On we walk, past cheap brick buildings thrown hastily up in the aftermath of victory, and into the small part left untouched by the Luftwaffe; the art gallery, the city hall, the strange curved triangle of the old dock offices that houses the Maritime Museum. In the centre, a dead queen stands frowningly on a pedestal and stares out towards the water. I’m glad her back is towards me, this woman who birthed and raised nine children while simultaneously heading an empire. I can’t imagine she’d approve of me.
Where is Joel leading me? When he was small he loved to lose himself among the small connecting rooms of the museum, hurrying past the snarling polar bear and the mannequins standing in the Inuit canoe to stand tranced and blissful amongst the wails and whistles of the room filled with whale bones. But it’s late and the doors are locked. We must be going somewhere else instead.
And sure enough, there he goes, the hood of his coat fluttering as he hurries down the side of the museum towards Queen’s Gardens. I hurry eagerly after him, so eagerly that I almost step out in front of a tall red bus, crammed with Christmas shoppers, tilting precariously around the curve of the road that half encircles the Rose Bowl Fountain. A man grabs my arm and pulls me gently back, shaking his head indulgently. The bus half halts, then sets off again. From behind the steamed windows, I hear the strains of perfectly harmonised carols. How beautiful. The passengers are singing as they ride.
“Susannah.” It’s Nick again, or rather Nick’s voice, whispering to me in the private places inside my head. “Please be careful. Don’t go any further. Stay with me.”
“I’m fine, I can cross the road by myself.” Did I speak out loud or only to myself? I can’t be sure. This isn’t good. I need to concentrate or I’ll lose myself as well as Joel. Has he gone already? No. He’s sitting on the edge of the fountain’s wide stone bowl, and now as our eyes meet once more he smiles, that small shy heartbreaking smile that creeps out at me from beneath his lowered eyelids, and he holds out a hand towards me, beckoning me closer.
Before I can cross, another bus comes, tearing along so fast I think it will surely tip over as it rounds the curve. The breeze of its passage tugs at my clothes and tries to pull me off the curb, which seems suddenly like the edge of a precipice. What is the driver thinking? The passengers must be terrified.
Joel has taken off his trainers and rolled up his jeans. For a moment he balances on the edge of the stone basin, rocking slightly for balance. Then with a light little leap he’s in the water, laughing and holding his hands out to catch the spot-lit spray that tumbles from the raised central bowl. He looks so happy, so happy and so free, as if every worry he has ever had has been washed away. I want to join him. The buses keep coming, one after another after another, but I’m determined. I watch my moment, waiting and waiting, counting seconds and fractions of seconds in my head, estimating just how small a gap I can cram myself through. Finally I thrust myself recklessly into the dark dieselly space between two buses, ignoring the screech of brakes and the horrified cries of warning, and then for a moment I’m stranded in a patch of tarmac between two walls of traffic. Then I find another too-small gap to hurl myself into, and I’m on the other side of the road, and nothing but a few yards of sandstone pavement lies between me and my son.
He’s still dancing in the water, chuckling to himself as the spray wets his hair. For a moment I wonder how he can bear its chill against his tender skin. But as I get closer to the fountain, the air grows warmer, as if the water is lit by the hot summer sun and not simply a floodlight installed deep within the stonework. I want to be in the water with Joel, dancing by his side. Later can come the questions and the explanations, the long slow unravelling of the mystery of these last years, but now all I want is to get into the fountain, and bask in the warmth of Joel. Does he understand this? Of course he does. He’s happy, nodding encouragingly as I tug at the zippers of my boots. I’m so sorry, he mouths. I love you, Mum. It’s just so beautiful.
So long since I could hold my son. So long since I could stroke his face. I put my hand on the edge of the stone basin. His hand comes towards mine.
“Susannah. Please don’t. Please. Please listen to me. You don’t have to do this.”
Someone else’s hand on me now. Someone else’s breath warming my cheek. I want to push them away but I can’t, because it’s Nick. Nick, who rescued me. Nick, who brought me back to life with the touch of his skin. Nick, who wants to be my hero. But why would I need a hero now?
“That’s it. Please look at me. Look at me. Please. So I know you’re listening to me. Please look at me.”
I shake my head stubbornly. If I turn away from Joel, will I ever see him again? He’s stopped dancing in the water and is watching me reproachfully. He’s disappointed.
“I have to go. Let me go.”
“No. Please. Stay with me. Please. Just a little bit longer. Just look at me for a minute.”
“But I can see Joel. If I look away he’ll disappear again—”
“Susannah, there’s no one there. You’re staring at empty water. Please listen to me. Let me get you back to safety and we can talk. Please, love. Don’t leave me like this.”
It’s the word love that does it, the slippage from professional coaxing to raw need that calls me back towards him, this man who I do not love, who does not love me, but who has held me while I wept, and shared my bed, and risked everything he has to do so. I sigh, and turn to look at him. He’s startlingly close to me, his mouth near enough to kiss, and his face so hungry with longing that for a second I think I might do just that. But it’s so cold suddenly, so cold, and my muscles are cramped and painful and my hand is clutched tight around something that I know instinctively I mustn’t let go of. I can still hear water, but instead of the delicate golden plash of the fountain it’s the drag and suck of the thick cold river, and where the hell am I? How did I get here? And what is Nick doing beside me? I whimper in confusion, and try not to panic.
“It’s all right.” Nick’s trying to sound calm but I can hear the fear in his voice. “Keep still. Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“But where am I, what’s happened, where are we? How did I get here?”
“You’re on Drypool Bridge. It’s all right. You were walking up and down the bridge, what they call acting strangely. Then when we all turned up you climbed over the parapet. You’ve been here for about an hour now.”
I risk a brief dizzying glance upwards at cold ironwork, blue with paint and glinting with frost. The river terrifies me, I’ve never liked the way it looks. I can’t have climbed over here to get closer to it. There must be a mistake.
“And… did you… how are you—”
“Don’t worry, it’s all right, I promise. We’re going to get you out of here safely, but we’re going to have to go really, really slowly. All right?”
“I can’t move. I can’t. I’ll fall.”
“You can move and you won’t fall. But don’t do anything yet.”
“I can’t even move my hand. My fingers are stuck. I’m stuck. My legs hurt.”
“That’s just the cramp, because you’ve been still for so long. I know it hurts but just try to bear it a few minutes longer. All right? They’re going to send down some clips and a harness so we can get you up safely. Just sit tight a few minutes longer. No need to move, no need to do anything at all, just keep on being brave for a little while longer while I make you safe again. Can you do that for me, love?”
He’s eerily good at this. Is this something they learn in training? Or has he had to do this for Bella, in the deepest days of her madness? All I know is that despite everything, despite the freezing iron, the shivering in my flesh, the proximity of the water, I feel safe and protected. Nick is here and he is going to look after me and somehow, I will be all right. If I close my eyes, will I see the fountain again? Will I see Joel’s spectre, enticing me into the cold waters below? I don’t dare to look.
“I don’t know how I got here,” I whimpe
r. “I can’t remember how I got here. I think I must have been dreaming.”
“It’s all right.” His hand creeps across the ironwork to mine. “I’m here. I’ll look after you.”
And then there’s a slow confusion of lights and voices and ropes and somehow, somehow I am persuaded to let go my frozen grip of the ironwork and I’m lifted into space and onto the tarmac, and there’s an ambulance and some nice people in green uniforms and a blanket and some talk of assessment and I start to panic because I don’t want to be taken to hospital, I just have to hold on another few days and Joel will come back to me. But then Nick is talking, explaining my history and the time of year and that I’m already getting help and he’ll make sure I get home safely and that there’s someone with me and that my doctor’s called in the morning, and thank the Lord for the overstretched NHS, God bless the shortage of staff and the shortage of mental health beds, they’re going to let me go, they’re going to let me go, they’re actually going to let me go. I’m bundled tenderly into Nick’s car and the chaos is all shut away behind the door of the car and we’re moving smoothly through the streets, and there’s music in the background to cover the silence and my mind contains only small physical truths: that my legs are stiff, that my entire body is cold and cramped, that the seat I sit in is soft and comforting, that Nick’s profile against the window is beautiful and his aftershave smells delicious.
“I’m so sorry,” I say when we’re clear of the city centre and cruising out towards the suburbs.
His smile is quick and generous. “Don’t be.”
“I don’t even know how I got there, I didn’t mean to… I mean, I wasn’t trying to, you know, do anything stupid—”
“Hey.” He takes his hand off the gearstick and rests it gently, shyly on my wrist for a moment. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, nothing else I’d rather do, than come and help you when you need me. Okay? That’s what I want to do more than anything else in the world.”
The warmth of his car is so comforting that I find myself dozing. In the dream, Nick parks his car outside my house and comes round to open the passenger door for me, guiding me out with his hands and arms as if I’m very drunk or very old or very ill. The front door’s locked and for a minute I panic, but then I reach into my coat pocket and there are my keys, as if I’ve conjured them simply by wishing. We go in through the front door and Nick tells me to sit quietly while he goes and runs a bath so I can warm up. Sitting on the sofa, waiting like a child for Nick to come and take me on to the next thing that will happen, it comes to me that this isn’t a dream; I’m simply so tired and confused that it feels like one. When he undresses me in the bedroom, he touches me only as much as he absolutely has to in order to remove my clothing. I’d forgotten there could be such reverence in the world. As I sink blissfully into the bathtub, he soaks a sponge and gently washes my shoulders.
“Would you like to get in with me?” The warm water trickling across my skin makes me think of his fingers, the butterfly brush of his skin against mine, as if I’m infinitely fragile and might shatter in his hands if handled too roughly. “I can make room.”
“I’d love to. But I won’t.” He reaches for the luxurious shower crème Melanie bought for me last Christmas, untouched in its beautiful bottle. In all the nights that have passed since, I have never had an occasion worthy of its unbottling. Its scent is complex and seductive, enough to make us both swoon. “This is all for you.”
And that’s how it goes, this slow dreamy gentle encounter between a woman who is surely half mad and a man who must have lost sight of all reason, risking everything he has simply to be here, with me, washing my back in a candlelit bathroom. From what hidden place in my home has he conjured the gigantic softness of the towel that wraps around me like fleece around a shorn lamb? Where did he learn to brush the knots from my hair, beginning with the ends and working his way up to the roots, until my whole scalp’s alive with pleasure and my skin tingles with longing and all I can think is how much I want him to stroke and smooth me all over? When he takes the towel from me and lies beside me on the bed, his clothes shed like water, the slow smooth surety of his touch is enough to drive me into a frenzy. But instead I wait, disciplining myself to be as still and quiet and careful as he is, letting the moment unfold like the dark petals of a flower. I nearly died tonight. If it brings me an hour like this, almost-death may be a price worth paying.
It’s only afterwards, when Nick sprawls against the pillow, his hand resting gently against my hip, both of us drenched in a clean fresh sweat that dries quickly in the warm air, that it comes to me how strange it is, that Nick should be aroused to such reckless passion by me, that he should risk his whole life for me, as damaged and as ordinary as I am. After a while, it comes to me that perhaps this is the secret. Perhaps it’s the damage that’s been done to me, and all the possibilities of rescue it implies, that makes me so irresistible to Nick. I lie beside my lover and think of Bella, my twin sister and my rival, and I wonder if Nick has some kind of fetish that draws him into the lives of broken women, and if perhaps the more broken I become, the more Nick will like me.
Life Without Hope:
Moving On When You Can’t Move On
Here’s something I’ve learned about moving on: in a lot of ways, I can’t. I won’t ever be able to stop wanting things to be the way they were before, when Joel was still with me and my life was happy. That’s never going to stop.
And so for a long time, I didn’t dare to move on from that moment when I realised he was missing. Not in big ways, not in small ways. I didn’t dare stop buying thick-sliced white bread or full-fat milk every week, even though the only person in the house who ate and drank them wasn’t there any more. I kept his toothbrush in the mug by the sink. I kept all his clothes. I didn’t dare move anything around in the house. When the kettle broke and I had to buy a new one, I cried because I couldn’t find one the same as the one I was replacing.
And I didn’t dare do anything for myself. If I thought it might help me, I didn’t do it. Didn’t take the tablets the doctor gave me. Only sat down when my legs gave way. Only ate when I was almost fainting with hunger. Only slept when I couldn’t fight it any longer. Never bought anything that was just for me. Because if I started looking after myself in even the smallest way, that would mean accepting that this was how it was from now on, and I was going to make a new life without Joel in it.
That’s the hardest bit. The very hardest bit. And I’ll be honest, living like this nearly killed me.
Here’s how I finally learned to accept that I needed to care for myself. I remember when Joel was a baby, and how everyone would tell me, Remember, you can’t look after your baby if you don’t look after yourself. (Of course I did a rotten job at actually doing this, the same way all parents do, and I ended up on my knees with exhaustion and stir-crazy from spending too long shut up in the house with a baby, but thanks to all the nagging and advice, I did a slightly less rotten job than I would have done if no one had said it to me.) And gradually, I came to understand that if I was going to have the strength to last until Joel was found, I needed to look after myself.
So I started to do small things that were just for me. A hot crusty roll with my soup. A mug of fresh coffee. A walk in the sunshine.
And when the guilt strikes – when suddenly I’m trapped in that hamster wheel of What am I doing, how dare I be happy when my son is still lost? – I remind myself I’m not forgetting him. I’m looking after myself, so that I can be ready.
Because I do believe in my heart that one day, somehow, my lost boy will be found. And whether my task on that day is to welcome him home and start to rebuild our lives, or to say my final farewell (God it kills me just writing those words, but I know it’s a possibility). I will need to be strong. I will need to be well. I will need to be ready.
Posted on 24th November 2013
Filed to: Coping With Missing Loved Ones
Tags: missing people, coping stra
tegies, support for families, Susannah Harper, Joel Harper
Chapter Twenty
Tuesday 19th December 2017
Two days until Midwinter will be here. The date sings in my blood, every cell in my body alive with memory. Two days until Midwinter. I should be getting ready to celebrate, I should be buying small gifts and perhaps one large one. Two days until. I should be making a cake and covering it with candles. Two days.
What can I do? I’m filled with purposeless energy. I wander from room to room as if I’m a hundred years old and lost in my own home, picking up belongings and putting them down again in places where they shouldn’t be: my keys taken from the hook by the door and abandoned on the floor of the hallway, the clock from the mantelpiece balanced carefully on the side of the bath, a pair of shoes displayed like ornaments on the windowsill. What can I do?
Lonely for light and colour, I turn on the television, but the dramas and intrigues of the people who live behind the glass screen are too complex to focus on. The news, then. Surely I must be able to follow the news, with its simple three-minute storylines and careful presentation of the facts. I turn over and find myself staring at a slowly panning shot of a small house in a row of other small houses, maddeningly familiar although I can’t remember how or why I might know it.
It takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing, to make sense of the faces that loom out at me. My friend Jackie, her husband, Lee, my lover, Nick. What are they doing on the television? The answer comes in a blink of darkness, my hand reaching for the remote control in denial of what I know to be the truth: that my friend killed her own son. Nick must have arrested her this morning. Does he feel like a hero now?
I’m cold; cold despite the relentless dry heat that beats out from the walls. The thermostat is set at twenty-five degrees. I’ll have to turn it down soon, or else shiver through a penurious January. In the kitchen, I find my gloves arranged neatly on the cold cooker top. If I put the oven on to bake something that will add extra warmth. Perhaps I should bring cushions and blankets from my bedroom and retreat to the kitchen and live here for the winter. Why not? I would have heat and light, food and water. I could wash in the sink, create some sort of arrangement with buckets and holes. I could use my waste to fertilise my garden while it slept, and wake up in the spring to a profusion of daffodils. The image hovers tantalisingly in my head, but I can’t make myself believe in it. I will not live in my kitchen. I will not grow daffodils. There will never be another spring.
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