father’s belongings, his writing desk and his dark leather Chesterfield armchair, breathing in the scent of him which was surprisingly only slightly masked by the musty smell of a house uninhabited for a long time. He was the only man she had ever loved, her father, until Pete. Her two great loves, gone from her life, one by tragedy and one by choice. She located the back-door key, hidden among a pile of papers on the kitchen table, and stepped out onto the veranda. Even though it was a cold, grey autumn day and the neglected garden had become overgrown and wild, the view was still breath-taking. Unspoilt, untouched countryside, save for some farmhouses and gîtes, surrounded her. All she could hear was the trees blowing in the breeze and, in the distance, a dog barking. Her dad was gone, Pete too. She was alone again and she would have to get used to it. Looking around she nodded to herself, this was as good a place as any to do that. She took one last look around and then, shivering, went back inside.

  She started work on her dad’s house the next day. Armed with cleaning products she scrubbed and polished every floor, every surface, until her hands were red raw and her knees were bruised from crawling on the unforgiving stone floor. She returned to the B&B each evening exhausted, collapsing into bed and feeling grateful for the sleep which came easily after the day’s exertion, fighting off the intrusive thoughts that were swirling around her head and threatening to keep her awake.

  She went into autopilot mode, making calls to builders, electricians, painters and decorators. Her French, which had become rusty, improved with each day and the friendly B&B owners, who had quickly realised that all was not well but were too discreet to ask, practised with her over breakfast each day, encouraging her, correcting her and praising her.

  On dry days she tackled the garden, pulling out weeds, attacking hedges with vigour and slowly transforming it back to its former glory.

  Within three weeks the house was habitable enough to move into. She spent her days clearing out her dad’s old stuff and decorating to make it homely. One day she walked into the village for some fresh bread and cheese and saw a little white car parked on the street, with a handwritten ‘for sale’ sign stuck on to the inside of a window. On a whim she called the owner and two days later she was behind the wheel, driving to the nearest city to go shopping for things for the house.

  The days went by quickly, but the nights were long. Winter was coming and the darkness that enveloped the house felt almost claustrophobic. She would light a fire and sit in her dad’s battered old armchair, clutching a glass of red wine and trying to immerse herself in a book but her mind always wandered. She was usually pretty content in her own company but her relationship with Pete had opened the door to another way of life and she now missed it acutely. Occasionally she would have a wobble and try to call him but the phone was always switched off. She assumed he had changed his number, a startlingly obvious indication that he had banished all trace of her from his life. After a few glasses of wine she would google him, desperate to find a photo, information, anything that could connect her to him but there was nothing. His social media profiles were still gone and he didn’t have a profile on the website of the company he had accepted the job offer from. She even called them once, asking to speak to him, but the receptionist told him that there was no Pete Garland working there and never had been.

  She assumed that it would get better over time, this near-constant feeling of grief for the idea of a life that she had lost. She told herself that she would heal eventually and find happiness in her solitude again. But she had too much time during those long, lonely evenings to overthink and overanalyse, and she found herself wondering if she truly had been happy before or whether it was just a foolish sense of pride that she clung on to.

  ‘Look at Claire, she doesn’t need anyone in her life to make her happy,’ her friends would say after yet another heartbreak, and their envy and praise would make Claire glow with pleasure. But now it all just seemed pathetic. Who was she to think that she was any better or different to everyone else? We all needed someone in our lives. Time passed, quickly and slowly, quickly and slowly again, and the healing didn’t come. The days turned to weeks and then to months.

  At Christmas the people she had come to know in the village couldn’t have been kinder or more generous to her, they had all loved her father and remembered her from her regular visits many years ago, and she received plenty of offers to dine with them in their homes. But she politely declined them all and spent the day alone.

  By February the house renovation was nearly complete and she’d started working on the outbuildings, hoping to get them ready for the summer season so that she could rent them out. Most days she walked to the village, stopping to say hi and chat to the locals that she had come to know. Occasionally she would sit and have a coffee with them, feeling proud at how good her French had become. She really wanted to be happy and she tried, she really did. But her heart wasn’t in it.

  And so here she was, five months after she had boarded the Eurostar alone, on her way back to London again. She just had to see him, to talk to him again, before she could truly let him go. It was an itch that she had to scratch no matter how high the stakes were for her and for him. And given that he had changed his number and she couldn’t reach him by email or social media he had left her no choice at all. She was going to have to go to his home and confront him.

  She’d looked up his address in his work file when they had first got serious and made a note of it because knowing where he lived had made her feel closer to him somehow. She had checked it on Google Street View so she could see what his house looked like and picture it in her mind when he wasn’t with her. But she had kept well away, the north–south divide unspoken but clear in both their minds – north London was Pete’s family’s domain and south London was hers. Now she was going to cross that bridge and invade his other life and she felt a mixture of excitement, anticipation and terror at what she was about to do.

  The train pulled into St Pancras and she grabbed her holdall, stepped on to the platform and made her way towards the Tube station, heading down the escalator to the Northern Line which would take her to north London. Once on the Tube she looked glumly around her, feeling no joy at being back in the capital again. She hadn’t missed this place with its busy people, dirty trains and constant crowds. She had come for one reason and one reason only, and that was to talk to Pete. But despite her distaste for London after months of rural living she had accepted that if she had to move back for him, to be with him, she was prepared to do it.

  When she had first gone to France she had been incandescent with rage at Pete and the way he had betrayed her so brutally. But her anger towards him had dissipated in the time that they’d been apart. She’d started looking at the situation from his point of view and realised that she’d been asking too much from him by wanting him to move away from his children for her. She’d pushed him too far and paid the price. But maybe if she offered him an alternative solution – they could stay in London, live apart even, and he could be close to his children and be a bigger part of their lives, he might reconsider. She had wondered many times if he missed her. She desperately hoped that he did but there was only one way to find out. It was like taking a protective bandage off, being back here again and she felt exposed and vulnerable. But she had to know one way or another – she couldn’t go on with the rest of her life until she knew for sure whether he had said no to the move to France or to her entirely.

  The train pulled into Highgate, Pete’s stop, and she jumped off. Up on the street, she opened Google Maps on her phone and started following the directions towards Musw
ell Hill, where Pete’s family home was. All around her were mums heading towards the open space of Highgate Woods, pushing babies in prams or helping toddlers with scooters. She felt like a foreigner, completely excluded from this life, this other world that Pete was a part of. A wave of uncertainty washed over her. Had she made a huge mistake in coming here? Should she have left him alone? Too late to back out now, she told herself resolutely, and she continued following the directions on her phone, each step bringing her closer to Pete.

  She reached their street, a typical suburban, tree-lined road with pretty red-brick townhouses and searched for Pete’s house. And then there it was, right in front of her, number 8. It was a lovely house, she thought grudgingly, Kate had clearly put a lot of effort into it. It looked immaculate, with grey-potted olive trees on either side of the stained-glass front door and a beautiful pendant light hanging down from the porch, where two neat little sets of wellies sat side by side. A family home, that’s what it was, she realised with a sinking heart, Pete’s family. She swallowed the bile that was creeping up into her throat.

  What now? She looked around. She couldn’t just knock on the door without knowing who was in, she needed a safe space to watch and wait, somewhere she wouldn’t be seen.

  Glancing across the road, she spotted a little alleyway which led down the side of a house. She put her head down and headed towards it, leaning against the brick wall. Yes, she could see the house from here but she looked a bit stalker-ish. She hadn’t really thought this through very well, naïvely assuming that there would be a coffee shop opposite the house that she could camp out in, but this was a residential street and there was nowhere to hide.

  I need a car, she thought, and pulled out her phone to search online for the nearest rental company.

  Two hours later she arrived back in the street, parking her hired grey Ford Fiesta a little way down the road from Pete’s house, where she had a good view of the front door but wasn’t too conspicuous. She leaned back in the seat, took a deep breath and waited. She felt like a police officer on a stakeout and wished she’d bought more snacks, but she didn’t have to wait too long before the first sign of activity. Just after 3pm a woman left the house and hurried off down the street. It must be Kate. She studied her carefully, this woman who she had never really thought of as competition, or thought of much at all, to be honest, until the day Pete had chosen her over Claire. Since then, she hadn’t been able to think of much else. There was no denying that she was attractive and she certainly knew how to dress. She was wearing skinny jeans and a long grey coat, accessorised with an oversized silk scarf. She looked glamorous but understated, perfect for what was probably the school run given the number of other mums walking down the street in the same direction, pushing younger children in prams and chatting together.

  Once again Claire felt a pang of jealousy at not being a part of this other life, where it seemed to become a member you had to have a big house, a wealthy husband, at least one child and to shop at Boden.

  She looked at the clock and guessed that she had about half an hour before Kate returned with the children. Now was her chance. She sprang from the car and strode towards the house, feeling the nerves building up inside her with each step closer. When she reached the path that led to their front door she panicked and almost kept on walking but then she steeled herself. She might not get another opportunity like this. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door, realising that she had no plan whatsoever for what to do if anyone other than Pete answered. But she needn’t have worried because no one came to the door. After a minute, she knocked again but there was no answer. Nobody was home.

  She quickly hurried back to the car, feeling conspicuous in this quiet neighbourhood and wondered if there were any curtain-twitching neighbours watching her. She didn’t feel safe again until she was back in the car. She waited and watched and soon enough, the mums and prams started to return, this time accompanied by children, talking, skipping and laughing together. A few minutes later she saw Kate, holding two young girls by the hand.

  My God, they look like Pete. The shock hit her hard. Both girls were chatting animatedly with their mum and laughing at something that she had said to them. They looked so happy, she thought, so innocent and sweet. She had an image of them greeting Pete with cuddles when he came home from work each night, embracing him with their innocent, unconditional love. His own flesh and blood. Of course he couldn’t have left them and moved to France. She had been stupid for thinking otherwise. Now she just needed to speak to him, to tell him that she understood, that she wasn’t angry with him but with herself.

  Kate and the girls walked up the path and into the house, closing the door to the outside world – and to Claire. If he wasn’t at home, he must be at work. Which meant that he probably wouldn’t be home until at least six o’clock, if not much later knowing him. She considered her options and decided to leave and return again in a few hours. The less time she spent parked outside his house the less suspicious it would be. She turned the car engine on and pulled away from the kerb, following the directions on her phone towards the hotel she had booked. After she’d checked in and dumped her bag in her room, she drove back to Muswell Hill, parked up in the Broadway, and had a mooch around the shops, stopping at a café to get something to eat and looking around at all the yummy mummies and their children, having tea together. She wondered if Pete had been to this café with his kids and guessed that he probably had. The thought made her feel depressed and she quickly paid the bill and left. She decided to head towards Alexandra Palace – she had been to a concert there years before and remembered that it had a big park and views over London. A bracing walk was just what she needed to clear her head. When she reached the top, she stood and looked out over the impressive London skyline. All those millions of people out there, going to work, living their lives and here she was on the edge of the city, neither in it nor out of it, with no idea of what the future held for her.

  She looked at her watch and was relieved to see that it had gone five thirty. She’d had enough of killing time in this alien neighbourhood where she didn’t belong. She walked back to the car, started the engine and headed back towards Pete’s house. This time she had to park a little further down the road, but she still had a good view of the house. She put her earphones in, turned on a podcast about how to start a B&B business, and waited.

  Four hours later, she was still waiting, and she was tired, fed up and desperate for a wee. She didn’t think that she had missed him returning home, so she considered the alternatives. Perhaps he’d gone out for dinner? Could he be on a business trip? And then she thought, what if he’d left Kate after all? What if he didn’t even live here anymore? Could she literally be sitting here for days on end only for him never to show up at all? She had been so desperate to see him that she hadn’t even considered the possibility that he wouldn’t be there. She felt like a bloody idiot. What was she doing, sitting outside this man’s house waiting for him to come home? There must be a better way.

  And suddenly she realised – Dan, his former colleague. They were thick as thieves and she was sure he’d known about their affair even though they’d agreed not to tell anyone. She could tell by the way he acted around her, he always seemed a bit nervy and reluctant to engage in conversation. And she could easily contact him using his work email: the generic format was ingrained in her mind after months of temping at the company. It was a risk contacting him but he’d always seemed like a nice enough bloke and she was only asking him to pass a message on to Pete, not to do anything else. The worst thing that could happen was that he’d tell her to sod off and so what, she’d been through worse than that over the last few months. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? She immediately pulled out her phone and composed a message:

  Dan, hi it’s Claire, I used to work on reception? I’m so sorry to contact you out of the blue, and on your work email too, but I need your help. I’m back in London for a few days and I really need to
get hold of Pete but I don’t have up-to-date contact details for him. I know you may not want to pass on his details to me and I completely understand that but is there any way you can just tell him that I’m in town and that I really need to see him? My phone number and the details of where I’m staying are below. Thanks so much for your help, Dan. Claire x

  She hit send before she could change her mind. It was nearly 10pm by this point and there was no way she’d get a response until morning, so she decided to drive back to the hotel and wait. She started up the car and despite the anti-climax of not seeing Pete today, she felt a glimmer of hope at the idea of hearing from Dan in the morning. Tomorrow could not come soon enough.

  Claire was having coffee in a café near to her hotel when the email from Dan arrived. It was 10am and she’d been hitting refresh pretty much continuously since 8am so her nerves were frayed. Still, he hadn’t kept her waiting too long, which she took to be a good sign. She could barely contain her excitement at the fact that he had replied to her. She opened the email and devoured the contents.

  Claire, I’m really surprised to hear from you like this. I thought Pete was with you? What happened? Did you guys have an argument? He didn’t tell me he was back in the UK, when did he leave France?

  I’m afraid I can’t help you, none of us have spoken to Pete since he left the company a few months ago. We all just thought he’d done a runner to be honest and was somewhere with you in the depths of the continent. I’ve been in touch with his wife Kate a few times and I’m not going to lie, I’ve been pretty pissed off with him that he’s made no effort to contact her or see the children at all. It’s pretty shitty behaviour. So if you do see him again, please tell him to strap on a pair and get in touch with his wife and kids. The girls were devastated when he left.