The Missing Years

by Lexie Elliott

  “Did you . . . did you think he was alive somewhere, when you were growing up?” His attention is on his coffee. He only looks up when he’s almost finished speaking.

  “Of course, at first—after all, I was only seven when he disappeared. Less so, as I got older, I suppose.”

  “Do you think it would have made a difference to you if you’d known for definite? Either way, I mean?” But he doesn’t actually mean either way. I can see it in his eyes; Ben thinks my father is dead. He thinks he’s always been dead.

  “A difference to what?”

  He shrugs. “To you. Your life. Your choices.”

  I almost laugh. I can’t think of a single thing that wouldn’t have been different, if we’d known for sure what had happened. My relationship with my mother, my desperation to get away, my personal interactions and relationships, or lack thereof . . . I would have to have been utterly lacking in self-awareness not to have considered how my father’s abandonment has impacted me psychologically. Even when I was screwing my way through university I had a fair idea of why I might be doing it.

  Ben looks at my face. “Yeah,” he says, almost to himself. There’s an uncharacteristic bleakness to the set of his mouth. “I suppose not knowing was the worst thing.” I look at him, temporarily at a loss for what to say. It feels like he’s grieving, over what happened to me. He visibly shakes himself. “Anyway. When does Carrie’s play open? We should organize for a group of us to get tickets. I could borrow a minibus from the hotel or something.”

  I grab on to his change of gear gratefully. We talk, and he listens when I speak and somewhere inside me there’s a twang, like a tuning fork has been struck deep in my stomach and I can feel the reverberations. It should be Jonathan here; it should be Jonathan hearing what I have to say. The wine has gone to my head now, but there’s a clarity too. I would swap them, I think. I would have Jonathan in exchange for Ben, in exchange for anyone; today I would swap them. After a few more dinners, a few more glasses of wine, more seconds and minutes and hours of these calm sky blue eyes—or other eyes, as Ben is not the point; the point is that Ben is here, where Jonathan should be and is not and never will be—at some point I would no longer choose to swap. The wine is allowing me a certain honesty: we will not last through a long separation, Jonathan and I. Both of us are too good at learning to survive wherever we happen to find ourselves. And then I think: I already knew that, and yet I chose to separate us anyway.

  It’s not late when we leave, not even half past nine. The darkness hasn’t had a chance to thicken, and the headlamps of Ben’s car cut through it comfortably. The radio came on automatically when Ben started the car and is now playing something I know from my university years but can’t name. Something that conjures up late nights writing essays in my student halls of residence, fueled by caffeine. Portishead, maybe. Or Massive Attack. I am warm and well-fed and full of wine; it would be easy to settle into the snug hold of the leather seat and drift off to sleep, but Ben mutters under his breath, and I glance across to see him frowning.

  “What’s up?”

  “Just the tire feels a little heavy. Maybe a bit flat. I’ll check it when I drop you off.”

  We’re already crunching onto the gravel of the Manse drive. There’s a light on inside, but there always is now, even in daytime.

  “I’ll open up and put more lights on, then you might see the tire better,” I offer.

  “Thanks.”

  The night air is warmer than on previous nights, but it’s still chilly after the warmth of Ben’s car. I can hear Ben opening and shutting the boot of the car as I struggle with the key. I think again that I need to get a security light, and then I follow that with the thought that I won’t be here long enough to take advantage of it. But perhaps Carrie will be here without me. The whole house to herself and no reason to lie and sneak around . . . Once I get the door open, I put on the lights in all the rooms that face the front.

  “How’s that?” I call from the doorway, but I have to fling up a hand to shield my eyes. A car is turning into the drive, temporarily dazzling me with its headlights on full beam. It parks at an angle behind Ben’s BMW, engine and headlights still on, but the latter are no longer aimed directly at me. Ali climbs out of the driver’s seat, accompanied by a thumping wave of what sounds like German electronica.

  “I thought that was you,” he calls to Ben. Then he adds grudgingly, “Hiya, Ailsa.”

  I raise my hand in half-hearted acknowledgment.

  “I’m on my way to meet Piotr in the Quaich. I thought I’d see if you want to join us.” He’s aiming this directly at Ben, with no attempt to include me in the invitation, but Ben looks across at me nonetheless.

  “I’m good, thanks. I think I’ll have an early night,” I call.

  “Your loss,” says Ali cheerfully. “You got a problem with that tire, Ben?”

  “Didn’t feel right on the way back.” Ben is peering at the front left tire. He has a light jacket on now, presumably pulled from the boot. He gives the tire a couple of kicks. “Seems okay, though.”

  “This car is too much of a thoroughbred for these roads. You want to get yourself a jeep like Jamie’s. Where were the pair of you coming from, anyway?”

  “Ballashiels Thai.”

  “Romantic dinner for two?” He raises his voice. “What will the esteemed Mr. Powell say about that, Ailsa?”

  “He’ll be sorry he missed out. He loves Thai,” I respond with deliberate sweetness.

  “Aye, that’s exactly what I’d say if my girlfriend was having dinner with Ben.”

  “Stop being a twat, Ali,” Ben says. He leaves off from inspecting the tire and approaches the front door. The yellow light which spills around me shows a rueful grimace on his face. “Sorry about this,” he says quietly. “He’s just being . . . Look, it’s just Ali. You have to get to know him.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “If it’s not compulsory, I’ll pass, thanks.”

  He doesn’t bother trying to dissuade me. “Thanks for dinner.”

  There’s no step up to the front door, but the lawn slopes down away from the house, so I don’t have to look up as much as usual. His hair is lit golden by the light from the hallway behind me, but his face is in my shadow. I’m aware of Ali’s eyes upon us both. “No, thank you for saving me from a night of nutritionless microwave food,” I say brightly.

  “Night then.” He leans in carefully and kisses me on both cheeks. I can feel the soft grain of his skin, the warmth of the contact, and yet it feels curiously formal throughout. He crunches across the gravel to round the bonnet of his car, then suddenly stumbles. “What the—Christ!”

  “What’s up?” asks Ali, from the open door of his own car.

  “Come and look at this.” He’s leaning over a dark shape.

  “What is it?” I call, but Ben doesn’t answer. He’s fiddling with his phone. The next moment a beam of light emerges from it. Ali is beside Ben now, blocking my view of whatever they are leaning over to look at; I catch a glimpse of bright fur and hear Ali mutter, “Fuck.” Curiosity pulls me out of the warm doorway into the cold night air.

  It’s a fox. An absurdly healthy-looking fox, except for the fact that it’s dead. It looks like it could have been frozen whilst running.

  “Poisoned, do you think?” asks Ben grimly.

  “Probably,” says Ali. His tone is neutral but somehow I can sense an anger beneath it. He fishes out his own phone and trains another torch beam upon the carcass.

  “You mean, deliberately?” I ask. Ali is concentrating his beam around the fox’s head. Now that I’m looking for it, I can see a rim of dried foam around its muzzle, like the ring left behind from a bubble bath.

  “Could be. It’s not legal, but the farmers dinnae take kindly to foxes getting among the sheep. Especially now, when we’re coming into lambing season. The farmer next to our place is blatan
t about it. I cannae think who’d be doing that round here, though.” He looks around, frowning, as if the culprit might suddenly step out of the darkness, then shoves at it with his foot. “It’s stiff now. Must have been here a good while.”

  I can’t help wishing that he would move the torch away from the single open sightless amber eye. I’m shivering. I wrap my arms across my middle.

  “You okay?” Ben asks me.

  “I’m just cold.” Though in truth the healthy-but-dead fox is simultaneously more upsetting yet less revolting than the raven. “It’s my second cadaver of the week, actually. There was a dead raven on our doorstep the other morning.” Ben blinks in surprise. I look down at the fox again. “At the risk of sounding selfish, I really wish this had found somewhere else to die. What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Dinnae worry about that. I’ll get rid of it,” Ali offers, in a surprisingly kindly fashion. “Do you have a bin bag or the like?”

  I nod and we turn for the house. “I don’t know how we didn’t see it in the headlights when we arrived,” I muse. The men dutifully wipe their feet on the mat before traipsing behind me through the hallway to the kitchen. I start to rummage beneath the sink. “Will this do, Ali?”

  “Aye. What did you do with the raven?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t have to; it wasn’t there when I got back from giving Carrie a lift. I suppose some animal carted it off for its dinner.” I turn to Ben with a forced smile. “I guess this puts paid to Callum’s hypothesis that animals won’t come in here.” Even mentioning Callum brings a warmth to me.

  “Callum said that?” says Ali. His voice is oddly neutral.

  “Yes, he said that was why Toast wouldn’t come in the grounds. I keep forgetting to quiz him on it.” Ben and Ali are exchanging glances. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Ben says, but his eyebrows are drawn together, and there’s an uncharacteristic uneasiness in the set of his mouth.

  “Come on, what?” They look at each other again. “It doesn’t seem like nothing. Look, guys, I’m the one who has to live here.” Temporarily. “If you have something to say, for God’s sake, spit it out.”

  Ben looks at his friend as if for approval but if Ali gives any sign, I don’t see it. “Callum is . . . Callum is usually right, on animals,” Ben says quietly. Right, on animals. What does that mean? “And Ali and I were looking on TripAdvisor the other day, just for research if I’m going to buy it, trying to figure out why the Manse hasn’t been renting.”

  “And?”

  “There are reviews from people with pets. It’s supposed to be a pet-friendly rental, but their pets . . . their pets wouldn’t sleep in the house. Wouldn’t even set foot in the grounds unless dragged in, actually, and then they’d run straight out first chance they got. One of the guests parked their car on the verge of the road and the dog slept in there each night.”

  “I see.”

  Ali finally speaks up. “What we mean is, well, the fox and the raven, they wouldnae have come in here—”

  “So you think someone brought them in. Yeah, I grasped that.”

  Ali and Ben exchange glances again, and then Ben tries this time. “It’s possible that, well—”

  “That someone is trying to scare me out of the Manse.” Ben blinks in surprise, though whether it’s in response to my words or flat tone, I can’t tell. “Yeah, I grasped that too.” I turn for the kettle. My mind is running down several different paths, all at once, like a set of rats in a maze. Someone is trying to scare me. If the TripAdvisor reviews are true, if Callum is right, someone is trying to scare me. Toast wouldn’t come in, and the cat never does—someone must have served me up two dead creatures in one week . . . But then again, Callum could be mistaken, and the TripAdvisor reviews could be malicious inventions, and the raven and the fox could just be dreadfully timed unfortunate incidents. But there’s the missing bin bag, and the missing insecticide, and the person who might or might not have been in the house—if they happened at all . . . except I couldn’t have imagined the flies. Surely I couldn’t have imagined the flies. And I didn’t imagine the stone that was thrown. And even if the TripAdvisor reviews aren’t genuine, perhaps they were written by someone trying to scare me off . . .

  I can’t sort it out. It’s all too muddled.

  “Why, did something happen?” asks Ben from behind me, with surprising perception.

  “Yes. A few things, actually.” I look for a way to buy time. “I think perhaps we should all have a coffee.”

  Ali looks at Ben and sighs. “I’d best gie Piotr a bell and tell him we’re not coming.”

  My father is in a care home in Antwerp. He speaks so rarely that the staff haven’t worked out that he isn’t Belgian. He’s been categorized as having Alzheimer’s, though given he’s been in precisely the same condition for many years, it must surely have been the early onset kind, which seemed a tragedy to the staff in the early years but less and less so as time passed. Twenty-seven years ago, he was found in a physically and mentally traumatized state in a backstreet, dressed in a suit without any belongings or identification, but carrying a local newspaper from Ghent, which led the police to believe that’s where he came from, and to this day the staff in the care home call him Mr. Ghent. He’s still mobile, but he can’t manage the most basic of his own needs himself and needs twenty-four-hour care. The staff don’t mind him in the slightest, though—he’s not violent, or vocal, or prone to wandering. He’s so little trouble, one could forget he’s there.

  FIFTEEN

  We sit at the table, the three of us, with a mug of coffee in front of Ben and me and tea in front of Ali. The mugs are part of a white china set, with various depictions of dogs cavorting round each one, and are wholly unsatisfactory, spindly where they should be solidly reassuring, and too hot to hold. If I were to stay, I would replace these. If I were to stay, which I won’t. Someone or something doesn’t want me here.

  Ali clears his throat in a series of staccato half coughs. I’m trying not to look like I’m watching him closely, but I am. I’m watching Ben, too. “Where’s Carrie?” Ali asks, looking around as if she might suddenly appear.

  “I don’t know.” I see a flash of something—what?—cross Ben’s face as I answer Ali’s question, and then he clears his features. It’s too deliberate, out of keeping with his natural openness. Jamie’s words float up to me. Nobody is such an open book as he makes out that he is.

  “I’ve never been in here,” says Ali, looking around. “Apparently my dad wanted to buy it when it came on the market—when your folks bought it—but my mum wasnae having any of it. Too isolated.”

  “I think my mum ended up wishing they hadn’t.” Both men look at me cautiously. Perhaps that didn’t come out as drolly as intended. “It’s weird that we didn’t see the dead fox on the way in,” I say again.

  “I must have been too focused on the tire,” Ben says, absentmindedly rubbing at his neck where the collar of his light jacket touches it. He got it from the boot of the car, I remember. What else could he have taken out of the boot at the same time? Or perhaps Ali had the fox in his car. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Ben to let him know we were on our way back. Or maybe it was there all the time, and we just didn’t see it.

  “So what’s been going on?” Ali’s jerky gaze is roving over my face. From his expression, I think he’s trying to be solicitous. It doesn’t sit well on his features.

  “I’m not sure exactly.” I look at my coffee in its too-slender mug and try to create a plan. What to say, what not to say, how to be. The interviewer’s dilemma: what is the right question and how should it be asked? “I’m worried you might think I’m overreacting. I probably am overreacting.” It’s easy enough to see why Ali might hate me, why he might be stirred into acts of pure hostility. It’s less easy to see why Ben would do any such thing. Unless he wants to buy the Manse so badly that he’s willing to sc
are me into selling . . . Oddly, that’s quite a reassuring thought. If that’s the aim of the harassment, then I’m surely not in any real danger.

  “We promise to be nonjudgmental,” says Ben, with a ghost of a smile. There’s concern in his eyes. I can believe that he’s worried about me, that he wants the best for me. He must be an excellent guest liaison up at the hotel.

  I put down my coffee mug. In for a penny, in for a pound. “The night we got here, there was an intruder.” I’ve got the attention of both of them. “It turned out to be Jamie.” Ben’s mouth is slightly agape, and Ali’s eyes are still for once, fixed on me. “He was looking for Fiona. Apparently she comes here sometimes, has some kind of obsession with the place.” Ben has started to protest, but I cut him off. “Even her dad said so. She was born here, in the dining room.” I find I’m shuddering, thinking about that carpet stained with blood and amniotic fluid . . .

  “I didnae ken that,” murmurs Ali, but I forge onward.

  “Anyway. I had the locks changed. But I still kept feeling like I was being watched—I still do, actually. Then after your birthday, Ben”—I nod in his direction—“the smoke alarm went off in the middle of the night. It was . . .” I swallow. “Horrific. Thousands of flies rained down on me, it seemed like. Cluster flies; I looked it up the next day. They like to be somewhere warm. Maybe the battery was giving off heat or something, I don’t know. They got everywhere, in my hair, all over the kitchen . . . I had to use most of a can of insecticide to clear up the mess. When I finally went to bed, I left the bin bag with all the dead flies in it by the back door ready to go out. I left the insecticide spray and the smoke alarm cover on the kitchen table. The next morning the smoke alarm cover was back on and the bin bag and the spray can were gone, and Carrie hadn’t touched any of them; I checked. Then someone threw a stone at me when I was outside in the garden one evening; I didn’t see who. Then the dead raven and today the fox.”