The Missing Person's Guide to Love

by Susanna Jones

  ‘Do you? No, I’m sure he wasn’t. I never thought that.’

  John chattered about the colour of the bulrushes as I turned this over in my mind. Owen only wrote to me because of what we had done together, one stupid thing that left me connected to him for ever. I would not have said he was in love with me. I always saw him as Julia’s boyfriend and I thought he only saw me as Julia’s friend. I knew that we would never have spent time together under any other circumstances. Apart from Julia, I didn’t see what we’d ever had in common.

  ‘What did he do when he came out of prison? I mean, what sort of work? Did he ever marry?’

  ‘He had a few relationships. One lasted three or four years but I think that was the longest. He didn’t have any children and I don’t think he wanted any. He worked in sales. Something to do with office equipment.’

  ‘Sales? So he must have been quite good at talking, then, quite confident.’

  ‘Oh, yes. His shyness wore off as he grew older. As far as I know, he was quite successful. He worked in Bradford, I think, but travelled all over the place. He liked driving. He liked having to spend half a day getting to another part of the country and then half the night getting home. It suited his temperament.’

  ‘Was he in a relationship when he died?’

  ‘No idea. As I said, I hadn’t made much of an effort to keep up with him in the past couple of years. I don’t know what he was doing. He didn’t mention any remarkable changes, not in his last Christmas card. I imagine he was just ticking over when he had the accident. Just getting on with life.’

  ‘Just getting on with it.’

  ‘Muddy patch ahead. Careful, in your Sunday-best shoes. You’re dressed very nicely.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I stumbled along, one foot on either side of the squelchy mud.

  ‘And what about you, Isabel? Why did you go with Owen to set fire to a supermarket one night and almost burn the whole village down?’

  I looked down at the mud. I had known that someone would bring this up but hadn’t expected it to be a stranger. Do I have to dwell on this? I’m not sure of its relevance and it is still painful to recall. ‘It’s hard to remember now,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t spend much time thinking about it, these days. We were just teenagers. Teenagers do silly things.’

  I didn’t tell John about the incident with Mr McCreadie, the supermarket manager. He already knew more than was his business and it had happened such a long time ago. I wanted to be the one to ask the questions but John continued, ‘That’s quite an understatement. And you had your own little holiday at Her Majesty’s pleasure. How was that?’

  He knew everything about me. Why would Owen tell him all of this? What had it mattered to Owen by then?

  ‘You’ve gone quiet, Isabel. I can see that you’re deeply uncomfortable with the fact that Owen shared so many stories with me. Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone screws up sometimes. I certainly have.’

  ‘Good for you. But, unlike other people, I don’t need to talk about it.’

  The path was wider here. John stopped for me to catch up and we continued walking side by side. I wanted to change the subject but could think of nothing else to speak about.

  ‘It was a strange time,’ I told him eventually. ‘After Julia disappeared, none of us was really normal. I mean, not until we left the area. I’m sure it was the same for all of her friends, in different ways. We got up to things that didn’t feel as if they belonged to us. Don’t think I’m trying to deny responsibility for what Owen and I did. I’m not, but one way or another we were controlled by Julia – or her absence – for at least a couple of years. I grew out of it the minute I left this area. You see? I put it behind me and have been fine ever since.’

  ‘Julia’s ghost was leading you astray.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I mean. Not like that. Just that we weren’t capable of understanding everything, not that anyone tried to explain a single bit of it. There was no counselling in those days, nothing like that. No one came to analyse pictures we drew, or to sit with us in circles and share memories of Julia. Nothing but a terrible silence around Julia’s absence. Double nothing. It was bound to leave us – well – restless.’

  ‘If only she could come back and tell you what happened.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Of course I had thought the very same thing myself, many times, but it was idiotic to say it aloud.

  ‘Or maybe you know what happened?’

  ‘How could I? No one knows.’

  ‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it? Look at all the colours. There’s the blue of the reservoir, the exquisite green of the mallards, the brown branches of the trees. It’s alive even in November. I can’t imagine how beautiful this village must be in spring and summer. It must have been a lovely place to grow up. I bet you were always roaming over the moors or coming down here to feed the ducks. Did you have a bike?’

  ‘Yes, an old one. I don’t remember cycling by the reservoir but I’m sure I did. I suppose it wasn’t a bad place to be, till Julia went. I didn’t grow up anywhere else so I’ve nothing to compare it with. Yeah, maybe it was nice.’

  ‘This was the sort of place I fantasized about when I was a kid. I always lived in cities. Never liked them much. There’s very little wildlife, and even keeping a pet is harder in the city. I had an old bone-shaker I used to cycle around on but I wanted to be in the countryside. The woman next to me on the bus said that this is Eva somebody land, or some name like Eva. Eve? Ena?’

  ‘Eva Carter.’ I smiled. After many years here Maggie couldn’t stand the village – just a clique of nosy, uptight Tories, she said – and sold her big house and garden for a small terraced house in London. The town moralists and gossips belonged in the 1950s, she used to say. It was impossible to feel anything with these stuffed mattresses. She craved passionate, wild-tempered neighbours, or some such thing, but she didn’t find them here. She concluded that it was easier to be romantic in Hounslow than on the Yorkshire moors.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A writer. Her books are set round here. There’s one called Goose Island. I haven’t read it but, look, see that little island? Over there.’

  There was a small island with a couple of trees on it, and next to it a couple of tiny ones that were just bumps in the water.

  ‘Is that where it’s set?’

  ‘I’ve never read it so I don’t know for certain, but that’s called Goose Island. It’s sweet. There’s not much room for anything to happen there. You could just about have sex.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ He ran his hand over the top of his head.

  I smiled. I had embarrassed him. ‘No, no. Sorry. I only say it because that’s what’s most likely to happen in an Eva Carter book. Somebody will row or swim out there at some point, probably a dark, rugged man to rescue a beautiful woman, and they’ll make love on the island.’

  ‘Traditional stuff?’

  ‘No. In Maggie’s stories the woman always does everything she wants. She sometimes even murders a man or two along the way, but she still gets the glittering prize at the end. Usually a different man.’

  ‘Cool.’ We both looked out at Goose Island. Or was it Swan Island? Perhaps it was and Maggie’s book had confused me. I couldn’t remember. ‘You could do it under the shelter of the trees,’ John said. ‘But there’s something sad about it. It’s melancholic.’

  ‘Maybe it is. They had to search the whole reservoir area, with divers and everything, so to me it’s just bleak. Julia pervades the place but it must have been sad before then, if you noticed it too.’

  ‘I’d like to buy you a drink after the funeral. We’re both outsiders here, Isabel, and we need to stick together. When the locals see us coming along the main street, they might try to chase us out of town.’

  I laughed. ‘Why should they do that?’

  ‘A pair of ex-cons showing up together, all dressed in black. Could be scary to some people.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it tha
t way.’

  ‘So, a quickie, then? A quick drink somewhere, I mean.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m on a pretty tight schedule. I’ve got a plane to catch tomorrow. I don’t live round here, you see. I’m in Istanbul now. In the meantime I need to talk to some people who do live here still. I want to learn more about Owen before I go home.’

  ‘Who are you planning to talk to?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. I thought I’d see who’s at the funeral.’ ‘How will you broach the subject?’

  ‘I’ll just see how it goes.’

  ‘So you’re leaving tonight?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. Tonight I need to pack, need to make phone calls. This and that.’

  ‘Busy-busy. Why do you live in Istanbul?’

  ‘Because that’s where my job is and it’s where my husband and child are.’

  ‘What’s your job?’

  ‘I write articles for a monthly journal, and sometimes newspapers. Mete and I also manage a shop together, with his relatives.’

  ‘What kind of shop?’

  ‘Food, everyday stuff.’

  ‘And you run it together? How romantic.’

  ‘Yes, it is. It’s very romantic, as it happens, but we don’t get much free time to spend with each other and Elif.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Nearly two.’

  ‘You don’t seem like a mother.’

  A white duck pushed its bill through the reeds and waddled alongside us for a while. I walked between John and the duck as we progressed around the reservoir. No, I thought. I don’t seem like a mother. This morning I did, but now I do not. I wiped my foot on the grass to remove a lump of mud. ‘I’m going to the church,’ I told him.

  A smile lurked around his face somewhere, almost in his eyes, almost his mouth, not quite in either. He thought that in making me indignant he had somehow wielded power.

  ‘You’re much too early. We’ve got plenty of time yet. Shame we can’t go for a quick row. The water’s so tempting. I don’t know why I’m saying that because I can’t even swim. It still looks like a big, glistening invitation, though. Don’t you think?’

  The boats were lined up with a pair of oars inside each one, but there was no one around to take the money. I had an idea. I didn’t particularly want to spend hours in a pub with John, but a quick trip out on the water right now might prove useful. ‘You’re right, John. We have time.’

  ‘Fantastic. You’ll love it when we get out there.’

  ‘We can untie one and leave a note on the jetty with some money.’

  ‘You’re so moral. I love it. I’m a good rower, you know. I used to row often when I was younger. Won’t it be a nice thing to do? A little peace enjoyed together before we say goodbye to Owen. Just look at it.’

  John sighed and gazed out across the reservoir. The wind had died down and the water barely rippled.

  ‘But quickly. I really don’t want to be late for the funeral.’

  ‘There’s still time.’

  The reservoir was whitish blue, cold. It didn’t look like the reservoir I remembered, which had been dark green and viscous. Goose Island (it was Goose Island) was smaller than I’d thought it, nearer, and with fewer trees. I didn’t want to go out there again but it was the perfect way to remember Owen and, perhaps, learn something new.

  Owen and I took a rowing-boat out on the day we committed our crime. It was a vivid, yellow day. The reservoir stretched out under the sun, stripes and shapes of silver covering most of the surface. The middle of the water was the only place where we could talk in secret and I had big news to tell. I ran down the street from the police station and told Owen to meet me at the end of the jetty. I called Kath, too, and told her to come, but she was studying hard for her A levels and stayed at home. I didn’t mind. A crocodile of primary-school children slunk along the pavement towards the reservoir, armed with nature books and jam-jars. I ran past their bobbing heads to the jetty and waited for Owen. One of us paid thirty or fifty pence, whatever it was, to the old man who always sat there in the afternoon with his ham roll and copy of the Sun.

  We took it in turns with the oars and rowed out near Goose Island. In the shade of the trees the day darkened and cooled. There were mallards on the island. We argued about which kind were male and which female. Owen would not concede that the brown ones were female and decided that they must be a different breed of duck. ‘They must be moorhens,’ he said, ‘those dull brown ones, because mallards are colourful with bottle-green heads.’ I had been visiting the reservoir with my parents since I was tiny and I knew which were mallards, coots, moorhens. We argued, I remember, for a long time and then we both grew irritated, so I began to tell him why we were there. Owen was eighteen and I was seventeen then. He was unemployed and I was on a training scheme at McCreadie’s supermarket, taking dance classes in the evenings and at weekends. It was a couple of years since Julia’s disappearance and the rest of us were living on a strange edge that left us dizzy because we could not stop ourselves looking down. I was still inventing stories in my head, almost daily, that kept Julia alive, kept her life twisting forwards. I told Owen what Mr McCreadie had said to me that afternoon about Julia, and how we were the ones to do something about it.

  When I’d finished speaking, we switched places so that I could take the oars. ‘The ducks don’t know what kind of ducks they are so it doesn’t matter anyway,’ Owen said – just because he was wrong and I was right – and trailed his hand in the water. I pulled the oars hard. I was not as strong as Owen but I could row almost as well. I liked to see how fast I could make the boat go. I liked to feel as if I were in a race against some imaginary boat just off to our side, rowed by Olympian heroes. I would make us speed along, then lift the oars to see how far we would glide before coming to a rocking rest. I liked the patterns in the water, the whorls and pleats I could make with the oars. Even that day I couldn’t help but look. Then Owen stared at me with his black eyebrows furrowed. When I saw his face like this I knew he was still missing Julia. He never said how he felt but he used to go, with me and Kath, to the spot where she had vanished. We would stand there and look for clues – something that the police had missed – but we didn’t find anything. Perhaps we were seeking something clear, like a bump in the soil, a scrap of school uniform, a gap in the bushes, but I think we knew that if there was anything, it would be less tangible. It would be an understanding. By staring at the place, feeling it underfoot, knowing the changes in light and weather, we would lead ourselves to the point of knowing what had happened there. Of course, the place never changed enough and we were frustrated. Now Owen simply stared but his expression was not empty; it was full, brimming with something I didn’t quite recognize. What I know is that the fullness made me feel small. Somehow – I don’t remember how words led us to it – we concocted our plan.

  I often wonder how murderers who kill together find each other. How and when do they know that it is safe to tell the other one what is too terrible to share? There must be some conversation, some gentle play of words and gestures that builds up to a look or movement that says, I am like you. Tell me what you want to do and I ’ll understand. How does a lover confess and know that the other will not call the police? I still do not have the answer but, then, Owen and I were not murderers, or lovers. Our plan was to set fire to the supermarket, at night, when it would be empty. I remember one of us saying – it would have been me – that even if we were wrong about what Mr McCreadie had done to Julia it made no difference. He could have done it, might as well have done it, and what he had done in my head made him as good as a murderer.

  So now I was on the jetty with Owen’s friend from prison.

  ‘I hope I don’t push you off,’ he said.

  ‘I hope so too. Is it likely?’

  ‘It’s just something about being on a jetty, with water on three sides of you. The urge to push other people off is so strong. I can almost see my arms reaching forward and shoving you as soon as yo
u turn your back. I’d never do it, but I can feel it, tingling in my fingertips.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m not remotely dangerous.’

  We were walking along the wooden slats, heading for the far end. I wondered why he had been in prison. I did not plan to ask. It was up to him to tell me, if he wanted to.

  ‘Good. Right, then,’ I said to John. ‘Let’s go if we’re going. No time to waste.’

  He jumped ahead of me, selected a boat. Its name was Penelope.

  ‘Then help me get Penelope out.’

  We untied the rope. It slipped from my hands and fell into the lake. I reached in and pulled it out slowly, enjoying the water against my hands. I clambered into the boat and John followed me. I perched on the bench and took the oars. I liked the feeling – it had never gone away – the heaviness of the wood, the sense of movement about to begin.

  ‘Will we take it in turns? Can I row on the way back?’

  ‘Yes, of course you can.’ But already I had taken ownership of the oars and wouldn’t want to give them up easily. ‘What was Owen like when you first met him? I mean, was he depressed? Was he very friendly?’

  ‘I always felt sorry for the guy. Smoke? Oh, you haven’t got any hands. Have one on the way back.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  John took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He slid one out and lit it. I got a tiny breath of smoke before he moved the cigarette away and held it over the water’s edge.

  ‘This is cool. I like this. Nice ashtray, too. I haven’t had much fun in the last year. I moved to Leeds to be with my girlfriend, and a month after I got there she left me for someone else.’

  ‘That must have been hard. Had you found a new job?’

  ‘I work in a pub at the moment. We were going to set up a business together, interior design and selling design products. She was good at all that stuff, you see. She had a degree in fine art. I’m good at driving and accounts so we could have made it work. But, listen, I’m single now. There are a lot of advantages to that.’ He smiled at me, showing even white teeth.