The Lost Child (20 page)

And he eats spaghetti, because he always eats spaghetti white food, boy's food - and then, trying so very hard to be adventurous, instead of ice cream he orders his very first tiramisu. Will he like it?

If you don't, I'll eat it, his father says.

We wait. And he says it's the very best pudding he's ever had in his whole life. In fact from now on he's never going to order anything else ever again. And his father and I can't stop laughing as we try to picture it - this great long line of tiramisus, stretching on into infinity, waiting to be eaten by our boy.

But six years after that, I do something I never dreamed I'd do, something more painful than almost anything I've done in my life. I call his tutor, his nice, supportive, warm-faced tutor, and I tell her that, although our son's education has always been the thing we care most passionately about, we no longer mind whether he gets any A levels or not. All we want is for him to learn that, when school says there will be consequences, they mean it. We think it's time they excluded him.

I never thought I'd feel this, or have to say it, I tell her. Please believe me when I tell you it's the hardest thing for me, having to sit here and say this to you. But his father and I would really prefer that you expelled him. This is no longer just about education. We're seriously worried about the kind of person he's turning into. I care more now that he changes and sees the need to stop taking drugs. I want him to have a happy life. I want him to learn to be a good man, and, you know, A levels have started to seem a small thing next to that. And we don't think he's attending enough to get any anyway.

His tutor sounds a little taken aback. But she seems to listen and, at the end, she thanks me for talking to her so frankly.

When I put the phone down, tears are standing in my eyes.

I think she understood, I tell his father later, I really do. I think she knew I meant it, that I couldn't possibly have said all those things if I didn't.

And we wait for them to tell him the bad news. No more chances.

Not on a school night, says his father, no way.

Stop telling me how to live my life, he says. I'll have a beer if I feel like one.

He's standing near the fridge and we are by the cooker. I feel suddenly like I'm not there at all. As if I'm looking down on the three of us from above.

Carefully, I put down the wooden spoon I am using to stir the soup. Calmly turn off the ring.

On what basis have they given you another chance? I ask him.

He shrugs. He's still looking at the fridge.

As long as I go in, they won't exclude me, he says.

But they want a hundred per cent attendance?

I dunno. I suppose.

And do you intend to give them that?

He grins. I'll see how it goes, won't I? They can't tell me how to live my life any more than you can.

His father and I look at each other.

That's it, I say, we say. We can't do this any more. We're sorry. You're going to have to find somewhere else to live.

He stares at us. It's an old refrain but not one he was expecting tonight.

But I'm at school, he says. This is my education we're talking about.

You hardly ever go to school and you've just implied that nothing's changed. You don't plan to start attending properly now.

He smirks, but I notice he doesn't disagree. His father is silent, his head in his hands.

But - what am I meant to do? How am I supposed to go to school if I can't live at home?

You'll find a way, I tell him, surprised at how calm I sound, how powerful I feel. Honestly, you're a strong and healthy young man, you're extremely bright, creative and clever. You have so many resources available to you. Dad and I love you so very much and I used to be so worried for you, but I'm not any more. I'm actually more worried about Dad and me. Look at us. Look at him. We're exhausted. We can't do this any more. We need some time just to live. And I think you need to go out into the world and find your way. Really, I think you'll do fine.

He stares at me and I try to work out why this moment feels different from all the other moments. And then I know. It's the first time I've managed to ask him to leave without crying.

But a few nights (or is it weeks?) after that, I come across (or do I seek it out?) his little yellow cotton shirt, the one I decided to keep for ever because he'd worn it on that special night of tiramisu, the night that seems to be from some other mother's lifetime but was actually only six short years ago - in a drawer downstairs. And I sob.

I sob until my head hurts and my clothes are wet. I sob until I can hardly breathe. I sob so hard that the dog backs away, alarmed. And then I fold the shirt carefully and put it back in the drawer, wash my face, put on a clean T-shirt and go and make supper for my other children.

What would happen If we didn't see him, or If we forgot to look? Sometimes I think he would just light another cigarette and drive away, thinking, Oh well, that's that then.

One time we're all waiting there on a Friday night with our bags and there's a phone call- he always gets someone else to phone - to say he's not coming, he can't come, he has too much work on this weekend. The relief as I unpack my bag, putting my pyjamas back under my pillow, is massive, joyous, a feeling of holiday.

Another time, we're at his house and it's Saturday night and suddenly he looks angry and says we should pack up our things, he's taking us home.

I blush very hard even though I've done nothing wrong, and I go and pack. My sisters pack. We don't say anything, we just pack. And we have the hamster with us that weekend, so we pack him up too, put him in the hall by our bags, where, because it's quite dark in the hall, he starts going round and round on his wheel, oblivious to our father's mood.

Our father says it was actually the hamster that made him suspicious. He suspects our mother's gone away, gone off on some kind of a holiday, a dirty weekend. He doesn't see why, after all she's put him through, he should provide childcare. So he's going to call her bluff, send us home.

We wait as he picks up the phone and lets our home number ring and ring. He wants to see if she's there. Ring, ring, we can hear it ringing. What if she's out, what if she's gone to the cinema or something? And if she has gone away, what then? Will he make us go back and stay in an empty house?

We wait in the hall, watching his face. My heart bangs in my chest.

In the end, she picks up. I hear her voice. Straight away he puts the phone down, flinching at the sound, and for a moment no one says anything, standing there in that dark hall. Just the creak, creak, creak of our hamster's wheel.

His will tells me he left everything to his wife Frances Joan. And she died ten years after him, with probate granted to Mary Elizabeth Sanders-Hewett, nee Tyssen. Their daughter. A female Tyssen. An address is given.

Back at home, I ring Directory Enquiries and am immediately given a phone number. I dial it and, getting an answer phone, leave a brief message explaining about my book, and asking if this Mary Sanders-Hewett might possibly be related to the Tyssens who married into the Yelloly family.

Only an hour or so later, I find a message on my answerphone from a friend of Mrs Sanders-Hewett, who says she's house-sitting for her while they're away in New Zealand.

They're back in a couple of weeks, she says, and she'll be absolutely delighted to talk to you, I think. She'll find this very interesting indeed. What I mean is (a little laugh), that's right, you've got the right family.

He tells us we are insane. That we always have been. He threatens to carry out some damage to our property or to us. When we ask him not to threaten us, he tells us he means it.

I'll take a knife and stab you through the heart, he mutters at me during one conversation and for a moment I'm confused. I know he doesn't mean it. But if! heard someone say that to someone else, I also know I'd take it very seriously.

His father does take it seriously.

In that case, he says, forget it. Forget everything we've offered. Just leave. I mean it. Just go right now.

So he goes.

But not straight away. First he goes downstairs to the basement and plugs in his amp and plays the guitar loud enough to make our teeth hurt. And when his father turns off the electricity at the mains, and silence throbs through the house, he swears and kicks at a couple of doors, before he goes.

But he does. He goes. We are both surprised to get off so lightly. We ask him to please leave his key and he does. Just like that. I can't decide if this is less or more painful than the day we sat on the stairs and watched the locksmith slide a new slab of metal into the front door.

His father puts an arm around me, pulls me to him, gives me a hug. I'm too empty to cry.

I can't bear his threats. But as soon as he's defeated, I can't bear that either.

I go over and watch through the window as he disappears down the street. His brown jacket. One canvas bag. That slightly lopsided walk I know so well. But I don't make myself watch him turn the final corner. Before he goes out of sight, I move away.

I'm tired of punishing myself I'm really bored of it.

So is his cat. Straight away, like a wife who has got used to being dumped, then taken back then dumped again, she goes back to sleeping on our bed.

But this is all very exciting! I don't know if you realise that I'm the very last Tyssen?

Seriously?

Mary Tyssen was my maiden name. It's a bit sad, isn't it? None of us were male, so that was that. But we called our eldest son Sam, and one of our boys has Tyssen as a middle name, poor thing!

I tell her I'm in touch with the Yellolys, and julia is actually the last Yelloly too.

How incredible, she says. All these different branches of the same family who know nothing about each other.

She tells me she has a portrait of Samuel Tyssen.

A huge oil painting. It's on the upstairs landing - outside my daughter's room. She's always hated it. She says the eyes follow her! Oh, and there's something else. I've got a wonderful two-volume book about the Tyssens and Yellolys called
A Forgotten Past.

For a moment I'm thrown.

Two volumes? But - you mean by Florence Suckling?

That's the one.

But - well, that's very funny because I've got a copy of that too, but it's only the one volume.

Oh well, mine is definitely two volumes. They've been in my family for ever. They're bound in red leather and, well, fascinating, but kind of slightly cobbled together.

How do you mean, cobbled together? I ask her, allowing myself the faintest flicker of excitement.

Oh well, you see there are lots of different typefaces and even some handwritten bits. Photos stuck in too.

Photos?

Oh yes. Black-and-white, of course. Quite a few of them.

Of people?

A few of people, yes, but also, as far as I can remember, of various family treasures, bits and pieces, jewellery and so on.

Relics.

But, I say, as my heart speeds up, so you mean yours isn't printed? You're saying it's not like mine, which is a published book?

Um - no, not really. It's more like a scrapbook kind of thing.

I tell her it sounds like the original manuscript of Florence Suckling's book.

It might be. It's hard to describe - you'll just have to come here and have a look at it, won't you?

Her first grandchild. She was widowed for a few years, and had nursed her husband through a long final illness. When our boy was born, she suddenly got younger. I had always liked my shy, elegant Australian mother-in-law. But the practical, loving, unconditional help she offered me with all my babies sealed our friendship and made me love her.

And even though there are six grandchildren now, our boy is still the first. She seems to let him walk all over her in a way she lets no one else. And he in return seems to tolerate her endless fussing with a patience he shows no one else except (sometimes) his cat.

At three years old, he satin his navy-striped dungarees at the little red plastic table she bought specially from the Early Learning Centre and crayoned pictures which she stuck to her fridge. At ten or eleven, he weeded her flowerbeds. At fourteen he showed her (again and again, with extreme patience) how to use a computer. At fifteen he programmed her video recorder.