The Missing Wife

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  And for a moment today, Imogen had felt entitled too. When she’d opened the door of the house and stepped inside, it had been homely and familiar. Even though it couldn’t have been, because, as she reminded herself for the umpteenth time, she’d only lived there for four bloody years and she couldn’t possibly say that those years were better or more important or more memorable than the subsequent ones with Agnes and Berthe or Keith and Cheyenne and Paula. Yet there had been something defining about her time there, and the manner in which they’d left. Nevertheless, she had to remember what her mother had forgotten. That it hadn’t been home. That it never would have been. That the Delissandes lived a different sort of life to the one she and Carol lived. That they were nothing to her and she was nothing to them. After today, perhaps, not even their cleaner!

  On the plus side of the day’s terror, though, was that despite her fear that Vince might have found her, he hadn’t. She’d left no clues behind. Nor had she accidentally betrayed herself to Shona. As for Cheyenne, she was confident that her stepsister would never help him find her. Which meant that she was safe in Hendaye and could stay here for as long as she wanted without looking over her shoulder.

  After that … well, she’d have to think of something. But at least that something wouldn’t involve Vince Naughton. Or the Delissandes. It would be her. Alone. Which was the way she wanted it to be from now on.

  Chapter 24

  It took Vince longer than he’d expected to organise the time off for his trip, but by the end of the following week, he was on a flight to Paris. He had a checklist of things he intended to do to find Imogen, starting with the hotel where she’d stayed and where (despite the expense) he’d booked a room too. However, he was pretty certain that any success at the hotel would simply point him in the right direction, which he believed was Provence. Unless he learned anything to the contrary, he planned to journey from Paris to Marseille within a day or two.

  There he would look for the Maison Lavande and anyone who remembered Agnes, Berthe or Carol. The difficulty was that despite an intensive search, he hadn’t been able to find a website for the guest house, but it was entirely possible that it had been sold or changed its name over the past few years. He planned to try to track down anyone called Fournier in the area, in the hope that they’d know the history of the Maison Lavande and its owners. He knew it seemed like a long shot, but it wasn’t entirely impossible. He was quietly confident of his ability to find Imogen.

  He ran through his plans again sitting in the taxi from the airport to the hotel while he watched the tourists who thronged the Parisian streets, camera phones snapping everything around them. He had to admit that there was an undoubted elegance to the French capital, a feeling that the buildings had been erected to enhance the city rather than for mere function. Imogen had said something similar when he’d brought her here for their romantic break. He’d been at a disadvantage in not understanding the language, but he hadn’t let her deal with any of the people they met, and had insisted on talking to the hotel staff in English. Which hadn’t been a problem because (as he’d expected) they all had perfectly adequate English, although they spoke in what he considered to be a condescendingly arrogant way. At least they did until Imogen suddenly burst into a torrent of French with lots of s’il vous plaîts and mercis. Even though her intervention had sorted out the minor problem with the room he’d been complaining about, he’d been annoyed with her and had told her not to undermine him that way again. She’d shrugged and said that it made sense for her to talk to them in French and he’d retorted that there was no need for them to be rude no matter what damn language they were speaking in.

  He was right about the rudeness, he thought as he took his bag from the taxi driver outside the hotel. The man merely pointed at the meter to show him the fare and acknowledged the tip with a grunt before getting out of the cab and retrieving Vince’s wheelie bag from the boot. Vince extended the handle of the bag and walked into the marble foyer of the hotel. He checked in, got his key and went up to the room (at no time requiring assistance from anyone who spoke French. Which, he reckoned, proved his point).

  For a company on the verge of bankruptcy, Chandon Leclerc had looked after its employees pretty well, he thought as he surveyed the room. Enormous bed, modern fittings, bottled water, a Nespresso machine – and a half-bottle of red wine on the dresser too. The red wine wasn’t complimentary, he realised on further inspection. Drinking it would add €30 to his bill. He wondered if Imogen had indulged in wine in her room before embarking on her ridiculous adventure. Being drunk might explain her behaviour. At least it might explain her thinking about it, though not her decision to actually do it.

  He left the room and went downstairs to the hotel bar, where the prices were so extortionately high he decided to look elsewhere for a drink. Although he would have preferred to relax in a decent pub, he eventually sat down at a pavement café, where he ordered a Stella and allowed the cool beer to soothe his frayed temper. After he’d finished it and ordered another, he took out his phone and checked for text messages. He’d called around to Shona’s house the previous day and told her of his plans, but she’d been less enthusiastic than he’d expected.

  ‘Why don’t you wait until she contacts you herself?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure she will sooner or later.’

  ‘Because she’s my wife,’ said Vince.

  ‘You won’t find her if she doesn’t want to be found.’

  Something in her voice made him pause. When he spoke again, his own voice was harder.

  ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You’d tell me if you knew, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Has she been in touch with you?’ demanded Vince. ‘Has she?’

  ‘No.’ Shona looked Vince straight in the eye, hoping that her guilt wasn’t written all over her face. ‘But listen to me, Vince. You shouldn’t go looking for her. She’ll come home when she’s ready.’

  ‘Why are you suddenly on her side?’ asked Vince. ‘She abandoned you too, remember?’

  ‘It’s not that!’ cried Shona. ‘It’s just … well … I don’t think this is necessarily the best way to go about things.’

  ‘Perhaps you should come with me,’ said Vince. ‘She might be more inclined to speak to you.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Shona.

  ‘She hasn’t been well,’ he continued. ‘I know you’re sceptical, but she’s been unstable for a while. This running-away lark isn’t a lone event. It’s part of a pattern. So if you do have any thoughts, any information, anything at all, you’ve got to tell me. You won’t help her by keeping secrets.’

  ‘What sort of a pattern?’

  ‘Putting things away in the wrong place,’ said Vince. ‘Buying the wrong groceries. Not calling me when she says she will. It doesn’t sound much, but it makes me worry about her.’

  Shona exhaled slowly. ‘If I hear from her, I’ll let you know,’ she said.

  ‘It’s for her own good,’ Vince told her as he stood up. ‘Everything I do for her is for her own good. You have my number. If she gets in touch with you at all, text me.’

  She closed the door behind him and leaned her head against the wall. Not saying something about Imogen’s phone call had been difficult, especially as Vince had sounded truly concerned about her. Maybe Imogen really was having a breakdown. Maybe she needed medical help. She’d sounded OK, Shona thought, but how could she be sure of that? So if Imogen rang again, she’d tell Vince. He was a responsible kind of guy, after all. She felt a sense of relief at having made a decision, even though she still wasn’t sure it was the right one.

  Later that evening, she sent an email to Imogen’s new email address.

  … I didn’t tell him we’d spoken and he doesn’t know where you are. He’s staying in the hotel in Paris where you stayed. He’s going to look for you there but I think he feels that Provence is the place to go. Is that where you are? O
h Imogen, I don’t know what’s best. You sounded OK on the phone, but are you really? Should you be seeing a doctor? I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Vince over the last couple of weeks and he can be a bit overwhelming, but is it really as bad as you say? Can’t you at least see him? Talk things through? He’ll hardly drag you back kicking and screaming after all. It’s not the eighteenth century. You know I’m a hundred per cent behind you, but are you going about this the wrong way? Call me.

  Chapter 25

  Imogen was still wary every time she opened her email account, but she smiled when she saw the one from Cheyenne.

  From: Cheyenne@firstmail.com

  To: Vanished@mymail.com

  Subject: It’s me

  You don’t sound paranoid at all. I always thought you were far too good for him! I’m glad you left though obviously sorry that you’ve gone through a hard time and feel you have to hide away. But I understand. And don’t forget you can come and stay with me any time you want. If there’s anything you need me to do, let me know that too. I could tell him you’ve gone to New Zealand or something!!! Send him off on the wrong track!!!! Whatever.

  Take care of yourself. Keep in touch.

  Cxx

  It was an appealing idea to have Cheyenne call Vince and say she was living in Auckland, thought Imogen. But it was unlikely he’d fall for it.

  She scrolled down to Shona’s email and her chest tightened as beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. So he was definitely coming to France. Well, that wasn’t such a surprise. She’d always thought he would. She’d expected him to go to Paris and check the hotel. She’d expected him to go to Provence too. But even if he found the Maison Lavande, there was nothing and nobody there to point him in her direction now. She was safe. There was no need to panic. France was a big country with a population of around sixty-six million people. He wouldn’t find her. She repeated the number a few times times to convince herself. Sixty-six million. She was a needle in a haystack. She knew that she herself wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to get in touch with some of the people she’d known when she was studying in Paris. So what chance had Vince, especially when he didn’t speak the language?

  Knowing that he’d come after her had been part of the Plan, Imogen reminded herself. She wasn’t going to obsess about it. He wouldn’t find her. She was safe. She had a job to do. She didn’t have time to sit around like a frightened rabbit.

  And today was a busy day of house cleaning, which included the Villa Martine. All through the week, as she’d cleaned and polished and brought order to the chaos of the other houses, she’d thought about having to go back there again. The Delissandes brothers hadn’t been in touch with René to request a different cleaner as she’d feared they might. Although she was beginning to regret not having told her boss about her childhood years in Hendaye, she still hadn’t put him in the picture. It wasn’t anything to do with him, after all.

  When she finally arrived at the house that afternoon, she hesitated before ringing the bell. There was no reply, so she input the code and pushed the bike through the pedestrian gate. It was clear that the family had gone out, and she was relieved and disappointed in equal measure.

  It was strange, she thought, as she started off with the upstairs rooms, that a time that had seemed so special to her was totally trivial to them. The manner of her leaving had been a massive wrench in her life, but it meant nothing to Monsieur, Madame or the boys. They carried on regardless. They came back every year as they’d always done. They went to the beach, played their sports, did their own thing and never needed to think about Carol or Imogen. And now the boys were coming on their own, one of them at least with a wife or girlfriend and a child, making new memories, continually moving on. Which was how it should be.

  The bedrooms were surprisingly tidy, and she was able to do them quickly before moving to the bathrooms. She was puzzled to see no personal items in the en suite apart from a squeezed tube of toothpaste sitting on the shelf above the sink. However, there were significantly more toiletries in the main bathroom, where bottles of shaving foam and expensive aftershave vied for space with a selection of men’s moisturisers. She studied them with interest. Vince wasn’t into the whole male metrosexual thing – he wouldn’t dream of moisturising, and although he splashed his face with aftershave, he was ambivalent about the brand. But the Delissandes appeared to like their luxury. Two bottles of Guerlain’s L’Instant were placed beside Dior Homme and a Thierry Mugler fragrance, while the moisturisers were Clinique and Moosehead.

  She wondered whether it was Oliver or Charles who was married. It was hard to picture either of them as a married man with a child when all she could remember was them chasing her on the beach and playing football in the garden.

  But I’m a married woman, she reminded herself, glancing at the bare finger on her left hand. And eventually I’ll be a divorced woman. Which surely puts me into the properly grown-up category by now.

  When she’d finished with the bathrooms, she moved downstairs again. She dealt with each room quickly and efficiently and was putting away her equipment when a sudden insistent beeping from the utility area caught her attention. She walked in and saw that the washing machine had completed a cycle. They’d obviously decided to start doing their own laundry now that they were here for a while, she thought, as she peered through the door. She supposed she could hang it up for them.

  The wash load was mainly bedlinen and towels. Imogen piled it all into the plastic laundry basket beside the machine and then carried it outside. As she pegged the sheets to the line, a waft of lavender-scented conditioner hit her, and she was transported back to the time when she and Charles and Oliver had played at pirates, waving plastic cutlasses and shouting pirate cries at each other as they raced and dodged between the sheets, which they were pretending were the sails of their ships. And then they made me walk the plank, she recalled with a grin. The little shits!

  ‘Hello.’

  She spun around, dropping the peg she was about to use to secure the pillowcase in her hand.

  ‘Oliver,’ she said as the thudding in her heart at the sound of the English word abated.

  ‘That’s right.’ He continued speaking in English.

  ‘I hope everything’s OK in the house and that you’re having a lovely break.’

  I sound horribly artificial, she thought, but I really don’t know how I’m supposed to be. If we’d grown up in Ireland, there’d probably be a big hugging session, we’d be dying to talk about what’s been going on since we last met and it’d be like no time had passed at all, but it’s different here.

  ‘It’s always lovely to be in our second home,’ he said.

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘But it’s … odd to meet you again, Imogen. And like this.’

  ‘Not at all odd,’ she said briskly. ‘I’m following in my mother’s footsteps! Your weekly clean is scheduled for today. Is everyone back from wherever you’ve been? Did you have a good time?’

  ‘It’s just me right now,’ he said. ‘Charles and Justine went home this morning. Giles and a friend have gone to Bilbao for a few days.’

  ‘So you’re Billy no-mates,’ said Imogen.

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘All alone,’ she said. ‘Sorry, your English is so good, I expect you to know everything.’

  ‘Not as good as your French,’ he said. ‘But then after you left us, we didn’t get the same practice as before.’

  ‘I’m not sure I was much of an English teacher.’ She turned away and continued to hang out the washing.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I remember lots of things you taught me. Like “get away out of that”, which nobody I know really understands.’

  She laughed. ‘It’s an Irish way of saying “you’re joking”.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Oliver. ‘I’ve been using it incorrectly for twenty years! Now it finally makes sense.’

  ‘And how have those twenty years been?’ she asked. ‘Good, I hope.’ />
  ‘Up and down,’ replied Oliver. ‘Like life always is. What about you, Imogen? Have the years been good to you?’

  ‘Up and down,’ she repeated with a smile.

  ‘And is it an up or a down that you’ve come back to Hendaye?’ he asked. ‘I have to say that I was completely taken aback to see you last week. Neither Charles nor I could believe our eyes. I’m not sure we were exactly polite.’

  ‘It was a shock, I understand,’ she said. ‘It was a bit of a shock to me too. In my head, I’d begun to believe that you’d sold the house.’

  ‘Giles has asked a million questions about your time with us,’ said Oliver. ‘He was totally astonished to learn that you lived here.’

  ‘It seems a bit unreal now,’ Imogen agreed. ‘And yet while I was hanging up the sheets, I was remembering playing pirates with you.’

  ‘Ah yes!’ Oliver screwed up his face with the effort of recollection. ‘Awash, me hearties!’

  ‘“Avast” is the word, I think,’ said Imogen. ‘Not that I’m totally up to speed on pirate talk these days.’

  ‘Pirates was fun,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Except when you and Charles caught me and insisted on making me walk the plank,’ Imogen said.

  ‘The plank …’ He glanced across the garden to the small swimming pool, then turned back to her with a guilty smile. ‘I remember.’

  They’d rigged up a sheet of plywood to extend over the water and had made Imogen walk along it. The plywood had bent beneath her weight and she’d fallen in, fully dressed.

  ‘My mother was very angry,’ she reminded him. ‘It was the third change of clothes for me that day.’

  ‘I’m sorry if we got you into trouble,’ he said, although his eyes danced with merriment. ‘It’s nice to remember those days. Would you like to share a drink with me on the terrace while we reminisce a little more?’