S MAGAZINE ★ 26 MAY 2019 55
FICTION
© CLAIRE ALLAN 2019 / GETTY IMAGESSeven Years
everyone says that, but really, it
was. We hadn’t meant it. It was
an argument at the top of the
stairs. We’d been drinking. All
three of us. In the garden. The day
bright, warm, full of hope. Then it
went wrong.
We were drunk. Everything was
hazy. We’d moved inside. Upstairs.
We were on the landing. I think
I remember Ronan calling her
name, she turned to look at him,
her face puce with rage. I was
angry too for some reason but
I swear I only meant to nudge her
slightly as I walked past to go into
my bedroom.
But I misjudged it, and she
fell. On her knees, then face
forward, body twisting under her.
Screaming. Shouting. A thud.
A crack. My breath thick and fast
and panic. So much panic.
And Ronan saying he’d take care
of it. She’d still be breathing. And
then not. He’d taken care of it. We
just had to keep our cool.
And today, now they’ve found
her, we have to keep our cool
again. We’ve had seven years to
play the role of the grief-stricken
friend and brother. We just need
to keep it up.
Keep playing the game.Claire Allan’s new novel, Forget
Me Not (Avon, £7.99), is out on
Thursday. See Express Bookshop
on page 77.get together. Her best friend and
her big brother. “We could be actual
sisters then,” she would say.
Well, she got her wish. Her
disappearance bonded us.
It threw us into a media storm
together. Paired us as part of
the search party. It’s a strange
love that has been born out of
something horrible.
She had been gone just over
two years when we finally admitted
our feelings had grown. When we
finally allowed ourselves to think
we deserved to be something less
than miserable.
“We have to allow ourselves
to be happy,” he said. “She’d
understand.”
His words soothed me. I gave
myself permission to love him. To
let go of the guilt.
Most of it anyway. Some guilt
would always remain.
“Hey,” I say as I open the door
ready to pull Ronan into a hug. But
his face doesn’t look quite right.
His expression is strange.
Something has changed. Things
have shifted.
I’m not prepared for this. My
legs threaten to go from under me.
“When?” I ask. I don’t trust
myself to ask any more.
“This morning,” he says.
Everything fades out. Like
a curtain falling at the end
of a play. It’s over.
It had been an accident. I knowI might not jump each time the
phone rings any more – but that
doesn’t mean I don’t know the call
will come some day. It has to. Then
the nightmare will begin again.
We’ll be told of a gruesome
discovery. Some dog walker
uncovering remains, perhaps.
She’d been wearing a yellow
sundress when she went missing.
There’s a picture on my old phone,
which I’ve never been able to bring
myself to delete. Lizzy grinning, the
sun high behind her. Her Converse
sneakers crisp white. New. I
wonder what colour they are now.
“Lizzy,” I whisper to my empty
living room, where the ghost of her
still hangs thick in the air. “I miss
you.” I look around, half expect to
see her still sitting on my sofa,
even after all this time. Or dancing
in the middle of the room, my
coffee table pushed to one side.
Her face red and sweaty and her
smile wide, her laugh raucous.
I feel her absence like a punch in
the stomach. A blow to the head.
It disorientates me without trying.
I shut down my laptop, close
it, wrap my arms around myself,
shivering. I blink to chase her
ghost from my room and from
my head – but she never leaves.
My doorbell rings and I know it
will be Ronan. We spend this day
together every year. Remembering.
Lizzy had always harboured
some hope that Ronan and I wouldH
er name appears in
front of me. Has it really
been seven years?
I suck air into my lungs.
Remind myself to
breathe, just as I’d had to do then.
Over and over. Breathe through it.
The loss, the fear, the grief.
“You have memories with Lizzy
Boyle to look back on today,”
Facebook declares cheerfully in my
morning notifications. Her name
highlighted in bold, her account
still live. There’s an irony to that.
The person who disappeared
without a trace, seven years ago,
never to be heard of again.
To most people she is just a
sad story on a handful of missing
person websites and her Facebook
page. There have been a few new
messages posted to her page
since the last time I looked. From
friends, family. Saying how much
they loved her. How they miss her.
Begging her to come home.
My hands hover over the keys.
Should I type something? Would
there be any point? What would
I say?
Any leads the police had ran
cold years ago. Her mobile phone
remains unused. Her bank account
contains the same balance it
did back then, bar a few extra
pence of pitiful interest. No CCTV
cameras have captured her image
at train stations or in shopping
centres. She just disappeared.
The police believe she was
probably abducted. And is most
likely dead. They scaled back the
investigation after a few months,
then again after a year. They’ll issue
a renewed appeal for information
today. We’ll be lucky if it gets a few
column inches or more than 20
seconds on the news. Then she’ll
be forgotten again. Until next year.
Or until the day a call comes.The search for
Lizzy has gone
cold, but surely
it can only be a
matter of time...
Story by Claire Allan
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