On 17th March 2014, from SlummyYummyMummy:
You deserved to lose your son because you stole him from another woman. I am sorry to say this but it is true
On 2nd April 2014, from YourBoyJoel:
Mum its me Joel I was got by real bad peple who wont let me go until you pay them some money IDK how much it is as they wont tell me and I dont know why they havent got in touch already but please come and get me they dont let me use the computer but they left it on for just a few minuts so I can send this please come and find me quick I hae to go now cuz they will be abck soon
On 31st October 2014, from YourBoyJoel:
Mum happy birthday mum they said I cud send you a msg cuz its your birthday I miss you so much I wish you wud just pay them the £££ they want so I can come home to you I love you Joel
On 28th November 2014, from MichaelJBrown:
Mrs Harper, I am sure you will not recognise my name but I am a well-known ‘fixer’ in what might be termed the underworld. I have recently uncovered intel that may be of interest to you in the search for your son. If you would like me to investigate this further on your behalf then please get in touch immediately. Please note that the police will *not* be able to help you and any attempted contact by them may result in serious harm or even death to Joel.
On 15th December 2014, from MichaelJBrown:
Mrs Harper, please be advised that the intel I have for you has developed significantly since my initial contact. Your son is in danger and you need to act quickly. Get in touch with me soonest so that we can resolve the situation swiftly and with a good result
On 24th December 2014, from JoelIsLost:
Mum I guess this is it and you dont want me back it hurts so bad to know that but I guess I can understand why you dunt want me now. I think they are going to kill me soon cuz I hae not made them the money they was hoping n they dunt want to feed me or clothe me no more. I love you mum so much n I wish I cud have seen you one last time before I die love you always Joel
On 8th January 2015 from TheLostBoysCollective:
Hi there, we are the Lost Boys Collective and we work with former sex workers and victims of trafficking to help reunite them with their families. We believe we may be able to find out something about your son Joel and if you are able to fund us to complete our investigations we will gladly do all we can to help you. Please get in touch soon as we really think we can help.
On 31st January 2015 from TheLostBoysCollective:
Hi there, it’s us again. We have just had a VERY good lead come to us as part of an investigation we are doing for someone else and we are now CONFIDENT that we can find Joel with just a little more work. All we need to complete this stage of our investigation is $875 which will cover fees, supplies etc, so that we can get to the answers quickly. Please email us – we want to help so much!
On 15th February 2015 from JoelHarperMissing:
Mum please it’s me, I am so sorry I didn’t get in touch before but I didn’t know what to write because I was so ashamed of what I did. I know I hurt you so much by running away and I will do anything to make it up to you. Please please forgive me I am so sorry and all I want is to come home to you.
Mum I have been travelling for a long time trying to get home and now I have run out of money and if you could just find it in your heart to send me $1263 via Moneygram that will pay for my tickets to come home.
On 26th April 2015, from User1784253:
You are a child stealer. You got what you deserved. Social Services STEAL BABIES and you collaborated with them. How does it feel now???
On 9th May 2015 from JoelHarperMissing:
Mum I can tell how angry you are with me because you have not got in touch with me. I suppose I can’t blame you really. I know how bad it was what I did and I don’t blame you for not wanting me back again.
Mum I have done something really stupid I was trying to earn the money to get my ticket and I got in with these people who told me I could earn the money dealing drugs for them. I know this is wrong but it was only weed and I didnt think it was so bad. Unfortunately I got caught almost at once and was arrested and now I am in prison and will be there until I can pay my fine to get out.
Mum I know I don’t deserve your help and I understand that you won’t want me home after this. But if you could just pay my fine to get out of jail and then I will do my very best to go straight and not make you ashamed of me any more than you already are. I need $250 which I know is a lot but it would mean the world to me. I promise I will not get in touch with you again if you don’t reply
On 15th May 2015 from ConcernedPoliceOfficer:
Dear Mrs Harper, I am an officer with the Arizona State Police and we currently have your son Joel Harper in custody. I am aware that he has already contacted you with a request that you pay his fine so that we can release him. However I do not know if you are aware of his entire situation. I have been able to get him into a half-way house where he will be able to pick up the pieces of his life and begin to rebuild. However to be released to this program he MUST pay his fine and will also require a further $185 as bond to enter the program, making a required total of $435. I am so touched by your son’s condition that I am happy to pay half of this sum but cannot do more. If you can wire $220 via MoneyGram we will be able to help your son and his life can begin once more.
On 1st July 2015, from WeHaveYourSon:
We have your son Joel. We will release him to you in return for a payment of £5000. We will be in touch shortly to provide details of how you can pay this money. DO NOT attempt to involve the police or we WILL be forced to terminate your son’s life.
Today, 31st October, is my birthday. My gift to myself today is to not read any of the vile, hateful, misleading and criminal messages the internet trolls have seen fit to send me.
Posted on 31st October 2015
Filed to: Miscellaneous
Tags: missing people, support for families, internet trolls, Susannah Harper, Joel Harper
Chapter Five
Thursday 9th November 2017
9th November has its claws in me before I even open my eyes. I know the only way I can get through this is to pretend it is just a day like any other, clinging to each task I’ve set myself like a handhold as I cross this wasteland of a day that marks five years gone. For some, the days on the other side of Bonfire Night signify the making of lists and the buying of tinsel, the first beginnings of the Christmas season; but not for me. It’s Thursday, and in the orderly regular life I’ve planned for myself, Thursday means clean-sheets day.
My own bed has been stripped and changed, the white-on-white-set changed for the delicate floral blue, the silk throw rearranged across the foot. Later I will wash everything and hang it on the line to dry, then bring it in scented with the clean cold scent of autumn. Some days when the mists come in and the drizzle falls for days I have to tumble dry it, but today I’m lucky. When I went down to the apple tree this morning I had to screw my eyes up against the low orange sun that hung in the air, fat with life and promise like the yolk of an egg. Today my washing will dry quickly and by tonight, everything will be crisp and ironed and folded away, another small domestic victory against the forces of chaos. I stand at the threshold of Joel’s room, my arms weighed down with clean bedding, and force myself to focus on that thought – the cleanliness of the linen, the scents in the cupboard – so that I can make myself strong enough to pretend that this is all simply routine, that the bedding I’m about to wash is musty with boy-sweat and not with disuse, and thus make myself cross the threshold to my son’s bedroom.
I have to do this. It’s Thursday. I always do this on a Thursday.
Joel has three sets of bed linen. A rather nasty beige-and-brown-patterned set donated by John’s mother, who bought it unopened at a church bazaar and then regretted it, but was incapable of throwing anything out. A dark-blue gingham set bought just before he left us, in recognition of the fact that he was a young man now, not a little boy. And th
e one that’s on the bed now, the Sonic the Hedgehog duvet cover from the Christmas he was nine years old.
John – as unsentimental a man as any woman could fall in love with – wanted to throw this set out when Joel was thirteen. It’s old, he said, caught between laughter and despair. Look, it’s all faded. You’re always telling me you’re not a kid any more. So get rid of it and let’s get your room looking like you’re thirteen and not six. And tidy it up while you’re at it. And Joel, still vulnerable beneath his shell of teenage anger, turned his face towards me and gave me that single, helpless look, the one that always jabbed piercingly at my heart: Help me, Mum. I need you to help me.
So I waded in and told John sharply that of course Joel didn’t have to throw away his Sonic bedding if he didn’t want to, and what was the matter with him, shouting like that over a duvet cover? A bloody duvet cover? John retorted that it wasn’t the duvet cover, it was about Joel wanting to be treated like an adult but still acting like a child. I mocked him, reminding him that he had clothes in his wardrobe that were older than Joel so he was in no position to talk, and besides, what did he think teenagers were meant to be like? The argument rumbled on throughout the day, disappearing for a while and then resurfacing in spats about what to have for lunch and how to stack the dishwasher, until I was afraid the whole weekend would turn sour on us.
Then, after Joel went to bed that night, defiantly sprawled out beneath the Sonic bedset, I snuggled up to John on the sofa and nuzzled my mouth against his ear, letting my breath coil around the delicate nerve endings, my fingernails scratching gently and exquisitely at the back of his neck. I remember John’s gradual capitulation as my caresses lapped like water at the hard knot of his anger, until he turned to me and put his hands on either side of my face. We were quiet and slow that night, conscious in a pleasant way that Joel was asleep above us and that he might hear us and be disturbed. I think that was what brought us back together again, even more than the sex; the reminder that we had both willingly and unquestioningly committed ourselves to a life built around Joel.
Then when the moment was over and I took the wine glasses to the kitchen and turned on the dishwasher and we went upstairs to bed hand in hand, we both paused to look in on Joel. He was five feet six inches tall when we measured him on his thirteenth birthday, but he still slept with his bedside light on. A silent reminder of childhood that never failed to tug at my heart. In the dim forgiving light of the little red lamp, a never-sleeping Sonic peered back at us from beneath one arched eyebrow.
Look at him, I whispered to John. Our boy.
Yes, said John, and sighed. Look at him. And I realised John knew that I had sex with him earlier as a sort of consolation prize, to make up for the fact that I had taken Joel’s side over the duvet, and I saw a glimpse of a truth I’d been stalking for years: John is jealous of Joel.
This memory hurts, but I’ve learned you can evade pain by subjecting yourself to a lesser but still significant pain, and the hurt of this long-ago argument is enough to numb me to the hurt of stripping the bed that no longer smells of my son. I handle the duvet cover carefully. Years of washing have worn it almost into rags. I don’t dare put it through the machine any more. Instead, I sink it into a rich bath of Lux suds, then drape it tenderly across my airer so the weight of water can’t tear the cotton.
His room’s not precisely as he left it. I’ve allowed myself the luxury of tidying up, making it welcoming and neat. The dirty clothes strewn across the floor have been washed, ironed and stowed away. One agonising day around the three-year mark it dawned on me that even if (when) he comes back, they won’t fit him any more. But I can’t bear to let his wardrobe stand empty. The Warcraft figurines that he loved and used to beg for still stand in their places along the windowsill. But their predecessors, the action figures from kids’ cartoons and video games, have been tidied away into a carefully labelled carton, each one laid to rest reverently and with care. I considered wrapping them in tissue, but thought that might seem excessive. When (if) Joel comes back, I don’t want him to laugh at me.
The books in the bookcase are topped with fluffy grey fronds, as if they all need a haircut. Like everything else in the room, they’re years too young for him now; but he might want to re-read The Wind in the Willows and the Faraway Tree stories he adored so much, in the way adults often do. Or perhaps he’ll simply want to hold onto them as souvenirs of his childhood. Surely there were some memories he would want to hold on to. Surely he can’t have been so unhappy that he’d want to get rid of everything.
The gingham duvet cover is on. The bed looks welcoming and comfortable, smooth and neat. Perhaps too smooth and neat. Is there a suggestion of the shrine in the perfection of the crisply ironed duvet cover, in the neat alignment of the corners that all hang at an equal distance from the floor? Perhaps it would look better if I rumpled things up just a little. I don’t want Joel to be intimidated by the cleanliness. I press in the centre of the pillow with the palm of my hand, just enough to create the faintest indentation that might suggest it’s been recently slept on. That looks better. Now if (when) he comes back, he won’t feel as if his room is better without him in it.
What I want desperately to do is to lie down on the bed, press my face into the pillow and cry. But if I do that, there’s a chance I may never get up again. And that can’t happen. I need to be strong.
I turn away from the bed and look around the rest of the room. I don’t like to keep things too immaculate for the same reason that I don’t like the bed to look too perfectly straight and untouched, so when it comes to dusting, I ration myself, cleaning one third of the room on the same rotation that I change the duvet covers. This week, it’s the turn of the skirting boards, the bevelled edges of the wardrobe doors, and the mirror.
The skirting boards take the most time, so I do them first, enjoying the sense of accomplishment as the glossy wood emerges fresh and clean. Beneath Joel’s bed, an enormous dust bunny has crept in from elsewhere in the house and is lurking on the carpet. I sweep it up into my duster and crawl out to wash it down the bathroom sink. Coming back in, I see the dent in the pillow, the crumpled place in the duvet where someone has sat down, and I feel my heart throb, momentarily deceived by my own treacherous illusion. I have to force myself not to look more closely.
The wardrobe has collected very little dust, just the faintest traces sullying the dampness of the duster. I do it anyway, taking my time, using up the minutes, allowing myself to linger. When I can’t spin it out any more, I turn my attention to the mirror. Clean cloth. A careful, even spray of Pledge. Elbow grease. The mirror, clean before I started, turns misty with polish, then begins to gleam. The sunlight catches on the edge and jabs a dagger of rainbows into my eyes. When I blink them away, I see something in the mirror that should not be there.
Grief and longing cause all sorts of hallucinations. Walking through the shopping centre, I’ll catch the scent of Joel’s hair, sweaty from an afternoon of racing around the park. Queueing in the traffic that fills the wide crowded streets in the mornings, I see his face looking out at me from between two cars. Sometimes at night, in the silent hours when the street outside is empty and the distant buses have stopped running and the taxis have all gone home and even the clocks seem to stop ticking, I hear Joel’s voice whispering to me from across the landing.
This, though. This is new. I blink several times, trying to make the illusion in the mirror disappear. It remains stubbornly visible. Scrap-dog. Joel’s best beloved, his constant bedtime companion.
Scrap-dog cannot possibly be there. Scrap-dog cannot be there because Scrap-dog went everywhere with Joel, hidden in his backpack even as a teenager. The two of them vanished together. Careless of the smear I will make, I lean my forehead against the mirror and close my eyes, count to ten. It’s a flaw in the glass, a strange artefact from the sunlight in my eyes. When I open my eyes again and look, Scrap-dog will be gone. I open my eyes. In the reflection, Scrap-dog’s gleaming black b
utton eye stares blandly back at me from his spot on the pillow.
“Right,” I say out loud. My voice is so loud, I feel as if I might have broken something. It’s a fold in the cover, a duster I’ve left there that’s somehow fallen into an evocative shape, a simple delusion. I turn around and glare at the bed, daring Scrap-dog to still be there.
Scrap-dog’s eyes still shine glossily when the light catches them. His head flops to one side as if someone has wrung his neck, and across his belly I can see the wobbly imperfection of the seam that split along the furry patches that make up his body, stitched back shut by me long ago.
This is going on too long. I don’t think my heart can stand it. I make myself go towards the bed, force my hand to reach out to grasp the toy’s worn body. He won’t be there. I’ll reach out and clutch empty air and Scrap-dog will vanish. My hands close around the stiff rigid shape of his muzzle, strange contrast to the limp floppiness of his body. Why isn’t he disappearing? Why is he still here? Is he an early Christmas gift, the first harbinger of the only thing I really want? My hands clutch him tight, too tight. If I’m not careful I’ll tear him in half. How can this be happening? I bring Scrap-dog slowly up to my face, press him against my mouth and nose, and take a deep breath.
The scent of mud is overwhelming. The floor tilts and sways beneath my feet like a funhouse. I reach out one hand to try and steady myself but there’s nothing, nothing between me and the drop. I’m falling through empty space towards cold dark water and now I’m choking, spluttering, drowning. I try to breathe but my mouth and nose are plugged shut, all I can feel is the pain of trying to breathe and failing, and a thick clog of vomit rises in my throat but it has nowhere to go because the mud and water are overwhelming, and I can’t breathe and I’m choking to death and no one will find me and help me, this is the end. Only Scrap-dog is here to watch me as I drown, only Scrap-dog with his black button eyes gazing sorrowfully down at me from some high place where an angry giant holds him by the neck and watches pitilessly as I fall and fall, down and down and down, my eyes open, my hands clenched tight.
The Winter's Child Page 7