The Missing Person's Guide to Love (2 page)

But her body was not found and, as far as I have always known, no one was ever charged with her murder. And so, eighteen years later, I left my flat in Turkey, while it was still dark, to come to Owen’s funeral. I must have imagined, stupidly, that I would climb off the bus from London, breathe the old air of the moors that had once belonged to me and, by magic, watch the answers flash up in my head like numbers on a screen. I thought I would know exactly what to do. I have talked to people in a fairly random way, filled up my head with a lot of conversations that I cannot now disentangle and that do not tell me what happened. I should have used the long journey to plan. I could have done it better. I am a journalist. I do know how to ask questions. I know how to tease answers from the unwilling or unknowing and weave them into a fabric that is more or less as helpful as truth. But today I might as well have been seventeen years old again as, it seems, I was too stupid to do anything properly.

I roll over on my side and look at the sky through the gap at the top of the curtains. It is thick and cloudy and its blackness has a dark green tinge. Was Owen strange? How strange? Why did he return to the village when he came out of prison? Did he like to visit certain places in the area, perhaps a favourite spot on the hills or near the reservoir? How did he react when people spoke of Julia? Did he want to talk of Julia when no one else did? Was he questioned at the time? Was he jealous in his relationships with women? Did anyone think that a boy of sixteen could have hurt a girl of almost the same age? Perhaps that never occurred to them. These are the questions I forgot to ask, or when I remembered to, I discovered that I didn’t have the skill to lead the conversation where I needed it to go. I found out about some bloodstains but am not sure what they meant or that the blood was real.

Owen spent most of his life in the village. After his short time in prison he could have left and started a life in a new place but he didn’t want to. I managed it after my own release, or thought I did. I see now that if I leave tomorrow, still not knowing, I will never have escaped. I rub my forehead, then the base of my neck. It’s stiff. There are tight knots of muscle under my skin. Perhaps I have found the answer but I don’t yet recognize it. I have collected spoken words all day and maybe I need to sift through them, again and again, until I identify it. But what? The only solution is to finish the job while I’m here and I’m going to need more time. I don’t know how much but I’ll start with tomorrow. So, then, I cannot return to Istanbul in the morning. I fumble on the floor for my phone and switch it on. I send a message to Mete. He won’t like it.

Can you manage if I stay one more night?

The little envelope in the screen tells me that the message has been sent. I stare at it. Any second now my words will pop up, still in their envelope, in a telephone at the edge of the Sea of Marmara and at three thirty a.m. I wonder if it will wake him.

So, let me try to salvage something from today. One feature of some of the conversations has been particularly upsetting. I knew that people here would remember and recognize me, and I knew that they would be surprised to see me and, in some cases, not especially pleased about it. However, several people have told me that they had believed me to be dead. I cannot make any sense of this since I don’t know where the rumour began. I know that it passed through Owen at one point, and on to his mother, but I don’t know that Owen started it. It’s possible. He might have been angry that I never replied to his letters after I left the village. The letters were messy and too disturbing to make much sense so I ignored them. What else could I do? It wouldn’t surprise me if he had decided to kill me off as a sort of revenge for this snub. If this is the case, it only confirms that he was, at best, confused, which may support my theory that he was responsible for Julia’s death.

I also heard that the rumour came from my own aunt Maggie, who knows perfectly well that I am alive. She might have started it to keep Owen away from me, though it seems unnecessarily heavy-handed, and that never appeared to be her intent. I am sure that, if it was Maggie’s idea, she only meant it for the best. None the less, to be told that I was dead – or ‘passed away’, as Owen’s mother kept saying – leaves me somewhat queasy. I keep looking at my limbs, touching my skin and pressing it to feel the bones underneath. I keep holding the back of my hand against my cheek to find warmth and measure it. I keep checking that I’m alive.

My phone vibrates on the bedclothes. A message from Mete.

OK. But what shall I tell Leila?

I smile. He means Bernadette. I send one back.

I don’t know. Why does she want to see me?

This bed is soft and white, comfortable. I wriggle around, pulling part of the duvet between my thighs and stretching it out, warm inside from this tiny piece of contact with Mete, beginning to feel aroused. I rest my head on one pillow and cuddle the other, meaning to think of Mete but my mind fumbles instead for a picture of Owen, a photograph I saw today in his parents' house. It was a recent picture so it was of an Owen I never knew. He was in the pub with a couple of friends. There was a pint of dark beer in his hand and his face was red. He was smiling. His hair had receded a centimetre or two since I knew him. The picture was nothing special but the smile has lodged itself behind my eyes and spreads and bulges, like the leering mouth of a clown. I try, but I can’t get Mete back.

This is not what I want at all. I climb out of bed, put my notebooks on the dressing-table, push aside the pots of cream, coloured jars of makeup and a hairbrush tangled with fine brown hairs. I peer behind the mirror to catch a glimpse of the narrow street. It is empty. The other houses are in darkness. The neighbours are sleeping. I can’t see the reservoir from here. I can’t even make out the shapes of the moors, but I know that they are there, just a mile or two away. I pull the window down until it is almost closed. I am still a little cold, wearing a borrowed T-shirt that hardly covers my thighs. I sit on the purple-cushioned stool and roll my shoulders back. I’m stiff an ex-dancer whose movements have become lazy and rough. If I flex my feet, the bones crackle. A quick gust of wind chills my face. My legs stretch out, blue-white gooseflesh. This is good. I don’t sleep when I’m cold. I shall stay awake.

This afternoon I arrived at the Lake View guesthouse, hoping for a view.

The Lake View guesthouse stands at the end of the street, near the beginning of the sycamores. The shadows of the trees darken the garden and the far side of the house. The paint on the window-frames is chipped in places, but the small front lawn is neat and the gate is shiny green. Beyond the houses, the moors slope and curve away to the edges of the sky. There are two or three other small hotels nearby, smart bed-and-breakfasts with signs in the windows advertising vacancies – one even boasts a swimming-pool – but I chose the Lake View for its name.

I arrived two, nearly three hours before the funeral was due to begin. The sky was a mucky white and the damp moors were blurred out of focus. From the pavement outside the guesthouse there was no sign of the reservoir. I could see terraces of houses, telegraph poles, hedges of privet and leylandii, but no water. I knew that the reservoir was there, at the bottom of the hill behind thick rows of trees, but a stranger would not have guessed. I stood at the gate and wondered what I should do. A red tricycle sat in next door’s garden, its front wheel cocked, looking like a dog awaiting a homecoming. That might be the best welcome I could hope for, and I considered finding another place to stay. But I decided that it would be unwise to change my plans so soon before the funeral. Perhaps, I thought, if I have a room in the attic, the water will be visible after all.

I stepped up to the door and read the labels on the three bells. There was
Lake View Main Bell, Lake View Reception
and
Lake View Private.
There was also a large brass knocker in the middle of the door. I dithered between the top two bells, lifted the knocker, then put it back again. Paint fell away in dandruff flakes. Finally I pressed
Lake View Reception
and waited. The house was similar in shape and proportion to the one I had grown up in, a few streets away. It made me nervous and I found myself twitching and turning from the door to the street and back again. I had been travelling since early morning and was beginning to feel light-headed. Was I right to have come? I had no idea, but at that moment I wanted only to pull off my shoes and rest. I wanted to lie down for a little while, perhaps take a shower, before dressing for Owen’s funeral. After a few moments' silence, I heard feet stumbling from high up in the house down the stairs to the bottom. A large honey-coloured hairdo appeared at the other side of the glass. I stepped back as the door opened to about thirty degrees of its full swing. A pink, puffy face peered out. Soft bags of skin lapped gently around the woman’s dark green eyes. She wore a loose cardigan and long denim skirt that had slipped too far around her waist, as though she had come down the stairs spinning.

‘I have a reservation.’ I cleared my throat. I had hardly spoken all day and a thin film of ice covered my voice. I made a note to do some vocal exercises in my room before my next encounter to prepare myself for the conversations ahead. If I were speaking Turkish, it would be all right. I have developed a personality that operates well in Turkey. My Turkish self is used to haggling over prices and payments, striking up conversations with strangers in lifts and in queues to pay bills. She gets what she wants every time but I don’t think she’s here when I speak English. I wasn’t sure, before I set off, how this would work but now I knew. ‘It’s Isabel Clegg,’ I rasped.

‘Oh, right.’ She looked at me, then over my head at the path. ‘Come in, then. Did you drive here? Do you need parking?’

‘No. I walked from the bus station. I’m early. Is it all right? It’s just that I’m going to a funeral and I’d like to leave my bag, please.’

‘Yes, that’s fine, love. Your room’s ready.’

Her accent was local. She opened the door wide and stood back, as if there were several of me to let in. I didn’t even have a suitcase, just a small rucksack, and I slipped it off my shoulders, let it trail at my ankles as I walked.

The hall was square and dark. There was a shelf of ballroom-dance trophies, a payphone, a range of yellowing signs about keeping noise down and check-out time, and a bell for attention at night. The woman asked me to sign the visitors' book and pay in advance, no credit cards. She leaned against the wall, folded her arms under her heavy breasts and watched with narrowed eyes as I wrote a cheque and signed it. It seemed old-fashioned –
Who do I make it out to? Doreen Fatebene, please
– but somehow in keeping with the era I was travelling back to, the 1980s, my teenage years. She pushed a large key into my hand and told me to head for the top floor, to room nine.

‘The bathroom’s opposite. If the light doesn’t work there’s a bulb in the cupboard on the landing. There’s an extra blanket under your bed if you need it.’ She nodded towards the door. ‘It’ll be parky tonight.’

It was November but feeling wintry rather than autumnal. At least I would be indoors most of the time, except for one or two visits to specific locations. When I was half-way up the stairs Doreen shouted after me to ask what I wanted for breakfast.

What could I have? I was flummoxed. I don’t live in this country any more. I’m almost a foreigner now and need a little more help. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, of saying cake when the answer should be bread.

‘It’s just easier if I know in plenty of time.’ The woman tried to sound relaxed but it was clear that not knowing in advance would trouble her. ‘You can change your mind when tomorrow comes, within reason.’

‘Of course.’

A sign on the wall opposite me boasted English breakfasts so I asked for this.

‘Full?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘And would you like a map of the village or have you been here before?’

‘Oh, I used to live in this village.’ It sounded like an apology. Perhaps it was. ‘I was born here.’

And then I didn’t know what to say so I pushed my hair from my face and continued up the stairs to the top floor.

I lifted the key and unlocked the door. I stepped into a long thin room with a single bed and coffee-coloured walls. It smelled of detergent. A television was mounted high on the wall, like a closed-circuit surveillance screen. The window was open and a little sunlight spilled across the carpet. I hadn’t noticed any sun at all when I was outside and I peered out to see where it had come from. There was a small crack in the clouds, just a graze, and a pale lemon light seeped through. Lake View. Even from up here I couldn’t see the reservoir. I saw grey rooftops, chimney pots, the paths leading out to the moors, brown and cold behind the village. And there was the tower of St Peter’s, dark grey and shiny. I put my head out of the window to breathe fresh air.

I had known, without having to read all of Maggie’s message, that the funeral would be held at St Peter’s. It is the main Anglican church in the community. Owen and I sang in the choir there when we were children, along with our friend Kath. We wore purple cassocks, white ruffs and surplices, and in our treble voices we sang through practices twice a week, communion and evensong on Sundays. We did puzzles and read joke books together in the choir stalls and I have no recollection of ever having heard a sermon so we must have been busy daydreaming when we were not singing. We were perfectly at home in that church. If God was present too, we expected Him to fit around us. We had a sense of ownership, popping in and out of the vestry, putting the hymn numbers up on the boards, lighting and snuffing out the candles. The smell comes back to me sometimes, when I am near old wooden furniture, dusty books, the place where a flame has just been extinguished. It reaches me with a poke in the face, as if it’s a memory that must belong to someone else. It doesn’t seem like me and it doesn’t seem like Owen. We weren’t angels. Kath is the only one who fits that memory still.