Claire Moss - Then You Were Gone

Because after that, after the thunderbolt, there had been – nothing. No text, no phone call, no email, no reply to any of the messages she had left for him. His mobile went straight to voicemail and there was no answer when she called the phone in his flat. So Simone concluded that she had reached the point where she either bit the bullet and crossed the line into stalker territory or sat back and waited for Mack, like the caged bird of inspirational fridge magnet fame, to prove his love by returning to her after being set free.

Simone pulled her fingers through her hair. She had taken some extra care over her appearance this morning, much as she might deny it to herself. She had not yet left the flat, but she was wearing tinted moisturiser and mascara as well as her newest, cleanest pair of jeans. The look was slightly ruined by the huge mohair cowl-neck she was wearing in an attempt to keep warm, but after last winter’s monumental gas bill she had made a promise to herself to keep the heating off until November. Now, with two weeks to go, she could feel her will beginning to weaken and had cracked out the winter woollies in an attempt to stave off the inevitable.

She knew what the best jeans and the modest make-up were in aid of, of course. It was in case Mack did come back unannounced and call round to surprise her. She wanted to look like someone he would tell that he loved.

The flat’s chilly, clinging air, along with the constant nail-tapping worry and the checking her phone and her emails every forty seconds were finally becoming too much though, and she stood up to get her coat and bag. She could step out for an hour or so, go and get a decent cup of coffee at the cafe round the corner, read the papers, act normal. If Mack came round while she was out, then he could just wait for her, like she had been doing for him. Eyeing her phone on the coffee table she considered for a split second leaving it in the flat in the hope it might buy her an hour of sanity, but she knew she would not do it.

As she picked up the phone and put it in her bag, there was a knock on the flat’s front door. Through the mottled glass of the door panels she could see the outline of someone tall, slim, unmistakably male. Simone let out an involuntary noise, halfway between a sigh of relief and a grunt of annoyance. That bastard. Where had he been? When she answered the door, her face must have betrayed her disappointment.

‘Hi. What’s wrong?’ It was a man, but it was the wrong man. It was Jazzy. Not Mack.

‘Oh, hi.’ Simone felt the sag in the middle of her body as the adrenaline shot ebbed away and the realisation sank in that it still was not him. ‘What’s up?’

Jazzy looked puzzled. ‘I just asked you that.’

‘Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine. I was just on my way out.’

‘Can I come in?’ Jazzy appeared not to have heard her. Or not to care. In Jazzy’s head the fact that the two of them had spent three years in university sharing a house seemed to mean that for ever more Jazzy would have constant unfettered access to wherever Simone was currently living.

He came in, past Simone and through the kitchenette, and sat down heavily on the sofa. He looked tired. He always looked tired now.

Jazzy turned down Simone’s offer of a cup of tea and looked round the flat. He cleared his throat and said in what she recognised as a forcedly casual tone, ‘Is – erm, is Mack here?’

Simone felt it like a punch to the guts. ‘No. No, he’s not.’ She stared at Jazzy for a moment to see if he was going to break into a grin and say I know he’s not, that’s because he’s out in the corridor waiting to surprise you! but he continued to wait, wide-eyed, for her to go on. ‘I haven’t seen him since Monday night,’ she said slowly. ‘I thought you might… I mean, I was going to ring you and ask you if you’d seen him, but I didn’t want to…’

‘Look mental?’ Jazzy was smiling and Simone relaxed enough to smile back.

‘Well, yeah.’

Jazzy’s mouth was closed but Simone could tell by the pouty shape of his lips that he was biting the tip of his tongue with his front teeth. It was something he always did when he was considering what to say next. ‘Well, the thing is, I haven’t seen him for a week either,’ he said. ‘He didn’t come back into the office yesterday when he’d said he would, and I can’t get hold of him on the phone. He usually emails me while he’s away, just for an update or whatever, but he hasn’t done that either.’

‘Right.’ Simone was unsure what to think. That Mack might be avoiding her began to seem less likely and there was a moment where, to her shame, she felt what was undoubtedly relief. But, a second look at Jazzy’s stubbly, drawn face reminded her that that option being removed only rendered what remained even more worrying. ‘I had a text from him on Tuesday,’ she added.

‘How did he sound?’

‘Fine.’ She nodded, then smiled shyly. ‘Actually,’ she blurted, unable to contain herself, ‘he said he loved me.’

Jazzy raised his eyebrows in an impressed gesture. ‘Really? Nice one.’

‘No need to sound so fucking surprised, thank you very much.’

He laughed. ‘Sorry,’ and he gave her a fond smile that made her want to cry.

‘Because at first I thought…’ If it had been anyone else, anyone other than Jazzy, she would have kept this to herself. Simone knew how most of her friends thought of her. The porcelain doll with the porcelain heart; smooth, cool, impenetrable and invulnerable to the pain the rest of them felt at their imperfect relationships. And it was a persona Simone had always been happy to play along with. So much easier than to have to open up the painful sores for inspection and discussion; better for everyone to pretend they were not there at all. But with Jazzy there had never been much point pretending; Jazzy would know everything anyway, just from the way she was breathing, from the colour in her cheeks, from the way she spoke Mack’s name. When she first met Jazzy, over a decade ago, her reserves of energy had been so depleted that she had never bothered even trying to build up the usual defensive wall around herself. No point starting now, she supposed.

‘I was a bit worried,’ she continued, ‘you know, maybe him not being in touch or anything, maybe it was because he, I don’t know, regretted it or something. But if you haven’t heard from him either, and he’s not come back…’

Jazzy winced. ‘Yes, I know. I know what you mean.’

There was a pause while the two of them looked at each other. Simone realised, to her embarrassment, that Jazzy’s breath was visible in thin clouds in the flat’s dim air.

‘Are we supposed to be worried about him?’ Jazzy asked. His voice sounded light, but as though he were consciously trying to keep it that way.

Simone looked at him. The feeling of wanting to cry threatened to overwhelm her again, but she fought it down. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.’

With every previous boyfriend Simone had always been able to play it cool with little or no effort. She was cool. But with Mack that had all, to her unending surprise, changed. At first, in the first few tentative weeks of their courtship, there had been the usual hesitation and denial and one step forward followed by four steps sideways, the two of them circling round each other, unsure whether something so seemingly perfect could really be trusted. But in the last few months, something had grown between them – what her grandmother’s generation might have called ‘an understanding’. They were together, and being together was seriously important to them both, and it was for real this time. And for the first time since… well, for the first time in a very long time, Simone had allowed some of the frost inside her to thaw, had allowed herself to believe that this man, that the life she might have with this man, might be worth laying herself open to pain and heartbreak for.