Elisabeth Carpenter - 99 Red Balloons

Dad had been dead just under a year when Neil told me it was over. He probably stayed with me for those twelve months out of guilt – I’m sure he would have ended it sooner had my father not died. It was three days after what would have been Dad’s sixtieth birthday, though Neil wouldn’t have remembered that – I’d have to remind him of his own mother’s.

He told me to meet him in a café in town. ‘So we’re in neutral territory,’ he said, as though we were about to enter battle.

‘I’ve met someone else,’ he said.

The rest of his sentence was a blur. Twelve years of marriage, over in a second.

‘Someone from the office,’ he said when I asked him who it was.

Neil and his colleague – I didn’t even know her name – were only together for six months after he left me. It would be laughable, had Neil’s leaving not broken Jamie’s heart. Mine was already numb after Dad died.

When they’d both come to visit, Emma had sent Matt back home after seeing how distraught I was, and he left a little too quickly. She held my and Jamie’s hands as we talked through what was going to happen now that Neil had moved out. Jamie had tried to be brave in front of me, but when I came into his room after being in the bath that Emma had run for me, he was crying into her shoulder.

‘He’ll be okay,’ she mouthed above his head, gesturing for me to get into bed.

She was there for Jamie when I was a wreck. She watched daytime telly with him when he had that first day off. For the rest of the week, she took him to school, making sure he wore a clean uniform. She helped him with his homework.

During the day, she brought me up cups of tea and bowls of soup. ‘You could open a shop, the amount of tins you have in your cupboard,’ she said.

It was as though I’d always known he was going to leave and had planned ahead. It was the first time Emma had taken care of me. Since she had Grace, we had become far closer than we had been at college. It was like our childhood roles had been reversed. She became strong for me.

‘Whenever you’re ready, Steph,’ she said, after I’d been in bed for four and a half days, ‘I’ll take you to a solicitor. We need to make sure you keep what you’re entitled to. We don’t want that bastard trying to make you sell this house to get his share.’

When she left the room, her words echoed in my head. I loved our house. I had made the spare room into a guest room, which had been my sanctuary. I used to sleep in it so Neil wouldn’t have to listen to me crying at night after Dad died.

Had he said something to Emma about our house? I’d not taken any calls from him – I couldn’t bear to listen to him, trying to make it sound like everything was my fault. You were so depressing to be around. I needed a lover as well as a friend . What a prick.

Emma was right. I had to stop wallowing in self-pity. It was down to her that I gathered the courage to fight back. After that week, she phoned every night at nine o’clock after Jamie had gone to bed so I didn’t feel so alone.

I must be here for Emma now.

There’s a tap on the door.

It opens slowly.

A head bobs through the gap: it’s her.

‘You awake, Steph?’

If I wasn’t, I would be now. She’s never been the quietest of whisperers.

I sit up, even though I don’t want to. She beckons me out of the room and we walk as softly as we can down the stairs.

In the kitchen, she lifts the chair so it doesn’t scrape on the floor.

I pull back a chair and sit adjacent to her. I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.

‘I’m really sorry about shouting at you last night,’ she says. There’s no change of intonation in her voice – there hasn’t been since Monday. ‘I was just so tired. I don’t know what Mum gave me, but I was asleep in seconds, at least I think I was. I don’t think I even woke in the night.’

‘It was Valium. She did say, but I don’t think you were listening.’

‘Really?’ She leans back in her chair. ‘Shit. Did you know she took that?’

I shake my head.

‘I don’t even know if it’s legal any more,’ she says. ‘She must have started taking them after Dad died. I know she’s quite headstrong, but she depended on him, didn’t she? Three years has it been?’

‘Four.’

Emma looks out of the kitchen window. ‘It’s been nearly a week. Where is she, Steph?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did. I’d go and find her myself.’

She looks back at me. ‘I know you would.’

Silence.

‘That man you recognised on the CCTV photograph,’ I say. ‘You don’t know anyone with a grudge, do you? Or someone connected to one of your colleagues?’

‘Of course I don’t! What a strange thing to say.’

She turns her back to me again.

‘It’s not a strange thing to say,’ I say gently. ‘You said you recognised him from work. I’d be wracking my brains to think what his connection to Grace is, if it were me. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

‘I… I can’t even remember his name.’ She turns around. ‘And it’s not you, is it, Steph? I’m trying to get through all of this the best I can.’

‘I know. I’m just saying what’s been going on in my head. I’m sorry.’

She starts pulling at the skin around her thumb. Sometimes when she was younger she’d do it till her fingers bled. She wouldn’t realise until I’d point it out. She hasn’t done it for years.

‘I need to ask you a favour,’ she says. ‘That medium. She left me a voicemail last night. I know it’s Sunday, but she said she’d fit me in, as it’s an emergency.’

My laptop is still on the kitchen table from last night. I close the lid.

I know what’s coming next – on the day that I was going to go home, I’m going to drive Emma to this medium, wherever she might be. ‘All right.’

‘How did you know what I was going to ask?’

I raise my eyebrows, and she gives me the tiniest of smiles. ‘Thanks, Steph.’ She gets up, forgetting about the chair scraping on the floor and it makes a screeching sound. She winces. ‘She lives in Yorkshire. Is that okay?’

‘Of course it is.’

What else could I say? At least Jamie is at his dad’s so I don’t have to tell Neil where I’m going.

‘We’d better set off soon then – her earliest appointment is at midday.’

Emma rushes out of the kitchen before I can say anything, but I can’t be mad at her – even though she’s dodging questions about the man she saw on the CCTV. She knows something and she’s not telling me what it is. If there were answers to find, I want them too. I just hope that whoever we’re going to see isn’t some ambulance-chasing charlatan.

My shoulders feel heavy as I stand. Of course she’s going to be a charlatan – there’s never anything more than lies and guesswork involved in these sorts of things. But I’ll go – it’ll be good for Emma to get out of the house, to give her mind a break, even for just a few hours. I might get a few answers out of her, too.

We’re only half an hour away according to the satnav. The further north we travelled, the cloudier it got.

Mum came to the house just minutes before we left.

‘Where on earth are you going at this time?’ she said. ‘Emma, shouldn’t you be staying here?’

‘If you hear anything, Mum, I’ve got my mobile.’ Emma pulled out a phone from her handbag.

‘Where did you get that from?’ said Mum.

‘Ah – it’s my work phone.’ She rooted in her bag and pulled out another. ‘I have both. Just in case.’

‘Well, don’t worry. I’ll look after Matt.’ Mum waved us off as though we were going for a jolly day out.

‘Mum’s acting really weird,’ says Emma now, from nowhere. We’re in the car. It’s been three hours since we left the house and she’s barely spoken. ‘I don’t know what she’s going to say from one minute to the next.’