Then She Was Gone

by Lisa Jewell

  “Tell me,” she says, turning the conversation round 180 degrees, back to a place that nurtures intimacy and growth. “Tell me about your first marriage. How was it? How did you and Kate meet?”

  He smiles as she’d known he would and tells her a story about a beautiful young girl at a bus stop, totally out of his league in every way, a charmingly gauche conversation and an invitation to a party that turned out to be a rave in an abandoned car park, a lost night of neon lights and recreational drugs, a full moon, a fur coat. And at some point Laurel zones out of the detail and fixates instead on the feeling of jealousy that seeps out from deep inside her, the dark, bleak stab of pain that for a short while at least overpowers her creeping sense of unease, that stops her asking questions.

  Laurel leaves the next morning. Floyd tries to persuade her to stay, tempts her with suggestions of gastro-pub Sunday lunches and riverside walks, but her mind is elsewhere; she can no longer force herself to stay focused on their romance; she needs to be alone.

  She’d parked her car in the next road down the day before because there was no space on Floyd’s street. To get to it she has to loop back onto the high street and then left again. Her eye is caught by a man standing outside the small branch of Tesco on the corner. He has a little black dog on a lead. He’s tall; in his midtwenties, Laurel guesses. He’s wearing a huge parka with a fur-trimmed hood and dark jeans with trainers. He’s extremely good-looking, rangy and eye-catching. But as she glances at him Laurel realizes that it’s not his good looks that have caught her eye. She realizes that she recognizes him and it takes a moment for the details to slot into place and form a solid memory before it hits her. It’s Theo. Theo Goodman. Ellie’s boyfriend.

  She’d seen him briefly at Ellie’s funeral back in October. He’d been somewhere toward the rear, talking with Ellie’s old school friends. He’d looked sallow and hollowed out with grief. She remembered feeling surprised that he hadn’t come to her during that day, that he hadn’t offered his condolences, that he’d simply disappeared into the ether.

  She toys with the idea of crossing the street to say hello, but her head can’t deal with small talk right now and she decides to keep walking. She is about to turn away when a woman comes out of Tesco holding two canvas bags full of groceries; she’s a tall blonde woman in a similar parka, baggy joggers, and black Ugg boots, a green bobble hat on her head and a wide smile on her face. She hands one bag to Theo and then stops to pet the small dog, who seems overjoyed to see her. Then they go on their way, the lovely young couple and their dog. And it is only then that Laurel really registers what she has just seen.

  It was the smile that threw her.

  She hasn’t seen Hanna smile for so long she’d forgotten what it looked like.

  PART FOUR

  36

  THEN

  Noelle Donnelly’s house was small and tidy and smelled exactly like Noelle Donnelly.

  “Let me get you a squash,” said Noelle in the hallway. “You go and sit down.” She gestured into the small front room.

  Ellie peered through the door into the room and then smiled politely. “I think I’d better not stay,” she said. “I’ve got loads and loads of work to do.”

  “Nonsense,” said Noelle. “You can spare two minutes. Besides, it’ll take me that long to unearth the thing. You might as well take a seat and have a drink. Orange or elderflower?”

  Ellie smiled stiffly. She was in a corner. “Elderflower,” she said. “Please. Thank you.”

  Noelle smiled at her strangely. “Yes,” she said, “elderflower. Of course. I’ll be one minute. You sit down.”

  Ellie sidled into the living room and perched herself on the farthest edge of a brown leather sofa. The room was filled to its limits with houseplants and smelled earthy and slightly sour. The wall around the fireplace was bare brick and the hearth filled with sprays of dried flowers and some terra-cotta animals that looked as though Noelle might have made them herself. Overhead was a bulb in a globular paper shade and the windows were obscured by wooden Venetian blinds, one slat of which was missing, allowing a reassuring view of a strip of cherry blossom and sunshine. Ellie stared through the gap in the blinds, imagining the world beyond Noelle Donnelly’s front room.

  “There you are,” said Noelle, placing a glass of squash in front of her.

  The squash looked nice. It was in a pretty glass, clear with green polka dots. She was thirsty. Noelle watched her as she lifted the glass and began to drink from it. “Thank you,” she said, putting down the almost empty glass.

  Noelle glanced at the glass and then at Ellie. “Oh, lovely girl, you are welcome. Now, you wait there and I will get the papers and be back in a short minute.”

  She left the room and Ellie heard her heavy steps ascending the stairs. Like a baby elephant, as Ellie’s mum would have said.

  Stamp stamp stamp stamp . . .

  She was unconscious before Noelle had made it to the landing.

  Ellie heard a sound, a tiny woody squeak. A chair, moving. Then she heard a breath.

  “You’re awake now, are you?” said Noelle from somewhere in the dark. “Now, listen. I really want to apologize to you. This is a terrible thing. A terrible thing I’ve done to you. Unforgivable really. But I hope you’ll see why, in time. I hope you’ll understand.”

  In time.

  Ellie struggled against the glue. Nothing moved.

  “The effects will wear off soon. Or, well”—Noelle laughed—“at least I hope they do. It said on the Internet three to twelve hours. And you’ve been out for twelve. So.” She laughed again and Ellie thought, It’s 11 p.m. I’ve been away from home since ten o’clock this morning. My mum.

  Her eyes had started to lose their heaviness and she could make out parts of the room now. The cool glow of moonlight through a narrow window set high in a wood-clad wall, a toilet and sink in a recess behind a curtain, empty shelves on a wall, a small wardrobe. And there, in front of a closed door, the outline of Noelle Donnelly, legs crossed, hands in her lap.

  Ellie tried again to lift her head and this time managed to move it a millimeter or two.

  “Oh, there you go,” said Noelle. “You’re coming through it now. That’s great. I’ll just sit here with you for a while longer and then when you’re sitting up I’ll get you something to eat. You missed your lunch and your dinner and you must be ravenous. What would you like? Maybe just a sandwich? I have some good ham. I’ll do that for you.”

  She stood then and picked up a cup from the table by the bed. “Here.” She angled a bendy straw toward Ellie’s mouth. “Drink some water. You must be parched.”

  Ellie sucked at the straw and felt the tepid water spread across the dry towel of her tongue and the papery roof of her mouth.

  “My mum,” she croaked, “my mum.”

  “Ah, now, don’t you worry about your mum. She probably just thinks you’re off canoodling somewhere with that boy of yours. It’s a lovely evening. Just like last night. Summery, you know, the sort of evening you want to go on for longer.”

  “No,” Ellie said through a parchment throat, “she’ll be scared. My mum.”

  And she felt it then, like a needle in her heart, the love her mother always talked about. “You won’t understand how much I love you until you’re a mother yourself.”

  But she felt it now and all the pain in her heart was for her mother, her mother who she knew would be crying and worrying and feeling the meaning of her life slipping away from her. She couldn’t bear it. She truly couldn’t bear it.

  “Of course she won’t be scared. Don’t be daft. Now, let’s see if we can sit you up. Can you move your fingers now? Your toes? Your arms? Ah, yes, there you go. Good girl. That’s great, that really is.”

  And then Noelle Donnelly’s arms were around her waist and she was being pulled gently up the bed and she could see more now, she could see that she was in a room lower than ground level, walls clad with dirty gold pine.

  “Where am I?”

>   “In the basement. Which makes it sound worse than it is. It’s my guest room, really. Not that I ever have any guests. But I used to keep all my overspill in here, you know, bric-a-brac, but knowing you were coming I had a good clear-out. Took it all to the Red Cross shop. So now we’re very minimal. There now.” She adjusted the pillow behind Ellie’s head. “All comfy. I’ll go and get you that sandwich. You just rest a bit. But don’t try and get up. You might fall out of the bed and hurt yourself, being a bit woozy as you are.”

  She smiled at her indulgently, like a kindly nurse. “Good girl,” she said, running her hand down Ellie’s hair. “Good girl.”

  Then she turned and left the room.

  Ellie heard one lock click into place. And then she heard another. And then one more.

  Ellie didn’t eat her sandwich. Despite the pain of an empty stomach, she wasn’t at all hungry. Noelle silently removed it and said, “Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll be hungry in the morning. We’ll try again then, eh?”

  Then she looked fondly at Ellie and said, “Oh, it is a treat to have you here, it really is. Now you sleep tight and I’ll see you bright and early.”

  “I want to go home!” Ellie yelled out at Noelle’s back. “I really really want to go home!”

  Noelle didn’t reply. The three locks clicked into place. The room turned black.

  37

  THEN

  The sun came up early. Ellie took the chair that Noelle had sat on the night before and pulled it across to the window. She climbed onto it and peered through the grimy glass. She saw a tangle of undergrowth, a brick wall painted cream, a water pipe streaked green. If she peered upward, she saw the pink clouds of the cherry blossom tree, the blue sky, nothing more. She realized immediately that the only way anyone would see her in here would be if they were looking for her and she wrote the words “help” and “Ellie” into the dirt. She stood on the chair for more than an hour, her face pressed up against the glass. Because people must be looking for her. They must be.

  She jumped down from the chair at the sound of the locks being turned on the door and she picked it up with both hands. At the sight of Noelle in a green polo neck and faded jeans a surge of horror and anger coursed through her and she grabbed the chair hard and swung it at Noelle. It glanced off the side of Noelle’s head, but she caught it before Ellie was able to properly hurt her with it, caught it and threw it across the room. Ellie jumped on her then, jumped on her back, her arms around Noelle’s throat as she tried to bash her head against the wooden wall. But Noelle proved herself to be stronger than she looked and manhandled Ellie backward and against the wall where she strangled the breath out of her, strangled her to the point of light-headedness and stars and then let her fall to the floor.

  “You cannot be doing things like that,” Noelle said afterward, dropping Ellie on the sofa bed upside down, locking her ankles together with a plastic tie. “We’re in this together, you and me. We have to work as a team. I do not want to have to tie you up like a criminal. I really do not. I have treats in mind for you, lots of lovely things I want to do for you, to make this nicer. And I won’t be able to give you the treats if you behave like this.”

  Ellie struggled against the cuffs around her ankles, pounded her feet against the end of the bed. She roared and thrashed, and Noelle stood and watched her, her arms folded, shaking her head slowly. “Now, now, now,” she said. “This isn’t going to work. The longer you behave like this, the worse it will be and the longer you’ll be here.”

  Ellie stilled at those words. So, there was an end. Noelle had an end. Her muscles softened and her breathing steadied.

  “Good girl,” Noelle said. “Good girl. If you can behave like this for the rest of the day, I’ll bring you your first treat. How about that?”

  Ellie nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  The treat was a chocolate bar. A big one. She ate it in five minutes.

  Ellie thought of before; she thought of eating toast and jam, calling Hanna a cow because she’d taken the last bag of salt and vinegar crisps that Ellie had mentally put aside for herself. She thought of filling her bag with books, a packet of ready salted crisps and a banana. She thought of her dad off work with a summer cold, in his dressing gown, sticking his head down the stairs and saying, “I’ll go through that maths with you later on if you like?” And her smiling at her dad and saying, “Cool! See you later!”

  She thought of leaving the house without turning back to look at it.

  She thought of her house.

  She cried.

  38

  THEN

  Another night passed. It was Saturday morning and Ellie had just remembered that her period was due tomorrow.

  “Good morning, dear girl,” said Noelle, quickly relocking the door behind her and standing with her hands on her hips, appraising Ellie with an unsettling smile.

  Ellie jumped to her feet and Noelle backed away slightly, crossing her arms in front of her. “Now,” she said. “Now. Remember what we said yesterday. I want no trouble from you.”

  “I’m not going to do anything,” Ellie said. “I just needed to tell you something. Something important. I’m going to need some towels. Or something. My period is due to start tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Noelle narrowed her eyes.

  “Yes. And I have really heavy periods. Really heavy. I’ll need loads.”

  Noelle tutted and sighed as though Ellie had somehow deliberately arranged to have a heavy period while being held prisoner in her cellar. “Do you have a preferred brand?”

  “No,” said Ellie, “anything will do as long as it’s extra-absorbent.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll bring you some. And I suppose you’ll be needing new underwear. Deodorant. That kind of thing.”

  “Yes,” said Ellie. “That would be good.” And then she sat on her bed, on her hands, and she looked up at Noelle and asked, “Why am I here?”

  Noelle smiled. “Well, as it happens,” she said. “I have a plan. A fabulous plan. I’m just waiting for a couple of things to slot into place.” She mimed an object slotting into place and laughed. “So, you just be patient and all will be revealed.” Her eyes twinkled as she spoke. Ellie wanted to bite her.

  “Is it on the news?” she asked.

  “Oh, I dare say it is. I can’t say that I’ve been looking.” She shrugged dismissively as though the world taking an interest in a missing teenage girl was all a lot of silliness. “Anyway, I suppose I should be getting off to the shops, stock up on all your bits and pieces. Christ, you’re going to bankrupt me, young lady, you really are!”

  She turned to leave. Before she turned the handle she looked back at Ellie and said, “I’ve got a lovely surprise for you. Later on. A really lovely surprise. Just you wait. You’re going to love me.”

  She left with a lighthearted flourish.

  Ellie stared at the back of the door, listened to the three locks, heard Noelle’s baby elephant footsteps up the stairs, stamp stamp stamp.

  She took the chair to the window and stood on it, balanced on her tiptoes.

  She waited until she heard the front door slam shut and then she began pounding at the glass, pounding so hard that her hands hurt. She pounded and she pounded and she screamed, “Help me, help me, help me!” Then she pounded on the walls on either side of the room, the walls that must surely divide her from neighbors, neighbors who might, right now, be in their cellars, searching for batteries, maybe, or a bottle of wine.

  Ellie pounded on the walls and the windowpane for over an hour. By the time she heard Noelle return from the shops the sides of her hands were black and purple.

  “Are you ready?”

  Ellie sat up straight at the sound of her captor’s voice behind the locked door.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Are you sitting on the bed? Like a good girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, then! I’m coming in and my goodness me do I have the best surprise for you! Y
ou are going to love me!”

  Ellie sat on her hands and watched the door with held breath.

  “Ta-da!”

  It took a moment for Ellie to fully understand what she was looking at. A small plastic box with metal bars, pink on the bottom, white on the top, a handle. In Noelle’s other hand was a cardboard box, the type you might be given to take away a salad from a health-food shop.

  Noelle took the plastic box to the table across the room and then returned with the cardboard box. She sat next to Ellie on the bed and she pulled open the lid of the box and there was a sudden blast of farm smell, of warm manure and damp straw. Noelle parted the straw with her long fingers and said, “Look at the little souls. Just look at them!”

  And there, peering up at Ellie, were two small animals with honey-colored fur, black beads of eyes, two pairs of nervously twitching whiskers.

  “Hamsters!” said Noelle triumphantly. “Look! You said you always wanted hamsters! Remember? So I got you some. Aren’t they just the dearest little things you ever saw? Look at their sweet little noses. Look!”

  Ellie nodded. She had no idea how to react. None whatsoever. She had not said she wanted hamsters. She had in fact said that she had not ever wanted hamsters. She did not understand why Noelle had bought her hamsters.

  “Look,” said Noelle, taking the box to the cage on the table and carefully unlocking the door. “Let’s put them in here. They must be fed up being scrunched up together in that box. And my goodness, they’re not a cheap undertaking, these things. The animals themselves are virtually given away for free. But all the kit and caboodle. My word.”

  She picked one from the box and carefully freed it into the cage. Then she did the same with the other. “Now you must name them, Ellie. Come. Come and have a look at them and find them some nice names. Though I’m not sure how you’ll tell one from the other, to be honest. They’re identical. Come here, come.”