Missing You

by Douglas, Louise

  Sean records a verbal summary of what he can see into his phone, and then he gets back into the basket of the cherry picker, where the chapel’s caretaker is waiting. He’s a small, slight, chipper man, pale-eyed and grey-haired. He reminds Sean of a little terrier dog. He shakes his head as the basket goes down and says: ‘I told them the cupola needed looking at. I told them a thousand times. What’s the damage?’

  ‘It’s dangerous. It has to come down,’ says Sean.

  ‘Permanently?’

  ‘No. It’s fixable. Some of the stone will need replacing. It’s hard to say until we’ve bought it down and had a proper look at it.’

  ‘That’ll cost a bob or two.’

  ‘It will,’ says Sean. ‘But it’s your best option in the long run. In the meantime –’ he unhooks the safety bar as the basket reaches ground level – ‘we need to fence off the area in front of the chapel. You’ve got temporary barriers?’

  ‘I’ll have a look,’ says the caretaker, taking off his hat and scratching his head.

  ‘You want to cordon off this whole section, all the way round, and put up some warning signs, in case it all comes down. Are you all right with that?’

  The caretaker nods.

  ‘What I’ll do,’ says Sean, ‘is go back to the office now. I’ll call … what’s his name?’

  ‘Mr Lamprey.’

  ‘Yep, I’ll give him a call and tell him my immediate thoughts and concerns, and I’ll get a report and recommendations over to you and him by the end of the week.’

  ‘Right,’ says the caretaker. He does not look happy.

  ‘It’s not worth the risk of leaving it like it is,’ says Sean briskly. ‘Some punter gets hurt and you’d never forgive yourself.’

  ‘I told them it’d come to this,’ says the caretaker. ‘They can’t say I didn’t tell them.’

  Sean takes off his glove and extends his arm to shake the man’s hand.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ he says.

  In the car, he turns on the engine to warm up the heater and jots down notes in his pad. He finds it best to do this straight away because, lately, his brain hasn’t been working as well as normal. He has forgotten important pieces of information; he has forgotten to do things that needed to be done. He can be thinking about a problem, where to source a certain kind of marble, for example, when his thoughts will suddenly drain away, like water disappearing down a plughole, and he knows he won’t be able to retrieve them. They’ll have vanished into the complex, underground pipe-ways of his mind to be replaced by thoughts of Belle.

  The state of separation does not hurt quite as much now as it did at first, the sharpness of the pain has muted into a dull ache, but it’s still there, all the time, the loneliness and the shock. He still finds it hard to believe that this thing has happened to him. That Belle, his Belle, who always said that trust was the only essential in any close relationship, has deceived him so badly.

  He remembers a day last year. It was winter; they were with Belle’s parents in a country pub in the Cotswolds. It was a low-ceilinged, oak-and-wood-smoke place with a menu that featured all manner of game but had no vegetarian option. Countryside Alliance notices were taped to the walls, and a stuffed fox posed, one paw in the air, in a glass case suspended over one of the fireplaces. The fox held a car-crash-type fascination for Amy. She looked like Alice in Wonderland in her white tights and blue dress, standing on tiptoe to get a better look at the dead animal.

  Belle’s mother squeezed Sean’s hand affectionately. She hadn’t thought much of Sean when he and Belle first met. She thought he wasn’t good enough for her daughter. But as time went by, and his devotion to Belle was consistent, his salary increased, they married and bought their beautiful home, then gave her a beautiful granddaughter, she had grown fonder of him. She tried to compensate for her former sniffiness by praising and complimenting Sean at any given opportunity.

  ‘Well, Sean, I don’t know what it is you’re doing for Belle,’ she said with a suggestive edge to her voice, ‘but I’ve never seen her look so happy. She’s positively glowing.’

  Sean smiled and looked over to Belle. He caught her eye for a second, but she looked away quickly.

  ‘We’ve been wondering how you do it,’ Amanda continued. Her face was close to Sean’s. She was wearing dark pink lipstick which seeped into the feathery cracks around her lips. ‘Because honestly, Sean, our friends’ children’s marriages seem to be falling apart all over the place, but you two, you’re steady as a rock.’

  ‘Mum, please,’ said Belle. ‘Stop it.’ She scraped back her chair, scrunched her napkin onto the table, picked up her handbag and called to Amy, who left the fox and returned to her mother’s side, questions on her lips. Sean watched them head off conspiratorially towards the cloakrooms. He smiled.

  ‘There’s no secret,’ Sean said to Amanda. ‘If Belle’s happy, I’m happy. That’s all.’

  It wasn’t me, he thinks now. I wasn’t making her happy. It was the Other.

  ‘There you go again,’ he says out loud. ‘You’re always thinking about her. What is the point? You have to stop.’

  He closes the notebook and starts the car’s engine. He’ll put some music on loud. That usually does the trick.

  Sean goes into work through what is known as the tradesmen’s entrance, the rear fire-escape door where the smokers congregate in ever-decreasing numbers for their cigarette breaks and gossip, no matter what the weather. He uses this door because he does not like clocking in through the security-heavy front door, partly because of its cameras and codes but mainly because he has lost his swipe card and therefore gaining entry is a time-consuming performance. The back door takes him, via a short service corridor, into the reception foyer, where Lina sits.

  When Sean joined the company, the reception area was businesslike, befitting a small, specialist construction outfit. It looked like the sort of place you’d sit while waiting for your car to be MOT’d: masculine, scruffy, slightly untidy. Now it’s all black faux-leather sofas selfconsciously arranged to look informal, a water cooler, a coffee machine, and glossy magazines on a glass-topped table. Flowers, always fashionable varieties that Sean doesn’t recognize, sprout out of big square vases half full of glass beads and gel; huge, framed prints of recent projects – the photographs taken at artful angles and tastefully lit – dominate the white walls. Lina, glamorous, neat, pinkly lipsticked, smiles at Sean from her glass-topped desk. He salutes her.

  ‘How are you, Mr Scott?’ she asks.

  ‘Mustn’t grumble.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it,’ says Lina, tapping a pen against her teeth. ‘Nobody likes a grumbler.’

  Sean grins and slots coins into the drinks machine.

  ‘Cappuccino? Two sugars?’

  ‘Please.’

  He takes the coffee to Lina and sinks into one of the sofas beside her desk. She bites the end off the sugar wrap and sprinkles the granules onto her coffee froth.

  ‘Anything exciting happen while I was out?’

  ‘Errrmm …’ Lina stirs her coffee and stares up at the ceiling. ‘No.’

  ‘Are there any messages?’

  ‘No, but your wife called,’ says Lina.

  ‘Was anything wrong? Did she say?’

  ‘She sounded all right. She didn’t say it was urgent or anything.’

  But Belle never calls him at work.

  ‘I’d better call her back,’ he says.

  ‘You don’t need to. She said she’d try again later.’

  ‘Still …’

  ‘Sean, leave it. Make her wait.’

  ‘It might be something important.’

  Lina shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Sean stands up, speed-dials Belle’s number – his number, their home number – on his mobile, holds the phone close to his ear and walks away from the reception foyer, back out into the fresh air. It takes a while for Belle to answer.

  ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘It’s me. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes,
everything’s fine.’

  ‘Amy’s all right?’

  ‘Amy’s fine. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘So what’s so urgent?’

  ‘Nothing’s urgent. I didn’t ask Lina to get you to call me back.’

  ‘No,’ says Sean. ‘You didn’t. I just thought …’

  ‘Well, don’t. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  There’s a pause. ‘Anyway,’ says Sean, ‘I’ve called you, so you may as well tell me whatever it is you were going to tell me.’

  ‘OK …’

  He hears Belle take the sort of deep breath that usually precedes a mental girding of her loins, and he prepares himself for something he won’t like.

  ‘I was just wondering, we were just wondering, if you could look after Amy the week after next.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Sean, his hackles rising. Look after Amy … like he’s the childminder or something. ‘She’s my daughter; I don’t need to be asked to “look after” her. I do that anyway.’

  ‘You’ll be able to get the time off?’

  ‘If not I’ll drug her while I’m out and hide her unconscious body in the wardrobe.’

  ‘Sean,’ Belle exhales wearily, ‘you never used to be this childish.’

  ‘And you never used to be this patronizing.’

  There is a silence.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asks. ‘Are you having a holiday?’

  ‘We’re going to a writers’ retreat in Cephalonia. Lewis has been asked to help with the course. It could … well, he’s hoping it will lead to more work along those lines.’

  ‘More European travel, more retreats in the sun. It’s a hard life,’ says Sean.

  ‘I’m not sure how I’ll fit in. I’ve never done anything like it before.’

  ‘I expect you’ll cope.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘You love Greece,’ he reminds her. ‘It’s romantic. That’s why you chose it for our holiday the year Amy was conceived. Remember?’

  ‘Sean …’

  ‘Sorry. That was insensitive.’

  There is a pause while they each take stock.

  ‘OK,’ says Belle, obviously committed to keeping the conversation civil, ‘well, look, I’ll send you an email with the exact dates.’

  Sean scratches his head. The phone stays connected, but there is silence again at both ends. He knows Belle well enough to know that there is something more on her mind, something she wants to tell him, something she wants to have out in the open, have done with.

  ‘Is there something else?’ he asks.

  ‘There is something …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not important. It can wait.’

  Sean’s heart beats in his chest.

  ‘What is it?’

  She sighs. ‘I shouldn’t tell you over the phone.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Another pause.

  ‘Lewis has asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Oh.’

  There is a long silence as if it is a competition to see who can hold their breath the longest.

  ‘Sorry, ’ she says.

  ‘Why are you sorry? It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sorry because if Lewis and I are to marry, it means you and I must first get divorced.’

  ‘I suppose it does … What if I don’t want to?’

  ‘I know it’s going to be difficult, Sean, but if you think about it, it will make things better for you in the long run. You’ll get your share of the collateral from the house and you’ll be able to get out of that poky rented room and buy somewhere of your own. You’ll be able to draw a line under this, make a new start.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ he says, imitating the sympathetic tone of her voice, ‘you’re doing this for me?’

  ‘Sean …’

  ‘Why do I always have to do everything you say? Why is it all on your terms? And the room’s not “poky”, by the way.’

  ‘We’ve been separated for seven months now. It’s about time we—’

  ‘We’ve been married for eleven years, Belle.’

  ‘I know.’

  More silence.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she says quietly. ‘We need to get together and talk about it face to face, sensibly.’

  ‘Well, not right now, eh, Belle? Because I don’t want to talk about it or look at your face or be sensible. I’ll call you when I’m ready.’

  ‘Sean …’

  He disconnects the call. He walks back into the car park. He kicks the tyre of his car, hard. He doesn’t like himself. He doesn’t want to be this angry, mean person. It’s not him. But it is what he has become.

  fifteen

  Fen asks: ‘Are you all right?’

  He says: ‘Yep.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to fetch Amy?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Isn’t she coming down this weekend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Is something wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you hungry, Sean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Is there anything to drink?’

  ‘There’s some wine in the fridge.’

  ‘No, proper drink. Vodka? Whisky? Beer?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m going to the pub, then.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll tell you now, Fen, I’m going to drink until I fall over.’

  ‘Oh. All right.’

  ‘Don’t wait up.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Sean takes his jacket from the peg by the front door, hooks it over his shoulder and slams the door so hard behind him that the displaced air causes the curtains in the living room to float like ghosts, and Connor, who hates loud noises, bursts into tears.

  sixteen

  He walks – strides – down to the sports bar facing the London Road. It is packed with men and he immerses himself in male company and male conversation and the football highlights on the big-screen televisions, and drinks beer and then vodka shots.

  He tells his troubles – a condensed and humorous version of his troubles – to a lorry driver with an accent he can’t place, and in return the lorry driver tells Sean some pornographic jokes. Sean thinks: Fuck you, Belle, I’m in the sort of pub you hate, getting paralytic with a misogynist lorry driver, listening to the most un-fucking-politically un-fucking-correct jokes you could ever imagine and I’m having the time of my fucking life.

  ‘Where are you from, mate?’ he asks the lorry driver.

  ‘Barry. ’

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘Whatever you are.’

  You see, this is how it is, with men, thinks Sean; it’s easy. It’s uncomplicated. You ask a simple question, you get a simple answer.

  He stays in the pub until closing time.

  Sean realizes he has had too much to drink when he bumps into both sides of the door on the way out, but that’s all right because that was the whole point of the exercise.

  ‘Mission successful,’ he says to the lorry driver, only that doesn’t sound right.

  ‘It’s mission fucking accomplished, mate,’ says the lorry driver, slapping him on the back, and Sean feels drenched with testosterone and affection.

  He falls over twice on the way back up the hill. Once he simply misjudges the distance between the road and the kerb, and the second time he is startled to see a badger walking down the pavement towards him from the direction of the church. He has to hold on to a lamp post and narrow his eyes to check it definitely is a badger, not a more likely dog, cat or fox, but it is a badger, quite a big one, in fact quite a big, aggressive-looking badger. Badgers, Sean knows, are nasty buggers, with big teeth, strong jaws and rough arses. He peers forward. This one looks like it’s up to no good. It must be a new sub-species: urban, feral badger. Sean has a feeling the badger is out to get him, it reminds him of the sinister rabbit in Donnie Darko
, so he turns and tries to run but stumbles and falls. He tears a hole in the left knee of his jeans and the palms of both hands are grazed. Feeling like the hero of an action film, he staggers to his feet and tries again. He does not look behind him because action heroes don’t. They make a decision and they stick to it.

  It takes him a long time to get back up the hill because the pavement keeps tilting, trying to tip him off. Sean doesn’t give up. He perseveres.

  Crofters Road seems to have become even steeper since the evening began, and Sean is panting by the time he nears the top. He stands on the pavement and stares at the front of Lilyvale. The hall light is still on, and the outside light, but Fen’s bedroom light is off and her curtains are drawn.

  Sean has a feeling he owes her an apology, but he cannot remember why.

  It takes an inordinately long time to get his key successfully into the correct slots in both the outer and inner doors. He holds his finger to his lips to ‘shhh’ himself when the key misses the lock and taps on the glass for the several-th time. The first thing he does, when he manages to make his way through, is go upstairs on his hands and knees (he does not want to risk falling backwards) and into the bathroom, where the relief of emptying his bladder is so great that he gives thanks to God. He splashes and makes a bit of a mess because Connor’s plastic trainer seat is still slotted in place on top of the normal lavatory seat, considerably reducing the target area, so he mops both seat and floor with a towel, and it’s only after he’s done this that he realizes he has used Fen’s towel, not his.

  She won’t like that, he thinks. And there’s no chance she won’t notice because women’s noses are always disproportionately sensitive when it comes to the smell of inappropriate urine. Sean decides to put the towel in the washing machine.

  He climbs down the steep stairs carefully, holding tightly to the banister, and goes into the kitchen, but the washing machine has finished its cycle and is full of clean laundry. Sean feels a little sorry for himself. Even the washing machine is conspiring against him. He looks for a place to hide the damp towel and eventually decides on the bread bin. It’s empty and so there’s no reason for Fen to look in there and he’ll put it in the washing machine in the morning.