His Other Life. Beth Thomas
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all the neighbours’ deliveries and collections. But no one and nothing arrives here. Apart from a purse that I ordered last week on eBay. It’s completely gorgeous, covered in black sequins.
On the fourth day I wake up alone in my – not ‘our’ – double bed, look at the empty space next to me and think, The toad’s not coming back, is he? The universe answers with a resounding silence, which I take to be confirmation, so I get up, get showered, and go to work. At least, I go to the shop. It will be good to see Ginge, but frankly helping someone decide between the Abraham Lincoln or the Scooby Doo outfits has never seemed more trivial.
‘Oh my God,’ Ginger says when she sees me, and walks over to me as rapidly as she can in a narrow Nefertiti dress. ‘I didn’t expect to see you back for a few weeks. Are you OK?’
I shrug. ‘No. Yes. I suppose so. Massively pissed off, a bit unhinged maybe, but OK. How are you?’
She stares at me, obviously weighing up the likelihood of me genuinely being OK versus the possibility I’m lying about it and likely suddenly to explode into a full-blown Hulk episode and smash the shop up. That would seriously piss off our boss, Penny, especially with the front of shop displays looking as good as they do right now. After a couple of seconds, she evidently decides I’m safe and may be allowed to stay. She angles her head as she concocts an answer to my enquiry. ‘I’m not bad, considering I’ve been dead for three thousand years and feel like I’m going to tip over in this ridiculous dress.’
I glance around me at the old familiarity of the place – the shelves of plastic fangs and bloody daggers; the disembodied zombie heads; the grotesque Golem masks – and feel comforted. The world around me starts to reassemble itself into something normal, something recognisable, and it makes me feel more real. Then Ginger moves closer and assumes a serious expression. ‘Seriously though, Gee. Do you honestly think you’re up to being back at work already? I mean, what’s happened is ghastly – do you think you can cope with this too?’ She pulls on the Nefertiti head-dress and straightens the attached hair on her shoulders. ‘I’m worried you might struggle.’
I shake my head. ‘No, I’m sure I’ll cope. I’m OK.’
‘Really?’
I nod. ‘Yes, really. I didn’t think I would be, and I’ve had my moments the past four days, believe me, but I’m not broken, just a bit winded. Being at work will give me something to do and something else to think about. The bills still need to be paid, don’t they? And if he ever does turn up again, nothing short of a kidnap and torture or serious amnesia would make me take him back.’
‘Right on.’ She pauses. ‘How about two broken legs?’
I shake my head. ‘He’s got a mobile, hasn’t he? And if he hasn’t, someone else will have, broken legs or not.’
‘Broken arms?’
‘Hands still work.’
‘Broken fingers?’
‘Dictation?’
‘Of course. What about a fever? You know, delirious with it, couldn’t say his own name, let alone find his way home?’
‘That comes under amnesia. No, I’m holding out for kidnap and torture. That’s the favourite.’
‘Agreed.’
She’s distracted by a customer at this point and I go and change into the Texas Chain Saw outfit, thinking about how generally OK I am feeling. Naturally when I think about Adam and the missing madras (I really did want Chinese anyway) all the fury and confusion and resentment start to boil and fester inside me again, and there’s a danger of it bubbling up to the surface and spilling out in the form of shrieky, shop-smashing rage. But the funny thing is, if I don’t actively think about it like that, it’s not at the forefront of my mind at all.
‘Seriously,’ Nefertiti hisses at me, eyeing my costume, ‘is that really what you’re wearing?’
I glance down, then nod at her. ‘It felt right.’
I watch for the next twenty minutes as she totters in teeny tiny steps backwards and forwards to the stock room for a Fred Flintstone, then a Mr Blobby, then a Men in Black, then back to Fred Flintstone again. The scene is completely absorbing. Ginger is smiling sweetly with her ‘Here you go’s and ‘How about this?’s, but I know her teeth are gritted and it makes me want to giggle. Thoughts of Adam are in my mind, simmering, but they’re not overwhelming and they’re certainly not crushing me.
Eventually it’s settled – London Beefeater – and the difficult customer leaves us in peace.
‘So what’s the latest from the police?’ Ginger asks me as she puts Fred and Blobby back on the rail.
‘Nothing much. They’ve got the car details and they’re going through some of his business stuff from the office, but I get the impression they’re not that bothered about it.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘Because he’s an adult man who drove off voluntarily. No one lured him into a car with promises of sweets or puppies, there’s no jerky CCTV footage of him getting into a taxi at two in the morning, they haven’t found his jacket and shoes on the beach or by a railway line, his car hasn’t been discovered at some M1 services with a sinister blood smear on the passenger seat …’
She puts her hands up. ‘OK, yes, I get it. What I mean is, why are you getting the impression they’re not bothered?’
‘Oh, right. Well, they’ve only been round to see me once since that first time. There are no updates, no one calling in to check on me. I don’t know, it all seems pretty half-hearted to me.’
‘And you have plenty of experience of what happens in these circumstances, do you? I mean, this is half-hearted compared with …?’
I think about that a moment, then nod slowly. ‘Yeah, good point, this is probably just the way it’s done. I don’t know why I was expecting more.’
‘Look, Gee, you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Maybe they’ve set up an incident room or something. There could be a team of five or six people working on it, going door to door or sifting through his work stuff. There’s probably far more happening than you’re aware of.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And maybe they’re so busy they haven’t had time to update you on anything. They won’t update you until they have something concrete to tell you anyway, will they?’
‘No, probably not.’
‘Do you want me to ask Matt to pop round and see you? He’ll probably be able to tell you a bit more. From the police perspective. He might even have some inside knowledge that the investigation team would never tell you.’
‘Really? Wouldn’t he get into trouble for that?’
She shrugs. ‘Who’s gonna know? And anyway, what’s gonna happen to him, someone calls the police?’
I look up at her gratefully. ‘That would be good. Would you?’
‘Course I would, stupid. Happy to.’
‘Do you think he’ll mind?’
‘No, I’m pretty sure he won’t mind.’
‘And you’ll be there too, right?’
She smiles and rubs my arm. ‘Yes, Gracie, I’ll be there too.’
I give her a quick hug. ‘Thanks Ginge.’
‘No probs.’
‘And … sorry for sulking … a bit.’
She rings Matt during her lunch break and he says he can pop over tonight. Lucky for me that he’s free so soon. Ginge comes home with me after work to wait for him. And eat my food.
‘I