by Lucy Wadham
���Thank you. It���s helpful,��� Stuart said, standing up. She nodded and rose to her feet. She looked down at Alice and seemed to be attempting a smile. Alice could see something of Stuart in her, the same curves in the mouth and the same straight line of the nose, but this woman���s face was perfectly smooth, as though life had attacked his and left hers alone. Alice thought of a nun.
Suddenly she did not want to let the child go. It seemed to her that Stuart was letting something slip away.
���Wait,��� she said, holding the child���s arm. ���What else did you see?���
The child looked at its mother for help. Stuart touched Alice on the shoulder and she felt overcome, as though she and the child had had a long fight and the child had won. She sat down in the chair at the head of the table. She did not notice the mother and child leave the room.
���I���m going to call them about the car,��� Stuart said. ���I won���t be a minute.���
Alice did not answer. She gripped the edge of her chair until her fists ached. ���It���s good what the child said,��� he went on. ���We���re looking for a black four-door Mercedes with tinted windows. And we have a description. There were two of them or more. I���ll talk to her again. In the morning.��� He smiled at her. ���We have something,��� he told her, and left the room.
She could feel the chill settling in her upper body again and gripped her chair to stave it off. She could see Sam wriggling in the fat man���s arms. If only Dan had not stopped on the stairs to stare at Oph��lie. If only she had gone to fetch Sam herself a few moments earlier. Where had she been when he was being snatched, when he was calling for her, and why didn���t he scream? He couldn���t: the fat man had his hand over his mouth. She saw Oph��lie poking her head round the door in the dining room. Then Dan beside her, telling her he could not find Sam. Oph��lie had seen him taken even before that, before they came downstairs. When she had met them on the stairs, those sullen eyes had just seen Sam struggling in the man���s arms.
The telephone was ringing. She jumped up, snatched the phone from the wall.
���Yes?���
���You have three days.���
���No!��� she shouted. Stuart was standing in the door. ���It���s not enough time,��� she said. ���Listen. Wait.���
���You���ve got till seven o��� clock Thursday evening to get the money. In used notes. Buy one soft sports bag to put it in. You���ll receive instructions on where to make the delivery.���
���Wait. Listen to me. Please.���
���If you don���t get the money, we���ll kill the child.��� There was a pause. ���Without hesitation.���
���Wait. Sam. Sam.���
She held the phone tight against her ear and listened to the beeps. She held tight because she was hanging over a precipice. The beeps stopped, giving way to a long tone. The tone began to waver. She saw a tunnel, the light fading at the edges. The tunnel grew narrower as she fell.
Chapter Fifteen
Liliane sat in the Colonnas��� laundry room watching Babette holding the little boy in her lap. She longed to have a turn but dared not ask. She had always been a little afraid of her friend, who had the unbridled temper of a childless woman.
���What���s his name?��� Liliane asked, looking at the boy. His eyes were heavy with sleep. ���How old is he?���
Babette smiled down at the boy.
���Why don���t you ask him, dear?���
Liliane hesitated.
���What���s your name, darling?��� But it must have been the wrong tone, for the boy seemed afraid and turned his face towards Babette.
���He���s called Daniel. Aren���t you? And you���re five.���
Babette began to rock him gently and his eyes closed. The room was warm and smelled pleasantly of ironing. Liliane stared miserably at them.
���Shall I get him a drink?��� she asked.
���It���s all right. He���s asleep,��� Babette said.
���Does he speak French?���
���He speaks both. French and English,��� Babette said proudly.
The door opened. Stuart stood in the doorway. He looked at Liliane ��� she was not allowed to be here ��� but he was addressing Babette.
���Madame Aron isn���t well. She fainted.���
���Where is she?��� Babette stood, taking control.
���She���s lying down in the sitting room. What should I give her?���
���I���ll be down in a minute. I���ll just put the boy to bed.���
Stuart left them, without looking at Liliane again.
Babette adjusted the child, settling him more comfortably on her hip.
���Shall I take him?��� Liliane asked. ���Just while you look in on the mother?���
Babette seemed to take pity on her. She laid the boy in her lap.
Liliane did not notice her friend leave the room. She was looking at the sleeping face of this unknown child, experiencing a rush of warmth, greater than anything she had felt, even towards her own children. The boy���s head rested in the crook of her arm. She watched his mouth, slightly open. Sometimes his lips moved as though he were half-forming words. One of his little hands lay on his chest. She wanted to touch his fingers.
Her heart jumped as Babette opened the door.
���She���s fine. She wants me to put him to bed. Poor woman.���
Babette���s compassion for the woman downstairs was suddenly too much to bear. Liliane���s eyes filled with tears. As Babette took the child from her, she saw her friend���s distress. For an instant Liliane believed she was angry. Babette held the sleeping child on her hip and studied her.
���I���m sorry. I can���t help it,��� Liliane said.
But Babette held out her hand. When Liliane took it, the tears fell.
���Of course you can���t. It���s all right. You can cry.��� She began to make soothing noises like the most tender of mothers and Liliane cried silently, clasping her friend���s hand as tightly as she could. And as Babette soothed her, she let her mind run on and on, gathering all the severed threads of her memory.
She had lost her son. She let her mind say this. I have lost R��my. She would have liked to tell dear Babette what she remembered but she must not wake the child. She would have liked to tell Babette how happy she had been when R��my came home that Christmas Eve on leave from National Service. How he had helped her shake the olives from the trees and gather them up in plastic sheets. She had hardly spoken to him, she was so happy to have him with her, and there would be plenty of time, she thought. They would spend a whole week together. He would catch up on his sleep in the mornings and watch TV in the afternoons. They would have a bite together in front of Guess the Price before he went out.
Liliane looked up. Babette was looking down on her, her face full of compassion.
���Tell me,��� she said. ���Tell me what happened.���
Liliane wanted to tell Babette about Coco: how she now understood that her husband was the animal that would kill its offspring rather than be challenged by it. But she was afraid.
Babette rested her hand on Liliane���s head. Liliane spoke to the floor.
���You remember when R��my came home that time? Every evening Coco took him into Massaccio. To show him off, his handsome son.���
Liliane looked up. Babette smiled at her.
���I remember.���
���Coco was at the top then. In one year he had taken over all the best clubs. Remember?�
����
Babette nodded.
���He had Russo on his side,��� Liliane went on. ���The north of the island was his. He was so full of himself, he even offered R��my his new mistress. Evelyne. He wanted his boy to share everything he had. But R��my wasn���t like that.���
Liliane looked at the sleeping child in Babette���s arms.
���New Year���s Eve is the anniversary of Titi���s death. Well, that night some drunk told R��my it was Coco who had had him killed. R��my admired Titi. Like everyone.���
Liliane paused. She was tired.
���Go on, Liliane.���
���It was Titi I couldn���t forgive. For having let himself be killed. It had been a year and people had accepted it. They accept everything in the end, don���t they? Everything here, however wicked, becomes part of the natural order of things. Doesn���t it?���
���I���m afraid it does. It���s our strength too, though.���
���R��my stayed out all night and all the next day. I���d just got into bed when I heard him come in. I could tell from his voice that he���d been drinking. I heard him shout at his father and then there was a crash and what turned out to be all the bibelots smashing to pieces. He���d tried to kick his father and Coco had grabbed his leg and tipped him back into the display cabinet. I just sat there in bed trying not to scream.���
Still clasping the child to her, Babette sat down on the chair opposite her friend. Liliane was aware that nothing would be the same between them after this, that Babette might not thank her for breaking the silence.
Liliane told her friend about how she had listened to the front door slam, how she had run downstairs in her bare feet and seen her son lying on the sitting-room floor. He had hit the coffee table as he fell and there was some of his blood on the tiles beside his head. All night, she sat by him and held his head in her lap, dozing and waking. The alcohol kept R��my unconscious. When at last he opened his eyes, he smiled at her and then closed them again at the pain because his lip was split.
Later she washed him as she had when he was a boy, and scrubbed his back and helped him dress, easing his shirt over his rib cage, which was badly bruised. Before he left he picked one of her broken figures from the floor. It was a little statue of Our Lady that she had brought back from her trip to Lourdes. The Virgin���s head had come clean off. He looked at the statue.
���Can I keep this?���
���I could get you another one if you like it.���
���No. I want this one.���
She looked at him standing on the other side of the room, broken china around his feet.
���In case I ever forget,��� he said.
���Then he left,��� Liliane told her friend. ���And I never saw him again.���
Babette looked long at her and Liliane felt fear in her stomach as though she had sinned. Then Babette pressed her lips to the boy���s head and Liliane saw her forgiveness.
���And Coco?��� Babette���s voice was free of spite.
���He came home the next evening, packed his things and left. For a whole year he lived at the villa. When he came back to Santarosa the summer after, I knew we���d never speak of R��my.���
Babette stood up. She rested her hand on Liliane���s head and began to stroke her hair. She stood there for a long time smoothing the soft, grey hair.
���There,��� she said. ���It���s all out. It wasn���t hard, was it? It���s only when you accept you���ve lost something, Liliane, that you can ever hope to find it again. Now come and help me put this boy to bed.���
Chapter Sixteen
Sam was dreaming of his mother. He was not asleep but still he was dreaming. He lay curled up in the dark with his cheek on his praying hands, his eyes closed.
She was lying in her bed. She often slept in the morning and he knew not to wake her because it made her bad-tempered. He stood over her and watched her face against the pillow. He wanted to kiss her cheek, but he knew if he did she would disappear. He looked at her closed eyes. Her eyelashes were very black and tangled. She had a freckle darker than the rest under her eye and one on her lip. He tried to smell her, but his dream didn���t stretch that far and he was back in the dark again, too thick to breathe, and he could hear the clicking noise coming from somewhere above his head.
Since his fall he had not climbed up to the holes again. It hurt when he stood up, so he lay on his back with his knees bent and his feet flat against the wall. His breaths were quick, like they were when he was tired out from treading water in the deep end.
He had stopped crying because he did not like to hear his own voice. It reminded him of where he was. Now he slept and woke and slept and woke. He knew when he was awake because of the clicking sound. Sometimes he counted the clicks, but he never got far because his thoughts chased the numbers away.
His shorts were wet with pee. He had dreamed that he was walking down the stairs at home. There was a blue darkness that he could see through. Dan���s door was open and he could hear his breathing as he passed. He reached the door to the bathroom and opened it. The tiles were cold under his feet. He sat down on the loo because he was too sleepy to stand and watched a silverfish play dead, then disappear into a crack in the wall. He watched the crack and waited for the pee to come. It flowed out warm on to his stomach and woke him up. Later they had put the glasses back on and taken him out, sat him on a blue plastic bucket; but he couldn���t do anything, so they shut him in again.
He didn���t know how long he had been there because there were no days to count, but the darkness did not scare him. It was the light when the door opened and the smell of the place where the men were.
He closed his eyes and tried to get the dream of his mother back, but all he could see was his fish opening and shutting its mouth and dying in his dark, dry rucksack.
His mother would be crying now, like she did every time he got lost. The other times he had lost her, in the shops or in the woods or on the beach, he saw had just been for practice. He loved the way his mother���s face looked when she cried. When she found him she would kneel down and he would put his arms around her neck and press his face into her bosom and let her hold him until she calmed down. This time it was real.
He sat up, held his legs folded against his chest and bit his knees, one after the other. He did not bite hard but gently. He liked the taste of his skin and the spit rolling down his thighs.
They had put his finger in the trap again. They had opened the door and the one who talked all the time had told him they were going to make a tape for his mother. He had not been able to open his eyes because of the light.
���Say hello to your mother.���
But he could not speak. He held his eyes tight shut. Then they had put his finger in the trap and closed it a little. That was when he had screamed. He wished he hadn���t. For his mother���s sake.
Ever since then he had kept silent. He had not tried yet, but he thought that even if he wanted to speak, the words would not come out. Instead there was a lot of talking in his head: sometimes his mother���s voice, and sometimes Dan���s.
���You���re so shellfish,��� Dan said. Sam laughed. ���It���s not shellfish, silly. It���s selfish.��� In fact Dan was the selfish one. He never let him play with his toys. Even the pirate ship, which he never used. It stayed on the shelf all the time. ���You���ll lose the bits,��� Dan said.
���Yes, Sam,��� his mother said. ���You���ll lose the bits.���
But he didn���t care. He still liked the ship without the bits.
This was prison. He had always been scared of prison. Now he was here. His worst dream was about prison
. He had not dared tell his mother about it because just talking about it frightened him too much. Now he was in it.
He was hungry. He hadn���t eaten since the ravioli. They put things in his prison, but the smell made him feel sick and he sat with his eyes buried in his knees, waiting for them to take the plate away. He did not want to eat but he was afraid they would get angry.
He let go of his knees, lay down in the dark and rested his feet against the wall. His back still hurt him if he took a deep breath, so he breathed very gently. He closed his eyes and saw the different darkness of his mind. He watched the shapes moving behind his eyes and began to count the clicks.
He could see that things were easier for other kids but he didn���t know why. His head was always so full of questions that he sometimes didn���t bother asking them because the answers he got just provoked more questions. He could feel them shuffling in a queue in his head, some, often the most stupid, forcing themselves to the front. When he had asked his mother on the way from the airport whose idea it was to build all the shops and houses, he knew as he was asking that this was not the question he meant to ask but another, non-stupid question that hid itself from him.
Sometimes she got angry with him because of the questions, but sometimes she asked for them and was pleased with them. He had not learned which ones made her angry and which ones made her pleased. But this he could not learn because his mother was soft and hard. Like her name. ���Alice,��� he said aloud. ���A-lice. Hard, soft.���
*
Mickey stood in the middle of the room and mimed his favourite number: Jorge Ferreira singing ���Ai Ai, Meu Amor, Ai Ai���. He wished there was a mirror in the room. Maybe he would ask the Scattis to get him one. He knew all the words but not what they meant. This didn���t matter because the song spoke to his soul. He could move just like Ferreira and make the same facial expressions, but he mouthed the words. If he tried to sing, a dead sound came out, nothing like what he had in his head.
He clicked his fingers as if to snap himself out of a trance and did a little rotating jump. He faced the kid���s cupboard and listened. He had stopped whining. In fact he hadn���t made a sound for a while now. He���d have to start eating soon or else they���d have problems. Paolo had told the mother they would send her his finger if she didn���t get the money in time.
