Andy was smiling sceptically. He looked at Fiona, keen to be convinced.
‘Shut up about the bloody gardener,’ she snapped. ‘Ems just told me that Matt’s gone missing.’
‘Missing?’ echoed Andy. He frowned.
I looked at their puzzled, expectant faces and I shook my head in defeat. ‘I’ve got no idea where in the world he could be,’ I told them.
I supposed that I had known that they would rally, but I was still overwhelmed at their kindness and the wave of relief it brought.
Fiona took Alice to the end of the garden to play swingball. She took her mobile with her, presumably to cancel her afternoon tryst with Didier. Andy took it upon himself to repeat all my calls to hospitals and police forces, and left a new barrage of messages on Matt’s mobile.
The sun was beginning to slide down the sky and the still air became infinitesimally cooler. Andy refilled my glass and squeezed my shoulder. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, Emma, and I’m sure you’ve already thought of it, but is there any chance he could be with a lady friend?’
I turned and stared. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Can you be quite sure?’
‘Yes, I can.’ This was an option I had barely considered. I had dismissed it out of hand. Matt would not have an affair, and, besides, if he was leaving me for another woman, he would not have done it like this. Nobody would. ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘Why do you think he is? Did he ever say anything?’ I remembered Fiona describing Andy as ‘no angel’ and winced at the idea of the two of them swapping stories. ‘What did he say?’ I needed to know, at once.
Andy looked away. ‘Nothing, really.’
‘What? You can’t get this far and not tell me what he said.’ Andy said nothing. I raised my voice. ‘Andy! You have to tell me!’
Andy pulled the foil off the champagne bottle. ‘I’m sorry, love, I really am,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You’re a super girl. It’s a little bit delicate.’ He looked around to check that Fiona was out of earshot. ‘I’ve played away a little over the years,’ he said quickly. ‘Fi might have mentioned it. I’m back on the straight and narrow now, of course, but I mentioned something to Matt and asked him whether he’d ever indulged, what with all those nights in his bachelor pad in London on his own.’ I winced. ‘I’m so sorry, Emma, I really am. It was just laddish bollocks. He wouldn’t say anything, really, but I remember what he did say, because it stuck in my mind. He said, “I might tell you everything one of these days.”’
He stopped talking and watched me. I did not know how to react.
‘So that’s all it is,’ I said eventually. ‘Matt’s traded me in for a younger model.’
‘He hasn’t,’ Andy said at once. ‘He’s a good guy. If he has messed around, it wouldn’t have meant anything. He would never leave you. He bloody adores you and Alice. Not to mention the house, the whole lifestyle thing. I was more thinking, well, if he’d been with a lady, he might not have been in London. We should maybe be casting our net a bit further afield, if you catch my drift.’ Andy leaned back in his deckchair and drained his glass. He looked strained.
I drained mine too. I was nearly drunk. I did not know how I was going to get home. Drink and drive, I supposed.
Bella arrived at lunchtime the next day. She swept into the house, ran a hand through her long hair, and threw herself onto a chair.
‘This heat!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t know how you stand it. I feel like an old tea towel. You look like one. How about a G and T to perk us both up?’
I nodded, and poured two large drinks. ‘How much was the taxi?’ I asked. I had bought tonic water that morning, specially. Bella had always liked a gin and tonic. Fiona had dosed me up on Valium the night before, and had taken Alice away to stay overnight with Coco and Louis. Alice had barely protested at all. I had, therefore, enjoyed a reasonable night’s sleep. I had woken that morning to a rush of terror. This, I was certain, was the day. Today I was going to discover the truth. I was bleak and numb, because after what Andy had reported, I knew that there was a lot about Matt’s life that I had never suspected.
‘Enough,’ said Bella. ‘It was fine.’
I looked at Bella. Her thick black hair flowed down her back, and she was wearing a rust-coloured Ghost dress. Her face was thin and shining with sweat.
‘Have you lost weight?’ I asked.
‘Mmm. South Beach,’ she confirmed.
‘Is that low-carb?’
‘Yep.’
‘Would it be better if he was dead?’ I mused. ‘If he’s fine, he must be with a woman. I suppose amnesia and alien abduction are the best options.’
‘Which is a sorry state of affairs,’ pointed out my sister. ‘Amnesia only happens in the movies. Alien abduction only happens in America.’
I looked at her, desperate for answers. ‘What do you think?’
She returned my gaze, levelly, weighing her words. ‘I think Charlotte will find out today, one way or another.’ She looked around. ‘Alice asleep?’
‘No. She stayed at a friend’s house last night. Being around me all the time wasn’t doing her any good. She’d started asking me whether Daddy’s plane had crashed. Oh!’ I brightened up suddenly and told Bella about Fiona, the gardener, and Alice’s innocent query. Bella roared with laughter.
‘She asked this woman’s husband why his wife was off on a dirty weekend with the gardener?’ she bellowed. ‘That’s fabulous. Good old Alice. I can’t wait to see her. When’s she back?’
‘I said I’d fetch her.’ I looked at my drink. ‘I hardly used to drink before we moved here. Then I never had more than a glass or two of wine, until this happened. Now I’ve been half drunk since yesterday afternoon. It’s nice. But we’d better go and pick her up sooner rather than later because luckily this is my first drink of the day and I haven’t actually drunk it yet. You can meet my friend Coco.’ I looked at Bella and tried to smile. ‘I think you’ll like her.’
‘I’ve never heard you talk about friends before,’ Bella remarked as we buckled ourselves into my little car. ‘Life here seems to agree with you. Apart from this business with Matt, you seem to be doing pretty well. Mum and Dad can’t wait to get out here and see you.’
‘I’d almost forgotten about that. They’re coming Thursday?’
‘Mmmm.’ She looked around. ‘It’s absolutely gorgeous, Ems. The house is going to be wonderful, too.’ She looked at me, and seemed to stop herself saying something. I knew what she was hesitating from asking. Would I stay here if Matt had gone? I did not have an answer. The prospect was too baffling and terrifying to contemplate.
‘Don’t ask,’ I said. I knew she understood.
As we stood on Coco’s doorstep and pressed the buzzer, Bella looked around. St Paul was quiet, as it always was except on Saturday, because that was market day. The dry-cleaners below the flat was closed, since it was Monday. We looked down the end of the road to the main square and the church. A few people were strolling around, most of them heading in the general direction of the only shop that was open on Monday, the little grocery. The sun was hot and high and the town seemed to have shut its eyes in response. I loved the town. It had come into its own during the summer.
‘This is “town”?’ Bella asked doubtfully. ‘It’s not a metropolis, is it? Sweet and everything. Hardly bustling.’ She touched my arm. ‘Darling, doesn’t it make you crave Soho? It would me. I would go insane here.’
I shook my head. ‘
Bonjour
, Coco,’ I said to the intercom. ‘
C’est moi
.’ She buzzed us in. ‘No,’ I told Bella, as we started ascending the stairs. ‘You know me. I wasn’t exactly out clubbing every night in England. I love a quiet life. It suits me here.’
Alice ran into my arms and buried her face in my shoulder. ‘Mummy,’ she said. ‘Mummy Mummy Mummy. I love you too much, Mummy.’
I hugged her tightly. ‘I love you too much, too, sweetheart. Have you had a lovely time?’
She pulled back and cupped my cheeks with her hands. ‘Yes. Where’s Daddy?’
My heart was heavy. I wished I could answer. ‘Daddy’s not back yet,’ I said quickly. ‘But look who’s come to see us instead!’ I pointed to Bella.
‘Bella!’ Alice yelled. She headed towards her, then looked round. ‘Where’s Felix and Oscar?’
Bella smiled. ‘In London. They’re going to come to see you very soon. Do I get a kiss?’
We accepted coffee, and clutching their delicate pink espresso cups, Bella and Coco quickly disappeared into Coco’s bedroom, to go through her wardrobe. Bella spoke reasonable French, and Coco and I had spoken English so regularly that Coco had improved enormously since I had known her. I could hear laughter and coos of admiration coming through the walls.
My big sister had long despaired of my fashion sense. I had been through phases, like everyone else. During our teens, Bella had managed to keep me vaguely abreast of fashion by taking me shopping with her and kitting me out with my meagre allowance. Since then, I had been through a period of only wearing black, a phase of jeans and T-shirts, and now I was happily settled into a new system, whereby I would put on anything that came to hand and avoid mirrors. Fiona had led me by the elbow into her favourite boutiques in Villeneuve, but I had walked straight back out again. I could not afford to spend any money on clothes. I was not interested in spending money on clothes. I looked after Alice first, Matt second, the garden third. I had bought some espadrilles and a cotton hat at the beginning of the summer. Matt always told me I looked beautiful and sexy no matter what I was wearing.
As a fashion journalist, Bella spent much of her time sitting by a catwalk, making notes into a little book, before crafting an article for her readers, advising them about what they would need to buy for their autumn wardrobes. She dressed her little boys in shorts and cotton shirts in summer, and cords and duffel coats in winter, and they always looked adorable. Their hair was honey-blond and short on the backs of their necks.
Coco was fascinated by clothes and spent evenings perusing fashion magazines and mentally assembling her autumn wardrobe. She had things dry-cleaned, downstairs. She ironed everything, not just her child’s school essentials. She folded her clothes with lavender bags between them. She plucked her eyebrows every other day, styled her hair, and put on her make-up as soon as her feet hit the bedroom floor in the morning. She dressed her little boy in shorts and cotton shirts in summer and cords and a duffel coat in winter. Naturally, Coco and Bella hit it off at once. I felt excluded, but in my haze of terror, I was quite relieved. I tuned out of their conversation and devoted my energies to imagining Matt curled up in sexual bliss with a slender, flawless seventeen-year-old, without stretch marks. This imaginary lover had long auburn curls and creamy skin, and Matt was so infatuated with her that he had abandoned me and Alice, and was never going to see either of us ever again.
I felt as if I had been skewered through the stomach. It had happened. I could invent masochistic fantasies to torture myself, but they were perfectly realistic. If he wasn’t with a pre-Raphaelite teenager, then he was with a twenty-five-year-old skinny blonde, or a forty-year-old mother of three. The details were irrelevant.
I forced the images out of my mind, and concentrated on the children. I asked them what they had had for breakfast (croissants and hot chocolate at a café, as a treat) and where they had slept (at opposite ends of Louis’ bed). I barely noticed the answers. My stomach was in knots. I prayed that I would shortly find out the truth, however awful it might be. I could not bear myself in this state of limbo.
‘Have you packed up your bag ready to come home?’ I asked Alice, trying to focus on the details and make the minutes pass.
‘Not yet,’ she replied happily. A phone started to ring. I jumped nervously at first, before remembering that I was not at home so it would not be for me. Then I realised that it was not Coco’s phone that was ringing, but Bella’s, and that it was coming from her handbag on the table. I snatched the bag and retrieved the phone from a jumble of receipts, tissues and loose change.
I looked at the screen as I was pressing the button.
‘Charlotte!’ I exclaimed.
‘Hi, Bella,’ said my other sister. She sounded too languid for my liking. I hoped she had news. ‘Just saw him, the bastard. Like we thought. He’s at work. Went out for lunch.’
‘He’s at
work
?’
Charlotte sounded alarmed. ‘Emma?’
‘Yes, it’s me. He went to work? He’s gone to lunch?’
I felt blank. I had no idea what I should have been feeling. Was I relieved that he was alive? Or furious? I mentally struck alien abduction and amnesia from the list of possibilities. Matt was neither lying dead in his flat nor unidentified in hospital. In fact there was only one possibility. He had left us, and he hadn’t even bothered to tell me.
Charlotte’s voice changed. It became softer, sympathetic. ‘Ems. How are you bearing up?’ she asked.
‘Tell me everything. Did you see him this morning?’
‘No. I loitered around his office a bit at half eight, but I didn’t see him arriving. I decided to try again at lunchtime before striding in and demanding to know where he was, because if he was there I didn’t want to frighten him into hiding. So I rolled back up at half twelve and sat in the Starbucks over the road. He came out at ten to one. He did look a bit scared, I have to say. He had a good look up and down the street, but obviously deemed it safe and set off at a brisk pace.’
‘Did you follow?’
‘Naturally. I had taken the precaution of getting my coffee in a takeaway cup, so I just folded my paper and ambled after him. I was quite the Kay Scarpetta.’
I could imagine exactly how Charlotte had enjoyed herself in that role. ‘Where did he go?’ I asked.
‘To a caff. A greasy spoon type of place. Ali’s Diner. It’s just round the corner from his office. Full of officey types having fry-ups. He sat there for a bit and then another bloke in a suit came and joined him. Matt looked a bit hunted on his own. But when this bloke came along, he relaxed. They’ve been laughing. They’re still there.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m outside. Looking in.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘You tell me. What I would
like
to do is to walk in there, pick up his egg and chips and deposit it on his head, then take his mate’s coffee and drench his groin. Or I could hand him the phone so he has to speak to you. What do you want?’