I sat by the phone, waiting, my hand clasped around the back
of the case. My stomach was in knots and I knew I should be exhausted, but my
eyes wouldn’t shut, constantly flicking between the oven clock and the muted
television, turned onto the news channel.
We had exhausted the coffee and cigarettes hours before, and
now I watched as head after head bowed, and eyes fell shut around me.
The six of us were crammed into my mouldy council flat
kitchen, Lou and Grace from downstairs, Veera’s best mate Paul, my friend
Gareth and his dad had all rushed over as soon as they had received my panicked
text.
I drummed my fingertips on the rickety table and then jumped
up, startling everyone into wakefulness. I became very aware of the grey peeling
wallpaper surrounding us, and the dusty exposed pipes lining the lower part of
the wall, as I threw water into the kettle and hit the ‘on’ switch. I was aware
of Lou standing next to me, fannying around with cups and ugar, pouring
generous amounts of the grey UHT milk that had been open too long onto cheap
grains of instant coffee. At least she’d managed to find vaguely clean mugs.
I went back to my phone and turned the screen on, discarding
it as soon as I saw the empty notifications page. There was a hand on my wrist,
Gareth, gently steadying my shaking arm and stuffing a steaming mug of coffee
into my hand. “They said they’d call mate.” The long silence had been broken
and his voice echoed round the tiny kitchen, bouncing off each surface and
almost deafening me. It was a while before he spoke again. “No news is good
news, right?” I took a sip of my coffee, ignoring the burn in my mouth and
barely noticing the scalding liquid roll down my oesophagus and hit my stomach.
I checked her Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat – nothing.
Her last post was from this morning at 11.38 am when she had been given a ring
donut and was moaning about the pathetic lack of jam. I’ve looked at that post
at least 45 times in the last hour, dragging the page down and releasing it,
praying for a new tweet, something – anything that would put me out of my
misery.
4.14 am the clock read. It had been 13 hours since the crash,
12 since she should have been back. There was nothing I could do, I felt so
helpless. The police had been round, said they’d keep us informed then fucked
off again. We’d heard nothing since 6.13 pm, and I was getting desparate;
imagining her face in those awful images shown on the telly earlier. The whole ‘no
news is good news’ was bullshit; I was prepared for the absolute worst. Would I
ever see her again? We had planned to order pizza tonight and stay in, watching
crappy Thursday night TV and poking fun at all the failing celebrities on
reality shows. Would we ever get to do that again? I tasted bile in the back of
my throat and pushed my coffee away.
The phone buzzed on the table and we all jumped violently. I
snatched it up and answered.
“H-h-ello?” My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth.
“Is that Tyler Kennett?” The gentle voice of a female police
officer came through the speaker.
I said yes it was me and waited for the reply, my whole body
stiff as though I had entered rigor mortis.
“Hi Tyler, this is Officer Failes. I am pleased to tell you
that your wife, Veera Payne is not one of the seven confirmed dead, nor is she
one of the fifty injured in hospital.
I sat back. “So where is she?” I forced the question out of
my mouth, my brain working five times slower.
“I’m afraid we are not sure of your wife’s current
whereabouts sir. We will be launching an investigation into her disappearance.
Have you heard anything from her in the last 14 hours? Is there any medical
history, anything at all we should know about Veera?”
I said no and we finished our conversation, but it was a
lie. There was so much they needed to know, so much explaining that had to be
done, but right now my brain had started to catch up and I looked up to find
five expectant faces.
I had thought her being dead was preparing for the worst,
but I was wrong. I had not prepared myself for the end of my life too.
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