Flight (26 page)

The following morning, wreathed in shame and regret, Laura packed her bag and left. As she drove away, Robert stood in the icy doorway with Phoebe in his arms, watching as her car disappeared behind the frosted box hedges of Peynton Gardens, leaving nothing but a plume of white exhaust. Laura was gone, and he wasn’t to see her again for another full year.

At the mouth of the cave, Rob stoops to pick up a large, smooth nugget of glass. It’s bright, blue as the Cornish skyline; Phoebe will love it. She’ll add it to her glass collection
at home, stored in an old Kilner jar that sits on her bedroom windowsill, beside the Lalique mermaid shipped over from Grandma Ellie in Paris to mark Phoebe’s tenth birthday. She hardly knew her grandmother, but still she loved it, perhaps all the more for their infrequency of contact. Eliza had selected the statuette having admired the polished glass collection when she’d last visited Phoebe around the age of five or six. ‘Wren loved polished glass,’ Eliza had said, running a manicured finger down the contours of the jar. She did that – talked about Wren as if she were dead, almost from the moment she left. Rob hated her insensitivity, and he’d retreated to the kitchen, leaving Laura to manage the small talk required to get them through the one or two hours she would stay.
Treasures
was what Phoebe called the glass pebbles, laying them out across the carpet of her bedroom, separating them into swirling groups of colour, the blues being the smallest collection, and her favourite. Phoebe, Phoebe, how on earth will she take the news of Ava? Laura will help him, he knows; Laura will know what to do. But first, he needs to work out how to tell Laura…

He slips the blue treasure inside his jacket pocket and follows Laura into the cool tranquillity of Wren’s cave.

After Laura walked out on him too, something shifted in Rob. She had helped him through the worst of it, through the first shock and sickness of desertion, and then, just as he’d started to see the way forward, to
feel
again, she was gone. He didn’t blame her; he was as wretched and ashamed as she was about their night together. But, as wrong as that had been, he knew that their brief and unexpected rush of intimacy had restarted the beat of his heart and it felt like
awakening. In truth, he believed Laura would be back in just a few days, after she’d had a chance to get over the shock of what they’d done. After all, they had never spent more than a week or two apart since childhood, and it must take more than this – however deplorable it was – to break them apart.

At first, as he waited for her return, he threw himself into the mechanics of caring for Phoebe, enlisting the help of Fiona next door, who agreed to have Phoebe during Rob’s working hours, on a cash-in-hand, week-by-week basis. His parents visited, offering to help out on occasional weekends in the event that Wren didn’t return soon; they were
there for him
, they stressed in voices weighted with concern; he only had to ask. The general tone of sympathy, as if he were a widower not an abandoned spouse, was almost more than Rob could take, and he fixed his mind on showing them all how well he could cope – that he was stronger than any of them gave him credit for. He pushed his anger down, desperate not to give way to the fierce swell of anxiety that constantly threatened to engulf him and sully the life he had once shared with Wren.

Part of him hated her for leaving him; for leaving Phoebe. How could she go, without a word – how could she leave the child she had brought into the world, the child she had nourished and loved and cradled to sleep? Did he really hate her? He knew that wasn’t the truth. He couldn’t hate her, not really, not when in his darkest moments he felt certain that it was he who was to blame, he who had driven her away. He would do this, he told himself; until Wren returned he would care for his daughter alone. He would do this, and, for now, he would put thoughts of Wren out of his mind, certain that soon she would make contact, when she was ready to come home. Gradually his friends and colleagues began to
comment on how well he was doing, how healthy he looked, and for a short while he managed to convince himself that it was enough for him: his daughter, his home, his work.

But in his private moments, in the dim pools of his dreams and his foggy waking thoughts, Rob was consumed by recollections of that single night with Laura. He replayed it like a video on constant loop, gathering up every sensory detail – the glare of the overhead light, the tiny golden freckles that covered her winter-pale skin, the scent of cooking spices hanging in the air. It haunted him and yet he longed for her again, longed to relive the force of Laura’s passion as her hip clashed with his, to look into the gleam of her eyes, to see the pain and hunger within. He had never thought of Laura in that way – in any way other than as his closest friend, his ally, his pal. But now, this thing had passed between them, and the power of his need for her was so strong that it felt as if it had lived inside him always, buried deep and, until that night together, denied air. And amidst all of this he missed Wren so deeply, missed her like a man who had lost a limb. When he closed his eyes at night and flexed the imaginary digits of that missing limb, he could feel it still there, feel
her
still there. Just as for an amputee, the morning would inevitably arrive, and every day he would reel with the fresh shock of loss when he saw the space beside him lying empty.

A week after Laura left, a formal solicitor’s letter arrived on Wren’s behalf, stating her intention to remain unfound, and it was as though Rob had been expecting it all along. Instead of the shock he should have felt, he experienced its reverse, a calm acceptance, and he began to deal with the longer-term practicalities of her vanishing, making lists of people to contact – doctors, dentists, health visitors, neighbours. Jim from two doors down suggested he inform
the local police, just to be sure there was no suspicion of Rob attached to her disappearance. Rob was alarmed that he hadn’t thought of this himself, and immediately wheeled Phoebe down to the station, only to be surprised by the lack of curiosity once he produced the solicitor’s letter.

‘It certainly looks like she doesn’t want finding.’ The duty officer nodded as he took down the details.

‘I just thought I should let someone know,’ Rob replied. He felt suddenly foolish. Perhaps they thought he was a time-waster. Phoebe lay in her recliner pram, bashing the string of toys that ran across its hood. ‘I mean, she left nearly three weeks ago – and she left a brief note, saying she’d be in touch. I didn’t come earlier as I’d hoped she’d be home by now.’

‘I think her intentions are reasonably clear, judging by this letter. Did she take anything notable with her – passport, etcetera?’

‘She didn’t take much, but all her documents have gone. Birth certificate, driving licence, passport. She left our wedding certificate.’ Of course this wasn’t relevant. He just felt the need to say something, anything that might make some sense.

The police officer tapped his chin with his pen. ‘Well, Mr Irving, I’ve made a note of all this and taken a copy of your letter. We’ll follow up with the solicitor as a matter of routine, but in the meantime I think the best advice I can give you is to carry on as normal – and, if your situation changes, just let us know. We’ll give you a call to let you know what we find out. How does that sound?’

Rob reached across the counter to shake the officer’s hand, thanking him effusively before backing out of the double doors into the dull drizzle of the day. He turned his
collar up and jogged the pram home to Peynton Gardens, dodging the puddles that had gathered overnight.
Carry on as normal
, the police officer had said. Easier said than done.

A week later, Rob drove over to Gatebridge to drop Phoebe with his parents, before speeding back along the M3 to join colleagues for his first night out since Wren had gone. It was the staff Christmas party at the White Hart inn, and for the first time in all Rob’s years at the school the social committee had decided on a no-partners event. Rob was relieved, having already decided he wouldn’t attend if husbands and wives were included.

At the bar he was greeted by Ruth, the school secretary, with a tray of ‘champagne’ cocktails and an unfastened smile. ‘Rob! I’m so glad you came.’

He took a glass and kissed her cheek. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ He noticed the dip of her green dress, the string of fake jet that disappeared into a cleavage she kept well under wraps in the school office. ‘You look great,’ he said, his attention dwelling on her unpierced earlobes for a moment too long; they reminded him of Laura’s.

Ruth’s eyes sparkled; she put down the tray and took a drink for herself, leading him through to the chatter of the main dining area where most of his colleagues were already standing around, several drinks in, and letting their hair down. He followed Ruth through the party, stopping to shake hands and kiss cheeks, his gaze drifting to the wide curve of her green satin backside, as she led him towards the rear of the room and a giant horseshoe arrangement of tables.

‘I’ll show you where you’ll be sitting,’ she said, ‘so you won’t have to hunt around when they call us to eat.’ She
stopped at a place-setting towards the centre of the room, and pointed out his name tag, attached in bold letters to a bright festive cracker.

He checked the labels of the settings to either side of his. ‘I’m next to you,’ he said.

‘There’s a coincidence,’ she said, laughing, and she turned on her high shiny heels and started towards the crowd, looking back over her shoulder with a conspiratorial smile. ‘We’d better join the others, before they start wondering where we’ve got to.’

The next morning, Rob awoke in one of the guest rooms at the White Hart, lying naked on a double bed beside Ruth, who was passed out on the pillow beside him. Her mouth was slightly open, the skin above it chapped-looking where her crimson lipstick had smudged in their haste. This close up he could see every pore in her skin, the margin of regrowth in her hair where the dark roots pushed through, and he ran his hands across his face, wincing in recollection at the events of the night before.

‘It was my idea, to not have partners this year,’ she had told him, leaning close to his ear as she slid back into her seat. She’d looked up to thank the waitress for the tray of coffees she had just delivered.

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘I thought it might be easier on you.’

Rob had stared into his coffee, given it an unnecessary stir. ‘That was kind of you.’

Crossing her legs slowly, she’d twisted in her seat, her face falling into an expression which told him her motives had not been purely selfless. ‘Now tell me, Mr Irving,’ she’d said, her fingers twirling around the jet beads at her throat, ‘would you care to join me for a tequila?’

With the stale taste of tequila still on his tongue, Rob shuddered and eased himself off the bed, stealthily pulling on his clothes, careful to gather all his belongings before he slipped from Ruth’s room. He strode through the corridor, down the stairs, out across the breakfast room and into his car as fast as he could move without running. ‘
Fuck
,’ he muttered, fumbling with the ignition and snagging the seatbelt as he pulled it across his body, pushing thoughts of Wren and Laura from his mind. Catching his reflection in the rear-view mirror, he recognised the disgust in his own eyes, and struck out at the dashboard with the heel of his hand as he threw the car into gear and headed back to his empty home.

Inside the cave, Rob’s eyes are rendered momentarily blind. He stands in the shadows blinking as Laura rummages in her coat pocket, bringing out the small Maglite she keeps attached to her key fob. ‘It’s not as powerful as Wren’s, but it’s better than nothing.’

They proceed further into the cave, Rob’s eyes gradually growing accustomed to the gloom, and stop at a raised rock pool, draped in thick ropes of seaweed. Laura shines the light beam across the water, angling it to pick out the tiny life forms that dart in and out of crevices and creep along the floor of the pool.

‘Phoebe will love this,’ Laura says, pleasure written on her face. ‘Remember that summer holiday on the Isle of Wight? What was she – four or five? There was that fabulous heated pool back at the hotel, but Phoebe just wanted the beach every day. Hours we spent in those rock pools, picking out crabs and guppies.’

Rob recalls the holiday as if it were last year. Laura had given up work the year before, to be around for Phoebe once she started at big school, and by the time the summer holidays came round she had been stir-crazy with too much time spent around the house. Rob had booked them into a five-star hotel near Ventnor, with breathtaking coastal views across the channel. The sun had seemed to shine without pause. For two blissful weeks, the three of them had embraced island life, harmonious in their family of three. Even now, he can see the tiny shape of Phoebe running ahead of them in a swimsuit printed with seahorses and urchins, an orange bucket swinging in one hand, a net dragging along the sand in the other. Laura chasing after her with a white sunhat in her hand, trying to fix the strap beneath Phoebe’s soft chin as she wrestled and complained; later, laughing together as they watched the hat drifting out on the tide. An accident, Phoebe said, as she poked at a pale shrimp wriggling in the palm of her hand.

‘We talked about moving there,’ he says, following the trail of a pool shrimp that moves in and out of the dark weed. ‘We even stopped outside estate agents’ windows in Newport to compare house prices. You were really keen, I seem to remember.’

‘
You
were worried about work opportunities,
I
seem to remember.’ She continues to swirl the torchlight around the pool, dipping her hand to cause a crab to skitter along the bottom. Her fingers appear to wobble and bend, distorted by the ripples and curves of the water.

‘I was probably right to be cautious,’ he replies, hating how jaded he sounds. ‘It would have been a bit risky. House prices in London are generally a lot more stable than the rest of the country. We’d have been giving up that security.’