by Tess Stimson
‘Can you tell me where she is?’
Jesus. What am I, her social secretary? ‘At work. Look, who is this?’
‘Paul Forde,’ he says tersely. ‘Kate’s boss. She’s not here.’
‘What d’you mean, she’s not there?’
‘Precisely what I say, man. Kate isn’t here. No one’s seen her for three days. She missed an extremely important meeting on Monday afternoon, and a crucial pitch with a client yesterday. We’ve probably lost the account, if you must know. Now, if there’s a family matter I should be aware of, or if she’s ill—’
‘You haven’t seen her since Monday?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But it’s Thursday,’ I say stupidly.
‘Dear God,’ Forde mutters under his breath. ‘Look here. Do you know where Kate is or not? Because, frankly, I’d like to know what the hell is going on.’
‘You and me both,’ I retort, pulling myself together. ‘I assume you’ve tried calling her?’
‘Of course I have. I’ve left a dozen messages.’
‘And she hasn’t replied to any of them?’
There’s a silence. ‘No,’ he says finally. A note of concern enters his voice for the first time. ‘Are you telling me you don’t know where she is either?’
‘It’s been a pretty hectic week,’ I say quickly. ‘Ships passing in the night, you know how it is.’
‘Well, quite.’ Another pause, longer this time. ‘Look, when you do manage to track her down, would you mind asking her to give me a quick bell?’
‘Absolutely.’ Christ, he’s got me talking like a public-school prat too. ‘I’m sure she’ll be in touch.’
I put the phone down and stare at it uneasily. I’ve never known Kate play hooky. Ever. Even when Agness was born, she was back at her desk less than three weeks later. If she hasn’t turned up for work, there’s got to be a damned good reason. Life or death, nothing less.
I pull some clothes over my damp skin. ‘Eleanor?’ I call from the bedroom doorway. ‘Eleanor, have you heard from Kate today?’
Her voice echoes faintly up the stairs. ‘If you need to speak to me, Edward, please come to where I am and don’t yell.’
Gritting my teeth, I go down to the kitchen. ‘D’you know where Kate is?’
‘At work, I imagine. Why?’
‘I’ve just had a phone call from her boss. He says she hasn’t been in to work since Monday. She’s missed several important meetings. Did she say anything to you about going away?’
‘Away where?’
I shrug. ‘Anywhere.’
‘No, but I’d hardly infer anything from that,’ she says tartly. ‘I’m not exactly my daughter’s confidante.’
I finish buttoning my shirt and look round, taking in the mess for the first time. Dirty plates are piled in the sink and the rubbish bin hasn’t been emptied. Pizza boxes spill out of the recycling container, the cat’s bowl is encrusted with old food, and a carton of milk sits out on the counter. Kate wouldn’t let things get this out of hand, no matter how hard she was working. My anxiety ratchets up a notch.
‘She missed Guy’s presentation on Tuesday. Are you sure she didn’t say anything?’
‘Really, Edward. Why would she tell me and not you?’
I pull on my lower lip. ‘You really don’t know where she is?’ I ask again.
‘Shall we call the police?’ Eleanor says calmly.
I snort. ‘Oh, I don’t think there’s any call for that!’
‘Don’t you?’
Her faded blue eyes meet mine steadily. I’d feel less worried if she was hysterical.
‘I’m sure there’s an explanation,’ I bluster. ‘No point panicking. She probably forgot to diary an appointment or something. Maybe she’s interviewing for another job.’ But she’s not answering her phone. She missed Guy’s presentation. No one’s seen her for three days.
‘If you say so,’ Eleanor says.
‘Perhaps,’ I say carefully, ‘I should just make a few calls.’
‘I wouldn’t be bothering you,’ I say brightly, ‘only it is a little . . . well, odd.’
‘Let me be sure I’ve got this straight. You haven’t seen your wife for three days. She hasn’t been in to work since Monday, and you say she’s normally very reliable. Not the type to disappear on a whim. None of her friends know where she is. She isn’t answering her mobile—’
‘Well, someone answered it,’ I interrupt, ‘but they didn’t actually speak.’
Plod nods and corrects his notes. ‘Someone, but not necessarily Mrs Forrest, answered her mobile. She hasn’t responded to text messages or emails, and as far as you’re aware, she hasn’t taken anything with her: clothes, laptop, that sort of thing.’
‘Yes. Just her handbag.’
‘And you think this is . . . odd?’
I start to get a bit hot under the collar. ‘Well, more than odd, obviously. Worrying. I’m worried about her.’
‘But not enough to report it for, let me see . . . three days?’
I feel bad enough about that without him rubbing it in.
‘Look, I didn’t realize she was missing until her boss rang this morning and said she hadn’t been in to work. First thing I did was call all her friends and see if anyone had seen her, and then I came straight here. I didn’t want to waste your time if there was no need.’
‘Quite.’ He writes for a few moments then glances up. I don’t like the look in his eye. ‘Tell me, Mr Forrest, is it normal for you to go three days without seeing your wife?’
‘She works extremely long hours,’ I say defensively. ‘She’s often away on business.’
‘But that’s not the case now?’
‘No. According to her boss, she was supposed to be in London for some important meetings this week.’
He scrawls a few words in the margin of his notes and underlines them. He’s left-handed; the heel of his palm crabs awkwardly across the page.
‘When exactly did you last see her?’ he asks.
‘Monday. Look, I’ve told you all this—’
‘Just want to be sure we get things straight,’ he says calmly. ‘What did you talk about?’
‘Well, I suppose the last time I actually talked to her was Sunday night. I was still half-asleep when she left for work on Monday. I’m a freelance journalist,’ I say before he can get another dig in. ‘I work unusual hours. But as far as I can remember, everything seemed fine. Same as usual. I remember she said she might be late back because she had a big meeting. The kids had breakfast with her. She dropped my son off at school and took the train to London. Her car’s still in the car park, I checked on my way here.’
‘So you last talked to her properly on Sunday night. How were things between you?’
‘Fine. Well, actually we’d had a few words earlier that evening—’
‘Oh?’
I don’t like his sudden flash of interest. ‘Her mother had had a fall, and Kate brought her home to stay with us for a few days. I wasn’t exactly happy about it, that’s all.’
‘Did you argue?’
Hardly. Kate lays down the law, and I put up with it. ‘Not really. She knew how I felt.’
‘What would you say her frame of mind was that night?’
‘She seemed perfectly normal. A bit tired and fed-up, maybe. Look, are you going to—’
‘No indication anything was amiss?’
Who uses words like amiss in real life? ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. I told you. She wasn’t very happy with work, some boy-wonder was treading on her toes, but nothing she couldn’t deal with. And she’d had a bit of a run-in with Agness the night before – that’s our daughter. They’d fallen out over a party, the usual teenage stuff.’
‘Any financial worries?’
I hesitate. Yeah, I think, two hundred grand’s worth of worries. But Kate doesn’t even know about that. If she’d learned the truth, she’d have thrown me out, not abandoned the kids and disappeared.
‘Things have b
een a bit tough for us recently, same as for everyone,’ I admit. ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.’
Plod leans back in his chair, his face expressionless.
‘She was unhappy with work,’ he recites, checking his notes, ‘she’d argued with her daughter and with you, money’s tight, and she wasn’t very pleased her mother had come to stay.’
I shift in my seat. Put like that, it makes Kate’s life seem pretty bloody miserable. But then, Christ, whose life isn’t these days? All things considered, Kate hasn’t got it bad. Most of the time she loves her job. I don’t screw around, and the kids are no worse than your average teenagers. We had a bit of a hiccup a couple of months ago, but there’s certainly no real reason I can think of for her to bloody run away.
‘Is there a chance, Mr Forrest, that your wife decided she wanted a little time away from it all?’ Plod says, his voice laced with sarcasm. ‘She may have gone to see a friend or—’
‘I told you, I called all her friends. None of them have heard from her.’
‘Is it possible there’s a friend you don’t know about?’
It’s the way he says friend. I want to punch his fucking lights out.
‘Are you trying to suggest my wife’s having an affair?’
‘I realize this is difficult . . .’
I shove my chair back from the table. ‘It’s not difficult, it’s bloody ridiculous, that’s what it is! Kate would never have an affair! She hasn’t got the fucking time apart from anything else! And even if she was screwing around, she’d never walk out on the kids. Something must have happened to her. It’s the only explanation.’
As I say it, the reality hits me. Kate isn’t the sort of wife who’d run away. She wouldn’t leave the kids, not without a good reason or a word of goodbye. It’s just not her style.
I lean over the table. ‘Something’s happened to her,’ I say again urgently. ‘You need to find her.’
‘We will, Mr Forrest,’ Plod says, his tone loaded with meaning. ‘Whatever’s happened to her, we will.’
Kate
‘Excuse me? Are you OK?’
I’m startled out of my reverie. All these Vatican statues and paintings and tapestries of the Madonna and child: no wonder it’s getting to me.
The girl beside me tentatively touches my arm. ‘Ma’am? Is everything all right?’
Ma’am? I suppose to a pretty girl of nineteen or twenty I do seem old.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘It’s just a bit warm in here.’
‘Would you like some water? Keir,’ she says, turning to the boy behind her, ‘we’ve got a spare bottle, haven’t we?’
‘Really, I’m quite all right—’
‘Please. It’s no trouble. You look terribly pale.’
I do feel a little giddy. I move to the deep stone window embrasure overlooking the Vatican courtyard and sit down. These apartments are terribly close. I don’t know how those medieval popes survived without air conditioning.
The girl’s boyfriend hands me a sweating bottle of spring water. I unscrew the cap and take a grateful swallow.
My two Samaritans regard me seriously as I drink, like anxious parents watching their baby feed. The girl is really very lovely, with clear blue eyes and honey-coloured hair rippling to her waist like a pre-Raphaelite maiden. A striped woollen messenger bag is slung across her chest, bisecting small high breasts, and her fringed skirt brushes the stone floor as she moves.
Her boyfriend isn’t in quite the same league. Older, perhaps mid-twenties, his look is very Celtic, all long red-blond hair, pale skin and high, razor-sharp cheekbones. It’s colouring that can be attractive in a woman, but I find it rather unappealing in a man. He’s not particularly tall, probably my height, but his tawny eyes are alight with energy and interest. A long narrow scar runs the length of his left jawline. I imagine it gives him quite a bit of trouble when he shaves.
I proffer the half-empty bottle, but the girl waves it away. ‘Keir’s got another one in his backpack.’
‘I’ve some trail mix, too,’ the boy volunteers. His voice has the trace of a soft Irish accent. ‘If you still feel a bit weird.’
I stand up, embarrassed by their concern. I must seem like a sad, menopausal old woman to them, despite the knock-off pink Converse trainers I bought in the village market yesterday and a new leather cuff bracelet. Agness would disown me.
The girl pulls out a leaflet and pores over it. ‘Keir, did you figure out where we are?’
‘Raphael’s rooms,’ he says vaguely.
‘This was Julius the Second’s library,’ I say. ‘It’s the first of the rooms Raphael decorated, and the frescoes here were almost entirely painted by him, rather than his team. They’re supposed to illustrate the three highest categories of the human spirit according to the neo-Platonic vision: truth, goodness and beauty –’
I break off, appalled. Listen to me. I’m turning into one of those women who rant to strangers on the bus.
‘Are you, like, a guide?’ the girl asks in confusion.
I gather my things. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please don’t let me hold you up any longer. I’m quite all right now.’
‘I’m Molly,’ the girl says suddenly, thrusting her hand forward. Slender silver bracelets chime the length of her tanned arm. ‘We totally do want you to interrupt. We didn’t get a proper guide book, which was dumb. I thought because Keir teaches archaeology, we wouldn’t need one, but he’s totally hopeless. We’ve got no idea what anything is.’
‘I do ruins,’ her boyfriend says mildly. ‘Stones. I know nothing about statues and paintings. I did tell you.’
‘I’m probably getting half of it wrong,’ I sigh.
‘That fresco,’ the boy says, pointing. ‘Do you know what it’s supposed to be?’
‘The Disputa,’ I say, turning. ‘The Disputation of the Sacrament. See, in the centre is Christ, between the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist. That’s God the Father above, and below there’s the dove representing the Holy Spirit.’ I glance at them, gauging their interest. Both are gazing raptly up at the fresco. ‘Those men on the right in the papal vestments are Gregory the Great and Sixtus the Fourth, and behind them is Dante. During the Sack of Rome in 1527, soldiers left graffiti on the fresco, one in praise of Luther, the other of Charles the Fifth.’
‘Can we follow you?’ Molly asks eagerly. ‘Can you tell us about everything?’
I feel a sharp pang. She reminds me so much of Agness. At least, the Agness I used to know.
‘Molly!’ Keir exclaims. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t – I’m sorry, we don’t know your name?’
‘Kate,’ I supply.
‘You can’t possibly want us trailing after you, Kate. It wouldn’t be fair.’
In other words, My girlfriend has got us into this and I need a way out.
‘Unless you’d like the company, of course,’ he adds.
His tone is unmistakably sincere. I have the feeling that this young man is not the sort to lie. Unlike my husband.
I smile. ‘Actually, I’d love some company. When you get bored, you can go off and do your own thing – I won’t take offence.’
‘We won’t get bored,’ Molly promises sweetly.
Shyly, I lead the way towards the Borgia apartments, and, with a little prompting, explain their turbulent and bloody history, surprised at how quickly it comes back to me. I’d have quite liked to be a teacher. When Julia stayed in Rome to pursue her painting, for a brief moment I was tempted to go back and join her and teach art history. But I’d met Ned by then, and there was Guy, and then very soon Agness. It was only ever a pipe-dream.
We emerge into a long vaulted gallery lined with dozens of marble busts – men and women, Caesars and anonymous Romans, an eerie audience frozen in time.
‘They were alive, once,’ Keir says, echoing my thoughts so precisely that I’m startled. ‘They lived and breathed and plotted and loved. We haven’t changed in thousands of years, have w
e? We still have the same desires and passions. The same fears.’
‘It’s not history,’ Molly says. ‘It’s people.’
The directed pedestrian flow around the museum finally leads us to its pièce de résistance, the Sistine Chapel. I watch Molly and Keir’s faces change as they enter the vast chamber through a small door behind the altar and behold Michelangelo’s masterpiece. These two are scarcely older than Agness and Guy. Why can’t it be like this with my own children?
Agness would rather cut out her tongue than ask you to explain a fresco, and Guy’s too wrapped up in his teenage angst. You’re living in a fantasy world if you think they’d ever be company for you.
Maybe things will change now. Maybe my absence will make them realize that they miss me, too.
Keir worms his way to the centre of the huddle of spectators craning their heads upwards and lies down among them on the marble floor. I smile. That’s exactly what I did the first time I saw it. I watch a museum guard shoulder his way through the crowd towards Keir. ‘Alzi! Alzi! Get up! Get up!’
‘Hey, I’m just looking . . .’
‘No talking! No pictures!’
‘OK, OK,’ Keir mutters, scrambling to his feet and brushing himself down. His pale skin blotches red with embarrassment. ‘Keep your hair on.’
The guard throws a final scowl our way and then bolts off to harangue a pair of Canadian tourists taking forbidden photographs.
I nod towards the vast fresco on the wall behind the altar. ‘The Last Judgement. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of it a thousand times.’
‘That’s Christ, right?’ Keir says, pointing to the figure in the centre. A worn friendship bracelet encircles his bony white wrist. ‘The Virgin next to him, and that’s Peter, with the keys. I’m guessing that’s Saint Catherine with the spiked wheel.’
‘Oh! Like the frework,’ Molly murmurs.
‘So who’s the guy with the fayed skin?’ Keir asks me.
‘Saint Bartholomew. Michelangelo painted him with his own face, like a kind of self-portrait.’
‘Very Hitchcock.’
I laugh. ‘Exactly.’
‘What’s your favourite movie?’ he asks.
‘Hitchcock? Lifeboat,’ I say instantly.
