by Rosie Fiore
‘So what do I say?’
‘Whatever you think will make people ask the fewest questions.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.’
‘I think saying she’s not well is okay. She isn’t well.’
‘Isn’t she? I have no idea.’
‘These are not the actions of a sane person.’
‘Maybe not,’ I conceded.
‘I think you should say—’ At that moment Lara came over to our table, carrying two beers.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, putting them down. ‘Tristan seems to have gone AWOL, so I thought I’d bring your drinks over myself.’
She smiled at me and then smiled enquiringly at Tim. He couldn’t help himself. He engaged his weapons-grade roguish grin, stood up and offered her his hand.
‘Tim Cooper, Sam’s younger brother,’ he said, leaning lightly on the ‘younger’. ‘Thanks so much for the drinks. Do you have time to sit down and join us?’
She took his hand lightly, but I saw her smile switch off like a light. She clearly wasn’t taken in by bad-boy flirtatiousness. I was surprised, and it made me like her a little more.
‘Thanks, but I still have a few things to take care of,’ she said. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything else.’
‘We definitely will,’ said Tim, unaware that his charm wasn’t working. Lara walked quickly away.
‘Jesus,’ I said, more impatiently than I meant to, ‘do you have to hit on absolutely every woman you meet?’
‘I wasn’t hitting on her. Much,’ he said, sipping his drink and watching the doorway through which Lara had gone. ‘But she’s very sexy.’
Was she? I genuinely couldn’t drum up the energy to think about it.
Suddenly, I was tired. Achingly tired. I was irritated by Tim, deeply uncomfortable at seeing Lara, and the fact that we had come out to a pub on this night of all nights seemed awful, wrong and callous. I could imagine it becoming a story that would come back to haunt me once everyone knew what had happened, that Helen had left voluntarily. If Lara happened to mention that the very night I heard she was gone, I was out on the lash. . . It didn’t bear thinking about. I felt a wave of panic as powerful as nausea. I stood up suddenly and my glass rocked and splashed beer on the table.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Tim looked up at me, surprised. He waved a hand as if to indicate our full glasses but then quickly understood and got to his feet too. ‘Sure. I’ll go and pay,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a cab at the same time.’
He took his drink to the bar with him, and I sat back down, shaking. I kept half an eye on him as he chatted and smiled with Lara, handing her his card while ordering a cab on his phone and gulping down his beer. At one point, as he bent to key in his PIN, Lara glanced over his shoulder at me. She was too far away for me to read the expression in her eyes, but it looked like concern or pity rather than revulsion.
Tim straightened up, gave Lara a last big grin and then swept over to me. He had me out of the door and into a waiting cab before I had time to blink, and then we were gliding through the sleeping streets, back to my empty house.
CHAPTER SIX
Sam
I woke up at five the next morning. That is to say, I found myself sitting bolt upright, wide awake, in the bed, my heart racing and my breath jagged and raw in my throat. The pain that hadn’t hit the night before? It was here. Its force was devastating, crushing and extreme. I was in the middle of what must be a panic attack, I realized. Either that or I was having a heart attack and my daughters were about to lose a parent for the third time.
What lunacy was this? The police had told me that my wife of five years had voluntarily walked away and I’d just accepted it? I remembered telling Tim in the restaurant that I knew she wasn’t coming back. Well, that was absurd. She was Helen. My wife. Stepmother to my children. My companion and friend. Our lives were inextricably entwined. There was no way she could just have walked away. What the hell had I been thinking?
I got out of bed and leaned on Helen’s dressing table, willing my breathing to calm down. There had to be an explanation. At best, if there was a best in this appalling situation, she was ill. Mentally ill. Possibly following a blow to the head, amnesia or an undiagnosed manic episode. I remembered reading somewhere that two thirds of homeless people have mental-health problems. Not that Helen was homeless. Was she? Could she be out on the street? Surely not. But what if my terrors were right? What if, somehow, she’d found out that I’d fooled around a little? What if she’d seen me somewhere, or someone at work had ratted me out? It was very unlikely, but not impossible. If I could only get to her, find out what she knew, explain it all away, we could fix this thing.
I couldn’t believe I’d gone a whole night without looking for her, without going to the police and insisting that they let me speak to her. How could I have believed them, or my mum? What did they know? They didn’t know Helen like I did.
It was so obvious to me now. I had to go to the police and make them tell me everything. I had to make them understand that she was ill, or had been kidnapped or something. They had to let me talk to her or take me to where she was.
Clothes. I had to get dressed. I was in a T-shirt and pants. I pulled on some jeans and slipped my feet into trainers. No time for socks. I headed for the door. Before I flung it open, I remembered Tim was in the house. I needed to be quiet or I’d wake him and he’d try to talk me out of it. I eased the door open and tiptoed out into the hallway. I could hear Tim’s soft snoring and glimpsed him through Miranda’s half-open bedroom door, sprawled face down on her bed. He was out for the count. I crept downstairs, grabbed the car keys and let myself out of the front door.
The street was silent, and even though it was only just past five, the sun was already fully up. It was going to be a beautiful day. I slipped into the driver’s seat of Helen’s Prius. I’d decided to take her car because my Range Rover would have woken the whole street. I sat for a moment in the pristine interior, breathing in the faint scent of her perfume. Other people left litter or personal detritus in their cars – hairpins, a chewing-gum wrapper, a receipt from shopping – but Helen’s was as clean and impersonal as the day she brought it home from the showroom.
The engine barely purred as I turned the key. I reversed into the road and drove through the empty streets to the police station. There was one sad, tired-looking male officer on duty behind the desk when I got there. It had obviously been a rough night. Or maybe a rough life. Luckily, he didn’t seem to have any pressing demands on his time. He looked up as I walked in, and I saw him take in my rumpled T-shirt and unbrushed hair. He sagged a little lower.
‘Hi,’ I said, trying to be as brisk, sane and professional as possible. ‘I’m Helen Cooper’s husband.’
If I’d hoped that this statement would spark comprehension and a rush to help me, I was out of luck.
‘She’s missing,’ I said. ‘It’s been all over the press.’
He nodded then, still unsure what I was talking about. I looked around and saw a copy of last night’s Evening Standard lying on a chair in the waiting area. Helen’s face smiled up at me from the bottom right-hand corner of the front page. I picked it up and shoved it over the counter at him.
‘Here,’ I said, jabbing the picture with my forefinger. ‘This is my wife.’
He looked down at the picture and the caption below it. ‘It says here, sir,’ he said slowly, ‘that she’s been found safe and well.’
‘That’s what they told me yesterday,’ I said. ‘But she’s not.’
‘She’s not?’
‘You see, she just walked away from the house. With nothing. And now they tell me she’s fine but she doesn’t want to come home. It’s not possible.’
‘Well, sir, people do sometimes just—’
‘Not Helen,’ I said. ‘Not Helen!’ And I realized I was shouting.
He took a half-step back from the counter and his face shut down. ‘Sir, if you�
�re going to be abusive. . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m not abusive. It’s just. . . you don’t know her. She’s the most, calm, organized and sane person. She wouldn’t just. . . walk away. It’s not possible. Something terrible must have happened to her.’
He looked unsure, and I saw him glance down at the newspaper article. ‘It does say here—’
‘I know what it says,’ I barked, and dimly realized I was shouting again.
‘Sir, the police wouldn’t have halted the investigation if they thought there was any possibility—’
‘What if there is a possibility? What if they’ve made a gigantic mistake? What if the woman who walked into the police station wherever it was wasn’t Helen? What if she’s being held somewhere? Against her will?’
‘Sir, we do have appropriate safeguards in place. They would have confirmed her identity. I am sure it was her. There’s been so much press around this case. . .’
He didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. Helen’s face had been on every news service. They wouldn’t take a chance on this. If they got it wrong and stopped looking for her and she ended up chopped into bits and stuffed into a suitcase – well, the implications wouldn’t be good for the police, would they?
I tried to stay calm. ‘I am sure you can understand, though, that unless I see her with my own eyes, and talk to her, it’s impossible for me to believe that.’
‘I can understand that this is difficult, sir—’
‘It’s not difficult, it’s impossible. I need to see her. There must be a central record-keeping system. You must be able to tell me where she is. What police station she reported to. She must have given some contact details to someone?’
He started to look uncomfortable. ‘Sir, could I ask you to step back from the desk a little?’
‘Why?’ I said. ‘Can you answer my question? Can you call up the details on that?’ I gestured to the computer beside him. I was leaning on the counter, my palms spread wide. I wasn’t shouting or being threatening. He just wasn’t doing anything. I wanted to shake him.
‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to gain access to that sort of information, and. . .’
I could have finished that sentence for him too. Even if he could, he wouldn’t give it to me. Who knew what kind of crazed, violent lunatic he was dealing with?
The fight went out of me and I stepped back from the counter as requested. I felt wobbly suddenly, as if I might faint, and I backed up until I felt my legs touch the row of plastic bucket chairs which were bolted to the wall opposite the desk. I sat down and rested my head in my hands. When I lifted my eyes, the officer behind the desk was looking at me with less distrust and more. . . well, sympathy was probably pushing it. Benevolent indifference.
‘Safe and well,’ I said. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘We ask a series of questions, make some checks.’
‘Like what?’
‘We try to find out why they went missing. If they’ve been subjected to violence, abuse or bullying, if there’s been drug or alcohol abuse, if they’ve been a victim of crime or if they’ve committed a crime, that sort of thing.’
I wanted to object. None of those questions had any bearing on Helen’s life. They sounded like the sort of questions you’d ask of someone who lived in a chaotic environment – the sort of people you saw yelling at each other on terrible documentaries and chat shows, baring their missing teeth and raising threatening, tattooed fists. Not people like us. I knew that thinking like that made me seem a massive snob, but I couldn’t reconcile it.
‘None of that. . . none of that sounds like Helen,’ I said finally. ‘She barely drinks, she’s never taken drugs. There was no violence in our home. And yes, I know that, as the husband, I would say that, but it’s true.’
He didn’t say anything, just let me sit there and stare quietly at the mottled linoleum floor between my trainers. ‘The police,’ I said finally, slowly. ‘The police who did the check. Would they know where she is?’
He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘They would have made sure she had a fixed address, and they’d have offered her any help she might need.’
‘Could you at least find out for me where she is? Or put me in contact with the officer she spoke to? I’m sure if I could speak to her. . .’
‘Sir, all I can do is put you in contact with the Missing People charity. They can offer you support and tell you what you can do. But I do know that if a missing person says clearly that they don’t want their whereabouts disclosed, then we have to respect that. It’s their right.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s their right,’ he said. ‘People are allowed to go missing. It’s not a crime. They have a right to privacy.’
‘I see,’ I said, and I surprised myself at how calm I sounded. ‘PC Shah said that too, when she came to tell me about Helen. She said it was her right. And what about my rights? What about the rights of my children? What are we supposed to do?’
‘I know this must be difficult, sir. . .’ he began, and I’m sure he would have come out with a wonderful platitude. He never got to finish the sentence though, because I launched myself out of the bucket chair, threw myself half over the counter and punched him squarely in the mouth.
PART TWO
CHAPTER SEVEN
SIX MONTHS LATER
Sam
Writing-icing, my arse. You can’t write with it, or draw with it. It gives you blobs and gaps and a massive cramp in your thumb from trying to squeeze it evenly, and a genuinely shitty effect. I stood back from my efforts and flexed my aching hand. I’d spent ages drawing the Harry Potter design on paper. I’d driven out to Costco in rush-hour traffic to buy the pre-baked, plain, iced cake I’d ordered. I’d even managed to copy my design reasonably well with a sharp knife-point on to the pristine icing on the cake. And then I got out the tubes of icing and it all went to shit.
It was Miranda’s ninth birthday and the first I’d had to do on my own. She was already furious with me. I had failed in every possible way with the plans for this birthday. I had spent far, far too much money on presents – more than I could afford, and about three times more than she had ever had in previous years – but I knew it still wasn’t going to make her birthday okay. It didn’t matter what she got, all she would be thinking about was what she wasn’t going to get.
She wasn’t going to get one of Helen’s masterpiece cakes – a miracle of flavour, design and ingenuity. She wasn’t going to get gorgeous food, perfect decorations or an impeccably planned disco party on our patio. She was going to get a trip to the cinema with her friends, then dinner at the local pizza place and this cake. That was if I didn’t hurl the cake against the wall in frustration.
I went to the fridge and fetched another beer. I stood staring at the cake for a long while. Harry Potter looked as if someone had done a face-melting spell on him. I dug around inside a drawer and found one of Helen’s icing knives, similar to a painter’s palette knife, and skimmed his face off. I absent-mindedly ate the icing off the knife. It didn’t mix too well with the lager, but I was past caring. I picked up a toothpick and drew the face into the icing again. It didn’t look much better, and I gouged so deeply that a few cake crumbs came to the surface, marring the whiteness. The number of beers I’d drunk may have had something to do with my general uselessness. I could have rung Mum, or even Tim (he’s no baker, but even he would have been able to do better than this). But I couldn’t bring myself to ask for more help. It felt like all I did was ring my family up and whine for help. I could do this. I could.
In the end it took a Google search and the simple revelation that resting the tubes of icing in a cup of hot water made them easier to work with. I managed to do a halfway decent job eventually. If you squinted your eyes and concentrated hard, you’d probably guess it was Harry Potter. Or at least Harry Potter as reimagined by Quentin Blake or Salvador Dali. I wrote ‘Harry Potter’ in wobbly letters
below the image, then realized I should probably have written ‘Happy Birthday Miranda’ instead. Too late.
It was late, actually. I glanced up at the kitchen clock. It was 1 a.m. It was always 1 a.m. I swigged the last of the beer from my bottle and carefully carried the cake over to the fridge. It took some reshuffling to make a space big enough to slide the cake inside. Two beers had to come out to make room. Oh well, it wouldn’t do for them to get warm. I carried them through to the living room and slumped on to the sofa.
I turned on the TV, muting the sound and choosing a twenty-four-hour news channel.
I made it to halfway through the second beer before I dozed off – that is, the second beer I’d taken from the over-full fridge. It was possibly my fifth of the evening, if anyone was counting; I know I wasn’t. There have been a lot of fifth beers recently – a fact I can see reflected in my bloodshot eyes every morning and in the undeniable softness around my middle. The fact is, without the fifth beer, there is no sleep. With the fifth beer, there are a fitful, dream-ridden few hours, usually on the sofa, before I wake because the dregs of the bottle have spilled in my lap or when the crick in my neck becomes too painful. Without the fifth beer, there are just the long hours of night, sitting trapped in the house with my sleeping girls, staring into the black pit of my bottomless rage.
Fuck me, that sounds melodramatic. It is melodramatic. I’m not falling apart. I’m functional and everything. I work. I look after the girls. I get them up in the morning and get them to school and they’re clean and they do their homework. Things are harder financially, of course. We always used to rely on the bonuses I earned from signing big accounts. But now I’m working reduced hours – or normal hours by most people’s standards – so I’m not bringing in those big cheques anymore. I’m having to fork out an eye-watering sum for extra childcare too. The ends are still meeting – just – but there’s not much overlap.
Yes, things aren’t the same as when Helen was here. Marguerite is always tired – with breakfast club and after-school club, she spends ten hours a day at school. Our meals are basic to say the least – a lot of ready-made lasagne, and pasta with pesto (although I always try to make them eat some salad with it). And while I keep up with things like laundry and bills, the housework defeats me. I can’t seem to get round to all the hoovering, dusting, bed-changing and bathroom cleaning that happened as if by magic when Helen was here. I do my best, but the house is starting to look dingy. Things pile up on tables, the carpets have a coating of fluff, and the kitchen floor is always slightly sticky. I wish I could afford to get a cleaner in, but there isn’t that flexibility in the budget right now.