The Lost Child (26 page)

Her car skidded off the road at 10.20 p.m. I think it was a Friday. She was alone. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

I try to remember what she was like. All I get are flashes of her energy. The bounce of her dark, shoulder-length hair. Some kind of puff a jacket she wore. And I think of her two boys, the big boy who must be our boy's age now, and the smaller one who was so very nearly my godson.

Do you think he got another godmother? I ask the boy's father. Do you think I ought to try and make contact?

He looks at me as if I'm mad.

After all this time, that would be entirely the wrong thing to do, he says.

He's right, Of course. And it takes me longer than maybe it should to see what this is really all about. That it's not about her at all, but about me. Me and my boy. Like just about everything else these days, every trail, every thought, every tangle of feeling leads straight back to him. My craving for what he was, for what we had.

Because, when I think about my friend, what I see most clearly isn't us, but them. Not her, but him. Our two boys. And the sheer, uncomplicated happiness of those days when, yelling and bumping around together, they'd beg to be allowed
just one more half-hour, pleeease!
before we'd peel them apart and, laughing, take them home.

It was hopeless. His father was away working abroad and so I was alone and he cried and cried. Nothing I could do would make him stop. And I was twenty-nine and a new mother and all alone and it was a hot, light May evening similar to the evening eighteen years in the future when he would turn around and hit me so hard. But right now he was tiny and he was crying and I just didn't know what to do.

I fed him, I changed him, I burped him, I soothed him, and he screamed and screamed. I put him on the bed. He screamed. I picked him back up off the bed. He screamed on my shoulder, great gusty sobs that shuddered through his whole small body. I kissed his face and held him right out in front of me and tried to make him look at me, but only his mouth was open. Eyes tight shut, his whole face given over to screaming. I felt like shaking him but I didn't. Instead I began to sob.

And at that moment, his grandmother, my mother-in-law, happened to ring. Hearing the screaming and also the tears in my voice, she took command.

All right, she said, now listen to me. You're going to do exactly as I say.

OK.

First, you're going to put down the phone. Then, while I wait on the other end, you're going to pick up the baby and you're going to walk very calmly to his room and put him down in his cot. Then you're going to shut the door and come back here and sit on the bed and pick up the phone again. Do you think you can manage that?

Still crying, I told her I thought I could.

The screaming continued while I put down the phone and did as I was told. It continued and then it slowed down and almost stopped. Then it started up again, then it almost stopped again. I held the phone to my ear and used the other hand to grab a bunch of tissues and dab at my eyes.

All right?

Yes. Thanks.

Has he stopped?

Not quite.

Now, when you say goodbye to me, you're going to go and run a nice deep bath and pour yourself a glass of wine. Then you're going to get in that bath and - even If he's still crying - you're going to try really hard to drink the wine and take some deep breaths and wait for him to stop. Because he will stop, you know. He'll fall asleep. He's exhausted, the little monkey. But you know something, so are you. You're shattered. And you need rest as much as he does. And I'll tell you something else that's worth remembering. No baby ever died of crying.

Having got that far, I call him throughout the day to try and arrange it but his phone's always off So I send him a text. Then another.

Don't chase him too hard, his father warns.

In the end, at about four-thirty, he calls me.

Can you call me back? he says.

I dial. It's an 0208 number. I think I recognise it as Brixton or Streatham.

Where are you? I ask him.

Oh, just somewhere.

Are you OK? I've been trying to get you all day.

Yeah. Sorry. Phone's not charged.

You sound tired.

I've only just woken up.

But it's almost five.

Yeah well. I didn't get to sleep till late.

Why? What were you doing?

I was all over the place. Look, Mum, I wondered if! could ask you a favour?

Sure, I say a little cautiously. What is it?

But I only want a yes-or-no answer. I don't want any of your negotiations, OK?

What's the favour? I say again, as his father looks up from reading the paper and starts to shake his head.

He explains that he's behind with his rent. Because the Benefit Office owe him such a backlog. He has literally no money.

Are you managing to eat? I ask him straight away.

Yeah yeah, but you see it's not very fair on my landlord. So I wondered whether as a gesture of good faith you and Dad could just give him a cheque for £500. He wouldn't cash it, of course. I just think it would make him feel more secure, that's all.

I pause. I ask him whether the landlord knows he somehow managed to afford a £200 ticket for the Reading Festival only a few weeks ago.

That's hardly relevant.

I'm not sure your landlord would agree with that. I think it's actually very relevant indeed, since it's what you've spent your Benefit on.

Oh come on!

And anyway there's really no such thing as a cheque that someone doesn't cash. What I mean is, he would almost certainly cash it and I wouldn't blame him, not if you owe him rent. And remember, I continue, that you already owe us more than £ 1,000 in rent from the flat you were evicted from. We're not even counting the cost of the termination -

No, don't you see - if you'd just try and start paying a little of that back - just £ I per week would do, as a gesture of good faith - then we'd be able to lend you more.

I just can't believe you won't fucking well help me - You have no idea, I say softly, how much we want to help you.

Well, I said I wanted a yes-or-no answer, he reminds me angrily.

I'm afraid it's a no, then.

I ask If we can arrange lunch tomorrow. He says he doesn't know what he's doing yet, that he'll have to see.

Anyway, he adds, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I've been getting pretty wasted in the day.

Wasted on what?

You know on what.

You mean cannabis?

You know I do a lot of other drugs too. For God's sake, Mum. Don't pretend you don't know that.

And he hangs up, leaving me bruised.

When I tell his father about this, he smiles, a long sad smile.

Oh darling, but don't you see what he was doing?

What?

Don't you realise he did it on purpose?

He did?

Of course he did. He knows how that would make you feel, to hear that about drugs. And you refused to give him money, and so he punished you. He knows exactly how to make you hurt.

And then one of the guests, a sharp, attractive woman with fair hair, whose job is something to do with theatre in education, asks if our eldest has applied to university yet.

I try to do what we always do with strangers. Tell just enough of the truth not to have to tell a lie, then move on.

Actually, the boy's father often doesn't even do this much. Often he's all for saying nothing, or even lying if necessary. What's the point? he says. Why should we let this become the narrative of our lives?

He's right, of course. All he wants is some time off But I find it very hard to lie successfully.

He's dropped out of school, I hear myself telling her. And he's not living with us at the moment. He has quite a big problem with cannabis.

The table goes quiet. I realise how what I just said sounds.

Just cannabis? someone says, as they always do. And I can feel it starting. That's not so bad then, someone else will say. It's a phase they all go through, another will add. All well meant. Intending to reassure. Instead:

Does their school have a drugs problem? someone asks me and I think for a moment.

Not really, no. There are drugs, yes, obviously, as in all secondary schools, but I wouldn't call it a problem.

Oh come on, says the theatre woman, I know that school. I've done some work there. It's full of drugs -

Oh no, I reply, I really don't think so. And anyway that's not where he started smoking -

It was some kids from a public school, a boarding school, actually, his father tells them with a bitter little laugh. People he hooked up with in the holidays.

But the woman insists she has good reason to believe the school does have a significant drugs problem.

But surely no more than any other London secondary school? I hear myself protest.

Oh, yes, I would say so.

And my heart sinks and I can't work out why. Does she think she's somehow doing us a favour, shifting the blame on to the school? I think of the calm, hard-working, sedate and thoughtful place we've been sending our children for the past few years. Then I remember the blank, well-meaning faces of the teachers as we tried to tell them how worried we were about our child. I push that thought from my mind as a hard lump of panic rises in my throat.

I just don't think we can blame the school in this, I say and I throw a beseeching look at the boy's father, who, to my dismay, chucks it straight back.

And I see that he's listening hard to what the woman is saying now and, arms folded, frowning and nodding. How can he do this? I hear him telling her he thinks she may be right. may be the school has had a role to play.

But, I begin to say, it's not the old-style cannabis but skunk we're talking about.

Oh yes, someone agrees. That stuff is lethal.

Lethal, yes. Suddenly I feel so tired.

And maybe she notices the expression on my face, because now she's telling me that her own children are younger, admittedly, they haven't hit that age yet.

So you see, she continues, her eyes alive and ready for more, this is all very interesting to me.

Go away, I think.

She waits for me to say something.

I'm finding this quite hard to talk about right now, I tell her. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you how stressful and sad all of it has been for us. There's so much other stuff - stuff that you don't even know.

The whole table is silent and the boy's father is looking at me. The look is the equivalent of a kick on the shin.

I'm sorry, I say.

And I pick up a napkin and put it to my eyes because for some reason now I'm crying. How did that happen? Our hostess reaches out and rubs my shoulder.

Hey. I'm so sorry, she says.

And theatre woman leans across and also gives me a kindly look.

It's OK, she says,I do know how you feel, you know. My son's dyspraxic. What I mean is, I know what you're going through.

But she was attacking me, I say, feeling the frustration rise again. I didn't mean to be rude but I just couldn't take her fucking superior attitude.

She wasn't attacking you at all and you were rude. You brought the subject up -

Only when she asked me -!

Yes, but you didn't have to tell her anything at all and yet you chose to. You can't blame the poor woman for not knowing the whole story. She was just trying to engage with you, that's all.

Hmm. Well, may be I don't want to be engaged with.

Silence as the red and blue lights of late-night London arc and bend across the cab.

I still think you could have stuck up for me, I tell him. Whether or not you thought I was right. Couldn't you see I was upset?

Yes, I could see that and I was trying to calm you down.

Oh great. Thanks very much.

Come on. He puts a hand on my knee. There's no need to be like that.

I pull my knee away and sigh.

I'm just so sick of trying to explain this thing to people. I don't want to know what they do or don't think. I just don't want this to be the story of our lives.

It's not the story of our lives. Don't be so dramatic.

OK, I don't want it to be how things turned out, that's all.

He looks at me for a moment in the half-light and I've no idea what he's thinking.

Well, let me see, she says, there were, if! remember rightly, two charts. One I think was made in the 1960s and another in the 1980s. We tried hard to do an updated version - some of the stones are really incredibly hard to decipher - but we tried. I'll look on the charts and see if! can see any Yellolys, and if! can, well, you're very welcome to borrow them - the charts, I mean. I expect you'd want to go up to the church and have a look, wouldn't you?

I thank her and arrange to phone on Thursday morning before I set off- just to check she's actually found the charts.

It's all very exciting, she tells me. I only hope I can be of help to you, that's all.

But Wednesday night she calls me to say she's already looked at the charts in detail and there's not a single Yelloly on them.