The Camel Trail

by Merrigan, Peter J

  ‘Gran had a fall,’ Frankie said, ‘but she’s okay. Are you looking forward to seeing her?’

  Kevin moistened his desiccated lips. The warm, arid air from the car’s heater vents was drying out his skin and his eyes were burning.

  ‘I said—’

  ‘Yes,’ Kevin said.

  ‘Good. Now, wake your buddy and get out of the car. And don’t be a dickhead; you’ve got nowhere to run to out here.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’ll get something to eat and then a room for the night.’

  Kevin nudged Martin’s shoulder and whispered, ‘Martin? Time to get up.’ He unbuckled his seatbelt and did the same for Martin, prodding him again with his elbow in the process. ‘Come on, Martin. Wake up.’

  Martin groaned and opened his eyes into little slits, twisting his head around slowly. His voice was as dry as Kevin’s lips. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Heaven,’ Frankie said. ‘Get out.’

  Frankie and Kevin got out of the car and Kevin came round to Martin’s door. He opened it and stood back.

  ‘I can’t move my legs,’ Martin said.

  Kevin leaned in and pulled Martin’s legs out one at a time. His feet smacked the ground like heavy weights at the end of saggy barbells. He hugged Martin around the chest and said, ‘After three, okay?’ When Martin nodded, Kevin counted, then stepped backwards and hauled Martin out of the car, almost dropping him when Martin lifted his bum off the seat. Once he was out and clear of the car door, he helped him stand upright and propped him against the side of the car.

  ‘Take your time boys,’ Frankie said. ‘We’ve got all frickin’ day.’

  ‘Can you walk?’ Kevin asked Martin.

  ‘No. I don’t know. Help me.’ Martin draped an arm over Kevin’s shoulder and they staggered forward towards the building.

  A painstakingly long time later, and after eleven calls from Frankie to hurry up—Kevin counted—they were inside the services and down along the hall to a KFC.

  ‘You should be eating healthy stuff like veg,’ Frankie said, ‘but I’ll let you off this time. What do you want?’

  Kevin wasn’t hungry, he was too sick to eat, but he ordered some chicken and chips all the same. When they snail-paced it to a table in the far corner and sat, Martin slumped forward to the table and used his forearms to help slide himself off his chair and fall with a dull thud to the floor. He lay down on his back.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Help me exercise,’ Martin said. ‘I’ll get sore if I don’t.’

  Kevin got on his knees beside him and Frankie said, ‘Get back up to the table.’ Kevin ignored him and lifted Martin’s right foot, bending the leg at the knee and pushing in towards Martin’s body, just like he’d seen Alan do. He pushed the ball of the foot up, stretching the heel cord, and Martin sucked air through gritted teeth.

  ‘Get up, Kevin. I mean it.’

  He twisted the foot left, then right, then left again.

  ‘Now, damn it.’

  He drew the leg back, pushed it forward again.

  ‘If you don’t—’

  Kevin looked up when his dad stopped talking, then followed his gaze across the tabletops to a KFC staff member who was staring at them.

  Frankie stood. ‘What’re you looking at? They’re only exercising, all right? Got a problem with that?’

  The young man lowered his head and hightailed it back behind the safety of the service counter.

  With flimsy, brightly-patterned curtains drawn across the small window, they lay in darkness, each in one of three single beds. Kevin was awake, staring upwards at the night-shrouded ceiling, imagining it to be pressing down on him, pushing dead weight on his head and chest and arms. He shivered under the thin and scratchy blankets and considered pulling his jeans back on, but the effort of getting out of bed was too much. He sighed, turned onto his side, away from Frankie, and listened to his dad’s heavy, nasal breathing.

  He thought he was the only one awake, until Martin said, ‘What time’s it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kevin whispered. ‘Probably after eleven.’

  ‘I don’t even know what day it is.’ Martin’s voice was thick and slurred with sleep.

  ‘It’s still Sunday. I think. Unless it’s after midnight. Then it’ll be Monday.’ Kevin adjusted the pillow under his head. It felt like so long ago that he and Martin were walking home from the Camel Trail. A lifetime had gone by since this morning.

  ‘They’ll miss us in school,’ Martin said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know what I want?’

  Kevin glanced nervously back towards his dad in the dark, unable to make him out. ‘What?’

  ‘Ice cream sundae,’ Martin said. ‘With Smarties.’

  ‘And coconut,’ Kevin said.

  He heard Martin adjust his position on his bed, grunting minutely as he struggled to turn himself. On the other side of the room, Frankie snorted in his sleep, farted, and carried on breathing deeply.

  ‘Yeah,’ Martin said. ‘With a cherry on top, and the whole thing drenched in chocolate sauce.’ He squeaked in pain as he twisted in bed again. ‘And after that, we can have cheese and crisps on crackers. Enough to make us sick.’ They lay in silence a moment, then Martin asked, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want my Mum.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Tessa had called her name three times before Sarah turned from the window. She was shocked to discover that she held a framed photo of Kevin in her hands, taken on his seventh birthday; she had no recollection of picking it up from the old bureau in the far corner of the room.

  Blue flickers of light from the police car outside swirled around the room in a dizzying display.

  ‘Should I turn the light on?’

  Sarah shook her head, then nodded. Her voice was flat and inert. ‘If you want.’

  Moving slowly, she crossed the room and sat on the edge of the sofa, still holding Kevin in her hands: Kevin smiling through birthday cake and waving at the camera, waving at Sarah. On the sofa beside her, Alan was leaning forward and clutching his hands together. Graeme and Tessa were hovering by the door, caught between offering moral support to Sarah and going home to the privacy of their own supporting arms. Sarah couldn’t blame them for wanting to go.

  She cleared her throat in order to say something, but could think of nothing to say, at least nothing worth saying.

  Tessa hadn’t moved to turn the light on, and Sarah’s eyes now followed the blue strip of light as it arced around the room, cutting the darkness and leaving a soft, fuzzy trail in its wake.

  ‘I wish they’d turn those bloody lights off out there.’ Graeme’s voice sounded dusty and disused.

  Sarah nodded in agreement and smoothed one hand down the length of her thigh. She didn’t know which was worse—the terror or the anger. She got to her feet again and walked back to the window, twitching the net curtain. Outside, two burly police officers were talking to each other by their car, their faces flashing in the blue light. They noticed Sarah at the living room window but did not acknowledge her. Eventually, one of the officers reached inside the car and switched off the lights.

  As Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the new darkness around her, she remembered the flashing lights and wailing siren of the ambulance that took her to hospital on the night Frankie was arrested. The paramedics did their best not to bounce her too much on the gurney from the house and into the waiting ambulance. She distinctly remembered thinking, Thank God it’s an ambulance, not a hearse. That thought had been quickly followed by, What the hell happened?

  ‘This is useless,’ she heard Alan say. ‘We should be out there, looking for them.’

  No one answered him.

  In the ambulance that night, so long ago now but aching like it had only been yesterday, Sarah had tried to pull the oxygen mask from her mouth and nose, calling for Kevin, making sure he was all right—wa
s he injured? Good God, was he dead? What the hell happened? But he was okay, he was fine. He was right here, Mummy, right here. He wasn’t even crying, such a big boy, such a grown up being brave.

  Alan’s voice, in the middle-distance: ‘Maybe I should take my bike out. Look around somewhere.’

  Kevin had reached for her hand, squeezed it gently, told her it would be okay now, told her the doctors would make her better again.

  Her head had throbbed so much and she could barely see out of her left eye. She shivered under the thin, puke-coloured blanket and realised she was only wearing one shoe, felt her blouse slip—why wasn’t it buttoned?—and decided it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Kevin, his tiny face, big eyes, sleep-tousled hair, sitting beside her in the back on an ambulance in his Spiderman pyjamas. As long as he was okay, everything would turn out fine.

  ‘Sarah? I made you this.’

  Sarah blinked and turned from the window. Tessa held a mug of tea towards her.

  ‘Maybe you should take a couple of Anadin, too.’

  She took the mug but declined the painkillers. She looked around the room, at Graeme still propped against the door frame, at Alan still on the sofa, neither of them looking at her, each more interested in their own hands, and then finally at Tessa. Tessa looked old and worn, with a creased face that only yesterday had seemed to glow, small and tired eyes, her short hair, silvering at the temples, pulled back into the smallest of ponytails.

  Sarah chewed on her lower lip, then whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Tessa caught the mug of tea before it slipped from Sarah’s hands. Sarah crumpled to the floor as her legs gave way beneath her and she cried hard and wretched sobs. She tried to speak, couldn’t, tried again. But she choked on each syllable and gave up trying. When she was turning red in the face and felt her chest tighten and her lungs squeeze all the air out of her—she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe—Alan came and squatted down beside her, took her hands.

  ‘Listen to me, Sarah. Listen. Take a breath, come on, you can do it.’

  She shook her head. She didn’t think she’d be able to breathe again for the rest of her life.

  ‘Yes, you can. You can do it. One deep breath, that’s all. In through the nose, out through the mouth.’

  ‘Hurts,’ she croaked.

  ‘I know it hurts,’ Alan said. ‘But just one big, deep breath. We can do it together, okay? Deep breath.’

  She gasped, breathed, felt cool air rushing into her lungs, good, clean, fresh air.

  ‘That’s it. One more, come on.’ He squeezed her hands, just like Kevin had done in the back of the ambulance, and said, ‘One more.’

  She breathed again, found it easier this time, then another one. She leaned into his chest and cried against his shirt.

  ‘We’ve put an all-ports warning out,’ the young constable said. They had come inside a short time ago—‘No news yet, I’m afraid’—and had gathered everyone together in the living room. A debriefing.

  ‘What if they’re not heading back to London?’ Graeme asked. ‘What if they disappear into the night and we never find them again?’

  Both officers had taken off their hats and held them awkwardly in their hands. The younger one, the pleasant one with an open face and a mole on his left cheek, said, ‘We have every available officer on the case, sir.’

  Constable Harding, the elder of the two, overweight but not portly, said, ‘In all likelihood, we’ll have them back by the morning.’ Graeme was about to protest again, but Harding continued, ‘We’ve no reason to believe that your boys are in any physical danger.’

  Sarah laughed, short and humourless.

  ‘Francis Catchpole appears to be a disgruntled father who took his son away from his mother.’ He added, ‘And happened to take his son’s friend along with him,’ when Graeme frowned. ‘We’ll catch them. I’ve no doubt about that. Every single port, airport and major train station in the country has been alerted with physical descriptions and photos of Catchpole and both your boys. There’s no way he can get away unnoticed’—he looked at Graeme and Tessa—‘especially with…’

  ‘With a cripple-boy?’ Tessa spat.

  Graeme put his hand on her arm. ‘Whatever he meant, it’s true. Martin’ll stick out like a sore thumb.’

  ‘He doesn’t have his medication,’ Tessa said. ‘How long will he last without it? What if he gets a cold or a chest infection, out there in the middle of the night in the wind and rain? You know how quickly it’ll descend into pneumonia.’

  The younger constable, Maxwell, held up placating hands. ‘We’ve got a list of his meds. As soon as we have Martin and Kevin back, we’ll make sure Martin gets everything he needs. Our officers are trained in first aid and we have some of the best staffing doctors in the country.’ He paused, lowered his hands, ran his fingers over the rim of his hat. ‘What we should be discussing is where we think Mr Catchpole might be heading. Sarah?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘Hell, hopefully.’ Alan tightened his arm around her shoulders. It was vaguely comforting. ‘I guess he’d go back to London. His family’s there. A brother. His mother, too. She’s not been well for years.’

  Maxwell and Harding nodded. ‘What if he thinks we’ll be looking for him in London? Is there anywhere else he might go? Somewhere special that he’s ever mentioned in the past?’

  She thought, but her mind was so full of vile images of their marriage that she could think of nothing useful. ‘There was nowhere. He wasn’t always a bastard, but he never took me anywhere—except to Brancaster, but that was my thing; I’ve got some family up there. He’d never dare show his face anywhere near them.’

  ‘If you can give us the addresses of your family members up there, that’d be a help. He might not show his face, but it can’t hurt to check it out.’

  Alan cleared his throat, hesitated, then said, ‘I know we’re supposed to be positive and all, but can you tell us what will happen if you don’t find the boys by morning?’

  ‘The sergeant will probably want a press conference. As you know, we released some details to the TV and radio stations earlier. The more information they have—as invading as it may seem—the more chance we have of someone spotting them and making that vital call to their local police.’

  That night, Alan offered to stay over. He took up residence on the sofa but she knew he wasn’t asleep. She could hear him moving around at times.

  Sarah lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and counting all the times Frankie laid a hand on her. Tonight, it felt like every single bruise he ever bestowed upon her had come back to haunt her. Here entire body ached with invisible black and blue marks and angry welts. She could feel his hands clenched around her throat.

  She turned onto her side and closed her eyes, but every time she did so, she saw Kevin’s empty bed in her mind, heard the silence of his absence, the nothingness.

  At length, she rose and padded downstairs to warm some milk, the way she used to for Kevin. The living room door was ajar and when she peered into the room, she saw Alan sitting on the sofa, reading a book by the soft light of a table lamp. He almost jumped when she pushed the door wide.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’

  He put the book face down on the sofa, open at the page he was reading, and stood.

  ‘Can’t sleep. I’m making some hot milk. Want some?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. He followed her to the kitchen.

  ‘I didn’t know you wore glasses,’ Sarah said as she fetched the carton of milk from the fridge and pored some into a pan.

  ‘Huh? Oh. I don’t. I mean, I do, but only for reading.’ He pulled the wire-framed glasses from his face and stuffed them into the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘I should probably wear them more often, but they make me look…’

  ‘Studious,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Like a geek,’ Alan sighed.

  When they settled at the kitchen table with their glasses of heated milk, Sarah said, ‘You didn�
��t have to stay, you know.’

  ‘I need the company as much as you do. Besides, Graeme and Tessa have each other. You’re here on your own.’

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Of course it isn’t. You couldn’t have known he’d get out of prison so soon, let alone come and take Kevin and Martin.’

  ‘I should have kept my eye on him, though. When I knew he was out of prison, I should have kept a better eye on Kevin.’

  ‘Kids have this knack for avoiding the all-seeing eye.’

  ‘I should have put him on a bus and sent him somewhere safe.’

  ‘His safest place is at your side.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Sarah said. ‘Frankie came and snatched him from under my nose.’

  They sat in silence for a time, lost in thought. It was her fault, she decided. If they had have kept running, kept moving, they’d still be together now, she’d still have her little boy. She tried not to think about a life with Frankie—if she hadn’t pressed charges, if she had told Frankie she forgave him, made him promise never to hit her again…Maybe if they still lived together, everything would be okay. Even if he got angry, just as long as he didn’t hit her. Or Kevin. Maybe—

  What was she thinking? She could never have stayed with him. Never. The moment the police arrived at the door, thanks to Kevin calling 999, she knew she could never sleep in the same bed with him again, never smile at him across the breakfast table.

  ‘Hey,’ Alan said. His hand was warm against her arm.

  She looked at him, felt tears on her cheeks.

  ‘It’ll be okay. We’ll get them back safe and sound.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘God, I hope so.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The smell of cigarette smoke woke Kevin from an uncomfortable sleep into uncomfortable surroundings. It took him only a second to remember where he was before he sat upright in bed and looked around.

  ‘I got you a cereal bar for breakfast,’ Frankie said. ‘Wake your buddy, we’ve got a long drive ahead of us.’ Frankie was standing by the window, looking out, one shoulder propped against the wall, a hand covering his forehead, cigarette burning between his fingers. He couldn’t even see Kevin from his position. He must have heard him sit up.