The Missing Husband Read online

  Feeling all the more certain of her convictions, Jo said, ‘They weren’t men who resented family, they thrived on it. You can’t spend seven years of your life keeping up that kind of pretence and you certainly can’t spend thirty years doing it. They loved their families. They loved us.’

  Irene shuddered as she too felt the goose bumps that were prickling Jo’s skin. ‘So what would stop him coming back home?’ she whispered. There was desperation and fear in her voice when she added, ‘I’d know if something bad had happened. I’m his mum. I’d know it in my heart.’

  ‘And what is your heart telling you now, Irene?’ Jo asked, even though she wasn’t sure she was ready for the answer.

  Irene kissed the baby’s head again before she spoke. A tear trickled down her face and splashed his cheek. As Baby Taylor squirmed, he managed to wipe the tear away with his tiny, mitten-clad hand while his grandmother lifted her head and took a deep breath. ‘It’s telling me my sons are both going through a stubborn and selfish phase. It’s like they’ve reverted back to being toddlers,’ she said flippantly. They had both come too close to resurrecting their worst fears that would prove far more painful to face than betrayal and desertion and it was Irene who led the retreat. ‘And it’s also telling me that this child deserves a better name than FB.’

  For once, Jo didn’t object to opening up the never-ending debate about a name. ‘I know he does, but the only names I ever remember David mentioning were Barry and Archibald. I think I actually prefer FB.’

  Irene’s broad smile gave her voice a certain lilt. ‘Archibald was my father’s name.’

  Jo had thought she was beyond being shocked for one day but her jaw dropped. ‘David wasn’t joking then? It actually meant something to him?’

  Very carefully, Irene turned the baby until he was facing them both. He yawned lazily and his flickering eyelids chased away the last of the shadows that had been creeping into the room. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Does he suit it?’

  Jo looked down at her baby’s cherubic face but when her heart reached out, it yearned for David rather than their son. Why hadn’t he told her what had been going on with his dad? She could have helped him work things through; she would have done things differently. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here on Christmas Day?

  ‘Well?’ Irene asked when Jo still hadn’t replied.

  ‘Welcome to the world, Archie,’ Jo whispered as her thoughts turned away from the past that scared her to a future that terrified her.

  20

  After Christmas came New Year and soon after, Jo’s birthday which wasn’t spent dancing around a bonfire in Iceland but at home, pretending not to listen out for approaching footsteps. And when there were no occasions left that she was obliged to celebrate, Jo was allowed to settle into as much of a routine as the baby would allow, although it felt fair to say they coexisted in the same house rather than lived together. She was still waiting for that blissful moment Heather had described where she would make that elusive connection with her son – with Archie – but although she could remember that warm rush of love when he had been born, the guilt she harboured over his conception and then his premature birth was like a dam that grew more impenetrable by the day. She loved him but she wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of that love. She didn’t deserve it and she had an unshakeable conviction that Archie knew that too.

  Following the sage advice of family and health visitors, Jo kept Archie to a strict night-time routine of bath, bottle and bed. So after immersing her complaining son in warm water she proceeded to dry and dress him. True to form, Archie refused to co-operate and Jo could feel the heat rising in her cheeks during the struggle. The flush was undoubtedly a reaction to her exertions but the merest suggestion of a panic attack brought forth the anxiety anyway. As soon as she had fastened the last press stud on his pyjama sleeping bag, she picked the baby up and tried to soothe him but Archie fought against her. Her fraught attempt at a cuddle gave neither of them comfort and her heart was hammering by the time she put him down in his bassinet with a sigh of defeat that was all but drowned out by her son’s wails.

  She hurried into the kitchen to warm up a bottle. It took longer than she would like but she refused to close the kitchen door, she needed to hear her son crying. The sound was a flail to her own skin, but Archie had every right to punish her for being the incompetent mother who had brought him into this miserable world.

  When she had everything ready, Jo picked up the bassinet complete with wailing child. With practised ease, she folded the stand and took everything she needed upstairs where she set the bassinet up again next to her bed. Finally there was nothing left to do but pick up her son again. He was bright red with fury and she knew from painful experience that there was little point in trying to feed him. She rested him on her shoulder and, after pacing the floor for five minutes without success, she found herself drawn to the nursery that he wasn’t due to occupy for a few months yet.

  ‘Please, sweetheart, shush,’ she begged, patting his back in a slow, steady rhythm that belied her growing agitation. The baby’s cries grew louder. ‘Please, Archie, please shush so I can feed you.’

  Jo looked at the cot with its handmade quilt and was tempted to lay him down on it but she was terrified that if she did, she might not have the courage to pick him up again. Instead, she reached over and found herself winding up the mobile. She could barely hear the music above her son’s cries.

  Next, she went over to a small side table and switched on a lamp. Its warm light created sunflower-shaped shadows that danced across the wall but it was the piece of paper lying on the table that drew Jo’s attention. It was Archie’s birth certificate, which had found a temporary home in the nursery, perhaps because she hadn’t felt ready to slot it into the rest of her life just yet.

  She had been to register Archie’s birth on her own and along with the baby’s name, the registrar had recorded those of both his parents. She stared down at David’s name in print. Would he approve? Or would he want the father’s details to have remained missing, much like the man himself? Maybe he would prefer to rip the piece of paper up completely so they could start again.

  Still struggling to believe such things of the husband she had adored, Jo tore her eyes away from the certificate and concentrated on her wailing son. She sat down on the rocking chair in the corner of the room, a new acquisition from one of her dad’s shopping excursions. Her mum had made the cushioned seat to match the sunflower theme perfectly.

  Jo began to rock Archie back and forth, the long, sweeping motion of the chair intended to relax mother and child but her tentative movements couldn’t disguise her desperation and the smooth rocking quickly became disjointed and jerky. Her breathing was ragged and her ribs ached from the pounding of her heart. ‘Please,’ she whispered through dried, parched lips.

  She wondered what David would make of her feebleness. He had been good at helping her rationalize her fears and chase away her anxieties, but her demons had never been so terrifying or so fierce. Even he would have struggled to help her conquer them now. Still, he wouldn’t have left her to deal with them on her own, she told herself as she squeezed her eyes shut and imagined him appearing behind her and whispering in her ear …

  ‘You can do this, Jo,’ he said.

  Jo stopped rocking and for a moment at least, Archie’s cries eased. She could feel David’s arms slip around them both, feel his breath on her cheek as he told her, ‘No, keep moving. Rock him back and forth, slowly does it.’

  She pushed her toes into the floor and the chair tipped gently backwards before coming forward again. Back and forth, back and forth she went in a steady rhythm that she and Archie both relaxed into. Even Jo’s breathing and her pulse began to slow.

  ‘Why don’t you try to feed him now?’

  Jo did as she was bidden and so did Archie. The sense of victory warmed her heart even as she felt David’s arms slip away. She opened her eyes to find the room achingly empty. Above the
sound of Archie’s steady gulps, the music was still playing and Jo allowed the lyrics to float across her mind.

  ‘I still love you, David,’ she whispered. ‘You are my sunshine and I need it back. I need you back.’

  Archie’s eyelids flickered open at the sound of her voice. He blinked twice, his gaze never leaving hers as his lids grew heavier and he drifted back to sleep. It was the barest connection but it was enough to make her smile again. He had looked at her and he hadn’t cried.

  When January slipped into February, Irene suggested that it might be a good idea for her to get in some practice looking after Archie. She hadn’t expected Jo to accept the offer so readily, but arrangements were quickly made to drop the baby off for a few hours one Saturday afternoon. There was a part of Jo that felt nervous about leaving Archie with someone else after weeks of being his sole carer, but in her heart she knew that the baby would be no worse, and possibly better off, with his grandmother.

  As she sat in a small café looking out on to the high street, Jo was thinking of David. No, not thinking, that was the wrong word. She was looking for him, deliberately choosing a table with a view of the outside world so she could scan the faces of passers-by. She wondered if she would ever stop watching and waiting.

  Tearing herself away from her hopeless search, she picked up a spoon and started to make shapes in the foam floating on her cappuccino, but David followed her in her thoughts. She breathed in coffee-scented steam and recalled the times they had sat here together. The Neighbourhood Café was only a few miles from their home and after a long walk to one of the nearby parks they would call in for brunch as their reward. She would have a healthy granola while David would indulge in a full English breakfast with extra bacon, knowing Jo would steal it from him.

  There was a blast of icy air as the door opened and when Jo looked up she fully expected to see David standing there in front of her, his beaming smile like a beacon in the darkness.

  ‘I’m not late, am I?’ Simon panted as he shrugged off his jacket and took the seat opposite Jo.

  ‘Have you been running?’

  Simon looked sheepish. ‘I was in work this morning and got a bit delayed.’

  Above the smell of coffee, Jo detected aftershave. ‘You didn’t have to get changed on my account.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to turn up on a hot date smelling of dust and mortar,’ he quipped then immediately began to squirm. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was completely inappropriate. Sorry. Stupid of me. I’m so sorry, Jo.’ When he finally stopped blustering, Jo was smiling at him.

  ‘Yes, I might have been offended if your own reaction hadn’t been quite so funny. Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For making me smile. It doesn’t happen very often,’ she said but then her eyes narrowed. ‘But just so you know, I didn’t get you here under any pretext. I still love my husband whether he deserves it or not.’

  Simon lifted his hand in surrender. ‘I didn’t for a minute think you had any ulterior motives. If I did, I wouldn’t have come out with that smart remark, honestly. And congratulations by the way, or did I say that already in my ramblings? Is the baby doing well?’

  ‘He’s doing just fine,’ Jo told him, ignoring a tiny pang of guilt for the relief she had felt when she had handed him over to Irene.

  While Simon placed an order for fresh coffees, Jo took in her surroundings. The café had once been a grocer’s shop and it still held on to remnants of its previous life. The Victorian tiles on the walls were partly obscured by shelving that held tributes to the past rather than the wares that would once have been proudly on display. She could make out the faded lettering that clung to the window above the shop entrance, a telephone number that would no longer be answered … the parallels with her own life were painfully clear to her.

  ‘So, you want to know what David and I talked about?’ asked Simon, his earlier embarrassment now forgotten although the blush lingered on his cheeks.

  Jo nodded tentatively. She knew that David had visited Simon only a couple of weeks before he went missing. The two men drank in the same pub and David had been tasked with passing on the best wishes of all the regulars as well as their colleagues, although Jo was more interested in what else her husband might have said. She wished she could be certain that he had disappeared of his own accord but there remained a niggling doubt that was based on nothing more than the belief she and Irene clung to that David was a decent and loving man, a doubt that Simon might be able to add weight to.

  ‘You mentioned that David told you how much he was looking forward to having the baby.’

  ‘Yeah, he was quite excited about it – you’d just been for the scan.’

  ‘And he didn’t seem scared about it at all? He didn’t say anything that might explain why he left?’

  Simon was shaking his head. ‘No, he was determined to be a good dad. If he was bothered about anything, it was about that brother of his. He was frustrated that Steve wasn’t facing up to his own responsibilities, which isn’t exactly news to me and I’m sure it’s not to you. I don’t know Steve that well but whenever I bumped into them with that little boy of his, it was always David looking after him. To the casual observer, you would swear he was the dad. David was a natural which makes it so hard to believe he could have left you.’

  There was a moment’s pause as the waitress arrived with two cups of coffee and removed Jo’s lukewarm cappuccino. ‘I’ve lost track of the number of times people have told me that David wouldn’t do this, that he wouldn’t leave me, but all the evidence suggests that’s exactly what happened,’ Jo said and then proceeded to outline the case for the prosecution, everything except how Jo had trapped him – there were limits to how much she was prepared to share with all but close family and friends.

  ‘It couldn’t have been someone else at the cash machine?’

  ‘Wearing David’s coat? A Nelson’s one?’

  ‘It’s not unique,’ Simon offered.

  ‘But his pin number is. And let’s not forget his passport going missing.’

  ‘Could someone have taken it?’

  ‘You have no idea how spotless I keep my house,’ Jo said. ‘Believe me, I would know if anyone had sneaked in to take it.’

  Simon rubbed his hand against his forehead as he tried to make sense of it all. Jo watched, almost enjoying the look of confusion and frustration on someone else’s face instead of her own. ‘So you know he left, you just don’t know why,’ he concluded.

  ‘And that’s the part that’s tearing me up inside,’ Jo confessed and the crackle of emotion in her voice took them both by surprise. She could feel her pulse starting to race and put her hand over her chest to steady her breathing. ‘I don’t believe it’s enough to say he was simply scared of becoming a father, that just doesn’t wash, does it?’ When Simon shook his head, she continued, ‘Maybe he did leave me, maybe he is out there living off the money he’s taken from his account while he sorts his head out or his problems out or whatever it was that made him leave, but Archie is almost two months old now and the David I know would have been in touch, he would have come home. If it was that simple.’

  Jo waited for Simon to offer a theory of his own but he could only shrug.

  ‘Could he have been …’ she began but was too afraid to finish her sentence. Her hand was still on her chest and she almost had to push the next words out. ‘Do you think he was suicidal?’

  Simon’s reply was slow and measured. ‘I’ve seen suicidal, Jo and that’s not what it looks like.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jo said.

  There was a moment’s awkwardness but then there was a flicker of a memory that passed like a shadow across Simon’s face and Jo leapt on it. ‘You’ve remembered something, haven’t you?’

  ‘He mentioned his dad, something about him being depressed,’ Simon said although he looked to Jo for confirmation.

  ‘He had a stroke and died a few months later
. What did David say exactly?’

  Simon scratched his head as he wracked his brain. ‘It was only a passing comment; he knew I was on anti-depressants and wanted to know if I’d had any side effects.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told him that other than feeling like I’d been dropped into a vat of syrup, not much else, not that I noticed at least. Is it important?’

  Jo had been leaning forward, desperate to hear the one piece of information that would make everything else fit. This wasn’t it and she let her shoulders sag. ‘His dad changed in those last couple of months. He said things that made his family challenge everything they thought they knew about him, and about themselves. The stroke could have affected his personality but I suspect David was trying to work out if the cocktail of drugs he was on could have played their part too … Anything that might give him some reassurance that the things his dad said in those last months, what he claimed to think about his family, wasn’t true.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t think I gave him that reassurance.’

  Jo tried to smile. ‘You have nothing to apologize for. You were dealing with your own problems. You’ve come a long way in the last few months, Simon.’

  ‘And there’s still a long way to go. I don’t fool myself that it’s all behind me, not yet, probably not ever, but today is a good day.’

  As he spoke, Simon didn’t break eye contact and she felt somehow envious. He had fought his battles and come through the other side while she had barely begun to understand, let alone defeat, the invisible enemies her mind conjured up to send her into a blind panic.

  ‘How are you coping?’ he asked as if he already knew the answer.

  ‘I have good days,’ she said with a weak smile.

  ‘And today?’

  The smile faltered. Today she had escaped motherhood for a few hours and she had thought she would savour every moment but she felt even more bereft than she had become accustomed to. If she didn’t know better, she would say she missed Archie. ‘Today will be another day I have to get through without David and without answers.’