Where the Missing Go(11)

But not my Sophie. I won’t think about that, I’ve trained myself not to spiral down that dark hole of possibilities. If she’s talking, lucid, phoning home, it could be worse, I tell myself. Much worse.

She’s alive. She called me. She’s reaching out. That’s all I need to think about, for now.

I will buy a chicken and cook a proper roast for myself. I used to make lovely, careful meals all the time for the three of us, thumbing through my sticky-fingerprinted Jamies and Nigellas.

But I haven’t made it halfway down the vegetable aisle when I spot the highlighted head. This is why I stopped coming here at weekends. I turn smartly on my heel to head towards the doors.

‘Kate! Kate! Is that you?’

Too late. I lift my eyebrows, paste on a smile, and turn round to her. ‘Ellen, hi. How are you?’ I hope my emphasis can pass as enthusiasm.

‘Oh, you know, busy, busy, as always. I haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?’

‘Fine, thanks. How’s the family, your …’ I grasp fruitlessly for the names ‘… boys?’

‘They’re great, Neil’s just had more exams, so we’re holding our breath and hoping, he has worked very hard. But he’s loved being on the wards.’ I nod, smiling. I cannot picture him at all. She tilts her head, her face more uncertain. ‘And, you?’

‘Everything’s fine, thanks. I’m keeping busy.’ I wish I’d put on make-up today, that I hadn’t just pulled my hair back in its usual ponytail.

‘Oh really?’

‘Mm, I’m still at the charity, I work on the helpline there, you know.’ It’s not an outright lie. I didn’t say I was full-time. Or paid.

‘You know,’ she says carefully. ‘I’m doing a lot with the tennis club now, the social side and a bit of charity fund-raising. You should come along. Actually, what are you doing Thursday night?’

I know that crowd, and I had quite enough of them in the months afterwards. ‘Thanks so much,’ I say brightly. ‘I’ll have to have a look at my diary.’

Not brightly enough. Ellen’s mouth hardens into a little straight line. ‘Well, you do that.’ She gives her trolley a push, more for show than for the sign she’s going anywhere. ‘I’m only trying to help. It’s just … you out there in that big house. Lisa’s very worried, you know,’ she adds, tucking in her chin and looking up at me meaningfully.

I can’t help it, I laugh out loud. ‘Lisa? I’m sure she is.’ I’m remembering Lisa Brookland, all bleached teeth and tight bright sportswear, in the weeks when I was still trying to carry on as normal. She cornered me at the post office once.

‘And you’ve really no idea where she could have gone? There was no sign she was so … unhappy?’ The sharp interest in her face betrayed her thoughts: this doesn’t happen to people like us. Not if you’re doing it right. I never liked Lisa, even before.

And then one day I’d realised, when we’d gone to summer drinks at the tennis club, Mark saying it would be good for us. I’d stepped outside, just for a break from the questioning, the burden of other people’s concern and curiosity. When I’d come back in I saw them in a corner of the hall. It was something about the way they stood, heads close together.

So now I knew: it was her.

I hadn’t asked outright who he’d been with the night Sophie went missing. Because then I’d have to do something about it, and I didn’t have the energy, yet. I suppose I assumed it was some impressed girl in his office. Wasn’t that how it happened, when a husband worked such long hours? But no, he’d made time for the blonde divorcee from his tennis club. What a flipping cliché.

‘Well, of course she worries,’ Ellen says now. ‘Wouldn’t you expect her to?’ Ellen, with her keen appreciation of social niceties, was always hovering around the local queen bee.

I’m lost. ‘Not really,’ I say.

Ellen opens her mouth, shuts it. ‘Well I must get on,’ she says, briskly. ‘I’ve people coming to dinner, and it’s rammed in here, isn’t it. Why I leave things to the last minute I don’t know!’ Her neck’s going pink. ‘I’ll let you go. But do think about Thursday–’ She’s flustered, trying to steer the wheels away.

‘Ellen,’ I say. I put a hand on her trolley. ‘Why would I expect Lisa to worry about me?’

I think I know what she’s going to say before she does. But I want to make her say it.

Her shoulders sag, her hand goes to her mouth. She always had a sense of the dramatic.

‘Oh, Katie,’ she says. ‘I thought you knew, honestly. She and Mark – well, you’re separated now, aren’t you, have been for quite a while.’ She glances up at me through her lashes, slyly. ‘It’s only natural that he … He’s moved in with her.’





6


I keep it together long enough to get out of the supermarket. I can’t remember exactly what I’d said to Ellen, enough to get her to stop talking – ‘Don’t worry at all, it’s fine, I’ll see you.’ – then I’d dumped my basket, marched straight back through the entrance doors and into the car park.

I’d assumed it would fade out in time, that he’d move on. But here he is, moving from his rented flat in town back into a family home. Lisa’s got her kids most of the time, but then he’s always liked family life. My face is wet, I realise.