Missing You

by Douglas, Louise

  Sometimes, when Fen thinks about what happened to Joe that night, the night that Tom went away, she tries to present the facts in a different way. She does everything she can to convince herself that Tom was the one who was responsible. But it’s a lie. She, Fen, is to blame.

  Her guilt is wrapped around her like a cloak she can’t shake off. She’s been wearing it for so long now that she cannot imagine herself without the weight of it, or the shame of it.

  Every day of her life, Fen wishes Tomas would come back to her. He is the only person she could talk to, the only one who would understand how she feels, because he is the only one who knows the truth. Perhaps, together, they could find a way to live with their past and to reconcile themselves to what happened to Joe Rees. Perhaps things would be better for both of them.

  Fen squeezes her eyes shut; she squeezes out her memories. Then she opens her eyes and looks about her, pulling herself back into the present. The kitchen is very small and the units are tired and old-fashioned, but it’s clean and bright and cheerful, especially when the sun shines through the window. The splashy artwork Connor brings home from school is Sellotaped to every available vertical surface; a photograph of him laughing so hard that he is falling off his chair is stuck to the fridge by a magnet; his new school bag sits on the counter.

  Fen opens the bag and extracts Connor’s lunch box, takes out the previous day’s yoghurt-smeared detritus and rinses the blue plastic under the cold tap. It smells of banana.

  She feels safe in Bath, she likes living in Lilyvale. It’s a small house, but it has a gentle, protective feel to it. She lived here for two months before Connor was born, and since then the two of them have been here for five winters and five summers, and in all that time their lives have been quiet. Nothing terrible has happened. Nobody has said an unkind word to Fen; people don’t stare at her in the street or put their heads together to whisper about her and her family when she passes by. There is no speculation, no accusation, no finger-pointing and nobody she has to avoid. She has no history in the city beyond the first of the winters. Only Lina knew her before she came to Bath, and Lina doesn’t know everything; and what she does know, she keeps to herself.

  Fen dries her hands on the towel folded over the radiator, fills the kettle and switches it on. She checks the clock. It’s still early.

  On the kitchen table is a postcard she’s going to put up in the window of the off-licence at the top of the hill. She has written in purple felt pen:

  ROOM TO LET IN FAMILY HOME,

  Crofters Road, Fairfield Park.

  Would Suit Single Professional.

  References required.

  That sounds about right, thinks Fen, and she props the card up beside the cereal packet.

  She checks the garden one last time, but it is still empty, and then she makes her tea and goes upstairs to wake her son.

  three

  He wakes before six, not because he has had enough sleep but because his bloodstream is pumping liquid anxiety. Sean’s breath is quick and shallow, and his nerves are on edge. He licks the inside of his mouth. His heart is a fierce hammer inside him; the sheet beneath his aching back is clammy with sweat. It takes him a few seconds to remember what is wrong, and when he remembers, he wishes he had not.

  Everything is wrong.

  Sean rolls onto his side and opens his eyes.

  It is very dark in the room because of the blackout curtains. Sean is in a hotel bedroom, not a proper hotel, but a soulless, unstaffed place at the arse end of the motorway services.

  He has been drifting. He has been staying in anonymous bedrooms in cheap hotels. Sometimes he sleeps in his car. He derives a masochistic pleasure from the loneliness of his existence. By punishing himself, he punishes Belle. It is perverse, of course, because she does not know that he finds himself in these miserable rooms, writing letters of increasing desperation that he has the sense not to send, drinking to the bottom of the bottle just to stop himself thinking about the Other and what he is saying to her, how he is touching her, what he is learning about her, how he is knowing things that only Sean was supposed to know.

  Sean yawns. He sighs and gets out of bed. Then he takes a shower to wash away these dirty thoughts.

  When he comes out of the bathroom with a white towel fastened around his waist, he draws the curtains, and in the concrete-grey daylight the room is as grubby and shabby as he had known it would be. There is a crack in the mirror, the upholstery on the chair is frayed and stained, and the television screen is dusty and marked with fingerprints. His clothes are piled untidily on the chair. At least he didn’t drop them on the carpet, which he knows from experience will smell of feet and commercial fabric freshener. There is an empty vodka bottle upturned in the waste-paper basket and several scrunched-up beer cans are scattered around.

  Sean rubs his hair with the towel and then tosses it into the bathroom. He feels as if his entire self is one long, sore wound. His self-pity is humiliating but Sean has never been good at managing emotion. This was one of many personality traits that Belle cited as offensive. She said that any other man would have realized she was unhappy and would have done something about it, or at least discussed her feelings with her. He did not even notice that things weren’t right.

  She blames him for her affair. Perhaps she has a point.

  On some rational level, Sean knows that Belle is not wholly to blame for their situation. He did not notice her unhappiness and so she fell in love with a different man. There is no crime in falling in love. Falling is not a deliberate action when you have been pushed to the precipice, as Belle apparently was, by the fact that she felt entirely unappreciated by Sean and was convinced of his ambivalence towards her. She has told Sean a thousand times that she never meant to hurt him, and he believes she is telling the truth.

  Still he is hurt. He believes his love for Belle is so deep and intrinsic that he doesn’t know how he can survive without her. She is everything to him. She is his reason for living. Whatever she thought, the truth is that he never took her for granted, not for one moment, ever.

  Before, when he woke each morning, he would feel her presence beside him, her hand perhaps on the pillow beside his cheek, her hair, her sleep-soured breath, her precious little snores and sighs, and he would say a silent prayer of gratitude. When he went to sleep she was there, next to him; he could inhale the smell of her, see the way her hair tapered into silky down at the base of her neck; he could warm himself beside her lovely body, bask in the scent of the cream she used on her face. And he was amazed at his good fortune; he was astonished that a woman as wonderful as Belle could be married to a man like him. He imagined their future. He imagined more children, and although he loved the thought of these children, already, even before they were conceived, he looked forward to the time when they left home, and he could have Belle to himself. He thought they would travel. He imagined them, husband and wife, side by side on the deck of a ship, seeing a new continent take shape on the horizon in the sunrise, and he imagined how it would feel to share that experience with somebody to whom he felt so deeply connected. He imagined beaches, volcanoes, cities, seas, exotic hotels and savannah lodges, hired cars, tents, motels. The same life seen through two pairs of eyes, lovers, always, Belle and Sean, the perfect couple, the meant-to-be soulmates.

  The trouble was that he didn’t tell her how he felt.

  He didn’t think he needed to tell her.

  He thought, because they were married, because every aspect of their life was so intimate, because they were forever united emotionally and genetically by the incredible child they had created together, that he didn’t need to tell her that he loved her. He thought that fact was spelled out in every word he said to her, every action, every glance, every kiss and kindness. Everything he did was for Belle. Every mile he drove, every weekend he worked, every shitty, cold, thankless job he surveyed, every penny he earned, all of it was for his wife. She knew he was not good at articulating his feelings but was
n’t it obvious that he loved her?

  She said it was not.

  She said she didn’t tell him how unhappy she was because he didn’t ask.

  He didn’t know it was something he was supposed to ask. He was happy and it never crossed his mind that Belle might not be. He didn’t know what to do then and he doesn’t know what to do now.

  He knows one thing.

  He cannot go on like this.

  He needs to sort himself out.

  One step at a time, he thinks, like an alcoholic. First things first.

  He needs to escape these hotels. That’s the first thing he needs to do.

  four

  Lina tells Fen that she has given her telephone number to one of her colleagues. She says he’s a decent man who has had some kind of ‘major domestic’. Lina says she expects it will sort itself out in time, but, for now, Sean needs somewhere to stay.

  Lina has known Sean for years. She says he’s OK.

  So when Sean calls to ask about the room, Fen invites him round.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, shaking raindrops from his hair. ‘I’m Sean.’

  He holds out his hand. Fen takes it. His fingers are red and cold but his handshake is firm. It is the first time she has touched a man deliberately in years and the feeling of his skin is strange. She lets go first and wipes her hand on the thigh of her jeans.

  ‘Come in,’ she says, moving aside. He wipes his feet on the doormat then steps through the porch.

  ‘You’re the one who …’ she begins.

  ‘Works with Lina, yes. She said you were looking for a lodger.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I guess you would have preferred a woman but …’

  ‘Well, it’s OK,’ says Fen. ‘Lina knows you. This house actually belongs to her and Freddie. I’m their tenant. And she knows you’re not …’

  ‘What? A murderer? A drug dealer?’

  He’s smiling, although that’s not funny. Fen can tell he’s enervated. He’s trying to act normally but he looks exhausted. She tries to rearrange her face into a polite smile, and tugs at the sleeves of her jumper.

  ‘I didn’t want a complete stranger.’

  ‘Well, no,’ says Sean, ‘of course you didn’t.’

  ‘Would you like to see the room?’

  ‘Please.’

  She motions him to go upstairs. It feels odd to have a man in the house. He takes up space that is usually empty. Fen climbs the stairs behind him in a wake of cool, outside air and an unfamiliar, masculine smell; she is aware of an energy that is, in some small way or other, disturbing. His masculinity corrupts the balance of the house.

  His jeans are loose about the waist and legs; his brown hair, which is slightly greasy and needs cutting, curls about the collar of a worn old jacket dotted with dark spots where the rain has stained the leather. He pauses on the landing. He is unsure of the etiquette of the situation, as is she, and this, she finds, is comforting.

  ‘It’s the door to your left,’ she says.

  He goes in.

  It was a rather shabby room to start with, but now, with Lina’s help, it is brighter. The window looks out over the back gardens and the alley, down the hill, over the city and beyond it to the opposite hills, so that in daytime the view is gloriously long-reaching and it’s possible to track the progress of the sun, the cloud-shadows and the trains on the railway line way, way below. At night, the city of Bath twinkles and sparkles and shimmers like a girl dressed up for a ball. Fen has made new curtains, and she and Lina have painted over the woodchip on the walls. A fringed rug the colour of rubies, which Fen found in the Oxfam shop, hides the worst of the carpet; the old bed has been rejuvenated by new bedding; there are two lamps, both lit and casting egg-shaped pools of yellow light; a small, old-fashioned television is perched on a wall bracket.

  ‘It’s nice,’ Sean says politely but Fen suspects, from the selfconsciously emphasized affirmative, that it is less than he is used to.

  ‘Have a look round,’ she says. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  She trots back downstairs in her socks and goes into the kitchen, where she peers at her face in the mirror by the door. She pulls open a drawer and rummages for a comb, but there isn’t one, just balled string, sticking plasters, odd screws and bolts, an ancient jar of Vick’s Vapour Rub, broken pens and stray pieces of Lego and Playmobil. She fills the kettle, switches it on and looks in the mirror again. Her face is a small, pale knot of anxiety. Her hair is lank. It has not been professionally cut for several years. Fen combs it with her fingers.

  She can’t remember the last time she wore make-up.

  She has run out of tea bags, so she makes instant coffee in her two best mugs. They don’t match. Sean does not look like the kind of man who would be bothered by uncoordinated crockery, but still, she wishes she could do better. She hears his footsteps in the bathroom above; there is the unmistakable, loud splashing of a man peeing and then the toilet flushes. She blushes at the intimacy.

  She searches the cupboards for something to serve with the coffee, but there are no biscuits, no anything.

  She times it so that she is coming out of the kitchen with the tin tray as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. He follows her into the living room.

  ‘The room’s great. Just what I need,’ he says, taking the mug from her and sitting down on the settee, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His face is tired, and the whites of his eyes are bloodshot. He blows across the surface of the coffee.

  ‘I don’t know how much Lina told you about me,’ he says, ‘only I have a daughter; she’s six. I look after her most weekends. Would it …’

  ‘No problem,’ says Fen. ‘I have a child too. Connor. He’s coming up to five.’

  She pauses. Oh, she might as well have it over with now. ‘He has mild cerebral palsy,’ she says, ‘but you’d hardly know. He sleeps through the night. He’s no bother.’

  ‘Oh! Right. Fine, of course. And is he …’

  ‘It was a difficult birth. It’s not a big deal. He just has a little trouble with his right arm and leg.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And it can be hard to understand what he’s saying. He backs up his words with signs, sometimes.’

  ‘He sounds like a resourceful lad.’

  ‘Yes.’

  There is a silence. They sip their coffee.

  ‘I could get a little bed, if you want,’ says Fen, ‘to go in the room. For your daughter.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  Fen tries to remember if it was always this hard to talk to somebody she didn’t know, and she thinks that it wasn’t. At one time she used to find other people easy. She had a nice way about her, that’s what people said. Conversation was intuitive; she didn’t even have to try. And now look at her. She shifts a little in her seat.

  ‘How long do you think you’ll want the room?’ she asks.

  ‘Not long, I hope,’ he says, and then he coughs and adds, ‘Sorry, that sounded rude. It’s a great room, but things will soon be sorted out and I’ll be back at home.’

  She nods.

  ‘Did you want me to commit to three months or something?’

  Fen shakes her head. ‘No, it’s fine, you can decide week by week, if you like. That suits me too.’

  She feels she should explain. ‘It’s my brother Tomas’s room,’ she says. ‘Well, it’s earmarked for him when he comes back. Only I don’t know when that’ll be.’

  ‘Is he travelling?’ Sean asks, curious, but reluctant to probe too far.

  ‘Sort of. He’s been gone a while.’

  ‘Once you get the bug, it can be hard to shake it off,’ says Sean.

  ‘Yes.’

  There is another silence.

  Fen watches a daddy-long-legs quivering hopelessly against the wall. Sean follows her eye, stands up, cups the insect in his hand and slots it through the open fanlight.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Fen. ‘I don’t like tho
se.’

  ‘My wife is the same,’ says Sean. ‘She says they’re purposeless. She worries they’ll get tangled in her hair and their legs will come off.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’m good with insects. Is there anything else you’d like to know about me?’

  ‘What do you do?’ she asks. ‘At work?’

  ‘I’m a surveyor.’

  ‘What do you survey?’

  ‘Old buildings, ancient monuments, bridges. Structures in need of restoration.’

  ‘Do you restore them?’

  ‘Not personally. But I work with the architects and the engineers and the craftsmen.’

  ‘Have you ever surveyed a building you couldn’t save?’

  ‘There’s always a way. Even if you have to take the whole thing down and start again.’

  Fen nods.

  She can think of nothing else to ask.

  He lifts the mug to his lips, tips back his head and drinks, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. She watches his jaw, the darker colour of his throat; he hasn’t shaved for a day or two. He catches her glance and she looks away. He puts the mug back down on the tray. He is graceful in his movements, comfortable in his skin.

  ‘Would you mind if I bring some of my stuff in now?’ he asks.

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ says Fen. ‘Move in whenever you want.’

  Later, as Fen walks around the corner store with Connor, picking items from the shelves, she imagines what it will be like to buy enough food for three. She looks at a pack of minced beef steak, too much meat for her and Connor, and thinks of what she could do with it: lasagne or cottage pie, Bolognese sauce, chilli, burgers, meatballs. She plans a week’s worth of recipes in her head. She tells Connor about their new lodger, and Connor is pleased. He has reached an age when he wants to learn more about men and their world. Now there will be somebody in the house who knows the names of cars and, better still, knows more than a little about the heavy machinery that Connor adores: bulldozers, piledrivers, cement mixers and cranes.

  Connor sits in his buggy to go back down the hill. His legs are tired. Fen pauses at the crest because she catches sight of somebody moving in the front garden of Lilyvale and her heart pounds, but it’s only the papergirl, a big yellow sack on her shoulder. The girl closes the gate behind her, picks up the bike that she had propped against the wall, and carries on down the hill.