I reach for the water bottle; the label is smeared with my diarrhea. It’s disgusting. I’m disgusting. I carefully tear off the label and then take some sips, regardless.
The worst days are the ones when Mark thinks I am away with work and really, I’m just sitting in Daan’s flat. Sometimes, when I’m certain Mark isn’t going to be working from home, I do sneak back to the house to put on a load of washing so that the chores don’t add up at the weekend. On Wednesday afternoons the boys often play sports. I’d like to go to those games, but I can’t because how would I explain being away on a Wednesday night and how can I justify to Daan living away from him for more than four days a week? He is patient enough giving up every weekend of his life because he thinks I am nursing my sick mother. I have to be strict. Disciplined. I have a lot to lose. Twice as much as the next woman. I see the boys play football at the weekends. That’s enough. It has to be.
The boys were aged eight and eleven when I met Daan. They had just started to break away from my tight and constant maternal clench. I realize now that as all boys turn into tweens, teens and ultimately young men, they have to push their mothers away. It’s natural. It is still hurtful, though. I couldn’t help but feel saddened when they quickly turned their heads away from me and a kiss might land on their ear or simply die in the space between us. The boys had started to edge into the stage when all they needed me for was to locate a stray trainer or charger cable, cook a meal. I still needed them.
My arms felt empty.
It was around that time I suggested to Mark that we consider fostering or even adoption. “Maybe a girl,” I said hopefully. “A toddler, someone who needs a loving home.” Someone who would accept my kisses without question. He instantly dismissed my idea, not giving me or my needs even the dignity of a debate. “I don’t want to go back to nappies and broken sleep, Leigh. Besides, adoption’s such a risk. If you are not genetically related, you don’t know what you are getting. How can you be sure you’ll bond?”
“I’m not genetically related to Oli and Seb,” I pointed out.
For a moment Mark froze, he looked caught out, afraid. Then he pulled me into a hug. “God, I forgot. Isn’t that wonderful?”
And it should have been wonderful. If maybe, momentarily, Frances wasn’t sitting in the shadows of our relationship and Mark had thought of me as the boys’ mother—simply that, not the stepmother, the stand-in or make-do. But I didn’t really think that was what was being said. When he’d said that if a parent wasn’t genetically related to the child, you couldn’t be sure you’d bond, Mark was not talking about my relationship with a future child or indeed the children we had, Mark was referring to his own feelings on the matter of nature versus nurture. So, in fact, it was far from a compliment. Really, he was revealing that he didn’t believe my bond with the boys could ever be quite as strong as his. It was as though he’d stabbed me. Then left me to bleed out.
Two or three weeks later my father died. It was a very intense time.
My reflections are punishing. Stopping, examining, recalling is something I’ve studiously avoided over the past four years. I change track. Pull to mind the thoughts that I’ve always used to console myself.
I never got behind on the washing; no one ever opened the fridge and despaired that there was no milk for their cereal. When I went to Daan’s to become Kai, my last act before I walked out of the door was to check in the freezer, count the Tupperware tubs of Bolognese and shepherd’s pie. Checking there were always organic meals made from scratch by me, enough to last until I returned.
No one was neglected.
I close my eyes. Let the darkness of the room take me. Sleep isn’t restful, but it’s better than the nightmare I’m living.
24
DC Clements
Friday 20th March
When DC Clements returns to the station after visiting Daan Janssen, she is immediately called into her boss’s office; she doesn’t even have time for a smoke. She tells herself that is a good thing, that she should give them up soon anyway. Filthy habit.
“Where have you been?” Her boss doesn’t normally keep tabs on her in this way. He respects her judgment, her work ethic—besides, he is swamped himself and doesn’t have time to micromanage. However, when she explains, he looks irritated, impatient. “I see. Look, Clements, we’re too busy for this. File the report, put out an alert, but other than that, drop it. I’m not giving any more man-hours over to it. There isn’t a body, so there’s no case.”
Clements is being given an order. She should accept it, but she feels her mind and body resist slightly. No, there isn’t a body, but there is something. The woman with two husbands—two lives—flung herself forward, jumped up and down, insisted she was interesting enough to be noticed. Clements is fascinated by her. Mystified by her. She doesn’t even know what to call her. Leigh Fletcher? Kai Janssen? Maybe Kylie Gillingham is best. The name she had before she had any husband. Before she got herself into this mess.
“I just feel, sir, that there might be more to this than—”
“We work with facts, DC Clements, not feelings, as well you know.” He only ever gave her the full-title thing when he was reminding her of rank, her place. “Most likely the woman has run off to ruin some other man’s life. From her profile, I’d say she’s quite the survivor, not the sort to get into danger. She’s the sort that looks after herself.” Clements stiffens at this. Women frequently find themselves in danger, irrespective of what “sort” they are. “If she turns up, we’ll press charges for bigamy. She might get a few months inside. Most likely just a fine, but I don’t suppose we’ll see her again anyway.”
“But there’s no indication that she planned to leave,” Clements points out. “Neither husband can recall anything out of the ordinary in her behavior before she disappeared. Neither man believes any clothes to be missing, both her passports are in the drawers that they usually lived in.” One of the husbands could be lying, though. Probably was. Maybe both of them. The thought skitters across Clements’s mind.
“Two passports?”
“Yes.”
“One in each name?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she’s clearly wily.” It isn’t a compliment. “It takes some cunning to have two passports, two names on the go. If she ever does turn up, that charge will need to be answered to as well.”
“How do you think she managed it, sir?” Clements has already considered the matter. She’s drawn her own conclusions, but she wants to draw in the detective inspector, get him to engage in the case. Not actively, just enough for him to give Clements the nod to continue investigating.
“It’s tricky but not impossible if she had deed poll documents, wedding certificates, household bills in different names. If a person creates enough confusion around such matters, then they can generally find a loophole. No system is infallible. She probably benefited from appearing middle class, middle-aged, female, respectable.” Clements knows her boss is currently going through a divorce, his middle-aged, middle-class, respectable wife is taking him to the cleaners. He resents it. Everyone resents everything nowadays.