His Other Life

The next day is Sunday and we have a long lie-in then wander round to the pub for their very reasonable carvery lunch. The broccoli is over-cooked, and the spuds are still cold in the middle, but it is so reasonable, and so convenient.

‘How’s your meal?’ Adam asks me, enthusiastically forking turkey into his mouth.

I nod. ‘S’fine.’

He nods back. ‘I love this place. Don’t you? I mean, it’s so great. All this food, at this price, and just round the corner.’

When we come out after dinner, it’s started raining so we run shrieking back to our house then snuggle up on the sofa to watch a romance about a woman whose husband gets killed so she slaughters everyone responsible.

The text message is on my mind all day. And all the next day, while we’re both at work. All week, in fact. Repeatedly I try to get on my own in a room with the phone, but fail because the phone is always in Adam’s possession. He doesn’t let it out of his sight for four days straight. Then, on Thursday evening, he takes it out of his pocket to answer a call from his mum, and at the end, after clicking it off and closing it down, he distractedly places it on the kitchen table. I freeze. I am electrified, and my eyes immediately zoom in on it lying there as he walks away. It’s exposed, vulnerable, and I need to attack. We move around it, preparing the dinner, back and forth across the kitchen, and I’m acutely aware of it the entire time. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s permanently in my periphery, the only thing I can see. When will he leave the room? He must need the toilet eventually – surely he will leave it there when he goes? It would look very suss if he goes off upstairs for a wee and stops at the table on the way to pick up his phone. Surely he would want to avoid arousing my suspicion like that?

‘Gracie?’

His voice finally breaks through my reverie. ‘Hmm? Sorry?’

‘Wake up, dolly daydream. I’ve asked you three times to put the kettle on for the gravy. You’re miles away.’

‘Oh, sorry, just thinking about Dad. You know his birthday is coming up. I’ve got no idea what to get him. What do you think?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, you’re good at that kind of thing, I’ll leave it to you.’ He turns away. ‘Just popping to the loo.’

I nod, watching in horror as he moves back towards the table. ‘Um, do you want a drink, Ad? How about a beer?’

He stops, turns back, looks at me. I hold my breath. ‘Yeah, OK, thanks.’ He turns back to the table and takes the final two steps to get there, then scoops up the phone and without breaking stride slips it into his pocket. Then he’s through the door and on his way upstairs.

Friday night comes around again and I’m home first, as usual. We’ve already agreed we’re having take-away tonight, so I’ve got no dinner preparations to make. The house is stifling, and the first thing I do is unlock the sliding back door and push it open. It makes no difference; the gentle breeze on the street hasn’t made it to our enclosed garden, and the heat and I move around the yard sluggishly in oppressive waves. I head back inside to wash up the breakfast things, straighten the cushions on the sofa, twitch the curtains. I’m just killing time until he comes home, but I have literally nothing to do and I can’t relax.

‘You need some hobbies,’ Mum is always saying. ‘Why don’t you take up knitting?’

Yeah, I know what that means. There’s absolutely no way I’m having a baby yet. Not with Adam, anyway.

I stop, midway through a pointless wander across the hallway. What the bloody hell does that mean, ‘not with Adam’? Who the hell else will I have a baby with? He’s my husband, isn’t he? I know I definitely want kids some day, so what am I actually thinking? That when the time is right, I’ll go off and do it with someone else? Of course not.

Although the chance to get pregnant in the first place would be nice.

When the phone rings in the living room a few minutes later, I’m standing in the kitchen staring into the fridge for some reason. I slam it shut and move swiftly to the living room, grateful to have a purpose at last. Just as my hand reaches out to grab the receiver, I hesitate. It’ll only be insurance sales after all; they’re the only people who ring the landline any more. Well, pseudo-people. No actual fingers press actual keys.

The answer phone clicks on and plays its message, and after the beep I wait to hear the usual spooky silence of the computer checking to see if anyone is there and then giving up and going down the pub. But instead I’m shocked to hear the sound of a man’s deep voice coming into my living room from the speaker.

‘Hello Adam, it’s Leon. Long time no see. Betcha didn’t expect to hear from me again, did you? Come as a bit of a shock, has it? Ha, I bet it has. Just thought I’d give you a call, let you know I’m in the area – nearby actually. Very nearby. Would only take me two minutes to get to your place from here. Piece of cake. I’m gonna try to catch up with you very soon. Don’t worry about calling me back, I’ll be in touch.’

The phone clicks as Leon replaces the receiver, and the room falls silent. In my mind I could hear the italics in his voice, particularly as he said those two names, as if just in saying them he was trying to make some kind of point. But what point could he possibly be making? And why? And, by the way, who the fuck is Leon? We’ve been married a year, how come Adam has never mentioned him to me before? I know everything about him, all his friends, all his old jobs, where he used to live, everything.

Ha ha ha. That’s just me being sarcastic with myself. I, of course, know none of those things. A creepy phone call from a weirdo called Leon should not be remotely surprising, considering what I do know about Adam.

I don’t have any more time to consider it now as I hear Adam’s car on the drive. He’s home. I walk away from the phone and go into the hall to greet him, as I always do.

‘Hi there,’ he says as he sees me. ‘Good day?’

I nod. ‘Yeah, not bad. You?’

He nods too. ‘Yeah, good.’ He starts up the stairs and I follow behind. ‘Finally sorted out that three-bed semi in Whitlow.’

‘Oh good.’

‘Yep. The owner can’t believe it. He thinks I’m a god!’ He starts to change his clothes.

I sit down on the bed and watch as, god-like, he folds his dirty shirt in half, then in half again, then places it carefully into the laundry basket behind the door. As he straightens the creases in his trousers before hanging them up, I remember the call from earlier.

‘Oh, there was a call for you.’

‘Yeah?’ He’s dressed again now and heads back downstairs. Dutifully, I follow behind. ‘Chinese or Indian?’

‘Neither, actually. He sounded English, I think. Possibly London or home counties …’

I come into the kitchen where he’s standing with the East of India’s menu in one hand and the Moon Hung Lo’s in the other. ‘What?’

‘Oh, sorry, I thought you meant … Um, we haven’t had Chinese for a while, have we?’

He bounces the menus up and down in his hands as he looks at me with a smile. ‘No, that’s true, but I’m really in the mood for a good curry tonight. What do you think?’

What I think is that we haven’t had Chinese for a while, and actually I would run through our street singing ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ wearing nothing but a splash of perfume and three gold tassels for the chance to eat sweet and sour chicken balls, just once. But I nod and smile nauseatingly. I despise myself sometimes. ‘OK, yes, curry would be lovely. Thanks.’

‘Cool.’ He puts the menu down on the kitchen counter and brings his phone out of his pocket. As always, I feel a stab of … something when I see it. Or at least, my eyes do. They kind of jolt to attention as it comes into view, like a dog spotting a squirrel. Adam scans the menu, looking for the restaurant’s phone number. ‘Did you say there was a call for me?’

‘Oh, yes, there was. Someone called … Leon …’

His head snaps up, the hand holding his phone frozen in mid-air. ‘Who?’

I manage to drag my eyes away from the phone to focus on Adam. His usual air of ease and nonchalance is gone abruptly, replaced by an intense stark alarm. ‘What’s up?’

‘Who did you say called?’

I frown, hesitating before speaking to let him know I’m not pleased with how he’s behaving. If I’m brutally honest, I also do it to torture him, just a teensy bit. ‘It was Leon.’

He brings his face closer to mine. ‘What did he say?’ He’s speaking slowly, his hands still not moving.

‘Um, well he said something about being in the area—’

‘Shit.’

‘—and that he would see you soon.’

‘Oh shit. Anything else?’

By now, the phone is back in his pocket and the take-away menu all but forgotten. My stomach notices this and gives a loud growl in protest.

‘You can hear for yourself – it’s on the answer phone.’

Adam bursts into life, turning and marching rapidly into the living room. Seconds later I hear the answer phone message playing, that deep gravelly voice filling our cosy living space like a bad smell. When it reaches the click at the end, there’s the sound of a small movement, then the beep and the voice comes on again. ‘Hello Adam …’ At the end, Adam plays it a third time, and then a fourth, until my head is filled with that horrible raspy voice, pointedly saying my husband’s name, over and over.

I walk quietly into the hallway and peer through the open door into the room; Adam is staring at the phone, unmoving, apparently frozen. Thinking hard? Undecided? Then in a sudden dart he looks up, catches my eye, and hurries past me, up the stairs. ‘Who’s Leon then?’ I ask pointlessly, running after him. He strides into our bedroom, but before I can catch him up, he’s out again, passing me on the stairs as he runs back down.

‘Oh, no one. Just someone I … used to work with. Years ago.’

‘Oh, right. So why are you so pissed off?’

He stops in the hallway and turns to face me. I’m standing on the bottom stair still, so for once we’re about the same height. He puts his hand out and gently touches my cheek. ‘I’m not pissed off, Grace. Not really. I don’t like the bloke, we fell out at school and I wasn’t expecting ever to hear from him again. That’s all.’

‘I thought you said you used to work with him?’

He puts his arm back down and puts his hand into his pocket. ‘Yeah, that’s right, I did, we worked together for a while after we left school, but we didn’t really have much to do with each other.’ The hand in his pocket reappears holding the car keys, and he jingles them a bit, distractedly. ‘He’s a bit of a prick, to be honest.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. World-class knobhead.’ He looks at his watch then back at me, and smiles fondly. ‘OK, well, I’m off to get the food.’ He leans towards me, one hand round the back of my neck, and kisses me. As we break apart, he stays close, his thumb gently stroking my neck. ‘Don’t worry about him, Gracie. He’s nothing.’

I nod. ‘OK.’

He stares into my eyes for a few moments, kisses me again, then draws away and moves to the door. ‘Warm the plates up, sweetheart, I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

He wasn’t.

TWO

Twenty minutes after Adam left finds me pacing the living room. I’ve put plates in the oven, got some wine ready and selected a few DVDs for him to choose from, but that only took a minute or two. Now I’m walking from the back window to the front, lifting up the curtain, peering out at the street then turning and walking to the back again. There must be a long queue in the Indian. And of course we never actually got round to ordering the food so he will have to wait while it’s prepared and cooked. It could take, ooh, at least, I don’t know, half an hour. But it’s already been … Never mind, never mind, if there’s a queue he could wait fifty minutes, easily. An hour, even. It’s possible. Maybe he’s had to try a few different places. Maybe he’s bumped into someone he knows and has lost all track of time. Maybe he’s bumped into Leon.

After about two hours, I’ve stopped pacing and am now sitting on the edge of the sofa, rocking backwards and forwards and occasionally biting the hard skin around my fingernails. I’ve got my own mobile phone loose in my hand but it’s as good as useless when the one, the only person I want to contact has apparently switched his phone off. That sodding phone of his, full of mysteries and unknowns, always always with him, constantly lighting up and vibrating all over the place; but now, when I really need to use it, when it will be of more use than it ever has been before – to me, anyway – it’s in his pocket in complete darkness. Oh my God, why would he do that? Why would anyone? What’s the arsing point of having an arsing mobile if it’s arsing switched off, for arse’s sake?

I did wonder whether it’s not switched off at all, maybe he simply hit a black spot or whatever it’s called, so I’ve texted, Facebooked and WhatsApped him too. That way, if he does happen to get a fraction of a second of signal, he’ll see my messages. At least then he could try to call me from a phone box, to put my mind at ease.

But he’s called me before from the East of India. Or rather, I’ve called him there before. I know I have, I remember it. He forgot to ask me what I wanted, so I rang to tell him, to make sure he didn’t come back with a vindaloo for me like the first time, when he didn’t know I don’t like spicy food. Which means I know there’s no black spot there. Which means he’s turned his phone off.

Unless he didn’t go to the East of India …

I jump up out of frustration, wanting to shout angrily at Adam, wanting to shriek at him, wanting to throw my head back and scream at the ceiling. But I don’t. Of course I don’t. I turn down the bubbling volcano of fury that’s threatening to erupt and try to think clearly. Why would he be taking so long? Did he go somewhere else? Or has something happened to him? Something … bad?

I walk over to the answer phone and listen to Leon again. I don’t know why, the message isn’t going to tell me where Adam is. But I have to keep hearing it. It seems connected to his prolonged absence somehow. Or is it simply a pleasant message from an old friend, wanting to catch up? It doesn’t sound like it to me, but then my opinion is not really objective. I have my own feelings about Adam that colour every interaction he has with anyone else.

I press play yet again. ‘Hello Adam, it’s Leon …’

Something about that unknown point he’s making when he says their names now sounds a bit menacing. Or am I imagining things, bearing in mind Adam went out for food over two hours ago and still hasn’t come back?

I start suddenly. A car. There’s a car pulling onto the driveway. Oh, thank God. He’s safe. A giant flame of rage roars into life in me suddenly, along with my almost forgotten hunger. But why the fuck did it take him so long? I clench my jaw, my fists, and every other muscle in my body. Even my eyelids go rigid. Ooh you secretive sod, do you have some explaining to do. I charge over to the window and yank back the curtain. It’s almost completely dark by now and I have to press my face to the glass to see out. My own face, distorted by a vicious snarl, lunges at me in the blackness. Where’s the car? Where’s that prickish little car? There’s nothing on the driveway yet so I look at the road, to see the silver Corsa with its reversing lights on. But it’s not there. There’s only one car there and it’s an ordinary blue car, simply driving past. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t discharge my husband, rescued after a cam belt disaster. It doesn’t yield anything.

I drop the curtain and drop my hands and a small sound comes out of me. The hunger disappears, forgotten again, but the anger doesn’t. In fact, the anger starts to swell again and turn white, blinding white, expanding inside me until I feel I can’t contain it any more and I put my hands on my head and shout ‘AAARRRSE!’ as loudly as I can. It comes out a bit screamy – ‘AAAAAAAHHHHHSE!’

When I stop, the house falls instantly silent. Supernaturally so. Like all the things that usually make a noise also suddenly stop. The fridge isn’t humming, no pipes are clunking, there’s no creaking, clicking, ticking or cracking. Everything is completely and utterly still. The house feels like it’s waiting.

That’s it, I’m calling Ginger. I’ve wanted to for over an hour already but managed to convince myself not to; managed to convince myself I was over-reacting. But she’s my best friend in the whole world, she’ll know whether I’m over-reacting or not. I spend the next few minutes rooting through my handbag, then frantically running from room to room looking for my phone, before remembering that it’s already in my hand. I close my eyes. I growl a bit at myself. Come on, focus.

Ginger isn’t ginger, actually. She has gorgeous, shiny brown hair, and her name is in fact Louise, but because her baby brother Matthew once painted her whole head red with poster paint when they were tots, she’s been Ginger, or Ginge, ever since. She answers on the second ring.

‘Hey, Gee, how’s you?’

I open my mouth and a kind of whimpering sound comes out.

‘Grace?’

‘Ginge …’ It comes out as a breathy sob.

‘On my way,’ she says simply.

There’s a sharp pain in the side of my head and I realise suddenly that I’m pressing the phone too hard into my ear. I ease it away and my ear throbs with the rush of blood.

So now I have about fifteen minutes to wait until she gets here. It’s a huge relief to wait for something that has a definite and predictable ending. Although Adam going to the Indian take-away was in that category originally. Now that he’s been gone for over three and a half hours, I’m starting to wonder if …

I halt that thought mid-way. Of course he’s coming back. That’s just mad thinking. His car’s broken down and his phone’s out of battery. That’s all. I’ll feel ridiculous in about one minute when he arrives in a taxi. I pull the curtain back for the thousandth time, more slowly now, not really able to convince myself any longer that this time he will be there. Sure enough, yet again there’s no taxi. No AA recovery lorry either. Not even a police car. No one at all.

‘Right, so what’s going on?’ Ginge demands as soon as she’s in through the front door. She’s business-like and determined but when she looks at my face she falters. ‘Good God, Gee, what’s happened?’

‘It’s Adam …’ I begin, but immediately she starts nodding meaningfully. I stop and frown. ‘Why are you nodding like that?’

‘What do you mean? How else am I supposed to nod? It’s a fairly standard gesture. Internationally recognised.’

‘No. Ginge. Why are you nodding at all?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I’m listening to you. What’s your point? Tell me what he’s done, for Pete’s sake.’

I narrow my eyes. ‘Why would you assume he’s done something?’

She looks momentarily discomfited and moves her head back slightly. ‘Well, hasn’t he?’

I think for a second. Has he? Ginger moves her head forward again and raises her eyebrows, waiting. Suddenly, I feel like I don’t want her there. She’s irritating the crap out of me and, as I look at her freckly face peering at me, a very large part of me wants to slap it. I can actually feel my arm start to move backwards so I stop it and clench my fists.

‘He went out to get a pasanda about—’ I glance at my watch – ‘nearly four hours ago.’

‘And?’

I shrug. ‘There is no “And”.’

She frowns. ‘I don’t get it. Where is he now?’

‘That’s the point. I don’t know. He hasn’t come back.’

She stares at me for a second, her eyes widening. ‘Oh, fucking hell.’

Within minutes she’s made tea for us both and installed me on the sofa while she phones round all the hospitals in the area. There’s only one in our town but she phones the two neighbouring towns too, just in case. I know he’s got ID on him so someone would contact me if he’s been admitted, but at least it feels like we’re doing something.

‘Dead,’ Ginge says, clicking her phone off and palming it.

‘Wha-at?’

‘A and E. They’re all dead. Nothing’s happening anywhere apparently.’

‘Oh. Right.’ I’m not sure whether that’s a relief or not. No, it is. I mean, yes, of course it is. A huge relief. Except I still don’t know a single thing. At least I would have known … something if he’d been admitted somewhere. I look up at Ginge. ‘So, what now?’

She fiddles with her phone for a second, then comes over to sit next to me. ‘I think it’s time to call the police.’ She puts the phone into my hand and we both stare down at it.

‘You suggesting we call Matt?’

Matt is Ginger’s little brother. He’s a local PC, or DC, or PCSO or something now. Last time I spoke to him he was a silent, skeletal seventeen-year-old with dyed black hair and a nose ring. According to their mum, Mrs Blake, he ‘got in with the wrong crowd’ back then and barely came home for a few years, then apparently turned things round and joined the force. The thought of speaking to a policeman is made a bit less terrifying if it’s a geeky, awkward, slightly familiar stranger with pimples rather than an intimidating, black-coated stranger with a notebook.

Ginger shakes her head. ‘No, I mean the real police.’

‘What’s he then? Toy Town?’

‘No, silly. I just mean you need to report it. Officially. Not just get Matt round here for a cuppa.’ She pauses. ‘Much as I’m sure he’d be up for it.’

I 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.