The Child Inside

by Suzanne Bugler

  ‘Jono hasn’t come home.’ My voice is as clumpy and splintered as old wood. ‘I wondered if Oliver knew anything, if he said anything—’

  ‘Doesn’t Jonathan go home on the bus?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But he didn’t come home. I thought Oliver might know—’

  ‘Well, did you phone the school?’

  ‘Yes, of course I did. Look, please, if you’d just ask him—’

  ‘Really, Rachel, I don’t think Oliver is going to know where Jonathan is. Shouldn’t Jonathan tell you if he is going to be late home?’

  She is telling me off. She is criticizing me as a mother. I feel the blood rush into my head, but there is no time to waste.

  ‘We . . . had a row,’ I say.

  And she says, ‘Oh.’ And then, ‘Wait just a minute.’

  I hear her lay down the phone. She can’t want me to hear what she says to Oliver, or she’d have taken the phone with her. I hear her footsteps disappear down the hall, and then someone starts playing the piano, practising their scales. Up and down the keys go, up and down. I follow the notes and I think my head will explode. ‘Come on,’ I plead into the phone. ‘Come on.’

  After an age I hear her heels again, tapping against the tiles.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rachel,’ Amy says. ‘Oliver hasn’t spoken to Jonathan at all today. To be honest,’ she adds, tactfully, hurt-fully, ‘I don’t think they are quite as much friends as they used to be. Why don’t you try some of his other friends? Perhaps one of them might know something.’

  Who are Jono’s friends? I stare at the names on the class list and I hardly know any of them. I think of the boys who came bowling for Jono’s birthday; were any of them really his friends? I think of them putting pepper all over his pizza for a laugh, and how they clubbed together in their little groups. I think of how hard he tried to join in.

  What about that boy Luke that I took Jono to see in Weybridge? I run a shaking finger down the list, find his number and key it in. A teenage girl answers the phone.

  ‘Is your mother there?’ I ask.

  And she says, ‘No.’

  ‘Is Luke there?’

  ‘No,’ she says again.

  ‘Do you know where they are?’

  ‘Don’t know. Someone’s house, I think.’

  ‘Well, do you know when they’ll be back?’

  ‘No.’

  It is nearly seven o’clock. Jono should have been home before five.

  I have phoned every number on Jono’s class list. Like a robot I have asked, Does your son know if Jonathan Morgan was doing anything after school today?

  They all said no.

  Once, Janice didn’t come home from school. She was fourteen and had had a huge fight with my parents, because they wouldn’t let her go to the disco at Ashcroft Youth Club because it was on a school night, and older boys went to the youth club. But that was exactly why Janice wanted to go – because of the older boys. So on the Thursday that the disco was on she simply didn’t come home from school. I remember kneeling on the chair by the living-room window and anxiously watching out for her. We had shepherd’s pie for tea that night, and I remember prodding miserably at the mashed potato, unable to eat with Janice’s place at the table so starkly vacant, while my parents sat there po-faced, not even commenting on her absence. They certainly didn’t seem worried.

  Soon after it got dark Janice came sloping up the front path. She hadn’t gone to the disco; she’d been hiding up the end of our road beside someone’s garage. I was so relieved to see her that I didn’t even mind it when she told me to get lost. My parents didn’t bat an eyelid at her return. They acted as if they hadn’t even noticed she was gone. She’d missed her tea; that was her punishment.

  They knew she hadn’t gone far. They knew she’d be home soon enough.

  But how had they known?

  Panic spreads and chills inside me, iced water seeping through my veins.

  I have to call the police, and yet to do so is to acknowledge that Jono might not come walking up the path at any minute; it makes the fear too real. And once I make the decision that I will call the police I know that I should have done it sooner; I should have done it straight away, when he was ten minutes late, not two hours. Anything could have happened. Anything. In deadly clarity I see Jono’s body being dredged from the river; I see him slumped under a railway bridge with a gash on his head; I see him glancing over his shoulder as he boards a train – gone, gone.

  The number for the police station is on a Neighbourhood Watch leaflet, stuck in the letter rack in the kitchen. My fingers fumble and shake as I dig it out, scattering business cards and unpaid bills everywhere. It takes me three attempts to key in the number, and then I lean against the table with the phone jammed against my ear and my heart racing.

  The phone is picked up straight away; first there’s a voice message, then I’m speaking to a person, then I’m put through to another person, all within fast, terrifying seconds. They’re taking details: Jono’s name, his height; the colour of his hair, his skin and his eyes; the clothes that he’s wearing, the way he carries his bag. I describe him and I can see him, so clearly I can see him. I see his head turning away, the misery in his eyes.

  ‘We’ll put a call out straight away,’ the woman on the phone says. A police officer will be with you very soon.’

  And because she says this, I convince myself that they will find Jono. A police car will shortly pull up outside, with Jono in the back of it. This is what she means, I tell myself. That they will find him from my description and he will with me again soon.

  And so I feel a brief, surreal reprieve. A moment of false calm, like the silence of the birds before a storm, or the pulling back of a wave. They will find Jono lurking at the end of the road; they will bring him back. And while I wait for this to happen I phone Janice’s flat again, and I am angry this time that Andrew doesn’t answer, that he has just walked away from us – from Jono – and is too wrapped up in his own self-pity to care what might be happening here. It is with anger, too, that I finally get through to Janice on her mobile.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ I demand the moment she answers. ‘I’ve been ringing you for hours.’

  ‘I’ve been in a meeting,’ she says coldly. ‘You know, at work.’

  ‘Where’s Andrew?’

  And she says, ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Because he’s staying with you’

  ‘He’s staying in my flat,’ she says, her voice tight with hostility. ‘That doesn’t mean I’m his keeper.’

  ‘I’ve been phoning your flat,’ I say. ‘He won’t answer.’

  ‘Well, maybe he doesn’t want to speak to you. You don’t seem to understand how upset he is.’

  I walk to the front of the house on soft, jelly legs and stand by the window. Any second now the police car will pull up, with Jono in the back of it. Any second now. ‘I need to speak to him,’ I say and my voice cracks. ‘Jono hasn’t come home.’

  ‘What do you mean he hasn’t come home?’

  ‘From school.’

  I hear Janice’s footsteps echoing on the hard corridor floor as she walks; I hear the heavy sound of her breathing. There is a slamming sound as she pushes open a door and then she is outside; I hear the distant sound of traffic and the crackle of the wind against her phone.

  ‘What time does he normally get home?’ she asks at last.

  ‘About five,’ I say. I mean, what time does she think?

  ‘He’s probably gone round a friend’s then, hasn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He hasn’t.’ My teeth are chattering now, like joke teeth, rattling as I talk. ‘He was upset.’

  ‘Well . . . Do you think you should call the police or something?’

  ‘I have. They’re coming round. Janice, I need to speak to Andrew.’

  She sighs. ‘I was supposed to be going straight out,’ she mutters, as if I am just such an inconvenience. ‘Okay. I’ll go home and tell Andrew to r
ing you.’

  Trance-like, I watch the cars drive past my house; people coming home from work, people going out. I watch as the police car pulls up outside my neighbour’s house, then reverses along the kerb. Two people get out; a policeman and a policewoman. But not Jono.

  ‘You haven’t found him,’ I blurt out as I open the door.

  ‘Mrs Morgan?’ the policeman says. ‘Can we come in?’ And they usher me into my own living room. The woman sits next to me on the sofa, the man opposite, on the chair. They introduce themselves as Tim and Karen, as if there is the need for first name-terms, as if we are to be together, for a long time.

  And suddenly it is official.

  ‘All the patrol cars have been radioed,’ Karen tells me kindly. ‘If he’s out there, we’ll find him.’

  The hairs on my neck shoot out on end. ‘What do you mean, if he’s out there?’

  ‘Is there anywhere you can think of that he might have gone? Any favourite places, any friends who might know where he is?’

  ‘I’ve phoned his friends. I’ve phoned everyone I could think of.’

  ‘Could we have those phone numbers?’ she asks, and I have the list right there, on the arm of the sofa, where I left it. ‘And we’ll need the contact details of his school, any family, grandparents—’

  ‘Are you going to call his grandparents?’ I think of my mum and dad; they’ll be pottering about after their supper. Clearing away the dishes perhaps, settling down to watch TV. I think of Lois, sitting in her sickly pink living room with nothing but a cat for company, and all of Jono’s school photos lined up in their frames above the gas fire.

  ‘Would you prefer to tell them yourself first?’ Karen says.

  ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ How can I tell them? What can I tell them?

  ‘And what about Jonathan’s father?’ Karen asks.

  ‘He – I’ve been trying to ring him. All day. He’s at my sister’s. We – had a row.’

  I see her glance at Tim. And then she stands, and walks over to the fireplace. ‘Is this Jonathan?’ she asks, picking up the photo of the three of us from the mantelpiece. It’s of Jono’s first day at Hensham Boys’. There we are, the proud parents, with Jono in between us in his oversized blazer and his shiny new shoes.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper.

  ‘And is this his father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She hands the photo to Tim, who is busily making notes.

  ‘Could we have his mobile number?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes – no. I mean yes, but he left his phone here.’

  ‘But you’ve been trying to ring him all day?’

  ‘Yes, at my sister’s.’ I feel as if I am saying the same thing over and over, talking through a fog.

  ‘And that’s where you think he is,’ Karen says. ‘Now where does she live?’

  I tell her, and Tim scribbles it down. Then he gets up from the chair and, taking that photo with him, he walks out into the hall. I hear him talking into his radio, but he moves too far away. I can hear his voice, but not what he is saying.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ Karen asks, and the heat rushes into my cheeks. I’d forgotten about the cut, badly patched up with a bloodstained plaster, looking much like I’ve been in a fight. Karen smiles at me sympathetically. ‘Is there any reason why Jonathan might not want to come home?’ she asks.

  And our private hell becomes public. It is out of my hands now.

  How sordid my tatty little affair sounds. I do not tell them everything; there is no need. They are professionals, they can fill in the gaps themselves.

  ‘We had a row,’ I say. ‘My husband left. My son was angry; he threw a key ring at my face.’

  I see the sympathy on Karen’s face alter slightly, by degrees. I see the cynicism, creeping in.

  ‘Was there anyone else involved?’ she asks, pointedly.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘No. I mean there was, but it’s over now.’

  They search the house. They look for Jono in cupboards and under the stairs, as if I wouldn’t have noticed him sneaking into the house. As if I wouldn’t have known if he was here.

  ‘Did you see him leave this morning?’ they ask.

  ‘I heard him go. I heard him picking up his bag and slamming the door.’

  ‘But did you see him leave?’

  They poke around in the garden, and inside Andrew’s shed.

  They find Andrew’s phone in the kitchen, and his wallet. They find the wardrobe, still full of his clothes.

  ‘There’s a car on its way round,’ I hear Tim say to Karen, and then he’s talking into his radio again, giving details in police-speak, details that have me thinking, No, no, you can’t suspect Andrew. Andrew wouldn’t hurt Jono. Andrew loves Jono. He’s his father, for heaven’s sake.

  But then my phone rings, and it’s Janice.

  ‘He isn’t here,’ she tells me woodenly.

  ‘Well, where is he?’

  Tim and Karen are watching, listening. I am powerless and exposed.

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ Janice says. ‘He doesn’t have to leave me a note just because he goes out.’ But she’s scared; I can hear it in her voice. ‘Oh Jesus,’ she says, ‘there’s a police car just pulled up outside.’

  They attach some sort of recorder to both my phones, so that they can listen in on my calls, and pick up any other calls trying to get through. And I sit on my sofa with my mobile in one hand and my landline handset in the other, waiting for Jono to ring me. I stare out of the window as I wait. It is properly dark outside now. I cannot bear to think of Jono out there in the dark. He never goes out on his own after dark. Never, not even up the road to post a letter.

  Tim is next door in the dining room, working his way through the list of contacts that I gave him, double-checking any that were missed before. Karen moves noiselessly back and forth between the dining room and the living room, where I am sitting, waiting.

  Then she comes and sits down beside me on the sofa.

  ‘We’ve spoken to a boy called Luke Barrington,’ she says. ‘He said he saw Jonathan getting into a silver car with a dark-haired man after school. He said he thinks it was his father.’

  And that’s good, isn’t it, that he’s with his father? Relief washes over me, rendering me light-headed, dizzy.

  She puts her hand on my arm. ‘We’ve put a national call out,’ she says. ‘All ports have been alerted.’

  ‘Well, they can’t go very far,’ I say, naively. ‘Andrew hasn’t got his wallet with him.’

  I speak to my parents. I know that the police went round there earlier, to talk to them, and to see if Jono was there, which was daft really, because Jono wouldn’t have a clue how to get to my parents’ house on his own. I think of their shock at a police car pulling up outside their house and I am filled with shame, especially as I was too much of a coward to speak to them myself, first. But now, I think, I have better news.

  My dad answers the phone. ‘Rachel,’ he says anxiously when he hears my voice. ‘Have they found him?’

  ‘Well, no, but they think he’s with Andrew.’

  ‘Andrew’s got him?’ My dad is confused. ‘Is Andrew bringing him home then?’

  My mother, when she comes to the phone, is more astute.

  ‘I knew there was something wrong,’ she says, her voice shrill with accusation. ‘When you were here at Easter – I knew something was going on.’ Her voice rises further. I don’t want her advice, but I’m going to get it anyway. ‘I don’t know what problems there are between you and Andrew, but whatever they are, you should put them to one side and think about your son. You are such a lovely little family, the three of you. Such a lovely little family.’

  She starts weeping down the phone. I don’t know how much the police told her, but obviously it was enough for her to form an opinion. I hang up the phone, numb. I wanted support, not blame.

  I can’t bring myself to phone Lois. She too will have had a visit from the police, but in her case the polic
e will still be there, parked up outside probably, just up the road, discreetly out of view. Hers is the obvious place for Andrew and Jono to go. She will have the kettle on for them; she will have a bit of cake, ready on a plate. She will be waiting for them.

  Janice phones me.

  ‘Andrew’s got him,’ I say.

  And she says, ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, they’ll be home soon. Andrew will just have wanted to see him.’

  ‘Rachel—’

  ‘He’s his dad’ – my voice wobbles and breaks on a bubble of hysteria – ‘he has a right to see him!’

  ‘Rachel . . .’ her voice is plaintive, and strained. ‘He took nothing with him. No money or anything. The police have searched my flat. Rachel, I told them how upset he was. I told them the things he said to me, about Jono being all he’s got. He said he’d lost one child, he couldn’t lose another. Rachel, I’m worried.’

  I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking of desperate fathers who drive their kids into the woods and rig a hosepipe to the exhaust, and gas their kids to death in the car. She’s thinking of dads who flip, and hack their kids to death before hanging themselves. She’s thinking of men who douse their cars with petrol, and torch themselves and their kids to death.

  She’s thinking it, and Karen, tiptoeing about my house looking for clues, is thinking it, too.

  But I cannot think it. I cannot. Not of Andrew.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The hours creep slowly by.

  Tim has long since left, called away on another job. There is just Karen with me now.

  ‘Is there someone I can call for you?’ she asked me some time ago. ‘Someone you’d like to be here with you? A friend perhaps?’

  But who could I ask? Janice must stay in her flat, in case Andrew should turn up there; likewise my parents. My dad did offer to drive up and sit with me when I last phoned, but I told him to stay with my mum, who was wailing in the background, hysterical, no use to anyone on her own.

  Who else is there that I could let in on this nightmare?

  ‘You don’t have to go, do you?’ I asked Karen.

  ‘No.’ She smiled thinly. ‘I’m on for the night.’