Then You Were Gone (9 page)

The man’s questions had continued; what were her favourite subjects at school? What was her favourite TV programme, her favourite music, her favourite book – did she read books at all?
Of course I read books, you patronising fuck,
she had thought, but she had simply answered the question as quickly as she could. Safer that way. The questions went on for so long that she had begun to imagine that perhaps he was a journalist, one of those undercover ones who embed themselves with the people they want to write about, and actually he did seem a bit like a journalist, or a bit like what she imagined a journalist to be like. He was quiet here, generally pretty much monosyllabic, but she suspected that wasn’t the real him. He was so articulate when he did start talking, his manner so smooth and self-assured, that she felt sure that in the real world he must be someone who relied on his charm or his force of personality to make his living. He could almost be a television newsreader or a local radio DJ, the kind who did outside broadcasts from the beach in summer. Only actually, weirdly, indeed inexplicably considering the fact that he was currently hiding out deep in a forbidding forest with a pregnant teenager, this guy seemed a bit too nice to be one of those things.

Chapter Nine

Simone had told Jazzy she was going to her mum’s. It was an indication of how distracted with worry he was that he had not questioned this assertion. Ordinarily she went to her mum’s if she needed a free bed for the night to attend an old school friend’s wedding, if there had been a death in the family, or for the obligatory two days at Christmas,– and only, on any of those occasions, if all other possibilities had been exhausted first. Jazzy thought it was odd that she spent so little time with her parents – his relationship with his family was the kind where a new set of soft furnishings could not be chosen without several phone calls from his mother about a bargain she had seen on the John Lewis website. She knew that Jazzy had never bought a car without his dad being present. But overall Jazzy chose to regard her chilly and little-discussed relationship with her parents as another manifestation of what he believed to be her preference for self-reliance. The fact that she was extremely close to her only sister and spoke to her several times a week was, to Jazzy, neither here nor there. If something did not fit Jazzy’s chosen narrative, he would simply disregard it.

She knew now that if she had told Jazzy what she really intended then he would have tried to stop her. He was in one of his phases, Simone knew. She had often thought Jazzy could have been an actor, despite his lack of obvious charisma. He had a tendency to throw himself into a persona when the moment called for it, and to commit entirely to the role. On the few occasions she had seen him play sport she had been amazed to see a bluff, jockish side of him emerge, barking jargon and elbowing competitors out of the way. Whenever she saw him with Rory she could not escape a feeling that he was acting the part of a father as he had seen it played in a Richard Curtis film. And now he appeared to be channelling a gritty, stubbly private investigator in an American film shot on hand-held cameras. Simone had no part in this drama as far as Jazzy was concerned; her main duty was to stay out of the way.

‘I just need to get my head straight for a few days,’ she’d said to Jazzy, unsure even as she told the lie why she was telling it. Partly, she was sure, because Jazzy PI would no doubt insist on coming with her and would end up taking over and, although she felt uncharitable even thinking it, probably making a massive balls-up of it. But there was something else too, some sense of – disloyalty? Some feeling that by doing this, by chasing after Mack, she was somehow showing her hand, laying herself open, putting her feelings for Mack beyond question. And that would mean that Jazzy knew that she loved Mack now.

Last time she had been in Mack’s flat she had noticed in his bottom drawer an address book, which she had dismissed at the time. After all, people – especially people like Mack – do not use address books any more. But now, with little else to go on, she had decided to go and get it on her way to – well, on her way to wherever it took her.

She did not feel any nerves or sense of trespass this time as she unlocked Mack’s front door. This was the easy part; breaking, entering, stealing. It was what came next that scared her, what she might find when she got to that part.

The address book was old but classy. Bound in orangey leather with gold-edged pages it had clearly been intended as a keepsake by whoever had given it. (Simone was sure it had been gift. She could not imagine Mack ever buying himself any kind of address book, still less a leather bound one). An eighteenth birthday gift would have been Simone’s guess. From his mum, she supposed. Or Keith.

She turned straight to the ‘M’s. There were only two entries. The first one was for a Maria, with just a telephone number from before the new London dialling codes had been introduced – 0181 something or other. Simone smiled. Maybe this had been Mack’s equivalent of a little black book back in his heyday. The other entry was the one she had been looking for. ‘Mum’.

The address was in New Cross, not far from where Mack had told her he had grown up. It was for 72D Carruthers Street. A flat then, which was not what Simone had expected. Where she came from people’s parents did not live in flats. There was no phone number, not that Simone could ever have dreamed of approaching this conversation over the telephone.
Hi, I don’t know if you remember me, I’m the girl from the Ethiopian restaurant, the one you probably thought was not really your son’s usual type and you didn’t expect to meet again. Well I’m still technically his girlfriend but I just wanted to tell you I might not be any more because he’s sort of gone missing.

She had a small bag with her containing her A to Z, her Oyster card, which she had found this time on top of a tin of chickpeas in her kitchen cupboard, a spare T-shirt and change of underwear, and four hundred and eighty pounds in cash that she had withdrawn that morning. Now, with at least a destination in mind if nothing else, she placed the address book on top, closed the bag and went to find Carruthers Street.

The street when she found it was one of a clutch of Victorian terraces blocked in by railway lines. Number 72 was large and smart with a neat front garden and freshly painted window frames. It was not until after she had pressed the bell for flat D that it occurred to Simone that the woman may no longer live there. In Simone’s head, people’s parents did not move house – or at least not until they went into a retirement home. Her own parents had lived in the same terraced cottage for nearly forty years with the same décor, the same furniture and the same oppressive layer of things left unsaid.

A woman’s voice crackled through the intercom. ‘Hello?’

‘Oh, hi, erm, Sheila.’ How old did you have to be, she wondered, before it felt OK to call a boyfriend’s mum by her first name. ‘It’s Simone here. I’m Mack’s erm… we met at the Ethiopian place a few months ago?’

‘Right.’ Her voice was guarded. ‘Hi there. What can I do for you?’

She thinks Mack’s dumped me and I’ve turned stalker
, Simone realised. She glanced behind her. The flat was not on a main road but the door was close to the street and there were enough people around for her to want to keep her voice down. ‘Erm, I’m sorry to bother you but I wonder if I could come in? It’s about Mack.’

‘Oh, OK. Yes, of course.’ The woman still sounded wary, but a second later the intercom buzzed and Simone pushed the door.

The flat was at the top of the building behind what looked like a serious security door. ‘Hi, Simone.’ Mack’s mum was young – Mack had told her she had been only nineteen when he was born – and still attractive in what Simone could not help but think of as a rather showy way. She was wearing tight jeans and a black polo neck. It was the kind of outfit that would be completed by a short leather jacket when she went out, Simone felt sure. ‘Come in.’ Her tone was friendly enough, but she was not smiling.

Simone stepped straight into the flat’s living room. It was cold, nearly as cold as Simone’s flat, and smelled damp. Sheila did not offer to take her coat, which ordinarily she might have thought rude, but now was glad of the excuse to stay wrapped up. The woman went over to the kitchenette and lifted the kettle. ‘It’s just boiled,’ she said, ‘if you’d like a cuppa?’

‘Oh, yes, thanks. Just a tea please.’

Sheila made the drinks by putting the tea bags into the mugs. Simone’s mother would never have done that. Simone’s mother had two teapots, a brown ceramic one for the family and a bone china one which had been a wedding gift, which they used on the rare occasions they had visitors. ‘Thanks,’ she said when Sheila brought the tea to the sofa. ‘I’m sorry to barge in on you this way.’ She was shivering but trying not to let Sheila see it.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘Well,’ Simone shook her hair back and cleared her throat. She had rehearsed what she wanted to say. ‘Have you heard from Mack – I mean, from Joe – in the last couple of weeks?’

The woman’s eyes widened a little. They were blue, but not in the way Mack’s were blue. Hers were dim, algae-covered pools compared to his turquoise glacial lakes. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I haven’t. But – well, you know Joe. It’s not unusual at all for me not to see or hear from him for a few weeks. Sometimes – not so much now, but when he was younger – sometimes it’d be months. You know what young lads are like. Why? Is everything OK?’ she said again, frowning.

‘Well,’ Simone swallowed and nodded, trying, for Sheila’s sake, to give an appearance of calm. ‘I don’t think you should worry, if that’s what you mean. Mack’s fine. I heard from him just yesterday.’
Fine in the sense of still being alive, if nothing else
. ‘It’s just that… Well, he’s gone – I don’t know – away somewhere, and we don’t know where, me and Jazzy that is. Jazzy hasn’t seen him either, and, like I said, Mack’s been in touch with us both, but he keeps saying things that make us worry about him, and – I need to find him. I thought you might be able to help?’ The carefully planned speech had turned out rather more garbled than Simone had hoped.

The woman’s mouth was pursed. She looked, more than anything, angry. She blinked once, slowly. ‘Are you pregnant?’

Simone swallowed again. ‘No.’ She drew an arm self-consciously across her stomach. Did she look pregnant?

‘OK.’ Sheila nodded. ‘So that’s not why he’s run away?’

‘No.’ What a thing to say, Simone thought, about your own son. What a cold woman she was.

‘And you don’t know why else he might have done one?’

‘No.’ It was best, she had decided, not to tell Mack’s mother about the letters they had received. She knew that Mack would not want his mother worried, even if the worst she had to worry about was her son’s mental health. Plus, ridiculous as it seemed to consider etiquette at a time like this, Simone was worried that Mack’s mother might be offended if she had not received a letter herself. She felt herself starting to shiver again, her hands trembling as she tried to hold her mug of tea steady. ‘We thought that maybe he’s been getting a bit stressed about work and stuff. I just thought maybe you could give me a clue about where he might have gone? Jazzy thinks the work trip Joe was on before he – well, you know, disappeared – was up in Lancashire or somewhere.’ She paused for a minute, trying to pull herself together. She was freezing. She was in a strange part of London. She was all alone and nobody else knew she was here. This dingy flat was so horrible, too cold and too damp and smelling odd. She could not imagine Mack having ever been here. She felt a sudden, horrible panic that she was losing sight of who Mack was, who he had ever been. She needed to find him. She had to. ‘That’s all we know,’ Simone finished softly. ‘Sorry.’

Sheila was silent for a minute or so, drinking her tea – rather noisily, Simone noted. Simone cleared her throat. She had to ask, awkward as it may be. ‘I wondered about Mack’s dad? Is there any chance he might have gone to him?’

Sheila’s face gave little away but Simone could see one side of her jaw steadily grinding up and down. ‘His dad? Why? What’s he said about his dad?’

Simone swallowed. ‘Nothing. He’s never mentioned him to me at all,’ she said truthfully. ‘I thought his dad might be someone he would go to if he wanted to, you know, get away from the rest of his life.’

Again Sheila blinked once, slowly. She hesitated, as though debating whether or not to say something, then shook her head rapidly. ‘No, sweetheart. He won’t be with his dad. He’s never known his dad.’

‘And you can’t think of anyone else? Anyone he might go to?’ Simone deliberately did not mention that Jazzy had already spoken to Keith, that Keith was steadfastly refusing to admit any knowledge of Mack or his whereabouts. She did not know how well Sheila knew Keith but she wanted to leave open the possibility that she might inadvertently give him away.

Sheila was quiet a minute, sipping her tea. She did not look like Mack at all, Simone thought. The eyes, of course, were different, and her skin was a couple of shades darker than Mack’s. The skinny build and the sense of pent-up nervous energy were the same, but otherwise Mack must have got his looks from his dad. Sheila looked up, a thoughtful look in her eyes, her mouth set in a puzzled straight line. ‘Lancashire? You think that’s where he was?’

Simone shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s the only information we’ve got. We know he was at least supposed to be going there.’

Sheila raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s Dan, I suppose. You know Dan?’

Simone nodded, although she didn’t, not really. She had met Dan and his wife at Mack’s university reunion and spent a couple of hours making polite chit-chat with them over dinner – she had even danced with his wife to Take That at the disco later – but it was stretching things somewhat to claim she knew him. ‘Yes, I know Dan,’ she said confidently.

‘He lives up that way somewhere, doesn’t he?’

Simone nodded dumbly, although really she had no idea.

‘Try Dan,’ Sheila said firmly. ‘He’ll know. He’s our Joe’s oldest friend and if Joe was up that way he wouldn’t have passed by without calling in to see Dan. He’ll know,’ she asserted again. ‘You got a number for him?’