The Missing Husband (25 page)

Alan had been there too, and as David crossed the room, he accidently stood on the train set his dad had been busily constructing on the floor; a train set he said was for his grandson but everyone knew was for him. Chaos had erupted as Alan yelled at David for not looking where he was going and then Luke woke up and began to cry. Sally appeared soon after bringing Steve and their unfinished argument into the living room but Irene had simply looked over to Jo, the only other person in the room who had remained calm, and they had shared a contented smile. It had been a typically raucous if not entirely perfect Taylor Christmas.

Holding on to that memory, Jo wasn’t sure what she was going to say until she started saying it. ‘Yes, there were arguments, but with David and me it was mostly over silly things because we both liked to have the last word. But the man I remember
loved
being part of this family,’ she said with a passion that frightened her. Her mouth was dry and her pulse raced as she stopped resisting where her heart was taking her. ‘I don’t care about the money or what he’s been up to and I think he’d know that I would forgive him anything – eventually. He should be here, Irene. He
loved
Christmas and he
loved
coming over to be with you and all the family. Don’t you remember? Alan was the same.’

Irene had followed Jo’s gaze and strained her eyes as she searched through the tinsel-covered branches for her own memories. Then she smiled. ‘Alan dressed up in my red satin pyjamas one year and tried to convince the boys he was Santa Claus,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘The daft sod split the pyjama bottoms and terrified the kids.’

Feeling all the more certain of her convictions, Jo said, ‘They weren’t men who resented family, they thrived on it. You can’t spend seven years of your life keeping up that kind of pretence and you certainly can’t spend
thirty
years doing it. They loved their families. They
loved
us.’

Irene shuddered as she too felt the goose bumps that were prickling Jo’s skin. ‘So what would stop him coming back home?’ she whispered. There was desperation and fear in her voice when she added, ‘I’d know if something bad had happened. I’m his mum. I’d know it in my heart.’

‘And what is your heart telling you now, Irene?’ Jo asked, even though she wasn’t sure she was ready for the answer.

Irene kissed the baby’s head again before she spoke. A tear trickled down her face and splashed his cheek. As Baby Taylor squirmed, he managed to wipe the tear away with his tiny, mitten-clad hand while his grandmother lifted her head and took a deep breath. ‘It’s telling me my sons are both going through a stubborn and selfish phase. It’s like they’ve reverted back to being toddlers,’ she said flippantly. They had both come too close to resurrecting their worst fears that would prove far more painful to face than betrayal and desertion and it was Irene who led the retreat. ‘And it’s also telling me that this child deserves a better name than FB.’

For once, Jo didn’t object to opening up the never-ending debate about a name. ‘I know he does, but the only names I ever remember David mentioning were Barry and Archibald. I think I actually prefer FB.’

Irene’s broad smile gave her voice a certain lilt. ‘Archibald was my father’s name.’

Jo had thought she was beyond being shocked for one day but her jaw dropped. ‘David wasn’t joking then? It actually meant something to him?’

Very carefully, Irene turned the baby until he was facing them both. He yawned lazily and his flickering eyelids chased away the last of the shadows that had been creeping into the room. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Does he suit it?’

Jo looked down at her baby’s cherubic face but when her heart reached out, it yearned for David rather than their son. Why hadn’t he told her what had been going on with his dad? She could have helped him work things through; she would have done things differently. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here on Christmas Day?

‘Well?’ Irene asked when Jo still hadn’t replied.

‘Welcome to the world, Archie,’ Jo whispered as her thoughts turned away from the past that scared her to a future that terrified her.

20

After Christmas came New Year and soon after, Jo’s birthday which wasn’t spent dancing around a bonfire in Iceland but at home, pretending not to listen out for approaching footsteps. And when there were no occasions left that she was obliged to celebrate, Jo was allowed to settle into as much of a routine as the baby would allow, although it felt fair to say they coexisted in the same house rather than lived together. She was still waiting for that blissful moment Heather had described where she would make that elusive connection with her son – with Archie – but although she could remember that warm rush of love when he had been born, the guilt she harboured over his conception and then his premature birth was like a dam that grew more impenetrable by the day. She loved him but she wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of that love. She didn’t deserve it and she had an unshakeable conviction that Archie knew that too.

Following the sage advice of family and health visitors, Jo kept Archie to a strict night-time routine of bath, bottle and bed. So after immersing her complaining son in warm water she proceeded to dry and dress him. True to form, Archie refused to co-operate and Jo could feel the heat rising in her cheeks during the struggle. The flush was undoubtedly a reaction to her exertions but the merest suggestion of a panic attack brought forth the anxiety anyway. As soon as she had fastened the last press stud on his pyjama sleeping bag, she picked the baby up and tried to soothe him but Archie fought against her. Her fraught attempt at a cuddle gave neither of them comfort and her heart was hammering by the time she put him down in his bassinet with a sigh of defeat that was all but drowned out by her son’s wails.

She hurried into the kitchen to warm up a bottle. It took longer than she would like but she refused to close the kitchen door, she needed to hear her son crying. The sound was a flail to her own skin, but Archie had every right to punish her for being the incompetent mother who had brought him into this miserable world.

When she had everything ready, Jo picked up the bassinet complete with wailing child. With practised ease, she folded the stand and took everything she needed upstairs where she set the bassinet up again next to her bed. Finally there was nothing left to do but pick up her son again. He was bright red with fury and she knew from painful experience that there was little point in trying to feed him. She rested him on her shoulder and, after pacing the floor for five minutes without success, she found herself drawn to the nursery that he wasn’t due to occupy for a few months yet.

‘Please, sweetheart, shush,’ she begged, patting his back in a slow, steady rhythm that belied her growing agitation. The baby’s cries grew louder. ‘Please, Archie, please shush so I can feed you.’

Jo looked at the cot with its handmade quilt and was tempted to lay him down on it but she was terrified that if she did, she might not have the courage to pick him up again. Instead, she reached over and found herself winding up the mobile. She could barely hear the music above her son’s cries.

Next, she went over to a small side table and switched on a lamp. Its warm light created sunflower-shaped shadows that danced across the wall but it was the piece of paper lying on the table that drew Jo’s attention. It was Archie’s birth certificate, which had found a temporary home in the nursery, perhaps because she hadn’t felt ready to slot it into the rest of her life just yet.

She had been to register Archie’s birth on her own and along with the baby’s name, the registrar had recorded those of both his parents. She stared down at David’s name in print. Would he approve? Or would he want the father’s details to have remained missing, much like the man himself? Maybe he would prefer to rip the piece of paper up completely so they could start again.

Still struggling to believe such things of the husband she had adored, Jo tore her eyes away from the certificate and concentrated on her wailing son. She sat down on the rocking chair in the corner of the room, a new acquisition from one of her dad’s shopping excursions. Her mum had made the cushioned seat to match the sunflower theme perfectly.

Jo began to rock Archie back and forth, the long, sweeping motion of the chair intended to relax mother and child but her tentative movements couldn’t disguise her desperation and the smooth rocking quickly became disjointed and jerky. Her breathing was ragged and her ribs ached from the pounding of her heart. ‘Please,’ she whispered through dried, parched lips.

She wondered what David would make of her feebleness. He had been good at helping her rationalize her fears and chase away her anxieties, but her demons had never been so terrifying or so fierce. Even he would have struggled to help her conquer them now. Still, he wouldn’t have left her to deal with them on her own, she told herself as she squeezed her eyes shut and imagined him appearing behind her and whispering in her ear …

‘You can do this, Jo,’ he said.

Jo stopped rocking and for a moment at least, Archie’s cries eased. She could feel David’s arms slip around them both, feel his breath on her cheek as he told her, ‘No, keep moving. Rock him back and forth, slowly does it.’

She pushed her toes into the floor and the chair tipped gently backwards before coming forward again. Back and forth, back and forth she went in a steady rhythm that she and Archie both relaxed into. Even Jo’s breathing and her pulse began to slow.

‘Why don’t you try to feed him now?’

Jo did as she was bidden and so did Archie. The sense of victory warmed her heart even as she felt David’s arms slip away. She opened her eyes to find the room achingly empty. Above the sound of Archie’s steady gulps, the music was still playing and Jo allowed the lyrics to float across her mind.

‘I still love you, David,’ she whispered. ‘You are my sunshine and I need it back. I need you back.’

Archie’s eyelids flickered open at the sound of her voice. He blinked twice, his gaze never leaving hers as his lids grew heavier and he drifted back to sleep. It was the barest connection but it was enough to make her smile again. He had looked at her and he hadn’t cried.

When January slipped into February, Irene suggested that it might be a good idea for her to get in some practice looking after Archie. She hadn’t expected Jo to accept the offer so readily, but arrangements were quickly made to drop the baby off for a few hours one Saturday afternoon. There was a part of Jo that felt nervous about leaving Archie with someone else after weeks of being his sole carer, but in her heart she knew that the baby would be no worse, and possibly better off, with his grandmother.

As she sat in a small café looking out on to the high street, Jo was thinking of David. No, not thinking, that was the wrong word. She was
looking
for him, deliberately choosing a table with a view of the outside world so she could scan the faces of passers-by. She wondered if she would ever stop watching and waiting.

Tearing herself away from her hopeless search, she picked up a spoon and started to make shapes in the foam floating on her cappuccino, but David followed her in her thoughts. She breathed in coffee-scented steam and recalled the times they had sat here together. The Neighbourhood Café was only a few miles from their home and after a long walk to one of the nearby parks they would call in for brunch as their reward. She would have a healthy granola while David would indulge in a full English breakfast with extra bacon, knowing Jo would steal it from him.

There was a blast of icy air as the door opened and when Jo looked up she fully expected to see David standing there in front of her, his beaming smile like a beacon in the darkness.

‘I’m not late, am I?’ Simon panted as he shrugged off his jacket and took the seat opposite Jo.

‘Have you been running?’

Simon looked sheepish. ‘I was in work this morning and got a bit delayed.’

Above the smell of coffee, Jo detected aftershave. ‘You didn’t have to get changed on my account.’

‘I wouldn’t want to turn up on a hot date smelling of dust and mortar,’ he quipped then immediately began to squirm. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was completely inappropriate. Sorry. Stupid of me. I’m so sorry, Jo.’ When he finally stopped blustering, Jo was smiling at him.

‘Yes, I might have been offended if your own reaction hadn’t been quite so funny. Thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘For making me smile. It doesn’t happen very often,’ she said but then her eyes narrowed. ‘But just so you know, I didn’t get you here under any pretext. I still love my husband whether he deserves it or not.’

Simon lifted his hand in surrender. ‘I didn’t for a minute think you had any ulterior motives. If I did, I wouldn’t have come out with that smart remark, honestly. And congratulations by the way, or did I say that already in my ramblings? Is the baby doing well?’

‘He’s doing just fine,’ Jo told him, ignoring a tiny pang of guilt for the relief she had felt when she had handed him over to Irene.

While Simon placed an order for fresh coffees, Jo took in her surroundings. The café had once been a grocer’s shop and it still held on to remnants of its previous life. The Victorian tiles on the walls were partly obscured by shelving that held tributes to the past rather than the wares that would once have been proudly on display. She could make out the faded lettering that clung to the window above the shop entrance, a telephone number that would no longer be answered … the parallels with her own life were painfully clear to her.

‘So, you want to know what David and I talked about?’ asked Simon, his earlier embarrassment now forgotten although the blush lingered on his cheeks.

Jo nodded tentatively. She knew that David had visited Simon only a couple of weeks before he went missing. The two men drank in the same pub and David had been tasked with passing on the best wishes of all the regulars as well as their colleagues, although Jo was more interested in what else her husband might have said. She wished she could be certain that he had disappeared of his own accord but there remained a niggling doubt that was based on nothing more than the belief she and Irene clung to that David was a decent and loving man, a doubt that Simon might be able to add weight to.