The Missing Person's Guide to Love (27 page)

‘It’s a pity she’d moved away by the time Julia disappeared. The whole thing was buried so quickly. If Maggie had been around she would have made people talk about it.’

‘I buy all her books. I don’t really read them but it seems disloyal not to.’

‘Is her identity out of the bag, then?’

‘It’s an open secret. People want to believe it’s someone who still lives around here so they pretend it isn’t her. Different names come up, usually women who live in old cottages on their own with lots of cats, but I think everyone who knew Maggie knows that she is Eva Carter.’

We flipped through the pages of the album for another half-hour. By now I was seeing double and my mouth was struggling to pronounce words properly.

I yawned.

‘I’ve worn you out, Izzie. You’ve had a long day. I expect you’re ready to sleep now. Is your stuff at the guesthouse?’

‘Yeah. I’ll leave it there and get it in the morning.’

‘Maybe we should phone to let them know you’re not coming.’

Now that I was snugly at Kath’s, Doreen Fatebene’s big house distorted itself in my mind. It was cold and creaky with hundreds of dark rooms and long, narrow corridors. Empty beds rocked and clattered in the rooms, as though the place were caught in a storm at sea.

‘I don’t think they’ll notice, not until breakfast. I could slope in then.’

‘I’ll give them a ring,’ Kath said. ‘I’m a bit tipsy but I think it’s for the best.’

Kath’s lips were stained black. Mine must have been too. I wiped them with the back of my hand and accidentally scratched my chin with my thumbnail. It hurt, and for some reason this surprised me.

I gave Kath the number for the Lake View. She dialled it and slurred into the phone that I wouldn’t be coming back tonight, after all. Doreen Fatebene wanted to know why and what had happened. She said my bag was a security issue and she might have to call the police. Kath gave her address so that the police could bring the bag round, if necessary. She was laughing as she put down the phone.

As we cleared away our plates and glasses, Kath said, casually, ‘So, had you kept in touch with Owen?’

‘Me? No. Not at all. I’d almost forgotten about him.’

‘I thought you might have kept up your friendship, you know, when that stuff was all over. I thought the two of you might have stayed – uh – friends.’

‘No.’

‘Did you try?’

‘No.’

I told Kath of my suspicions. I did not mention my day’s work, just that I had always wondered about Owen and what he might have done one afternoon in 1982.

Kath considered my words. ‘Funny how when the idea’s in your head it’s hard to shake it out again. I always assumed some stranger in a car abducted her, someone who didn’t live round here. That was what they led us to believe, isn’t it? Awful for her parents. Her mother became an alcoholic after that.’

‘She was already an alcoholic, wasn’t she?’

‘Was she?’

‘I thought so. Or her father was. I’m not sure any more.’

Kath had got it wrong, I knew, but it didn’t matter.

‘I might be wrong about Owen,’ I said.

‘We’ll never know.’

I considered this a disappointing response. We might find out, if only people would make the effort.

Kath changed the subject. ‘I always envied you, Izzie. It’s hard to believe, in the light of what happened, but I felt envious and relieved at the same time when you and Owen were arrested. You’d had this adventure without me. And yet, of course, I was glad I hadn’t gone out that day and ended up in the same situation. I was very confused about it all.’

‘If you had come with us, I’m sure we would never have done it. You were a good influence on people.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You were.’

‘I should have written to you or visited you and Owen in prison. Especially you. I could have visited you easily.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t exactly round the corner.’

‘I was scared. I think I was waiting for you to say that it would be all right, that I could go. I wasn’t able to make that kind of decision for myself. I always wondered what became of you. I’m so glad it’s turned out well. Your life has been more exciting than mine.’

Kath stroked the corner square of the crocheted blanket, poked her finger through one of the small holes. Her guilt was nice to know about but it changed nothing. I didn’t want Kath to pity me. I don’t think I would have wanted her life.

‘I always knew it could so easily have been me.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It would never have been you.’

‘I almost came with you to the boat that day. I remember.’ Kath’s eyes misted and she rubbed her nose.

‘But you didn’t. You stayed at home to study. That was you.’

‘And look how things turned out. But you’re back now. The job application might have been a strange moment of madness but, still, won’t you want to come home more often now that you’ve done it once?’

‘I’ll have to see. This was a special occasion.’

I would sort it all out before morning. If there had been no Elif or Mete, I would come back, of course, but it was not so simple. Would Mete want to come and would I want him to? Would it be good for Elif to live here or would the place poison her too? Or would I poison Elif by returning to Istanbul and not solving the problems here? All I had to do was work it out in my head. Then I would know the answer, I could tell the police, and I could leave. It was not worth telling Kath about the allotment. We had found nothing. It was a secret between John, Annie and me. We turned out all the lights except the one in the hall, and I followed Kath upstairs. She showed me to the spare bedroom. It was large, with a double bed and an old-fashioned dressing-table, a tall oak wardrobe. The room looked out onto the street. Beyond the terraces of small houses I could see the school playing-fields. There was a piece of clothing, a sweatshirt perhaps, between the goalposts. I leaned my back against the window to feel the sharp, cold glass on my arms and neck. I was smiling. Kath moved about in her room for twenty minutes or so and then her light went off.

I am in the garden again. There are no clear sounds, no birds or cars, but the night is noisy with the swaying of trees, water trickling from roof tiles, down pipes and drains. I am thinking of Maggie and trying to understand about Leila. I remember the pink mug on the shelf above the sink with L
EILA
in black capital letters. Who was drinking from that mug?

I call Bernadette.

‘Yeah? What? Can’t you sleep tonight?’

‘Bernadette, when you flew out to Istanbul, was there someone with you on the plane? You said something about a friend but I didn’t pay attention at the time.’ I use my free hand to rub my legs, try to warm them. My jaw is stiffening with cold.

‘There was Leila. Didn’t she talk to you?’

‘
Leila?
’

‘We sat together on the flight but we didn’t talk much. It was Leila’s idea for me to do the trip. She had air miles and helped me out with my ticket. I thought I told you that.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

I am panicking now, trying to remember conversations I had with Maggie that make no sense at all. All of a sudden everyone seems to think Leila is real.

‘Do you know what she wanted to do in Turkey?’

‘She lives there. She was going back to her husband. You know, the three of us were all in Maggie’s house at almost the same time, but you two never got to meet each other. We’re like sisters, in a way.’ Her voice is growing quieter, smaller, as if she is running away from me, into the distance, into rainy West London streets. ‘I don’t know if I can afford this call. Is it charging me as well as you?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how it works. I’ll hang up now. Take care, Bernadette.’

‘Yeah, ‘bye.’ Her voice is tiny now, a speck of sound, and it disappears.

I must have slept. I am awake, not rested but confused, and I pick up Owen’s letter and the copy of
Goose Island,
stuff them into my coat pockets. My sense of why I’m doing this is vague. I walk down the street as I walked up it yesterday.

Here I am, now, near the reservoir. I’m hiding behind the beech trees. Julia has just passed by. I hold my breath and watch her edge along the path. She seems nervous. She must know what’s going to happen. Against the green water she looks too solid, too heavy. I can see her back and legs but not her feet. It is as though she is walking just a few centimetres above the ground. She steps soundlessly through the air, away from me and back towards the village. I won’t follow her. I breathe the dank water. Mallards and coots sleep somewhere out of sight. I’m having an adventure. Elif s spirit is playing with my shoes, bumping around at my feet and I know she will be safe. Perhaps I will fetch her from Istanbul. I will bring her here to share my life. The lake blinks its heavy green eyelids. I have come far enough and I must stop here.

Another beep from my phone. The tiny screen lights up. A text message has come from Mete.
Günaydin
, it says. Good morning. I press Names and scroll down to Mete’s number. Then I press Options and Erase.
Erase Mete?
it asks me. I don’t know.
Erase Mete?
But I don’t know. I don’t think he is talking to me any more. The message is meant for someone else.

I am almost at the spot where Julia disappeared. And then I see something. A kind of light I never noticed before, a gap between the trees that was always just air. I see the car – clearly green, not blue – and I see Julia again. She is still walking. I realize I have always been able to know what happened to Julia. It is not a mystery at all. Owen is nowhere to be seen. It has nothing to do with him. Owen did not kill Julia. He did not harm her. The blood on his shirt must have been his own. I am so excited I want to run back to the house, wake Kath to tell her what I know, but I do not. It is not the right time yet. Julia was safe, but what about the rest of us? There is the bag of newspapers. There is the car. I walk to the tree and sink down to look at the reservoir. I drop the book and the letter into the water, swish them back and forth with my hand, and push them downward.

I am in bed. The sun is up. I have slept for another couple of hours. Kath is still sleeping so I tiptoe out once more. I set off to retrieve my bag from the Lake View guesthouse. The tricycle is still there in next door’s garden. I whisper good morning to it and step up onto the garden path. As I approach the door, it opens and a figure pops out. I scream, a quick but shrill sound, like a silly woman who has just seen a mouse. It is my aunt Maggie.

‘Isabel.’ She almost jumps. She drops her suitcase and her face breaks into a wide smile. ‘Fancy seeing you. What are you doing here?’

‘I came to Owen’s funeral.’

She hasn’t aged one bit. There are no wrinkles, no crevices around her eyes and lips, no sagging pockets of flesh, but she has gone rusty. Her auburn hair is wiry and tired, her nails polished in brown. Patches of dark orange smear her forehead and chin.

‘So it
was
you I saw from the car last night. I banged on the window but you didn’t seem to recognize me. How thoughtful of you to come. All the way from Istanbul?’

‘Yes. You’re too late, though, Maggie. It was yesterday.’

I think of Owen and me and the kite. I smile to myself. Now I know that I was safe with Owen all along, it is all right for me to remember. This is a new feeling. I like it. My eyes are filling with tears. I grimace and blink them back. I don’t want Maggie to think these tears are for her.

‘Oh, I know that, Izzie. No, unfortunately I couldn’t get here any sooner. There was a sort of clash with something else I had to do. So I’ve hired a car and come up now for a few days to give Sheila some support. You know how these things are. The funeral is only the beginning.’

‘So how come you’re staying here?’ I nod towards the guesthouse. I am finding it easy to sound cold, to make her nervous. Maggie is uncomfortable. She doesn’t want me to ask these questions.

‘Sheila’s house is full until tomorrow. Apparently they have several elderly relatives staying. They’re leaving today and I’m going to stay with her for a few days, maybe longer. It doesn’t matter too much about the funeral, at least I hope it doesn’t. I never knew Owen very well, not as well as you did.’

‘How’s George?’ My voice is smooth, my posture perfect. Maggie is taller than I, but we both sense that I am looking down on her.

‘He’s fine. He often asks after you. We’re married now. I suppose I told you that. We went conventional in the end, as you see. I always read your email messages out loud to him. He’s a bit long-sighted for the computer now, I’m afraid. He leaves everything to me but then that’s the way I like it. You really should come and stay some time. Oh, give me a hug.’

I allow Maggie to hug me. I touch her back, in what I hope is a vaguely patronizing gesture, and put my cheek almost to hers for a mimed kiss. Doreen Fatebene presses her face against the window and watches.

‘Guess where Leila is,’ I say.

‘Leila?
Leila?
I haven’t the faintest idea. What do you mean, exactly?’

‘Leila. Where is she?’

‘I never heard from her after she went to – uh – where was it? New York?’

But Maggie’s eyes are darting all over the place. The parts of her skin that aren’t orange turn candy-floss pink. She avoids eye-contact with me and lifts her lips into a stiff smile.

‘Maggie, didn’t we agree a long time ago that Leila doesn’t exist?’

‘Oh. Yes. Actually, I don’t remember—’

‘You seem confused. Does she exist or doesn’t she?’

‘She does.’

‘Is that right?’ I can see the workings inside Maggie’s head, little clicks around a circuit that switch on the small, single lightbulb. Ping. She’s got it.

‘There once was a real girl called Leila, but she wasn’t with me for long. I adapted her to help you. You needed a role model. I think – I think you were rather nervous when you came to stay and were very intimidated when I talked of Leila and Bernadette. You wouldn’t go out and do anything so I changed Leila’s character to inspire you. I’m sorry. It was a foolish thing to do. I’d forgotten all about it. But look how it made a difference to your life. Look how you went off and travelled because of me. But, really, I had forgotten about Leila.’