Charlotte Philby - The Most Difficult Thing

‘Take this.’ His eyes worked hard to hold mine as I went to take the sweater. His mouth opened to speak but then Meg appeared, her wet clothes clinging to her skinny frame. Without saying anything, she laughed, tugging the hoodie from his fingers and wrapping it around her.

‘Jesus, Meg,’ the disapproval in my laughter was laced with awe, my envy of her total lack of inhibition so potent that I could almost taste it.

Even as I pushed open the door to Meg’s room, the rumble of Camden High Street clattering through the glass, I knew she was already gone. Even before my eyes adjusted to the light, to the empty wardrobe, the bed stripped bare.

‘Meg, where are you? You can’t do this. You have to call me. Please.’

My mouth pressed against the phone, tears streaming down my cheeks.

Harry’s number went straight to voicemail. The urge to run to his flat might have been overwhelming if I had not already known what a false move it would be. As he said himself, he was hardly ever there, his freelance investigative career taking him off in far-flung directions that he refused to discuss. Besides, from the time we had spent together, it was clear he did not respond well to being needed, always preferring to be the one to give chase.

Without Meg, the flat was too big and yet the walls seemed to press in on me, her absence everywhere I looked.

Outside, Camden Town was a drizzling sky, illuminated grey pavements, Saturday night drinkers passing by in a sea of strangled faces, their corners smudged.

I pulled out my phone. Other than work, there were four numbers in my past calls list. Harry, Meg, Mum, David.

Leaning my back against the wall to steady myself, I pressed ‘call’.

He answered after two rings. ‘Anna? What time is it …’

‘Hi.’ My voice broke then.

‘What’s wrong?’ I could feel him freeze whatever he was doing, his attention, as always, focused on me.

‘It’s Meg …’ The words caught in my throat.

‘Where are you?’

‘I don’t know what to—’

‘Anna, just tell me where you are and I’ll be there in a minute, just tell me …’

‘I …’ But the words wouldn’t come; the lights on the street were too bright, a blast of noise exploding from inside the Irish bar along the high street as the doors swung open.

David’s voice was calm and firm at the end of the line. ‘OK, look, just jump in a cab, OK? Find a taxi, I’ll stay on the line. Come to the house, I’m waiting. Everything’s going to be all right.’

Compared to the last time I had seen it, the wide entrance hall felt eerily devoid of life. As I stepped inside, the air lightly hummed with the smell of stale booze and stale bodies.

‘Sorry about the mess.’ David led me through the hallway, scooping up half-drunk glasses as he went, placing them on the kitchen table.

‘Can I get you a drink?’

He moved to the fridge, his hair flattened on one side from where he must have slept. When he turned, he was holding two bottles of beer. ‘There’s not much else. I could pop out to the shop.’

I shook my head, gratefully accepting the drink, wondering for a moment how he could live like this while holding down a job in the City.

‘What is going on?’

He leaned back against the table as I took a sip of beer.

‘Meg’s gone.’

He moved onto the other foot, ‘What do you mean, gone?’

‘She’s gone. Taken all her things. She said something about a job in Bristol this morning and then when I got home after work, she had cleared out.’

‘She can’t have done.’

‘She left a note.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Nothing. “Take care of yourself.” I just don’t fucking get it – why would she just leave?’ I raised the bottle to my lips again, the glass knocking against my tooth.

‘You’ve tried calling her? I’ll try now …’

He walked into the living room, the phone pressed against his ear, and I followed. There was something mausoleum-like about the inside of the house, like a set of family life, frozen in time. Framed pictures of David as a baby were neatly scattered across the surfaces of a huge pine dresser. Heavy woven rugs, William Morris curtains, an oil painting hanging above the fireplace.

‘It’s going to voicemail.’

‘Where is that?’ I was transfixed by a painting hanging above the fireplace, dusty strokes of blues and rusty greens.

‘That is the view from my parents’ house in Greece when they first bought it. It was just a shack really.’ He spoke as if to himself.

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘My mum fell in love with it, she did loads of these after we first moved in. For a while …’

‘Your mother painted this?’

‘That’s how they met. My mum grew up on the island and when she was in her early twenties she used to have a stall at the top of the village, selling her paintings. Dad was on holiday, stumbled upon her shop and …’

The thought of Meg popped back into my mind and I shook my head.

‘She said I have to move out, unless I can cover the rent on my own, which obviously I can’t …’

Pushing his phone back into his pocket, David looked at me.

‘Move in here.’ He said it straight away, as if the sounds had been poised on his lips all his life.

‘I mean it, why not? Move in.’

Even if I had wanted to hold back, my face would not contain itself. Lips curling at the edges, my chest lifted my whole body with something between gratitude and excitement, and something else too – an unease, a feeling I could not place, creeping in from the side.

‘Really, but …?’

David rose then, unwilling to hear it. ‘No buts.’

A moment of doubt, that is all there was. And then I felt myself nodding, pushing away the lingering sense of discomfort, stifling it with all my will until, just like that, it was gone.

The weeks passed slowly and then quickly in the months following Meg’s disappearance.

David spoke to Meg’s mother who told him she was surprised Meg had not been in contact with either of us directly and confirmed she was in Bristol, working for a paper, and was, for want of a better explanation, probably just busy.

Why had I refused to call? I told myself I was too hurt, but perhaps even then I was instinctively fearful of what I might find out.

There was a moment, one morning at the office not long after she left, when I found my hands hovering above the keyboard of my computer, her name at the tip of my fingers. But what would be the point? I moved my attention towards something else. I was not on Facebook, and neither was she; what would be gained from trawling the internet for her most recent press cuttings, other than confirmation that she had moved on – and that I should, too?

At first, I had taken Harry’s response to the news I was moving in with David as a form of contempt. There was a note in his voice that I did not recognise when I told him of my new living arrangements, and it pleased me.

‘I never knew you and David were so close …?’

‘We’re not. Well, not like that, obviously. He’s an old friend, and he’s living in this massive house on his own and … where else am I going to go?’

I swallowed, knowing I was crossing a line.

‘Anna, you know if I could, I would ask you to stay at mine. But it’s not …’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Would it help if I said I was jealous?’

‘Maybe.’ I smiled reluctantly, leaning forward to kiss him, but he was less easily distracted than I was.

‘So, this house, it belongs to David’s parents but they don’t live there?’

I was touched that he cared enough to want to understand my life.