The Case of the Missing Boyfriend by Nick Alexander Page A

bad, or that she can’t have kids, which will make
everyone
feel bad.’
    ‘Yes,’ Martin says. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘Or in
my
case, seeing as you’re so keen to fucking know, it’s because the guy she was with, your friend Brian, felt that it wasn’t
quite the right time
for them to have kids, and convinced her, against every instinct she ever had, to have an abortion. Whereupon, he dumped her.’
    ‘Oh,’ Martin says.
    ‘Yes,
Oh!
’ I spit. ‘And then,
apparently
, he fathered another child,
sorry . . .
make that
two
children with another woman. And seeing as it takes nine months to make a baby, and seeing as these kids are now just two, that would mean that he did this magical deed, that his sperm entered . . .
whoever’s
vagina, a mere two months after he dumped me, that is to say, a mere
two months and two days
after he brought me home from the abortion clinic.’
    ‘Golly,’ Pete says.
    ‘Yes,
golly.
’
    Cynthia reaches for my hand, but I pull it away.
    ‘You knew,’ I say simply.
    ‘I thought it best, if . . .’ she says.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But I really need to go home now. I really, really do.’

Numb
    I sit and stare at the steam rising from my cup of coffee.
    It’s a beautiful day outside, possibly the first spring day of the year, and I remember how years ago, when I bought this place, the low sun used to stream in through the kitchen window. I even still have a pair of old sunglasses in the kitchen drawer – I used to wear them when sunny mornings coincided with a hangover.
    That whole era had been full of optimism. I had a new flat and a new boyfriend (Brian) and a new life.
    And then there is today: I just feel tired and empty.
    After Martin’s dinner party revelations I had expected an anxious, sleepless night, but in fact I slept like a dead woman. But despite nine hours of uninterrupted, apparently dreamless sleep, I have woken up feeling exhausted.
    I watch tiny white clouds skimming across the triangle of visible blue sky that the Leylandii hasn’t yet seen fit to steal, and think that I should probably go out – that sunshine and fresh air would probably do me good.
    But I know that I won’t.
    I sip my tea and run a finger around the edge of the mug, as if maybe I am expecting it to sing like a wine-glass.
    My brain is entirely paralysed by this new information about Brian. Who would have thought that he still had the power to hurt me?
    It’s not that I’m thinking about it in any way – the thought is somehow too vast for that . . . No, I’m just sitting here, taking in the enormity of it. It’s as if someone has dumped so much rubble around my house that I can’t get through it, and I can’t get over it, and, for the moment, I can’t even begin to imagine a strategy for moving it out of the way.
    And so I sit with a slowly cooling mug of coffee and watch clouds incongruously skipping by and I think . . . well . . . nothing really.
    About eleven, a grain of self-awareness appears, and I see myself sitting in the kitchen, still in my pyjamas, and somehow vaguely realise that no useful conclusion is going to manifest today, and that I might as well just get on with the mechanical motions of a normal day. And so, despite the surprising amount of willpower required, I heave myself to standing position and head for the bathroom.
    After a shower and with my weekend face a little more heavily slapped on than usual, I decide that at least I look human again. Maybe my brain will catch up if I just give it time.
    As I leave the bathroom, wondering what to do with the day, and, in a way, answering that question by wondering which recordings I have waiting on the Sky box, a silhouette appears beyond the frosted window of the front door, and I remember, belatedly, and with some irritation, that I have arranged to spend the day with Sarah-Jane.
    For a moment I consider hiding from her, but knowing from experience that she too can probably see
my
vague form moving beyond the