Conrad & Eleanor (11 page)

She was pregnant.

‘How late are you?'

‘Well, I thought I was late because I was overtired, run down, so I just didn't think of it for ages —'

‘How late are you?'

‘About two months.'

‘So it's due in July?'

‘Yes.'

Con was consumed by guilt. Here was his overworked, exhausted wife, carrying his child – from a sexual encounter he couldn't even remember (and he did, they both did, for both Paul and Megan; had pieced together backwards from the day of knowing she was pregnant, the times and ways they'd done it, and isolated the most likely, the most memorable) – while he had spent the last three months oblivious, shagging a young girl under his and Eleanor's roof, with their children sleeping sweetly in the next room. Hélène left without a fuss. ‘It's a shame,' said El. ‘She was much nicer than that Austrian girl. Let's see if we can get another French one.'

‘Please,' said Con. ‘Can we just try for a while without?' Astonishingly, Eleanor agreed.

Now he knows his guilt blinded him. Now he knows there was another story. When did Cara become his favourite? Maybe it began right then, when he heard of her presence in El's womb, and thought with shame of her unnoticed conception, of her ignored and uncelebrated first two months in utero, of his distraction from her mother's body.

B
y 11pm
E
l
is convinced she should have gone to Munich with Cara. A policeman called in the late afternoon and took some details, then kindly explained that tracing someone who is overseas is not easy. The phone has been ringing all evening, as people pick up and respond to Paul's messages, and as the circle of those who know of Con's absence grows. Some make suggestions or reveal confidences; some want to help, but what is there to do? Paul has driven over to Sheffield and brought Daniel back, and gone away again himself. There seems to be some consensus among the children that El is not to be left alone. But there's nothing for Dan to do; she sends him out to choose some videos for the evening, and when he's hooked into the first, excuses herself and goes to Con's study.

Cara has not phoned. The address of her hotel is pinned to the noticeboard but they're one hour ahead, it's too late to phone her now. El is afraid that she has allowed Cara to enter something dangerous; a black hole, which has already swallowed Con and might easily devour Cara too. Why did she let her go alone? She forces herself to look at a map of Germany. Munich is real. It is a place on dry land, linked by roads and rails to the other cities of Germany, less dangerous probably than Manchester. Her fear is irrational. She is not an irrational person. But now she's experiencing physical unease, looseness in the bowels, pressure in the head reminiscent of trying to solve an intellectual problem, for example pulling together all the threads in the concluding paragraph of a paper. But she knows that kind of pressure can be relieved by working on through it: it is pressure which dictates its own release. Whereas the pressure of anxiety, now, is empty – like a balloon blown up inside her head, squashing all other thoughts and knowledge to the sides, and yet containing nothing but dread. She's reminded of something Con once said, about how he felt when he was in America. He claimed he had been slightly short of breath all the time – as if he couldn't draw a full deep lungful of oxygen, as if he was always a little suffocated. ‘Haven't you ever felt like that?'

El thought he was neurotic. ‘No. I've felt scared – when I hitched a ride with the guy who child-locked me in, for example, but that's different, it's the flight response, isn't it – speeded-up heartbeat, increased rate of breathing —'

‘Yes, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about continuous low-grade anxiety, the kind that dogs you like a smell, so you get used to it, apart from when you're trying to sleep.'

‘But what was it about?'

‘The kids. I can't believe you've never felt that. When you go away to a conference or something – when you're on a plane heading away from the children – you've never had that awful nagging anxiety about them?'

‘Of course not. I'm always leaving them in safe hands.'

‘I don't doubt that
your
hands are safe. It's not about me thinking you won't look after them well – it's not rational, it's just anxiety engendered by being far away from them. It's not uncommon. Other people feel it too.'

Eleanor loves going away: strapping herself into her plane seat and waiting for it to lift her from the earth; breaking through clouds and looking down on their rolling whiteness; the sensation of soaring, held back by nothing – she loves that. Her thoughts run ahead to her paper, the city she is visiting, the colleagues she will meet, the excitement and energy of it drawing her like a magnet. It is rare for her to think of the children at all until she is on her way home again.

‘Is this symptomatic of my inadequacy as a mother?'

‘No, my dear. The opposite, I should think. You've read as much cod psychology as me. Don't a parent's fears transmit themselves to the child and become internalised threats to its confidence?'

‘So selfishness is OK?'

‘Couldn't needless anxiety be construed as just as selfish as forgetfulness?' She remembers laughing at him then, and both of them laughing together; they could make anything mean anything else, they were not restricted to the petty definitions everyone else was trammelled by.

But now she recognises that she is anxious in the way he described. It wouldn't be irrational if it was about Con, because something must have happened to him. But it is irrational about Cara, and the surprising point is that being able to identify it as irrational does not in any way help to diminish it. Con began using sleeping tablets while he was in America. El saw it as evidence of weakness. Now she goes to the bathroom cupboard to find them. There is a full new packet; he's got them on prescription and the date of issue is only two weeks ago. If you were planning to run away, wouldn't you take your new sleeping tablets? She pops one through the silver foil and gulps at some water. She doesn't know any longer whether it is better or worse if he hasn't planned it. It opens the door to more dangerous and dramatic scenarios – injury, kidnap, act of God – but it does remove perhaps the worst, that he might have cold-bloodedly planned and engineered this disappearance as the culmination of a whole history of lies and double-dealings.

The woman, Mad, Con has had a relationship with her. That much is obvious. But it is also obvious that he had finished with her. And he was alarmed by the nastiness of her threats, that's why he's kept the emails. As evidence. So the last thing he would do is to walk into a situation of danger with her. He has not run away with her, El can't believe that. And the woman – hateful though she seems – is hardly likely to have murdered him. El is mentally filing the MAD emails under ‘Red Herring'. She has emailed [email protected] from her own computer, not wanting to leave any traces on Con's. She settled on a simple
Do you know where Conrad is?
But the email bounced back within minutes, address unknown. She does not believe Mad is anything to do with Con's disappearance. But what it does show is that he has had at least one other relationship, while El has been sailing happily and obliviously along. Having an affair of her own, to be sure. But not suspecting him. And the feeling it gives her is of grief and panic. How could she have drifted so far from him?

The noise from Dan's TV niggles in the background, but better to leave it; nothing is worse than Dan's awkward silence and slightly belligerent confusion over how to behave. She wishes the children would leave her alone, just leave her to get on with it. At least Megan has a life she can't leave, performances every night, at least there is one who won't come mithering.

El picks up a pen and starts a list:

1. tel Cara.

And stops, pen poised. What should she do tomorrow? Louis has offered to look after the visiting American, Michael, and she's agreed. Which means she can't go into work, she'd have to spend the whole day avoiding them. She can't go into work anyway because everyone will be asking about Con… but what can she do at home? Work on the stem cell book? Try to find Con? But how? She should go to bed, she's stupefied by lack of sleep.

The ring of her mobile makes her jump. Louis. ‘Can you talk?'

‘Yes – yes, I'm in Con's office.'

‘Any news?'

‘No. I told you Cara's gone to Munich?'

‘On her own?'

‘Yes. I'm thinking I should have gone with her —'

‘If there's any news it'll come to you at home.'

‘I guess so.'

‘What do you
think
has…?'

‘I don't know. Louis, I can't imagine.'

He is silent.

‘You're sure you're OK about Michael tomorrow?'

‘Of course. Are the kids there?'

‘Dan. Paul was, he's coming back tomorrow morning.'

‘Anything you want me to do?'

‘I —' There is something in his tone that checks her. A formality, a politeness. He would ask a distant colleague or friend in that way, to exhibit necessary human decency. But what can she ask him to do anyway? She has enough trouble finding something for herself to do. There's a pause. He clears his throat.

‘D'you want to meet?' He doesn't sound enthusiastic.

‘I don't know. Won't you be busy with Michael?'

‘Tomorrow, after work. I'll ring you as I'm leaving.'

‘Is that OK? Meet at the Hind?'

‘Sure. I'll have to get home for dinner, though. Susan —'

‘Yeh. It's OK. See you then.' She disconnects before she can hear how he signs off, vividly and physically conscious of his mood, his wariness. He will have rung her from the park op­posite his house; he takes the dog out for a pee last thing.

Why should she mind? Wariness is built into the thing, on both sides. It has only ever worked because they are both equally wary. Never making the impetuous phone call, never asking too much, she thinks. Clearly she is in danger now, of asking too much.

She hears the sitting room door open and Dan emerge. She goes out to him. ‘Good film?'

‘OK.'

‘You going to bed now, Dan?'

He looks at her and blinks. ‘Are you going to bed?'

‘Yes, it's nearly midnight. Want a milky drink?'

He shakes his head and sets off up the stairs, stopping at the fourth. ‘Dad —'

‘No news yet. I'll tell you when there is.'

He stands there a bit longer, computing, then moves on up without acknowledging her further. El switches off the lights and follows him; her head is aching and her eyes are heavy. Of course: she took that sleeping tablet, must be more than an hour ago now, no wonder she's fuzzy.

El wakes at 6.30, clear and sharp after a deep sleep. She has a quick shower and takes a cup of tea straight to her office, mentally flicking through the items clamouring for her attention. She has a hunch Con may turn up today, and be rather irritated by all the fuss. But even if he doesn't – nothing to be done there beyond ringing Cara. The April conference: there are enough speakers committed now for her to arrange them in some sort of order and consider where the gaps are; and people must be invited for those gaps as soon as possible – it's only two months away. She must pursue funding for the Africans. Cape Town is the only African university willing to pay their delegates' fares. She can find a way of fudging accommodation costs at this end, but fares from Lusaka, Nairobi and Lagos – who can she get to sponsor them? Might the British Council? There must be no drug company connections. Think laterally, move outside medicine, what charities promote exchange of knowledge and understanding between First and Third Worlds? She could do with £15,000, or a bit more, realistically, then it would cover accommodation as well. Who stands to gain from this? She jots down her publishers, and makes a note to list all the main ­speakers' publishers.

She's glancing through her emails now; good, finally, the most recalcitrant contributor to the
Viability
book has sent in his chapter. She clicks on the attachment to print. It would be good to plough through this straight away and ask for whatever changes by return; the rest of the book has been ready to go for nearly a month. The index will need his additions, though; she emails her own editor to see if they can speed things up by getting someone at the publishers to do that. A stupidly officious complaint from Karen about certain colleagues over-running in the big lecture theatre. El taps an acerbic reply and freezes with the cursor hovering over
Send
. She is off work because Con has gone; if she's lobbing petty work emails into their midst mightn't they think it odd? She glances impatiently at the time – 7.19. She could go into work today, frankly. There's nothing to be gained by being in purdah here, and a thousand things to do at work. Louis will be good with Michael but really she needs to speak to Michael herself; for a start she wants him to do the keynote for the conference, and cast his eye over the delegates to see if she's missed anyone vital. Can be done by email, she counters.

Two research students want references. Mechanically she calls up their details and slots them into her standard letter, adding an extra sentence of enthusiasm for Maya, who has been a delight to work with. There are four requests for her to speak; she quickly rejects and deletes three, and stares at the fourth. Toronto in June. A guest lecture at the medical school. The academic year will be dying down by then, and this Con nonsense will be over; maybe she could even persuade him to go with her? Either way, it's a lovely month, and she doesn't know Anita Mistry, the new ethics person there, so it would be useful. The name rings a bell; she leafs through the last couple of editions of the
BMJ
and is pleased to find A. Mistry, Toronto, contributor to the November issue. She folds it open to read and puts it under her phone, saves the invitation and moves on. Proposal for a book, request for a chapter. Invitation to submit papers. Change in the university regulations regarding extensions. Change in procedure for obtaining parking permits. Ph.D. student submitting a draft for El's comments. Request from Bristol for her to be an external examiner. She fires off replies and deletes until the backlog is dealt with. Switches off the computer and takes Carlo's chapter on ‘Financial and human costs of the premature baby' to read with her breakfast.

It's a good piece of work. The introduction needs tweaking slightly, and El adds a cross reference and cuts the two paragraphs on grief counselling, because Niamh's chapter covers it in more detail; beyond that and a few typos, nothing needs doing. She can get back to Carlo now.

El stands up and stretches. With the morning, her thinking on Con has changed. Those emails are from a lunatic. He'll come back. She can trust him. What reason has he ever given her to believe otherwise? And all the hanging about in the world will not make Con come home any faster. She should go into work.

She feels a gathering sense of impatience with the kids' anxiety, the police, people's questions and sympathy, Louis' caution; impatience and a desire to brush it all aside and get on. She's not impatient with Con; no, at this moment Con is even an ally, a person who has taken action and will also be impatient at the fuss. She can leap to understand the change he has embraced, she won't need to burden him with demands for explanation, she simply wants to get on with their lives. Energy, movement, that's what's needed; to fare forward and outpace bad things. To leave dullness and stasis behind.