A Godawful Small Affair

by J. B. Morrison

“What are crocodile tears?”

  “Pretend tears. The police want to see if your dad’s just pretending to cry.”

  “Why would he pretend to cry?”

  “If he wasn’t really sad about Zoe.”

  “But he is.”

  “Of course he is. But they have to find out. This is the quickest way.”

  Nathan looked at his dad on television.

  “But he isn’t even crying, though.”

  “I expect they’re looking for that as well,” Craig said. “Maybe they’d get more phone calls if he’d cried. People expect tears.”

  The appeal was really short, and Nathan was glad when it ended. Everyone in the room started discussing it. The clickety-clack of knitting needles started again. Craig finished his beer and shook the empty can, a signal for Nathan to get him a fresh one. Nathan took the beer can and went out to the kitchen. He dropped it in the bin and opened the fridge. His dad hadn’t been shopping since Zoe had disappeared and the fridge was almost empty. Nathan had heard his dad telling the FLOs how guilty he’d feel, choosing between brands of baked beans or standing in a checkout queue, while his daughter was still missing. Nathan moved the slice of quiche Zoe had bought herself from Brixton Village to the back of the fridge and took out the last can of beer. He closed the fridge door and went back to the living room.

  Craig had moved to a space on the sofa. He was looking at his phone and Nathan walked past and went upstairs to look for his dad. He found him in Zoe’s bedroom, standing in front of her open wardrobe, staring at the space left by her red Converse. Nathan had seen his dad look at the gap on the bathroom shelf where Zoe’s toothbrush should have been in the same sad way.

  All the fairy lights in Zoe’s bedroom had been switched on. The white ones draped around the headboard of her bed and chair, and the red, blue, yellow and green fairy lights inside long tubes that haloed the dressing table and framed the window.

  “Do you remember what Zoe used to say about fairy lights?” his dad said, when Nathan appeared in the doorway. Nathan shook his head. “They’re like dogs. Because they’re not just for Christmas,” he gestured at the can of beer Nathan was holding. “Is that for me?”

  “It’s for Craig.”

  “How many left?”

  “Just this one.”

  His dad nodded. “He’ll go soon then. How did I look on telly?”

  “Craig thought you looked like a football manager who’s just lost the Cup Final.”

  Nathan’s dad quarter-smiled. He looked across the room at the window. The curtains were half open. It was raining.

  “Does Zoe have an umbrella, Nathan?” he said. “I don’t think she even owns a proper winter coat.”

  10

  The police’s search for Zoe may have been thorough but it was nothing compared to her dad’s. Every day he repeated the same steps as the day before. He rang Zoe’s friends, wishing there were just a few more numbers to call, thinking that if his daughter had been more popular, she would have been easier to find. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell on that though. He told Nathan they had to stay focused. He rang the hospitals again, trying new accident and emergency departments in different hospitals further away from home. The woman who answered the phone at one hospital recognised his voice from the day before and he didn’t need to say Zoe’s name or try to describe her. In the short amount of time Zoe had been missing, her dad had already become a regular customer.

  They went out in Craig’s van again. Craig had a new van. The seatbelt worked and the gears didn’t crunch. It already smelled of potatoes though. Craig drove them around Brixton again and also as far as Croydon in one direction and deep into the congestion zone in the opposite direction.

  Using the photo that Nathan’s dad had given to the police, he had two hundred posters printed. Nathan helped put them up on bus shelters and fences. They stuck posters in shop windows and pinned one up in the library. Nathan’s dad had smaller versions of the poster printed and he stood outside the Tube, handing them out. He did the same on the green in front of the cinema and at the David Bowie mural.

  Nathan had to show his dad where Zoe had left the two candles again. He waited while his dad read Zoe’s message over and over, in case he was missing a clue to where she might be or why she was gone. His dad read the other messages on the wall too. He picked up pieces of paper, turning over postcards and opening tiny greetings cards left with the wilting flowers. To anyone passing by, Nathan’s dad must have looked like the world’s biggest David Bowie fan.

  “Which candles are hers, Nath?”

  Nathan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “This one?” his dad picked up an empty tea-light holder.

  “You shouldn’t touch them.” Nathan said.

  “Which ones do you think they are?” his dad asked again, more urgently this time.

  Nathan said he didn’t know and saw how frustrated that made his dad, so he pointed to a random tea-light and another next to it. It didn’t matter because his dad had already started scooping up handfuls of the candles and stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket.

  “Dad,” Nathan said. “Stop it.”

  Nathan wanted to run away. People slowed down to watch. He thought someone would call the police. He sort of hoped they would. When his dad had filled his pockets with tea-light holders they walked home in silence, his dad stopping to pick up discarded leaflets, smoothing out the creases in the paper and wiping footprints from Zoe’s face.

  Nathan had been embarrassed by his dad before, and he’d certainly been scared of him. But until he saw him scrambling about on the dirty pavement, stuffing other people’s candles into his pockets, Nathan had never felt ashamed of him. And yet, he would have gladly taken that raging, shameful, manic version of his dad back, in place of the silent man staring blankly into the space between two pairs of shoes in his daughter’s wardrobe right now. Nathan needed to comfort his dad somehow. He had to convince him that Zoe was all right.

  “Dad.”

  “Yes, mate.”

  “I’m not ill, am I?”

  “No, mate. You’re not ill.”

  “And am I in any danger?”

  “Of course you aren’t. Why?”

  “Well. You know when E.T. is dying?”

  “In the film?”

  Nathan nodded. “And so Elliott gets sick too, because E.T. is sick? Because Elliott ‘feels his feelings’?”

  “I think so, mate. Why?”

  “That’s how I know Zoe is okay. Because if she was sick or in danger, I would be as well.”

  For a moment Nathan was worried that instead of comforting and reassuring his dad, he was going to make him cry. His dad stared at him. He was breathing heavily and his lip had started to quiver. And then Nathan realised he wanted his dad to cry. So that he could call Craig and show him exactly how sad his dad was about Zoe.

  11

  Jupiter had fallen from Nathan’s bedroom ceiling and the edge of Saturn’s rings was stating to curl away. His dad was already a meteor and like Jupiter he might soon become a meteorite. The home planet was dying, and Nathan had to do something to save it. Once he’d decided where Zoe was, it didn’t take him long to work out what that was. It wouldn’t even be that difficult. It was after all, something he’d been training for in his dreams for most of his life. Neil Armstrong had needed Saturn V, the tallest, most powerful rocket ever built, to get him into space. He had all of Mission Control and over 400,000 engineers, scientists and technicians. All Nathan had to do was go to sleep.

  The police could search every last inch of the Earth, but they would never find Zoe. She wasn’t in a wheelie bin or a dumped cooker, she wasn’t hiding on the backseat of a car in the underground car park. Zoe hadn’t left on a night bus or taken the first Tube of the day out of Brixton. She wasn’t in any of the places the police were going to have to add to their search list because of all the phone calls they were expecting following the television appeal. Zoe wasn’t in any of t
he places the police had searched or anywhere they were likely to search in the future. They wouldn’t find her under a bed or behind the curtains or in the community compost or the leaf mould box. The India99, the Deltas, the FLOs and the Joes and Nathan’s dad, were all looking in the wrong place.

  Nathan wished he could just tell his dad that the aliens had taken Zoe again. But he knew he wouldn’t believe him, and it would only make him angry. And besides, it was Nathan’s fault Zoe was gone. He’d talked her into going to the park and he was the one who made her write their names on Post-it notes and leave directions. Zoe wouldn’t have made the Luigi board if Nathan hadn’t asked her about making contact. Zoe was missing because of Nathan, and his dad was always telling him how important it was for people to take responsibility for their actions. Nathan knew what he had to do. He would get himself abducted by the same aliens who took Zoe. He would find his sister and bring her back home.

  First though, he would try and make contact with her. To do that he needed a Luigi board. The chain was on the front door during the day and his dad had locked all the windows and hidden the little keys. If Nathan could have opened his window, he was probably close enough to be able to see – and even smell – the dog poo bin where Zoe had thrown the original Luigi board, the beta version, which Nathan had remembered as the better version. But his dad wouldn’t let Nathan out in the back garden, let alone to the park. Twelve Apollo astronauts had been to the Moon and back and Nathan couldn’t get to a dog poo bin less than a minute’s walk from his house. He considered texting Arthur to ask him to go and get the Luigi board. He could picture his reaction. Get something out of a dog shit bin? No way, man. And even though Nathan would have loved to share his rescue plan with Arthur, he knew his friend was less capable of keeping a secret than he was himself. Nathan decided, for his mission to be successful, it also needed to be secret.

  Nathan looked around his room for some paper to make a new Luigi board with. He could have taken some more from his dad’s desk, but the risk of discovery was too great, and although Nathan was happy to keep a secret from his dad, he didn’t want to tell him any more lies. There were four blank pages in Moonmen (and Women), two at the front and two at the back. He justified what he was about to do by telling himself because the pages were blank, they wouldn’t be missed. Once, after a huge row with Zoe, she’d torn the last page out of the book Nathan was reading. He hadn’t found out until he reached the ending of the story. Remembering how angry it had made him, he thought maybe he should cancel his mission and leave it to the police to find his sister.

  Nathan looked at the blank pages and considered the best way to remove them without the library noticing or his dad hearing. He could tear the pages out slowly or pull them really quickly. Like removing a plaster his mum’s way or his dad’s. Nathan didn’t like either method. He left his plasters on long after his wounds had healed, until they started to gradually peel away on their own. And then he’d soak the plasters in the bath until they dropped off.

  Nathan couldn’t soak the library book in the bath though, and he didn’t have time to wait for the pages to fall out. He leaned his arm on the book like a ruler and slowly tore out the front blank page. He did the same with the second. The two pages at the back he pulled sharply, sneaking up on them and surprising them. He thought of Zoe trying to scare hiccups out of him. He coughed to cover the sound of the paper tearing.

  He knew it was wrong to vandalise library books but even though it would be overdue soon he doubted his dad would return the book yet. Moonmen (and Women) was part of the Zoe Love Museum now. Ever since Zoe had gone missing, her dad had been trying to keep everything of hers exactly as it was when she left, so it would be waiting for her when she came back. The piece of quiche in the fridge that Zoe bought from Brixton Village was part of the museum, as was her crusty bit of artisan loaf, turning blue in the bread bin. The wonky angle she’d sliced the bread at. That was Zoe’s too.

  There was a paperback novel on her bedside table, bookmarked at page 136 with a Waterstones till receipt, and a Bikini Kill CD jammed inside the CD player. If it was plugged in, the disc would start spinning but it wouldn’t play. They were all Zoe Love Museum exhibits now. As was the half-drunk bottle of Summer Fruits Oasis on Zoe’s dressing table and the empty jellybean dispenser next to it. Every key ring and badge she’d collected, the two Ikea storage boxes piled on top of each other on the floor next to the wardrobe, and the teddy bears packed tightly inside the boxes. The fake cactus that used to light up but didn’t anymore and the Caffè Nero cup on the dressing table were museum exhibits now. As were the sachets of sugar from Starbucks and Costa. Even the four stripes of paint in almost identical shades of pale blue, like four of her sky photos, on the wall behind the dressing table, waiting for Zoe to decide which colour she preferred so that her dad could paint the rest of the wall.

  Moonmen (and Women) didn’t actually belong to Zoe. And it was Nathan who’d chosen and pulled the heavy book down from the shelf in the library. He’d wiped the dust off the cover and taken it to the counter to be scanned and stamped. And it was Nathan who was reading the book. But Zoe had written and stuck (and Women) on the cover. She might as well have planted a Zoe Love flag in it.

  Nathan put the blank pages he’d torn from the book on the carpet and looked for something to stick them together with. It wasn’t until he’d peeled off the tape holding his WrestleMania poster on the wall and stuck it to the four pages of the library book, that he realised he could have used the back of the poster for his Luigi board instead. He lay the wrestling poster on the carpet in front of the wall where it came from, so he could say it had fallen off the wall if his dad asked.

  Nathan tipped the pens and pencils out of his London 2012 mug and tried different coloured felt tips on the back of his hand until he found one that worked. He wrote the alphabet across the centre of the paper, misjudging the amount of space he needed for the second row of letters. The X and the Y were squashed together and tiny, but they were probably the least required letters. He wrote the numbers under the alphabet and a big YES at the top of the Luigi board and a NO at the bottom. Using Zoe’s two triangles method, he drew five stars. The stars looked rubbish, especially without any glitter on. But they would have to do. He added a thumbs-up emoji to his Luigi board, as a joke for Zoe because he knew how much she hated emojis.

  Nathan placed the Olympics mug upside down at the centre of the Luigi board and put his fingers on its base. He tried moving the mug, but it was too heavy and it took the paper with it. Zoe had used their mum’s records to make a smoother surface for her Luigi board. The only record upstairs was the David Bowie album inside the plastic frame on Zoe’s bedroom wall. He could get that one at least.

  Nathan crept along the landing to Zoe’s room. He opened her door just enough to slip through the gap. His dad had forbidden Auntie Maureen from vacuuming the carpet or dusting in Zoe’s bedroom and Nathan was aware he was disturbing Zoe’s footprints with every step he took, smudging her fingerprints with everything he touched. One of his teachers had told him once that dust was made from human skin. He thought she’d only said it to scare him or to trick him into keeping his desk clean or something. But if it was true, Zoe’s bedroom was covered in her skin, her mostly human skin, her Ziggy stardust.

  Nathan took pigeon steps in a direct line to the album hanging on Zoe’s bedroom wall. He’d just read how Neil Armstrong’s footprints were still on the Moon because there was no wind. He looked up at the record, shut away inside the frame, and the chair he’d used to climb on to reach the picture frame before. Nathan didn’t want to move the string of fairy lights draped over the back of the chair and risk disturbing the Zoe Love Museum. He decided that using a lighter mug or cup on his Luigi board would achieve the same results as having a flatter surface underneath it. He picked the paper Caffè Nero cup up from Zoe’s dressing table, rearranging the surrounding sugar sachets from rival coffee shops to fill the space left behind.


  He held the cup under his shirt and crept back along the landing. His dad was talking to the FLOs downstairs. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. There were a lot of things they wouldn’t talk about when Nathan was in the room. If he asked his dad about it his dad would tell him not to worry and that it didn’t concern him. How could it not concern him? Yesterday Nathan had overheard the FLOs asking his dad about all the arguments he’d had with Zoe. Presumably because Nathan had told the policeman about it in the park. He felt like PC Kari had tricked him into telling tales on his dad. Arthur was right. He should have told the feds nothing. Nathan went into the bathroom. He removed the lid from the Caffè Nero cup and tipped the cold coffee down the toilet. He flushed it and went back to his bedroom.

  Nathan sat on the floor and placed the coffee cup upside down at the centre of his Luigi board, and very quietly, in his best Zoe Love weird voice he said, “Is there anyone there? Move the cup if you can hear me.”

  The cup didn’t move.

  He asked again, this time with his eyes closed.

  “Are you an alien again, Zo?”

  Even upstairs there must have been too much interference blocking the signal – the ceiling and the roof and whatever was in between. He wondered how difficult it would be to climb up on the roof with the Luigi board. But the windows were locked anyway, so that was out of the question. Maybe the Luigi board didn’t work with only one set of fingers on the cup. He thought about how rubbish Cluedo was when it was only him and Zoe playing. He turned the paper cup up the right way, dripping coffee on the paper. He wiped it off with his fingertip, tasted the cold coffee and sat with his back against his bed. He pulled his knees up against his chest and looked at the Luigi board. He’d only ever seen two Luigi boards but his was definitely the worst. Zoe’s wasn’t just better, it was the best.

  Nathan thought about the time their mum was really ill in hospital, when she looked like she was asleep, but her eyes were still open, and their dad had told Nathan and Zoe they should talk to her. Even though she probably wouldn’t reply or even look like she could hear them, it was still possible that she actually could. So, Zoe told their mum that she loved her and she told her what she’d been doing that day and even made some things up when she ran out of things to talk about. Nathan couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He wondered if, maybe like their mum, Zoe could hear him now but couldn’t move the cup to answer, even though it was only made of paper.