At first, in Simonsbridge, it was no different. I lived the life of a hermit, as I had done in London, with only thoughts of Layla and playing the markets for company. I only ventured out when Harry visited and, unable to stand the stench of despair that permeated the house, dragged me along to The Jackdaw for a drink. Through the fog that clouded my brain, I was dimly aware that Ruby, the landlady, liked me. But I wasn’t interested, not then.
After a few months, Harry tried to get me to go back to work. When I refused, knocking back a glass of whisky with one hand and reaching for the bottle with the other, he told me I needed a dog. So we visited dog home after dog home where I turned down so many potential companions that Harry was bemused. I couldn’t tell him what I was looking for because I didn’t know myself. Then I saw Peggy and when Harry asked me why I’d chosen her, I didn’t dare tell him it was because her coat was the same colour as Layla’s beautiful hair.
During all that time, Harry never once asked what really happened the night Layla disappeared. Ellen has never asked me either. She’s never had any reason to doubt my version of events, which were widely published in the press at the time. It’s why I found myself asking her to marry me; basically, I got caught out in a lie.
When the police questioned me, in the long days and even longer nights that followed Layla’s disappearance, I told them that during our holiday in Megève I’d asked her to marry me and that she had accepted. There was no truth in this, but I needed the police, and everyone else, to believe that everything had been perfect between us during those last few days. As the years passed, I presumed my lie had been laid to rest. Then, a couple of months ago, Ellen, out of the blue, said that Layla must have been very happy when I’d asked her to marry me.
‘Yes, she was,’ I said, taken aback that she’d suddenly brought it up.
‘You must have loved her very much to propose.’ Ellen’s voice was quiet. ‘You hadn’t been together very long.’ She paused, her eyes finding mine. ‘About the same amount of time as us, in fact.’
She was right. I was with Layla for thirteen months before she disappeared and it was over a year since Ellen had moved in with me. I looked back at her, uncertain as to what she was thinking. Was she hoping for the same commitment? She’d never once asked if I loved Layla more than I loved her. But that day, I knew that if I didn’t ask her to marry me, she would think I loved her less. So I ignored the feeling that I was somehow betraying Layla, and proposed.
Ellen had shaken her head. ‘I don’t want you to feel that you have to marry me just because you proposed to Layla.’
I hesitated, because I didn’t want her to think less of me. But maybe it was time to come clean. ‘Actually, I didn’t,’ I admitted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was something I said to the police at the time of my arrest, to make it look better.’
‘So you hadn’t asked her to marry you?’
‘No.’
‘But you were going to,’ she stated. And because I wanted her to feel that I loved her more than I’d loved Layla, I decided to lie. ‘No.’
She looked at me in surprise. ‘No?’
‘No,’ I repeated. But the truth was, I had been going to propose to Layla, on her twentieth birthday, the month after we got back from Megève. I’d had it all planned, I’d even bought the ring.
But then she spoiled everything.
Before
The day after the New Year’s Eve party, I told Caroline it was over. And when you tried to move out of my flat, a few days later, I did everything I could to persuade you to stay. Without asking Harry, I told you that you could have the study, at least until you found a job, saying that he wouldn’t mind. But you were adamant that you wanted to move into a youth hostel, telling me that if you were to make a life for yourself in London, you needed to meet other young people. The realisation that you thought of me as old was hard to take – hell, I was only twenty-seven. But in your eyes, I was nothing more than an older guy who had given you shelter for a couple of days.
In the event, you stayed a little over a week. For a man who lives in the present, I can still picture every minute of the day you moved out. I helped you move into the hostel you’d found, hoping you’d soon become disillusioned with sharing a room with five other people. Your idea was to find a job as soon as possible, which would allow you to move into a flat-share.
When it came to saying goodbye, I gave you my business card, telling you to call me if you needed help of any kind. And then I went back to my flat and drank half a bottle of whisky, moaning at Fate for leading you to me when you weren’t going to become a permanent fixture in my life.
Harry was bemused, then fascinated that I’d fallen so hard for you, Layla Gray. He pointed out that my girlfriends to date had all been smart young city women and that you were unsophisticated in comparison. He couldn’t see that that was the biggest attraction for me. Even before you, I’d become increasingly disenchanted with the uniformity of it all; the smart business suits, the killer heels, the sharp fingernails that raked my back with dreary repetition during sex. Harry tried to tell me that what I felt was infatuation and I tried to believe him. I also tried to forget you, working and partying twice as hard as before, to fill the void you’d left in my life.
I lived in hope of you phoning me, just to let me know how you were getting on. When a month passed without news, I told myself that you never would. And then, two months after you first disappeared from my life, you walked back in.
Now
I look at Ellen across the table, her head bent over her bowl of muesli, Greek yoghurt and blueberries, and find myself comparing it to Layla’s breakfasts of toast and chocolate spread. I frown, annoyed with myself. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, not just thinking about Layla, but comparing Ellen to her.
Sensing my eyes on her, Ellen looks up. Although I’m staring at her, I don’t see her, I see Layla, which is strange because physically, she’s nothing like Layla. Maybe it’s her hazel eyes. Are they what attracted me to her in the first place, because they reminded me of Layla’s?
‘So,’ she says, ‘any plans for today?’
I force myself away from the past and back to the present. But it leaves behind a trace of anxiety, spawned from the two Russian dolls we found, and I look over at Ellen’s set suspiciously, because she still hasn’t put them away.
‘I’ll probably go for a run. Maybe water the garden first. It’s as dry as a bone.’ She smiles approvingly and I can’t help remembering how Layla had laughed when I told her that one day, I wanted a beautiful garden in the country so that I could grow my own vegetables.
‘Gardening is for old men!’ she’d mocked. I’d never mentioned it again.
‘Have you remembered that I’m going into Cheltenham this morning, to the beauty salon?’ Ellen asks.
I hadn’t, but I should have, because every three weeks Ellen subjects herself to an intense beauty regime; waxing,