When You Disappeared

by John Marrs

‘I’m ready, Simon.’

  ‘I’m not. Please don’t go without me.’

  ‘I have to. And we have two wonderful children who need you.’

  ‘But I need you.’

  ‘And one day, by God’s good grace, we will find each other again. But for now, let’s enjoy the time we have together, shall we?’

  She rose to her feet and moved her hand towards mine. We linked fingers and I wrapped my other arm around her skeletal waist as we swayed together for the last time. And, as if on cue, the band began to play the opening bars of ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’.

  CATHERINE

  Northampton, two years earlier

  9 April

  Radiotherapy and chemotherapy had ravaged my looks, sapped my strength and ruined my wardrobe, but thirteen months after my diagnosis, they gave me back my life.

  ‘The tumorous cells have entered a phase where they’ve stopped growing or multiplying,’ explained Dr Lewis, with a broad smile on his face. He looked like the news was going to change his life, not mine. ‘I’m really pleased, Catherine.’

  I slumped down in my chair and nearly screamed with relief. He might have delivered news like that to a thousand patients over the years, but Dr Lewis couldn’t possibly have known just how much it meant for me to hear I was going to live. It meant God had listened when I’d asked him for more time: that now I’d have the chance to see my granddaughter grow up, watch my children get older, and to do all the things I’d never made time to do on my wish list.

  ‘It doesn’t mean the cells will never appear again,’ he warned, ‘but it could mean the tumour has been destroyed and the area it occupied in the brain is composed of only dead tissue.’

  ‘So what you’re telling me is I’m brain-dead.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Now you won’t need to come back to see me for another three months.’

  I stood up to leave, and was about to thank him for all he had done when I remembered the promise I’d made to myself about taking a gamble.

  So instead I asked: ‘Does it have to be that long until I see you again?’

  SIMON

  Montefalco

  9 April

  The end came too close to our beginning.

  The most gifted Italian specialists money could hire were unable to prevent the cancer from wreaking havoc on her body. The tumours wouldn’t shrink, only the eighteen months we’d hoped for. Once they infected Luciana’s lungs and seeped into her bones, there was very little any clinic could do but send her home so we could make her remaining weeks comfortable. Drugs eased her pain considerably but transformed her into a vacant, slumbering shell.

  Our children had already bid farewell to the mother they’d known when a diseased impostor took her place. Hearing and observing her obvious discomfort began to scar them, so I encouraged them to embrace their youth with their friends and shun death’s waiting room. Only when she slept would I allow them into our bedroom to visit.

  I employed a round-the-clock staff of nurses to attend to Luciana’s needs, but for the most part, I took care of her myself as best I could. I had not wanted to admit how vulnerable she was, but begrudgingly I accepted that was exactly what she’d become. The emaciated frame that barely dented our bedsheets bore little resemblance to the enigma I’d loved. Her angular bones jutted out of her paper-thin flesh. Her olive skin had greyed and her eyes remained glued tight.

  I felt her pain as much as anyone watching a loved one in physical distress could. It didn’t matter what dose of anaesthetic the syringe driver regulated her body with – it simply wasn’t enough.

  After one awful night in our crepuscular hole, she clasped my fingers tightly as lucidity made its slight return.

  ‘You know what to do, Simon,’ she groaned, opening her eyelids to reveal whites pricked with brown flecks. She referred to a conversation we’d never had, yet both understood.

  Please don’t ask me to do this, I yearned to reply. But if you truly love someone with every ounce of your being, you’ll die for them, or you’ll help them to die if waiting for the inevitable is too much for them to bear.

  ‘You’re sure?’ I hardly needed to ask.

  She nodded slowly. ‘Tell our children I love them. And promise me that before you join me, you will make things right with God and with Catherine. She must know what you did and that you are sorry.’

  She felt my hesitancy and squeezed my fingers again. ‘I hurt too much to live,’ she continued, ‘but I’m terrified to leave in case I never see you again. You must give me your word.’

  She stared at me with such expectation that I knew I couldn’t make my last promise to her a lie.

  ‘You have my word,’ I replied.

  The corners of her darkened lips rose very slightly before her eyes closed one last time.

  My legs were heavy as I walked from her bed towards the medicine trolley in the bathroom. My hands shook as I followed her nurse’s instructions on how to prep a syringe.

  I drew triple the required amount of morphine from the vial and went back to her. It took all the courage left in my heart to place the needle tip into a near-invisible vein in her forearm. Then I reluctantly pushed the plunger until the glass barrel drained.

  In less than a minute, her agony made way for sweet relief.

  As she lay before me, I climbed onto our bed, placed my head on her chest and listened to the ever-quieting sound of her heartbeat. Its gentle, diminishing rhythm eased me to sleep where I dreamed of the day my own would do the same.

  When I awoke, I was alone in the world again.

  Northampton, today

  6.40 p.m.

  It was the first time in twenty-five years either of them had a true understanding of the other’s suffering.

  Being with Luciana at her worst allowed him a much clearer impression of what Catherine had been through when she was sick. Maybe God’s wrath hadn’t only been directed at him, but at all those he’d touched, too. He regretted she’d not had a soulmate to take care of her. She’d had the support of their children, but if he and she were anything alike, she would have shielded them from the worst of it and carried her pain alone as best she could.

  There had been little about him she could identify with that day. From the gutlessness of his escape to the lives he’d ruined and taken away, sometimes she felt like he was reading extracts from a stranger’s diary.

  But his tender description of their relationship during Luciana’s final months reminded her of who he’d been. And it made her envious because she remembered what his undivided attention had felt like; she had benefited from it when she’d needed it most. When all she’d wanted to do was run outside and scream at the thunder, he’d been the one to hold her back until the storm passed. But when she’d needed to be held like that again, he was holding someone else.

  She knew it was pointless begrudging a dead woman. Luciana hadn’t fallen in love with the wrong man; it was she who had. And remarkably, she respected him for having the courage to end the life of the only thing he’d wanted to live. Maybe he knew what love was, after all.

  Eventually he broke their contemplative lull.

  ‘Are you well now?’ he asked, genuinely concerned.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied quietly. ‘I still have check-ups every six months, but so far, so good. Touch wood.’ She tapped the dent in her head.

  ‘Good,’ he replied, ‘good.’ He paused. ‘And was James a big help, what with him being away so much?’

  She wondered why he’d singled out the eldest of all their children. ‘Yes, he was. He often texted and phoned, and came home when he could.’

  However, he didn’t appear to be listening to her reply and it wasn’t the first time she’d noticed it. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, but chinks were appearing in the armour he’d arrived wearing.

  Granted, it had been a mentally exhausting day for both of them, but something about his ever-increasing vacantness perturbed her. The room went silen
t again as he stared out of the window and into the garden.

  ‘Simon?’ she asked, baffled by his stillness.

  ‘Yes?’ he said with a start.

  ‘Are you all right? You look a little dazed.’

  ‘Would you mind if I had a glass of water?’

  She nodded and went to the kitchen, removed a filter jug from the fridge and poured some water into a glass. When she returned, he was examining a framed platinum disc hanging on the wall that James had given her.

  ‘James looks a lot like you,’ she said, handing him the glass. ‘He has your eyes and your skinny legs. Sometimes I find myself staring at him because he looks like your double.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied. ‘I’ve met him, Catherine.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SIMON

  Montefalco, Italy, one year earlier

  26 January

  I sat under the shade of a plump, lemon-yellow umbrella and watched the locals go about their business from the cobbled village square.

  Since Luciana’s passing, there was just too much time. My capable staff ensured the winery ran smoothly, and the management structure she’d put into place before her death took care of our business interests. Everything had been plotted, planned for and preserved, with the sole exception of me. I took pleasure in seeing glimpses of Luciana in both Sofia and Luca, but glimpses were not enough. I ached for her.

  My life and our home were stark without her. I moved into a different bedroom when her citrusy perfumes that lingered on the fabrics in our own became too much to bear. I craved her presence with such force that it disorientated me. I’d talk myself into believing her death had been an awful dream and that when I awoke I’d find her out in the garden, lost in a novel or chatting to our grape pickers. It never happened, of course; I was alone in my coma.

  I found it impossible to concentrate on anything for long, and I’d have to write down my ‘to do’ lists, otherwise I’d forget my chores from one hour to the next. Grief’s malevolence crippled me.

  When Luca and Sofia were out of the house, I’d pass the time by walking down to the town, installing myself outside Senatori’s café and nursing a latte with cinnamon sprinkles. People-watching eased the loneliness a little. I’d appraise the tourists as they passed me by and try to spot obvious signs of Britishness – milky-white or sunburned skin; trainers worn for every occasion.

  Every so often I pondered whether I’d recognise one of my other offspring if they stood in front of me. More than likely, neither of us would ever know we’d been in touching distance of faded flesh and blood. I remembered parts of them all, like eye shapes, hair colours and bone structures, but I couldn’t put enough pieces together to make them anything other than excerpts of children.

  Luca reminded me of James, in the way the corners of his mouth hid under his cheeks when he giggled, or how his ankle rested on the shin of the opposing leg as he slept.

  Sofia was an amalgamation of the best aspects of Luciana and the worst of Doreen, and that frightened me. As she grew older, she became more listless. I had admired her mother’s independent spirit but I prayed she wouldn’t follow her grandmother’s path. I wanted her to take time to smell the flowers growing beneath her feet before she trampled over them. I loved Sofia like any father loves his daughter, but slowly I began to pull away from her, knowing I’d never be able to harness her true nature.

  Luca was her opposite and I admit I put more into our relationship than I did with his sister. Perhaps I tried to replicate what I’d had with my first-born with my second from a third life. I even bought him an acoustic guitar for his birthday like I had with James – only he didn’t abandon it like his brother had. I smiled as I recalled how painful it was trying to teach James the three chords to ‘Mull of Kintyre’.

  As he grew older, Luca discovered rock music, and in particular, a British band having worldwide success called Driver. I couldn’t escape his obsession with them, and if their music wasn’t thundering from his bedroom stereo, then it was booming from the speakers of my car.

  About a month ago, he’d been devastated when his alarm clock failed to go off the morning tickets went on sale for their Italian tour. Ever since, I’d watched him mope around the villa, cursing it.

  Suddenly a motorcycle engine interrupted my coffee break as it pulled up in front of the café. A courier removed his black crash helmet and spoke to me.

  ‘Signor Marcanio?’ he asked. I nodded and he handed me a brown padded envelope. I thanked him, picked myself up off the chair and began the slow walk back uphill to the house.

  I hoped at least one of the children would be there to fill its hollow corridors with the life that had been sucked out of it.

  2 April

  Luca beamed up at me after opening the envelope to find two tickets for Driver’s concert. ‘How, Papa?’

  ‘I have my ways,’ I replied with the mysterious smile fathers only give when they want to prove they’re still of some value to their growing offspring. I’d pulled a few strings with the venue’s bar manager, who I supplied wine to, and then kept it a secret until a few days before we were due to fly.

  ‘Who are these scruffy devils then?’ I asked, pointing to a photograph of the group on his computer screen.

  ‘That’s Kevin Butler, the singer and bass guitarist,’ he began excitedly, ‘and on drums Paul Goodman, on keyboards David Webb, and James Nicholson on lead guitar.’

  Two seconds passed before the latter’s name sank in. ‘James Nicholson?’ I repeated.

  With a click of his mouse, Luca blew up a thumbnail-sized picture. Immediately I was certain I was staring at a man I’d only known as a boy. His dark-brown hair was shoulder-length. Stubble had sprouted from his cheeks and chin, and his shoulders were broad. But there was no mistaking his smile or the sparkle in his green eyes.

  No, I told myself. Your head’s playing tricks on you again.

  ‘Can you get me a bottle of water while I read up on them?’ I asked Luca, trying to get a grip on my nerves.

  As he bounced downstairs to the kitchen, I typed ‘James Nicholson’ into a search engine and thousands of threads appeared. I refined my search, trying ‘James Nicholson’ and ‘Northampton’, and there were plenty of mentions of the two together. I clicked on his Wikipedia page and it confirmed his date of birth as October 8.

  I leaned back and felt the blood drain from my face. It was James. It was my James. I was staring at a picture of the son I had abandoned. I scrolled through online newspaper features and found an interview.

  The eldest of three siblings, James was raised single-handedly by his mother after his father suddenly disappeared. ‘I don’t remember a whole lot about him,’ James tells me, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. ‘I do know that he loved us all, but when he disappeared, our lives changed forever.’

  I stopped and closed my eyes. The ghosts in the machine had found me.

  ‘Nobody knows what happened to him. It was hardest on my mum, though . . . Everyone who knew Dad says it wasn’t like him to just vanish and that something must have happened. And it hurts that we’ll probably never know what. Do I still think about him? Yeah, of course. Not every day, maybe not even every week. But he’s always in the back of my mind, somewhere.’

  I was a naive idiot for not predicting how much the uncertainty might have haunted him. I glanced up at the wall in front of me to see a poster of Driver staring back. I’d walked past it dozens of times, never knowing my son was in my house.

  ‘He’s an amazing guitarist,’ said Luca when he reappeared with my drink, oblivious to the earthquake rocking his father. ‘He’s been giving me advice.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to him?’ My heart beat faster than I ever thought possible. ‘How?’

  ‘On Twitter. I messaged him to say how I think he’s really good and how I play the guitar too. I don’t know why I did, but I told him about having trouble with this one chord. He wrote back with advice and we’ve been direct messaging for a fe
w weeks. Can you imagine how many kids write to him? But he makes time for me. He’s really cool.’

  My two sons had been corresponding from opposite sides of Europe, neither of them knowing who the other really was.

  ‘That’s great,’ I replied before making an excuse to retreat to my bedroom balcony for air.

  In organising Luca’s tickets, I had unwittingly unlocked Pandora’s box. But what scared me the most wasn’t that I was being forced to confront my past.

  It was that maybe I was actually ready to.

  Rome, Italy

  7 April

  I barely noticed the moisture pouring down the walls or the ringing in my ears as my son James played an energetic guitar solo on the colossal stage in front of me. As everyone around us cheered and sang, I stood motionless in the PalaLottomatica arena, gazing at him in awe. Luca was doing the same, but for very different reasons.

  Goosebumps spread across my skin and made me itch, but I was unable to tear my eyes away from the boy I’d once tried to forget. I wondered how that scrawny, anxious little lad who’d urinated in his shepherd’s costume during the school nativity play had gained the mastery and confidence to enthral ten thousand strangers. I don’t think I absorbed a single lyric or was aware of how long Driver had remained on stage by the time the house lights illuminated the room.

  ‘Come on, Papa,’ yelled Luca, tugging my arm. But instead of heading for an exit sign, he dragged me against the flow of human traffic and towards the metal barriers at the side of the stage.

  ‘This isn’t the way out,’ I protested as discarded food cartons and plastic bottles crunched under our feet.

  ‘I know – we’re going to meet the band!’ He grinned. ‘I tweeted James and told him you got us tickets, so he put us on the guest list for the after-show party.’

  My unprepared mind raced through a list of excuses. ‘We can’t, you’re too young,’ was all I could offer on such short notice.

  ‘I’m sixteen,’ he chirped, dragging me ever closer. ‘It’s cool.’

  ‘Luca, no. It’s late. I’m tired. Let’s go back to the hotel.’