Page 25 of The Housewarming

Matt doesn’t reply. Once Neil has taken against someone, it’s hard to persuade him otherwise. He’s the same if he decides he likes someone, as if once his loyalty is pledged, it’s immutable – and God knows, Matt has been grateful for that over the years.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Neil hands Matt one of two powerful flashlights.

‘The river,’ Matt says.

Neil nods grimly, and for the first time Matt wonders what he believes, whether he knows it’s a lost cause and, for the sake of their friendship, is humouring him.

They walk, updating one another on the day’s efforts. Neil tells him he’s cycled as far as Barnes, handing out the printed photographs, taping posters to lamp posts in Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, St Margaret’s, Richmond. He is hoarse – from asking questions, calling out Abi’s name, Matt supposes. He looks utterly drained. Of course. It is who he is. No one builds a business from scratch by waiting for others to do the work. Neil has created his life from nothing – with no family wealth, no father, no privilege; who else would he have relied upon if not himself?

At the lock, they head in the direction of the current, up towards Richmond, accessing the riverbank when they can, crawling through spindly trees, sharp-spoked branches, stopping, splitting up to explore the woodland on either side of the path. Matt’s eyes drift always to the river. If she has fallen in, she is lost. He wonders if he knows that this is what has happened, whether his conscious mind is refusing to allow it in, misdirecting him towards wildly optimistic possibility until he is ready to accept the more probable, more obvious truth.

At Ham House, they explore the car park and the hedges, scale the locked gate and run through the ornamental gardens calling her name. Up, up again, past the wooden jetty for the foot ferry over to Marble Hill Park. Up again, back from the river, down the ginnel that leads to Petersham Nursery. Knuckles white around the black iron gates –Do you think she could be in there? No, mate, I don’t think so.It has all been covered, by many dozens of people, and in daylight. What they are doing is senseless.

‘I’ve searched all of this,’ Matt says miserably as they tramp through the dripping gardens at the foot of Richmond Hill, rubbing at the crimson scratches on their hands and wrists. ‘I biked all up this way, and back down the other side, as far as Twickenham.’

But they do it again, like some hellish penance, their torches flashing in the dark, making everything look eerie and strange. Houseboats glow from within; a few stragglers stroll along the rain-soaked path by Tide Tables, the closed-up coffee shop under the arches of the bridge.

The rain holds off – just. Two hours later, dirty and dishevelled from scrambling in the muddy bramble-strung undergrowth, they are walking back down Cross Deep. The Alexander Pope pub looms up on the right. Behind glass, under yellow lights, people drink and chat as if nothing, nothing at all has happened.

‘Matt?’ Neil is scrutinising him. He realises he has stopped dead. ‘Have you seen something?’

‘The people,’ Matt says. He closes his eyes tight, opens them. ‘Sorry. It just looks weird. People… out.’

Neil claps him on the back. ‘Come on, mate.’

They dip into the grounds opposite – a manicured lawn with a children’s park at the far end, a little café. It is where they took Abi sometimes for a change – a short bus ride, part of the fun. He and Ava would get coffee and take turns pushing her on the baby swings, or gasping with proud surprise when she reached the bottom of the slide. Neil and Bella came with them sometimes, sometimes to Bushy Park, Richmond Park, once to Garston’s Farm to pick strawberries. It feels hazy, a memory of a life lived long ago, in another reality.

‘I used to feel inadequate,’ Matt says as they flash their torches over the sheer drop that is the edge of the path, into the water.

‘What? What about?’

‘When we came to the park. You and Bella always had so much energy for her. You were better at playing with her than we were. Than I was anyway.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘It’s true. I’d see you throwing the ball for her, teaching her to catch or twirling her about, and I’d think, I should be doing that, but I was too selfish. I was too tired. I’d be reading the paper and drinking my coffee, thinking how great it was to sit down.’

‘Mate.’ Neil stands square on to him. ‘That’s rubbish – you know that, don’t you? You’re her parents. It’s called having a break, yeah? That’s what me and Bel are for; we’re her godparents, aren’t we? Come on! We didn’t have the sleepless nights and all that lot. Don’t start beating yourself up about that. You’ll lose your mind.’

Matt nods, blinking away the tears that are pricking his eyes. His throat aches. Below the wall, the dark river rushes.

‘Do you think she fell in?’ he says, forcing himself to look Neil in the eye.

Neil frowns and glances away, across the river.

‘Let’s not think anything yet,’ he says, but Matt knows what he means. What he means is: yes.

Quarter to midnight, and the rain hardens. Their clothes are plastered to them, their hair flat against their heads. Rain runs in fat drops down their faces, falls from their noses, their chins, the bottom of their cagoules. They have reached Thameside Lane, and Matt finds he is weeping uncontrollably. Neil too is crying; Matt feels a kick of shock in his chest. Neil is crying even as he walks, his burly rugby player’s shoulders chugging with gruff, coughing sobs.

‘Oh man,’ he says, over and over. ‘I can’t believe it. I’m so sorry, mate.’

Matt puts his arm around him and together they stagger along, saying nothing. He has seen Neil lose it only once before: at school, when he missed a conversion that cost his team the match. Neil doesn’t cry; he just doesn’t. He is old-school: rugby captain for all five years of secondary, later a top first-team player at the local club, now a veteran, plus coaching the under twelves. His business has consumed a lot of his fitness this last year – he’s been drinking more, exercising less – but back then he was the scorer of tries, the downer of pints, pass me the yard of ale, as if even in drinking beer he was the winner. When Ava first met him, she nicknamed him Action Man, and his drive to make a success of everything has been the example Matt has tried to follow. I must be an OK bloke, he still thinks sometimes, if I have the friendship of a guy like Neil.

But now all Neil’s bravado is gone, as if washed away in the sheeting rain, as if it were only a superficial layer in the first place, no more a part of him than his clothes.

Matt stops walking, leans against his best mate’s shoulder. ‘I can’t go home. How am I supposed to go home?’

They hold on to each other. There is no pretence left. After a minute or two, they return to themselves and stand apart, wiping uselessly at their faces.

---