Ghosted: A Novel

If you can’t reach me on my mobile, I may well be in my Gloucestershire workshop, it said on Eddie’s “Contact Me” page.

I keep things pretty simple down there: there’s a wood-burning stove, a temperamental kettle, and a desk, and that’s it, as far as luxuries go. But I do have a phone, in case I’m attacked by bears or bandits. Try me on 01285 . . .

I highlighted the number. “Call?” my phone asked.

“Sarah?” It was Jo, calling from the kitchen. “Can you check this soup?”

“Coming!” I pressed “Call.”

The phone started ringing and adrenaline mushroomed, pressing out at my skin like gas in an overfilled balloon. I leaned against the wall, hoping he wouldn’t answer, hoping he would. Wondering what I would say if we spoke, wondering what I’d do if we didn’t.

“Hello, this is Eddie David, cabinetmaker. Sorry I’m not here to take your call. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you soonest, or try my mobile. Bye!”

I hung up. Flushed the toilet. I wondered if it would ever stop.

•   •   •

I had been spending the month of June in England for nineteen years. Normally, I stayed three weeks in Gloucestershire, with my parents, and one in London, with Tommy. London was close enough to Gloucestershire for this to work well. This trip, however, had turned out to be quite different. Granddad’s sudden and total immobilization had prevented Mum and Dad from coming back. Trapped three hours away in Leicester, they divided their time between caring for him, trying not to kill him, and searching for a carer who would also try not to kill him. Any spare moments were spent on the phone to me. “We feel so awful that you’re there and we’re here,” Mum had said miserably. “Is there any way you could stay a bit longer?”

I had agreed to stay an extra two weeks and moved my return flight to July 12. I’d promised Reuben I’d start working remotely as soon as my holiday finished, and to prove it, had accepted an invitation to speak at a palliative care conference organized by our one and only British trustee.

Until I resumed work, however, I was staying here in London. The prospect of my parents’ empty house—with Eddie’s place a mere mile away—was too appalling to consider. Zoe had been away most of this time, so it was just me and Tommy: exactly what I’d needed.

But the lady of the house was back now, just in from an EU roundtable on tech law; tired yet immaculate as she stood by the stove in a sleeveless silk blouse, stirring the ramen I’d made to welcome her home.

I hovered embarrassedly in the doorway, watching her. She was one of those people who had no need for an apron, even when wearing silk. A woman of precision and economy, Zoe Markham, not just of speech but of body. She took up only a slim column of space and seldom saw fit to enlarge it with gesticulation or noise. In fact, had it not been for her behavior around Tommy during the first year of their relationship, I wouldn’t even have been able to swear that we were of the same species. She’d been reassuringly human back then; hadn’t been able to take her hands off him, was always forcing him into sentimental selfies, and even hired a pro photographer to take pictures of them training together.

“Ah, Sarah,” she said, looking up. “I rescued dinner.” She gave me a smile that made me think of cold cream.

You never knew what anyone did behind locked doors, I thought, but the idea of Zoe hiding in a toilet, calling some man’s workshop at 8 P.M.—in spite of him having cold-shouldered her for three weeks—made me suddenly laugh.

Tommy, who had no idea what I was laughing at, but who was nervy as a cat this evening, joined in.

Zoe sat still as marble as I served, watching me through gray eyes. It was one of the things about her that unsettled me most. The lack of speech, the incessant bloody watching. (Tommy once said it was this quality that made her such a successful lawyer. “She misses nothing,” he’d told me, as if this were a trait to be celebrated in the real world.)

“I hear you’re pining for a man,” she said.

“I don’t think pining’s the right word,” Jo said quickly. “She’s more . . . confused.”

Zoe’s eyes swiveled over Jo, but she said nothing.

I’d been surprised to see Jo tonight. She didn’t like Zoe and it never seemed to have occurred to her to pretend otherwise. (I didn’t love Zoe either, but I’d agreed with myself that I’d keep on trying. Zoe had lost both of her parents in the King’s Cross fire of 1987, and you had to forgive people with an excuse like that.)

Zoe tucked a wedge of ice-blond hair behind an ear. “So what’s going on?”

“The story’s just as Tommy probably reported,” I said. “We had a week together. It was . . . well, special. He went on holiday, said he’d call me before his plane took off, but he didn’t, and I haven’t heard from him since. I think something has happened to him.”

A tiny frown crossed her face. “Such as what?”

I smiled weakly. “I’ve driven Tommy and Jo quite mad with my theories. There’s probably no point going over them again.”

“Not at all,” Tommy said. “We’re as baffled as you are, Harrington.”

And Jo, who was not as baffled at all, but who couldn’t bring herself to stand shoulder to shoulder with Zoe, agreed.

“It’s quite a mystery,” she said. “Sarah’s put a note on his Facebook page asking if anyone’s heard from him, yet nobody’s replied. He hasn’t been on WhatsApp or Messenger for weeks and all of his social medias are quiet.”

“Media,” Zoe smiled. “‘Media’ is the plural.” With a small, skillful movement of her wrist, she lifted a perfect coil of noodle from her broth. She ate for a moment, looking thoughtful. Then: “Let him go,” she said, decisively. “He sounds weak to me. You deserve better than a weak man, Sarah.”

The conversation turned to the bombings in Turkey, but I realized that I’d drifted back to Eddie after a few minutes. What is wrong with me? I wondered desperately. Who have I become? No matter what I did, no matter how serious the events around me, I seemed able to focus on only one thing.

I might have to let go of him, was the thought that kept circulating. I might have to accept that he simply changed his mind. The idea left me immobilized, torpid with disbelief. And yet three weeks had passed since we’d said good-bye, and in that time I’d heard nothing from him. And nobody had replied to—nobody had even acknowledged—my appeal for information on his Facebook wall.

“We’ve lost her again,” Zoe said.

I blushed. “No, no, I was just thinking about Turkey.”

“We’ve all loved and lost,” Zoe said briskly. “And at least your BMI is down.”

“Oh.” I was thrown. “Is it?”

It was not impossible. My appetite was terrible, and I’d been out running every day, solely because it gave me a different type of chest pain to deal with.

“I could look at any woman on earth and tell you her BMI.” Zoe smiled.

I didn’t dare look at Jo, but I was pretty certain that “I could look at any woman on earth and tell you her BMI” would make an appearance in conversations to come.

“One of the key benefits of a broken heart,” Zoe went on. “Slimming down, toning up. You look fantastic!” She crossed her perfectly slim, perfectly toned legs and fished a prawn out of her bowl.

I was exhausted by the time I cleared the table. Too exhausted to unwrap the artisan chocolates I’d bought with the intention of pretending I’d made them myself. Too exhausted, even, to care about openly checking Eddie’s Facebook wall while I made coffee.

So I ended up staring emptily at his profile for a good while before I realized that someone had finally replied to my appeal for information. Two people, in fact. I read their posts once, twice, three times, then moved across the kitchen and slid my phone into Tommy’s vision.

Tommy read the posts a few times before handing my phone to Zoe, who read them once, said nothing, and handed the phone to Jo.

Thoughts spiraled like a tornado.

“Well,” Tommy said, “I think we might owe you an apology, Harrington.” He glanced at Zoe, who had probably never apologized to anyone.

Hot. I was too hot. I took off my cardigan and it fell to the floor. My head thrummed as I bent down to pick it up. I was too bloody hot.

“Blimey,” Jo said, looking up from the phone. “Maybe you were right.”

“Oh, come on!” Zoe laughed. “This post doesn’t mean anything!”

But for the first time in as long as I could remember, Tommy took her on. “I don’t agree,” he said. “I think this changes everything.”

This afternoon someone whose name I didn’t know, an Alan somebody, had replied to my post:

I just looked up his profile for the same reason and saw your post, Sarah. He went AWOL after canceling our holiday the other week. Has anyone messaged you about this? Let me know if you hear anything.

Then someone else, a Martin someone, had written:

Was wondering the same. He hasn’t turned up at football for a few weeks. Admittedly, he is not known for his reliability, but this is beyond the pale. I’m sorry to say that tonight we were thrashed 8–1. A shameful episode in our long and magnificent history. We need him back.

A few seconds later the same guy, Martin, had posted a photo of Eddie and had written:

Find this man. #WheresWally

And, finally:

It doesn’t sit well with me that you can’t punctuate hashtags.

I stared at the photo of Eddie, holding a pint.

“Where are you?” I whispered, horrified. “What’s happened?”

Into the ensuing silence, my phone rang.

Everyone watched me.

I picked it up. It was a withheld number. “Hello?”

There was a silence—a human silence—and then the line went dead.

“They hung up,” I told the room.

“I think you were right,” said Jo, after a long pause. “Something very odd is going on here.”