The House of Tides

by Hannah Richell

  “Should I come down there and help look? I’m going crazy up here on my own. Perhaps I could—”

  She hung up and turned back to the police officer next to her.

  “I need to see the cave. Take me there, before it gets dark.”

  The policeman opened his mouth to say something, but the look in Helen’s eyes stopped him. Instead he gave a curt nod. “Follow me.”

  Helen struggled to get into the Crag. Her cotton skirt was desperately impractical for climbing the cliff face and her espadrilles slipped dangerously on the rocks, but the policeman ably assisted her over the ledge. As he lowered her, her feet touched the gritty floor of the cavern and she sucked in a deep breath.

  It was a desolate place; dank and gloomy and stinking with the smell of slimy vegetation, rotting fish, and worse. What on earth had possessed the girls to go there? Helen couldn’t understand. She wandered around for a minute or two, her jaw clenched tightly as she ran her hands across the towering stone walls. It was as if she hoped the touch of her fingers might open up a secret doorway in the rock and allow her son to be released back into her arms, returned from the underworld into which he had been stolen.

  “You’ve searched every inch of this place?” she asked.

  “Yes,” the policeman confirmed. “We’ll get the sniffer dogs in tomorrow, if we don’t find him before then.”

  Helen shook her head. “Why did they come here?”

  “Your daughter tells me it’s a secret haunt for local teenagers.” He pointed up at the walls. “You can see from the graffiti they weren’t the first ones.”

  Helen looked at the spray-paint scrawls and shuddered. She couldn’t bear to think of little Alfie playing in there. It was no place for a child. She swallowed. “I think I’m ready to leave now.”

  The officer nodded, and they both moved to the narrow gap in the stone. As Helen hauled herself up and out onto the other side, she noticed the sun was beginning to set. Alfie would be hungry. He’d missed his tea.

  They stayed at the beach until it got dark and a young constable gently suggested they return home. Helen didn’t want to leave; she couldn’t bear to return home without her son, but it was obvious there was nothing more they could do in the faltering light. The Coast Guard’s helicopter had already been called in for the night and although they could see the lights of the search boats out in the bay, they’d been told even they would be returning to shore soon. It was too late and too dark. They would have to wait until daybreak to start the search up again.

  Helen thought her heart might split wide open with the sheer ache of it all as she climbed into her car and drove Cassie the short distance back to the house. Neither of them commented on the empty child seat glaring at them accusingly from the backseat, and it took every ounce of Helen’s willpower not to turn the car around and hurl herself back onto the beach, screaming out her son’s name.

  “Is Dad coming home?” Cassie asked finally, breaking the silence.

  “Yes. He’s on his way back from London. He’ll be here soon.”

  It was obvious they were both hoping Richard would know what to do.

  Helen thumped the steering wheel. “Where is he, Cass? Where did he go?”

  Cassie fiddled anxiously with the frayed hem of her denim skirt. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I honestly don’t. I thought he was with Dora. She told me she was taking him to get ice cream. Then she came back with some boy from school…”

  Dora was seated at the kitchen table when they got back. There was an untouched mug of tea in front of her and she sat nervously biting her fingernails. She leapt up as soon as they entered. “Is he with you?”

  Cassie shook her head and Dora slumped back into her seat, wilting like a sunflower as night approaches.

  Helen walked over to the kitchen sink and leaned against it. She dropped her head and let out a loud sigh, releasing a tiny drop of her pent-up anger and tension. As she stood there, with her head bent over the sink, her eyes slowly focused on a brightly colored object in front of her. It was Alfie’s plastic breakfast bowl. It sat in the sink where she had dumped it only hours earlier; it still had a half-eaten Weetabix glued to its sides. With a surge of anger, she turned to the girls.

  “What the hell do you think you were doing today?” Her voice was icy cold but there was fire in her eyes as she looked first at Dora, then Cassie, and then back to Dora.

  The girls glanced nervously at each other.

  “Look at me,” Helen shouted. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It was my fault,” Cassie started. “It was my idea to go to the Crag. Dora didn’t really want to, but I told her I was going and she said we should stick together.”

  Helen shook her head. “I told you girls to keep an eye on him. I thought I could trust you. I don’t understand how a little boy can just disappear on a crowded beach.”

  Cassie hung her head in shame.

  “He’s three years old for God’s sake!” Helen’s voice trembled. “He’s just a baby.”

  “Mum,” Dora pleaded, “we’re really sorry…”

  Helen shook her head. “I don’t want to hear it, Dora. I told you girls to stick together. You left your brother and sister and wandered off on your own to get ice cream! And Alfie followed you, and now he’s lost.” Helen shook her head again. “I told you to stick together.”

  “Mum,” Dora pleaded in a small voice, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry!” Helen turned on Dora. “You’re sorry? Do you think sorry will help Alfie, who’s out there now, all on his own, in the dark…”

  Dora began to sob.

  “Do you think sorry will make this all right?”

  Dora shook her head.

  Cassie opened her mouth to speak but Helen held a hand up to stop her.

  “Sorry doesn’t bring Alfie home and tuck him in upstairs, warm and safe in his bed. Sorry doesn’t keep him out of harm’s way with a tummy full of food and our loving arms around him. There are lots of things I want to hear from you right now. But I certainly don’t want to hear that you are sorry, young lady!” Helen could feel her body trembling, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I just don’t know what you were thinking. He’s just a little boy…a baby.” She paused, and then suddenly all the anger left her and she felt herself collapse slowly to the floor, like a puppet whose strings had suddenly lost all tension. “Oh my baby,” she cried. “My poor, poor little baby…”

  For a moment the room was filled with her noisy sobs. She felt a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off angrily.

  “Mum…,” she heard Dora plead. “Mum…” But she couldn’t listen.

  “Just go away. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand to look at you right now, Dora.”

  “Mum?” It was Cassie this time.

  “Get out!” screamed Helen. “Get out, the both of you! Get out of my sight!”

  They didn’t need to be told again. She heard the girls run from the room, Dora’s noisy cries reverberating all the way upstairs to her bedroom.

  Helen remained curled in a fetal position on the kitchen floor until her back ached and the chill from the kitchen tiles had numbed her flesh through the flimsy summer skirt. It was uncomfortable but it was nothing compared with the fear that gripped at her insides when she thought of her little boy out there in the dark, lost and alone. She’d thought she could trust the girls, that they were old enough to act responsibly. But she had been proved wrong. She had asked them to stick together but Dora had disobeyed. If only they had all stayed together, Alfie would never have gone wandering off.

  There was the familiar sound of a car door, then fast footsteps crunching on gravel. Helen unfolded herself stiffly from her position on the floor and went to meet her husband. He walked through the door, ashen-faced and crumpled in his business suit, and pulled her into his arms. They stood together for a long while, just holding each other and letting the enormity of the situation sink in.

  “Our baby,” she whispered. “Our poor
baby. He’s out there,” she cried.

  Richard stroked her hair and shushed her like a distressed infant. “We’ll find him.”

  There was a creak on the staircase. Helen didn’t look up but she felt Richard turn his head and then slowly, he opened his arms and she felt the warm body of their daughter join their embrace. She breathed in the sweet smell of Cassie’s golden hair and closed her eyes. Richard was right; they would find him.

  For a few moments the three of them stood together in the hall, clinging desperately to each other, and the hope that Alfie would be back in their arms at first light. When Helen did eventually open her eyes, she looked up and saw Dora standing alone at the top of the stairs. She was watching them anxiously through tearstained eyes. Helen gazed at her coldly for a moment. How could she have broken her promise? How could she have left Alfie and Cassie and gone off with that boy? She stared at Dora a moment longer, unable to hide her disgust, before turning her back and heading into the kitchen to fix Richard some tea.

  “I’ve been speaking with the police,” Richard said a few minutes later. He’d joined her in the kitchen and sat fidgeting at the kitchen table. “They’re going to start up the search again at first light. They’re bringing dogs with them. We’ll find him, I promise.”

  Helen didn’t reply. Instead she concentrated on the steady cloud of steam rising out of the mouth of the kettle, wondering how long she would be able to stand its scalding heat if she were to hold her hand out over the vapor.

  “Apparently they’ve had lots of locals volunteering to help too,” he continued. “Bill Dryden’s coming to the house first thing. We’ll get search parties organized and head out across the cliffs to the beach. Alfie’s probably just gotten himself lost and is tucked up asleep in a warm little nook somewhere on the cliffs, or in a ditch in Farmer Plummer’s fields. We’ll be laughing about this in a few days, you’ll see. It will be one of those stories we’ll tell at his twenty-first to embarrass him.” His smile was forced.

  Helen nodded, wanting to believe him. “At least it’s a warm night,” she relented. “Thank goodness he’s got long sleeves and trousers on. I never thought I’d be so grateful for his Superman obsession.”

  Richard gave a small smile.

  “Are you hungry?”

  He shook his head. The kettle released its piercing whistle into the silence and Helen turned it off, uncertain what to do next. In the end she turned and pulled a chair out opposite Richard at the kitchen table. The wooden legs scraped against the floor tiles with a slow, painful screech.

  “The police offered to send a GP up to us, but I said it wasn’t necessary.”

  Helen nodded.

  “I doubt we’ll sleep tonight, but I couldn’t bear the thought of taking painkillers and being out of it when they find him. Did I do the right thing?”

  Helen nodded. She didn’t want anything to numb her pain; she needed to feel every shard of it deep in her heart.

  “Do you think the girls are okay?”

  She shrugged.

  “It’s very quiet upstairs.”

  “They’ve probably gone to bed. Best place for them. I’m not sure I can face them right now. I’m so disappointed in Dora.”

  Richard raised his head and looked at her.

  “I told her they had to stick together. I told her they could only go to the beach if they all stuck together.”

  Richard looked down at his hands. “I thought we’d always said the beach was off-limits for Alfie unless you or I were present.”

  Helen looked up at him guiltily. “They’re nearly adults, Richard. I thought I could trust them. But it seems Dora decided to head off on her own. She went to buy ice cream and met up with some boy from school.”

  Richard sighed and they sat in silence awhile longer, before Richard cleared his throat. “I didn’t realize you had to work today, Helen. I thought you weren’t due back for a week or so.”

  Helen felt a flush of shame spread across her face. It seemed like a lifetime ago now that she had lain in that field with Tobias and made love to him while the birds rustled and the crickets chirruped in her ears. “I had to go in…,” she blustered. “I had to go through my timetables with the dean.”

  Richard nodded. “Sorry, I’m not…it’s not…” He held up his hands. “Nothing matters but us finding him, first thing tomorrow.”

  As Helen looked into his tired, troubled eyes she wondered, for just a split second, whether she should tell him about Tobias.

  But she couldn’t do it. They had enough to deal with right now, and really, what difference did it make where she’d been? What if she had actually been called onto campus? They would still be living the same nightmare now. No, there was no need to confess to Richard. It wasn’t her fault. She swallowed back the cold, hollow feeling nagging insistently at her belly and reached across for Richard’s hand. The warmth of his skin surprised her, and she gripped it tightly in her own icy hand.

  “I keep wondering if he could make his own way back to the house,” Richard murmured. “Do you think he knows the way?”

  Helen shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve wondered the same myself. He’s a bright kid.” She looked out at the blackness of the night pressing against the windowpane and shuddered. “I just keep thinking if he could come home, he would.”

  Richard looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Helen swallowed. “I want to believe, I really do.” She faltered and swallowed again. “It’s just his cape,” she said finally, in a quiet voice. “Why was it on the rocks, by the pools? Why did he take it off there?”

  Richard shook his head quickly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t think like that. We have to stay positive. We won’t get anywhere if we give up now.”

  “I’m not giving up. It’s just—”

  Richard held up his hand. “Stop, Helen. Just stop.” He stood up with another loud scrape of wood against tiles. “I’m going to take a shower. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Helen slept in Alfie’s room; at least, she lay on his bed underneath his duvet and inhaled the sweet little-boy smells of Johnson’s shampoo and vanilla Play-Doh. And as she lay there she submitted herself to the strange, twilight world between waking and sleep where dreams become most surreal and vivid. Her head whirled with a crazy mix of images: Tobias moving over her with his eyes closed and perspiration forming on his brow, Alfie gleefully crayoning vivid scrawls onto the dark walls of the Crag, Dora bursting into the house with that fearful look on her face, and Richard, strong, dependable Richard, squeezing her cold hand in his warm one and reassuring over and over, “We’ll get him back. I promise, we’ll get him back.”

  She didn’t think she slept, but she must have, because Richard was suddenly shaking her from her strange slumber and whispering in her ear, “It’s nearly daybreak; time to find our boy.”

  After he had left the room Helen lay for a moment on the little bed and let the enormity of Alfie’s absence engulf her all over again. She felt it tickle the back of her throat and then slowly pour down through her insides like cold, liquid mercury, moving faster and faster before it settled in a painful, heavy pool in her gut. She sighed and then pulled herself up from the mattress, feeling her fear slosh and settle as she moved. It was still dark outside but she could hear Richard clattering downstairs in the kitchen, preparing for his departure. Before she left the room she made Alfie’s bed carefully; he would be tired when they brought him home.

  In the bathroom she splashed cold water on her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was like looking at a stranger. Her green eyes were red and lifeless and there were dark rings of makeup smudged around them. She needed to change too. She was still in the same clothes she’d been wearing the day before. She pulled her T-shirt over her head, unclasped her bra, and slipped her crumpled cotton skirt down over her calves. As it landed on the floor, she saw, once again, the dark grass stain from the day before. It stared up at her accusingly from the floor. Helen
looked at it for a moment and then swept the skirt up into her arms and flung it with a sob into the rubbish bin under the sink.

  Then she sat on the edge of the bath and gave in to deep, painful sobs that made her body shudder and shake. She sat naked and alone with her hands wrapped around her belly keening for her baby, feeling the ache of his absence deep in her core.

  Richard was letting Betty and Bill Dryden into the house when she came down the stairs, the tears now washed from her face, her clothes changed. Bill shuffled awkwardly by the front door, holding his cap before him in his weathered hands, but Betty went straight to Helen and pulled her into a motherly embrace.

  “You poor dears, you must be going out of your minds with worry. I’ll get the kettle on, shall I? Make us a nice cup of tea?”

  Helen nodded into the top of Betty’s gray, curled hair, grateful that somebody seemed to be taking charge.

  “We’ll be off, Helen,” said Richard. “We’re meeting the police down at the parking lot. I’ll call you as soon as we find him.”

  Helen nodded again and watched as Richard and Bill let themselves out of the front door.

  “Come on.” Betty ushered Helen into the kitchen. “Let’s get this kettle on. The girls will be up soon and you’ll all need breakfast. Got to keep your strength up—for Alfie.”

  Helen followed Betty into the kitchen and watched as the elderly woman fussed and bustled around the kitchen, finding tea bags and putting mugs on a tray.

  “I’ll put a little sugar in your tea, Helen,” she said. “You look like you could do with it.”

  Helen nodded again. It seemed she had lost her voice. Instead she turned to look at the colorful paint scrawls she’d tacked to the wall earlier that year, all abstract masterpieces by Alfie. She’d looked at them many times in the past, but she observed them now as if through fresh eyes, drinking in every brushstroke and every splotch of color as if it were the first time she’d seen them. One was called Pirate Ship and the Moon. Another, Dinosaur on a Slide. It hurt to look at them, but Helen couldn’t tear her eyes away. He was out there, somewhere. They would find him.