Sariah tells me of course it’s fine, and Joe is already on his feet, offering to help me to my room.
‘Are you sure you don’t need me to check you over?’ he says, helping me up the stairs. I tell him that I’m fine, but the pain across my chest is alarming and bizarre: a strange tightening sensation that wraps right around my back. It feels like someone has rammed hot pokers through my nipples.
By the time I get to the bed I’m in tears, unable to hide it any longer. I can’t decide if I’ve torn some muscles in my chest or if I’m having a heart attack. Sariah is suddenly there by the bed, Joe on the other side, both of them asking me what’s wrong, why am I crying.
I just want to sleep.
Potter’s Lane, Twickenham
Lochlan: I don’t sleep all night. Gerda and Magnus decamp to the spare bedroom and I carry Max up to his bed and settle Cressida in her cot after another bottle. Then I turn one of the armchairs around to face the window, overlooking the street, and pour myself a glass of gin.
For hours I lurch between incredulity and devastation. Amazing how you can almost convince yourself of conversations that didn’t happen, of realities and explanations that promise to restore balance and bat away anguish. For a good half hour or so I almost manage to persuade myself that Eloïse told me she was going away for a conference and that I had simply forgotten. Desperation grows possibilities where none are usually found. I play out mental scenarios involving El falling down the stairs and banging her head, becoming disoriented and stumbling out into the street, a burglary gone wrong. Or maybe she became suicidal and couldn’t do it in front of the children. Each possibility is as bonkers as the other.
The thing is, Eloïse is absolutely the last person you would worry about doing something out of the ordinary. She’s the person who keeps us all together. If I lose my keys, a file, a document, Eloïse will intuit its exact location. She’s like a satnav for lost objects. No, more than that: she’s steady. I know, it sounds boring, but it’s true. Countless times I’ve come home to find someone in the house being consoled, counselled or geed up by Eloïse. She’s the sort of person people gravitate towards for reassurance.
Around five, the fear that accompanies thoughts of an abduction or burglary gone wrong makes me hold my head in my hands and force back tears. Finally, when exhaustion kicks in and my body shouts for sleep, I reach the absolute bottom of the well of self-questioning. She has left me. It’s the only answer to this most complicated of riddles, the only piece that fits the puzzle. As punishment for all the times I’ve put work before her and the kids, for all the times I’ve not listened or exploded over something small, she has left me, and most likely for someone else. It is why her phone and credit cards are all here. She’s been using another phone to talk to him. He has money. They’ll come back for the kids.
My vigil propels me through the spectrum of emotions. Anger, self-pity, sorrow, paranoia, a surreal kind of acceptance. Around six I hear Cressida begin to wail. I get up and make up a bottle, then take it upstairs to Cressida. Gerda is already stooping over the cot, trying to quiet her. She mutters to her in German.
‘It’s OK, Gerda,’ I say wearily. ‘I’ve got what she wants.’
Gerda turns and, without meeting my eye, takes the bottle from me. Then she lifts Cressida out of the cot and settles in the nursing chair to feed her.
‘There, there,’ Gerda says. ‘Mamie’s here. Take your milk, meine Süße.’
I lean against the cot woozily and watch Gerda as she feeds Cressida. I feel I ought to say something to her but don’t quite know what. After a moment Gerda says, ‘Seems only five minutes since I was feeding Eloïse like this. Cressida is the image of her.’
She looks up at me with narrowed eyes.
‘I need you to be very honest with me, Lochlan. Has Eloïse left you?’
Even though I’m well used to my grandmother-in-law’s thinly veiled contempt for me, her question – or rather, the sudden hardness of her tone – catches me off guard.
‘I don’t know,’ I mumble. ‘I’ve no idea where she is.’
She purses her lips and beholds me with that arrangement of her features which I’ve come to understand is designed for me and no one else.
‘You were one of the last people to see her, Lochlan. Did she seem …’
‘What?’
‘Well, I don’t know. You’re her husband. Have you been fighting again?’
‘No,’ I say, and I feel a spike of anger towards Eloïse for divulging our problems to Gerda. I know Gerda’s family, that she raised my wife, but I have had not unpleasant daydreams about Gerda kicking the bucket. And following swiftly on the heel of rage is the re-realisation that El’s missing. My wife is missing. Like people you see on posters, or on Crimewatch. And I have absolutely no answers, no map, by which to find her.
Gerda is pacing behind me, her arms folded.
‘Surely she must have said something.’
‘Like?’
She gives a hard sigh. ‘Eloïse would hardly just leave the children behind.’
‘I know that.’
She stops pacing.
‘Unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Well, unless you gave her some reason to leave the children behind.’
Her voice – nasal, clipped, withering – lands me back in the night El and I announced our engagement. Eloïse’s mother is out of the picture, having dragged El around England for most of her formative years in pursuit of heroin. She died when El was twelve. At that point, Gerda and Magnus stepped in and raised Eloïse, giving her a fantastic education and a strict home life. I had only met Gerda once by the time I asked El to marry me, and clearly I had somehow made a very poor first impression.
We were in the dining room of their home in Geneva, El switching between French and German as she showed off her engagement ring to a roomful of family friends and distant relatives. I was in a corner, fiercely attempting to abate my social inadequacies with gin, when I spotted Gerda taking Eloïse by the elbow and leading her into the kitchen. I followed, but when I reached the door I heard Gerda speaking in a tone of voice that suggested I’d better not interrupt. I hid behind the door and leaned towards the sound. She was speaking in English, presumably so none of the other guests would understand. But I did.
Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Eloïse?
What do you mean?
Well, you’ve only just met. Couldn’t you wait a little longer?
Eloïse laughed. We’ve been dating for a year …
Your grandfather and I courted for three years before we even thought of marrying. It’s a serious thing, you know. Very serious …
I know how serious it is, Mamie—
What does his father do?
I think his father is retired now. He used to work in the mines.
In the mines?
Does it matter?
A long sigh.
I’m sorry.