The Missing Person's Guide to Love

by Susanna Jones

  I went to the police first. The man behind the desk promised to look into it but didn’t think I had any evidence. ‘His car is light blue,’ I pointed out.

  ‘So?’ He banged his mug of tea on the desk and I jumped.

  ‘I thought there was a light blue car involved,’ I whispered.

  He shook his head and snorted at me. ‘Half the cars in the bloody town are light blue, not to mention the ones that drive through every day. Don’t spend so much time listening to gossip and daydreaming.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not.’

  He waved his arm towards the door. ‘Get home and tell your dad from me you need a bloody good hiding.’

  No, it is clearer to me than ever that Mr McCreadie did not kill Julia – he had an alibi for the day she disappeared and was talking rubbish for the purpose of taunting me – but someone did. I’ve read the story plenty of times since then; the girl has a different name in each story, town, country, and she may have left behind a bicycle, a shopping-basket or mobile phone, and I know that the missing schoolgirl is almost always dead.

  Maggie insists on happy endings for her girls because that is what they deserve. They mustn’t be punished, she says – as Celia or Jasmine or Roxy wins the man, the fortune, and gets away with murder – just for being girls and for wanting things. A girl or woman who seeks satisfaction must be shown to triumph. The more she attempts, the larger the rewards. Then it will be a triumph for all women. But I don’t think that is the point. How does it help Julia? It is not a question of rewards or retribution but of noticing what happens. Still, I have not read many of Maggie’s books carefully and in a little while I shall take a break from Owen and Julia to skim through Goose Island. Perhaps then I shall have reason to change my mind.

  Elif will be sleeping now, curled up in her cot, her pyjamas wrinkled and warm. Mete will be on the bed under the window. If she has woken, perhaps he will be singing to her in his sweet, out-of-tune voice. The mobile of wooden fish is above his head, occasionally kissing his hair as it swings. His hand rests on the side of the cot, where mine should be.

  Outside our flat, cars zip through the dark along the main roads, out to the airport and back. In the all-night soup café around the corner, a handful of people are tearing at pieces of fresh white bread, squeezing lemon juice into dark lentil soup, feeling the traffic’s hum in their feet and legs. If they speak, their voices will be quiet, muted by the night.

  I feel Elif close again, as if she is by my ankles, pulling herself up onto her feet, then slipping down again with a giddy laugh. I can almost touch her but I can’t take her in my arms. If I try to imagine it, she slips out of my grasp and goes back to my ankles, wraps herself around my leg and holds on. A little spirit baby that has come with me in place of Elif. Even her name sounds different now. It sounds foreign and beautiful, nothing like me or my own name, nothing that I could have made.

  I headed up the hill to the market-place, entering between the old Methodist chapel and a wool shop. The chapel had turned into a snooker hall before I left but now there was a large white board on the red brickwork: Evolution: just a theory? The Rev. White discusses Creationism on Tuesday, 11 November at 7.30. I looked above the door and saw that it was no longer the Methodist chapel or a snooker hall but an evangelical church. I couldn’t imagine what local circumstances had conspired to bring evangelicals in and send snooker players away. I continued towards St Peter’s, which I knew would not have changed.

  The town centre was more or less as I’d remembered it but the remembered version had such a violent presence in my mind that this real place seemed ethereal, an uncanny double. People moved slowly but smoothly in and out of the shops. They tied dogs to lampposts, talked to strangers' babies in prams, paired up with others on the street to pass the time of day. There was nothing to say clearly that this was a new time. There was no Starbucks, no mobile-phone shop, no sign of an Internet cafe, no sandwich bar. Two old men with walking-sticks passed each other in front of the bank with a nod and, again, I had the feeling of being the only human in Toy Town.

  There was St Peter’s, grey and square, solid and separate from the ground like an ark riding on dark water. It cast a deep gloom over the street. I had a vague memory of Owen’s mother, Sheila, running jumble sales in St Peter’s parish hall. Sheila was one of the women who didn’t go to work but managed things in the village, always organizing a garden party or a bring-and-buy sale. We’d see a couple of them on a summer’s evening, walking up or down a street with a wheelbarrow of jumble, or bramble jam, or newly made soft toys. We lived in a rigid matriarchy. Men existed somewhere around the edges, coming and going by car, disappearing through the back door when there was a birthday party or friends for tea, to hose a lawn or rake up leaves.

  According to the clock on the tower, I was still fifteen minutes early. I used to walk up here, on the other side of the road, to get to choir practice. On dark or foggy evenings we would hang around afterwards to creep around the graveyard and tell ghost stories. Behind the church, by the entrance to the crypt, there was a stretch of grass that was never lit. We would feel our way through the inky black, over and between the graves, sometimes grazing our hands or knees on the lichened stone. The younger ones held onto the sleeves of the older ones. We never talked in that place but scrambled quickly onwards, stumbling back into the lamplight to see each other again, to laugh and shout and show that we weren’t scared.

  A woman crossed the road ahead of me, hands balled inside the pockets of her hooded anorak, a heavy frown on her face. Her head shook from side to side as if she was in the middle of a tired argument. I knew her, had known her. Pauline had been the supervisor in McCreadie’s supermarket. She trained new staff on the tills, marched up and down behind the row of us, helping when a price was missing or we typed the wrong number into the cash register. She brought bags of change to fill the compartments in the drawers. Pauline chatted with the customers, seemed able to keep four or five conversations going at once. Like Mr McCreadie, she was known to most of the village, a local character. When she had a day off, the place had no warmth and we missed her.

  Pauline looked round, caught my eye, and I thought she recognized me. She started, a smile almost came, but then she tilted her head down and moved on. I was a ghost, apparently. I supposed they had built a new supermarket, probably in the same spot, but I was not going to visit that part of town. I didn’t want to know.

  I walked behind her almost all the way to the church. When she reached the gate she stopped, turned again and stared at me. She took a mobile phone from her pocket and began to speak into it. I lingered at a bus stop on the other side of the road. Who was she telling? Guess who I’ve just seen. Guess who’s had the nerve to show up here again. The bus stop made me think of rain and, sure enough, as soon as I turned away from Pauline’s plump, tired figure, a drop of cold water landed on the side of my nose. A small group of people in black clothes had gathered around the church gate and on the steps that led up to the path. More raindrops fell. I wiped my eyes and mouth, sheltered in the doorway of a hairdresser’s called Images.

  Behind me stood tall pyramids of shampoo and conditioner bottles. Someone had taken the trouble to fill the window with swathes of autumn leaves, brown, yellow and red. Above them hung polystyrene human heads. The heads wore wigs, highlighted with stripes of the same autumn shades. Deeper inside the shop, under a warm yellow light, two blonde women stood over customers.

  The rain fell steadily now, slanted by a cold breeze. Small rivers bubbled along the gutters and the drains gurgled and frothed. Fat sploshes dropped from the shop’s canopy and I moved close to the window. Soft shapes in black came together near the church gate, some sheltered by drab, dripping umbrellas. From this distance their faces weren’t visible but the figures were all in pairs, males matched with females, holding onto each other with an arm, a hand. They blurred into one another. If Mete were here, he would be standing to my left, his right arm around my shoulder.
I would be holding Elif close to my chest, her forehead tucked under my chin, and she would protect me. But they were not here, so I crossed the road and joined the funeral crowd. Cold water slipped down my neck and under my coat. The group began to thin. It formed a bumpy line and moved upwards along the path to the church door.

  The hearse arrived, followed by two more black cars. I recognized Owen’s parents and sister as they emerged and came together on the pavement. Sheila was just as I remembered her. She was tall and slim with sharp cheekbones, short silver hair in the same cropped style she’d had fifteen years ago. Her shiny black coat skimmed her ankles. Dennis was a couple of centimetres shorter, plump, white-haired. He wore a thick, solid black jacket. His right hand reached upwards slowly and rested on his wife’s back.

  Sheila’s expression was vacant, and although she held her head high, her eyes were slipping and rolling around like marbles, unable to keep still and focus. I thought that the family would move directly to the church and I planned to wait until then so that I could nip in at the back. However, Sheila’s glance now rested on me, and she didn’t go forward with the others. She waited until they had reached the door, then came to me, as I had known she would. Her steps were careful, as though she were picking her way through a bed of small flowers. I should have met her in the middle but I could not move. I was afraid of Sheila, for no reason that I understood. Her right arm extended. Her face was pale and the sockets of her eyes were pearly and swollen, like iris petals.

  ‘Isabel. I thought it was you.’

  ‘Sheila. I was so sorry when I heard—’

  Sheila rested her fingers on my wrist. They were warm and clammy. She stood a little too close to me. Her expression was without either dislike or affection. ‘Thank you for being here. It means a lot to have Owen’s old friends around. And you’ve come far, I know. Your aunt Maggie tells me you live in Turkey now.’

  She looked drowsy and confused, as though she was ready to drop to the ground and sleep at the click of a stranger’s fingers.

  ‘The flight only takes a few hours.’

  ‘You have a Turkish boyfriend or husband, she said.’

  ‘A husband, yes.’

  ‘Is he a Muslim?’

  ‘Yes, no. Well, not practising.’

  ‘Mm.’ She nodded slowly without explaining why she had asked this. 'I thought you’d passed away, Isabel. That’s what Owen told me when I asked about you once. He said you’d passed away quite suddenly. It was a shock when Maggie mentioned you in her letter last week. I had to read it two or three times before the news sank in.’

  I gave an awkward laugh. Passed away?

  ‘Owen never said your name when he came back here – apart from the time he told us that you’d died – but I know he thought about you often. I did too. The past is very – broken. I mean it’s— I’m glad to see you looking so well, Isabel.’ She glanced over my shoulder at the road. ‘Are you staying long? Would you like to come round one day for a chat about the old days and Owen? A cup of tea, just the two of us? For Owen’s sake, it would be nice.’

  ‘I wish I could but I have to fly back to Istanbul tomorrow. I’m sorry. I have family there and I can’t stay any longer.’

  A memory of something, something that had been sleeping in my bones, stirred and rested again. What was it? Just a light that flicked on, then off again. A familiar shape, like a kite against the sky, that I could not quite see in the brightness of the sun, and then it was gone.

  Yes, of course. Ah, never mind. It would have been nice, you know, to understand you better, the influence you had on my son. I want to know more about Owen than I shall ever have in my hands to know. Anything I hear is a kind of treasure for me to keep and polish, good or bad. I don’t mind that in your case it’s bad.’

  I stood silent for a moment. Over the road, the door to the hairdresser’s opened with a ting and a couple of women came out, chattering and laughing. They saw the funeral cars, clapped their hands to their mouths and shuffled off in silence. The street and churchyard were quiet now. A few people lingered on the pavement, listening to Sheila and me, but the rest of Sheila’s family and most of the guests had gone into the church.

  I could not quite believe Sheila’s words.

  ‘Influence?’

  Sheila shook her head. You see, I often think, if he hadn’t met you . . .’ She was nervous. She was building up to say something I should not like. ‘I find myself wondering, often. I wonder how things would have been different. If you had never been there to collide with him, if you had never existed in the first place. If the pair of you had been put in different classes at school—’

  It would have been better to say nothing but my mouth opened and I was speaking. That applies to Owen and me equally. Sheila, if you’d rather I didn’t come in, I won’t.’

  My voice was steady but my heart thumped.

  Yes. No. Not at all. I mean, I don’t blame you, Isabel. You were very young. Just a girl. You probably had no idea how much power you had. I expect you were unaware of the things you could do to people just by being yourself, by talking and having thoughts. You were pretty too, and that’s not your fault. I don’t blame you, not entirely.’

  ‘What kind of power do you mean? I don’t think I had any power over anyone. Certainly not Owen.’

  ‘The power that young girls have. I know what that is. Well. He isn’t here any more. He can’t speak for himself, can he? So we’ll never know.’

  There was a whisper of suggestion in her voice that I was to blame for Owen’s death. And, of course, this was not the time to say it but I said it all the same. I’m not responsible for that. He was in an accident.’

  Sheila widened her mouth into a tight smile. A thin tear leaked from her eye and engulfed a stray crystal of blue eye-shadow. It stopped on her cheek like a stuck-on bead. I wanted to reach out and smudge it away with my fingertip. I wanted to say sorry.

  Dennis appeared in the church porch under a small carved figure of St Peter. He stepped down onto the path then stopped. ‘Sheila, love, don’t you want to come in out of the cold? There’ll be time to talk to people later. It’s warm in here.’

  She seemed to hear the word ‘cold’ for, though she did not turn round to him, she pulled up the collar of her heavy black coat and shivered.

  ‘Shall we talk afterwards, if you still want to?’ I hoped she would go inside.

  ‘There was blood on his clothes,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  I assumed she meant the car crash. She must have seen him afterwards. Perhaps she saw his clothes in the hospital.

  ‘You must have known. Was there blood on your clothes too?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That day. The day she went. He would not have hurt a fly. No, he would not. What did you make him do? You were always together. What was it you did? I can guess, believe me, but I want to hear it from you.’

  ‘Nothing.’ My voice was louder than it had been all day. The sound of it surprised me. ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. What are you saying?’

  ‘We couldn’t go to the police, could we? It’s always the boy and not the girl. We knew who’d get the blame and it wouldn’t be you. You see? Owen would have suffered. It’s always the boy and not the girl.’

  ‘But I don’t know why you would think this. What did Owen say to you?’

  ‘He said nothing. Owen never said anything at all but he didn’t need to. He was my boy and I knew him. That day, there was blood on his clothes. Some spots on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Not many, but enough to notice. Whoever killed her would have been soaked in blood, you would think, but Owen wasn’t. I think someone else must have come home much bloodier.’ Sheila did not look at me but it was clear from the way she spoke, the wavering, high-pitched tone of her voice, whom she meant. ‘I put it in the wash and it came out fine but it never went away, not in front of these.’ She jabbed her index finger at the air in front of her eyes.

  So I was right. Owen wa
s guilty and Sheila had rinsed away the evidence.

  ‘And then you got him into trouble again two years later and he was taken away from us. I can’t get that time back again now, can I? I haven’t even got memories from that time, except bad ones of having to visit him in that place. Those memories shouldn’t have to count, but they do. I don’t have enough to be able to discard a couple of years. Well, some time later you took your own life, or so Owen heard, Isabel. I would not wish to dance on anyone’s grave but I was so relieved to hear of your death. So much pain and worry just evaporated at that moment. I even managed to feel pity for you. I allowed myself a few tears of sadness. And more fool me, because now he’s dead and all of a sudden you’re alive again. It doesn’t make any sense to me.’

  ‘Whatever Owen did to Julia – I don’t know what that was or even that he did anything – it had nothing to do with me. I promise you.’