How to Make Time for Me

by Fiona Perrin

  Then, as I sat on the bed and, without bothering to take off my clothes, collapsed backwards, it occurred to me that the one person who’d not come rushing back this morning, or even rung up or messaged to find out if we – Wilf and I – were OK, was Sunil.

  I then fell instantly into a troubled, restless sleep where I dreamed I was chasing Wilf across a desert: I could see him at all times in the distance, but I couldn’t catch him up.

  24

  I woke by myself at 1 p.m. and immediately knew that this didn’t mean good news. If Wilf had come back, someone would definitely have woken me up. As I went to pull on a jumper, I realised my fingers were crossed – and probably had been for hours.

  The doorbell went as I got to the stairs. A different PC stood on the doorstep; he was young, and his face crumpled immediately into an expression of empathy without good news. ‘We have yet to locate Wilf, I’m afraid, Ms Brown, but we wanted to talk you through next steps.’

  He followed me into the kitchen to see Daisy typing onto her keyboard, my folks now looking even more weary and scared. The young PC said hello and stood while I hit the button on the kettle. He wouldn’t have a coffee, thank you.

  All the occupants of the table looked up in expectation. My mother even voluntarily switched the knob behind her ear.

  ‘So, if we don’t hear from Wilf by about 5 p.m. then we need to kick into action on social media,’ the PC said. Daisy looked up expectantly and he didn’t disappoint her. ‘That will be led by you, I assume?’

  ‘On it,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Then the next thing will be that we’ll want your voice…’ he looked at me ‘… on the local radio station in the morning, Ms Brown, along with his dad.’

  ‘What if he’s gone to London or something?’ Daisy asked, and I shuddered. Sure, Wilf had grown up in a commuter town and could navigate the Tube from all his visits to London, but I hated to think of him being preyed on by the underbelly of the capital.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ the PC said and consulted his notebook. ‘We see that Wilf’s big passion is music, so he might have gone in search of something to do with that, but, for now, we’re going to assume that at fourteen, with little or no money in his pocket—’ this was a good point: how far could he get with no money? ‘—he is somewhere in this area, probably with access to someone who is giving him food.’

  ‘We’ve mapped all that this morning.’ Dad looked dismissively at the young PC. ‘Our friend, Marvin, and that other man…’

  ‘Patrick,’ said Mum in a voice that indicated she was still suspicious of his existence.

  ‘… yes, that other young man, Patrick, are off visiting all the places we identified now. I’ve asked them to capture the results in a spreadsheet format.’

  The PC looked momentarily nonplussed but then recovered. ‘That sounds very thorough.’

  ‘What about that kid from Yoof and a Roof?’ It suddenly occurred to me that out of all the people Wilf had been hanging out with lately, the newest addition was Fishy Pete. I explained to the policeman. ‘My parents are part of a community and Wilf has been there quite a bit lately.’

  ‘Oh, Pete was top of the list,’ Dad said airily. ‘After we went through a process of deduction.’ More raised policeman eyebrows. ‘He’s the first person Marv will speak to, but I have no doubt he will be as worried as the rest of us.’

  Marv rang just as the policeman had gone and said that he and Patrick had been to Seymour House and spoken to Pete and some of the other young residents. No one had seen him, they were very worried and promised to put all their social media nous to the fore the moment we started appealing on social media.

  ‘Pat’s being an angel,’ Marv said in his camp way. ‘So helpful and patient.’

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to know about what actually was going on…’

  ‘You mean about Sunil? He doesn’t need to know that. It’s none of his business.’ I didn’t want him to know for all sorts of reasons, but I’d think about that later.

  ‘Lips sealed here. We’re going to the school next, just in case he’s gone there.’ It was a good thing that Patrick was with Marvin, who couldn’t really hang outside a school on his own, dressed in stripy harem pants and a fur coat, even if it was a Saturday.

  ‘Just find him,’ I begged. ‘Please find him.’

  *

  It was 2.00 p.m. The girls had gone for a nap now. Desperate, I messaged Sunil, and not because I wanted him to rush round for a repeat performance.

  Hi Sunil, Wilf has not come home since last night. Police involved. I just wondered whether with your experience, you have any ideas? Thanks Callie.

  I accept that this was a little formal given what had gone down, let alone what had nearly gone down. But surely if he had been as upset about the situation as he’d said he was, he’d have messaged me?

  *

  Ralph turned up next. He’d been to sleep but had had no word from Wilf. ‘I’m going out of my head with worry,’ he said, flicking the kettle on as if he still lived in my house. ‘And so’s Petra. She’s going to come and help.’

  ‘Callie will not want that woman in her house,’ snarled my mother, then, smiling sweetly at Ralph, ‘Gosh, sorry, I thought I was talking to myself. Damn ear thing.’

  If it hadn’t been for the circumstances we were in, I might have laughed.

  *

  A text back from Sunil:

  That is worrying. The circumstances were unforgivable. Please believe you have my support. I will call later.

  It was hardly full of unfulfilled lust. Or even a hint of it. And I thought ‘unforgivable’ was a bit strong.

  Marv and Patrick came back at 4 p.m. and while he indicated no news with a shake of his head, Patrick smiled at me. ‘He must be somewhere where he’s getting food, that’s for certain. Kids of his age are always starving.’

  But what if that was someone who was doing unspeakable things to him? I didn’t say this out loud.

  ‘So now we kick off the social campaign,’ Daisy told everyone from her vantage point of the kitchen counter. She liked action. I went and got two photos of Wilf – one in his school uniform and one dressed as he would at weekends: slouchy jeans and a T-shirt with an obscure DJ’s name on the front, blue and white striped scarf round his neck. It almost broke me to hand them to her.

  Daisy pressed on. ‘And the post will read: “Missing since 10.45 p.m. on May fifteenth, Wilf Colesdown, aged fourteen. He may be riding a bike and should be wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans and a black bomber jacket, with a stripy scarf. He has messy brown hair…”’

  ‘Do you need the bit about messy?’ Marv asked. ‘Bit descriptive.’

  Daisy deleted the word. ‘“… brown eyes and is one metre seventy cms.”’

  ‘Probably need it in feet and inches too for the parents,’ Patrick pointed out. He stirred his tea.

  Ralph gave no input, just nodded. ‘Let’s get it out there. Someone must know where he is.’

  *

  ‘Are you OK?’ Patrick came towards me. I was hiding behind the old pear tree in our scrubby back garden, leaning against its gnarly trunk and gently sobbing.

  I smiled. ‘No, not really. Thanks so much for your help.’

  ‘Shit, you have some stuff go down in your fam. Think about when it’ll just be one of the stories you all tell at the kitchen table.’

  ‘The one where Wilf ran away,’ I said.

  ‘What? Say that again? The one where…’ It was a pretty accurate impression of my mother with her hearing aid off and I couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘That’s nice to see,’ Patrick said, cocking his face to the side. ‘You with a smile on your gob. Want a hug?’

  I hesitated for the moment. He wouldn’t want to hug me if he knew what I’d been doing last night to make Wilf run away. But I stepped into his embrace. He even smelled capable; it was the first moment of calm I’d felt.

  ‘I’ll do anything to help,’ he
said into my hair.

  I was crying into his shoulder, the relief of being held by someone so strong in such desperate circumstances overwhelming me. The tears rolled and great judders came from my stomach, up through my mouth and into the warmth of his shoulder. And Patrick stood strong and tall and not moving, just providing arms that wrapped round me as I wept.

  Eventually he whispered in my ear, without letting go, ‘Just let it out.’

  I looked up, taking a gasp for breath, and tried to smile at him. And that was when, if something could go more wrong, it did.

  Suddenly I was aware of how close my face was to his. How reassuring he felt. How small I was in his arms.

  It was me who did it. I was the one who moved my mouth closer to his, pressed my head up so he was clear that I wanted to kiss him, offered him my lips with my eyes. And for a second, I saw his eyes flicker with a question and then his mouth briefly came down on mine.

  It was a moment of madness. I knew that even as it happened. But for those brief seconds, it felt like the sanest thing I’d done in a long time. He was warm and solid, and his kiss was those things too. It lasted seconds.

  But then, with a sudden snap, I leapt back. ‘Oh, God, I didn’t… I mean, not the right time and…’ I was really going mad now. It was intense worry, lack of sleep, emotional overload and an absence of judgement and… this was the second man I’d kissed in twenty-four hours.

  Patrick held onto one of my hands and smiled. ‘We’ll talk when this is all over.’ Then he offered me the sleeve of his jumper to wipe my face with.

  Oh, what had I done now? But I didn’t have time to think about it then. We were needed back in the house.

  *

  In the kitchen, Lily, awake again, looked pale and haunted. Please don’t have another panic attack, I pleaded with her silently, feeling awash with guilt now about leaving her for a few minutes – a few very confusing minutes. ‘Shouldn’t you guys be getting on with some revision?’ I asked, but the twins looked as if I was crazy. But then, I’d proven I probably was.

  They were busy starting to share all the social media posts that Daisy had made on Insta, Twitter and Snapchat. ‘I’ve even reactivated FB and posted it to the local noticeboards,’ Daisy told Lily. ‘I’d forgotten just how Year 7 it was and how many parents are on it.’

  ‘Just so 2015,’ Lily agreed with a shudder.

  *

  Ralph had gone to search through Wilf’s room for any clues as to where he might be. I wondered if he would sit, as I had, in the middle of Wilf’s bed, sniffing the air and longing for the smell of the real him. But he’d only gone up a few stairs when the doorbell started ringing, loud and insistent.

  I could see no one through the glass of the door, but when I pulled it open that just turned out to be because Petra was so small. She stood, in her weekend uniform of cashmere jumper and jeans, and faced me off.

  ‘I’m here to help in the search for Wilf,’ she hissed, ‘and, from what I hear, it’s you and your despicable behaviour that he’s run away from.’

  I sucked my lip but refused to retort. But fuck you, Ralph, for telling your poisonous dwarf of a wife about Wilf catching me in the act. I turned and glared at him as he hovered on the stairs.

  ‘Just let her in, Cal,’ he said eventually. I stood back, and she raced into the hallway and threw herself at Ralph as if he’d been the one who was missing.

  ‘Oh, babe,’ they both said in unison. It was as puke-making as it sounds.

  My mother came out into the hall at that point and looked at the pair of them with undisguised disgust. ‘This is Lois,’ Ralph mumbled. ‘Lois, this is Petra.’

  ‘His wife,’ Petra added, ignoring Mum’s unsmiling face and holding out her hand. ‘You must be Calypso’s mother. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘What an extraordinarily high-pitched voice you have,’ Mum said airily. ‘I’ll have to adjust my hearing aid.’ Petra’s outstretched hand went limp as my mother turned on her arthritic hip, clicked behind her ear, with a gesture that incorporated a million ‘fuck you’s’ and hobbled off back to the sitting room.

  As my eyes followed her down the hallway, there was Patrick, a grin dancing round his mouth. It was clear that he’d quite enjoyed seeing my mother in action.

  *

  I couldn’t stand being in the same space as Petra, so I told the rest of the assembled kitchen that I was going to take Mum and Dad back.

  ‘The kids at the centre have all said they’d help,’ Marv said.

  ‘What about Sunil? Isn’t he going to help too?’ Daisy asked. ‘He’s the expert.’ I pretended not to hear her and shuffled my parents into the car.

  ‘I’ll go and get some food for dinner and snacks and stuff sorted,’ Patrick said.

  I heard Daisy mutter under her breath: ‘At least he knows where all the takeaways are,’ and gave her a glare. I didn’t think Patrick heard her.

  ‘Hey you don’t have to stick around and help us,’ I said.

  ‘But I see it as my job to feed you now,’ Patrick said. I smiled, remembered what had happened and then firmly put it to one side.

  *

  Seymour House was the usual: like the warm-up scenes in the movie Fame, except starring old people and without leg warmers. There was a disco-based fitness event being held in the main room to the right. Lots of octogenarians seemed to be doing ‘the floss’, following the directions of a very fit girl in a tight Lycra outfit in neon pink at the front of the room.

  Along the corridor, in the online room, were a group of people moving mice around mats with enthusiasm.

  Pete was with them. ‘Lois! Lorca! We missed you every minute!’ They smiled back. Why couldn’t they see through his fake gushiness? ‘Has Wilf come back?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t,’ I said. ‘Did he say anything to you – anything at all – that might be a clue as to where he is?’

  Pete paused and then said, ‘I’m aware only that he felt as if his family unit was… changing.’ He said it in a voice that suggested that Wilf had trusted him with confidences. I eyed him.

  Mum leapt in. ‘Pete will do everything he can to help, won’t you?’

  ‘You have the support of everyone at Yoof and a Roof – the entire community is behind you in your search.’ Pete turned his bogus voice back on. It was hard to ignore the almost langoustine-like aroma that came from him as he waved his arms around. ‘The digital class here is on it like a car bonnet!’

  My mobile rang then, and I grabbed it and punched ‘answer’. It was the day-shift PC who was passing back to the team from the night before, confirming that he’d put out an appeal on their social media.

  ‘I’ve got as many people sharing it as possible,’ I said.

  ‘Good. Now, we’d like to provisionally schedule tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. to record an appeal from you and Wilf’s father.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. It had never occurred to me that I would end up as one of those exhausted, desperate parents on a TV appeal for a lost child.

  ‘But we have every confidence that he will be home before that. Now, just to confirm, he had no money on him that you know about and no access to any?’

  ‘He’s got a bank card,’ I said. ‘But there’s never any money in his account as he spends it all on EDM.’ This policeman was so young that he didn’t need to ask me what EDM was.

  I put down the phone and Pete looked at me without smiling. ‘On it, Callie, like a Shakespearean sonnet!’

  *

  Back at the house, the kitchen was crowded and busy: the AAs had arrived; Patrick was unpacking food onto the counter; Marv was at the table, huddled with the girls. There was, however, no sign of Ralph and Petra.

  ‘Where are they?’ I whispered to Marv.

  He gestured over his shoulder at the door to the hall, which was closed. ‘Last heard having a bit of a barney in the hallway.’

  ‘Ooh,’ I said, although I couldn’t care less about the state of their marital relations.

  ‘I could h
ear her call him a “spineless twat”,’ Marv said with relish. ‘In that weird voice of hers. And get this.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘She said that taking him with them was all his idea in the first place and when she’d got married she didn’t expect to be saddled with a teenage runaway. And then he told her to fuck off and leave him and his son alone.’

  ‘I knew she didn’t want him really.’ I burst into tears. The sheer injustice of the situation floored me.

  ‘Then Ralph said, “You can fix him now and lord it over him for life too”, or something like that. And she stamped her foot and he called her a “fake fucking nun”. I liked that one. It was a bit like the old Ralph.’

  ‘What an absolute cow,’ chorused Ajay and Abby, both hugging me. I hugged them both back. Abby got slightly uncomfortable about this after a couple of seconds.

  ‘We met Patrick,’ Ajay said, and glanced approvingly over at him as he unloaded plates from the kitchen cupboard. Patrick gave me a quick grin and I blushed.

  ‘I got pizza,’ he said.

  ‘Like I said…’ Ajay smiled on ‘… we met Patrick.’ I was too tired to explain to Patrick how much Ajay liked food.

  ‘Great,’ I said, and he started to move towards the table with the pizza boxes. ‘Got a pepperoni and a veggie one and one for the freaks that like pineapple…’ Everyone was smiling at him, standing in the heart of my kitchen as if he belonged there. For a moment I thought he might.

  It was then, though, that Sunil appeared at the back door.

  *

  Into the cold of my tiredness and fear, it still felt as if the world froze for a moment. I was back in the previous evening, desired and desiring. Then Wilf’s voice, all innocent, talking about his mouth guard; then his face – horror-struck. Sunil, running out of the house as if his boxer shorts were on fire. Then nothing, all this long, long day.