Missing You Read Online Free PDF Page A

cigarette or whatever he had. The ways Tomas, impossibly, tried to look after her.
    And always when Fen thinks of Tomas, she thinks of Joe standing just behind him, or beside him, watching.
    Sometimes all it takes is a small change in temperature, stepping from shadow into sunlight, and Fen will look around her, certain that Tomas is close.
    She waits and hopes . . .
    She hopes her brother has been wrested from his addictions and is drifting through some other continent, picking fruit, perhaps, or working barefoot in a beach bar. She imagines him in baggy swimming shorts, loose about his hips, and a shell necklace, maybe with long hair now, and a little beard, surfer piercings in his ear and eyebrow, tattoos on his arms. She hopes he has some good friends. Sometimes, if she’s in a nostalgic, self-pitying, sentimental frame of mind, she sits on the top step, outside the kitchen door, staring at the sky and wondering which constellations he sees at night.
    Mostly, Fen hopes only that Tomas is well and happy. She wishes he would come back. She wishes he would find her. Until he does, all she will have are her memories and her nightmares. She has had enough of those.
    Sometimes she can hardly wait for the day when he returns. She can’t wait to put things right.
    And sometimes she has to fight to make herself believe that day will ever come.

 
six
     
    There is a man in the drive sweeping up the first fallen leaves of the autumn when Sean arrives to visit Amy, and for a moment he thinks it is the Other. Anger rises up in him and he has a fantasy of swinging the car round and hitting the man. He would catch him hard on the thigh, throw him into the air, break both legs maybe. He imagines the Other sliding cartoon-like down Sean’s windscreen, the glass shattered, the frame dented, and the Other’s hands leaving bloody trails as he slipped into a crumpled heap on the ground. But the man looks up, and it’s not even a man, just an amiable boy, one of the three who live over the road – Chris, he’s called, or Nick, or Mark – with his woolly hat pulled down over his ears and his jeans sitting low on his hips. The boy holds up a hand in greeting and Sean salutes back, trying to keep the humiliation from showing in his eyes.
    Belle opens the door and a breath of warm, scented air drifts over Sean’s face.
    ‘Come in,’ she says, like it’s not his home, not his house, like his wages aren’t paying the mortgage. Her words are wounding, so is the cheerful tone of her voice; everything about her makes him feel crushed and also angry. Doesn’t she realize how diminished he feels, being invited into his home like a stranger? Why hasn’t Belle, blessed as she is with so much sensitivity and empathy, got a clue as to what’s going on in his head?
    He cannot bring himself to thank her. Already his heart is thumping and his mouth is dry. He steps over the threshold and follows the sound of CBeebies into the living room, where Amy is lying on the smaller of the two cream leather sofas, propped up with cushions and pillows and almost covered by her duvet. Her eyes are half closed and there is a bright red circle in the middle of each cheek.
    ‘Hello, sweetpea. Are you in the wars?’ he asks, and she nods solemnly.
    ‘I have a chest infection,’ she says, and she coughs with such polite theatricality that Sean has to turn his head to hide the smile. He catches Belle’s eye and they share a moment of parental harmony, and he thinks: This is stupid, this is Belle and me, we are man and wife, we are a pair, we are as one.
    ‘Cup of tea?’ asks Belle, turning towards the kitchen.
    ‘Please,’ he says and goes over to his daughter.
    Her eyes are runny and the lower part of her nose is sore and red, glistening with mucus.
    ‘You poor little bugger,’ says Sean, sitting down by Amy’s feet. He tweaks her toes. She sniffs and manages a brave little smile.
    ‘Are you staying for tea, Daddy?’
    ‘I don’t think so. But