Then She Was Gone(21)

Yes, he is a good man.

A good man in every way.

He had held her up that day when she felt her legs weaken slightly beneath her at the sight of the box going through the curtains to the sound of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ by Keane. He’d passed her cups of tea at his mother’s house afterwards, and then found her in a corner of the garden and lured her back into the house with the promise of a large Baileys and ice, her all-time favourite treat. They’d sat together after everyone else had gone and rolled the ice around the insides of their glasses and made each other laugh, and Laurel’s feelings had warped and contorted and turned into something both light and dark, golden and grey. He hadn’t once checked his phone or worried about being late for Bonny and they’d left his mother’s house together at ten o’clock, weaving slightly towards the minicabs that rumbled and growled on the street outside. She let him hold her deep inside his arms, her face pressed hard against his chest, the clean, familiar smell of him, the softness of his old Jermyn Street shirt, and she’d almost, almost turned her face towards him and kissed him.

She’d woken the following day feeling as though her world had been upended and reordered in every conceivable way. And she hadn’t spoken to him since.

But now she feels as though all that ambiguity has melted away. She is a clean slate and she can face him once more. So when she gets back from Hanna’s flat, she calls him.

‘Hello, Laurel,’ he says warmly. Because Paul says everything warmly. It’s one of the many things that made her hate him during Ellie’s missing years. The way he’d smile so genuinely at the police and the reporters and the journalists and the nosy neighbours, the way he’d reach out to people with both of his warm hands and hold theirs inside his, keeping eye contact, asking after their health, playing down their own nightmare, trying, constantly, to make everyone feel better about everything all the time. She, meanwhile, had pictured herself with her hands around his soft throat, squeezing and squeezing until he was dead.

But now his tone matches her own state of mind. Now she can appreciate him afresh. Lovely, lovely Paul Mack. Such a nice man.

‘How are you?’ he says.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she says. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, you know.’

She does know. ‘I wondered,’ she began, ‘it’s mine and Hanna’s birthday next week. I was thinking maybe we could do something. Together? Maybe?’

Hanna had arrived in the world at two minutes past midnight on Laurel’s twenty-seventh birthday. It was family lore that she’d been born determined to steal everyone’s limelight.

‘You mean, all of us? You, me, the kids?’

‘Yes. Kids. Partners too. If you like.’

‘Wow. Yes!’ He sounds like a small boy being offered a free bicycle. ‘I think that’s a great idea. It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. And I haven’t asked her yet. It’s possible she may be busy. But I just thought, after the year we’ve had, after, you know, finding Ellie, saying goodbye, we’ve been so fractured, for so long, maybe now it’s time to—’

‘To come back together,’ he cuts in. ‘It’s a brilliant idea. I’d love to. I’ll talk to Bonny.’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘wait till I’ve spoken to the kids. It’s hard, you know, they’re so busy. But fingers crossed …’

‘Yes. Definitely. Thank you, Laurel.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘It’s been a long journey, hasn’t it?’

‘Arduous.’

‘I’ve missed you so much.’

‘I’ve missed you too. And Paul—’

He says, ‘Yes?’

She pauses for a moment, swallows hard, and then reaches down into herself to retrieve the word she never thought she’d say to Paul. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘Oh, you know, Paul. You don’t have to pretend. I was a bitch to you. You know I was.’

‘Laurel.’ He sighs. ‘You were never a bitch.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘I was worse than a bitch.’

‘You were never anything other than a mother, Laurel. That’s all.’

‘Other mothers lose children without losing their husbands too.’

‘You didn’t lose me, Laurel. I’m still yours. I’ll always be yours.’

‘Well, that’s not strictly true, is it?’

He sighs again. ‘Where it counts,’ he says. ‘As the father of your children, as a friend, as someone who shared a journey with you and as someone who loves you and cares about you. I don’t need to be married to you to be all those things. Those things are deeper than marriage. Those things are for ever.’

Now Laurel sighs, an awkward smile twisting the corners of her mouth. ‘Thank you, Paul. Thank you.’

She hangs up a moment later and she holds her phone in her lap for a while, tenderly, staring straight ahead, feeling a sense of peace she never thought would be hers to feel again.

Hanna sounds annoyed even to be asked about it.

‘What do you mean, all of us?’ she asks.

‘I mean, me, you, Dad, Jake, Bonny, Blue.’