Missing by Alison Moore

Author:Alison Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Salt Publishing Limited
Published: 2018-05-16T13:33:58+00:00

Outside The Bourtree, they crossed the road to the fish and chip shop and ordered fish suppers. Music was playing behind the counter; the track that came on while they waited was a twenty-first-century remix of an Elvis Presley track whose original version Jessie had known in her youth.

A lone woman came into the shop, heard the music and began to sing along; she danced up to the counter, where she said rather breathlessly to the man who was parcelling up the fish suppers, ‘They’ve found him, did you hear?’

‘Found who?’ asked the man.

‘A homeless man was just found dead in New York and his dental records prove it’s Elvis.’

‘Is that right?’ said the man. To Robert and Jessie, he said, ‘Anything else?’

Robert asked for a pickled onion with his fish supper, and Jessie asked for one too. It was not something that she would normally have asked for in a fish and chip shop, although she had loved pickled onions as a child. She was not sure why she had asked for one now, just because Robert had.

‘They’ve had him living under a witness protection programme since 1977,’ said the woman. Jessie wondered what it would be like to be one of the very few people to know something like that, to know that Elvis had never really died.

Outside, Jessie and Robert found a bench to sit on. When they opened up their fish suppers, Jessie was taken aback by the size of her pickled onion.

‘It’s the size of a baby’s fist, that one,’ said Robert. ‘It’ll bring tears to your eyes.’

Jessie touched her teeth to the skin, tasted the vinegar, and then found that, in fact, she could not face it.

‘I’ll take it off you,’ said Robert. He took it and put it with his own.

They ate their fish, and Jessie was reminded of the summer she turned eighteen, of kissing Brendan by the river right after he’d had a fish supper, and afterwards, when Jessie was home again and alone in her bedroom, she had found a tiny piece of cod in her mouth.

‘What work do you do?’ asked Jessie.

‘Social services,’ said Robert.

‘I imagine that’s a difficult job,’ said Jessie.

‘It can be,’ said Robert. ‘A lot of people hear “Social Services” and think of someone coming to your door, wanting to take your children away, or to take you away. They think of the outreach worker coming for your loved ones, coming for you.’ He picked up Jessie’s pickled onion and ate it in two bites.

‘I ought to be getting home,’ said Jessie, folding the paper around the remains of her fish supper. Robert was just about done with his too, and they both stood and took their litter to a nearby bin.

‘I’ll walk you back,’ said Robert.

‘No,’ said Jessie. ‘Don’t do that. I’m only a minute from my door.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘I’m sure,’ she said. She did not set off though. They were standing near the Horse, and Jessie looked up at it, at the rider on horseback.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.