Chapter Four

I WOKE IN the night, my mouth foul and my eyes sore from crying. Clutched tightly in my hand was the stem of my glass, and the side of the bed that Matt usually slept on was damp and stained from the wine that had spilled. The air was full of the familiar smell of stale alcohol; as I breathed in the fumes my stomach churned and I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom.

Although I should have expected it and braced myself, I felt a jolt at the sight of my toothbrush alone in the holder. I kept my eyes firmly on the basin as I brushed my teeth and cleansed my face, deliberately avoiding the gaps where his shaving things would be, the empty hook where his dressing gown had hung, the space where his shampoo and shower gel usually stood in the shower cubicle. I felt different, somehow, as though everything had changed. As though I had changed. My head was full and my eyes swollen from crying, but it was more than that. All my muscles ached and my chest was sore and tight. I felt as though I was ill, as though I had the flu.

I stood at the top of the stairs, about to go down to fetch a glass of water, but stopped as I saw the gaps where the photos had been in the hallway. Unable to face going downstairs and confronting it all again, I turned back to my bed.

• • •

I T WAS HOURS before I could speak to Katie. She was the only person I could trust with this. We’d known each other since we were five and had sat next to each other at school. We’d stuck together through so much since then. I knew she wouldn’t judge me or ask me what I’d done wrong. She knew Matt well, too; she knew this was the last thing I would have expected. I knew it was early for her to be awake at the weekend, but still I sent her a text:

I need to talk to you. Are you up yet?

While I waited for a reply I checked Facebook. My stomach fell when I thought Matt had blocked me, but as I searched for his name and saw he wasn’t there, I realized he must have deactivated his account. Why would he do that? I looked for the messages we’d exchanged, but the entire conversation had gone. How had that happened? And my folders of photos of us had vanished, too! Quickly I checked Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. I couldn’t find him on those sites, either.

Katie must have had a really late night because it was over an hour before she replied. I lay there drumming my fingers on the bed, thinking so hard about where he might be that by the time she answered my head was pounding.

Just going round to my mum’s. Call you later?

I couldn’t help it. At the thought of coping with this on my own I started to cry again.

Please, Katie. Matt has left me. Can you come round?

There was a long pause. I imagined her face, stunned at the news; we’d been together for four years, after all. At last she replied:

He’s gone? OK, give me half an hour.

I lay curled up in the darkened room, unable to find the energy to even draw back the curtains. Even though I’d brushed my teeth, I could still taste the wine from the night before at the back of my throat, smell it in the quilt and pillows. It smelled disgusting, like I’d lost control of myself. I couldn’t bear Katie to see me like that.

By the time she arrived, I’d showered and changed the bedding. The windows were open and the curtains drawn back, but despite brushing my teeth again, my mouth was still nasty.

“What’s happened?” she said as soon as I opened the door.

Instantly my eyes filled with tears and I brushed them away. “I came home from work last night and he’d gone, taking everything with him.”

“Everything?”

I nodded. “It must have taken him hours.”

“Oh, Hannah,” she said and put her arms around me. I clung to her for a minute. I could smell her warm, sweet perfume, feel the slick of her lip gloss against my cheek as she kissed me. “Come on, tell me all about it.”

We sat in the kitchen with the French doors open and the fresh spring air wafting in. I made us some tea, but I felt sick at the thought of eating anything. I sat facing the glossy white kitchen units and from here everything looked normal, as though he had never left. Katie stared around the room, as if she might see something I had missed.

“What’s upstairs like?” she asked.

I winced. “Same as here. He’s taken all his stuff.”

“Have you phoned him?” she asked, gently. “Do you want me to speak to him?”

I swallowed hard. “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t have his number.”

“Why not?”

“He’s wiped it all,” I said. “Everything’s gone. Emails, texts, everything.”

She came over and put her arms around me. “Oh, you poor thing,” she said, and the tears came then. Soon I was sobbing. She held on to me and stroked my hair. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”

In all the years we’d known each other, she’d hardly ever seen me cry. I tried to pull myself together, embarrassed. “I know. It’s just the shock.”

“Don’t you remember his number?”

I shook my head. “He’s had the same one for as long as I’ve known him. Once it was on my phone, I didn’t need to remember it.”

“I’m the same,” she said. “I can’t remember any numbers nowadays. I don’t even notice them. Hold on, I think James has got it.”

She took out her phone and called her boyfriend. A minute later she had it. “Hide your number,” she said. “He might not answer if he thinks it’s you.”

I was about to make a sharp retort but I knew she was right. I swallowed my pride and dialed.

“This number is no longer available,” said the automated voice.

My face was hot with shame. “Looks like he’s changed it.”

“I’ll try it from my phone,” Katie said. She dialed and put the phone on loudspeaker. We heard the message again and she ended the call.

“There was really no sign beforehand that he was going to leave?”

I shook my head. “Thinking back, he did ask me a couple of times last week when I’d be back from Oxford. I’m such an idiot. I thought he was looking forward to me coming home.”

My face smarted as I remembered what I’d said to him then. “You keep asking that! Don’t worry, I won’t be late!” All the time he must have been wondering how long he had.

She seemed at a loss as to what to say. “And you weren’t having rows? He wasn’t staying out late?”

“Nothing unusual.” Again, I could feel the sting of tears behind my eyes. “I thought everything was fine.”

“And ...” she hesitated, “in bed ... How was it?”

I rubbed my eyes. Slicks of wet mascara smeared my hands and I took some kitchen roll from the counter to dry my face. “It was great.” I swallowed. “It was always great.”

She was quiet for a long time, then she took my hand. “He’s a bastard,” she said. “A real bastard.”

“I know.”

She stood to wash her mug in the sink. “Where do you think he’s gone to? Any ideas?”

Suddenly I wanted to be alone. “Leave that, Katie. No, I’ve no idea where he is and I don’t care, either.”

• • •

D ESPITE THAT, ONCE she’d gone, I went back up to bed and spent hours on Google, trying to find the numbers of his friends, his colleagues, his family. I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I’d found him.

Matt worked as an architect for a large local firm and their offices were always closed at the weekend, though occasionally on Saturdays he’d drive off to see a project he was working on. I couldn’t call him there until Monday. Of course, his work number was no longer on my phone. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d called him on it, but I knew I hadn’t deleted it. He’d done that for me.

In the early days of dating Matt, I’d called him each lunchtime from my car and he’d answer his mobile in a very formal voice, saying, “Oh, good afternoon, Ms. Monroe. Just a moment, let me take this call outside where it’s quieter.” Then he’d take the phone to his car and we’d spend our lunch hour talking in low, urgent voices about what we’d done the night before and what we wanted to do that night. Those phone calls had naturally become fewer and shorter once we started to live together and we tended to text, as it was quicker, but even so, we’d had several phone conversations over the last few months.

Everywhere I looked, I saw the loss of him. I hadn’t realized how much stuff he’d had, how our house— my house, I had to keep reminding myself—had become crammed with his possessions. I lay on the bed with my eyes closed, but when I opened them all I could see was that yet another thing was missing. His clock. His radio. Everything he owned.

All I felt was humiliation. My cheeks burned, not with the injustice of him leaving, though that smarted, too, but with the shame of knowing that he’d felt the only way to get away was to run like a thief, albeit in broad daylight. I burrowed under the quilt, my mind racing with questions I wanted to ask and things I wanted to say, but knew I couldn’t. Not now.

I lay there as the day passed, gaining solace from the dark. Now I couldn’t see that he was gone. If I stayed like that, my eyes fixed on the dwindling light around my bedroom blinds, I could pretend he was still there, behind me, saying nothing, just lying with me, almost touching me.