After You Left

by Carol Mason

  ALSO BY CAROL MASON

  The Secrets of Married Women

  Send Me A Lover

  The Love Market

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 Carol Mason

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503942363

  ISBN-10: 1503942368

  Cover design by Debbie Clement

  For my husband, Tony. Ever my champion.

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ONE

  Alice

  2013

  The alarm goes off, and, for a moment or two, in my semi-awake state, I think I am still in Hawaii. I slide a hand across the mattress and make contact with his mid-back. I can hear his mammoth breathing, never quite a fully-fledged snore. With the gentle clawing of my fingers on his bare skin, he rolls over now. He looks across at me, sleepily, and we smile.

  But the rainbow-coloured bubble of my happiness doesn’t hold. Instead of Justin’s warm, waking body, I am patting cold sheets. Then comes the blunt, quick scutter of disbelief. I am endlessly astonished how I can be hit so unexpectedly by something I already know.

  I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can’t go on, for everyone’s sake. I’m sorry.

  Events of four days ago have cruelly lain in wait on this side of my consciousness, keen to be relived – as if I haven’t played them over enough already. But each time I do, it’s neither more, nor less, real.

  I woke up in Kauai, like I’ve just woken up now. Justin wasn’t there. I imagined he’d gone for a swim, like he’d done the previous three mornings. I got up, drew back the white voile curtain to let the sun in. I stood there in its path, gazing out across a blazing turquoise ocean to where the black army of early morning surfers was riding the waves.

  I couldn’t see him. Of course, I wasn’t even remotely perturbed. I just liked spotting his head. My husband. The noble-shaped skull and thick, dark hair. His arms windmilling as he cut a course at right angles to the tide. It’s my favourite thing to do: watch him when he’s unaware, imagining I’m looking at a stranger.

  I let the curtain fall away, and went to the minibar to take out the cream. I was just about to insert a coffee pod into the Nespresso machine when I saw the tented piece of paper beside the two cups and saucers. On the front, Alice, in his writing.

  I remember the hesitant reach of my hand. The words on the page that didn’t make sense. Then the open wardrobe door. Half a dozen or so empty coat hangers. The bare luggage rack where his suitcase had previously sat open.

  The Hawaiian cop was a blank-eyed bulldozer of a woman. Her hair was shaved off, leaving only a clump of spiky fringe like a goatee at the wrong end of the face. I wanted to describe her to Justin when he came back, and tell him how intimidating she was, but then I had to fathom it all over again: Justin wasn’t coming back. The hotel manager had been the one to call the police; he was nice enough to let us use his office. I’d been wandering around, disorientated, in my bathrobe, telling people that my husband had disappeared. A couple of hotel staff had helped me search the beach. They were very kind, but I could tell right away that the policewoman wasn’t going to be.

  Leaning forward, she dropped her enormous breasts on top of the desk. ‘Sweet cheeks, this is not a suicide note, if that’s what you’re thinking. Someone who is about to kill himself doesn’t disappear in the middle of his honeymoon with a laptop and a suitcase full of his clothes.’

  I hadn’t said a thing about suicide. The word landed and revolved in my head.

  I can’t go on . . . ? She was giving me that look that said, I’m only tolerating you because you’re English, blonde and possibly a lunatic.

  Then she read the note out loud again, as if I could have possibly forgotten it. She clapped it down in front of us, looked at me quite gravely and said, ‘Honey, you’ve been dumped.’

  The rest is a blur of packing, trying to think straight enough to change flights, a disorientating six-hour wait in Los Angeles, the numb journey home. Then back here, to nothing . . .

  I’m supposed to get up now, to go into work. The sun comes in our bare, floor-to-ceiling windows. I lie there, aware of its warmth on my arm and of how dog-tired I am; I cannot move. On the radio a man is talking about his efforts to rid his lawn of moles: ‘So you know what I did? I went into my garage, I fired up a road flare, and I smoked the effer out.’ Justin and I would have found this funny. The cavernous echo of his absence almost takes my breath away.

  In the shower, I can’t adjust the hot and cold, and realise I should have done this before I got in. I stand there, alternately scalding and freezing myself, wiggling the tap but failing to get to grips with something I’ve done automatically so many times before. One thing I am aware of is feeling like a half-sized version of myself. I am sunk in right below my ribs. I am never this un-fleshy. I think it’s because, for some reason, every time I even think about eating, the memory of greasy pizza at LAX is there, warning me off. The urge to throw up before the last of it was down. The single-minded trek to the toilets. Barely making it there. Heaving before I reached the bowl, a cascade of puke. People stopping to have a look. A cleaner standing with a long mop, unfazed: it’s all just part of the job.

  Justin left me. Vanished into thin air.

  It was like I was vomiting him up along with the pizza.

  I stare at the bottles of hair product lined up in rows on the shower shelf. Which one is the shampoo? I’m suddenly incapable of reading a label. There’s a buzzing of panic in my head. How did I ever imagine I could go into work? See people? Act normal? Talk about the honeymoon? Tell lies? Act a lie? Because no one can know. When Justin comes home, I want everything to return to normal – after I’ve half killed him, of course. By saying nothing, there will be no embarrassment around anyone who knows us, no public legacy of his having once, momentarily, lost his mind. The goose-bumps come out on my arms. The chill of dread down my spine. How am I going to do it?

  Then again, realistically, what are they going to ask?

  How was the hon
eymoon?

  Wonderful.

  That’s about all anyone wants to know of someone else’s holiday, isn’t it?

  I squirt hair product into the palm of my hand. All the other questions rush at me now, as I tip my head back and let it hang there. How had I not seen this coming? Had he been different lately? Distracted? Unusually stressed? Had he seemed tired? Unwell? Less enthusiastic about life in general? When he had said his vows, had he looked for one minute like someone who was feeling strong-armed into getting married? Someone who was having second thoughts?

  No.

  Or had I been too caught up in how happy I was to notice how unhappy he was?

  There is a flurry of doubts and questions – endless questions – but they just float there like dots unable to join before my eyes; I can’t grasp on to them or make them add up to an answer. I slide down the wall, squat there, staring at the drain. The water pelts off my knees, which quickly hurt from hyperextension. Shampoo has run into my eyes and they’re stinging. I shove the heels of my hands into the sockets. Pull yourself together. The echo of my mother’s tough love. Then some shitty sentiment about men! Always, men! who let you down. Ever since my dad upped and left us, my mother was always male-bashing. That was the day she became the bitterest person I’ve known.

  Out of the shower, I try to towel dry my hair, but my arms are like two dead weights. I stare at my mobile phone on the night table. I’ve never actually registered the acute and terrorising silence of an un-ringing phone before. How many times have I dialled his number? How many texts have I sent? How many emails from which I’ve received no read receipt? I stare at the phone as though it’s going to suddenly leap and attack me, but I check it again, in case it rang and I didn’t hear it.

  In the kitchen, I set about making a cup of tea, but it feels like a gargantuan undertaking. Bag in cup. Water in kettle. Something reeks in the bin, but what do I care about smells? I stand there, unblinking, in a trance, while the kettle hustles to life, its blue light in my peripheral vision. Then I give up, and walk back into the bedroom. The phone is still sitting where I left it. I dial her number.

  ‘Louisa . . . Hi. It’s Alice.’ The race of my heart. Justin would never fail to account for his whereabouts to his secretary. I used to joke that if we were on a sinking lifeboat he’d hurl me to the sharks before one of his clients. It wasn’t true, of course. But it still always made him smile that viral smile that stretched unrestrained and infectious across his face. ‘Why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?’ he’d ask. And it was a good question.

  ‘Is Justin there by any chance?’ I try to sound confident. No one can know.

  But I can hear the tremor in my voice: the insecurity, the uncertainty; the dread of him coming on the line, the dread of him not. The exact same feeling I would get every time I tried to ask my mother questions about my past. That urge to know. The entitlement. The anger at finding yourself in the position of having to ask. That conflicting impulse of bursting to get everything off your chest, and clamming up and shutting down all at the same time.

  There’s an ominous pause, then Justin’s secretary, in her perpetually astonished North East accent says, ‘Alice! Ah, hiya! Er, no. Justin’s not here. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have expected him to be.’

  She knows! Then I think, No, she can’t know.

  ‘He’s probably on his way in,’ I stumble. ‘It’s odd, but I can’t get him to answer his mobile.’

  It’s not odd. Louisa would know that Justin never took phone calls while driving. Justin was scrupulous about many things that generally might not make it on to your average thirty-eight-year-old male’s moral radar. He always gave up his seat to women on trains, and they didn’t have to be old or pregnant. He’d never jump a queue, even if the person ahead of him were unaware. He once told me that he had never consciously told a lie.

  ‘Is everything all right, Alice?’ Louisa sounds genuinely concerned.

  ‘Of course. Everything’s fine.’ I stare at the single blue shirt-sleeve dangling over the top of the laundry bin, unable to fathom how barren the sight of a piece of his clothing can make me feel. ‘Will you tell him to ring me as soon as he gets in?’

  ‘Well, yes! I would. But that’s the thing . . . I thought you knew. Justin’s going to be working from home for a while. I mean, that’s what he said when he rang in this morning.’

  The earth shifts. ‘He rang in?’ I expected he’d be in contact, so why is this the worst thing I could possibly hear? Almost as bad as if I’d heard he died?

  ‘He did, yeah. About an hour ago.’

  My head swims with this new knowledge. Justin can ring his secretary but not his wife.

  The desire to fall down, even though I’m already sitting. ‘Oh . . . that’s right. Sorry. I forgot. He did tell me. I think I was probably only half listening, as usual.’ Then I wonder, why isn’t she asking how the honeymoon was? Because he told her? ‘I’m at work right now . . .’ Does she know I’m lying, and that we’re therefore having a very ridiculous conversation indeed? ‘I’ll ring him at home.’

  When I click off, I sit here in the wake of that conversation, listening to the strangely hypnotic, funnelling sound of my pulse in my ears. Then I realise I have to get dressed.

  Justin’s going to be working from home.

  I walk over to the wardrobe, but instead of pulling out a skirt, I can only see the many shirts, trousers, jackets and suits that are lined up in perfect almost-colour-coordinated order, plus an equally orderly row of his shoes. All his stuff that he will be needing at some point. He’s going to need his stuff.

  So he’ll definitely have to be back.

  I emerge from the Metro station into the grey morning. I always get off one stop early so I can walk the rest of the way to the gallery. This is what I used to love before I had a husband who left me after only five days – these twenty minutes alone, walking to and from work; they were like peaceful bookends that held each day together. But today they’re just brackets around a blank. I cross the road and barely note the car horn, the person who hangs out of the window and shouts, ‘Watch where you’re going! For fuck’s sake!’ My shoes clack on the cobblestones of Grey Street. I hear them as though they’re louder than they really are, and bury myself in their rhythm. The rest of rush hour is conducting itself around me with the ‘Mute’ button on. A workman in a parked white van says, ‘Nice legs.’ Normally, I would smile. Who is immune to a compliment? But the note is suddenly there again, stopping my legs and my heart. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can’t go on, for everyone’s sake. I’m sorry.

  Cars slide by me, and people mill around me, and I am stuck here, in the middle of the street, in a different band of time. I have read it and read it until the words have blurred, like writing over writing. But I haven’t seen this before. It doesn’t say for my sake or your sake, or both of our sakes.

  Clearly, there is someone else’s sake to be considered.

  TWO

  ‘Realism is a tricky word. The artist sets up a narrative, but we have to bring our own story to it.’

  The young journalist scribbles away. Whenever I give interviews, I always worry I’m going to encounter someone who knows more than I do, though that’s rarely the case. Usually, they’re like this one: young, impressible and slightly out of their depth, sent to cover a major exhibition, the first of its kind in the region’s history, when, really, they just need words on a page by 2 p.m.

  ‘This exhibition features two iconic, mid-twentieth-century American artists. Andrew Wyeth, who is famous for capturing the land and the people around him, and revealing the unspoken emotion of simple people and things. And Edward Hopper, who possessed an outstanding ability to identify the monumental drama of people engaged in doing nothing apparently extraordinary, or even noteworthy.’

  He pauses, nods, scribbles. In the absence of a question, I press on.

  ‘Looking at Wyeth’s work, we find a bittersweet familiarity with things that h
ave gone before. You are often left with the feeling that over time we have lost something; that sense of the past being slightly more perfect than the present.’ For a moment, my words give me pause. He looks at me, attentive, waiting. ‘That’s what makes Mood and Memory such a fascinating exhibition. Because we can integrate so well with the enigmatic isolation and contemplation expressed in the paintings.’

  Has he got it? We’ve been at this twenty minutes and I’m not sure what’s penetrated. If only I could write his article for him. Justin says I’m a bit of a control freak.

  I’ve always thought that there’s something about the pace at which art inspires the world around it to move, a devotional calm, that puts you so wholly in the moment. When you look at an awe-inspiring painting, you literally forget about everything else; you subconsciously free up space in your mind so there exists a pleasurable nothingness. I studied art more by accident than design. I needed to get a degree. I’d had no passion for any particular subject. This course had sounded fractionally less dull than most of the others. I applied, and was surprised to find I was accepted. A few other random events took me from there to here. And I’m lucky because I think I was made for this job. The slow procession of visitors through the gallery and the quiet thrum of their observations reach me like a cross between yoga and hypnotherapy. I love fancying myself living in the world the artist has created on his or her canvas. There’s something so compelling about Hopper’s uneventful subject matter, Wyeth’s hauntingly beautiful portrayal of life and the people of Maine. Something unattainable that simmers beneath the mantle of their simple lives. It pulls me in, toys with me, and refuses to let me go.

  ‘Which of his paintings speaks to you the most?’ the journalist asks now, out of the blue. My phone choo-choos – a text.

  The pulse in my neck flicks like the wings of a trapped bird. The phone is too far away on the desk for me to see it. I try to strain, but no.

  ‘Wyeth’s Christina’s World,’ I say. ‘His starkly atmospheric painting of a disabled girl wearing a pink dress. Christina is on her hands and knees in a field, almost crawling toward a house far away in the distance.’ I slide the brochure across the desk, with the image on the front cover. The phone choo-choos again, pulling my eyes. ‘There are really only three elements to it – the land, the girl, the farmhouse. Yet there’s some profound hankering or tragedy that lives in her, that we need to know about her. That I need to know about her. It’s that sense of wanting to learn about someone else in order to illuminate something in oneself.’