“Why are you here? What are you doing?”
“I thought I’d take a night off, get some space. It was your idea. My editor’s going to kill me anyway.”
No. No. He’d broken the rules. My skin hurt. The weight of my necklace on the back of my neck, the pinch of my dress at my elbow, my hair sticking to the sides of my face. I wanted to tear it all off and stand there on fire and scream, This is who I am. This is who you’re assigned to.
But I didn’t. If this was all a game to him, I’d roll the dice. The tiny part of me that could still think thanked the god of loneliness for the booze in my blood. I needed its venom.
“What’s happening, Arthur? Where’ve you been? Don’t you want to be with me?”
Art raised his eyebrows and flattened back into the sofa. I suppose in all the distance we’d come, I’d never spoken to him so bluntly. After a few seconds he regrouped, and spoke in a low and level tone, like a teacher to a student. “Are you changing your mind?”
I stood there, too furious to say “No” but terrified to think he thought I’d say “Yes”.
“’Cause you know,” he whispered, stretching his arms wide, “none of this should be a surprise. You knew what I wanted. When I signed on that dotted line, you signed too. Partnership.”
So that was it? If he wanted officiality, I’d give him officiality.
“Partnership?” I spat the word back. “Where is my partner? I never see you – and the only time your show your face is when I’m not here. You have to make a fucking effort, otherwise what’s the point?”
Art pushed himself forward, colour rushing up his neck. “An effort? I am making an effort. You know I’ve struggled to work since all this started. If I can’t make this work, that won’t only be the end of my career but the end of all this,” he gestured at the walls, the ceiling, me. “I don’t have an inheritance to chip away at. I got nothing. I have to make more, all the time. Do you want me to stop earning? Is that what you want?”
Obviously I didn’t, but I’d be damned before I’d let him see it. He deserved nothing.
“Norah,” he reached out a hand to me, palm open. “I’m just doing what we set out to do, together. It’s you that keeps changing the rules.”
Oh, really? It was as if I’d stepped out of my body, just for a second, and watched myself clinging to the wall like a great sucking leech. Was this why Art looked so thin, so exhausted? Was it my fault? No, he was different, and he was trying to save face, surely. He asked me to marry him. Marry him. That doesn’t sound like a business partnership, that’s love. And as you both grow, and progress, your love grows and changes too. It has to, otherwise, it shatters.
Art stood up and wrapped his arms around my waist. His hair pressed against my cheek and the salty tang of chemicals filled my head. Despite myself, I started to feel warm, and stroked my hands up his back. Fights were healthy. Fights were productive. Fights cleared the air. We’d promised to always be honest to each other about what we wanted, maybe this would be our real beginning? Lately we’d hardly spoken to each other about anything other than Nut. What about us?
“Where’s Nut?”
“Hmm?” Art whispered into my ear.
“Where is she?”
“Not sure. I haven’t seen her in a bit. Probably in a boat off to Paraguay or something.”
“I’ll go find her. I’ll come back and we can finish this.” I pressed my lips against Art’s cheek and began my tour of the house, trilling and tutting and calling her name. She was nowhere to be found on the ground floor so (only slightly concerned at this point) I continued my hunt upstairs while Art lounged into the sofa and glued his eyes back on the TV screen. As I stumbled my way upstairs, I hoped Art was still thinking about what had just happened. I hoped it worried him.
“Nu-ut!” I called for her in a sing-song tone, as if we were playing hide and seek. After a few more minutes of searching I called down to Art. “Arthur, where is she?”
I heard the TV go silent and Art appeared at the front of the stairs. “I don’t know, somewhere around the house, I suppose.”
He wasn’t being flippant, but I gritted my teeth as I responded, “I can’t find her anywhere.”
He looked up with a baffled smile and impassive eyes. “She has to be somewhere. I’ve not even been outside today.” Art shuffled to the kitchen, and I heard the creak of cupboard doors being opened and slammed and kitchen chairs being dragged across the floor. I waited on the landing, desperate for him to prove me wrong. He emerged from the kitchen and leapt the stairs two at a time, sticking his head in the bathroom and finally our bedroom. We were both silent as he followed the steps I’d just taken, checking everywhere Nut had access to.
She couldn’t have vanished.
Tick tick tick tick tick.
A thousand scenes were streaming through my head one after another, and in all them Nut appeared prostrate, trapped in cupboards, crushed under the wheels of a car on the motorway. She’d never seen the world; she wouldn’t have a clue. She wasn’t made to understand a world of threats. She was pliable, personable. If she got into the wrong hands, or if Easton Grove found out about our negligence, we’d be excommunicated. Or worse. I pictured the detention centre, the windowless bunker. We didn’t know what happened inside. Why didn’t we ever ask?
My head was light and fuzzy, the world fading into black and white. If I’d been out only one night and something had happened… What had we done?
“I can’t believe this.”
