by Swan, Tarn
24th September 2005:
Autumn Blues
Autumn seems to have arrived early this year. You can sense the change in the air. Evenings are getting shorter and there’s a cool damp mist on the windowpanes in the mornings. This time of year always makes me feel sad, like I’ve lost something that I failed to make full use of, something precious that I can never reclaim. Twinkles is convinced that I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. He hates it when I get the autumn blues. It worries him despite me telling him I’m fine. He wants me to buy one of those special light boxes that are supposed to help alleviate the condition. They cost a fortune, besides, I don’t believe for a second that I suffer from anything as debilitating as SAD. I just have a mild allergic reaction to the turning of the season. I’m always convinced that I don’t let it show, but Twinks always knows when it hits me. He says my eyes lose some of their brightness. I suppose when you live with someone you get to recognise even the faintest nuance of change if you care enough to notice.
Of course with Twinks being Twinks there’s more than a touch of melodrama in his concern. For example he’ll hide all the sharp knives in case I’m tempted to end it all by slitting my throat, even though I keep telling him that I’m not actually depressed and I have no suicidal tendencies whatsoever. He’ll call me at intervals throughout the day to ask how I am and he’ll buy me vitamin tablets in case I’m missing some essential nutrients. He’ll also buy flowers to brighten the house and make my favourite meals and he’ll set the table in the dining room to make it seem a bit of an occasion. At night he sprays the pillows and bedding with essential oils of Lavender and Rosemary to lift my spirits. He also burns incense in the bedroom, which I loathe. He claims it balances the spirit and eases the soul. I will inhale and be balanced and eased, or else he’ll be seriously put out and be forced to slap my wrist. I love it when he tries to be bossy. He does it with his hands on his hips and looks about as intimidating as a kitten. Of course I do exactly as I’m told. It is quite nice to be fussed over. After a few days or so that odd little part of me that feels sad and lost adjusts and accepts the change in the season. Twinkles heaves a sigh of relief and we’re back to normal.
He didn’t want to go to work this morning. It’s Barbara’s last day. I told him that Barbara would get upset if he didn’t turn up, as would his boss. He didn’t frigging care. Barbara was a selfish cow for pursuing another career and his boss should never have accepted her notice. He should have found a clause in her contract that kept her bound to the company. After twenty minutes of fruitlessly trying to coax him out of bed I lost patience with his mulish attitude. Whipping back the duvet I flipped him onto his front and smacked a warm wash of colour onto his naughty bum. It was a sulky boy that got dropped off at work a little while later. Giving me a very prim peck on the cheek by way of a goodbye kiss he flicked his pink feather boa over his shoulder and flounced off to do battle with whatever the day directed at him.
I’m taking my mother out for dinner this evening. I’ve booked a table at the Italian restaurant. She’s been a bit down since she heard about Gill and dad getting married and I thought she might like the chance to talk about it over a nice meal. Twinks is going out with everyone from the Jewellers straight from work to wish Barbara a fond farewell. They’re going to get the train to York and do a tour of the city pubs. I’ve told him to make sure he eats something before he goes and not to start drinking on the train or he’ll be drunk before he even hits the streets of York. I know that lot he works with. They’re a right bunch of Rapunzels. When they let their hair down they really let it down. It took Twinkles three days to recover from the staff Christmas party. He was absolutely slaughtered. I’ve told him to pace himself and to call me the moment he gets on his return train at York, so I can be there to meet him this end. It can be a bit rough around the station late at night. In return for all my telling he’s told me NOT to call and text him every five bloody minutes to see where he is and what he’s up, as if he were a teenager let loose on the town for the first time. I’ve promised to practice restraint.
25th September 2005:
Lost
Twinkles didn’t come home last night. I haven’t heard a peep from him. To say I’m worried would be a gross understatement. The phone call that I expected, telling me that he had boarded his train, never came. I called and called him but his phone was switched off and still is. He would never normally do that, not when he’s out, not when he knows I might need to contact him. I’ve sent text messages, but I’m not getting any back. Last night I surmised that he’d either left his phone in some pub, or he’d had it stolen and I went to meet him at the station anyway, all geared up to have a few sharp words with him. He’d been planning on getting the 10:25 train from York, but he wasn’t on it, or the next one, or the final one of the night. To be honest, I was more irritated at that point than concerned as such. It would be typical of Twinks to have met up with other revellers and gone to join some party without giving a thought to me. However, when I couldn’t get in touch with Barbara either my annoyance took a different turn. It seemed odd for them both to be unreachable.
I called Twinks’ boss and got the phone numbers of the other members on the outing to see if they could put me in the picture. It turned out that Barbara and Twinks had got separated from the main party. They’d all been taking the river path to the Kings Arms pub on Ouse Bridge for the final stop of the evening when Barbara had said she wasn’t feeling well, so Twinkles said he would take care of her and they’d catch up later. It was the last time that anyone from work saw them. When they failed to arrive at the pub it was assumed that Twinkles had taken Babs home early because she was ill. I called at Barbara’s flat, but it was in darkness and if there was anyone at home, they weren’t answering my rings on the doorbell or knocks on the door.
After checking that they hadn’t accidentally got off the train a stop early or a stop late, I drove down to York to see if they were stranded there for some reason. I searched the railway station, the city centre, and the riverside. I drove home early this morning hoping and praying to find him waiting for me with a sheepish expression and an explanation, but the house was deafeningly quiet when I pushed open the door. There are no calls on the answer machine. There are no messages on my mobile, no emails, just silence. I don’t know what to do next. I’ve been at the railway station again this morning scanning the trains and looking for his pink feather boa, silently promising that I’ll strangle him with it if it turns out he did pass out drunk at some party, as I suspected last night. I hope he’s got a stunningly good explanation when he turns up, otherwise he won’t be able to sit down for a week, not after I finish paddling his backside.
26th September 2005:
Still Lost
He’s still missing and I’m at a loss. My Dad drove me back to York yesterday afternoon along with Barbara’s dad, and we had a good scout around and even called in at various B & B’s to see if they had checked into any of them. When that drew a blank we went to the police to report them missing. They took details and checked for any reports of river incidents. The River Ouse is deep and it has a very powerful current. Twinkles is not a strong swimmer by any means. What if he and Babs somehow fell in the river and were swept away?
Last night was one of the longest of my life. Mum wanted me to stay with her, but I wanted to be at home when Twinks got back, so she stayed with me and so did my dad. Only Twinkles didn’t get back. Then at seven this morning I got a distraught call from Barbara’s father to say that the police had called to inform him that the body of an adult woman has been recovered from The Ouse. As Barbara is the only female reported missing in the area, he’s been asked to make a formal identification. My heart went cold. I asked if he wanted me to drive him down there, but he said no, his brother was taking him and his wife and he’d call me again when it was over.
I’m sitting here sharing my thoughts with a bloody computer while a man drives down to identify his dead daughter.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so sick, or so powerless in my life.
27th September 2005:
Keeping An Open Mind
It wasn’t Barbara. Thank God. The body wasn’t Barbara’s. Her father sobbed with a mixture of relief and bewilderment, as he broke the news over the phone. He was so glad that it wasn’t his daughter and yet upset that someone somewhere would eventually discover that their child was dead, and he cried because he still doesn’t know what has happened to his own daughter. Barbara and Twinkles seem to have vanished without trace. Whatever’s happened, it can’t be good. Twinks would never deliberately impose this level of anxiety on me.
The police are keeping what they call ‘an open mind,’ which amounts to them hinting at the possibility that Twinkles has suddenly done the decent thing by turning straight and running away with Barbara. Two adults being missing for what amounts to a collection of hours is not really a cause for serious concern in their book.
I can’t eat and I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything, but think about Twinkles. I’m going back to York today. Brian’s driving, and Lulu and some of the gang from the PP are joining us. We’re going to show photographs of Twinkles and Barbara. There’s one from the night they disappeared, taken by a workmate. It shows them together. Twinks is wearing his beloved pink feather boa and he’s got his hands around Barbara’s neck pretending to throttle her. They’re both laughing and when I look at it I feel like crying, because I wonder if this will be the last memento I have of him. I also feel angry and guilty that I wasn’t with him that night to prevent whatever happened from happening.
27th September 2005:
A Killing Silence
No news. It was pretty much a fruitless trip. A few people did recall sighting Twinkles and Barbara by the riverside that night. I suppose a man sporting a pink feather boa in lieu of a scarf tends to stick in people’s memory, but no one seems to have noticed anything suspicious. It was eerie, almost surreal walking around York this afternoon showing people a photo of Twinks and asking if they’d seen him. It was just a minor interruption to their day, but it’s my entire life. One elderly lady did feel obliged to tell me that in her day only women, and women of a certain ‘ilk’ wore feather boas, the acrimonious old bat.
The silence is killing me. Even when Twinkles isn’t actually speaking he’s kind of vocal. His movements and gestures say just as much as his words and often at twice the volume. I feel close to him when I write in this journal, because after all it’s about my life with him and it’s become a habit that I like. He loves that I keep a journal about our life together. It plays to his vanity and I think it verifies that he’s the centre of my personal universe. He often plonks himself on my lap as I type in order to have a nosy at what I’m writing and he frequently tries to make me change something, which I refuse to do. I remind him that its my diary, not his and I will tell things the way I see them. I wish he were on my lap now. I miss his interruptions and interfering. I miss his chatter. I miss the sound of his mules clacking across the floor. I just miss him.
Everyone is being kind, but the truth is I just want to be left alone now. However, sometimes what you want isn’t what you need and sometimes other people have needs that have to be met no matter that they run contrary to yours. My mother is staying with me and so is Lulu. His parents are away on holiday and both he and mum are distraught. I figured they would fare better if their distress were communal rather than solitary. Besides, even if I locked and bolted the door against them they’d just camp out on the doorstep. Lulu says it’s just like Twinkles to cause a bloody rumpus and the little bitch will do anything to be the centre of attention. He’s going to garrotte him with one of his own thongs when he finally turns up, then he bites his lip and goes quiet and we all know that he means if he turns up.
The police are still being fairly blasé about the whole thing. They don’t have anything to investigate at this moment in time. They’re waiting for developments. I get the distinct impression that they do actually have a suspect for the disappearances and that suspect is the River Ouse, which claims lives on a regular basis. I think they’re being blasé because they’re just waiting for the river to conveniently spit out a couple of bodies, accidental death, sad but it happens. I spoke with someone who mans one of the river patrol boats and he admitted that depending on currents, bodies could either come ashore fairly quickly, like the mystery woman that was recovered, or be swept miles and miles downstream. Some bodies can take weeks or even months to surface, with some never being recovered. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear and I regretted asking.
Karen and Paul called round with Dominic for an hour this evening. He’s really coming on now making all the sounds that precede speech and he’s crawling and starting to pull himself up on things. He kept looking around and I know he was wondering where Twinkles was. Unfortunately he soon picked up on the atmosphere and began to cry and to my utter horror and embarrassment so did I.
There’s a small traitorous part of me that is convinced that Twinkles will never come home, that he has suffered a fatal accident and it’s only a matter of time before the evidence presents itself. But there’s another part of me that completely refuses to accept such a thing. It tells me that I would know if he were dead, something inside me would surely know. I think any news even bad news would be better than this awful stasis. I don’t think I’ll write in this journal again, not until I know one way or another what has happened to my lovely boy.
28th September 2005:
Hostages?
I’m shaking so much I can barely hit the right keys. There’s been a bizarre development. I’ve been in utter turmoil all day. The citizens of York awoke this morning to find many of their historic buildings plastered with photo posters of Barbara, Twinkles and a Red Setter dog that apparently was snatched from its owner the morning after Twinks and Barbara disappeared. They’re all photographed separately. Barbara and Twinkles are shown with their wrists handcuffed in front of them and the dog is chained to a post. They each have a placard hanging around their necks. Barbara’s says ‘Women’s Rights!’ Twinkles reads ‘Gay Rights!’ The dog’s sign says, naturally enough, ‘Animal Rights!’ Under each of the photographs is a plain placard that reads: ‘But Who Cares About My Rights?’
York’s two main daily newspapers were also sent copies of the photographs along with a statement that said the safety of the subjects was reliant on there being reporters and a photographer outside the main entrance to York Minster at half past noon tomorrow. Twinkles, Barbara and the dog of course, are obviously being used to make some kind of protest, but by whom and to what end we don’t yet know. The police are suddenly a lot more interested. They and reporters suspect that activists from the Father’s 4 Justice group might be behind the kidnapping, but a spokesman for that group has categorically denied it, saying that while they support headline catching stunts to promote awareness, none of their members would ever kidnap a person, and certainly not a dog, to further their cause. There is also a suspicion that students from the university might be involved. They’re notorious for elaborate rag week hoaxes. Again, a student union rep has denied any involvement. I suppose we’ll just have to wait it out. If it does turn out to be students I’ll personally strangle the lot of them for the hell they’ve put me through. It’s weird how the press can winkle out your personal details in next to no time. I’ve had something like a dozen calls from various media agents all wanting my comments on the situation. I’ve declined to give any.
I can barely keep my eyes open I’m so tired. I keep looking at the photo of Twinkles and studying it. There’s something about it that’s not quite right, but I’m just too exhausted to pin it down. My house is packed to the rafters with people…with the exception of the one person I want. Hopefully tomorrow will bring answers, as well as bringing him back home where he belongs.
29th September 2005:
Wrongs And Rights
Dreams can be so vivid. In fact they can be tangible
to the point where you can taste, smell and feel the person you’re dreaming about. So it was with me last night. I went to bed convinced that I would never sleep, just as I haven’t slept since Twinkles disappeared, but exhaustion combined with the knowledge that he was at least alive lowered my defences and I succumbed to slumber. I dreamt that Twinks climbed into bed beside me. I felt his body press against mine, felt his arms come around me, smelled his unique scent, tasted his lips as they gently brushed mine, heard his voice whisper softly in my ear: ‘Tarn, did you record Hollyoaks and Tenko off UK-Gold for me?’
My eyes flew open and he was there, he was really there. I couldn’t even speak his name. I clung to him, scared to let go in case he vanished. He held me and kissed me and told me how much he’d missed me and how he’d worried because he knew how much I’d be worrying about him. He’d wanted to call and put me out of my misery, but Jeff wouldn’t let him because it would spoil his plan. Who the fuck is Jeff was the question that sprang readily to my lips, followed by, and where is he because I want to kill him.