The Missing

by C. L. Taylor

  As I yank open the drawer to his bedside table the sketchbooks that are piled up on the top spill to the carpet. I pull one onto my lap and flip through it. Unlike reading, Billy’s interest in drawing has never faded but it’s been a long time since he’s drawn robots, dinosaurs and flying cars. For the last couple of years he’s done nothing but scrawl graffiti tags over every available surface.

  Fliy—that was the tag he came up with first, but he changed it to DStroy when Jake teased him that he wanted to be called Fliy because he made a lot of noise and was dirty and annoying.

  And here it is, page after page of thick black scrawl. DStroy. DStroy. DStroy. The letters becoming more and more illegible, turning into a spiky dark hieroglyphic as he worked on his design. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was DStroy—that’s why it was so easy for the headmaster to identify him as the culprit behind the graffiti at school.

  The first time we were called into Mr. Edwards’s office Billy tried to explain that graffiti was his way of leaving a mark on the world. He might not be remembered for winning a trophy for sport or drama but everyone knew who DStroy was. DStroy didn’t care how tall a building was or how risky it was to tag it. DStroy thought his teachers and the police were sleepwalking sheep carrying out the orders of hypocritical politician scum. Who were they to say he couldn’t express himself the way he wanted? Tagging wasn’t vandalism—it was art.

  Mark called him a fucking idiot. He said respect was earned by working hard, not by scribbling on school property, and he was ashamed to call Billy his son. I saw Billy flinch just for a second before he muttered, “You’re one to talk about respect,” under his breath. Mark didn’t hear him and I wasn’t about to ask Billy to repeat himself.

  I hoped it was a phase, the graffiti and the defiance. I fell out with my own mum when I was about the same age as Billy. I felt so grown up and independent and I struggled with the fact that my parents still had so much control over my life. If Mum insisted Dad pick me up from a party at 10 p.m. instead of letting me stay until 11 p.m., or confiscated a lipstick I’d bought because it was “tarty red,” I’d argue back as though my life depended on it. I knew what was best for me, not her. Didn’t she know how pathetic it made you look in front of your friends to be picked up before all the others? Didn’t she remember how important it was to have the same shade of lipstick as everyone else?

  I wasn’t soft on Billy when he got in trouble with the school. I backed Mark one hundred percent when he told him he was grounded for a month, but I felt it was important to talk to Billy too, to understand why he’d done what he’d done so we could prevent it from happening again. Mark accused me of mollycoddling Billy but I wouldn’t back down. Shouting and screaming at him would only widen the gulf between us and I didn’t want to be a stranger in my own son’s life. But he wouldn’t let me in.

  I turn another page of Billy’s sketchbook and dab at the tear on my cheek but I’m too slow and it drops onto the paper. The ink escapes from the edge of the design and creeps, frond-like, through the fibers of the page. I never should have spent the night at Mum’s house. If I’d just been stronger. If I’d held my ground and told Mark to get out instead then Billy would never have disappeared.

  I would have woken up. I would have heard him creep down the stairs. I would have told him that we loved him, no matter what he did.

  The police say there was no evidence of forced entry that night. And no sign of a struggle. Billy wasn’t smothered in his bed and carried out of the house. He left of his own free will. Did he come to Mum’s to look for me, then carry on walking when there was no answer at the door? Did he head for a friend’s house and run into trouble en route? Did someone offer him a lift and then—

  I drop the book and press my hand to the side of my head as a dark thought creeps into my brain.

  “No.” I say the word aloud, to try and block it out. “He’s not dead.”

  Billy’s alive. He ran away because he felt ashamed, unloved and rejected. He’s hiding out with a friend. He’s seen the TV appeals but he’s still angry, still hurt. Or he’s sleeping rough and hasn’t seen the appeals. He thinks we don’t care enough to come after him. But it’s been six months. Surely after this long he’d have got in touch? He knows how much I love him. He wouldn’t put me through this kind of torment. The only reason why I haven’t heard from him is because—

  “No!” I say it again. “No! No!”

  “Claire?”

  “No!” I won’t believe that. I won’t.

  “Claire?” The voice is louder this time and I screw my eyes tighter shut.

  “No! No! No! No!”

  “Claire!” I feel a heavy hand on one shoulder. “Claire, stop it! Stop it! Stop shouting.”

  Mark is crouched in front of me. He’s wearing his suit trousers and a white shirt. The top button is undone and his chin is speckled with stubble. “What are you doing? Why are you shouting?”

  I stare at him as his lips continue to move but I can’t make sense of the words that come out. It’s as though someone has woken me from a nightmare and there is a glass wall between me and reality.

  “Claire. Oh God, Claire.” He pulls me into his arms and the scent of his aftershave fills my nostrils; a sharp citrus note against the stench of cigarette smoke. Mark hasn’t smoked for years. He must have started again on the sly. “Claire, I’m sorry.” He runs a hand over my hair, then does it again and again; firm strokes from the crown of my head to the nape of my neck. “I’m sorry we argued last night. And I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your texts. I was so angry and I needed to cool down.”

  I wriggle my arms from where they are tightly pressed against my chest, then slip my hands around his back and press my palms to his shoulder blades. His shirt feels cool and soft.

  “I’m sorry too,” I whisper, then I pull away so he can see my face but I don’t let go. Holding on to him makes me feel real. Grounded. If I let go I’ll drift away. “I don’t know why I said that. I’ve been feeling so guilty and—”

  “Claire, there isn’t a single day I don’t feel guilty about what I said to Billy that night. You were right when you told me to be a parent and keep control of myself. You’d have thought I’d have learned that by now. I’ve already lost one son.” He glances away, his teeth clenching as he tries to hold back tears. I pull him in to me, cradling his head with my hands.

  His body shudders against me as he cries silently. Then he coughs, takes a deep breath and pulls away, reaching for my hands, wrapping them in his.

  “I’m just so angry with myself. I swore that I wouldn’t be like my dad. I wouldn’t laugh at my kids’ ambitions. I wouldn’t tell them that a job in a builder’s yard was the best they could hope for in life. I was going to tell my kids that they could be anything they damn well wanted to be.”

  “You did. You’ve always said that to the boys, ever since they were little enough to have ambitions. Remember when Billy said he wanted to be an astronaut? You said there was no reason he couldn’t be if he just worked hard at school. You’d save up to take him to the NASA space center in Florida if he passed his math GCSE, remember?”

  “Claire, he was eight!”

  “But you told him you believed in him. You made him think he could achieve anything.”

  “So what went wrong?” The light dulls in his eyes. “Why throw it all in my face? Why skip school? Why turn to vandalism? Shoplifting, for God’s sake. I don’t think my dad did a great job bringing me up but I turned out okay. What did I do so wrong?”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. Billy’s fifteen. It was a phase. He would have grown out of it.”

  “Would he? What if he’d started dabbling in drugs next? Or stealing cars? Claire, some of those kids he was hanging out with were dropouts. Eighteen years old, living off benefits, graffitiing bridges and running from the cops. He looked up to them and thought I was the arsehole!

  “Anyway”—he shakes his head as though trying to clear it—“I’m sorry
we argued. I was stressed and I took it out on you. I thought the appeal would result in some new information and then Jake—” He stops abruptly. “Let’s not go there again.”

  “No.”

  “I’m glad you came home early,” I add as Mark takes my hand and eases me up off the floor.

  As he leads me toward the doorway I glance back at the sketchpads on the floor. “Mark? You haven’t seen the photo album, have you? The gray one with the pictures of Billy and Jake at school?”

  “Nope.” He gives my hand a small tug. “It’ll turn up. Nothing’s lost forever.”

  Chapter 21

  I can’t watch a TV program all the way through anymore. I can’t sit still for that long. I need to do something instead—tidying, cleaning, chatting or surfing the Internet. I don’t know if it’s because motherhood and sleep deprivation have wrecked my concentration span or because I’ve forgotten how to relax. I miss being able to turn off my brain and lose myself in a film or TV drama. We used to watch The X Factor or I’m a Celebrity as a family when the boys were younger. We’d sit on the sofa, Mark and I bookmarked on the ends with the kids squashed between us in the middle. We’d order pizza, drink thick, sticky Coke and pass comments on the acts or the celebrities. Mark and I would exchange looks at some of Ant and Dec’s more risqué jokes and then burst out laughing, prompting confused stares from the kids and a chorus of, “What? What’s so funny?” I’d give anything to turn back time and do that again. Anything at all.

  Mark went upstairs to do some work half an hour ago and Jake and Kira disappeared into their room after tea so it’s just me sitting in front of the TV, half-watching a program about adoption, half-reading the magazine on my lap. I can’t stop thinking about the art pad I found in Billy’s room earlier with DStroy scrawled over every page. DS Forbes still hasn’t got back to me about the disused sorting office although I’m no longer convinced that’s where Billy is. And I can’t go driving around Gloucester Road knocking on the doors of squats. That just leaves the last place on Billy’s list—Avonmouth. There’s a pub near the river, the Lamplighters. I could suggest to Mark that we go for a walk along the riverbank and then grab a pint.

  I take the stairs two at a time. The door to our bedroom is ajar. The curtains are still open and Mark, lying on the bed with a file on his chest and his mouth slightly open, is bathed in soft light. A snore catches in his throat before he falls quiet again. I gently fold the duvet over him, then retreat back out onto the landing. I can’t wake him, not if he’s this tired. He works so hard.

  I glance at my mobile phone. It’s just after 7:30 p.m. If I want to get to Avonmouth before the sun sets I need to leave now. I cross the landing to Jake and Kira’s room and stand silently outside the door. Tinny dialogue drifts through the cracks. A second later Jake and Kira roar with laughter. The sound is so foreign, so wonderful, it makes my heart leap. They sound so happy. I can’t ask them to come and look for Billy with me.

  I return to the living room and call Liz. She picks up on the second ring.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah. I was just wondering if you fancied coming to the Lamplighters in Avonmouth with me.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, sorry, mate. I’m in town. I’m meeting Caleb and his new boyfriend for a drink.” She practically squeals the words “new boyfriend.”

  “He’s letting you meet him?”

  “I know! I’m under strict instructions not to do, or say, anything that might embarrass him so that’s basically me sitting mute in the corner for the whole night but yes, can you believe it?”

  “That’s great news, Liz.”

  “We could go for a drink tomorrow if you like? Why do you want to go to Avonmouth anyway?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Enjoy your night.”

  “I will. Take it steady!”

  I put down the phone and drop back into the armchair. The documentary has finished and a weight-loss program has started. I flick through the channels. Images flash up on the screen and then vanish—a woman in the throes of labor, a father and son playing football, a pregnant woman, a family having dinner, a teenager in a hospital bed. I turn off the TV. The sudden silence makes my ears ring.

  I pick up my magazine.

  Put it down again.

  I pick up my mobile and scroll through Facebook.

  Pictures of cats. Pictures of food. Pictures of sunsets. Gripes about bad days at work, leaking showers, annoying neighbors and the government.

  I close the app.

  My foot tap-tap-taps on the floor as I look around the living room—at the photos of Jake and Billy on the mantelpiece, at the DVDs and books in the bookcase, at the framed print I bought Mark for our first anniversary.

  Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

  I can’t just sit here and do nothing.

  I can’t.

  Liz’s voice rings in my ears as I park the car and walk down the lane toward the Lamplighters pub.

  “Don’t you be going to any more places on your own. You need to let the police do their job.”

  I block her voice out.

  There isn’t a single empty table outside the pub. Everywhere I look there are men and women in T-shirts and shorts, vest tops and dresses; all drinking, smoking and chatting and enjoying the last vestiges of summer. The sun is low in the sky, the clouds striped amber and red. It’s warm but I still shiver in my thin cardigan, maxi dress and sandals. I should have changed before I left the house.

  I take a right outside the pub and weave through the gate into Lamplighters Marsh, the pathway that follows the river Avon. It’s been a long time since I was last here. It was before the kids were born, back when Mark had a motorbike and we’d go off on adventures, discovering parts of Bristol we’d never visited before, spending hours nursing pints of shandy (him) and glasses of Martini and lemonade (me) as we learned everything there was to know about each other.

  Spiky bushes and dense bracken flank me on both sides, obscuring the view of the river and the city. In the distance is the Avonmouth Bridge, a gray metal slash cutting through the sky. A seagull circles overhead and then dips down toward the ground and disappears from view. I continue on toward the bridge. If Billy was going to tag anything around here that would be his target.

  For several hundred meters I can still hear the laughter and chatter from the pub behind me and then it is gone, replaced by the rush of a wind that seems to come from nowhere and the low drone of cars speeding across the bridge. The path winds and curves as I continue to walk and the sun dips lower in the sky. I cross paths with a solitary dog walker. He raises a hand in greeting and then he too is gone. I continue along the path for five, maybe six minutes more and then discover a break in the bushes and a lone green bench on the edge of marshy riverbank. I pause as I spot something floating on the surface of the water. Something black, voluminous, like an item of clothing puffed up with air. When Billy first disappeared there was talk of dredging the river. I couldn’t bear it. I had to leave the room.

  I stand stock-still, with one hand pressed to my chest as the river carries its hoard closer, closer and then air rushes from my lungs as it turns in the water and the twisted knot of a torn bin bag appears on the surface. It’s a bag. Just a bag.

  As I turn away my toe catches on something and I look down. There’s a patch of burnt grass beside the bench with stones at the edges and three or four charred logs in the center, where a fire must have been. I dip down and hover my hand above them. Cold. Whoever started the fire is long gone. But there was someone here, someone who needed to light a fire to keep warm. The sound of voices cuts through the wind’s whistle and the roar of the traffic and I freeze, my hand still stretched toward the logs. The voices are too close to have drifted up from the pub. And they’re male voices, young male voices. My walk becomes a jog as I rejoin the path, then a sprint as I realize that the sound is coming from directly below the bridge.

  I slow
to a halt as I get closer: I can still hear the voices but there’s no obvious way of getting to them. The foliage is thicker here with bushes and trees reaching way above my head. And then I spot it, a disturbance in the bracken and a stamped-down path leading directly under the bridge. The voices grow louder as I crash through the undergrowth and then someone shouts, “Whoa,” as I burst into a small clearing on the riverbank. Four teenagers, sitting cross-legged around a fire with their bags and bikes scattered around them, stare back at me. There’s a shocked silence, then one of them giggles. He stares at me, his eyes big and round, then tips backward, his arms wrapped around his body as he explodes with laughter.

  “Naz, you dick!” The boy to his right picks up a can of lager from beside his friend’s head and turns it upside down. “That was the last of my beer.”

  “Lost your dog?” says another of the boys. He dips his head and takes a puff on the spliff hidden in his curled hand.

  “No, I . . .” Behind the boys is a concrete column. Even in the dim light I can make out the swirl and curve of the graffiti at the base.

  “Graffiti fan, are you?” says the boy with the spliff as I take a wide circle around the group to take a closer look. In two places someone has written the initials DBK in thick orange paint. There are some nonsensical letters sprayed in purple along the center of the column. CNSCS, that’s all I can make out. ZYNK is written in black spray paint on the lower strut of the column and there’s something in a white bubble shape with black edging. I can’t read a word of it.

  “Do you . . .” I turn back to the boys. “Do any of you do graffiti?”

  “‘Do you do graffiti?’” Spliff Boy repeats, totally deadpan, and Laughing Boy howls with amusement.

  There was a time when I would have found a group of young lads like this threatening. I’d have crossed the street rather than risk attracting their attention but I’ve stopped being scared. I don’t care if they think I’m old and embarrassing and uncool.