The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

37

May 2017

The following afternoon, when she gets home from college, Tallulah takes Noah for a walk around the village at around the time that she would normally put him down for his afternoon nap and have sex with Zach. She turns her phone to silent and puts in her earbuds, the music turned up loud, refusing to allow the image of Zach getting back from work to an empty house to taint her thoughts.

She pushes the buggy into the Co-op and scopes the shop for Keziah. She spies her in the bakery aisle, stacking the shelves with self-raising flour. ‘Hiya,’ she says.

Keziah turns round. She glances at Tallulah and then into the buggy. When she sees Noah she claps her hands to her mouth and makes a muffled squeaking noise. ‘Oh. My. God.’ She takes her hands from her mouth. ‘Oh my God. Lula. He is so beautiful.

Tallulah smiles and feels the swirl in her gut she always gets when someone tells her that her son is beautiful. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Sorry he’s not awake. But I said I’d bring him in to show you.’

‘How old is he now?’

‘Eleven months.’

‘Oh my God. Where did the time go! Feels like it was only about five minutes ago you were just pregnant!’

Tallulah smiles again.

‘How’s Zach?’

‘Oh, he’s fine. You know.’

‘Still together?’

‘Yeah. Just about.’ She laughs drily.

‘It’s tough, with a baby, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ she replies. ‘It has its moments. Especially living together. Actually, I was going to say: remember you talked about getting together with the others? From school?’

‘Yeah!’ Keziah’s face lights up. ‘Oh, definitely. We’re going out tomorrow as it happens. Just to the Ducks. Want to come?’

‘Yes, please,’ Tallulah says brightly, feeling the plan fall into place. ‘That’d be great. What time?’

‘Sevenish? Or whenever you can get away really. What with the bubba and everything.’ Keziah makes that pained face again, the face she makes every time she looks at Noah, almost as if his beauty is a terrible blight of some kind.

‘Great,’ says Tallulah. ‘I’ll see you then!’

She pushes the buggy back out of the shop and then walks for an hour, up to the other end of the village where the estate is, and to the common around the back lanes. She times her walk so that she gets back half an hour before her mother and Ryan return, long enough for the argument to play itself out. As she approaches the cul-de-sac her heart races with anticipation. She turns her key in the lock and pushes open the door. ‘Hello,’ she calls out.

Noah is still asleep and she leaves him in his buggy in the hallway and peers around the living-room door.

Zach sits on the sofa, his phone on his hand. He looks up at her darkly. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

She closes the door behind her.

‘Took Noah out for a walk. It was too nice to stay in and I’ve done all my revision.’

‘I’ve called you, like, a hundred times. Why didn’t you fucking answer?’

She pulls her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and glances at it. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Shit. Sorry. It was on silent.’

‘Shit. Sorry. It was on silent,’ he mimics her. ‘What the sort of mother goes out without telling anyone and leaves their phone on silent?’

‘Er, me, I guess.’ Her tone is glib, but beneath her rib cage, her heart is hammering.

‘I literally had no idea where you both were. You could have been dead for all I knew.’

‘Well, we’re not. So it’s fine.’

He shakes his head. ‘Unbelievable,’ he says. ‘Totally unbelievable. And not only that but it’s Wednesday. You know, our Wednesday.’

‘Oh, shit,’ she says. ‘God. I forgot. I’m really sorry.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re not fucking sorry. I can tell.’

‘I am. Honestly. I just finished my revision and it was so gorgeous out and Noah was getting scratchy for his nap and I just thought how nice it would be to get out and about for a while and I totally forgot it was Wednesday.’

‘You forgot it was Wednesday?’ He groans and rolls his eyes. ‘And here we go again. Just when I thought we were finally getting somewhere, that you were finally taking this seriously. I should have guessed. This is just like a joke to you, isn’t it? This.’ He gestures between the two of them. ‘Me. You. Noah. Just a game. You know, I sometimes feel like if something better came along, you’d just walk away from Noah and me, you know, like you don’t give a shit about anyone apart from yourself.’

Tallulah swallows down a burst of rage. The idea of walking away from Noah is monstrous, unimaginable. She tips her head slightly and says, ‘Whatever.’

‘Whatever?’

‘Yes. Whatever. You’ve clearly made your mind up about me and what sort of person I am and what I want and don’t want. And I can’t be bothered arguing with you.’ She sighs. ‘I’m going to get myself a cup of tea,’ she says, turning towards the kitchen. ‘Want anything?’

He shakes his head firmly and she sees a muscle in his cheek pulsing with anger.

‘Oh,’ she calls back to him, ‘by the way. I bumped into Keziah just now. Remember Keziah, who I went to primary school with? She’s invited me to a girls’ night, a reunion thing, at the Ducks. Tomorrow night. You’re all right staying in with Noah, aren’t you?’

There’s a dull silence from the living room and Tallulah holds her breath.

A moment later Zach is in the doorway of the kitchen, flexing and unflexing his fists. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Keziah who?’

‘Keziah Whitmore. I went to primary school with her. She works at the Co-op now.’

‘Right. So. Let’s get this straight. After knowing you for nearly five years I’ve never heard of this person before and now you’re just going for drinks.’

‘Yes,’ she says, closing the fridge door. ‘Tomorrow night.’

‘And how are you going to pay for that?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Mum will probably let me have some money.’

‘So here’s me, working my-fucking-self to death, day in day out, never spend a penny on anything, not a fucking penny. Single-handedly trying to get us a place to live, and you’re just going to the pub with some slag called Keziah who I’ve never even fucking heard of.’

‘I don’t ask you to work so hard,’ she replies evenly. ‘I don’t expect you not to spend any money on anything. I don’t tell you you can’t go out. And, frankly, I don’t even want us to buy a flat. I like living here with Mum.’

She glances at him briefly. She can see the clenched jaw start to grind.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I don’t want to move out. I want to stay here, with Mum.’

He grunts. ‘Christ, you are such a fucking child, Tallulah. You still haven’t grown up, have you? You still think life is all swanning about, doing what you like, going to the pub, hanging out with Mummy. Well, it’s not. We have a child. We have responsibilities. We’re not kids any more, Tallulah. It’s time to grow the fuck up.’ He looms over her now and she can feel the heat of his breath on her face.

‘I think you should move out,’ she says.

A taut silence follows.

‘What?’

‘I think we should split up. I don’t want to be with you any more.’

Tallulah’s gaze stays on the floor but she can feel Zach’s rage coalescing in the air around her.

Another drawn-out silence follows and Tallulah waits. Waits to be hit, waits to be screamed at, waits for the anger that exists so close to the tight seams of Zach’s psyche finally to burst through. But it doesn’t. After a few seconds she feels his presence soften and shrink, sees his shoulders slope and then he is gone. She follows him into the hallway. He is leaning over Noah’s sleeping form in his buggy and whispering to him. Tallulah feels a terrible chill run through all of her. She moves closer and watches, her body primed and ready to do whatever it takes to protect Noah from Zach. She hears the click of the safety harness being unclipped and watches as Zach carefully plucks Noah from his buggy and lifts him towards his shoulder. Noah doesn’t stir; he is heavy with sleep. His big head flops gently into the crook of Zach’s neck and Zach kisses him softly on his crown.

His eyes meet Tallulah’s over the top of their child’s head and he says, in a voice hard with resolve, ‘I am not going anywhere, Tallulah, I am not going fucking anywhere.’