Last Night

by Kerry Wilkinson

  ‘We’ll have to get someone in to replace the glass,’ Dan says.

  ‘There’s a glazier coming in the morning. I’ve already texted Graham to say I’m going to be late. I’ll wait in for him.’

  Dan bites his lip and all he manages is an, ‘Oh’. There’s nothing like ‘good work’, or ‘thank you’. He has more praise for his students than he ever does for me.

  When he’s done putting the hammer away, Dan heads upstairs and then I hear the pipes starting to rattle as he showers. Ours is one of those houses in which everything constantly needs upgrading. We had it rewired a few years ago after Dan decided we were living in a fire hazard. He’d seen some sort of public service film at school and that was that. The plumbing system probably needs replacing as well. Sometimes, when the shower first starts up, it feels as if we’re living through an earthquake. I can even predict when one pop will be replaced by a creak or a whine. It’s like living in the middle of an orchestra who’ve never played with one another.

  I find myself searching for Tom Leonard again but there are no apparent updates. I try Thomas Leonard as well, plus the place name. His name is listed on various athletic pages and then I find out he’s a county-level runner. There’s an interview with a local paper where he talks about entering the national championships. I find a photograph of him with his mother at the finishing line of an event, with a medal around his neck.

  In the end, I have to click away but I can’t help thinking how different Tyler’s disappearance would be covered, if at all? If his father even bothered to report him gone? He’s known to the police, so perhaps they wouldn’t consider it anything unusual. I still expect him to be back when his money runs out.

  I make another quick check on Natasha. She’s got more than a hundred likes for the photo of her salad. On Facebook, she says she’s settled on the sofa for the night with her dog, some wine and a week’s worth of recorded EastEnders episodes.

  I’m obsessed, I know.

  When Dan returns downstairs, he potters around the kitchen, making himself some tea with a cold rotisserie chicken. He eats chicken almost every night, to the point where it’s never worth asking him what he might want to eat, even when I’m willing to cook for everyone.

  He finds his own spot on the second sofa, eating off his lap while thumbing at his phone. We continue our separate lives in the same space, existing in the solemn silence of this godforsaken room.

  I go back to looking at Natasha’s social media stream again, wondering what she’s up to. There’s nothing since the sofa update.

  Dan eventually breaks the awkwardness – or perhaps enhances it – after washing up his plate. He sits back in his spot and I feel him watching me.

  ‘Did you see Liv earlier?’ he asks.

  I suspect he knows the answer. She’d have texted him. ‘She was getting in as I was going out,’ I say.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘All right.’

  He continues to watch and it’s the sheer certainty of his gaze that infuriates me now. I’m certain Olivia texted him after our showdown this morning, so he already knows what happened – and yet he wants to hear it from me.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ I add, keeping my tone calm and level.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking – “let her be” and all that – but…’

  I tail off, not sure how to finish the sentence. We’ve had this same argument for years.

  ‘What did you argue about?’ he asks.

  I sigh: ‘Tyler’s missing – and Olivia blames me.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘We fell out about money the other night. I told Liv I wasn’t going to give her any if she was going to pass it straight on to Tyler. He ran off and that was the last anyone saw of him.’

  ‘You told her that, or you told him that.’

  I glance away from him, trying not to squirm. ‘A bit of both.’

  Dan screws his lips together and presses the fingers from both hands into a diamond shape. He’s like a counsellor or something, pensive and too damned smart.

  ‘You have to let her make her own mistakes,’ he says.

  I let him stew for a moment, wondering if he’ll add something. He doesn’t. He waits it out.

  ‘Is that what you do at school?’ I reply.

  I’m hoping for a reaction but he’s unerringly calm.

  ‘The students at school are younger – but, yes, to a degree, we do try to let them make their own errors.’

  I don’t know enough about that to argue back – and we both know the truth anyway. I don’t want Olivia to make the same mistakes I did. I don’t want her to waste years fawning over someone with no job and no prospects, who spends all day lying around smoking weed.

  I say nothing and Dan opens his hands wide.

  ‘Stop doing that,’ I snap.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I’m not one of your students.’

  Dan does this thing sometimes where he tilts his head to the side, narrows his eyes to a squint, and then snaps his neck back again. It’s dismissive and makes me wither pathetically.

  From nowhere, there’s a tiny stab in my chest. I run my fingers across the pain, which makes it sting even more. I broke my ribs a long time ago and there are times when, regardless of what the X-rays say, I’m not sure it’s completely healed.

  Dan finally turns away, focusing back on his phone. ‘So where is Tyler?’

  ‘I told you – he’s missing.’

  ‘Does Liv have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘If she did, I don’t think she’d be so upset at him being gone.’

  Dan lets it lie, perhaps sensing that I’m ready for a full-on row if that’s what he wants. We sit in awkward silence for a bit: each of us on our phones. I’m not even doing anything, simply avoiding having to talk to my husband.

  ‘I saw him earlier, by the way…’

  Dan speaks airily, as if it’s unimportant. At first, I think he means Tyler – but then the reality sinks in.

  ‘Jason?’ I reply.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He was walking past when I was leaving the house this morning.’

  I continue staring at my phone’s screen, not wanting to get into this. I know Jason and I will run into one another sooner or later but I didn’t expect that he’d be outside the house.

  ‘He walked past twice,’ Dan adds. ‘I parked along the street and watched. He got to the corner and then came back.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I say quietly. ‘I knew he was due to be paroled last week; I didn’t know he’d be back here…’

  There’s a silence and it feels like I’m being accused of something, as if I’m sitting in a dock while a smart lawyer waits on an answer. I can’t stop myself from filling it.

  ‘How did you even recognise him?’ I ask. ‘It’s been twenty-odd years.’

  ‘He hasn’t changed that much.’

  There’s a tension in the room that’s so thick I can feel the tightness of breath returning once more. Dan is flexing his arm muscles, perhaps on purpose but probably not. He can’t help himself.

  I push myself up from the sofa and tell him I’m going out.

  Chapter Eleven

  It’s dark as I stomp along the street, silently seething. I’m not even sure who I’m angry at: Dan or myself. We’ve known each other since school, even though we weren’t together then. It wasn’t long after, though. We’ve been married for nineteen years. Almost two decades of seeing each other more or less every day is such a long time. There are times where I can predict everything Dan is going to do or say – and I’d bet the same is true for him. It gets to the point where the individual has been replaced by the couple.

  Familiarity does breed contempt and it’s there for both of us. It didn’t used to be like this but we got set in our ways. Growing older does that to people.

  A dim orange glows from the street lights, shrouding the street in a g
loomy, shadowed wash. There’s no traffic at this time of the evening, so I cross the road at the corner with barely a glance in each direction. Our road becomes another but there’s little between them, both sides lined with identikit houses and parked cars.

  I stop when I reach number sixty-three, knocking on the dust-peppered white door, rather than using the adjacent bell. There’s a scuffing of feet from inside and then the door swings open, leaving me staring at a man I’ve not seen in a very long time.

  His features are silhouetted by the light behind him but everything Dan said is true: he hasn’t changed that much. His nose is flat, his eyes round and far apart. There are wrinkles on his forehead, close to his temples and around his mouth – but it makes him look more rugged. I remember a boy but this is unquestionably a man.

  ‘Jason,’ I say.

  ‘Aye…’

  He stands to the side, opening the door wider for me to enter. I feel him watching me as I do and, when I get into the hallway, he speaks softly.

  ‘Rose McNulty.’

  ‘That’s not my name any more.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It hasn’t been for a long time.’

  I step around him, unbuckling my coat in the familiarity of my surroundings.

  ‘Where’s Ell?’ I ask.

  Jason nods towards the kitchen at the back of the house and I don’t wait for him, moving along the darkened hall and hearing the front door close.

  Ellie is sitting at her kitchen table staring at the disjointed pieces of a barely started jigsaw. She looks up when I enter and then glances towards the hallway. Jason hasn’t followed and we wait, listening as his footsteps clump up the stairs.

  ‘I meant to tell you,’ Ellie says as I slot into the chair opposite her.

  She doesn’t get up but there’s nothing unusual about that. She’s in a set of fleecy leopard-print pyjamas; the type of cosy, warm outfit in which an entire day can be spent. In Ellie’s case, it often is. Her hair is unwashed and tied back loosely into a ponytail. I doubt she’s left the house today.

  ‘It was all a bit last-minute,’ she adds as Jason’s footsteps become silent. ‘He needs somewhere to stay for his parole and the friend he was going to live with had a few issues. It was either here or an awkward conversation with the probation officer. I didn’t want to risk him having to stay inside, so…’

  She tails off but it’s not as if she has to explain herself to me. Not really.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I reply.

  ‘Is it really?’

  ‘Dan said he’d seen Jason around earlier, so it’s not a complete surprise. Why would I mind?’

  Ellie pouts her bottom lip and then nods. She knows why I’m here. Why I’m really here.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.

  I hold both hands out, palms up to the sky. ‘You name it.’

  She snorts in amusement but there’s nothing mean about it. Comrades on a battlefield. When all else is collapsing, what else is there to do but laugh?

  ‘Has Olivia said anything to you?’ I ask.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Anything… everything. She didn’t come home last night and only texted Dan late on about it. She says Tyler is missing – but it’s not the first time. You know what they’re like. They argue, break up, make up…’ A sigh. ‘She seems happy enough doing the accounting classes with you and I wondered if she ever says anything.’

  Ellie’s lips are pressed together and she doesn’t have to say anything. I hold up a hand.

  ‘Sorry… I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t put you in that position. It’s not fair.’

  Ellie pounces on a piece of the puzzle and slots it into place with a satisfying click. I can’t remember the last time I tried a jigsaw. It must be decades.

  ‘She always tries hard when she’s here,’ Ellie says without looking up. ‘She’s a good kid.’

  ‘Are the classes going well?’

  ‘Well enough. She was talking about enrolling in college to do something more advanced.’

  Ellie smirks as she looks up to see my wide-eyed expression.

  ‘She’s never said anything like that to me,’ I reply.

  ‘I’m sure she will in her own time.’

  There’s some relief in that and, after a long day, it feels like at least some of the weight has been lifted. ‘It’s good she’s thinking of the future,’ I say.

  Ellie raises her eyebrows. ‘We never did.’

  ‘…And look at us!’

  She acknowledges the point – though she’s right, of course. We’ve known each other our entire lives. We grew up a couple of streets away from each other, went to the same schools, hung out with the same people. Here we are, in our early forties, and little has changed.

  Ellie must be in the same mindset as me because she suddenly sits up rigidly. ‘Did you hear about the watermill?’ she asks.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘They’re finally tearing it down next month.’

  ‘They’ve been saying that for years.’

  She reaches to the side, digs into a plastic recycling tub and then pulls out the local free paper. ‘It’s in here,’ she says. ‘Sounds like it’s actually happening this time.’

  As she finds the right page and shows me the headline and photo, there’s a moment in which I feel myself slipping through time. My fingertips tingle, my mouth watering at the memories. We were all kids together – well, teenagers. We’d traipse through the woods to the abandoned watermill. It’s a short distance out of town and was derelict twenty years ago. More importantly, no parents ever went there. Why would they? There was Ellie; her twin brother, Wayne; Jason, myself and – occasionally – the odd hanger-onner. Jason was a year younger than the rest of us and it was our own private play area. Ellie would climb the waterwheel while the rest of us would lay on the bank and smoke cigarettes. That was when Ellie was more active than now. Since she started doing freelance accounting from home, she rarely goes out.

  We all grew out of it, of course – but there was a time when that creaky, wooden shack with a wheel on the side felt like the most important place on earth. It was certainly the centre of our worlds.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I was there,’ I say.

  ‘Me either.’

  There’s a moment where it feels as if Ellie’s going to say something, but she takes a breath instead – and then turns back to her puzzle.

  Over the years, various companies or the council have announced plans to tear down the mill but it’s never happened.

  ‘Do you think they’ll really do it this time?’ I ask.

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘I thought it would outlast all of us.’

  There’s a forlorn silence and – for me at least – it feels as if I’ll be losing something personal. As if the memories will disappear along with the ramshackle building. I suspect Ellie feels it as well, even though we’ve long since moved on.

  We grew up a couple of streets apart – and that’s still the case, even though it is in different houses on the opposite side of North Melbury. Ellie’s place is significantly bigger than the one in which Dan, Olivia and I live. She got a great deal from the children of an old couple who died. They wanted quick money and she wanted to move. There’s a massive basement and attic, along with three large bedrooms. She’s lived by herself for years, which is why it’s something of a surprise that Jason’s here now. She’s always seemed happier by herself.

  As Ellie reaches for another puzzle piece, she gasps and rubs the back of her neck, wincing as she touches it.

  ‘Is that the whiplash?’ I ask.

  She has one eye screwed closed as she peers up but then opens it as she stretches high. ‘I forget to take the painkillers,’ she croaks. ‘I only remember when it starts to hurt again.’

  In the craziness of the past few hours, it’s only now that I remember my best friend had a car crash of her own ten days ago.

  Ellie pushes herself up an
d crosses to the cupboard above the sink, removing a small grey box and taking out a slim white disc, which she holds up.

  ‘I couldn’t swallow the first pills they gave me, so the doctor rewrote the prescription for some soluble tablets. I’ve got weeks and weeks’ worth. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.’

  ‘Why would it be bad?’

  ‘He must think I’m going to be in pain for a long time.’

  Ellie removes a filter jug of water from the fridge, pours herself a glass, and drops the tablet inside. She asks if I want a drink and, as I say no, the pill fizzes at the bottom of her glass, sending spirals of cloudy gas into the rest of the liquid.

  ‘I could probably kill myself ten times over,’ Ellie says, taking the first sip.

  ‘I hope you don’t.’

  A smirk: ‘I’m joking.’

  ‘I know.’

  I do know – but I wish she wouldn’t make light of it. Ellie’s had problems in the past and, though I’m clearly no doctor, there have been times I’d have called her depressed. If not clinically, then I suppose she seemed, well… sad. After everything with Wayne, with her twin, I guess it’s no surprise. This isolation of rarely leaving the house all feeds into that.

  Ellie touches her ribs and then rubs her neck once more, before sitting back down. ‘I had to pay five hundred on the excess to get the car into the garage,’ she says. ‘I’ve still got a rental to get around. I think they’re going to write mine off.’

  ‘Have you heard anything from the police?’

  She starts to shake her head – and then stops herself. ‘You’d think they’d have something. He was on the wrong side of the road but they keep going on about number plate cameras, lack of evidence and all that. I didn’t get the number plate – I was too busy trying not to get killed. I accidentally said I wasn’t even a hundred per cent sure of the colour, whether it was blue or black, so I think that’s working against me.’

  ‘Didn’t any witnesses come forward after it was in the paper?’

  ‘I’m not that lucky.’

  Ellie’s crash was very different from mine, or I assume it was. I’m still not too clear what happened with me. Hers happened on the High Street. Someone veered onto the wrong side of the road, she swerved to avoid a collision, mounted a kerb and cannoned into a lamp post, narrowly avoiding a smash with the front of the hairdressers’ shop. The image of the street light bent horizontal was on the front page of the weekly local paper.