by John Marrs
‘Yes, so I’ve heard. It must be quite stressful spending afternoons with the children at the cinema while their father might be lying dead somewhere,’ she sniped.
‘Shirley, it wasn’t like that. It was one afternoon, and on Roger’s advice. And they’re my children, so I’ll decide what’s best for them, not you.’
She shouldn’t have dragged the kids into it, especially since their grandparents barely even played a supporting role in their lives. They lived in the next village but rarely offered to babysit or pick them up from school. A stranger would be forgiven for assuming they had no grandchildren.
After the funeral, they’d hardly bothered to offer either of us help, or a shoulder to cry on. I’m sure that must have hurt Simon, but he’d not admitted it.
I’d always presumed their lack of interest in us was my fault. They remembered a boy who was once infatuated by Alan Whicker’s travel documentaries and who’d dreamed of exploring the world’s architecture. Then, by twenty-three, he was a married man and later, saddled with his own family. Even before we walked up the aisle, he tried to convince them that all he’d ever wanted was his own normal, loving family, but they wanted more for him than that.
I recalled his relationship with Shirley wasn’t easy. She was a big, bottle-blonde hurricane of a woman who burst into Arthur’s life a couple of years after he’d kicked Doreen out. I remembered how, when we were teenagers, Simon often moaned about how she’d order him to do his homework and tell him off for smoking. But then she’d clean up his bedroom and cook him meals, and all without expecting anything in return. He might never have loved her, but she showed him what a mum was capable of. I never admitted it, but I’d been envious he had parents who cared.
They were at a loss to understand why, after all Doreen had put Simon through, he would do the same to his own family. With no proof to the contrary, they’d decided I’d driven him away.
‘Were you pressuring him to do better at work?’ began Arthur, awkwardly.
‘No.’
‘Were you giving him the support he needed?’ Shirley demanded to know.
‘Yes, of course I was.’
‘Did he really want all those little ones so soon?’
‘Yes, Shirley. I didn’t get pregnant by myself.’
‘You could have tricked him. A lot of women do, to get what they want.’
‘What, four times?’
‘Well, why did he leave then?’
‘He hasn’t left, he’s disappeared. And it has nothing to do with our children!’
‘That doesn’t rule you out as the cause though, does it, dear?’
I rolled my eyes as we went round in circles. I took a bottle of wine from the cupboard and poured myself a glass without offering them one. They looked at each other with disapproval but I didn’t care. I took an extra-large gulp to make a point.
‘Are you sure you don’t know where he is?’ asked Shirley.
‘What kind of question is that?’ I replied, taken aback. ‘Do you think we’d be sitting here having this conversation if I did?’
‘Now’s the time to tell us, Catherine. Just put us all out of our misery. Does Simon have another woman? Is that what it is? Is he with her now? You’re hurting our grandchildren if you’re putting your own pride first and pretending he’s just disappeared.’
‘This is ridiculous! Of course he doesn’t. And how could you think I’d not put my kids first?’
‘Plenty of women struggle to keep a marriage together,’ Arthur chipped in. ‘They don’t try and save face by kicking up a fuss and claiming he disappeared when he’s walked out.’
‘That’s rich coming from you! Weren’t you the one who told everyone Doreen left to become a bloody missionary in Ethiopia? I don’t recall you mentioning anything about you booting her out.’
His face flamed red.
‘And if Simon had done that to me, then why hasn’t he been in touch with you?’ I continued. ‘If he left me, he left you too.’
‘Did he leave a note saying why he went?’ asked Shirley.
I let out a groan. ‘You’ve not listened to a word I’ve said, have you? Let me spell it out for you: Simon did not leave. He has gone missing. The police are treating him as a missing person. What more evidence do you need?’
Shirley rose to her feet. ‘I’m sorry I have to ask this, Catherine, but did you do something to him?’
That threw me. ‘Like what?’ I asked, genuinely confused.
‘Maybe you had an argument that got out of hand, you might have hurt him, then panicked, I’m not saying you meant to, but . . .’
‘What, then I got the kids to help me wrap his body up in an old carpet and buried him in the garden? You’ve been watching too much Murder She Wrote.’
‘We deserve to know the truth! He’s our son!’ she growled.
‘He’s not your son, Shirley,’ I snarled back. ‘But he is my husband and it’s me and my children who are suffering the most. And how are you helping? By accusing their mother of murder? What kind of monster do you think I am?’
Their silence spoke volumes.
‘If he’s not dead, then he’s abandoned you,’ Shirley responded matter-of-factly. ‘And frankly, I’m not surprised.’ Ever her faithful lapdog, Arthur nodded in agreement.
‘I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner,’ she continued. ‘I’ve always said you can never repair damaged goods.’
Despite the cruelty of her words, it still took a glimpse of a bewildered Robbie sitting on the bottom stair listening intently as his mother was torn to pieces before I snapped.
‘Just leave!’ I bellowed, lurching towards Shirley and grabbing her by the arm. ‘Get the hell out of my house.’
‘Just tell us where he is!’ Shirley yelled as I grabbed her shoulder and shoved her out the front door.
Arthur shuffled awkwardly behind us.
‘Get out now!’ I screamed, and physically pushed them onto the path then slammed the door, locking and chaining it behind me. I took a moment to gather myself before approaching my son with my broken heart still racing.
‘Doesn’t Daddy love us anymore?’ he asked, brushing away stray blond hairs stuck to his wet cheeks. ‘Is that why he ran away?’
I wanted to slap his grandparents for putting that idea into his head. Instead, I knelt down, placed his hands in mine and looked him straight in the eye.
‘I promise you, Robbie, no matter where your daddy is or what has happened to him, he hasn’t run away. He loves us with all his heart.’
He peered at me cautiously, stood up and climbed the stairs. ‘You’re a liar,’ he said quietly as he retreated to the safety of his bedroom. ‘You made Daddy run away.’
I could just about take what Arthur and Shirley had said. But hearing my little boy doubt his mother for the first time in his life was crushing. I should have gone after him and tried to explain Simon hadn’t been driven away by anybody. But Arthur and Shirley had sapped my strength.
Instead, I poured myself another glass of wine, sat in the kitchen with my head in my hands and fought the urge to break every dish in the sink.
25 June
I knew by the way the orange vase on the sideboard vibrated that a police car was pulling up outside our house. Their engines had an urgent, distinctive throb I’d grown used to and one which made the joints under the floorboards rattle. Then the panic would creep up my spine, terrified of what they were about to tell me.
It was usually just an update on the investigation or to ask me yet more questions I couldn’t answer. But the visits that scared me the most were when they brought me plastic bags containing pieces of stray clothing they’d found strewn somewhere. A handkerchief, a hat, a sock, a shoe . . . the list of items for me to identify went on and on.
Each time, I barely spoke as I sifted through them, but nothing ever belonged to Simon. The officers tried to hide their frustration at each dead end, as a positive result would be one step closer to solving the case. But
he wasn’t just a case to me: he was my husband.
And gradually the catwalk of the orphaned clothes petered out along with their visits.
30 June
James was eight, Robbie was five and a half and Emily was approaching four, and they showed no more understanding of our new life than their equally confused mum.
They barely let me out of their sight in case I vanished too. From behind the kitchen curtains, I’d feel three pairs of eyes glued to me, even when I walked to the end of the path to put the rubbish out. I constantly reassured them I wasn’t going anywhere, but they didn’t believe me.
Daddies were supposed to stay, and once they learned that wasn’t necessarily the case, they became worried that mummies wouldn’t always stay either. I hated myself for thinking it, but part of me wished I could have told them Simon had gone to see Billy when they’d asked. They might have made sense of that more easily. But it was more important than ever that I pretended to be the constantly upbeat parent, no matter how I really felt.
Emily was aware something had made her world topsy-turvy, but it didn’t seem to trouble her much. In fact, she loved the extra cuddles she received from our friends as they came to the house. It was difficult for them not to melt at the sight of her huge baby-blue eyes and goofy smile, especially when she’d point to a photograph of Simon on the sideboard and sing: ‘Daddy’s gone. No Daddy.’ I’d nod my head sympathetically, then distract her with Flopsy or a Barbie doll.
Robbie took it the hardest. He and our dog Oscar spent more and more time together, feeding off each other’s confusion. I’d well up watching them as they sat together in the back garden, staring across the fields, waiting for Simon to reappear like he’d been part of a magic trick that had gone horribly wrong. Each night when I put them all to bed, I’d leave Robbie’s door ajar so Oscar could sneak inside to sleep at the foot of his bed.
James was the spitting image of his father, from the brown waves in his hair to the sparkle in his green eyes and his infectious laugh. One night, he scattered his collection of white and brown seashells he’d found on the beach in Benidorm across his bedroom floor. His friend Alex had told him that if he put one to his ear and listened carefully, he could hear the sound of the sea.
Every now and again he’d pick one up to try and catch Simon’s voice, in case he was lost at the seaside and needed his help to find his way home. I tried it myself once, but I heard nothing but the echo of my emptiness.
Northampton, today
8.55 a.m.
She glared at him with unflinching venom she’d only felt for one other man. But she’d long buried that person in her past – along with her husband.
Her forehead was so furrowed it felt sore. It was difficult to find the words to respond to what he’d recalled about his first few weeks without them. Of all the possible outcomes she’d considered – and there had been many – she hadn’t envisaged he’d simply taken a holiday. While she’d been frantic with worry, he’d been lying on a beach.
She wanted him to understand how their lives had fallen to pieces when he disappeared. She needed him to know that while he was creating a whole new persona, her destiny hadn’t been one of choice. But if she could have conveyed to him even a small sense of what she’d gone through, it was apparent that he still couldn’t comprehend how the agony of a missing soulmate felt. That he could so easily disregard the first thirty-three years of his life, and those who were an integral part of it, beggared belief.
‘Did even a tiny bit of you consider what it might have been like for us here, while you were getting stoned with a bunch of teenagers?’ she asked.
‘It wasn’t like that, but at the time, I suppose not,’ he replied with brutal honesty. ‘I assumed you thought I’d had an accident but couldn’t find my body.’
‘And please correct me if I’m wrong here, but you actually made yourself forget we even existed?’
He nodded.
‘What about birthdays, or anniversaries?’ she persisted, hoping to find a glimpse of remorse. ‘Did you ever think of us then?’
‘Not at first, no, but I had no choice. It was the only way I could move on.’
‘That’s the difference between you and me, Simon. I’d never have wanted to move anywhere if it wasn’t with you and the children.’
‘I had to get away, I was suffocating.’
‘Oh, spare me the melodrama,’ she snapped. ‘You could have asked for a separation if you didn’t want to be married to me anymore. I’d have been heartbroken, of course, but I’d have worked through it eventually. And leaving me was one thing, but your children? I will never understand that.’
Feeling her voice begin to crack, she swallowed hard. She had vowed many years ago not to shed another tear over him and she wasn’t going back on her word now.
‘You asked me where I went, so I told you,’ he replied quietly. ‘I’m not responsible if you don’t like what you’ve heard.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘No, you’re right. Responsibility isn’t a word you’re familiar with, is it?’
‘I’m not here to argue with you,’ he said with maddening calm.
‘Then why are you here? Because I’ve got a lot of anger in me that I’m trying my damnedest to contain. Only you’re not making it easy when you tell me how you just put us out of your mind.’
‘Of course I thought about you. I thought about you all – in time. What I’m saying is that it wasn’t beneficial for me to dwell on the past straight away. I had to block you all out to carry on. I apologise if that sounds callous, but at the time I did what I thought was best.’
She shook her head in disbelief and ran her hands across her cheeks. They were burning up. She walked over to the window and unlatched the lever arch to release the claustrophobia from the room.
As the light hit her hair and revealed her scalp, he thought he noticed what looked like a crescent-shaped scar on the side of her head.
She turned around quickly. ‘Were you sick of us all, or was it just me? What did I do to make you not want me anymore? Did you get a better offer from someone else?’
He looked towards the fireplace, not yet ready to explain his reasons. He recognised a familiar object. ‘Is that the one Baishali and Steven bought us for our wedding present?’ he asked, pointing to a round orange vase.
His change of subject threw her, but she nodded regardless.
‘How is he? Has he retired yet?’
‘Yes, he has. One of his sons runs the business you threw away. Then he and Baishali retired to the south of France. Funny he didn’t bump into you on the beach. You’d have had so much to catch up on.’
He didn’t ask about Roger. Now wasn’t the right time.
‘Anyway, I doubt you’ve risen from the grave to make small talk,’ she continued. ‘So either tell me why you’re here or go back to where you came from.’
‘You need to know the full story first.’
‘What, more riveting tales from Club 18–30? I don’t have time for this.’ She walked towards the porch as if to open the front door, but she knew it was an empty gesture. She had waited too many years for answers for it to end now.
‘Please, Catherine. I need you to know what became of my life. And I want to know what you did with yours.’
‘You don’t deserve to know a thing about me.’
‘I know I don’t have any right to, but it’s been a long time. We both need closure.’
Sod closure, she thought. All she wanted to know was why. Even after all this time, she still felt she had to be to blame. The puzzle was missing key pieces she couldn’t place by herself. So she told herself that while she’d indulge him, she wouldn’t make it easy for him – whatever happened that day.
CHAPTER FIVE
CATHERINE
Northampton, twenty-five years earlier
17 July
A long, loud knock on the front door woke me up at sunrise with a jolt, scaring the life out of me. I jumped out of bed, looked nervously
out of the landing window and saw Roger’s unmarked police car and a van parked by the curb. My mouth was dry.
I threw on my dressing gown and felt my legs wobble as I dashed downstairs, hoping the noise hadn’t woken the children. They’ve found your body. I’ve really lost him.
Roger stood awkwardly with his head bowed, unable to look me in the eye.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ I began.
‘Can I come in?’
‘You’ve found him, haven’t you? You can tell me.’
‘No, we haven’t, Catherine. But I need to talk to you.’
Roger entered, while a handful of officers carrying torches and wearing overalls and boots wrapped in blue polythene bags stayed by the garden gate. None of them looked at me.
‘I’m really sorry about this, but it’s out of my hands,’ he began apologetically. ‘We’ve been offered an alternate line of enquiry that my chief inspector’s ordered me to follow up.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He paused. ‘We’ve received a tip-off that suggested we need to examine your garden for . . . signs of recent disturbance.’
‘Signs of recent disturbance,’ I repeated. ‘What does that mean?’
‘There’s no easy way to say it, but there’s a suggestion Simon’s remains may be buried here.’
‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘I only wish it was, but I have a search warrant.’ He pulled out a document from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I threw it back at him without reading it all, choking at the absurdity of it.
‘You seriously believe I buried my husband in the garden?’
‘No, of course I don’t, but we have to follow up all leads, even if they come from crackpots.’
‘Tell me who this crackpot is, Roger,’ I demanded.
‘I’m not allowed to say.’
‘This is me you’re talking to. I have a right to know.’
‘I’m sorry, Catherine, I can’t.’
I paused. ‘Wait a minute, you said crackpots, as in there’s more than one. Who would . . . ’
My voice trailed off and I shut my eyes when I realised who was responsible.