The Disappearance Read online

  ‘I suggested we move the wedding back a bit but he kept pushing for a date and I couldn’t commit. I didn’t know how long I was going to be needed at home – so he called the whole thing off.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have been married but live at home with your dad? Loads of people do that to start with. Surely?’

  ‘You would have thought so, wouldn’t you, but apparently not. “No wife of mine’s living with her father,” he said. I do understand.’

  ‘I can imagine your dad being quite foreboding towards his daughter’s fiancé.’

  ‘He never liked Patrick. Didn’t think he was good enough for me.’

  ‘Find me a man who doesn’t think that about his only daughter and I’ll show you a liar.’

  ‘I guess. But it seems he was right. Better to find out before it’s too late.’ Audrey sighs and looks about the terrace, too. ‘So, anyone you’ve got your eye on here tonight?’

  ‘Funny you should mention it,’ says Janet, ‘but yes. Grey suit at three o’clock.’ Audrey follows her friend’s eyes and sees a tall man, classically attractive. He’s wearing a slick suit with a white tie, and his dark hair is greased back from a prominent forehead.

  ‘Not bad,’ she nods. ‘Looks the part.’ Audrey knows the rules. Janet’s marriage will not be about love, but about money. Janet’s seen the society ladies with their jewels and their dresses being escorted by men in black tie, she’s seen the cars with turbaned drivers waiting outside, and she’s decided that’s what she wants.

  They watch the man in the grey suit for a minute or two. Audrey has to give it to her friend: he’s very handsome but there’s a sense of something else that almost makes her shiver and she can’t put her finger on what it is. As she watches, the man turns around; Audrey doesn’t look away in time and he stares back, openly assessing her.

  Audrey drops her eyes to the table. It’s power, she realises. Power and confidence.

  ‘What do you think?’ Janet asks.

  Audrey says nothing. The man in the grey suit is still watching them. With his eyes still on Audrey, he gets up and makes his way over. Janet pats her hair and rolls her lips together to spread her lipstick.

  ‘Good evening, ladies.’ Grey Suit towers above their table. Audrey can feel the heat of him, and something tugs in her belly.

  He has sharp cheekbones and his small eyes are not only bright, they’re looking Audrey up and down in a way that makes her feel like she’s something he’d like to devour. She’s wearing a one-shouldered shift dress in vibrant pink. It’s a dress she made herself and she knows it shows off the delicate bones of her clavicle while the colour sets off her auburn hair, but now she feels unsure. Why is he staring? Has her mascara smudged from crying? Is the dress so obviously home-made? Is the colour too loud – or is he really leering quite so openly?

  ‘Ralph Templeton,’ he says, placing a business card on the table in front of Audrey. He doesn’t acknowledge Janet simpering across the table. ‘Perhaps you’d allow me to take you out to dinner one evening?’

  ‘Oh, I …’

  The man looks at her while he waits for her to finish her sentence. He’s older – distinguished – and, under his gaze, Audrey feels girlish and lacking in substance. There’s no doubt about what it is he wants from her. She blushes and looks down, her sentence left hanging.

  ‘May I take your number?’ The man produces another business card and a pen. The cold weight of the pen tells Audrey it’s expensive. She balances it in her hand for a second, toying with the idea of writing the wrong number. But there’s something in Ralph Templeton’s demeanour that suggests that refusal is not an option and Audrey finds that confidence compelling. She doesn’t dare make eye contact with Janet as she writes her new office number on the back of the business card.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll have my assistant call you,’ says Ralph Templeton, picking up the card and slipping the pen back into his breast pocket. Then he reaches out his hand and touches Audrey’s hair.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he says. He runs a finger through a curl, then gently draws it down her cheek. He looks one more time at Audrey and melts back into the crowd. Janet’s hand is clamped over her mouth.

  ‘Oh my word! Talk about reeling them in! I need lessons from you!’

  Audrey barely hears. She can just about make out the back of Ralph Templeton’s head as he re-joins his table, and she can’t tear her eyes away. Her cheek tingles where he’s touched it and her body is electrified. The physical pull of Audrey’s feeling towards Ralph Templeton takes her by surprise. She stares at the business card as if to memorise every tiny detail.

  November 2012

  Truro

  I was on the sofa with a cup of tea and a pile of marking when I heard Mark’s key in the lock. Within seconds, he appeared in the living room doorway, filling it completely with the bulk of his frame. I looked up at him feeling, as always, a surge of love for my husband and noting at the same time the flicker of hope in his eyes.

  I dropped my gaze back to the marking, willing him to know I wasn’t pregnant without me having to spell it out. Mark crossed the stripped floorboards in three strides and bent down to drop a kiss on my hair, his fingers stroking my cheek as he did so. He dropped onto the sofa next to me. His hand found mine and he interlaced our fingers.

  ‘Hi darling,’ he said, giving my hand a squeeze. ‘How was your morning?’

  I squeezed back.

  ‘Did you hear from the doctor?’ Mark asked, his face alive with expectation.

  I turned to look at him, pressing my lips together, and nodded slowly, unable to articulate the words. Mark pulled me against his chest with his free arm. I felt my eyes well up; a prickling at the back of my nose. I squeezed my eyes shut and tears spilled onto Mark’s sweater.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, rubbing my back. ‘It’s okay.’

  I pulled away and looked stared at his face in despair. ‘But it’s not okay! How is it okay? How can it possibly be okay? I was so sure this time! I’m getting older. It’s not going to happen!’

  ‘Lex. Lex, Lex, Lex. We’ve been through this. Yes, a baby would be nice, but we have each other. It’s enough. It’s you I married, not a child who doesn’t yet exist. It’s you I want.’ His voice cracked. ‘I wish you would believe me.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘I know you mean it now. But what happens in five years? What if you change your mind? You can …’ I didn’t say it. I’d said it before; Mark could leave me and have a baby with someone younger. It was my deepest fear; that I wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted and he’d leave.

  ‘That’s not going to happen. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up about this, Lex. Please.’

  I knew he was right and I did believe him. It was my guilt that kept bringing me back to this place: guilt that I’d wasted my child-bearing years in a dead-end marriage with a bully of a husband; guilt that I’d been too scared to leave. If I’d walked away five years sooner – if I’d met Mark five years earlier – maybe we’d have a nursery upstairs; the sound of tiny feet pattering overhead. It was a train of thought that Mark consistently refused to entertain. ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ he’d say. ‘Maybe I’d have been a bastard to you five years ago. You can’t live life thinking “if only”.’

  I sat back up and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. The baby conversation – the same hopeless one we had every month – was going nowhere. ‘Mum had a car accident last night,’ I said. ‘John called to tell me. It’s not been a good day.’

  ‘Whoah, sweetheart. What happened? Is she okay?’

  ‘I think so. Bumped and bruised but nothing broken. She’s shocked and might have whiplash but they’ve discharged her on condition someone stays with her overnight. John’s asked me to go.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I sighed. ‘It’s just … with all this …’I flicked a hand over my abdomen, ‘I just …’ My face crumpled again.

  ‘I know, sweetheart. I know. But it’s your mum, and she
needs you.’

  ‘I wish John could do it.’

  ‘Have you told him about … you know? Does he know we’re trying?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Well, then you can’t expect him to be sympathetic, hon.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  Mark looked at the floor. I knew him well enough to know he was trying to compose a sentence that I wouldn’t necessarily like in terms that he hoped I might accept.

  ‘He can’t always be there for your mum, Lex. He’s got a family,’ Mark said carefully. He held up his hand, anticipating my argument. ‘Yes, I know the twins aren’t his. But Lexi, you’ve got to get over this. He’s married their mother and adopted them. They are his responsibility now.’ Mark paused to check he still had my attention. ‘And we both know it’s the prima donna who wears the trousers in that marriage.’ He smiled at me. ‘When she says “plié”, he pliés over the bloody moon and back!’ I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the image of my po-faced brother flying over the moon in a ballet tutu. ‘His life is way more complicated than ours, sweetheart. He’s being torn in so many directions.’

  I sighed and picked imaginary fluff off the arm of the sofa.

  ‘And this is why we live here,’ Mark continued. ‘So you can help out. Can you imagine if you had to come down from London? It’s so much easier now.’ He paused and I didn’t say anything. ‘Shall I help you pack?’

  ‘It’s okay. Thanks. I’ve already put some stuff in a bag.’

  ‘Good. Anyway – I have some good news today.’

  ‘Really? What?’

  ‘Fanfare please!’ Mark pretended to play a trumpet. ‘I should have a payment coming in this week!’

  ‘Really? A big one?’

  He nodded. ‘Yep. It won’t do anything daft like buy a car, but it should cover our outgoings for a couple of months. Give us a bit of a breather.’

  Even as he said the words, I felt the tension I’d been carrying since we’d realised that it wasn’t going to be as easy as we’d hoped for Mark to find a job in Truro release a notch. For the past few months, we’d been living hand-to-mouth on my teacher’s salary, which barely covered the mortgage payments, plus the few odd jobs that Mark could do.

  ‘That’s fantastic.’

  Mark smiled. ‘And there’s more. I’ve got a lead on a job that looks promising.’

  ‘Wow! It’d be so good to have you back on a regular salary.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Mark leaned over and kissed me. ‘Now. What else can I fix for you today, madam? Burst water pipe? Faulty boiler?’

  I nodded my head towards the marking. ‘Do you feel like marking eighty Year 6 assessments while I’m away?’

  ‘I can’t help you with that, I’m afraid: you’re the smarty pants. Why don’t you take them to your mum’s? You’re bound to get a chance to do it there.’ He paused. ‘But, please, darling, please don’t make her feel bad about you going down.’ He lifted my chin with his finger. ‘I know what a little martyr you can be.’

  March 1971

  Bombay, India

  Audrey’s new job is in the office of the shipping firm where Janet works. She’s far too busy on the first day, meeting the other staff and learning the ropes, to think about Ralph Templeton. But, as she starts to settle in over the next few days – as she answers the phone, types the invoices, and franks the mail – she finds her thoughts returning to the handsome stranger who’d taken her number, and she’s surprised to realise that she’s hoping he’ll telephone.

  ‘How about we go back to that jazz café tomorrow after work?’ she says to Janet as they chat over their hot tiffins in the tea room almost a full week after their night out. She traces her finger over the Formica countertop that’s stained with rings from mugs of tea. The smell of old cigarette smoke hangs in the air and a ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ says Janet. ‘Any particular reason why?’ She raises an eyebrow at Audrey.

  Audrey focuses on her dal bhat, the simple dish of spiced lentils and rice that she’s come to love. ‘I thought the cappuccinos were amazing.’

  ‘Just the cappuccinos?’

  ‘Yes, just the cappuccinos.’

  ‘Because I suspect there’s another reason you want to go back. A tall, handsome reason in a grey suit, perchance?’

  Audrey feels heat rush to her cheeks. She licks her spoon and, once she decides to talk, finds that the words spill out of her. ‘Okay. Maybe you’re right. You have to admit, there was something about him. But it’s not that I want to see him. I just want to know why he hasn’t called. I mean, why make the effort to come over and give me his card and get my number if he’s not going to call?’

  ‘Oooh!’ teases Janet. ‘I do believe the lady’s got her knickers in a twist!’

  ‘I have not!’ Audrey flicks a piece of chapatti at Janet. ‘It’s just – why did he ask if he’s not going to call? Do you think I gave him the wrong number by accident? I’ve gone over it a hundred times.’

  ‘No. I saw what you wrote. It was right.’

  ‘Well, what then? Do you think it was a dare? Or did I say something wrong?’

  ‘No, no. It’s not you,’ says Janet. ‘He’s just a chancer. Probably got a better offer. Sorry. Ignore it. Move on.’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t tell me there are plenty more fish in the sea!’

  ‘Well, there are. It’s just that maybe we’re not fishing hard enough.’

  ‘I’m not fishing at all. I’m hoping the right fish will offer itself up on a plate for me when the time’s right. With chips and dill mayonnaise!’

  ‘So romantic! But, Auds, we’re twenty-seven. I hate to tell you, but the fish are offering themselves to girls a lot younger than us. To some men, an unmarried twenty-seven-year-old is a scary proposition. We’re going to be thirty soon. Thirty! They imagine all we want to do is tie them down and get ourselves pregnant.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘’Fraid so. I’ve heard it from guys. Sometimes I pretend to be twenty-three because, as soon as they find out how old I am, they run a mile. I worry about it. I worry that I’ll never meet the right one. That I’ll be a mad old spinster with only cats for company.’

  Audrey skims off the fine skin that’s formed on her chai, then breathes in its comforting scent of cardamom and cloves. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that from where I’m sitting. It beats sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.’

  Ralph Templeton eventually calls. But not on the phone. When Audrey and Janet step out of the office on Friday evening a week later, there’s a grey Daimler parked outside, a crowd of beggars teeming around it, pawing at its sleek paintwork and tapping at its windows. As Audrey approaches, the back door of the car opens and Ralph Templeton climbs out, a bouquet of brightly coloured flowers in his hand. His suit is immaculate and there’s something commanding about him as he straightens up to his full height. Filthy street children scatter out of his way.

  ‘Miss Bailey,’ he says, holding out the flowers. ‘I wondered if you’d do me the honour of accompanying me to dinner tonight?’

  It takes Audrey a second or two to understand that Ralph Templeton is here in person, to ask her out to dinner.

  ‘Tonight?’ she says. She looks down at her clothing, more office than night out. ‘It’s just I … I’m not …’

  ‘You look beautiful,’ says Ralph. ‘But if it makes you feel better, I took the liberty of choosing a few dresses. They’re in the car. You could pick one and change at the hotel.’ He lets this sink in. ‘I have a dinner reservation at the Taj.’

  Audrey looks at Janet. Janet widens her eyes. ‘Fish,’ she mouths, and Audrey turns back to Ralph, bobbing her head as she replies, ‘Yes please. I’d be delighted to join you. Thank you.’

  Ralph opens the car door wide once more. ‘After you,’ he says.

  April 1971

  Bombay, India

  On the back seat of his Daimler, Ralph Templeton puts his arm ar
ound Audrey and pulls her close to him. She breathes in the now-familiar scent of his cologne and rests her head against his chest. He strokes her hair almost absently, letting it twine itself around his fingers, and Audrey sighs, her mind full of images of this man – this stranger – who’s shot into her life like a bolt of lightning. Was their first date really just three weeks ago?

  Audrey feels her cheeks flush as she remembers the way Ralph had devoured her with his eyes over dinner that evening; the way his gaze had made her feel so gauche despite the expensive dress she’d picked. Maybe she is a little younger, less sophisticated, than the women Ralph’s used to, but he seems charmed by that. She bites her lip: thinking back, she can’t believe she’d actually given him a real phone number in the café instead of transposing a couple of digits like she usually did when men pushed for her number; she can’t believe she’d agreed to go out to dinner that night he’d turned up at her office. How life turns in an instant, she thinks.

  After their first date, Ralph had bundled her onto the back seat of his Daimler and nuzzled her face until his lips found hers, then he’d kissed her all the way back to her tiny studio flat. Despite his protests, she’d refused to let him in. It’d been the right strategy, Audrey reflects now, because he hasn’t been able to get enough of her since, pursuing her with a fervour that almost verges on the indecent.

  In the car now, Ralph’s hand moves from Audrey’s hair to her cheek. Applying a little pressure, he turns her face to his, stares into her eyes as if he’s searching her soul, then places his lips gently on hers, the softest of kisses that melts her. When he finally pulls away, she’s breathless.

  ‘Come home with me tonight, Red,’ he says.

  Audrey notices, all of a sudden, that the car’s not on the usual route to her flat and a ripple of fear runs through her. She’s in the back of a car with a man she’s known less than four weeks, in a part of Bombay with which she’s unfamiliar. No one in the world bar Ralph Templeton and his chauffeur knows where she is.