His Other Life. Beth Thomas
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think furiously for a few seconds. Ginger and I have known each other since school, back when we had to pad our bras and smoke to look older. Now we work together in a costume shop called DisGuys and DisGirls in the main pedestrianised part of the town. I’ve been there four years; she’s been there six. She’s kind of the assistant manager or something. Unofficially of course. She doesn’t get paid a higher responsibility allowance or anything. She just has control of the keys and the cashbox when Penny is away. It’s only a set of keys and a cashbox, but it gives her the edge over me when it comes to taking charge of a situation.
I push the phone towards her. ‘You do it.’
‘No, Grace, I can’t, can I? It’s your husband, you’re going to have to do it yourself.’
‘You could pretend to be me.’
She widens her eyes, as if in … revulsion. Or do I imagine that? ‘No, I absolutely could not do that, come on now.’
I stare at the phone in my hand; its smooth, shiny surface and pleasing heaviness have never looked more menacing. I so don’t want to do this. I’ll feel silly, like I’m wasting their time. It’s only been a few hours. I look up at Ginger. ‘We can’t report him yet though, can we? Doesn’t he have to be missing for twenty-four hours first, or something?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘It’s one of those things that everyone knows, isn’t it? You have to give them time to get over their sulk, or affair, or secret surgery, or whatever, and come home of their own accord. We’ll just be wasting their time.’
She shakes her head and looks at me the way a traffic warden looks at a car on double yellows. ‘I think you’ve been watching too many crime dramas, love. It’s not like that in real life.’
‘How do you know? Have you reported someone missing before?’
She puts her hand on my arm. ‘Hey, come on. You can do it. Just dial the number, say what’s happened, and that’s that.’
Turns out it’s actually quite difficult finding the right number to ring. I’m thinking 999, but Ginger says that’s emergencies only and I say well what the fuck is this if it’s not an emergency and she says it only means it’s for an urgent kind of emergency like a crime actually happening at that moment and I say well maybe it is how the hell can we possibly know that we have literally no clue what’s happening or happened to him that’s why we need to ring and she says actually I think we’ve both got a bit of an inkling to be honest haven’t we and I say what the hell is that supposed to mean and she says nothing sorry didn’t mean anything and then she goes into the other room to see if she can find a Yellow Pages in the kitchen drawer.
‘I’ve rung them,’ she announces softly, coming back into the room a few minutes later. I’m standing at the window again, peering out. A cat is brazenly washing itself at the end of our driveway, apparently very confident that it’s not going to get flattened by a returning Corsa any time soon. I turn to look at Ginger and nod, weak with gratitude. Thank God that’s done and I don’t have to face them or answer any horrible questions.
‘They’re on their way over,’ she goes on. ‘They want to ask you some questions.’
So twenty minutes later the police turn up and I tell them what happened with Adam and the East of India, and then they interrogate me about his likes and dislikes and habits and hobbies and friends and associates. Once I’ve explained his line of work and the location of his office, I know that there is very little more I can say, so I watch them closely as I answer: they’re very nice and softly spoken and write down the answers I give in their little black notebooks, but I notice their expressions, the furtive looks they’re giving each other, the barely concealed surprise or contempt or impatience with me as I tell them the things I know about my husband.
‘OK, Mrs Littleton, I need to know who your husband’s work associates are?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Just one or two of them, then. His main contact. Don’t worry, we can probably find out the rest.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘OK, not to worry. Who are his drinking mates? And we’ll need their addresses, if you can remember them?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh. Well, just his best mate then?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
There’s a very brief pause and the two officers glance at each other. ‘OK, never mind. Where does he drink? What are his hobbies? Where did he go to school? What sport does he follow? Which team does he support?’
I look at them both, and then at Ginger. ‘I don’t know.’
There’s an awkward, slightly longer silence. Then the female officer leans towards me. ‘Can you try, Grace? Think really hard. Has he ever mentioned anyone, or talked about a place, the name of a pub, a street even?’
I’m already shaking my head because I know I don’t need to think hard about this. There’s no point. He has kept everything about himself completely shut off from me, right from the very start of our relationship, right from that moment I stepped into his office looking for a flat to rent. I have tried and tried to find something out about him – asked his mum and step-dad, checked his post, tried to sneak a look at his phone – but I’ve never got anywhere. His mum and step-dad, Julia and Ray Moorfield, just say, ‘Ah, you’ll have to ask Adam about that, lovey.’ All he told me about his real dad is that he’s no longer around, then closed the conversation off definitively. ‘What more do you need to know?’ he said, when I questioned it. And then peered at me, as if I was under a microscope, somehow managing to make me feel horrible for asking. ‘He’s not around any more, that’s that. Jesus, Grace, do you have to know every single minute detail about all your friends’ lives? Is that who you are?’ His post is always generic bills or advertisements. His phone is completely and permanently inaccessible. The absence of any information about him has become like a third person in our marriage. The single piece of information that I do have about Adam is that I have absolutely no information about him.
‘Adam never talks about his past, or his work, or what he does when we aren’t together. He just doesn’t.’
‘And you don’t question that?’
‘No. Why would I?’
‘Well, doesn’t it strike you as odd that the man you married apparently has no friends and no past?’
I open my mouth to answer, but close it again when I realise I have nothing to say. How can I tell them that it has struck me as odd every single second of our marriage? How can I possibly confess to the fact that I was so amazed that someone like him had chosen to marry someone like me that I was terrified to look too closely at any cracks in the façade? That I tried to ignore the nagging doubts about him that wouldn’t leave me alone? That I made myself ignore them? Worse, that I got used to it?
Eventually I shake my head. ‘Not really. We’re happy, just the two of us.’
‘So who was your best man?’ the male officer barks at me now.
I turn to look at him coolly. ‘Adam’s step-dad.’
‘Oh, you’ve met his parents then.’
‘Look, I don’t think we’re achieving anything here,’ Ginger butts in at this point. ‘Why don’t I take you upstairs and you can look at Adam’s room and personal belongings? There might be a clue there.’
The male officer stares at her, then gives one curt nod. He gets up and follows her out of the room and we hear them going upstairs. I turn to look at the female officer and I can see that she’s readying herself to use this opportunity to get more out of me that I might have been reluctant to admit in front of her confrontational colleague. She’s wasting her time.
‘Is there anything