Now the room looked dark and dingy. It was brown and stained with all the cigarettes we’ve smoked between us over the years. I didn’t mind so much until today, because folk took us as they found us and if they didn’t like it they could bugger off.
I’d felt a change, though, because all of a sudden all the neighbours were out and three big police were sitting in my private space, where I didn’t put on a show, where my legs were white, my face un-made-up and my long hair uncurled and pinned.
Once they were gone, Colin fiddled in the kitchen for a while, then came in and sat down.
‘Do you want some tea, love? You haven’t eaten all day.’
I shook my head.
‘What’ll happen now, Colin? What will they do?’
‘They’ll make enquiries, love, see if anyone’s seen him. I’m going to the Collier’s later putting the word out. If anyone sees him local like, maybe in the pub, to tell him to get in touch.’ His hand covered mine. ‘You know what it’s like. Once you do somat wrong, the longer you leave it the harder it is to admit to it. He probably wants to come back, but he feels stupid, or scared.’
I nodded, a fire rising inside me.
‘Scared, yeah, and who can blame him. Scared of being battered.’
Colin winced.
‘I wondered when you’d bring this up. So it’s my fault, is it? My fault for disciplining my own son. Bloody hell, Bess, if it were up to you he’d never be told off. You’re too soft with him. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours. Too soft. Lettin’ him do what he wants. He’s buggered off now, not tellin’ us, puttin’ us through all this. If you’d . . .’
‘But what if he’s dead, Col, what if he’s been murdered? Who’s fault is it then?’
Colin sat down, head in hands.
‘I don’t know. He’s not dead. I know he’s not. He’s more likely playing stupid teenage games with us.’
‘But he’s a good lad, Col.’
‘He is, but what with all that drinking and that, sounded all right to you when you let him do it, go off and go to the boozer out of town, but when I told the police earlier on they acted like he was a bloody criminal. Askin’ me why he goes out of town, who he knows. What he does in his spare time. They’ll go and talk to Philip and all them at Stoke’s joinery. Point is, Bess, we gave in to him too easy. Scared of another argument so we just let him. To us it made an easy life. Now it makes him look like a bad ’un to the police.’
At least he’d moved on to ‘we.’ Thomas had told us he was off to the pub on his bike and we had begged him not to, he told us he was playing darts with Philip, that Phil had a girl up that way and they’d all go and have a few pints. We didn’t want him going out of town, to Hyde, but he insisted.
We all knew that bad things had been happening round here. It was only recently that we’d had our cellars searched for that poor little girl who’d been snatched from the fairground, and a boy from Ashton Market. We’d told Thomas about them, but he’d been angry that we thought he was a child. He’d said he hated us both and he wanted to get away from us as soon as he could. But I suppose all teenagers say that at one time or another?
Colin had shouted and raised his hand and Thomas had said he was going anyway. That moment between father and son where there has to be a compromise because both are men. No doubt he’d filled the police in on the arguments. Colin likes the truth and he likes to blame.
Everything had to be someone else’s fault; he found it hard to admit anything he did was wrong. Stupid pride, really, but on the other hand, he didn’t do a lot wrong. His main fault was saying too much. He would have chatted to the police all the time, telling them that Thomas said he hated us, making it bigger than it was.
Making them think that this was some teenage tantrum where Thomas had drunk himself into a stupor and was lying somewhere, scared to come home, with a hangover.
Problem is, if I know Thomas, he would never throw his dinner over a wall. Teenagers do some funny things, but that can was his granddad’s, and he loved his granddad more than anything.
I know it’s a trivial thing, but it’s things like that you cling to. All through the police search for Thomas, I held onto this thought, secretly thinking them stupid to keep telling me that he had just gone off and would soon be back.
Whoever had him had thrown his dinner over that wall. I’d sit there and listen to the almost daily at first, then weekly, police reports and know inside that Thomas would never do that to me, or his granddad. Or, I admitted grudgingly, Colin. They’d never seen us together, as a family. They could never know how close we were.
Eventually, after a few months, Inspector Little stood in my lounge and outlined the case they had put together. Me and Colin were there, and Colin’s mum. A group of neighbours had gathered outside to try to hear what had happened.
‘Right then. We’ve put together a case and here it is. This is what we’ve come up with and this is how we’ll be directing the investigation from now on. We’ve spoken to Thomas’s parents and they’ve told us that there were some arguments and unpleasantness in the weeks before Thomas left.’
He looked over my head, but I looked at his eyes.
‘We’ve also spoken to his friend, Philip, and he told us that Thomas had been planning to get his own place when he’s finished his Service. We’ve found no evidence of an abduction, or of any violence. We’ve found no evidence that Thomas has come to any harm. Therefore, we’ll be focussing our attention on a missing person’s enquiry from now on. The enquiry will be scaled down and I’ll appoint an officer at the local station as a point of contact. Is everybody clear?’
We all nodded, but I couldn’t not speak up.
‘What about the can? He wouldn’t do that.’
Inspector Little sighed. He looked tired, his skin worn and thin.
‘Bessy, I’ve told you before, we don’t always know what our children are thinking. We think we do, but time after time we find that we don’t.’
I nodded.
‘Mmm. But what about that little girl who went missing? Ten, wasn’t she? And that lad off Ashton Market? Have they left home, looking for a place of their own? What’s happened to them?’
Inspector Little shifted from foot to foot.
‘Well, that’s a bit different, isn’t it? They’ve just disappeared. Not the same at all, at that age they don’t know their own mind. But your Thomas is older and we seriously think he’s just gone and set himself up somewhere. And usually, when that happens, they reappear at some point. It’s not the same, Bessy.’
I looked at the floor. I still couldn’t see the difference. Thomas had disappeared just like the other children. He wouldn’t just leave me and throw his can over the wall. I knew that boy inside out, and I knew he had a good heart.
Even if he had gone off, he would have come back by now because somewhere inside he would want his mum. He would care about what I felt—every time we’d rowed he’d apologised. I knew he would be feeling bad inside. Nothing would be right until he made up with me and Colin. He just wouldn’t stay away so long. It’d been months now.
The Bodies
Now I’m up to this bit and it’s not very nice. I know someone will have to read this, so I’m just warning you. It’s not very nice for people to read, and I think we all know what happened, don’t we, what with those books that’ve been written? Go into too much detail, I think.
Anyway, I’d been going about my daily business, making the beds, laying the table, making the dinner and the tea. Washing, ironing, watching the telly, waiting for Colin to come home, then waiting for him to go out so I can be on my own.
I was still making enough food for three, just in case he came back. He’d been gone a year by this time: Christmas, Mother’s Day, Thomas’s eighteenth birthday. I’d bought him a card for Christmas and his birthday, you know, just in case. I’ve still got them all here in the drawer, cards for every year. But nothing from him.
I was convinced that if he was st
ill alive, he would have sent me a card on Mother’s Day, and I got out every card he had made me over the years, as if this made me into some kind of mother whose son wouldn’t disappear—a good parent.
I knew people were saying things about me, ‘she must have been a bad mother for her own son to up and go like that’ and ‘well, who can blame him, look at her windows.’ I’d never been a very good housewife, but somehow now it seemed the dirt on my windows was in some way connected to my son being ‘missing person.’
I’d kept his room the same, his posters up, and all his football things in his drawers. The police had been through it, but I just put it back exactly the same as before. I still washed his bedclothes every week, with ours. Set him a place at the table, and I could see Colin’s face tighten when he saw me put the knife and fork down carefully.
‘Come on, Bess, he’s not a bloody saint. You can’t do this all the time. You’re going to have to get used to it, you know.’
Usually I just nodded. There was no point talking to him anymore because he didn’t understand what I was saying. We’d start a conversation about Thomas and I’d tell him how I was feeling. He’d get a funny look on his face and he’d sort of close down, blank over, until I’d finished talking.
It was a look of dread, sort of pain. At first I thought it was because he was feeling the same as me, but later he told me it was because he was bored with it. Bored with hearing about our son, who we didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Bored.
Anyway, this particular day I’d caught the bus down to the market. I’d been sitting thinking in the morning about how happy I’d been the day Thomas went missing. How I’d been laughing really loudly.
I’d jumped up and looked in the mirror to see if the crow’s feet were still there. Sure enough, they were, but slightly faded. I was aging backward! My mouth had turned upward slightly, as if, for the first time in a year I might smile.
The hard, invisible casing stopped it, tightening up around me, forcing me back into the prison of my own horrible mind, where Thomas was dead in a ditch somewhere, but no one else believed it.
I’d spoken to Florrie Taylor, who’d asked outright on the bus if we’d heard anything.
‘So have the police come up with owt?’
Her ferrety face was poking toward me and I reddened.
‘Not yet. No.’
I was expecting the usual ‘Oh, he’ll turn up when he’s hungry’ or ‘bake him a cake, he’ll be back.’ The sort of cheery things people who have never lost a child say.
‘Mmm. Bad business this. They say another child’s gone missing as well. And a girl. They’re linking it now. The four of them from round ’ere.’
It was horrific, but music to my ears as well. I stared out of the bus window at a flock of starlings swirling above the church spire, thousands of little birds, all gathering together to make a big black cloud. Thicker and thicker until it disappeared over the hill, then I saw them again over the bus station as the bus pulled in.
They were early that year; the beginning of October is very early for starlings. It was a kind of Indian Summer; the blue sky, but nippy outside, you still needed your big coat and some gloves. I waited until everyone was off the bus and watched the birds soar, a stray couple of them shooting off behind the market clock. Then they crowded together and made different shapes.
Me and Thomas used to lie in the grass at Daisy Nook, just watching them for ages. From being a small boy I’d take him paddling in the shallow brook, then we’d dry our feet and lie down staring at the autumn sky, waiting for birds. Thomas would easily see shapes in clouds, it would take me a bit longer to shake off my duty in my mind and let my imagination come through the holes, like water through a colander. I’d eventually see them and he’d shout, ‘It’s a rabbit, silly!’ or ‘Goose, goose!’
Everyone was off the bus now and I still looked at the birds. I wondered if Thomas is somewhere watching them, perhaps just beyond the market. I often stood at the back door in the dark, wearing just a nylon underslip, my hair loose and long down my back, and felt the most free I could under the circumstances.
Like a girl again, except for the lack of any emotions, or love. I’d stand at the door smoking Park Drives and staring at the sky, mine and Thomas’s sky, because everywhere he goes he couldn’t help but see the moon, the same moon I was seeing now, and that was our link.
Whatever had happened to him, he had to see the sky and think of his mum. Was that too much to ask? I knew him. If he was alive, he would think of his mum.
I dragged my body off the bus, my mind returning from the birds to Florrie Taylor. Four children disappeared, all linked? I desperately needed to talk to Inspector Little. Walking over to the police station took ten minutes, across the market square and through the Victorian Market Hall. Lots of people said. ‘Aya, Bessy’ but I was in a hurry.
I practically ran the last few hundred yards, and pushed the door dramatically. The counter bobby looked up from his paper.
‘Eyup, Bessy, what can we do for you?’
‘Can I talk to Ken Little?’
He folded his Daily Mirror in half and I sat on the wooden bench opposite. I could see PC Dodds—Lennie to me and Colin—talking and smiling.
‘He’s gone out on an investigation down Hattersley. Won’t be back anytime soon, love. Welcome to wait if you want.’
I stared at him.
‘What’s happening in Hattersley? It’s not Ken’s part is it? I mean, doesn’t he do Ashton?’
‘Yep. But somat big’s happened. Don’t know what. They’ve all trooped down there. No idea what it is. Do you want a cup of tea, Bessy, love?’
I turned and walked out. Colin’s told me I’ve got an overactive imagination, and now I’m thinking all sorts. If there’s four gone missing, maybe there’s five? Or ten? Maybe Thomas is one of them? Who’d do that to kiddies? Leading onto the obvious conclusion of ‘and where are they now?’
I walked back into the sunlight again, my eyes narrowing. I was kind of glad Ken Little wasn’t there, otherwise I’d have had to repeat the demand I had made almost every day since Thomas went missing; that they treat this as a murder investigation. I knew I was pushing him to his limit, because he’d shouted at me more than once.
‘There’s no body, Bess. No body.’
I’d carried on even though I could see a huge vein in his forehead throbbing, always a danger sign when my dad was going to belt us.
‘But what do you think, Ken? What do you think? Do you really think he’s just gone off? Do you? Hmm?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think, Bessy, love. It’s the evidence. My boss won’t let me go and dig next door’s garden up on hearsay. Or arrest everyone who was on Ney Street that day. This isn’t Cluedo, it’s real life. I need some evidence. And all the evidence we have points to Thomas being a restless teenager who likes a pint and was after the lasses. I can’t say why he did what he did to you and Colin, but we can’t investigate a murder on the basis of that, can we?’
It was the same old story. And I had to admit I was backing my odds both ways, or else why would I bother setting the table for him every night? So I wandered out of the police station and I slipped back into my usual shopping routine.
Because that’s what it’s like, two lives running together, side by side. The life you have from day to day, where you have to cook and clean and wash and iron and go on the market, and the one where your son is gone, and you constantly wonder where he is and what he’s doing, hoping he’s not dead and if he is, that he didn’t suffer. Then dying a little bit yourself because you couldn’t be there with him to save him, or at the end. Was he shouting for his mum?
Then you remember that might not be the case, and he is shacked up with a girl somewhere, using another name, and you get angry because how could he do this to you?
Then there were the times I thought I’d seen him. Everywhere I went. I’d thought I’d seen him lots of times, on buses going the other way and in cars. E
ven in peoples’ houses, I’d stared through the windows to get a better look, and people had drawn their curtains when they saw me.
I was quite used to it now, the enquiring looks from strangers, the pity. I just couldn’t help it. One thing I had done was to start to look for smaller signs it might be him. He had a mole on his forehead, on the left-hand side, and a small scar on his chin. I usually tried to check for these as well as the obvious height and hair colour, but it wasn’t always possible.
I bought some carrots and shin beef, and wandered back to the bus station, nodding at people I knew and, hopefully, appearing normal. Whatever that was. Ashton was a funny place back then. You’d hear the Beatles ‘Help’ on the radio on the market stalls, and duck beneath the swathes of net curtains that blew about in the wind.
Old men would sit on the wooden benches smoking dog ends and whistling in the sunshine. They really did wear flat caps, and some of them did have whippets. Funny now, because that’s what the North is known for these days, what with Coronation Street and Andy Capp, but back then it really was like that.
Women in rain Macs and headscarves tied around their chins would congregate outside the Town Hall and chatter, exchanging the news of the day before rushing off to spread the word. Not many of us had telephones, because we didn’t need them. Our system, the Market Telegraph, was faster and more efficient than any telephone.
I saw them that day out of the corner of my eye, about ten women huddled together, listening intently to the storyteller, spellbound as they committed the details to memory. They reminded me of a group of sparrows that visited my yard to grab at the crumbs then carry them off.
I hurried over, wondering what they were chewing over today, whose life they were dissecting. The etiquette was that a newcomer to the group would touch an elbow and space would be made at the back of the group. A loud cough would tell the group that someone had more recent details than the story being told.
Random Acts of Unkindness Page 5
