His Perfect Wife

by Natasha Bell

  “What if this guy did something to Alex?” Marc said. “Or took her somewhere? Who is he? What do you know about him?”

  Nicola couldn’t tell him much except that the individual in question was a minor with no prior convictions and he appeared to be co-operating fully. “We’re not discounting anything at this stage,” she said. “But we’re working on the assumption that these items have been here since last Thursday and that both the bike and Alexandra’s belongings were taken sometime on Friday, before any appeals went out. After that it seems likely the thief or thieves may have been too worried to report what they found.”

  Every hour or so DI Jones came over to give my husband an update on their progress. Four officers bobbed along in kayaks, while six more waded through the brown water in industrial diving suits. Nicola told Marc the ones in suits were called frogmen. “If there’s anything in the water, they’ll find it,” she said.

  “They can’t search every inch, though, can they?” he said.

  “Actually, dredging a river of this size is remarkably effective. Bodies naturally float, so you just have to disturb the bottom really.”

  Marc wished he hadn’t asked.

  On the other side of the tape he could see camera crews and reporters as well as a collection of curious passers-by. Nicola told him they’d canceled the Red Boats for the day and they intended to search a mile downriver. Marc wondered how many people’s days they were disturbing.

  The work was slow and methodical, nothing like the hectic drama of film and television. I can imagine my husband sitting there, itchy in his own skin, unable to take his eyes from the water. What was he hoping for? Not a body, of course, but some conclusive piece of evidence that would tell them where I was. For me to drift up like a mermaid and sun myself on one of the barges. For an answer to the questions he was too afraid to ask.

  Nicola told him he should go home, that they’d phone if they discovered anything. But he couldn’t leave. I know my husband. He would have needed to be there. We saluted single magpies, threw salt over our shoulders and told the girls watched pots would never boil. If they’d have let Marc wade into the brown water, he would have.

  Around four, one of the officers manning the cordons tapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, bowing his head. “There’s a woman over there says she knows you.”

  Marc turned and saw Susan sandwiched between two reporters with oversized cameras eagerly snapping in his direction. Marc nodded and watched the officer let her through. He felt a stab of guilt at not having checked in with her and Patrick since that first night.

  “Marc!” she said as she approached. “My God, are you okay?” She pulled him into a suffocating hug, filling his nostrils with her floral perfume. He saw Nicola retreat to talk to another officer.

  “I can’t believe it,” Susan said, straightening her thick woolen coat. “This can’t be happening.”

  Marc once confessed to me that he struggled to talk to Susan when it was just the two of them, that he liked her, of course, but they had nothing in common. I took offense at the time, especially given how happy she and Patrick seemed together. It had been hard for us all when Rebecca left; she and Patrick had been a constant in our lives for so long. But I was proud of having introduced him to Susan, of having been the one to successfully matchmake Marc’s oldest friend, especially after everything he’d been through. I’d met Susan at a pottery class and had this strange, intense premonition that this ditzy, hippy teacher was exactly what Patrick needed.

  What was Marc supposed to say to her, though, while he sat by the river waiting for someone to pull my swollen cadaver from its depths? While he tried and failed to prepare for the worst?

  Observing her twisting her rings and running her hands through her tangled hair, he realized she might actually be suffering. So far my disappearance had seemed like his private tragedy. The girls’ too, of course, but contained within immediate family.

  “Are Lizzie and Charlotte with Fran?” Susan said. Marc realized our friends must have talked. Of course they would have, but it made him uneasy.

  He shook his head. “My parents drove up this morning.”

  “That’s good,” Susan said, touching his hand. “You need support.”

  Marc didn’t respond. He returned his gaze to the water, watched a frogman inspect a clump of weeds.

  “Do they think she’s in there?”

  Marc dug his nails into his palm. “Just because her things are here, it doesn’t necessarily mean…” He trailed off, unable to say it.

  He felt Susan’s eyes on him. After a moment she said softly, “It’s been over a week. Fran said there was blood—” She faltered. “I mean, we’ve probably got to prepare for the worst. What other explanation is there? The best-case scenario is that she had a terrible, tragic accident—”

  “Don’t,” he said, cutting her off. He felt like someone had punched him in the kidneys. What kind of accident would involve me leaving my clothes and blood on the bank? What scenario exactly did she think that was better than? “Please, I just can’t believe that. Not yet.”

  “Sorry,” she said, touching him again. He drew away.

  She sat with him for a while, watching the policemen stir up nothing in the murky water. With a primary school teacher’s aptitude for small talk, she told him the Ouse isn’t as dirty as it looks, that it gets its color from the peat fields it drains, that all of York’s drinking water comes from it. Her voice filled the silent air, but Marc’s attention never left the water. Eventually she kissed him on the cheek and promised she and Patrick would pop round to check up on him. He hoped they’d forget. He knew I didn’t belong solely to him, but his head hurt when he tried to think of all the people in my life, all those he might be expected to speak to or receive sympathy from.

  They kept searching, shuffling the police tape along the pathway and into town until dusk settled. DI Jones explained they’d pack up for the day and resume at dawn. Nicola drove Marc home and he let himself into a house smelling of his mother’s cooking.

  * * *

  “Your time’s almost up,” he said today.

  I was lying on the bed when he came in, my face pressed to the pillow.

  “Look at me,” he commanded. My shirt twisted as I rolled over and I saw his eyes land on my stomach, on the long purple scar. I pulled the fabric down to cover myself, but his eyes remained there. I curled around myself, remembering the pain, the slice of the knife through my flesh.

  “What do you want?” I said, no fight in me today.

  He looked disheveled. There were shadows beneath his eyes. I sat up, my curiosity piqued. What was he worried about?

  “I can’t keep you here indefinitely,” he said. “I need to make a decision.”

  He says I have one more month to convince him I’m worth saving. Whatever that means in his warped little mind. Four more weeks to figure out the rules and learn to play his game. And if I can’t? What then? Where will he send me? What does he have planned?

  How much more is it possible to lose?

  2000

  1/14/00

  Hey sweets,

  I suppose the first thing to say is congratufuckinglations. Are you simply drowning in happiness? Will you change your name? Alexandra Southwood, wife and former individual.

  Sorry, I said I wouldn’t criticize, didn’t I? As long as you’re happy, then I’m happy. What else is going on with you? Are you embracing your nice British life? Is teaching everything you dreaded?

  I’m okay, I think. A bit lonely. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing or who I am. Life was simple when there were semesters and deadlines and lectures to wake up for. Without that and without you, I’ve lost my structure. Let’s build a magical, Narnia-esque portal between “old” and “New” York so I don’t have to bum around this callous city alone.

&nb
sp; Don’t get me wrong, I love Manhattan. I’m in crisis, but I’m also enjoying it. Does that make sense? I’ve always thought the best art comes from misery. That’s my excuse for these hangovers anyway. I think maybe I should give up drinking. I worry I can’t enjoy just one, that I’m looking for oblivion. I wake up in the morning with that terrible shame in the pit of my stomach where I wonder if I’ve made an ass of myself, exposed too much of who I really am. I lie beneath the blankets working through what I remember, terrified I might have divulged my deepest darkest secrets to someone. Alcohol makes me feel both smart and confessional—perhaps not the best mix for someone like me.

  Maybe I’m not so smart anyway. I’m making very little. My head’s so full of other stuff that art gets further and further away. Art’s what I want, what makes me feel alive, but it seems like the stupidest thing to pursue. Obviously, rationally, it is. It’s never going to pay my rent. I look at you getting married and settling down, with your teaching job and your real life, and I feel dumb for wanting to keep running after that stupid little dream we had at art school. It seems insane.

  On the other hand, when I quiet my mind, I realize I don’t have a choice. If I don’t run after it, what the hell were either of us there for? What was the point? The terrible, torturous, beautiful truth is that I can’t see myself being happy without creativity. Without rebellion. Without an avenue of protest.

  I guess because I don’t yet know where art fits into life and life into art, I’m playing with these ideas of invisibility. Pieces as part of the reality people live in, so that maybe they’re not aware they’re even experiencing art but it influences their lives nonetheless. It’s all about what I can get away with, probably more prankster than artist, but it feels like an appropriate way to begin to make my mark on the city. I send instructions to people. Usually I’m not even there at the time, so it’s kinda me influencing the place from afar. I tell delivery boys to leave five boxes of pizza around the corner from where I know this one homeless guy sleeps, or I pay a student to leave a trail of M&M’s all around the East Village. Then I post challenges on this amateur photography forum asking readers to photograph specific streets at certain times and upload what they see. It’s great because some of the photographers are so oblivious that they take these arty shots of empty chip packets and graffiti tags, but you can still see the piece in the background. Others think it’s just a weird New York coincidence and snap happily away. There’s this great shot of a bakery owner coming out and throwing all the pizzas in the trash. Like, what the cock? Another time, though, someone caught a passer-by carrying them over to the homeless dude.

  What else? Last month I wrote to the Postal Service and asked if they could write me a letter. They sent back an automatically generated reply on headed paper saying they were unable to respond to my inquiry. It’s pointless, I know, but it’s kinda fun and makes me feel less like the world is slurping my brain through a straw.

  Love

  Am x

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 2000

  I nodded and called him an idiot. We grabbed each other over the spiky crustaceans. The toes of our shoes dipped in the rock pools, our jeans soaking up seaweed slime. It was winter. The icy wind whipped off the sea. I shivered and smiled. We sat there most of the day, huddled in our coats, watching the tide head out and people come and go. We could have gone to a pub, but we didn’t want to move. Every now and again I’d slip my left glove off to inspect the antique ring. I looked at the opal and wondered who had worn it before me, who they were, who I would be with it on my finger. Because this made it definite, didn’t it? This was who I was now: Marc’s fiancée, someday his wife. I’d chosen my fairy tale, my future. I thought these thoughts not with regret or uncertainty, but with a sense of awe. I’d made a decision.

  I grinned at the ring and murmured about my happiness until my fingers turned blue. Marc replaced my glove, rubbed my hand between his.

  “Stay here,” he said and climbed off the rock. I sat alone, watching a small dog hop in and out of the surf, its owner striding ahead. I listened to the seagulls circling above me and the roar of the waves. I tried to picture Chicago out on the horizon, the hurry of the streets and the sound of the traffic, the ice on the lake and the slush puddles at the end of every sidewalk. I thought of the lions outside the Art Institute and the view from the top of the Hancock Tower, the rush of wind as you stood on the platform between the tracks at the red line stop on Washington and State. The images felt distant, like poorly reproduced postcards with trite sentiments scrawled on the back. I wanted to press my bruises and imagine for a second what my other life looked like, but I couldn’t. It belonged already to the past, to a different century, a different millennium even. All I could see now were the waves and the rocks before me; all I could feel was here.

  Marc returned with fish and chips and polystyrene cups of tea. We fed each other, calling ourselves Mr. and Mrs., catching colds that kept us in bed for the first week of the year.

  March

  Nine Days Gone

  I liked Marc’s parents, but we were never close. His mum in particular, I felt, always held me at arm’s length. Their presence was a relief for Marc, though. The second day of dredging had turned up nothing, but DI Jones and Nicola were reluctant to allow Marc to see this as a positive. Today they were tracing my possible routes from campus to the river with sniffer dogs. His mum was advising him to look at the facts, prepare for the worst. Marc walked out of the room, unable to hear another person’s advice that he give up on me. Still, it was better to have people around. His dad didn’t say much, but proved adept at entertaining the girls. They leapt on his lap, squealing as his arthritic hands tickled their tummies.

  I guess their presence must have reminded Marc of my family too, because while the girls watched TV with Nana and Grandpa, my husband finally picked up the phone and dialed my mum’s number. What was he expecting from that conversation? He hadn’t spoken to the woman since our wedding day. When she contacted me to say she was ill, he’d offered like the perfect husband he was to come with me. I only had to look at his face, though, to know his anger hadn’t abated. I guess mine hadn’t either. But, despite everything, when your mother tells you she’s losing her memory, the child inside you takes over. Marc said he understood, though I know it was hard for him to watch me go to her.

  “Hello?” A muffled voice answered after six rings.

  “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Carlisle.”

  A pause. A throat cleared. “Wh-who’s speaking, please?”

  “Her son-in-law, Marc.”

  Another pause. “Marc. I’m Caitlin, Mrs. Carlisle’s carer.” The line was bad; she sounded far away. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid Mrs. Carlisle is not well enough to speak on the phone. Is there something I can help with?”

  “I need to speak to her. It’s about her daughter.”

  “I’m sorry, I can try to pass on a message, but—”

  “Look, if you could just put me on with her—”

  “I don’t know how much you know about your mother-in-law’s health, Marc, but phone conversations in particular make her very agitated. She’s in no state to be disturbed by bad news.”

  “Bad news? Her daughter is missing! That’s more than just a bit of fucking bad news!” He hadn’t meant to shout.

  “I know,” Caitlin said. “I’m so sorry, Marc.”

  He tried to soften his tone. “Look, my wife is missing and they’ve found—” He swallowed. “It was on the news. I think her mother has a right to know, however agitated it might make her.”

  The woman on the other end was quiet for a moment, then in a whisper: “The police already called. I don’t know what else I can do for you, Marc.”

  Marc pinched the bridge of his nose. “Will you just, will you promise to talk to her? To help her understand?”

  Caitlin was quiet.

  “Please?
” Marc said.

  “I’ll try,” said Caitlin.

  Marc hung up wondering if he’d done the right thing. She did have a right to know, didn’t she? I’d told him she barely recognized me anymore, called me all sorts of names. Sometimes I’d arrive home from those trips and forget to answer my own for a day or so. But deep down no one can forget their family, can they?

  * * *

  He left the girls with his parents and drove across town to join the search. Nicola spotted him as he climbed out of the car and extracted herself from a flurry of frenzied activity. He watched with interest and horror as uniformed officers tramped the pavements with dogs, pointing them at hedges and ditches, hunting through bins.

  “You don’t need to be here,” Nicola said.

  “I want to help.”

  “This is a police investigation, Marc. Anything we find has to be preserved. We can’t have you here.”

  My husband looked into her face. He wondered if DI Jones would have been so polite in telling him to leave. “There must be something I can do,” he said. “I need to help find Alex.”

  Nicola sighed. “We’ve made up some flyers,” she said. “You can hand them out, but you need to stay out of the way.”

  Marc nodded.

  “Do you have some friends you can call? Why don’t you go into town, pass them out at the train station, supermarkets, anywhere busy.”

  “Will it help?” Marc said.

  Nicola hesitated. “The statistics show that public appeals work. We don’t know what we’re looking for yet, Marc, but if anyone out there has information we need them to come forward.”