His Other Life

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?’