Authors: John Marrs
“This is as far as I can take you,” he said back outside. “Good luck son.”
“Thank you. By the way, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Just call me Moses,” he chuckled and slowly pulled away.
And as his lorry disappeared out of sight, I counted the fistful of French francs I’d stolen from the wallet on his dashboard.
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
June 17, 5.40pm
Waves from an inclement Atlantic ocean lapped at my feet and made the hairs on my toes sway like a sea urchin’s spines. The rotating beams from a pair of lighthouses sliced through a bruised sky as night swept in. Three concrete walls framed the harbour and prevented the water and horizon from ever meeting. Unable to catch a breeze in their sails, a handful of windsurfers straddled their boards and paddled to the shore.
I was unsure how long my journey from the north to the south of France took as without Doreen’s watch, time neither existed nor mattered. Hours blended into each other like colours in a tie-dyed T-shirt.
I’d spent long stretches of time hovering by French roadsides searching for a friendly smile behind a moving windscreen. Sometimes I found myself hiding in train carriage toilets avoiding ticket inspectors.
It was during days of near solitude when the faces of those I’d left behind began persecuting me. My conscience questioned how you were coping without me. Had you presumed I was dead like I’d hoped, or were you still holding on to faint hope of my return? I wanted to fade from all of your memories quickly.
However, my rational side knew worries were destructive and would only hamper me if left uncontrolled. So I began to train myself to think only of the future and not of the past - and specifically, you. It wasn’t easy, especially with copious amounts of time and solitude on my hands.
Manipulating ones thoughts is relatively simple for a few moments. But the part of your brain that holds in its core everything that’s amiss about ones self, doesn’t appreciate being contained for long. The longer I dwelled on the badness, the harder it would be to anticipate the good times ahead. But I had freedom to choose and I could, if I wanted to, reject those thoughts.
So as soon as something detrimental came into my mind, I snatched it mid-air and quashed it. I reminded myself those memories belonged to a person who no longer existed.
Of course I couldn’t control everything I thought about, but I learned to manage and compartmentalise much of it. And by the time I disembarked at the beach in Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the South West, the wheels were already in motion. The key was to remain conscious and fixed on the present and the future. So I created new memories by focusing on what I saw and sensed the moment I arrived.
I began by inhaling the salty sea mist and smells carried by the wind from the surrounding gastronomy. I appreciated how the mink beach’s harbour resembled a huge toothless grin and I found myself smiling back at it. I was impressed how St-Jean-De-Luz’ historic architecture had been kept so pristine. I could see a Basque church with tiered Romeo and Juliet balconies running along each side.
Ahead of me lay the ocean; to the left, the Spanish border and the mighty Pyrenees. Behind me, the body of France. I could run in any direction and no one would catch me. It was the place I could begin again.
My personal hygiene had been restricted to washing myself in stained basins at truck stops and train stations. So my first priority was to walk down the concrete steps, strip off my musty-smelling clothes and run into the water in just my underwear.
The salt stung my eyes when I lay face down, grasping a seabed that slipped though my fingers. I swam towards a white metal buoy bobbing along under the spell of the ebb and flow. I linked an arm through its scaffolding and took in the coastline.
I threw myself under the water and the sound of the waves tussling against the tide tore through my ears. I held my head under until my baptism was complete.
The harbour was a popular dock for boats and trawlers that ended a day’s fishing in picture-postcard comfort. The gentle vibrations of their engines gave satisfying tingles up and down my arms and legs as my nerves sprang back to life. I closed my eyes, flipped onto my back and slowly paddled towards the beach to dry my new skin in the setting sun’s rays.
Instinctively, I believed my new life had the potential to be perfect.
June 28, 1.20pm
Fumes from the Gauloise had fused with the burning cannabis resin and floated up through my nostrils then deep into my lungs. I leaned back on my elbows, sank further into the sand and savoured the high before exhaling.
“Good shit, man,” nodded Bradley, who sat next to me, cross-legged.
“Yep,” I replied, without looking at him, my eyes like crescent moons.
With the aid of my pigeon-French and helpful locals, I’d been directed towards a backpacking hostel on the Rue du Jean. The beachfront buildings were exquisite, but the Routard International was hidden three streets back and under a shroud of dirt and dilapidation. Its cream and olive-green façade had flaked, chipped and fallen like dandruff onto the pavement.
Inside, framed sepia photographs arranged carelessly on its reception walls revealed its previous incarnation as the Hotel Pres de La Cote - a glowing, three-storey Art Deco boutique hotel. Its geometric shapes were muddied and barely visible behind a hotchpotch of cheap, modern bookcases and dressers. And its former elegance and stylish modernism had all but vanished.
Marble tiles had dropped from the ballroom’s walls and lay shattered around a grand piano, felled by two fractured legs. It had downgraded from a luxurious destination to an ad hoc home for fly-by-nights with limited means.
The remainder of Mosses’ money just about stretched to a dormitory bed for the week. The nights I’d spent in a homeless shelter in London as I waited to visit Kenneth had acclimatised me to others’ sleep-talking, snoring and the smells produced by six bodies in a confined space.
It was mainly young European travellers, keen to explore off-piste beaches away from the glamour of Cannes and Saint Tropez, who inhabited the hostel. I had more years on me than most, but I’d never looked my age. So that allowed me to shave a decade from my date of birth. My hitchhiker’s tan gave me a healthy sheen and masked the weight I’d lost by irregular eating.
I made acquaintances with small pockets of people who spoke in tongues I often couldn’t understand. But through botched German, Italian, French and plenty of exaggerated hand signals, we muddled along until we caught each other’s drifts.
I spent my first few days seeking potential employment; from menial and unskilled work pot washing in café kitchens to trawler men’s assistants. But the town looked after its own and there was no place for an Englishman yet to prove his worth.
So I filled my gaps by familiarising myself with my adopted home through exploratory field trips. My fascination with architecture remained and there was much to absorb like William Marcel’s pre-first world war Golf-Hôtel and the ochre red Country-Club in Chantaco I’d read about in my father’s Reader’s Digest magazines.
My evenings were occupied by listening to hostellers reminiscing of their pre-travelling lives. I, however, offered little about my own background. My scant smokescreen involved leaving university to spend a couple of years being part of the world, not merely studying it from the sidelines.
It was a plausible story that I repeated so often; I’d begun to believe it myself.
June 30, 11.10am
“You should’ve told me you’re looking for a job,” asked Bradley, the American-born hostel manager. He was an amiable man in his late thirties with shoulder-length, salt and pepper hair and Elvis-sized sideburns. His surfer’s saline tan etched deep white lines into his face and aged him prematurely.
“Yes, do you know of one?” I asked hopefully.
“Well it ain't much, but we need a janitor. Someone who can check people in and out; do odd jobs. It doesn’t pay much, but you’ll get your bed and board for free.”
It sounded ideal and I began the next day. The role offered extra perks I hadn’t accounted for. I could raid the cupboard of forgotten clothes; read literature in the ‘Take a book, leave a book’ library, and practice my language skills with other travellers.
I gave walls fresh licks of paint, hammered loose floorboards, wiped up vomit from bathroom floors and welcomed new guests to the hostel’s heart. Ample free time and reliable surf enabled me to learn the skills of wave riding with Bradley’s patient lessons and his collection of colourful surfboards.
Once I’d mastered the basics, scuba diving became my next challenge, followed by horse trekking excursions through the neighbouring mountain foothills.
My evenings were golden – a day of work followed by an hour on the beach watching the sun set over a joint or two with Bradley and finally shots of Jack Daniels and Coke at one of the local bistros.
I adapted to my new way of life with gusto. And with my baggage consigned to sealed boxes in my head, I was at ease living a life I’d never dared to dream of. To the eyes of a stranger, and even myself, I had no discernable essence.
***
Northampton, Twenty-Five Years Earlier
June 17, 6.50pm
“Just tell us where he is!” she yelled as I grabbed her shoulder and shoved her out the front door.
“Get out now!” I screamed back. Shirley’s exasperated voice bellowed around the house as I gave her and Arthur their marching orders.
For half an hour, your parents had subjected me to a bitter barrage of questions and accusations, and I’d had enough. My nerves were already in tatters without them sticking their oars in. I’d expected them to turn up on our doorstep sooner, but they’d clearly been too busy spending their days festering over how you could’ve vanished into thin air. And of course, I must have had something to do with it.
I made the most of the light summer nights and sent the children into the garden to play. I took a deep breath and slowly walked the green mile to the lounge. Inside, Arthur and Shirley sat side by side; their arms and legs folded.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Simon,” I began, “but I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You think it’s acceptable for us to hear from the police our son is missing?” barked Shirley. “We should have been told immediately.”
“Yes, I know, and I apologise. But I asked Roger to keep you informed and he’s Simon’s closest friend so it wasn’t like you were told by a total stranger. And I’d really rather not get into an argument with you about it right now. It’s been a hideous week.”
“Yes, it must be quite stressful spending afternoons with the children at the cinema while their father might be lying dead somewhere,” she sniped.
“Shirley, it wasn’t like that. It was one afternoon, and on Roger’s advice. And they’re my children so I’ll decide what’s best for them, not you.”
She shouldn’t have dragged the kids into it, especially since their grandparents barely even played a supporting role in their lives. They lived in the next village but never offered to babysit or pick them up from school. A stranger would be forgiven for assuming they had no grandchildren.
After the funeral, they’d hardly bothered to offer either of us help, or a shoulder to cry on. I’m sure that must have hurt you.
I’d always presumed their lack of interest in us was my fault. They remembered a boy who was once infatuated by Alan Wicker’s travel documentaries and who dreamt of exploring the world’s architecture. Then by twenty-three, he was a married man and saddled with his own family. They wanted more for you than that.
Even before we got married, you’d tried to convince them all you’d ever wanted was your own normal, loving family but they thought they knew you better.
Your relationship with Shirley wasn’t easy. She was a big, bottle-blonde hurricane of a woman who burst into Arthur’s life a couple of years after he’d kicked Doreen out. She’d order you to do your homework, tell you off for smoking, clean up your bedroom and cook your meals - all without expecting anything in return. You might not have ever loved her, but she showed you what a mum was capable of.
So they were at a loss to understand why, after all Doreen had put you though, you’d do the same to your own family. I agreed, but with no proof to the contrary, they’d decided I’d driven you away.
“Were you pressuring him to do better at work?” began Arthur, awkwardly.
“No.”
“Were you giving him the support he needed?” Shirley interrupted.
“Yes, of course I was.”
“Did he really want all those little ones so soon?”
“Yes Shirley, I didn’t get pregnant by myself.”
“You could have tricked him. A lot of women do to get what they want.”
“What, four times?”
“Well why did he leave then?”
“He hasn’t left, he’s disappeared. And it has nothing to do with our children!”
“That doesn’t rule you out as the cause though, does it, dear?”
I rolled my eyes as we went round in circles. I took a bottle of wine from the cupboard and poured myself a glass without offering them one. They looked at each other with disapproval but I didn’t care. I took an extra large gulp to make a point.
“Are you sure you don’t know where he is?” asked Shirley.
“What kind of question is that?” I replied, taken aback. “Do you think we’d be sitting here having this conversation if I did?”
“Now’s the time to tell us, Catherine. Just put us all out of our misery. Does Simon have another woman? Is that what it is? Is he with her now? You’re hurting our grandchildren if you’re putting your own pride first and pretending he’s just disappeared.”
“This is ridiculous! Of course he doesn’t. And how could you think I’d not put my kids first?”
“Plenty of women struggle to keep a marriage together,” Arthur chipped in. “They don’t try and save face by kicking up a fuss and claiming he disappeared when he’s walked out.”
“That’s rich coming from you! Weren’t you the one who told everyone Doreen left to become a bloody Missionary in Ethiopia? I don’t recall you mentioning anything about you booting her out.” His embarrassed face turned red.