Changeling

by Matt Wesolowski

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for helping my boy.’ And, oh my gosh, there was this electricity going through my hand from his hand where they touched. Oh my word. He had these little curls of chest hair just poking up above the open button of his shirt and … well, let’s just say it’s been a while since I’ve been so … felt so … like that. Not since Jeff and I broke up, and that was, what, six, seven months ago? Dad held on to my hand for just a fraction of a second and his eyebrows rose just a miniscule amount, like a secret something special passed between us.

  To stop myself blushing I told them about Child A’s outburst. I left out the bit about him throwing the book and hitting me in the shin. I left out the tapping, just in case they thought I was nuts, although I was desperate to know whether they’d heard it too.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Dad said – and I’ll never forget this because it was such a strange thing to say – ‘Sometimes we wonder where this boy came from! What’s he done with our son?’

  And everyone laughed.

  I remembered then about how lots of the staff had said that Child A used to be good, that he was lovely. I wonder what went wrong.

  Mam and Dad left not long after, ushered through the door and back outside. We watched them get back into the car, him holding the door open for her. Such a gentleman. Old-fashioned, like my dad. I wondered if he’d look back, if he’d see us watching them and save a little glance for me.

  The thing is, now, I don’t know what to write when I talk about Child’s A mam and dad. What was I expecting? Monsters? Abusers?

  Not these two. No way. I’ll write that the parents are supportive, loving. I can’t fault them. Maybe if Dad was home a bit more, perhaps that would help Child A? But Dad’s a wonderful role model, so what’s going wrong? Maybe it’s medical. Maybe Child A is ill? I wish I could take him to a psychiatrist or something – bundle him away when no one’s looking, just to find out what’s gone wrong in his brain. What makes him tick. It would be great to have a secret video camera in his house. I wonder what he’s like there…

  So what can we glean from Delyth’s recordings? Sorrel and Sonia appeared to be supportive parents, although Sorrel’s work took him away from the house for extended periods. He was, at this point, a sous-chef in a local restaurant, which demanded a great deal of his time. There are a couple of troubling moments in the recordings: Alfie’s inappropriate clothing for bad weather doesn’t look good for either parent, but with so little to go on, it’s difficult to judge what happened.

  We should not ignore Delyth’s sudden attraction to Sorrel. Was the look that passed between the two invented, or did Sorrel really reciprocate, with his ex-partner, the mother of his child, sat right next to him?

  I share – as I imagine you now do – Delyth’s fascination with the Marsden household. As far as we know, Alfie lived with Sonia in Audlem; with Sorrel visiting as and when he could. Therefore, it was Sonia who was facing the most pressure – more or less single-handedly raising a child while allegedly dealing with an alcohol problem. Was this behind Alfie’s behavioural issues or was there something else? Remember, the teachers were claiming that Alfie had been well behaved in his last school and that the move to Audlem must have affected his behaviour in a detrimental way.

  There is, before we end, another recording I’d like to play. It’s tacked on to the end of one of the tapes, so Emyr and I nearly missed it. It was only because I accidently left the cassette running when we were talking that we found what I am about to play next.

  I’m not sure what you will think about the following recording and I have struggled with my decision to air it. Emyr can’t add much context, and claims he has no clue what it’s about. Unfortunately it’s not dated and frustratingly, no one is named. It is possible, however, to infer who Delyth could be talking about.

  —[Indistinguishable] … even recording this, as it could … I mean, it’s a worry. It’s always when I’m on my own, late at night … that’s when the guilt creeps in. But it’s also so exciting. You know when you have chocolate in the fridge and you just can’t stop thinking about it? It’s like that. You know you shouldn’t, you know it’s bad for you, but there’s that little part inside that knows you will. It’s just a question of when. The only difference is that this ‘chocolate’ isn’t bad for me. He’s explained that it’s OK, that I don’t need to feel any guilt about what we do. This is my pleasure, and I’m allowed it. I’m allowed to have as much as I like.

  What am I like? I jump every time the phone rings. I sometimes pick it up when it hasn’t rung, just to check that there’s a dial tone, that I haven’t put it back wrong and he’s trying to call.

  That’s what I’m doing when I should be working. Times like now when I should be getting on, I’m checking the phone. I’m getting up and straightening things, making sure the carpet is freshly hoovered. I know he likes that. He once looked in my kitchen cupboards and gave me that smile – the one that makes me go weak. I asked him why. He put his arms round my waist and said that all my tins faced the right way. I hadn’t even thought about it, but it made me smile too. He said I had a beautiful mind – a mind like his.

  And since he said that … well, I don’t know how many times I’ve straightened the bed sheets; they keep crinkling up when I turn my back. I keep all the chairs at the right angles and all my ornaments are dusted. I know he won’t look, I know that all he wants is me, but you never know. To see that smile, it just makes my heart sing…

  What am I talking about? I’m like a teenage girl again. But it’s not like with Jeff – he wasn’t a proper man. I see that now. Jeff was like a child. He didn’t know how to make a meal or iron his clothes. All his towels had a funny smell. His kitchen smelled of burnt bacon fat. That’s not how a man should be. How hard is it to have manners? How hard is it to treat someone right, to give someone a compliment once in a while? Jeff just wouldn’t make the effort. I never felt beautiful with him. Not like I do now.

  He makes me beautiful.

  Oh dear, why am I even recording this? I just have to let it all come out. It’s all bottled up inside me and I have to let it out somehow.

  Oh, I know it’s wrong … but … it just feels right, him and me. He says it as well. He tells me it’s never felt this right before now.

  Right now I would just do anything for him.

  The recording does not end here. There is an additional part that comes directly afterwards, marked by a click, presumably where some time has passed. A lot of the following is an empty digital hiss, occasionally punctuated by some indistinguishable speaking, which, despite trying to enhance the recording, I cannot make out. In the following, you will hear what I have been able to compile. I have cut out the longer stretches where there is no discernible noise and included every sound so you can judge what you’re hearing, although a great deal of it is movement and breathing. The voice, though, is definitely Delyth’s.

  Finally, there’s no indication of when this was recorded in relation to the previous recordings. What are the implications of what you’re about to hear? … I have no clue.

  —[Clicking and clunking of recording buttons. Then rustling that distorts the first few words] … that? There!

  Oh my God, so it’s … it’s some ungodly time in the morning. I don’t want to … Hang on … there. There it is. That’s it! Listen.

  [About 30 seconds of hissing and behind it, a faint, flat sound for a few seconds]

  That. That, scratching. God, I hope we don’t have mice! Or rats! What could it…? There…

  [Another few seconds of silence]

  Is that you, luv? Has he gone home? He’d better bloody not have! Luv? Maybe he’s just gone downstairs. Shhh, don’t wake the little one … There! … I just want to get it on tape … So I … so when I wake up tomorrow I can listen back and know that I’m not losing my mind.

  [Another bout of hissing and shuffling noises]

  There, there! Oh that had to be it! Oh my gosh, I’m going to feel like d
eath tomorrow, I’m sure of it. But I can’t sleep.

  Not with that … that noise.

  [Hissing and more rustling then a sudden thud]

  There, that was it. Oh my word, I’m all – I’m tingling … my whole body. I’m cold. I’m going to…

  [Indistinguishable, then a rustling. Delyth’s voice fades away. In the silence that follows, three distinct taps can be heard. Then a high-pitched sound that lasts for about half a second]

  …fine. He’s fine, little lamb. Hot though. His room’s hot but it’s freezing in here. [sigh] I need to go to sleep…

  [A loud rustling]

  [More rustling]

  [Heavy breathing]

  [Scraping noise]

  [Tapping and a high-pitched noise, similar to before]

  Speculation will abound, I’m sure, about the similarities between this recording and the accounts of tapping provided by Callum Wright, Sorrel Marsden and, of course, Delyth Rice in the classroom. There certainly are tapping sounds on this recording, but with such a poor-quality audio and with little context, there is no way of confirming what they are. That high-pitched noise, though – I know there will be a thousand different explanations for what it is. To me, it sounded like laughter.

  It is entirely possible that Delyth Rice created this particular recording as an elaborate prank. I doubt it, though, as does Emyr. And why bury such a prank at the bottom of a box? As far as we are aware, no one else has been privy to any of these recordings since Delyth used them to write up her dissertation.

  This final cassette, throws up so many questions, which are almost impossible to answer. Which leaves us with only Emyr. I encourage him to search his memories to attempt to confirm or deny any of the details we’ve heard.

  —My dad left us when I was little, three years old. Tosser just walked away. Done a lot of damage, that did, to mam and me. Especially mam. It was just us two for a while. She had one or two boyfriends but they never lasted.

  —Did you meet any of your mother’s boyfriends? She mentions a ‘Jeff’ in the recordings we’ve heard.

  —I met all the blokes that she dated. Some were alright, like Jeff. He was a good one, he was. They were together for a while. I was older then. Same age as Alfie Marsden, six or seven. I remember most of them after Jeff. I hated all of them. I think it was cos she didn’t think much of herself, see? She went with some right … characters.

  —What does that mean?

  —You know, blokes that weren’t … great. God knows why. I think that attracted a certain type, if you know what I mean? People who’d take advantage of her good nature.

  —That must have been hard for you when you were little.

  —It must have been harder for her than me.

  —Do you remember anything out of the ordinary that happened around this time?

  —There was something funny she used to do in my bedroom. I thought it was just a game at the time. It was after I found something in the garden.

  —What did you find?

  —I was mucking about in the grass when I found these little fossils.

  —Fossils?

  —No, not fossils – they weren’t bones or bits of dinosaur. They were more like archaeology or something. Arrowheads. Made out of stone or crystal, dull, crystal. They were buried in a little circle, all the heads pointed inward.

  —Flint perhaps?

  —Yeah maybe. I remember picking them up and running in to show Mam and … well, she must have been in a bad mood or busy or something, cos she took them away.

  —Really? Why was that?

  —I dunno, she never said. But that night, Mam came in to my bedroom with this big biscuit tin, all rusty and dented.

  —What was in the tin? The arrowheads?

  —I thought it was, but no. It was full of junk. Just my dad’s old stuff from the garage.

  —What sort of junk?

  —Nuts and bolts, that sort of thing. These great thick screws and big lumps of iron. I remember the smell of them on my hands. We put them in little piles round the room; I remember that. I suppose it was my idea. I dunno. Kids are mad, aren’t they? They do mad things. Maybe she thought it’d help me forget those arrowheads and remember my dad or something? I think Mam was just at a low point.

  And it’s here we reach a rather frustrating impasse. A stressed, overworked student teacher encounters a child with complex needs. That is virtually all we can deduce from Delyth’s recordings. It is interesting, though, that Alfie’s behavioural traits have, to my knowledge at least, never been mentioned in the context of his disappearance. Perhaps the reasoning was that they had no real relevance to his disappearance. But Sorrel’s account of what happened on Christmas Eve, 1988 could point to Alfie getting out of his seat and running away. After hearing about Alfie’s behaviour, and his needs, I believe this is entirely possible.

  We do get a small insight from these recordings into what life was like at Alfie’s home. Sorrel was working hard to keep the family together, and Sonia it seemed, from Delyth’s point of view, at least, was a defeated and rather feeble character who could barely keep it together.

  Is any more light shed on what happened to Alfie Marsden in 1988? I feel we’re getting closer. Particularly because one of Delyth’s recordings alludes to staff in the school thinking that Alfie was once sweetness and light and then changed. When I’ve tried to contact these members of staff, though, to get their views, they’ve either not responded to me or have expressed their wish not to discuss Alfie Marsden, at least not while there is still the possibility, however remote, that he might still be alive. So we’ll have to look for other ways to find out what changed him. And that is where we will begin next time. A fated camping trip that could possibly be seen as a catalyst for the change in Alfie.

  To end this episode, though, I want to include a postscript from Emyr, whose part in this story has been either small or large – depending on how you look at it. He had no real part in Alfie’s story. But if it were not for him we would not have had any of these insights.

  —I ask everyone I interview the same question, so you’re free to speculate. What do you think happened to Alfie Marsden?

  —I don’t really want to say. I just feel like everyone else, I suppose; there’s not much hope left is there?

  —What about Sorrel and Sonia? Your mother seems to have shone a light on a part of their life that really hasn’t been explored.

  —Look, I don’t know what people will think of me if I talk about that boy’s dad. But I’m going to say it. So he seems like he was a good bloke, doesn’t he, that Sorrel?

  —I have no reason to believe otherwise.

  —Well there’s something about him that reminds me of the blokes my mam used to go on dates with. Everyone thought they were good blokes too. They used to come back to the house sometimes. They used to bring me stuff – presents and that. Some of them used to take me for rides in their cars. But like I said, I didn’t trust any of them. That Sorrel, though. If him and my mam were together, why did she never say nothing about it? Why did she not introduce me to him? I don’t think he’s as good as what everyone makes out. Don’t ask me why. I mean it’s not like he’s done anything, is it?

  Indeed.

  ‘It’s not like he’s done anything.’ It is this statement that will carry us from this episode into our next. We have seen a snapshot of Sorrel and Sonia’s life. The only way to get a bigger picture is to talk in depth to someone who was there, in the middle of things. So I have made it my mission to try and speak to at least one of Alfie’s parents.

  Until next time.

  I have been Scott King.

  SCOTT KING AUDIO LOG 4

  00:00:00

  Insomnia Summer

  22nd August 2018, 9:15 a.m.

  So, just for the record, and in case I never come out: here I am, in my car and I’m just about to go in to talk to Anne. I’ve brought my questions again. Last time I didn’t even remember to look at them. Maybe I will this time
. I’m not counting on anything. I can’t even believe I got here to be honest. I can’t believe I was in any state to drive. I’m exhausted.

  Well, I think it’s safe to say you can never predict anything about Anne Manon. I went in expecting to try to ask my questions, but I realised I’d left my notebook in the car. That’s what happens when you’re sleep deprived.

  I was actually a little early. The home help was still there. Anne had him busy, hoovering and polishing the windows. Nice young lad. He seemed a bit star-struck when she told him who I was. There were biscuits out, Bourbons and Jammie Dodgers. I felt myself welling up just seeing that. Like I said, I’ve had very little sleep.

  If she’s doing that for me it means she values my friendship as much as I value hers. Next time I’ll bring a gift. That’s why recording this will help. It’ll make sure I don’t forget.

  I told Anne about the insomnia, the dreams. The orange lights, the roaring that wakes me up, soaked in sweat. I nearly asked her what it meant. But I know what it means. It means I’ve gone too deep into this.

  I also told her about the tapping at the front door a few days ago; and how I thought someone was knocking on the window last night.

  I laughed, but she didn’t.

  She said she understood.

  Maybe that’s all I needed – someone to understand. Someone to smile and offer me a Bourbon. Someone who doesn’t think I’m losing it.

  Another funny thing was that I felt myself getting a bit choked up. It was as if I was finally letting something go.

  Anne was asking about me, so I found it was me who was doing most of the talking. It’s only fair that Anne knows a bit about her new friend.

  I wondered how she’d react when I was telling her about my life. Our upbringings were chalk and cheese. In fact, I felt a bit guilty telling her about what I remember from being a child. Which, to be fair, isn’t that much. I’ve never really looked back that hard. And it was difficult to remember a lot of it. Anne told me it’s the same for her. She remembers nothing of her real parents – nothing about the days before they sent her away. She says it’s probably some sort of defence she’s built up.