HELENA DRUMMED HERfingers on the kitchen table as the automated message on Noah’s mobile phone kicked in. She had heard it so many times in the last twelve hours she could repeat every word of it by heart. She felt frantic, desperate to come up with a plan of action. It was 9 a.m. and there was still no word. She was so twitchy, so flushed with adrenaline, that the slightest noise made her leap out of her seat and race to the window, praying she would see Noah pull up in a taxi. His car was parked in the drive, as it had been when she arrived back from the hospital. She had been up at the crack of dawn, having failed to get any sleep. She had searched through all the drawers and cupboards, working out exactly what he had taken. Sickeningly, not only had their passports gone, but Raffy’s birth certificate and other important paperwork was missing, Noah’s laptop and phone, most of his favourite clothes.
She racked her brain, growing increasingly worried that he had meant what he had written on the note. With every terminally long minute that ticked by she began to believe it had to be true. That Noah could really have done something so sickeningly cruel to both her and Raffy. To tear them apart in such a brutal, agonising way. More tears spilled down her cheeks every time she thought of the reality that she may never see either of them again. She was furious with herself for having tipped him over the edge. Maybe she really was as insufferable as he told her. Perhaps she had irritated him too much. Maybe it really was all her fault. But whatever his reason for ending things with her, she couldn’t accept that it was better for Raffy this way. He had already lost his mother in unforeseen,sudden circumstances. How could Noah think that doing that a second time was in any way justifiable? Raffy would start to think that those closest to him could be taken away forever at any moment. The effects would be lifelong and damaging. That any father would do that to their son after four years of building the closest possible relationship was unthinkable. The fact he couldn’t see that was yet more proof of how fucked up Noah was.
If only she could have helped him. If only she had tried harder to get him to talk to someone. If he had been so desperate to get away from her that he had flown to New Zealand it hardly said a lot about their relationship. She felt so stupid. How could she have been so oblivious? She had only seen things from her point of view. She had no idea that he was feeling so desperate that he would consider running away from it all.
Yet another wave of panic coursed through her. It took her breath away every time. She got up once again and paced around the kitchen, checking her phone for the millionth time in case she had missed a call or a message. What should she do? What could she do? She phoned a missing persons helpline, desperate to see if there was something she hadn’t thought of. Again, she hit a brick wall. There was nothing she could do to gain access to a child that was not legally hers. She tried calling the police again, in case she had any better luck. The same words were repeated: ‘We’re really sorry but I’m afraid there is nothing we can do.’ Helena screamed. The sound reverberated around the empty building.
Trying to steady her shaking hands, she pulled out her laptop and looked up flights to New Zealand. She could book a flight for around £600. She checked their bank account, entering the password and choosing the correct numbers from her passcode.
The page took a few seconds to load. As her eyes settled on the balance a sickening lurch twisted her insides. It was empty. Noah had removed every last penny from their joint account.
It took her a minute to take this in, to understand the significance of what she saw before her eyes. This was no joke. He had cut off all her money. This was all the proof she needed. He had reallygone. They must be halfway across the world by now. This was actually happening.
Howling with frustration and numb with shock she checked her personal account. There wasn’t much in it, but she could just about afford the flight to New Zealand. But where should she go? Queenstown? Christchurch? She had no idea where he would have gone. To his mum’s probably. Or his brother? But they weren’t close. She had no addresses. Whenever he and Raffy spoke to Noah’s mum it had always been on his mobile – she didn’t even have a phone number to call. Where had he said they lived? She knew it was on the South Island but she couldn’t remember the name. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. She knew that much, but that hardly helped. She remembered him talking about his school but not what it was called. Desperate, she searched a map of the island on Google, zooming in and scanning the screen looking for anything familiar. But she didn’t recognise anything. Why hadn’t she paid more attention? She could have kicked herself. If she could only get there then maybe she would be able to persuade him to change his mind.
Picking up her phone she sent him yet another message.
Noah, I have to see you. We have to talk. And I have to see Raffy. I love him so much. Please. I’m going to book a ticket to New Zealand. I’ll come and find you, just tell me where to come.
She pressed send. She paused. ‘It’s not fair on Raffy,’ she typed, before changing her mind and deleting the words. She put her phone down on the table. She didn’t want to rile him.
She pulled out her debit card and started to fill in the information required to book herself on to the next available flight. Was it crazy to book it without even knowing for sure that they were there? She picked up her phone once again, pressing his name on the screen. She waited for the phone to connect, knowing that he was standing there, somewhere in the world, with his phone in his pocket. She pictured Raffy by his side. She had to talk to him. Blinking backtears she waited for the call to connect. Shehadto be able to talk some sense into him. If only she could speak to him, sheknewshe would be able to.
‘PICK UP!’ she screamed into the receiver as the automatic voice kicked in with his voicemail yet again. ‘Forfuck’ssake!’
She threw her phone onto the table and sank onto the chair, her head in her hands. She was shaking now, trembling like a leaf. This was impossible. She must be trapped in some kind of nightmare.
Helena stared blankly in front of her for a minute or two. Then she picked up the phone again, jabbing her finger onto the dial button. She was angry now, sheer fury coursed through her veins as she pressed the small green icon over and over again. She felt like a pressure cooker about to explode. She left him yet another message.
‘How could you?How could you do this to me? You can’t wipe out four years of our lives like this. You can’t do this to me. And what about Raffy? You can’t take him like this. It is so cruel. I love him like he is my own child… and I loveyou. We can work things out. But youhaveto talk to me. You can’t run away like this… Please Noah,please…’ She was racked with sobs, barely able to get the words out coherently. ‘Please… come home—’ A long bleep cut her off. She had run out of space on the voice message.
The bleep rang loudly in her ears, not helping her throbbing head. She hovered her mouse over the ‘Buy now’ button for the flight she had been about to purchase. Just as she was about to click she pulled her hand away, shaking her head. Part of her didn’t want to admit defeat, part of her wanted to fight tooth and nail, for Raffy, if not for Noah. But another part of her was stunned into acceptance. Really, what could she actually do? If she did find them, god knew what kind of things he would make up, what kind of accusations he would be willing to make against her to keep her away from them. In her heart of hearts, she knew that it was hopeless.
Her head spun in confusion. Maybe he had never intended for this to work? Maybe he had been using her all along like some kind of weird Stepford wife while he earned enough money inLondon to quit his job and move back overseas? Maybe she had been nothing more than hired help, paid with board and lodging while she cooked and cleaned and looked after his son, available whenever he wanted for sex? Bile rose in her throat at the thought.
Helena shook herself. No. She couldn’t believe that. She refused to even go there. She thought back over all the conversations they’d had, all the laughter they had shared, the happy memories. No. It was real. Of course it was. She had to believe it. She knew that if she wanted to retain even a fraction of her sanity she had no other choice.
18
HELENA DIDN’T LEAVEthe house for the rest of the week. She couldn’t. The only person she could have imagined reaching out to was Margery, but she couldn’t even face seeing her. The shame of it all – the humiliation of being left, the mockery Noah had made of her life, their relationship, it was too awful to bear. No one came knocking, but that wasn’t unusual, no one normally did. They had integrated so badly into village life she wouldn’t be surprised if no one noticed Noah and Raffy had even gone. Besides, it was quiet in the village, lots of people were already away on their summer holidays. Maybe people assumed the same of them. The only person who came to the house was the postman and there was barely any mail. The fridge was virtually empty, but she had no appetite. She hadn’t showered. Her hair was filthy. She found herself wandering aimlessly from room to room. She cried more tears than she had ever known possible, trying to figure out where it had all gone so wrong.
Noah hadn’t switched his phone on. She knew this for a fact having checked his WhatsApp religiously – the last seen time remained the same. She called and called but it went straight to voicemail. She fired off emails into the ether, no longer even sure if he would ever bother to read them. There weren’t many people in this world who could cut off such a large part of their life with the callous detachment Noah appeared to be capable of. It seemed inhumane to be able to act like this. But even through her disbelief she could see how it might appeal to him. A clean break, that would be how he’d see it. Perhaps his twisted heart was incapable of coping any other way. He could be so far past ‘normal’ when it came to basic human emotion that he hadn’t been able to facetelling her the simple truth: that he didn’t want to be with her any longer.
She couldn’t forgive him for it. She knew she never would. Losing Raffy felt like losing a limb. Her heart spilled over with love for him and the agonising hurt she felt at his loss was devastating. She felt as though her own child had died. The knowledge that she may never see him again certainly felt as brutal and insurmountable as his death.
As she sat in a depressed trance on the sofa, drinking wine straight from the bottle, she tried to imagine what a future without them would look like. She was brought to tears by the possibility that Raffy might forget all about her and the years they had spent together. He was still so young. And she was as sure as she could be that Noah would not keep her memory alive, in the way he did with Kate’s. Perhaps she would be forced to wait until he was eighteen to contact him. Maybe it would take that long before she would see that little face again, the face she knew better than her own. What if he didn’t even remember her? And how could she possibly wait twelve years? At the thought a new wave of desolation swept through her, so powerful it sucked the breath from her lungs.How could she?All she longed for was to wrap his small body in her arms and hold him tight, to smell that delicious smell, uniquely his, to lie next to him on his bed and read him his favourite stories, to talk and talk about school, the world, anything, everything. Instead, she lay on his bed. She hugged the teddy that Noah had left behind, anything to try and stop that desperate gap from aching so much in her heart.
Despite hating Noah for what he had done, she missed him. She was so cripplingly lonely in their house, with all his and Raffy’s things mocking her, laughing at her as they watched her fall apart. Like a piece of knitting that was slowly unravelling, she could feel herself disintegrating at the seams. She thought she might go mad, demented from a grief she had no control over, with no rational explanation for its cause, for a situation that was not only the last thing she wanted but also one she was powerless to stop.
19
JUST WHEN SHEthought nothing could get any worse, that she couldn’t possibly sink any lower than she already had, the telephone rang. Helena jumped up from her position slumped on the floor with lightning speed, hitting her head with a forceful bang on the corner of the dresser. Ignoring the flash of pain, she half-jumped, half-flew across the room, convinced it would be Noah, praying that he might finally have come to his senses. Knocking the receiver off the handset with trembling hands, not helped by having lived on a diet of nothing but coffee and alcohol for days, she scrabbled with the handset, terrified she might have accidentally disconnected the call. She pressed it up to her ear and gasped hello. Her mouth was so dry she could barely talk.
‘Is Mr Hamlin there?’ A male voice crackled down the line.
Helena’s heart stopped in its tracks. It wasn’t Noah. Had something happened to him? To Raffy? Her body stiffened in anticipation of bad news.
‘It’s Edward Collins speaking, the landlord.’
