by Linda Green
Even as I said it, I knew it didn’t sound right. Josh would never have used that term. He’d say he’d gone off travelling. Although, unlike Matilda, I didn’t think the Head would buy that.
There was a pause on the other end of the line and I was put through. The Head answered in a suitably sympathetic voice; the message had obviously been passed on to her.
‘Hello, Mrs Bentley. I understand it’s about Josh.’
She was going to make me say it again. To spell it out. Just in case the secretary had got it wrong.
‘Yes, I’m afraid he ran away yesterday morning. He left a note and took some of his clothes with him.’
‘I see. I’m … er … very sorry to hear that. Were there any problems at school? Anything we should know about?’
‘Not at school, no. Everything was fine at school.’
I imagined the relief on the other end of the line. Nothing had happened on her watch. She wasn’t going to have to answer any awkward questions.
‘I take it you’ve informed the police?’
‘No. Not yet. I wanted to ring you first. To let you know he wasn’t going to be in.’
‘Right. Well, I would suggest you call them straight away. Bearing in mind the seriousness of the situation. I’ll advise the Local Education Authority and I expect one of their welfare officers will give you a call.’
She had clearly gone into officious mode, now she knew she was off the hook.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘If there’s anything further the school can do to help, please do let me know. And in the meantime, let’s hope Josh comes home very soon.’
I thanked her again and hung up. I knew she was right, I should ring the police. I wasn’t going to do it myself, though. It needed to be Chris’s decision. And I wasn’t even going to attempt to have this conversation over the phone.
I got into the car and drove straight to his studio. It looked a bit old-fashioned from the outside. Definitely not one of those shiny glass-fronted designer places which had sprung up in city centres in recent years. In Focus, the plain black sign above the shop said. Chris had never been one for anything flashy. He got by on word of mouth because his photographs were bloody good. Though I suspected one of those high street shopping gurus would have had plenty to say about how much more successful he could be if he put his mind to it.
I opened the door. The bell rang and I heard hurried footsteps on the stairs before Chris appeared at the back of the shop. His face was searching mine. Maybe thinking I’d heard something. And that it might not be good.
‘I haven’t heard anything,’ I said straight away. ‘I rang his school. Told the Head. She advised us to call the police straight away.’
Chris shut his eyes for a second. ‘What does she know?’ he said. ‘She probably doesn’t even know what he looks like.’
‘It’s been over twenty-four hours,’ I said. ‘And he’s never done anything like this before. Maybe they could put a description out. Someone in another force might pick him up.’
‘He told us he was going. He wouldn’t want us to call the police.’
‘Well, if we get him back, I’ll tell him it was my idea to call them. That you asked me not to do it.’
‘So then he’ll hate both of us.’
I looked at Chris, wondering for a second if he’d said it with a half-smile on his face. He hadn’t.
‘You were right, though,’ I said. ‘Being a parent isn’t about being popular, it’s about doing the right thing.’
‘And I take it you know the right thing to do?’
‘I’m trying to put things right, Chris. Make up for the mess I made. I think we should tell the police. I think we might get him back earlier than if we don’t.’
Chris shrugged.
‘Do I take that as a yes?’ I asked.
‘I guess so.’
‘So are you going to call them, or shall I?’
‘You do it,’ said Chris. ‘You’re better at those sorts of things.’
‘OK. If I haven’t heard anything by this afternoon, I’ll phone them. Have you spoken to your mum?’
Chris shook his head.
‘I think she should know. I don’t want her finding out from anyone apart from us.’
‘Fine.’
‘I could go round and see her after work,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to go.’
‘Like I said, you’re better at those sorts of things.’
‘Will you be done in time to get Matilda from school?’
‘Yeah. Can be.’
‘Thanks.’
We stood there wordlessly, more like a couple in the awkward stages of getting divorced than the supposedly happily married parents of two.
‘Right, well. I’ll let you know if there’s any news. Is it OK if I give the police your number?’
‘Why? I’m not his father.’
* * *
In different circumstances it would have been laughable; I was going to work to help other people with their problems in order to avoid having to deal with my own. As it was, there was nothing remotely amusing about it. I had considered not going in, wondering if I should stay at home instead. But waiting in for someone who wasn’t going to call was never a good idea. Besides, my first client of the day was Catherine and there was no way I was going to let her down.
She’d told Nathan that I’d asked to see her again on her own. That I was trying to get to the bottom of her eating disorder. I wasn’t going to do that at all, of course. But we both knew Nathan was so sure of himself, he would buy it.
When Catherine entered the room, she moved more easily than the last time I had seen her. Maybe it was simply the fact that she wasn’t harbouring a secret any longer but she greeted me with a warm smile and sat down in the chair, ready to start. It was difficult to know where to begin after what had happened last time. But I didn’t have to worry about that, because she did it for me.
‘I’m going to leave him,’ she said.
I smiled at her and nodded, unable to say anything for a moment.
‘You were right,’ she went on. ‘That isn’t love. And no one deserves to be treated like that. Not even me.’
‘Especially not you,’ I said. ‘But I do need to know that you’ve thought this through. That this is what you want. My job is to support you in your decisions, not to tell you what to do.’
‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But it is my decision. I went home last time and realised that it had taken a lot of strength to do what I did in front of you. Strength that I didn’t know I had. I bared my soul, not just my knickers.’
I smiled at her.
She managed a smile back. ‘I guess it made me see that I had sunk to a point where I was either going to drown or I had to start kicking and screaming to save myself.’
I looked at her and nodded. Her strength made me want to roar.
‘Well, if you’re quite certain, I can give you the phone numbers of organisations who will support you both practically and emotionally. I also need to ask you to think about your safety. Do you know where you’re going to go?’
‘My business partner Simon has got a spare room in his house. I told him, you see. The day after I told you. He said it was my version of coming out. That I had nothing to be ashamed of. And that if Nathan comes anywhere near me he’ll get the entire gay population of Hebden Bridge to say they’ve slept with him on Facebook.’
She said it with a smile on her face. I had a feeling Nathan wouldn’t find it so amusing, though.
‘I’m going to report it to the police too,’ she continued. ‘I borrowed Simon’s mobile and took photos of the bruises. He’s saving them for me, until I’m ready.’
‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘I can give you the number of a specialist domestic violence officer at Calderdale. It’s important you get the support and protection you need.’
‘Nathan won’t hurt me,’ said Catherine. ‘Not once I’ve gone. There’ll be no point. He’ll have lost contro
l. It’s like spinning a plate. Once you’ve lost it, you can never really get it back. You have to start again with a new one.’
‘Well, hopefully, you reporting it will help to stop that happening,’ I said.
She nodded.
It suited her, her newfound strength. She had grown into it very well. Probably because it had been there all along underneath. She had, like many people, simply never realised.
‘Right, I guess that’s it, then,’ she said. ‘For our sessions, I mean. We’ve been a spectacular failure, really, haven’t we? I mean, your job’s supposed to be keeping people together, isn’t it?’
‘Not if it’s not the best thing for them,’ I said. ‘And certainly not if one person is violent towards the other one.’
‘Well, as long as I’m not going to get you a black mark from your bosses.’
‘Not at all. In fact, I’m prouder of how you’ve resolved things than of any other case I’ve had.’
‘Good,’ she said.
I got out one of my business cards and wrote my mobile number on the back before handing it to her. ‘Ring me any time,’ I said, ‘if there’s anything I can do to help you. Or simply if you want to talk. As a friend.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it and slipping it into her handbag.
I noticed her nail varnish. It wasn’t chipped at all today. It was a strong red colour. It suited her.
* * *
I phoned the police on my mobile a few minutes after Catherine had gone. It was as if she had left some of her strength in the room with me. I dialled the number for non-emergencies, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be anything even remotely approaching an emergency to them. It was only in my world that alarms were ringing.
It took a while for someone to answer.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’d like to report a missing person.’
‘Just a minute,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. ‘I need to pull up the form.’
* * *
Barbara lived in a two-bedroom terrace on the edge of Todmorden, close to the Lancashire border. But not, as she put it, too close. She still didn’t think of herself as a ‘bottom-dweller’, having spent her childhood on the tops above Walsden, but I was glad she did live on the valley bottom now. It had made things a little easier for her since Ken died. Easier to get about, at least.
The house appeared pretty much as it had been before he died. Not in the way that some people refuse to move their loved ones’ things after they’ve gone, but in the sense that Ken had seemed so much a part of the structure of it that simply removing his walking stick and cap from the hall hadn’t really done anything to remove the sense that he was still present.
I loved Barbara’s house. The flagstone floor in the hall, the little mullioned windows. But most of all I loved the fact that it was part of Chris’s past. A part of it which I could actually access, which allowed me to build up a picture of his life before I knew him. There were photos, for a start. An awful lot of them. Pictures of a baby about six months old with laughing eyes and dark hair. And later, a wiry boy with bruised knees and scuffed shoes – the results of too much time spent scrambling up the hillside, according to Barbara.
I knocked on the door and went in. She never locked it, no matter how many times Chris and I told her to do so. Always said that we were being daft and that ‘There’s nowt worth taking any rate’.
‘Hello, Barbara, it’s only me,’ I called out.
‘Hello, love,’ she said, coming out of the front room. ‘Everything all right?’
I smiled at her, unable to say anything in reply.
‘I’ll put kettle on, shall I?’ she said.
I followed her into the kitchen, taking deep breaths as she filled the kettle and put it on to boil. There was no easy way to say it. And I wasn’t going to insult her intelligence by repeating the ‘big adventure’ line.
‘Josh left home yesterday morning,’ I said.
She stared at me, the softness gone from her face. ‘Whatever for?’
‘Lydia came back,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid it all got rather horrible. A lot of things were said.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘She admitted she’d slept with Josh’s friend Tom. She said she’d had no idea who he was. Tom didn’t either, apparently, until he saw Josh’s photo in her room afterwards.’
‘Tom? The quiet lad with fair hair? I remember him from Josh’s parties.’
‘He works part-time in a bar in Hebden now,’ I said.
‘Don’t make excuses for her, Alison. He’s still a wee lad to me.’
I nodded. I understood what she was saying.
‘I’m afraid that’s not all of it, though,’ I said. ‘She came to apologise. She was drunk, of course. Chris came home while she was there and it all got a bit out of hand. She claimed that he wasn’t Josh’s father. That she’d had a one-night stand with some guy in a band.’
Barbara stared at me. The moistness in her eyes was no longer that which elderly ladies seem to collect for no obvious reason.
‘She’s lying.’ Her voice was firm and steely.
‘I think so too.’
‘But Josh didn’t?’
‘I tried to reassure him. He was pretty shaken up, though. He wasn’t really thinking straight. He left a note. I didn’t find it until yesterday morning. He took clothes with him. And a rucksack.’
I noticed Barbara’s hand on the top of the kitchen counter. Her fingers were shaking.
‘You go and sit down,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring the tea in.’
Barbara went without arguing. Her usually steady gait was looking decidedly shaky. I put two sugars in her tea, even though she usually only had one. And popped a custard cream from the biscuit barrel on to the saucer. I took them in to her. She was sitting in the armchair, staring at a photo of Josh sitting on Chris’s lap when he was about four years old. She probably took it herself.
‘You couldn’t separate them,’ said Barbara. ‘I always used to say when Chris went up on the tops with Josh in one of those carrier things on his back that it looked like they were joined together.’
‘I know. I think that’s what has made it worse. How close they were.’
‘Have you reported him missing?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They’re going to put a description out, although they’re a bit limited in what they can do. What with him being sixteen.’
‘If any harm comes to him –’
‘It won’t. He’s good at keeping out of trouble.’
Barbara looked at me. That wasn’t what she meant. I knew that.
‘Where’s Chris?’ Barbara asked, as if suddenly noticing his absence from the room.
‘At work. He’s going to pick Matilda up from school in a bit.’
‘Is he talking at all?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Not to me, anyway.’
Barbara looked at me more intently.
‘This is all my fault,’ I said. ‘I knew Josh was seeing Lydia again. He asked me not to tell Chris.’
She nodded slowly.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know it was wrong. I was trying to keep them both happy.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said.
‘Try telling that to Chris.’
‘I will do, when I see him. There’s only one person to blame here. And we all know who that is.’
‘I thought she’d changed. I really did.’
‘You’re too trusting, Alison. That’s your trouble. She’s nasty. Manipulative. I should never have let her get her claws into Chris in the first place. I always told him she were trouble. He wouldn’t listen, see. Too taken in by her. Well, it’s obvious what he were taken in by. That’s the trouble with sons. They’re weak when it comes to women. They stop using their heads.’
‘He spent most of yesterday up on the moor,’ I said. ‘And today he’s refusing to talk about it.’
‘He’s wounded, Alison. That’s why he’s lashing out at you.
He’s like an injured animal. If you get too close, he’ll bite.’
‘He’ll come round, though, won’t he?’
Barbara shrugged. ‘I don’t know. This is going to really hit him hard.’
I stared at Barbara. The tone of her voice was unnerving me. ‘Lydia knows, you see,’ said Barbara.
‘Knows what?’ I asked.
Barbara hesitated for a moment. ‘Knows exactly how to hurt him.’
I nodded. Though I suspected that Lydia knew something far more than that. Something which Chris had never found it in himself to tell me.
I know it sounds stupid if I say it were Christmas tree what did it, but it were last straw, you know? Every single thing I do is wrong, nothing is ever good enough for her, and I never say a word, I just take it.
So one morning she were out shopping and I thought I’d surprise her and put up Christmas tree, I spent ages making it look really nice, and when she comes home she takes one look at it and tuts and shakes her head. So I goes out to shed for a bit and when I come back in she’s taken lights and tinsel and every single bauble off and has started doing it from scratch. And I asks her what she’s doing, like, and she says I’d done it wrong. Like there’s some bloody manual on it and only one way it can be done.
I took one of baubles off tree and stamped on it right in front of her. Told her it were in wrong place. I’m not proud of what I done, it were a nice bauble and that, but sometimes a man reaches end of his tether and I guess that bauble just happened to be in wrong place at wrong time.
PART THREE
21
The knock on the door was bang on time. Matilda rushed to get it before I had the chance to dry my hands on the tea towel. I hurried through to the hall to see Caitlin standing there, her sleeveless summer dress showing off her tan, her violin case under her arm.
‘Hi,’ I said, stepping forward to give her a hug and drag Matilda off her at the same time. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
She had insisted on keeping her promise. Said she wanted to do it. That there was no way she was going to let Josh’s little sister down. I’d offered to bring Matilda to her house, thought it might be easier for her. But she’d said she wanted to come here. Even insisted on walking up the hill from the bus stop. I suspected she’d thought it would be cathartic. Although, looking at her face right now, it appeared that wasn’t the case at all.