Page 28 of The Man Who Didn't Call
He put a round, fragrant loaf onto a wire rack and closed the oven.
‘He left when I was nine. Dad. He has a family on the Scottish border, somewhere north of Carlisle.’
‘Oh.’ I sat back down. ‘That must have been rough.’
He shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago.’
An easy silence fell while he retrieved butter, honey, a jar of what looked like homemade marmalade from the fridge. He passed me a plate with a deep crack running through it (‘Sorry!’) and a knife.
‘Does your mum know I’m here?’ I asked, as he started slicing the bread.
‘Ow!’ He wrenched his hand away from the loaf. ‘Why am I so greedy? It’s far too hot to eat.’
I laughed. If he hadn’t gone straight in, I would have.
‘No,’ he said, protecting his hand this time with the tea towel. ‘Mum doesn’t know you’re here. I can’t have her think her only child is a dirty old mating goat.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Maybe if I’m really good, we can do some more mating,’ he said, throwing a red-hot slice of bread in the direction of my plate.
‘Certainly,’ I said, sticking my knife into the butter. It was full of crumbs. Reuben, who liked to serve butter hipster style, smeared onto a piece of slate or some ridiculous rock or other, would have hated it.
‘You’re great at mating,’ I added, and I didn’t blush.
Eddie did. ‘Really?’
And, because I didn’t seem to have any choice in the matter, I got up, marched round the planky island thing and closed my arms around him, kissing him hard on the mouth. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This bread is too hot even for me. Let’s go back to bed.’
Chapter Thirteen
Dear Alan,
Please forgive this message from out of the blue.
You replied to my post on Eddie David’s Facebook wall earlier today. I’m a bit worried, and wanted to share what limited information I have.
Prior to your holiday with Eddie, I spent a week with him in Sapperton. I left on Thursday, 9 June, so that he could pack, and he said he’d call me from the airport.
I never heard from him again. After trying several times to contact him, I gave up, assuming that he had changed his mind. I never fully believed it, however, and when I saw your reply to my post, I knew I hadn’t been deceiving myself. Below is my phone number. I would really appreciate you sharing any thoughts or info that you might have. I am not a stalker! I just want to know he’s OK.
Best wishes,
Sarah Mackey
Eleven p.m. leached silently into midnight. My phone buzzed and I hurled myself at it, but it was just Jo saying she’d got home safely. No reply from Alan. I lay back in bed and felt my heart straining in my chest. It hurt. Itactually hurt. Why did nobody tell you that a broken heart wasn’t just a metaphor?
Midnight turned into one, then two, then three. I imaginedTommy and Zoe in their giant bed along the hallway, and wondered if they held each other while they slept. I remembered Eddie’s body, wrapped around mine, and felt a longing so fierce it seemed to bore through my skin. Then I spent a while intensely disliking myself, because in Istanbul there were bodies in bags, whereas Eddie was – quite probably – a man who simply hadn’t called.
At four, having caught myself in the act of searching online for death notices in Eddie’s area, I let myself quietly out of Tommy’s flat. Dawn was pressing grey smudges into the sky, and a lone street sweeper was already at work, shuffling slowly past Zoe’s smart Georgian terrace. It would be another couple of hours until the city reached full throttle, but I couldn’t take another moment of the suffocating silence and the buzz of dark theories, each more terrible than the last.
At Holland Park Avenue, I started running. For a short while I sailed effortlessly past bus stops sheltering tired-looking migrants on their way to work, cafes with grilles still down, an inebriated man stumbling back from Notting Hill. I tuned out the whine of night buses and taxis, allowing only the slap of my trainers and the warble of the dawn chorus.
My effortless sailing didn’t last long. As the road began to climb towards Notting Hill, my lungs started to burst, as they always did, and my legs gave up. I walked up to the Portobello turn-off.
There’s nothing crazy about what I’m doing, I thought, when I could force myself to run again.London is awake already.A workers’ cafe was packed out with tradesmen in hi-vis vests; a man was opening a coffee cart on Westbourne Grove. London was on the move. Why shouldn’t I be? This wasfine.
Only, of course, it was not, because my body felt tired and miserable, and I was the only runner I saw for the duration. And because it was still only 4.45 a.m. by the time I got back to Tommy’s.
