The Missing One (35 page)

Then again, she's so hard to read. And what am I going to do? I can hardly tow it back to England with me. Maybe my comment about the floathouse didn't bother her after all. She probably knows I won't be able to find it – how would I? Maybe it's long gone. And I wouldn't go even if I knew where it was. With a little boy, heading further out into that wild sea in January would be madness.

We park outside her gallery. It's smaller than I remembered from the brief look that first night – painted dove-grey with a window showing a couple of pots on plinths. It occurs to me that I'm about to bring my fuel-injected toddler into a room full of priceless breakables. I'll just ask to use the computer to check my flights, then
I'll get out. I need to call Alice and Doug and I don't want Susannah listening in.

*

The gallery is cold and smells of fresh paint. Our feet echo on the polished oak floor as we come in. The main gallery room is to the right, and goes back a long way. It seems mainly empty, except for a few shelves of bright ceramics at the beginning. The dogs mill about at the base of a steep flight of stairs, wagging their tails. The walls are white. The light is muted.

‘Feel free to take a look around – there are a few pieces here still. I'll be upstairs. I have a few things to see to up there. Don't let the baby touch anything, though, OK?' Then she disappears up the stairs followed by the dogs, before I can ask if I could bring Finn up and borrow her computer. Like most people who have lived alone for a long time, Susannah only knows her own agenda. I hear a door slam shut. I wonder what on earth she was planning to do with Finn if she'd brought him here alone. Then I wonder if my comment about the floathouse has done this – is she retreating to lick some invisible wound? Or make a plan?

Then I realize that my phone will work, of course, now we're back in town. Hanging on tightly to Finn with one hand, I rifle around in my bag for it.

Susannah moves about overhead. I hear the wheels of an office chair slide across a wooden floor. She may look like a Californian baby boomer, and have a kitchen full of green tea and mung beans, and fold her legs into the lotus
position at dawn each day, but there is nothing Zen about Susannah. She has the soul of a ruthless executive.

Finn tugs at my hand, leaning into the gallery. ‘Dat?' he says. ‘Oh?'

I walk him inside, holding his hand very tightly. The room is empty except for some ceramic fish on one shelf – mercifully above Finn's level. I let him go and he toddles away, fast, towards the end of the room, his feet echoing on the floorboards. He is heading towards the back of the gallery and I can see out through a wall of sliding windows onto a patio garden. There are three or four round bistro tables and chairs, painted light green. I wander after him and gaze out. He presses his nose on the glass, and slaps it with both hands. ‘Dat,' he instructs, looking up at me.

‘It's locked, love. I can't open it.'

I can imagine the empty ceramic pots that are piled at the base of the wall bursting with summer flowers. I turn and look back up the empty room while Finn bashes the glass. There are skylights and the tall front windows let in light too. The room is broad and L-shaped, and there is a red velvet sofa along the wall at the foot of the L.

It's easy to imagine this space displaying beautiful art and that little garden with vines covering the trellis and flowers bursting from pots, the sliding windows open, gallery visitors coming and going, seagulls coasting across the evening sky. I imagine private views where guests spill, clutching glasses of wine, into the salty night, voices filling the air. Somewhere upstairs I hear a thud, as if a heavy book has been dropped, or a big flat foot stamped down.

I look at my mobile. There is no signal in here. I zip up the parka. ‘Let's go out, love. Shall we go and have a walk around?'

I pull up Finn's hood and put his mittens on. ‘OK. Let's go.' He barrels off up the room, in a stumbling run, his small legs moving comically fast, as if struggling to keep up with his toppling body.

‘We're going for a walk,' I whisk him away from the shelves, towards the front door, shouting up the stairs. ‘Back soon.'

No reply.

‘Can I get you anything, Susannah?'

The office chair slides again across a wooden floor and I think I hear her mumbling – maybe she's on the phone.

We step out into the mist again. Somewhere out to sea a ferry horn echoes, and in the port, down below the street, masts clatter and clank. But all the sounds feel slightly muffled – as if I'm wrapped in cling film. Droplets of rain tap the top of my head and soak my face, but they feel light, far off. Finn reaches up and takes my hand – one touch that does feel solid. He goes down the front steps sideways, holding onto me, putting both feet on the smooth surface before dropping a leg down for the next step. When he reaches the pavement I pull up his hood, and he becomes a small gnome, toddling busily next to me.

We head across the road to a railing overlooking the port and watch the fishing boats for a few minutes, but it's too cold and damp to stand here for long. I tug out my phone: a signal at last – just a few bars, but enough. I quickly text Alice.

Then I dial Doug's mobile. It only rings twice.

‘Kal?'

‘I'm just calling to say Finn is fine, really happy. There's nothing to worry about.'

‘Nothing to worry about? I'm glad Finn's fine but – seriously? You have to be kidding me! Look. I want you to listen to me now and I don't care if you're ready or not. I'm going to talk and you have to just shut up and listen and not hang up. OK? Just listen to me without hanging up. This has gone on long enough. What you saw on my phone – it was completely one-sided. I told her to stop. There were other texts, but the reason I hid them from you is that I knew I was in the wrong to allow her to send them – she'd been sending them for a while, and I didn't stop her. The truth is in some way I probably didn't want her to stop – you were so focused on Finn – as you should be – and the bottom line is it felt good to be wanted by someone that badly. It was an ego-boost. I'm ashamed of myself for letting it go on but I did not reciprocate. I did not encourage her. Nothing else happened between us. OK? Can you hear me? Kal? Are you there?'

I can't speak. I can't seem to let his words sink through the shell of panic I have created about our marriage. I can't process what he is saying. You don't just get texts like that. Is that what he's saying? That she just sent them, unbidden?
Why would she just send them? He must have done
something
to encourage her.

‘Say something!'

‘I can't,' I croak. ‘I have to … I can't get my head around this, Doug … '

He must have done something. You have to do something to make someone send passionate texts. You have to kiss them at least. Or confess an attraction. Or sleep with them first.

‘That's OK,' he is saying. ‘That's OK. I know. Just – please could you just come home now. OK? Just come home and we'll talk about all this properly.'

‘I can't talk now, I've got Finn, there's a wind – it's so cold – and I can't … I don't know what to think. I … We'll be home in a few days. I'll text you my flight details.'

‘Can you call me later?'

‘There's no reception where I'm staying.'

‘Where exactly are you staying?'

‘I have to go.'

I hang up.

*

We make our way up the main street, towards the Rock Salt Bakery. Doug's explanation doesn't stack up. Is he really saying he allowed an ex-girlfriend to send him love texts – but didn't encourage it? How could that be? And even if he did do nothing, it's still a betrayal. Nothing like the betrayal of sex, admittedly, but he turned away from us. It's … The problem is, I don't know what it is. I don't know what has happened any more. I know he's not a liar. Or is he? It's as if,
when I try to think about this closely, something goes blank in my head.

It's possible that I've been ludicrous, overblown, mad. But then again, maybe I haven't. There's too much going on here, with Susannah and this wild island and this big ocean with killer whales, and echoes of my mother's secrets in the hissing of its waves. I can't think straight. I need to get away from here – away from Susannah's creepy house and her moods and half-truths. But I want to find out what she's hiding, too. If I run away I'll never know.

Finn stops every few paces to poke or investigate things. He is singing to himself, but I can't hear the song. My ears and face hurt from the bitter wind, but for once I have remembered Finn's hat. He is bundled up and warm. I peer at my phone again – no response from Alice – then with stiff fingers, I get into my emails.

*

Among some messages from friends, and work – work! – all of which I ignore, there is a new email from my father.

As I walk, I type my reply.

I press ‘send' with a numb finger, and put the phone away and look down at Finn. A jolt of electricity goes through me: he's no longer next to me. I spin round.

It's fine. It's OK. He's right there – kneeling by a pile of wet leaves near a drainpipe about ten feet back – poking
them with a stick. I run back down to him, glancing round to see if anyone has witnessed this shameful display of bad mothering. There is no one around. His legs are soaked and mulchy. He sticks his hands into the leaves.

‘Come on, love.' I kneel next to him. ‘Goodness me. What are you up to?'

He keeps poking, intent on finding some treasure in the muck.

‘Come on, Finn, that looks really dirty, love. Let's get to the bakery! Let's get cake!'

‘Dat!' Still squatting, he points across the street to a red pick-up truck.

‘That's a truck,' I say. ‘Some kind of big truck.' He grins up at me, his fringe pressed down by his bobble hat. I stroke it out of his eyes. ‘You really love trucks, don't you. What colour is it?'

He looks at it. ‘Daddy.'

Our eyes lock. I have to grit my teeth because the tears are rising. ‘We'll see Daddy really soon, OK? I bet you're missing Daddy. He's missing you too, love. He really is. You'll see him soon, though. Come on! Let's get a great big cake.'

*

An elderly man in a navy-blue fisherman's hat is chatting at the counter to a woman about Susannah's age. Finn and I wait, hand in hand. The bakery smells sweet and yeasty, and it's very warm in here. I look at the inflated scones and muffins in the cabinet. Giant cupcakes. Cinnamon rolls the size of side plates. Enormous, squashy bagels. It is as if the baked goods, like the landscape, have been magnified – or
we have shrunk. I pull Finn's hat off and unzip the top of his suit.

I probably shouldn't be eating cakes yet again. The button of my trousers is definitely digging in. Then I remember what Susannah said about my pregnant ‘aura'.

I take a few breaths and close my eyes for a second. And there it is – the sly queasiness that has been edging its way round my body for what seems like weeks. It is as if my blood is slightly off or my inner ear needs recalibrating.

But this is daft. I could be bloated because my period is coming. I'm still jet-lagged. I try to think back but I can't remember when the last period was. I recall buying tampons in Boots, maybe a few weeks ago. But did I use them? I have no idea. It seems like another life, when I'd push the buggy into town and buy tampons and nappies in Boots, underwear in Marks & Spencer. Nappies – I have to buy nappies for Finn. There is a drugstore just down from the bakery. We'll go there next.

The old man shuffles off, holding a baby-sized sourdough. The woman behind the counter is giraffe-like, her slender neck sprouts from a midnight-blue shirt; a curly bob, dyed a vibrant wine colour, clashes with her red glass necklace. She gives me a pleasant smile then does a comedy double-take: her eyes widen.

I smile on, steadily, trying to pretend that she is not staring. I am sweating in the parka. I unzip it, and order an Americano to go, then I bend down to Finn and fuss with his zip. He is mesmerized by the cakes. She turns away to the coffee machine, but then spins back round. Her mouth has
curled into a smile and the nostrils of her long nose have swollen.

‘Now I've got it!'