The Orphans

by Annemarie Neary

  Big trip?

  Fate has gifted her to him, and already it is threatening to swipe her away. The irony of it – when he is only half a day from the perfect subduing, truth-revealing drug – to have her here without the means to capture her. The thought floors him, and he is struck dumb. Syllables bubble on his tongue, but they don’t form into words.

  As they walk into the kitchen – or rather, as his mother walks into the kitchen and he follows her – it is obvious that this is going to be a superficial encounter, a useless one. She stands there awkwardly by Jess’s big American fridge until he stretches out his arm and gestures to a chair. No breakfast bar for her. She lowers herself into place and spreads her fingers out across the slightly sticky tablecloth that Jess uses to protect her precious walnut table from Ruby. And he is embarrassed by it, on Jess’s behalf. He tugs at it until she lifts her hands and he is able to slide it away.

  ‘That’s better,’ he says.

  She looks slightly taken aback, but then she smiles. He spots her inching up the cuff of her jacket. And it breaks his heart to see that his mother is looking at her watch. What’s ten minutes of her life, after all she owes him? But all she can do, after depriving him of twenty-odd years of love, is check the time. And his heart drains into his eyes, his ears. It floods into his capillaries, into the tiny alveoli in his lungs, until he is drenched in all its pent-up sorrows.

  ‘How come I haven’t met you here long ago, with Jess and Ruby?’

  His throat has closed itself off, and he stretches his neck to free it. ‘I’ve been travelling,’ he says.

  ‘Nice.’

  Not nice, not nice, not nice. He needs to break through that kind of blandness if there’s to be any progress here.

  ‘Actually, it wears you down after a while.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  How could she be sorry, when she has no idea whatsoever?

  ‘I haven’t been travel travelling, you see. Not your kind of travelling, off to ashrams and things.’

  ‘No, well, I didn’t—’

  ‘I’ve been in Ireland, most recently.’

  And he looks at her again to see if that remark has found its place. If she’s putting two and two together and making Mags. If she’s giving him some respect for that, at least. But no, she doesn’t seem to have any particular interest in Ireland.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘A little colder than where we’re going.’

  Well, no, as it happens, he thinks, visualising the cottage and all its draughts. No colder than that.

  ‘I’ve never really had the time to travel much,’ she says.

  He’s astonished. Is she kidding herself, or trying to put him off the track?

  ‘It’s a regret of mine. But something has to give. That’s why it was so lovely when Eddie suggested this trip out of the blue—’

  He thinks about the van, the yellow cock and balls, and he can’t help but smile. Not exactly out of the blue.

  ‘Bit last-minute, though,’ he says.

  She makes a gesture, as if it’s all been beyond her control. ‘It’s not just the job, either. There are grandchildren up in Liverpool and …’

  Grandchildren? What grandchildren? You have a grandchild here. Your children are here, for God’s sake. And he is sure that all of this is written on his face, but yet again she doesn’t take him up on it. She just nods and smiles. And stretches her hand out to the tablecloth that he has now folded up at one end of the table, as if to say he should have left it where it was.

  ‘I don’t want to disturb you any longer,’ she says. ‘Your sister is worried about you, you know. All she wants is for you to talk to the policeman so that they can clear up all the confusion. You know what they’re like once they get an idea in their heads.’

  She laughs, and he wonders why, and then he realises that she isn’t laughing at him, but at the very idea that anyone could think he could have done such a thing. Oh, the faith there is in mothers.

  ‘She’ll be so glad that you’re here, William. Make sure you wait for her.’

  Her pronunciation makes that name sound more elegant than it’s ever done before. Will-i-am. He might even start to use it again, now that he’s heard it from the horse’s mouth. But she is on her feet now and slinging the bag up onto her shoulder. A lock of greyish-blondish hair has escaped from the clasp at the back of her head. In a gesture that is almost girlish, she tucks it behind her ear.

  It’s only now, when she’s on the point of leaving, that he wonders if he has frightened her away. The thought horrifies him. He does not want to frighten his mother, or to shame her either. He does not want to chase her away. There is nothing he wants less.

  She is moving ahead of him into the hall that is flooded by deep-dyed sunshine cast onto the tiles in slices of ruby and indigo and lemon. She is moving purposefully in her Birkenstocks, though not that quickly really. He wonders if she has trouble with her knees and hips, if he can keep her comfortable in the cottage he has made for her, if she will be cold. She stands on the sisal mat at the front door, as if waiting for him to open it for her. As he stretches over her, he imagines a faint scent of mango.

  She turns towards him. ‘I don’t know what to say about your news, William, about your mother and the passport. I am very sorry if it’s painful for you.’ She smiles sadly, and he jerks at the door to let her out. ‘Are you staying long?’ she asks.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ he says. His stomach is churning now, tight with panic and disappointment and frustration. He should have said something when he had the chance.

  He conjures up that secret cord between them, and, when he tugs hard on it and she doesn’t move away, it seems to have worked. Until she does move, and he can feel himself begin to lose her. He touches the back of her hand, runs his finger lightly across the pinched and puckered skin. But she flinches and pulls her hand away. And he can’t be sure if that’s just a reflex or if she is detaching herself from him again.

  Her head drops as she hurries through the door. He watches her make her way down the gravel path between Jess’s large pots of lavender and box. She doesn’t look back, even though she might never see him again. That’s when he decides to follow her. He waits until she has turned the corner at the end of the street before walking through the gate. It doesn’t take long to catch up with her. On the Common, she chooses the path of least resistance, the one through the copse where they can’t be seen from the road, from the playing fields, from the great prairie itself. It is her gift to him.

  He takes her from behind, one hand around her waist, the other on her mouth. She is very light, more sparrow than he is himself. When he lets her see him, so she knows not to be afraid, she looks him in the eye as if she can see right into him, as if she can see all his pain. And for an instant he thinks that this will go all right. But as soon as he releases his hand, she opens her mouth. He perceives the unborn scream in the split second before it breaks all over him. Immediately, he quenches it in the sleeve of his parka.

  He manoeuvres her across the uneven ground of the copse, all exposed tree roots and tangles of bracken and thorn. A sandal drops from her foot and, when he stops to retrieve it, he almost loses her. As she twists away, he grabs her wrist and manages to hold her there, but he knows he has to find that sandal – a dung-coloured Birkenstock, so easy to lose among the camouflage. And while she stands there at arm’s length from him, taking sharp little in breaths and long, laboured exhalations, he can tell she is less nervous than before. And that’s good, because he doesn’t want her to be nervous. But it’s bad, too, because he needs her to be malleable.

  The sandal is just out of reach, sole upwards, just next to a fallen tree. He has to pull her along in order to get to it. Perhaps he’s not holding her quite tight enough for fear of snapping those sparrow bones, but while he’s bending down to grasp the sandal, she breaks for it. Plunging into the undergrowth like it’s a knee-high sea, she is faster than he’d ever thought possible. He is pr
oud of her spirit, but he can’t let her make the beach of freedom just beyond the copse.

  When he catches her she is sobbing, his poor lost mother. She is crying the oceans he once cried himself, but he strokes her head and says, ‘There, there,’ like he’s seen a mother do on-screen, and for a moment she is still. The skin around her eyes is bluish, and her mouth is slack. As he takes her towards the cottage, she starts to murmur, ‘Please, please, please.’

  But she is not even looking at him. She is pleading with someone, but not with him. And although he has found her and is bringing her home, he doesn’t feel the happiness he’d hoped for. He steps through the man-sized hole in the fence and bends her head under, the way he’s seen them do on TV cop shows. He knows now to keep a hold on her, so he removes the elements of his barricade one-handed, pulls back the door, and shifts the planks and bricks into the cottage to build it up again on the inside.

  She moves as far away from him as possible, choosing the most distant wall. She seems to be shutting herself off from him, muttering something to herself in a foreign language while her fingers tug at her clothing. He realises then that it’s God she’s been pleading with, or maybe Buddha. No way is she begging him.

  Once he has them barricaded in, he moves towards her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, and when he hears his own voice, still harsh and urgent from what he’s had to do, he softens it. ‘What are you saying?’

  She shakes her head like she’s trying to shake it off, her eyes closed tight, their lids almost translucent. He had hoped admissions would flow out of her, but he can’t see what he is gaining here. It alarms him to think how long it might take for her to crack. Because he hasn’t got so long. Not with a body in the woods.

  She opens her eyes very slowly, squinting against the light. And now that she seems to have rejoined him, he starts to point to all the things he’s gathered for her. He shows her the photo he put up on the wall, the one of Jess and him on the beach, but she doesn’t appreciate any of it, and that makes him sick.

  ‘Sparrow,’ she says.

  And he hasn’t heard her call him that since that day on the beach.

  Stay away from the water, Sparrow. Don’t go in too deep.

  She clears her throat and wipes her eyes so that there’s a black streak of mascara across her cheekbone.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  Her voice is steadier now. She seems to have come through the worst of the panic, and he’s not sure if that’s because she is learning to trust him or because she thinks she’s found a way out. He wants to call her Mama, but there is a sternness about her now that doesn’t invite it.

  ‘Eddie told me what you think, Sparrow,’ she says, ‘but it isn’t true. I am not Sophie. I am not even Mary. I am Maya Hallström and I am sorry for what happened to you.’

  He invites her to sit on the lilo he has blown up for her, but she shakes her head, a furious little shake.

  ‘Are you going to stand here all night?’ he asks.

  She seems to crumple at the prospect. Her head droops onto her chest, and she starts to slide down the wall and onto the bare floor. He draws Jess’s pink and green blanket over her, but she pushes it away.

  ‘You let me go now, Sparrow, and I won’t even tell Eddie, I promise you this for life.’ She is speaking with a shallow voice, as if she doesn’t have the energy for more.

  But his attention is jolted away from her by what he hears outside. There are people out there, much closer than anyone ought to be. He is not sure whether they have made their way to this side of the wooden fence until he hears their voices close by and decides they probably have.

  The only sound from her is a squeak, as if she’s afraid to risk a scream. But he can’t take any chances, so he ties her gauzy scarf around her mouth. Outside, someone is rattling at the bolt, the oversized one on the main door. And maybe any moment now they will be through that door and there will be a decision to take. Make a hostage of his mother? Or give himself in? He can see the hope in her eyes as they flicker towards the opaque window, and it breaks his heart to think she might want to be rescued from her own long-lost son.

  But the men leave as quickly as they came. Their voices recede as they move off, and he and his mother sit facing one another across the floor. Without asking, she unties her own scarf and flings it away. It makes an arc, then floats slowly to the ground. She says nothing, just sits there looking at him, and he feels that he has ceded ground to her. She refuses everything he offers her until he takes out a bottle of water. Her eyes follow it, and when he hands it to her she gulps it down.

  It is too quiet in the room, and so he starts to tell her about all the places he has roamed in search of her.

  ‘Manchester, Darlington, Kerry, Cork, Lille, Paris, Freiburg, all over India, but mainly Goa and Rajasthan, Durham, Newcastle, Dublin …’

  Perhaps he should have brought a map with him. He might have stuck it up on the wall and she’d have seen then the lengths he’s gone to. Because she’s looking blankly back at him now, and he isn’t sure if that’s because she doesn’t know where those places are, which is surely unlikely. Perhaps she can’t believe the distances he’s gone for her. Maybe she’s feeling guilty for leaving him on that beach.

  When the coughing starts, it is more like a succession of caught breaths than a proper cough. In out, in out, in out. And then he notices the whistling sound that accompanies each exhalation.

  ‘Have another drink of water,’ he says. ‘That will help.’

  It feels oddly satisfying to be mothering his own mother.

  But soon she is getting agitated, and her chest is bellowing in and out with the effort it takes to breathe. She starts to try to tell him something. And she isn’t begging God or Buddha, not this time. This time, she is begging him. He gets right up close to her, and listens hard. She isn’t asking him to let her go, not any more. She is asking for her inhaler.

  After leaving Evelyn, Jess is desperate to look inside the shoeboxes, Clarks and Nike, marked Goa 1 and Goa 2 in black felt tip. Away from the cul-de-sac, she finds somewhere to stop and has a quick rifle through the top few layers of photos. But it’s getting late now. The babysitter was only booked for a couple of hours, and Charlie will be wondering where she is.

  Back at the hotel, Charlie is red-faced from his sauna, and already changed for dinner. Jess sees no need to endure another formal meal. She would rather skip dinner altogether and spend the evening with Evelyn Tuite’s shoeboxes. Although, so far, she has recognised no one in those first few layers, she can think of nothing else. She is just about to plead a headache when the babysitter arrives at the door for the dinner shift. Jess hasn’t got the heart to turn her away.

  Dinner is eaten in near silence, as if uttering anything at all risks straying into the swamp. Besides, Jess’s mind is whirring away from Charlie, from Hana too. She is sharp with anticipation. For the first time, there is the real prospect of finding answers, hope even.

  They relieve the babysitter early, and Ruby is still awake and ready to play. Charlie flicks on the TV, ostensibly to catch the end of the main evening news, but more likely to offer a distraction. Jess is just wiping off the last traces of makeup when the local bulletin from BBC London comes on. A familiar street name causes her to glance towards the screen.

  A reporter is standing on the edge of the Common, her Common, with a tsunami of greenery surging up behind him. But this is no longer a place where people play, it is no longer the prairie at the bottom of her garden. Braced with police tape, it has become a location, the scene of a crime. She finds herself scrolling through the mental lists of all her friends and neighbours, then the database of people she has half glimpsed at a shop counter, in a café, at the swings. The reporter is talking about extraordinary events, about violent incidents. Two in one day, in the same small area.

  ‘Here, in leafy South London,’ he is saying, ‘in a small area between two commons that is known as Nappy Valley, it’s ha
rd to believe how suddenly someone can vanish. The missing woman is Maya Hallström, a local nursery-school teacher, Swedish national and long-time resident of the UK. Mrs Hallström, aged sixty-three and a divorced mother of two, lived near the Common with her partner. She was last seen this morning while on her way to drop off keys with friends on Riverton Street, which borders the west end of the Common. In an extraordinary turn of events, police with sniffer dogs searching for Mrs Hallström later uncovered a body concealed in undergrowth not far from where she is believed to have disappeared. The deceased, an unidentified male, had suffered a blunt force trauma to the head. The incidents are not thought to be connected.’

  All her life, Jess has been expecting disaster. And now that it has occurred she is light-headed with the horror of it. Out of nowhere, she remembers a group of women in Auntie Rae’s kitchen discussing the men in ‘that family’ and how they were. Weak, defective. Some faulty wiring, some gene gone wrong.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he ends up like the father,’ one of the women had said, ‘shoving poison into himself.’

  She glances over at Charlie, who doesn’t seem to have noticed the TV news. He is holding Ruby, whose nappy needs changing, at arm’s length, while still managing to play a game of backgammon on his phone.

  ‘Oh my God, did you see that, Charlie? Did you hear about Maya?’

  Charlie places Ruby next to her goblin, and he and Jess sit down on the bottom of the bed and watch the screen. She takes his hand and grips it tightly, because all she can think of now is Ro, and what he might have done to Maya.

  The reporter is talking about the Common, and how it is an amenity for all kinds of groups from Sunday footballers to the local bowls club. The camera pans to a scene outside the café, where people are sitting at metal tables under the dappled light. Meanwhile, the reporter is saying, life proceeds as normal.

  Jess looks, then looks again. She pulls her hand away from Charlie’s.