The Lost Wife: An uplifting page-turner about grief, love and friendship Read online

  I groan, pulling the duvet over my head.

  ‘Don’t you even, Rachel Fletcher. We’re a long time dead, buck your ideas up. We’re starting at Broadway and ending at Oceana. I can’t confirm the in-between but it will include cocktails and flirting. This is all part of my new plan to get you up and out and on with your life. Hopefully it will spark a new-found motivation to take control. Brace yourself!’ She blows me a kiss then pulls the door shut, padding off down the hallway to her own room.

  I groan again, quietly so as not to be heard. I guess if you’re not here, there’s always Mo! I think, flicking the switch on my fairy lights and staring at the illuminated constellations from a plastic star kit Mo bought me years back. As the stars and planets reveal themselves in the dark, I wonder if aeronautics is an option after all. Then I remember I hate flying.

  Eighteen

  Ed

  I’ve been calling Simon’s number for over a week. I’ve sent messages that have bounced back. I’ve spent my lunchtimes at the Arboretum, wandering the paths in search of him. I took the tram to and from a park-and-ride so I could check The Forest tram stop. I called their house, getting through to the answering machine each and every time. The questions are getting louder, and rational explanation is almost silent.

  Yet, despite the stress from my real life, the important side of it, the stuff I really need to be dealing with, I’m here, in a nightclub. With colleagues. And it is, without doubt, the last thing I really want. I’m expected to get hammered and have fun, as if those two things are inextricably linked any more.

  ‘Drink up, mate, you’re lagging behind. Some of us are on our sixth!’ shouts Dave, the office manager.

  I attempt a smile in his direction, but really I just want to remind him that Oli will wake me before most of the younger members of our team have even got home, and getting up at that time with a hangover is ill-advised at best. ‘This part of our job is more appealing before children, don’t you think?’

  ‘I dunno, Janet has always got up to ours anyway,’ he gloats, too drunk to consider his response may be a little tactless. ‘Besides, we’re team building. Get pissed or get fired. You know the rules.’

  While it would struggle to stand up in court, the mentality hasn’t really improved with the evolution of employee rights, and that is the one and only reason I’m in this club, with colleagues and clients, celebrating a new business deal for them that means more work for us. Dave sauntered over with a grin yesterday afternoon while I was trying Simon for the twelfth time, his mobile number still dead. He slapped me on the back, dropping the client file on my desk. ‘Merry Christmas!’ he declared. ‘Capital One. This will get you back on your feet!’

  So, I’m here, in Oceana nightclub, surrounded by a group of people I’ve little or nothing in common with, all of whom are three sheets to the wind. Greg has disappeared.

  With no alternative option, I had to ask Mum to babysit. Which means when I do get home, I have to make small talk until she leaves, or – God forbid – decides to go to bed in the spare room. She hadn’t decided when I left – probably because she didn’t want to admit that she just wanted to go home – but there’s a worry in the back of my mind that she’ll choose now to make more of an effort.

  ‘Look, Dave, it’s been a great night,’ I lie. ‘But, if it’s all the same to you, I should probably make a move.’ I’m in close to his ear so as to be heard over the music. ‘That lot won’t notice I’m gone now.’ I nod in the direction of our clients, sat in a corner of the club, surrounded by bottles of wine; ties loose, shirts untucked like stockbrokers on the late Tube home. ‘I really need to get back to Oli.’

  A shots girl saunters past, swinging tequila bottles in Dave’s direction, and he drags her back by the belt, much to her understandable disgust. I nudge his hand away and she gives me a grateful look.

  ‘One shot, then you can leave!’ he shouts, handing me a tiny glass and a piece of lime. He licks his hand, nodding me to do the same, so the girl can pour salt on the patch. The rest of the team are loaded up with the same and I consider losing the lot over my shoulder.

  ‘Three, two, one!’ Dave shouts over the beat, and we lick our hands, knock the drinks back, then suck on the tiny piece of citrus. Alcohol strips my tongue and burns my throat on the trickle down to my stomach. I just about cough out a ‘Fuck me’ before Dave whips the offending glass out of my hand, trying to get it refilled.

  ‘Just a little extra to get you in the mood,’ he insists, but I put my hand up to make it clear I’m not getting drawn in. Dave shrugs, then turns his back on me, which means I can push my way through the crowd. I get caught in a queue to the dance floor and am knocked sideways by someone’s overzealous dancing. I spin round to glare, only to see Rachel.

  ‘Shit, sorry! Did I knock you? Oh…!’ she says. ‘Ed!’

  I am as surprised to see her as it’s clear she is to see me; I nod a hello in her direction.

  ‘I didn’t have you down as much of a clubber,’ she shouts into my ear, vibrating my eardrum with her volume.

  ‘No, a work do,’ I shout back, pointing to the crowd of noisy office workers behind us. She looks, then nods, a neon straw placed in the corner of her mouth. She says something else that I can’t hear, straw still in mouth. ‘Pardon?’ I shout, cupping my hand to my ear like a granddad.

  ‘I said “I see” and “fancy seeing you here”.’ She comes in close to my ear again, her hair tickling my neck, the drone of music making her proximity absolutely necessary... but more than a little uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s awkward bumping into parents when you’re out on the piss,’ she shouts, not sounding awkward at all. ‘How can I present the very model of a childcare specialist when you’ve seen me falling over drunk?’ She looks at me as if this is a genuine, important question.

  ‘Don’t worry about it!’ I shout. ‘I was just leaving anyway.’

  ‘Awww, no, don’t go!’ she wails. ‘Stay, have a drink, have a dance! I’ve been dumped by my mate who is lost in the club, probably twerking with some bloke she just met.’ She takes another sip of her drink then says, ‘That’s me walking home on my own!’ She eye-rolls as though this is a regular occurrence. The smell of her drink, a sort of bubblegum sweetness, mixes with her perfume, producing sickly tones that take up residence in my nostrils.

  ‘You can’t walk home on your own,’ I say.

  ‘Of course I can!’ she replies, as if I’m an idiot.

  ‘Look, let me help you find her before I go. I’m trying to find my mate anyway.’ Rachel nods, taking hold of my hand, leading me through the crowds. Her hand is unfamiliar in mine. I want to let go, but she’s clasping it tightly. After three laps of the dance floor, she stops and points. ‘There!’ she nods in the direction of a girl whose arse grinds dangerously close to her partner’s crotch. Her partner, it turns out, being Greg, who looks a combination of terrified and like all his birthdays have come at once. He attempts to dance around with her, into the crowd, and, thankfully, I lose sight of them both. I won’t say I know him; too many questions when it all goes pear-shaped.

  ‘Look at that. Disappearing into a sea of drunkards. Literally the last I’ll see of her tonight.’ Rachel stands on tiptoes, craning between revellers to see where Greg and her friend have gone. ‘Oh well, bonus is it’s an early night for me then,’ she shouts, draining her bottle and dumping it on a table beside us. ‘I’ll no doubt see you at work,’ she says, wandering off, unstably, through the crowds.

  ‘Wait!’ I shout, doing my best to catch her up. ‘Seriously, how are you getting home?’

  ‘I’ve already said! I’ll walk.’

  ‘I’d really rather you didn’t!’ I shout, but the music volume is waning as we get further away from the dance floor, making me sound louder than I needed to be.

  Rachel shakes her head as we take the steps out into the night, brightly lit with street lights, cars’ headlamps and the club lights that pool on the pavement. ‘It’s fine. I o
nly live around the corner.’ She points over the road towards Hockley. ‘Five minutes max,’ she says.

  ‘Well…’ I sigh, frustrated. ‘Let me walk you there,’ I offer, because I can’t bear the thought of any woman taking the streets alone.

  ‘Whatever.’ She sighs. ‘I’d be fine, though.’

  She slips her arm through mine with an overfamiliar squeeze, tottering a few steps before kicking off her shoes and carrying them by the heels in her spare hand. ‘Stupid things, can’t walk in them anyway. I’m more of a flat shoe kind of girl, really.’

  ‘Why do you bother, then?’ I ask, desperate for easy conversation to fill the awkwardness, keeping my eye on the path for broken glass she might need to avoid.

  ‘Dunno really. Always feel I’m supposed to when I go out. Stupid really.’

  I nod in agreement as we head down Broad Street, where a projection of some dancers shines on the face of the buildings, giving me something to focus on until we’ve passed it. Rachel babbles on about the night out being due to her best friend’s decision to take control of her life and not because she actually wanted to be there. She hates clubs. Always has. Apparently. I keep nodding, politely, whenever it seems appropriate. By the time we reach the end of the road, she gets a whiff of kebab and I’m dragged down the hill to join a queue of revellers looking for sustenance.

  The cold night air has woken me up, or maybe it’s the tinnitus that now rings around my head. 'I used to love clubbing,’ I say, rubbing my fingers in my ears. ‘Ellie and I would go, back in the early days, and we’d just dance all night. Not even drink!’ The rubbing does not dislodge the ringing. ‘I think I’m getting too old for it now.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ she says, trying to see past the queue for a glimpse at the menu. ‘That’s not getting old, that’s just recognising the severe damage to your hearing that overexposure to really bad dance music can have!’ Moving up the line, she stumbles and I catch her.

  ‘Shit, sorry!’ she says, smoothing her skirt down. ‘God, fresh air and alcohol. Do you know fresh air is scientifically proven to advance the effects? I was stone cold sober in the club...’ I raise my eyebrows suggesting otherwise, but she doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Now though? Hurtling towards hammered on a runaway speed train! Oooh… pizza!’ She slips from my grasp, leaning against the counter to place her order, fumbling with her cash, counting out what’s left.

  The town clock chimes eleven thirty and I panic that I’ll be late for Mum. That she’ll want to stay. That we’ll have an awkward morning conversation about how I am. About if I’ve spoken to Simon yet. About anything and everything.

  ‘Look, Rach, I need to get back for Oli.’

  ‘Oh, of course, who has him?’

  ‘Mum,’ I say with a groan.

  ‘You know, if you ever need it, I can help with stuff like that,’ she says, picking up the pizza that has just been placed down before her. ‘Any time. We’re allowed to, if you wanted. It just helps sometimes; we know the baby and vice versa.’

  Part of me wishes I’d known that before. ‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’

  She reaches over the counter for a pen, grabbing hold of my hand. She holds it across her stomach – which feels uncomfortably personal – scrawling her number on it, with a smiley face at the end. ‘There,’ she declares. ‘No excuses now. Any time, Ed, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ I nod, stuffing my hands in my pockets, finding the photo of Ellie I put in one of them before coming out. I hold it between thumb and forefinger as I follow Rachel up the hill, through identical streets that feel like a city-centre secret of magical red bricks and years and years of history. It’s not a part of the city I’ve walked before. Quickly, we reach a nondescript door to another red-bricked building.

  ‘This is me,’ she says, nodding up to the building.

  ‘Great.’ I wait for her to get her keys out, take the steps to unlock the door and leave me to run for a cab. Instead, she pauses, fixing me with an intense look.

  ‘You're doing an incredible job. With Oli, I mean.’ I drop my head, not quite sure how to respond to the compliment, desperate to get away. ‘He is lucky to have you,’ she says, taking my hand to steady her tiptoed stance as she gently kisses me on the cheek. ‘Thanks for walking me home.’ She smiles, unlocks the building, and then disappears behind the door.

  I look down at my hand and reach up to my cheek. ‘He’s lucky to have you too,’ I say to the building, realising in that moment that I’m lucky as well. Lucky to have someone who understands, says what she thinks, and requires nothing of me in return.

  A light switches on in one of the flats. The shadow of its occupant moves across the ceiling as they look out of the window. I turn the corner without seeing if it’s actually her, grateful for this new-found friendship, but relieved the encounter is over.

  Nineteen

  Rachel

  I make an ill-advised attempt to lift my head from the pillow, somehow hoping it won’t hurt, vast experience to the contrary momentarily passing me by. The weight of my unexpected hangover – I really didn’t think I’d had that much – forces me back into the secure folds of my bed. ‘Life hates me,’ I groan.

  I reach out to the side of my mattress, using it as a pulley across the bed, blindly trying to turn my clock to face me… there’s an empty wine bottle there instead. Oh. Well, that makes more sense. I push it to one side, blinking a blur away from the only eye I can open, desperately trying to focus on the time. My laptop whirs to life from its position among the covers on my bed; a website page thanking me for my purchase comes to light, and I hope to God I haven’t spent my rent on clothes I’ll never wear. Again.

  There’s an overwhelming stench of pizza clinging to the air, making my stomach lurch, bile threatening. Dead-weight legs fall off the edge of the bed, landing heavily on discarded clothes and the remains of my aforementioned pizza below. I stand, then sit back down, woozy. Deep breath, try again. Standing. I'm standing! Gingerly, I move from bed to door, down the corridor, past the closed bathroom door and into the kitchen.

  I pour water, take a sip, then sling the rest of it down the sink before feeling my way for the lounge, only to find Mo drinking tea, reading a magazine and, irritatingly, looking as though she stopped in last night.

  ‘Guess what I’ve done!’ I say, falling into the chair opposite.

  ‘Blown your rent on clothes?’ she asks, as if she knows me better than I know myself.

  ‘I’ll send them back. It’s fine. Urgh. Where am I? What day is it? Who am I?’

  Mo sniggers. ‘Relax, I keep telling you I don’t need your money anyway.’

  ‘Yes, well. You know that’s not how I want it to be.’

  ‘You might have to live rent free when you go back to university.’ She winks.

  ‘Who says I’m going back?’

  ‘Time, Rach. Time says you’re going. And it’s only a matter of.’ I groan, head in hands. Head pounding. Actually, head all over the place. ‘It’s okay, Rach. I can wait. Keep the clothes… unless you’ve bought open-toed slingbacks again. Those you can send back. Now, where did you slope off to last night?’

  ‘Me?’ I shout, then rub my temples because of the ache. ‘How was your night, more like? Was it worth dumping me for a fumble in the toilets?’

  ‘A fumble in the toilets! How very dare you.’ She grins. 'Actually, Rachel, I didn't dump you, and I didn’t have a fumble in the toilets. Not that there would be any shame if I had!’

  ‘No. Because nothing says sexy like empty toilet-roll dispensers and the gentle aroma of boy wee. Here then? Do I need to wipe down the sofa? Has he been booted out already? Actually, no, it can’t have been here, you’re too fresh-faced to have brought him back. Besides, I seem to recollect you saying something about finding a husband when we were out last night, and as you’ve told me many times before, a man you deem appropriate after overindulging the snakebite and black could not a husband make.’

  ‘Snakebite and black?! Excuse me, bartender,
the 1990s want their drink back.’

  ‘I dunno, snakebite, tequila, disgusting but ever-so-sippable alcopops, whatever.’

  ‘I didn’t dump you, you walked out on me! I watched you chuff off with some bloke, grabbing his hand and leading him out. You were on a mission and I partly wanted to high five you because he was hot. Not your usual type at all. Much more of a man. Like a proper man. With the ability to grow facial hair and everything. What went wrong? How did you get to the point where you were at home, spending money on clothes you’ll never wear?’

  ‘I might wear them,’ I say sulkily, nicking one of Mo’s cleansing wipes out of the packet left on the table. Its coolness takes the red sting of embarrassment out of my cheeks as a vague picture of Ed delivering me to our door comes back to my mind. ‘Anyway, how on earth you noticed I was leaving, with or without some bloke, I’m not sure. The last I saw, you were gyrating by some bloke’s nethers! And, as it happens, “the guy” just wanted to make sure I got home okay.’

  ‘I bet he did!’ She laughed. ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. As it happens.’

  Mo looks at me as if I’ve just fed her the biggest load of ol’ shite she’s ever heard, and I leap to his defence. ‘It was one of the dads from work, as it goes. The one I’ve told you about.’

  ‘The one with the dead wife?’

  I wince at Mo’s bluntness. ‘Yes, that’s the one,’ I say, through the face wipe.

  ‘Fair enough, but I did see you chatting to him, all hair fixing and seductive leaning in.’

  ‘The music was loud.’

  ‘You didn't have to keep touching him though, did you? “Oooh, you’re so funny.” And “Oooh, tell me that again”.’ She flicks her hair and taps my arm by way of, frankly, a very bad impression of me. I work hard to resist flinching as the recollection of my being a little over-affectionate starts to appear in the fuzz of memory. The holding his hand, the walking home arm in arm. The kiss on his cheek. Oh God, the kiss on his cheek. The pit of my grumbling stomach drops to the soles of my feet. I wonder if I should let him know I was drunk and unaware of socially accepted behaviour towards a widower.