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CHAPTER 1
December 2021
It’s over three months now since Sam Moore was pictured on theLyme Times websitefor reasons no one would ever have wanted. The headline read:Child Abduction: Local Man Held; Wife Still Missing.
That was the morning after, before the press had fully caught up. Since then, of course, the news has moved on and we are back to new variants and vaccinations, the threat of yet another lockdown and what that means for our much-loved seaside town.
I should probably introduce myself. My name is Miranda Clarke, and Sam Moore was my closest friend. My reasons for trying to tell this story are partly to make sense of it, partly to set the record straight and partly to ask myself what I could or should have done differently.
Where to begin? Just over eight months ago, I think. The world is blinking in the light of post-lockdown. We have spent over a year shielding our loved ones, trying to protect people we don’t even know, and our nerves are still jangling. Some of us have suffered unimaginable grief and anguish. Most of us have experienced stress and anxiety. Some of us are poorer. Some of us richer. Some have become more determinedly sociable than before, some lonelier, more isolated. No one has come out unscathed. We are changed in ways we don’t yet know. And maybe that’s what this story is about too: change.
As for me, I’m one of the lucky ones. On the professional front, as a garden designer, I’ve been able to work either from home or outdoors during these crazy and difficult times. Sam was my chief landscaper, the guy whose talented hands gave life to my technical drawings, who transformed paving into patios, scrubland into lawn, rubble into rockery. In short, I showed the clients the dream; he was the one who fulfilled that dream.
For the purposes of this account, I’ll do my best to keep myself out of it, though I suspect there will be times when I’ll jump in. There will be things I’ll want to make sure I get across. It’s all been so complicated. It’s all been such a mess.
So please – bear with me.
Sam’s story starts as it always would: on a hike, muddy boots, no phone. That was Sam – a hard man to reach.
It is a sunny spring day towards the end of April 2021. Here is Sam, leaving the lush jungle of Ware Cliff at his back. He is heading down through the holiday chalets towards Monmouth Beach when he sees her. Another step down, another, his eyes fixed now on the slowly coalescing form of a woman half obscured by the bowling green wall, a woman walking from town towards the car park. Because that’s all she is as yet: the shape of a woman, a half-figure in the distance.
But still in his stomach a knot of dread tightens.
The woman emerges from behind the wall and he sees she is pushing a stroller, the seat tipped back, what he presumes is a baby tucked underneath a blue blanket. Not her then, he thinks. It never is. She used to appear to him constantly, like a host in other women’s bodies: today a young mother, out for an afternoon walk.
The knot of dread loosens. It is not her. Thank God.
Beyond the stony beach, vanilla sunlight bounces off a graphite sea. It is warm enough that his hike has left him sweaty, the sleeves of his jumper tied around his waist, cagoule rolled up and nestling in his rucksack in the space left by his sandwiches. His gran, Joyce, made these sandwiches for him early this morning. He ate them on the bench at the viewing point just before dropping down: wide skies over Charmouth, the rise and fall of the land’s edge tracing a lazy line over to Weymouth – to Portland on a clear day. Walking has kept him sane this last long, solitary year. The elements have brought him the peace he has craved.
Down on the green to his left, an older woman trots behind a bowling ball like a dog handler at Crufts. The ball rolls promisingly towards the jack, but at the last moment curves away and settles behind a cluster of nearer bowls. The woman throws up her hands in exasperation.
The young mother is nearer now. She is passing in front of the cars, the zigzag of beach huts to the rear. Her outline clarifies a little. And then she stops, hand rising to rub the back of her thin neck. The knot of dread returns as swiftly as a hammer blow. This gesture is… it is hers.
Hot familiarity races over his skin. And now he sees that the pale pink puffer jacket she is wearing is the one he bought her, the black beanie hat the one she always wore. This time it is not a woman who could have been her but who actually is not. This time it is her, yes, yes, it is, as he knew it would be one day. Oh God. Lockdown reinforced their separation. Sometimes he thinks it was the only thing that gave him the strength not to return to her. But now, instantly, white-hot chaos fills him, and just like that he is back there: on Cannington Viaduct, one leg either side of the concrete barrier, rain falling in rods, his mud-caked boot lifted in the black air.
He shuts his eyes, shakes the image away before opening them again: to her.
Her wide jeans are cropped at the ankle. On her feet, her thick-soled lace-up shoes are so familiar he almost laughs. The telltale diagonal stripe of a shoulder bag. She always made everything she wore look cool: shirt cuffs she would fold back over the thin sweaters she liked, collars she would button to the top like a geek – the effect the exact opposite. Old satchels she would hold up at Bridport vintage market and ask him what did he think – this one, that one, which did he prefer or should she get both? He would shrug, no idea, but then later he would see her wearing the same unpromising battered purse, the strap across her chest, and he would think: yeah, that looks good.
He hasn’t seen her since a little over a year ago, when he left the keys to the flat they shared on the kitchen table with a note apologising for his own diminishment at her hands, a shrinking of himself he only realised had happened afterwards, when Joyce gently pointed it out to him. And again he sees himself, scrambling up the slope to the viaduct, snipping through the barbed wire, bolt cutters shaking in his hands, half mad with confusion, scaling the metal fence and stumbling in the rain across the forbidden arches, throwing one leg over the concrete barrier, willing himself to do the courageous thing for once in his life and just…
His hands tighten into fists. It’s possible she hasn’t seen him.
He is about to turn back and creep up the steep steps between the chalets, but she looks up, as if she has heard his thoughts or perhaps sensed him there, watching her. He falters, feels in that moment like he’s been caught stealing. She leans forward; he can tell by the angle of her body, by the visor of her hand flat against her forehead, that she is figuring out whether or not it is him. Behind her sunglasses – pink to match her jacket – he can’t see her eyes. But she is peering at him, he knows.
She straightens then, one hand rising in a tentative hello. He cannot see her features clearly but has the impression she is smiling. Mirroring her, he too smiles, raises his hand, finds her name on his lips.
‘Naomi.’
She is waiting for him. There is no avoiding her. He cannot turn on his heel and escape to the refuge of the undercliff.
Stay calm. She does not know about the viaduct. She does not need to know. No one does. No one except Joyce.
Blood thrumming in his temples, he descends towards her. Better to get this over with. Keep it civilised. If she shouts or swears, he can walk away. He is not trapped, not here. What can she do to him really? There are bowlers on the green, dog walkers, out-of-season tourists out for a stroll. She won’t make a scene.
With each step down, her even features solidify – her generous mouth, her fine nose, the delicate point of her chin – until there she is, as harmless and as dangerous as he remembers.
She takes off her sunglasses. Her eyes are no less deep, no less brown. And today they are soft, as they could be when she wanted. His breath catches.
