by John Marrs
Each item brought with it a forgotten memory, like watching him unwrap a new jumper I’d bought for his birthday, or a shirt he’d worn to a party. I lifted the lapels of his brown corduroy jacket to my nose and found a vague trace of his Blue Stratos aftershave. Around my hand I wound the blue-striped tie he’d had on for his first appointment with the bank manager to ask for a business loan. I’d tied him a Windsor knot because his hands were shaking too much to do it himself.
I’d expected to break down in tears, but I felt warmth, not sadness. I was giving his clothes away, not him. The bags were spreading across the floor when the telephone rang.
‘Could I speak to Mr Simon Nicholson, please?’ a gruff male voice asked.
‘I’m afraid my husband has passed away,’ I said. ‘Who’s calling, please?’
‘My name is Jeff Yaxley. I’m a warden at Wormwood Scrubs prison in London.’ That piqued my curiosity.
‘Mr Nicholson’s father died a few months back and I have one of his possessions he asked us to send his son,’ he continued.
‘Arthur’s dead?’ I asked, shocked. ‘Sorry, did you say you were calling from a prison?’
‘Arthur? No, Kenneth Jagger. When Mr Nicholson visited him, he put down your address.’
‘I think you’ve got the wrong Simon Nicholson,’ I replied. ‘His dad is called Arthur and lives in the next village. And as far as I’m aware, Arthur’s never been to prison.’ A mental picture of the old coot behind bars made me smile.
‘Oh, there must have been a mix-up,’ he replied. ‘Sorry to have troubled you.’
‘Wait,’ I said quickly before he hung up. ‘So someone using my husband’s name and address visited this man in prison? When was this?’
‘Bear with me a minute,’ he said, and I heard the rustling of papers. ‘According to the visitor’s book, it was June eighth, four years ago.’
‘Well, that definitely couldn’t be Simon, because he went missing on June fourth.’
‘Missing?’
‘Yes, my husband disappeared that day and hasn’t been seen since. The case is still open but he’s presumed dead.’
I mulled it over but I couldn’t work out who might’ve pretended to be him.
‘What did this man Kenneth leave for him?’ I asked.
‘A watch.’
Suddenly the dim glow of a lightbulb emerged in my brain. I swallowed hard.
‘It’s a gold Rolex,’ he continued. ‘It feels quite heavy. Nice-looking piece . . .’ But by then I’d stopped listening. I felt a stabbing pain in my chest as his words bloomed like a drop of blood in a glass of water, staining everything.
I hung up, then raced up the stairs and back into the bedroom to face a square green box lying on a shelf at the back of the wardrobe. Inside should have been the watch from Simon’s mother: the only thing she’d ever given him, yet I’d never once seen him wear it.
I held the box in the palm of my hand and then stopped myself from opening it. If his watch was inside, someone had used his identity. If it was empty, it could only mean one thing: that Simon had taken it with him and that he’d left me on purpose.
‘Please, please, please,’ I whispered as the gold hinges creaked open. There was nothing inside.
No, you must have put it somewhere else, I thought. So I rooted around the rest of the wardrobe, but it was almost bare. I yanked all the folded clothes from inside the bin bags and rifled through each pocket. Nothing. I felt inside each pair of shoes to see if he’d put it there, then rummaged through the drawers of his bedside table. Every time I drew a blank I thought of somewhere else to look. I searched each nook and cranny of the house, even places I’d already hunted through when he first disappeared. Then I threw my trainers on and ran to see the one person who could put my mind at ease – Arthur.
Fifteen minutes later, I was at his front door, almost breathless from running.
‘Who is Kenneth Jagger?’ I gasped.
I prayed for him to plead ignorance. Instead, Arthur’s face immediately drained of all colour. Two things I was now sure of – that a man called Kenneth Jagger was Simon’s real father, and that my husband had planned to leave me.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he replied nervously and tried to close his front door. I stuck my foot out to block it.
‘Who is Kenneth Jagger?’ I repeated.
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. Now, please leave.’
‘You’re lying, Arthur, and I’m staying here until you tell me the truth. Or would you like me to involve Shirley in this?’
He soon surrendered when he saw my threat wasn’t an empty one.
‘I’ll meet you behind the garage in five minutes,’ he replied. He was there in two.
‘How do you know his name?’ Arthur demanded, keeping a deliberate distance from me.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I replied, unwilling to tell him it was likely Simon was still alive.
‘Has Kenneth been in touch?’
‘Not unless it was through a clairvoyant. He’s dead.’
Arthur looked relieved.
‘Well? Was he Simon’s father?’
‘No, I am,’ he snapped, then paused. ‘But Kenneth is, biologically.’
Arthur may have been a browbeaten, pathetic little man, but he wasn’t a liar. He reluctantly told me the story of meeting Doreen while she was pregnant, and how during her many absences, she’d often gone back to Kenneth.
‘And Simon knew all about this?’ I asked, amazed I’d not known.
‘Yes, but not until he went to visit her in London when he was thirteen. Kenneth was there and Simon found out who he was. It devastated him. Simon never saw him again.’
But I had proof he was wrong.
‘Now, what’s all this about?’ he added.
I hesitated. I could tell him everything I knew: Simon had upped and left of his own free will, and four days later went to visit that Jagger man in prison. But what would be the point? If he’d planned to come back, he’d have done it long ago. So I’d only be giving Arthur false hope. And once he told his wife Shirley, she’d inform Roger and old wounds that were still healing would be reopened, all to find a man who didn’t want to be found.
What on earth would I tell the kids? For four years I’d led them to believe their dad was dead – how was I supposed to explain I was wrong and that he’d left them? God only knows how much damage that could do. So all I told Arthur was that a prison warden had been trying to trace Kenneth’s next of kin after his death.
‘Catherine,’ he asked as I began to walk away, ‘how are the children?’
‘You lost the right to ask about them the moment you accused me of murder,’ I replied, and left him to wallow in guilt alone.
I was beyond angry and I needed to hurt Simon. I hurried home with my fists balled, furious at Simon’s gut-wrenching betrayal. Once inside, I grabbed a pair of scissors and tore into his clothes. Ribbons of material from every jumper, pair of trousers, T-shirt and jacket flew through the air and scattered around the room. I didn’t want anybody else to wear clothes stained by his lies.
Framed photographs of him I’d kept on the sideboard were hurled into bins. Any visible trace of my bastard husband was erased from the house there and then. Suddenly I remembered the pink rosebushes he’d planted for me by the kitchen window.
I ran to the garage, took the shears from a hook and hacked them to the ground. He’d planted them for me when I was at my lowest, and they’d become a place I’d visit when I needed comforting. He’d even ruined that.
When I finished, I sat on the lawn, too numb to blink, cry or be sick despite wanting to do all three. By the time everyone arrived home late in the afternoon, Simon was dead to me. Again.
‘Where have Dad’s pictures gone?’ frowned James, the first to notice.
‘They’re in the loft,’ I lied.
‘Why?’
‘Because I put them there,’ I replied sharply.
The kids looked at each oth
er, puzzled, but rightly sensed not to push me any further. Tom followed me upstairs to the bedroom.
‘What’s going on, Catherine?’ he asked. When I didn’t reply, he put his hand on my shoulder and tried to pull me towards him. I couldn’t even look him in the eye.
‘I’ve cleaned out the wardrobe. You can use it for your clothes if you like.’
‘What happened today?’
‘I woke up.’
Then I locked myself in the bathroom to try and put the roof back on my rage. It was only the second time I’d kept something from Tom – the first was something I’d never told a soul, not even Simon.
But Simon’s secret was far worse than mine.
Christmas Day
Tom and the children were fast asleep while I spent the early hours of Christmas morning in the attic, tearing up my wedding photographs.
I’d been struggling to get to sleep when I suddenly remembered where they were, and I couldn’t let Simon’s face remain in my house for even one more night. I didn’t look at any of them as I took them out of the albums and ripped them into pieces. By the time I finished, they surrounded my cold bare feet like confetti. I was too angry to go back to bed. I sat on the floorboards listening to the central heating gurgle, thinking about him again.
I was livid with myself for the time I’d wasted crying over him; worrying about him; making ‘missing’ posters; phoning hospitals; mourning him . . . It had all been for nothing. He’d simply run away.
While we’d left no stone unturned in our frantic search, he’d been on his way to London to visit a man he barely knew to give him his most treasured possession. His body wasn’t rotting in a ditch somewhere – it was very much alive and out there, away from us.
I wished he were dead.
I clenched my fists every time I thought what an idiot and a liar he’d made of me. I was embarrassed and humiliated. The only person who I might’ve possibly confided in was Paula, but I’d lost her too. And even then I don’t think she could’ve taken on that burden without telling Roger.
It was like someone had attached a valve to my heart, and any love I’d ever felt for Simon was leaking into the air like a foul-smelling gas. And, all the time, I kept returning to the same three-letter word: Why?
I knew one place on earth he’d gone after leaving us, to see his biological father in prison, but it threw up so many new questions, each more impossible to answer than the last. Where did he go after he saw Kenneth? Who else knew he wasn’t dead? How long had he dreamed of running away? Was it a spur-of-the-moment decision or part of a twisted plan to marry me, play the doting dad and then move on? Why had I never felt him slipping away?
Was he more like his mother than he’d let on? Like her, did he have other lovers scattered around the country? Where does someone go when they have no friends and no money? Did he regret it, but didn’t know how to come home?
Why, Simon? Why?
My frustration rang louder than the church bells would later that day. But the only thing I prayed for was that he was roaming the earth in an eternal state of wretched misery.
Because that’s exactly how he’d left me.
Northampton, twenty years earlier
11 April
There was nothing wrong with Tom: he was what most women would describe as Mr Right. But Simon had taught me even the right people can wrong you when you least expect it.
I hadn’t jumped into Simon and I’s marriage wearing rose-tinted glasses. I’d known, given our history with both sets of dysfunctional parents, that we’d be lucky to get through life without a bump or two in the road. And when we bickered, or when screaming kids made the house feel like a prison, it was normal to fantasise about running away.
But that’s precisely what it should have remained – a fantasy. Only he’d made it his reality. And my logic reasoned that if he, the man I’d loved and trusted since forever, could do that to me, then Tom, someone I’d only known five minutes in comparison, was going to do the same.
After finding out about Simon’s deceit, I took out my rage towards him on that poor innocent heart, without Tom ever understanding why. I’d watch him over dinner and wonder why someone so attractive, funny and caring would ever want to be saddled with a family that wasn’t his. Instead of feeling lucky or grateful and that I deserved him, I didn’t trust him.
I asked myself if I was just a stopgap until he found a younger, better-looking model who could give him kids of his own. Then I gave serious thought to having his baby. It was a man’s basic instinct to reproduce, and I was stopping him from doing that, even though he’d shown no inkling of wanting his own children. But having ours hadn’t stopped my husband from running away.
Besides, I had a business to run, and I knew I couldn’t deal with all the craziness and upheaval another child would bring. And that meant it was a given Tom would leave me. That’s what people I loved did. They left me. Mum, Dad, Billy, Simon, Paula . . .
So, before he had the chance to run, I spent months trying to drive him away. I had to be aware of his every move, winding myself up a treat over what he was doing if he wasn’t doing it with me. I rifled through the glovebox of his car hoping to find a pair of some other woman’s knickers. I flicked through his wallet for receipts from places he hadn’t told me he’d visited. I checked the suitcases he stored in his garage to see if they were packed in case he wanted to do a moonlight flit. One night, I even left the kids to sleep home alone while I stood behind a conifer outside his house waiting for female visitors.
But despite every sneaky, stupid way I tried to prove myself right, there was no evidence to suggest he was anything other than a decent, honest man. And that frustrated the hell out of me – if I’d missed traces of Simon’s unhappiness, I probably couldn’t see Tom’s either.
So I created arguments over nothing – missing groceries he’d forgotten to buy; not putting the bins out before they were collected; even how he wasn’t satisfying me in bed.
All the time I knew exactly what I was doing. I just couldn’t stop myself from tarring all men with Simon’s filthy brush. They say the quickest way to drive a dog mad is to stroke it then smack it.
But my dog just kept running back for more.
12 May
‘Let me move in,’ Tom asked suddenly.
‘What – why?’ I replied, confused that after all my goading, he’d still not cracked. Quite the opposite, it seemed.
‘I’m not stupid, Catherine. Something happened the day you threw Simon’s clothes away. And while you’re obviously not ready to tell me about it, I know you need to feel more secure about us. So let me prove to you I’m serious. I love you; I love the children. We’ve been together more than two years now, so let’s see where this takes us. Let me move in.’
I looked him in the eye, pushed him onto the bed and made love to him there and then, all the time knowing we were never going to last. All it did was extend the inevitable.
I went through the motions of pretending we were a family – trying to convince myself we might just work. But eventually my resentment towards Simon reared its ugly head again. I’d wake up in the night and stretch my arm across the bed to check Tom was still there. Once I shouted at him for not being next to me when all he’d done was go to the bathroom.
I gave him the silent treatment for the best part of a week when he came home from the pub later than usual. And when I found two phone numbers I didn’t recognise on my itemised bill, I refused to believe he wasn’t having an affair.
No matter how often Tom assured me he understood my unforgivable behaviour, Simon had already ruined any future we could’ve had together.
And six weeks after he came to live with us, I asked him to leave.
SIMON
Los Telaros, Mexico, twenty-one years earlier
13 April
The pool cue snapped in half as effortlessly as a toothpick when it made contact with the old man’s shoulders. He grunted as it thrust him forwards and he sprawle
d across the table.
His attacker, equally as drunk and elderly as his victim, swung one hundred and eighty degrees with the remaining half of the cue in his hand, and collapsed into a disorientated heap. His counterpart fumbled around the table for a ball to smack against his assailant’s head, but when he heaved it, one too many bourbons made him lose his grip and the ball nosedived a few feet across the room instead, barely nudging the skirting board.
Trying our best not to laugh at the clumsy fight before us, Miguel and I stepped in to lift the two drunken pensioners to their feet. Their arms spun aimlessly, like hurricane-damaged windmill sails, only making contact with the smoky air around them as they fought for the attention of the same prostitute.
‘They’re like this every time,’ explained Miguel as he pulled the frailer-looking of the two up from the floor where he’d just landed.
‘Aren’t they friends? I saw them arrive together,’ I asked, safely concealing the other behind me.
‘Friends? They’re father and son!’ he laughed. ‘They share the same taste in women. By the time you leave this whorehouse, there won’t be much of life you ain’t seen.’
I’d been drug-free and hitchhiking around Mexico for the best part of four months when I’d walked through the bordello’s doors for the first time. Many towns I’d blown through had their own whiskerias – brothels that sold much more than Wild Turkey in their back rooms. Their neon signs targeted long-haul truck drivers who wanted to take their minds off the endless roads ahead with female company.
But with its orange-tiled roof and black wrought-iron balconies scattered across the first-floor facade, this bordello in Los Telaros resembled a hotel. There was no signage or indication it was anything else. I hadn’t intended to look for work, and sex had been the last thing on my mind. All I’d required was something alcohol-based to quench my thirst and a place to rest my blistered feet.
Inside, porcelain lamps on smoked-glass tables discreetly illuminated purple walls. Glass chandeliers hung from wooden rafters above white leather sofas and a solitary reception desk. Scented candles masked cigar smoke with hints of sandalwood and vanilla. The crushed velvet curtains remained closed to prying eyes.
