Then You Were Gone (31 page)

I bit my lip, not knowing what to say. ‘Sorry’ seemed so redundant.

‘I can still remember him,’ Ed continued. ‘You know, his voice, what he looked like, what he smelled like, everything. I’m the youngest, so I think it was easier for me in some ways. You know, I was young enough to – I don’t know how to describe it.’ He squeezed his eyes shut. His face was grave, but not upset. There was no sign of any emotion. He opened his eyes. They were, I realised, very, very blue. ‘I think, if it doesn’t sound too simplistic, that I took it in my stride.’

Would that have been better? I wondered. To have lost them then, when the self-absorption and idiocy of childhood might have made it more bearable? No. I shuddered at the thought. Better to have had them for as long as I did.

‘And your mother?’ I knew I shouldn’t ask, that it was distasteful and intrusive, especially on a first date – if indeed that’s what this was – but I had to know.

He screwed his face up, as if in acknowledgement of the unsavoury nature of this conversation. ‘That was more recent,’ he admitted. ‘Just last year. Cancer.’

‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed appropriate to say it, this time, about something that must still be fresh and painful.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s OK. Really.’ He sounded surprised. ‘It’s quite a lot better now, a lot better than it was, at least.’ He was still holding my hand and he gave it a brief squeeze. ‘I know it won’t seem like it now, I know you won’t believe me, but it does start to get better.’

I smiled. Other people had told me much the same, but I’d never believed them. What could they possibly know? But I knew that he must be telling the truth, because he was actually living it.

‘It never goes back,’ he continued. ‘Not to how things were before, but it gets a bit better, honestly.’

I tried to stop the disappointment from showing in my face. I mean, obviously I would never go back to normal. How could I? But it made me feel even more hollow, having it confirmed like that. Tears – small ones, but tears nevertheless – sprang into my eyes. I blinked slowly, praying that they wouldn’t spill onto my face, and that he wouldn’t notice them even if they did. They did. And he did.

‘Oh, Jesus, Tash, I’m sorry.’ He put his other hand on top of mine. ‘I didn’t mean to –’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop saying that.’ I tried to lighten the tone, pulling my hand away to brush my cheeks dry. ‘It’s fine. I cry all the time. And anyway, I like talking to you about it.’

He smiled. ‘I know what you’re going to say. That I’m a good listener?’

I grinned. ‘Something like that.’

‘Women always say that. I think they just mean that I let them talk for as long as they want.’

That was the thing, I realised, about him. He did have all the elements of your everyday ladykiller: artful scruffiness; the appearance of not caring how he looked, while ensuring that he was neither unfashionable nor unsavoury; the effortless flirting; the languid charm; the ‘good listener’ approach – I hoped there was nothing calculated about it. The charm and charisma appeared effortless because they were.

At the end of the evening, he thanked me again for the information I had brought and helped me on with my best coat. I almost asked him if he wanted to come back to Mum and Dad’s with me. It seemed like he would have said yes. I suspected it would not be anything out of the ordinary for him to go home with a woman he had just met. And I also suspected that he was the kind of man who would be good in bed and not a bastard, and for a moment the temptation was almost overwhelming. The thought of another warm body in that house with me, of somebody touching me and taking me away from myself for an hour or so was intoxicating.

But I bade him goodbye warmly and with promise, but without invitation. Tim, I kept telling myself. It isn’t over with Tim. Don’t bugger it up with comfort sex with a stranger, even if he is a Carl Bernstein lookalike. Or Bob Woodward. Whichever one was the good-looking one. But now I think maybe that really, on another, deeper level that I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge that I was really saying: save this one, don’t rush it. He’s worth the wait. Stick it out until the time’s right.

Chapter 3

Ed

‘Ed, remind me again what your
fucking problem is
?’

My sister Leanne was bollocking me for something. This was nothing novel so I was giving it only about a third of my attention.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, my eyes and most of my mind focusing on the cuttings and personnel files Tash had brought me from the library.

‘I mean, what is this fucking
obsession
you have about our Pete? He’s gone. He’s
gone
.’ She shouted the last word. ‘He’s been gone twenty years. Reading old newspaper articles or whatever the bloody hell that is, it’s not going to bring him back, you know.’

I took a heavy breath and put the papers down. This was a conversation we had had many times, although not usually in such a heated manner. ‘You talk like he’s dead,’ I said.

She stuck out her lower jaw. ‘And what? You think he int?’

I shook my head. ‘We’re not getting into all this again.’

‘We fucking are. I’m sick of listening to your bullshit.’

Leanne is not an even-tempered woman, and is very sure of her opinions – and vociferous in her defence of them. But usually, even in her darkest moods, she retains some veneer of civility towards me and other members of the family. Anyone outside the family though, is shown no mercy.

‘Leanne! It’s not bullshit, I’m just –’

‘What?’ she cut in. ‘You seriously think he could still be alive? After all this time?’

I shrugged. Of course I did. ‘They’ve never found a body.’

‘Means nothing,’ she spat. ‘They’ve not found him alive either, have they?’

‘Nobody’s been looking! Not for years, not since the police said they’d hit a dead end and they were – whatever they called it – “shelving” the case. I just think somebody should still be looking, that’s all.’

She stared at me for several moments. It was clear she thought I was an imbecile. ‘Edward, think about it. Please, think about it. I thought you were supposed to be the brainy one. He’s been gone for
twenty years
! Someone who leaves and doesn’t come back for that long is either dead –’ She nodded as she said the word ‘dead’, as though that made it true. ‘Or he
doesn’t want to be found
.’ That was something else that Leanne had pointed out – to me, or Mum, or to our other sister Lisa – many times over the years. I couldn’t or wouldn’t accept it. My big brother may have left me – left us – but there was no way that he didn’t want to come back. He was out there somewhere and something, or someone, must be stopping him from being with his family. It was my job to try and find out who or what that was.

I didn’t answer, and Leanne shook her head again. ‘You’re as bad as Mum. You need to let it go. That’s what killed her in the end. She couldn’t let it go and eventually it just ate her up.’

‘He was her son! What was she supposed to do, just forget about him?’

Leanne’s face was grim and her voice was strained. ‘I know he was her son. But I’m her daughter. And so’s Lisa. And you’re her son too. She should never have, I don’t know, given up like she did. She should have kept going for us as well as herself.’

‘Leanne,’ I said, trying to keep my voice calmer. ‘She had cancer. That was what killed her, not worrying about Pete, not “giving up”. She could have “let him go”, as you put it, years ago, she’d still have died. I know you’re pissed off with her for dying –’

‘I am!’ she was shouting again, her pale, freckled face growing red. ‘Too fucking right I am! She were only sixty-five. Who dies at that age?’ She stood up and threw the magazine she’d been holding down to the floor. ‘People who can’t be arsed to keep going, that’s who! And it were ’cos of him, the selfish little fucker.’

‘Leanne, calm down! Look, it’s hard for all of us; we’re all still upset, we’re all angry. It’s natural to feel like this. But you’ve got to understand, it wasn’t Pete’s fault. And I think, well, I think if Mum were here now, she’d have wanted me to look for him. She’d have wanted to know what happened – she’d have wanted us all to know.’

Leanne swallowed and sat back down. ‘What do you think you’re going to find out? That there was some conspiracy in the National Union of Mineworkers to get rid of him and that he’s inside one of them concrete pillars on the Tinsley Viaduct? Or that Thatcher took a contract out on his head and he’s in hiding in Argentina or somewhere? He was just some bloke. Whatever happened to him, however it happened – I mean, I don’t know any more than you do – but, Ed, you know I’m right. He’s not coming back, I’m sure of it. He’d have done it by now if he was going to, he’d have found us. It’s what I always told Mum, it’s what I always used to say.’ Her right leg was jiggling up and down rapidly. ‘I wanted to get him declared dead. I tried to persuade her to look into it. I’m sure we could have done it – there were never any sightings of him, not that we heard about at least. He never touched his bank account either.’ She laughed drily. ‘Not that there were owt in it anyway.’ She sighed. ‘But Mum wouldn’t have it.’

We were quiet a few moments. ‘I’m not going to stop looking,’ I said eventually.

‘Are you hoping for some sort of scoop?’ I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, say you did find him – dead or alive, in the Tinsley Viaduct or in Argentina – it’d be a pretty good exclusive for you, wouldn’t it? Reckon some of the national papers might publish it.’

I sucked my teeth. Joking or not, I felt like hitting her. How old did you have to be, I wondered, before your first reaction during an argument with your sister stopped being to give her a dead leg? ‘Leanne, I’m not doing this for my career, I’m doing it because –’

She shook her head. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I know why you’re doing it.’ She bit her lip. ‘I think really it’s been worse for you than it were for me or our Lisa. We can remember him better – we knew him, properly knew him. You were nowt but a kid yourself and he were a grown man. You’ve built him up in your head to be this hero – especially with Dad being gone and all. But he weren’t. He were an ordinary lad: went to work, went out on a Friday night with his mates, gave girls the run-around. He were nowt special. Well, I mean, he were, of course he were, and he were our brother. But –’ she spread her hands ‘– he’s gone. I got used to that idea years ago, and I think you should too.’

*

I went back to the library two days later. Tash was at her desk, the same as before, her eyes fixed on her computer screen. I waited a second before going over to her, assessing the impact of seeing her again. I’m not very good with women. A problem compounded by the fact that I give every appearance of being good with women. I’m good with people. I make my living from being good with people. My solid working-class background followed by a career surrounded by middle-class media types has endowed upon me an ability to get along with anyone who crosses my path; to ask the right questions, give the right responses, make the person I’m talking to feel special. So when I’m talking to a woman I’m not interested in, or am only half-interested in, it’s pretty easy for her to start to feel special too. The trouble comes when I have to talk to a woman I like, or who I think I might start to like – and I was beginning to suspect that Tash might be falling into that category.

What had begun as straightforward attraction – coupled with the loneliness of washing up twenty years too late in the town I had left when I was still a boy – was, after taking her out the other night, starting to turn into something deeper. I had found myself thinking about her when she wasn’t there, found myself gripped at odd moments by grief for her family who I had never known, spent long minutes trying to picture her ex-husband, trying to imagine who he could be to have abandoned her at such a time. So that now, seeing her again after having had a few days to build her up in my head, I was able to start acting as I always do when confronted with someone who is managing to get under my skin: like a charmless half-wit who did an online course in the art of seduction and got a B plus.

I was on full alert for any signal that she might have devoted similar amounts of mental energy to me in the intervening few days. The enigmatic quality she had was one of the things I liked so much, but it did leave a man hanging somewhat. We’d had a good time the other night, and I was sure I’d picked up enough of a vibe to believe she liked me – or at least that she wasn’t actively repelled by me. But there had been nothing when she said goodbye, no hint of even wanting to meet again. Maybe, having been through so much so recently, all she wanted was to steer clear of men altogether. Now I began to worry that by turning up again so soon I was doing the thing guaranteed to scare her away.
Too late now
, I thought. The only thing worse than turning up again too soon would be turning up too soon, muttering to myself in the doorway of the library, then turning on my heels and disappearing again.

She looked up as I strode towards her and spontaneously broke into a broad grin. ‘Hi! What a welcome surprise.’

‘Well, that’s always nice to hear. I’m not interrupting am I?’

‘You are interrupting, but you’re interrupting me watching cricket on the internet.’

‘Oh, right. What match is it?’ I have no interest in any sport but was willing to feign one now.

‘England and South Africa, one day international.’

‘What’s the score?’

‘England are batting, 226 for 3.’

I nodded. Good or bad? I wasn’t sure so I kept my face neutral. A Yorkshireman who didn’t get cricket was beyond shameful.

She clicked a button and sat back in her chair and looked up at me. ‘I haven’t got a clue what any of that means, by the way. My dad was into cricket and I never could be bothered to find out about it when he was alive. I thought I’d give it a go now but –’ she shrugged ‘– I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Why do they keep hitting the ball and then just standing there and not running? No wonder they’re all fat.’