Woman Last Seen(86)
“So, you want to look around?” asks Janssen. Mark nods. Ashamed that he wants anything at all from Janssen; he doesn’t want to be in his debt, but he craves to look around, see where they lived. How they lived. He can’t pretend otherwise. He needs it. “Go ahead.” Janssen waves his hand that is holding his glass, expansively. A man with nothing to hide.
Mark wants to stride purposefully, show he is not daunted or uncomfortable, but he finds himself mooching, creeping because he is both. He moves from room to room, opening cupboards, looking behind doors. There are a lot of cupboards, Mark assumes it is the only way to keep the place looking so minimalist. Hide everything away. Janssen doesn’t ask him what he’s searching for, nor does he stop him opening cupboards, looking behind doors. It’s a big place. Mark tries to imagine Leigh sitting on the large cream leather corner sofa, no doubt it’s a designer brand that would mean something to people who care about brands. Mark doesn’t; he cares about herbaceous plants and soil drainage. He tries to imagine her in the industrial-looking kitchen, at the sleek dining-room table, perched on one of the bar stools. He can’t. He can only see her tied up in an empty room. That is the only way he sees her now.
Mark longs to see an overflowing basket of dirty washing, fridge magnets that clasp desperately to pizza delivery flyers and money-off coupons, stray debris such as hairbands, Sellotape, newspapers, Bic pens, junk mail, mugs of half-drunk tea. Something familiar. Anything. This place is sparsely furnished, impeccably clean. Nothing is out of place. They must have an army of cleaners, he thinks. There’s no way Leigh would have a house this gleaming. Then, momentarily, he feels hopeful; a random thought occurs to him. This place is neat to the point of absurdity. This is not Leigh’s place. She would never live in a place like this. There has been a mistake. His Leigh is not Kai after all, his wife is not a bigamist. It has all been a horrible, disturbing, disgusting, sickening mix-up. But he can fix it—it is not too late.
He blurts out his thought, hopeful and pathetic. “Leigh would never live here.” His tone is scornful. He is no longer jealous of the wealth Janssen has; he’s contemptuous of it. All the edgy, well-thought-through objects, all the rich fabrics and clean lines mean nothing. This is not her life. This is not Leigh’s world. He is no longer angry with her—he is sorry. Sorry that he thought she could ever betray him. She is a woman who happily sits among cat hairs and stray sneakers to eat spag bol off a tray in front of the TV. “Leigh would never live here,” he says again with more certainty and excitement.
“Leigh didn’t, though. Kai did.” Janssen’s tone is iron. Mark’s certainty and excitement evaporates instantly. Janssen has thrown the first punch after all—intentionally or otherwise. Mark feels a slackness in his gut, a bearing down on his sphincter. He wants to ask where the bathroom is but won’t give Janssen the satisfaction of seeing his frailty. He clenches, straightens his shoulders, draws himself up to his full height, ignores the spasms in his stomach.
“So, you are saying what? She was only ever half a person with me?”
“Half a person with either of us.” Janssen shrugs and reaches for the vodka bottle again. Something like pity snags Mark’s conscience. He’s been drinking too much himself as well but only in the evenings, and usually with Fiona for company. He has the boys to think about; he’s had to retain a semblance of keeping it together.
“I will have a coffee with you,” he says. Janssen takes the hint, puts down the vodka and reaches for two pods, two cups.
While Janssen prepares the coffee Mark continues to roam around the vast apartment. This time, instead of denying her occupancy, he looks for her tastes and influence. He looks for her. He examines the bookshelves to see what she read here and the art on the walls to know what she looked at. In their home they had a few framed mass-market posters. Ones with inspirational or funny messages. Leigh chose them all. Mark tries to recall what each of them says. In the hallway there is one that reads DON’T GROW UP, IT’S A TRAP. One in the bedroom, I’LL BE READY IN FIVE MINUTES! In the kitchen a poster declares COOK, DANCE, LAUGH, LIVE. In the downstairs loo, there is one that has just a single word. BREATHE. He has never given that one much thought before. Now he wonders whether that was the most pertinent. The one she looked at every day as she checked her makeup before she dashed out the door, the one she saw on her return when she dashed in the house desperate for a quick pee as she transitioned from Kai back to Leigh. Janssen’s walls are covered in numbered prints that suggest exclusive, limited runs. There are oil paintings, modern ones, huge and undoubtedly expensive, possibly privately commissioned. Did Leigh choose these works? Is this what she would have liked to hang on their walls if they could have afforded it?
He opens the door on to their bedroom. He holds his breath, takes in oxygen through his mouth because he doesn’t want to smell her, not here. He looks at the bed. It’s enormous. Mark wants to ask Daan what she was like in bed, this woman Daan was married to, this woman Mark was. He doesn’t yet believe they are the same person. Well, he believes it, but he can’t process it, not quite. Not entirely. He swallows the question, pushes it back down his throat. The answer might kill him.
There are three doors off the bedroom. The first is the bathroom. Their bathroom at home was refurbished last year. They picked new gray-and-cream tiles and did away with the bath so they could fit in a larger shower. The result is quite smart. Admittedly there are nearly always hard water marks on the shower glass and taps. Open tubes and bottles of shampoos, body washes, toothpaste, Leigh’s various lotions and potions are scattered about like confetti. Hidden intimacies—like verruca cream, iodine tablets and sweat block wipes—are rarely returned to the cabinet that was installed to store such things but instead expose them as a couple—as a family—that are less than perfect but totally human. Still, it is fine. A decent place to grab a hurried shower in the morning, although it is best if you leave the window open because despite the refit there is always a faint lingering smell of mildew.