by LK Fox
‘That’s right. We were together the day after he disappeared, less than an hour after they found him. We identified him. We were there when they buried his remains in Manor Park Cemetery.’
I knew that what he said was true. I forced myself to remember the details of an event that, through repetition, had become little more than a meaningless mantra.
I liked getting into work early, so I often took Gabriel to school and our neighbour Kaylie collected him in the afternoons, when she drove her minibus over to pick up her own numerous spawn. Kaylie was loud and laughed at everything and had babies like cats have kittens until her frail little husband dropped dead of exhaustion and she took to looking after everyone else’s children, even though she also had a career as a hospital nurse. When I changed jobs, my hours became more flexible, so I began taking Gabriel to school every day. Then, one Monday, I dropped him off and he didn’t come home.
‘Why did you go back to the school this morning?’ Ben asked.
‘You know why. Because it was his birthday. Because it was the anniversary. Because I was . . . confused.’
‘I nearly called you last night. I figured Matthew would take you out and get you trashed. I’m sure he meant well, but you should have known what might happen.’
‘I really thought I saw him.’
Ben had his hand at his mouth, listening. ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said. ‘When you get upset, some kind of protective mechanism kicks in. You have a default mode that takes you back to the last place you saw Gabriel. You have to stop shouldering the blame.’
I rolled the coffee mug in my hands. ‘I need to pinpoint the exact moment when the mistake was made,’ I said. ‘I try to unpick the events and rebuild them so that there’s a different outcome. I should be able to do that.’
‘Have you been back to the school before today? I mean, recently? I had a call from Mrs Arnold. She doesn’t know we’re divorced. I thought you’d told her?’
‘I didn’t get around to it—’
‘She’s seen you hanging around outside the school. She didn’t say anything to the police, but you know you’re supposed to stay away from the place.’
‘I never do any harm, Ben. I just go there and sit nearby for a while. I know Mrs Arnold is upset with me. She left a couple of messages.’ I’d never told him that there was a time when I used to go back there every day, watching. Eventually, I’d whittled it down to once a week.
‘The other parents don’t like to be reminded of what happened, Nick. You can’t blame them. And you can’t keep blaming yourself.’
I felt stupid and ashamed. ‘I honestly thought I saw our son today.’
He turned away, exasperated with me. ‘We’ve been over and over this. And technically, he wasn’t our son, he was mine. You don’t have the monopoly on grief.’
‘You don’t care as much as I do,’ I said miserably. ‘I was always more interested in Gabriel’s welfare. It’s not your fault, it’s just the way you’re built. One of us had to be there for him all the time.’ But I hadn’t been, that was the point.
I knew in my heart that Ben was right. My own sense of guilt obscured everything. I thought back to that dismal Monday morning exactly one year ago, when the nightmare had unfolded.
On that day, Ben had had to go to the office even earlier than usual. There was a big presentation coming up, a bid to win the contract for a trade fair, and he had been working late all month. He was employed by a corporate events company that handled outsourced design for local councils, everything from Christmas displays to sporting galas. Just after we split up, he was made a director. The job was very important to him.
So I had taken Gabriel to school. It was raining hard, early winter weather, like looking at the roads through a dirty nylon mesh. First, Gabriel couldn’t find his snake belt, then the traffic was slow, so we were running late. I tried to freshen the memory instead of just reciting the events in my mind, as I had every day for the past year.
The scene at the school had been one of mass confusion. Everyone was milling around the gates, dropping their kids off by car because of the hammering rain. I let Gabriel out, then drove to work. A little later, I received a call from one of the teachers, Marcia Williams. She’s gone now. I think I probably got her fired. She asked me where Gabriel was, why he hadn’t turned up for class. I told her I’d seen him go into the school playground, then the building, so he had to be there.
At least, I thought I’d seen him enter the building. He’d been almost the last one to go in. There had been some trouble in the area: a guy had been spotted hanging around and had supposedly talked to one the pupils, although the account seemed to be missing a few plausible elements, and the kid involved kept changing his story. Everyone was paranoid about their children. There had been a lot of inflammatory stuff in the local paper, and sometimes I was uncomfortably aware that we were dropping off the only child in the school to have two fathers. Sometimes, waiting mothers would eye us up as if we were potential kidnappers. At least, that was how it always seemed to me. Equality rulings are meant to work at street level, but they often don’t.
Ben had always warned me not to leave until I saw Gabriel going up the steps and in through the swing doors. Our son was special, and I knew I had to be careful with him. Before I met Gabriel, I’d always assumed that autism was a binary thing; you either had it or you didn’t. But it turned out there was an in-between level called Pervasive Developmental Disorder that was still not entirely understood, and Gabriel had it at a low level.
Gabriel didn’t just have trouble recognising things; the problem extended to people as well, and to their intentions. He trusted everyone pretty much equally. He was naturally kind and expected kindness in others. He didn’t recognise the kind of situations normal kids would instinctively back away from. Faced with an easy decision, he could make the wrong choice. That’s why Ben and I always kept a watchful eye on him.
That day, I was double-parked and some kid’s mother was trying to get out of the space in front of me. I don’t know what happened – maybe I looked away, lost concentration. All I can say is that afterwards I had no definite, absolute recollection of seeing Gabriel pass inside. When you do something every day, it makes you less diligent than you should be. It really couldn’t have been more than five seconds, and what could possibly happen in that time?
Gabriel was small for his age, and his unusual mental processes meant that he was easily led. He was always talking to people he’d only just met. He trusted everyone. He wasn’t brave in any way; he just didn’t have the defences most people raise against strangers. We’d discussed it with the doctor and, while I didn’t think he would ever get into someone’s car or anything like that, I know I should have been more careful. I’ve had plenty of time to consider that moment. But how careful can you be with children before you start adversely affecting their lives? Even Ben agreed that we couldn’t keep Gabriel wrapped in cotton wool all through his childhood years.
After the teacher’s phone call, I drove straight back to Long Lane Elementary School and we conducted a search for him. The building was as secure as a house of correction and filled with places to hide. We went right through it: every classroom, every smelly storeroom and cupboard, the stairwells, the toilets, every crawlspace and corner. She thought we’d find him within a few minutes, but there was no trace of him anywhere. He plainly wasn’t on the premises.
We lost a little time getting the police involved because we were still searching, ruling out the most obvious options. When we did talk to them, they immediately suggested that Gabriel had run away.
Gabriel loved playing strategy games and could be a bit of a trickster, but I knew he wasn’t just fooling around somewhere. Besides, he felt too safe at school to just run off once he was there. And he loved being with me. It seemed absurd to think that anything bad could have happened . . . yet how could it not have? If he was fine, why was he missing at all?
One thing. There was the classmate, Neil McB
ride, who had been picking on Gabriel. They’d had a fight over the ownership of a skateboard that had been swapped for a stack of supposedly rare Iron Man comics which turned out to be cheap reprints. I thought maybe Gabriel had come back out of the school that morning rather than face up to him. Maybe he was playing truant somewhere, hanging out at the parade of stores behind the school, as the kids around there did.
But as soon as we started searching I knew that couldn’t be right either. There was a whole lot of small things that just didn’t add up.
We found no trace of Gabriel at all; no witnesses, nothing. That in itself was odd. I only knew what I’d seen on TV shows, but wouldn’t a kidnapper have waited until his target was walking alone down a deserted street? Why take a risk outside the crowded school gates? And the parents – most of them knew each other by sight. If somebody new turned up, everybody checked them out. I couldn’t see how some random stranger could just drive up and snatch a child.
There were plenty of false leads. One of the fathers who had been seen at the school gates proved hard to track down. A pupil said he had seen Gabriel running away but had then changed his story. I began to suspect everyone and everything. We searched the grounds and the surrounding streets, but there was nothing. This fragile kid had been lifted from the face of the earth in front of witnesses who noticed every arrival and departure.
How on earth was that possible?
Ella
I didn’t feel excited when I won the raffle.
I felt as though I’d got what I deserved. I’d been an outsider all my life; just this once, I wanted to be on the inside. Tamara threw a moody and told me she wouldn’t wait around, I said some things back and she stormed home by herself, leaving me to claim my prize.
Half an hour later, I was balanced on a metal beer keg in the freezing brick corridor outside the dressing room, impatiently waiting to be summoned. I’d been holding the pink winning ticket in my hand for such a long time it had become pulpy with sweat. I could feel the heat of the alcohol reddening my face ‒ Tamara had left me her jelly vodka shots, which tasted so much like cheap candies I had consumed all of them while I was waiting.
I tried to see myself in the smeary broken mirror on the wall above my head. The dressing room had originally been the pub’s outside toilet, but the landlord had covered its roof and turned the side alley into a passageway. I looked like a ghost of a dead little girl, stretched and twisted, doomed to haunt the building until someone exorcised me.
After twenty long minutes, the door opened and Ryder swung out. He had changed into tight black leather trousers and a brown, loosely woven sweater with holes in, and had slicked back his crazy blond hair. He smelled sharply of sweat and alcohol. Giraffe-like, he rotated and swayed above me, staring down with his electric-blue eyes. ‘You the girl that won the raffle?’ he asked.
I nodded, unable to speak. Any reply I might have framed had dried up in my mouth.
‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Never forget a face.’ I could tell he was trying to think, but his eyes were unfocussed and dimmed.
‘I was outside the studio after your first live TV performance a couple of years back?’
‘Shit. You were the girl who got hit with the bottle. Did it leave a scar?’
I nodded again, pushing my hair back. I thumbed off the make-up and showed him. ‘Then you remember me?’
‘I felt bad about that. I wanted to come back and make sure that you were all right. She didn’t mean it. Baby doesn’t like it when girls hang around the band. She’s not very good at dealing with fans. She thinks they’re rivals.’
‘That’s okay. She doesn’t have any fans; they come to see you, not her.’ I couldn’t believe I’d said that. The words just fell out.
He tapped long fingers against his bony white throat. He looked as if he was honestly considering my opinion. ‘You really think so?’
‘Of course. You’re the talent. She just plays what you write.’
‘You like my writing?’ He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms, studying me.
‘I know every song you’ve ever written.’
‘Even the bad ones?’
‘There aren’t any bad ones.’
He laughed in surprise. ‘You’re probably the only person who thinks that. Even Baby can’t remember all the lyrics to my songs . . . wait, please don’t tell me you want to be a singer.’ He seemed to be looking for the key to me, like he couldn’t imagine why anyone would think he was talented.
‘No,’ I said quietly, looking down at my shoes. ‘I’m not good enough for anything like that.’
‘Then what is it you want?’ he asked with a big, dirty smile. ‘What is it you want most of all?’ He reached across and picked up my hand. My fingers looked absurdly small in his calloused palm. He pushed back my cap and lightly touched the scar on my head. You could hardly see it any more, but I always knew it was there. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I just wanted to meet you,’ I said.
I followed him down the corridor to a red flock-wallpapered room behind the stage. Once, it had been part of the public bar, but now it was used to store canned drinks and pre-packed junk food. He found some glasses and poured me a warm vodka and coke, then pulled the dust-cloth off an old brown leather couch. We sank into the moulting cushions beside each other and talked. Ryder seemed completely different offstage, intense and connected to what I was saying, even though it was obvious that he’d been drinking and was probably high. He wanted to know all about me.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said.
‘Bullshit. Be honest. That’s what I try to do in my songs.’
‘All right. My life sucks,’ I dropped my head back on to the split sofa cushions and stared at the ceiling.
‘Why? You’re young, you’re cute.’
I felt my face glow. ‘After my mum died, my dad started dating younger and younger women,’ I explained. ‘He picked them up at his golf club. At the rate he was going, he would have ended up dating someone the same age as me. But he met Karen. She behaves like a kid around him, all why can’t we do this? and when can we go there?’
‘You miss your real mum.’
‘I miss her so much.’
He leaned closer, placing his arm along the back of the sofa. ‘How old are you?’
‘Sixteen,’ I lied. ‘Actually, nearly seventeen. I have, like, credit cards and everything. I’ve always been really small for my age. Did you go to college?’
‘No, I got expelled.’
‘Yeah, so did I. I work in a jewellery shop now. I could have gone on to higher education, but I decided not to. I wanted to start earning so I could move out and get a flat.’ The last part wasn’t quite a falsehood; it just hadn’t happened yet. Talking to Ryder helped to crystallise my plans. ‘When did you leave school?’
‘So long ago I don’t even remember.’
‘Did you always know what you wanted to do?’
‘Yeah, I was writing songs when I was ten. My folks split up just after my twelfth birthday and neither of them really wanted me, so I went to my grandmother’s house. I’d sit in front of her CD player with a meal tray on my knees, and I’d put a notepad on it, and I’d copy down the lyrics from the songs that were playing, and I’d rewrite them, trying to improve them. I was doing well at school, but I had to leave early to look after the old lady when she got cancer.’
‘How did you become a singer? The truth ‒ not the stuff you tell the music press.’
‘Honestly? My grandmother stopped being able to get out, so I had to do all the chores. To get out of the house I hung out in the street and met some bad kids, as you do. My music teacher came to the flat and offered to help me sort myself out. He got me a gig. When we landed our first TV break I really thought we were on our way. Turns out we weren’t. You probably know that the second single didn’t chart. We only got those chances because Tina’s father paid for the studio.’
‘You mean Baby?’
‘Her real name is Tina.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ I was amazed. How could I not know that? I thought I knew everything about the band.
It was all becoming clear. That was why she’d been kept in the band. Ryder had no choice because her father was picking up the bills. He didn’t love her, he just needed her there to keep his career alive. I felt my heart lift.
‘I wish we were somewhere nicer than this,’ he said. ‘A damp beer cellar in a shitty pub. But look.’ He took my right wrist in his hand and raised it high. ‘Look up at the ceiling.’ I could see the exposed wooden boards of the floor above. Between all of the cracks and knotholes, slivers of light showed through. ‘I used to know the name of every constellation in the sky. If you half-shut your eyes, those could be stars,’ he said. ‘Go on, try it.’
I narrowed my eyes and the cellar faded away to brown, leaving just those tiny cracks of light, and I imagined myself with him on a starry night somewhere deep in the countryside.
‘There,’ he whispered. ‘You see?’ He looked at the pink string tied around my wrist. ‘Hey, I’ve got one just like that.’ He held up his own wrist and showed me the string.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s why I wear mine.’
I turned and found him staring into my eyes with an intensity that was almost funny.
Without any further thought, I raised my face to his so that he could kiss me. But he didn’t seem to want to, and I couldn’t just sit there with my eyes closed, because it looked stupid.
Then I relaxed and thought of the starlight above our heads. It wasn’t real, but somewhere far above the cracked floorboards were real stars, and for a moment it felt as though I could reach up and touch them.
What is love like if you strip away infatuation? I had drawn his face in a hundred exercise books. On those ruled pages, he rode motorbikes, battled monsters, dived from clifftops, woke me with a single kiss. Stupid, stupid.
Ryder didn’t kiss me. What he wanted . . . what he . . .
All I knew after was that I wouldn’t cry.
