The Winter's Child

by Cassandra Parkin

  “Bonnie lass, your new mate, eh?” He gives me a wink, then chucks Jackie under the chin. “Wouldn’t swap you, though. Right, I’m off back to it. I’ll see you at teatime.” He pushes his bristly face into Georgie’s and gobbles at her skin until she shrieks, then kisses roughly at Jackie’s mouth. When he passes me in the narrow hallway, his body presses hard against mine.

  It doesn’t matter. I’m here for Jackie, not for Lee, and Jackie, I can see, is crumbling. I take Georgie wordlessly from her arms and jiggle her gently around, murmuring nonsense into her ear, pointing at whatever I can see to catch her attention – look at that mirror, look at that pretty girl in the mirror, look at that glass in the door, can we see through it, no we can’t can we because it’s all wiggly – so that Jackie can turn her face away from her daughter and hide the silent howl that contorts her face, stretching her mouth wide and ugly and scrunching up her eyes, as she once again buries the hope that has been treacherously raised within her heart.

  “Give her here,” Jackie says at last, reaching out rude impetuous arms for her daughter. I pass Georgie silently over, knowing that the roughness, the rudeness, are part of the process of pulling herself back together. Jackie sniffs hard at the top of Georgie’s head, smiles at me over the top of it. “Thanks. That’s better. Go in there and I’ll make a cuppa.”

  I follow her pointing finger into the lounge. The suite is black leather. The chair with the prime view of the television has today’s Daily Mail resting on the arm. I choose the sofa instead, taking off my coat and gloves and laying them neatly down. The tinny sound of next door’s daytime television choice comes through the wall. Over the mantelpiece is a photograph of Jackie and Lee on their wedding day. The tightly-corseted strapless dress, beaded and boned and unforgiving, clings like a crust to Jackie’s tiny bronzed shape. A Tinkerbell tattoo peeks out between the satiny laces. Jackie comes back into the living room, expertly dangling Georgie from one hip and with a bottle of formula in her hand.

  “Need to get this one her milk or she’ll not give us any peace,” she explains. “D’you mind feeding her while I make us a drink?”

  I take Georgie into my arms and cradle her against me. Her mouth opens wide and champs vigorously onto the bottle. One sturdy fist thwacks me hard in the breast. I ignore the pain and focus on the satisfaction of seeing the bulging greed in her eyes melt into a blissful milky haze. She’s not a conventionally pretty baby, but she’s strong and powerful, she knows what she wants, and what could be better for a girl than that?

  “Make sure you burp her halfway or she’ll whinge all afternoon.” Jackie’s back in the room again, quick and sudden in the way you can only be when you live somewhere small. I can hear the low rumble of the kettle as it comes to the boil. “And grab that muslin there, she pukes a bit sometimes.”

  I sit Georgie up and rub her back. A giant bubble of milky air escapes. When she lies back down, the frantic gulping is replaced with long, lazy pulls. Her eyelids flutter shut.

  “Did you see the appeal on the news the other night?” Jackie asks.

  “Yes. Did it do any good? Did they get anything?”

  “Yeah. They got summat all right. That’s why I wanted to see you so bad.”

  For a moment, I’m engulfed by a black clot of envy.

  “But that’s great,” I make myself say. “What did they find out? Who came forward?”

  “It’s not great at all. It’s awful. I can’t even tell you how awful.”

  “My God, what happened?”

  “They rang us up this morning, the coppers I mean. You know the way they do. Can you both just come in for a chat, just a few questions we want to ask you. Well, Lee wasn’t very happy cos he was supposed to be working this morning, but I put my foot down, so we both went down together. Took us into separate rooms, just like always, and they started off going through all the details of what happened when I realised Ry was missing, just like always. You know how it is, going over the same stuff you’ve been through a million times already? But I didn’t mind cos I thought this is obviously just what they have to do, maybe they didn’t remember what I said last time. I was almost bored, you know? Maybe that’s what they wanted. To get me off my guard and that. Because then it all suddenly started to change.” She wipes the end of her nose with her hand, and reaches for Georgie. “Come here, I’ll take her. She’s due for a nap anyway. Aren’t you, little monkey? Hey? Who’s Mummy’s little monkey? Little horror, aren’t you? Yes. But I love you anyway. Yes, I do.”

  On the other side of the wall, the neighbour’s programme has come to an end. We hear the bright blare of the theme music, followed by a loud advertisement for kitchen cleaner.

  “So anyway. They suddenly started going on and on about my phone. When you went out to look for Ryan, did you have your phone with you? And can you remember if you made any calls while you were out? And did anyone call you that you can remember? So I said, yes, I had my phone, and I’d called Ry a couple of times, and he didn’t answer and no one called me, because that’s what I could remember. And then they asked me if I knew about location services, where your phone tracks where you go, and I said, yes of course I knew, everyone knows about that. And they said… they said… oh, God—”

  She takes a deep breath. A new programme starts. Rapturous applause, and then a man berating another man, his voice angry and hectoring.

  “They’d had our phones off us. That was almost the first thing they did,” she says. “They just asked for them and we handed them over I’m sure they said what they wanted them for but I wasn’t listening. And they got out this file, and in it they had details showing where our phones had been. They showed me Lee’s first, and it showed him going into town, driving round a bit, hanging round at the office, then coming back to ours about three, all what he’d said he did. I was acting interested, trying to be polite and that. And then… and then they showed me what mine showed. And according to my phone, I came home from my mam’s like I said, and I dropped Georgie with a friend down the road, and then I came back home, just to check if Ry had come back while I was gone. And then I didn’t go out again.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything. Does it? Just that you forgot your phone.”

  “Well, that’s what I said! I must have forgotten my phone. And then just imagined that I’d called Ry while I was out looking. I mean, I’d been that mithered with trying to sort out someone to have Georgie for me, get her bag sorted out and that, and even then I was starting to worry about where Ry was, it’s not really a surprise I forgot it. It doesn’t look good though, does it? Do you often forget to take your phone with you? Why would you forget your phone when your son was potentially missing and your daughter was being looked after by someone else? It’s just a bit strange that you wouldn’t check you had it with you, isn’t it? On and on and on.”

  In Jackie’s arms, Georgie has fallen asleep. Her arms hang limp and a fat dribble of milk sits at the corner of her mouth.

  “And then,” Jackie continues, “they started in on this other thing. Had I been to East Park while I was out looking? And I was dead confused, because of course I hadn’t been to East Park. I mean, apart from anything else, it would have taken me about an hour each way to walk! And then they told me someone had come forward after the appeal.”

  This must be what was in Nick’s mind this morning. I refuse to let myself shiver. “So what did they say?”

  Jackie’s hand tightens for a moment around Georgie’s plump white thigh.

  “It was some woman, I think. I don’t know who but I don’t suppose it matters really. Anyway. This woman. She said she’d remembered that on the day Ry went missing, she was at East Park. Out for a run, I think she said. And she saw a lad who looks like him getting into a car. She remembered cos he was crying and she thought it was funny to see a lad his age crying in public. And there was someone who looked like me – a woman, she said, slim with long dark hair – making him do it. A dark blue saloon car. That’s what she s
aw. And that’s what Lee’s taxi is. A dark blue saloon.”

  In the silence of the living room, we hear the sound of applause like a sudden shower of rain.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I say at last. “They can’t have it both ways. You can’t have been at home in your house waiting for Ryan, and also at East Park making him get in a car.”

  “No, you don’t get it,” says Jackie. “That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying I might have left my phone at home on purpose, so it wouldn’t give me away. And then found where Ryan was somehow. And took Lee’s taxi to East Park. Maybe with Lee, maybe without him, I don’t know. Please, you can’t tell anyone about this. Not anyone.”

  “Of course I won’t.”

  “And you know what the worst bit was? They must have known about my phone for weeks. All this time they’ve been sat on that little bit of information, letting me tell them over and over, yes, I took it with me when I went out so I could keep calling Ry while I was looking, yes I’m sure, and the whole time they knew it was wrong. And they never said a word! Not until it suited them. I thought they were on my side, you know? And instead they’ve been biding their time and trying to catch me out.”

  I fumble for something to say. “Did they talk to Lee as well?”

  “Yeah, all morning, he had to miss work and everything. He was fuming with them. That’s why he’s working this afternoon. Trying to make up.”

  “How does he feel about it?”

  “He wasn’t bothered really. He says he doesn’t care what they think cos he knows he didn’t do owt and I should stop worrying, they’ll cotton on it wasn’t me or him in the end.”

  “And he’s right,” I say, making my voice as firm and brisk as I can. “Forgetting what you did with your phone doesn’t mean anything. Nobody ever remembers everything exactly how it happened, nobody. And the woman at East Park made a mistake, that’s all. They’ll realise you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “But what if they don’t? What happens then? What if he’s still out there somewhere and they’ve not found him?”

  “It’ll be all right,” I tell her, because what else can I say?

  “But it won’t be all right, will it?” Jackie’s face is very hard and set. “It won’t ever be all right, not for either of us. Nothing’s ever going to be right for us ever again. This is how it is from now on, isn’t it? Not right ever again.”

  We sit in the tiny living room and watch Georgie twitch and snore on Jackie’s lap, and listen to the sounds of the television coming through the wall.

  Chapter Nine

  Wednesday 16th November 2011

  For all of us, there are certain details that infallibly recall the sensation of being young and powerless. For me, it’s the particular cluster of stimuli hovering in the corridor by the headmaster’s office. The scent of rubber-soled shoes, of dust and ink and paper. The sunlight creeping thinly in through too-short curtains that are never closed, and glinting gently off the trophy cabinet, where a wooden shield, nailed over with smaller metal shields, proclaims the annual winners of the House Championship, has not been updated since 1996. The single twist of tinsel twined across the cabinet, that may be a relic from last Christmas or may be all they can be bothered to put up for this one. The hum and chatter of office staff in the background. The scrape of chair legs against well-worn parquet flooring. The taste of fearful anticipation in my mouth. Does John feel this too? I can’t tell. He’s better at hiding his feelings than I am. Without looking, he reaches for my hand and gives it a brief reassuring squeeze.

  “Joel? Sweetie?”

  Joel’s a huddled lump beneath the duvet, even his head invisible beneath the covers. He acknowledges me not by emerging but by creeping further inside his cocoon, pulling the ends underneath to seal himself completely away. I sit down on the bed and pat gently at the place where I guess his back must be.

  “You’ll be late for school.”

  From within the duvet cover, I hear a faint whimper of protest, like a small hurt animal.

  “What’s the matter? You can tell me.”

  No reply. I put my arms around the bundle of boy-child hidden away beneath the folds. Patting and stroking, I begin to feel my way into his shape. He’s turned himself right around in the bed and is lying on his right side, long arms and legs folded into the core of himself like a chick waiting to hatch. I can feel his tense misery even through the duvet.

  “Won’t you feel better if you tell me?” A faint movement as he shakes his head. “All right. I guess we’re just going to be here for a while, then, hey?”

  The room smells fusty and boyish, the scent of teenage years that is supposed to be repulsive but that I can’t bring myself to dislike. I like the reminder that my son, despite everything, continues to grow and thrive, the processes of his body unlocking and unfolding even as his head buzzes and chatters with mysterious rages and unfounded fears. Nonetheless, I open the curtains and then the window, letting in the breeze from the garden and the faint sound of morning traffic from the distant dual carriageway. Then I climb onto the bed and fit myself around Joel’s bundled form.

  Time passes. It’s peaceful in this room. My breathing begins to synchronise with Joel’s. When he was small we’d lie like this for hours, drifting between sleeping and waking, doing nothing together in the sunshine. I’m not falling asleep exactly, but I’m reaching the place where reality begins to blend with my mind’s creations to turn the room fantastical. An apple tree sprouts in the doorway, and its scent breathes over us both. A bird perches beside us and tugs speculatively at the cover. As the bird becomes my own hand, the top of Joel’s head emerges and I smile in triumph.

  “So what’s the matter?” I whisper.

  “I’m scared,” Joel whispers back. His eyes are shut. He can never tell me his problems with his eyes open.

  “What of? What’s happening that’s scary?”

  “Other kids.” Another thing about Joel in distress; he’ll only release the smallest fragments of truth at a time. To understand the whole picture I must become a combination of artist and detective, trying out solutions to complete the parts he cannot bear to tell me.

  “Other kids. Which ones? In your tutor group?” Silence. “In some of your classes?” A faint quiver. “The classes you have today?” I close my eyes and try to recall Joel’s timetable, pinned on the corkboard in the kitchen. “Maths? Science? PE? English? PSE?”

  “All,” Joel whispers, and takes my hand.

  My heart hurts. His body is thirteen but he remains so childish. Five years from now he’ll be an adult, free to choose his own truths and consequences. I will protect him for as long as I can.

  “And what are they doing? Are they hurting you? Taking your stuff? Calling you names?”

  “Weird,” Joel mutters.

  “They call you weird? Oh, sweetie.” I kiss the hand that clutches tightly to mine, the greasy blond hair that I long to wash and then brush smooth and soft. “But you don’t have to listen to them, do you? Can’t the teachers help?”

  “Hit,” Joel says, and ducks back beneath the duvet cover.

  “They hit you?”

  “Mr and Mrs Harper.” Mr Elliott’s smile is carefully calibrated to build rapport but not friendship, allowing for the possibility that we may end up not on the same side. John responds in kind, taking the offered hand and shaking it firmly, letting Mr Elliott know that they are equals. My own instinct is to ingratiate myself. To use my smile to make this man want to impress me, and then to subtly let him know that he can achieve this by making school an easier, gentler place for Joel.

  This has worked well enough in the past, but I don’t dare do it in front of John. John thinks Joel needs a firm hand, not the treatment I call ‘being understanding’ and he despairingly calls ‘smothering’. The same argument we’ve been having since Joel first went to playgroup. They say the secret of successful parenting is to be united, but what are you supposed to do when you kn
ow in your bones that your partner is wrong?

  “Okay, fella.” John arrives like a tornado, slamming the window shut, whirling up the duvet cover into the air and down into a corner, tearing Joel from my arms. “Enough of this. Come on. Out of bed.” Joel’s skinny teenage body is exposed. John grabs him beneath his armpits and heaves briskly.

  “Stop it, you’re hurting him.”

  “He’s fine, aren’t you, fella? That’s it. Enough of this nonsense. On your feet. Now into the shower.” Joel looks up at John with huge frightened eyes. “What’s that dying-rabbit look for?”

  “I’m not going in,” Joel says. John shakes his head.

  “No, we’re not playing that game today. In the shower now. Go on.”

  Joel looks at me despairingly.

  “John.”

  “We’re not going to start with the not-going-in lark. Are we, fella?” John is trying to keep his tone light, but I can hear the worry in his voice. This is what breaks my will every time. What John does can sometimes look rough and unloving, and I’m almost certain it’s the opposite of what Joel needs, but he does it because he loves our son.

  “You can’t make me go.” It sounds like defiance but I can see it’s terror. Something at school has frightened Joel so badly he would rather cower under his duvet than go in to face it.

  “Afraid I can, fella.” The strained lightness is disappearing, replaced by something simpler and darker. “Get in the shower. Now.” Joel hesitates, looks at me. “Never mind trying to get round your mother. Just because she’s soft doesn’t mean I am. Shower. Now.”

  And because we all know John is the strongest of all of us, Joel squares his shoulders and creeps, step by reluctant step, towards the bathroom.

  “See? That’s all he needed.” John, unbelievably, looks satisfied, as if he’s solved a problem instead of making everything much worse. “You’re too soft with him, love.”