A Certain Age (4 page)

Oh where’s Steve? He knows I get worried if he’s late. He ought to, we’ve been together since we were eighteen, it’s our twenty-fifth anniversary in a couple of weeks, his mum’s doing all the catering in case I couldn’t cope with the worry, which is very nice of her, but at the same time, obviously, a bit worrying. Oh come on, Steve, I can’t start cooking for tonight – can’t start applying my meagre culinary talents, my MCTs! – till you get home and decide what you want. I’ll start tucking into the biscuits in a minute! That biscuit barrel is lovely, anyway, there’s no way Steve can say, “They saw you coming Henny” like he did with the lemon clock. We could use the old one for nuts and bolts or something. Not that we’ve got any nuts and bolts; we might have to buy some specially. Oh come on, Steve. He’s an hour late! And now it’s going to be awful when he gets home because whatever I say to him, even if I don’t mention it, even if I say I did notice he was late but it didn’t bother me, he’ll say, “Don’t go accusing me of anything, Henny; it’s
YOU
that’s not normal” and I won’t
be able to talk to him about Mr and Mrs Bryan offering me the job of manageress; I’ll just have to go in to work tomorrow and say we talked about it, and Steve was all in favour but in the end I decided against it. [
Rehearsal
] We talked about it, Steve was all in favour. Oh come on, Steve! Come on. [
Opens tin
] I think I need a biscuit.

Scene Two; petting zoo noises

Well, it was a bit strange Steve not coming home at all last night, but I have to say, after the first three or four hours of worrying whether he’d been knocked down by a bus, or had forgotten his own name after a freak blow to the head, or the mice in the lab had finally ganged up on him and torn the living flesh from his bones with their sharp little teeth, I thought – possibly for the first time ever in my life – “There’s a logical explanation for all this” and switched on the TV. It was very odd. Mad with worry for a few hours, ringing the hospitals, chewing my nails, and then, well, curled up with
Changing Rooms.
Where did Jude the goose get to? [
Goose honk
] He always looks depressed, this goose. [
Honk
] There he is! [
She imitates the goose noise
] Hello, Quackers! [
Honk, honk
] I know, it’s terrible, poor you, eh? [
Honk
] Yes, yes. Poor Jude. Yes.

I even got out the reviled tapestry last night. I had a drink. I thought, “You’re in shock, Henny. Go mad.” I fell asleep on the sofa eating crisps watching something called
Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
The thing is, I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I knew. He’s not coming back. When I finally rang the police this morning, they said, “About twelve hours? Just overnight, madam? Give it another twenty-four,” and instead of pleading with them to take
me seriously, I said something really peculiar, what did I say? Hang on. They said, wait another twenty-four hours, madam … [
Remembers
] And I said, [
cheerful
] “Right-oh.”

Leaving the house was the most difficult thing about today. Every morning Steve and I leave the house together, you see, doing our checking in the kitchen: testing each appliance: taps off, cooker off, fridge shut, kettle unplugged; then door shut, light off, alarm set 1-9-7-6 (year we got married), double-lock the front door. Then we go in again. Taps off, cooker off, fridge shut, kettle unplugged; door shut, light off, alarm set 1-9-7-6, double-lock the front door. In again. Off, off, shut, unplugged; shut, off, 1-9-7-6, lock. Off, off, shut, unplugged, shut, off, 1-9-7-6, lock. We allow lots of time for this, because Steve’s a stickler, and if he gets outside and can’t remember whether the kettle was unplugged, we have to go back in and turn the alarm off and do it again, because he says he knows what I’m like, he doesn’t want me fretting about it all day, imagining the house burning down.

So this morning, I didn’t know what to do, with Steve not here. I looked round the kitchen and everything was –well, it was off. I mean, it was obvious everything was off. You can tell from looking whether things are off! So I set the alarm and shut the front door and locked it, and got in the car. And then I heard Steve in my head say, was the fridge shut? I pictured it; it was definitely shut. I mean, I hadn’t tested it, pushed it, and said the word “Shut”. But I still knew it wasn’t open. So I started the car, and drove to work, and really didn’t think about it until I’d just got past that exhaust centre place called Life’s Little Ironies, and then I got this picture in my head [
fearful imaginings
] of Steve getting back from wherever he’s gone, recovered his memory after a second blow to the head, patched
the living flesh back on his cheeks after vanquishing the mice, and he goes in the kitchen expecting everything to be safe and orderly – and the door to the fridge is open. [
The horror!
] In fact it’s swinging open and the food inside is all rotten and there’s a pool of water on the floor. “Henny, how could you let this happen?” he yells, and he doesn’t see the water in time, and he slips on it, and as he slips he grabs the kettle and it’s not unplugged! And as he yanks it, the flex shorts at the plug and he dies in a shower of blue sparks and it’s all my fault!

“Are you all right, Henny?” Mrs Bryan said. I was sitting in the car in Bathsheba’s car park just outside the Gabriel Oak Experience – where twice a day the kiddies can take turns driving wooden stakes into the stomachs of pretend sheep blown up like balloons, apparently it was very memorable in the film, and we’re quite proud of it because it combines good old violent country know-how with a nice thing from a book, and at the same time features the sound of escaping air, which is always so popular with children. [
Blows long expressive raspberry, to demonstrate
] Where was I? Oh yes. “Henny, are you all right?” Mrs Bryan says. “I need you to pump up the sheep when you’re ready.” And I make my decision. “Just got to pop home for something,” and I drive all the way home and the fridge is shut and the kettle is unplugged, and I think I’m never, ever telling Steve about this, because he’ll say I told you so and get me locked away. Still no sign of Steve, of course, not even [
wistfully
] fried to a crisp on the kitchen floor.

Scene Three: at home; music

Well, the police have been. I left it forty-eight hours in the end, so as not to look hysterical. Also, I lost track of the time watching
Pet Rescue,
which is great, I always thought it would be, Steve wouldn’t let me watch it in case I got too involved. So I waited till that finished, and then they came, and now they’ve just gone. Two men and one woman. I’m glad there was a woman because she admired the biscuit tin. “So it’s very unlike your husband to disappear like this?” they said, and I said, yes, totally. Detective Sergeant Law asked if I knew of any other relationships he had, and I said, “Well, there’s his mother, I suppose I’d better tell her,” and he said, delicately, he meant did Steve have a girlfriend or anything, and I burst out laughing. They all exchanged glances as if to say, “The wife is always the last to know” and DS Law said they would be looking into it anyway, so I said ha, good luck, and they exchanged glances again. They asked me to account for my movements on the day he disappeared and I think they were a bit surprised by some of the details but the woman police officer said she’d seen the film of
Far from the Madding Crowd
and the bit with the blown-up sheep was fantastic; she wouldn’t mind having a go at that herself. They asked if he’d taken his passport, and I said of course he hadn’t; he was only going to work. And then I looked in the drawer and actually it wasn’t there, and mine wasn’t either, and I started to think, “Oh spit, were we going on holiday and I’ve forgotten all about it?”, but I didn’t say that to the police because I’m sure normal people don’t say things like that. So to change the subject I said, ooh Sergeant
LAW,
isn’t it interesting the way people’s surnames often fit their profession – all
those TV gardeners called Flowerdew and Titchmarsh, and TV cooks called, and of course I couldn’t think of one, so I said Rosemary Lemonsqueezer, and they just looked at me. DS Law asked about Steve. Did he have any history of mental illness? And I laughed again, and they said, “Do you have any reason not to love your husband, Mrs Williams?” And I said, “Of course not. I mean, leaving aside twenty-five years of marriage.”

Scene Four: in the stationary car, with windscreen wipers going and heater fan

I rang Steve’s Mum to tell her what had happened. She got hysterical at once, so I was glad I rang her from Bath-sheba’s. I said she ought to hold fire on the anniversary party stuff just in case Steve hadn’t shown up by then. She couldn’t seem to take it in; she kept asking, “But where’s he gone?” and I kept having to explain that when someone’s disappeared nobody knows where they’ve gone; that’s the point of disappearing. In the end I said I’d ring her later. But it was obvious we should cancel the party: imagine we were passing round the mushroom vol au vents and the police turned up to say they’d found Steve’s mutilated body or something. It would be like something out of a book. Or what if we turned it into a memorial tea, and he turned up? I sound like I don’t care. I do care about what’s happened to Steve; I’d hate him to be hurt or unhappy or dead. But after twenty-five years of living with him I just know he’s all right. He’s playing at something, and I just don’t know what – perhaps he’s trying to test me. Drive me over the edge with worry, like when we’re halfway to Malaga and he’ll say, “You OK now,
Henny?” and I say, “I’m all right if I don’t look out of the window,” and he says, “I’ve just thought, Henny, I don’t want to worry you, but what if the regular milkman, who knows we’re on holiday, is suddenly struck down with flu? And then there’s a botched handover at the dairy and the replacement doesn’t know we’re on holiday, and leaves a pint of milk every day, and then the burglars spot all the bottles and they break in and take the telly?” Then we’ll spend the rest of our holiday with me saying, “Look, I’ll ring the dairy, I can easily get the number,” and him saying to people, “Can you believe what my wife is worried about?” and them all looking at me and laughing.

Mr and Mrs Bryan called me in this afternoon from the Egdon Pleasure Park (the swings) and said the police had been round asking questions about me. “You realise we had to tell them everything we knew,” said Mrs Bryan, bless her. She put a pay envelope on the desk, which was very odd because it was only the 17th, and said, “Would you like some time at home, dear? It must be hard to concentrate under all this strain.” For a minute I couldn’t think what strain she was referring to, and then I said, “No, I’m feeling fine, actually, apart from where that little boy at the Gabriel Oak Experience wielded his stake too far back and banged me in the eye.” But Mr Bryan looked at the pay-packet, and folded his arms and didn’t look at me. I realised they wanted me to go home, so I thanked them and took it, and got in the car and here I am. It’s the first time I’ve been upset, to be honest. [
Sounds upset
] I feel like one of those sheep with all the air let out. It’s not fair. All the time Steve was around I managed to keep my nice job; the minute he goes, and I’m free to enjoy it at last, my nice employers send me home.

Scene Five: home

I’ve been trying to read
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
again this afternoon, but it’s a bit hard going. Not because of the story, actually, although I can’t say I like it very much, the introduction says it’s full of all these big dramatic ironies, and as Steve would say, “Well, that’s not entertainment, is it?” No, it’s the names. I mean, Angel Clare? Down the village you can get a very nice doggy perm and manicure at the Angel Clare. Why did the Bryans send me home? I can’t believe they were so upset by the visit from the police, and anyway I don’t see it’s my fault that Steve’s run off – or banged his head, or suffered the nasty living flesh thing. DS Law says now he’s been gone four days they can check to see whether he’s left the country, apparently they’ll know later on today. I feel guilty that I don’t miss Steve. I think that’s why everyone’s so suspicious, thinking I’ve bumped him off or something, because I’ve been so light-hearted. In fact, now I think of it, didn’t Mrs Bryan come in yesterday when I was demonstrating the Gabriel Oak thing to the kiddies – stabbing that stake into that sheep – and really enjoying it? “Take that!” I was saying. [
Grunts of quite violent effort
] Uff! Oof! Uff! It was just after that she called me in and sent me home! Oh heavens! She thinks I stabbed Steve! Stabbed him until he flew around the room going [
blows raspberry]. [Serious
] It’s funny, I’ve spent so much of my life worrying with Steve about things that don’t happen, now something has really happened I feel I can’t worry about it, as if I’ve done all the worrying already. It’s only when I think, [
moved
] oh, Steve might never see the new biscuit tin—

I told DS Law, I thought I had to, that Steve did often say animal rights people might come after him for his
job at the lab, and how he checked under the car for bombs. I felt very disloyal saying it; Steve feels so strongly that no one should know. But once I’d said it, and the DS was so surprised his jaw dropped, I started thinking, oh lumme, I must have made that up, it’s very peculiar, isn’t it? But the truth is, we’ve been checking under the car for years. Just common sense, Steve said. Self-protection. The threat of terrorism was just part of our lives – the house alarm, the mirrors on sticks for looking under the car, the perusal of the papers every day for stories of animal rights activists, the decision never to have children in case they were used as hostages or left orphaned. I mean, the very day Steve disappeared he’d cut a piece out of the
Times
about a senior research scientist in Denmark whose wife had been abducted. It does happen, I said. DS Law stopped writing it all down in his notebook, put down his pen, took a biscuit, and said the point is, though, Steve is not a senior research scientist, he’s a lab technician. At the Fawley Research Centre, where he works, there are at least 150 people who are more likely to be targeted than Steve. And I said, [
brave laugh; it’s a shock
] “I know that! Good heavens, I know that!”