Read Online What You Wish For by Mark Edwards - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mark Edwards
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working. I looked around again for a note. I poured myself a beer and drank it too quickly, then drank another. Marie’s cigarettes were lying on the worktop. Surely she wouldn’t have gone to the pub without them? She must have bought a fresh packet.
I had a dreadful thought: what if she had left me? I ran upstairs and looked in the wardrobe. All her clothes seemed to be there. In fact, all that was missing was her jacket and her bag. I relaxed a little. She must be at the pub. I could go looking for her but, again, I didn’t want her to think I was being possessive, the kind of person who goes out to drag his girlfriend home if she’s out late.
I drank another beer and the tiredness hit me. It had been a long day. Midnight passed and I lay on the sofa. Calico sat beside me and purred. I fell asleep, the cat’s soft purring like a lullaby.
When I woke up on the sofa the next morning, surrounded by beer bottles, a crick in my neck, she still wasn’t home.
I felt cold. I tried to call her for the hundredth time. I paced the house. I wanted to stay in, wait for her, but I had to go to work. I scrawled a note asking her to call me as soon as she got home and left it on the kitchen worktop. I hesitated by the front door, tempted to call in sick. But I thought staying in, waiting for her, would be even worse than going to the office. At least there I would be distracted.
I was on edge all morning. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’ Simon asked.
I didn’t want to tell him. Not yet. I was sure when I got home she would be there and I would feel foolish for being so anxious. So I kept quiet.
I tried to phone her at every opportunity. At lunchtime I drove home to see if she was there. I ran up the front steps and unlocked the door. The mail lay on the doormat: junk mail, brown envelopes.
‘Marie? Marie!’
She wasn’t there.
Marie – my Marie, my beautiful Marie, the woman I loved – wasn’t there. She had gone. Disappeared. Like a falling star that shoots across the sky one night and then vanishes.
She had gone.
PART TWO
STARING INTO SPACE
7
The first forty-eight hours were the worst. After the euphoria of getting the Telegram commission, my bubble was well and truly burst. I didn’t know what to do or who to contact. I wanted her to walk through the door and say, ‘Sorry, I meant to phone . . .’ and the relief would have been so great I would have forgiven her. I would have forgiven her anything.
The logical first step would be to phone everyone Marie knew: friends, colleagues, parents. But I didn’t know any addresses or phone numbers that would help me. The only friend of hers I knew personally was dead. I assumed all her contacts were on her phone and PC. The former had disappeared with her, though the charger was still in the kitchen. The PC was password protected. I would get to that later.
I phoned the local hospital: the Conquest, plus the hospitals in Eastbourne and Tunbridge Wells, just in case. No Marie Walker had been admitted, nor anyone fitting her description.
I asked my next-door neighbours.
I knocked on the door to the left. Mr Taylor, an elderly widower who I very rarely spoke to, opened the door and leaned out. ‘Yes?’
‘I don’t suppose you saw my girlfriend yesterday at all?’
He squinted at me. ‘The pretty girl with the red hair?’
My heart pounded. ‘Yes. That’s her.’
‘Hmm,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yesterday . . . No. I don’t think so.’
‘Did you hear anything? Music, the TV, a door shutting?’
He tapped his left ear. ‘I don’t hear very much these days. A bit mutton, I am.’ This was something my dad used to say: Mutt and Jeff, Cockney rhyming slang for deaf .
I thanked him and tried my other neighbours, Kevin and Sarah, a young couple who had only recently moved in.
Sarah came to the door holding their little boy, Jack. ‘Hello.’ She sounded quite pleased to see me. I guessed she must get bored, stuck at home all day with a
I had a dreadful thought: what if she had left me? I ran upstairs and looked in the wardrobe. All her clothes seemed to be there. In fact, all that was missing was her jacket and her bag. I relaxed a little. She must be at the pub. I could go looking for her but, again, I didn’t want her to think I was being possessive, the kind of person who goes out to drag his girlfriend home if she’s out late.
I drank another beer and the tiredness hit me. It had been a long day. Midnight passed and I lay on the sofa. Calico sat beside me and purred. I fell asleep, the cat’s soft purring like a lullaby.
When I woke up on the sofa the next morning, surrounded by beer bottles, a crick in my neck, she still wasn’t home.
I felt cold. I tried to call her for the hundredth time. I paced the house. I wanted to stay in, wait for her, but I had to go to work. I scrawled a note asking her to call me as soon as she got home and left it on the kitchen worktop. I hesitated by the front door, tempted to call in sick. But I thought staying in, waiting for her, would be even worse than going to the office. At least there I would be distracted.
I was on edge all morning. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’ Simon asked.
I didn’t want to tell him. Not yet. I was sure when I got home she would be there and I would feel foolish for being so anxious. So I kept quiet.
I tried to phone her at every opportunity. At lunchtime I drove home to see if she was there. I ran up the front steps and unlocked the door. The mail lay on the doormat: junk mail, brown envelopes.
‘Marie? Marie!’
She wasn’t there.
Marie – my Marie, my beautiful Marie, the woman I loved – wasn’t there. She had gone. Disappeared. Like a falling star that shoots across the sky one night and then vanishes.
She had gone.
PART TWO
STARING INTO SPACE
7
The first forty-eight hours were the worst. After the euphoria of getting the Telegram commission, my bubble was well and truly burst. I didn’t know what to do or who to contact. I wanted her to walk through the door and say, ‘Sorry, I meant to phone . . .’ and the relief would have been so great I would have forgiven her. I would have forgiven her anything.
The logical first step would be to phone everyone Marie knew: friends, colleagues, parents. But I didn’t know any addresses or phone numbers that would help me. The only friend of hers I knew personally was dead. I assumed all her contacts were on her phone and PC. The former had disappeared with her, though the charger was still in the kitchen. The PC was password protected. I would get to that later.
I phoned the local hospital: the Conquest, plus the hospitals in Eastbourne and Tunbridge Wells, just in case. No Marie Walker had been admitted, nor anyone fitting her description.
I asked my next-door neighbours.
I knocked on the door to the left. Mr Taylor, an elderly widower who I very rarely spoke to, opened the door and leaned out. ‘Yes?’
‘I don’t suppose you saw my girlfriend yesterday at all?’
He squinted at me. ‘The pretty girl with the red hair?’
My heart pounded. ‘Yes. That’s her.’
‘Hmm,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yesterday . . . No. I don’t think so.’
‘Did you hear anything? Music, the TV, a door shutting?’
He tapped his left ear. ‘I don’t hear very much these days. A bit mutton, I am.’ This was something my dad used to say: Mutt and Jeff, Cockney rhyming slang for deaf .
I thanked him and tried my other neighbours, Kevin and Sarah, a young couple who had only recently moved in.
Sarah came to the door holding their little boy, Jack. ‘Hello.’ She sounded quite pleased to see me. I guessed she must get bored, stuck at home all day with a
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