The Camel Trail

by Merrigan, Peter J

‘Dumb legs,’ Martin said for the hundredth time. ‘Give me a minute.’

  They stopped. Martin was out of breath.

  They paid no attention to the car that sped round the corner behind them. Not until it had passed them, braked, and reversed back alongside them.

  When Kevin’s father stepped out, eyes narrow, a broad grin on his face, Kevin nearly wet himself.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Get in the car.’

  Kevin didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

  ‘Get in, son.’

  Kevin shook his head minutely.

  ‘Are you disobeying your father?’

  Kevin looked at Martin, looked at his father, looked up the street at his house. ‘What—Why—?’

  ‘Stop being an idiot. Get in the car.’

  ‘It’s your dad,’ Martin said, though he’d never seen the man before.

  Kevin took a small step backwards. ‘G-Get my mum, Martin.’

  Martin took an awkward step forward and Frankie stepped in front of him. ‘No you don’t. You can get in the car, too.’

  ‘Make me.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’ Frankie opened the door to the back seat of the car. ‘Kevin, do as you’re told.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going home. Get in.’

  Martin looked back at Kevin. Kevin couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘What about Mum?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Never mind your mother. Get in. I won’t ask you again.’

  ‘Martin—’

  ‘He can come to. In you go.’ Kevin got in the car. ‘Come on, you,’ Frankie said to Martin. ‘I can’t have you running back to his whore of a mother. Get in.’

  Martin stared at the man, looked like he was about to make a break for it, then turned and moved slowly towards the car.

  ‘Why are you walking funny?’ Frankie asked.

  The phone rang and disturbed Sarah’s sleep. She untangled herself from the blankets and hurried downstairs to answer it before it stopped ringing. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, hi, Sarah. Did I wake you?’

  Sarah yawned. ‘No.’

  ‘Is Martin round your house?’

  She looked into the living room. The TV was off, which was unusual for a Sunday morning. ‘Not unless he’s up in Kevin’s room. Hang on, I’ll go check. What time’s it, anyway?’

  ‘After eleven,’ Tessa said.

  ‘I can’t believe I slept so late,’ Sarah said, then held the phone away from her ear and shouted, ‘Kevin.’ She paused, listening. ‘Back in a minute,’ she said into the phone. She padded up the stairs, stretching and yawning and scratching her head. When she knocked on Kevin’s door, she got no answer. ‘Kevin? Is Martin in there with you?’

  Silence.

  She knocked again, opened the door.

  ‘Kev—?’

  She hurried back down the stairs and fumbled with the phone handset. ‘He’s not here,’ she said urgently.

  ‘Does Kevin know where he is?’

  ‘Neither of them are here.’ She looked helplessly back into the living room, called Kevin’s name again. ‘If he’s gone off somewhere I’ll kill him.’ And together both of them said, ‘Camel Trail.’

  ‘I’ll get my coat,’ Tessa said. ‘I’m sure they’re fine.’

  In the back of the car, neither boy looked at or spoke to each other. Frankie could have cursed himself; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had hoped of finding the whore and the runt at home together, had wanted to instil a few family values, maybe have a cup of tea.

  At the edge of town, he pulled the car over to the side of the road, cut the ignition, and just sat there, staring forward into the grey gloom of the January morning. Should he turn around? Take the boys back and do things the proper way?

  He twisted round in his seat and looked at his son. He looked so much older now, taller, filling out a bit in the face. ‘How have you been, son?’

  Kevin didn’t answer.

  Calmly, Frankie said, ‘I asked you a question.’

  Kevin blinked. His eyes looked watery. ‘Fine,’ he said in a mouse voice.

  ‘Fine what?’

  ‘I’ve been fine.’

  Frankie closed his eyes. ‘Don’t I get any respect? “I’ve been fine, Daddy.”‘

  The thunderous face on the boy almost made Frankie laugh out loud. A bit of fighting spirit, that’s what he liked to see. ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably calling the police this very minute,’ Kevin said.

  From the corner of his eye, Frankie spied the other kid edging his hand towards the door handle. He rapped his knuckles off the kid’s cheek, drawing a whimper. He turned and forced the child locks on. ‘Are you trying to be funny, boy? Are you?’

  The boy said nothing, only held both hands up to his reddening cheek.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ the boy spat. Frankie raised his hand again.

  ‘Stop,’ Kevin shouted. ‘Don’t you hurt him.’

  Frankie had to laugh this time. ‘What’s the matter? You don’t want me hurting your boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s not—’

  Frankie laughed again, so much that tears had started to roll down his cheeks. Finally, he turned to the boy again. ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘I’m not your son.’

  Frankie puffed up his chest. ‘That’s what your mother tells you. What’s your name?’

  ‘Martin,’ Kevin said. ‘He’s my friend and if you hurt him—’

  Frankie turned back in his seat to face the front. He didn’t need this, not the other kid, not any of it. He could probably drop him off at the outskirts of Wadebridge, give him fifty pence to call his mother and give Frankie enough time to head up the road. It wasn’t ideal, but it’d have to do. ‘Three’s a party,’ he said out loud. He started the car again and pulled back out into the road.

  In the rear view mirror he saw the two boys glance at each other, then look out their respective passenger windows. ‘Belt up,’ he said. ‘We can’t be having any accidents.’

  Graeme drove. Sarah sat in the back seat chewing on her thumb nail. ‘They’ve just gone for a walk,’ she tried to assure herself. Buildings and trees and road signs rushed by as Graeme, always calm, nevertheless pressed his foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

  In the front passenger seat, Tessa was on her mobile to Alan. ‘Okay, thanks, Alan. If you do hear from them, will you call me?’ When she hung up she stated the obvious. ‘He hasn’t heard from them.’

  ‘They didn’t have to go walking this early in the morning, did they?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Martin’s done it before. I’ve told him a thousand times not to go out without one of us. He never listens.’

  ‘Maybe we should call the police,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Let’s just have a look for them first,’ Graeme said. ‘They can’t have gone far.’

  They pulled up by the Camel Trail and got out of the car into the blustery morning. Sarah buttoned her coat and pulled on her gloves, her eyes immediately scanning the vicinity. They headed towards the Trail.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Sarah asked a young couple coming in the opposite direction. ‘You didn’t happen to see two young boys on the Trail, did you? Kevin and Martin. About this height.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the girl said, ‘no.’

  She moved on, head sweeping left to right.

  ‘Slow down,’ Tessa called after her.

  ‘Where are they?’ she shouted back.

  ‘We’ll find them. Don’t worry.’

  ‘He’s got them.’

  ‘He doesn’t even know where you live.’

  ‘He found out. I’m sure he has. Kevin!’

  Martin whispered, ‘Why didn’t you run?’

  Frankie had stopped the car and was outside taking a leak. Inside the car, with the engine off and the key in Frankie’s pocket—’Just in case either of you try some fancy heroics,’ he had said, then slapped them both on the face and t
old them to stay put—Kevin couldn’t look at his friend.

  Martin said, ‘You should have run.’

  ‘He would have caught me,’ Kevin said at last, still not turning to face Martin. ‘And what about you? You couldn’t have run.’

  ‘He didn’t want me in the first place. He wanted you. I could have tripped him or something. You had time to run away.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ Kevin said flatly. He laced his fingers together in his lap and continued to stare out the window.

  ‘What’s he going to do?’ Martin asked.

  Kevin didn’t have time to answer, not that he had a valid answer anyway. Frankie opened the driver’s door, got in and slotted the key into the ignition.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, like they were a happy family on a lazy afternoon drive. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Kevin!’

  ‘Martin?’

  Sarah was getting frantic. God knows how far they had walked along the Trail, but there was still no sign of the boys. She envisioned two little battered bodies tossed to the wayside, half covered in undergrowth, half covered in bruises. She scoured the grey afternoon, tears clogging her lashes and warming her cheeks. ‘Kevin?’

  Across the wide Trail from Sarah, Tessa shouted, ‘Martin?’

  Fifteen feet ahead of them, Graeme was stopping passers-by, asking if they had seen two boys, brown hair, one of them maybe not walking so well. He shook his head as he walked back towards them. ‘No sign.’ He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and speed-dialled. ‘I’ll call home; see if maybe they’re there. We could have missed them on the road.’

  ‘They won’t be there,’ Sarah said, a prophetic air about her.

  They waited while Graeme listened to the receiver. ‘Martin, it’s Dad.’ Sarah’s relief was only momentary. ‘When you get home,’ Graeme continued, obviously to an answering machine, ‘give me a call. We’re out looking for you. You shouldn’t have gone off without letting us know.’

  He flipped his phone shut.

  ‘Maybe now we should call the police,’ Sarah said.

  Chapter Nine

  Frankie pulled into a free space in the car park outside a McDonald’s, got out of the car and opened the rear nearside passenger door. ‘You,’ he said, ‘come with me. Kevin, you stay in the car. I’m trusting you. If you’re not still in the car when we get back, your little friend will never make it home. Got it?’ He pulled on Martin’s arm to get him out of the car. ‘Come on, Jack.’

  ‘It’s Martin.’

  ‘It’s anything I want it to be. Get out.’ He dragged the boy out of the car, slammed the door shut, and engaged the locking mechanism with the key fob. ‘Stand up straight. Let’s go.’

  Keeping a tight grip on Jack-Martin’s shoulder, they made their way slowly across the car park.

  ‘Did you have to park so far away?’

  ‘Do you have to walk like a pansy?’

  ‘It’s the only way I can walk. Stop hurting my shoulder.’

  Inside the building, they joined the queue at the tills, surrounded by the fuss of pimpled employees, irate parents and screaming children. Frankie kept the boy in front of him. He leaned close and whispered, ‘Don’t try anything stupid, like telling the woman behind the counter you’ve been kidnapped or anything. They’d never believe you anyway.’

  At the front of the queue at last, Frankie said, ‘What would you like, Jack?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You need to eat. We won’t be home for hours, yet.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  To the blond foreigner behind the till, Frankie said, ‘He’ll have the Happy Meal. We’ll take two. And I’ll have quarter-pounder and fries.’

  ‘What drink?’ the girl said.

  ‘I didn’t ask for a drink,’ he said, anger flashing in his eyes. Why can’t these people take an order without being stupid about it?

  Kevin tried the door handle. It didn’t work. He pulled on it again, shoved the door with his shoulder—no use. He smacked his fist against the window and succeeded only in hurting himself.

  Frantic, he twisted in the seat, stretched lengthways, and pounded his feet against the door, pounded again. He sat up, tried to pull the lock on the frame below the window, tried to grip it with both hands, pulled, stretched, twisted. ‘Come on,’ he breathed.

  He grunted with exertion and thumped his fist against the window again, then—someone coming, a man with a dog, coming close, walking this way—he stopped. He settled down in his seat, breathing rapidly through his nose, a kid left in the car while Dad nipped across the street, only for a minute, he’ll be back any second. The man passed, glanced at Kevin, tugged on the dog’s lead, and walked on, away into the distance, too far to turn back now.

  Kevin watched him go, the opportunity lost. Why didn’t he scream at him? Why didn’t he tell him he was trapped, a victim of parental kidnap? He should have kicked harder on the door, should have told the man to call the police, asked him to kick all kinds of crap out of his father, asked the man to hold him down while Kevin extracted every single tooth and fingernail with rusty pliers.

  He moved again, thumped the window, but it was too late. The man and his dog rounded the street corner and disappeared.

  Kevin turned as a flicker of hope flashed across his face—the driver’s door. Surely that would open. He dived between the seats, over the handbrake, into the driver’s seat, pulled the handle. The door didn’t open. He grasped at the lock, tugged it—success!

  When he pushed the door open, he expected the alarm to go off but it didn’t. He tentatively placed one foot out on the tarmac, paused, dropped the other one out and stood. His heart was exploding in his chest. He felt sick and giddy. Looking around, he saw people, lots of people, over by McDonald’s, teenagers milling around, adults rushing back and forth.

  Run, he told himself, but he could not. Martin was with his father. And now he spied them coming back out of the squat building, walking slowly towards the car.

  Coming back across the car park, the kid walking on his tiptoes like he was sneaking up on someone, he said, ‘Can I go to the toilet?’

  ‘We’re outside, now.’

  ‘I need to go.’

  ‘You can go beside the car.’

  ‘I’m not going in public,’ Martin said.

  ‘Then you’ll just have to hold on, won’t you?’ He gave him a nudge and pushed him back towards the car. Weaving between Robert’s car and the one next to it, Frankie said, ‘Go on then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ He unlocked the car and pushed Martin inside. When he got in the front seat, he said, ‘Glad to see you’re still with us, son. Got you a Happy Meal.’ He threw the boys’ bags in the back seat between them but neither boy picked them up. ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Before it gets cold.’

  He unwrapped his own food and took a bite of his hamburger, chewing noisily. He picked up some fries. ‘Eat,’ he said again, and threw the fries at Kevin’s face.

  Tears were running down Kevin’s cheeks but he tried not to let his father see. Three years ago, when he was crying because Dad was shouting at Mum, Dad gave him a good hard slap across the face and told him to grow up. Then he had dragged him by the arm up to his bedroom, slung him inside and went back downstairs to yell some more at his wife.

  He clamped his lips together to stop the lower one from trembling, and tasted his own tears. The smell of fast food in the closed confines of the car was almost sickening.

  ‘I said eat,’ his dad yelled.

  Kevin picked the bags up, passed one to Martin who took it wordlessly, and he forced a few fries into his mouth, chewing salt from the fries and salt from his tears. And the more he ate, the more he cried. When he began to whimper softly, Martin shook his head as though to warn Kevin against letting his dad hear him.

  He couldn’t escape. Even though he had the perfect opportunity, his legs defied him. When he saw his father coming back across the car park, he did the only thing that
would save Martin from the worst beating of his life. He got back in the car, locked the door and settled himself in the backseat.

  He sniffed, wiped his nose on the supplied serviette and tried to remain silent.

  Frankie slowed the car down when he noticed a police cruiser coming in the opposite direction. It didn’t looked like the cruiser was on any catch-the-wicked-father mission, no lights flashing or sirens wailing, but he had to play it safe. In the rear view mirror, he made sure the boys were buckled in, and noticed that the other kid, Martin, was asleep.

  When the police car had passed, Frankie said, ‘Wake him up.’

  Kevin looked at his friend, then said, ‘He’s tired.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him, anyway? He’s been walking funny all morning. Has he got a club foot or something?’

  ‘He’s got muscular dystrophy. It makes his legs weak and he gets tired easily.’

  ‘Well, wake him up. We’re coming into Wadebridge.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘Wake him up before I come back there and put you to sleep.’ He looked over his shoulder and watched his son nudge the other boy. When he was fully awake, slumped awkwardly in his seat, Frankie said, ‘Wakey, wakey. This is your stop, mate. I’m going to pull over by a phone box. Have you got any money?’

  ‘I’ve got nearly a hundred and twenty pounds in savings at home,’ the kid said.

  Frankie couldn’t be sure if he was being serious, or trying to be funny. ‘I’ll give you some change. You can call your mother. I take it you know your own phone number, right?’

  He slowed as he circled a couple of streets in search of a public phone. When he found one, he pulled up alongside it and cut the engine, got out of the car and opened the rear door. ‘Out you come, then.’

  ‘You can’t leave him here,’ Kevin said. He was gripping the other boy’s arm.

  ‘He’s not coming with us. Come on, kid, I don’t have all day.’

  The boys looked at each other.

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  Finally the kid unbuckled his seatbelt and actually used his hands to pull his legs out of the car.