Distress Signals

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  Only three doors.

  It was something Romain thought about often, about what a difference those three doors made to the world he experienced and the world everyone else his age did. He hadn’t seen the furthest one in five years, but in five days’ time he’d be allowed to walk through it.

  Romain wondered what was going on out there, what he was missing, what he’d already missed.

  An electronic lock buzzed loudly and his father came into the visitors’ room.

  Right away, Romain knew something was wrong. His father didn’t even look into his eyes until he was already sitting down at the table and had no choice but to.

  Today’s visit was supposed to be about finalising the plan for Romain’s release, working out the details of it. What time Papa needed to come pick him up, what food he wanted to eat first, what he wanted to do to celebrate his eighteenth birthday.

  Papa was in the process of moving from his apartment into a house. That way there’d be enough space for the two of them to live together and yet still have some space of their own. The last time he’d visited, he’d asked Romain to make a list of everything he thought he’d need. Clothes, toiletries, posters – those kinds of things. Romain had the list in his pocket right now but he didn’t take it out.

  Something told him not to. Not yet.

  ‘Hi, Romi,’ Papa said. His father smiled, big and fake. Fake smiles were something Romain could identify now, thanks to Dr Tanner. Had Papa forgotten that? ‘How are you? Looking forward to The Big Day?’

  ‘What’s wrong, Papa?’

  His father frowned. ‘Who said anything was wrong?’ He pushed his spectacles back up his nose, glanced back at the guards.

  ‘What is it?’ Romain asked. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know what you—’

  ‘I know something is wrong, Papa. You’re a terrible liar. You can’t do it at all.’

  His father looked like he was about to argue, but then he changed his mind.

  ‘Fine. There’s, ah, been a change, Romi. To the plan. It’s . . . It’s your mother.’

  ‘Is she dead? Did something happen to her?’

  ‘What? No. No, she’s fine. Why would you . . . No, it’s just . . . We’ve been talking about you a lot. About our plans. The plans you and I had.’

  Had.

  His father noticed that he’d noticed but he pushed on anyway, talking faster now.

  ‘The thing is, Romi, she’s told me that, if I take you in, she won’t let me see Jean and Mikki any more. She still thinks . . . Well, you know what she thinks. That it wasn’t an accident, at the pond. I didn’t tell you this before, I know, but I didn’t want to upset you. Not when you were doing so well. She and I . . . I’ve been seeing her a lot lately. We go out for dinner, and sometimes Jean comes with us too. Jean is actually living with me for the summer. We’re getting along well. Very well. Once all four of us went out for—’

  ‘Four of you is not all of you,’ Romain said quietly.

  ‘No.’ His father pushed his spectacles up again. They hadn’t fallen; it was just a habit. ‘No, that’s right. I know. I just meant—’

  ‘I can’t come live with you. That’s what you’re here to tell me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, Romi. Your mother and I have been apart for many years. If there’s a chance we can—’

  ‘You’ve been apart for as long as I’ve been in here.’

  ‘Yes . . . Yes, we have.’ Papa cleared his throat. He was sweating now, beads of it glistening by his hairline. ‘Listen, I’ve always been here for you, and I’ll be here for you now. I’m going to find a place for you to live and one of the guys at work thinks he might have a job for you—’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But he has a farm so it’ll probably be something to do with the animals, I expect. Would you like that?’

  ‘How much does it pay?’

  ‘You won’t have to worry about money. I’ll take care of you.’

  ‘Where will I live? Near you?’

  ‘We might be able to get you something on the farm. That would be convenient, wouldn’t it? And you’d be back out in the countryside, which you l—’

  ‘Where’s the farm?’

  His father waved a hand dismissively. ‘I don’t want you to get fixated on the farm, Romi.’

  ‘You’re the one who said it.’

  ‘It’s only one possibility.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  His father hesitated. ‘Ah, near Soissons, I believe.’

  Soissons was at least an hour’s drive from where Romain knew his father lived.

  ‘Okay,’ Romain said flatly. ‘I see.’

  ‘Also . . .’ His father was shifting in his seat now. ‘Your mother thinks it might be better for everyone if we didn’t come pick you up. Now, before you say anything, listen to why she thinks that. There’ll be reporters there. And photographers. She doesn’t want to remind everyone what she looks like. It’s only recently that people have stopped recognising her in the street and at the supermarket.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to come.’

  ‘But it’s better for you too, you see. If we – or I – don’t come for you, you can leave early in the morning before anyone is outside. Slip out before the press get there. You’re a man now, Romi. You look nothing like the boy people remember. Isn’t it better for you if people on the street don’t know who you are, if they don’t recognise you?’

  ‘She told you, didn’t she?’

  Papa swiped at his forehead. ‘Told me what?’

  ‘That’s what this is about.’

  ‘Told me what, Romi?’

  ‘Where I came from. Who I am. What I am. She only visited me once, did you know that? Just the one time. The first week I was here. She told me then. Can you believe that? Saying those things to a twelve-year-old boy?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t . . .’ Papa’s voice trailed off, and Romain watched as the man’s eyes moved up and to the left. Tanner called that accessing a visually constructed image. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Romain stared at him. He didn’t want to push it.

  ‘Has she spoken to Dr Tanner?’ he asked.

  ‘Many times.’

  ‘Recently?’

  Papa said he wasn’t sure.

  ‘She doesn’t believe him.’

  ‘Romi, it’s not a case of believing him or not. This is science, and your mother . . . She’s been doing her own research, talking to some of the doctors who don’t agree with Tanner – there are many of them, you know. Tanner’s treatment is controversial. You’re the only one he’s treated. The other doctors, they say one person isn’t enough to prove anything. Your mother tends to think so too.’

  ‘So you’re on her side now.’

  ‘There’s no sides, Romi. There never have been. You know that. I’m just trying to keep the peace. I want the best solution for everyone. Don’t you see? The best thing you can do is to show her that you’re not what she thinks you are. Take the job. Stay out of ­trouble. Be responsible. Maybe in a year or two, we can talk about this again. She might agree to let you come live with us. Romi—’ His father’s voice cracked. ‘I just want my family back. Do you understand that? I just want my family back. Together. The way we were before . . . Before all of this.’

  Romain remembered the moment six years earlier when the verdict was handed down. Guilty. Of murder. Mama would’ve been allowed into the court – she’d already given her evidence; the trial was over – but she didn’t bother to come. Only Papa was there.

  Before they’d led Romain away, back to the cells to await transport, Papa had run from his seat, grabbed him by both shoulders and promised him that he’d be there for him, on the other side.

  ‘I’m going to make this rig
ht,’ Papa had said, his eyes glistening. ‘I know it was just an accident. I believe you, Romi. I do. Serve your time. You’ll be eighteen before you know it. Then, you and I, we’ll make you a new life.’

  But now, just a few days before Romain was due for release, Papa had suddenly changed his mind. There could only be one explan­ation for it.

  Mama had got to him.

  ‘It’s okay, Papa,’ Romain said now, pushing his chair back from the table. Hearing the scraping noise of steel on the cement floor, one of the guards by the door stepped forward, readying to escort Romain back to his cell. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘What . . . What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t need to help me. I understand. I can put myself in your shoes and see what it’s like from your perspective. Dr Tanner taught me that. Do whatever Mama says, okay? I’ll be fine. I can manage by myself.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Really, Papa. It’s okay. I mean it.’

  Romain stood up and walked around the table to Papa’s side. Papa stood up too, a little unsure at first, his brow furrowed in confusion.

  But when Romain moved to embrace him, there was no hesitation. He held Romain tight, whispered into his ear:

  ‘No matter what happens, you’ll always be my son. Remember that, Romi. No matter what happens, you will always be my son.’

  Romain said nothing.

  He didn’t need to see Papa’s eyes to know that that was a lie.

  ——

  Romain started his eighteenth birthday in a cell and ended it on a bunk in a city hostel owned by the prison service.

  The social worker assigned to him – a woman named Marie who smelled of dirty clothes and talcum powder – said he could stay there for up to seven nights, and gave him a small envelope with a few hundred francs inside. It was his money. He’d earned it by working in the detention centre’s library. She told him to keep it on his person and not to let anyone else know he had it, especially none of the other men in the hostel.

  Other men sounded so weird to Romain. Was he a man now?

  Romain lay awake all night that first night, staring at the ceiling. He kept one palm pressed against the envelope he’d hidden underneath his sweatshirt, the one with the money in. All around, strange and unfamiliar sounds threatened him from the dark.

  There was another envelope hidden behind the first. It contained the handful of creased family photographs he’d had with him in prison and a real estate agent’s flyer for a three-bedroom semi-­detached house in the Parisian suburbs. Papa had given it to him months ago, when his offer had been accepted. Since then Romain had handled it so much that the ink had started to fade and the paper to separate at the folds, but the street address was still legible.

  The next morning, Romain left the hostel as soon as dawn broke. Following signs for the Metro sent him around two corners and then into a train station, one with a huge, curved roof that left the birds in. There were people everywhere.

  A cafe on the main concourse displayed shelves and shelves of pastries that made Romain’s mouth water and his stomach growl, but he didn’t want to spend any money just yet. He didn’t know how long it was going to have to last him. He could ignore his hunger for a while.

  He did have to buy a Metro ticket. He went to one of the ticket desks because he didn’t know how to use the machines, and asked for a day pass. The girl behind the desk let him have a student rate even though he’d ‘forgotten’ his student ID.

  She smiled at him when she handed him the ticket. Remembering what Tanner had told him, Romain smiled back, mirroring her body language.

  The Metro was easy enough to follow, although the noise of it made Romain’s head hurt. There was so much going on out here in the world – traffic, television screens, people talking on phones they carried around with them – he was finding it difficult to concentrate. It was a relief to emerge from the RER station at the end of his journey to find himself on a quiet, leafy suburban street.

  He found the house easily, not least because the For Sale sign was still in the garden. A ‘SOLD!’ sticker was peeling off it.

  Keeping his head down, Romain walked past it once or twice, trying to gauge if anyone was currently inside. There was no car in the driveway, no noise coming from the house. A large window at the front gave him a view of a small, neat sitting room, the TV in the corner of it switched off.

  It seemed to him like there was nobody home.

  There was a narrow alleyway at the side of the house, blocked by a wooden gate secured with a padlock. The gate was as tall as Romain was. Using a nearby rubbish bin as a step up, Romain hoisted himself over it and dropped down the other side.

  Around the back was a small, mossy patio and a set of patio doors.

  He tried the handle: locked.

  Cupping his hands against the glass, he looked inside.

  Romain’s view was of a living room with a kitchen at one end. There were packing boxes everywhere and resting against the opposite wall, sitting on the floor: a large framed picture of Mama, Papa, Jean and Mikki, huddled together in front of the castle at Disneyland.

  There was a sudden burst of music from above Romain’s head, something loud and angry. Rock, with indecipherable lyrics. More noise than music.

  Romain looked up and saw that a small window on the first floor was cracked open. That’s where the music was coming from. But who was playing it?

  Could it be Jean?

  The last time Romain had seen Jean, the boy had been only eight years old. He’d been sitting on a carpeted floor, shelves filled with green-leather-bound books behind him, playing with his plastic wrestlers.

  Talking about what had happened that day at the pond.

  Testifying against his own brother, via video-link.

  The brother who’d only been trying to protect him.

  Did Jean understand that? Did he remember? Or had Mama poisoned his thinking since? Papa was lost to him now, but Romain suddenly had an overwhelming need for Jean to know the truth, to know that he’d done what he’d done for his little brother.

  Yes, things had got out of hand. Yes, the darkness had slipped out for a moment. But Dr Tanner had taken care of that. He was good now.

  Romain made his way back to the front of the house and rang the doorbell. Waited nervously for an answer. None came. He rang the bell again. A moment later, movement on the other side of the door. Footsteps on the floor. Boots on wood, it sounded like. A beat of silence, perhaps while someone looked through the peephole. Then, finally, the turn of a lock.

  The door opened to reveal a tall, thin teenage boy standing in the hall. Not as tall as Romain, but almost. His long, dark hair was dishevelled, his face puffy from sleep, the laces on his black boots frayed and loose.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, squinting in the daylight.

  ‘Jean?’

  A frown. ‘Who are you?’

  Romain had no lie prepared. Perhaps he should have had. Perhaps he shouldn’t have gone anywhere near the house until he’d some elaborate story all worked out. He was a good liar, when he was ­prepared. It would’ve worked. It could have.

  But there was something about Jean, something about the familiar blue eyes of the boy he’d known so well set into a young man’s face. It broke open something inside of Romain.

  He thought of that same face at the edge of the pond, the fright the child had got when Bastian had screamed at him. Earlier than that: Jean asleep on the bunk below in superhero pyjamas, his mouth hanging open. Back at the house in the countryside: Jean running after him on the path that led to the lake, to their fort, calling his name, begging him to wait.

  It made him never want to go back to that awful hostel. He didn’t want to have to fend for himself. He wanted to come home, to his family. He wanted to stop paying for something he’d done in one moment of madness, back when he was just
a boy.

  So he said, ‘It’s me, Jean. It’s Romi. Don’t you recognise me?’

  The look of sleep slid off Jean’s face.

  ‘I just want to talk to you,’ Romain said. ‘That’s all. I don’t know what Mama has told you but we’re brothers, Jean. Brothers. Nothing changes that. That day by the pond, I was just trying to protect you. I went too far, I know, but that was a mistake. Do you remember that day? Do you remember it, Jean?’

  Jean took a step backwards. Tripped on the edge of the doormat, recovered. Took another.

  ‘Jean, wait.’ Romain stepped inside. ‘You don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt anybody. They cured me. They found out what was wrong and they made it all go away.’

  ‘I’m calling the police.’

  Jean took another step back, retreating towards the kitchen.

  There was a phone in there. Romain had seen it through the patio doors, on the wall by the fridge.

  ‘There’s no need, Jean. No need for police. It’s just me. Romi. I only want to talk to you. We can talk about the day by the pond if you—’

  ‘Stop calling it that,’ Jean shouted suddenly. ‘“The day by the pond.” You murdered a child, you fucking psycho. You held him under the water until he stopped fighting and drowned.’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t—’

  ‘I know what happened. The whole country knows what happened.’

  ‘It was an accident. I didn’t meant to—’

  ‘Kill him when you pushed him under water and held him there? What did you think was going to happen? Did you think he had gills?’

  Romain felt the situation slipping away from him. Things weren’t going to plan. He should leave, but he couldn’t let Jean call the police. He could say Romain had broken in, or tried to attack him, and then, before you knew it, Romain would be back in jail.

  Adult jail, now that he was eighteen.

  Romain took another step forward.