A Godawful Small Affair

by J. B. Morrison

  “He looks all right, doesn’t he, Nath? Do you think? He looks like a nice kid. Don’t you think?”

  It was like the mystery boy had asked for Zoe’s hand in marriage and her dad was considering his suitability. The boy did have a nice smile, Nathan agreed. His dad was sure the boy was smiling because of Zoe, either because she made him happy or because she’d asked him to smile and he wanted to please her. Nathan’s dad speculated on the boy’s age and even his name. Nathan agreed he was maybe a little older than Zoe. He needed even less time to think of a name for the boy than when he’d named a planet David Bowie.

  “Alex,” Nathan said, so quickly that his dad thought Nathan must know who the boy was after all. It took him a while to convince his dad he just thought he looked like an Alex.

  Maureen warned Nathan’s dad about making something out of nothing. He told her nothing was all he had. Maureen rolled her eyes.

  “I’m just glad there was someone who Zoe thought was worthy of taking a picture of.”

  All Nathan could think of was that his sister might have gone into Space with someone else instead of him.

  “I wonder why she deleted the photo,” Nathan’s dad said. “Do you think it was because of me?” he looked to Nathan for an answer. “Because she thought I would have scared him away?”

  Maureen told her brother to stop torturing himself.

  When the geeks recovered the deleted photos, they also knew the time and date each one had been taken. There was nothing on Zoe’s phone relating to the time or day the picture of the boy was taken. And apart from the default national and religious holidays and a few family birthdays, there were no entries whatsoever in the calendar on Zoe’s phone. Nathan’s dad checked the International Space Station calendar as though that might hold the answer and he found last year’s kitchen calendar and looked at that. Nathan suspected his dad had only kept the kitchen calendar because it had Nathan’s mum’s handwriting on. There was a Katherine Love museum too.

  The date that Zoe – presumably it was her – took the photo of the mystery boy did seem familiar to Nathan for some reason. He just didn’t know what it was. When Nathan and his dad were alone watching TV, it came to him. He went upstairs to his bedroom, tipped the yellow plastic bucket of Lego out onto his bed and picked his red National Space Centre notebook out from amongst the bricks. He went downstairs and gave the notebook to his dad.

  “What is it?” his dad said, reading the cover but not taking the notebook.

  “Look inside.”

  His dad took the book and opened it carefully, as though it might be a practical joke and a snake might fly out. He read the first few pages, unsure what any of it meant, recognising Nathan’s handwriting and visibly excited by Zoe’s notes in red. It looked like she was marking her brother’s homework. And then his dad realised what he was reading.

  “We’re going to have to show this to the police,” he said. He reached for the phone.

  “No, but look though, Dad,” Nathan said. He leaned over and turned the pages to show his dad the three-month gap, between ‘the subjict’ leaving the house and turning left, and three months later leaving the house and turning right. The night Zoe said she couldn’t remember where she was going, other than to look at ‘a good sky’.

  “Can’t you see it, Dad?” Nathan said. His dad looked blankly at him. “December 14th. It’s the same date as that picture.”

  “Oh my God,” his dad said. “She was with that boy.”

  Before calling the police, Nathan’s dad scanned every page of the notebook onto his laptop. He told Nathan he was worried the police might lose it, and Nathan knew he wasn’t talking about the notebook. His dad didn’t want to lose Zoe’s handwriting. The notebook was part of the museum now.

  19

  Zoe had officially been a misper for a week. The anniversary brought more people to the house than usual. Every time the doorbell went Nathan had to go downstairs to meet someone new. He thought his dad was worried people might start to believe some of the things written about him on social media. He wanted everyone who came to the house to see that Nathan was there, both alive and well.

  Because it was an anniversary people brought flowers and ‘thinking of you’ cards. Maureen had to buy more vases from the charity shop. The living room smelled like fabric conditioner. When the FLOs came to take Nathan’s notebook, his dad showed them a bunch of mixed yellow flowers, still wrapped in cellophane.

  “These came last night,” he said. “There was an envelope with fifty quid in it but no note. Do you think they might have been left by whoever’s got Zoe? Or by someone who knows where she is and feels guilty about it? Maybe they’re from Alex?”

  “Who’s Alex?” Janet said.

  “The boy in the photograph. We made up a name.”

  Janet looked at Nathan’s dad as though he was an idiot. Even Nathan thought it sounded daft. He should never have told the FLOs about giving the boy a name. Janet took the flowers and pulled five cashpoint fresh ten-pound notes out of the envelope.

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” Nathan’s dad said.

  “You can’t dust flowers for prints, Steve,” Janet said. Nathan thought she was lying. He thought the FLOs were growing fed up with his dad. When he gave them Nathan’s notebook, they didn’t seem particularly excited by it. They were more annoyed with Nathan for not giving it to them sooner.

  At lunchtime Maureen arrived with news that ‘WHERE IS ZOE LOVE?’ was spelled out in plastic letters on the front of the Ritzy, as though it was a film the cinema was showing. And then three girls from Zoe’s school came to the house. They were wearing Where is Zoe Love? T-shirts they’d made in their art class. They’d made shirts for Nathan and his dad too and they both had to put them on so the girls could take selfies with them. They took a lot of photos. With Nathan and his dad and then just with his dad and then just with Nathan. One of the girls ordered everyone about like she was an official wedding photographer. Nathan’s dad showed them the photo of Alex and they all shook their heads and apologised. Nathan wasn’t convinced they even knew who Zoe was.

  He didn’t recognise any of the girls and they hadn’t been to the house before. They weren’t either of the two numbers in the contacts on Zoe’s phone. Nathan thought they only made the T-shirts because they wanted to feel involved, like the people who rang the helpline after the television appeal and who posted time-wasting lies on Facebook. When Zoe came back – not if, when, Nathan still knew that – she would be more popular than before she left. Nathan knew that would annoy Zoe as much as it did him. The three girls reminded him of people who only became David Bowie fans after he was gone and didn’t know any of his songs except for ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Heroes’. Zoe really hated that. Nathan thought the girls might be the dicks she’d mentioned. When they left Nathan went back up to his room. He closed his bedroom door and sat on the floor next to his bed. He opened Moonmen (and Women) and tried to concentrate. He could already hear new voices downstairs and waited for his name to be called out again.

  He pulled the drawer out from under his bed and took his Space Torch out of his backpack. He pushed the library book under the bed and rolled in after it. He had to push a crumpled cardboard box away with his feet to give himself enough room. He lay under the bed and pretended he was in quarantine after coming back from the Moon. In Moonmen (and Women) he’d read about the returning Apollo 11 astronauts spending twenty-one days in a specially converted trailer called the Mobile Quarantine Facility, to stop them spreading space flu. In the picture in the library book, the silver ‘MQF’ (Mike Quebec Foxtrot) reminded Nathan of the caravan Zoe had bought them crepes from at last year’s Lambeth Country Show. He wondered what would happen if his sister wasn’t home in time for this year’s show.

  For a weekend every summer, the Lambeth Country Show took over the park behind their estate. It was mostly the same stuff there every year. There were jousting knights on massive horses and a dog show and birds of prey displays
. The same farm animals were there every year. When Nathan’s yoga teacher had said most children in London had never seen a cow before, she obviously hadn’t been to the Lambeth Country Show. Nathan always saw his teachers there. Zoe said they had to pretend to be pleased to bump into pupils, when what they really wanted to do was get as far away from work as possible at weekends and in the school holidays.

  Last year at the Country Show one of Zoe’s teachers had come over to say hello. She said that she looked forward to seeing Zoe at school next term. The teacher said it like she was joking, because she thought it was so unlikely. Zoe had been off school so many times, either because of her sensitivity to light and sound or with her headaches, her migraines or her asthma. Nathan was surprised the teacher had even recognised Zoe because she was at school so rarely. Zoe told Nathan that was how the teachers recognised her. She said she was ‘conspicuous by her absence’.

  Zoe had been back on Earth for two months when they went to last year’s Country Show. She must have been almost fully human again by then. She might even have forgotten she’d ever left the planet if Nathan didn’t keep reminding her about it. Even at a Country Show he found excuses to bring the subject up. Like when he went on the space rocket ride at the fair or saw a moon-shaped lamp for sale on the Oxfam stall. Any excuse. Yoda constructed out of cauliflowers and cabbages in the vegetable sculpture competition. A man dressed as Mister Spock handing out flyers and balloons for British Gas.

  Zoe still had some symptoms left from her alien abduction then. She could hear tapping sounds that no one else could. Tinnitus her dad said. And she was still predicting (guessing, her dad said) weather. She hadn’t walked in her sleep for a while though and her eyes weren’t sensitive to light anymore. The sunglasses she wore to the Country Show were because of the sunny day. And she’d stopped hiding the cuts and scratches on her arms under long-sleeves. Zoe had told Nathan before that she was proud of her space scars. She compared them to their mum keeping her radiation tattoos after her treatment was over. Zoe called her cuts and scratches, and their mum’s tattoos, ‘badges of honour’. Souvenirs from the journeys they’d both been on.

  They sat on the grass at the Lambeth Country Show, watching a group of African drummers and some boys from the posh school in Dulwich demonstrating touch rugby, and then they went to the fair. Zoe stood with their dad while Nathan went on the rides on his own. Every time a ride spun past his sister and his dad or if he caught sight of them when he was halfway down the inflatable Mega slide, he wondered what they were talking about. Did Zoe tell her dad more about her alien abduction than she told him? Nathan had always thought their dad knew nothing about Zoe sneaking out at night. Now he knew that wasn’t the case. Maybe his dad knew more than anyone.

  They left the fair and the four of them (their dad had won a massive Smurf toy by hooking ducks on the end of a pole) went into the longest, hottest tent at the Country Show, the one with the vegetable sculpture competition in. Their dad shrugged off the potato dinosaurs, pineapple parrots and pop stars made from carrots and onions, describing it all as ‘a bit of a busman’s holiday’. Afterwards he went to find a toilet and left Nathan and Zoe queuing at the silver crepes van. Nathan couldn’t decide to have sweet or savoury and eventually chose sweet – Nutella and banana – while Zoe had cheese and spinach, which Nathan immediately wanted too. They sat under the shade of a tree with their crepes and waited for their dad. Nathan asked Zoe what a busman’s holiday was.

  “It’s a saying. It means when you go on holiday and end up doing something there that you’d normally do when you were at work.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “If you’re a busman, or bus woman, and you go on holiday, and then while you’re there you spend your time going on bus trips. That’s a busman’s holiday.”

  Nathan tried connecting Zoe’s explanation to what his dad had said in the vegetable sculpture tent.

  “I get it now,” he lied. “Do you think they’re watching us?”

  Zoe gave him a confused look. “The busmen?”

  “No, silly,” Nathan said. “Aliens.”

  “Do you ever think about anything else?”

  Nathan shook his head. He didn’t know how she could ever think about anything else.

  “But do you though?” he said. “Do you think they’re up there watching us?”

  “Us generally or us specifically?”

  “I don’t know what either of those are.”

  “Do you mean are they watching all of us earthlings, or just me and you?”

  “Just me and you.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But if they were, would they need a telescope to see us or would their eyes just be mega powerful.”

  Zoe sighed. “Do you ever relax? Do you ever stop asking questions? Try not speaking. Go on. See if you can. Get your mates to sponsor you. Give something back to society.”

  Nathan held his breath.

  “You don’t have to hold your breath to stop talking.”

  He puffed his cheeks out and let out a big breath. He rolled over onto his back, looking up at the sky, searching for spaceships.

  “At school,” he said, “we had to name something you can see from space. Did you know you can see the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon?” Nathan knew what two of those were.

  “You can see loads of other things too,” Zoe said. “Cities and mountains, rivers and motorways, the Greenhouses of Almería.”

  “What’s that?” Nathan said. He closed one eye and watched a plane. He could see the orange EasyJet on the tail. He wondered where it was going or where it had been, who was on it and if they were watching a film or eating lunch. Who was in the toilet causing the thin white cloud that followed the plane across the sky?

  “There are thousands of these enormous plastic greenhouses in Spain,” Zoe said. “In Almería I presume. It’s where all Dad’s Spanish vegetables come from. And a lot of the stuff in that tent we were just in. John Lemon, the Tower of Onion, Potato Modern and all the other hilariously named vegetable sculptures. They were probably all grown in the Greenhouses of Almería.”

  Nathan watched the contrails of another plane. It crossed over the others already in the sky, forming an almost perfect Union Jack.

  “Can you feel that?” Zoe said. She sat up straight and took her sunglasses off.

  Nathan sat up. He looked around. “What?”

  “The Earth spinning.”

  “I can’t feel anything.”

  “Don’t you feel dizzy?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Like I’m seasick. Like I’m trapped in a washing machine.”

  Nathan sat really still. He pressed his open palms into the grass by his sides, like Zoe.

  “I think I can feel it now,” Nathan said.

  “It’s stopped,” Zoe said. She put her sunglasses back on and lay down in the shade of the tree.

  Nathan tried to feel the Earth beneath them spin. He closed his eyes and held his breath, hoping it would make him feel dizzy.

  “Did you know that’s where Dad met Mum?” Zoe said.

  Nathan opened his eyes. Zoe was sitting up. She was watching their dad, walking towards them, alongside the row of charity stalls, looking at old books and knitted animals. He was holding two yellow balloons.

  “Where?” Nathan asked Zoe.

  “His fruit and veg stall,” Zoe said. “Mum was a customer. Dad used to say she came for Brussel sprouts and left with his heart.”

  “That’s madness.”

  “Other people would say it was romantic.”

  Nathan watched their dad approaching. He was wearing a grey Lonsdale vest top, displaying both ends of his spectacular snake tattoo. His Elvis shades were on top of his head. Keeping the sun off ‘his napper’. One day Nathan would have muscles like his dad.

  “Do you miss Mum, Zoe?” Nathan asked.

  Zoe yawned. “
Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe?”

  “It’s a saying, you fool.”

  “Like busman’s holiday?”

  Zoe pushed her sunglasses down her nose and looked over the top of them. They both watched their dad, walking towards them with the yellow balloons.

  “Hello, you two,” their dad said. He gave them both a balloon. Zoe told him she was nearly fifteen but took one anyway.

  “What did you buy?” she asked.

  Their dad held up a carrier bag with the same ‘Hands off our Homes’ message printed on it as the balloons.

  “Info,” he said.

  Nathan and Zoe got up and they all walked back home. Nathan tried leaving the Smurf behind, but Zoe said, “Don’t forget your new friend, Nathan.” And he had to go back and get it.

  And then Zoe let her balloon go, she claimed accidentally, but Nathan knew it was deliberate, so she could watch the balloon float high into the blue sky, higher than the contrails and the EasyJets. Nathan watched the balloon as well, until his neck was stiff and the sun hurt his eyes and he couldn’t look anymore.

  Later on, they ate their dinner in the garden. They could hear the reggae and steel band music coming from the main stage in the park. Their mum said once that it was like living next door to Glastonbury Festival.

  20

  When Nathan realised Zoe might not be back in time for this year’s Country Show he felt sick and panicky. He started to think about what else he’d miss. What if there was no Christmas this year because of Zoe? He couldn’t imagine his dad buying him an Easter egg or making them pancakes on Pancake Day. It was one of the only days of the year his dad really enjoyed cooking. And there wouldn’t be any firework displays while Zoe was still missing. No Halloween or holidays, no last-minute strolls across the park to the Lido with his dad on the first hottest day of the year. There’d be no Father’s Day if Zoe wasn’t back. Nathan was sure of that. His dad would never allow himself his own special day. He’d heard him say to Maureen and to the FLOs what a terrible father he was for coming home drunk and not checking his daughter was in her room before he went to sleep.