His Kidnapper's Shoes

by Maggie James

  He realised Len was waiting for an answer. ‘Look, I’m OK, mate. Really.’ He pulled away and headed back to the flat. Len was right. He wouldn’t get the answers he wanted from a punch bag. Not from beer, either. Maybe he’d go back to screwing things out of his system.

  Sex had always been his drug of choice. And, yeah, he liked to shag. A lot. With his looks, he rarely went home alone, always picking bed partners who just wanted a good time sweating up the sheets before saying goodbye. He never saw anyone more than three or four times, figuring after that he was in way too deep and he needed to get the hell out.

  Because Daniel Bateman didn’t do commitment. Oh no. He found them, fucked them and forgot them, the sex being easy, convenient and shallow. Just the way he liked it. On the nights when he felt good, he went out and found someone to screw. Any time things weren’t so good – say if he’d been brooding about his stepfather – he reacted in similar fashion by going out on the pull. Blondes were his favourite, with the stereotypical big tits and tight ass. He’d worked his way through his share of brunettes and redheads too, and had been in the sack a few times with older women.

  He’d shagged guys, too. He liked to think he was as straight acting as they came, but apparently, that posed a challenge to some of the gay boys around town. He didn’t go for twinkly little queens, but if a good-looking guy who acted as straight as he did crossed his radar, then he’d play along. Discreetly, though. He usually subjected Tim to every detail of his exploits with women, but Daniel didn’t think he’d be too receptive to the idea of a flatmate who swung both ways. Might make him go all homo-scaredy-cat on him and Daniel didn’t want that. Tim was OK and he could do without the hassle of finding somewhere else to live.

  He liked the contrast with screwing women he got with men. There were times he needed to be in bed with someone who sported hard angles and body hair rather than curves and smoothness. He made it clear each time who would be on top. No way would he ever bottom with another man; if the guy was OK with that, then game on.

  Yep, shallow sex came out the winner as his drug of choice all right. More accurately, it had done.

  Until Katie Trebasco came along.

  He sure as hell didn’t know what to do about any of it and the punch bag and the booze hadn’t told him. He doubted whether going back to screwing around would either, but it was worth a try. Not tonight, though. He felt too soused with the drink to do much in the sack and his current dark mood would hardly bag him a warm body for the night. Too late to go out on the pull, anyway.

  He looked at the clock. Shit. Nearly midnight, and work in a few hours. He staggered to his feet, heading towards the bathroom. Best to be in bed before Tim got back. He couldn’t face the meaningful looks and pointed clearing away of the empty beer bottles.

  He needed his bed.

  Along with turning the clock back a few weeks. Yeah. A miracle would solve everything.

  3

  ALCOHOL AND OPALS

  I think I’m in some sort of psychiatric facility although I’m not sure; I’ve not been taking note of what’s going on around me. My confinement in this place must be because of my violence at the police station, when they forced me to provide a DNA sample. In contrast, the staff here must think of me as quite the model patient, always calm and compliant, although I never speak. I do what I’m told, when I’m told, to make life easier. I don’t want to interact with these people and going along with whatever they decide is best for me is simpler. I have my own room and I can be quiet here.

  In my mind, I’m back being questioned by the police, my lawyer sitting beside me, the mental health social worker somewhere off to my left. I still don’t respond to anything that’s said to me, or even show I understand what they want; my refusal is obvious, though, from my silence. No way will I allow them to take a blood sample or swab my mouth. I won’t give them something they’ll use against me, something to show there’s no biological link between my son and me, even though I’m his mother in every way that matters.

  What I don’t realise is that they don’t need blood or saliva. They can take a hair sample from me to use for DNA, and they can employ force if need be. I register this fact and something inside me, suppressed for a very long time, snaps. It’s not going to happen. I won’t let them. They decide to go ahead anyway; the rage inside me erupts and I hit out at anyone I can before they restrain me, arms thrashing, screams of fury and frustration tearing from my throat, wild inarticulate sounds. The mental health social worker gets very involved and after that, everything’s a bit of a blur.

  None of that concerns me anyway. Daniel still occupies most of my thoughts. Anger like his can’t last forever. He’ll calm down, given time, and he’ll come to visit me and I can explain. He’ll understand and no matter what happens everything will be fine. I’ll wait. I won’t speak if he’s still full of rage. The only way I’ll talk is if he’s ready to listen to me.

  I've plenty of time. Meanwhile, I lie on my bed and gaze at the ceiling, wishing you were here, Gran. I’d bury myself in your arms and you’d hug me tight like you always did and somehow the world would transform into a better place. You’d help me explain things to Daniel – you two would get on so well, Gran – and I’d draw comfort in being with the two people I’ve loved the most.

  I’ve not lived a happy life, apart from the joy of having had you and Daniel in it. It’s hard remembering some of it, Gran, like when I lived with Mum. That small Hampshire town, home to three generations of us Coveys, seems light years away now, after more than two decades of life in London. I never did tell you everything; I always wanted to shield you from the worst of it. You were so ill, and I didn’t want to worry you. But it became part of what shaped me, made me who I am, and what led me to that flat in Bristol and to my son, my beloved Daniel.

  It really did get bad for me at times, Gran. Take Mum's drinking, for starters. I think I’d turned eight when I realised not all mothers drank as she did. Up until then I thought it was normal to have a mother who I had to help to bed when she was drunk. Apparently not, as I found out when I talked to the other girls at school. I learned not to say anything further, and I became vigilant about keeping up a façade of normality. Mum was a clever drunk, anyway. She’d get up in the morning as though she’d not touched a drop the night before, scrub all traces of the booze from her breath and go to work like everyone else. Wine was her favourite tipple although she wasn’t fussy. She’d buy it by the box as well as the bottle and I’d watch her rip the bag from the packaging and squeeze out every drop.

  You were always there for me when I needed you, though. I remember how I’d call you if she got bad and you’d come over. You’d help me undress her and get her into bed, your manner endlessly patient, your voice always so calm.

  ‘Roll her onto her side, Laura, like this, in case she vomits in her sleep. She’ll choke if she does, my love.’

  I’d look at Mum’s face on the pillow, her skin the colour of uncooked dough, snoring as she slept off the alcohol, her inability to be a mother a piercing regret to me.

  Afterwards, you’d sit on my bed and brush my hair.

  ‘Almost long enough to tickle your hips,’ you once told me, the tug of the bristles against my scalp a panacea to my drunken mother snoring in the next room. ‘Like soft golden caramel and every bit as thick.’ You reached behind my ear and conjured up a sweet wrapped in shiny gilded paper, and I laughed, even though you’d pulled that trick so often before. You peeled off the wrapping and held the caramel up against my hair.

  ‘See, Laura? Look how the colours match.’ My hair was paler, I thought, but there wasn’t much in it. You popped the sweet into my waiting mouth, and then patted my cheek, the oversized ring on your finger next to my eyes. ‘Would you believe it? Another perfect match. Eyes of opal blue.’ You stroked my caramel-coloured hair and for a while, I forgot I had a mother who was drunk and incapable of being a parent to me. You made it all go away, Gran, and that was the real magic you had
for me, more powerful than any sweet.

  ‘Why does she drink so much?’ I remember asking you once, desperate to dig beneath the surface of the enigma that was my mother.

  You sighed, at a loss to find the words to explain the truth to the unworldly eight-year-old who you loved. You were right; I was too young to understand the ugly reality of what had happened nearly ten years ago. I needed to be older and a lot wiser before I truly grasped the reason why Mum drank the way she did.

  Sadness darkened your expression. You chose your words with care. ‘Sometimes, Laura, men can appear nice on the surface, even when they’re not. Especially when they want something from a pretty girl.’

  ‘Like what?’ I had no idea what you meant.

  You didn’t answer directly. ‘Your mum was beautiful when she was younger. Too beautiful, Laura.’ Anger seeped into your voice. ‘She ended up attracting attention from a group of men, the type of men who aren’t so nice on the inside. She didn’t want to give them what they wanted, so they took it anyway.’

  I had no concept of sex back then. I nodded, pretending I understood.

  ‘They hurt her so badly.’ Something in your expression told me you hadn’t meant to say that in front of me. You said she’d needed to go to the hospital; she’d begun drinking heavily as soon as she got out.

  ‘You see, Laura, my love, when your mum drinks, she’s able to forget what those men did; for a short while, the world becomes a better place for her.’

  I nodded again. That part wasn’t difficult to understand.

  ‘Your mother was never the same afterwards, sweetheart. Although she didn’t want to let those men have what they were after, when she came home from the hospital, she started to give it to anybody who did. It can happen when women don’t think much of themselves.’

  You told me how you tried to talk with her, but you two were never close and she’d already built a wall, high and impenetrable, around herself. Then she got pregnant by one of several possible men and nine months later, I arrived; for a while, my mother seemed to get better. She took care of me, stopped buying the wine and you hoped, really hoped, she would be all right.

  Slowly, though, she slipped back into that dark place where only a bottle of cheap red could make her forget and then you knew she’d never get over what had happened to her.

  By the time I turned twelve, I had you to be concerned about as well. I ignored the signs at first; how thin you’d become, how tired and frail. So long as I didn’t ask you, I reasoned, I wouldn’t hear the words I dreaded. You, being ever practical, didn’t let me get away with the head in the sand approach. You sat me down one day, doing your best to explain your illness so I wouldn’t get too upset. I was a young twelve, after all, still unworldly.

  ‘Laura, my darling.’ Your voice, calm as ever, contrasted with the words to come. ‘I know you’ve been fretting about me, my love, but there’s no need. There’s a lump growing inside me, something nasty that has no business being there. You mustn’t worry, though. Those clever doctors at the hospital are going to operate to remove it and then everything will be fine.’

  I didn’t speak, too choked with terror. As ever, you were quick to reassure me.

  ‘Don’t fret, my love. I’ll need a course of treatment afterwards and then you’ll have your old Gran back, good as new.’

  My twelve-year-old self sensed your need to comfort me was being sparing with the truth but I clung stubbornly to what you’d said, unwilling to let myself believe you could be wrong. I convinced myself the doctors would make you better, just as you promised.

  I’d visit you as often as I could, both when you were in hospital and when you came home; it was a long time before I believed you might get better. There were days when you hardly had the energy to talk, when your skin was as dry and dough-like as my mother’s was, and your trademark batik blouses hung on you like curtains. Some days I’d visit and not be able to go again for a few days because I couldn’t bear to see you so pale and exhausted.

  You were ill for a long time, Gran. During that time, Mum got much worse. I think she had come to rely on you being there to help and suddenly you weren’t. You were too sick and you needed to put yourself first. Although the two of you had never been close – that skipped a generation – I think she was terrified of losing you, her only living relative besides me. She drew comfort from the only source she knew – a wine bottle. Her drinking got even heavier and she started to pass out earlier and more frequently from the drink.

  Soon it became harder for her to wake up in the mornings, or to wash and dress. Some days she didn’t manage it at all and she’d lie there on the sofa, either sleeping or drinking more wine. Guilt stabbed me on those days if they happened to be a school day and I had to leave her, but the truth was, Gran, I needed to get out of the house. I had to distance myself from her wine-pickled breath and the empty bottles, from her open-mouthed snoring and the sight of her skirt riding up her mottled legs. I wanted to go to school, to be with normal people and to forget for a few hours that I had a hopeless drunk for a mother.

  Inevitably, she ended up being fired from her job and things started to get seriously bad, Gran. There was no food in the house and I remember rummaging through drawers trying to find money to buy groceries. I ate at your house as often as I could and I’m not ashamed to say I took money from Mum's purse as well. I did my best with the food, but the bills were another matter and soon angry letters started arriving, threatening court action and I grew scared, Gran. The phone had been cut off a long time ago but we still received letters demanding the arrears on the account. We had bills from the electricity and gas companies and Mum owed a couple of months’ rent as well.

  I thought again about asking you for money but I couldn't, Gran. You needed to concentrate on getting well. Besides, I knew you didn’t have a great deal of money. You had enough to cope with and I wanted to sort it myself, to make you proud of me.

  In the end, I couldn’t handle things any longer. I had no idea that day, seemingly the same as any other, would be the one where the pressure got too much for me. Mrs Davis, the maths teacher, asked me a question in class. I didn’t know the answer because I hadn’t been listening. I’d not eaten any breakfast and the urgent need to put food in my stomach, the growling pit at the centre of me, seemed a more desperate issue than solving algebraic equations. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes and suddenly I found myself crying. I didn’t care about the entire class witnessing my meltdown, or the fact I had no tissue and used my sleeve to wipe away the snot and the tears. I didn’t worry about the horrible sounds I was making. All I cared about was the hollow in my stomach and the overwhelming need to let go of the urge to be strong all the time.

  I cried for my mother, for the torment she so desperately wanted to blot out and which even my birth hadn’t been able to diminish. I cried for you, Gran, for your loss of zest for life, for your pale unhealthy skin and dull eyes. But most of all I cried for myself, for the exhausted and hungry fourteen-year-old who didn’t have a life like her classmates, for the girl who had to stop her mother vomiting in her sleep and who stole from her purse to buy food. I wanted, more than anything, to crawl into bed, sleep for a week and wake up to find food in the house and Mum sober. Things had always been all right after the terror of a nightmare as a child. This time, I couldn’t wake up.

  I‘m not sure what happened after that; it’s all a bit of a blur. Social workers came to the house. They looked at Mum, lying soused on the sofa. They saw her red-veined eyes, the raddled face, the empty wine bottles. They asked to read the threatening letters and I showed them. They fired off searching questions about what we ate and I told them there was no money for food.

  ‘Any other relatives?’ one of them, all brisk efficiency, asked.

  ‘Only my grandmother.’ The need to protect you whilst you were so ill battled with my longing to run to you, to seek comfort from you. ‘But she’s sick. Really unwell.’ I told them about your illness, how you w
ere the best Gran in the world but you had to look after yourself and you couldn’t cope with me as well as with getting better. The two social workers exchanged glances.

  ‘If she goes to live with her grandmother, she’ll still be the carer. She’d merely be swapping a drunken woman for a sick one,’ said Brisk Efficiency.

  The earnest people from Social Services had to find something to do with me, the solution being foster care. I ended up in a family placement. My foster parents meant well but I couldn't connect with them in any way. I’d never known real family life; their house always seemed too noisy, to have too many people, what with three children and relatives always visiting. I felt the weight of their kindness oppressing me; their apple-pie family life only served to thrust in my face what I’d never had, mocking me.

  I visited Mum as often as I could bear. I’d go after school and most of the time she didn't even realise I’d arrived, being too drunk to notice me. The house, always a grimy mess, smelled foul and the bills were still piling up. It could only be a matter of time before the landlord evicted Mum. I thought about the homeless drunks, filthy and apathetic, who lived in tattered cardboard boxes under the flyover nearby. I was sure she’d end up like that if he threw her out and in a way, it didn’t matter. It would be one step closer to the final oblivion she craved.

  It never came to that, Gran, as you know. At a time when you needed to concentrate on yourself, and when I should have been a carefree teenager, we lost the woman who had always been between us from a generational point of view. Now I didn’t live with her, nobody was around to make sure she didn’t vomit the alcohol back up and one night, she did, and choked on it. She lay there for a couple of days until the landlord came round and forced the lock. He’d hoped to collect the rent but instead found Mum’s dead body, dried vomit pooled on the carpet and in her lungs. She was thirty-four years old and when I last saw her alive, she looked fifty.