The Search Party

Claire had put a saucepan under the drawing-room ceiling. A drop fell into it as Mara came through the door, loud enough to make them both look up.

“That isn’t him,” Claire said. “I know how it looks.”

She was standing on the third step of a little ladder, holding a towel against the damp patch. Her hair had come loose on one side. She had the telephone tucked into the neck of her cardigan, with a voice still coming out of it.

“You need a bucket,” Mara said.

“I need a different house. Can you tell this man we’re not a hotel?”

Mara set her overnight bag down. She had driven nearly an hour from the housing office, all the way thinking of what she would say about Owen, and now she was being given a telephone.

“We don’t have a maintenance department,” she told the man.

“I was explaining to your colleague—”

“She’s the owner. There’s water coming through a ceiling. Can you get someone here today?”

He could get someone there between four and six. Mara gave the phone back and steadied the ladder while Claire came down. She had expected tears, perhaps the little shaking breath Claire had taken before saying on the telephone that Owen had gone. Instead they stood together looking at a saucepan.

“I thought you could have room three,” Claire said. “You may have to wear a hat.”

Mara laughed. It came out too loudly in the empty room.

The Salt House was a narrow guesthouse on the uphill edge of Merecombe, where the shops stopped and the ordinary terraces began. From the front step there was a view between two buildings to a strip of grey sea. Claire and Owen had lived and worked here for eight years. Mara had stayed often during the first few. Later she had come for lunch with Claire when Owen was out, and lately she had mostly met Claire elsewhere. She knew which stair creaked and which drawing-room chair would tip forward if you sat on its edge. It was an uncomfortable amount to know about a house in which she no longer felt able to ask for her brother.

Claire took her into the kitchen. A tray of cups stood ready by the kettle. There were six rooms upstairs, four of them occupied, and a couple due from Leicester who had rung twice to discuss parking.

“Is he answering you?” Claire asked.

“I haven’t tried yet.”

“I thought you might have, on the way.”

“You said he’d left his phone.”

“He has.” Claire opened the shallow drawer beneath the breadboard. Owen’s phone lay beside a charging lead and a packet of matches. “I thought he might have emailed you. Something.”

Mara shook her head. Claire pushed the drawer shut.

“Tell me what happened this morning.”

“I was doing breakfast. He went out while I was in here. I thought he’d gone for milk. There’s a note on the table.”

It was a sheet from the pad they used for shopping lists. Claire brought it from beside the toaster and laid it in front of Mara.

I’m safe. I need some space. I’m not coming back tonight. I’ll get in touch about the house and the work. Please don’t try to find me.

Owen had put his name beneath it, as if there might be doubt.

Mara read it twice. She had last seen him at Christmas, across a restaurant table, where he had asked about her journey and then found reasons to speak to the waiter. Before that there had been the message in the spring. She had not thought of their silence as an estrangement until Claire used the word on the phone today. It had seemed a succession of things neither of them had done.

“Have you heard anything since?”

“The police rang just after twelve. They’d spoken to him. He’s all right.”

“They actually spoke to him?”

“Yes. He contacted them himself, apparently. They were very kind. They just couldn’t tell me where he was.” Claire folded the paper along its existing crease. “I understand that. He’s a grown man. They can’t make him come home.”

Mara took her coat off. The kitchen was warm and she had been keeping it on as though she might leave again. “Then I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Get him to talk to me.”

“You might have to let him have a night.”

“I have let him have it. I haven’t got much choice.”

There was no sharpness in the words, but Claire turned away to the cups. One had a chip inside the handle. She ran her finger over it and put it under the sink.

“Sorry,” Mara said. “That wasn’t useful.”

“I’m sorry to drag you over. How did they take it at work?”

“They coped with my absence for forty-seven minutes before ringing.”

“You’re indispensable.”

“They’re looking for a stopcock. I’ve told them where it is three times. I’ve taken Wednesday and Thursday. I’ll have to be back on Friday.”

She coordinated repairs for a housing association in the next town. Nobody at work had asked why a brother who was confirmed safe required two days of her leave. Her manager had said, Go, then. Agreeing had been easier than admitting she did not want to go. Now that she was here, she could not see what help she could offer.

Claire filled the kettle. Her hands were steady. Mara could see a red line on her wrist where she had been pressing the towel to the ceiling.

“It’s the money as well,” Claire said.

Mara looked at her.

“Yesterday he transferred two thousand three hundred pounds to Ruth Ashe. I didn’t see it until after he’d gone.”

“Ruth from the workshop?”

“Yes.”

Mara knew the name. Owen had done restoration jobs with Ruth for years, taking pieces out there that needed more room or equipment than he had at the guesthouse. At one time he had wanted a place of his own. Mara had helped pay for that too.

“What was it for?”

“It doesn’t say. Her name and the amount. I’ll show you.”

Claire fetched her phone. She took a moment to find the transaction, then put the screen flat on the table. R ASHE. £2,300. Yesterday’s date. Mara touched nothing.

“Has he left you short?”

“There are bills. There’s the linen account, and the insurance next month. People see a place like this and think there’s money coming in every day. There is, but it goes straight out again.”

“How much is left?”

“I haven’t sat down with it. I can’t think about every single thing at once.”

“No. All right.”

The kettle clicked off. Mara was aware of having used the same brisk voice she used when a tenant rang about a repair that had gone wrong. Claire did not need to become another person being taken through questions.

“It may be something he’s paid her for,” she said.

“Then he can tell me.”

He could. Four thousand pounds had gone out of Mara’s own account five years ago, in two transfers a week apart. She could still picture the amounts on the screen. Owen’s business had been nearly ready to turn a corner. A van repair and a rent payment would get him there. Afterwards he had been embarrassed, then evasive, then angry that she kept bringing it up. It was difficult to hear of another sum moving between accounts and remain generous.

“Have you asked Ruth?”

“I rang. She said he was safe. She said she wasn’t giving me information he’d asked her not to give.”

“So she knows where he is.”

“I assume so.”

Claire poured the tea and gave Mara the mug with a blue fish on it. It had been hers for years, though she had never asked for a particular mug. The handle was broad enough to get two fingers through. Claire remembered things like that.

“You don’t have to take my side,” she said.

“I don’t want a side.”

“Neither do I. I’d like my husband to tell me what he’s doing. He can be angry with me. He can tell me I’ve done everything wrong. At least I’ll know.”

Mara drank too soon and burnt the roof of her mouth. She put the mug down carefully.

In the spring Owen had asked whether he could stay in her spare room. Just a few nights. He would explain when he got there. She had read the message while standing in a supermarket queue, and her first thought had been that the room was full of boxes. Her second had been about money. She had sent the message on to Claire with, Do you know what’s going on? Please talk to each other. She had told Owen she had done it. He had replied, Right, and nothing more.

She had meant to ring him at the weekend. By the weekend Claire had said things were better. Mara had been relieved, and had allowed relief to count as a reason not to call.

“He may not want to hear from me,” she said.

“He’ll hear you. You don’t put up with his rubbish.”

“That doesn’t make me the obvious choice.”

Claire’s face changed a little. “No. You’re right.”

Upstairs a door opened. They heard feet on the landing, then a man call to ask whether the water had been switched off. Claire closed her eyes for one second.

“Just don’t use the shower in three,” she called back.

“We’re in five.”

“Then you’re enjoying the premium service.”

His laugh came down the stairs. Claire smiled at Mara and stood up. It was the smile Mara knew from the hospital waiting room, when Claire had brought sandwiches and discovered that the only seats left were beside a television showing a programme about fatal medical errors. She had found the remote before Mara could begin to cry. Later she had sat with their mother while Mara went home for clean clothes. Claire had not had to do any of it. Owen’s family was not an obligation she had been born into.

Mara picked up her tea and followed Claire to the hall.

The couple from Leicester arrived while Claire was explaining to room five that the plumber would need a brief interruption to the water. They had not parked where they had been told. The husband thought the car was probably all right for a minute, and his wife thought it probably wasn’t. Mara took their cases inside while Claire went out to point to the space they could use.

She found herself behind the reception desk with a form in her hand. It was easy enough to ask for a registration number, find a key and show people the dining room. Useful work was a relief from standing in a kitchen discussing whether she was entitled to help.

By the time the door closed, Claire had apologised for the water, recommended somewhere for dinner and remembered to ask the wife whether she needed a room without many stairs. Only then did she lean against the desk.

“I can’t believe he’s done this,” she said quietly.

Mara looked at the stairs. Owen had once carried a chest of drawers up them with her at the lower end, narrating their likely deaths in the voice of a local radio reporter. She had laughed so much she had nearly let go. She could remember the ridiculous voice and still want to make him stand here and explain why Claire was left doing all of this.

“I’ll go and see Ruth,” she said.

Claire straightened. “Now?”

“If she’s there. I’ll ask whether he’ll speak to me. That’s all I can promise.”

“Of course.”

“I won’t be bringing him back in the car.”

“I know.” Claire took Mara’s hand and squeezed it. “Just tell him we can’t leave it like this.”

Mara had not agreed to those words. She could have said so, but the bell rang again, and Claire was already turning to answer it.