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B Y THE TIME I got to work on Monday, I was a wreck. The weekend had passed by quietly and after Katie had gone I saw nobody. The friends I went running with, Fran and Jenny, had sent texts asking whether I wanted to meet up early on Sunday morning, but I just didn’t have the energy and I couldn’t face telling them about Matt, so I replied that I couldn’t make it and that I’d be in touch. My mum had sent a couple of texts to ask whether Matt and I fancied coming round for lunch on Sunday, but I just replied, Sorry, busy , and she took the hint and left me alone.
I didn’t want to see anyone, yet I didn’t want to be alone. The atmosphere in the house was full of self-recrimination and fury; at first the television and radio stopped me hearing the voices in my head, but then I panicked and switched them off. I needed to hear those voices in case they said something I ought to know.
When the alarm clock woke me on Monday at seven, I found I was lying in exactly the same position I’d been in at seven the previous night, my shoulders hunched and the skin on my face dry and creased, my pillow damp from tears I’d shed in my sleep.
It took all I had to go into work that day, but after the meeting in Oxford on Friday, I couldn’t let myself down. After a lukewarm shower I dressed carefully and used my handbag mirror to apply makeup, making sure I focused on one feature at a time, unable to look myself in the eye.
I was halfway to work when I remembered I hadn’t checked the bins in the back garden. It wasn’t as though they were even being collected that day, but I found myself doing an illegal U-turn, accompanied by the blare of horns from exasperated drivers, and hurtling back home. I hurried out of the car, forcing myself to nod to Ray, who was peering out of the window next door, and went through the back gate into the garden.
I lifted the lids expectantly.
I don’t know what I thought I would find. Just a solitary bag of rubbish sat in the green bin; I remembered emptying the kitchen bin on Thursday night and nothing had been put in there since. I checked the other bins, even the garden bin, but there was nothing different, nothing added to them. I looked at my watch and panicked. If I didn’t hurry, I’d be late.
As soon as I arrived at work, I left a note for my assistant, Lucy, to tell her I had a headache and didn’t want to be disturbed if possible. In the safety of my own office I picked up the phone to call Matt’s workplace.
The woman on reception sounded bored. “Good morning, John Denning Associates, Amanda speaking. How can I help you?”
I swallowed hard. When I spoke, my voice sounded strange, as though it hadn’t been used for days. Which it hadn’t, I suppose. “Hi, can you put me through to Matthew Stone, please?”
“Hold the line,” she said and disappeared for a few minutes. When she returned, she said, “There’s no Matthew Stone working here.”
“Try Matt,” I said. “I’m not sure which he uses at work, Matthew or Matt.”
I could hear the click of a mouse, then she spoke again. “I’m afraid there’s nobody with that name working here.”
I faltered. “Are you sure? He’s one of the architects.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m new here, so I don’t know many people, but his name’s not in the database.”
Through the glass of my office door I saw Lucy arrive and pick up the note. She smiled sympathetically at me and moved her hand to offer me a drink, but I shook my head and stared at my computer screen until she sat down at her own desk, facing away from me.
All morning I pretended to work. I shuffled papers about, I looked at documents on the screen, I read my emails in a daze, but I couldn’t focus and a moment later I couldn’t remember anything I’d read. Thoughts were whirling around my head. Where was he? Why hadn’t he told me? Why had he deleted everything? They turned incessantly in my mind but I just couldn’t come up with an answer.
Eventually, after racking my brain trying to remember the guy’s surname, I phoned Matt’s boss.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding distracted. “Matt left us a week ago.”
My heart hammered in my chest and I thought for a moment I’d faint. I thought of him leaving the house every morning, dressed for work, arriving home every night, chatting about his day.
“So he’s not working there now?”
“No. David Walker’s taken over his projects for the time being. Are you a client? Is there a problem?”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “No problem at all. Can you tell me where he’s gone to?”
“Sorry, we can’t pass that information on.”
I put the phone down and stared blankly at the computer screen. I’d read in the newspapers about people keeping up the pretense of working and I’d always thought they must be having a breakdown. And maybe if that was all Matt had done, I’d think the same thing. Yet when I remembered the way he had removed every last trace of himself from our house, I knew that wasn’t what had happened here. He wasn’t the one having a breakdown. He’d left that for me.