Missing You

by Douglas, Louise

  missing you

  Louise Douglas is a copywriter and lives near Bristol with her partner and three children. Her debut novel, The Love of My Life, was published in 2008. Missing You is her second novel.

  Praise for Louise Douglas:

  ‘A passionate and enduring love story which has unexpectedly captured my heart … An outstanding debut, written with assured confidence … lingering and haunting … likely to set the tongues wagging on the book club circuit’

  Bookseller choice from Kate Bradley, BCA

  by the same author

  The Love of My Life

  louise douglas

  missing you

  PAN BOOKS

  First published 2010 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-52113-0 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-52112-3 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-52114-7 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Louise Douglas 2010

  The right of Louise Douglas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  For my parents, Janet and

  Michael Beer, with love

  one

  Sean walks the short distance from his car to the front door, his keys in one hand, a wrap of flowers in the other. His steps are measured, but adrenaline is hurtling through his arteries. Belle, in her yellow sundress and sling-backs, is standing in the shade of the hall, sunglasses holding back her hair, her arms tanned, a silver bangle on her wrist. Her body makes a barrier between him and his home and he knows from the set of her shoulders what she’s going to say. They have been careering towards this moment for weeks.

  ‘Don’t,’ he says, ‘not today, Belle, not on such a beautiful day.’

  ‘I can’t do this any more,’ she says. ‘I can’t keep living like this.’

  The engine of his car is ticking; the smells of hot metal and scorched rubber from the tyres drifting towards him. Sweat chills the hollow between the parallel swells of muscle on his back. He licks his lips to draw saliva.

  ‘Please,’ he says, ‘please, Belle …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sean,’ she says, ‘but you have to go.’

  Her eyes drift from his face and down to the left. He follows her gaze and sees the bulging suitcase by the radiator and, beside that, an assortment of bags, his guitar and his CDs stacked carelessly in a cardboard box marked Virgin Wines. The paperback that he left face-down beside the spare bed this morning has been jammed into the pocket of his sports bag. Everything that obviously belongs to him is piled in the hall.

  ‘You can come back and collect the rest when you’re ready,’ she says.

  The hand holding the flowers drops to his side. The cellophane crackles and two petals fall at his feet. Sean slips the keys into his pocket.

  ‘Belle,’ he says, raising his free hand, pleading. He touches her gently on her bare arm. Her skin is sun-warm. She takes a small step backwards and his hand falls away. She rubs the place between her elbow and her shoulder where his fingers touched her, and she frowns and shakes her head.

  ‘I’m worn out,’ she says. ‘Please, Sean, no more talking. Just go.’

  He passes her the flowers. She sets them down on the telephone shelf without looking at them. They are roses the colour of milk.

  ‘I need to see Amy.’

  ‘She’s in bed.’

  ‘I have to say goodbye.’

  ‘It’ll just make it harder for you, Sean. Don’t.’

  But Belle steps aside. Sean passes her. He runs up the stairs, oblivious to the polished mahogany banisters, the cream carpet, Belle’s beautiful, framed photographs of urban sunsets, and he goes into Amy’s room. He leans against the wall with his head tipped back and presses his fists against his temples, trying to calm his heart.

  The blue curtains patterned with stars and moons keep out most of the light and the room is warm, scented by talcum powder, wax crayons and sherbet. Sean bats the butterfly mobile that hangs from the ceiling. The paper insects bob and weave.

  ‘Christ,’ he says under his breath. ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’

  ‘Daddy?’

  Amy is spread out like a starfish on top of her bedcovers. She’s wearing a pale green nightie. Her hair is stuck to her forehead and Sean can just make out a red mark on the bridge of her nose where she has been rubbing it with her finger. He tries to make his face normal.

  ‘I just came to say night night.’

  Amy yawns, a little cat yawn. She smiles up at him sleepily.

  ‘Can we have a puppy, Daddy?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he says, ‘one day.’

  ‘I’d prefer a girl puppy. I think we should call her Polly.’

  Sean tries to reply but his mouth is dry as sand.

  ‘I’ll look after her,’ says Amy. ‘She can sleep in a basket under my bed.’

  He closes his eyes. He feels the weight of himself against the wall.

  ‘Then when I wake up in the night, I can put my hand down and she’ll be there.’

  Amy drops one arm over the side of the bed to demonstrate.

  Sean rubs his mouth with the flat of his hand. Thoughts are chasing through his mind. There must be a way out of this. There has to be another way. He has to think
straight.

  ‘Ooh!’ Amy laughs and pulls her hand back up. ‘She licked my fingers!’

  Belle is at the door.

  ‘That’s enough, Amy,’ she says, smoothly, coolly. ‘Settle down now. Daddy’s busy. He has things to do.’

  ‘Belle …’

  ‘It’s just prevarication, Sean. Go now. You can see Amy at the weekend. You can take her out on Saturday.’

  ‘Belle …’

  ‘It’s for the best,’ she says.

  ‘Best for whom?’ he whispers. ‘A broken home is best for whom, exactly?’

  ‘Don’t let’s fight any more,’ she replies in a calm, reasonable voice, the voice of an executioner. ‘Don’t let’s make it any worse than it already is.’

  She follows him down the stairs. He is waiting for something to happen, something that will change the situation, put things back on track. He counts the stairs and at the bottom he sees that she has moved the suitcase and the bags from the hall out onto the drive. The roses are in the waste-paper basket, their stalks, bound by an elastic band, sticking up as uncompromisingly as the legs of a dead animal.

  He turns; she shakes her head slightly.

  ‘Belle!’

  He takes her hands in his, her limp and cool, lifeless hands, and he holds them up to his chest. ‘Belle, please!’ he says. ‘Please don’t throw away everything we have, just think about—’

  ‘There’s no point,’ she says, pulling away her hands. ‘We’ve been through this a million times.’

  ‘But you don’t listen …’

  ‘Because you say the same things every time.’

  ‘That bastard has poisoned your mind, he—’

  ‘This has nothing to do with Lewis …’

  ‘Oh come on! We were fine until you started—’

  ‘Shut up!’ she cries. ‘Stop it! I’ve had enough!’

  ‘Mummy …’

  They both look up. Amy is standing on the half-landing where the stairs bend. She is holding on to the banister with one hand. Her hair is messy and her eyes are large and worried.

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ says Belle, changing the texture of her voice and its cadence in a heartbeat. ‘We’re not fighting, we’re just …’

  Sean’s heart is beating so violently that he is afraid he will not be able to conceal his emotion from Amy. He doesn’t want to frighten his daughter, so he turns and steps through the door. Belle immediately closes it, pushes it shut. He imagines her leaning against it on the other side, holding her breath. She will calm herself, he thinks, and then she’ll take Amy back to bed and settle her. Then she’ll fill a glass with wine and she’ll take it out into the garden and sit on the swing-seat in the shade of the walnut tree, and she’ll put her head back and close her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief into the blue sky. She will listen to the birdsong and clear her mind. Later, she’ll telephone the Other to tell him the good news. Maybe she’ll summon him over. Or maybe she’d prefer to spend her first night without Sean on her own. It would give her time to change the sheets.

  Right now, Sean would like to hurt her. He’d like to hurt Belle like she’s hurt him.

  No, he doesn’t want to hurt her; he wants to convince her of his love. He wants to love her.

  He doesn’t know what he wants.

  He wants everything to be how it was four weeks ago, before she told him about the affair.

  He wonders if this is really the end of their marriage. It can’t be. That would be inconceivable.

  He turns back to the door. He has to talk to Belle, he has to make her realize; she doesn’t know how much he loves her, he hasn’t convinced her, and he will do anything for this not to be the end. He’s even proposed to let Belle see the Other if she wants to. Sean is prepared to wait for her; he is strong enough to put the thought of the two of them, together, from his mind for the sake of his family. She has been infected by her new lover, but sooner or later the venom will pass through her system and she’ll be herself again and she will come back to him.

  Sean raises his fists to beat on the door, and then he hears a polite cough to his left and turns and sees their neighbour, Mrs Lock. She is attending to her dahlias, and is poised, watching, secateurs in one gloved hand. She gives the slightest shake of her head.

  She knows. She’s heard the arguments. It is possible that, while Sean has been at work, Belle has gone into Mrs Lock’s kitchen and confided her troubles to the older woman, asked her advice over a pot of tea and biscuits.

  ‘I should give her a couple of days,’ says Mrs Lock in a kindly voice. She smiles, all grey hair and gentle, sorrowful eyes.

  Sean drops his arms. He nods.

  He loads his things into the car. But they won’t all fit so he leaves two bags at the end of the drive, beside the bins. Let the dustmen take them. What does it matter to him?

  He wipes his face with his sleeve, gets into the car and starts the engine. He looks back at the house through the mirror, but the door doesn’t open. Belle does not come out to call him back.

  He drives to the end of the road and then he sits there, in his car, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his forearm resting on the edge of the open window, vacillating between tipping the indicator switch up and tipping it down because he cannot decide whether to turn left or right.

  Sean’s face is wet with tears.

  Left or right?

  It doesn’t matter.

  Either way, everything he loves will still be behind him.

  two

  Fen is up early, unloading the washing machine. She rests the basket of damp laundry on her hip while she looks out through the narrow window of the galley kitchen into the long, thin back garden, to the alleyway beyond, and on down the hill, just in case. Her heart is clenching. But nothing has changed. Nobody is out there; there are no unexplained shadows, no trampled plants and no cigarette smoke winding into the sky. Everything looks just as it did yesterday, except there’s maybe the slightest hint of green-turning-to-gold in the leaves of the trees.

  Tomas has not come back. Not yet.

  She unlocks the door and climbs down the steps that drop into the garden. She puts the basket on the grass, removes the strut to drop the line that stretches from the house to the gate, and shakes out the first pillowcase. The long grass is cold and damp beneath her bare feet. It brushes her knees, the moisture soaking into the fabric of her jeans. In the sky, seagulls wheel and caw. The sun is already casting shadows through the leaves of the big copper beech tree at the corner of the overgrown alley that separates the gardens on this side of the road from the gardens of the mirroring terrace. Fen holds a peg in her mouth while she struggles to arrange a duvet cover on the line. Next door’s little black dog is turning circles on her neighbour’s closely shaven lawn, looking for the perfect place to pee. Fen catches sight of its owner, Mr Tucker, watching the dog through his kitchen window. He smiles at Fen, and waves. She smiles, waves back. She tucks her hair behind her ear and smoothes the linen on the line.

  If the neighbours knew the truth about her, they would not be so kind.

  The grass in her garden, unmown again this year, has turned from lawn to meadow. Feathery heads pepper her jeans with seeds. She likes the straggly buttercups and the poppies, but not the nettles that clump beside the wire fence, nor the ivy that creeps along the wall, fingering at the window frames. A long-limbed, woody shrub with shaggy, purple flowers has seeded everywhere; it attracts butterflies and birds but is untidy. Pink-flowering weeds are growing out of cracks in the paving stones and even the stonework of the house.

  Fen’s garden is not the worst. A little further down the hill an ancient Ford Escort is patiently rusting on a frame of bricks, its wheels long since gone; the Evans’ garden is a shambles of masonry, broken kitchen units and an old settee; and right at the bottom is the frail old widower’s garden, a jungle of sun-worn plastic ornaments, gnomes, signs and windmills.

  One day, Fen thinks, she will make a real effort. She will get to gr
ips with the garden, or at least clear a patch where she can lie out in the evenings, read a book and enjoy the views and the sun. Connor would enjoy the project and the neighbours would lend a hand. They are always offering to help, but Fen doesn’t like to take anything from them, partly because she is used to managing on her own and partly because there is so little she can do to reciprocate.

  Fen picks up the empty basket and goes back towards the house. She pauses at the top of the steps and glances out over her overgrown garden. The bed linen wafts lazily in the early September sunshine and a grey squirrel hangs upside down, gorging itself on the bird-feeder. There’s still no sign of Tomas. That doesn’t mean he is not out there, somewhere in the city, looking for her.

  Fen goes back into the kitchen and she locks and bolts the door behind her. When Tomas does come back, she does not want to be surprised. She wants him to have to knock. She knows what Tomas is like, and she doesn’t want him creeping up behind her, putting his hands over her eyes and holding her tightly.

  He wouldn’t mean to frighten her but these days she’s less robust than she used to be; she scares easily and Tomas always used to go a little too far. He never knew when to stop. He did not have the instinct for self-preservation that prevents most people from doing dangerous things. He thought he was invulnerable. He thought they all were and, because he believed it, it was as if it were true. When you were with Tom you felt as if you could do, or be, anything and that nothing could hurt you. It was one of the beautiful things about him.