Elizabeth Is Missing Read Online Free PDF Page A

garden (Elizabeth’s taken cuttings every year, but they always fail).
    Elizabeth’s house is white-painted, with double-glazed windows. The net curtains give it away as being the home of a pensioner, though of course I can hardly criticize, having them myself. It was built just after the war, finished in 1946 as part of a street of new homes, and the garden wall has never been changed. The first owner cemented coloured pebbles to the top and no one has ever removed them. Elizabeth wouldn’t dream of having them chipped off now. I was always curious about these new houses as a girl, and I remembered this one especially, because of the pebbled wall.
    I ring the bell. “It echoed through the empty house.” The phrase bubbles up from somewhere, but bells always echo through houses, surely? Empty or not. I wait, and work a hand deep into one of the earth-filled barrels by the front step. These are usually crammed with flowers, but not even a green shoot breaks the surface now. Elizabeth must have forgotten to plant any bulbs this year. I pull my hand out quickly. I can’t think what it was doing in the soil. Was I just feeling for bulbs, or am I supposed to be looking for something else?
    I face the door, wondering how long I’ve waited here. Five minutes? Ten? I check my watch, but it doesn’t give me any clues. Time is so elastic now. I ring the bell again, carefully making a note of the time, and then watch the second hand as it moves round. After five minutes I write: No sign of Elizabeth , and begin to walk away. Perhaps she is on holiday, as someone suggested. Or is staying with her son? But I would have written that down, I’m sure of it. I keep old notes like that. These little snippets of news are things to talk about, as well as information for myself. “Do you know, Elizabeth’s gone off to the South of France?” I might say to Helen, or “Elizabeth’s staying with that son of hers,” I could tell Carla. News of that kind is valuable. Helen has been known to stay an extra thirty seconds for it in the past.
    So I know I’m not forgetting this time. Elizabeth must be missing. But all I’ve established so far—all I’ve proved—is that she is not at home this minute.
    At the gate I have a thought, and I turn back to look in through the front window. Pressing my nose against the cool glass and cupping my hands round the top of my head, I can just see through the net curtains. They give the dark room a misty quality, but I can make out the empty chairs and plumped cushions. Her books have been pushed neatly into their shelves and her collection of majolica pots and vases and tureens stand in a line on the mantelpiece. “You never know,” Elizabeth always says, after she’s done laughing at my reaction to the veiny ugliness of a moulded leaf or the sick-makingly intricate scales of a fish, “one of them might be worth a fortune.” She can’t see the things properly, of course, only a vague brightness of the colours, but she likes the feel. The animals and insects in relief. She can trace the contours where they rise from the surface of the pottery, the glaze almost as smooth as a frog’s skin, almost as slippery as an eel’s. She lives in hope of discovering one that’s really rare. And the promise of money is the only reason her son allows her to keep them. Otherwise they’d be in the wheelie bin without a word.
    I take out a thick pen and a bright yellow square of paper ready to articulate my meagre findings: Very tidy . No Elizabeth, no lights on . Backing away, I stumble into a flower bed, and my foot sinks into the soil, leaving a perfect print of my shoe. Good thing I’m not planning anything criminal. I walk carefully around the edge of the bed, to the side of the house, and look in through the kitchen window. There are no net curtains here and I can clearly see the bare wooden worktops and gleaming sink. No food out in kitchen , I write. No bread, no apples . No washing up . It’s not