Missing Fay

by Adam Thorpe

  She snaps the mobile shut, replaces it next to the wallet, creeps down the twisty stairs in bare feet. Only the penultimate step creaks and she avoids it, using the beamed walls either side for balance, alighting on her toes like a ballet dancer. The bedroom door is open a crack. The light spills from the frame into the dark sitting room, catching the sequins on the sofa cushions. No sign of Mungo. She hears a click, which could be a gun but is in fact the latch on her wardrobe door. She approaches the light, heart thumping even more vigorously, right out to her ears.

  Peeping round the door jamb, all she can see is the reflection in the full-length mirror: Gavin is stood in her big fur coat, the dark-grey one. His reflected face is a bit wonky, which is normal. Just staring at himself, lips slightly pouting, arms dangling either side, the coat shrugged a little off the shoulders, one white thigh sexily protruding. He is starkers under the coat, that’s clear, although the fur is covering what is likely to be an aroused dick. Below the hem of the coat, which comes to just above the knees, are a pair of stocky legs covered in swirls of black hair.

  She’d have preferred a bit of a flounce, a prissiness, like the little overweight double-chinned girls in front of the shop mirror flouncing and preening in their striped party dresses. It’s always tragic and pathetic – it makes Sheena want to cry – and then they march out scoffing their way through a mega-size packet of Monster Munch or whatever. Gavin’s stare isn’t tragic or pathetic; it’s concentrated. He’s not even fiddling with himself. It’s as if the coat itself is normal. That even with the fur covering him, he’s still naked. He’s a narcissistic prat.

  He turns, gives her a suggestive smile. No surprise, no shock.

  ‘We can do it in this,’ he says, unabashed. ‘Have it away in this.’ Bloody cheek.

  ‘Where do you live, Gavin?’

  ‘Eh?’

  She repeats the question.

  ‘I told you. Near the Dyke.’

  ‘Swinderby, that’s where you live.’

  ‘That’s where me mum lives, not me. Right?’

  She will have to take the coat to the dry cleaner’s. His armpits. Stale sex. Then she sees it: her dress crumpled on the bed. Her favourite dress: the deep-V silk wrap, marine blue, with the long sleeves. Diane von Furstenberg, for Pete’s sake. In a sale but even so. Cost a fortune. She looks gorgeous in it. He folds his own carefully, couldn’t care a toss about anyone else’s. It’s been tried on. Oh no.

  His glance is furtive now. ‘Snooping on me, then, were you?’

  ‘Are you really a store manager?’

  ‘No, I’m an alien. Believed me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course. I watch too many weird documentaries.’ She sighs, worn out suddenly. ‘An alien who lives with his mum in Swinderby.’

  ‘Anything wrong with saving on rent and keeping a lonely old woman company?’ He chuckles. ‘Sounds familiar, does it?’

  Her entire body is trembling. Men are shits. ‘It was nice while it lasted. Hang that fucking dress properly, please, before you depart out of my life.’

  She goes off to fiddle in the kitchen, rinsing the wine glasses, hands trembling dangerously. This is how things break. Still no sign of Mungo. Stuck outside or in some interior hiding place because the poor puss hates Gavin. A few creaks upstairs: he’s back in the attic room.

  She feels molested, as if he’s put on her own skin. She can’t help it. It’s the way she is. She dons her dressing gown and waits.

  He appears in the living room in his usual black outfit. She hands him his long coat and scarf, like a dresser. She feels so bloody tired. But she’s glad: tomorrow is another dawn, clearer and simpler, albeit a Thursday. Paul will get over his man flu. Gavin will get over this. Back to his shelves, his responsibilities, his mum.

  ‘Sheena—’

  ‘Thank you. Please go.’

  He stares at her with eyes that look hollow. Shit, they’re kohl-smudged.

  ‘It’s for the best, Gavin. More for your sake than mine, mate.’

  His face hardens, goes all knotty. Hit the spot, evidently. He nods slowly, adjusting his scarf, then makes for the stairs. On the top step he turns.

  ‘Before I go away out of your life for ever and ever, can I just say a little word, kind of?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s my democratic right.’

  ‘Go ahead, then. The very last word, please.’

  He stands at the top of the stairs. He is being reasonable and mature, thank Christ. Two responsible adults. It’ll be a clean break. ‘The thing is, like, this has been a really interesting learning experience. I have got such a lot out of it. For instance, there was this bloke with white hair in the pub a few months ago, right, who was holding his pork pie prior to consuming it, and he remarked to me that shagging old women was like eating this … comestible. That was the word he used. Comestible. I didn’t know what he meant, so he explained.’

  His teeth have got larger, he’s doing a kind of snarly thing as he talks. Her heart is banging hard against her chest. Let me out! Let me out!

  ‘So you bite through the crust, right, then you chew on the jelly to get at the meat. I didn’t quite understand it at the time, see, Sheena, but now I do. He was right, was this white-haired geezer. I now know that shagging an old woman is exactly like eating a pork pie. So thank you very much for that.’

  He has to fling himself down the stairs, feet scrabbling on the sisal runner, because Sheena is throwing stuff at him. Anything she can grab hold of in the immediate vicinity. She is screaming and throwing – useless cushions, a table lamp, Mungo’s scratching post, the leather poof from Fez, the Thai Buddha decorative wall plaque, a file of shop stuff that explodes mid-air, until her fingers close around the heavy paperweight from the Algarve as Gavin is scrabbling with the double lock in the little hallway. He gets the door yanked open just as the paperweight speeds past his head and into the night, cracking off the cobbles with a splintering bounce and then (as she scrabbles down herself and reaches the cold air and peers) rolling noisily and jerkily down the hill at Gavin’s heels.

  It must have woken the whole neighbourhood, but no lights come on. Maybe there’s no one left alive, she thinks, tightening her dressing gown and breathing in far too much night frost as she pants. The empty lane glistens, his dark shadow flickering in and out of the curly wrought-iron street lamps all the way to the bend. Maybe everyone’s as dead as herself, and just getting on with life as if we aren’t dead, not at all. Shivering so hard her teeth are, yes, actually chattering like in the books.

  When she goes back upstairs and shakes the cat bowl, Mungo does not appear. He has found a hiding place that works. Survival technique. It’s not the first time. When the Chinese take over, cats will be used for handbags. She clears the hall and stairs of the debris, hoovers the sisal and then the bedroom and the attic and the sitting room. It’s well past two by the time the overheated machine whines to a stop, her ears ringing. Mungo hates the Hoover. She’ll give her darling until lunchtime tomorrow, then she’ll put up a MISSING notice. Several.

  Roadkill. Jesus Christ.

  It’s Thursday. Today is Australia Day, and she’s the first person in the United Kingdom to think it. Sorry, Tony.

  She struggles through until Friday and then goes on a long weekend with man flu, pulling a sickie on the sofa under a duvet, downing chocolates with Chivas Regal and the occasional Lemsip, watching box sets and stuff like About a Boy for the tenth or so time, her baby purring on top of her, in cat Heaven. He was there on the sofa in the morning, fur chilled by a night outdoors. Sensible Mungo.

  Not-Britt takes over down below and the place doesn’t burn down. Trade is reportedly brisk, especially for the Icelandic-Chinese sweaters. She has a lot of brooding time. She expects eggs to come out of her ears. She even watches, without changing channels, all them grey suits gathered in the snowy mountains for the bloody World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. The ‘Great Transformation’, they call it. That’s what we all need.
A great effing transformation, on the personal level. But it won’t happen, neither on the global nor the personal. It’s all wishful thinking, dearie. As her mum would say. When you realise your parents were right all along, it’s way too late. Them Swiss mountains do look heavenly, though.

  There is a notice on Itchy Feet’s door, run off a computer in fancy lettering. The wintry air feels very out-of-doorsy to Sheena but it’s full of damp and it’s Tuesday morning; nothing good about the last day in January after three duvet days except that she’s still alive.

  Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are closed until

  further notice. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

  * * *

  She swears under her breath, heart pounding in her throat. The blinds are down. The place is dead and Paul Cannon is dead. Perfect spelling, so not his. He’s got himself killed. WE ARE CLOSED. Who’s WE? Him and the shop? He can’t be dead if it’s WE.

  Although it is just a formula, a way of putting it. She knows that. UNFORESEEN. It doesn’t mean anything.

  She never got his bloody mobile number. She trots back up the curve to On the Hob, defying gravity. Hannah always knows everything. The ex-primary school mistress. Miss Fox. Please, miss. Jason’s cheating. Samir’s nicked my fags, miss.

  She’s hoovering again. The Hoover dies. Sheena catches her breath, although she’s slowed down for the last bit. She doesn’t want Hannah to suspect.

  ‘Hi there, Hannah,’ she pants.

  ‘Training for the marathon? So should I be. Are you better? You look white.’

  Every year a mass of locals run the streets laughing in aid of Cancer Research, and there is always someone who drops dead, still in his funny hat.

  ‘It’s the bloody slope. Need to be on my feet more.’

  ‘Brittany said you were in bed with a raging fever.’ Hannah has this lovely deep posh voice. Padded hearts hang on threads between them because it is Valentine’s coming up. The kind of thing that annoys customers, but Hannah will learn.

  ‘A stitch in time. How’s tricks, Hannah?’

  ‘Really quiet, after a good start. Mind you, it’s winter, it’s the recession, it’s bloody cold. And it’s Tuesday. Did you know the first day of February has the highest number of suicides in the UK?’

  ‘That’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Better to be warned.’ Hannah always puts things a bit strangely. What is Your New Year Resolution?

  Sheena acts away. ‘I can’t even push the carnal love guff, not on toddlers. I’d be arrested. Missing that classroom already?’

  ‘Like, er, no.’

  Hannah is young, not even thirty-five, with hair streaked in lollipop pink and a very slim figure that Sheena envies. She feels rounded in front of the woman, who is always showing off her midriff. Sheena could have done that, once, if the style had demanded it, but now her stomach is starting to roll up against her belt. It isn’t diet, it is muscular deterioration, like old rubber bands. She’ll never eat a pork pie again in her whole life.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you vacuuming so industrially, but I’ve a query.’

  Hannah laughs, Sheena isn’t sure why. People do laugh louder these days. ‘Fire away, Sheena, once you’ve got your breath back.’

  ‘What’s happened down the road? I mean, Paul – that – that quiet sort of hippy bloke’s place. The shoe shop. Itchy Feet.’

  ‘Oh, crikey,’ Hannah gasps. ‘Of course, it was on Friday. Awful. Did no one tell you? I only knew yesterday evening, mind you. I left you a message, actually. That was right to the fore of my mental diary, and so why did I forget just now? Weird.’

  The awful hearts. Keep bumping against your forehead. Spangled, like migraine. ‘Awful what?’

  The phone goes. Some customer, bound to be, yacking on and on about whether Hannah has got in some pointless decorative crap or not and he or she has tried everywhere else and Christ these people ought to be strangled at birth and yet Hannah is listening and nodding and talking back like sugar, like syrup, because the client is always right and meanwhile a real heart is pounding so hard it is ready to explode.

  The second the phone goes down, Sheena says – too angrily, too urgently – ‘What awful what, Hannah?’

  ‘What what?’ The girl is still coming out of client mode. Or she’s on drugs. ‘Oh, that. Poor thing. Yes, you wouldn’t believe it. Awful. The silly billy went and broke his back. Paragliding. Weird name, sounds like gliding for the disabled, doesn’t it? Sorry, that was tactless. I mean, it’s—’

  ‘Broke his back?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I said, Friday. Awesome.’ She glances at the calendar. ‘The 27th? Only heard last night, as I was leaving. I did try phoning you. Should have texted, but my boyfriend was waiting, battery flat, well done team!’

  ‘Not rock climbing?’

  Hannah is propping a red velvet heart behind a set of Danish cutlery. There are too many hearts. Maybe there’s a big heart between Hannah and Paul. No, no, no. No way. Sheena feels some kind of energy filling her out to the tips of her fingers.

  There’ll be no one else to push him.

  She has to sit down, her legs jellifying. A few hearts spill onto the floor. Hannah goes out to fetch her a nasty tea in a nasty paper cup because she has nothing to make it in, not in On the Hob. The cathedral bells start pealing. Sheena thinks, sitting there alone and hoping no one comes in expecting to be served, now it’ll be all over town, like the ringing bells. Sheena ’n’ Paul. Paul ’n’ Sheena.

  Silly billy. Silly sod. Taking the day off. Friday. Today’s Tuesday. She didn’t know for three days. He didn’t phone her. Not family, is she?

  Better than Gavin ’n’ Sheena, though. That was a close call.

  * * *

  She recovers her legs quickly – psychosomatic, Hannah reckons – and tells Brittany to hold the fort for the morning and heads straight off to where they’ve taken him: Nottingham. The university hospital’s spinal unit. World renowned. It takes almost an hour and a half with the horrible traffic. There are other people visiting him, loud friends from the paragliding club. She feels a bit silly and shy, bursting in on all this, and hangs about in the hospital corridors until they’ve gone, studying the shiny floor.

  ‘Hello, Paul. I was just passing.’

  ‘Yeah, very likely.’

  He blinks at her as if through a pale mask. This is such a mistake. She is about to give him the Ferrero Rocher and go when he says, ‘Hey, I like the boots.’

  ‘Picked them up for a song somewhere. Can’t think where.’

  She is surprised to see him looking intact, without a single bruise on his face. Now she knows what the tan was: he went paragliding every weekend, in the wind and rain and sun. ‘My personal two fingers to the flatlands,’ he explains. Over in Derbyshire or, if he couldn’t face the drive, up near Louth or skimming the waves at Mablethorpe or across the Wolds with the help of a tow winch. The quiet type. This last time it was a Friday because it was so dead in the shop he thought he’d die too. Headed for the Derbyshire Peaks, off Mam Tor. A wind shadow near a line of very tall pines had snared him as he was descending in the afternoon, had collapsed his wing and shoved him down on his arse instead of his feet when he was about twelve feet off the ground. He knew the worst straight off, he says. He just lay there in the field near Bakewell, arms akimbo like Jesus, crying his eyes out. He’d heard his vertebra blow. It had seemed to travel up to his head and crack there like a twig in his brain and his big flying boots wouldn’t shift in the grass and he couldn’t breathe at first, his lungs had collapsed like his wing, he saw them full of blood, like his big blood-red wing. In fact, his whole head was filled with warm red blood and it was crazy – for a moment it was like a high during meditation, this kind of amazing glow. Then that drained away and he just lay there with tears streaming over his face, staring up at the blurred sky, feeling bloody freezing. Someone came running over. It was Chas, his paragliding friend. Big worried f
ace.

  ‘Oh God, Chas, oh God, oh shit.’

  Chas knew straight away that this was the extreme that they all feared but never anticipated. He didn’t even take Paul’s helmet off.

  It was just a freak accident, wind shadow, a whirl in the water of wind. But he’d miscalculated.

  They don’t know, not yet. He tells her he’s blown his L1 vertebra, which is just above the small of the back. They have already put in titanium rods and screws to stabilise the crushed bone and manage the pain. A cage, they call it. Six hours under gas, yesterday. Or was it the day before? At the moment he can’t feel his legs or lower back, but the X-ray and MR I scans show the nerve hasn’t been completely severed. There is this tiny glimmer of hope.

  ‘Your luck ran out,’ says Sheena, holding his hand when the words stop. He had to explain the technical terms like wind shadow, thermal, cloud suck. It was like he had to get it all out. ‘Whatever happened to Hugh of Amersham?’

  He screws his face up. Trying to stop himself laughing? ‘Hugh of Avalon. Went off to Amersham, maybe. Or the wild swan got shot.’

  Nothing to do with luck, he explains. Luck isn’t what paragliding is about. It’s about skill and being organised and not making a bad landing. It’s about being aware of your body and aware of nature, becoming a bird, a gliding hawk. He probably made a bad decision, flying that day, because the air felt jumpy. It was his last flight of the afternoon. He’d thought he was far enough away from that line of trees. Or maybe it wasn’t the trees at all. It was like something shoved him out of the way. From underneath. Shooting up from underneath, honestly. Collision. Like another hang-glider almost, spiralling up, but there was no one else in sight, only Chas’s tiny white face looking up from way below, firmly grounded. Anyway, it went all mushy and he found himself in a stall. He was going over it, over and over what happened, but it wouldn’t undo its knot. Do you know what Nirvana means? The place of no wind. Maybe he hit Nirvana, like a black hole. Some weird wind current, some vortex smacking up into him. Sheena nods, thinking of Gavin in her flat, on the stairs, turning to her and opening his poison mouth.