The Disappearing Act(4)
“George’s things?”
We both stand there in silence for a moment as I try to make sense of the Irishman’s words. When it clicks, fear chases my confusion and then just as suddenly I feel the calming certainty that I must be misunderstanding what’s going on here. And yet my grip on the doorframe tightens.
“I’m really sorry, but who are you?” I ask. My voice has a faraway distant sound. Perhaps it has decided it doesn’t want to live with me anymore either.
“Sorry, right. I’m Andy.” He extends a hand warmly. “I work for, um, Fantastic Movers.” He cringes at the company name as I numbly shake his hand.
“Right, okay,” I manage, then clear my throat. “I see. And is George coming to—?”
Andy’s handsome face creases into an apologetic frown. “I wouldn’t have thought so, no.”
Two hours later the living room is pockmarked with missing chairs, books, and pictures. Shapes left in the dust that I hadn’t even realized was there. The front door is gently pulled to by Andy and once I hear his engine start, I finally release the hot angry tears that have been silently choking me from inside since he entered the house.
George has gone. He’s left me and this is how he’s done it. After six years of love, or what I thought was love.
No reply to the text I sent him as Andy packed away his things. No answer to: What the hell is going on? But then I suppose—actions speak louder than words—it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.
A thought occurs to me and my thumb hovers over the Instagram search icon on my phone. I know this way madness lies. If I start down this road things will get very painful, very quickly, and yet in a way I want the pain. Pain will fill the room with something at least now that Andy has gone, taking all of George’s things with him.
I tap out her name…
Her verified account springs up. Her curated, muted-tone online existence exactly as I would have imagined it. Naomi Fairn and her achingly cool life. There’s a post from two days ago, a Polaroid photo of a script with her pale hand obscuring the title card, a plain gold band on her middle finger, clear nail polish, and the sleeve of a gray hoodie.
@Naomifairn: New job. Can’t say yet but this one’s special.
The crop emoji. I always thought that one just represented a generic crop but now on closer inspection I see it is actually supposed to symbolize rye. A fun clue for her intrepid followers. I’m suddenly reminded that she’s only twenty-one.
I scroll through her earlier posts looking for him, looking for anything that can explain my now empty house. Something catches my eye. Posted last week.
@Naomifairn: Shadows.
January 29th. Hampstead Heath.
A photo of two people’s shadows elongated in the winter sun along a path in Hampstead Heath; the tips of her white Converses are in shot and, partially obscured, to their right, the edge of the other person’s shoe. My stomach flips; I know that shoe. I pinch and zoom, hunched over and squinting at the phone screen like an octogenarian in my lonely kitchen.
A scuffed navy Adidas. His shoe. I was there the day he bought them. I’ve gathered them up, abandoned about the house, and put them away for him a thousand times. My heart yawns wide deep inside my chest followed sharply by the acid burn of anger.
He left me for her. How could he think it was okay to do this to me, like this? After everything we’ve said and been to each other. Six years. No word. No explanation. Just gone. The anger inside me twists around itself, a beast ready to scream.
I exit Naomi’s account and put my phone up on the kitchen counter. Best to leave it there for now.
I concentrate on my breathing. I try to fight the fresh prickle of tears stinging my eyes. I need to stay calm.
I can’t blame Naomi for this. God knows if George even told her about me; she might not even know I exist. I tell myself I can’t blame her because I remember being twenty-one, I remember being in love. I need to remember it’s him not her. He left; he wasn’t taken.
She is twenty-one and George is thirty in November. In the interests of self-preservation, I leave that thought there because that’s someone else’s problem now.
I let my eyes play across the kitchen, across our things. The ones left behind. Shouldn’t we have more to show by now: more than a flat, and a kettle, and a toaster, and a smoothie maker? I know it’s not a decision for right now but I wonder if I should sell the flat. I guess it is mine. I put the deposit down and my name is on the mortgage. We’re not married after all. I’ve been covering the full mortgage payment for the last five months anyway. I’ve been covering most things for quite a while now. In a way, I guess, he hasn’t really been here for quite some time. I wonder how on earth I will tell anyone what’s happened without dying inside. Without being forced into the role of victim. I am not a victim.
My anger stretches taut again. How could I have been so stupid to love him? To trust him?
I sit up straight, take a breath, and try to refocus. I need to work out what I’m actually going to do.
There was a reframing trick I used to use when I hit a dead end working on Eyre. When things threatened to overwhelm me. When I suddenly felt the weight and responsibility of carrying Charlotte Bront?’s story. Whenever a scene wasn’t working or I was too cold or tired or scared I’d ask myself—what would Jane do? Not what would I do. But what would Jane do if she were here, now.