The Girl Before You

by Nicola Rayner

  Since Nunny appeared, I don’t feel myself. I find it hard to focus, find myself gazing into space as I am now at the shelves where beige bears, dogs and a strange preponderance of giraffes stare blankly back. They remind me of Nunny, who actually started his life as bright pink but ended up beige like the toys I’m looking at now, worn out from too much love.

  Ruth isn’t the only ghost from my past I’ve glimpsed in unexpected places, though strangely I never conjured up our father. Maybe that’s the difference between those we have buried and those we haven’t. Perhaps, the unburied must haunt us. When I lost people before Ruth, we put them to rest. Even my grandfather, who disappeared into water too, washed up days later. Even he is buried now in the earth, which is solid and definite. Not like water.

  Occasionally, over the years, we’ve allowed ourselves a flicker of hope, my mother and I. After a couple of glasses of wine, when Carla’s not there, one of us will say ‘Maybe,’ and it will last for a second or two. But that’s all, usually. We indulged a little more when Nunny turned up, of course. Just because the idea is preferable: that she might be out there, living as a poet on a Scottish island – the Shetlands, perhaps, or the Outer Hebrides. Or that she’s joined a travelling theatre group in America, like Gypsy Rose Lee, zigzagging her way across that vast continent. Or living as a gaucho in Argentina, that’s my favourite – that she’s out there, working with horses. She’d like that: bantering with the cowboys, her freckles coming out in the sun, her arms turning pale gold.

  It’s not just our dead who haunt us. After Miss Wick disappeared from school, I started to see her too, to look twice at tall dark-haired women, anyone wearing a scarf in their hair. Once, on a tube, as my train stopped at a station, I glanced up from my book to see her standing there. She was carrying a bag, looking askance at something further along the platform.

  It was particularly bad in my first year at St Anthony’s, the year after our break-up. Working on an essay as I sat in the gallery of the library, I thought I spied her through the gaps in the carved wood of the balcony, thought I caught the low cadence of her voice, asking the librarian something. When I bounded down the stairs to take a closer look, the woman had gone and I persuaded myself I’d been imagining things. But for a long time it felt as if I might turn a corner to find Miss Wick there. And then, when it did happen, she still took me by surprise.

  I don’t recognise the ring of my own phone at first. It’s new and I’m still finding my way around it. The ring, which Carla chose, is a cheery Latin tune. I fish around in my bag as its chirpy tones get louder and see it’s my mother calling. I think for a moment of leaving it, but then decide to explain where I am, to suggest we speak later.

  ‘Darling?’ Her voice is higher than usual. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re shopping.’

  ‘So you’re with someone? You’re with Carla?’ She sounds wired and I know immediately that it’s bad.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Are you sitting down?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  But something in her tone of voice makes me want to sit down. I look for chairs and see a couple in the corner near the changing rooms. My legs feel weak as I walk towards them. There’s a tired-looking man perched on one, running a hand across his stubble as if he’s only just realised he hasn’t shaved. He shifts his bags from the other chair, so I can sit.

  The crackle of the line fills my ears, as Carla turns towards me and realises that something is wrong, as I wait for my mother to say it.

  ‘They’ve found something – haven’t they?’

  ‘They say human remains,’ says my mother. Such a small impersonal phrase. ‘A female skeleton. They found her close to the cottage in St Anthony’s, in the woods nearby.’

  ‘But she was swimming,’ I say. ‘She was in the water, she wasn’t …’

  But I find I don’t know which words come next. ‘She wasn’t buried’ – is that what I’m trying to say? ‘She wasn’t murdered.’ And it’s not until now – despite my longing for resolution, my years of wanting an answer, any sort of answer – that I realise I never have been, never will be ready for this: the certainty that Ruth isn’t with us any more. That I will never see her again.

  Alice

  Alice knows she looks a fright in her bright pink dressing gown with her facemask slathered on. She doesn’t care, she just doesn’t care any more. She used to dress up for George, buy clothes with him in mind. She would think about him admiring her in them, or out of them, what lingerie she might wear underneath. The thing is: none of it mattered. None of it. She used to think if she did enough, if she was enough in some way, then he would let her in. But perhaps it had never been down to her.

  He is due back from Spain tonight. Alice waits at the kitchen table, arranging her evidence: Richard’s book, the postcard from St Anthony’s and, in place of Nunny, a piece of paper simply saying ‘Nunny’. If she were a detective in a police drama, she would have pinned these to the wall of the room by this stage in an unhinged manner. But Alice isn’t unhinged. She is in the dark, but she isn’t unhinged.

  These are the facts: she saw Ruth on the train. Ruth, or someone who knew something, had sent Nunny to Naomi as a message, but what? To say, I’m safe? Or something else? And if it were Ruth – why not just come back? Why send a toy rabbit in her place? Then there were the postcards. Ruth, or the person acting for Ruth, had sent the message not to Naomi, who might have understood it, but to George. ‘Give what I’ve lost back to me.’ Give, not bring. It sounds like an order. Or a threat. And the question was: what had George taken?

  Alice tidies her pieces of evidence back into a box and places it under the kitchen table. She will have a stronger case with George if she builds up to showing him the box after they’ve talked. It will seem less mad. She gets up to make herself a camomile tea. She’s still not sleeping well. She’s been dwelling on the conversation with Richard – the violence of his reaction to George’s name, and the way he linked George and Dan to Ruth’s disappearance. With Christie away on a yoga retreat, Alice had ended up calling her mum, desperate for someone to talk to. She always thought twice about telling her parents about her marital problems. Not because her mum would say, ‘I told you so.’ Not that. But she might think it.

  She didn’t go into the details, just said that she thought George was keeping something from her. And her mother said: ‘Talk to him.’ So that’s what Alice was going to do. Her resolve stiffens as George wanders into the kitchen, tanned and laden down with bags.

  ‘Darling.’ He opens his arms. ‘What a sight for sore eyes. What the fuck is that on your face?’

  Alice doesn’t move from her seat. ‘Why does Richard Wiseman hate you?’

  George puts down his bags, rubs his forehead wearily. ‘You’ve heard then, I take it?’

  Alice frowns. ‘Heard what?’

  ‘That they’ve found her.’ George makes his way to the fridge and pours himself a large glass of white wine.

  ‘Found who?’ asks Alice, wrong-footed.

  ‘Ruth, of course.’ George comes to sit opposite her at the table. ‘The subject of your investigation.’

  Alice feels her heart beat a little faster. ‘What are you talking about?’ This is classic George, she thinks. Always the first to know.

  George smiles calmly. ‘What are you talking about? I imagined it has put your detecting into overdrive.’

  ‘What have they found?’ asks Alice urgently.

  ‘Human remains,’ says George. ‘In St Anthony’s. It looks as if Ruth has been there all along. Poor old thing.’ He swings back on his chair. ‘Case closed.’

  He almost looks pleased, thinks Alice. ‘Do they know for sure it’s Ruth?’ She thinks of Naomi: what must she be going through right now?

  ‘You didn’t know?’ crows George. ‘I imagined your new friends Naomi and Richard would have kept you abreast.’

  ‘They’re not my friends – don’t be ridiculous.’ Alice gets up t
o put the kettle on. ‘I did see Richard, though.’

  ‘Ha! I knew it,’ says George triumphantly.

  He looks so brown and well, thinks Alice resentfully, while she has been here suffering sleepless nights.

  ‘He really doesn’t like you,’ she says pointedly.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ George responds lightly.

  ‘Why not?’ Alice stands by the kettle as it begins to whistle.

  ‘Well,’ George says. ‘We’re very different.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘He was jealous, darling. A lot of people were – and I’d been with his girlfriend before him.’ He chuckles. ‘Sloppy seconds.’

  Alice blinks. She feels anger flare through her body. Ruth has been found dead, possibly killed, and this is his reaction. She flings her almost empty cup against the wall, where it bounces off the Cath Kidston noticeboard and shatters on the slate floor.

  ‘You’re not a teenager any more,’ she says. ‘That kind of thing, from a middle-aged man, is …’ She pauses; she can’t think of a word that quite cuts it.

  They both stand for a second looking at the broken fragments.

  ‘It’s repellent,’ she says softly.

  George is quiet for a moment, then says, ‘I’ll get the dustpan and brush.’

  He takes his time clearing up, is careful, methodical. First, he sweeps; then he gets a damp cloth and wipes the tiles carefully.

  ‘Darling,’ he says. ‘Please sit down. Put your feet up.’

  Alice swallows back tears. She doesn’t want to cry. Not tonight. She takes a large slurp of his wine. It’s strangely soothing watching George on his hands and knees clearing up after her. She takes his advice and sits down at the table. She hasn’t even got to her evidence box yet.

  ‘Ruth and Dan had a bit of a thing,’ he says as he wipes up the fragments. ‘That’s another reason why Wiseman can’t stand me.’

  ‘A thing?’ asks Alice.

  ‘Well, yes, they were bonking.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  George chuckles. ‘Well, I wasn’t in the room myself …’

  ‘Might Dan have hurt her?’ She pauses. ‘Killed her, I mean.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ says George. ‘You knew Dan.’

  Alice doesn’t know how to respond: she didn’t, she thinks, not really. They’d only been at St Anthony’s together for a couple of terms, after all.

  ‘What about Richard?’ George suggests. ‘He was the one who was angry with her.’

  ‘No,’ says Alice, unconvinced. ‘He’s spent his entire career trying to find her.’

  ‘And what a great cover that would be,’ George says, wrapping up the fragments of the cup in newspaper. ‘A double bluff. It’s certainly got you convinced.’

  Alice puts her hand on her bump, decides not to rise to the jibe. ‘Was there someone who looked like her? Did you ever hear that?’ she asks.

  George turns away from her to get some Sellotape from the Welsh dresser, tapes up the newspaper carefully and throws the package in the bin.

  ‘No,’ he says shortly. ‘Only from her when Richard dumped her. The thing you’ve got to understand about Ruth was …’ He stops himself.

  ‘What?’ says Alice. ‘Just say it.’

  ‘Well,’ says George with some venom. ‘She was a little slut.’

  Alice blanches at the word, opens her mouth to say something, to object, but before she has a chance, George comes to sit opposite her at the table with a serious look on his face.

  ‘Look,’ he says and for a moment he sounds solemn. ‘I love you very much and we have a fresh start, a fresh person on the way.’ He pauses. ‘Please can we put this stuff behind us? They’ve found a body. It’s over. Please.’

  He takes her hand and she is reminded of his proposal on a beach in Jamaica.

  She blinks. ‘Is it definitely her?’

  ‘My sources say it is.’ George smiles. ‘And you know how good my sources are.’ He swallows, says more seriously again, ‘Alice, you’re the only good, the only pure thing in my life. You are certainly the only person I have loved in this way. I honestly cannot imagine what my life would be without you. It started with you, really; everything before was just bullshit. Please, Alice, please promise me you’ll stop: stop investigating, stop visiting people. Just let it go.’

  Is it possible, after all this, that Ruth is really dead? That Alice didn’t – couldn’t – have seen her, after all? She is silent – it’s always difficult to accept: that one has been so wrong about something.

  ‘I’d better go and wash my face,’ she says in the end.

  Upstairs, she perches on the edge of the bath for a few minutes searching for the news on her phone. It seems George is right: they have found human remains in St Anthony’s. A skeleton buried near Ruth’s old house. A third party must have been involved. Her poor family. She thinks back to the face on the train and finds she can’t picture it properly this time. Is there something wrong with her mind? She takes time washing her face, feeling the cold water against her skin. What an idiot she has been. And how frustrating – beyond frustrating – that George has been right all along. She feels a little weak.

  When she returns to the kitchen, Alice realises how hungry she is.

  ‘Shall we have something to eat?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t prepared anything but we could order in.’

  ‘No.’ George starts to rifle through the bags he’d walked in with. ‘I bought some goodies.’

  He gets out some ham and cheese, and a tin of delicious olives, while Alice makes a salad. She puts on the radio. There is a chance, she thinks, that life could get back to normal, that all this could be put behind them.

  Later, more relaxed, with a full belly, she sits holding hands with George.

  ‘You’re very tanned,’ she says, looking down at their entwined fingers.

  ‘Am I?’ George puts a hand to his face. ‘Thanks, darling.’

  ‘But for Spain, I mean, at this time of year,’ Alice says.

  Her uncle had a house in the Pyrenees. They used to visit occasionally over Christmas and Easter, but she didn’t think it would have been warm enough in April for him to be quite so tanned, especially while he was working.

  ‘We popped over to Morocco for a bit.’

  ‘For the show?’ Alice wonders why he hasn’t mentioned this before. ‘What’s Morocco got to do with it?’

  ‘No, just for fun. You remember that?’

  Alice rolls her eyes, but things are so much better that she lets that one rest. A little sheepishly, she gets out her evidence box. To George’s credit, he just smiles patiently.

  ‘I just want to go through a few things with you for the last time, I promise.’

  ‘OK, detective.’

  Alice grins despite herself.

  ‘What the fuck’s a Nunny?’ George picks up the piece of paper with ‘Nunny’ written on it.

  ‘That’s Ruth’s toy.’ Alice takes it from him. ‘It arrived in the post for Naomi.’

  ‘That is weird.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Alice gets out the postcard next. ‘I showed you this before.’ She passes it over.

  George tosses it aside. ‘Some psycho.’

  Alice holds Richard’s book open to show George the photo of Ruth. The girl’s face looks back at her. All that sass and poise at nineteen.

  ‘I was so sure I saw her, George,’ she says, looking at it for the last time before putting it away. Her gaze returns to the things on the table. What does she have, really? A postcard and the mysterious Nunny. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s been a weird time.’ She starts to cry but they are tears of relief. ‘I don’t know what I’ve been thinking.’

  George opens his arms for a hug and Alice makes her way over to where he’s sitting. ‘It’s just me and my girls against the world,’ he says. He wraps his arms around her belly and kisses her bump.

  She presses her face into his hair. It reminds her of the old days, of how the physical
ity of George can make it all seem better. She breathes in the scent of him, but it’s not quite right. She recognises the first smell straight away: it’s not one she’s smelled in their bedroom for a little while. It’s the unmistakable scent of sex. But there’s another smell there, too. And that’s familiar, as well. Cleaner, more refined. It’s a woman’s perfume, musky but definitely female. It’s that rare Paloma Picasso. The one that Christie wears.

  Naomi

  When human remains are discovered, it turns out there is a strict protocol to how they are dealt with. It also turns out that none of this requires the potential sister of the skeleton. Our family liaison officer arranged for my mum to have a buccal swab, which will be compared with the skeleton’s DNA. Now, it is simply a matter of waiting. That doesn’t make it easier, of course. I go back to Wales to wait with my mother for a few days. The first night we stay up talking, jumping every time the phone rings as if there could be news so soon.

  It doesn’t look good. We don’t need the experts to tell us that. That a skeleton has been found so close to the house where we used to live. My instinct is to go there. To make the journey to St Anthony’s. But at this stage, while the tests are being carried out, there’s not much we can do. It might not be her: it might even be a skeleton from another era, as my mother keeps suggesting in a shrill tone.

  I howled in the baby shop at the finality of the news. At the thought that someone had hurt her, that my darkest fears had not been unfounded. I hadn’t cried properly for a long time, not like that. Carla held me. Parents and children moved silently away. The urge to be with Ruth was so strong. Even just her bones. To lie down beside them, to put my arms around them.

  I’ve never been to Argentina, but Miss Wick told me once about the Mothers of the Disappeared who would walk circuits around the Plaza de Mayo with their white headscarves on, decades after their loss. That’s what it does to people when their loved ones disappear with no trace. Los desaparecidos. Later, I thought of how well the word applied to Miss Wick herself.