The Disappeared Read Online Free Page A

ambitious girl, who would use whatever opportunities came her way for her own advantage. To win her he must be useful to her, and he studied how it might be done.
    At first Muhibbah would not invite him into her retreat. She lived in a long street of terraced Victorian houses with abbreviated front gardens, most of which had been paved over as carports. When he rang the bell for the upstairs flat there would be a drumming of feet on the carpeted staircase before she opened the door with a quick pull on the latch. She did not greet him but began walking immediately, her bust tightly pressed into a turtle-necked jumper, her narrow waist contained by a flimsy skirt over loose Indian trousers. The colours she chose were dark shades of blue and grey and her black hair was drawn back and pulled through a wooden ring at the nape of her neck. It was as though an injunction had been granted against her body, and only the face was allowed.
    When they had turned the corner towards the city Muhibbah would engage him in conversation. She had no small talk, and she held her face away from him, as though studying the sky as they walked. Always she spoke correctly and grammatically, without the Yorkshire accent that had been the lingua franca at St Catherine’s Academy, where she had gone to school. She was eager to learn new words, and would practice them as soon as she picked them up. She wanted to know about universities and what you learn in them; about his career and how he got into it; about his kind of music and whether it was hard to play; about how you save money and whether it is wise to invest it. She did not say much about herself, although what she said was intriguing. She was an atheist, a free thinker, a modern person. She counted her escape from family, religion and the ‘stink of the
mzrab
’ as a necessary first step to becoming herself. He asked what the word meant.
    â€˜It’s Arabic,’ she said. ‘Means stream of dirty things.’
    â€˜Gutter?’
    â€˜Maybe. Gutter. That’s a good word.’
    She laughed suddenly, as she sometimes did at the sound of unfamiliar words. In those moments she seemed to him like a child, delighting in discoveries. But she kept her laughter to herself, and showed no desire to share it with him: she was laughing at him, not with him.
    It was a warm evening in October, two months after their first meeting, when she invited him in. There was something she wanted to show him, about which she needed his advice. A strange trepidation seized him as they entered. In the past, invited home by a girl, he would not hesitate to seize the advantage. With Muhibbah this was inconceivable. He must put on a mask of reserve, and forbid his eyes to stray to anything that might be part of her privacy or proof of her sex. She opened the door to the upstairs flat with a key that she took from her trouser pocket, and went in without a word of invitation, as though into a place of work. They were in a large sitting room with a bow-fronted window overlooking the street. Three doors led from it and she pointed to them one after the other.
    â€˜That’s Millie,’ she said, ‘and that’s Angela. And through there is the kitchen, the bathroom and me.’
    He nodded and looked down at his hands, afraid that they might reach out to touch her, without permission from his soul. It was the first time that he pictured himself in those terms, as a creature with a soul. And he wondered at Muhibbah, that she had placed this antique concept in his thoughts.
    â€˜Sit down. I’ll make some tea and bring you the things I want to show you.’
    She went quickly into the kitchen, closing the door behind her. Justin sat in a loose-covered armchair in the window. He tried to fix his eyes on the street, but they strayed over the room, looking for traces of Muhibbah. He saw a television in one corner, and a sofa lined up for watching it. There was a glass-topped coffee table