Out on a Limb (19 page)

Chapter 18

‘A
ND THEN
I
HAD
another thought,’ I tell Dee while we change into our swimming gear the following Tuesday evening. Badminton, and now swimming as well. What next? Between the fall out after Charlie and Dee’s ante-natal zeal, I shall be a gym rat before the year’s out.

‘What?’

‘I thought ‘Hang on a minute. When I mentioned his father, he shook his head’. Of course, I thought that was just, well, a sort of acknowledgement about how he was feeling, you know? But then once I got to thinking about it a bit more, it occurred to me that it might have meant he was referring to something else altogether.’

‘Which was?’

I pull the strap up on my swimsuit and start folding my clothes. ‘Lucy Whittall, of course!’

‘Lucy Whittall? What about her?’

‘That’s just the very thing I’ve been pondering. The way she
was.’

‘What way was she?’

‘Well, hyped up, excitable. A bit manic. Well, sort of. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time – she’s that sort of person anyway, isn’t she? ’

‘Is she? She always looks pretty hatchet-faced on A and E.’

‘Well, she’s in role then, of course. And it’s all blood and guts. But that
is
what she’s like. Well, would seem to be from what
I’ve
seen of her, anyway. And it
was
a lovely afternoon, and they’d just been out for lunch, and I thought she was, just, well, jolly. Couple of glasses of wine on board. That sort of thing.’

‘But?’

‘Well, it was something Ben said afterwards. You know, Jake’s friend. Not to me, of course. They were just chatting about her, generally. And he used the word ‘wired’. He said she looked like she was wired.’

‘Which means what, exactly?’

I stuff my socks in my trainers and shove them in a locker. ‘Well, I don’t know for sure, of course. But isn’t it the sort of thing they say about people on drugs?’

‘What, you think she was
on
something? Stoned?’

‘I don’t know about stoned. Pretty much the opposite, I’d say. And it reminded me of something Candice said a while back. About how she’d been busted for cocaine a couple of years ago.’

‘Cocaine? Blimey. Lucy Whittall? You really think so?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. And I’m not about to bandy the idea around, obviously. But when you sit down and think about it, it doesn’t sound that far-fetched, does it? It’s not like that sort of thing isn’t in the tabloids all the time.’

Dee’s now in her bikini. Pink with lime polka-dots. Though small still, her stomach’s already taut and smooth-skinned. I had two dreadful, much ruffled pregnancy costumes. How times have changed. And how nice. She looks great.

‘So you think it’s actually about that?’ she says, gathering up her own clothes. ‘You know, with him? That he’s stressed out because she’s taking drugs again?’

‘Well, it could be, couldn’t it? Given the history. Given all the stuff there’s been in the press about her.’

‘Oh, that’s dreadful. What a waste. I mean, if you’re right, that is. Are you going to say anything to him?’

‘
God
, no. It’s none of my business, is it? And it may not even be that, after all.’

‘But it does sound like he’s looking for a shoulder to cry on.’

‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘You might be right about that. But he’s not having mine. I’ve already been there, remember. With Charlie. And look where
that
got me.’

In bed with an already married man. In hot water. Which can be efficacious in the case of frozen shoulder, say, or chronic arthritis, or a collar bone injury, but is not something I’d like to find myself falling into any more. And I’m not sure, in any case, that it
is
as I’ve conjectured. I still favour the notion that Gabriel Ash is just coming to terms with how things were between him and his father. Affairs of the heart are too depressing to contemplate. And I contemplate more than enough depressing things already, what with living with Medea and all.

‘Hmm,’ says Dee now, as we exit the changing room. ‘You say that, but it’s hard to resist your basic personality type. You’re like me, you are. A Nurturer. You can’t help but want to help people.’

Dee is doing a part-time course in Applied Psychology at the moment. Ostensibly part of her Grand Career Plan, but in reality the degree she’s been slaving over for the past four years has been mainly a reason to get out of the house. But psychology is certainly pertinent to her situation, I guess. And useful. Perhaps I should study it too. ‘I hope I can,’ I say. ‘I’m fed up with nurturing people. You know what I’d like?
I’d
like to be nurtured.
I’d
like to be looked after for a change. It’s not even as if I’m even very good at it, am I? And it’s certainly not good for me.’

Which makes me think of my mother, who is, at this moment, with any luck, leafing through the details of Winding House Close, the latest retirement development on the list. Except that’s probably not what she’s doing. Far from it. She’s probably watching
Eastenders
, knocking back the sherry and practising her bumble bee breathing.

Dee tuts at me. ‘Er, what about Sebastian and Jake?’

‘I wasn’t exactly thinking of them.’

‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘Things getting on top of you at home
chez maman
?’

I slosh through the foot bath. ‘Oh, no more than usual. We’re just terminally incompatible as housemates, that’s all.’

‘As you would be. She’s your mother. And you’re so different too.’

‘You can certainly say that again. What’s her category, d’you think? Imperious matriarch come despot?’

‘Hmm,’ she says again. ‘I think she’s probably a Performer.’

I laugh. ‘You really needed to read that in a
book
?’

‘Actually, no. Thinking about it, she’s more a Go-Getter. Yes, that’s more your mum, I think.’

‘Is it? Well, fingers crossed then.’

‘About what?’

‘That she’ll hurry up and go-get a new place to live.’

But perhaps I’m wrong about the efficacy of my shoulder anyway, because when I come out from seeing my first patient on Wednesday morning, it’s to find that Gabriel Ash has cancelled his Thursday appointment, due, or so Candice says, to something coming up at work. What sort of something? A whirlwind? An earthquake? An untimely monsoon? Despite what I told Dee, I’m a little disappointed. It’s one thing to not want to get involved in someone else’s travails, quite another not to want to
know
. Or perhaps I’m just reverting to type, like Dee says. In which case, I must really try not to. He…she…them…it…
all
of it, frankly, is absolutely none of my business, after all.

What
is
my business, though I fervently wish it wasn’t – not this decade, anyhow – is the fact that I still have my mother in residence and not the teeniest inkling that that state of affairs is about to change any time soon. And the reason it won’t change is because
I’m
the one not changing it. Left to its own devices, it is a situation that could rumble on for ever, much like I’m inclined to suspect she will.

But harbouring such mutinous and unsavoury thoughts is no way for a grown woman to behave. What I
should
do, of course, is talk to her about it,
tell
her, except every time I gear myself up to do just that, I find I’m paralysed with anxiety about just what to say. It should be the easiest thing in the world, shouldn’t it? Talking? I can talk the hind legs off the most sturdily built donkey most of the time, so why this pathetic inability to communicate, when communication is the only sure way to resolve things?

Why does it make me feel scared?

‘Because you’ve always let her bully you, that’s why.’ So says Pru, with some feeling, when she calls me the following Monday. She’s taken to calling me lots since Mum moved here. We’ve always talked often, but never
this
often. And I know it’s because she feels guilty as well.

But what have we to feel guilty
about
, exactly? I keep asking myself that question, over and over, and have reached no sort of rational answer. And worse than my inability to get a handle on the guilt trip, is the fact that such musing is becoming dangerously counter-productive. Because despite all the doughty sentiments I so recently expressed to my sister, every time I open the box marked ‘reasons not to feel guilty about Mum’, out they keep popping, ever growing in number, like scarves or white rabbits or sausages or doves. Shame there’s no magician to wave a magic wand and – poof! – make them all disappear.

‘Well, that’s going to stop,’ I say firmly. I can always be firm when I’m talking to Pru. Just can’t seem to replicate it where my mother’s concerned. ‘As of now. I’m a grown woman, for God’s sake!’

‘Yes,
exactly
,’ she says. Then she makes a little sound that’s almost a ‘tut’. ‘Abs, you know, you’ve just got to be honest with her. What else can you do?’

Not ‘we’, I note.
You
. As in me, and not her. She – or rather Doug – has already made her position clear. For the first time since this began I feel a sense of real resentment that this burden has become mainly mine to shoulder. I know I shouldn’t – I did put myself in this position, after all – but I can’t help but think how unfair it all feels. I wish
I
had a husband to put his foot down about it. A Doug of my own to stand up for me. Which is not something I’ve found myself thinking in many a year. Often I’ve been glad that I haven’t any more. Mainly I’ve not been in a position where it’s mattered – not in the way it matters now. About
this
. But I mustn’t resent Pru. It’s not her fault we’re here. ‘I know I have to,’ I say. ‘But I just can’t bring myself to. Because it’s a conversation I just know is going to end in tears. Because she’ll want to know why. And I’m frightened I’ll lose it and I’ll tell her. In detail.’

‘Just tell her you need your own space.’

‘Just like that, eh?’

‘
Yes
. Just be firm. Abs, you
have
to.’

Just as she is being firm with me now. I sigh. ‘I know, I know. But it’s so much easier said than done, isn’t it?’

‘No, it
isn’t
. You just sit her down and explain that it’s not an option. You don’t have to get involved in reasons and reproachments and justifications about it. You don’t have to make it personal or dredge up the past. Look, I know she’ll turn it on big time to try and make you feel bad, but you’ve got to be tough. Believe me, you’ll feel so much worse a year down the line if she
is
still there. Just be firm. Tell her straight. All the while you don’t she’ll keep working away at you. Keep thinking it
is
an option. Which will make it all the harder when you
do
put her straight.’

I take this all on board and the more I do so, the more I realise that it’s just not the same for Pru as it’s always been for me. Where emotional blackmail enters into the equation I’m an absolute, category one, out-there-on-my-own wuss. Always have been. ‘I wish I was you,’ I say. ‘You’re so much better at standing up to her than I am.’

Pru laughs a little laugh. It’s both loving and knowing. ‘Of
course
I am,’ she explains gently. ‘Because I was the lucky one. I’ve always had
you
to look after me!’

And as she says so, I realise she’s absolutely on the button. She did, and she has, and it makes her so much stronger. But it also works both ways. ‘You’re very welcome,’ I say.

‘And you’re going to do it, yes? Just keep in mind that you’re an adult
and
a mother, and that you’re simply not prepared to let her have Seb’s room. Okay?’

‘Ok
ay
!’

‘How’s he getting on, anyway?’ she then says, obviously as anxious not to dwell on my problems any longer than I am. ‘Still having a good time, is he?

‘D’you know, I don’t actually know. I’ve heard nothing from him for a week.’

She laughs. ‘I think I’d take that as a yes, then.’

I laugh too, now. ‘Yes. You’re probably right.’

Friday. No, Abbie. You’re probably wrong.

Txt msg; Sorry 2 bother u – bin trying 2 call – has Seb been in touch at all? Jonx

Chapter 19

No. H
E HASN
’
T BEEN
in touch.

No Text message, no email, no postcard, no
nothing
.

Being both a law-abiding person, and also someone who pummels damaged limbs for a living, I try not to use my mobile while driving. Thus I ignored the two incoming calls that preceded this message, as I was on my way back from dropping Mum at Celeste’s house. Though when the text came – heralded by some nonsense noise programmed in by Jake – I decided to attend to it while I was held at the lights.

I read it again now.

Sorry 2 bother u – bin trying 2 call – has Seb been in touch at all? Jonx

As reading text messages of the kind Jonathan has just sent me are not generally conducive to driving with due care and attention, I then attend, as soon as is practical, to stopping the car. I pull up outside the hire shop on Caerphilly Road, where ranks of mini cement mixers and floor sanders and rotavators are always ranked neatly outside, gaily orange. Coaxing people of an entirely different species to my own to an excitable frenzy of lifestyle improvements and the notion that happiness is all about having a DIY project on-the-go at all times.

Oh, that it was. Jonathan connects almost immediately. ‘Mrs McFadden!’ he gasps at me, breathlessly. ‘Is that you?’

His voice is so loud in my ears that for a fraction of a second I think he’s not in Italy, but speaking to me from just inside the shop.

‘Jon? Yes, it’s me! I just got your text. What on earth’s going on?’

‘Oh,’ he says, sounding crestfallen. ‘I take it that’s a no, then.’

I am not liking the sound of this one little bit. ‘No, Jon. I haven’t heard from Seb. Should I have done? What’s happened?’ A thought occurs to me suddenly. ‘Have you two fallen out?’

‘No,’ he says swiftly. ‘No, no. Nothing like that. I’ve just, well, I’ve just sort of mislaid him.’

Even now I can feel stealthy tendrils of cold fear begin to tighten around my stomach. ‘What d’you mean – mislaid him? How? Where? Jonathan, what’s happened?’

‘Erm…’ he says. And I can almost see him scratching his head. ‘Well, we were at this disco –’

‘Where?’

I hear shuffling. ‘Um, I forget the name of the place. What’s the name of this place?’ He obviously has someone else with him. ‘Cervia. That’s it.’

Which means nothing to me. ‘And?’

‘And, well, we kind of got split up. We, er, met these girls and, like, I was with, er, Fulvia… and Seb was with this other one…’

‘And?’

‘And I assumed he’d gone off somewhere with her.’

‘Gone off? Gone off
where
?’

‘I don’t
know
. They’re staying at this campsite and they thought they had some free pitches, and, well, I just assumed he’d turn up there with her later. Assumed that’s what he
had
done. Except he never showed. And when I called him this morning, his phone was on divert, and I haven’t been able to get hold of him since.’

All morning, then. All
morning
. What’s
happened
? Remain calm, I think, thinking this. Remain calm. Remain rational. It’s only lunchtime. He’ll be asleep still. That’s all. ‘And he hasn’t called
you
?’ Stupid question. Of course he hasn’t.

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s like, really odd. We were supposed to be getting a train at ten.’

No, it’s not odd, I think. He’s just sleeping off a hangover or something. Or is still…well…well, ensconced. With whatever her name is… No, Abbie.
Don’t
think about that. ‘What about this girl he was with?’ I ask Jonathan. ‘Did these two girls know each other?’

‘Yeah, they do. Well, sort of. They’re all with different firms. But –’

‘Firms?’

‘You know, camping firms.’

‘Oh, I see. You mean they work there. Well, doesn’t
she
know anything? Doesn’t she know where this other girl might be?’

‘Yeah, course she does. We went round to her tent this morning. But she hasn’t seen him either.’

‘So he didn’t go off with her, then.’ Oh no. Sex I can cope with. Sex I can manage. But that’s not what happened, clearly. Unless he met someone else. God, what has my son been getting up to, exactly? Is he on some sort of pan Europe seed-spreading mission? This is getting less and less palatable by the second.

‘No. Well, he did,’ says Jonathan. ‘Well, sort of. There was a whole bunch of them. They were going to go down to the beach and –’

‘So what happened? What did she say?’

‘Nothing. She said he told her he wasn’t feeling too great, and he was going to head back to the campsite and get the tent sorted –’

‘Except he never got there.’

‘Not as far as I can tell.’

‘So where did you sleep?’

‘Um…’

You d ozy mare, Abbie. Where d’you
think
he slept? ‘No matter, no matter, no matter,’ I say quickly. ‘But you’re sure he’s not on the site anywhere, are you?’

‘Definitely. We’ve been all over trying to find him. I’m getting a bit worried.’

He’s
getting worried. ‘And you’ve kept trying his phone.’

‘Yeah, all morning.’

Okay, okay. Think Abbie.
Think
. ‘Right,’ I say, having thought. ‘I’m going to hang up now in case he’s trying to get through to you. And I’ll keep trying him too. What’s the name of this place you’re at again?’

‘Cervia.’

‘Okay. Is that with a ‘C’?’ He says yes. I write it down. ‘And do they have a police station or anything?’

‘Um, I guess so. Fulvia, er… carabinieri?’ I hear a girl’s voice. Then Jonathan’s again. ‘Yeah, they do.’

‘Right. I want you to head straight there, okay? See if they know anything. I’ll keep on trying him in the meantime. Yes, that’s best. You find the police station and see if you can find anything out. Ring me the minute you hear anything, okay? I’ll do likewise.’

‘Okay.’

Calm, Abbie. Keep calm. ‘And Jonathan?’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t panic. Don’t
worry
. It’ll be something and nothing, I’m sure.’

I wish I thought it was. Oh my God. My son is a missing person. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my
God
.

I drive home with all the due care and attention I can muster – which still probably leaves it hovering at around a barely legal level – then spend about five minutes in a wall to wall button-pushing frenzy. Contacts list – S – Sebastian – Call Contact? – Nothing – Retry? – Retry – Nothing – Retry? – Retry – Nothing – Retry?

I stop retrying then, as it is patently pointless. So, all out of options, I burst into tears.

Bursting into tears is, of course, equally pointless. Bursting into tears will achieve nothing whatsoever, but is the main unavoidable side-effect of thinking all the things a mother simply cannot help but think at times like these. He is lying in a ditch somewhere, of course. Sick, mugged, damaged, unconscious, having been divested of both his rucksack and tent, and the phone with which I am trying to make a connection is lying in a ditch with him, silenced and discarded, while its Sim card has been purloined, and – even as I think it – is now safely installed in the phone of some teenage Mafioso gangster, who is running up Seb’s Vodafone bill making calls to other gangsters, who are engaged in putting contracts on people or gun-running or extortion, or smuggling eastern bloc young peasant girls into the west for a life of prostitution and drugs.

I carry on in this vein, with commendable focus, until, some fifteen minutes later, my phone rings again.

‘It’s me again.’ Jonathan.

‘Jonathan! Any news?’

‘’Fraid not. Look, I’m just calling to say my battery’s going and I’m going to have to charge it, so if Seb gets in touch with you, can you tell him I’m heading back to the campsite to wait for him there?’

Like Seb, Jonathan has a wind up phone charger, for those occasions where they can’t get to power points. Which I presume he can’t now, what with being on the road to some campsite in the middle of nowhere. So now he’ll have to spend thirty minutes winding the bloody thing, during which time anything could happen. Oh, God. But then I have a thought. And my heart leaps to grab it. That’s it! That must be it! Seb’s battery is flat too! ‘There’s a thought!’ I say to Jonathan, and suggest it.

‘Then he would have used a payphone to call me instead, wouldn’t he? If he was in a position to, that is.’

In-a-
position
-to. Ah, but what would constitute
not
being in a position to? No payphone? No money? No
digits
? Aaarrrgh. ‘And what did the police say?’

‘Not a lot. He didn’t speak much English. But he’s taken my number. And I gave him yours too.’

‘And have you got one for the station?’

He tells me it. I note it down. I reassure him again. I ring off. I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And I wait. I really don’t know what else
to
do.

I’m still waiting when Jake appears. He’s back in school on Monday, so has been eking out his last hours of freedom with his friends at the skate park, doing twiddles and twirls on his skateboard. At least, twiddles and twirls is how
I
like to think of them. Potentially neck-breaking, skull-splitting stunts doesn’t have quite the same ring to a mother. But to think the very pinnacle of my maternal worries once was that one of my offspring would fracture a small bone.

‘Something up, Mum?’ he asks. He’s drinking from a two-litre bottle of Sprite, which is how he gets most of his nutrition at such times, augmenting with occasional Mars Bars.

My phone rings again, just as I’m filling him in. And this time – hurrah! – at long last, the display says – ‘Incoming call. Seb.’

‘Oh, thank the Lord. Thank the
Lord
!’ is what I’m already saying as I flip it open and put it to my ear.

What comes out of the earpiece isn’t the voice of my missing first born, however, but an incomprehensible stream of something indecipherable and foreign – and I hazard a guess at Italian. Yes, definitely Italian, I decide. It has that pizza restaurant menu kind of ring.

What I also establish, because I have been spending most of the afternoon engaged in the business of terrified conjecture, is that the man speaking to me now (for it is a man, and a mature one) is – thank heavens – probably not a member of the Corleone family. Because it takes mere nanoseconds to compute that no criminal, having stolen a mobile phone Sim card, is likely to make his number one priority to scroll through the victim’s address book and phone up a contact marked ‘mum’. I exhale shortly after. He’s still gabbling at me.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t speak Italian,’ I say slowly. ‘Do you speak Any English? Er, Inglese?’

‘Inglese,’ he says back. Or something quite like it. Then. ‘’Ello. But no.’

Ello, but damn.
Damn
. ‘Se-
bas
-ti-
an
?’

This elic its a ‘Si’, which is certainly encouraging. But then he’s back to being incomprehensible again.

Jake’s jiggling my forearm, slopping Sprite on the carpet. ‘Mum! What they
saying
?’

‘I don’t know!’ I hiss. ‘Signor?’ Is signor the right parlance? Signor
e
? ‘Seg-nor-e,’ I plump for. ‘Me non-com-prend-ez vous!’

‘That’s
French
, Mum,’ says Jake. ‘That’s no good.’ And he’s quite right. It isn’t. ‘Ask if there’s anyone else there who speaks English.’ I do. Seems there’s not. Though I wouldn’t know either way, would I? I make an executive decision.

‘Signor,’ I say firmly. ‘I speak no Italian. Have you, um, a telephono in, er, casa that I can call you back on? A Land Line?’ I’m beginning to feel Like Julie Walters in that Victoria Wood sketch. Speak Very Slowly And Loudly to Foreigners and With Any Luck You Will Be Understood.

And, by God, I am! ‘Si,’ he says. ‘Telephono. Si si. Nombre. Si.’ He reels it off to me, and I carefully note it down. I write it out in words, phonetically, just to be on the safe side. Though I’m not altogether sure about ‘settee’.

‘I will ring you back in ten minutes,’ I tell him. ‘Er. Grazi.’

‘Si, Senhora. Ciao,’ he says, enunciating similarly carefully. He has obviously seen Wood and Walters as well.

‘Right,’ I say to Jake as I end the call. ‘We’ve got a number. Which means we’ve got
something,
at least. Go and find the Italian phrase book, will you? If we can cobble together a few sentences, we might be able to make some progress.’

‘
Durr
, Mum. We don’t
have
an Italian phrase book. Not any more. Seb took it with him, didn’t he?’

Rats. Of
course
. But then I have a better idea anyway. ‘Go and switch the computer on, then. We can use Google or something. Or BBC education, or whatever. I’m sure there’s some website where you can translate stuff online. God, Jake,’ I say, as we troop through the hall. ‘What on earth is going
on
?’

We decamp to the dining room in which we don’t do any dining and boot up the computer without delay.

‘Right,’ says Jake, who has found a likely looking website. ‘What shall I type in, then?’

‘Erm… how about “can you tell me what has happened to my son, please”. Yes?’

He types it in. ‘Er…here we are,’ he says. ‘Um… “
Puoi dirmi che ha succedere verso mio figlio, pregare
?”.’

‘Okay. Hang on. Let me get that written down. Puoi… how on earth do you pronounce that when it’s at home?’

‘Pooh-oy, I guess.’

‘Okay. Pooh-oy derr me chey (chee? Cheh?) has suss ay deary verso me-oh fig-leo, pre-gare (or pre-gar-ray? Pre-gar-ee?).’ I read it back. ‘That sounds okay. You think that sounds okay?’

‘I s’pose so. Go on, then. What next?’

I suggest ‘do you know where he is now?’, which produces another bunch of words. But six or so carefully annotated utterances down the line, and I am fast beginning to realise that we’re on a twenty-four carat hiding to nothing. ‘God, this is hopeless, Jake,’ I say, putting my pen down in despair. ‘Because we’ve forgotten one crucial thing.’

He glances across at me. ‘What?’

‘That if I can barely read this lot back in the first place, then how am I going to have the first clue what he might be saying back to me? Damn, but I wish I spoke Italian!’