‘And he could have loved me.’ Eve beat the table with her fist, losing another round in the fight against total inebriation. ‘I know, because after Sam was born, with you on Planet Zog – never there, always upstairs, or out, or sleeping or feeding or cooing over that bloody child of yours, always ignoring him – we got quite close again, the pair of us. But he wouldn’t – he wouldn’t admit it or do anything about it or even speak so much as a word against you.’ She banged the table again, so hard that Charlotte jumped.
‘Look, Eve, I had no idea, I –’ Charlotte faltered, the idea dawning that this embitterment was what had prompted Eve to return, the reason, ultimately, for getting in touch. No wonder the rekindling of the friendship had felt so odd, so doomed.
Eve had dropped her head into her hands and was plucking at her hair. ‘Part of going to the States was to get away from it – from you.’ She lifted one hand and pointed a finger at Charlotte. ‘Bloody, bloody you.’
‘I think,’ Charlotte ventured softly, ‘that maybe it’s time to put all this behind us, time, perhaps, to call it a day and go to bed.’
‘And I think maybe you should shut the fuck up.’
Charlotte stood very still, trying to dredge some pity from within the outrage, trying, still, to make sense of everything. That Eve and Martin had briefly been close did not surprise her somehow. Neither did the pitiful disclosure that Eve had held a torch for him for years afterwards. No, what was truly shocking was this further evidence of Martin’s resistance, of his faithfulness. A one-woman man, not speaking a word against her, fighting for their marriage, while she… What had she been doing? Loving Sam, wallowing in wifely self-pity, certain of betrayal before it had happened… maybe, even, making it happen. Charlotte caught her breath, recalling again the claims Cindy had made, how Martin had held out. ‘I am sorry you’re unhappy, Eve,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve made so many mistakes – I’m only just beginning to realize quite how many – but your feelings… they’re not among them. They, at least, are not my fault.’
Eve jerked her head up, her eyes flashing with fresh energy. Who said anything about being unhappy? I’m marvellous, thank you very much. I’ve met someone, you see, someone really special. He was the one I was on the phone to earlier. He was literally begging me to come round. So if you would be good enough to call a taxi…’ She attempted to stand but fell back into her chair.
‘Look, Eve,’ Charlotte pleaded, unable to give up on the possibility that something might yet be retrieved from this calamity of a reunion, ‘it’s great that you’ve met someone, but maybe it would be better to stay here for tonight. After that, if you decide you want to cut short the visit –’
‘But I’m more welcome there,’ Eve muttered, examining her cigarette packet and looking faintly baffled when a shake produced nothing but a few tobacco shreds.
‘But you’re welcome here,’ offered Charlotte, weakly, guilty that she couldn’t really mean it.
Eve studied the cigarette packet again, then crushed it in her palm. ‘The Someone is called Tim, by the way, Tim Croft. We met on your doorstep when I dropped by on the off-chance, which is sort of fitting if you think about it.’
‘Tim Croft?’
‘Believe me, Charlotte,’ she cooed, her voice mockingly sympathetic, ‘I know how you must feel. But it was instant – one of those love-at-first-sight things–’ Eve broke off. Her lips were beginning to feel rubbery, like they were chasing the words. And the walls of the room were sloping towards her and there was none of the triumph she had imagined either about Tim or the longed-for talk about Martin, only the sound of Charlotte laughing and clapping her hands and saying love had no rules and she would be only too delighted to order a minicab if Tim was expecting her and why hadn’t she said so earlier, but only if she was absolutely certain she didn’t want to postpone the visit until the following day.
The world did not come back into focus until Eve found herself being bounced over road humps on the back seat of a vehicle that smelt strongly – nauseatingly – of vanilla air-freshener. Memories of the evening were already jagged fragments, hard to place in the right order. It had gone wrong, she knew that. Then there had been coffee and Charlotte hugging her and calling Tim and the taxi…
Struggling upright, Eve leant forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Change of plan – the Heathrow Hilton, and a fag if you’ve got one.’
‘Blimey, that’ll cost you, love,’ the cabbie growled, ‘and there’s a no-smoking sign, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
But Eve had already let her head fall back and succumbed to the bliss of closing her eyes. She’d been away from England too long. What little there had been to return to was long gone. And the past could never be changed anyway, only left behind.
It was nine thirty when Henry reached his doorstep. There were no lights on in the house and the bulb in the porch had gone. Fumbling for his keys, he found himself recalling the night he had given Charlotte a lift home, the night it had all started. Her house had been so dark then, so empty, so utterly quiet apart from the squeak of the broken gate. The pity of it had choked him, duped him, destroyed him. Theresa knew of his miserable lapse – Henry was certain of it now. It was in the studied cheerfulness of her voice, the minimal reporting on the dreaded lunch, the vicious way in which she had explained the distressing reason for the last-minute cancellation of her beloved mah-jong that night. A small crime, perhaps, in the general scheme of human failing, to make a pass at a best friend, but not for them: for them it was proving huge, irreparable, devastating.
Finding the correct key at last, Henry jabbed it into the lock, muttering unhappily to himself… A pitch-black house, the deliberate snub of an early night (nine thirty!) – they had never in their entire marriage gone to bed at such an early hour. Thus unhappily preoccupied, he almost missed the small piece of lined paper that had been Sellotaped to the knocker on the front door. Henry reeled backwards, leaving the keys dangling. Not just a dark but an empty house, then… She’d gone. Oh, God, she’d gone. Henry ripped the note free and stumbled out of the porch, seeking the buttery light of the moon by which to read what already felt like a death sentence. His arms were leaden as he held the paper out – at full stretch because he was wearing the wrong glasses.
If you have given up on me, please don’t come inside.
Henry turned and ran back so fast he tripped on the porch step. Then he couldn’t make the keys work, or find the handle of his briefcase. Inside, pinned with Blu-tack next to the burglar-alarm panel, there was another.
I will never give up on you.
And on the top stair: I am waiting for you. I can hear your steps. I am holding my breath. (NB DON’T wake children!)
And on the bedroom-door handle, sealed this one, presumably against the possibility of prying minors stumbling to the landing loo: I love you, always. Sex = icing on cake. Did I mention that I love you?
Cindy couldn’t believe they were rowing. Sam hadn’t come back from his bike ride, and instead of pulling together they were rowing. Martin had been out to look for him, first on foot and then in the car. It was only at her insistence that he had phoned the police, and now he was pacing the perimeter of the sitting room, contradicting everything she said with a raised voice, as if it was her fault that his moody son had decided to play truant or been run over and not had the decency or common sense to take his mobile. But worse in her view – far worse – than all of this was Martin’s refusal to call Charlotte.
‘It’s nearly ten o’clock. You have got to tell her. It’s only right.’ Cindy pressed both arms protectively round the tight swell of her stomach. ‘If it was our…’ She left the sentence hanging, hoping she had said enough for the fight to end, for Martin to stop glaring and soften his tone.
But Martin’s expression had hardened. ‘I told you what the police said. Hundreds of teenagers are reported missing every day and ninety-nine per cent of them turn up within twenty-four hours. Sam is at just that age – experim
enting with boundaries, defying authority. He’s been a handful all year. I was the same – drove my parents mad.’
‘You should tell her,’ repeated Cindy, doggedly. ‘It’s only fair.’
‘What? Fair to make Charlotte worry, as I am? Fair to make her suffer when the little wretch will probably come skidding into the drive any minute now?’
Cindy flinched, but said steadily, ‘Martin, it’s nearly ten o’clock. Sam has been gone for three hours. Charlotte has the right to–’ She stopped, aghast, as Martin made a sort of run at her, then dropped to his knees in front of the sofa, covering his face with his hands and shaking his head.
‘I can’t,’ he whimpered through his fingers. ‘She never thought I loved him enough. Ever. Right from the start, I always fell short. And now, with this, she’ll –’
‘Of course you love him,’ Cindy whispered, shocked at this new vulnerability in a man she’d thought she knew better than any other, and the fresh spin it gave on the demise of his marriage. That he had lost Charlotte to Sam had been a favourite quip of Martin’s during their early heart-to-hearts, and she had sympathized readily – an over-cosseting mother of an only child would be enough to drive any man away. But this was the first time Cindy had seen any hint of darker repercussions. ‘Hey, baby.’ She shuffled to the edge of the sofa and pulled his head into her lap, turning it so that his cheek rested on the bulge of their unborn child. ‘Sweetheart. Of course you love him. Charlotte knows that. But you’ve got to tell her he’s missing, just in case…’ Cindy chewed her lip, drawing blood in her effort to find the courage to continue ‘… just in case it turns out that Sam is in that one per cent. I’ll do it if you like.’ She licked her lips, trying to sound matter-of-fact rather than brave.
‘No.’ Martin struggled upright, clenching his fists, not looking angry now but as if he was fighting off some invisible physical agony. ‘I know you mean well, my love, but no. I’m going out to have one last look, okay? I’ll take my bike – it’ll be better – I should have done that before. If I don’t find him, or he doesn’t turn up while I’m gone, I’ll call Charlotte, I promise. Okay?’
Cindy nodded, sucking the cut on her lip and swallowing at the lump in her throat. Tears wouldn’t help. Martin wasn’t coping too well, so it was up to her to be strong. That was how good couples functioned, after all, offering ballast, plugging each other’s shortcomings. With the cancer, her mother had been cheerful and positive to the end, holding her dad together even though she was the one dying.
Cindy lurched round and pressed her face against the window behind the sofa, steaming it with her breath, willing the silver frame of Sam’s bike to glimmer out of the dark.
Tim gave it thirty minutes, then an hour, then another twenty minutes, then checked the street to see if the cabbie wasn’t hovering outside the wrong house. Eve had sounded a bit worse for wear on the phone, so it was just possible she’d got the wrong number. He squinted into the lamp-lit dark, clutching his mobile, but fighting the urge to use it. She wasn’t the sort who would like a man to appear too keen, too needy.
A skinny fox sprang out of the garden opposite and trotted across the road, disappearing between his neighbour’s bins. Somewhere a cat mewed. The moon was almost full and very yellow. A summer moon, Tim decided idly, enjoying the feel of the cool night air against his bare skin and the prospect of Eve’s soft body back in his arms. He checked his watch again, then turned back to the house. On the doorstep he paused, grinning in anticipation as a car appeared at the end of the street at last. It was going slowly, too, as if the occupants were on the lookout for the correct spot. But then, with a whine of the engine, it suddenly accelerated and shot past, its front wheel just missing the fox as it trotted back out to the kerb.
The phone was a bell in another world. Charlotte, absorbed in the recently discovered bliss of deep sleep, surfaced to consciousness slowly. Eve hadn’t stayed, she remembered happily; she had been drunk and outspoken and gone to Tim Croft’s instead. Tim and Eve – hurray! What a turn-up for the books! What perfect proof that life was random and therefore capable of offering resolution in the most unlikely ways.
As the ringing continued, she woke properly at last, noting with sleepy puzzlement rather than alarm that it was well past midnight. And at the sound of Martin’s voice, it was to the conversation with Eve that her thoughts flew first, bringing with them the new humbling knowledge of having got things wrong. It took several seconds for her to register what Martin was saying, to connect with the need to feel fear.
‘His bike? How long? The police?’ Charlotte made him repeat everything, barking questions while numbness crept through her limbs and her mind exploded with unhelpful, uncontrollable images of Sam – pedalling to school that morning, not looking back, even though he knew she was hoping for it; wobbling as he turned the corner and adjusted his rucksack; lying on a road next to the twisted metal of his bike… but no, she couldn’t picture that. She remembered instead a recent incredible news story of a toddler on a cliff ledge. How many days had that been? Found on a ledge, safe and sound. ‘I’m coming to look.’
‘I don’t think that –’
‘I need to look for him.’
‘Charlotte, I’m so sorry – I – If something’s happened –’ Martin was gabbling suddenly, close to tears. ‘I – Christ, I…’
‘Hey, steady on, it’s too soon for this, Martin, way too soon,’ Charlotte interjected, aware of her own terror translating into an icy calm. ‘He’s out there somewhere. He probably had a puncture, or got lost, or – look, Martin,’ her tone was logical, faintly reproving, ‘if there had been an accident, the police would have heard by now, wouldn’t they? They would have heard, I tell you. And besides which, he’s thirteen, strong and sensible…’ Charlotte thought again of the rescued toddler, lying on the cliff ledge for three days, with no experience or common sense. ‘What about his phone? Did he have it?’
‘No,’ said Martin, in a small voice. ‘Bring a torch,’ he added, much more harshly, ‘that big one on the hook in the broom cupboard.’
Charlotte arrived half an hour later, with the torch and a look of blazing intensity on her face, like someone staring into a bright light and refusing to blink. Cindy opened the door. ‘Oh, Charlotte, he promised to be back by dark, to stay in the compound – to –’ Her eyes bulged from crying. ‘And then, just this minute, I had this other thought, that maybe we upset him about the baby. Do you think he could have been upset about the baby?’ she pleaded, wringing her hands.
‘If he is, that’s fine by me,’ Charlotte replied briskly. ‘Sam sulking… yes, I’ll settle for that.’
‘Me too,’ said Martin, appearing from the kitchen. He was pale and drained, as if the ordeal had already lasted several months instead of a few hours. ‘Hey, Charlotte.’ He glanced at her, then quickly away. ‘You stay by the phone, babe,’ he instructed Cindy, gently. ‘The police are looking too. We could hear something at any moment.’ There was hope in his voice, but his eyes, as he scanned the darkness through the open doorway behind Charlotte, were hollow with desperation.
They worked their way through the compound together, calling in the dark, ringing the doorbells of those houses still with lights on. Charlotte, in a moment of frantic inspiration had swiped Sam’s latest school photo off the sitting-room mantelpiece, noting as she did so that it was already wrong – too baby-faced, the hair too short, the nose small and undefined. On seeing it, Martin ran back to the house to fetch a picture for himself – a more recent one, which Cindy must have taken, of him and Sam leaning on the railings skirting the walkway that ran along the river.
The river, oh, God, the river. ‘Martin, have you been round the back, down the path, to the… river?’ She had to fight to get the word out.
No… I just assumed… It’s hard to get a bike there – at least the first bit. You have to get off and walk. Sam never liked doing that. But maybe we –’
‘I’ll go.’
‘Charlotte?’<
br />
She turned, remembering dimly – as if it were part of a previous existence – all that Eve had disclosed, shifting the mercurial landscape of the past. The story of her and Martin; they had loved, not loved. All that mattered now was that it had brought them to this moment, a moment of an anguish so shared that looking into the familiar face – kissed, distrusted, missed, not missed – was like staring into a mirror.
‘If anything… to Sam…’ he blurted ‘… I won’t…’
‘Stop, there’s no need,’ she whispered, mustering again the strength to be stern. ‘I’ll call you in ten minutes.’ She sprinted down the path that led round the edge of the compound towards the river. Narrow and pitted with sets of iron bars to force cyclists off their saddles, Charlotte grew increasingly certain that Martin’s first assumption had been right. Sam would consider it too much like hard work, too much bother, particularly given his recent detached, fiercely nonchalant frame of mind. But when she reached the stretch of Tarmac running along the Thames itself, Charlotte’s certainty gave way to a bolt of pure terror. Left or right? And the river was so black, so menacing, so able to swallow a giant, let alone a child. Left or right? Time was so precious. She mustn’t waste a second.
She turned left, along the backs of the houses, then changed her mind. Indecisive, hopeless… No, not hopeless, she scolded herself. The ledge, the toddler and that other one, several years ago – the boy in the drain – or had that been a drama on the telly? She phoned Martin after twenty minutes instead of ten, saying there was nothing to report, that she was going to take the next turning back towards the main road.
‘The police – they’ve just found a silver bike,’ said Martin, in a thick voice. ‘They want me to look…’
‘Where?’ The word came out as a screech, breaking through the self-control. ‘Where did they find the bike?’ she repeated more steadily, reining the terror back in. ‘And are they looking for him? The police, are they looking, Martin?’
Life Begins Page 33