The Second Child

by Caroline Bond

  ‘Yeah. We promised we’d tell him everything.’

  I risk disagreeing with him. ‘But don’t you think we should hold off until we know more?’

  ‘No, I’ve just said I think we should tell him.’

  ‘But—’

  He cuts me off. ‘Look, I can’t get into this now, I can barely hear you anyway; we’ll talk when I get home.’

  But we don’t. Because by the time Phil gets home, our worries about the future have been firmly shoved out of the way by a much more immediate concern.

  I can’t find James.

  Thursday is a half-day at college for him, he’s normally back by 1 p.m., but today there’s no sign of him. No text, no voicemail, no note on the kitchen table, nothing. He just doesn’t come home. At 2.30 p.m. I phone him to ask where he is, and it goes straight to voicemail. By 4 p.m. I’m beginning to worry. I phone Ryan, who claims that James said he might go into town to look for a birthday present for Lauren, which I know can’t be true for four reasons: because James would’ve told me, because he’s skint, because Lauren’s birthday is weeks away and because he’s never that organ-ised. But while I know what he’s not doing, I’ve no idea what he is doing. I try phoning and texting again – still nothing. It’s so ‘not him’; James wouldn’t disappear without telling us, it’s just not something he would do. By the time Phil walks through the door at 6 p.m. I’ve gone beyond worrying. Phil doesn’t placate me with ‘It’ll be fine’; he’s equally concerned. We hash over whether James said anything to either of us, but he didn’t. We try his phone again and Phil leaves a message, to add to the four I’ve already left, but there’s no response. In desperation, we even ring Ryan back and ask him to put the word out that we need James to get in touch with us. I no longer care about embarrassing him in front of his friends. At 8 p.m. we put Lauren to bed early, to give us more space to worry ourselves sick. There’s still no sign of him. Something must be wrong. James wouldn’t ignore us like this if everything was okay. I torment myself with graphic images of him on a hospital trolley, the victim of unprovoked violence or a horrific road accident. I try his phone again. Voicemail. When I look up, Phil has his jacket on.

  ‘I’m going to go out and look for him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just around.’

  ‘What, just driving around randomly?’

  ‘Yes. Have you got any better ideas?’ The edge in his voice is sharpened by anxiety.

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Right, well, it’s worth a try then, isn’t it?’ He is heavy-handed as he pulls the door shut behind him. I feel trapped, alone in the house with Lauren, forced into a passive role while Phil gets to play ‘action man’. The bitterness of the thought shocks me. Our son is missing and I’ve still got the time and energy for sniping. I prowl around from room to room, the telephone number for the police held tight in my hand. We haven’t agreed how long I’m to leave it before I call them. This is the type of thing we should decide together.

  I go up to James’s room. It’s the usual mess, the bed not even straightened, but I leave it be. He doesn’t like me touching his stuff, disturbing his ‘den’, and I respect his right to some privacy, but in the circumstances I wonder if there are any clues, which if I knew what to look for, or where, might explain him behaving so out of character. Yet I resist opening his drawers and looking through his stuff. Am I scared of finding something I shouldn’t, something about my lovely boy that would shock or disturb me? I don’t know. I touch nothing. Disturb nothing. I can’t cope with the thought that he might be hiding something – anything – from me, but I understand why he might.

  I go back downstairs, the acid of worry building up in my stomach. It’s gone 9 p.m. He’s been ‘missing’ for nearly eight hours. Ryan texts and tells me that no one has seen him since college… but: Try not to worry, too much. It’s meant as a kindness, but his message only serves to confirm that something must have happened to James. My heart rate climbs. I nearly drop my phone when it rings.

  It’s Phil, sounding far away, ringing to tell me that he hasn’t found him.

  PHIL

  It’s better driving around the streets than pacing around the house. Better for me. I start with the local area, driving in a slowly expanding grid, with our house at the centre. But that yields nothing and is, I soon realise, pointless. Why would a seventeen-year-old lad hang around a suburban street? I switch tactics. I head for the takeaway joints and the local shops. On my travels I see a few groups of lads, indistinguishable in their hoodies and expensive trainers, but none of them are James. I hardly expect them to be. I don’t associate my son with the street-roaming youth on display and yet, as time passes and the number of ‘not James’ that I see increases, it occurs to me how little I know about my son’s social life. When he says he’s going to Ryan’s or Jim’s, that’s where I think he is, aspiring to be a musician or just messing about. But who knows? He could be going to pubs. He could be in town, in the bars. He could be smoking weed with his ‘other mates’, the ones we never get to meet. I pass another group who are lounging like a pride of skinny lions on the steps of the cenotaph. A mixed pack this time, with as many hair-tossing, midriff-flashing girls as sullen-faced boys. None of them are James. Has he got a girlfriend? The black girl at the concert? Is he with her? I wouldn’t know. Besides, it’s irrelevant. James has never not come home without telling us. Something must have happened.

  I pull over and ring Sarah to tell her that I haven’t found him, but that I’m going to keep looking.

  SARAH

  The rising panic feels like choking, but it’s a quiet and slow process. By 10 p.m. I want to ring the police, but I don’t, for fear of what they’ll say. Phil is still out trawling the streets. Left alone, I find my brain stuck in overdrive. When my phone rings I fumble to accept the call.

  It’s Ali. ‘He’s here.’ Relief floods through me. ‘He turned up a few minutes ago. He’s sorry.’ I sit down abruptly.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  There is a fraction of a pause before she says, ‘Yes. He’s okay. He’s not hurt.’

  I’m too shaken to question her hesitation. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. I just need Phil to…’ I trail off. Ali doesn’t need to know the logistics.

  ‘Okay.’ She’s about to hang up.

  ‘Ali. Tell James I’m not mad with him. Tell him I’m just relieved that he’s all right.’

  ‘Okay.’ The line goes dead.

  I call Phil. I hear the same shaky relief in his voice that’s in my heart, but I refuse point-blank to let him pick James up. The call goes from joyous to tense in seconds, but I’m adamant. ‘He’s at my sister’s. I’m going. You have to come home, so that I can go and fetch him.’

  ‘I don’t see what difference it makes.’

  ‘Phil. Please. Let’s just get him home.’

  I hear him draw breath for a fight, but he thinks better of it and retreats. ‘Okay. I’ll be ten minutes.’

  I’m standing in the hall clutching my keys when he walks through the door.

  The drive, which normally takes me thirty minutes, takes me half that. Ali opens the door to her flat and I smell it straight away, the acrid smell of vomit, overlaid but not overpowered by floral disinfectant. It’s a stomach-turning combination. ‘Oh God, sorry. I don’t know what the hell he’s playing at.’

  Ali actually grins. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ve all had a bad experience or two with cheap vodka. The hall needed a mop anyway.’ I know Ali is just trying to deflect my despair, but her good humour is so at odds with my mood that I can’t find it in me to respond. As always, she reads me, but as always she chooses confrontation rather than conciliation. ‘Hey, come on. He just had a bit too much and now he’s paying for it. There’s no need to chew him out about it. Let him sober up first. He’s going to feel rotten, in more ways than one, in the morning.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I just want to see James for myself, get him back within my protection.

&n
bsp; ‘Lying on the sofa in the lounge, with a blanket, a pint of cold water and a face like Eeyore.’

  I go to open the lounge door. ‘I’ll get him out of your hair.’

  But Ali rests her hand on my arm. ‘Sarah. Wait a minute, just come into the kitchen for a sec.’ I hesitate, but she tugs at my arm, insisting. ‘He’s fast asleep. Come on, please.’ Reluctantly I follow her through to their lovely, sleek spotlit kitchen. Jess is sitting up at the counter, a mug of coffee at her elbow and a pile of school books in front of her.

  ‘Oh, hi.’ She slides off her stool and I register yet again how tall she is, even without her killer heels. I can’t imagine Jess having too many discipline problems with her classes. ‘I’ve leave you to it.’

  I feel bad all over again, disrupting their evening with the fallout from our problems and yet, as so often with Ali, my emotions are complicated. Feeling grateful, impatient and yet beholden to Ali is not a good combination, not after so many long hours of stress.

  ‘Jess, there’s no need. You’re obviously working.’

  She smiles. ‘I was going for a bath before bed anyway.’ As she passes she drops a kiss on my cheek, and the sudden kindness weakens my shredded resilience. Ali offers coffee, but I shake my head. I just want to get James, go home and pull the door shut behind us.

  ‘Ali, I really think I should just get him home. Phil’s been going nuts.’

  ‘More than usual?’ She taps her teaspoon loudly against the rim of her cup as she digs into my husband.

  ‘Ali, not now. I’m really not in the mood.’

  She makes a movement with her head that is not consent. ‘I know you’re gonna say it’s none of my business.’

  ‘So don’t go there,’ I warn her.

  But she keeps talking. ‘I know it’s rough for you at the moment.’ Rough – she has no idea. ‘And I know it must be virtually impossible to know how to handle it, but—’

  I cut her off. ‘Ali, I appreciate you sorting James out, I really do, but you’re right: you don’t know how any of this feels. We’re dealing with it as best we can.’ I feel she’s holding me hostage, while my son sleeps in the other room.

  ‘Are you?’ I’m surprised to hear a hard, challenging edge in her voice. ‘Then why is Jim turning up on my doorstep, drunk as a skunk, crying?’

  It’s like she’s slapped me. ‘He was crying?’ She goes quiet, clearly wishing she could snatch back her words. ‘What was he crying about?’ Silence. Ali has obviously betrayed a confidence by telling me he was upset. She studies me, weighing up her loyalties. She chooses James over me.

  ‘You need to ask him yourself.’ She turns away and unnecessarily straightens the pristine brushed-steel storage jars lined up on the counter. Her back speaks volumes. I know that pushing her will not yield any further information. Ali has a capacity for stonewalling that is ingrained, a defence mechanism hard-learnt in her teens that lingers, even now that she’s happy and out. I haven’t the energy to battle against her resistance tonight, not on top of everything else. Besides, my concern isn’t our sometimes rocky sisterly relationship, it’s my son.

  James was crying. James never cries. Hasn’t since he was about seven. Ali doesn’t turn round as I go to my son.

  The lounge is as stylish as the kitchen, lit by lamps, comfortable in a tasteful, organised kind of way. Jess’s flair is visible everywhere in the flat; it’s certainly not Ali’s doing. She’s a mess merchant, never happier than when surrounded by stuff and chaos. How she and Jess navigate their very different approaches to domesticity I have no idea, but they obviously do. Tonight the designer-effect is marred by the leggy sprawl of my son, who is lying on the sofa covered in a faux-fur blanket, with a plastic bowl resting on his stomach. Ali was wrong. He’s not asleep.

  He props himself up on his elbow at the sound of me entering the room. He’s drip-white and his much-cherished and sculpted fringe is stuck to his forehead, making him look young and nerdy. ‘Mum?’ It’s a small word, but it’s enough to reveal that he’s still very drunk. His gaze slides from me back to the floor and his head wobbles. It would be funny if it weren’t so heartbreaking.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get you home and into bed. We can talk in the morning.’ James shows no sign of hearing or understanding me. If I’m going to get him to move, it’s going to be down to me. I push and prod him upright. He reacts in slow motion. ‘Your shoes?’ He swings his head from side to side; whether he’s looking for his trainers or telling me he has no idea where they are, I’m not sure. I can’t see them anywhere. I’m just about to give up and walk him down to the car in his grubby socks, when Ali appears in the doorway holding his Nikes aloft.

  ‘I got the worst off.’ She passes them to me and I bend down and cram his big, bony feet into his shoes. He lurches forward as I do it and crashes a heavy hand on my head to steady himself. Jesus, he is very, very drunk. Ali helps me drag him onto his feet, and between us we manoeuvre James out of the flat and into the lift. He sags between us as we travel down. His head dips and tilts, jerks up, then dips and tilts again, coming to rest on Ali’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t, mate. You can’t nod off in here.’ Ali and I heave him upright. His weight is astonishing. The blast of fresh air outside thankfully seems to wake him a little, and he walks virtually unaided to the car. The relief when I slam shut the passenger door is huge.

  Ali stands back, her arms folded across her chest. ‘Let me know how he is in the morning, will you?’

  ‘Course I will.’ She turns to head back inside. ‘Ali, thank you.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She’s gone by the time I’ve reversed the car out of the space.

  15

  Time to Stop It

  SARAH

  IN THE morning Phil goes into James’s room, unnecessarily early. I’m just getting dressed and Lauren is still asleep.

  ‘Morning!’ I hear him pull open the curtains with brutal zest. There’s a deep, rumbly, wordless response. ‘That bad, eh? Here, I brought you a juice and some toast.’ This time James manages an audible ‘Thanks’. There’s silence for a while, but Phil doesn’t come out of his room. ‘Fancy telling me what that was all about?’ I hold my breath, straining to hear his reply.

  ‘I dunno.’

  For all of two seconds Phil contemplates this insight. ‘Fair enough.’ I can’t believe he’s going to accept that for an answer. More silence. I hear Phil’s voice more clearly as he backs out of James’s room. ‘Well, I’m off to work. At least you chucked up round at Ali’s rather than here; that was your one sensible decision of the evening. See you tonight.’ And that’s it.

  Phil comes back into our room and takes a pair of shoes out from the bottom of the wardrobe. He sits down to put them on. I sit up in bed, feeling grainy and tired.

  ‘Is that all you’re going to say to him?’ They’re not the kindest first words for the day.

  ‘For now. I really don’t think we should hit him with anything else at the moment.’ He ties the laces on the left shoe, then the right, always the same sequence.

  ‘But it’s so not like him.’

  ‘I do know that. He is my son as well.’

  ‘But we need to find out what made him drink half a bottle of vodka, on his own, on a college night, while wandering around God knows where, on his own. Anything could’ve happened.’

  ‘But it didn’t.’ Phil straightens up and, although I catch the tension and the strain around his eyes, I persist.

  ‘It’s obviously affecting him far more than we realised. How the hell is he going to cope with what’s going to happen next, if he’s already struggling?’ Phil merely sits on the bed, looking done in. ‘Phil! I’m saying that we need to do something – it’s got to be his way of telling us he’s not coping with it all.’

  Phil finally looks at me. ‘I know, but he’ll talk to us in his own good time. I think we should just back off. He’s probably got a cracking headache and a mouth full of sawdust at the moment. We need to let him come round, before w
e start ambushing him with questions and more stuff to deal with.’

  ‘So you’re just going to go off to work?’ I can hear the disbelief in my voice and the anger.

  ‘Yes.’ Phil stands up and reaches for his jacket.

  I clamber out bed. ‘Leaving me to deal with it!’

  We’re back to our worst, trapped in our corners, snarling at each other because neither of us knows how to do anything different.

  ‘Stop it! Will you both… just… STOP IT!’ James’s roar silences us both. I haven’t heard James shout in years. Not in anger. He’s standing on the landing, his hands clenched, shaking.

  ‘Whoa!’ Phil steps towards him and instinctively James raises his hand. The shock stills us all. ‘James, it’s okay.’ James’s arm drops by his side and his eyes blur with tears. ‘Stop what?’ Phil approaches him cautiously.

  ‘Getting at each other. That’s all you ever do nowadays.’

  Phil steers him into our room and gently places his hands on James’s shoulders, pressing him down onto our bed. ‘James, take a breath. It’s okay.’

  James is too agitated to do that. I can see the emotion swirling within him. ‘It isn’t. You two, being horrid to each other, all the time, it’s NOT okay!’

  ‘It’s just that we’re both a bit stressed. That’s all.’ I nod along to Phil’s reassurances.

  James is still tensed up, flight and fight warring inside him. ‘You said it’d be okay, you promised, but it isn’t.’

  I can see that Phil is as rattled as me by James’s outburst. Our calm, laid-back boy seems to be unravelling before our eyes. ‘But nothing’s really changed. Not the important stuff, anyway.’ Phil glances at me. Yet, I say in my head, but that’s not helpful.

  But James isn’t in a state to be placated. ‘Yes, it has. You’ve changed. Both of you.’

  ‘How?’ we ask, in unison.

  He drags his hand across his face, angry and tearful, like a small child, his embarrassment making his distress even more painful, and I expect him to retreat into silence, but after a moment he says, ‘You.’ He gestures at Phil. ‘You’re mad all the time. Every tiny, little thing winds you up. It’s like you’re always looking to pick a fight. Mum’s frightened of saying anything to you. We all are. And when you’re not in a mood, you pretend that everything’s fine, like nothing’s happening, when really it’s all shit. You’re never just… normal.’