‘Nothing,’ I reply. ‘I didn’t even know she was in Bristol until you gave me that printout.’
‘So shall we get these inside us and go Zoe-hunting?’
‘I suppose,’ I say. ‘Are we just going to go and knock on the door?’
‘Sure. Why not?’ Jess says.
‘Aren’t you scared?’ I ask. I nod at the junk-filled garden we’re passing. It contains the remains of a broken burnt-out scooter, two mattresses and no fewer than three rusting supermarket caddies. ‘Aren’t you nervous about knocking on doors around here?’
Jess laughs. ‘I’m a social worker,’ she says. ‘Knocking on doors like these is what I do all day, every day.’
‘I suppose,’ I say, suddenly grateful that she’s there with me to do this.
‘And you, are you scared?’ Jess asks.
‘A bit,’ I admit.
‘Scared you’ll find her, or scared that you won’t?’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh, I thought you meant . . . Um, scared of both of those equally, I think.’
‘Right,’ Jess says.
But what I’m most scared of is that she’ll be dead, if I’m honest.
‘I’m sorry?’ Jess says, and I wonder for a minute if I’ve said that out loud.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just, you know . . . Yeah. A bit nervous.’
Three
Mandy
About a year after Ian’s mother died and about two after I’d spotted that shoe on the floor, I, too, met someone new.
Nothing could have been further from my mind than a relationship. Oh, the idea that one day, just perhaps, there would be someone else had crossed my mind a few times, but when I tried to actually visualise such a thing, it was impossible. I struggled to imagine how I could find someone new attractive. When you’ve spent thirteen years with the same person you can come to think that it’s the familiarity you’re in love with, rather than something specific about them. And if I struggled to imagine being attracted to someone who was essentially a stranger, I struggled even harder to imagine them fancying me.
I’d put on a few kilos since Ian had left and hadn’t, I don’t think, bought a single item of clothing. The phrase ‘letting myself go’ describes it quite well.
Anyway, I was walking back from town with a bag of shopping when a voice from above shouted, ‘Look out below!’ I glanced up just in time to see a branch on the end of a rope swing my way. It missed my left ear by about a foot.
I jumped sideways to avoid the return of the pendulum and peered up into the tree, shielding my eyes against the sunlight with my free hand. ‘Oi!’ I shouted, my shock turning to anger. ‘You nearly killed me!’
‘I know, I know, I’m so sorry!’ came a reply, and a man came into view, hopping with agility from branch to branch and then quickly climbing down the ladder to street level.
‘Jesus!’ I said as he fiddled to unclip his harness from a rope. ‘You really could have killed me there.’
The man turned to face me. He was young, tall and fit with a fuzzy beard and big, brown, touchingly concerned-looking eyes.
‘You are OK, aren’t you?’ he asked, stepping towards me and reaching out to touch my shoulder. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
I licked my lips and nodded. ‘My life flashed before my eyes, but I seem to be fine,’ I said. ‘Whatever happened to health and safety?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again, grabbing and steadying the still-swinging branch. ‘My mate’ll be along in a minute to put barriers up. I was just getting everything ready, but it snapped. I didn’t cut it or anything. The branch just snapped. It’s a good job I had it tied off.’
‘It’s a good job I wasn’t a foot to the left,’ I said.
‘I know, I know! Come and, um, have some coffee. I’ve got some in the van. You look a bit pale.’ He would later admit that this was a lie – that I hadn’t looked pale at all.
‘I do feel a bit funny,’ I said, a fib of my own. ‘So I might just take you up on that.’
I found Scott instantly attractive. He was, as I say, tall and rugged-looking. His work gear, the green overalls, the safety hat, his climbing harness . . . well, it all somehow added to that. But it was his eyes that really got to me. It was his big brown eyes and, if I’m being brutally honest, that muscular arse of his, too.
We sat on the back step of his van and drank surprisingly good coffee from a flask.
‘You live around here?’ he asked.
‘Just up there,’ I said, pointing.
‘It’s funny we’ve never met, then,’ he said. ‘We’ve been doing the trees around here for weeks.’
‘Well, I spend most of my time at street level,’ I said, with a wink. ‘Perhaps I need to look skywards more often.’ Was I already flirting? Perhaps, unconsciously, I was.
I was definitely enjoying the company of this fit, smiley young man. I was perhaps even milking the situation a little in order to prolong the moment. But I honestly hadn’t imagined for one second that the feeling might be mutual.
Scott was astoundingly straightforward. That was the first non-physical thing I noticed about him. With Ian, there had always been a subtext. You always had to read between the lines to work out what he was really trying to say. But with Scott, things were much more direct. Even the way he asked me out that first day was typically literal, which was just as well, as I’m pretty sure that if he’d been subtle in any way I would have assumed that he was just being polite.
‘Um, you know what? I really like you,’ he said, as I handed back the plastic cup and stood regretfully to get on with my day. ‘I don’t suppose I could take you out to dinner one night or something, could I?’
I frowned and turned back to look at him.
‘Oh, I bet you’re already taken, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Are you married or something?’
I laughed at this and, I think, blushed.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’m not taken at all.’
‘Wow,’ Scott said. ‘Well, there’s a stroke of luck!’
It was a week before I saw him again. I needed a week to get my legs waxed, my hair cut and my nails done. I bought some new underwear, too.
We met in the Cheshire Cheese, which was a mistake. It was quiz night and we could hardly hear ourselves think, so Scott downed the remains of his pint and we moved down the road to a tapas place. Wearing cargo trousers, trainers and a sweatshirt, he looked even younger than I remembered.
‘So, how old are you, Scott?’ I asked as soon as the waitress had brought us our drinks. I wanted to get the age thing out of the way.
‘Twenty-six,’ he said. ‘And you?’
‘Thirty-five,’ I told him, pulling a face.
‘Right,’ Scott said. ‘Is that going to be a problem, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Is it?’
Scott laughed at this. ‘Not for me, it isn’t. That’s for sure. Thirty-five is nothing.’
‘Really?’ I asked, wondering if it was going to be a problem for me while blushing at the flattery. Despite how much life I seemed to have lived through and how old all that experience seemed to make me feel, perhaps I wasn’t too old for romance after all. ‘Nine years is quite a gap,’ I said, protesting weakly.