Conrad & Eleanor

Title Page

For Mick

C
onrad and
E
leanor
have been seeing each other for eleven months when Eleanor becomes pregnant. It is 1975. They are at Cambridge.

‘Annie says the people at the university clinic are good,' Eleanor tells him. It is sunny and they are sitting on the wall outside the pub looking down into the canal. Conrad watches a mother duck shepherding her brood in and out of the weeds at the water's edge.

‘Good at what?'

‘Advice. Fixing it.'

‘Fixing what?' he asks stubbornly, knowing perfectly well that his slowness will only make her more impatient.

‘Abortion, what do you think?' Eleanor looks across at the gangs of other students sprawled around the tables. ‘Why are you being so dense?'

‘I don't agree with abortion. I mean —' quickly, as she turns to face him, squaring up for the argument, ‘yes, a woman's right to choose and all that, but unless it's a rape or something – I mean, within a relationship, shouldn't it be discussed?' His voice sounds craven in his own ears.

‘What will we discuss?' she says in a reasonable tone. ‘How I'm going to look after it while I do my house job? Or you are, working eight hours a day in the lab? Or what we're going to use for money?'

‘We can discuss it,' he says doggedly.

‘Keep your voice down. There's no need to tell the world.'

‘OK. Let's walk along the canal.' If this is the only time it will be discussed, then they will discuss it now, for good or ill. But Eleanor is objecting.

‘I've got to be back for a histology lecture at 2.'

‘Fine. There's an hour.'

‘You've got to inject your mice.'

‘The mice can wait.' He stands aside to let her go down the steps to the towpath. It is too narrow to walk side by side.

‘So what d'you think I should do? Give birth and have it adopted?'

‘Of course not.'

‘What then?'

He feels a sudden spacey unbalancedness, as if he were starting across a tightrope. Head up, one foot in front of the other; don't think of the drop. ‘We could get married.'

‘
Married?
'

‘Yes.'

She keeps on walking in front of him, he can't see her face. The silence extends.

‘Why not? People do. They – they get married and have children.'

‘What for?'

He pretends to laugh. ‘Because they want to.'

‘Do you want to?'

‘Yes.'

She turns. ‘You really want to get married?'

The spark of anger he feels is a relief. ‘Yes. Is that so strange? We're going out together, you're expecting my child, I want us to get married.'

‘But it never entered my head.' She begins to walk on. After a while she says, ‘I don't think it's a very good idea.'

‘Why?'

‘We're too young. I mean we'll both probably meet other people we like.'

He knows she will.

‘And in terms of our careers the timing's terrible. If we
were
going to get married and have kids, in five years' time might be about right.'

‘Yes, but this has happened now.'

‘OK. But I could have an abortion now and we could still choose to get married and have a family in five years' time, if we really wanted.' Her tone shows him how unlikely she thinks that is.

‘In five years' time one of us could be dead. The abortion might lead to sterility, you might never conceive again —'

‘You're being ridiculous. The whole point is, women can have control of their fertility.'

‘So what went wrong here then?'

‘I don't know.' El is on the pill.

‘I rest my case.' He can see what is going to happen as clearly as he can see the rubbish clogging the canal up ahead. If she has an abortion it will lie between them. A mucky connection. She will use it to move herself on. But the more he cares, the easier it is for her not to. He has a vision of two kids on a see-saw, one clinging on fearfully, and the other, at the extreme end, gleefully bumping and jolting up and down. He forces himself to speak lightly. ‘You just had a proposal of marriage.'

‘My third.' She turns and smiles at him, then leans in and touches her lips to his. ‘I'm honoured. I'm going to histology, but I'll think about it.'

He wonders who the other two are. Philip Marlin would be one. But he doesn't know the other.

‘Four actually,' she says, ‘if you count Timothy Evans at primary school.'

‘Fine. I'll see you tonight.'

When they meet after dinner Eleanor has already called at the counselling centre. ‘I was cycling past at 5
and they were still open.'

‘And?'

‘If I said I didn't know who the father was, it would be simple.'

He can't think of a reply.

‘You would never have considered marrying if this hadn't happened.'

She's right. Why is he thinking of it now? He hates her. Let her do what she wants. With every word he says to her he is exposing himself further. ‘Yes, I would.'

She sighs theatrically and folds her arms. ‘Oh yeah.'

‘Look —' His mind is blank.

‘I'm looking.'

‘Look, it's simple. You're pregnant, let's get married.' He feels his hot blush rising.

‘Is it some antiquated notion of honour? You've ruined my reputation so now you must do the decent thing? Is it that?'

‘No. The reverse.' At last, lucidity. ‘Exactly the reverse. I want us to make a commitment. I want to live with you. I want it to be permanent. It's not cool, it's not what any of our friends are doing. But you being pregnant – gives us the excuse.'

The tiny silence before her reply is encouraging. ‘You were waiting for this to happen.'

‘No. I didn't know it would. Of course not, you're on the pill. But now it
has
happened, I can see it's what I want.'

‘What about me?'

‘I don't know.' There is a relief in having said it. Whatever happens. In having stated his position.

‘Neither do I.'

Gathering out of his relief, swelling with the force of it, comes a magnanimity which astonishes him: he can pity her. She doesn't know what she wants. He does. He loves her and that makes him vulnerable, she could damage him with her not caring. But now in a swoop the positions are reversed: he is fortunate, knowing what he wants. She is the lost one. In the safety of his secure footing he can wait, and whatever happens will not be all loss. ‘OK. When you know, you can tell me.'

After a moment she bursts out laughing. ‘Thanks. What if I never know?'

Her laughter has broken their immobility – it is possible to reach for her and pull her into a hug. Their bodies are warm together. ‘You haven't got that luxury. You've got – what's the cut-off point? Fourteen weeks?'

She shakes her head. ‘If I go in the next week they can do suction. I'd be in and out within the hour.'

‘Like cleaning a car.'

‘What?' She is laughing.

‘Suction. One of those vacuums they have at garages.'

‘That's disgusting.'

‘Yes. Don't do it.' He kisses her. He can feel the power. It has transferred from her to him. He can kiss her, he can pin her arms to her sides, he can walk her slowly backwards and lower her to the bed; raising his face from hers he can tell her, ‘Don't move', and undress her garment by garment while she lets him raise first arms then legs in his hands, watching him, her eyes almost blank with surprise and lust. For the first time, Con has the power.

Knowing it makes it happen. She says yes, as he knows she will. You can't make happen what you want to happen. But when you shift from wanting it to knowing it, it happens. It comes to you, whatever you desire, it comes and offers itself up.

E
leanor is late
setting off for home on Monday, 10 February 2003. She has had to hang on at work for the phone call from the symposium organisers, who seem to have forgotten the time difference between Chicago and the UK. When she finally gets to her car it is encrusted in two days' worth of melted and refrozen snow, with the de-icing spray locked inside and the lock iced up. She cannot remember what time Con's flight got in but it was almost certainly afternoon – he will be home by now. Sod it, she will leave the car and take a taxi.

But on this bitter winter night everyone has the same idea; the streets of Manchester are crawling with cabs all cosily packed with passengers. She picks her way to the corner shop, buys a new can of de-icer and some milk, and walks gingerly back down the slippery street to liberate the car.

It is 9 by the time she gets home, but there are no lights on in the house. For a moment she's bewildered. Then: good. Maybe his flight is delayed. Of course. Weather. There're no messages on the answerphone. For an hour she works rapidly, drawing ­curtains, turning up the heating, defrosting soup and bread, clearing the weekend's unopened post and newspapers, unpacking her bag and putting on a wash, making the house feel lived-in again. No one would guess she has spent a whole luxurious weekend with Louis. She checks Ringway arrivals; flights from Germany all seem to be on time, there was one from Munich at 17.05. By 10.15 it's too late to wait any longer and she eats half the soup and has a whisky, before going to check her email. Maybe he met up with someone at the conference and is stopping over. Maybe she actually got the day wrong. There are quite a few emails but mostly junk and none from Conrad. She has another whisky and listens to Radio 4 news at 11 (no plane crashes) then goes to bed. It's fine. It is as if she has been here all weekend.

In the morning she has a quick scout about to see if he left his flight times anywhere – on his desk? On the corkboard in the kitchen? She always leaves hers, it wouldn't have hurt him to. Before she heads for work she scrawls him a note.

Thought you'd be back last night. Give me a ring when you get in. Dinner with health service bigwigs, home late.
El xx

When she gets home that night the note is where she left it. She taps in his mobile number and, predictably, it goes straight to answerphone. He never switches it on, it's pointless him having a mobile. She sends a brief text: ‘Where are u? E x', but he won't pick that up either. He must have gone on somewhere. Their daughter Cara is the most likely person to know. El rings her in the morning.

‘Mum. D'you know what time it is?'

‘It's 7.30 and I have to leave for work in two minutes.'

‘Well, I don't.'

‘Sorry. Listen, d'you know when your father's coming back?'

‘I didn't know he was away.'

‘That conference. He went to that conference in Munich.'

‘Mum, I don't know, I haven't spoken to him – I'm going to have to pee now you've woken —'

‘OK, I've got to go. Call me if he rings, will you? Bye.'

That night she returns early, half expecting the house still to be empty. It is. But there's a message on the answerphone. Tina, Con's research student. ‘Hi Con, are you OK? Sorry to bother you at home but you said we'd go through my results today. D'you think you'll be in tomorrow?' So, he was expected back at work. El wants to talk to Louis, who she has not seen since the weekend, and she texts him but there's no reply.

After Eleanor's eaten she goes through Con's desk more thoroughly, looking for conference hotel bookings, and then through his email inbox, looking for online flight confirmation. Nothing, it must be on his work email.

Who else was going? George and Anita probably went; she turns to their number in the address book then hesitates. If anything bad had happened she would have heard. What if Conrad never went to the conference?

The doubt only enters her head for a moment, teasingly. Of course he went. It's likely that one of the kids at least knows where he is. She phones the other three in turn. Paul doesn't answer his mobile. Megan is on a bus going home from a rehearsal and thought he was coming back on Monday. Daniel is in his room with a very loud TV on and all he knows is Dad was going somewhere last week.

She turns again to George and Anita's number. It is 10pm; if she doesn't ring now it'll get too late. How stupid, what's she fretting about? He's a grown man; if he's too rude or incompetent to tell her when he's coming home why should she chase after him like a mother hen? She makes coffee and settles down to proofread her
British Medical Journal
paper. Paul rings back, he's surprised Dad's not home, he thought the conference ended on Sunday. ‘I was going to come round tomorrow night.'

She starts to say, ‘Well, you still can —' then remembers she's giving an evening lecture, but Paul wanted to see Con anyway about some new computer program Con is using at work. Eleanor puts the slight fractiousness of the conversation down to Paul's having been drinking, and says goodbye without further chat; in his answering ‘Goodnight then' she detects plainly that he is offended.

There is nothing for it but to phone George and Anita. Louis texts her back as she starts to dial. ‘Can talk at 10.30?' Her whole being is resistant to phoning George and Anita. Cosy marital double act, George-n-ita. Who each know how many times that day the other went for a piss. Who will be politely astounded that she has no idea where her husband is, and are the last people she wishes to share that information with.

‘Hello George? It's Eleanor —'

‘Sorry love, wrong number.' The voice is male, impatient, slight­ly contemptuous. She slams the receiver down and dials again.

‘Hello?'

‘Anita, hello, Eleanor here – yes thanks, fine. And you? – Good. I was ringing about the conference last weekend – yes – did you by any chance take the same flight home as Con?'

‘We didn't fly together – no – I don't know when his flight was. George and I got a lunchtime flight back from Hanover on Sunday, it was my niece's twenty-first —'

‘Oh.'

‘Why? Is anything the —'

‘Did you talk to him at the conference, Anita? How did he seem?'

‘Has anything happened? What's the matter?'

‘Nothing – nothing, I just wondered.'

‘He was quiet. George and I both noticed that; we asked him if he wanted to have dinner with us on Saturday night but he said there was someone he needed to talk to and I said to George, poor Conrad does look a bit —'

‘I see. Thank you, Anita.'

‘But what's the trouble? Is he ill?'

‘No. No. I – he didn't say anything about meeting anyone – going on anywhere?'

‘But why don't you ask —'

‘He hasn't come home.' In the brief silence she is amused by the vision of the cogs going round in Anita's head.

‘Oh El! Where on earth can he be?'

‘He's almost certainly stopped off with friends – he may even have told me before he left and it's slipped my mind, that's why I'm asking.'

‘Oh. Well, I'm really sorry, I don't think I can shed any light – let me just ask George.'

Eleanor hears her palm clamp over the mouthpiece, the solidity of her flesh sealing up her conversation with her husband. Eleanor is ready when the hand lifts.

‘Never mind, thanks awfully, Anita, I'm sorry to have ­bothered you —'

‘If we think of anything we'll —'

‘Yes, there's nothing to worry about, I'm quite sure. Love to George. Bye now!'

OK, where is he? What has he done, the idiot? He was at the conference, he hasn't come back. Tina was expecting him at work today. Eleanor leaves Con's office and heads back to the kitchen, pacing the length of the room. He's missed his flight, that's the most likely – missed his flight and not got onto another and can't cope, sitting in a heap somewhere like a sulky child. He will need rescuing. He was barely functioning at home – the complications of airports and shuttle buses have been too much for him. When she thinks of him she has that familiar sinking of the heart; he has gone downhill. Is this how Con will get old? Depressed, dysfunctional? Why oh why didn't she leave him while the going was good? A little flare of excitement: what if something really has happened to him, and he doesn't come back? It is the dutiful teacherly El who rounds up the sparkles from this firework and brushes them into a corner. For shame. Have you no heart? No no no! she laughs to herself, and her child-self kicks up her heels and cavorts. To be free of Con! To be free of Con without being the bad guy, without dragging them both through separation, without carving up the house, without the children's recriminations (which would all of course be aimed at her) – a get-out-of-jail-free card, how good would that be?

At the expense of his safety, his health, maybe his life? chides teacher-El. For shame.

Then El suddenly remembers Con. She remembers him running along the beach towards her with toddler Cara perched on his shoulders, he's a bull charging the matador, he's ducking his head and shoulders and Cara is screaming with delight and El is laughing and dodging and her skin is tingling with anticipation for the moment he will catch her. It's Con, who she loves. She slumps against the kitchen counter. What if he's with someone else?

She's already thought it of course but now concentrates. Who would want him? Bitch. Because he's dumb and sullen with you that doesn't mean he can't be charm itself to another woman. So: he's with someone else. Who reflects back to him a charming, funny, clever Con, instead of a depressing failure. The familiar clamour of exculpation starts up – OK, she tells herself, OK it's not your fault but that doesn't change the facts. He
is
a failure. If he thinks he is, he is. With someone else he won't be. Of course he's with someone else.

The punch lands. She crouches, back against the cupboard, arms clasped around herself, holding herself together. Con laughing with someone else, lightly touching her arm. Con alive and happy and funny and competent and not with her.

Slowly she pushes herself to standing again, ashen with self-­disgust. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. As her mother used to say.

The phone rings. Paul again. ‘I've been thinking, when did you last speak to him?'

El can't remember. ‘Last week sometime?'

‘But he's phoned you since he went?'

‘No. Why should he?'

‘You haven't spoken to him for a week, Mum? Or texted?'

‘No.'

There's a pause. ‘Shall I come round?'

‘What can you do?'

‘I'm coming round.'

It's getting late now. She remembers tomorrow. It's the deadline for her grant application and there are still several questions outstanding. She hasn't practised her evening lecture; there's a research committee meeting. She'll have to go in at 7am to prepare. What's to be done about Con? Nothing. She'll get her freedom because he's found someone better, and it will serve her right.

She tidies the dishes, puts the kettle on, and turns on the outside light for Paul. She wishes he wasn't coming. But then he arrives on a waft of cold air and alcohol.

‘Should you have driven? Aren't you over the —'

‘Mother, stop.' He peels off his coat and they head to the kitchen where El makes them tea. ‘Did you have a fight?'

‘No.'

‘He didn't say anything about —'

‘Nothing.'

‘So where d'you think he is?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘So what you gonna do?'

‘He's a grown man. If he's choosing, for whatever reason, not to come home, presumably in the fullness of time he'll let me know why.'

Paul puts his mug on the table and paces the kitchen.

‘Look, Paul, if something was wrong I'd have heard. He's got his passport, his mobile, his laptop —'

‘How long you gonna leave it?'

‘Till what?'

‘Till you try to find him?'

El laughs. ‘How can I try to find him? He's in Germany. Or could be further afield by now, if he likes. How can I find one man, in the world, if he doesn't want to be found?'

‘But why would he go and not tell anyone? What's he done?'

‘I'm assuming he's with someone else.'

Paul stops. ‘Do you know?'

She shakes her head.

‘Did you guess? Did he act like —'

‘No.'

There's a silence. ‘But why shouldn't he, eh?' says Paul. ‘You make me sick, you two.'

El drains her tea and stands up. ‘Me too. We make me sick too. But there we are. I've put clean sheets on Dan's bed if you want to stay.'

‘What about the police?'

‘The police?'

‘They trace people who're missing, don't they?'

‘Not if someone has gone off on his own volition.'

‘Why wouldn't he tell one of us? Why wouldn't he tell Cara?'

‘Because he's punishing me, I suppose.'

‘We can all keep a secret from you,' says Paul drily. ‘I promise you, none of us knows where he is.'

‘Well, it would be a waste of police time. You ring the police if a ten-year-old doesn't come home, not an independent adult.'

Paul is staring into the grain of the table.

‘Paul? I'm going to bed.'

He doesn't answer. As El undresses she remembers she forgot to phone Louis.

El is asleep when her phone rings. She leaps up, knocking over her water glass as she grabs for the phone. This will be it. But the phone twinkles CARA at her.

‘Hello?'

‘You've bolted the door. I can't get in.'

El pulls on her dressing gown. Paul appears in Dan's doorway. ‘Is it —?'