Private eye

When he went out that day he left his keys on the table near the front door. They were quite a heavy bundle, and he was in the habit of declaring them a hindrance—when off jogging or heading out to the allotment—and asking her if she would definitely be around later to let him in. She would almost always say yes: usually it was true; even if not, small tasks could often be arranged. It wasn't just that she preferred to help organize his day; she just wanted to be around to let him in.

That day, though, he hadn't hollered up to her before leaving. He hadn't even told her he was going out; she noticed as he pottered from room to room, barely registering when there was a rustle of papers or a brief clatter of cupboard contents. The next sound she remembered was the front door closing: engrossed in a supplement of the newspaper, she hardly registered it for a few seconds, then caalled out to confirm an empty house: "Matty?" Silence.

Now she was sitting at that table; a gateleg affair just tucked inside the living room, within throwing distance, and line of sight, of the porch round the corner. As such, it was the house dump; practically a utility room, at waist height, writ small. It held piles of papers, half-spent biros, bus timetables and office organizers crammed with useless stationery and old letters that might have once been important—wedding invites, or leaflets from the council about bin collection dates—had never been tidied or sorted. And a cracked ceramic saucer or dish, declaring its origin in blue brushstrokes as "RODOS ~ Ρόδος", containing a set of keys. Sometimes she frowned to herself; sometimes she lifted the keys to stare at them; sometimes both at once.

Where was he? What was he doing? And why had he left his keys? She tried to remember if there was some clue in what he had been wearing, but could only think in negatives: not his sports gear; nothing particularly smart, such as his work suit; yet not his old jeans and T-shirt, the uniform for a DIY day, either. Everything about him, his departure, and the day in general was an unremarkable blank: apart from the keys in the saucer.

Her distracted, fretful gaze settled on one item in the room, then another, looking for clues. The sofa, with pale salmon trim on its darker pink cushions. The newspaper rack, spilling over much as it had done yesterday, and the day before, with glossies and leaflets. The mug without a handle, the tip jar they always joked about—"if I got a tip like that I'd resign!"—full of shrapnels of change, paperclips, a radiator key. The vase of flowers on the edge of the hearth, its rounded glassiness distorting the stems of the lilies and the cordyline. Then back to the mug on the table.

In among the coins, but only just, was a folded piece of paper, crumpled into a zigzag. From her line of sight it was almost invisible. She gazed at it for almost a minute, hoping it would somehow unfold itself or better still turn into an illusion from the jumble of stuff in the mug. After nothing continued to happen she reached over and scrabbled in the mug, pinching the note between finger and thumb and lifting it out.

The paper was a scrap, tightly folded, lined. As she turned it over in her fingers trying to distinguish fold from edge she spotted some of his handwriting, some of hers, and another hand she didn't recognize. Piece after piece, word after word, revealed itself to her presbyopic eyes—"weekend", "bottle"—until it became clear: it was a shopping list. It was their shopping list, and the third hand—recording some alternatives for what wasn't available—was that of the assistant on the delicatessen counter. She even half-remembered what she asked for, but couldn't remember if they found it elsewhere.

But, her interests in the table's contents now piqued, she began sifting through the piles of post, bills, empty envelopes, notes to each other and other paper detritus. Another foreign script: this time scratched over the wide pores of good-quality printer paper. She peered at the tiny, beetly letters, scowled briefly, then reached backwards to her handbag. She tilted the chair onto two legs as she stretched further, almost too far; then she gave out a thin creak of effort from between her lips, snatched the glasses case from the bag, and thumped forwards again, the chair legs grinding back into the carpet.

She snapped the case open and put on her glasses, big on-the-cheek lenses which flashed as they settled against her face. The writing was clearer now, something to do with work. But that didn't mean it wasn't a clue, she thought, as she scoured it for meaning. Only towards the end did it become clear the memo was about a new-client meeting scheduled several weeks ago, and moreover it had been written by Boring Andrew: not a blackmailer; not a spy; not another woman. She tossed the paper back onto the pile, faintly embarrassed at herself, and rose from her seat.

Only her legs were now tangled under the chair, her feet hooked round each other. One hand landed on the table top to steady her, and also rattled everything else on it, including the mug, some pens and an old boiled-sweet tin that she was sure had last been in the car. She sat back down, picked up the tin, rattled it experimentally, almost brought it close to sniff it, then twisted the lid off to reveal only a handful of old nuts and bolts; some paired, some forever mismatched.

Fed up by now, she tossed the tin and its lid back down separately, one from each hand and a little too violently. A nut skipped out of the tin and rolled away down the back of the table to some sort of freedom below. She didn't bother to reach for it and didn't start once again to get up and leave the room for the rest of the house. Her mind was once again full of questions: where could he be without his car, without even his keys; what street was he rolling round; who was he with? She tried to picture him returning, tapping on the glass pane of the door, looking sheepish, explaining. It'd be something and nothing, she was sure. And he'd be back any minute.