by Pamela Fudge
To give them their due, of the people pushing around us, many did pause to ask what the problem was and someone quickly went to find a member of the theatre security staff. Another man found a chair to stand on and pleaded with everyone to look out for a small boy on his own – many others just continued, uncaring, on their way.
Members of staff arrived quickly. ‘Will you both come to the manager’s office and wait there for the police to arrive?’ a security guard urged, putting his hand on my arm. ‘They shouldn’t be long.’
‘We can’t just wait,’ I stared at him as if he had lost his mind. ‘We have to keep looking. He could still be in the vicinity and he’ll be absolutely frightened to death all on his own.’
I shook his hand off and, leaving Jon to give William’s description, I ran hither and thither like a mad thing. Returning to the inside of the theatre I tore up and down aisles that were deserted now, peering along rows of seats that might hide a small child, and constantly calling William’s name.
Back into the foyer I raced. The crown there had gradually thinned, leaving only those who were concerned enough to want to help. I felt hands on my arms as I ran past, but I shook them off and ran out into the street with tears pouring unchecked down my face.
Staring up and down the road I sobbed my little boy’s name over and over again, wondering at how quickly he had disappeared from sight and how that could have happened.
I’m not sure when the realisation finally dawned that Will hadn’t actually just wandered off of his own accord. After all, where would he have gone, and why? I became increasingly sure that he wouldn’t do such a thing because he knew better, having had drummed into him from a very early age the dangers of going off alone.
There was only one explanation for his disappearance and it was that he must have been taken. The thought that William had been stolen right from under our noses sent the trickle of ice through my veins and I finally and unwillingly accepted what I must have already known deep in my heart. William had been taken – and I was very afraid I knew who had taken him.
‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.’ I recalled the tall man, Gareth, standing in front of me in the crowd. I remembered the way he had been staring across the crowded foyer at Will, and I was suddenly sure that he was the one. The fact was that my son had been kidnapped and knowing the kidnapper wasn’t some random stranger didn’t help – not one little bit.
Out on that street I spun this way and that until I was giddy, looking desperately for someone who stood head and shoulders above everyone else. If only I could just find him, I would find Will. Yet even as I searched the street frantically, I instinctively knew it was pointless because he would have left the theatre immediately and taken my son with him. What I couldn’t work out was why, because surely he was aware that you couldn’t just remove a child from his parents’ care without repercussions? No, not even if you could claim to be one of those parents.
‘He’s been taken.’ I ran back inside and fell into Jon’s arms crying helplessly, ‘Will’s been taken. I know he has.’
‘No,’ John said, his face ashen, because he read the newspapers and watched the news and so of course he fully understood the dangers children faced every day. What he didn’t understand was that this perpetrator had a particular interest in William because he had recognised me and, putting two and two together, believed him to be his son.
‘Did you see someone take him?’ The security guard stood in front of us, his youthful face serious.
‘No,’ I sobbed, ‘but he would never just wander off and...,’ I took a deep breath, ‘I think I know who’s taken him. I do, I think I know who’s taken him,’ I repeated, and prepared to make a confession that would break Jon’s heart, but would have to be done if I was to get my son back.
Chapter 12
Unable to look at Jon, I opened my mouth to make a confession that was long overdue.
‘I – erm,’ I struggled to find the right words, but somehow I had to find the strength to say them so that the hunt for my son and his abductor could begin in earnest. I straightened my shoulders with grim determination, took a deep breath and...
‘Mummy, look what I’ve found.’
I almost collapsed with the shock, because there in front of me stood Will, large as life and with a huge smile on his face – and he was hand in hand with a lion. Well, not a real lion, obviously, but an actor from the show dressed as one. I immediately went weak with relief.
Before I could even begin to collect my wits and move myself, Jon had rushed forward, bent to gather William into his arms and then stood hugging him tightly to his chest.
‘Where on earth did you go, Will?’ he demanded, but with very little anger in his relieved tone, ‘You frightened the life out of us. You know you must never run off like that.’
William’s mouth drooped at the chastisement that – even at his young age – he knew full well he deserved, but then he peeped up at Jon from under his fringe and said reasonably, ‘But I only wanted to see if I could find a lion to be my friend, and you and Mummy were going the wrong way. I found this one behind the big curtains up on the stage.’
The young security guard touched my arm and I looked up at him, wondering what he wanted and if I looked as dazed as I felt. ‘I’ll head the police off, shall I?’ he murmured. ‘We don’t want to waste their time and if they come rushing in now they’ll probably frighten the little lad to death.’
‘Might be just what he deserves for giving us such a fright,’ I said ruefully, ‘but, yes, we don’t want to waste any more of their time than we might have already.’ I went over to the young lion then and thanked him – or it might have been a her – for bringing Will safely and quickly back to us.
‘No worries,’ the lion said, and then whispered, ‘next time you come to see the show let us know beforehand and we’ll arrange a back-stage pass. Best not tell your little boy that now, however, or he’ll get the impression he’s being rewarded for bad behaviour. Ten out of ten to him, though, for being the first kid we know who has managed to find his own way back into the lions’ den.’ The lion crouched down in front of Will, who Jon had just set back down upon the ground, ‘Next time you want to meet a lion, young man,’ the actor said, ‘ask your parents to make an appointment, or take you to the zoo. It will save everyone a lot of worry.’
*
We didn’t think it right, not after the trouble William had caused, to do anything other than take him straight home from the theatre, but the relief at getting him safely back made it extremely difficult to stay angry with him for long.
We did spend a lot of the time on the train journey home drumming into him the very serious trouble he could find himself in if he made a habit of running off like that.
‘Did you realise that the police had to be called when we discovered you were missing?’ Jon said sternly.
Will’s eyes were round with astonishment. ‘Why? Were they going to arrest me for going off?’
‘No,’ I told him, ‘but they would have had to arrange a search party because no one had any idea where you were, William. Anything could have happened to you.’
‘What, though?’ he looked intrigued rather than worried.
‘You could have been run over,’ Jon pointed out.
‘But I didn’t go outside,’ Will protested indignantly.
‘Nobody knew that, though, did they?’ Jon pointed out. ‘So there would have been people out there dodging the traffic to look for you. Someone else could have been hit by a car while they were searching the streets for you. I think that would have made you feel very sorry. It certainly would have made Mummy and me very sorry that our son had been the cause of such a terrible thing.’
‘And you do remember what you’ve been told about stranger danger, don’t you, Will?’ I said, feeling it had to be said.
‘I wouldn’t go off with a stranger,’ he said huffily. ‘I’m not silly.’
‘What about the lion? Did you know him?’ I th
ought I was being logical, but William obviously didn’t think so.
‘A lion isn’t a stranger,’ he was looking at me as if I was quite mad. ‘A lion is an animal.’
There really was no answer to that statement that wasn’t going to completely spoil Will’s belief in The Lion King story and the marvellous job the actors had done in convincing the younger members of the audience – and even some of the adults – that they really were the animals they were portraying.
‘In future,’ Jon said, in a very stern voice this time, ‘you don’t go off with any person or animal without getting permission from Mummy or me. Now is that quite clear?’
‘Yes, Daddy,’ Will said, and we really felt we had no choice but to leave it at that and hope he had taken on board everything he’d been told.
William was obviously as contrite as he could be about the trouble he had caused. I thought that the mention of the police becoming involved in the hunt that would have ensued if he hadn’t re-appeared, might have given him food for thought. Like most young children he had a healthy respect for the law which we had always encouraged, and this had only increased after law enforcement officers visited his school to talk about the job they did.
Of course, he wanted to watch The Lion King on DVD as soon as we reached home. We sat with him and I think we made a good impression of enjoying it, but the mood was tense as we each pondered over what might have been, and how differently things might have turned out.
While I was relieved that I hadn’t been forced into confessing my tawdry little secret, the added concern for me was that I had once again seen my partner in that adulterous crime, and this time I was pretty sure I hadn’t imagined his interest in William. Now that the idea of kidnap had been put into my head I couldn’t seem to dismiss it. Why this Gareth would be interested in Will, when I quite clearly recalled the fact he had four children already, I couldn’t have said, but perhaps it was something I needed to find out.
‘Are you really cross with me about going off to find the lion?’ William asked as the final credits rolled. ‘I didn’t mean to be naughty.’
‘If we seem cross, Will,’ Jon told him, his face and tone serious, ‘it’s because losing you – even for a short while – frightened us both very much.’
‘Yes,’ I added, ‘we didn’t know where you were or who you were with – or indeed, if we would ever see you again. That made us very scared, upset and worried.’
‘How do you think you might feel if you lost Mummy and me?’ Jon said, hammering the point home.
‘I’m sorry.’ This time the gravity of what Will had done seemed to have finally sunk in and he really did seem repentant.
‘That’s ok,’ I said, ‘we really do think you’ve learned your lesson and won’t do anything like that again – don’t we, Daddy?’ I looked at Jon and he nodded his agreement. ‘We understand that you were just excited about the show and all the animals that you know so well from the DVD. Seeing them come to life like that was amazing, wasn’t it?’
Will clasped his hands together and beamed. ‘I loved, loved, loved it,’ he said and when he came to tuck himself between us we had a lovely family cuddle until it was time for him to go to bed.
‘I’ve been sitting here wondering what bedtime story he chose. Which one was it?’ Jon asked when I came down and then we answered in unison, ‘The Lion King,’ and burst out laughing.
The thought of what we’d been through in those long minutes before Will was found soon wiped the smiles from our faces, though. I knew it wasn’t an experience we would ever wish to repeat.
‘God, it was just dreadful, wasn’t it?’ I shuddered, and Jon drew me down on the couch next to him and into his arms.
‘I felt so helpless,’ he admitted, stroking my hair and planting little kisses along my jaw-bone until I turned my face to meet his lips with my own.
I understood completely that this wasn’t about passion, desire, or about making a baby - this was looking for comfort – looking for a way to block out those awful, endless moments when we actually believed that we might have lost our son forever.
We made love, quickly, urgently right there on the couch. It was something we never did, mindful as we were that William could appear in the doorway without making a sound to announce his arrival, and catch us right in the throes of an adult passion that he wouldn’t understand. Our need at that moment was just too great to be denied, or for us to recognise the need for caution.
Perhaps it was that sense of danger, the urgent need for the comfort of a mutual orgasm that brought us to a satisfactory conclusion in no time at all. Out of breath, but very satisfied, we straightened clothing that had barely been disturbed and settled with a sigh into one another’s arms.
I wished I could dismiss the thought from my mind that, if I had gone through with the confession – a confession that was so close to being made – there would have been no welcome for me in Jon’s arms and no forgiveness in his heart. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that my marriage and the family life that I treasured would be over.
I should never have done what I did seven years ago. There was no possible excuse. Making Jon responsible for behaviour that he couldn’t help was pointless and – if I was being honest - I had actually let him get away with it for far too long, when I should have been challenging that behaviour.
I fully understood that he’d tried to blame my non-existent weight problem for the fact we were failing to conceive a child because, admitting the problem was really his low sperm count – which it actually was – in his mind was giving me the perfect reason to leave him. He was scared, it really was as simple as that, but I should have been reassuring about something he needed to come to terms with, rather than allowing myself to become the victim in order for him to feel better about himself.
In all honesty, neither could I use the feeble excuse that I’d thought he was having an affair, as if that made everything I did all right. In fact, I had to admit that I’d actually given the matter very little real thought – just immediately jumping to the conclusion that he was - and on the flimsiest of evidence.
It was a text that I shouldn’t even have been reading no less, that’s what it all came down to. A misconstrued message with a friendly kiss at the end and I’d had Jon tried and found guilty and – furiously angry and out for revenge – I immediately set out to have an affair of my own with two goals in mind. The first was to get my own back and the second was to get pregnant. There, I had always known it, and now I finally admitted it to myself without making any further excuses for my shocking behaviour.
Unfortunately, by the time Jon had received a lecture from Tina, on both his unreasonable behaviour over our fertility problems and the incriminating message, and rushed to me to apologise and to reassure me, it was far, far too late for me to turn the clock back.
Long into the night I lay wide awake going over that terrible time of indecision while Jon slept peacefully beside me. Actually having the affair I felt I could have lived with – even confessed to it and begged for forgiveness – but finding out I was pregnant had changed absolutely everything.
I recognised that I was going over old ground as I lay there. Once again I was making a huge effort to reassure myself that it was perfectly possible the child – our lovely son, William – was Jon’s, because we had been making love regularly both before and after my night of shame. Yes, it was possible, but was it really probable? In my heart I knew the chances of Jon having fathered that child were minimal and all I was doing was trying to fool myself. The evidence stacked against it was too strong.
The fact was we had been trying to conceive for several years up to that point, without any sign of success, and added to that we had also received the damning verdict regarding Jon’s possible infertility.
Put a husband with a low sperm count versus a fit, sporty guy who had already fathered four kids and anyone would have to admit that Jon’s chances of claiming paternity didn’t look at all favourable.
To make matters worse, it was beginning to appear increasing unlikely that my recent desperate attempts to get pregnant to prove that Jon was actually capable of fathering a child were doomed to failure.
If I could turn the clock back seven years there were things I would have done differently. Not having the affair in the first place goes without saying, but even after that I’d had choices. Yes, I had listened to Tina’s advice but, ultimately, any decision I’d made back then had been entirely mine.
I could have had an abortion – no one would have needed to know, except possibly Tina who I would trust with my life. In all honesty, though, this was never an option. I had discovered I was pregnant for the first – and possibly the last – time in my life and there had been no way in the world I wasn’t going to go through with that pregnancy. No matter how the child was conceived, it was my child and I was going to be a mother come hell or high water.
Once that decision was made I was faced with other choices and, not knowing who the father was made those choices almost impossible. I supposed I could have gone to both men and had the following conversation:
‘Jon/Gareth,’ (insert name as appropriate, although I hadn’t even actually known the Adonis’ name at that point, or even where he lived) ‘I have discovered that I am pregnant and you may be the father – what would you like me to do about it?’
I was absolutely cringing at the thought of such a conversation, even one that was entirely imaginary, so what on earth would the real thing have been like? And what would the result have been? Well, there were various scenarios.
Two men who both wanted to be involved, two men who wanted nothing to do with the child or me, two men who wanted custody if it was proved that they were the father – because I was an unfit mother, obviously – and any and many variations on that theme.
What I had done was go for the option that was best for the child – and for me, too, if I was being totally honest. I had simply done nothing, said nothing and allowed Jon to think the child was his. He had never doubted it – why would he when he would never ever dream that I would stoop so low as to have an affair in the first place, or to pass a child that may have been the result of the affair off as his in the second?
