Without Looking Back

by Tabitha Suzuma

  ‘Look, do you two want a drink or not?’ Louis asked in annoyance.

  Tess straightened up, grinning. She looked at him. ‘T’es meenon,’ she said.

  Louis stared at her. ‘What?’

  Tess looked at Millie for help.

  ‘T’es mignon!’ Millie crowed. ‘You’re cute: t’es mignon, t’es mignon!’

  Tess tried again. ‘T’es mignon.’

  Louis felt his cheeks burn; he picked up his drink and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘You two are loonies,’ he said. But inside his chest, his heart was thumping as if ready to burst.

  That night, Louis lay face down on his bed, wearing only his boxers. It was too hot for a T-shirt; it was too hot for any blankets. The window was wide open, revealing a large patch of night sky. Max was playing his GameBoy on his bed, still fully dressed. His bedside lamp cast a puddle of light on the floor. From the room next door, they could hear Dad’s voice as he read Millie her bedtime story.

  ‘So,’ Max said suddenly, without looking up, ‘do you fancy Tess or what?’

  Louis stopped breathing.

  Max still didn’t look up, but wrestled with the buttons, the sound of electronic firing erupting from the machine.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Louis managed.

  Max shrugged and glanced up. ‘Do you honestly think Tess fancies you? You clearly fancy her.’

  Louis tried to steady his breathing. He gripped the edge of his pillow hard. ‘No. I don’t – I’m not—’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Max said. ‘You were all over each other today.’

  ‘That’s because we were dancing!’ Louis protested. ‘It’s a pair dance. We have to touch each other. We have to—’

  Max just chuckled infuriatingly.

  ‘I don’t fancy her,’ Louis said.

  ‘You so do.’

  ‘I don’t!’ Louis exclaimed hotly. ‘She’s just my dance partner, that’s all.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You should be careful though,’ Max said.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘She’s going to start asking questions.’

  Louis said nothing and closed his eyes, breathing heavily into his pillow.

  But his conversation with Max played on his mind that night. Did he fancy Tess? No. Of course not. Why? Because she was a teenager and he didn’t turn thirteen for another four months. He had never fancied a girl before. Even if he did fancy her, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t know how to kiss a girl. In films it always looked so easy, but there must be some kind of technique, some set of rules. And how were you supposed to know whether to do it or not? How were you supposed to know whether she wanted to? You couldn’t very well ask. But when he closed his eyes, he could see her face so clearly: that dark-brown hair, those big green eyes, the sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks. He found himself imagining what it would be like to actually kiss her. Deep down he knew he really wanted to, even though it scared him.

  ‘D’you want to go for a cycle ride?’ It was Tess on the phone. She had called their new landline while they were in the middle of lunch and had asked to speak to him.

  As soon as Dad had said her name, Louis had felt his heart begin to pound. Now he was gripping the receiver, his pulse racing in the palm of his hand, wondering whether Tess meant ‘you – Liam’ or ‘you – the whole family’. The French language was much better: there

  would be a distinction.

  ‘Liam, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, yeah. I was just thinking, I’m not sure what Josh and Katie are up to this afternoon but—’

  ‘No, I mean just you. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you on your own for ages.’

  ‘Yes. Sure. I’m free. Now?’

  ‘Well, finish your lunch. I’ll meet you outside The Rose and Crown in half an hour.’

  He returned to the kitchen table, feeling flushed.

  ‘Is Tess coming over?’ Max asked.

  ‘No. I’m going cycling with her this afternoon – is that OK, Dad?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Dad. ‘You’ve got your key. Max has got a doubles match, so, Millie, why don’t you and I go to Tesco together?’

  ‘Oh, great,’ Millie said sarcastically.

  Max was looking at Louis in surprise. ‘Where are the two of you going?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Louis replied quickly. ‘Just around the dales, I guess.’

  Max said nothing and started eating again. A few minutes later, Louis washed his plate, shoved on his trainers and grabbed his bike from the barn.

  Tess was waiting outside the village pub for him, her hair windswept, her long legs tanned against her bright-blue mountain bike. They set off on the road leading out of the village and for a while cycled side by side in silence, the wind whipping at their cheeks and making their T-shirts billow out behind them. As they picked up speed, curving down the long descent, Louis shouted across, ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Tess replied, and she was smiling.

  Fifteen minutes later, after a gruelling, stony uphill struggle that required them to shift right down to their lowest gear, the path narrowed between tall walls of bracken and became so uneven, they were forced to walk. A thin, fine drizzle was now falling from a milky grey sky and Louis was just beginning to wonder what Tess was playing at when he saw, looming high above them in a chiselled mountain of black slate, the vast mouth of a cave. Tess was heading straight for it, her feet scrabbling against the pieces of loose rock; Louis struggled to keep up with her, his calf muscles aching now. As they approached the cave, the rocky path fell away into a pool of clear turquoise water, and Louis saw that there were several large slabs of rock protruding, forming giant stepping stones into the dry part of the cave. Tess threw her bicycle down and began to leap from slab to slab, disappearing towards the vast wall of blackness that stretched up in front of her.

  She turned round. ‘Come on, Liam!’

  Her voice already echoed. Louis put down his bike beside hers and followed her across the stones.

  The cave was vast, as high as a house. Drops of water fell from the craggy roof into small pools with an echoing drip. Smaller pieces of rock jutted out from the walls like giant pieces of furniture. Tess jumped off the last stepping stone and walked down the length of the cave, singing, ‘O, for the Wings of a Dove’. It was like being in a cathedral with a full choir – the cave resonated with sound. Louis jumped off the last stone and stopped to listen. Her voice was so pure, so clear, he could almost taste it. Tess turned round and broke off, laughing. ‘Isn’t it great?’

  ‘It’s amazing!’

  ‘I come here all the time. When I’ve had a row with my mum, or just to get some peace after school. Come right to the back – the rock is icy cold.’

  She stopped, waiting for him, and he moved forward tentatively.

  ‘Come on!’ she said, grabbing his hand. ‘It’s like we’re alone in the whole world.’

  Her fingers were cool and firm around his. As they walked deeper into the cave, it was too dark to read the expression on her face, but he could make out the curve of her forehead, the slant of her nose, the indentation of her chin. At the very back of the cave, Tess lifted Louis’ hand and pressed it against the cold, wet rock. ‘Turn round,’ she whispered.

  Louis turned to look back the way they had come. The giants’ stepping stones were in the distance, stretching out over the turquoise water. The rain had thickened now, falling against the bright white mouth of sky. A cluster of evergreens stretched up in the distance. It was fairytale.

  He turned back to Tess. She was watching him solemnly, very quiet, very still. Suddenly his heart began to pound. Maybe – maybe this was how it sometimes happened? Maybe she was going to kiss him?

  ‘You’re in the newspaper,’ Tess said.

  He jerked away in shock. ‘What?’

  She had already turned, walking swiftly back towards the mouth of the cave. She pulled herself up
onto a boulder and motioned him to join her. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

  Adrenaline drunk, he followed and climbed up next to her. She was unfolding a large torn-out piece of newspaper and laying it across his lap.

  Louis looked down at it and felt his heart jolt. There was a grainy family photo that had been taken of all five of them on the couch last Christmas. The photo had been divided in two and made to look like it had been savagely ripped: Maman on the one half and Dad and the children on the other. The heading read: A FAMILY TORN APART: MOTHER’S GRIEF AS EX-HUSBAND ABDUCTS THREE CHILDREN. The article went on:

  Today, Ms Annette Lombard, mother of three, arrived in London to aid the police in the search for her missing children. 8-year-old Emilie, 12-year-old Louis and 14-year-old Maxime went missing six weeks ago in Paris while spending the weekend with their non-custodial father, Edward Whittaker, who is Irish. He is believed to have brought the three children to England and Ms Lombard has applied for the return of the children to France under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This is the second case of non-custodial abduction between England and France since the establishment of the Hague Convention in 1980, and although the police as yet have no leads, Ms Lombard, who works for a top Paris finance company, is fighting to stay positive. ‘It’s every mother’s worst nightmare. I don’t know whether my children are safe or where they are. I know they are with their father, but I am very worried about his mental state. He suffered a major nervous breakdown only last year and is still recovering. Our children have been plucked from their home, their school, their friends and their activities. My daughter, Millie, was due to sit a piano exam last week. My son Louis is a talented dancer and had been entered for a prestigious competition. My son Max has important school exams next term. I am horrified at the selfishness of their father and at his attempt to erase me from our children’s lives. I love my children more than anything. I miss them so much. My world has fallen apart.’

  Louis looked up from the piece of newspaper and into Tess’s serious face. ‘It’s five days old,’ she said. ‘I only came across it because I was spreading old newspapers out on the floor to help Mum with the painting. But as soon as I saw the headline, I knew it had to be you lot.’

  Louis said nothing and looked back down at the photo; at the ripped photo of his mother now sitting alone.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ Tess asked softly. ‘Are you going to show the others?’

  Louis took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I – maybe I should just—’ He brought the sheet of newspaper to his face and pressed it against his eyes.

  There was a silence.

  ‘Oh, Louis . . .’ Tess said.

  He held his breath and didn’t move.

  He felt Tess’s hand on his wrist. ‘Give it to me or you’ll get it all smudged.’ She prised the sheet of newspaper gently from his grasp.

  Louis put his hands over his face.

  ‘Louis, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shown it to you . . .’

  He just shook his head, unable to speak, holding his breath to try and stop the tears that spilled down his cheeks, escaping down the backs of his hands through the cracks between his fingers.

  Tess rubbed his back. ‘Louis, please don’t cry,’ she said softly. ‘Maybe you could call her. Just to say you’re all right.’

  He felt paralysed with sorrow, disappointment, shame. He wanted her to disappear; he didn’t want her to see him cry, but at the same time he wanted her to hug him tight.

  ‘I c-can’t,’ Louis said raggedly, gasping and sniffing and dragging the sleeves of his sweatshirt viciously down his cheeks. ‘It – it would be too risky. If D-Dad got caught, the others would never forgive me.’

  ‘But just because he’s wanted by the police doesn’t mean your dad will go to prison, surely?’ Tess said. ‘I mean, it’s not as if he’s done something awful. You are his children.’

  ‘He’s b-broken the law,’ Louis gasped, wiping his cheeks. Why couldn’t he speak normally?

  ‘Wouldn’t he just get off with a fine or something?’

  ‘I d-don’t know.’ Louis sniffed again. ‘But Mum would never let us see him again, that’s – that’s for sure.’

  There was another silence. Tess reached over and ruffled Louis’ hair. ‘Don’t cry, dancing boy.’

  ‘I-I’m not.’ He pressed his hands to his cheeks and took a long deep breath.

  Tess studied him carefully in the low light. ‘Are you going to be OK?’

  ‘I am OK.’ He inhaled and exhaled in carefully measured breaths.

  She waited a while. ‘So why did your mum get custody anyway?’ she asked gently.

  ‘She didn’t get sole custody, not initially,’ Louis began to explain, struggling to keep his voice even. ‘We were staying with her during the week and at Dad’s at weekends. But Mum didn’t like the arrangement. Dad let us stay up late and took us to places she didn’t approve of – they never agreed on anything. Then Mum said she didn’t want us going to Dad’s for the weekend any more – only for part of the school holidays. And that’s when Dad went a bit crazy. He’d been suffering from depression since the separation, and I guess Mum trying to restrict his access to us just tipped him over the edge. He t-took an overdose of sleeping pills and was in a psychiatric hospital for three months. They said he’d had a nervous breakdown. And while he was in hospital, Mum decided he wasn’t responsible enough to look after us on his own any more. So she applied to the courts to have his visitation rights restricted to supervised visits.’

  ‘And she won?’ Tess sounded horrified.

  Louis inhaled deeply in an attempt to steady himself. ‘Yeah. But I only found out the day before Dad took us away. We were staying with him that weekend. He was supposed to break the news to us. It was supposed to be our last weekend with him.’

  ‘And instead of that he bundled you onto a plane and brought you to England.’ Tess looked appalled. ‘Crikey.’

  ‘It wasn’t fair, what she did to him,’ Louis said quietly. ‘It wasn’t fair that she tried to take us away from him.’

  A silence. Then, ‘But what your dad ended up doing to your mum was even worse,’ Tess said.

  ‘I know,’ Louis said. ‘But he said he didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Tess said. ‘People almost always have some kind of choice, however terrible the situation . . . I’m never getting married,’ she declared suddenly, elbowing him in the side. ‘I’m going to be like my mum.’

  ‘What did your mum do?’ Louis asked.

  ‘Had a kid by herself.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Louis said without thinking.

  Tess laughed. ‘I don’t mean she got pregnant on her own, silly! She just raised me on her own, that’s all.’

  Louis felt himself blush. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah. My dad did a runner when he found out she was pregnant.’

  ‘Did he ever come back?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So you’ve never met him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you seen any pictures of him?’

  Tess sighed. ‘Yeah. A couple. Doesn’t look anything like me. Sometimes I wonder if my mum has got the wrong bloke.’

  ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘Yeah. Damian Salter. Though Mum calls him that idiot.’

  Louis laughed. Although it hurt his throat, it made him feel slightly better. ‘D’you miss not having a dad?’

  Tess was thoughtful. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes, perhaps. Once I saw a man and a little girl coming out of a park together carrying tennis rackets. It made me want to cry. But then again, lots of my friends don’t get on with their dads at all. Or else they have dads who don’t bother with them. Or who are violent. I think that having no dad is better than having a bad dad.’

  ‘But why don’t you want to get married? What if you fall in love?’

  Tess looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t h
ave to marry him, do I?’

  ‘No, but . . .’ He tailed off, embarrassed, and felt himself flush.

  Tess looked at him and smiled. ‘Ah, you’re so sweet,’ she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  FOR A WEEK Louis kept the newspaper article in his jeans pocket, wondering whether to show it to Max. There was no point in showing Dad, he reckoned – it would only stress him out further. And Dad was still stressed, even though they had more or less settled in now. Every afternoon he came home with loads of work, which he saved until after they had gone to bed. And late at night, sometimes in the early hours of the morning, when Louis couldn’t sleep, he could make out the light coming from the kitchen and hear the frantic clicking of the computer keyboard.

  Louis didn’t look at the newspaper article again, although keeping it close in his pocket made him feel closer to Maman somehow. He was relieved that she knew they were safe with Dad, but the last three sentences of the article kept coming back to haunt him: I love my children more than anything. I miss them so much. My world has fallen apart. Sometimes, especially late at night, the urge to pick up the phone and just call her was more than he could bear, and the only way to stop himself was to curl his hands into fists and remind himself of the ramifications. The police. Dad arrested. Millie crying. Max shouting. Dad would kill himself if he ended up in prison, Louis kept repeating to himself again and again. Maman would not die if she didn’t see them for a few years. She would suffer, but she loved her work so much. She loved Charlot, the new man in her life. She would survive.

  And then there was Tess. He knew it was selfish, but sometimes Louis had to admit that part of the reason he didn’t pick up the phone and call Maman was because of Tess. Going back to France would mean losing her as a friend. And he didn’t want that. Not ever. One day he would kiss her. He would. Maybe Max could tell him how it was done. But days passed and Tess did not suggest going back to the cave – though he felt sure she would, sooner or later. And this time he wouldn’t let go of her hand. This time he pull her towards him and . . . It was at once too wonderful and too scary to think about.