The Missing Husband (31 page)

‘I know I didn’t get you the help you needed, but in fairness, Jo, you didn’t make it easy. You wouldn’t talk to me! I didn’t know what was wrong with you, not really, and neither did the doctor. He told me he thought you were attention-seeking.’

Jo was squeezing the box in her hand so hard that the top popped open and the sleeve of pills poked out. ‘I didn’t know what was wrong with me either. I didn’t know I was having anxiety attacks, I thought I was
dying
! I wasn’t looking for attention, I was looking for
help
!’

Liz pursed her lips. ‘If you want me to say it was all my fault, then fine, I take full responsibility.’

The brief burst of anger had drained Jo. She shook her head and her next words came out as sobs. ‘No, I don’t want you to say it’s your fault. I just need you to realize that I’m broken, Mum and I want you to help fix me. And for the record, changing the locks on the doors isn’t going to be enough, not by a long shot.’

As Archie settled back to sleep in the crook of her arm, Liz closed all the cupboards before stepping close enough to put her hand on Jo’s damp cheek. ‘I will admit I thought I could come here and all I’d have to do was tell you to pull your socks up,’ she said gently.

‘I think that’s what you said last time,’ Jo offered but it failed to raise a smile from either of them.

‘You scared me today, Jo – and I mean, really scared me.’

Jo had to swallow hard to hold back the tsunami of emotions that had been gathering momentum over many months. She wasn’t ready to talk about her growing obsession that David was lurking nearby, nor could she explain why that idea should fill her with such terror every time she tried to leave the house, but she could make a start. When she spoke, it was the barest whisper. ‘I’m scared too, Mum. I’ve already lost David and now it looks like I’m losing everything else, including my mind. I don’t want to feel like this any more. Please, Mum, tell me what to do.’

‘Will those help, do you think?’ Liz said, looking at the crumpled box in Jo’s hand.

Jo dropped the box on to the counter. ‘I don’t know. Maybe, if all else fails …’

‘But not yet?’

Jo nodded.

‘OK, then. We’ll see how we get on, and when I say
we
, I mean
we
. I’ll stay as long as you need me, Joanne, and I won’t leave until I know you’re OK.’

‘Do you need me to help plan your escape?’ Heather whispered.

She hadn’t seen Jo for almost two weeks, having been sold the same line as everyone else to keep away in case she picked up the virus. Taking her life in her hands by calling in on her way home from work one Friday night, she wasn’t surprised to find her friend tucked up in a duvet on the sofa but she hadn’t expected her mum to be mollycoddling her.

‘She’s been looking after me,’ Jo explained. ‘I’ve needed her.’

Heather put a hand over Jo’s brow. ‘As I suspected, you’re still feverish.’

‘Maybe,’ Jo said, laughing softly.

‘What’s going on, Jo?’

Jo’s smile softened. She wanted to explain everything that had been happening but for the moment she was happy to leave the past behind her. She might only be taking baby steps, but at least they were in the right direction and she didn’t want to look back. Despite being sceptical about her mum’s approach to her problems, changing the locks on the doors had actually helped. It had given Jo a returning sense of control in her life, albeit with Liz riding shotgun every time she left the house. ‘I’m getting better, is what’s going on.’

‘She’s had a tough few weeks,’ Liz said, arriving in the living room, laden with all the post that Jo had neatly arranged in order of envelope size and colour but had yet to open.

‘I’d say she’s had a tough few months,’ Heather added. She was looking curiously at Jo and then at Liz, as if listening for the first time to the things that weren’t being said. ‘Are you sure it was a bug?’

Jo smiled. ‘If I was a celebrity, they’d call it exhaustion.’

‘Just wait until you get back to work, then you’ll know what exhaustion is,’ Heather joked, only seeing the warning look from Liz too late. She grimaced. ‘Although you’ve got ages yet.’

‘I’m due back on 10 March, which is less than a month away,’ Jo said glumly.

‘But she can take longer if she needs to,’ Liz added.

‘I’ve already agreed the date with Gary and I can’t afford not to go back then. You know that, Mum.’

Liz sucked air through her teeth. ‘Gary’s told her that they’ve permanently filled David’s old job,’ she said, still speaking to Heather. ‘Even if he did show up now, he wouldn’t be able to give her any financial support.’

‘So no more talk of me taking any longer off work,’ Jo said. ‘I need to stay focused. I have bills to pay.’

They all looked at the pile of unopened envelopes Liz had in her hand.

‘That’s what dads are for,’ Liz said, only just stopping herself from glancing over to Archie who was sleeping nearby in his bassinet when she realized her faux pas. ‘If you need a little extra help to see you through the next few years then we’ll remortgage the house if we have to. I don’t want you worrying about money on top of everything else.’

The tears that had sprung to Liz’s eyes made Jo feel warm and weepy. This was the kind of mum she had always wanted. ‘It won’t come to that,’ Jo told her. ‘I
am
getting better. Give me a few more days and I’ll be behaving as rationally as the next person.’

Heather looked quizzical. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I think it would be a good idea if you tell Heather what’s been going on. As much as I’d love to, I can’t stay here for ever and when I do eventually go back home I need to know that you have a strong support network in place.’

‘OK, but can you explain?’ Jo said.

Liz nodded but before she said anything she heaved the pile of post she was balancing on her lap over to Jo. ‘I’ll do the talking while you do the sorting. There’s mail in there that’s been hanging around for weeks.’

Jo obediently went through the post one letter at a time as Liz proceeded to tell an increasingly dismayed Heather how her best friend had been unravelling before her eyes without her noticing. Liz threw in her own diagnoses along the way, Jo had a little agoraphobia, a little OCD and maybe even a touch of postnatal depression for good measure despite what the doctor had said. Jo didn’t think she had a ‘little’ of anything, just an irrational fear of what might be waiting for her outside the front door coupled with the real fear that it would bring on another panic attack. But she kept quiet. She wasn’t interested in dwelling on those thoughts right now; all she wanted was to get better.

By the time Liz had finished her analysis, Jo had opened all the envelopes and sorted them into piles, one for recycling and the other for action.

‘I’m so sorry, Jo. I feel like I’ve let you down,’ Heather said.

‘You shouldn’t feel bad. I’ve been fooling myself along with everyone else.’

‘Well I’m telling you now; you won’t fool me a second time. I’m going to be watching you like a hawk.’

‘That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,’ Liz said.

‘Me too,’ Jo added.

While Heather gave Jo a tight hug, Liz got to her feet. ‘How about I clear this mess and then make a start on dinner? You’re welcome to stay, Heather.’

‘Thanks for the offer but I’m expected back home,’ Heather said, realizing a second later that she was in danger of failing Liz’s first test of loyalty. ‘But I’ll stay if you want me to, Jo.’

Jo raised an eyebrow at her mum before smiling at her friend. ‘You go home, Heather. I’m safe enough while I’ve got my mum fighting my corner, aren’t I, Mum?’

Liz was only half listening as she said, ‘Of course, sweetheart.’ She had become temporarily distracted by the pile of papers Jo had said were for recycling. ‘You haven’t opened this one yet. It’s from the police.’ Without waiting for permission, she tore the flap and pulled out a photograph which had a note from DS Baxter attached. ‘It’s a photo of you-know-who at a cash machine,’ she said with a barely disguised curl of the lip. She was holding out an image of David withdrawing money.

Pushing it away without even looking at it, Jo said, ‘Please, Mum, I don’t need to see it, Steph’s already identified him. I don’t want to look at his face.’

Jo still hoped that one day David would have the guts to step out from his hiding place so she could put her fears behind her once and for all and get the answers she deserved and needed. But by comparison, she couldn’t imagine a black-and-white photograph giving her anything other than more questions, so it was returned to the envelope and pushed out of her mind.

23

Jo and her mum sat in silence. They were sitting on a wooden bench secreted away in a walled garden that was bursting with colour thanks to a carpet of crocuses, the first of the spring blooms to break through the icy layer of winter. Reynolds Park was close to home, but the journey had been a long one.

‘It went better than I expected,’ Jo said at last.

‘At least she didn’t say come back when you’ve worked out what’s wrong with you,’ her mum said cynically. Her gloved hand was playing nervously with the contours of her seat. ‘But then I think I would have throttled her if she’d tried that one.’

‘Dr Lawton is nothing like Dr Robertson was,’ Jo said, referring to their old family GP who had so quickly come to the conclusion that Jo was nothing but an attention-seeking teenager.

‘But General Anxiety Disorder, it sounds so …’

‘Official?’ Jo asked. She was still getting used to the term herself, and although her GP couldn’t be conclusive, it sounded much better than her mum’s description of a little bit of this and a bit of that. It was only a label, however, not the cure – and certainly not a remedy to rid her of that feeling of being watched.

‘At least she seems to think therapy will help and a six-week wait isn’t too bad, I suppose.’

‘By the way you were badgering her, I wouldn’t be surprised if an appointment came through sooner,’ Jo said, keeping her tone light while she tried not to frown.

There was no doubting that she had come on by leaps and bounds since her mum’s arrival. She had been sick with nerves every time she left the house; frightened in equal measure by the thought of having another panic attack and the ever-present possibility that her husband would appear out of nowhere; but she had gone outside and so far there had been no more than a wobbly moment or two. She could almost believe that one day she could leave the house and not be confronted by the hunted feeling that had pursued her for the past few weeks.

What she tried to focus on now was the doctor’s conclusion that the panic attacks weren’t simply a recurrence of an isolated incident that had happened fifteen years ago. Jo’s battle with anxiety certainly had its roots in her teenage years but with the doctor’s gentle coaxing, she had allowed herself to follow a clear path through to the present day, her life littered with all of those quirky rituals and idiosyncrasies that David had adored – or perhaps endured. She had a mental illness and
this
was what caused her shortness of breath, the crushing feeling of weight on her chest, not the possible presence of a man in the shadows, watching, waiting.

‘I remember how you used to stalk the customers in our shop,’ Liz said, jolting Jo out of her inner thoughts. ‘Rearranging anything they dared to pick up or move. It annoyed the hell out of me.’

‘You don’t have to remind me,’ Jo said, but the laugh caught in her throat as she wondered if it was her annoying habits that had pushed David over the edge.

Liz couldn’t share the joke either, but for different reasons, and for once, she looked in a worse state than her daughter. Her face was haunted and her eyes hollow.

‘I never understood, not back then, and not even when I turned up two weeks ago. I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s only just starting to sink in. I came here thinking I could fix you, Jo. I didn’t realize I was the one that broke you in the first place.’

Jo closed her eyes and savoured the long-awaited revelation but only for a moment. It was a step in the right direction for their relationship, but Jo wouldn’t let her mother take the burden all on her own. ‘I should have spoken up, but then you were my mum and I was a teenager, so you were the last person I wanted to talk to,’ she said. ‘I’d worked myself up into a state because I was scared that you and dad were going to get divorced. I thought I was the expert on broken hearts and I didn’t want dad to go through it too, not when it wasn’t his fault. Did he know about the affair?’

Like Jo, Liz pretended it wasn’t the first time they had openly acknowledged that her relationship with the travel agent had gone beyond innocent flirtation. ‘I told your dad years later; long after it was all over. I needed to clear my conscience but I knew I was taking a risk and I wouldn’t have blamed your dad if he’d kicked me out of the house. But instead we moved on together. That was why we relocated to the Lakes. It was a fresh start for both of us.’ There was a pause and then she added, ‘I never imagined for a minute that you would be the one left to suffer the after-effects.’

Jo took her mum’s hand in hers. ‘Oh, don’t go building yourself up into the villain of the piece. I’ve had plenty of other traumas since then. You weren’t the only one to mess with my head and, at the end of the day, it’s my head and my mess and you know how I love putting things back in order again.’

‘What about going back to work, though? I meant what I said about supporting you if you need to take more time off.’

Jo was shaking her head. ‘No, I go back in less than two weeks and I’m ready. It’ll be good for me and Irene’s champing at the bit to look after the baby.’

Just then Archie began to stir. ‘I’ll see to him,’ Jo said as if to prove a point.

Archie had been sleeping in his pram to the side of the bench but Jo picked him up and cradled him in her arms. She took a long look around the garden until her eyes settled on the entrance. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining David stepping through the arch, but despite the lurch inside, she wouldn’t cower from that thought. If he caught sight of her now, she would look to the world like a proud new mum. One day she hoped she would
feel
like that too.