“Yes! Actually, it was a bit like that. And the landscape out there – God, Emma! It’s like nothing you could even imagine.”
“You had a good time then?” I asked, feeling so pained to know that I was about to burst his bubble.
“The best. Although, I missed Joseph like crazy – I can’t wait to see him – but there’s something I need to tell you, first.”
How could I tell him that Joseph was gone? That he wasn’t going to be able to see him right now, and in fact, I didn’t even know where he was?
“Wait, are you crying?”
There was no point trying to hide it. Tears were as good an introduction as any.
“What’s happened?” he asked hurriedly. “Is Joseph okay?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“What do you mean, you ‘think so’?”
I started to shake.
“Emma!”
“Your parents took him.”
“What? You mean, they’ve taken him out for a bit?”
“No, they took him. I asked them to look after him for a few nights …”
“You did what?”
“I was really ill!” I shouted, defensively.
He buried his head in his hands.
“I got better as quickly as I could, but …”
“I told you I should have stayed here.”
“What’s done is done.”
“But what is done? What’s happening? I’ll just go around to theirs and tell them I’m back now.”
“They’ve gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I called the police right away, but when they got there the house was empty.”
“What? The police? You mean they’ve taken him away without your permission? But that’s ridiculous! Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’ve sat outside the house many times, sometimes for hours, in the hope that I’d get a glimpse of him, but they’re definitely not there.”
“So they won’t let you see him?”
“They think I’m an unfit mother.”
“But that’s insane. You’re a brilliant mother.”
“I wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” he scoffed sarcastically, for once I welcomed his vocal conviction. If he only knew how I’d abandoned his son for four days, he might not be so certain.
“I was ill for four days. I couldn’t look after him.”
“Four days?” he asked, almost laughing. “Four days? Is that all?”
“Your parents don’t see it that way. Remember the day they met me? I was ill then.”
“But that was one bad spell during your entire pregnancy. You’d just finished tapering off your lithium.”
“They don’t see it that way.”
“No, of course they don’t, because they see everything in black and white. I tried to tell you not to trust them!”
“Oh well, as long as you can say ‘I told you so’.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “They’re not nuanced enough to appreciate that somebody can have a mental illness whilst simultaneously being utterly lovely.”
I was taken aback. “You think I’m utterly lovely?” I croaked.
“Well, I didn’t say you, specifically,” he said, looking down.
“I’m not sure that Social Services understand either.”
“What? Social Services are involved?” He shook his head from side to side in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” I wept.
He took a deep breath, stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close to him. Then, holding me firmly, he took a step back and looked me in the eye. “I’m going to bring him home, whatever it takes.”
* * *
Was Simon right? Could he sort out this huge mess and bring Joseph home? As much as I wanted to believe it, I’d learnt to be cautious. He wouldn’t necessarily be able to find his parents. Then, even if he could talk sense into them and bring Joseph home, that wouldn’t necessarily stop Social Services from taking him away again.
We talked for over an hour, interspersed with pacing, researching our rights and brainstorming where they might have gone. At least, without his birth certificate, it seemed unlikely that they could have taken him abroad. Finally, we decided that the best plan would be for Simon to drive to places where he felt his parents might be.
“You don’t think they’ll let any harm come to him?” I asked Simon.
“They’re stubborn, intolerant, self-righteous people but no, I don’t think they’ll let any harm come to Joseph. Mind you, I didn’t think they’d harm anybody and they’re putting you through this.”
This was doing nothing to ease my pain. “I’m coming with you!” I tried to insist, for the umpteenth time.
“We’ve talked about this. It’s better for you to stay here. I could be driving all night and you need regular sleep or you’ll be ill again.”
“I can’t do nothing!”
“Keeping yourself well is not ‘nothing’, Emma. It’s the most important thing you can do, for Joseph.”
“That’s what I thought seven days ago, and look where that got me!”
“Where’s Joseph’s car seat?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I lent it to your Dad.”
“Great. So now I’m going to have to escape with Joseph and a bulky car seat.”
“Are you planning to just snatch him?”
“Where’s his birth certificate?”
“What are you going to need that for?”
“In case I have to prove I’m the father.”
“To who?”
Suddenly, a phone started ringing; it wasn’t mine.
Huh?
Simon rushed to find it, scrambling under clothes and other items that he’d earlier removed from his suitcase.
“I thought you said you left your charger at home.”
“I found it,” he said quickly. “Turns out I left it at yours.”
“Where?” I asked. “I didn’t see it.”
Suddenly, I caught sight of the phone. I instinctively dived towards it.
“Emma! No!” he cried, and tried to pull me back, but I already had my hand securely locked around the phone. I dragged my body closer so that I could look at the caller display without fear of having it snatched off me.
I read ‘Mum’.
“Emma! Don’t answer it!” ordered Simon. “Talking to her won’t help.” So he knows who it is then! He wrestled with me, grabbing my hand and prizing the handset out from my fingers. Eventually he had the phone.
Immediately, he cancelled the call.
The ringtone stopped.
“What did you do that for?” I demanded.
“You would have said something to her that would have blown everything.”
“What? We’ve been here for over an hour, wondering how on earth we’re going to find your parents, then your mum rings and you cancel the call?”
“Let me handle it, Emma.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Simon?”
He turned away.
“If you know where they are, you have to call the police!”
“They’re my parents!”
“And this is our son! Now what is it that you’re not telling me?”
Chapter 14
I called Tina; not only was she a good friend but she had a car. I didn’t care what problems she had had in the past, she was a good person and one I could trust. I knew that, as a single mother, she would not find it easy to drop everything, but with Nicky and Dave away, who else could I call?
“Tina, I need your help!” I cried into the phone.
“What is it? Has Joseph turned up?”
“No, but … Oh God … It’s Simon. I think he might be in on it!”
“What?”
“He’s been on the phone to his mother. I think he just came here to get some of Joseph’s things.”
“What? Seriously?”
“I think so. I can hardly believe it. We seemed to be
getting on so well – at least, most of the time! Perhaps he was just buttering me up so that he could do this.”
“Shit. That is unbelievable. I’m so sorry, Emma. I hope you’re mistaken.”
“Is there any chance I could borrow your car?”
“Can you drive?”
“No. I kind of need to borrow you too.”
“How can I help?” she asked, without even pausing for thought.
“He’s in my house at the moment. Upstairs. I need to follow him when he leaves. I think he’ll take us right to them.”
“Where are you?”
“In the garden. It’s freezing but I can’t risk him knowing that I’m onto him.”
“I’ll have to get somebody to look after Aimee. How long can you keep him there?”
“I don’t know. I’ll stall him for as long as I can.”
We said goodbye and I hung up the phone. I walked slowly back towards the house – hindered by the ever-increasing fractures to my world. Was this really happening? Was I losing Simon as well as Joseph? I felt as though a pair of forceps was mashing up my heart, ventricle by ventricle, but this couldn’t be heartbreak. There was nothing romantic between Simon and me.
I began to wonder if he’d even been to Antarctica; he wasn’t in the group photo. But why lie about something like that? Why make up something so elaborate? The trip involved a dead friend – a friend after whom we’d called our son. Surely he wouldn’t lie about something like that …
“Ah, there you are,” said Simon.
I managed a weak smile.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began, “perhaps I should move in here for a bit.”
“Huh?” What was the point of saying that? If he was planning to run away with Joseph, why bother making overblown gestures now? Perhaps he was softening me up, trying to lure me into a false sense of security.
I needed to delay him until Tina arrived, so I asked, “How would that work?”
“You think it’s a good idea then?”
“Sure, why not?” I said, without giving the proposition any thought. Just buy more time.
He became suddenly animated. “I could be invaluable to you! I could be here for you and Joseph just in case you get ill but more importantly, with a live-in healthy adult, Social Services will know they have no cause for concern.”
I felt a peculiar blend of warmth and pain. I knew that, were Simon sincere, this would be the single noblest thing anybody had ever done for me. Somebody who was prepared to give up his own home, and move in with a girl he’d only really known for a few weeks, to give their son the best possible start in life, should be treasured. Conversely, somebody who would make overblown gestures to facilitate the abduction of said son would be a monster.
On the one hand, I wanted to melt in the warmth of this incredible gesture, but I couldn’t dare allow myself to believe it. If Simon were so sincere, so wonderful and giving, then why had he lied and said his phone wasn’t charged? He must have already known where his mother was, otherwise why cancel her call? Why cut off what would otherwise be our only lifeline?
My phone buzzed. It was the text from Tina letting me know that she was just around the corner, with the engine running.
“It’s getting late,” I said to Simon. “Like you said, you could be driving into the night.”
“Will you be okay?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine. I have a friend coming over,” I told him, truthfully.
He took my hands and looked me in the eye. His gaze was intense and seemed so sincere. Why do you have to make this so hard? He pulled me close to him. I could smell his cool, tea tree shampoo mixed with the warm aroma of his neck. My heart was pounding in my chest. I felt sure he could feel it through the two layers of wool that separated our flesh. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
I nodded, mute. It would be so easy to believe that that embrace had been real, so comfortable to believe that that pleasing scent was my instincts telling me to trust him. I had to remind myself of the facts. He’d told me his phone battery was dead, and yet somehow, miraculously, his mother had managed to call him. He was definitely keeping something from me and, with everything at stake, I couldn’t afford to ignore any evidence.
* * *
It was a harsh night. Enraged clouds stormed towards the moon, only to be shoved away moments later by the ferocious winds. The relentless blusters tore at the trees. Great gusts sent curtains of water splattering against the windscreen, urging us to turn back. But the night had no idea what it was reckoning with – how desperate I was.
“He’s heading for the moors. But, there isn’t anything up there besides moorland,” I pointed out.
“That’s good, it means he’ll stop soon,” Tina pointed out. “That’s if he really is just going to one place, and not driving around until he finds them.”
“He knows where they are, I know he does. Why else would he ignore a call from his mother? He must have already spoken to them. He wouldn’t charge his phone and then not try to call them, would he?”
“I don’t know,” she conceded.
I found Tina’s guiding influence peculiar. Earlier this year she had been the vulnerable one and I had been her adviser, helping her to work through practical solutions to her problems. Now things had been reversed entirely. Here she was, with her life together, her baby safely under her own roof, supporting me through this horrific ordeal.
We’d only been driving for thirty minutes, and it seemed as though our journey was already about to end. Part of me prayed that I was wrong about Simon, but another part of me hoped that I was right. If I was correct in my assumption that he was driving straight to his parents, I may be able to glimpse my baby boy within minutes!
What would I do if I saw him? Could I just burst in there and grab him? Surely Tina and I were no match for the three of them. If I caused a scene, Joseph could get hurt in the scuffle.
Thus far, I had no particular plan of action in mind. I had to know who my friends were – who was on my side, and who was trying to keep my baby away from me. Without that information, snatching Joseph would be a brief victory.
Eventually, Simon pulled off onto a dirt track. Surely there wasn’t any property up here? But then, I realised that there had to be something here; else why the track? Where better to hide a baby than in the middle of nowhere? Presumably, they hadn’t been planning on hiding here for long. Perhaps Simon’s arrival was what his parents were waiting for. I felt in my jeans pocket. Thank goodness I’d kept hold of Joseph’s birth certificate.
Simon’s car drove out of sight, but it would be hard to lose him on such a remote road. We followed the faint glow of his headlights until eventually we spotted a small cottage. The windows were ablaze with the comforting glow of interior lights. There were people here. I felt sure that one of them would be Joseph.
“We’d better stop here,” Tina told me, pulling in to a narrow lay-by. “I know they won’t recognise my car, but I think they’d be suspicious if they saw any traffic near here.”
“Good point.”
I was unstrapped and ready to go by the time the car rolled to a halt. I clambered out into the petulant night.
“Do you want me to go?” asked Tina. “You could wait here.”
“Why?” I asked, allowing myself the shelter of the car for a moment longer.
“It could get rather fraught. Remember when you asked me to wait outside while you spoke to the council?”
“Tina, that was because you kept calling the officials ‘worthless cock baskets’. Profanity minimisation isn’t going to make a difference here.”
She nodded, and climbed out of the car. In seconds, the rain turned her bouncy blonde hair into a sodden rag. I could already feel the rain running down my neck. A puddle soaked through my shoes.
As we approached the cottage, I lifted myself onto tippy toes in case I could catch a glimpse of Joseph through the window. Alas, the curtains were drawn.
We
turned into a … well, I suppose you could say it was a car park, but it was more of a dirt space retaining deep pools of water. That was odd – there were three cars here. I recognised Gerald’s dark Audi, skulking in the shadows like a mafia assassin. Then, I saw Simon’s midnight blue BMW, haphazardly parked. I sank down, in case he was still in his car. I couldn’t really see because of the headrest, but I assumed that he wouldn’t drive all the way here and then dawdle. I stood myself up again and faced the third car. The moon graced us with a quick flicker. I had to blink a few times. Wasn’t that … wasn’t that Nicky’s yellow Mini?
Admittedly, in the darkness, it was hard to determine colour. I looked at the number plate; it did seem familiar. But why would she be here? Weren’t she and Dave supposed to be up country with family? If they’d come back early then Nicky would have called me. Had they followed Simon too? No, they couldn’t have done. We’d have seen their car.
“What’s the matter?” asked Tina, seeing me gawping at the car.
“It’s my best friend’s car. The girl I used to live with.”
“Nicky?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what’s she doing here?”
“I have no idea.”
I hurried up towards the house. I rushed at the front door. Suddenly, I felt a firm hand, pulling me back. I turned and was relived to note that it was just Tina.
“Christ! You scared the hell out of me.”
“I didn’t want to shout and draw attention to ourselves. They probably wouldn’t have heard me over the storm, but …”
“Why stop me?”
“Don’t go blazing in there.”
“Why not?”
“That’s what you always told me.”
“Well, what do you suggest?” I asked, frustrated.
“If people are lying to you, they’ll just continue to lie.”
I thought about it; she was probably right.
“Why don’t we just … watch and listen, at least at first.”
“How?”
She had already disappeared around the side of the house. She came running back. “Not that side.” We hurried around to the other side. Conveniently, there was a large window, but the curtains were shut.
“Around the back,” said Tina. “There might be a way in.”
The Ice Marathon Page 10