The Marriage Mender (18 page)

‘I’ve got no idea, to be honest. I was going to ask if you could think of anywhere he might go. Anywhere he talked about.’

She shook her head. ‘Not really. Have you tried his mum?’

‘I haven’t got a number for her,’ I said. ‘Or an address even. He never took you there, I suppose?’

‘No. He said he wanted to keep her separate from other stuff. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘as far as I’m concerned, you’re his mum.’

I smiled at her. ‘I don’t think he’d have gone there, anyway,’ I said. ‘Not after what she said.’

‘He said last night he never wanted to see her again in his life.’

I nodded, grateful for the information. ‘Let’s swap numbers,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything. With any luck he’ll be back by tonight.’

She got out her mobile and keyed in my number. ‘Shall I tell your mum on the way out?’ I asked as she sent me a text. ‘Can you talk to her about stuff like this?’

‘A bit, maybe.’

‘Good. Only I want to make sure there’s someone here to support you. I’d better be getting back. Just in case, you know …’

She nodded. ‘Does Matilda know yet?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Chris doesn’t even know. I came straight here.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice quivering.

I gave her another hug. ‘He’ll come back,’ I said. ‘Because of you. I know he will.’

She nodded, because she wanted to believe it. Like I did.

* * *

The house was empty when I got home. Empty was different to nobody being in. I went back outside and sat on the bench in the garden. It was better like that. I felt closer to Josh, wherever he was. Scenarios started flashing through my mind: I saw him on a train, leaning his head against a window; on a coach, squashed up against a fat man with a carrier bag full of lager; walking along a road somewhere trying to hitch a lift. The one thing I didn’t see in my head was Josh coming home.

I shivered, not wanting to think about the night ahead, about where he might spend it. I sat and stared out into the distance, watching and waiting until finally the figure of a man could be seen striding towards me in the distance. The weight of responsibility, of guilt, weighed heavily on me. I was going to stand up and do what was
right, though. Take whatever was thrown at me. Knowing the punishment would still nowhere near fit the crime.

The figure was nearer now, much nearer. I saw him looking, straining his neck, no doubt wondering what on earth I was doing sitting out there on my own. I pulled my jacket further around me as the sun dipped behind a cloud. I waited until he rounded the corner, came up the path and was standing in front of me before I looked up at his face. When I did so, all I could think was what a shame it was. The walk had done him a power of good; the pain was still there, but he wasn’t smothered by it. He had managed to shake a little off, to allow the tiniest chinks of light, of hope, to show through. And now I was going to snuff them out again. And this time no amount of walking would put them back.

‘Josh has gone,’ I said, my voice steadier now that I had already said it a couple of times.

‘What do you mean “gone”?’

‘He wasn’t in his room this morning. He’d taken his rucksack and a lot of his clothes. He left this note.’

I handed the by now crumpled piece of paper to him. I wished Josh could see it, watch the faces of the people who loved him as they read it, feel their fingers tense on the paper, see the fear gather in their eyes.

Chris looked at me. ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’

‘No, I know,’ I said. ‘Nor did I.’

‘Where’s Matilda?’ he asked.

‘At Debbie’s. She doesn’t know. I managed to get her out of the house without realising.’

‘Who have you tried?’

‘I went to see Caitlin. She knows nothing. He’s not answering her calls either. She’s got my number in case he contacts her.’

‘What about Tom?’

‘I’ve left a message with his mum. She’s pretty sure he hasn’t heard from him. Although she clearly doesn’t know what happened.’

‘Lydia?’

I shrugged. ‘I haven’t got a number for her. Or an address. And given the state he was in, I don’t suppose Tom will be able to remember where he went on Friday night. I don’t think Josh would have gone there, though. Caitlin doesn’t either. According to her, he said he never wanted to see her again.’

Chris sat down heavily on the bench next to me. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose we could ring the police.’

Chris shook his head. ‘Not yet. It’s not as if he’s disappeared or anything. He left a note. And he’s over sixteen. They probably wouldn’t be bothered. Especially when we tell them why he’s gone.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Well, if Lydia’s telling the truth, Josh isn’t related to either of us.’

‘She’s not, though.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I’ve known him since he was six years old. I’ve seen him grow more like you every day.’

‘Yeah. Because he lives with me. It could be nurture, not nature.’

I shook my head. ‘He’s got your lips, for goodness’ sake.’

‘They’re not particularly unusual lips. Half the population has got lips like this.’

I sighed. Decided to try a different tack. ‘Have you ever had any reason to doubt that he was your son before?’

‘No.’

‘There was nothing suspicious going on at the time?’

He shook his head.

‘The dates on her pregnancy added up and everything?’

‘Yeah, I guess so. Although I don’t even remember thinking about it at the time.’

‘Then why on earth should we believe her?’

‘Because of the way she said it. The way she blurted it out, like she didn’t really mean to.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t buy that. The only reason she came up with it was because she had to distract Josh from the fact that she had slept with his best friend.’

Chris sat there staring out at the hills. ‘The thing I don’t get,’ he said eventually, ‘is what the hell she was doing sleeping with Tom in the first place.’

‘She was pissed off with Josh,’ I said. ‘Because he stood her up to go to the party with Caitlin.’

‘How do you know that?’

I shut my eyes. I was going to have to tell him. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. But I was astute enough to know that his reaction was not going to be pretty. Or quiet.

‘We’d better go inside,’ I said.

I stood up and headed towards the door. Chris followed me through to the kitchen without a word. I turned to face him. It seemed the decent thing to do under the circumstances.

‘Josh was supposed to be seeing Lydia on Friday night but he wanted to go to the party with Caitlin instead. I told him to call his mum and explain, I said she’d understand. I’m sorry. I should have realised she’d take it badly.’

Chris was staring at me. ‘You knew he was seeing her again?’

I sighed and tugged at my hair with my fingers. ‘I saw Caitlin in Hebden one afternoon when he was supposed to be out with her. I made him tell me where he’d been. He begged me not to tell you. Said there’d be a massive row and it would mess up his revision. I agreed on the condition that he told you as soon as his exams were over and that, in the meantime, he kept me informed of exactly when he was seeing Lydia.’

My words felt like they had run out of fuel. It was hard to believe now that they had always sounded so sensible in my head.

Chris was still staring at me. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

‘You knew. You knew he was seeing Lydia behind my back.’

I nodded.

‘How long for?’

‘Almost a month.’

‘Fucking hell.’ He shook his head over and over again as he paced about the kitchen.

‘I wanted to tell you, I really did. But everything was going so well and Josh was happy and you were happy. And the last thing I wanted to do was spoil all of that.’

‘So, basically, you thought you knew best.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No, but that’s what you meant. You made a judgement that I didn’t have the right to know what my son, or the boy who I thought was my son, was up to.’

‘That’s not how it was at all.’

‘Well, that’s what it sounds like to me, Ali.’

‘It was only temporary. Until his exams were out of the way. I didn’t want him to end up as miserable as Alicia. And I made him promise to tell me if Lydia started drinking again or messed him around.’

‘Yeah, and that worked, didn’t it? That really worked.’

‘I had no idea it was going to end up like this. If I had done, I would never have agreed to it.’

‘So how did you think it would end up? That we’d all go for a cosy little summer holiday together?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You knew what she was like, Ali. You were there on Christmas Day. You saw how quickly she can change. How destructive she can be.’

‘And I also saw how gutted Josh was afterwards, to have lost her when he’d only just found her again. He got in touch with her. It was his choice. I was trying to let him make grown-up decisions for himself.’

‘Except he’s not grown-up, is he? He’s sixteen years old. And now he’s out there somewhere, on his own, and we haven’t got a clue where. All because you thought you knew best.’

Every word stung. My flesh was already raw and his words ate further into it. And what made it worse was that he was right. I had brought this whole thing down on top of us.

‘Believe me, if I could turn back the clock –’

‘Yeah, well, you can’t, can you? That’s the one thing you can’t do.’

He walked towards the window. He had his back to me but I could see his body shaking. I wanted to go to him. To soothe the pain away. But I couldn’t. Because I was the one who had inflicted it.

‘Look, I know I screwed up. I screwed up really, really badly. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain to you exactly how bad I feel about it. But please, we need to get through this together.’

He turned to face me. ‘Oh, we’re together now, are we? Together as in trusting each other, having no secrets? It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ He spat the words out as he walked past me.

A few moments later, I heard the front door bang shut behind him and watched as he retraced his steps. Away from me. Away from home. Away from the wreck of what had once been a family.

I’ve met someone else. I didn’t mean to. In fact, I tried really hard not to. I went out of my way to avoid meeting single, middle-aged men. Because I knew I was so desperate, you see, so desperate for any scrap of affection which might be thrown my way.

But the person I met was the postman. I could hardly avoid him, could I?

You can’t stop people sending you things through the post, and we’ve got a really tiny letter box which is hard to open. And it’s not my fault if he’s never fixed it, is it? I’ve asked him enough times. Anyway, I started ordering things on the internet, just so he’d have to knock.

It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I didn’t answer the door in my underwear or invite him to get up to any funny business. We just talked. And sometimes I talked and he just listened. And I realised that my husband never did that. He never listened to me. Not once. Not like the postman does, anyway.

‘Is Josh home?’ asked Matilda.

I shook my head.

‘But it’s a school day.’

‘I know, love.’

‘You wouldn’t let me go off on an adventure if it was a school day.’

She had a point. I’d come out with the adventure line the previous night. Wanting to follow Josh’s request, as if it was a last will and testament he’d left, not a leaving note.

‘Teenagers sometimes take what they call a gap year between school and college.’

‘But he hasn’t finished school yet, he’s got exams, important exams. The ones he hasn’t been revising for very much.’

She was too shrewd to lie to, really. You couldn’t get anything past her. And quite how we were going to keep up
the pretence of being OK with the fact that Josh had gone off on an adventure, I had no idea. I suppose I had gone along with it in the hope that it was a short-term lie. That we wouldn’t have to keep it up for very long at all. But of course we didn’t know if that was going to be the case. Twenty-four hours in, we still had absolutely no idea where he was and when, or if, he would be coming home.

‘Yeah, well, you know what Josh is like. He doesn’t always do exactly what he’s supposed to do, does he? And on this occasion he decided he wanted to go off travelling straight away, he didn’t want to wait. Even though we told him to.’

‘I still don’t get why he didn’t say goodbye, though.’

‘No, love, I know. I’m cross he didn’t say goodbye too.’

‘Has he gone with Lydia?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Caitlin?’

‘No, sweetie. He’s gone on his own.’

‘But what about Caitlin? She’s his girlfriend. You’re not supposed to go off and leave your girlfriend, are you?’

‘Not really, love, no.’

‘Is she mad at him?’

‘A bit.’

‘Is she still going to give me violin lessons?’

‘I don’t know, love. We’re going to have to wait and see.’

She looked up at me, her brown eyes riddled with doubt and disappointment. I had failed spectacularly in the reassuring-your-child department. I couldn’t even lie effectively when required to.

She chose to say nothing more. Which only served to make me feel worse. We went downstairs. Chris had already left for work. He hadn’t said a word to me. Not this morning or the previous night, when we’d lain awake in the same bed, both worrying, imagining, fearing the worst but unable, or unwilling, to share our concerns.

The kitchen seemed quiet. Too quiet. Even Matilda’s cereal pouring into the bowl tinkled unreasonably loudly in the absence of the usual background chatter. I put the radio on. We sat and ate, pretty much in silence.

Matilda went upstairs to get dressed for school without me even having to tell her. She emerged several minutes later in her uniform and descended the stairs. I thought for a moment that something was missing but realised just in time that it was only the smile on her face.

There was a knock at the door. I’d asked Debbie to call for us. Thought it would make it easier for Matilda that way.

‘It’s no trouble to take her on my own, you know,’ said Debbie as Matilda ran out to Sophie.

‘Thanks, but I want to come too. I need to speak to Mrs Eddington, for a start. Let her know what’s happened, in case Matilda gets upset.’

Debbie nodded and gave me her best understanding face.

I pulled the door shut behind me. It was a glorious morning. And, more importantly, it had been a dry night. The thought of Josh sleeping somewhere in the wet was almost too much to bear.

‘I take it you’ve heard nothing, then?’ asked Debbie.

I shook my head.

‘He’ll be back, Ali. He’ll get his head sorted and he’ll come back.’

‘When, though?’ I said. ‘And what the hell is he going to do in the meantime?’

‘Has he got much money with him?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I think he had some Christmas money left. About forty quid, maybe. He was saving for something for his guitar. It can’t have been much more, though. Certainly not enough to live on for more than a day or two.’

‘He’ll get a job, then.’

‘What, with no qualifications or references?’

‘He’ll find something. He’s a bright lad, your Josh.’

We walked on a bit further. Sophie had at least got Matilda smiling again. They were pulling faces at each other and doing weird things with their hair.

‘Keep into the side of the road,’ I called after them.

‘How’s Chris taken it?’ asked Debbie.

‘Not good. We had a massive row yesterday.’

‘It’s not your fault he’s gone.’

‘It is, actually.’

‘Why?’

I hesitated before I said anything. When your husband wasn’t talking to you, there was a natural resistance to losing your best friend too.

‘I knew Josh was seeing Lydia. I found out by accident. He begged me not to tell Chris.’

‘Jesus, Ali.’

‘Yeah. I know.’

‘What were you thinking of?’

‘Keeping everyone happy. I made a pig’s ear of that, didn’t I?’

‘I take it you’ve apologised?’

‘Yep. Countless times. He won’t forgive me for this one, though. I’ve messed up big time.’

‘Oh, Ali,’ said Debbie, stopping to give me a hug.

‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘You’ll set me off. And I need to hold myself together for Mrs Eddington.’

She nodded. We walked on together, Debbie telling me about some woman who’d given birth to twins over the weekend. It could have been triplets, actually. I wasn’t really listening.

I was trying to work out how far you could travel on forty quid on a young person’s railcard.

* * *

As soon as I got home, I rang Josh’s school. It’s not something you expect to have to do as a parent, phone school to let them know that your child has run away. They had a dedicated line to report absences. I didn’t think that was appropriate, though. Not in this case. I got through to the office and asked to speak to the Head Teacher.

‘Can I ask what it’s regarding?’ said the secretary

‘It’s about my stepson, Josh Bentley. I need to report that he’s left home.’

‘You mean he’s left for school?’

‘No. No, I mean he’s run away from home.’

Even as I said it, I knew it didn’t sound right. Josh would
never have used that term. He’d say he’d gone off travelling. Although, unlike Matilda, I didn’t think the Head would buy that.

There was a pause on the other end of the line and I was put through. The Head answered in a suitably sympathetic voice; the message had obviously been passed on to her.

‘Hello, Mrs Bentley. I understand it’s about Josh.’

She was going to make me say it again. To spell it out. Just in case the secretary had got it wrong.

‘Yes, I’m afraid he ran away yesterday morning. He left a note and took some of his clothes with him.’

‘I see. I’m … er … very sorry to hear that. Were there any problems at school? Anything we should know about?’

‘Not at school, no. Everything was fine at school.’

I imagined the relief on the other end of the line. Nothing had happened on her watch. She wasn’t going to have to answer any awkward questions.

‘I take it you’ve informed the police?’

‘No. Not yet. I wanted to ring you first. To let you know he wasn’t going to be in.’

‘Right. Well, I would suggest you call them straight away. Bearing in mind the seriousness of the situation. I’ll advise the Local Education Authority and I expect one of their welfare officers will give you a call.’

She had clearly gone into officious mode, now she knew she was off the hook.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘If there’s anything further the school can do to help,
please do let me know. And in the meantime, let’s hope Josh comes home very soon.’

I thanked her again and hung up. I knew she was right, I should ring the police. I wasn’t going to do it myself, though. It needed to be Chris’s decision. And I wasn’t even going to attempt to have this conversation over the phone.

I got into the car and drove straight to his studio. It looked a bit old-fashioned from the outside. Definitely not one of those shiny glass-fronted designer places which had sprung up in city centres in recent years.
In Focus
, the plain black sign above the shop said. Chris had never been one for anything flashy. He got by on word of mouth because his photographs were bloody good. Though I suspected one of those high street shopping gurus would have had plenty to say about how much more successful he could be if he put his mind to it.

I opened the door. The bell rang and I heard hurried footsteps on the stairs before Chris appeared at the back of the shop. His face was searching mine. Maybe thinking I’d heard something. And that it might not be good.

‘I haven’t heard anything,’ I said straight away. ‘I rang his school. Told the Head. She advised us to call the police straight away.’

Chris shut his eyes for a second. ‘What does she know?’ he said. ‘She probably doesn’t even know what he looks like.’

‘It’s been over twenty-four hours,’ I said. ‘And he’s never done anything like this before. Maybe they could put a description out. Someone in another force might pick him up.’

‘He told us he was going. He wouldn’t want us to call the police.’

‘Well, if we get him back, I’ll tell him it was my idea to call them. That you asked me not to do it.’

‘So then he’ll hate both of us.’

I looked at Chris, wondering for a second if he’d said it with a half-smile on his face. He hadn’t.

‘You were right, though,’ I said. ‘Being a parent isn’t about being popular, it’s about doing the right thing.’

‘And I take it you know the right thing to do?’

‘I’m trying to put things right, Chris. Make up for the mess I made. I think we should tell the police. I think we might get him back earlier than if we don’t.’

Chris shrugged.

‘Do I take that as a yes?’ I asked.

‘I guess so.’

‘So are you going to call them, or shall I?’

‘You do it,’ said Chris. ‘You’re better at those sorts of things.’

‘OK. If I haven’t heard anything by this afternoon, I’ll phone them. Have you spoken to your mum?’

Chris shook his head.

‘I think she should know. I don’t want her finding out from anyone apart from us.’

‘Fine.’

‘I could go round and see her after work,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to go.’

‘Like I said, you’re better at those sorts of things.’

‘Will you be done in time to get Matilda from school?’

‘Yeah. Can be.’

‘Thanks.’

We stood there wordlessly, more like a couple in the awkward stages of getting divorced than the supposedly happily married parents of two.

‘Right, well. I’ll let you know if there’s any news. Is it OK if I give the police your number?’

‘Why? I’m not his father.’

* * *

In different circumstances it would have been laughable; I was going to work to help other people with their problems in order to avoid having to deal with my own. As it was, there was nothing remotely amusing about it. I had considered not going in, wondering if I should stay at home instead. But waiting in for someone who wasn’t going to call was never a good idea. Besides, my first client of the day was Catherine and there was no way I was going to let her down.

She’d told Nathan that I’d asked to see her again on her own. That I was trying to get to the bottom of her eating disorder. I wasn’t going to do that at all, of course. But we both knew Nathan was so sure of himself, he would buy it.

When Catherine entered the room, she moved more easily than the last time I had seen her. Maybe it was simply the fact that she wasn’t harbouring a secret any longer but she greeted me with a warm smile and sat down in the chair, ready to start. It was difficult to know where to begin after what had happened last time. But I didn’t have to worry about that, because she did it for me.

‘I’m going to leave him,’ she said.

I smiled at her and nodded, unable to say anything for a moment.

‘You were right,’ she went on. ‘That isn’t love. And no one deserves to be treated like that. Not even me.’

‘Especially not you,’ I said. ‘But I do need to know that you’ve thought this through. That this is what you want. My job is to support you in your decisions, not to tell you what to do.’

‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But it is my decision. I went home last time and realised that it had taken a lot of strength to do what I did in front of you. Strength that I didn’t know I had. I bared my soul, not just my knickers.’

I smiled at her.

She managed a smile back. ‘I guess it made me see that I had sunk to a point where I was either going to drown or I had to start kicking and screaming to save myself.’

I looked at her and nodded. Her strength made me want to roar.

‘Well, if you’re quite certain, I can give you the phone numbers of organisations who will support you both practically and emotionally. I also need to ask you to think about your safety. Do you know where you’re going to go?’

‘My business partner Simon has got a spare room in his house. I told him, you see. The day after I told you. He said it was my version of coming out. That I had nothing to be ashamed of. And that if Nathan comes anywhere near me he’ll get the entire gay population of Hebden Bridge to say they’ve slept with him on Facebook.’

She said it with a smile on her face. I had a feeling Nathan wouldn’t find it so amusing, though.

‘I’m going to report it to the police too,’ she continued. ‘I borrowed Simon’s mobile and took photos of the bruises. He’s saving them for me, until I’m ready.’

‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘I can give you the number of a specialist domestic violence officer at Calderdale. It’s important you get the support and protection you need.’

‘Nathan won’t hurt me,’ said Catherine. ‘Not once I’ve gone. There’ll be no point. He’ll have lost control. It’s like spinning a plate. Once you’ve lost it, you can never really get it back. You have to start again with a new one.’

‘Well, hopefully, you reporting it will help to stop that happening,’ I said.

She nodded.

It suited her, her newfound strength. She had grown into it very well. Probably because it had been there all along underneath. She had, like many people, simply never realised.