Desire Line (19 page)

‘Ah— what do you know?'

And then it shrivelled up entirely. ‘Of course I know. Do you want me to prove it to you? Because I'm able, at this moment.' Suddenly he was looking straight through her, which should have been a warning, while he watched his own internal metamorphosis, Reason lost to Rage. She did not care, plunged on with, ‘This is the way to prove that you and ‘the lads' are less than effective. Pretty inept, in fact. Eurwen! Eurwen— come in here, will you darling?
Eurwen
!'

A moment of silence is followed by another, unbearable one: no parent is permitted to call up a missing child's fetch for the purpose of argument. Sara turned towards him, self-aghast, and in Josh's eyes the woman he had loved was so debased, he mistook it for triumph. The open hand that came from rest on the sofa was so quick. It snapped her head around and sent the body after, sprawling onto her knees and onto the floor. Another second and, ‘Shit,' Josh said.

She cradled the point of impact, not able to look up, feeling him kneel, trap her forearms in his arms and pull her against him, the back of her head in his hands. She knew the instant he began to cry, the strain sending tremors through his ribcage long before it burst out in, ‘I'm such a shit, Sara.' Her hair turned moist. Somehow they settled onto the floor, the rug's roughness under the cheek that was on fire… and they clasped each other in the same instant, the ten years' practise producing the old configurations. That place on his upper thigh where her knee naturally found its rest, his big flat collar bone used as pillow for her brow, the slight minute adjustments jointly accomplished to a state where the body becomes master, quenching speech. So often, in the past, the last words said:
yes-s… I … promise.
Her tears were smeared away by his hands and still dampening his fingers as they moved over her.
And so do I!
A chimera of sensation came next, all imagery at the forefront and its hindquarters a neural pulse. Love. Someone… could it possibly be her? …was in the throes of a piercing love for Josh that struggled and threshed and squeezed but like all monstrosities might be yet short lived.

He cried properly now, she dry-eyed, holding him. The day carried on outside the window and people and cars passed and dogs barked as in the distance an express train hooted. Every single night she had been under Josh's roof here in this rabbit hutch of a house she must have heard it. For the first time now she
heard
it above the gulls' shriek.

They lay: either one might have slept such was the need for physical and mental numbness but neither did. When they disengaged, finally, and sat up it was a shock to find the light still there, the evening not yet fully in and the pictures of Eurwen scattered beneath them, hardly creased, hardly changed.

But nothing is healed so effortlessly in an ex-marriage. During the final year they had been becalmed in this blessed place time after time, coming across love like a remaindered favourite, handling it, reading aloud its best lines. And those days were from a wounded marriage, not one deceased. Once up and not touching and sitting with coffee the sight of him slouched across from her stirred something like hatred. A slug of liquor might have dampened it… His exhaustion, the plum puffiness of the under-eye soft fruit, wasn't it all his own doing? He had lost Eurwen and not brought her back. She said, ‘I think we need to get something out in the open Josh… the reason for all this secrecy. You must see I can't go along with it.' He opened his mouth but she overrode him. ‘It would be wrong to Eurwen. That's what I feel today. Now.'

‘That's what you feel today, is it?' No need to wonder how good Josh was at his job. Gently confiding to begin: Just need to check… fact-finding, nothing serious… followed by the hardening up of accent and raising of volume. ‘Well everything has to change, doesn't it? Because that's what Sara says? Handy to get a regular bloody update on that score. Otherwise how would I know where WE WERE BLOODY WELL AT!'

‘We're nowhere! How long have I been in this pit of a place, a fortnight? What would you be thinking if this were another case, Josh, some other woman's child missing for
over
a fortnight? No! Don't say it. And don't get angry, pretending you can't help it… if I were that other woman you'd be oh, so patient… oh, so understanding. Because taking your frustration out on the victims is one of the things you learn never to do. A policeman told me that a long time ago, Josh.'

He glared. ‘Right.'

‘Keeping this to ourselves
may
have seemed prudent. But not now. What if Eurwen had still been close by when I arrived? Staying away one day then another day, just to see what happened… daring herself to leave it a little longer?'

‘This isn't doing any good—'

‘No.' She tried the glowing cheek again and found the skin unbroken but tender. It was enough to keep him silent. ‘What if that first week Eurwen had seen herself plastered over every shop window? On the front page of every local newspaper, on television? She could be sitting here with us now.'

He shook his head. She was not tempted to stop. ‘I can't say for certain – and you're not able to gainsay it. But it isn't just bad judgement I'm holding against you. You wanted to keep everything secret because you couldn't stand the shame.' Was he following?
Let me spell it out for you, Josh.
‘How you had no more control over your own daughter… I don't mean control, I mean no more understanding of, no greater ability to intervene in her life, than all those pathetic people you're meant to police. Think of it on the news at six o'clock and again at ten every weekday and once on Sunday, Eurwen's face. Letting the world into the secret of how
your
family's broken, just as the others are, the ones you used to call your best customers. The ones that are… everywhere,' she finished weakly.

Josh's phone gurgled. All through his taking it out and glancing down she fully expected him to snub the caller by click… instead of answering it with a normal, ‘Hello Meg.' And then to listen and reply, ‘Yes… yes. I can. OK.' And to get up and walk out.

It was midnight. Her legs numb, head aching, the empty tumbler warm in her grip: Josh called and for a moment she was back in Tackley Close.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I'm sorry.'

With a tongue made of felt she lisped out, ‘It doesn't… matter.'

‘Still…' He paused to let her speak if she wished, then, ‘I'll stay here tonight. There's somebody I need to see first thing— Neil Rix. Meg got your message so I'll follow up. You'll be all right?'

‘Of course. But that Neil person… with the dreadful skin, he pretended he had been asleep but he hadn't. He smelled of smoke! He'd been out already. He was with a Chinese man… perhaps. I've just thought that: they
were
together. Like a conspiracy. And he was avoiding me but he was watching.'

‘You sound all in,' he tried diplomatically.

‘I am. What time are you coming back?'

‘I'll go to work from here, first thing. I need to get out early, so makes more sense. I won't wake you and— it's closer than—'

Freud's Kettle,
she thought but feared to say. ‘Of course. So when will you be home?'

‘'Bout five— if nothing comes up. I'll call if it does. Straightaway.'

‘Goodbye.'

‘Sara?'

‘Yes?' She tried not to breathe, waiting, giving him time and space… in the Uptons' house, in the hall probably with a figure just on the other side of the door. ‘I'm still here, Josh,' she said.

Chapter 13

She has been whacked in the face. By an open hand. Sara's one for fine distinctions but the distinction's pretty coarse if it's your face and Josh's hand. I'd worshipped the man once. Learning he'd struck her was a bit of a blow to me— OK, inappropriate. The wordplay comes from Tomiko again. Once he nearly killed himself clinging to a young coastal pine in a typhoon, the rain hard enough to wash it out of the ground and the quake alarm sounding— mistakenly, as it happens, but he couldn't be sure of that. All to capture a riot of weather and somehow get it onto paper. Now straight to camera he tells me this, ‘Stinking wind near my end, near gone today,' and let out a fart that must've filled his studio. And laughed. People don't understand the Japanese laugh. ‘People' includes Yori.

Yori doesn't laugh when he finds what Josh did. He may be going to the bad but he's not that far gone. Shame isn't funny and someone has to feel it if Josh won't. Managing to keep close today there are plenty of Sara sightings in his town but they embarrass him as well, as though entire Rhyl had decided to join in the bad behaviour. Sullen expressions everywhere or the sort of scowls that go with Whocaresafuck? Then one disgusting gesture behind her back. He feels like whispering in Sara's ear
migi ni
magatte kudasai
. But she wouldn't please turn to the right, would she? Always to the left— which is the side of her face Josh will naturally strike as a right-handed man. It's a shock when Yori sees himself about to reach out the moment her back's safely to him. He doesn't try to detain her of course. Even though running through his head is No good! That place you're making for's closed. You're wasting time. Come with me. I'll tell you things if you come of your own accord. It can't be any worse than home with a missing daughter and a husband present. If you knew me – but I'm nothing. I'm not two people, I'm less than the one you've stared straight at late at night – surprised him watching you. Do you remember? But your senses were primed for a familiar face. Eurwen's is what you craved so you're not likely to linger over a stranger's, a not-very-round and not-very-pale
Oriental's
without even a scar to give distinction. So don't. Won't stop me heckling you now. Look again! Just say something! You can see he wants to talk. And it's your only chance. You'll hate what you hear about Eurwen because he won't lie and— and yet it
could
save your life. Which he wants to. (Wretched Yori wants him to.) Has never stopped wanting to ever since.
This
is it. The exact point things hinge on— if you're the great AH it's the frame to pause at, pump up an eerie Franz Waxman score. Just touch on the pairing-off dancers who drift away before you let the lens slide over an empty bottle clutched in a woman's fist, the cords of tension in the young man's neck— and have the audience on the edge of their seats.

And all it would've taken to stop the plot was a line of dialogue across a roaring fire— or is it dying down, being abandoned? I do know there were lanterns, and the smell of smoke and skunk, and you— unapproachable.

Fade to black.

Then days later she'd been hit and nobody would think it's unconnected with her vanishing. When Sara's father, the great Professor Geoffrey Severing, made the discovery— well, his response is documented elsewhere. Almost any reference to The Mystery of Sara Meredith includes quotes the reporters or serious writers felt legally safe to include. How unjust is history? I'll bet less than a handful of people ever considered the after-effects of a ‘party' on a freezing autumn night in a horseshitty field back in 2008. But that blow of Josh's would turn Sara walking out on him into a suspicious death though minus a body. That single blow seemed to put Josh in the frame with me.

I imagine a fine network of cracks from Josh's punch – sorry, open hand – spreading through her brittle glaze. And having softened her up, Sara was ready for Kim Tighe.

October 7
th

Kim would not be on time.

Yet again Sara adjusted the low table placed parallel to the fireplace, then stood where she could also keep an eye on the road. Soft grey drizzle was still falling: perhaps it would take for Kim to cancel. Outside the Clear Skies she had said, ‘I'll give you the address', and Kim was suddenly close enough to make her flinch (the unwashed hair about to touch her lips) whispering, ‘I already know it.'

At around twelve, making coffee to wash down Nurofen, the boiling water slopped over the worktop but miraculously missed her exposed inner arm then her feet… a good omen?
Omen!
Geoffrey Severing's collection of taboo words included omen.
Spirituality
was another, and
logical
when used in any non-mathematical sense. The weight of his judgement would ordinarily be enough to make it a pariah to her own brain and tongue… But a father was someone who seemed to be receding from her daily existence. It came as a shock to be conjuring him up now like the dead, silver hair, just a suggestion of roundness to the shoulders as he stooped unnecessarily beneath lower ceilings than he was used to in Tackley Close:
only two things to concern you about this car, drive and reverse.
That he lived was a sudden relief, that Fleur the good stepmother lived also added warmth. They existed! It was midday and a weekday, so he was in his dark-panelled study, the stained glass throwing patterns across the desktop where photographs of Fleur and Eurwen and herself were the sanctioned clutter. The newest Apple Mac might otherwise have sat in solitary perfection, utile
and
art object…