The Child Inside (37 page)

I am still wearing yesterday’s clothes. When I am done cleaning my face, I undress and shower, then dress again. I go through these things methodically; it is the only way. And then I clean my face again, cover the cut with a plaster, and watch as a red stain rises up and blooms through.

I cannot go out.

I cannot leave the house with my face like this and my life like this. If I thought I was a prisoner before, then what am I now? I drift through the day, unable to think ahead or make plans. There is a blank wall inside my head that I cannot see past.

No one calls me. At some point in the afternoon I phone Janice’s flat, though I do not know what I want to say. But the phone just rings unanswered. I wonder when Andrew will come back, for his things at least. I move about the house quietly, half-listening for the door. I want to see him and I don’t want to see him.

I turn on the computer, to kill time, and I type in
Simon Reiber
and stare at his name.
I did not know him before
, I tell myself.
I did not know him before.
Not really. He was the brother of a friend of a friend, that is all.

That is all.

I type in
abortion
, and up come the adverts, the religious sites, the cold, clinical facts. I see these listed sites and they are all nothing to do with me; I cannot look any closer. I cannot
read
them. So I type in
late motherhood
and up springs a whole load of information about the dangers and the pitfalls, and all the things that could go wrong. But hey, it’s a lifestyle choice. It’s all about having a career, and being in control.

But what about me? I have no career, and I am not in control.

So I stop even looking. And I go and find my bag, and take Simon’s cheque from my purse, and I tuck it away in the bottom of my jewellery box, where it will be safe. And into my head flashes my last image of Simon, walking away from me. I see his face in profile as he heads for the door, the decisive, impatient movement of his body in his perfectly cut clothes.
Do what you have to do
, he said to me, as if getting rid of a baby was no bigger deal than a trip to the bathroom.

What a fool I have been.

The minutes and the hours tick by. I make fishcakes for Jono’s tea, peeling, boiling and mashing the potatoes, and flaking in the fish. They sit on a plate now, ready to be cooked, plump and floury and benign. They are a lie, these fishcakes, they are a con. I sit at the table, and I look at them, and my stomach is crawling with guilt and dread. It is almost half-past four. I do not know what I will say to Jono when he gets in. I do not know what I can do, other than make him fishcakes, and wait.

I watch the hands of the clock click by, and by. I listen for Jono’s footsteps on the path, his key in the door. Five o’clock comes, and five o’clock goes. I sit at the table, and I wait.

But Jono doesn’t come home.

The coach must be stuck in traffic.

I pace about the kitchen watching the hands of the clock slowly click their way round to half-past five. On a normal day Jono would phone me if he was going to be late, but of course this is not a normal day.

I go to the front of the house and stand in the living room, where I can look out at the street from the window. The coach has been late before, but not this late. What if he didn’t catch it? What if he was delayed at school for some reason and the coach set off without him? But that has never happened before. And surely he would have phoned me. He’d have had to.

I call his mobile, but it’s switched off. He only ever puts it on when he wants to call me; he never thinks that I might need to speak to him. So many times I have told him to turn his phone on when he comes out of school, so many times.

I phone the school, but of course the office staff will have gone home now. I get the answerphone, with its various options for redirection. I try every option. I call and call again, till eventually the phone clicks and a woman says distractedly, ‘Hello.’

‘I’m a mother of a boy at the school,’ I say, stumbling over the words. ‘My son comes home on the coach. Was there any delay, do you know; anything on at school? He hasn’t rung me. He hasn’t come home.’

My heart is pounding. The phone shakes against my ear.

‘What form is he in?’

‘8G,’ I say. ‘It’s Jonathan Morgan.’

‘Just a minute.’ She’s gone for ages. I walk from side to side in front of the window, unable to stand still. There must have been a sports practice or a drama practice; something I didn’t know about. Something I should have known about, but have forgotten in all the recent chaos. Jono will be waiting for me. He’ll be standing at the school gates, waiting for me.

The phone clicks. ‘There were no after-school clubs on today for Year Eight,’ the woman says.

‘But was there anything else? A drama rehearsal or something? Is there anything he might have stayed behind for?’
Please
, I am thinking.
Please tell me there is something.

‘I’ve just spoken to the bursar,’ she says and her voice is patient to the point of irritation, as if every day there are children who do not come home from school. ‘There are no children left in school.’

‘Well, could there have been a problem with the bus then? Maybe it broke down or something. How can I find out?’

‘We use a very reliable coach company,’ she says now, as if I have personally insulted her. ‘They always let us know if there is a problem.’ Then, as if I am completely stupid, ‘Have you tried phoning him? He does have a phone?’

‘His phone isn’t on,’ I say and there is a short silence. I can almost see her rolling her eyes.

‘Then perhaps you might phone one of his friends, someone from the same bus,’ she says, spelling it out as if I am an idiot.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, of course,’ and hang up.

But Jono has no friends who get the same bus as him. His friends that I know of live in Kew, and West Byfleet. There is nobody who lives near us. Nobody he sees every day, to walk home with, to chat with, to be in and out of each other’s houses with. I picture him, trudging up the road to the bus stop every morning with the woes of the day ahead of him, and I want to fold him in my arms, my baby, my poor sweet baby.

It was different at primary school. At primary school we walked back and forth with all the others, me talking to whichever mums were going our way – and there were many, always there were many – while Jono ran ahead with the other kids; he was one of them, so happy, so at ease. But Andrew and I ripped him away from all that. The other kids went on to the local secondary school, but that wasn’t good enough for our Jono. So we stuck him on a coach each day and sent him fifteen miles out into the countryside, to be among strangers, to be alone.

And where is he now?

This is my fault. He can’t face me after throwing that torch at me. He will be in Surbiton, wandering around the shops instead of coming home. I rush into the hall, stick my shoes on and grab my keys and practically run down our road. The coach drops off just near the station – but I’ve no way of knowing if it
did
drop off. Everything is as normal. Everything is busy and slow and choked up as normal; cars crawling round the one-way system and up past the station. I get as far as the High Street, but most of the shops are shut now, and anyway, when did Jono ever hang around shops? I don’t know where he could be. There is a play area at the end of Mitcham Lane, not much of a play area – just a couple of old swings and a seesaw – but we used to go there sometimes, when he was little. I double-back on myself, and as I head there I fancy I can see him, forlorn, his chin tucked into his jacket, rocking back and forth, back and forth. But when I get there the place is deserted. I don’t know what to do. I spot a woman walking a dog on the far side of the green and run over to her.

‘Have you seen a boy?’ I ask. ‘A schoolboy, thirteen years old. He’s got dark brown hair.’ But she just shrugs and shuffles away.

Maybe he is home now. Please God, maybe he is home now. So I run back. My hands fumble and drop the key; I pick it up, ram it in the lock and slam open the door. ‘Jono!’ I yell. ‘Jono!’

And when he doesn’t answer I search the house: the kitchen, the living room. I run upstairs to his bedroom. Where is he? Where is he? I pick up the book on his bed and put it down again. I pick up his pyjamas and hold them against my face, so soft, so precious, my Jono, my Jono.

Andrew needs to know. Andrew should
be
here. So I go back downstairs and I phone Janice’s flat, but no one answers. I phone Janice’s mobile, but
she
doesn’t answer. I try to get a grip. I try to think what to do. Maybe Jono’s gone home with a friend. Maybe one of his friends will know where he is.

So I dig out the class list and phone Oliver’s house.

‘It’s Rachel,’ I say as soon as Amy answers. ‘Jono’s mum.’

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Hello, Rachel.’

‘Jono hasn’t come home.’ My voice is as clumpy and splintered as old wood. ‘I wondered if Oliver knew anything, if he said anything—’

‘Doesn’t Jonathan go home on the bus?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But he didn’t come home. I thought Oliver might know—’

‘Well, did you phone the school?’

‘Yes, of course I did. Look, please, if you’d just ask him—’

‘Really, Rachel, I don’t think Oliver is going to know where Jonathan is. Shouldn’t Jonathan tell
you
if he is going to be late home?’

She is telling me off. She is criticizing me as a mother. I feel the blood rush into my head, but there is no time to waste.

‘We . . . had a row,’ I say.

And she says,
‘Oh.’
And then, ‘Wait just a minute.’

I hear her lay down the phone. She can’t want me to hear what she says to Oliver, or she’d have taken the phone with her. I hear her footsteps disappear down the hall, and then someone starts playing the piano, practising their scales. Up and down the keys go, up and down. I follow the notes and I think my head will explode. ‘Come on,’ I plead into the phone.
‘Come on.’

After an age I hear her heels again, tapping against the tiles.

‘I’m sorry, Rachel,’ Amy says. ‘Oliver hasn’t spoken to Jonathan at all today. To be honest,’ she adds, tactfully, hurt-fully, ‘I don’t think they are quite as much friends as they used to be. Why don’t you try some of his other friends? Perhaps one of them might know something.’

Who are Jono’s friends? I stare at the names on the class list and I hardly know any of them. I think of the boys who came bowling for Jono’s birthday; were any of them
really
his friends? I think of them putting pepper all over his pizza for a laugh, and how they clubbed together in their little groups. I think of how hard he tried to join in.

What about that boy Luke that I took Jono to see in Weybridge? I run a shaking finger down the list, find his number and key it in. A teenage girl answers the phone.

‘Is your mother there?’ I ask.

And she says, ‘No.’

‘Is Luke there?’

‘No,’ she says again.

‘Do you know where they are?’

‘Don’t know. Someone’s house, I think.’

‘Well, do you know when they’ll be back?’

‘No.’

It is nearly seven o’clock. Jono should have been home before five.

I have phoned every number on Jono’s class list. Like a robot I have asked,
Does your son know if Jonathan Morgan was doing anything after school today?

They all said no.

Once, Janice didn’t come home from school. She was fourteen and had had a huge fight with my parents, because they wouldn’t let her go to the disco at Ashcroft Youth Club because it was on a school night, and older boys went to the youth club. But that was exactly why Janice wanted to go – because of the older boys. So on the Thursday that the disco was on she simply didn’t come home from school. I remember kneeling on the chair by the living-room window and anxiously watching out for her. We had shepherd’s pie for tea that night, and I remember prodding miserably at the mashed potato, unable to eat with Janice’s place at the table so starkly vacant, while my parents sat there po-faced, not even commenting on her absence. They certainly didn’t seem worried.

Soon after it got dark Janice came sloping up the front path. She hadn’t gone to the disco; she’d been hiding up the end of our road beside someone’s garage. I was so relieved to see her that I didn’t even mind it when she told me to get lost. My parents didn’t bat an eyelid at her return. They acted as if they hadn’t even noticed she was gone. She’d missed her tea; that was her punishment.

They knew she hadn’t gone far. They knew she’d be home soon enough.

But how had they known?

Panic spreads and chills inside me, iced water seeping through my veins.

I have to call the police, and yet to do so is to acknowledge that Jono might not come walking up the path at any minute; it makes the fear too real. And once I make the decision that I will call the police I know that I should have done it sooner; I should have done it straight away, when he was ten minutes late, not
two hours.
Anything could have happened. Anything. In deadly clarity I see Jono’s body being dredged from the river; I see him slumped under a railway bridge with a gash on his head; I see him glancing over his shoulder as he boards a train – gone,
gone.