Forward Slash

‘Good luck, anyway,’ says the woman, after she’s paid for her drinks.

‘Thanks. I’ll need it,’ I reply, and she fights her way out of sight through the crush around the bar.

The pub is very full now, and I’m being jostled and bumped by people trying to squeeze around my stool to get to the bar, and Shaun has to speak even louder to be heard. I don’t want to suggest that we go and sit at a table, because that implies more commitment than I’m willing to offer. Plus, if I catch the woman’s eye, I’ll get the giggles. So I allow myself to be jogged and cramped and yammered on at. I notice myself withdraw, like a tortoise, closing down, just nodding occasionally and punctuating his monologue with the odd ‘Really?’ and ‘Oh, right.’

Just when I think I might actually weep with boredom, my mobile phone beeps in my bag. I fish it out and retrieve the text message, while Shaun continues unabated with his life history. I don’t bother to apologize for looking at the message. I get the feeling that he’d continue talking to the empty bar stool if I wasn’t there. The message is from my friend Katherine, and reads:

Hhello iis tthiis tthhe oownnerr off the sshhopp tthatt ssolldd meee tthee vvibrattor? Hhow ddo uu tturn tthhe ffuccckkinngg thingh oofff?

I snort into my wine, accidentally spitting some out. It lands on the leg of Shaun’s beige chinos, leaving a wet splatter mark, and – finally! – halting him in the middle of a diatribe about his appalling neighbours, who apparently play very loud music until two in the morning every night. Probably to drown out the sound of his voice, I think, and it makes me giggle even more. I can feel something give inside me, like snow melting and shifting, the beginnings of an avalanche of pent-up hysteria.

‘Sorry.’

He doesn’t look amused, and I half expect him to say, ‘If it’s all that funny, Becky Coltman, would you care to share it with the class?’ He almost does: ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Um … Just a silly text from my mate.’ I swallow the laughter hard, and it feels as if my nose is going red from the effort of suppressing it.

‘Let’s see?’

Mutely, my shoulders beginning to shake, I hold out the little screen for him to inspect. He looks at it without expression. ‘Very droll,’ he says in a flat voice. Then something changes in his face, and a lascivious glint pops into his eyes. Ewww, I think, he must be thinking about me with a vibrator.

He leans closer, and whispers into my hair. ‘Have you got one of those?’ he murmurs.

‘One of what?’ I ask brightly, feigning innocence. As a matter of fact, I don’t possess a vibrator; I don’t like them. An ex bought me one once in the last gasp of our relationship, but I was never sure whether it was meant to be for us to use together, to try to rejuvenate our sex lives, or whether it was an acknowledgement that things had got so dire between us in that department that I’d be better off going it alone. I gave it a try, because Kath swears by hers, but I didn’t like it at all. I wrapped it in a Tesco carrier bag and threw it in the outside bin.

‘You know what I mean,’ Shaun replies, his lips brushing my ear. ‘You certainly won’t need one of those when we’re—’

I can’t hold it in any more. I burst out laughing, too loudly, but I can’t help myself. I laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bar stool. The crush at the bar has thinned out a bit, and I see the woman who spoke to me earlier looking over at me and laughing too, with me. I can tell she’s guessed that I’ve reached my limit with Mr Dull, and it makes me even worse. I can’t speak for laughing. I wish that woman were a bloke; she and I would get on like a house on fire. Why can’t I meet a man I’m on the same wavelength with?

‘It’s not that bloody funny,’ says Shaun, looking offended. He waves at the barman, who brings over a bill on a silver tray. ‘Well, I’d better be going. I’ve had a great time, it’s been lovely to meet you. Let’s split this, shall we? Thirty-eight pounds each should do it.’

He must have ordered one of the priciest wines on the menu, knowing he was going to make me pay half, the bastard, I think, tears of mirth streaming down my face. I hadn’t even touched any of the second bottle – I was driving, so I changed to tap water.

I’d never normally do this, but for some reason I just don’t care. I stand up, make a show of peering in my bag and say, ‘Gosh, Shaun, I’m terribly sorry, but I seem to have forgotten my purse. Can I leave you to sort this one out? It’ll be on me next time, honest. Give me a call sometime?’

I peck him on the cheek, grab my coat and rush out before he can say anything, waving at my new friend on the way, still heaving and gulping with hysterics.

The text comes when I’m halfway home, so I pull over and open it. It says, ‘You are an insane bitch and I’ve totally wasted my evening and my money on you.’

What happened to, ‘I had a great time, it was lovely to meet you?’ I wonder, roaring with fresh laughter. I pull out my phone to ring my sister and tell her about it – but then remember that I don’t want her to know I’m Internet dating; she’s so paranoid about it after what happened with her and that freak, even though it was years ago. She’ll get too involved and start insisting that she vets all the guys, even though I keep telling her that she was just unlucky. She wouldn’t understand that although I do want a relationship, I also just want some good old uncomplicated sex … I might tell her, at some point. Just not yet.

3 (#ulink_8358a60d-8016-575c-8128-44a87c72d4ba)

Amy (#ulink_8358a60d-8016-575c-8128-44a87c72d4ba)

Sunday, 21 July

‘Do you think I should call the police?’ Amy asked Gary.

He pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bit early? I mean, assuming the email was a wind-up, she could walk in at any moment. She probably will walk in at any moment.’

‘I’m not worried about looking foolish. I think I should—’

‘Call them. Yeah, well, maybe.’

She was seated on Becky’s desk chair, with Gary perched on the edge of the sofa, one leg bouncing back and forth, one of the most pronounced cases of restless leg syndrome she’d ever seen.

‘You can go now,’ she said. His expression made her realize she’d sounded dismissive. ‘I mean, if you need to.’

He checked his watch. ‘I suppose I really ought to get going – I’m playing five-a-side this morning … Will you be all right?’

‘Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’

‘If you hear anything, let me know, OK?’ He wrote down his mobile number for her on the back of a copy of Heat magazine, ripped it off and handed it to her.

‘Of course. Can you leave me the spare key?’

He gave her the key, went to leave, hesitated in the doorway as though he was about to say something else, then changed his mind. He was an all-right guy, Amy thought, despite his annoying little habits. It was a truism that people in London didn’t get to know their neighbours, and Amy’s main interaction with the people next door to her had been listening to passive-aggressive comments about her noisy bike, so Becky was lucky to have a friend living next door.

So, the police. This would only be the second time in her life she’d called them. In a flash, she was transported back to that moment – the bleak loneliness underpinning the utter panic and disbelief at what had just happened to her at the hands of someone she loved. She hugged herself for comfort and shook the memory away, as she had so many times before.

She was about to look up the number of the local station on the iMac when it struck her that the police might need to examine the computer, and any more activity she did on it could muddy the trail more than she had already. So she looked it up on her phone, then called them.

‘Camberwell Police.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I want to report a missing person.’

She waited while she was put through to somebody who identified himself as Police Constable Ian Norris.

‘How can I help?’

She cleared her throat to unstick the words. ‘I want to report my sister as missing.’

‘Can I take your name please?’

‘Amy Coltman.’

He asked for her address and phone number, which she gave him.

‘And your sister’s name?’

‘Becky … Rebecca Coltman,’ she said, and gave him her sister’s full address and date of birth.

‘How long has your sister been missing?’

‘Well … I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, but I got an email from her last night.’

She heard an intake of breath at the other end of the line. ‘Last night?’