Hard Word

by John Clanchy

  Then Mum comes back, and her face is terrified too now, and the skin’s stretched round her mouth.

  ‘Upstairs,’ she hisses at me. ‘Look everywhere. Cupboards, everywhere.’ And she frightens me then so much, I tear upstairs, and Philip’s after me, and there’s nothing, no sign of them in any of the rooms or wardrobes, and Philip’s going from room to room and saying ‘Fuck,’ and somewhere he’s lost his apron.

  Downstairs, Mum’s putting on her joggers. She looks up at me as I come down the stairs.

  ‘Not there?’ she says. But it’s not really a question. ‘Katie,’ she says, ‘this is important. Where did you last see them? Where exactly?’

  ‘They were going in the yard –’

  ‘Towards the back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The gate?’

  ‘Yes, but I thought –’ Katie’s starting to cry now. She knows something’s gone really wrong, and it’s her fault.

  ‘It’s not your fault, sweetie,’ Mum says. ‘I just wish you’d told me. Sorathy, Njala,’ she says, ‘please stay here, they can’t have gone far. Mother can’t walk fast at all, she shuffles along. They won’t be far, I promise.’

  But I wonder how Mum can promise this, and I don’t really believe her, and I wonder if they do.

  ‘We’ll be late,’ Njala says, pointing to her watch. ‘Sorathy will be late back.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, yes –’ Mum says. ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll fix that,’ she says, and I can see if she weren’t so worried, she’d burst into tears. Everything had gone so well.

  ‘Philip,’ she says, ‘you go that way to the Mall. Laura, you go round the block past the Sandersons, I’ll go the other way. They can’t be far. Now run –’

  I do, and I wish I hadn’t eaten so much dessert, and wonder whether it’s that that’s making me feel sick, or something else. After a bit, my stitch goes, and I begin to run easily, one side of the block, the second, and each time I turn the corner I expect to see them on the path in front of me, Grandma Vera, in her slippers, shuffling or holding onto a fence, and the doll holding onto one finger beside her. And once, on the third leg, I think I do, but then only have to say, ‘Hello Mrs Mavarotto, hello Lucia, I’m sorry, I can’t stop,’ and run on, and don’t even understand what she calls out, and the next thing I’m back at the house and I’m wondering whether I should go back to Mrs Mavarotto, maybe she was saying something about Grandma Vera. But Mum’s already there, panting, and – seeing the look on her face – I’d just give anything to be able to say I found them, they’re just coming now, and I want it so hard, for one crazy second I almost do. But Mum doesn’t even ask because she can tell I haven’t really, just by looking. And then we wait and wait and Philip finally comes back, and he’s been round and round the Mall, and even the car park underneath, and there’s no one there, it’s Saturday afternoon and the shops are shut and you’d see anyone immediately if they were there, and Mum says to Philip, ‘What are we going to do?’

  And Philip says, ‘Let’s get out the cars. We’ll drive.’

  And Mum says, ‘But where?’

  And Njala says, ‘The little girl –’

  ‘My Huoy,’ Mum says.

  ‘No, your little girl.’

  And Mum looks around and says, ‘Katie? You mean Katie? Where is she?’

  ‘She said she knew where they’d be, and she ran off after Laura.’

  Mum looks at me.

  ‘I didn’t see her –’ I say.

  ‘Where? ’ she almost shouts at Njala. Who jumps. ‘I’m sorry, Njala,’ Mum says. ‘Did Katie say where?’

  ‘Down to the park, she said. Down to the lake in the park. Where she always goes, she said. To see the fish.’

  ‘But the lake’s –’

  And I know what Mum means. It’s not really a lake. It’s more a series of pools or ponds that go forever along one stretch of the river, to stop it flowing so quickly. And there’s park all round it, and willows and little shady places where all the lovers go and walk on the tan paths or lie on the grass, and I was going to show Philip if he came tomorrow, and little arched bridges under the willows like in a Japanese print, and you could look for someone there for ages unless you knew exactly where to go. And that’s when I hear Mum saying to Philip, ‘The police. Phone the police.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we look first?’

  ‘Philip, please. Phone-the-police.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘Tell them.’

  ‘I will, I will. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll drive there,’ Mum says. ‘You meet me there … I’ll go one way along the ponds, Laura will go the other. Come on –’ she says to me. And as she drags me away by the hand, she calls out to Sorathy, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, she’ll be all right, I know she will,’ but to Philip she whispers, ‘Christ almighty, she could do anything.’ And Philip who I feel sorry for at this moment because it’s not his fault, and he has tried with all the cooking and grinning and that, even though he’s a dork most of the time, he says, ‘Darling, I’m sure –’ and Mum just shouts at him, ‘How can you be? Just phone, will you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell them. Tell them.’

  But she doesn’t tell him what to tell them.

  And then we’re in the car and speeding to the park, and Mum’s not saying anything, or not to me, but just saying ‘Christ please, Christ,’ and it’s not swearing, I know, but praying. And we nearly go through the wooden poles at the park gate and Mum’s out and I have to put the handbrake on and shut the doors – she’s even left the keys – and is running to the right and shouting as she points over her shoulder to the left, ‘You go that way.’

  And I run across the grass because Mum’s got me terrified now, she’s the one who’s terrifying me, and I don’t know why but I’m starting to cry and my stitch has come back and I’m racing along the paths, and twice I bash my ankles on the big stones that border the path and I reach down and hold my ankle where it hurts most, but I’m still crying and hopping while I’m doing this and I must look like a hamstrung wallaby, and somewhere a long way behind me I can hear a siren going and I know Philip’s phoned the police who have a station down by the Mall, and I know then – when I hear the siren – I know then that somebody must have died, and at that moment everything’s so awful and I’m so blinded by the tears in my eyes and just the pain, I nearly tramp all over My Huoy who’s bending down to push a leaf on a stick out into the water while Katie stands beside her holding Grandma Vera’s hand. And that’s where I say it as well.

  ‘Christ. Oh, Christ,’ I say, and I don’t know what I’m saying, if it’s a swearword or a prayer. Or just thanks. And they look round at me, as if I’m mad. Except Grandma Vera who shrinks back when I scream, ‘Katie, where have you been –? The police are even looking for you.’ And I can see that Grandma Vera is afraid, and she knows she’s done something really wrong, and she pulls away from me as if I’d hit her, and I feel more sorry for her then than I even do for Mum.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say, ‘Grandma Vera. It’s all right. It’s not your fault. You don’t know what you’re doing.’

  And she’s in shock and that, I can see that. But I can also see what the shock has done to her. Her eyes are bright, and they’re wider open than I’ve seen her in years. And I know she’s understood, understood what she’s done. And what I’ve just said to her. And I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. And I feel so bad, I just go over and take her hand, and she’s shaking and saying to herself, ‘Bad girl. Bad, bad girl,’ and I know the understanding’s gone now, but the fear and the terror haven’t, and she’s cold even though the sun’s still out on the park lawn beyond the trees where we are, but she’s cold and shaking and I think she’d fall if I didn’t hold her up. So I take her by the shoulders and help her up over the path stones towards the lawn and the sun, I’m nearly carrying her, and I’m thinking of Mum too, and she still doesn’t know I’ve found them, and part of
me wants to drop Grandma Vera and race out of the gloom of the trees into the light and shout, Mum, it’s okay Mum, it’s me, Laura. I’ve found them. But I don’t because I can see Grandma Vera needs me more now, so I tell Katie to take My Huoy’s hand and follow us, and they’re happy together behind me as I haul Grandma Vera –

  ‘Bad girl, such a bad girl …’

  – up over the stones and away from the trees and into the sun. And there it’s even weirder, because when we get out in the light and I can see across the lawn, we’re all spread in this huge triangle. I’m at one end of the park helping Grandma Vera, and Philip’s over at Mum’s car and he’s got his car and there are two police cars with him and their blue lights are still flashing, and there must be three or four policemen with him and he’s the apex of the triangle because just then Mum breaks out of the trees at the other end of the park, directly in line with me but a long way off, and I can see she takes it all in at a glance, and instead of- as I’d expected – her racing towards us and screaming in anger and relief and pouring over me and saying how wonderful and heroic I am and telling Katie if she ever did anything like that again, ever, do you hear – instead, she just collapses, just drops to her knees where she is. Of course she’s been running around like a crazy woman but it’s not just that, and she’s weeping like I was a while back, I know, and she’s kneeling there on the grass, she’s on her knees, and just slumps forward, still kneeling, with her head bent on the ground and arms stretched in front of her, and I can hear, but I can’t, her saying ‘Oh, Christ, thank Christ, thank Christ,’ and I understand, with her, it always is a prayer, even if she is angry.

  And we walk slowly towards her, Grandma Vera’s nearly collapsing too, and shaking like a leaf, like she’s about to have a fit, but I tell her it’s all right, it’s not her fault, she can’t help it, and because she can no longer understand what I’m talking about but she hears the tone I say it in, I can feel her calming a bit, not convulsing in her body any more, and I just feel more grown-up than I’ve ever felt in my life before. And know I can do things, and change things for people.

  Philip’s walking towards us now, with one of the policemen. The others have stayed by the cars, and as we get closer, one of the cars pulls out with its blue lights off now, and drives away. And I hear Philip saying to the policeman who’s walking with him:

  ‘I understand that, Sergeant. I understand what you’re saying.’

  And even Mum’s got up by now. And she’s coming towards us, but not racing like I’d expected but wiping her eyes and looking at the grass as she walks, as if she’s just out in the park for a walk. Or a good think.

  Philip

  When I reach the park and the ponds, Miriam’s car’s there but there’s not a soul in sight, and I don’t know which way to go. Instinct pulls me to the right because the woods are thicker in that direction, there are more and deeper ponds, and I know Miriam will have gone that way and sent Laura the other. I start that way, and then stop, hearing the sirens behind me and knowing, too, that I should follow Laura. And then as I move back across my own traces, the police arrive – two cars, at speed, so I must have conveyed Miriam’s panic in my own call to them – and I find I’m back where I started and have made no progress at all. Seconds only must have passed, but it seems like an aeon in which anything might have happened, not just a passing tension between my love for Miriam and my love for the children.

  ‘Mr Trent?’ one of the policemen, a sergeant, is calling. I know him by sight. Craig, I think. Or is that his first name? He’s quick, efficient. He even helps me out with his name: ‘Sergeant Craig,’ he says, already spreading a map on the bonnet of the police car. The map is local, the park an amorphous green blob at its centre. ‘Constables from the station,’ he says, jerking his head, as three lumbering boys – they’re hathree people involved, all femalerdly more – saunter over from the other car and gather around him, almost shyly putting on their caps and fingering at corners of the map.

  ‘Mr Trent,’ one of them says and nods, and I know I’ve seen him around the Mall and probably should remember his name.

  ‘Thank you for coming so quickly,’ I begin to say, but Craig is impatient to get on.

  ‘Now you say there are three people involved, all female?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ I say. ‘My wife’s mother …’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Harcourt, Mrs Vera Harcourt.’

  ‘And two children?’

  ‘Yes, my daughter, Katie –’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A young Cambodian girl.’

  ‘How young?’

  ‘Not long walking, a toddler. Two, maybe – perhaps a bit more. She’s –’

  ‘Sarge,’ one of the boys says. And doesn’t even point, just nods in the direction of the trees to the left. A hundred yards away, Laura is emerging from the shadow of the trees, into the green sun. She’s almost carrying Mother, and behind her, just coming into the light now, there’s Katie – and my heart leaps, seeing her – drawing behind her the tiny, toddling figure, in white and red, of the baby Cambodian girl.

  Are these the females?’ Sergeant Craig says. He doesn’t say in question. He doesn’t have to. He’s still polite, but his tone is already cooling, losing interest. ‘There’s four of them,’ he says.

  ‘The other one,’ I say, ‘is my step-daughter, my other daughter, Laura.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Now if only I can find my wife,’ I say. And I know immediately this is the wrong way of phrasing it.

  ‘Your wife’s missing too, sir?’

  ‘No, Sergeant,’ I say. I’m beginning to get angry, to react myself. ‘She’s not missing in that sense. I merely meant –’

  One of the boys, I can see, is already beginning to smirk. The other two scratch in the gravel of the car park with the toes of their boots, looking embarrassed. One of these two grabs the other by the sleeve, and they start towards the second car. I can hear a radio crackling from it.

  ‘Is that your wife, sir?’

  I look down to the right where instinct and my heart had pulled in the first place, and there on the grass, where there’d been no sign of anyone just moments before, is Miriam, on her knees, an apparition that seems to have risen out of the solid ground itself. She’s bending forwards now, with her arms and hands stretched out before her in supplication. Or like an animal with its front paws caught in a trap. I know, from her attitude, she’s seen the girls, seen Mother and the little girl, but I’m not sure if I hear or just imagine the cry of ‘Thank Christ, Thank Christ,’ moving low across the grass towards us. I want to go to her, but something tells me to leave her for the moment, to let her be until she reassembles whatever it is that may have come apart within her, that that’s what she’d want, and as the second police car starts and backs away, I turn to Mother and the girls and walk across the grass towards them.

  Though not alone.

  ‘Mr Trent?’ Sergeant Craig says at my elbow, and I acknowledge something is due.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Sergeant.’

  ‘Better to be safe than sorry, sir,’ he says. Both of us are trying to be conciliatory. We walk on together.

  ‘I’m grateful you came,’ I say. ‘And that you came so quickly. I’ll write to your superintendent and express my appreciation.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Never does the file any harm.’

  But he is still waiting on something else. We’re halfway to Mother and the girls now, and what catches my eye is not Mother, who’s shaking and looks exhausted, and it’s not Katie who’s dragging along happily enough in Mother’s wake, kicking the daisies and leading a tiny doll by its hand – it’s not any of these – but the pillar of flesh that’s walking upright beside and in front of them, Laura, the sun in the black of her hair and eyes, her legs tanned, calves unimaginably muscled, moving steadily, at her own pace, through the grass. I’m mesmerized by this sight
, and it’s some seconds before I realize I’m alone, and turn to find Sergeant Craig has stopped three or four yards behind me. And is standing. Deliberately.

  ‘Sergeant?’ I say, moving back a few paces towards him.

  ‘Mr Trent,’ he says, ‘I don’t quite know how to put this, but …’

  ‘I imagine you’re pretty used to blunt talking, Sergeant. Just say it.’

  ‘This can’t go on, sir.’

  And I know what he means. And, of course, he’s right. Twice we’ve had to call them out before this, both times at night, when other serious operations were on.

  ‘This isn’t the busiest station in the city, Mr Trent, I won’t try and kid you that it is. But we’ve got enough to do. There’s a lot of petty crime in and around the Mall, the traders are always on our backs to put more uniforms on the street, we’ve got a major drug and juvenile problem out in –’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know. I know what you’re saying, Sergeant. I’m grateful for all you’ve done.’

  ‘We’ll always respond, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’

  ‘But old ladies wandering … I don’t want to be offensive, sir.’

  ‘You aren’t, Sergeant. Believe me, I’ve taken your point,’ I say, and go towards Laura, who’s looking past me now, down to where Miriam is just walking slowly, head down, through the grass to join us.

  * *

  At home, Miriam’s still subdued, not uncommunicative so much as preoccupied. Sorathy and My Huoy have been re-united – calmly, without fussing, just a smile and a touch on the child’s shoulder as if she were, in fact, simply returning from a stroll in the park and perhaps, I think, she never understood in the first place, and believes that’s all it was. Dr Lazenby’s been and gone. Mother’s in shock – as I think, in a different way, Miriam must still be – but Mother’s sedated now, only lightly because of all the other medication she’s on. She may, Lazenby’s warned us, still get agitated in the night, depending on whether she wakes and what, if anything, she remembers.