Читать книгу: «The Disappearance»

March 1971
Bombay, India

Audrey and Janet walk arm in arm down Churchgate after dinner. In the distance, they spot a busy café, and the sound of its resident jazz trio floats to them on the night air. The street is alive with sounds, smells, and people. Audrey breathes deeply, inhaling the scent of this exotic city and revelling in the warmth that still comes as a surprise to her every time she steps outside. In England it’d still be coat weather. Janet looks longingly at the crowd of suited and booted punters that spills into the café’s front terrace, even at this late hour. She lets go of Audrey’s arm and dances a few jazz steps in the street, then turns back to face Audrey.

‘They say this place makes the only genuine cappuccino in town. We’ve got to try one, Auds. What do you say?’

Audrey looks at her watch. She starts her new job in the morning but, equally, she doesn’t want to disappoint her friend. Janet has been so kind.

‘Umm,’ she says.

‘Come on! It’s only a coffee. Carpe diem!’ Janet grabs her arm again. ‘I still can’t believe you’re here! And we’ll be working together from tomorrow! Don’t worry! I’ll look after you!’

‘Okay, just one, though. A quick one.’

Audrey allows herself to be drawn towards the café. She still remembers the mix of shock and delight on Janet’s face when she’d turned up unannounced at the address given on the aerogramme. Aside from her visits to the church, her first few weeks in Bombay are a blur. Until very recently Audrey’s still had moments when she wakes up in the morning not knowing where she is nor why; mornings when she wakes expecting to be in her bedroom in London, then realises with a jolt that she’s on the other side of the world. She still has mornings when the grief is too raw, too painful, and she’s capable of doing nothing but lying, numbly, under the sheet, where Janet finds her when she comes home from work. But, in the last few weeks, the fog has started to lift and Audrey’s beginning to realise that she feels an affinity with the crazy, chaotic, noisy city that is Bombay.

The two women walk into the café and seat themselves at an empty table. Janet looks at Audrey and smiles.

‘I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’m so glad you came,’ she says. ‘It’s done you good. You look human now, compared to the ghost who turned up at my door.’

‘Thank you,’ says Audrey. ‘You’ve been amazing. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’ She smiles at her friend. ‘But I do still feel a bit lost.’

‘Of course you do.’

Audrey’s eyes suddenly fill with tears. It happens at the most inopportune moments – times when something reminds her of her dad: a smell, a sound, the shape of a person, a voice. She can neither predict nor control it.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, dabbing at her eyes with the fresh hankie she keeps on her at all times. It’s one of her mother’s: good cotton, with a bright flower embroidered in one corner and, as Audrey lifts it to her eyes, she sees her mum tying it around her little knee to stem the blood after she’d fallen in the park.

‘Your dad was the best,’ says Janet gently. Audrey nods. Although it’s painful, especially to hear him mentioned in the past tense, she likes that Janet knew him; likes that she can talk to her about him.

‘Ignore me,’ Audrey says, flapping her hand at her face. ‘I’m okay. He was the best, wasn’t he? I’m not just being biased.’

‘I was always jealous of you and your dad,’ says Janet. ‘I know you missed your mum, but you seemed so happy. It’s like he was the captain of the Bailey ship, always sailing forward with his eyes on the horizon. I loved that.’

‘Me too. He was my rock.’ Audrey smiles through her tears.

Janet reaches out and touches Audrey’s hand. ‘And that’s how you must remember him.’

‘I do. I will. Thank you.’

‘My family was such a shambles.’

Audrey got her tears under control. ‘Don’t do them down,’ she says. ‘I used to love coming to yours. There was always that bowl of sweets on the hall table. I always nicked one. We never had sweets at home.’

Janet laughs. ‘Oh yes. The Murray Mints! God, I can still taste them!’ They fall silent as the waitress brings over their coffees. Janet looks at the froth on the cups and raises her eyebrows at Audrey. ‘Look at that: the real deal. Apparently they’ve got a huge machine just to froth the milk.’

‘Cool beans,’ says Audrey, and they each take a sip, delicately dabbing the foam from their top lips. ‘Very nice. Good call.’

With the buzz and the music in the café, it was never going to be just one coffee. As Janet and Audrey stir their second round of cappuccinos an hour or so later, Janet looks around the terrace.

‘So many men,’ she breathes, hamming it up for Audrey. ‘So little time.’

Audrey smiles. Janet’s never hidden the fact that she’s on a mission to find a wealthy husband; she has told Audrey about some of the scrapes into which she’s got herself, the frogs that she’s kissed as she searches for ‘the one’.

‘You should try to find someone, too,’ Janet says. ‘We’re not spring chickens anymore. We’ll be twenty-seven this year. The shelf is looming! Maybe a husband is just what you need.’

Audrey sighs. ‘If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen …’

‘I don’t know how you can be so relaxed about it!’

‘Well … you know I used to be engaged?’ Audrey’s tone is mild.

‘What?’ Janet presses her hand to her chest and gasps as if she’s having a heart attack, her eyes wide. ‘How did you keep this from me for so long?’

Audrey laughs. ‘I guess we had more important things to talk about.’

‘I guess – but engaged?’ Her eyes slide to Audrey’s left hand, then back to her face. ‘Did you get married?’

Audrey shakes her head.

‘What happened?’

‘He wasn’t the right man for me.’

‘Um, would you care to elaborate on that?’

‘It’s quite sad, actually. I thought he was lovely. A real catch. He was Irish. Patrick. Loved the ground I walked on. Or so I thought.’

‘I feel a “but” coming on.’

‘Well, it was quite simple in the end: when Dad had his first stroke and it became apparent that I’d need to move back home to take care of him, he dumped me.’

‘What?’

‘I suggested we move the wedding back a bit but he kept pushing for a date and I couldn’t commit. I didn’t know how long I was going to be needed at home – so he called the whole thing off.’

‘Couldn’t you have been married but live at home with your dad? Loads of people do that to start with. Surely?’

‘You would have thought so, wouldn’t you, but apparently not. “No wife of mine’s living with her father,” he said. I do understand.’

‘I can imagine your dad being quite foreboding towards his daughter’s fiancé.’

‘He never liked Patrick. Didn’t think he was good enough for me.’

‘Find me a man who doesn’t think that about his only daughter and I’ll show you a liar.’

‘I guess. But it seems he was right. Better to find out before it’s too late.’ Audrey sighs and looks about the terrace, too. ‘So, anyone you’ve got your eye on here tonight?’

‘Funny you should mention it,’ says Janet, ‘but yes. Grey suit at three o’clock.’ Audrey follows her friend’s eyes and sees a tall man, classically attractive. He’s wearing a slick suit with a white tie, and his dark hair is greased back from a prominent forehead.

‘Not bad,’ she nods. ‘Looks the part.’ Audrey knows the rules. Janet’s marriage will not be about love, but about money. Janet’s seen the society ladies with their jewels and their dresses being escorted by men in black tie, she’s seen the cars with turbaned drivers waiting outside, and she’s decided that’s what she wants.

They watch the man in the grey suit for a minute or two. Audrey has to give it to her friend: he’s very handsome but there’s a sense of something else that almost makes her shiver and she can’t put her finger on what it is. As she watches, the man turns around; Audrey doesn’t look away in time and he stares back, openly assessing her.

Audrey drops her eyes to the table. It’s power, she realises. Power and confidence.

‘What do you think?’ Janet asks.

Audrey says nothing. The man in the grey suit is still watching them. With his eyes still on Audrey, he gets up and makes his way over. Janet pats her hair and rolls her lips together to spread her lipstick.

‘Good evening, ladies.’ Grey Suit towers above their table. Audrey can feel the heat of him, and something tugs in her belly.

He has sharp cheekbones and his small eyes are not only bright, they’re looking Audrey up and down in a way that makes her feel like she’s something he’d like to devour. She’s wearing a one-shouldered shift dress in vibrant pink. It’s a dress she made herself and she knows it shows off the delicate bones of her clavicle while the colour sets off her auburn hair, but now she feels unsure. Why is he staring? Has her mascara smudged from crying? Is the dress so obviously home-made? Is the colour too loud – or is he really leering quite so openly?

‘Ralph Templeton,’ he says, placing a business card on the table in front of Audrey. He doesn’t acknowledge Janet simpering across the table. ‘Perhaps you’d allow me to take you out to dinner one evening?’

‘Oh, I …’

The man looks at her while he waits for her to finish her sentence. He’s older – distinguished – and, under his gaze, Audrey feels girlish and lacking in substance. There’s no doubt about what it is he wants from her. She blushes and looks down, her sentence left hanging.

‘May I take your number?’ The man produces another business card and a pen. The cold weight of the pen tells Audrey it’s expensive. She balances it in her hand for a second, toying with the idea of writing the wrong number. But there’s something in Ralph Templeton’s demeanour that suggests that refusal is not an option and Audrey finds that confidence compelling. She doesn’t dare make eye contact with Janet as she writes her new office number on the back of the business card.

‘Thank you. I’ll have my assistant call you,’ says Ralph Templeton, picking up the card and slipping the pen back into his breast pocket. Then he reaches out his hand and touches Audrey’s hair.

‘Beautiful,’ he says. He runs a finger through a curl, then gently draws it down her cheek. He looks one more time at Audrey and melts back into the crowd. Janet’s hand is clamped over her mouth.

‘Oh my word! Talk about reeling them in! I need lessons from you!’

Audrey barely hears. She can just about make out the back of Ralph Templeton’s head as he re-joins his table, and she can’t tear her eyes away. Her cheek tingles where he’s touched it and her body is electrified. The physical pull of Audrey’s feeling towards Ralph Templeton takes her by surprise. She stares at the business card as if to memorise every tiny detail.