Chapter 22 #2
With the shop closed, I stood on the pavement and contemplated going home.
Richard would be in soon and he’d said he was going to cook for me, which was nice of him.
Probably his go-to of lasagne with red wine and garlic bread.
He was obviously really trying to make an effort and I appreciated that.
Even so, I didn’t want to go straight from the atmosphere at the shop to the flat, taking all this tension with me.
It was the last thing we needed on our first day back together.
I wandered vaguely instead, trying to dispel the lump in my throat and the twist in my belly.
I was thinking about what would go into arranging crochet and knitting classes at the shop and if the outlay on nibbles and drinks would be worth it, plus the extra electricity used being open for an added two hours.
The weather had turned sticky since the rain, humid and clammy. It wasn’t really great weather for a walk, much less in a long cardigan and UGGs, but I refused to give up. A bit of clean air would improve my mood, even though that air felt as if it had been recently microwaved.
It was hard to say whether I noticed I was walking towards the towpath or not.
Maybe it was intentional and I was just deluding myself, or maybe it was coincidence.
But I found myself walking that way anyway.
The canal was its usual languid self, green and still, aside from the dimples of water bugs and the occasional commotion of ducks somewhere under the willows.
A few decorations had escaped containment from the town centre and solar-powered light-up ghosts gathered under the trees.
There were mini-pumpkins and gourds along the back of the benches by the path.
The further I went up the towpath, the slower I was walking.
What if I met Cooper? What if I didn’t? What was it exactly that I was hoping for?
I could imagine bumping into him and getting a gruff apology for his snappiness yesterday.
Or he might just ignore the issue like my parents usually did.
What if he was still angry at me for prying?
If I did see him, I could tell him I was back with Richard. But why would I? It wasn’t even his business – and what reaction was I even hoping for? He wouldn’t care. I was literally a stranger to him.
I just missed him. Which was crazy. We’d barely known each other a month. I didn’t even know him at all. But still I wanted to see him, to talk to him. So badly that it made my chest hurt.
All of this was on my mind as I rounded the bend in the path and looked towards the viaduct.
My heart dropped and I felt for one horrible moment as if I might cry.
The strength of my reaction surprised me.
If I hadn’t spent the day walking on eggshells around Emma, perhaps it wouldn’t have hit me so sharply.
But, as it was, when I looked upstream and saw that the peeling green boat was gone, it felt like coming home to find my front door kicked in.
Like something safe and certain had been ripped away from me.
Even though it was pointless, I walked the rest of the way to the viaduct itself.
The boat was gone, with nothing but a flattened patch of yellowish grass to show where the boarding plank had been.
Not so much as a cigarette end to indicate that Cooper had been there at all. The thoughtful, civic-minded bastard.
What had I been expecting? A note addressed to me and weighted down with a stone?
Some sort of folksy sign of goodbye, like a whittled rose or half a Charles and Diana plate, split down the middle and left for me.
Matching the cup that was sitting on my bedside table, full of hair grips, making me smile whenever I saw it.
No, there was nothing. Not even a note about Charles the dog or what I should do if someone did message me about him.
Standing there like a lemon was just making me feel worse.
I walked back the way I’d come and sat down on the first scarred and well-scrawled bench I came across, my back to the cutesy pumpkins.
I didn’t want to leave the canal entirely.
That felt like giving up. Even though I knew logically that Cooper wasn’t about to come steaming upriver, having just popped to Asda in his home.
Was it my fault that he was gone? I felt my insides twisting about unpleasantly.
I’d asked questions about his past and tried to get him to be vulnerable with me.
Now he was gone. It was hard not to draw a line between those things and call them cause and effect.
He was obviously troubled by something, trying to leave something or someone behind. I’d got in the way of that.
But then, as my panic started to recede a little, I gave myself a little shake.
It was very self-involved to think that I was the sole reason Cooper might have left the area overnight.
He’d seen that car after all, that was why we’d had our falling-out.
That car that had been crawling down the street as if looking for something.
The car that didn’t belong in Leaford, as far as I could remember.
A cold little ball of worry settled in my chest. Had whatever Cooper was trying to get away from finally caught up with him?
The person in the car might have recognised him after all.
It had driven in the direction of the towpath and the car park.
The same way Cooper had bolted after I’d questioned him.
They could have parked up and seen him rush past, then followed him to the boat.
Who was it? I’d worried he was involved in something shady – something criminal. Perhaps he’d stolen money or fled debts and that was all catching up with him here. Maybe I ought to be going to the police and letting them know that he might have been kidnapped or forced to leave?
Then again, maybe his issues were more personal than that.
I had no idea if he had a wife or a child he’d run out on.
What if he was just a deadbeat trying to stay off-grid to avoid spousal or child support?
Someone had probably thought he was a good, safe bet, and he’d let them down.
Just went to show, you couldn’t predict the future. You just had to take a chance.
I stood up and dusted my skirt off. At the end of the day, was it any of my business?
Without any indication that Cooper was in real, imminent trouble, I couldn’t exactly alert the authorities.
It was probably just the local busybodies that had finally moved him on and he’d left because, well…
why would he stay? There was nothing to keep him in Leaford.
Nothing at all.