The Second Wife

by Rebecca Fleet

  I stand there holding the phone in my hand for a minute, then cross to the window and peer down on to the street. Rachel is still standing there, leaning against the wall. She’s lit a cigarette and she’s smoking it in quick, anxious drags, occasionally craning her head back toward the lobby, searching for me. She isn’t going anywhere, I realize. She knows that her sister isn’t here. She knows her better than I do.

  Something starts rising up inside me, some undefinable dark horror so huge that it could entirely engulf me if I let it. I force it back down. I need to be focused. I’ll call Natalie again, see if I can get through. I don’t believe in God, but I screw my eyes tight shut and pray to whatever is out there as I listen to the phone ring, but no one is listening and it goes to voice mail again. This time I don’t leave a message.

  When I’m back out on the street I don’t need to say anything. Rachel turns round, tossing the remnants of the cigarette to the ground. “Where else might she have gone?” She speaks levelly and with a sick jolt of foreboding I realize she’s trying to keep me calm. “Any places she particularly likes, or goes to a lot?”

  “Natalie, you mean?” I try to think. “She goes down by the sea a lot?” I’m uselessly scanning the seafront, my eyes searching out for the rocks where we spoke the other night, but there are only a few children playing in the last of the fading light, scampering back and forth and tossing a ball between them.

  Rachel shakes her head. “No. It’s too open.”

  Too open for what, I almost ask, but then I realize I don’t want to know the answer. I try to screw my thoughts back into place, think about my wife’s habits and routines. “I don’t fucking know,” I say, my voice rising. “I have no idea where she might be. What the hell am I going to do?”

  Before Rachel has a chance to answer, Jade’s mobile vibrates in my pocket. I snatch it up, staring at the screen. I still can’t unlock it, but I can see the notification of a new message. Katie: sorry had to have dinner. Ahh this is so exciting!! you have to let me . . . The rest of the message is cut off, but it’s enough to tell me that she and Jade must have been in contact very recently.

  Rachel is looking over my shoulder. “Do you have her number?”

  I shake my head. “No, but I know where she lives.” I dropped Jade off at Katie’s house a couple of months ago for a sleepover. Elmstead Road. I don’t remember the number, but I have a vague memory of the house—whitewashed, with a distinctive pale-yellow door.

  “We should go there,” Rachel says.

  “We’ll have to get a taxi. It’ll take too long otherwise.” I curse the inane pseudo-environmental principles that made me decide to give up my car a couple of years ago. The truth was that it had little to do with the environment and everything to do with the fact that it was an expense that I didn’t really need. I need it now, when it’s too late.

  I’m already striding down the road toward the main stretch, scanning the street for a taxi. It’s probably only a few minutes before I see one rounding the bend, its light gleaming in the dusk, but it feels like an eternity. I can’t think of anything but making sure that Jade is safe. I want her here beside me, right now, and I can barely believe that the force of my wanting this can’t make it happen.

  I climb into the taxi and ask the driver to take us to Elmstead Road, adding that he may need to wait and take us on to other destinations if we don’t find what we’re looking for. The cabbie grumbles a little at first, and I wordlessly fish in my pocket and pull out the notes I have there, hold them up for him to see. His eyes flick to the rearview mirror, and he shrugs, then swings away from the curb and sets off down the long sea road.

  The journey to Katie’s house is barely ten minutes. We sit side by side in the backseat, not speaking. Occasionally Rachel glances across at me, reaches out her hand to touch mine. I register the intimacy of this, the strangeness of it. I feel as if I’m somewhere above myself, looking down from a height, dispassionately watching this unfold.

  “It’ll be OK,” she says once, and I nod, then turn to stare out of the window, watching the gardens flash past, the bright smears of green lit by streetlights in the rapidly falling dark.

  As soon as we pull up at the end of the street I’m out of the car, running up toward the house that I’ve already picked out. I ring the doorbell, long and hard. I can see some activity through the frosted glass panel, and Katie’s mother flings the door open, clearly gearing up for a rant, but when she sees it’s me the wind is taken out of her sails and she abruptly shuts her mouth, then smiles uncertainly.

  “Oh, hi,” she says. “Um, Alex, isn’t it?” We’ve only met once before. I see her glance at Rachel, and there’s something about the way she does a double take that makes me think that at first she thought it was Natalie.

  I don’t have time for niceties. “Is Katie in?”

  “Er, yes,” she says, glancing quickly behind her. “She’s just finishing her homework before bed. Is something wrong?”

  “I need to speak to her about Jade,” I say. I grope for the words that would make this feel more acceptable, and I can’t find them; there’s only a growing urgency, a panic rising in my chest and stifling everything else.

  “We’re sorry to disturb you,” Rachel chimes in, “but it is important, I’m afraid. We need to talk to Katie about some messages that Jade may have sent her this evening.” Her tone is reassuringly level, and I can see that Katie’s mother feels more comfortable with her than with me, so I say nothing, just nod and wait.

  “Okay,” the woman says, if a little uncertainly, and then half turns to shout up the stairs. “Katie! Can you come down? There’s someone here to see you.”

  A moment later Katie appears at the top of the stairs: all dark, wavy hair, a rolled-up school skirt, and suspiciously long curled eyelashes. She looks like a woman, and she’s the same age as Jade. These girls aren’t just growing up fast; they think they’re already there, already in control, and they’re so wrong. My heart tightens at the thought, and I force past the lump in my throat. “Katie, I’m sorry to bother you. You’re not in any trouble, but I really need to know if Jade has said anything to you about where she is tonight.”

  “Ah . . .” Katie looks instantly guilty, stalling, and shooting a quick glance at her mother. “I dunno.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” I say, fighting hard to keep my voice steady. “Look, Jade should still be in the hospital. I’m very worried about her, and I have reason to believe that something may have happened to her. If you’re worrying that you’re going to get her into trouble, then please don’t. Punishing her is the last thing on my mind. I just need to make sure she’s safe.”

  Katie sidles down the stairs, folding her arms in front of her and shaking her dark curls back from her face. I can see in her eyes that she’s still unsure, but also that on some level she’s impressed—the drama of this situation, and her role as the one who holds the knowledge I’m after.

  “Well . . .” she says slowly. “You know there’s this boy, Jaxon?” I nod, urging her on. “Well, she said she was going to meet him tonight. Like a date?”

  “A date,” I echo stupidly. I look at Rachel, but she looks as confused as I am. I can’t see what this has to do with Natalie, or how it marries up with our fears and suspicions. “The hospital told me that she had gone home with—with my wife.”

  Katie nods. “Yeah, that’s what she said. She said Natalie was going to take her to meet him. I said I thought that was pretty cool. Like, my mum would never do that.” She shoots her mother a quick, venomous glance, as if this is digging up old graves, but it’s all I can do not to give in to the tears that are threatening to choke me, because she doesn’t understand what love is about—it’s about protection, shielding.

  Her point made to her mother, Katie turns back to me and smiles. “So, I guess it’s OK,” she says. “Because Natalie’s with her.”

&nbs
p; Rachel must sense that I can’t speak, because she cuts in, smiling back brightly at Katie. “Thanks,” she says. “You’re right, that’s helpful. But would it be possible to see the messages she’s sent you tonight? Just in case there’s anything we need to know.”

  “I don’t think . . .” Katie begins, but her mother cuts in.

  “Just get your phone, Katie,” she says. I look at her expression, and I can tell that she isn’t fooled. She knows there’s something very wrong here.

  Katie sighs and fishes in her pocket. “This is kind of embarrassing, you know,” she mutters. “Like, I don’t usually write messages to my mates thinking their dads are going to read them.”

  I’ve regained some control, and I hold out my hand for the phone. “I’m sorry,” I say, “and I won’t look at anything beyond what was sent this evening, I promise.”

  Unwillingly she hands it over, and my eyes flick over the conversation, seeing it at a glance, but double-checking, making sure I haven’t missed anything.

  Guess what?!!

  What?

  I’m getting out of hospital and Natalie’s taking me to meet up with Jaxon!!!

  What?! U mean right now?

  Yeah. Omg I am so nervous. what if he doesn’t like me anymore?

  Don’t be stupid babe. He will luuuurve u. where you meeting?

  I dunno exactly yet. He said Portslade

  Portslade??!! That’s a fucking dump isn’t it:-o

  Yh I know:-/ but errrr maybe it’s better than we think. Or maybe he just knows a nice romantic place . . . oooohhh

  sorry had to have dinner. Ahh this is so exciting!! You have to let me know how it goes

  Jade’s last message has been sent only forty minutes ago, about twenty minutes before we arrived at the hotel room. I can’t believe she’d have voluntarily left her phone behind, and it means I have no way of getting in touch with her, other than to go to Portslade and scour the streets. Briefly, I think about calling the police. But Jade’s been missing a couple of hours, if that, and I have so little concrete information to give them. I don’t want anything to slow me down—I want to get out there and do my best to find her.

  “Thanks,” I say, passing the phone back to Katie. “If she texts or calls you somehow, will you let me know straightaway?” I recite my number and she keys it in, then stares at Rachel and me wide-eyed for a moment, as if she’s still trying to figure out what all this means. I grunt an awkward good-bye and thanks before turning on my heel and striding back to the taxi.

  “Portslade,” I tell the driver. “Somewhere central.”

  We’re back on the road, whizzing down the long narrow streets and past Hove Park, out toward Portslade. Even though it’s so close, I haven’t been here for years. White Tudor-style houses; squat, neatly rounded trees; a quiet little town, where nothing much ever happens. It is almost completely dark now, and I find myself looking in the windows of the houses as we travel down the long road that leads to the high street, caught in momentary traffic. Across the road, a man pulls his curtains shut, twisting his head around as he does so to talk to a child hovering behind. A little further along, a woman is carrying plates of food to the table, setting them down with a flourish. Ordinary people in ordinary homes. They’ve never seemed so seductive or desirable. I so badly want this to be another normal day, another cog grinding in the works of an untroubled routine.

  The taxi pulls up again with a screech. “All right here, mate? Are you going to need me again? Because I’ve got another job up in Hove.”

  “I don’t know.” I can’t focus on the taxi driver’s workload right now. “Never mind. You can get off.” Portslade is a small town. We can get around on foot, and we’re better off that way, having the freedom to search as we choose.

  When he has pulled away I turn to Rachel. “I don’t know where to look.” Against reason, something in me hopes that she’ll just know where Natalie is. I look frantically up and down the winding street we’re standing on. It’s deserted, the dim light of streetlamps faintly illuminating the pavement. “There’s nothing fucking here.”

  Rachel puts her hand on my arm, steadying me. “We just need to keep going. Ask in some of the bars, something like that.”

  It’s a reasonable idea and I seize on it; farther down the street I can see a pub sign bearing a painted image of a knight on horseback. I stride toward it, bursting through the door and instantly taking in the small number of people; mostly elderly men nursing pints and staring down at the tables, lost in their own thoughts.

  I approach one of them at random. “Excuse me, have you seen a girl? About fourteen, blond hair, maybe with a woman who could be her mother? Or maybe with a teenage boy?” My vagueness frustrates me. The man doesn’t even bother to reply, just peers at me in suspicion and shakes his head in silence before returning to his contemplation of his pint glass.

  I go round each in turn, asking the same question and getting the same short shrift, until Rachel gently pulls on my sleeve. “Come on, Alex. We’ll try somewhere else.”

  We spend the next hour ducking in and out of pubs and late-night corner shops, asking everyone we find if they’ve seen Jade. After a while I realize that I should be showing them a photo of her on my phone, and the thought gives me a new injection of energy and hope, but it rapidly becomes clear that it makes no difference. No one has seen her. We’ve walked for what seems like miles, and no matter how much ground we cover, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

  Eventually I sink to my knees on the street, not caring who sees. “We’re not going to find her,” I say, and voicing it aloud makes it so sickeningly real that for a moment I actually think I might throw up. I know it’s hopeless, but I dial Natalie’s number again. It goes straight to voice mail again.

  Rachel sits down beside me, her brow creased intently in thought. “Hold on,” she says. “You don’t have a car, right? And I don’t think Sadie—Natalie—would have taken a taxi with Jade. Whatever she’s trying to do here, she wouldn’t want to risk being remembered by anyone. So they must have come by train, mustn’t they? We should go to the station—they might have CCTV, or a guard might have seen them—someone will know something, I’m sure of it.”

  The conviction with which she speaks is enough to galvanize me, and I scramble to my feet. She’s right—it makes sense to go to the station.

  I set off down the road, keying the location into my phone and seeing that we’re less than five minutes away. My feet pound on the street, the rhythm shaking its way through my body, the sound of my own breath hard and fast in my ears. The outlines of the buildings lining the street are blurring in front of my eyes, but I force myself to keep going, running now, with Rachel at my heels. I can see the long, white building of the station up ahead and as we reach it I slow down to catch my breath. But then I hear something. At first, I think I must have got it wrong. But when I turn to Rachel she’s staring at me, her eyes wide, lips parted in dismay, and without a word we’re running again.

  SADIE

  SEPTEMBER 2017

  Once we’re on the train I choose the emptiest carriage I can and slide into the window seat, motioning for Jade to sit down opposite me. It’s a ten-minute journey at most, but the train crawls along, and we end up stopping between stations, with a bored announcer telling us that we’re being held at a red signal for what feels like a ridiculously long time.

  Jade doesn’t say anything, but she can’t stop fidgeting. I try to remember what it felt like, to be so eager to meet up with a boy that it’s vibrating all the way through your body. When you’re older you lose that eagerness, that lustful one-track-mind focus. But I remember how it was with Kas, when I used to travel up to the club. For a moment it’s like I’m back there, staring at my own reflection in the window against the darkening sky, imagining the look he’ll give me when he sees me and the scent of his aftershave curling toward me throug
h the air. Usually when I get these kind of flashbacks I cut them off at the source. Brutally, with no time for weakness. But tonight I let my memories drag me back there. It feels right somehow. It’s almost like he’s here, right over my shoulder, watching me.

  Jade is fiddling with her pocket mirror, examining her lipstick, twisting her face this way and that to check that it’s perfectly applied. It’s a crimson one of mine, a shade I’ve never seen her wear before. It doesn’t totally suit her—she’s too pale. But there’s something striking about the way it draws the eyes to the lips. It lets you know that the wearer wants you to be looking at them. She pouts uncertainly at herself in the mirror, then brings the back of her hand to her mouth, blotting the color and leaving a perfect imprint of her own lips on her skin.

  She sees me watching and glances up. “Do I look all right?”

  It’s the sort of question I hate. If you don’t know the answer, you shouldn’t be asking. Still, I force a smile. “Knockout.”

  She grins, glancing down at the dark blue minidress I’ve lent her. It’s a little looser on her than it is on me, but it skims her figure nicely enough. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a bitch to you at times, Natalie. Honestly.”

  I’m jolted by the way it comes out of nowhere. “You haven’t.”

  “Yeah, I have,” she insists. “It just wasn’t easy, you know, getting used to Dad having someone else. It was just him and me for ages.”

  “I know.” I don’t want to have this conversation. Something about it is making me itchy and uncomfortable, prickly heat rising up through my body. It makes her too human, too vulnerable. And I don’t want her apologies anyway, because at the end of the day teenage girls are fickle and changeable and she probably wouldn’t mean them tomorrow.

  The train has finally lurched into motion again, and I glance out of the window, seeing we’re pulling into Hove. Just one more stop and we’ll be there. I change the subject, turning the conversation in a direction I know she’ll like. “So, are you looking forward to seeing Jaxon? It’s been awhile you’ve been talking now, right?”