Gone Without a Trace

by Mary Torjussen

  That afternoon, I knocked at their door, my stomach tied up in knots. I knew I would have to tell them that Matt had gone. I hated to think of anyone feeling sorry for me.

  As usual, I saw Sheila’s shadow through the frosted glass, saw the shake of her head as she brushed her hair. No lipstick needed for me, clearly.

  ‘Oh hello, Hannah,’ she beamed. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages. Come on in. I’m just about to put the kettle on. Fancy a cuppa?’

  I followed her into her interrogation room.

  We sat in the kitchen, overlooking the garden, a perfect picture of early summer. Flowers crowded the beds, spilling out on to the lush lawn, and plants tumbled out of the hanging baskets she’d hung from hooks on the fence.

  ‘I was going to come round to see you, actually,’ she said as she put out a plate of moist, sweaty Battenberg cake. My stomach gave a slight heave and I winced, hoping the sickness wasn’t going to start again.

  ‘Nothing for me, thanks,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Dieting?’ She smiled. ‘No need for that! You’ve gone quite thin.’

  ‘No, I just won’t want any lunch if I eat now.’ Particularly if I eat that.

  ‘How’s Matt? I haven’t seen him around for ages. Ray and I were only saying the other day that he seems to be working away a lot.’

  ‘He’s left me,’ I said, and despite myself I couldn’t help sounding forlorn.

  ‘What?’ She sat up in alarm. ‘Ray! Ray!’

  Ray came racing into the room as though he was going to have to rescue her from harm. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Matt’s left Hannah,’ she said, as though it was the most exciting thing she’d heard for a long time. It probably was. I felt a pulse in my temple throb as I thought of Katie and James, Sam and Grace – or whoever he was friends with – and now Sheila and Ray enjoying my trauma just as if it was a soap opera. Entertainment. As though it didn’t really matter.

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Oh yes, when did he leave? Sorry . . .’ she turned to Ray, ‘I forgot to ask.’

  He tutted and sat down at the table with us. I half expected him to get out a clipboard, and wondered for a moment whether they kept notes like I did to monitor the activities of the street. They both looked at me, bright and expectant. This is better than the telly, I could see them thinking, and the pulse in my temple beat harder.

  ‘A couple of months ago,’ I said. Actually, it was fifty days ago, but it was easier to round up.

  ‘What?’

  They exchanged disbelieving glances. How had this escaped their notice? Momentarily, manners constrained them from asking why he’d gone, then they threw caution to the wind.

  ‘Oh darling,’ Sheila crooned, stroking my arm. ‘That’s such bad news. We did like Matt. What happened? Did you have a row?’

  Ray blustered, ‘Nothing wrong with having a row occasionally. We all do it. Not that we ever heard you or anything . . .’

  I flushed. I was sure he had heard us sometimes; those walls weren’t that thick.

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I came home and he’d gone. Taken everything with him.’

  Their eyes boggled and I could see them both thinking, How on earth did we miss that?

  ‘You were away,’ I said. ‘Remember when you went to your daughter’s in Devon for a long weekend? You went Thursday to Monday, didn’t you? Well, he left on the Friday.’

  ‘The sly bastard!’ burst out of Ray.

  ‘But . . .’ said Sheila, ‘wasn’t that the Friday you went to Oxford? I remember telling our Rebecca about it.’

  ‘Yep. I came home and he’d gone.’

  She clutched her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my goodness. You poor thing! If only we’d been here for you.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s OK. It’s just . . . well, I wanted to ask you . . .’

  They leaned forward eagerly. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Have you seen him around?’

  They looked at each other and it was obvious their minds were whirring.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen him for months,’ said Ray. ‘Not since he helped me change that tyre.’

  ‘That was before we went away, remember? I don’t know . . .’ mused Sheila. ‘I think it was just before we went to Rebecca’s, but I can’t remember when.’

  ‘I think I know when it was.’ Ray turned to her. ‘You told me you’d seen him in B and Q.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘I had to pick up another pot of paint for the spare room. We’d run out and—’

  ‘When was this?’ I cut in. ‘The weekend before he left, do you mean? Do you remember which day? The time?’

  ‘It was Saturday morning,’ she said promptly. ‘The Saturday before we went away. It was ten o’clock. Maybe a few minutes before. We’d just done our Tesco shop and we were on our way home. Ray went to Halfords while I nipped in.’

  ‘Brake fluid,’ said Ray.

  I stared at him blankly.

  ‘I bought some brake fluid in Halfords,’ he said as though I was stupid.

  I shook my head and thought back to that morning. Matt had gone to Tesco for a newspaper and croissants. He’d been a bit longer than I’d expected, but he’d told me there were crowds of people there. Tesco and B&Q were less than half a mile apart on the same road.

  ‘Could you see what he’d bought?’ I asked. I couldn’t think of anything we’d needed from B&Q.

  ‘Boxes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, those big plastic boxes with lids that you store things in. He had loads of them. Two trolleys full.’

  I stared at her. I had one of those under my bed with all the house details in it. I’d had it since I was at university and it was the only one in the house.

  ‘That’s why I noticed him, you see,’ she went on. ‘He was across the other side of the store to me and he had two trolleys. He was trying to push them both, but he was on the phone at the same time, so they kept rolling away. I heard him laughing first, actually, then I looked up and saw him.’

  ‘Laughing?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘He was on his mobile, chatting to someone. And the trolleys were rolling away and he was laughing.’

  ‘And he didn’t see you?’

  ‘No. I was at the till and he was walking around. He didn’t see me.’

  I stood up, unable to bear their sympathetic glances any longer. I knew they would want me to go through the nitty-gritty with them, and they looked really disappointed when they realised I was leaving.

  ‘And you haven’t seen him since?’ I asked. ‘In the last few days in particular? You haven’t seen him come to the house?’

  They looked startled.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen him at all since then,’ said Sheila.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Ray. ‘Though I’ll have a damned good word with him if I do.’ He puffed his chest out. ‘Leaving a young woman like that. It’s a disgrace!’

  ‘Have you asked the new neighbours?’ asked Sheila. ‘The ones on the other side?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t know them. I’ve hardly seen them.’

  ‘And you want to give a good impression,’ said Sheila. ‘You don’t want them to think there’s something up with you, do you?’

  Smarting with hurt pride, I moved towards the door.

  ‘I’ll show you out,’ said Ray. He walked just that bit too close behind me as I left. I could almost feel his breath on my neck, and when he touched the small of my back, I shrank away from him.

  I turned the handle on the front door to open it, but he put his hand over mine, blocking my path. ‘Just let me know if you want anything.’ His voice was low, and I knew he didn’t want Sheila to hear him. ‘Anything at all, I’m your man.’

  I had a horrible feeling he was about to hug me. Quickly I pulled my hand away and opened the door. I glanced back and saw Sheila standing behind him. I don’t know how long she’d been there. She was staring at me and I flushed, thinking she’d realised I
found him repulsive. As I hurried from their house, I just knew they were standing in the doorway looking at me. I hunched my shoulders, bent my head and ran the last few steps.

  Back in my own house, I could no longer smell the cologne that Matt wore. I didn’t know whether it had dissipated or whether it had been nothing but a figment of my imagination. In my kitchen, knowing that Sheila and Ray were just yards away dissecting this new gossip, I picked up my notes and my pen and began to write.

  33

  That afternoon, I lay on my bed for hours, thinking about the day that Sheila had seen Matt.

  He’d woken just before me and I’d heard him in the shower with the radio on low. It seemed ages since he’d stayed in bed on a Saturday morning to see what happened, and that morning was no exception. He came out of the bathroom already dressed – another change – and said he was off to get the newspaper. I asked him to pick up croissants and he was quite happy, in a good mood really, shouting goodbye as he left the house. I’d stayed in bed a bit longer then got up and showered too.

  I’d noticed it was a while before he came back but didn’t think anything of it. He’d been carrying a bag of food, looking just the same as normal. I closed my eyes and tried to think whether he’d brought anything else into the house, but I knew he hadn’t. I’d vacuumed the hallway and living room by the time he returned, and there was no room in either place to put anything like those big plastic boxes without my noticing. I’d been in the hallway when he got back, now that I thought about it. He must have expected me to be in the kitchen, because he’d started a little as he came through the door, but gave me a smile and said, ‘Sorry! Have you been waiting long?’ before passing me the bag.

  I tried to think whether I’d seen inside the boot of his car that weekend, but I knew I hadn’t. Why would I? The only time I would do that was if we were going on a trip somewhere. He often had stuff in the boot from work: his hi-vis jacket, his helmet and so on that he needed when he went on building sites. We didn’t tend to drive each other’s cars, though we were both insured to. I assumed that had changed now, and made a mental note to write it on my notes in the kitchen so that I’d remember to call the insurers.

  So on that day we’d had breakfast and read the papers and talked a little about the news, and then we’d cleaned the house and he’d taken each of the cars in turn to the car wash in the afternoon and gone to the gym, while I went to get my hair cut and highlighted, ready for the meeting in Oxford the following week. It had been a typical Saturday.

  And then it was as though the fog in my head cleared and I thought, Who was he talking to when he was in the shop?

  I sat up on the bed. Sheila had said he was laughing and chatting on the phone. Now Matt’s one of those guys who, if a friend rang to ask him down to the pub, the conversation would last less than a minute and consist of ‘Where? What time? I’ll see what she says’ and that would be it. He’d be friendly enough, but there was never much laughing involved, nor any chat.

  The only time I’d known him to laugh and chat on the phone was when he’d first met me.

  I knew then that he’d been talking to a woman. Talking and chatting and laughing with another woman.

  Within a week he’d gone.

  Then I remembered something. I’d seen him in Chester. Even though I’d only caught sight of his back as he’d walked amongst the crowd at the station, I was sure it was him.

  My heart sank. Ruby was from Chester.

  Ruby, the woman who’d apparently broken Matt’s heart, the woman he loved before he met me, lived in Chester. I’d just seen Matt there. How could that be a coincidence? How could I not have thought of her the moment I saw him at the station?

  I grabbed my iPad and started to search for her. Ruby Taylor. Even her name made my stomach tighten.

  One day, after I’d been with Matt for a few months, he was home with me for the weekend and we’d called in to see his mum on the Sunday afternoon. She’d asked him to come and help her with something in the garden, and I was sitting in the living room, bored rigid, while he helped her. I didn’t need to be with him; I was just still at the stage where I couldn’t bear to be apart from him. It was a job for two people and it was cold and windy outside, so I wandered around Olivia’s house looking for something to do.

  There were some photo albums on her bookcase and I took them out to have a look. Most were photos of Matt as a child. My heart melted as I saw him as a baby, a toddler, starting school and then older, as a teenager. There was one in particular that I loved. He was about five years old and on a swing in a park in winter; he had a little red duffle coat on that matched his rosy cheeks, and on his face was an expression of pure happiness. I took it from the album to ask Olivia whether I could get a copy made, and carried on looking, past his football training at high school to his graduation photos.

  Towards the back of the album there were some loose photos. They were of a girl about my age, maybe a bit younger. She had long dark hair, just as I had, but hers did as it was told and curled gracefully around her head. She was taller than I was, slimmer than I was, more vivid, more alive. There were photos of her on the beach, on the London Eye, skiing. I stared down at them. I had no idea who she was. Matt had mentioned girlfriends before, obviously; we’d told each other a little bit about our past partners when we first met. I didn’t know whether she was one of them; I hadn’t seen any of their photos.

  Olivia came in then, her hair windswept and her cheeks scarlet from the cold.

  ‘Oh, you’re looking at the photos!’

  I asked whether I could have a copy of the photo of Matt on the swing, and she said she’d be happy to get it done herself. She did, too, and I’d had it framed and put it on the windowsill in the living room. Of course he took it with him when he left me.

  She’d stroked the photo. ‘He was a gorgeous boy,’ she said.

  He waved at us through the window.

  ‘He still is,’ I said loyally. He was, too, with his dark blond hair and brown eyes. Just one smile from him and I was lost.

  ‘What are those you have there?’ She took the loose photos from my hand. ‘Oh,’ she said, her voice softening, ‘Ruby.’

  ‘Ruby?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, Ruby Taylor. She’s an old girlfriend of Matt’s. She was a beautiful girl.’

  She was. Everything about her was striking.

  ‘You remind me of her, actually,’ she said. ‘It was quite a shock when I saw you.’

  I looked back at the photograph. Although there was a superficial resemblance, I knew that I looked like a sepia version of the girl there. ‘I don’t recognise her name,’ I said, forcing myself to sound casual. ‘Was she someone Matt knew from work?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘She was from Chester; I think they met in Liverpool on a night out. He went out with her for a few months last summer. He used to come up from London to see her at the weekends. She finished with him the day before he went on holiday. I was really shocked; I thought it was going to last.’ She looked at me then, smiling guilelessly. ‘But then of course he met you, and he’s never been happier!’

  She went back outside and carried on working alongside Matt. I stood up, the photos in my hand, and looked out at them in the garden. It was as though a piece had fitted into a jigsaw and now I could see the whole picture clearly. I’d wondered why Matt hadn’t been as enthusiastic as his friends when I’d seen him at the airport. They were in high spirits and I’d thought he must be tired, he looked so low. He must have been heartbroken when she dumped him. I looked down at the photo. Anyone would be. And that holiday, he and I had talked and laughed and relaxed together and he hadn’t said a word about Ruby. He hadn’t even hesitated on the plane when I’d asked whether he was single, yet she’d ended the relationship just the day before.

  I put the photos back in the album and turned to the last page. One picture was face down, sticking to the inside cover of the album. Slowly I peeled it off. I thought I knew what it wou
ld be.

  Matt and Ruby were sitting together on the sofa that I was sitting on at that moment. She was smiling up at him, and in her profile shot I could see her little straight nose, her curling eyelashes, and lips that were so luscious even I would want to kiss them. Matt was looking down at her, his hand stroking her hair, and his face was just suffused with love.

  I closed my eyes.

  Olivia must have taken that photo. She must have seen the way he looked at Ruby, and now she’d seen the way he looked at me.

  It wasn’t the same.

  I slid that photo into my bag and returned the albums to the shelf. When Matt went back to London the next day, I took it into the garden and burned it, before sweeping up the ashes and burying them in the garden rubbish. It was no use. Even now I can remember the way he looked at her, remember the calm confidence on her face that he loved her beyond all others.

  And then she’d dumped him.

  My memories of that holiday in Corfu were tarnished then. I’d seen it as serendipity, our meeting like that. Now when I thought of our first glance, our first kiss, I wondered whether he’d felt unfaithful to Ruby, or wished I was her.

  And I thought that no matter how long you’ve known someone, you never truly know them.

  I never knew what had happened to Ruby after she and Matt broke up. I never mentioned her name to him. I couldn’t have stood to hear him talk about her. They hadn’t been living together, though according to Olivia, Matt would spend every weekend at Ruby’s home in Chester. It didn’t go unnoticed by me that I was the one to travel to see him, while he’d come up here to see Ruby. I loved my weekends away and tried not to let Ruby taint them, but still, week after week I would arrive at Euston exhausted and anxious in case Matt wasn’t there. Then I’d see him jockeying for position at the gate and my heart would pound. I’d see his smile, see him push past someone to rush towards me, and I’d feel faint with relief.