21st November 2019
Morning
I wake with a start, like I’ve been holding my breath in my sleep and my body has subconsciously forced me to take air into my lungs. I’m aware of a familiar smell once again, but before I can place it, it fades. I roll onto my side; I don’t even bother to try and open my eyes. They already hurt too much.
Reaching behind me I feel for Oliver. I don’t know why; this time I know he isn’t there. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking that the last few weeks had been a weird and incredibly vivid dream. I cough and a pain shoots through me. Then I realise I’m still fully clothed, and soaking wet – it was raining when I left last night, so I must have been so drunk that I’d not undressed. Lifting up my top, I see there is a deep purple bruise on my side.
Though the damp bedsheets are starting to make me feel clammy and cold, I don’t move straight away – I need to piece together everything up to just now. It hurts to think. Slowly I recall the shop being robbed, the safe being left open by me. I remember stepping away and wanting life to be easy again, and Jamie. Oh God, Jamie. Reaching across to my bedside table, I grab my iPhone and swipe across the screen, not noticing the crack – a small shard of glass cuts my thumb. Opening Facebook, I go back to Jamie’s page but notice there’s a new message waiting in my inbox. It’s from Holly.
We were, as I was to the rest of my childhood friends. When I first joined Facebook about a decade after Chloe disappeared, it seemed like it would be OK to reconnect, but all it did was dig up old skeletons, things I didn’t want to remember. So, over the years, one by one, I deleted them all and changed my surname on Facebook to my mother’s maiden name. Holly must have really been looking for me. I read on.
I felt my heart drop. I didn’t want to relive a single second of back then.
Until then, I’d not considered going back, but knowing Jamie was missing and I was being welcomed by Holly stirred something deep within, something akin to the feeling when you smell something that takes you back to a moment in your past. They didn’t hate me. I was welcome back, and Holly was sweet for suggesting she would meet me. She was seeing it from my perspective, even with the horrible circumstance that had brought us back together. I almost messaged back telling her I would be there, but there was one other person I had to check in with before I returned to the village. I had to speak to my dad.
The phone rang seven or eight times, and I was just about to give up when the line connected. There was noise, like the microphone being dragged through a jumper, before he spoke.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Dad, it’s me, Neve.’
There was a pause. Longer than there should have been.
‘Neve. Are you well?’
‘Yes, Dad,’ I lied, the smell of stale alcohol lingering on my breath, my head screaming at me to never drink again. ‘I am. Are you?’
Again, another long pause.
‘Yes, yes. I’m fine. Yes. All right, thank you. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.’
‘Yes. Did you hear about Jamie?’
‘Who?’
‘Jamie, my old friend. Jamie Hardman?’
‘Oh, yes, yes. Terrible news. Terrible.’
‘I was thinking of coming back, to help?’
This time, the silence was so long I thought the line had disconnected. ‘Hello? Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘What do you think? Should I come back and help find him?’
‘Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it? It wouldn’t hurt, the poor man needs all the help he can get.’
I didn’t know what he meant by that. Dad and I rarely spoke, and if we did it was always about me, London, my business and Oliver. I can’t remember the last time we spoke about anyone from the village.
‘So, I should come back?’
‘Yes. Maybe, yes.’
I waited for him to invite me to stay with him, but he didn’t.
‘Dad, can I come to yours?’
‘Yes, yes. That would be all right. OK. I’ll see you soon. Bye, Neve.’
‘OK, can I come this week…’
Dad hung up before I could ask how soon I’d be welcome. After twenty-one years of being dismissed by the man, I thought I would be used to it. But it hurt just as much as it always had. That said, he had agreed I could stay with him, which, if I was honest, was more than I expected. It meant I had to get a few things packed, and go. If I didn’t do it now, I would lose the courage.
I tried to remember the last time I went back to the village. I know Oliver and I were together, but I don’t recall mentioning him to Dad, so it must have been early days – six years ago, nearer seven probably. I had to think hard as to why I was there at all. Then it came to me: I popped in to see Dad for a quick cuppa (he always made it too sweet) on my way back from seeing a friend in Sheffield, and can’t have stayed for more than half an hour. My previous visit must have been when I was in my early twenties. Again, I didn’t see anyone other than him, and no one knew I was coming. The time before that was the day I left. Two short visits in twenty-one years. Two too many in my opinion.
I shuddered at the thought of being in the village again, walking down the main road as I did as a child, seeing that bloody mine and its inhabitants everywhere I turned. Holly hadn’t mentioned a meeting place, but I knew where I would find her. It was the same place we met back in 1998 when we began the search for Chloe. The same place every wake for every funeral was held, including Chloe’s, although she was never officially found. The Miners’ Arms. I wondered what the atmosphere in the old pub would be – would people be optimistic, energised even, like when Chloe disappeared, or would they be their usual sullen, grey selves? I’d be finding out soon enough. Because I was going home.
I was going back to the village.