The Boy That Never Was

by Karen Perry

  I let that go.

  Then, after a moment, I asked, ‘Does she know?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Yeah. We were separated, you see. And then she wanted a reconciliation. I thought it was the right thing to do. Things were so crazy here. I just wanted to make something in my life right. And in the spirit of starting over …’

  ‘You told her.’

  ‘I told her. You never told Harry?’

  I shook my head.

  Then I asked him, ‘You and your wife, are you still together?’

  He nodded. ‘We have a son. Felix. He’s not much younger than Dillon.’

  He sat and stared ahead of him. His eyes fixed on Dillon, who had moved a little bit away from us, closer to the water’s edge. I called to him to step back a bit, and he did what I asked. There was tiredness in the slump of his little shoulders. I saw him rubbing at one eye. Soon, we would have to leave.

  ‘He’s mine. Isn’t he?’

  The words were shocking. I couldn’t answer. I pulled my legs in close to my chest and hugged them to myself. I felt him looking at me, reading the reply in my silent refusal to utter the words.

  ‘Harry doesn’t know about that either, does he?’

  I shook my head. In a voice that came out low and whispery and broken with emotion, I said, ‘He must never know.’

  He drew in his breath.

  The sun was low in the sky, and there was a chill on the breeze. I knew you would be home by now and wondering where we were. I gathered up our shoes and got to my feet. He caught hold of my wrist.

  ‘Can I see you again? Before I leave?’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head with a firm resolve.

  It hurt to refuse him. His hand around my wrist. The first touch since we’d parted.

  He held me there for a moment, then let go.

  We walked in silence up the beach. I carried Dillon, drawing strength from the warmth and weight of his little body in my arms.

  Before we parted again, he reached into his pocket and drew out a business card.

  ‘It’s got my e-mail and cell phone on it,’ he said.

  I looked at the card he offered me, needing to get away from him, now, before my emotions surfaced again.

  ‘I’d like to stay in touch,’ he said, the card still in his outstretched hand. He was gazing intently at me, his face in shadow now that the sun was going down.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘I understand. But if there was any way you could. Just the odd e-mail. So I could know how you and Dillon are doing. So I could know that you are both okay. I won’t get in touch with you – not if you don’t want me to.’

  When I took the card, my movements were rushed, fuelled by nerves and indecision, so that I snatched it from him, turning away as I did, feeling him looking after us as I walked away from him, the only sound in the street the hush of the ocean and the soles of my shoes slapping against the dusty pavement.

  I pulled the car into a narrow driveway and felt the gravel beneath the tyres. The garden lay in a deep silence under a quilt of snow. Drawing up outside the house, I saw that the front door was open, and braked hard. There was no sign of life, no evidence of activity, and in the stillness of the car after the engine had died, I listened to the eerie silence. Something about it made me grow cold. A kind of dread came over me then at what awaited me once I passed through that open door. But it lasted for only an instant. And then I was out of the car and racing up those steps, impatient now to know, to see what turn our story was about to take.

  17. Harry

  I stared at the gun in his hand. He was holding it steady, his grip firm, his gaze cool, the snout of the barrel pointing straight at my head. The air about us was still and heavy. I might have felt fear at that point – fear that he was going to kill me – but more than anything, I felt a terrible impatience. I needed answers. Where was my son? What had he done with him? Anger raced through my veins. I was so close to finding Dillon, but Garrick, with his implacable stare and humourless, down-turned mouth, was trying to stop me. I bit down on the bile rising up from my stomach and pushed myself up slowly, my head still clogged with alcohol and sleep, until I was sitting up in that narrow bed.

  ‘So,’ I said slowly. ‘Are you going to shoot me, or what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ came his cool reply. ‘I could. No one would blame me. You’re an intruder in my home. It’s self-defence.’

  ‘No shit,’ I said. Somehow I knew that he wouldn’t pull the trigger. The moment for that had passed. I didn’t feel any fear at that point. More than anything, he irritated me. I swung my legs off the bed and got to my feet. He took a step back, still pointing the gun, and for an instant the room seemed to whirl around me.

  ‘Not one more step,’ he said, the instruction delivered in a cool, steady tone.

  I stopped.

  He thought for a moment, weighing the situation, and then, slowly, he brought his hand down, the gun at his side. His jaw tensed, and his eyes narrowed, and the electricity in the room remained.

  ‘You gonna tell me what you’re doing here? Or do I have to guess?’

  ‘I’ve come for Dillon.’

  His eyes flickered over my face. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘There’s no one here. Just me.’

  No sooner were the words spoken than a car pulled up outside. From where I stood, I could not see it.

  ‘Wait here,’ Garrick said, cool as you like. His face betrayed no fear or anxiety as he closed the door behind him.

  I listened to him walking down the hall, his footfall firm and unrushed. I put my head to the door and listened. Muffled voices – Garrick’s and a woman’s. It was impossible to make out a single thing they were saying. My irritation grew, and my impatience. If it was the woman I had seen with Dillon, then I wanted to confront her – demand to know what she had done with him, where she had hidden him away. The memory of her blue scarf rising like smoke on the wind came back to me, the way she had hurried away, pulling the boy after her, and I was taken then by a new fury.

  They were standing in front of the open door, and with the porch light behind them, their forms were cast in silhouette. It was only as I got close to them, only as she turned to look at me, that I saw it was not the woman I had glimpsed the day of the march.

  It was Robin.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, my mouth dry as paper.

  ‘Harry. Thank God you’re all right,’ she exclaimed, coming towards me, reaching out for me.

  Her forehead was knotted with anxiety; her voice was shaky with emotion. Her arms went about me, and I pulled her into my embrace. The sudden warmth of her body caused an ache within me, a creeping fatigue, and I recognized it for what it was: relief. All this time I had been labouring alone in the dark, frightened of my own thoughts and convictions, yet compelled to plough on regardless of who might get hurt in the process. Robin, my love, my only one – how I had yearned for her to believe me, how I had strived to make her see that I was not crazy, that our son really was alive. And now she was here, by my side, with me at the end. All the bitterness of the past, the words spoken in anger, the wounds and recriminations – all would be forgotten, blown away in the wind. What mattered now was that we were together, and soon we would have our son.

  ‘Come home,’ she whispered, her face against my neck.

  ‘Soon this will all be over,’ I told her. Then quietly, speaking the words into her hair so that Garrick could not hear, I said, ‘Be careful. He has a gun.’

  ‘What?’

  She drew back, a look of horror coming over her face, and, turning to Garrick, she saw the gun and, just as swiftly, broke free of my embrace, crossed the floor, and reached for the weapon, claiming it easily. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. He surrendered it to her without a question, without any kind of struggle. She said something to him, something I couldn’t catch, and I w
atched her put the gun into the pocket of her overcoat.

  ‘Harry. Sweetheart,’ she said, returning to me. ‘Come away from here.’

  But I just stood there, rooted to the spot, troubled by something I couldn’t identify.

  ‘Our son, Robin. We’re not leaving without him.’

  ‘Please, love. Come away. There’s nothing for us here. Only more pain.’

  The strain in her voice nagged at me, and I heard the echo of another voice rising up from the hollows within me: Cozimo saying, There were things I knew which perhaps I should have told you.

  Tangier. The shadows. The dark. The murky depths of the waters lapping the harbour. I felt the wound in my leg clawing at me, pulling me down, my head swimming in confusion. It was a struggle now to stay focused, to hold it together until I got what I’d come here for.

  A question flitted through my brain, and I looked at her. How had she known to come here?

  ‘Did Spencer tell you?’ I asked.

  ‘Spencer?’ The confusion misting her gaze told me that it had not been him. That she had discovered this house some other way. It didn’t matter. All that mattered now was Dillon.

  I turned to Garrick. ‘Tell me where he is. Tell me what you have done with my son.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. I know what I saw. I have proof.’

  ‘Proof? What proof?’

  ‘A photograph. CCTV footage. A licence plate.’

  Robin’s hand was in mine, and I heard her say my name, but still I went on.

  ‘You were there, weren’t you, that night in Tangier? I know you took him. I know it was you. But I don’t know why. That’s what I can’t figure out. I’m not sure I even care any more. I just want him back. We both do.’

  I squeezed Robin’s hand in mine, drawing strength from it, the strength to keep going, to hold on until this would all be over.

  ‘Harry,’ she said again, her voice more insistent this time, and when I looked down at her, her grey oval eyes were full of fear. ‘You’re not well, sweetheart. You need to come with me now.’

  ‘What? No. Just wait, Robin. You’ll see.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Trust me. I saw him, Robin. I saw Dillon.’

  ‘No,’ she said then.

  The conviction in her voice gave me pause. I looked at her, the shadow of confusion starting to clear, but still I did not see it. Did not want to see it.

  ‘You saw Felix,’ she said softly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Felix,’ Garrick repeated. ‘My son.’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head, refusing to believe them, remembering again the boy’s face, the instant recognition I had experienced that day, coming at me suddenly with a plunging sensation. ‘It was Dillon. I know it was him. I saw him.’

  ‘You only think it was him,’ Garrick said, ‘because of the resemblance.’

  ‘The resemblance?’ I repeated, something cold pooling in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘Dave,’ Robin said to him, a warning in her voice, and when I heard her use his name like that – his Christian name – I felt myself reeling away from her.

  Maybe he heard the warning in her voice and decided to ignore it, because he said it anyway: ‘Dillon and Felix are brothers.’

  His words dissolved in the air, escaped into the ether. Nobody spoke. They both stood watching me, wary of me, afraid of what I would do next.

  ‘Brothers?’ I said slowly, looking at Robin.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head, but it was not a refusal, more a helpless gesture of surrender.

  ‘Dillon was my son,’ Garrick said. Then Robin swung around and said to him with real ferocity, ‘Shut up, for God’s sake!’

  Just like that it came together for me, and I finally understood. Images of them tangled in each other’s arms, naked limbs, sweat, a ferocious hunger for each other, all of it cramming into the corners of my consciousness, sending me spinning away into a kind of delirium.

  She was coming at me now, fear in her eyes as she reached out and took my face in her hands, saying my name, trying to drag me back to the present, trying to hold me within the safety of her gaze.

  ‘Listen to me, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. Words can’t say how sorry I am.’

  ‘It’s not true,’ I said, still not believing, still resisting the tug of knowledge. ‘Tell me it’s not true.’

  ‘I love you, Harry. That’s all that matters. Our future. The baby inside me. Please, sweetheart, I can’t lose you now.’

  Still, I couldn’t grasp it. This woman I had known since I was a young man, sixteen or more years ago, looked suddenly like a stranger to me. A stranger, pale and forlorn, not someone I trusted, not the person I cared for and loved, but a weary woman, regretful and grieving, confronted by her past when she had hoped it was behind her.

  I could have told her there was no escaping it.

  Her hands were hot on my face – I felt the tremble within them.

  ‘I’m not Dillon’s father?’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ she said, her voice breaking, sudden tears filling her eyes. ‘You were. In every way that mattered.’

  ‘What?’

  She was crying hard now, her voice shaking with fear.

  ‘I made a terrible mistake, Harry. So help me God, I wish I hadn’t. Except it gave me Dillon. But believe this, I beg you: in my heart, I always thought of you as his father.’

  She wrapped her arms around me then, and I stood there, immobile, feeling her body shake with the force of her weeping. Over her shoulder, I saw Garrick, hands in his pockets, staring thoughtfully at the floor, and a well of anger deep within me was tapped. I wanted to push her away from me, shove her aside so I could get at him, but instead I opened my arms to accept her embrace. Drawing her to me, I felt the shudder of her sobs, the brush of her hair against my face. I wrapped my arms around her, whispered to her to hush, and then I reached into her coat pocket.

  I heard the sharp intake of her breath as she felt it, but she was not quick enough. Moving swiftly, I pushed her aside, drew back my hand, then struck Garrick across the face with the butt of the gun.

  ‘No!’ she screamed as Garrick fell to the ground.

  I stood above him, watching as he writhed and moaned, blood seeping out from a gash across his cheek.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she cried out. ‘Oh my God.’

  She went to kneel by his side, but I pulled her away.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Harry. He’s bleeding!’

  ‘He’s lucky I didn’t put a bullet in his head,’ I said, stung by fury. Then I turned and kicked him hard in the gut. It was shocking how soft his belly felt as my foot connected with it.

  He wheezed, his body curling around the pain. I could hear Robin crying, her hysteria growing.

  ‘Where’s Dillon?’ I demanded.

  He grabbed hold of my leg, pulling himself around my ankle, and I leaned down and put the gun to his temple. He was saying something, but his words were inaudible through his laboured breathing and the gurgle of blood in his mouth. I leaned in to hear him.

  ‘You should have taken better care of him,’ Garrick wheezed.

  I could see Robin wringing her hands, running them through her hair, her worried eyes ranging around the room as she began to pace back and forth. I told her to keep still.

  The gun was still pressed to Garrick’s temple and I increased the pressure, feeling the trigger hot against my finger.

  ‘You should have taken better care of Dillon,’ he repeated. ‘You shouldn’t have left him before the earthquake, asleep, alone. You shouldn’t have drugged a small boy like that, Harry, and you know it.’

  I felt myself recoil at the truth within his statements. A great roll of sadness came over me, and I took the gun away, noting the round indent it had left on his skin. Garrick coughed and spluttered, and I turned aside.

  ‘I just want him back,’ I said then, but all t
he threat, all the anger, had drained from me.

  Robin came to me, but I raised a hand to stop her, to warn her away. If she touched me, I might fall apart, disintegrate, and it would all have been for nothing.

  ‘Where is he, Garrick? For the love of God, would you just tell me?’

  He lay on the floor, still gasping for breath. Every inch of me ached from holding myself upright. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept a dreamless sleep, the last time I had laid my head down and felt the comfort of oblivion. My eyes were closing, lids weighted with the dragging desire for sleep, and it took everything I had to fight it. Soon this will be over, I told myself. Just hang on.

  I brought the gun up again and aimed it at his head. He rolled on to his back on the floor, staring up at me, no fear on his face, his mouth set in a grim line of determination. The fucker was willing me to shoot him, and I, God help me, felt myself being pushed to the edge. I could see it happening. I could feel it: the pressure of the trigger, the sudden snapping and then the glorious release of the bullet, the wild bang, the smell of burning and the tearing of flesh and the shattering of bone. An instant and it would all be over. My whole arm shook with the tremble of possibility. There was nothing else for it.

  And then, just as I was about to do it, just as I felt the last vestige of self-control escape me, there was a clatter on the steps outside, a flickering light behind me. I turned and saw him – a young boy, running up the steps and crossing the threshold into this madhouse. He held a lantern in his hands. ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ he was calling. The lantern was lit. The light wavered, and I blinked in disbelief. At the end of this long, lonely journey, here he was, my boy, my Dillon, and still somehow I didn’t quite believe it.

  I heard something then, a shout, and Garrick struggled to his knees, saying, ‘Out! Dillon, get out!’

  And then another, stranger sound – a cry, like that of a wounded animal, so gut-wrenching and forceful it seemed like a sort of violence. Turning, I saw my wife fall to her knees, her face a white page of furious disbelief, her eyes round and dark with shock. She looked at him, at the boy she had thought dead, giving up this sound like the last offering of grief within her, and for a moment we all fell silent – me, Garrick, the boy – watching her as the room around us wavered and rocked in its burning brightness.