His Other Life

by Beth Thomas

  Once I’ve decided to do it, actually doing it doesn’t seem quite so hard. Adam’s letters are still in my handbag, so I pull one out at random and open it. This one is from a power company, presumably the one that supplies the house in Maple Avenue. There’s a lot of information in there relating to the amount of each commodity that we use per year, and how much each unit costs in relation to the cost of it last year. At this point in my life, the relative cost of fuel compared to last year is simply not relevant. I skim over it and skip to the bottom line. It seems that the amount now owing is just under £150. I lay the letter down on the bed and open the next one. A similar thing, this one is all about some kind of insurance. Our policy is up for renewal next month and if we want another year of stress-free cover, all we have to do is nothing. Can’t help wondering why they’ve written in the first place. I lay that one down too, making a mental note to ask Dad to explain it to me. The final letter is from a company called Foyle’s Estate Management, and is telling Adam that the year’s tenancy is up, and does he want another year? If so, is he interested in saving five percent by paying the year’s rent in advance again, or would he like to break it down into twelve easy-to-manage instalments? I’m just about to toss it aside, assuming it’s to do with his business premises, when I catch sight of the address under agreement: 12 Maple Avenue. That’s our home. Was our home. So this letter relates to the rent of that place. I read it again, slightly more carefully. A twelve-month tenancy. Jesus. Is that all we had? No security, no permanence, just twelve months, year to year, with no guarantee that the landlord will extend at the end of that period. I close my eyes. More deceit, more surprises.

  ‘We’ll have the stability you want,’ Adam told me when we – or rather, he – decided to rent that place. ‘We’ll get a nice long lease, five years or something. The landlord will love us, he’ll never want us to leave. And after five years, we’ll buy somewhere.’ But instead of doing what he promised, Adam was renewing it every year, and apparently paying the year’s rent in one go. I scan through the letter and eventually find the bottom line again. The rent is £950 per month. I blink. So for a year, that’s … Can’t do it. I round up. That’s almost £12,000. In one payment? For three years in a row?

  I let the letter fall onto the bed and feel a kind of shivery, juddery sensation, like something is inside me trying to get out. I stand up and walk around the room for a few moments, but that just makes me feel like a caged tiger. I can’t keep still though, I’m so restless and twitchy, like Adam’s betrayal is clawing at my skin, inside and out, shredding me from both sides. I take a deep breath and it doesn’t occur to me what I’m about to do until the second before I do it. I fling my head back, open my mouth and … just about manage to stop myself from screaming at full volume, like an insane betrayed banshee. Jesus, that was close. If I’d done that, Mum might have had to cancel the caterers.

  I drop down onto the floor and do some deep breathing exercises I learned once at the single yoga class I’ve ever been to. At least, I think this is how to do it. Either way, I’m breathing deeply, which I know is calming, so it’s got to be good. I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the side of the bed, focusing on letting all my limbs get heavy and relaxed.

  Ten seconds later, I’m done. I open my eyes and scoot forwards to the safe. The key is still round my neck so I slip it off for the second time today and insert it smoothly into the lock. Without hesitating, I turn the little knob and pull the door open. It opens easily, as indeed it should, having been opened quite regularly over the past three years, no doubt.

  Inside there is a small green box with a slot in the top; and a bundle of papers. I pull it all out onto my lap.

  ‘What the fuck were you up to, you slippery toad?’ I whisper. ‘No, toads are warty, not slippery. You slippery eel. Slippery snake.’ I find myself smiling at that, and it feels good. He cheated and betrayed me, but I can still smile about it. Especially now I know it’s not him who’s dead. No one deserves to die. Except maybe Hitler. And Harold Shipman. Well, anyone who kills people, probably. But that’s it. I can learn to hate Adam, and make myself glad to be rid of him. But I’m relieved he didn’t die. He’s far too young to be over. What age was he, anyway? He was thirty when we met, and he’s had three birthdays. Distractedly I wonder if any of that is true. I’ve got no reason to think that it isn’t, but now I’m questioning everything. A complete U-turn for me. I finger the bundle of papers and feel with absolutely no doubt that the answers are all in there. I need to pull them open and read everything. Instead, I lay the papers down and turn my attention to the little box.

  It opens easily. Well, there’s no need to keep it locked, is there, when it’s kept hidden in a secret place, inside a locked, secret safe, that can only be opened with a secret key, which in turn is kept inside a locked drawer to which the secret key has been hidden. There’s precaution, and then there’s paranoia.

  Inside the box is a solid wad of fifty-pound notes, held together with two rubber bands.

  I close my eyes. ‘Adam. What a cliché.’ I pick it up and feel it in my hand. It’s quite heavy, and pleasingly tightly packed, like a small brick. I bounce it a bit in my hand and wonder how much is there. Five hundred? A thousand? I put it down carefully and turn back to the bundle of papers. Then I pick the money up again. I don’t have to leave it aside, like it’s Adam’s and shouldn’t be touched. This money is mine now! The thought gives me an exciting thrill and, for a second, images of gorgeous black leather boots and silver earrings fill my head. What I could do with a thousand pounds! Quickly now, I pull off the rubber bands and let the fifties separate from each other. They fall onto the floor and I spread them out around me like a game of cards. There are quite a lot here. I’m thinking it’s probably more than a thousand.

  Long before I’ve finished counting them, I find I’m amazed at how much money you can fit into a small bundle like that. When I reach ten thousand I pause. The neat pile to my left, now loosely stacked, is the ten thousand pounds I’ve already counted. In front of me on the floor are still at least another twenty notes. It’s a very strange feeling, looking at that much money. Considering what I could do with it. Suddenly becoming aware with absolute certainty that I’m not going to tell the police after all.

  Eventually, I place the final note on the stack. It now totals £13,350. Enough to pay that electricity bill. Enough to pay the rent on Maple Avenue for another year. Enough to go to Linton.

  I neaten the stack of fifties and bundle it up again with one of the rubber bands. I hesitate, then take ten notes out of the stack and put them back in the cashbox. I hide the remaining bundle in an old handbag shaped like a guitar that’s still on top of my childhood wardrobe. No one will ever look in there.

  The bundle of papers is much more disappointing. There is what looks at brief glance to be some kind of tenancy agreement, the main parties of which are someone called Ryan Moorfield and Mistvale Lettings. There are also a few bank statements for this Ryan, all of them showing a zero balance; and, perhaps most interestingly, Ryan’s birth certificate.

  I turn all these things over in my hands a few times, as if doing so will reveal their mysteries to me. But nothing comes. Ryan Moorfield must be somehow related to Ray – his son maybe? Unless it’s a massive coincidence that they have the same surname. That’s pretty unlikely though. The birth certificate shows that Ryan is two years younger than Adam, so the right age to be Ray’s son, his own step-brother. But why would Adam keep this stuff hidden away somewhere that he no doubt thought was inviolate? Somewhere that, in fact, was inviolate, until Ginger did a Ginger and drank too much wine. More to the point, why would Adam have this stuff at all?

  I don’t have time to think about it any more as I hear Mum calling me down. Quickly I stuff all the papers back into the safe, lock it up again and push it up against the wall. The key goes back on its chain around my neck. I don’t know why this stuff of Ryan’s is in there, or why Adam felt he had to keep
it secret, but I feel I need to do the same until I work it all out.

  At the bottom of the stairs I see Mum’s slippers disappearing speedily through the kitchen door. Standing at the open front door is the unreadable face of Linda Patterson. Immediately I remember I’ve got over twelve thousand pounds stashed in a silver guitar handbag upstairs, and I drop eye contact with her and start to look around me nervously and fidget with my clothing. No doubt my pupils are dilating and the moisture on my palms has increased by some minuscule – but evidential – amount. Thank God I’m not wired up to anything – I’d be in prison before you could say ‘Jeremy Kyle’.

  ‘Oh, hi Linda,’ I say lightly, giving her a wide, relaxed smile to hide my guilt. Too late I remember that I should probably be fretful and low after the brush with death earlier, and quickly try to rearrange my features into what I hope is the standard ‘my husband disappeared and I thought for a while that he was dead’ face. I’m not sure I hit it right because she widens her eyes and starts frowning. I recognise that expression – it’s her making-mental-notes face. ‘Is there more news?’ I say, to remind her that the reason I look like a mad person with confused emotions is because of my trip on the edge of dreadful I got just this morning.

  She nods. ‘Can I come in a minute?’

  She looks serious. A bud of anxiety starts to unfurl inside me, spreading out across my abdomen and reaching tendrils into my chest. This is going to be bad. Although I’ve had no news that another body has been found, so it can’t be that. Then what could be making her look like that? He has forty unpaid parking fines? He cheated on his income tax return? He lied about his age?

  ‘Sure.’ I step aside and she walks past me and goes into the kitchen. I close the door and follow her through. At the kitchen table, Mum and Dad are looking up guiltily from Dad’s laptop. Christ, Linda’s going to think they’re in on it, the expressions on their faces. Without looking away from Linda’s dark-clad form, Mum surreptitiously and slowly closes the laptop lid, and they then both pretend that it isn’t there at all. Mum stands up with a smile.

  ‘Oh, hello. Can I get you a cup of tea or something?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Linda says. ‘I just need to speak to Grace, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mum says magnanimously, as if she’s in charge of doling me out to people. ‘She’s right there.’

  Linda looks round at me, then back to Mum. They hold each other’s gaze in silence for a few seconds. ‘Alone?’ Linda says.

  ‘Oh. Right. OK. Come on, Jeff, off we go into the next room. I’m sure we can find something interesting to do in there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Linda says, apparently as skilled at ignoring sarcasm as Mum herself. She looks at me and smiles gently. ‘Come and sit down a minute, Grace.’ I do as I’m told, and Linda sits down in the chair next to me, then angles herself sideways so she is looking directly into my face.

  ‘I have some more information about Adam,’ she says in a low voice. She’s obviously going to break something horrible to me. I brace myself. No, I shouldn’t brace myself. I should just let myself be devastated by it, so she can see my reaction. ‘We got a lead, something significant. And … Well, we know – or rather, we think we know – where he is.’

  It’s what I’ve been waiting to hear. Longing to hear. Craving to hear. It seems so oddly quiet here in the kitchen for such a momentous announcement. Nothing explodes or crashes or lights up. There’s no drum roll or klaxon. No one cheers or gasps or sobs or pleads. The only sound is the washing machine, pausing for half a second, then rotating again.

  I nod. ‘Oh.’

  She blinks a couple of times. ‘Do you want to know?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ But do I? I frown, then realise I’m frowning and stop. But would I be frowning? Yes, I think I would. I frown again. ‘Actually, I’m not sure.’ She looks surprised, taken aback. God. ‘Yes, yes, that’s stupid.’ I shake my head. ‘Of course I want to know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Grace, it’s perfectly understandable that you’re in two minds about it.’

  Well, thank God for that.

  ‘No one is judging you.’

  I’m sure that’s not true. Someone’s always judging you, no matter what you do. Particularly when your husband’s missing and you’re a suspect.

  ‘You’re not a suspect.’

  She doesn’t say ‘any more’ but we both know it’s out there.

  ‘So,’ she goes on. ‘Obviously since Adam disappeared, we’ve been keeping an eye on any credit card or bank activity.’

  I nod wordlessly. Obviously they have. It makes perfect sense. But they don’t know what I know about Adam’s apparent penchant for cash transactions. I feel like I’m teetering. Any second now, words will come charging at me out of her mouth and slam into me and knock me over the edge.

  ‘Yes. It’s standard practice when dealing with a missing person.’ She leans towards me a bit and puts her hand on my arm. ‘We’ve just had notification this morning that his card’s been used.’

  A million images erupt and swarm in my head like a kicked hornets’ nest. Adam swiping his card for petrol; Adam drawing out cash for milk and bread; Adam buying a new jacket, a pair of sunglasses, a newspaper. In all these images he’s living a normal life, doing normal things, in a normal way. The final image that I’m left with, the one that burns onto the backs of my eyes like a bright window, is Adam calmly strolling along some unfamiliar pavement in the sunshine somewhere, whistling, completely oblivious, or indifferent, or both, to the distress he’s causing everyone.

  Linda’s still watching me. I haul myself back into my parents’ kitchen and focus on her. She nods. ‘Grace, he bought a ticket for a flight leaving this morning. To Ecuador.’

  THIRTEEN

  She braces. She takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes. She opens them again. She leans forward. She searches my face. She’s being so melodramatic about it, I want to shove her off the chair.

  I don’t, though. Of course I don’t. After a few moments, I move my hands off my mouth, wipe my face and eyes, and nod. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  I think about that a moment, and consider this new information. Has Adam returned? No. Has he still left me voluntarily? Yes. Does the fact that he’s in some far-flung country (I mean, Ecuador, who’s ever heard of that? I don’t even know where it is) make even the slightest change to my circumstances? No. I still don’t know where he is. I look up at Linda. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sure?’

  I nod again. ‘I’m sure. I mean, it doesn’t change anything, does it?’

  ‘Well, it points to him still being alive. That’s good news, isn’t it?’

  My investment in the well-being or otherwise of my itinerant husband is decreasing in direct proportion to the increasing amount of information I learn about him. ‘Oh, yes, yes, absolutely. Very good news.’ I’m aware, of course, that my reaction is probably not what it should be in these circumstances, but to be honest my relationship with my husband was probably not what it should have been.

  ‘Does he know anyone in Ecuador?’ Linda asks gently, and it makes me want to send her skidding across the kitchen tiles on all fours. She’d bang into the fridge and eventually come to rest, then turn her head round to stare at me over her shoulder and her frown and downturned mouth would say, Whatcha do that for? ‘Grace?’

  For a second I think she’s actually asking me. I blink and the image of her on the floor dissolves. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Adam – do you know if he knows anyone in Ecuador? Or elsewhere in South America, perhaps?’

  Oh, South America. Right.

  ‘You really are very ignorant, you know,’ Adam’s voice says in my head. ‘For a woman of your age.’

  Ignorant. Yes, that is very true. That is me. I don’t know where Ecuador is. And I don’t understand the conflict in the Middle East. And I didn’t notice the fact that my husband was secretly making comprehensive and detailed plans to leave me, and t
he country, and, it turns out, the continent, at top speed. Was that mysterious text he got last week something to do with his travel plans? Was the airline requesting his in-flight meal choice? Did he get a weather update on his destination? Was he doing his online check-in? How can I not have noticed?

  That said, I have seen stories on Channel Four of people who successfully hide an addiction to sofa cushions for years, despite the dwindling size of the soft furnishings. ‘Does this sofa seem a bit smaller to you, Mary?’ ‘No, Douglas, same as usual.’ And Douglas nods and says no more because the alternative, that his wife of twenty years is slowly consuming the sofa, is unimaginable. Like me, Douglas doesn’t notice what’s going on because he chooses not to. Is that the same for everyone then, or just simpletons like Douglas and me?

  Christ, I don’t know. More mysteries. More answers conspicuous by their absence. Much like Adam himself.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Grace?’ Linda asks me softly, her face all pinched concern and – internally I roll my eyes – pity. I stare at her and realise – perhaps too late, perhaps at exactly the right time – that she’s recoiling from my stare. Oops. I guess my look was more withering than I meant it to be. Or maybe it was exactly the right amount of withering.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  She smiles, then stands up. ‘Good. I’ll let you know anything else we find out as soon as we do.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She stares down at me in silence for a moment. Is she expecting more? She won’t get more. There is no more. ‘Well, as you’re here with your family, I’ll leave you to absorb that information. It’s a lot to take in, I know.’

  I shake my head. ‘No, no it isn’t. I got it. I’m fine.’

  She widens her eyes. Mental note-taking. But who cares? As if I needed it, here is yet more proof that my marriage was a sham. It was all pretend, every last second of it, from the moment I walked into his office to the moment his feet hit the tarmac. A complete fabrication. But was it his concept, or mine? The creative part of my brain, the right-hand side, convinced me I was marrying a nice, handsome, clean-cut, articulate, educated and successful businessman. My left brain, the analytical side, has probably shrivelled up and atrophied by now. It probably looks like the months-old avocado Mum found at the bottom of the fridge years ago. Except slightly less useful. If it had been doing the one job it’s there to do, it would have noticed that what I was actually getting was an evasive, opinionated, judgemental prick with a flair for the dramatic and a killer case of wanderlust.