The Perfect Son

by Lauren North

  It’s another job I’ll have to do myself. Another reminder that you’re never coming back.

  “They’re . . . they’re lovely,” Shelley whispers. “You all look so happy.” Shelley reaches for another album. Jamie 4–5 years is written on the label.

  “I’d forgotten about them,” I say as Shelley opens the pages.

  “I used to look at the albums of Dylan every day, but now they feel so distant from the boy he would be if he was here.”

  I reach out and touch the dark blue cover, feeling suddenly protective over the contents. It isn’t just Jamie in these photos, it’s you as well, us.

  Shelley sighs and places the album carefully in the box and shuts the lid. “You don’t have to look now.”

  “It’s OK. I think . . . I think I’d like to look at them, but maybe later. I’ll put them upstairs for now.”

  I scoop up the box, displacing a layer of dust, which floats in the air and tickles my nose. My mind is full of Shelley’s words and her own sadness over the death of her son. I’m halfway up the narrow back staircase when the phone rings. My body freezes mid-step, thoughts of Shelley forgotten. One ring, two rings, three rings and it stops.

  I breathe and start moving again. I hate that it’s another hang-up but at least it wasn’t the man with his scratching tone. He hasn’t called back since the other night and if it wasn’t for the message still saved on the answerphone I’d wonder if it was a dream or a sick joke.

  With the box tucked safely beside our bed, I head for the main stairs. Shelley’s voice carries through the house. It’s only when I reach the final step that I realize it’s not Jamie she’s talking to, but someone on the phone. The call wasn’t a hang-up. Shelley answered it.

  She’s talking to someone in the dining room as I make my way down the main staircase.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear Shelley say. “Tess is resting right now.”

  There’s a pause and I imagine the caller asking a question.

  “She’s doing brilliantly, all things considered. She’s having ups and downs, more downs at the moment. . . . I know, but she has your number and she’ll call you when she’s ready.”

  It’s Ian, I guess, taking a step and catching sight of Jamie hovering in the doorway of the dining room, wobbling his tooth with his index finger and waiting for Shelley to finish.

  “You’re a doctor, right?” Shelley says. “You must see this a lot. There is no single length of time or one way to grieve. However hard it is to understand, Tess doesn’t want to speak to anyone right now, and it’s important that you respect that and give her space.”

  Oh. She’s speaking to Sam, not Ian. I rush forward to tell Shelley it’s OK, that I can speak to Sam. Today has been a good day and I’d like to speak to my brother.

  “Will do. Bye,” Shelley says, placing the phone back into the holder as I make it to the doorway.

  I’m too late. Sam is gone.

  Shelley turns toward me, surprise playing on her face. “Tess, you made me jump again.”

  “Was that Sam?” I ask.

  “Yes. He wanted to see how you were. I told him you weren’t up to speaking to anyone right now.”

  “Oh . . . thanks.”

  She must see the disappointment in my face because then she says: “Was that the wrong thing?”

  “No, it’s fine,” I lie.

  “Sorry, Tess. It’s just you’ve said a few times that you want your mum and Sam to leave you alone for a bit. I thought it might help for them to speak to me. Sam was lovely, by the way. He’s just starting his shift, but you can always call him tomorrow.”

  “You’re right.” I nod. “Thank you.”

  “Why don’t we stop for the day? You look shattered.”

  Jamie nods and sidesteps us both, pointing at the living room and looking up at me with pleading eyes. “Can I play on the PlayStation?”

  “OK.” I smile at our boy.

  Shelley is right—I am tired, and what is stopping me from calling Sam tomorrow? Nothing.

  I’m about to suggest we head back to the garden for more tea and cake, but Shelley beats me to it. “I’d better head off. My walls still need another coat of paint and I can’t see Tim doing it.”

  “Oh . . . of course.”

  “Have you got any plans for Wednesday?” she asks.

  “Err . . . no.” I don’t have any plans, full stop.

  “I’m meeting a client in Manningtree. It’s not far from here and I thought we could meet for lunch.”

  “I know Manningtree,” I reply. “Mark took me there once just after we moved here. It’s pretty.”

  “It is, isn’t it? How about we meet at one thirty? I’ll be done way before that but I’ve got a few errands to run. We can have some lunch and potter around the gift shops.”

  I think of next week and the empty hours stretching out before me. “That sounds great. Can we make it twelve thirty though?” I ask, thinking of the school pickup and not wanting to be late.

  “Sure. I’ll do the errands afterward.”

  Shelley lifts her head and smiles at me and I feel her warmth cascading through me.

  “I’m looking forward to it already.” I return the smile.

  * * *

  —

  Later, when Jamie is sitting in bed, I squish up beside him and rest the photo albums, one at a time, half on my leg and half on Jamie’s so the pages are lopsided. We look through the albums with silent tears rolling down our faces.

  Every so often we smile though and laugh at something, like the shot of you dressed as Captain Hook for Jamie’s fourth birthday party. A fake beard hanging off your face, hands on hips, shoulders back, and grinning at the camera with ten little boys and girls sitting on the floor bawling their eyes out because they thought you were a real villain.

  It takes over an hour to go through them all, from that first photo of us in the hospital with Jamie cradled in my arms to the selfie of the three of us on Christmas day, in our matching Christmas jumpers, with the fairy lights on the tree glinting in the background making the photo seem somehow magical. That was the last photo you printed.

  It steals my breath seeing those albums. It tears open the wound of us just that little bit more.

  Oh, Mark. There were so many little things you did that made our lives so special, so full of laughter and love. How will I ever be strong enough to take on all of those things on top of everything else? Why did you get on the plane? Why didn’t you get the message and come home?

  I love you, Tessie.

  I love you too.

  CHAPTER 23

  Wednesday, March 7

  32 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY

  Manningtree is smaller than I remember from the time you took me for lunch last October. “You know you can’t drive to Chelmsford and back anytime you want to have your hair cut or see the dentist, Tessie?” you said with a grin on the way back from dropping Jamie off at his new school. You took my hand, giving it a squeeze because you knew that I was worried. Would Jamie make friends? Would he be bullied? Would he cry himself to sleep every night for weeks, begging us to move back to Chelmsford?

  “Let me show you the nearest town—Manningtree. It’s pretty. You’ll like it. It’s right on the River Stour as it makes its way out to sea. Plus it’s easier to park in Manningtree than the multi-stories in Colchester, and cheaper too. You can’t get everything from Amazon and Tesco,” you laughed.

  “Almost everything though,” I muttered, unsure whether I was annoyed that you’d found another excuse to avoid unpacking or pleased to be spending the day together. The latter won me over, and when you pulled me into the crook of your arm and kissed my cheek I smiled.

  I didn’t like the drive to Manningtree though. One narrow twisty lane, then another, and you bumping the car onto the bank and into the bushes anytime we met a c
ar coming the other way. I preferred driving on the A12 to Tesco, but lunch at the pizzeria overlooking the sailboats sloping to one side in the low-tide mud was nice.

  “You’ll get used to the lanes,” you said on the drive home, and maybe I will, but today my hands gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, and I spent the entire time hunched forward in my seat, barely scraping twenty miles an hour, praying a 4x4 didn’t tear around the bend ahead and send my little Focus toppling into a ditch. It didn’t help that there was a car right behind me the whole way. I could feel the impatience of the driver at every break and turn.

  I park in the main car park by the long concrete floodwall. It is chilly and a mist hangs in the air. Droplets of it cling to my hair, flattening my curls, and I pull my scarf closer to the bare skin on my neck.

  It feels good to be out after two days hauled up inside with the rain a constant spatter on the windowpanes, watching the Home Alone movies with Jamie after school and doing not much else.

  I should get out of the house more, out of the village. I see that now. The two trips down the lane to the school each day, the one trip to Tesco last week, and walking to the post office to send the letter to the phone company haven’t been enough.

  With the smell of the salty estuary sea carrying in the fresh wind, the house feels like a dark and depressing place. Maybe I’ll walk along the river wall if there’s time after my lunch with Shelley before Jamie finishes school.

  The main high street is an odd mix of old and new. Quaint gift shops and tearooms, alongside a kebab shop and hairdresser’s. There’s a market across the road—half a dozen stalls selling cleaning products, fruit and veg, and women’s clothes.

  I turn right opposite the library with its white Georgian facade and find myself on a cobbled street that curves down to the wide, sandy banks of the river. Seagulls swoop and screech high above my head.

  The café Shelley suggested for lunch is halfway down on the right-hand side, tucked at the end of an alley no wider than a doorway. If it wasn’t for the handwritten chalkboard advertising homemade lasagna at the Honey Pot Café, I would’ve walked straight past.

  I hug my bag a little tighter and glance over my shoulder before I step down the passageway and into a shadowed courtyard. There’s a tattoo parlor dead ahead, and two businesses on either side. To my left is a small New Age gift shop with dream catchers dangling in the window above silver skulls and fat Buddha statues. The smell of the river is gone, replaced by the musky scent of sandalwood incense drifting from the gift shop. The Honey Pot Café is on the right.

  When I step through the door, a bell tinkles above my head and I’m hit by the smell of fresh brewed coffee and bacon. The place is small, with a dozen tables covered in gingham tablecloths. The kitchen is at the back behind a long counter covered with cakes and scones and muffins and cookies. Jamie would love it here.

  The heat from the oven and the steamy windows adds a coziness to the place, and it must be good food, because there’s not a single table free.

  “The breakfast rush is just finishing,” a woman in a black apron says as she shimmies between the tables, carrying four plates heaped with all the trimmings of an English breakfast. It’s your kind of place too, Mark. “I should have a few tables free in about ten minutes. Is that OK?”

  I nod and check the time. It’s only ten to twelve. “I’m early anyway. I’ll come back.”

  “Grand,” she replies, puffing a loose strand of hair away from her face as she turns and starts gathering empty plates from a group of workmen—decorators, I guess by their paint-spattered overalls.

  Back in the cold courtyard I dither for a moment, racking my brain for a purpose, something to fill the next forty minutes. There must be things I need from the shops, but my mind is a blank page.

  It’s only when I’m out of the alley, with the gray daylight hurting my eyes, that I catch someone watching me.

  CHAPTER 24

  The figure is in a doorway across the cobbled road. At first it’s little more than a shadow in the corner of my vision. And if it wasn’t for the shiver traveling through my body, and the sudden jerking movement as the man backs out of sight, I probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all.

  Every part of me freezes. I don’t breathe, I don’t move. The last few seconds replay in my mind as my eyes fix on the now-empty doorway. Did I imagine it? There’s a flight of concrete steps and a buzzer system on the wall. It looks like the entrance to flats or small offices.

  Time passes, a few seconds, enough for my mind to start to question what I saw, and I catch my breath. It was a deliveryman or an office worker waiting for the door to buzz so he could go inside. That’s all.

  Except I’m not sure.

  I give the pockets of my coat a pat as if I might’ve forgotten something and turn back in the direction of the alley. At the last second I whip around to face the doorway, expecting to see it empty, expecting this feeling tightening in my gut to be a figment of my imagination.

  It isn’t.

  He’s back, staring right at me. His face is just a shadow beneath a black baseball cap, but I feel his eyes on me and the scream building in my throat.

  The man moves a fraction further into the light, a fraction closer to me. He’s wearing black jeans and a dark hoody. He is staring right at me. I stagger back and he moves again, walking toward me. My old winter boots slip on the wet cobblestones as I turn and run toward the main high street. The alley is a dead end, the side street is empty, but if I can make it to the main road then surely I’ll be safe among the shoppers.

  My heart is raging like the hooves of a bull stampede inside my body but even so I hear his footsteps tap tap tapping on the stones behind me. Five paces, four paces, he’s gaining on me and I burst into a sprint, dashing the final meters and half throwing myself into the passing shoppers, all the while expecting to feel the weight of a hand on my coat pulling me back.

  “Watch it,” a woman’s voice shouts in my ear as I knock into someone.

  I look up and see a young mother with a pushchair. One of her shopping bags has fallen to the ground and the toddler in the pushchair has dropped a packet of crisps, spraying the contents to the damp sidewalk.

  “I’m so sorry,” I gasp.

  I force my gaze back to the cobbled street, but it’s empty. I look around and around, scouring the street for any sign of the man. I can’t see him, but I can feel his watching eyes tickling the hairs on the back of my neck.

  I duck into a greeting card shop with helium balloons floating in the windows. I shuffle around and face the door before moving further into the shop. My eyes are glued to the street outside as I wait to see who is following me.

  Where did he come from? How did he know I was here? Did he follow me from the village? I try to remember the make of the car behind me on the lane but I can’t even be sure of the color. I think it was blue.

  “May I help you?” The voice startles me like a prod in the small of my back. I yelp, dancing sideways, almost toppling over a rickety magazine display rack. My hands grab the creaking frame at the final moment and steady its base on the floor.

  “Here, let me,” the shop assistant says, stepping out from the counter and shifting the stand to one side. “I’ve been telling them for weeks that this thing is in the way, but no one ever listens to me.”

  The woman clasps her hands together and stands before me. There is a stiffness to the way she is holding herself that reminds me of my mother and I wonder if she’s in the first stages of arthritis. Her hair is white and cut close to her scalp and the thick lenses of her red-framed glasses magnify her eyes so when she looks at me it’s as though she might be able to see right into my thoughts.

  “What’ll it be?” she asks, like I might order a glass of wine and a packet of crisps.

  “Oh . . . I . . .” My eyes move to the window and the empty street beyond, then back to t
he shop and the display racks stuffed with cards. “I . . . I need a birthday card for my son,” I stammer, surprised I can speak at all.

  “How nice. Well, our children’s cards are over here,” she says, striding deeper into the shop. “How old will he be?”

  “Eight.” I follow the woman, glad to be moving away from the window.

  “Here you are then.” She waves her hand over two rows of cards, more colorful than the others on display. “I’ll leave you to have a look.”

  I flick a final glance back at the empty street before focusing on the display. The cards, like the shop itself, are dated. There are no character cards, no Star Wars or Spider-Man, nothing Jamie would like, but I stand and stare for a long time anyway, picking up each one in turn before sliding it carefully back into its slot, killing time.

  My phone hums in my bag. I dig through the pockets and pull it free. Shelley’s name flashes on the screen.

  “Hi,” I say in a whisper.

  “Hey, Tess, I’m just parking. Are you in town yet?” Shelley’s voice bounces in my ear.

  “I’m in a card shop opposite the library.”

  “Are you all right? You sound weird.”

  “It’s . . . I’m . . . I think . . . I mean I know—someone is following me.”

  “What?” Shelley gasps. “Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m shaken up.” Scared out of my wits.

  “Stay on the line and don’t move. I’m a minute away.”

  Nausea tumbles in my stomach. I close my eyes and fight the urge to throw up.

  “Should I call the police?”

  “Wait until I get there. OK?”

  I nod and inch toward the window so I can watch the street for Shelley. The phone is pressed to my ear and I can hear her breath in the microphone and the rustling sound of her movements. It reminds me of the man with the gravelly voice who called in the middle of the night. “I told you at the start of all this that I’m not a patient man.”