‘Family problems?’ probed the stranger.
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I’m on a mission.’
I took out my book and frowned at it, rejecting any further attempts at eye contact. The train rattled through south London. I started staring out of the window. I began to recognise landmarks on the horizon. I saw the Canary Wharf tower pointing skywards in the distance. That marked my destination.
Matt did not work in the tower itself, but in an office block nearby. I easily found the Starbucks that Charlotte had used as the nerve centre of her stakeout. It was perfectly placed. There were a few tables and chairs outside, in honour of it being August, though the afternoon was cool and all the customers were indoors. I sat down at a table near the kerb. I would definitely see him coming or going from there. It was five o’clock. He used to leave just before six. At least, that was what he had always told me.
After five minutes, Charlotte strode down the road. I gave her a small wave, and she accelerated her pace. I stood up as she came close. My sister Charlotte was strikingly pretty. Her bright blonde hair was long and wavy. She wore red lipstick, tight black trousers, and a red top. I saw men in suits watching her. Charlotte loved attention. That was why she was an actress.
We kissed, and she rubbed my shoulder. ‘Poor Em,’ she said.
‘I’m OK,’ I lied. ‘I just want to know what’s going on.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s low, so low, what he’s done to you. I hope you’re going to give him hell.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. It feels like it’s happening to someone else. I can’t imagine what’s gone on.’ I stood up to go inside. ‘Coffee?’ I asked. ‘Still on the buckets of latte?’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘Not when I discovered how many calories they put in them. Can I have the smallest latte they do,
tall
I think it’s called, fair trade, and get them to make it skinny?’
‘Tall, skinny fair trade latte,’ I said. ‘You’re just trying to make me look silly. Where I come from, you have coffee, or you have coffee with milk.’
On the way in, I caught sight of myself in the glass of Starbucks’ window. For a second, I did not recognise the woman who gaped back at me. In my mind, I looked young and innocent, like a grown-up girl. My mental picture of myself was unobtrusive. I was a little dark person who kept to the sidelines, and whose life was her family. When I was pregnant with Alice, I had studied myself in mirrors and windows at every opportunity, and marvelled at my round belly and the incredible fact that I was making a human being inside it. Since her birth, I had shied away from my appearance. My role as a mother had overshadowed the small amount of vanity I might once have possessed, and as a rule I could not have cared less how I looked.
The woman who looked back at me from the plate-glass window, however, was a farmer’s wife after a hard day in the fields. I was wearing a pair of three-quarter-length jeans which had once been my most presentable clothes but which now had unshiftable green gardening stains; a pink T-shirt that had been bleached by the sun; and this summer’s green espadrilles. I could have done with a jacket. My hair was sticking to my head, unwashed for several days. I was, naturally, devoid of make-up and shiny of face.
I wondered what Charlotte had thought when she saw me. Her face had given nothing away, but then again, she was an actress. I suddenly deeply regretted turning down Bella’s offer of a makeover.
I looked round. Charlotte had lit a cigarette.
‘I’ll just be a second,’ I told her, and I turned and walked quickly towards Canary Wharf itself. I followed a sign for shops, hoping that I had time in hand before Matt left work. I knew that Charlotte would catch him for me if she had to.
The first clothes shop I saw was a branch of Gap. I had long avoided their shops on principle, because of Third World child labour, but today I didn’t feel I had the choice.
‘Hi,’ beamed a young man stationed by the door. He seemed delighted to see me.
‘Hello,’ I told him, slightly baffled, and I hurried to the clothes. I saw sales assistants watching me. They probably thought I was a shoplifter, a single mother desperate to clothe herself and her children. With a jolt I realised that I
was
a single mother. It was temporary, I was determined of that, but for the moment I was a lone parent. Coco had assured me that I could do it on my own. She had been wrong.
I walked over to the woman with the nicest face. She was just a girl. She could not have been more than twenty.
‘Hi!’ she said cheerfully, her face betraying no alarm at my scruffiness.
‘Hello. I need your help,’ I told her urgently ‘My husband’s left me and I need to get him to come back. I’ve just realised what I look like – I’ve been a bit distracted. Can you make me look half decent in the next ten minutes?’
She grinned. ‘Sure we can! What size are you? I’d guess a twelve UK? Or fourteen? What colours do you like?’
I opened my mouth to protest that I was a size ten in British sizes, thank you very much, before realising that it was probably not true any more. The last thing I wanted was to squeeze myself into clothes that were too small. I did not want to pop buttons and strain seams just to attempt to prove a point.
I thought of Coco’s chic wardrobe, which was full of white and beige, black and grey. ‘Neutral colours,’ I suggested. ‘Classic and chic, maybe?’
‘You got it.’
Twenty minutes later, I sat down opposite Charlotte, feeling much more confident. I was wearing black, wide legged trousers that still felt a little tight despite being so big, a black Lycra top with an absurdly flattering wide neckline, and a neat little cream raincoat. My feet were already aching in a pair of boots with small stiletto heels.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Weird disappearing act. You look great. You should have let me help.’
‘Sorry,’ I said with a smile. ‘I saw myself in the glass. Not pretty.’
‘Bought you a latte.’
‘Thanks.’ I sipped it. It tasted of slightly burnt, coffee-flavoured milk.
Charlotte rummaged in her capacious handbag. ‘Got you!’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Right. Come here.’
I moved my chair closer, and she applied foundation to my face with the expert touch that I recognised from years before.
‘You used to do this when we shared the flat,’ I remembered.
‘Bloody right,’ she said, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Only because otherwise you’d go out with nothing on your face at all. Someone had to make you care.’ She held up two lipsticks and considered them with her head on one side. ‘Dark red,’ she said, after a minute. ‘Subtle but sexy. And a bit of mascara and eyeliner and we’re done.’
Charlotte told me about her life while I kept my eyes firmly on the door to Matt’s building. I half listened to her stories about her ‘boyfriend’, Antonio, who was
divine
, and her ‘fuck buddy’, Bradley, who was
scrumptious
. Men left the building in a constant stream, but Matt was not among them. They wore suits and talked in loud voices, often into mobile phones. They were busy, impatient to be in transit, keen to get to where they were going.
By six thirty, we were getting cold. The exodus was tailing off, and I knew that Matt was not going to appear.
Charlotte gathered her things together. ‘Let’s give him half an hour,’ she suggested. ‘I’m frozen here. Let’s go inside and have hot chocolate and cake at that window table.’
I nodded. As I stood up, I looked up and down the street. Instantly I noticed a familiar figure standing on the corner. Without looking at Charlotte, I ran towards him as fast as I could. He saw me, and turned and walked away briskly. I shouted his name. As I rounded the corner, I saw him trying to disappear into the crowds, so I yelled his name again.
‘PETER ALISTAIR SMITH!’ I roared.
Pete had almost been running in his desperation to escape me. When he heard me shouting, he, and all the other busy commuters in the area, stopped, turned, and stared at me. I trotted up to him, hobbling slightly in my new boots. It was clear, from the expression on his face, that he would rather have been absolutely anywhere else in the world than here, near his office, with me.
‘Pete,’ I said. ‘Where is he?’
Pete groaned. I looked at his brown hair, which was longer than it used to be, touching his collar. I looked at his acne-scarred skin. I felt the old distaste. ‘Hello, Emma. I don’t know.’
‘You fucking do know!’ I was surprising myself. ‘I know you know. Give me some credit, you twat. Where is he?’
Pete held up a hand. ‘Look, don’t involve me, all right? This is nothing to do with me. This is between the two of you.’
‘I know. I don’t want to involve you either. Christ, you know that. But I’ve got to find him. Was he at work today? Were the switchboard lying when they said he wasn’t?’
Pete sighed. ‘No. Switchboards don’t lie. I don’t think they’d have much truck with the idea of covering some poor sucker’s tracks.’
‘Where is he?’
Pete was looking around, searching for an escape route. ‘Look,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll tell him he’s got to call you. Have you got a mobile? I’ll tell him you’re here. I agree with you, the two of you need to talk. He owes you that. Where’s Ally?’
‘
Alice
. She’s in France, asking why Daddy hasn’t come home.’ I thought about it. ‘Give me the address of where he’s staying, Pete. You may as well. Let me go to him and get it over with. I don’t care if she’s there, whoever she is – I’m taking a wild guess that there’s a she?’ Pete’s face confirmed it. I felt sick. ‘I’m not asking you to tell me anything,’ I said. ‘I just need to find Matt, so I can go home to my daughter, who needs me more than she’s ever done.’
I stared at him. He looked back into my eyes. He looked for so long that it became disconcerting. I did not look away. He didn’t either. It was a charged look. For a minute I thought of our shared history, of his inexplicable obsession. Then I pushed it from my mind. That was irrelevant and had been for many years. It would be embarrassing to him even to mention it.
I tried, instead, to read his eyes.
‘Just tell me this,’ I said quietly, not taking my eyes off him. ‘Am I in the right city?’
Pete held my gaze. ‘Yes. You’ll find him. And when you do, I’m sorry. All right?’
He squeezed my shoulder. I thought he was trying to give me a serious hug, so I pulled back and walked away.
A drop of rain fell on my cheek. The rush of workers walking briskly across the square had finished, abruptly. I walked back to Starbucks, where Charlotte was waiting with hot chocolate, and told her what had happened.
‘Go in,’ she said. ‘See if he’s there.’
‘He’s not.’
‘But ask anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘Nothing to lose.’
The foyer was large and brightly lit. An obese security guard with thick grey hair was sitting at the reception desk, looking bored. I hung back. Charlotte strode up to him.
‘Hi!’ she said, with a wide smile. He smiled back.
‘Hello, love,’ he said. ‘What can I do you for?’
‘Right,’ she said, lowering her voice confidentially. ‘We need your help. We’re after a man.’
He raised his eyebrows and leaned towards her. ‘Any man in particular?’
‘Yes. Matthew Smith. He works for BB Johnson. Can you tell us if he’s here?’
The guard nodded and took out a booklet. He traced his finger down a line of numbers.
‘Smith, Smith, Smith,’ he said. ‘There’s a few of them. Hugo Smith, BB Johnson? No, here we are, Matthew. Same extension. Must be confusing.’
Charlotte nodded, with a bright smile. I watched the man punch in the digits. I could hear the phone ringing through the earpiece. It rang and rang.
‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘No doubt you ladies will locate him in the pub.’
Charlotte shot him a dazzling look. ‘Thanks. We’ll try. Have a good night.’
I did not think the man had even noticed I was there.
Then, suddenly, I was lost. Matt was not at work. He was in London, and I was in London. I could walk around this city for months, for years without stopping, and still not bump into him. Pounchet was a universe away. I tried to picture Alice, and Bella, and Jon and the twins, and Coco and Louis and Andy and Fiona. I wondered what they were doing, in their various places. Wherever they were, whatever they were up to, they were in the countryside, and it was quiet.
I, meanwhile, was feeling foreign. I knew London. I knew it well, yet I felt far removed from all these people.
‘Thanks, Charlotte,’ I said sadly. ‘I’ll head off, I think.’
‘What do you mean? There’s loads we can do. We haven’t tried any of the bars.’
‘He won’t be in a bar. He knows I’m after him. I’m going to go. Thanks.’
‘But where are you staying? Come home and stay at mine. There’s supposed to be a little party later. It might cheer you up.’
I shook my head and walked away. A gentle drizzle was barely falling. Drops of water were hanging in the air. I headed towards the river and stared at the workers sitting in bars. Some of them were still sitting at outside tables, anaesthetised to the weather by alcohol. I could smell their drinks as I walked past. Jackets rested on backs of chairs. Men drank pints, while most of the women seemed to have a glass of white wine in front of them. Bags of crisps were torn open and placed democratically in the centres of tables. Everybody was talking. Bursts of laughter reached me. Excited chatter. In-jokes about office life. A woman squealed, ‘NO!’ in exaggerated disbelief. Men threw back their heads and guffawed in parodies of themselves. I had never felt more of an outsider. I walked past them, down to the water’s edge. This was where Matt had been coming for all these months. This was where he had been engineering whatever had just happened. This was his world. It was not mine.
I looked round. Charlotte was not following me.
In front of me, a queue of people was waiting by a sign for river buses. I stood at the back, and got onto the boat. I wanted to be away from Canary Wharf. I was not sure where I was going, so I decided to do whatever everybody else did.
The river was wide and grey. I looked across the water, at the Millennium Dome and at Greenwich. London’s topography was curiously familiar, yet utterly alien. I stared down at my hands, which were trembling. Even so, they were the best part of me. I was glad Fiona took me with her for manicures. When I got home I would try to lose a stone and take more effort over my appearance. I thought my new clothes had helped me shout and swear at Pete, for all the good it had done me.