by Lisa Jewell
‘So he decides he wants to hang out with the Rosses from Croydon?’
Kirsty shrugged.
The waitress appeared and took their order and Gray looked down from the terrace on to the steam fair below. It was a pleasant evening and the seafront was heaving with bodies: clusters of teens and families. Gray did a double-take at a fleeting glimpse of a head of slick dark hair. He followed the head as it passed through the crowds. It wasn’t, was it? Was it Mark? The figure circled the dodgems, then stopped and bought an ice cream. Then he started walking towards the near side of the fairground, and as he got closer he looked up and Gray whispered, ‘Jesus,’ under his breath.
‘What?’ said Kirsty.
Mark caught Gray’s eye and raised his ice-cream cone towards him.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered again, raising his hand to return the greeting.
‘What?’ Kirsty got up from her seat and came to see what he was looking at. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘It’s Mark!’ She waved and Mark waved back and then Pam joined them and waved and Gray folded his arms across his chest and sighed.
‘Come down,’ he heard Mark call up. ‘After dinner. I’ll wait for you!’
Kirsty was flushed when she retook her seat.
‘You’re not going to go, are you?’ he asked, incredulously.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re fifteen! Because he’s nineteen! Mum, Dad, you’re not going to let her, are you?’
Pam and Tony looked at each other and then at Gray, and Pam said, ‘I don’t see any reason why not? Do you?’ She glanced at Tony again.
Tony shook his head. ‘Long as you’re home by ten.’
The rest of the meal was tainted for Gray. He stole glances off the terrace every now and then, staking out the unnaturally shining crown of Mark’s head. Who went to a funfair by themselves? Who hung around for an hour waiting for a teenage girl to finish her dinner?
His minute steak was tough and chewy, the chips were too greasy and the ketchup wasn’t Heinz. He put down his knife and fork halfway through the meal. Kirsty, he noticed, was racing through her scampi, putting two in her mouth at once at one point. She slapped her knife and fork together, gulped down the dregs of her Coke, accepted a five-pound note from her dad’s wallet and left.
Gray turned and watched. He saw his little sister, her feet suddenly not so turned in, her gait suddenly not so gangling, stride down the steps and towards Mark, who was waiting for her by the entrance. Mark greeted her with a brief embrace and a kiss to her cheek. Then he stood with his hand upon her shoulder and smiled at her for a moment, before taking her arm by the elbow and leading her gallantly into the crowds.
And then Gray thought about the mascara and he knew that this had all been pre-planned. Down by the donkey paddock. He tried to imagine the conversation; he saw Mark smiling conspiratorially and saying, ‘Eight o’clock. Find a way to get away.’ And his sister, his gorgeous, stupid, never-been-kissed sister, saying, ‘I’ll be there!’ as if this was a scene in some stupid Disney Channel show.
And then he stood up and said to his mum and dad, ‘I’m going for a walk. I’ll see you back at the cottage.’
‘No pudding?’ asked his mum.
‘No.’ He rubbed his stomach. ‘I’m not feeling too good actually. Think it was all that cake earlier.’
‘Oh.’ His mum made a poor baby face and stroked his hand. ‘Well, you get some fresh air and we’ll see you later.’
He smiled at them both and left, heading towards the steam fair. He found a good vantage point on a wall just above the fair, lowered his sunglasses, sat down and watched.
Fifteen
Lily sits on her bed, the bed she shares with her husband. A husband who is not here. A husband who is not in fact a husband. A husband who is a cardboard cut-out of a husband. Like one of those life-size film-star figures they have in cinemas to give the impression that you are in the presence of celebrity. The bed still smells of him, it smells of them, of the sheen of their bodies when they are together, the heat of them and the joy of them. It has been three days now since she felt him. Three nights since their bodies tangled together under these sheets. The smell will fade soon. And then the sheets will become stale and she will need to wash them. And after the smell goes, everything that remains will be false, including this flat that was designed to look expensive with its fake wooden floors, its flimsy walls and cheap flat-pack furniture, its door handles and plug sockets that are coming loose and chrome taps that are already losing their bright shine.
She looks down into her hands at the objects she found in the locked drawer after the WPC and the computer forensics boy left. Two golden rings, one set with a large diamond. A key fob with three door keys on it. A thick wodge of banknotes: £890. So now she has money. But no answers.
The rings are very small. Maybe they belonged to his mother? The key fob is a brass sphere, heavy and satisfying in the palm of her hand. The notes are comprised of twenty-and fifty-pound notes, used, but neatly stacked as though from a bank. So. This is what he was hiding from her. Not so much. Nothing that any other man wouldn’t keep locked in a drawer, for safekeeping.
The phone rings and she jumps. It will be the WPC, calling with more news to rock her world. To tell her, maybe, that her husband was once a woman. That his name is really Carla. Ha. She smiles grimly to herself and picks up the bedside phone.
‘Is that Lily?’ asks a man with a gentle, almost effeminate voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, hi, Lily. We haven’t spoken before. My name’s Russ. I’m a friend of your husband’s? Of Carl’s?’
Lily sits up straight and grips the phone harder. ‘Yes?’
‘Listen, I’ve been trying to call him the past couple of days. His phone seems to be dead. Called him at work earlier and they told me he hasn’t been in since Tuesday. I hate to bother you at home, but I wondered if maybe I could have a word with him.’ He stops and she hears him licking his lips. ‘If he’s there?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘He’s not here.’
‘Ah, OK. When are you expecting him home?’
‘I don’t know. He is missing.’
She hears him pause between breaths.
‘He has not come home since Tuesday night. I have not seen him since Tuesday morning. The police are aware.’
He breathes sharply. ‘Wow,’ he says, ‘missing. That’s … I don’t know what to say. I mean … Do you mean you literally haven’t seen him?’
‘Yes. He left on Tuesday morning. He texted me on Tuesday evening when he left work. He never came home. And now it is Friday night. So. Yes. I am being literal.’
‘Bloody hell. Christ. That doesn’t sound like him. I mean, I know I haven’t seen him for a while but from what little I gleaned he was completely potty about you. Deliriously happy. You know.’
‘He was the happiest man in the world.’ She pauses and looks down at the wedding rings and the keys on the mattress by her side. ‘Russ, how long have you known Carl?’
‘Gosh, I don’t know. A few years, I guess. I used to work with him at Blommers. We both joined around the same time: 2010? I think?’
‘And where had he been working before that?’
‘Well, I’m not sure exactly. Another financial services company I suppose. He probably told me but I don’t remember.’
‘Do you know his family?’
‘No. God, no. I’ve never met anyone he knows. We always just used to meet up for a pint or two, you know, just the two of us, whenever I found myself in town. And I’d been trying to get the pair of you over for dinner. So hard to get out and about with a baby, you know. But I got the impression he didn’t really fancy a night with a screaming baby.’ He laughed nervously. ‘Kept finding excuses. So, what with one thing and another, I haven’t seen him for at least a year.’
‘Where do you live, Russ?’
‘Putney.’
‘Where is Putney?’
‘It’s south London. On the river.�
��
‘I want to come and see you. I want to ask you some questions. Please.’
‘Oh. Of course. Yes. I mean, we’re busy tomorrow, seeing Jo’s parents for lunch.’
‘I can come early. I don’t sleep, so I can come any time.’
‘I suppose. I mean, mornings are quite hectic here what with the baby and everything.’
‘Half an hour. I just need half an hour.’
‘OK. I’ll talk to Jo. Hold on …’ The sound muffles as he cups his hand over the phone and she hears him call out. She hears ‘Carl’s wife … missing … early … half an hour.’ Then a cross woman’s voice saying, ‘Not here though. Go to Antonio’s.’
He comes back on the line. ‘OK, that’ll be fine. There’s a coffee shop, a deli kind of thing, just round the corner. Antonio’s. I can meet you there at nine. Give me your phone number and I’ll text you the postcode.’
She reads it out to him and says, ‘So. What do you look like?’
‘Oh, nothing much,’ he says apologetically. ‘Normal height. Normal build. Brown hair. Glasses. What do you look like?’
‘I look like Keira Knightley,’ she says. ‘Except not so thin.’
‘Ah,’ says Russ. ‘Good. That helps. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ says Lily. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Sixteen
Frank swipes back the curtains and is greeted once more by the snarling dog. The very same dog that had lain upon his lap last night like a big sack of love. He smiles at the dog and the dog stops snarling and wags its blunt stick of a tail. He has no idea what the time is but the sun is still fairly low in the sky and the lights in the back of Alice’s house are all turned off. He opens the door and the dog bounds in and leaps straight up on to his bed.
‘Morning, girl,’ he says, scruffing her under her chin. She rolls on to her back and presents him with her stomach. Frank sits next to her and scratches her belly and thinks about the night before. He mustn’t confuse his feelings of helplessness with his feelings about Alice. He is like a newborn baby latching on to the first person to show him any affection. But still. There is something about her, something magnetic. Whenever he’s with her he finds himself pulled towards her as if the very air around her is cambered. And it’s not just that she’s self-assured and physically attractive. It’s her resilience, her artistry, her generosity of spirit that draws him to her. Alice had told him last night about the dog, Hero, how she’d been left behind by another tenant, how Alice had taken her in, unquestioningly. And then when her parents had become too ill to look after Sadie, how she’d taken her in, too. And now here he is, in her cramped house, another body to house, another mouth to feed. And she genuinely doesn’t seem to mind.
‘Hero!’ He hears a small voice calling in the courtyard. ‘Hero!’
The dog jumps from his bed and ambles out of the door. It’s the little girl. Romaine.
She stops when she sees him standing in the doorway.
‘You’re up early,’ he says.
‘I know,’ she says in a broad Yorkshire accent. ‘Mummy told me to go back to bed but I couldn’t.’
‘And you were up late last night, too. You must be tired.’
She shrugs, her arms looped around Hero’s giant neck. ‘I don’t get tired.’
‘Oh, well, that’s lucky.’
She shrugs again and kisses Hero’s head.
‘So, what are you going to do now?’
‘I think I might go and try and wake Mummy up again.’
He starts at this suggestion. He thinks of the shadows under Alice’s blue-green eyes, the way she grabs her hair in her hands and pulls it away from her face as if trying to stretch herself awake. It’s Saturday. It’s early.
‘How about I make you some breakfast and then we can put the telly on. Or something?’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘I have a toasted bagel for breakfast. With peanut butter. Can you make that?’
Frank tries to envisage a bagel. He knows the word but is finding the associated object hard to locate. He sees a dog with silken ears. But that’s not right. It’s something that goes in a toaster. So it must be something bread-like.
‘If you show me where everything is I’m sure I can manage it.’
‘OK then.’
He follows her into the narrow kitchen. The clock on the microwave says 5:58.
‘Here,’ she says, lifting the lid of a wooden bread box and pulling out a tubular bag of – yes, bagels! He remembers now. ‘And the peanut butter is up there,’ she points at a high shelf.
‘Do you like butter too?’
She shakes her head.
‘Good.’ He claps his hands together. ‘Right.’
He pulls a plate from a wooden plate rack and finds a knife. Romaine sits on the chair at the kitchen table and watches him as he tries to force the bagel into the toaster.
‘No!’ She laughs. ‘You have to cut it in half!’
‘Of course you do,’ he says. ‘Silly me!’
‘Silly you!’
He cuts the bagel in half and slides both sides into the toaster.
‘Why can’t you remember anything?’
‘I don’t really know,’ says Frank. ‘Your mum thinks maybe I had a big shock. A shock so big that it forced all the memories out of my head.’
‘Like an electric shock?’
‘No. More like a life shock. You know. Like something bad happening.’
‘You mean like when my dad stole me.’
Frank turned to look at Romaine. ‘Did he?’
‘Yes. But then the police came and everything was OK.’
‘Wow. That must have been quite shocking. How old were you?’
‘I was small. Three years old. But it did a different thing to my memory. Because I can’t remember much about being three but I remember all of that bit.’
‘Do you still see your dad?’
‘Not really. Only when he comes to England. And he lives in Australia now, so he doesn’t come much. But I’m not allowed to go anywhere on my own with him in case he does it again.’ She suddenly leans forward in the chair and stares at the toaster. ‘That’s enough!’ she cries. ‘I don’t like it too toasty!’
‘How do I …?’
‘That button! There! Quick!’
He pops the bagel up. It has barely changed colour. ‘OK?’ He shows it to her.
‘Yes.’ She looks relieved.
‘So, why did your daddy steal you? What happened?’
‘It was because Mummy moved up here when I was a baby and he was cross because he lived in London and he wanted to see me more. And Mummy said he couldn’t because of … things. And he got really cross and shouted and stuff and then one time I went to stay with him in London he took me somewhere. I think it was, like, a hotel or something. And even though he was really nice to me and bought me loads of presents and sweets I knew it was bad and I was scared. And then the police came and it was so scary. And I remember everything. Everything.’ She turns to face the table as he places the bagel in front of her.
Frank doesn’t know what to say. All the stories, he thinks to himself, the world is full of stories. But the one story he really needs to know is buried somewhere so deep inside him he’s scared he’ll never get to it.
‘Oh!’ Alice is slightly startled to see Romaine nestled on the sofa between Hero and Frank. The TV is on and they’re watching The Octonauts.
‘Good morning,’ says Frank. ‘We thought we’d let you sleep a while.’
It’s nearly nine o’clock and Alice can’t remember the last time she slept this late. ‘How totally brilliant,’ she says, leaning down to greet Griff. ‘That’s worth a night’s rent on its own.’
She glances at Romaine. She’s a gregarious child, nothing like her older sister, who has always treated anyone not directly related to her with appalled disdain. But even so, it’s strange to see her so comfortable with a strange man. And not just as in a man who is a ‘stranger’, but a man who doe
sn’t know who he is. Alice, feeling suddenly horribly culpable, goes to the sofa and pulls Romaine’s head towards her mouth and kisses her crown. ‘Are you hungry?’ she says.
‘No,’ says Romaine, ‘Frank made me a bagel. Except he tried to put it in the toaster without cutting it. It was so funny!’
‘Silly Frank,’ says Frank.
Kai appears at the gap in the door. His eyes are swollen with sleep and he looks slightly angry. He immediately throws his mum a look when he sees Frank on the sofa, a look that says, What the fuck is he doing here?
Alice chooses to ignore the look and instead says, ‘Morning, gorgeous, what are you doing up so early?’
‘I heard voices,’ he says. ‘A man’s voice.’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘Frank turned up late last night. He’s started remembering things!’
Kai clearly couldn’t care less about Frank’s lost memory and slouches away and back up the stairs.
‘Sorry,’ says Frank. ‘I suppose when you’re a teenager it’s a bit weird finding some stranger in your house.’
‘Honestly, Frank, they’re used to it. We’ve always got people in the house. And stranger ones than you.’
‘Remember Barry?’ says Romaine.
‘I most certainly do.’
‘He ran away,’ says Romaine. ‘He left all his stuff and his dog and he owed Mummy loads of money and he just disappeared.’
‘He was a nasty man.’
‘Yes,’ Romaine agrees. ‘He was a nasty man. Except he always bought me comics. And chocolate.’
‘He shoplifted it, Romaine.’ She turns to Frank. ‘He gave a tiny girl stolen chocolate. Can you believe it?’
‘God, well, I hope I don’t find out that I’m a nasty man who steals chocolate and gives it to little girls.’
‘No,’ says Romaine, nestling closer into his body. ‘You’re definitely not a nasty man. You’re a nice man.’
Alice looks at her daughter, the way her tiny body is pressed against Frank’s big man body. She’s allowed Romaine to be hurt before. She’s taken risks with the safety of all her children and she’s come terrifyingly close to paying for it. She searches her psyche for some sense of alarm or primal fear. But there’s nothing there but warmth.
