For years Catherine had been the only constant in my life. We became inseparable the day our English teacher partnered us to study Macbeth. It was her brown curly hair and apple-cheeked smile that drew my eye. She wasn’t like her peers – she made no attempt to make herself look older by hitching up her hemline or undoing an extra button on her shirt. Her lips lacked artificial colour and she didn’t frame her eyes with mascara. Her clothes were fashionable and fitted but garnished with her own twists, like a rogue ribbon or belt. I liked that she was different because so was I.
My love wasn’t powerful enough to make my mother want to stay, so I was constantly amazed Catherine chose to remain by my side.
Many things tied us together, but I was especially struck by the way our home lives mirrored each other’s. Doreen destroyed my family, and Catherine’s was slowly disintegrating all by itself but without such drama. However, she never allowed her great sadness to define her. Somehow, she steered clear of the dark place where I dwelled.
And she seemed to know that she’d get everything she wanted from life in the end if she just believed. She inspired me to do the same – but, looking back, I wondered if she’d only wanted to fix me, and once I was repaired she lost interest. Because in the end, she turned out to be the same as everyone else who tried to break me.
But back then her strength and spirit had been infectious, and just being around her made me feel I could conquer the world.
And I did – only without her.
Miami, USA
4 June
I’d ordered my second bottle of beer from the server when a newspaper on the next table caught my eye.
I’d spent much of the morning tranquilised under the aquamarine sky of the beach in Miami’s Bal Harbour. Dana and Angie, two mischievous Canadian girls I’d met over a hotel breakfast, had kept me company. We’d just finished a lunchtime picnic they’d assembled at the beach. But when the still-soaring, ninety-degree sun started burning my shoulders, I swapped the sand for a shady café.
I’d avoided newspapers for much of my journey, preferring to remain oblivious to events outside my own bubble. But the date on the Miami Herald felt familiar. Then it struck me – I was now one year old. Exactly twelve months ago, I’d left my house and the people in it and was en route to a tatty old caravan park. If I’d known then just how magnificent life could be, I think I’d have left much sooner.
I put the newspaper down and stared at the endless ocean. My year alone had felt like a lifetime, but in a positive way. I wondered if Catherine was now feeling the same.
I recalled how, when we were just shy of twenty-three, I’d taken her to the local art-house cinema for a matinee performance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. We were almost a decade into our relationship, but still gravitated towards the back row like love-struck teenagers. I was in my last year at university and living with Arthur and Shirley. So until we bought the cottage together, our romance was restricted to stolen moments where and when we could find them.
‘Do you think we’ll get married one day?’ I asked the top of her head as it rested on my shoulder.
‘Of course,’ she replied without hesitation, clearly surprised I’d even questioned it. She pulled another toffee from the paper bag and popped it into her mouth.
‘When did you have in mind?’ I continued, trying to mirror her breezy mood.
‘Whenever you like. I’ve been waiting for ten years, but if I have to wait another ten I might run off with Dougie instead.’ I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon, I thought.
‘Okay, Kitty – will you marry me?’
‘Yep,’ she replied, without taking her eyes off Audrey Hepburn. Her cool facade was only belied by a squeeze of my arm.
That weekend we caught a train to London, still a place haunted by memories of my mother and biological father Kenneth, and returned with a modest gold band and tiny centred diamond that only the Hubble Telescope could locate. I was grateful I’d found a girl who didn’t need material things to feel self-worth.
Later that evening, I held Catherine’s hand tightly in the living room, where my father and Shirley were eating their Saturday night salad in front of The Generation Game.
‘We’ve got something to tell you,’ I announced. ‘We’re getting married.’
Our joy was greeted with silence. I hadn’t expected streamers and balloons to fall from the ceiling – a simple ‘congratulations’ would’ve sufficed. Instead, they looked at each other, then us, and then back towards the show’s presenter.
‘I’m going to head home, Simon. Come round later,’ Catherine suggested, sensing a shift in temperature. She pecked me on the cheek and left. I waited until the front door closed before I spoke.
‘What was that about?’ I began.
My father swallowed his food, placed his cutlery back on his tray and folded his arms.
‘Simon, you’re too young for marriage.’
‘I’m twenty-two. You were only a couple of years older than me when you met Doreen.’
‘Precisely. Catherine’s a lovely girl, but she’s not worldly-wise enough to settle down. The girls of today . . . they’re different to my day. They’re more spirited, they expect more from life. Sooner or later she’ll realise she wants more than you and then it’ll be too late. I promise you, she will break your heart.’
I swallowed hard.
‘She isn’t Doreen,’ I said. ‘Just because you drove my mother away doesn’t mean I’ll do the same.’
Both were too flabbergasted to respond, but I hadn’t finished.
‘I love Kitty, and I always will. There’s nothing that could happen to make either of us leave each other. Ever.’
I stormed out of the house still fuming and caught up with Catherine. If only I’d paused to listen to them instead of my heart before we walked down the aisle.
‘Darren, are you coming for a swim?’ Dana’s voice came from behind, bringing me back to the present.
‘Let me finish this and I’ll be with you.’
I liked answering to a different name. I swigged the final mouthful of lukewarm beer and cast a panoramic sweep of my surroundings.
‘Did you know it’s my birthday today?’
‘No way, dude!’ squealed Angie. ‘Guess what? We’ve got the best way to celebrate!’
Thirty minutes later and the three of us were in my hotel bedroom, snorting the first of many lines of a bitter white powder that allowed me to make love to them until late afternoon.
If my second year was to be as rewarding as the first, I was going to be a very lucky man.
Northampton, today
2.05 p.m.
She wasn’t sure what bewildered her the most about him – his seeming lack of regret for any of his actions, or his complete insensitivity.
First had come his disgusting admission that he’d wiped them all from his memory. Then came the all-too-detailed account of his life of Riley on his extended holiday. And now he’d desecrated the memory of the anniversary of his disappearance – such a pivotal moment in her family’s lives – by celebrating it with drugs and two tarts.