she would hardly acknowledge my presence and pay more attention to the blank wall behind me; sometimes she would be over-the-top gushing with affection and enthusiasm. ‘Lovely Gracie, fabulous Gracie.’ Made it very uncomfortable for me, on every occasion; I couldn’t work out whether to try to interact with her or not.
‘Is your mum OK?’ I stupidly asked Adam after the first time I met them. That time she had been almost entirely silent and extremely distractible. Adam’s step-dad, Ray, had cooked a lovely roast lamb and was serving it at the table while Julia threw three glasses of wine into herself. She was leaning for the bottle to refill again when her hand suddenly froze, mid-reach. I glanced at Ray and Adam, to see if they’d noticed, and they were both locked in position – Ray carving the joint, Adam pouring drinks – but had turned their heads to stare at her. Ray had even said, ‘Julia,’ quietly, almost like a warning. Eventually she dropped her hand, and the two men relaxed again and continued with what they were both doing.
At that point in our relationship, I still expected Adam to be open with me about himself and his family. I thought he would put his arms round me and tear up while he told me sorrowfully that she had some syndrome or other, something on ‘the spectrum’. Or that she was maybe bipolar or clinically depressed. On medication for something at the very least. Probably not a very tactful way of asking, but we’d been home for an hour by this time and he wasn’t volunteering it.
‘Yes, she’s absolutely fine.’ He flashed a brief smile at me, then turned directly back to the film we were watching.
Alarm bells started clanging instantly. He’d shut down – what became his go-to response for any enquiry at all into some part of his life that wasn’t to do with me. A solid and unyielding rebuff. A dead end.
‘Oh. Well that’s good,’ I said weakly. His closed-off demeanour – arms folded, head turned pointedly away – told me not to pursue it, so, mystified, I let it go. But I dreaded the next time we went and was very relieved that it didn’t come up again for several months.
But she’s his mum and I’m his wife, it’s almost a requirement that we meet up and console each other in these circumstances. I wish I knew how to behave around her, especially now, but Google has been utterly useless in that respect. Of course Julia will be missing him too, and may even look at me as the last remnant of her vanishing son. Oh God. I hope she doesn’t think that I think about her like that. That I’ll want to snuggle in her arms and talk about ‘Adam the baby’ and ‘Adam the handyman’ and ‘Adam the party animal’ and laugh and then cry together. I have no inclination whatsoever to see her, but it would look odd if I don’t go. So go I must.
From upstairs there’s a thump followed by a kind of groaning sob. I grab a glass of water and go quickly up to the spare room to find Ginger kneeling in front of a small pool of red wine. There’s a glass on its side beside her. She looks up at me like a dog in front of a fouled rug.
‘I’m so sorry, Gracie,’ she says quietly, and closes her eyes.
‘No point asking you how you are today then?’
She answers very softly without opening her eyes. ‘Let me sort it out. Got any white wine?’
I smile. ‘Thank you for the thought, but I’m not bringing wine anywhere near you today.’
‘Alka-Seltzer might be a better idea.’
‘Haven’t got any I’m afraid. Oh Ginge, what were you thinking?’
‘I know, I know, I’m an effing idiot, don’t tell me. How long had that bottle of wine been there anyway?’
‘No, you’re not blaming the wine. It’s Adam’s—’ I pause, correct myself – ‘it was Adam’s, so it was definitely a good one.’
‘Good God, Gracie,’ Adam’s voice says in my head, ‘what the hell have you bought?’
‘It’s wine. I thought it would be nice with the—’
‘No it isn’t. Jesus, this will probably taste like nail varnish remover, not wine. How much was it? A fiver? We’re not drinking that.’
I smile at Ginger now. ‘You tipped nearly the whole lot down your throat all by yourself. And half a bottle of gin.’
‘Don’t talk about it.’
I get her cleaned up and put her to bed on the sofa with some dry toast, a jug of water and the bucket. The shop will have to stay closed today. Penny won’t mind; it’s more of a hobby for her anyway, her husband is a multi-millionaire businessman supplying toner ink to dry photocopiers around the country. Besides, she’s in Italy.
‘What’s Fletch up to today? Can he come and look after you?’ Simon Fletcher – known affectionately as Fletch by anyone who has any affection for him – is Ginge’s current boyfriend. She always introduces him like that – ‘This is Fletch, my current boyfriend’ – even though they’ve been together over three years.
‘What? Aren’t you looking after me?’
‘No, you know I can’t. I’m going to see Julia and Ray today, then Mum and Dad. Shall I call him?’
She pouts from the sofa. ‘No point, he’s working.’ Fletch sells drugs for a living. He works in telesales for a large pharmaceutical company. She rolls over and faces the back of the sofa, so I start walking out of the room to go and get dressed. A whispery voice reaches me at the door: ‘Can you get my phone, please? I’ll text him later.’
I wait until after I’ve showered and dressed before ringing Julia and Ray. Ginger is snoring on the sofa so I take my phone out into the kitchen to call, but spend almost half an hour procrastinating with the washing up and cleaning first. Eventually I give myself a mental slap and am just about to dial when my phone starts ringing all on its own, making me jump.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello? Sarah?’
I puff out a ‘Huh.’ Haven’t been called that for a long time. Ginger and I became best friends virtually on day one at secondary school because her nickname was Ginger and mine was Grace. Long story, but there was a legendary incident when I was about nine when I knocked an entire display of soy sauce over in Sainsbury’s. Kind of tripped multiple times. Hey, it got very slippery very quickly. My dad dubbed me Grace at that point, and it stuck. Ginger and I both corrected our Year Seven teacher at first registration, then caught each other’s eye and grinned. I don’t think anyone at school ever even got to grips with our real names, we used them for such a short time.
But no one calls me Sarah any more. Not even my family. I haven’t gone by that name for sixteen or seventeen years, at least. I literally don’t associate with anyone who still calls me that, and apart from my passport and marriage certificate, everything I have is …
Suddenly I feel cold tendrils snaking up my spine and my heart rate speeds up. There’s something off about this call, and it can’t be coincidence that my husband vanished into the night five days ago. This is it, I think to myself. This is the moment when I find out what’s going on and my world crashes around me.
My fingers wrap around the phone more tightly and I press it to my head. ‘Yes, speaking. Who is this?’
‘It’s Leon, Sarah. I’m a friend of your husband’s. Is he there, by any chance?’
Ice-cold
