Both of You Read online

  I am awash with kind comments from my friends, casual as they feel free to dive in amongst this, the most intimate relationship and make a judgement call. You did well there! Well-meaning colleagues chime in too, He’s one of the good ones! He is liked, popular. Exceptionally so. Since I started dating him, I have been somewhat overwhelmed by the constant wave of praise he garners. Before him I largely dated men that people rarely approved of, let alone admired.

  He is admirable. I can’t argue. Why would I even think of doing so? I have started joking that whilst people like me – they might even think I’m especially lovely, in fact – when they meet him, they like him more and they realise I’m actually the duff half of the couple! I make this joke with a smile in my voice, to show it doesn’t bother me. Because what kind of woman would I be if I was bothered that people like my husband inordinate amounts? I am not overlooked. If anything, people notice me more now that I am his, and that I have the boys. He is used to being centre stage. A wife dying so young begs attention, as does being a really excellent single dad. Mark smiles a lot; he likes being liked. I mean, who doesn’t? He doesn’t have to work at it. Even when he stops smiling, say to have a conversation with the Year 1 teacher about the kid who bit Oli, he’s still adorable. I’m so lucky he chose me.

  ‘It’s great that the weather hasn’t spoilt a thing!’ says Fiona.

  ‘I know, right.’ I shake my head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  She knows me too well. ‘OK, this is crazy, but you know how my mother gets under my skin?’

  ‘What’s she said now?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, nothing new. It’s just that when I saw the weather this morning I did have a moment when I couldn’t help but wonder, if there was a God was there a chance he was a bit miffed with me, feeling the brunt of my snub?’

  ‘Because you didn’t marry in a church?’ I can hear the amusement in Fiona’s voice. It helps. Her laughing at me exposes my silly superstition for what it is. Fear.

  I allow myself to smile. ‘I guess he’s not that annoyed anyway. He hasn’t sent a plague and pestilence, just grey skies and a bit of early morning drizzle.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty low-grade for a slighted Almighty. Maybe it’s Frances showing her displeasure,’ Fiona teases, poking me playfully in the ribs. ‘She’s up in heaven, looking down at you and she’s pretty pissed off that you’ve moved in on her hubby and kids and her home quite so swiftly.’ Fiona, who does not have a religious belief in her head, laughs as she says this. She squeezes my shoulder affectionately, to show me she’s teasing and means no harm at all.

  I shiver. It is chilly and my floaty, flimsy dress was designed and picked for a brighter day.

  ‘Look, you’re shivering! She just walked over your grave.’ Fiona howls at her own joke. I love Fiona, but we’re not very alike. I’m all careful and good. Or at least I try to be. She’s wild and fun and often makes bad choices. It’s part of the reason I love her. It’s unreasonable of me to feel uncomfortable. A moment ago, Fiona’s irreverence was comforting. It’s not her fault she always takes things too far and she’s just stepped over to tactless, tasteless. Fiona only ever sees the joke, the joy. She clocks the anxiety in my face and softens. ‘Seriously, Leigh, chill. The poor weather is a bit of a shame, but we live in England, crap weather is an odds-on favourite, not a surprise or a punishment.’ I nod, bury my nose in my flowers. I want the clean, rich smell of the roses to overwhelm me. ‘You do know that if there was such a thing as an afterlife – which there isn’t –’ Fiona rolls her eyes, dismissively – ‘but if there was, and if Frances were looking down, surely she’d be really pleased that her sons have found a new mum to love them.’

  ‘I’m not trying to replace her.’ This is something I’ve said a hundred times in the months since I met and fell in love with Mark.

  ‘I know you aren’t, but you will, because the boys will love you and they will forget her. They are only young. It’s for the best.’

  ‘How are you so sure?’ I mean about the boys retaining memories of their mother – or otherwise – but Fiona misunderstands me.

  ‘That there is no afterlife? Well, it’s a fairy tale, isn’t it? It makes no sense. I mean, what happens when you and Mark die if Frances is already up there holding a seat for him? Are you going to have a cosy little threesome? I don’t think a ménage à trois is your style.’

  She is right, of course; none of the stories about the afterlife make sense. Nor does it make sense that God would punish me for deciding to marry in a garden to save the boys’ feelings. If he is a vengeful God, he has murderers, terrorists and paedophiles to pursue. And from what I can gather – watching the news, reading online – those people often go unpunished.

  ‘Hey, Leigh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. Look, this is the best day of your life. You have the family you have always wanted, the family you thought you’d never have.’

  She’s right. There is nothing to worry about. Everything is going to be OK from now on. I have a family. It’s a miracle. I stop even flirting with the idea of there being a God. Or lucky people and unlucky people trapped by fate and predestiny. I decide to make my own way from now on.

  Mark is talking to a group of friends. He’s laughing along with whatever it is they are saying but I sense that whilst chatting with them, he’s also hunting me out. Checking I’m OK, that I’m not alone, that my mother hasn’t upset me, that the wedding logistics haven’t overwhelmed me. Things I’ve admitted to worrying about on the run-up to the wedding. We catch one another’s gaze; he smiles at me. It’s a warm, honest, open smile that completes me. I smile back, he blows me a kiss. I pretend to catch it. We both laugh. Then we each look about us again. Eyes scanning like a beam from a lighthouse. We simultaneously spot the boys, sat under the cupcake table, faces smeared with cream and delight. We are all having a perfect day. We’re going to make our way as a family and it’s going to be lovely.

  6

  Mark

  Thursday 19th March 2020

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Seb stares at his father, his dissatisfaction with that answer radiating. ‘Why hasn’t she rung this week?’

  ‘She’s probably been too busy.’ It’s a low move. A dig at his wife that pinches at the child but Mark is furious with her, so he doesn’t care.

  ‘She’s normally home by now,’ Seb points out. He sounds churlish and concerned. It’s clear he doesn’t know which way to go. ‘I need her to check my French homework.’

  ‘I’ll have a look at it.’

  Seb looks unimpressed. They are both aware that Mark knows little about conjugating irregular verbs, probably less than Seb himself and Seb is in the bottom set for languages. ‘You’re all right,’ he mutters and then slowly makes his way out of the kitchen. He hasn’t finished his breakfast, but Mark can’t be bothered to shout at him, insist that he should return to the table. He hasn’t got much fight in him, or at least what he has he’s keeping to vent on Leigh.

  Oli does not ask where his mother is, but he keeps glancing at the kitchen clock. It’s twenty-five past eight. Both boys need to be getting to school. They are going to be late. Normally Leigh is back just before eight, sometimes if the trains play up, she bounds through the door at five past. The sleeper train gets in at 7.07 a.m. Leigh is always off the train the moment it arrives into Euston. Keen to get back home and see the boys before they go to school, even if it’s only for a few minutes. She always calls if the train is running late. Always. She’s a stickler for planning and timetabling. She’s forever telling them that her success as a management consultant comes from the fact she is in control of her time, doesn’t allow a dead moment, maximises all the time she has, etc., etc. They often tease her about her slightly uncompromising approach but they all reluctantly accept that the structure she places on their lives is largely helpful.

  It’s definitely odd her not
being here. Her not calling all week. Mark should have known the boys weren’t going to be forever fobbed off with his unconvincing excuses that she probably had back-to-back meetings, that her phone was most likely out of charge, that maybe she’d even lost it.

  ‘Why hasn’t she just used the hotel telephone then?’ Seb asked.

  ‘She might have forgotten our numbers.’

  ‘What, all of them? Even the house number.’ Seb had looked contemptuous. He was twelve not six.

  None of them have heard from her since Monday morning. She always works away Monday to Thursday, but normally she calls them a couple of times a day, messages on a more or less continuous basis. Messages to remind them what she has left for them in the freezer, what order to eat the organic, homemade meals and how long they take to heat up. She might message to say what time football practice starts or whether there is a permission slip for something or other that needs responding to. Oli in particular is often saying her remote micromanagement is annoying. Mark suspects that, like the time management, Leigh’s concern is secretly appreciated. Often her messages are simply: Hi, hope you’ve had a good day. Hi, how was the maths test?!! Hi, just thinking of you.

  This week, no one has received a single message.

  ‘I’m not going to school, Dad,’ says Oli. ‘I think you should call the police.’

  The doorbell chimes through the house, it seems to everyone that it is louder than it has ever been before. It shakes the walls, thumps the silence that they are stewing in.

  ‘Is that her?’ Oli yells down the stairs.

  ‘I don’t think it is. Why would she ring the bell? She has a key.’ Yet Mark’s heart quickens a fraction because he wants it to be. He really does. Deep down somewhere, he feels something more powerful than reason, yearning and regret combined. He longs for it to be her; at the same time, he knows it won’t be. It can’t be. It would be a miracle. He wants the miracle; the problem is he doesn’t believe in them.

  Oli, as a sometimes surly almost sixteen-year-old, who spends a lot of time trying to convince his mum and dad that he cares about nothing other than video games and getting his hands on illicit alcohol – and that he cares about his parents least of all – is obviously agitated, no doubt very worried. No amount of shrugging or hair flicking can disguise the fact. Both the boys had refused to go to school. Seb had burst into tears and said if his dad didn’t call the police then he would.

  ‘Let’s just see, shall we?’

  ‘See what?’ Seb demanded. ‘She’s not here to see! That’s the point!’

  Mark waited until ten, and then when his calls to Leigh had gone unanswered and they had not heard from her, when there was nothing on the news to explain a severe train or tube delay, Mark had finally called the police.

  Hearing the doorbell has brought both boys out of their rooms. They are hovering at the top off the stairs, Mark is at the bottom. A matter of metres but somehow an unbridgeable gulf in that moment. Impassable. Too much. Mark knows he should say something comforting. He can’t think what that might be so instead he mutters gruffly, ‘I thought you were doing some schoolwork.’

  ‘Couldn’t concentrate,’ says Oli.

  ‘Got none,’ responds Seb.

  ‘Go and find something to do.’ Mark has an unfortunate tendency to come over a bit short-tempered when he is stressed. If Leigh were here, she would put a discreet hand on his arm to gently remind him to go easy on their boys. Her big brown eyes would silently plead for patience. They are frightened too.

  But she is not here. That is the problem.

  Oli mutters something, Mark doesn’t catch the exact words but gets the gist. Disappointment, disapproval. Fear. The boys stomp off to their separate rooms – hating the uncertainty but appearing to hate their father. Mark’s back bends with the weight of it all. He wants to fold to his knees, fall to the floor, but he has to straighten up. What sort of impression would that give the police if they found him prone and sobbing?

  Mark opens the door and feels something whoosh around his being. He shivers for no logical reason. It was probably just the cold air getting into the house, the warmth of the house escaping but it feels like it is more than that. Mark’s life – as he knows it – rushing out, and trouble charging in.

  They tell him their names and show their badges. The woman, DC Clements is the more senior. The man – a boy really – says he is Constable Tanner. Aware that the boys – Oli almost certainly – will be lurking about, still within earshot and straining to absorb everything that will be said, Mark quickly confirms that yes, he is Mark Fletcher and yes, he called them about a missing person, his wife. Then he hurriedly invites them into the sitting room.

  Mark finds himself staring at their uniforms – their radios, their torches, bulky belts and heavy boots – which seem dramatic and belligerent in the family front room. The Fletchers’ house is pretty standard. Possibly a bit messier than average. Most of the furniture is from Next. The soft things are shades of grey and beige, the various tables – console, coffee, side – are a light rustic oak. Matching. Leigh likes things to match. Not that anyone generally notices what does or doesn’t coordinate when visiting the Fletchers because of the mess and clutter. On the other hand, no one is likely to notice that the sofa is a bit saggy, even stained, and the tables have coffee cup rings on them. The war wounds the furniture has picked up over the years – through the boys spilling drinks or not using coasters – are largely covered up by the debris of family life: magazines, newspapers, ironing piles, school bags, books and sports kit. They are the sort of family that gather around the TV most nights. Other than Oli; Oli prefers his own company and mostly skulks in his room unless tempted out by food. A lot of their junk is dumped in the hall as soon as they come home from school and work, but a fair amount makes it into the sitting room too. From time to time Leigh or Mark lose patience with the mess, usually when they’ve lost something – the remote control, a set of keys – and then they threaten a clear-out. Sometimes, they even get around to it. Mark feels a physical pain in his chest as he recalls that Leigh made an effort and tidied the kitchen on Sunday, but she didn’t get to smarten things in here because everything kicked off. The police are still standing.

  ‘Have a seat, take a seat,’ he offers. Both officers turn to the sofa and their gazes seem to drift across the mess, a bit helplessly, hopelessly. Mark sweeps at the clutter, carelessly shoving books and trainers off the couch and onto the floor. ‘Please sit down.’ He sounds overly insistent. An instruction, rather than an invitation, which is regrettable. He doesn’t want to come across as aggressive. He wants them onside. He needs them to see him as everyone sees him. Mark is generally known as an easy-going sort of bloke. The secret is, he is not. Not really. Well, not always. Who is? It is just what he is known as. Reputations are not always fair or accurate. Not constant. Some are hard won and easily lost. Others gained easily but harder to shake.

  But no one could expect Mark to be feeling easy right now.

  DC Clements smiles and sits down. As she does so, she gestures to the chair opposite hers and Mark takes it, obediently. It is his house but it’s clear to all of them that she is suddenly in charge. Mark doesn’t mind. He needs her to be. He guesses at the police officer’s age – he puts her in her early thirties but her brief yet calming smile suggests a cool confidence beyond her years. Mark has been making jokes about the police looking like kids for a while. When he does so, Leigh tells him not to go on that way. ‘It ages you,’ she insists. Leigh doesn’t look her age and avoids admitting to it if she can.

  Even though they are sat opposite each other, with a coffee table between them, Mark can smell cigarette smoke on the policewoman’s breath and clothes. He tells most people he meets who smoke, what a disgusting death cancer is. People allow him to do that because he lost his first wife and it would seem disrespectful not allowing him to vent. To crusade. He doesn’t bother giving his speech to the policewoman. He imagines she knows as much about horribl
e deaths as he does. Mark thinks that maybe he would smoke too, if he had her job.

  ‘So, you’ve reported your wife missing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long has she been missing?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her since Monday morning,’ Mark admits.

  ‘It’s Thursday lunchtime, sir.’ The ‘sir’ seems purposeful. Ostensibly respectful but in fact distancing, challenging. It’s the male officer who says this. He has red acne spots erupting around his jawline, announcing the fact that – in relative terms – he’s just crawled out of childhood. It’s all ahead of him. The glory and gore of life. ‘Why have you waited until now to call?’

  ‘She works away Monday morning to Wednesday and then gets the sleeper train from Edinburgh Wednesday night. We normally see her Thursday breakfast. I wasn’t aware she was missing until she didn’t show up this morning. She’s a management consultant. She’s currently working for a wind energy company based up in Scotland.’

  ‘But you’ve called her place of work to confirm she was at work, Monday to Wednesday so not missing, just not at home, right.’ Mark doesn’t like the casual way the young policeman makes statements and simply lifts his inflection at the end of the sentence, hoping that passes as a question. Mark thinks he ought to be more formal, more thorough. He shakes his head.