The Winter's Child

by Cassandra Parkin

  Then my muscles turn weak and whatever I’m holding onto falls away from me, and the mud is gone and now I can throw up, a great plume of vomit that arcs across the carpet like the spume of a whale, and I fall forward onto my hands and knees and gasp and choke and whoop and retch some more, letting gravity empty the vileness from my mouth, feeling as if I’m coughing up the contents of my whole body onto the carpet, and with each heave comes a splatter of words that ring in my ears:

  Mummy, where are you? Please help me. Where are you? I need you.

  At last the spasms pass and I can sit back on my heels, savouring how good it feels to breathe. Beside me on the floor, Scrap-dog lies quiet and innocent, his face turned enquiringly towards me as if he’s concerned and wants to help.

  What just happened? I have no idea. I only know that I’m icy cold, shivering as helplessly as if I’ve dragged myself from freezing water, and all I want to do is to crawl away and hide in my own bed until the warmth returns to my body. But Joel’s room is a vile, disgusting mess that must be cleaned before I do anything else.

  I force myself to my feet. My ears sing and soar as I stagger across the landing. The stairs look terrifyingly steep, so I sit down and shuffle slowly down on my behind, as if I’ve become either very young or very old. I’m glad there’s no one here to see. In the kitchen I rummage clumsily beneath the sink for the old washing-up bowl, cloths, carpet cleaner and yet more cloths. A plastic bag to throw things away in when I’ve finished. I creep back to the stairs and crawl up them on all fours. In the bathroom, I fill the bowl with hot water. I will myself not to slop it onto the floor.

  Scrap-dog is no longer on the floor. He’s back on the bed, nestled against the pillow.

  Scrap-dog is real, isn’t he, Mummy? Joel’s anxious little face, crumpled with that frown I hated to see, possessed by the worries that only came to him in that liminal space between wakefulness and sleep.

  Of course he’s real, silly. Look, he’s right here. See? I picked Scrap-dog up, made him kiss Joel’s cheek.

  No, but really real. No, no, no, I don’t mean real… alive. Scrap-dog is alive, isn’t he?

  Well, I say, slowly.

  Dad said he’s not really alive.

  Well, Dad… um… John is concerned that Joel, aged seven by the calendar but seeming much younger by any other measure, is in danger of getting lost in a fantasy world, setting more store by the affections of his stuffed toys than the friendship of his peers. But Joel’s eyes, so full of worry, make me want to tear John’s head off and shove it down his stupid clumsy neck. Well, it’s like this. Scrap-dog is alive in a different way to us. He’s alive in your imagination, and no one else can see Scrap-dog being alive, but it still counts. Okay? But Dad doesn’t want you to only play with Scrap-dog all the time, he wants you to have – I nearly said ‘real’ – human friends as well.

  But I like Scrap-dog best, Joel protests.

  You don’t have to choose with friends. You can have your human friends in the day, and Scrap-dog at night. Can’t you?

  Scrap-dog talks to me when I’m by myself, Joel tells me, and he jumps around and catches my feet. Look, he’s watching us talking now. He’s guarding me to make sure you’re a nice person. But he knows you’re safe. Scrap-dog won’t ever hurt you. And so convincing is the world that my son has created that, just for a minute, I imagine I see a glint of malice in Scrap-dog’s eyes, as if some hidden violence lies waiting beneath his fur.

  And now Scrap-dog sits on Joel’s bed like a sentry and watches me.

  I must have put it there myself. I don’t remember doing it but that’s what happened. There’s no way the dog could have moved by itself. It’s just a stuffed toy. Nonetheless I don’t like feeling its gaze on my back as I begin the hard, unpleasant task of cleaning my own filth from the carpet. Trying not to gag, I scoop up the congealing mess and drop the cloth and its contents into the plastic bag. It’s wasteful, I should rinse the cloth out and reuse it, but surely I will get away with this one small act of poor housekeeping. See, Scrap-dog? I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m being a good mother, cleaning up my son’s bedroom.

  I soak a new cloth in warm water and sponge carefully at what remains, beginning at the outside of the stain and working inwards, making sure not to grind it deeper into the pile of the carpet. I’m good at this, I like looking after things, even carpets. I won’t turn round and check to make sure Scrap-dog hasn’t moved. I’ll just concentrate hard on cleaning, and distract myself with memories. When John and I were first married, people were often surprised that I did all my own housework. You just look like the sort of person who’d have a cleaner, a colleague of John told me once, and in her strange clumsy words I recognised the compliment to my good looks and good grooming and instead of getting upset, I smiled and said that was very kind of her. Scrap-dog’s eyes bore into my back.

  I’m not turning around to check. I’m just stretching my back, and reaching for another cloth. It’s not my fault if my eyes happen to fall on Joel’s pillow. Where is Scrap-dog? I can’t see him. Has he moved? Where is he? I crane my neck. Has his head turned a little so he can keep an eye on me? Has his mouth opened in a snarl?

  Scrap-dog sits exactly where I last saw him, sprawled against the pillow. His face is blank and innocent. I return to the carpet, cleaning, cleaning, working slowly backwards towards the door. No matter how closely I look, I can find no trace of mud. The whole thing must have been a hallucination. But what does it mean? What does any of it mean? Scrap-dog’s face stares straight at mine, his stitched-on mouth fraying just a little at the corner, a long thread hanging down so he looks as if he’s contemplating something sad but beautiful. Where did he come from? What does it mean that he’s here?

  Scrap-dog must mean something. He hasn’t been seen since Joel disappeared, and now he’s back. But where has he been all this time? Is he a threat, or a warning?

  Of course I know he’s neither of these things. What he is, is a piece of evidence, a link in the long slow chain that leads back to Joel. He’s something Nick needs to take away in a plastic bag, to pass to the Forensics lab for inspection, analysis, perhaps even dissection. They won’t hurry. Joel’s been gone for so long now that the urgency has disappeared. Perhaps they won’t even bother. Perhaps they’ll decide Scrap-dog must have been tucked away in a corner of my linen cupboard, must have suddenly resurfaced in the way hidden possessions so often do. Nonetheless, I should call Nick, and let him come and take Scrap-dog away.

  Instead, I tiptoe over to the bed, pick Scrap-dog up by one ear, and carry him gingerly over to Joel’s sock drawer. One swift smooth movement, whip and drop and slam, and Scrap-dog has disappeared again. I collect my cleaning supplies and go to the bathroom to pour away the grimy water. The weakness in my legs has all but disappeared. When I go down the stairs, I don’t even need the handrail. By the time I get to the bottom step, I can tell myself that it was all in my head, that I was simply feeling queasy and the smell of the Pledge turned my stomach, and that if I were to look into Joel’s sock drawer, there would be no sign of Scrap-dog.

  By the time the carpet dries, I may even be able to put the whole incident from my mind entirely.

  Chapter Six

  Friday 9th November 2012

  Day One. We’ve entered Hell, but we don’t yet know it. On the table in the dining room sits the bright yellow one-eyed Minion plushy, shaped like a pill and dressed in dungarees that Joel won for me at the Fair. It’s the last thing he will ever give me. Beside it sits the fat bag of clumped-up green-brown shreds, their sweet herbal scent whispering treacherously of wholesomeness, that John discovered in Joel’s room. The argument it provoked was the last conversation we’ll ever have with him. This is Hell. But we don’t know it yet.

  I clear the table and remind myself to buy more milk later. I stack the dishwasher, finding comfort in the sound of things being made clean. I consider taking down the Christmas decorations from the attic and looking them over to see what needs rep
lacing, but decide I can’t face the dust today. I put Joel’s Minion on the mantelpiece, so he can peer out at us from his single innocent eye. The bag of weed I have no idea what to do with. Am I supposed to rid of it somehow? How does one dispose of illegal drugs? I can hardly throw it in the bin. I could flush it down the toilet, but it might clog the drains. I could take it to the police station and turn it in, but that would mean telling them where I got it and Joel’s already on his last chance. And what about John? What will he think if I get rid of it? Will he accuse me of covering up for Joel?

  I settle for hiding the weed in the dresser. The drawer’s already full and as I push it shut, the bag splits, releasing a strong sweet scent that makes me flinch. I light a scented candle to disguise it. The name of the scent is Clean Cotton; exactly the scent you’d expect someone like me to choose. Is it strong enough to mask the smell of the weed? I can’t tell.

  When the dining table is clear and wiped down, I make myself a cup of coffee and sit down. Normally I would be cleaning the bathroom at this time, but today I feel I’ve earned the right to take a break. I sit with my coffee and consider what I imagine has been a difficult morning and think about all the things I wish I didn’t have to deal with.

  I wish John hadn’t gone through Joel’s room again. I wish John was here instead of at the hospital, so he could tell me what we ought to do about the bag of weed. I wish he’d let me go after Joel this morning. I wish my life was easier. Because this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to survive, I believe this is as bad as things can ever be. I’ve been made soft and lazy, my heart fat and tender with too many years of love.

  Day One continues. Nothing happens to warn me of the events that have already begun to unfold, like a paper flower dropped into water, like a cocoon hatching a tightly-folded monster. It’s Melanie’s day off, so we meet for lunch and we sit in the window of a chic little bar-restaurant in the Avenues. The décor subtly encourages an early start to festive excess (Plan your Party season with us, murmurs the sign in the window, and the tall plant in the corner already wears its twinkly lights in token of the season). The menu, however, is composed almost entirely of food for women like me – white fish, smoked salmon, slenderly shredded chicken, roasted vegetables, seeds of various kinds – with a token dish of steak and chips for husbands. If I could know the nights and days I have ahead of me, I would forget all pretence of dainty dieting and instead choose this strong savage dish of red meat and fried carbohydrates; I would order it rare and eat it with my fingers, letting the juices run down my chin, filling me with strength. Lacking the terrible gift of foresight, I remember the dress I’ve bought for John’s Christmas party and order the chicken salad and leave most of the dressing in its cup, allowing myself only a token drizzle across the rocket, the chard and the radicchio. I resist the temptation to order a small glass of white wine.

  Melanie looks tired but blooming. She says she’s bored at work and ready for something new. When she reaches for her glass of sparkling water, I glimpse a grey elasticated band two fingers below the wrist-joint. These scraps of information click together in my mind, pricking me with envy. I brace myself for Melanie to tell me her news, but she says nothing. I wonder how many more weeks I have left to practice putting on my happy face. Perhaps she and Richard will announce it over presents and fruit cake on Christmas afternoon, and John will exclaim with pleasure and insist on opening champagne. I remind myself that my fertility exists independent of Melanie’s; however much it feels like it, she has stolen nothing from me. The seconds and minutes tick by.

  I’m back at home, waiting for Joel. He’s normally in by half-past four, and I’ll steal a precious few minutes with him as he eats the snack I’ve made, before disappearing to his room to do homework, or else (more likely) to lose himself in a world peopled with orcs and wizards and elves. Today I’ve made him a crusty sandwich fat with deli meats and mayonnaise, the kind of sandwich only very young men can eat and still find room for dinner. Joel was slow to leave behind the peachy tenderness of childhood, but now he stretches up like a green sapling, seemingly growing as I watch. His top lip has become fuzzed over with downy hairs that, to John’s frustration, he refuses to shave off. This is what I’m thinking about as the clock ticks towards a quarter to five, and the drip of mayonnaise on the plate begins to dry around the edges, and Joel does not come home.

  John returns late, just after half past eight, hungry and exhausted. Normally he’s greeted with wine, kisses, the scent of food cooking. Tonight I can serve up only my own pale frantic face, my wringing hands, the flood of words I’ve been holding back. Joel hasn’t come home. He walked out of school just before lunch. I missed the call. He hasn’t come home. Help me. Do something. Find him.

  Here’s what I want John to do: to be calm, to take control, to construct an orderly plan of how we are going to find Joel and bring him home immediately. Here’s what John actually does: to my fright and perplexity, he flies into an immediate and terrifying rage. What the hell were the school playing at, not making sure we knew Joel was truanting? What does he think he’s doing, the little shit? If he thinks disappearing for a few hours is going to get him off the hook, he’s got another bloody thing coming, that’s for sure. He, John, doesn’t need this after the day he’s had. He’s spent half the day watching people die and the other half trying to protect the team from budget cuts, he had to walk out of a meeting this afternoon he was so angry, he’s been driving round for hours trying to calm down. What do I think I’m doing, greeting him with this the second he walks through the door? Why are you being like this? I demand, my voice high and fragile like a little girl’s voice, and then I know the answer; John, like me, is terrified. Something has gone terribly wrong.

  I tell John I’ll ring the police. I want him to tell me he’ll do it. I want him to tell me we don’t need to call them at all. Instead he nods wearily and sits down at the table where Joel’s sandwich still waits for him. John reaches for it in a daze, eating in the thoughtless, mechanical way I’ve seen him do so many times before, just a body taking on fuel while the driver stares into the distance and waits for the tank to fill. I want to say, Don’t eat that, it’s for Joel! I want to say, How can you eat when our son’s missing?

  Two hours pass. I pace the house, round and round from one room to the next, beginning and finishing beneath the clock in the hall. Joel has been missing for nine and a half hours, but I have only known about it for five. Each time I come back to rest beneath the clock, I’m astounded to find that time has yet again moved on and the nightmare continues, and that somehow I’m not yet dead of terror or exhaustion, I still have the strength to pace and wait and listen for sounds. The sound of the gate. The sound of footsteps on the path. The sound of Joel’s key in the lock. One of these sounds has to happen soon.

  I see the patrol car pull up outside my house. Our neighbours will see it too, watching avidly from behind closed doors. I don’t care, and this frightens me, because that means I’m adapting to a terrible new reality where what the neighbours think is unimportant. I want to keep everything the same. I want to care what the neighbours will think. I want time to stop so I can catch my breath and regroup. I also want time to skip ahead to the moment of reunion, when all of this will dissolve in warmth and light and voices. Time won’t stop. Time never stops. Time keeps ruthlessly ticking by, no matter how badly you want to freeze it in place. The police come to the door.

  There are two of them, one older than me, one about my age. The one about my age is Nick, although it will be months before I know him by his first name. We look at each other.

  For a fraction of a second, before we both remember who we are and why we’re meeting in my hallway like this, time stops.

  The panic has not truly begun to set in yet, but the search has begun. Everything is real and official now, as the swirl of possibility solidifies into recorded fact. Joel is missing.

  The police are scarily efficient. They take the details of Joel’s mobile
phone (make, model, payment plan, phone number, service provider), then ask for the names of Joel’s friends, and when I confess that I’m not sure, most of them are online, they take the names of the few I can produce, and casually agree between themselves that they’ll get the names from the lads themselves. (Why didn’t I think of this? Why didn’t I drive round to their houses and demand their phones and scroll through them and call every single contact they have? Because I’m weak and useless. But I’m learning. I’ll get better. I’ll find my son.) They ask if we’ve called Joel’s number, ignoring John’s irritation, and then call it themselves anyway, carefully walking the house and listening for a tell-tale ring or vibration. They make no apology for doing this.

  Within minutes they’ve split open the events of this morning, no drama or preparation, just a few quick questions and it’s all spilled out onto the carpet. Yes, we argued with Joel this morning. Yes, it was to do with drugs. Yes, we’ve known for a while that he’s been experimenting. Yes, he had drugs in the house, John found them in his room.

  Where are the drugs now? I go to the drawer and take out the burst bag. Shreds of weed fall out onto the carpet and a huge gust of laughter whooshes out of me, high and hysterical. Nick absorbs all of this with no sign of shock, taking the bag as naturally as if it’s a cup of tea or a bag of shopping. He makes it easy for us to share these things we think are shameful, making them routine and normal so I almost forget I’m telling a strange police officer my son is a criminal. They tell us the facts: most runaways come back of their own accord; the majority are found within forty-eight hours; the most likely explanation is that Joel is simply angry with us and is staying at a friend’s place. They advise us to try and get some rest, and leave.