Oliver left and Nathan’s dad and the FLOs talked quietly, as though they were in a library or a church. The FLOs reminded Nathan’s dad what he needed to say and told him not to be nervous. Nathan looked at his phone. His belly was rumbling. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and really wanted one of the pastries piled high in a basket on the table at the centre of the room or even an apple (the only actual green things in the room) from the bowl next to it. He didn’t know if he was allowed or if the food was even real. Auntie Maureen used to have plastic fruit in a bowl in her house. Nathan always thought it was mad, considering her dad and her brother were both greengrocers. Nathan’s dad made a joke once about Maureen getting her plastic fruit from a plastic greengrocer. It reminded him of his dad’s other joke about the paper shop blowing away.
Oliver came back with the drinks. He gave Nathan a glass bottle of Coke with a paper straw.
“I couldn’t find any ice and lemon I’m afraid,” he said, and winked again.
The producer came in and told Nathan’s dad what to expect and how it would be painless and over before he knew it had even begun. A different woman clipped tiny microphones onto their T-shirts and put battery packs in the back pockets of their trousers. She asked them to make sure their phones were switched off and for a moment Nathan’s dad looked like he might refuse, until Anne Marie offered to look after his phone. Nathan gave her his as well. He told her it had a good Minions game on it.
Oliver led Nathan and his dad through a large area full of people, typing on computers and talking on phones. When they went past the make-up room Nathan saw a woman sitting in a chair and he was sure it was Beyoncé. There were television screens everywhere, some showing the news and others with yesterday’s sport on. When half of the screens changed to a big picture of Zoe, even though Nathan and his dad had seen the same picture a million times, it startled them both.
Oliver showed them to a long sofa next to a desk where a man in a grey suit and a woman in a red dress were sitting. Nathan was so distracted by seeing his sister’s face on television he immediately forgot the two presenters’ names. Zoe was replaced on the screens by a competition to win a holiday. All you had to do was answer the question: Is Barracuda a country, a type of cheese or a fish? Nathan was only ten and he knew it was a fish. Somebody said, “Stand by,” and a man behind a camera counted down and Nathan saw his dad on television, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his tattooed hands. Then he saw himself and then it was the picture of Zoe again. The male presenter introduced a video. Zoe would have hated the way he pronounced David Bowie, with the Bow like cow instead of snow. ‘It’s Bowie,’ she used to say. ‘Like Zoe’.
Nathan had watched the same YouTube video with his dad, more times than any movie or cartoon. The last time they’d watched it to see if they could see Alex in the crowd. It was like a game of Where’s Wally?
The sound on the video was turned down and replaced with a woman’s voice, describing Zoe’s last known movements. Even though there was no sound, Nathan knew everyone at the mural was singing ‘Five Years’. Zoe was easier to spot than usual because there was a red circle drawn around her. When she stepped forward to put the first candle on the ground the red circle went with her as though she was about to score a goal on Match of the Day. Nathan saw himself for about two seconds. He didn’t have a red circle around him. On television though, his make-up looked sick and he wished it was a weekend or half-term so his friends could see him on television. Arthur would be the most jealous. Arthur was going to be a famous rapper one day. He was going to have his own YouTube with a billion subscribers. But he’d never been on television.
The video finished and the female presenter asked Nathan’s dad to describe the type of girl Zoe was. If they asked Nathan, he would have wanted to say ‘weird’, but his dad lied and said she was a normal fifteen-year-old girl. Zoe would have hated that. She could be a handful sometimes, his dad said, but they loved her, and they just wanted her back. That wasn’t a lie.
The female presenter nodded and looked like she might cry. Everyone seemed so much sadder about Zoe than her dad did, but Nathan knew that wasn’t true. He wished his dad would just break down or cry, to prove his sadness to everyone. Like the police and everyone on Facebook and Twitter who didn’t think he was deserving of the World’s Best Dad mug he’d smashed against a wall.
The male presenter said, “It’s got to be an incredibly stressful time for you,” he looked at Nathan. “For both of you. If it’s okay, Steve, can I take you back to when you first realised Zoe might be missing. What time was that?”
“About half-five.”
“In the morning?”
“In the evening. When she didn’t come home from school.”
The man seemed baffled by that. “You didn’t notice she wasn’t there the night before? Or the next morning before she would have ordinarily left for school?”
Nathan’s dad looked down at his shoes. His wedding shoes, his funeral and birthday shoes, and now his breakfast television shoes. Nathan was wearing his best trainers. He’d hidden his school shoes in the Zoe Love Museum with his cap. He had considered putting the shoes in the space left between her Converse, because it seemed funny, but he’d put them toes-first under Zoe’s bed instead. That was when he’d found an old grey cardboard folder with the Alien Guess Who? pictures inside. The police must have missed the folder or seen it and considered fifty or so pictures of aliens unimportant. Nathan couldn’t believe Zoe had kept Alien Guess Who? He hid the folder under his mattress.
“I’d been out for a drink with some friends,” Nathan’s dad told the two TV presenters. “And I woke up late,” he reminded Nathan of himself, making excuses when he’d forgotten his homework or his P.E. kit. “Because it was my day off,” his dad said. “I should have checked her room and I didn’t.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself, Steve,” the female presenter said, tipping her head at a sympathetic angle.
“You do though, don’t you?” Nathan’s dad said.
“Zoe didn’t take her phone with her,” the male presenter said. “Isn’t that unusual nowadays? And apparently she wasn’t on social media?”
Nathan didn’t like the way he said apparently, as though he thought his dad was lying.
“I know it makes her sound a bit strange,” Nathan’s dad said. “But she’s not…she’s…she’s just a bit different I suppose.” He half-smiled. Nathan thought he was thinking about how good Zoe being a bit different could be.
“And you lost your wife recently too,” the woman said. “That must have been tremendously upsetting, especially for Zoe. A young girl losing her mother.”
It was upsetting for a boy to lose his mother too. Why did everyone think only Zoe could be sad about it? And their mum wasn’t lost anyway. She was dead. Nathan knew exactly where she was. They’d sprinkled her ashes in the walled garden in the park when no one was looking. Zoe had wanted to fire their mum into space in a rocket, but it was too expensive, and their dad suggested naming a star after her instead. They didn’t do it officially or pay for a certificate. They went out into the back garden and chose a star. It took less than a minute. “That’s Mum,” Zoe had said, and she sounded so sure about it that there was no need for further discussion.
“Is there anything you’d like to say to Zoe, Steve?” the female presenter said. “If she’s watching right now? Into that camera if you can.” She pointed at the camera in front of them.
“If you’re watching, Zoe,” Nathan’s dad said. “Please, please get in touch. Or leave a message, send a text, anything. Me and Nathan need you back.”
Nathan knew how much Zoe hated the kind of television programmes that were on in the morning, and it was possible this was the one she hated the most. Even if the aliens had Freeview, Nathan was sure his sister would not be watching.
“And I believe the police have found a photo of a boy they need to identify?” the male presenter said. Nathan’s dad nodded and the picture appeared
onscreen. “If this is you or if you know this boy or if you think you recognise him, please get in touch,” the presenter said. “The number is on the screen and there’s a website link. And of course, everything will be on our website too.”
“Yes,” the female presenter said. “If anyone watching knows anything, however unimportant or trivial it might seem, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Let’s get your sister home safe, Nathan.”
Nathan’s attention had drifted. Maureen had ironed sharp creases down the front of his school trousers. He’d tried smoothing them out in the posh car without success. He was positioning his legs so the creases were perfectly straight next to each other and he was thinking about his dad, always straightening pictures, not just at home but in other people’s houses and in shops and restaurants. Zoe used to move the pictures at home ever so slightly. She’d tilt them back at the angle their dad had just straightened the pictures out of, as though the house was on a hill. Nathan almost laughed remembering it. Typically, their dad assumed Nathan was responsible, of course, which only encouraged Zoe to keep on doing it. Nathan didn’t realise the female presenter was talking to him. He looked up to see her smiling at him. His face was on TV.
“You never really get used to seeing yourself on telly, Nathan,” she said. “I think we should see if we can get Zoe home safe and well, don’t you?”
“I’d know if she wasn’t safe or well,” Nathan said, irritated by the suggestion the woman could miraculously achieve what his dad and all the different police had so far failed to do.
“Nathan has a theory,” his dad said. He looked at Nathan. “Because you’re E.T. and Zoe is Elliott. That’s right, isn’t it, mate?”
“Zoe is E.T.,” Nathan said. “I’m Elliott.”
“I must admit I’m a little confused,” the male presenter said.
“Nathan can probably explain it better than me,” his dad said.
Nathan looked up at his dad and then at the man. His dad gave him a ‘go ahead’ nod.
“You know when Mike goes to the bald spot in the forest to look for E.T.?” Nathan said. “And Mike finds E.T. dying next to a river and he brings him home?”
“Mike is Elliott’s brother,” Nathan’s dad said, helpfully. He looked to Nathan for confirmation.
Nathan nodded. “And when Mike brings E.T. home, Elliott is dying as well and so his mum gets scared and then the government come to their house in spacesuits, to stop them getting space flu like when Neil Armstrong went into the Mobile Quarantine Facility—”
“I’m afraid you’ve completely lost me too, now,” the woman said. Everyone was looking at Nathan.
“It’s where the astronauts went when they came back from the Moon,” he said. “It wouldn’t have worked properly though, because there was a hole somewhere and Buzz Aldrin said he saw some ants walking through —”
“I think what Nathan is saying,” his dad said, “is because he feels okay, Zoe must be okay as well.”
The female presenter looked at Nathan. Her whole face said, Aww. “I see, Nathan. So that’s how you know Zoe is all right?”
Nathan nodded. “I don’t even think she’ll have any cuts or bruises when she comes back this time, because she was more prepared for —”
“I’m afraid Nathan has a bit of a vivid imagination,” his dad interrupted. He rested his hand on Nathan’s knee. Nathan looked down at the head of the snake. His dad turned to face him, looking him squarely in the eye, and he said something to Nathan that he must have said a hundred times before. As far back as last April and as recently as three days ago. He’d just never said it on national television before, “Your sister has not been abducted by aliens.”
The two television presenters shifted uncomfortably behind the desk. The cameraman smiled. The male presenter put a finger to his earpiece. The woman sitting next to him had tipped her head so far on its side, it was almost resting on her shoulder. She looked at Nathan as though he was a video of an animal doing something cute. And then the man said they’d be right back and an advert for soup came on.
Nathan’s dad tried to speak but Oliver was there at his side, gesturing for him and Nathan to follow him. They walked back past the make-up room. Nathan looked for Beyoncé but she was gone. He’d wanted to get a selfie with her to show Arthur. Oliver took them back to the green room and the woman removed their microphones and battery packs.
“Well, they got what they wanted,” Nathan’s dad said to the waiting FLOs. “What a disaster.”
“It wasn’t that bad, Steve,” Janet said. “The important thing is you’ve got the message across to a huge audience.”
“Who now all think I’ve harmed Zoe somehow.”
Anne Marie said, “We will need to talk about that, Steve,” she mouthed, “The cuts and bruises,” as though Nathan didn’t know how to lip-read.
Oliver walked with everyone back to the reception desk. They signed out and returned their name badges. Oliver said Nathan could keep his. Everyone was quiet on the walk back to the car park. Just the clip-clop of the FLOs’ high heels on concrete and the sound of Tweets arriving on Nathan’s dad’s phone. In the green room before the interview Janet had said it might be best to not read anything online for a day or two because some of the comments, possibly even the majority, would be negative. She probably hadn’t realised quite how negative. On the way to the car park Nathan’s dad held his phone up to show the FLOs.
HAS ZOE BEEN ABDUCTED BY ALIENS?
He also showed them something on Facebook Nathan didn’t understand:
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Matthew 21:16
The FLOs went off to get their jalopy and Nathan and his dad walked a short distance to their car. The driver didn’t get out to open the door this time. He played loud music on the radio all the way back to Brixton. When they were almost home and stuck in the same traffic as earlier, going in the opposite direction, Nathan’s dad asked the driver if he had any cigarettes. The driver gave him a packet with two left in it and Nathan’s dad asked him to drop them by the Tube. The driver pulled the car over. He didn’t get out to open the door for them or say goodbye. Outside the Tube Nathan’s dad asked a busker for a light and he smoked his first cigarette since Nathan’s mum had died from Earth cancer. He lit his second from the end of the first and Nathan thought he might never stop. His dad didn’t say it, but Nathan knew it was his fault that he was smoking again. His mission was more vital and urgent than before. He couldn’t wait to go to bed.
22
Nathan was woken by a light in his room. He was too scared to move and he thought he might be paralysed. That’s what happened to Zoe about a week after she came back from space. She had to get out of bed to go to school but she said she couldn’t move. “I’m paralysed, Nathan,” she said. Her dad dealt with this latest symptom of his daughter’s alien abduction by tickling Zoe. She didn’t laugh. She screamed at her dad and told him he was a fucking big child. But she did move though. So she wasn’t paralysed. “Not anymore!” Zoe had shouted at her dad when he pointed that fact out to her.
Nathan watched the light as it swept across his bedroom, travelling through the galaxy on his ceiling, like a spaceship, passing Venus and Mars, Pluto and Mercury. The light made the glow-in-the-dark planets disappear into the black as it lit them up. The light wasn’t anywhere near as bright as Zoe had described. There were actually two or three different lights now. White lights and blue lights. Nathan thought he might be dreaming, but it felt nothing like a dream. Maybe the dream the aliens woke you up from didn’t feel like a dream.
The lights separated and dropped down the wall, the brightest one settling for a second or two on Nathan’s backpack. He’d been feeling around for it but now he remembered he hadn’t packed the bag and it was over on the other side of the room. He wasn’t wearing his orange spacesuit either and he hadn’t taken a Kwell. There was no address written on the back of his hand. If they took him now, they wouldn’t know where to bring him back to. He was
unprepared and he was incredibly frightened. Why had he thought he wouldn’t have been frightened when they came?
He lay as still as he could and held his breath, using his bath time training, trying to recall Zoe’s answers to Alien Guess Who? – Did they have ears? Did they have eyes? Could they hear him or see him? Nathan’s nose was itching. He wished he had a helmet on with Velcro inside. Why was he so terrified now? Wasn’t this what he wanted? Hadn’t he been preparing himself for over a week and maybe even his whole life for this exact moment?
He wanted to call out to his dad but didn’t want to give himself away. He had the feeling that if he opened his mouth no sound would come out anyway. He imagined aliens small enough to fly inside his open mouth, like the giant cockroaches and chinches Arthur said crawled into your mouth in Sierra Leone when you were asleep. Nathan put his lips together as tightly as he could. If he did call out to his dad, what if his dad ignored him? He might still be sulking because Nathan had told the whole television-watching world about Zoe’s cuts and bruises.
The lights in his bedroom reminded Nathan a bit of PC Kari’s Alpha Zulu torch – Lowlight. Flashing. Spot. Flashing. Lowlight. Spot. The aliens must be searching for him. They probably had a beam that could reach across the Universe and into the past. A telescope so powerful, it would make the Hubble telescope look like a cardboard toilet roll tube. Nathan heard footsteps running past his window and voices as well. He’d asked his sister so many questions about what the aliens looked like, whether they were friendly, what type of spaceship they had and how fast it travelled, but he couldn’t remember if he’d ever asked her what they sounded like. They didn’t have mouths, he remembered that from Alien Guess Who? How did they speak?
The lights suddenly disappeared, and Nathan was in total darkness. But he was still too scared to move. A crack of light appeared as his door slowly opened. He closed his eyes as though it would make him invisible. They’d think he was still asleep and they’d leave him alone. Three Mississippis passed.
A Godawful Small Affair Page 13