The Missing Person's Guide to Love (7 page)

‘Did he stay with you for long?’

‘Hardly at all.’ He was steady again now and raised his voice to prove it. ‘Just weekends, here and there. But each time he came he did something to my flat. Some people have to be doing useful things all the time, don’t they?’ He looked me up and down, then down and up. ‘You look as if you don’t like to sit around waiting for your nails to dry. You look as if you get up at six and go to the gym before breakfast. Myself, I’m pretty lazy. When I’m not working I’m sleeping. But it always seemed to me that Owen worked harder than he needed to.’ He smiled at me. ‘I’ve still got one of the fish. It’s cute. A lot fatter than it used to be, but it doesn’t seem to have grown much longer. Maybe I give it the wrong kind of food. I can’t afford to buy the most expensive brand. I know fish food doesn’t cost much, but anyway . . .’ Helooked out over the lake. ‘A friend ate the other one.’

‘The other fish? That’s disgusting.’

‘Yeah. I’ve always felt bad about it. I told Owen it died of fungus but actually it was swallowed alive to pay a debt in a game of poker. Poor Owen. I wonder, Isabel,’ the man lowered his voice, ‘maybe he’s listening in now and learning about this for the first time.’

‘Don’t.’

‘He might be.’

‘If he is, do you think he’s pissed off?’

‘You know, Isabel, I’m not sure. I couldn’t guess how he’s feeling. What do you think?’

‘I never knew this particular Owen you’re talking about so I couldn’t say. If I had to guess I’d say, yes, he’s pissed off He was very serious, even when he was being funny. I mean, I don’t think he was the laughing-it-off type. On the other hand, I imagine he has more to be pissed off about right now than a goldfish. He’s dead.’

The man looked up at the sky and rolled his eyes around to me in mock-fear. I let out a feeble laugh. He echoed it with a weaker one.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘He’s probably building himself a new bed and some bookcases.’

‘I don’t know if Owen believed in life after death.’

‘I don’t know either. It wasn’t the sort of thing we ever talked about, though we did go to church together for a few years. I was brought up to think I had no choice but to live in heaven for eternity. I don’t know whether Owen expected to be there too.’

‘It’s not very appealing, is it, heaven? Look at this beautiful
landscape.’ He waved an arm towards the trees, then beyond them to the moors. ‘I tell you what, I’d rather have a day here than for ever in heaven. I’d be glad to do the exchange.’

‘You’d sell your soul, then, for this place?’

‘Everyone should sell their soul for their heart’s desire, Isabel, if they have any integrity. It’s the only thing worth doing.’

‘You may be right about that. You like to use my name, don’t you? It’s disconcerting.’

He walked away from me. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you.’ He threw more bread at the geese. ‘I’m bothering you.’

‘No, no.’ Now I felt bad. I quite liked this man and was enjoying our conversation. I worried that I was too comfortable with him, since I had no idea who he was. ‘It’s fine. Just a bit surprising that the first person I meet when I arrive here is a complete stranger who seems to know a lot about me.’

‘Thank you for pointing it out. I won’t use your name again.’

‘You can use it as much as you like, but you haven’t told me yours.’

‘It’s John.’ He turned, mollified. ‘Delighted to meet you, Isabel.’ He held out his hand again. I shook it for the second time.

‘It’s nice to meet you too, John. Do you think we ought to be getting to the church now?’

‘Yeah. Probably. We don’t want to be late.’

But we were moving in the wrong direction. We were
walking along the lakeside path, away from the village and towards the rowing-boats at the jetty. John swung the bread bag by his side. Sometimes it hit my leg. I moved further away but then he edged closer. I considered turning back and going to the church alone, but John’s connection with Owen was too powerful and I could not leave. I had to find out everything he knew about my old friend. The path narrowed and I was relieved to slip a pace behind John. His walk was loose and relaxed. He bounced slightly on his heels as he went. He was tall and skinny but not weedy. His head moved from side to side, registered every movement in the trees or in the rushes, alert as a meerkat.

I looked at the water but it didn’t mean anything yet, not while I was with a stranger. It would not be mine again until I could reach in and touch it on my own. For now I decided to continue with my questions.

‘So, how did you meet Owen?’

‘We worked together in a kitchen.’

‘Kitchen? What – round here or near London?’

‘Neither. Somewhere else, a different part of the country. It just happened that we were both there at the same time.’ John lifted his head and gazed at the moors he would sell his soul for.

Then I realized. ‘Oh, sorry. Yes, I see.’

He meant prison kitchens, of course.

‘Owen was a wreck the whole time he was inside. I tried to help him when we both came out. I really did. He often talked about that girlfriend of his who went missing. Watch out along this bit, there are roots sticking up. It upset him a lot. He talked
about you too. I think he was a little bit in love with you, Isabel.’

‘Do you? No, I’m sure he wasn’t. I never thought that.’

John chattered about the colour of the bulrushes as I turned this over in my mind. Owen only wrote to me because of what we had done together, one stupid thing that left me connected to him for ever. I would not have said he was in love with me. I always saw him as Julia’s boyfriend and I thought he only saw me as Julia’s friend. I knew that we would never have spent time together under any other circumstances. Apart from Julia, I didn’t see what we’d ever had in common.

‘What did he do when he came out of prison? I mean, what sort of work? Did he ever marry?’

‘He had a few relationships. One lasted three or four years but I think that was the longest. He didn’t have any children and I don’t think he wanted any. He worked in sales. Something to do with office equipment.’

‘Sales? So he must have been quite good at talking, then, quite confident.’

‘Oh, yes. His shyness wore off as he grew older. As far as I know, he was quite successful. He worked in Bradford, I think, but travelled all over the place. He liked driving. He liked having to spend half a day getting to another part of the country and then half the night getting home. It suited his temperament.’

‘Was he in a relationship when he died?’

‘No idea. As I said, I hadn’t made much of an effort to keep up with him in the past couple of years. I don’t know what he was doing. He didn’t mention any remarkable changes, not in
his last Christmas card. I imagine he was just ticking over when he had the accident. Just getting on with life.’

‘Just getting on with it.’

‘Muddy patch ahead. Careful, in your Sunday-best shoes. You’re dressed very nicely.’

‘Thanks.’ I stumbled along, one foot on either side of the squelchy mud.

‘And what about you, Isabel? Why did you go with Owen to set fire to a supermarket one night and almost burn the whole village down?’

I looked down at the mud. I had known that someone would bring this up but hadn’t expected it to be a stranger. Do I have to dwell on this? I’m not sure of its relevance and it is still painful to recall. ‘It’s hard to remember now,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t spend much time thinking about it, these days. We were just teenagers. Teenagers do silly things.’

I didn’t tell John about the incident with Mr McCreadie, the supermarket manager. He already knew more than was his business and it had happened such a long time ago. I wanted to be the one to ask the questions but John continued, ‘That’s quite an understatement. And you had your own little holiday at Her Majesty’s pleasure. How was that?’

He knew everything about me. Why would Owen tell him all of this? What had it mattered to Owen by then?

‘You’ve gone quiet, Isabel. I can see that you’re deeply uncomfortable with the fact that Owen shared so many stories with me. Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone screws up sometimes. I certainly have.’

‘Good for you. But, unlike other people, I don’t need to talk about it.’

The path was wider here. John stopped for me to catch up and we continued walking side by side. I wanted to change the subject but could think of nothing else to speak about.

‘It was a strange time,’ I told him eventually. ‘After Julia disappeared, none of us was really normal. I mean, not until we left the area. I’m sure it was the same for all of her friends, in different ways. We got up to things that didn’t feel as if they belonged to us. Don’t think I’m trying to deny responsibility for what Owen and I did. I’m not, but one way or another we were controlled by Julia – or her absence – for at least a couple of years. I grew out of it the minute I left this area. You see? I put it behind me and have been fine ever since.’

‘Julia’s ghost was leading you astray.’

‘No, that’s not what I mean. Not like that. Just that we weren’t capable of understanding everything, not that anyone tried to explain a single bit of it. There was no counselling in those days, nothing like that. No one came to analyse pictures we drew, or to sit with us in circles and share memories of Julia. Nothing but a terrible silence around Julia’s absence. Double nothing. It was bound to leave us – well – restless.’

‘If only she could come back and tell you what happened.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Of course I had thought the very same thing myself, many times, but it was idiotic to say it aloud.

‘Or maybe you know what happened?’

‘How could I? No one knows.’

‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it? Look at all the colours. There’s the blue of the reservoir, the exquisite green of the mallards, the brown branches of the trees. It’s alive even in November. I can’t imagine how beautiful this village must be in spring and summer. It must have been a lovely place to grow up. I bet you were always roaming over the moors or coming down here to feed the ducks. Did you have a bike?’

‘Yes, an old one. I don’t remember cycling by the reservoir but I’m sure I did. I suppose it wasn’t a bad place to be, till Julia went. I didn’t grow up anywhere else so I’ve nothing to compare it with. Yeah, maybe it was nice.’

‘This was the sort of place I fantasized about when I was a kid. I always lived in cities. Never liked them much. There’s very little wildlife, and even keeping a pet is harder in the city. I had an old bone-shaker I used to cycle around on but I wanted to be in the countryside. The woman next to me on the bus said that this is Eva somebody land, or some name like Eva. Eve? Ena?’

‘Eva Carter.’ I smiled. After many years here Maggie couldn’t stand the village – just a clique of nosy, uptight Tories, she said – and sold her big house and garden for a small terraced house in London. The town moralists and gossips belonged in the 1950s, she used to say. It was impossible to feel anything with these stuffed mattresses. She craved passionate, wild-tempered neighbours, or some such thing, but she didn’t find them here. She concluded that it was easier to be romantic in Hounslow than on the Yorkshire moors.

‘Who is she?’

‘A writer. Her books are set round here. There’s one called
Goose Island.
I haven’t read it but, look, see that little island? Over there.’

There was a small island with a couple of trees on it, and next to it a couple of tiny ones that were just bumps in the water.

‘Is that where it’s set?’

‘I’ve never read it so I don’t know for certain, but that’s called Goose Island. It’s sweet. There’s not much room for anything to happen there. You could just about have sex.’

‘Oh. Right.’ He ran his hand over the top of his head.

I smiled. I had embarrassed him. ‘No, no. Sorry. I only say it because that’s what’s most likely to happen in an Eva Carter book. Somebody will row or swim out there at some point, probably a dark, rugged man to rescue a beautiful woman, and they’ll make love on the island.’

‘Traditional stuff?’

‘No. In Maggie’s stories the woman always does everything she wants. She sometimes even murders a man or two along the way, but she still gets the glittering prize at the end. Usually a different man.’

‘Cool.’ We both looked out at Goose Island. Or was it Swan Island? Perhaps it was and Maggie’s book had confused me. I couldn’t remember. ‘You could do it under the shelter of the trees,’ John said. ‘But there’s something sad about it. It’s melancholic.’

‘Maybe it is. They had to search the whole reservoir area,
with divers and everything, so to me it’s just bleak. Julia pervades the place but it must have been sad before then, if you noticed it too.’

‘I’d like to buy you a drink after the funeral. We’re both outsiders here, Isabel, and we need to stick together. When the locals see us coming along the main street, they might try to chase us out of town.’

I laughed. ‘Why should they do that?’

‘A pair of ex-cons showing up together, all dressed in black. Could be scary to some people.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

‘So, a quickie, then? A quick drink somewhere, I mean.’

‘Thanks, but I’m on a pretty tight schedule. I’ve got a plane to catch tomorrow. I don’t live round here, you see. I’m in Istanbul now. In the meantime I need to talk to some people who do live here still. I want to learn more about Owen before I go home.’

‘Who are you planning to talk to?’

‘I’m not really sure. I thought I’d see who’s at the funeral.’ ‘How will you broach the subject?’

‘I’ll just see how it goes.’

‘So you’re leaving tonight?’

‘Tomorrow morning. Tonight I need to pack, need to make phone calls. This and that.’

‘Busy-busy. Why do you live in Istanbul?’

‘Because that’s where my job is and it’s where my husband and child are.’

‘What’s your job?’

‘I write articles for a monthly journal, and sometimes newspapers. Mete and I also manage a shop together, with his relatives.’

‘What kind of shop?’

‘Food, everyday stuff.’

‘And you run it together? How romantic.’