His Other Life. Beth Thomas

      FIVE

      As soon as Linda has left, I realise that I completely forgot to tell her about Leon’s phone call, so Ginge and I spend the next twenty minutes hunting throughout the entire house, swearing and stamping and throwing things around until I eventually find Linda’s business card on the coffee table under the sex book.

      ‘You must have put the bloody book down on top of it!’

      ‘Well I can’t believe you didn’t look there!’

      ‘I thought you had!’

      ‘I distinctly remember you saying that you had.’

      So anyway, I ring Linda’s number and leave her a message about Leon calling me and ask her to ring me back to discuss it.

      Which leaves me with some nice empty free time to call Julia and Ray.

      Ginge makes herself a large bowl of Shreddies and goes back to the living room to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark on DVD. I take my phone into the kitchen and sit down to make the call. Julia answers on the first ring. Was she sitting by the phone, waiting for news?

      ‘Hello?’ Her voice is breathy, expectant.

      ‘Hi Julia. It’s Grace.’

      ‘Oh. Grace.’ Definite disappointment.

      ‘Listen, I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to ring you. I’ve just been a bit … Well, you know. How are you doing?’

      There’s a very brief pause as Julia processes the fact that it’s not Adam on the phone, or the police, or anyone with any information about what’s happened to him or where he is. Then she takes a deep breath in, and starts to speak, and what she says next disturbs me almost as much as Leon.

      ‘Oh, love, it’s so kind of you to ring. It’s so terrible, isn’t it, this whole thing? I just can’t … I just can’t think … But listen, Grace, I’ve had an idea. About three this morning, I’m sitting in the kitchen, OK, and I’m trying to work out the answers to the crossword, only the coffee time one, I never get the hang of those cryptic ones, they don’t make sense, do they? And of course the neighbour’s dog is barking – must have been shut outside again. I hate that, drives me totally bananas. On and on it went, bark bark bark, and then the occasional howl. Poor thing. Good job I was awake anyway, otherwise it would’ve woken me up. Anyway, it goes on and on and suddenly it starts to sound different, not like barking any more but more like someone whispering to me, over and over, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. What do you make of that?’

      This is the most she’s ever said to me. My ears are thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, we weren’t ready, can you start again?’ I blink. ‘Um, well, I don’t …’

      ‘It must have been Adam! Mustn’t it? I was thinking, you know, that it was probably definitely him, wasn’t it, trying to contact me, don’t you think? From the other side, or wherever he is, I mean. Because of course he would try to get in touch, wouldn’t he, if he could. He’d definitely try and contact me, I know he would. I’m his mum after all, aren’t I?’

      I can’t answer for a few moments. There are so many things about this outburst that have surprised me, I’m not sure which one to react to first. She called me ‘love’. She thinks Adam’s dead. She’s not sleeping. She thought she heard Adam trying to contact her in a dog’s bark. She thinks Adam’s dead.

      ‘Julia, he’s not even dead.’

      There’s a brief pause during which I can hear pages turning, or paper shuffling. Sounds like she’s looking through a newspaper. ‘Oh, my love, no, no, no, I know that. It’s just we have to, you know, consider every alternative, don’t we? I mean, if he did try to contact me, somehow, from wherever he’s been taken, I’d want to try and get back in touch, you know, to try and find out what … or who … you know …’

      Ginger appears suddenly in the doorway and gestures at the phone, making ‘Who’s that?’ movements.

      I mouth ‘Julia’ at her, and roll my eyes. She grins and makes drinking motions with her hand, then crosses her eyes and sways. I shake my head and look away. Ginger’s theory for Julia’s erratic behaviour is that she’s an alcoholic, or a drug-oholic, or sniffs glue or marker pens or air freshener. I don’t agree. Well, I’m not sure what I think, but I’m pretty sure I don’t think it’s stimulants.

      I remember my birthday last year, when we’d all gone out for a meal. Ginger was completely psyched-up about seeing what Julia was likely to get up to, and arrived at the restaurant in a high state of anticipatory tension. She kept looking around for Julia, longing for her to arrive, wondering when she would. She had brought Fletch along, of course, and they were being loud and demonstrably loving with each other, in a mutually abusive kind of way. Adam and Fletch always seemed to get on, in the way that men whose girlfriends are close are forced to. Adam used to smile and nod and clutch Fletch’s shoulder, but I’d sometimes wished he’d join in with their banter a bit more.

      ‘All right buddy!’ Fletch always said when he and Adam met. ‘Still alive then?’

      ‘Hello, Fletch. How’s things?’

      ‘Living the dream, man. Doesn’t get much better, does it, eh?’

      ‘Damn straight,’ Ginger cut in at this point, punching Fletch’s arm. ‘Just remind yourself every ten minutes how bloody lucky you are, you snivelling wretch.’

      ‘Gotta love her, the whore,’ Fletch said with an affectionate smile.

      We were in the Harvester because it was simple food with large tables, not too intimate. The four parents sat together at one end of the table, while we four youngsters sat at the other end. Adam and I were in the middle, effectively screening his parents from Ginger and Fletch. A sour expression had appeared on Ray’s face the second he’d heard the night before that Fletch was going to be there, and now that he could see him, it was only getting worse. His hands were starting to fist-up, probably without him even realising it. Ray watched Fletch; I watched Ray; Ginger watched Julia. Fletch and Adam, oblivious to all of it, had a conversation about Arsenal.

      The reason behind Ray’s hostility was that the first time Julia had met Fletch, something very odd and uncomfortable had happened. It was another occasion, someone’s birthday – probably Adam’s – and he’d brought Ginge and Fletch over to where Julia was standing, to introduce them. Julia had not even acknowledged Ginger. She had kept her gaze firmly locked on Fletch’s face the entire time. And as Adam had said, ‘This is Gracie’s friend, Fletcher’, she had sidled in very close to Fletch and put her hand on his chest.

      ‘Fletcher,’