His Other Life. Beth Thomas
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FOUR
‘I get it,’ Ginger says, reaching across and rubbing my arm. ‘I totally get it.’
Matt’s mystified. ‘Well I don’t. What’s the curry got to do with anything?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ she says quietly and I can feel some movement above me, as if she’s shaking her head emphatically, or making cutting motions across her throat to shut him up.
‘Oh,’ he says, ‘right. OK. Listen, Gracie, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this, but in these sorts of cases they almost always come back.’
I raise my head to find him staring at me earnestly. ‘Really?’
He nods, slowly and sadly. ‘Oh, yes, definitely. He’s driven himself off, he took his passport and wallet, that was forethought. It’s incredibly unlikely that he’s been taken under duress.’ He smiles encouragingly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘I’m sure he’s fine.’
I move my head slowly from him to Ginger, lock eyes with her briefly, then turn and look back at Matt. ‘I arsing well hope not.’
Matt stifles the flicker of a smile when he hears this. ‘Oh … kay. Well, I suppose that’s an understandable reaction.’ He looks over at Ginge. ‘OK to use the loo?’
When he comes back in a few minutes later, he doesn’t sit down again but says goodbye from the doorway. ‘Work in the morning,’ he says. ‘Really great to see you again, Gracie. I’m sure everything will turn out fine.’ Ginge gets up to show him out, even though it’s a very simple journey straight through the hallway to the door, and he’s a policeman so really ought to be able to find his own way. There’s some loud whispering from that direction for about half a minute, but I can’t make out any of the words.
I stay in a state of – I don’t want to say shock; let’s say, severe disappointment – for the rest of the evening. Everything that I thought I knew about my marriage, everything I’d felt, was turning out to be absolutely true. My feelings of unease and lack of faith, feelings that I had tried to squash, telling myself I was being ridiculous because of my own insecurity, were spot on, it turned out. The mystery surrounding my husband, the lack of information, the apparent absence of friends or colleagues, was not just me being paranoid and could not simply be discounted. Who knew?
Ginger dumps our cold tea in the sink and opens a bottle of wine I didn’t know I had.
‘Get some of that down you,’ she says, handing me a large glass.
‘Are you sure it’s the best idea in the world at this point to give alcohol to someone whose beautiful husband has buggered off to who knows where?’
She barely pauses. ‘It’s Merlot, not meths,’ she says, ‘chillax.’ Then she tips her head back and pours in the wine.
We go back into the living room and Ginger curls up round her wine glass. She looks at me frankly. ‘You do know why Matt’s secretly pleased that your husband’s gone, and secretly miserable that he’s probably completely fine, don’t you?’
I frown, trying to make sense of this. ‘Not sure I do, actually.’
She shrugs. ‘Well, if you don’t know by now, I’m not telling you.’ She takes another large slug of wine. ‘I think you need to see Adam’s parents.’
I’m still wondering about what she said about Matt, but the notion of seeing Ray and Julia sweeps it away completely. ‘Yes, I know. And mine. Don’t really want to phone them about this, better in person. I’ll do it tomorrow. Is Penny in tomorrow?’
She shakes her head. ‘Nope. Still in Italy.’
‘Great. Do you mind if I don’t come in? I can’t believe I’ve left it this long.’
‘Course not, no problem at all. Take as long as you want, I can manage on my own in the shop.’
I think it was the wine talking.
Ninety minutes later, she’s in the recovery position in my spare bed, and there’s a strategic bucket on the floor directly beneath her face.
‘I’m sorry, Gracie,’ she says quietly with her eyes closed. ‘I’m really really sorry …’
‘S’OK.’ More to myself, really. She’s already unconscious.
Finally I’m on my own. Back downstairs I open up my laptop and Google Linton to see if I can work out why Adam went there. Why he would blithely disinter himself and heartlessly abandon the life we built together to go off on his own for some foul, selfish and probably illegal reason, the lying, deceitful little—
Oh, it’s lovely! A completely beautiful, picturesque little village in North Yorkshire, not far from Skipton, apparently. There’s a stream with stepping stones, cottages everywhere, pretty little bridges and even a waterfall. I lean closer to the screen and narrow my eyes at the photos. This quaint, rural scene, full of sheep and fields and really wholesome bread, is hiding something evil. Lurking somewhere underneath, just around the corner, out of sight, are ugliness; treachery; pain. And possibly violence. I click on the map and print off directions; then shut down and go to bed.
My dreams are full of breaking glass and squealing tyres but when I wake up I can’t remember anything specific. The clock says it’s 06:34 so I definitely need at least another week of sleep, but apparently my body has decided it doesn’t want to go through any more dreams like that so it actively refuses to go back under. After half an hour of trying, I pull the covers back, swivel myself round and stand up. I feel achy and unrested, as if I’ve spent the whole night tensed up and anxious somewhere. It reminds me of that old fairy tale about the princess whose shoes are always worn out when she wakes up in the morning because she’s been secretly dancing all night without waking up. Except I feel more like I’ve spent the night waiting for surgery than at a party.
I trudge downstairs in my dressing gown and put the kettle on. I’m not looking forward to today at all. First thing I’ve got to do is ring both sets of parents and make sure it’s OK to visit today. Then I’ve got to visit them. It’s day five, and the ramifications of Adam’s disappearance just keep on growing.
Adam’s mum and step-dad are only a fifteen-minute drive away, but we hardly ever see them. I think they were last here for dinner about two months ago, and before that it must be a year. Adam is obviously not close with them, and that suited me just fine. His mum, Julia, is a bit odd, somehow. Like she’s not really there. Or you’re not. I was never quite sure which one of us she was oblivious to – it varied. Sometimes she would hardly acknowledge my presence and pay more attention to the blank wall behind me; sometimes she would be over-the-top gushing with affection and enthusiasm. ‘Lovely Gracie, fabulous Gracie.’ Made it very uncomfortable for me, on every occasion; I couldn’t work out whether to try to interact with her or not.
‘Is your mum OK?’ I stupidly asked Adam after the first time I met them. That time she had been almost entirely silent and extremely distractible. Adam’s step-dad, Ray, had cooked a lovely roast lamb and was serving it at the table while Julia threw three glasses of wine into herself. She was leaning for the bottle to refill again when her hand suddenly froze, mid-reach. I glanced at Ray and Adam, to see if they’d noticed, and they were both locked in position – Ray carving the joint, Adam pouring drinks – but had turned their heads to stare at her. Ray had even said, ‘Julia,’ quietly, almost like a warning. Eventually she dropped her hand, and the two men relaxed again and continued with what they were both doing.
At that point in our relationship, I still expected Adam to be open with me about himself and his family. I thought he would put his arms round me and tear up while he told me sorrowfully that she had some syndrome or other, something on ‘the spectrum’. Or that she was maybe bipolar or clinically depressed. On medication for something at the very least. Probably not a very tactful way of asking, but we’d been home for an hour by this time and he wasn’t volunteering it.
‘Yes,