The Lost Child (29 page)

When the time comes, I said, when he realises he needs help, at least the channels will all be open. And, you know, I am sure he will come to us. I just know he will.

His father sighed.

What?

Well, he said, but when?

I think it could easily be as little as three or six months away.

He laughed. A sad little laugh.

Are you mad? No way. I'm thinking more like ten years. At the very earliest.

My stomach turned.

Seriously? That's what you really think? Ten years?

He hesitated and he sighed.

You know, on a bad day, I mean a really bad day, I don't think I will live to see it.

You won't live to see him come off cannabis?

That's right.

But how long are you intending to live? You're only forty-seven, for goodness' sake!

He looked away. He looked at nothing for a long time.

You know what I mean, he said.

And what happens next?

I think he makes us tea. He hardly looks at me, instead he addresses the boy's father, who says all the right things. He's not unfriendly and he's not that friendly either - he's civil, placid, patient, waiting for the moment when this will be over, when we'll go.

He shows us some of his gadgets. I demonstrate enthusiasm for the bits of grey plastic, the buttons and lights. I tell him how great they are and we all laugh - the old feeling of judging his moods, of wanting to please him. I am thirteen again and I am sixteen and I am twenty-eight, a mother now, a parent. I remind myself of this as I look at his old hands, distorted by a long-ago encounter with a flaming chip pan, hooking the tea bag out of the thick brown tea with a spoon. The grey counter in his kitchen. A tin of baked beans. A bottle of whisky.

We ask if he'd like to hold his grandson. He says no, he wouldn't.

I would if he was a girl, he adds. I like little girls.

Later the boy's father can't believe this. He repeats it again and again to me, to others, to anyone who will listen. His family doesn't contain anyone who behaves like this. He has never met a man who would not melt when confronted with the small, warm, alive package that was his grandson.

I don't know how long we stay there but it's all perfectly civil, so civil I can't quite believe we managed it, and then we go. We say a pleasant goodbye. We almost shake hands, but not quite.

As we drive away with our baby - slightly hungry now, almost ready for a feed, strapped in his little car seat - I feel emptied out, numb. The boy's father tells me he did a clever thing. He left one of the boy's muslin wipes there, a clean one. He left it deliberately, on the sofa.

So he has a solid reason to get back in touch, he explains, clearly pleased with himself So he has something to return to us.

I try to imagine a world where this might happen. I tell him that was a good thing to do and, for a moment or two, I mean it.

But my father never gets in touch. He never returns the cloth. I send him a postcard and he never replies. That's the last time I ever see him.

I'm waiting for this fucking loan to come through, you see. They're fucking me about as usual. All I need is the deposit for two weeks' rent on this room in Bethnal Green -

We want to help you, I tell him, but we're not lending you any more money. Not because we can't afford it and not because you won't pay it back - though you won't - but because we no longer think that's the right way to help you. I'm sorry, darling.

But what the fuck! Do you want me to be homeless for ever?

Of course not. I very much want you to have somewhere to live. But I think you should get a job. You're nineteen years old and you're free all day. And if you can't get a job, then you should admit it's because you've got a problem. And if you want help with that, we are always here and we know exactly how to help you.

He laughs.

You always have to say it, don't you, Mother dear? It really is quite funny, that way you always have to come back to this. The same old story: my son the drug addict.

Have you ever thought that perhaps the reason I come back to it, is because it's true? Because that is the story?

Well, I'm sick of this story of yours, this idea that it's about drugs. if you want that to be the story then go away and write one of your fucking novels about it, OK?

Although the nature of panic is that it feels like an upwards are, it feels like it can only go on and on, building and building, that's actually not true. It doesn't. It builds and then it peaks and then it subsides.

You think it will go on and on, crescendoing, till it kills you. But it won't. In fact, if you think about it sensibly, the very fact that you are at its peak, at the worst bit, means you are almost out of it. The worse you are feeling, the more likely it is to subside.

The dark hole opens up, and then it closes again.

if you can remember this supremely comforting thought, if you can believe it, then you can deal with panic. I think I really do believe this.

I've started doing breathing exercises. Every day. Making time for them. Mostly managing to remember. Feeling the slow beat of my own heart. Staying with it, trying to breathe. Remembering I'm here, I'm me.

Last week I almost drove to Suffolk. I felt I could have done it. I will do it. I almost did.

She is close enough to me that I can see the softly curving detail of her. Close enough that the edges of our clothes can touch.

I'm trying not to let myself be too nervous, too daunted by her presence. I'm trying to remember that she's just a girl, a normal girl. Barely older than my daughter. A child, really. And anyway, I can't waste it. This is it. My only chance, a chance grabbed out of nowhere. After all this time, months and years, almost two hundred years, of waiting and searching, I really am finally this close to her.

I can see everything. The rough, dun-coloured wool of her shawl, a kind of fluted ribbon stitched around its edge, twisted where it's been pulled too tight. Her blue frock, dirt on its hem. The slightly frayed edge of her short cotton sleeve, threads unravelling, fabric so thin that the light bites into it.

I can see her bare girl's arms. Child's arms. Her skinny wrists. Thin and blue-veined. A long scratch on her hand, between thumb and forefinger, trying to heal but still pink and sore. On her left hand, a ring with an oval green stone. Shortish, oval nails, not that clean. The little finger on her left hand bitten right down.

If she looks at me, she can see my jeans - dark blue stretch jeans, five or six years old, tighter now, the knees worn pale. The edge of my mauve wool sweater. My tired, middle-aged hands, looking more unnervingly like my mother's hands every day. My wedding ring. The nails I used to bite but don't any more.

She can probably see the sharp little diamond that I wear in my ear lobe for weeks on end without taking it out. The small lines and creases that renew themselves more deeply every day on my face. The sweep of kohl and the skim of translucent powder, brushed under my eyes this morning, then forgotten about. The face I often forget to look at these days. The face I should take better care of Right now emptied out with tiredness. Emptied out.

I can smell her. The warm skin and hair smell of young girl, of hormones. And a faint smell of sweat too - not exactly stale, but not too fresh either. On top of that, a scent I think I know, but can't place. Something old-fashioned. Violet? Hyacinth?

I don't know what I smell of Prada perfume put on last night, probably. To me, I always really just smell of me.

I can see the curve of her pale lashes on her cheek. A small blue vein moving in her temple. A raggedy snag of skin where she has chewed her lip. A small pimple on her chin. Her pale, pale skin.

I'm trying not to stare too much, I really am. But after all this time, all this waiting, the close-up detail, the sheer, alive fact of her body right here next to mine - it's intoxicating.

I don't know who you are, she says stiffly, but I feel I know you. Please remind me how we met. Are you a London friend of my papa's?

I hesitate, unsure where to start.

We've never met before, I tell her, and she looks surprised, a little frown puckering her forehead. But we're not exactly strangers either. It's hard to explain exactly what we are.

She turns her gaze on me. Her grey gaze.

Well, I feel I know you, she says again. Please don't laugh.

Why would I laugh?

She bites her lip.

It's a bit of a puzzle, isn't it? Still, I feel quite comfortable with you-

Good. I'm glad.

But why are we here? Do you know why we're here?

The sound of her voice is strange. The faintest trace of an accent. Is it Norfolk?

I wanted to talk to you, I tell her as carefully as I can. I wanted to ask you some things.

She crinkles her nose.

You did?

Is that OK?

She thinks about this.

What's your name?

I tell her my name and she repeats it a couple of times.
Julie.
Julie.
It is the strangest thing I've ever heard. Mary Yelloly speaking my name.

It's a French name, she says then, eyeing me carefully.

It might be.

You're French?

Not exactly, no.

Not exactly?

I'm not at all French.

She smiles then and is about to say something else but has to stop and draw breath for a moment in order to cough. A ragged, tearing sound, deep in her chest. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. I wonder whether to say something, ask if she's OK. But I don't want to interrupt her smooth line of thought.

She regards me with solemn eyes.

I don't know how I know this, Julie, but - you have a child?

I take a breath.

Three, I say, I have three.

Ah. Three?

Yes.

She shuts her eyes for a second. Her skin is so pale you could put your fingers through it.

Well, I feel - please don't mind me saying this - but I feel there's a child that you're feeling very upset about.

I wasn't expecting this. I shiver.

Yes, I tell her. Yes. You're right. There is.

Well, he's very lonely, she says. I don't know how I know that, but I do. I think he wants you to know that.

I touch my fingers to the comers of my eyes, holding back the tears.

I'm so sorry, she says, I'm so sorry to have to tell you that about your own child.

I twist on the hard, slippery pew, feeling around in my jeans pocket for a tissue.

I glance to my left at the Yelloly tablets on the wall. I can't believe she hasn't noticed them. Her name on the wall. If she sees them now, I think, if she glances that way, then she'll know. It'll all be over then. She'll go.

What is it? she asks me. What are you looking at?

Nothing, I say, and then quickly, distracting her: Can I ask you something?

What?

Do you love Charles Tyssen?

She doesn't look at me, but I notice that the edge of her pale nose quivers.

My cousin Charlie? Of course I love him!

I sneak a glance at her.

Not like that, I say, I don't mean like that.

What, then?

Come on. You know what I mean.

She turns her head ever so slightly. Holding her breath as she inspects my face.

Charles, she begins, you know him?

I shake my head.

Not at all, I say.

The thing about Charlie is - he's so serious. So very tight and closed up and serious. He makes me shy. I never know what to say. He makes me feel -

What?

I don't know. (A little laugh.) How do you know about Charles?

Most of what I know is from a book, I tell her truthfully. Someone wrote a book about your family -What book? Who wrote a book? Oh, on account of my father, I suppose.

I say nothing. I let her think it. I mustn't tell her too much.

Well then, one thing your book probably won't tell you is that Charlie was a bit soft on me.

Was?

All his life. Since we were small. I think he's got over it now.

Ah.

Is that all you want to ask me?

I smile.

How many questions do I get?

She frowns and taps her fingers lightly on the back of the pew in front.

All right, I say, I have another.

About Charlie?

No, about Robert Suckling.

A long sigh.

Oh Julie, do I really have to talk about this now?

I'm sorry, I tell her, I know you must think it's none of my business. I must seem pushy. It's just - well, don't you see? This is my only chance.

What do you mean, your only chance? Only chance for what?

To talk to you. To know things.

But I'm always here.

Not always. Not for me, you're not.

She sniffs. Another little cough.

I'm sure I don't know why you're so interested in me.