I hang up the phone to Steffie and take the stairs two at a time. In our bedroom I head straight for the drawer where Romilly keeps all the important stuff. I try to open it but it won’t give. I yank harder. A birthday card from her colleagues falls out. Some old bills. A roll of sellotape. I mutter to myself. Important stuff. Right. Classic Romilly.
I hurt then for grumbling about everyday stuff. For arguments. For bickering. For telling her off about her important stuff drawer; the ‘Romilly trail’ of stuff she leaves everywhere. For the mundane.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Loll, as I fling it all one by one on the floor. Finally it is empty. ‘Marc! What the hell?’
I try Romilly’s underwear drawer next. Her bedside table.
‘Marc!’
Instead of answering Loll, I call Adam.
‘We think Romilly is in the South of France,’ I say. ‘And I think her passport has gone.’
He sucks in his breath. Loll, standing next to me, does the same.
I fill him in on the rest. The sighting, the lake.
‘Mate, what if I go?’ Adam says straight away, as Loll’s phone rings and she goes downstairs to take the call. ‘It’s somewhere to start, at least? I can go to the South of France, go to this lake, see if she’s there.’
I laugh.
‘Yeah, man,’ I say sadly. ‘That should do it. She’s probably there, swimming laps around it twenty-four hours a day.’
But he’s determined.
‘We can make a list of campsites to check,’ he says. ‘If she’s there overnight, she has to be staying somewhere. And then I’ll start looking around, get speaking to people. Do some digging. Perhaps it’s good for her wild swimming? Could that be the appeal? That’s her thing, right?’
I interrupt him.
‘Just one issue, Adam. Romilly just had a baby. I don’t think she’s going to be doing a triathlon.’
There’s a defensive silence.
‘No one said a triathlon, mate,’ he says. ‘But a little dip would be manageable, no? Just being in the water.’
‘Just being in water,’ I concur. ‘In any way she can. Yep. That’s why we live here. But then again her other thing is usually not running away. Her other thing is living at her own house, with me. It’s a long way to go for a swim.’
I kick the chest of drawers in front of me.
A picture pops into my mind suddenly. That moment Romilly gave birth to our baby into a pool; this slippery bundle scooped up quickly by the midwife. It had always been the way Romilly wanted it but she was realistic enough to know it wasn’t always possible; that babies choose their own way. Man, the joy on her face when it did happen.
‘You did it,’ she whispered to our daughter. ‘You did it.’
‘You did it too,’ I whispered.
She kept her head down. Didn’t look at me.
Adam speaks, bringing me back to the present.
‘Got to be worth a shot? It’s somewhere to start with at least. And got to be better than you going with the baby. You can’t do that, mate. And we need her back. We’ve got to get her back.’
Downstairs, I hear the baby cry and I head down to get her.
I hear a tap dripping in the bathroom.
I think about changing a newborn nappy in an airline toilet. What if the baby needed a doctor? What if something was wrong? I think about travel cots. I picture the bag Romilly packed for the hospital; the chaos in the baby’s nursery when Loll doesn’t tidy it for a few hours. The sheer volume of stuff this baby needs.
I need to get to Romilly. But I need to do it from here, on my sofa, with formula in the cupboard and a steriliser in the kitchen.
No matter how much I need to get out from between these walls.
Adam, on the other hand, has no such restrictions.
I pick up the baby.
‘Oh, mate, sorry, did us talking wake her up?’ says Adam and I can hear him making a coffee, know he has the phone tucked under his chin.
‘She’s got a name,’ I say. ‘Her name is Fleur.’
‘Awesome!’ he says. ‘Love it.’
And I am about to tell him that no, he can’t go to France, that this whole thing is ridiculous, I got carried away, it’s insane.
But then I think: what the hell else are we going to do?
I can trust Adam to tell me everything. To take me to her. He’s the right one to go. My friend.
‘Put Fleur on speaker,’ says Adam.
She has her eyes open now and is rooting around for a bottle.
‘Be quick, man, she wants the milk,’ I say.
‘Hey, Fleur!’ he says. ‘Uncle Adam here! We’ve got you, baby, we’ve got you. And you look out for your dad for me, right? We’re going to find your mum!’
I wince at how fraudulent his positivity is. This is based on finding a reluctant needle that’s buried itself deep into a dense haystack. Then persuading that needle to up and leave.
‘Right, I’m on Google Maps,’ says Adam. ‘Let’s find this lake.’
I leave him to it. Dial off because Fleur needs milk and because I might lose it again and beg Adam to come and move in and be here and I know I can’t because it’s time – overdue perhaps but never that necessary before – to be a grown-up.
But Jesus, all I want is a beer. All I want is oblivion.
Loll walks into the room.
‘Calmed down now?’
I fold the wipe over, get into the crevices.
I am still holding the baby’s – Fleur, Fleur, Fleur, remember – spindly legs. Feet that are the size of my thumb.
‘Are you sure you have no idea why Romilly might be in France?’ I say, ignoring her question. ‘Childhood holiday spots? Old friends out there?’
‘Not that I can think of,’ she mutters, distracted. ‘Sorry, Marc.’
I look at my sister-in-law, in her middle-aged jeans and ballet pumps, such a world apart from Romilly. Taut, rigid, when Romilly meanders around the place like a river. There is no symmetry to Romilly: when she accepts defeat on her flip-flops around the end of October and wears socks, they are odd. One boob is a little bigger than the other; she has rings on every finger of her left hand but wears only a bangle she’s had since she was a teenager on her right arm, fingers bare.
‘Loll,’ I say. ‘Do you remember the email said that Romilly only flew today? This morning.’
Nothing.
‘So where did she go before that?’ I push.
Loll?
‘What was she doing?’
But Loll is silent. Like the rest of us, she doesn’t have an answer.
Odder though is that, for once, she doesn’t have an opinion.