A Perfect Marriage Read online

  ‘If Charlie stayed there until it closed, forgetting the time, she might’ve only just left.’ Anthony says.

  ‘Yes.’ I feel slightly cheered by this.

  ‘So she should be back shortly; by ten-thirty at the very latest.’

  ‘Perhaps we should eat. You must be hungry and tired.’

  ‘Hungry, yes. Tired, no. I’m on US time, five hours behind here. So it’s five o’clock in the afternoon for me. I can party all night if you’d like to.’

  ‘When do you have to go back?’

  ‘Monday.’

  We have nearly two whole days.

  We go downstairs to the kitchen, and I put the pasta on to cook while Anthony tells me of his experiences in the United States. The funny bits I can laugh at, it doesn’t take much energy to smile. But when he asks about my research project, I find my mind has been erased clean of sensible thoughts about work let alone the ability to talk about it. ‘The medical testing,’ he prompts, ‘you’re introducing Helicobacter pylori into artificially induced stomach tissue, aren’t you?’

  I stand still and wonder where I put the wine. ‘I can’t concentrate, Anthony.’ Thoughts spin around my head, bright flashes of hope followed by darker streaks of despair.

  ‘Let me pour you a drink.’

  At this point I remember that the bottle of wine is in the freezer. I left it too long; it’s icy cold. Anthony takes it from me and starts opening cupboards at random.

  ‘Glasses ready on the bench,’ I say automatically. He pours the wine and hands me a glass.

  ‘To us,’ he says. We clink glasses. I resolve to drink only a little in case I have to go out in my car to collect Charlie from somewhere.

  By half-past ten Charlie is still not home and Anthony and I eat the pasta. It is overcooked. Anthony chats vivaciously over supper, trying to distract me from my worries. By eleven o’clock she is still not here, and Anthony is looking uneasy too.

  ‘I’d better phone the hospitals,’ I say. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘Would you like me to do it?’

  ‘No. They might want a detailed description and you’ve never met her.’

  I call up the accident and emergency unit at the Royal Free Hospital. My hand is shaking so much I key in the wrong number and have to try again. No one has come in fitting Charlie’s particulars. Next I try University College Hospital and there is no news there either. I find my fingernails are digging into my palms. I tell myself that no news is good news.

  Anthony and I clean up the kitchen. I try not to imagine what might have happened to Charlie, but crisp images keep coming unbidden to my mind, as if someone is showing me one of those old canisters of photographic slides. Round and round they go in the projector, round and round in my head. Charlie is prostrate on the side of a canal; Charlie is floating face down in the Thames; Charlie is lying beaten or worse in a back alley near Kings Cross Station; Charlie is wandering with amnesia through the streets of London, unable to remember her way home. Round and round the images go, clear and sharp. See them once, see them again. Gritty black and white photo-realism. Newspaper images of other people’s lives.

  I try to pull myself together. Anthony loads the dishwasher. After putting cling film over Charlie’s meal, I place it in the refrigerator, and wipe down the benches. I make a pot of tea and we take it and some cups up to the living room.

  It’s half-past eleven and still no sign of Charlie. Anthony hits on the idea of playing Scrabble to keep us occupied while we are waiting. Waiting for Charlie. Waiting for her return; waiting for some news. I get out the Scrabble board and we begin a game. The minutes pass by, the quarter-hours pass by; we hear the old clock in the dining room ringing them out.

  Anthony is a competitive player and so am I, even now. It’s almost as if I am playing a game with fate. If I can win at Scrabble my daughter will come home safely; if I lose she will never return. I don’t mention this stupid fantasy to Anthony in case he thinks I am a bad loser. Maybe later, if I win and Charlie comes home, I will tell him. Maybe later we can laugh at all of this.

  Anthony puts down on the board the word ‘lover’, building on a word of mine. I have an S at the ready, and construct the word ‘syntax’ from Anthony’s contribution, thereby turning the ‘lover’ into ‘lovers’. I look up at Anthony and hold his glance. We would have become lovers tonight if Charlie had not gone missing. We say nothing; we continue with our contest, our way of filling in the time.

  Towards the end of the game Anthony puts down on the board the word ‘crasis’. I challenge him on this, and tell him it’s a waste of two tiles containing the valuable letter S.

  ‘You’re a biologist, you should know what crasis means,’ he says, laughing. He is parodying what I said the time we visited Tate Modern when I teased him for not knowing what a banksia was. Funny to think that our lunch together and trip to Tate Modern was the first time, the only time, we have been out together, and yet I feel as if I’ve known him for years.

  ‘Are you listening, Sally?’ Anthony’s hand is on my arm. ‘Crasis means a combination of elements or qualities in animals’ bodies. As well as something like a diphthong.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I say. ‘You’re making it up.’ Opening the iPad I keep on the coffee table, I click on the dictionary app to look up ‘crasis’ and find that Anthony is right.

  ‘You’re showing off,’ I say. But I know he is trying to make me laugh, and he has succeeded.

  I win the game. Charlie will come home. Anthony’s crasis has helped, for I am able to use the last S as an ending for a seven-letter word that brings me bonus points. I have won. Crasis. Crisis: that is what we are having tonight. A crisis.

  While Anthony is preparing the Scrabble board for another game, I go out into the street. For a few moments I stand in front of our place, hoping that Charlie will turn up now that I’ve come out to meet her. But there is no sign of life. Trafalgar Terrace is in darkness, save for yellow-orange pools of light from the street lamps. Ours is in the middle of the terrace of houses lining this short street. The other houses are in darkness, or display faint rectangles of light diffused through drawn curtains. But our uncurtained windows are ablaze, as if we are throwing a party.

  Shivering, I go inside and run upstairs to look in Charlie’s room. Perhaps she has crept in while we were playing Scrabble, perhaps I shall find her asleep in her bed.

  I switch on her light and find the room is empty. The bed is still made, the curtains are not drawn. I peer out of her window at the night. There is a crescent moon and the sky glows a dull orange, as it always does in London from the sodium street lights. There are patches of yellow light on the narrow strip of back garden, from the window where I am standing and from the living room below. I draw the curtains, and glance again at my watch. One o’clock on Sunday morning.

  I run downstairs and find Anthony standing at the front bay window, looking out. He turns as I enter the room, and holds out an arm for me. We stand side-by-side surveying the quiet street.

  ‘Still no sign,’ he says. ‘Let’s start a new game. It can’t be too much longer now.’

  I can think of nothing to say. ‘It can’t be too much longer,’ he said. Not that Charlie can’t be too much longer. It can’t be too much longer. It can’t be too much longer before a policeman is knocking at the door.

  We begin our second game of Scrabble. Time passes. I find it hard to concentrate and make silly moves. Anthony is no better, although I suspect that he’s humouring me. I interrupt the game to call the accident and emergency units a couple of times, but they know nothing. The night is wearing on, and I fear that I’ll never see my daughter alive again.

  Chapter 35

  NOW

  There is a crash as the roof shatters. The room is pitch-black and I don’t know where I am. Though I’m sitting on the edge of a bed, I don’t know where it’s located. I stand up, and walk carefully to where I think the door is. Holding my arms up in front of me, I grope for the door ha
ndle. But there is no door here, only walls, smooth plastered walls. I am shut in, I am incarcerated here, and there is no way out. And I have lost something, something important; I have lost the keys. My heart is banging in my chest and a wave of panic drowns out all rationality. I am a primitive woman buried alive in her cave. Screaming, I bang on the wall with my fists. Then my right hand touches something smooth and warmer than the walls: it’s a piece of plastic, it’s a plastic switch. I flick it and a bright light fills the room, momentarily blinding me.

  I am standing in the living room of my house in Kentish Town. Everything is in its proper place. Look, there next to the light switch is the doorpost. Groping in the dark I had missed it completely. Dripping with sweat, I look at my watch. Three o’clock in the morning.

  Now it all comes flooding back. Charlie is missing. And Anthony is not here either.

  Next I hear footsteps on the stairs. It’s Anthony, running up from the kitchen.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks. ‘I heard screaming.’

  ‘Is she home?’

  ‘No, Sally. Not yet. There’s no news yet.’ He puts his arms around me and hugs me; then he leads me back to the sofa. We sit down side by side.

  ‘I had a dream,’ I say.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  I recount my dream. It was a variant of the usual. It was a dream about Charlie, about Charlie ten years ago when she was only seven years old. In this dream we were in a beautiful room at the top of a round tower, in a fairy-tale castle. Over our heads rose a high glass dome, through which could be seen a sprinkling of stars and a thin sickle moon that had faintly illuminated Charlie’s face. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, the glass roof cracked and splintered. And Charlie vanished, just like that. She vanished. The room was thrown into darkness, the stars and the moon had gone. And Charlie was no more. Gone in a crash of glass; a shattering sprinkling of glass.

  At this moment I hear sounds from the street. A car pulls up outside the house, a car door opens and a few seconds later slams shut. It’s the police; it must be the police, coming to tell me what has happened.

  Chapter 36

  NOW

  Flinging open the front door, I almost fall on top of Charlie, hand extended about to insert the key into the lock. Over her shoulder, I see in the street below, not a police car but a black London cab.

  ‘Thank God you’re here.’ I throw my arms around her neck and give her a big hug. When she doesn’t respond, I hold her at arm’s length; she looks pale apart from the dark smudges under her eyes. ‘Are you OK, Charlie? I’ve been worried sick about you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’ll explain in a minute. I need eleven squids for the cab driver.’

  I get my handbag from the newel post of the stair, where it always hangs when I’m at home, and accompany Charlie out to the cab. I lean through the window. The driver is a dark middle-aged man and his cab reeks of aftershave and disinfectant. I give him two notes, a tenner and a fiver. ‘Keep the change,’ I tell him. He nods and drives off quickly, in case I change my mind.

  ‘That’s much too big a tip.’ Charlie’s voice is cross.

  ‘Money’s the least of my worries right now. And he did bring you home.’

  ‘That’s what the eleven pounds was for.’

  We glare at each other under the orange streetlight. ‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, young woman,’ I tell her.

  ‘So have you.’ Charlie strides up the steps to our front door. The heels of her Doc Martens are scuffed. I follow her and shut the door behind us, rather too hard; we stand face-to-face in the hall.

  ‘Where have you been, Charlie?’

  ‘At Zoë’s flat.’ Charlie’s eyes will not meet mine but dart around the hall as if she is trying to find something more interesting.

  ‘I tried calling there about ten o’clock but there was no answer.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t going to pick up the phone, was I? Like, get real, Mum, I wasn’t even supposed to be there!’

  ‘But why didn’t you call me? You must have known I’d be sick with worry.’ My relief mingles with fatigue that washes over me like a tidal wave. My legs give way and I subside onto the second step of the staircase. Charlie is home, I tell myself, that is the main thing. I must be calm; we must avoid a row; we are both too tired.

  And there is Anthony waiting in the living room.

  ‘Don’t you start asking me why I haven’t done things,’ Charlie shouts in an uncharacteristic burst of anger. ‘This is your fault, you know, this whole thing is your fucking fault!’

  ‘How is that?’ My voice is icy cold, as if I can calm Charlie’s anger. ‘And don’t swear at me, Charlie. I don’t like it.’

  ‘You fucking didn’t tell me! You’ve never told me anything.’

  ‘Like what?’ I stand up again and clutch the newel post.

  ‘You lied to me. You said Dad died of a heart attack but he didn’t. He banged his head when he was doped up with drugs and alcohol and died of a haematoma. Whatever the fuck that is.’

  Charlie’s voice reverberates around the stairwell and over these echoes I hear the blood pounding in my ears. I should have been the one to explain to her exactly how Jeff died. She’s learned about her father but not from me. Without thinking I open my mouth. ‘I can tell you what a haematoma is.’ It’s an effort to keep my voice unruffled. ‘It’s bleeding between the brain and the skull. It puts pressure on the brain.’

  ‘My mother, the fucking scientist. You always have a pat answer for everything.’

  ‘Not now, Charlie. Let’s not have a row. Why don’t we go upstairs and talk about it quietly.’

  ‘And Dad beat you up too, just like he did Zoë.’ Charlie shouts out these words, my calmness enraging rather than comforting her.

  ‘What gives you that idea?’ I half-shut my eyes and frown at her.

  ‘What do you think? I read it in newspapers in your college library. That’s what I was doing, checking through old papers on microfiche. The Guardian and The Times, in the year Dad died. Does that mean anything to you? What those blokes on the boat said was pretty useful. I know enough about cricket to work out when that test series must have taken place and that it seemed to coincide roughly with Dad’s death. And do you know why I had to do it that way? Because you couldn’t fucking bring yourself to tell me what happened!’

  I look at the floorboards while wondering what to say. I should have told her about this long ago; instead of pretending to myself I was waiting for the right moment. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m really sorry,’ I cannot think of anything more to add. This is too sudden, too soon. And I cannot speak of this with Anthony listening.

  ‘I asked you what had happened to Zoë, didn’t I, Mum? Like, I asked you on the boat and you couldn’t tell me.’

  ‘Do you think I could begin to tell you what happened in front of a boat load of near-strangers?’

  ‘You could’ve said ask me later, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I kind of did, Charlie. Don’t you remember? I said I’d talk to you later.’ My voice sounds too reasonable, possibly even patronising. Yet this rationality is not what I am feeling. I want to hug Charlie. I want to explain everything to her, but not with Anthony standing in the room next to us.

  My apparent calmness inflames Charlie’s anger again. She takes a step towards me and I think of Jeff. Charlie is Jeff’s child; sometimes I forget that Charlie is Jeff’s child too. I flinch and turn my head to one side. Shutting my eyes, I wait for her to deliver a physical blow.

  ‘Open your eyes and look at me, Mum,’ Charlie says, more quietly now. ‘You can’t tell the truth about anything, can you?’ Her eyes appear emerald green against the flushed red of her skin. She thinks I’ve betrayed her trust. She has a right to be angry. I should have told her something of my past. Our past. She continues, more calmly although her voice is clear and carrying: ‘You’ve hidden your boyfriends from me. You’ve never brought them home, your toy boys that Zoë’s told me about. Use the
m then lose them!’

  ‘I know you’re very upset, Charlie.’ I find it hard to speak; my mouth is dry and my voice shaking, and only by carefully enunciating each word can I marshal my thoughts. ‘But now you’re being silly.’

  ‘Not as silly as you’ve been,’ Charlie says. The worst of her anger is over, and I can see her eyes filling with tears. For the first time since getting home she looks into the living room and sees the Scrabble game spread out on the coffee table. And there is Anthony standing with his back to us looking out of the front bay window. No way out for him, Charlie and I are blocking the exit. His whole body language expresses discretion.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she hisses.

  ‘Anthony.’

  ‘The Blake bloke,’ says Charlie loudly. ‘The clone drone. Trapped in the living room. He knows all our little secrets now.’

  Anthony turns, right on cue, and walks towards us. His face is a mask that reveals nothing. There is no trace of embarrassment, no sign of awkwardness. ‘Charlie, how nice to meet you,’ he says, as if they have been introduced at some drinks party. ‘Anthony Blake,’ he adds.

  ‘I’ve met you,’ says Charlie, glowering. ‘On the phone. Doesn’t that count? The countless times the clone drone’s phoned.’

  Anthony ignores her rudeness and puts out his hand as if to shake hers. For some reason she find this comical and bursts into hysterical laughter. Anthony appears unfazed however. But Charlie doesn’t shake his hand.

  ‘Your mother’s been frantic with worry. I’m so glad you’re safe.’ He looks at me and smiles. ‘I think I’ll make some tea.’ He clatters noisily down the stairs to the kitchen. Glad to get away, I expect.

  ‘That was incredibly rude, Charlie,’ I say, when Anthony is out of earshot.

  ‘Who cares?’ she says, scuffing her boot on the wooden floorboards. ‘Like, I’m fed up with all this pretence.’

  I hold out my arms to her but she pushes past me and races up the stairs two at a time. As she passes I catch a faint whiff of spirits on her breath; Zoë’s cognac, I suppose. Next I hear her bedroom door slam.