The Missing Person's Guide to Love

by Susanna Jones

  ‘I’ve had a letter,’ she cried. ‘I’ve had a letter.’

  We knew who it was from: her neighbour’s son who was in the army and had gone off with the Task Force to the Falklands. We crowded around the stump, dropped our plastic carrier-bags of books onto the grass. It was the fashion to have a supermarket bag that was tatty and snagged but not quite disintegrating.

  ‘Read it, then.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Is it from the soldier?’

  ‘Lucky cow.’

  ‘Thought you was still going out with Owen Carr. What’s his name?’

  ‘Alexander. Alex, to me.’

  We sprawled on the grass. There was a small pond nearby, and flowerbeds, but we never went there. We always came to the shady corner with the row of elm stumps. The sun didn’t reach much of it so the grass was often damp but it was our spot and we felt happy there.

  ‘I can’t read all of it. It’s personal, and I’ll get embarrassed.’ Julia giggled and spoke in a sugary voice that sometimes irritated, but we were too excited to care much that day. ‘But I’ll read the last two sentences. Listen to this. “Yes, Julia, I can read between the lines and I hope you can read between these lines too. I’ll be back in a couple of months, I hope, and we’ll see each other then.”’ Julia squealed. ‘You can guess what was between the lines. I am in love. I am totally fucking in love.’ She applied pineapple lip-gloss from a bright yellow tube, smeared her lips together and added, ‘I hope he doesn’t get shot.’

  We knew she was rather hoping he would. We were hoping it too, of course. There could only be one thing more exciting than a hero boyfriend going off to fight in a war and that was one who was killed in battle. It wasn’t that we wished for a real death – not at all – just a story death, and for us this was a story, or else we didn’t know the difference yet.

  We chattered away, asking questions. How old is he? How do you know him? Is he good-looking? Is he tall? Julia, we learned, had seen him once or twice at her neighbours' house when he was on leave but they had hardly spoken. Her love had blossomed only when he was already on his way to war. Then she wrote letters to him under her desk at school, used notepaper and envelopes with stars and moons in each corner. We never saw what she wrote, but after just three or four exchanges she had flirted her way into some sort of infatuation. According to the bits of his replies that we were allowed to see, Alexander encouraged her. The rest of us knew no one who had gone to fight and we were probably envious. We all knew that Julia’s love was no more than a fantasy but we enjoyed the story none the less. Only Kath said, ‘What about Owen?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Are you still seeing him?’

  ‘Not really.’ Julia folded the letter, then unfolded it again. ‘Owen’s too young for me now. Have you noticed how he always waits to hear what other people think before he says anything so he can agree with them? Ask him if he likes a certain record and he won’t say anything till someone else does. It’s so annoying. I’ve tried, but I can’t be bothered with him any more. He’s boring and pathetic sometimes. I can’t learn much from Owen, if you know what I mean. I have certain needs.’ She said this with great wisdom but I had no idea what she meant. I’m not sure that she knew either.

  ‘Have you told him? It’s wrong not to tell him.’

  ‘Hark at Kath. It’s like having your mother with you all the time. I’ll tell him when I tell him. He won’t be bothered.’

  ‘I’m not being your mother. I just wanted to know.’

  ‘Why? Do you fancy him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Cos you can have him if you want. Alex is going to send me a photo of himself in his Navy uniform. Owen’s all yours, if you don’t mind my cast-offs.’

  Julia giggled again. Kath ran her fingers over the spots on her chin. We probably listened to Julia for the rest of the lunch-break, sitting on the grass at her feet. People passed us on the path that led from the shops, by the pond and down to the church. Normally we did our best to make them feel miserable, found something to whisper and giggle about – bad hairstyles, funny clothes – so that some people walked all the way round the edges of the park to avoid us. On this day we let them pass. We were more interested in Julia.

  The soldier returned home a few months later, apparently, and set off again across another sea. But Julia had disappeared before he arrived. For the first day or two we thought perhaps there had been a row at home and she had gone off in a sulk. There were stories about her father’s drinking. Or was it her mother who drank? I’m not sure. But days and weeks passed and there was no news. We wondered whether she might have run away, somehow hoping to meet Alex on his ship. The police contacted him but he was in a far-off country and knew nothing about her.

  Owen and Julia lived on the same street. We’d see them holding hands, kissing at the bus stop or on a tree stump in the park, but never speaking. Owen was quiet. He did not have many friends. He might have been bullied except that he was tall, quite good-looking, so the bullies left him alone. He was the school sprinting champion but only shrugged if anyone mentioned it. Julia was garrulous, energetic. Some couples are made possible by contrast but it didn’t help these two. It made them both like Owen. They were never laughing when we saw them in the park or by the reservoir, hand in hand, just plodding around. I should think, now, that if Julia tried to joke or start some fun, Owen would have cleared his throat or frowned. It was not surprising that she lost interest in him.

  Julia informed Owen that he was no longer of interest to her. To make it clear she stuck two French-manicured fingers up, right in front of his face. He did not walk away. He began to follow her around before and after school, trailing along the streets with his sports bag over his shoulder. Sometimes he stood behind a car and watched her from a distance.

  Julia always wanted to be older than the rest of us. She was always the first to wear the latest fashions – making ra-ra skirts herself or adapting them from charity shop clothes – and the first out of them. She looked like the girls in cities, not our village. She spent hours taping music from the radio and listening to it so that she could drop the names of bands into conversations, ones we’d never heard of. She talked about London as though she always knew what was happening there, though I don’t think she had ever travelled so far. Sometimes it seemed she was ready to scream and pull out her hair because she couldn’t grow up soon enough. That was why, when I was fifteen, it was so easy to believe she had run away. It is why, now, I see how her precocity made her vulnerable. She was only grown-up to the rest of us. To everyone else she was a daft teenager. If a man was friendly, good-looking, appeared to know about the world, he could have persuaded her to go for a walk. She would have said yes and not been afraid of danger, not known exactly what it was.

  Another memory of Julia. Aunt Maggie was moving to London. The day before she left, Julia and I visited her house to help with the last of her packing and clearing away. Maggie was popular with all of my friends because she didn’t have children of her own and seemed much younger than our parents. We loved her lacy clothes and sparkly earrings. We liked the way she swore, Oh, hell’s bells and buckets of blood, and told us stories of her lovers, men around the world who seemed to fall at the sight of her. She was something of an aunt, something of a sister to us, always on our side and always interested in our lives. So what’s happening on Planet Isabel this week that we all need to know about?

  On that day Julia and I drank coffee with Maggie and helped her wrap glasses and plates in old newspaper, stacked them in boxes. I passed the window and noticed Owen outside. He was sitting on the wall of the garden opposite, tapping his feet against a pillar-box. His eyes were fixed on Maggie’s house but I wasn’t sure whether he could see me. I beckoned Julia to the side of the window. We hid behind the curtain and peeped out.

  ‘Look who it is.’

  ‘Stupid sod.’

  Julia smiled to herself. She pulled at her fringe,
made sure that it stuck out and fell over her right eye the way it was supposed to. She might call him a stupid sod but she enjoyed the attention. When it was time for her to go home, though, she went giggling and whispering by the back door. Owen waited another half-hour or so on the street. Eventually Maggie stuck her head out of the front door and told him he should be getting home for his tea. I didn’t see what happened then, and Maggie didn’t wait to find out, but when I went home an hour or so later, he had vanished.

  ‘I can’t believe that boy is Sheila’s son,’ Maggie had said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Sheila’s such a down-to-earth, sensible woman and she’s produced a thing that’s only good for mooning around in the street. What does he think he’s doing, the silly boy? He won’t find a new girlfriend, acting like that. Sheila’s always spoiled him, that’s the problem, and Julia’s too good a catch for such a mummy’s boy. That girl’s a real livewire, Isabel. She’s special. I think she’s going places.'

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘It’s a look in her eyes. She’s hungry. You know what? She’s the kind of girl I can use in my books. She’s a female hero for a story I’m going to write one day. Can you help me move my typewriter downstairs? I don’t think I can manage it on my own without scraping the wallpaper. Why I care about that now – a bit of woodchip paper – I don’t know. It’s what this town has done to me. Addled my brain. I’ll be glad to be away from here at last. I hope you’ll all visit me as often as you can, though. I don’t want to lose touch with the good people.’

  *

  The police and everyone in the town searched each public space, each garage, each shed. They knocked on doors and visited the schools. There was a little attention in the local newspapers but it soon turned quiet and we never heard any more. The war finished and we were still waiting. We weren’t used to problems that had no solutions, and were in a state of suspension. No wonder we kept looking around at each other.

  Kath and I could not bear the waiting. We held a sort of séance, just the two of us, to see if we could make contact with Julia. We’d learned all this stuff at school, how if you stood in front of a mirror with a candle and said the Lord’s Prayer backwards you’d see the Devil behind your left shoulder. I’d tried this once on my own. I was curious to know what he would look like. I imagined a very young, tall man with a wide, handsome face and a smirk, who would appear, scarlet, just behind my ear. I turned the lights off, shone a torch on a copy of the Lord’s Prayer and recited it backwards, word by word, but he didn’t show up and I was not surprised or particularly disappointed. Kath and I did not know how to raise the dead but were familiar enough with the rituals of church, the communion, the liturgy, to feel quite confident putting together our own dark ceremony. We guessed that candles were essential and a bit of chanting. How were we to guess, at the age of fifteen, what might work and what might terrify us?

  *

  I set off from my house carrying a box of candles and a couple of cassettes in a plastic bag. As I half walked, half ran in the dark I convinced myself that it was working already. The spirits of the dead or missing were looming at me from the leafy branches of trees, creeping out from beneath parked cars, from dustbins. I held the bag at arm’s length. I tried to breathe silently so that they would not notice me. When I arrived at Kath’s and she opened the door, she kept asking if I was all right. ‘You look funny,’ she said. I shut the door behind me and leaned on it, feeling safe for a while.

  We placed candles in jam-jars around Kath’s room, making sure the arrangement was symmetrical. We knew, without having to discuss it, that symmetry was important. I put the tape into the cassette player and ‘Sunday Girl’ came on. I knew immediately that it was the wrong music, too cheerful, too bouncy, though when I hear it nowadays it terrifies me. I said nothing. Kath turned off the light and we went around the room in silence and lit the candles. Then Kath had the idea of filling the air with Julia’s favourite perfume. Julia liked Charlie so we found some that belonged to Kath’s mother. It made our noses wrinkle and our throats itch. We sat on the floor, looked up at the ceiling and concentrated. I wasn’t as frightened now that I was with my friend.

  Occasionally I glanced at Kath but her eyes were fixed on one spot near the lampshade, mouth open, lips dry. I thought I could feel Julia’s presence and we chanted some words we’d written to make her come closer. For a few minutes I believed it. I almost thought that we could talk to Julia. I saw the fervour in Kath’s face – she needed to believe that Julia was there – and then I knew that Julia was only in Kath’s imagination. In that case, the same must be true for me.

  ‘Should we say something else, talk to her normally?’ Kath whispered. Her eyes were small and black like raisins.

  ‘Maybe. You say something. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Julia. Julia, can you hear us?’

  Kath lifted her head as though she expected Julia to float down through the ceiling. For the first time, I wanted to laugh. The words sounded stupid. It was all right in our heads, but aloud it was silly. Kath believed it, though, and this made me more self-conscious.

  If Julia was there, she did nothing to help us. I looked from candle to candle, hoping for a quick flicker of a flame, a sudden blackout or a new shadow creeping across the wall. Nothing changed. Kath spoke a few more times, trying to coax Julia into the room, but eventually she fell silent. One of us put the light back on and we blew out the candles. The music was still playing.

  ‘What did you think?’ Kath’s voice was half strangled. She hugged herself and rubbed her neck with both hands.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I looked around the bright room, with Kath’s books along the walls and shoes on the floor. Candle smoke mingled with the smell of the perfume. Behind them was the faint aroma of strawberry jam. I thought about the churchyard and how easy it was to pull ghosts from dark, empty air when you wanted them.

  ‘I don’t think she was here, Kath.’

  ‘But she was. I could feel it. Oh, Isabel, I know she was with us. I think she’s in grave danger. She’s alive but she needs our help.’

  I understood even then that this was the only possible answer for Kath. It was what she – we – wanted to hear. Julia wasn’t dead but she needed us. No other answer could have satisfied us and that was why I knew it could not be true.

  The air was cold. I should move on. My phone vibrated on the bench. A reply from Mete.

  We fine. See you tomorrow.

  I kissed the screen and put the phone in my pocket. Yes, I could wait until tomorrow. I was sitting in front of the old police station and nothing bad had happened. I had not been arrested, not taken away in a car. There was no sign of my parents anywhere. All fine. Good.

  A beep and another message. It was Mete again.

  Your English friend is here to visit! What shall I do?

  He must mean Bernadette. She came from London a few days ago and spent a day with us. She went off to travel around the Greek islands but promised to return to Istanbul. I’d thought she meant in a couple of weeks – she had booked her flights and ferries – but what was it, four or five days? Her flight home was not from Istanbul but from Athens. She must have run out of money, or fallen ill, perhaps. I wondered what she would do with Mete and Elif. Mete liked her but he was too busy already and she might be expecting a bed for the night. I knew that she didn’t have the money to pay for hotels. Bernadette is terrified of children and would not be good with Elif. She has often told me that she finds small children sinister. ‘You don’t know what they’re thinking about you,’ she says. ‘How can you bear to be near them?’

  I couldn’t worry about that now.

  Make her a cup of tea,

  I replied, and pressed send.

  I’d reached the end of my cigarette without noticing. I dropped the butt on the ground and crushed it with my shoe. The sight of my foot, delicate and feminine in a shiny high-heeled shoe, surprised me. I wiggled it arou
nd and admired it. There was still plenty of time. Where next? The scene of the crime, of course. I would head for the reservoir.

  – ii –

  Maggie picked a russet from the bowl she kept by the fireplace. She took a chomp and began to chew as she followed the bookshelf along the wall to the window. She liked to crunch a russet or two on a slow day. The girl called Leila had started it, and she’d got it from Jo March, who liked to steal away with half a dozen russets when she read a good book. Leila always had an apple in her hand when Maggie passed her on the stairs or in the hall. She left little brown apple cores around the house, like snail shells, on the edges of tables, on piles of books. No wonder there had always been mice in the house. Maggie could hardly hear the birds in the garden for the apple-crunching inside her head but Leila had only made a sound with the first crunch. After that, she ate silently. She was a strange girl.

  Maggie ate up the apple core in two large bites, dropped the stalk into the fruit bowl. Her eyes rested on the framed photographs of the girls. She stroked the glass of her favourite. This was the picture she always returned to, the two girls at the top of the path on the hill.