Beneath the Surface (3 page)

‘Thanks for waiting,’ I said when the old lady had shuffled away. I grabbed your basket and scanned the items one by one. Four cans of lager; deodorant; cornflakes; a box of Dairy Milk … My heart dipped a little as I packed the chocolates into a carrier bag. ‘That’s £12.78, please,’ I said. I didn’t look up at you as you handed me the money.

‘So, are you on for much longer tonight?’ you asked.

‘No, thank God,’ I said. ‘I finish in fifteen minutes.’

‘Busy night?’ you laughed.

‘I’m just very, very tired and I want to get to bed,’ I smiled.

‘Ah! Well, have a good one.’

You took the bag off me and I watched you walk out of the shop and stop just outside the door. The store was emptying out and I didn’t have anyone else waiting at my till. I wondered what lucky girl was waiting for you and the chocolates at home, when you turned around and came back in, walking straight towards me.

‘Did you forget something?’ I asked when you stopped at the end of the conveyor belt.

‘Yes,’ you said. ‘I, er … Look, I really don’t usually do this but I just wondered if you fancied going out for a drink?’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I don’t drink.’ Immediately I cringed at my response. ‘I mean, I—’

‘We don’t have to drink,’ you smiled. ‘Maybe we could go to the cinema.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But—’ I glanced towards your bag. I’d assumed you had a girlfriend and by then I couldn’t shake off the idea. ‘Are you single?’ I blurted out.

‘Of course,’ you laughed. ‘Why? Ah, the chocolates, you mean? They’re for my grandma. I’m visiting her tomorrow. I can promise you, I’m most definitely unattached.’

Nothing like the men I usually met, you were clean-shaven, tall and blond. In your striped shirt and jeans you looked like a rugby player; you were everything I dreamt of in a boyfriend. My head and heart were splitting me in two. My heart was doing a little dance of joy but my head was warning me not to get too carried away because things don’t run that smoothly for Abigail Ryder. So in the end I said yes, then waited for something to go wrong.

It annoyed you that I always saw the glass half-empty, especially when you were an eternal optimist. We had been seeing each other for a month when you told me you were taking me for a picnic. I looked up at the sky and pointed out the clouds.

‘There’s rain coming,’ I said. ‘I don’t think we should go.’

‘Of course there isn’t,’ you said, loading up the boot, telling me to get into the car. ‘Stop worrying.’

So I did as you said and smiled to myself as I caught you tucking a large umbrella under the picnic rug.

Sure enough, the rain came.

‘It’s going to be ruined,’ I cried, throwing half-eaten sandwiches and sausage rolls back into the rucksack. I was annoyed that our day was spoilt but also that I had been right when I so wanted to be wrong. But when I looked up, you were laughing, arms outstretched and face turned to the sky, catching the rain on the tip of your tongue.

‘How can you say our day is ruined when we’re having so much fun?’ you said, grabbing me around the waist. ‘It’s just a bit of rain, Abi. Who cares if we get wet when we’re together?’

You always made me feel happy. You helped me see a glimmer of light rather than just a long black tunnel ahead. Over time I came round to your way of thinking that maybe things didn’t always have to turn out bad. I pushed my demons even further down inside of me so they couldn’t reach us and thought I could get away without facing them now I was with you.

Six months later I knew I’d fallen for you hard and I allowed myself to believe things were going well. Then one night we were sitting in your flat watching TV and I noticed you hadn’t said much. You were absently rubbing your hand against my leg and I could see your head was elsewhere. I asked you questions and you either nodded or shook your head, but I could tell you weren’t listening to me. Immediately my guard rose up in defence, and I cursed myself for foolishly trusting in us and letting you into my heart. I pulled my leg away so your hand fell into the space between us and hugged my arms around my knees.

‘What’s wrong?’ you asked.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ I snapped. ‘Nothing! Look, maybe I should just go. I’ve got an early morning.’

I had at last heard back from an advertising company I had sent an application to, and they were interviewing me the next morning for an assistant account manager position. I had a sudden desire to get out of the flat – I thought I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to hear it.

You sighed and hung your head back against the sofa, closing your eyes as you did so.

‘Don’t worry, Adam,’ I said. ‘I get the picture.’

You had met someone else. Or maybe you just realised you could do better than me, or you were bored or … There were too many possibilities and maybe I was overreacting, but I was so scared you were about to break my heart and leave me.

At this you opened your eyes and sat up straight.

‘What are you taking about?’

But I didn’t answer; instead I just focused on gathering up my bag and shoes and trying to get myself out of the flat.

‘Abi,’ you grabbed me. ‘Why are you suddenly leaving? Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking but whatever it is, I think you’ve got it wrong.’

‘Then tell me why you’re being like this with me,’ I said. I could feel the tears stinging the backs of my eyes and I knew it wouldn’t take much for them to well up.

‘I’ve been thinking about things,’ you said. ‘About us, and where we’re going. And I really love you, Abi. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, but there are things I want to know.’

I could have laughed: you had just said you loved me and you wanted to be with me.

‘What do you want to know?’ I asked, but by then I didn’t really care what it was.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ you sighed. ‘I guess sometimes I feel that I don’t really know you. You can be such a closed book.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Yes, it is. We talk about stuff all the time, what we ate for breakfast, what’s on the TV, who said what at work, but nothing important. Nothing that means anything. Every time I try, you change the subject.’

‘I don’t,’ I whispered back, but of course you were right.

‘Yes, Abi, you do. The other day I told you my parents wanted us to go to Scotland so they could finally meet you and you said, “Maybe you should go on your own, I’m sure it’s you they want to see.” I ask you what you want to do in life, and you shrug my question away and say, “I’ll do whatever I end up doing.” I haven’t asked about your family after you very definitely told me you never wanted to talk about them. I don’t know what to do, Abs. I really like you but I feel like for whatever reason you don’t want me getting close to you.’

It was the first time anyone had pressed me on it. Probably no one had wanted to get close to me before and so they hadn’t bothered pursuing why they couldn’t. I felt that familiar burn under my skin and hadn’t realised I was scratching at it until you grabbed hold of my arm. Now I was thinking of my mother and I so did not want to be. She had no place coming between us, and I was annoyed she was edging her way in. I pulled my arm away.

‘I just want to know who you are,’ you continued. ‘I want to know everything about you, even the not-so-good bits.’

The room was closing in on me and I needed to get out, but you were holding onto me again and I could feel myself letting you pull me back.
Don’t put yourself through this, Abi
, I was thinking
. Don’t let him open up your heart because you don’t know what might drop out of it.
But at the same time I wanted to tell you. Maybe you should know who I am. I let you pull me back onto the sofa and we sat for a while in silence, your arms wrapped around me. It took me back to a time, so long ago, when I was only little. I was riding my bike along a promenade and fell over, badly grazing my knee. The skin stung like someone had cut through it with a knife. My daddy picked me up and we sat on the beach, him holding me tightly until I could no longer feel any pain.

‘It hurts,’ I said. ‘Some things hurt so much I choose not to talk about them.’

‘Just try, Abs.’

You looked at me with eyes pleading me to open up to you.

So I took a deep breath and said, ‘My mother disappeared one day. I came home from school when I was seventeen and she was gone.’

‘Oh, my God!’

Your face told me it was the last thing you expected to hear. I knew you were probably thinking the worst, that she had been abducted, maybe found dead. Sometimes I told people that because I thought it’s what they wanted to hear – besides, it was better than the truth.

‘It’s not what you’re thinking. She planned to go.’

‘What?’ I could hear the shock in your voice.

That’s why I didn’t usually tell people, because then they started to wonder what I’d done to make my mother leave me. ‘The truth is I still don’t know why. Fourteen years later I have no idea why she went or where. And that’s not all of it. She took my sisters with her. They were only two.’

The word ‘sisters’ choked in my throat. I didn’t talk about the girls. Ever. I couldn’t, it wasn’t possible to get through life if I let them into my world again.

‘Jesus! And you haven’t tried looking for them?’

‘No, and that’s why I don’t talk about it. So I need you to drop this now. Please.’

‘Of course, Abs, of course,’ you murmured, and you wrapped yourself tighter around me like you would never let me go.

*****

‘He sounds like a wonderful man, Abi. You obviously loved him very much,’ Maggie said to me. ‘I can see your eyes sparkle when you talk about him.’

‘He was the only person who ever let me be who I was and who didn’t push me into anything I wasn’t ready for.’

*****

After I told you about my mother you didn’t press me into telling you more. You had heard the worst and were still with me.

You made me feel safe again and I promised myself you were one person I would never let go. But then I didn’t manage that either, did I?

Since what happened with us I started getting moments when I couldn’t shake the past from my head. I had spent years burying memories deep within, but all of a sudden they were looming up inside me again.

The first time was one of those early spring days when the sun catches you out and it’s warmer than you think it’s going to be. I had wandered out to buy a paper and a coffee and sat outside on a bench in the park. Two teenage girls walked past me, arms linked together, their heads pressed in to each other as they giggled over something one of them said. I couldn’t take my eyes off them – for all I knew, they could have been Hannah and Lauren.

I never have to work out how old the girls are. I’ve always known exactly what their ages are at any given time over the last fourteen years. Now they are sixteen, soon to be seventeen. The same age I imagined these girls in the park were. Usually when I think of Hannah and Lauren, I quickly picture the happy scene I’ve drawn for them – the house in the country, the swings in the back garden, a dog by the fire … Always they are laughing and teasing each other, and they are always, always both in the picture together. Then as soon as I have seen them clearly in my mind I can close the image down, knowing they are safe and happy, and then I forget about it again: it is the only way I keep going.

But on that day in the park I wasn’t able to get them out of my head. I had conjured up my scene, thrown in some extras like the new outfits they were wearing, but then try as I might, I could not close down the image. I even tried mentally clicking the red cross in the corner of the picture to shut the file down, but still it kept springing back up. And every time it did so it taunted me with something that wasn’t quite right. The swing was broken, swaying loosely by one rope. One of the girls was crying. Hannah was hiding behind a tree and when she appeared, her face was bruised and she didn’t look like I thought she should. I was watching a thriller that my own warped mind was creating, but I couldn’t stop it from playing.

This last year, every time I remember I’ve wanted to pick up a bottle again and get through it like I did when they left. I wanted to fill my head with alcohol or drugs until I forgot, but somehow I didn’t. There are some days when it becomes almost too hard to bear, though, because a clear mind is a playground for the thoughts and memories you cannot control.

It was about six weeks after they left that I decided I wouldn’t ever look for the girls. After all I had my reasons for believing they would be better off without me. I told myself they were fine. They were happy and oblivious so what did it matter what was happening to me? They were what mattered.

My own life was spiralling out of control and I didn’t know what to do about it. I had all these questions about what had happened and how my mother could leave me. But I never got the answers I believed, and part of me didn’t think I wanted them anyway. I decided the best way to cope was to forget – bury the layers of guilt, anger, sadness and fear deep down so I didn’t have to face them.

Then along you came, and bit by bit I started to open my eyes to how I really felt and I realised I should never have let them go without looking for them. What if they weren’t OK? I shouldn’t have left them with her, plus I deserve to understand why she left me, don’t I?

So after what happened with you and me I decided to look for Hannah and Lauren. I need to know what happened, Adam. I have to know why they left me, because something made my mother go, and it can’t have been me.