The Pursuit of Emma, Dave Moyer [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

a hurry, and a key, presumably her house-key, resting on top. Bang. My entire world and everything I knew fell down with two simple words. I panicked, knowing my brain couldn’t comprehend it. She must have meant sorry for breaking something or bending the key or something. Surely. ‘Please don’t,’ I whispered out loud, beginning to get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. My mouth went dry and I started questioning whether I was indeed awake. Is this real? God, I hope not.

I raced upstairs to our bedroom where my worst fears were confirmed. All the drawers hung open and I could see clearly from the door that they were empty. I checked through them anyway, but I’m not sure why. Hoping for some clue, I guess. There had to be something to tell me where or why she’d gone. Nothing.

I hurtled down the stairs, clearing the last five in one vast stride and grabbed the phone. I had to speak to her. I could find out why; I could make her change her mind. I changed the setting on my phone to ‘unknown caller’, not knowing why I was doing it. If I could just get her to pick up it would be alright. She could never resist my arguments. I’d convinced her to do loads of things she’d never wanted to do. Like bungee-jumping when we went to South Africa. This would be the same.

I thrashed in the numbers on the phone, even though she was saved as a speed dial contact and waited for the call to connect.

‘Come on, COME ON!!’ I shouted at the phone. Poor inanimate object. The phone call finally connected only to greet me with a further chilling sound.

‘The number you have dialled is no longer in service. Please hang up. The number you have dialled is no longer in service. Please...’

I hung up, wanting to throw up. What the hell was going on? It’s one thing to leave without saying goodbye but to already have your phone disconnected shows thought and preplanning. She had wanted to do this for a while.

I collapsed to the floor and lay there motionless for some time. I say ‘some’ because I genuinely have no idea how long. It could have been hours. It may well have been days. I just felt numb inside. I knew I would have to tell friends, work out a plan for the future and try to put the pieces back together. But how could I? How could anything be the same again?

Slowly, feeling lower than I ever thought possible, I began to cry.

*****

I walked out of Dr Davies office for the first time feeling something. I felt sick, angry and worn out but I felt something. An emotion. Since discovering the note two weeks ago I had been a zombie, going through the motions but never being alive. I would wake up, shower, go to work, go home and sleep every day I’m sure, but I don’t remember anything from that fortnight. It’s just a blurry, painful memory.

Dr Davies was right, I thought. I then thought how surprised I was to have that thought but ignored it. I needed to piece it together so I could try and understand it. First things first, get home and write down everything I remember.

Veronica’s office was in the bulls-eye of London, right in the centre. Emma’s flat (well I guess my flat now) was up in North London, not far from Arsenal’s football ground. Being an Arsenal fan this had seemed to swing my decision to move in with Emma. Sadly, despite living there for three and a half years, I’ve seen one game. An FA Cup 3rd Round replay against Leeds with half the reserve squad playing. That was two years ago. I’m not a die-hard fan.

With my emotions still very close to the surface, I decided to take a taxi home. Yes it would cost a fortune and take ages in London traffic, but nobody wants a twenty-five year old man sobbing on the tube. A hour and a half later, thanks to a small collision ahead and some inopportune road works, I arrived home much poorer than when I had left.

I found a pad and pen and sat down in the kitchen, prepared at last to try and face this. Slowly I pieced the events of the last two weeks together. I remembered phoning my friends very early in the morning, desperately hoping one of them had heard from her. I realised suddenly that all of our friends were really my friends and we never really saw anyone she had known before. It didn’t make any sense. She had lived in London her whole life and yet we only ever spent time with people I knew from work, friends of mine from Warwickshire who would sporadically visit us now and then and neighbours. I phoned them all, apologising for the late call and promising it was an emergency. Nobody had heard from her. She was beginning to seem like a ghost, as if she had never existed.

I phoned the police, asking to put in a claim for a missing person. They asked how long she had been gone and when I told them less than a day, they laughed. Actually laughed. Things got worse when I let slip about the note. The officer was physically chuckling.

‘Listen mate, sorry and all that but we can’t go about looking for people who have left you on purpose. I’m sorry you got dumped but move on chap,’ and with that he hung up.

Anger shot through me and was released in the form of me putting my fist through the plasterboard in our lounge. My best friend Jack Williams (the one who got engaged and provoked the holiday to Mallorca) was now pretty high up in the Warwickshire police and I was tempted to see if he could lodge a formal complaint, but I decided against it. I knew deep down the officer was right, even if he was an arrogant, ignorant, rude, obnoxious, high-pitched, slimy twat. I’d already woken Jack up once that night to ask about Emma. Better not make it two phone calls.

Writing this all down on paper was just creating more questions, not answering any. None of this added up. Firstly, I still truly liked to believe we were in love. I can’t describe the hours I have racked my brain trying to work out what I could have done to upset her that much. There was literally nothing. So, if there was no reason to leave, why did she? Why would she disappear and destroy any way of ever getting in contact with her? Why had no one heard from her?

I knew then I could never move on until I found the answers to those questions and the thousands more floating around and around in my head. I had to put a plan together. I was finally out of my coma-like state; I was ready for action. I decided right there and then that I would not rest, give up or stop until I had seen her one more time.

I was going to find Emma. Chapter Two

‘What do you really know about this girl?’

The voice from this probing question belonged to my mother. Ironically, this was the exact same question she asked me when I told her I was moving down to London.

‘London?’ she cried emphatically. ‘What do you want to go to London for? You hate big cities.’

I tried to explain that I had fallen in love but I wasn’t getting my point across. I dare any twenty-something male to try to tell somebody he has fallen in love with a straight face. You tell your parents and they tell you you’re wrong. You tell your friends and they tell you you’re ‘a giant hairy fairy pansy,’ (not my words, the words of Jack Williams). You cannot win. I think that’s what Donny Osmond got so worked up about in ‘Puppy Love.’

‘What do you really know about this girl?’ my mum replied, upon hearing of my intentions to leave home.

‘Nothing really,’ I smiled back and at the time I remember thinking how exciting that was. It was an unknown adventure to fall into head first. But that was then.

Now that question stung more. Mum knew I was hurting and wanted to help her son in any way she could but I could still sense that ‘mother knows best’ tone to her voice, crossed with a pinch of ‘I told you so.’

‘You must know lots about her. You were married for three years for goodness sake!’ Mum seemed to be losing her patience with me. She wanted to find Emma too, but I had a feeling a loving embrace wasn’t on the menu.

‘I...I...’ I stuttered. I knew lots of things about her, but none seemed relevant right now. I knew her favourite cereal, how she liked to wear her dressing gown until the evening on her days off and how she liked her eggs cooked. I could tell you her favourite sexual position, what she dreamed of becoming some day and how she sometimes feels sad for no reason at all. I had spent every night for the last four years holding her as she slept, knowing her heartbeat as if it were my own. But none of this helped.

‘I don’t know where to start...’ I began before Mum shot me down again.

‘Have you called her parents?’

‘Yes and been round. Nobody is answering the phone or the door.’ This was true. I had phoned several times and spent an hour knocking on their large front door. Like most people who live in Chelsea, Emma’s parents have a lot of money and the house was certainly a fair representation of that. This also meant they were away, holidaying a lot, and I presumed this was where they must be now.

‘Come on Tom, think! Have you tried her work and seen if she still works there? No of course you haven’t.’

The worst thing was that it never crossed my mind. Of course she would still go there! Emma had completed a law degree before we met and had started on the bottom rung of a huge law company, determined to work her way up. She was now earning great money and had a chance to become a partner within the next five years. Law was her life, outside of our home and it often kept her away at nights when she was working late or on weekends when she would have to go in to help. She once told me the partner’s (whose names I can never remember) were like family to her and had looked after her very well. She may have wanted to leave me but I couldn’t imagine her leaving the firm too. This was a good place to start.

‘Don’t forget you are married Tom, she can’t just disappear like that. She’ll want a divorce no doubt. You certainly will, I hope. There are legal channels, ways of finding her...’

I allowed my mind to wonder while my mother ranted some more at me. She was right again. Well, sort of. I hadn’t even thought about divorce and certainly didn’t want to talk