The Cuckoo's Child (6 page)

“Didn't he like us, Mummy?” he asked. “Won't he take me to Disneyland now?”

Neil and I looked at each other over Daniel's head. We were sitting on a locker on the ferry deck, huddled out of the wind behind a peeling bulkhead. The wind tore at our hair, lashing it into our eyes. Neil's long, bony nose looked faintly pink at the tip, the only vestige of colour in a face leached white by the chill. My own nose, I knew, would be a scarlet blob at odds with my hair. In that moment our eyes locked, I knew exactly what he was thinking.
We can say of course he likes us, of course he'll take you to Disneyland
, the little internal voice was saying,
but do I believe it? Was he a real, no-matter-what kind of friend, or just a ship passing in the night, just another person we promise to keep in touch with, come what may? Then the weeks go by, and months, and somehow we haven't managed to do anything about it, and then the first Christmas has been and gone, and you feel guilty but not guilty enough, and soon it's years and you say one day, I wonder what became of so-and-so? And there's a spasm of nostalgia, pleasantly melancholy for a minute, before you tuck the memory away again and forget a little more, and forgive yourself the forgetting.

“It's all up to him,” I reminded Neil. “He's the one who'll have to let us know where he is when he gets settled.”

Neil nodded. “You'll get to Disneyland,” he said to Daniel.

Friday night we spent at the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay. It was a wild night, I remember. I felt a childlike contentment listening to the wind tugging at the long strings of the creeper covering the hotel walls, rattling the windows, heaving the lights of the freighters lying at anchor in the bay up and down. We speculated about Jerry's whereabouts; surely not even he, reckless though he could be, would risk the open water in those conditions?

“He'll be tucked up in the lee of an island somewhere, never fear,” said Neil. “He probably set off early because he knew there was dirty weather coming. He's not a fool.”

The morning sky was a raw, cheerful blue as if a brand-new one had been installed to replace the one tattered beyond repair the night before. It was still windy, but playful now, the sort of wind that makes dead leaves hop and hats leap off heads.

“Grand day for a game,” Neil said approvingly.

It gets hard, now.

Neil left Daniel and me at the aquarium and went off well before the game to meet the rest of the Gibsons team at Brockton Oval. I promised we would be there to watch. He liked to know we were there among the onlookers, cheering him on, not that he ever seemed to do anything very heroic, apart from hurling himself at opponents' legs and breaking his collarbone. I was never like some of the wives and girlfriends, avid groupies forever cutting sandwiches in the clubhouse while their menfolk sang dirty songs at the tops of their lungs in the showers. I put in an appearance and cheered when Gibsons scored, but I always carried a book in my pocket. I did that day.
Oliver Twist.
I never have finished it.

Daniel and I worked our way through the aquarium galleries, enchanted by the eerie beauty of the lives behind the glass. We watched, hypnotized, as transparent jellyfish pulsed across a tank, impelled by a stream of bubbles from a hidden aerator. Daniel found the tube worms edging out to wave their plumes, then darting back out of sight in sudden panic, hysterically funny. Neither of us much cared for the moray eel, sliding as if oiled from his hole, launching his mouthful of needle teeth at any movement, but we loved the octopus, obligingly showing us the suction cups on his tentacles in action as he glided down the glass, and marvelled at the diversity of the reef fish.

I never wanted to spend too much time with the orcas, but Daniel insisted. It made me sad, watching the black-and-white shapes swimming round and round their pool, heaving themselves up and thundering back into the water, to screams of delight from the audience. Even Daniel looked thoughtful.

“They don't have much room, do they, Mum? Couldn't they make them a bigger tank?”

“I don't think they could ever make one big enough,” I said. “They had the whole ocean, once.”

Daniel looked uncertainly at me, checking my mood. “Is it time to go?” he asked. “Let's go.”

By the time we had walked over to Brockton Oval and made our way to the familiar navy-and-white uniforms, both teams were warming up. Neil saw us and waved, but someone passed him the ball at that moment, and he was off running. Others spread out across the field, yelling at him to pass.

The game started. Daniel soon tired of standing still and watching. From the pockets of his jacket he dragged out Tigger, his stripey black-and-brown stuffed dog, the little yellow bulldozer, and the old Hot Wheels car minus a wheel that always accompanied him. He settled to road construction on a patch of bare earth some distance from the sideline under a small stand of trees. I sat on the grass near him and opened my book.

The sun was warm, lulling. It muted the shouts and grunts of the players, the whistle blowing intermittently, the sparrow chatter of children clambering on a picnic table nearby, the sound of Daniel revving up and crashing his vehicles among the tree roots, made them seem distant, yet infinitely comforting in their familiarity. I basked in well-being. Odd how the end of happiness can be defined so precisely, so sensually.

I was reading—the irony!—the scene in which Oliver is claimed by Nancy as her lost brother, browbeaten by the crowd that believes her, terrified by Bill Sykes and Bull's-eye, and haled off into a maze of little courts and alleys—“what could one poor child do?”

My eyes were torn from the page by a wail of fear and pain. Another child, in trouble.

Daniel had heard it too. He had paused in his game, kneeling among the roots of a cedar, and was staring at the knot of children round the picnic table, just twenty feet away or so. They were running to the far side of the table, looking down at the ground, uncertain.

“Stay there, Daniel,” I said. “It looks as if someone needs help.”

I scrambled to my feet and ran. The children at the table were glad to see me; they started to explain what had happened, interrupting one another, arguing over details. I ignored them, concentrating on the small girl huddled on the ground, clutching her left arm. Her face was grey, and she was moaning. No tears, just the dry-eyed keening that comes with great pain.

“Can you lift your arm?” I asked.

She looked dolefully at me and shook her head. “Try,” I urged.

She leaned and tried, but instantly her face collapsed and tears sprang from her eyes.

“I can't,” she gasped, “it's too heavy, it won't go, and it hurts, it hurts.”

I looked at the other children. “What's her name? Do you know who her parents are?”

A boy spoke up. “That's Lisa. Her mom's over there.” He pointed to the crowd on the sideline.

“Be a pal,” I said, “and run over as fast as you can and tell her Lisa's hurt. I think her arm's broken.”

While I waited for reinforcements, I took off my belt and put it round the little girl's body, strapping the arm close to her side for support. Her mother and other adults came pounding up. My role was over. No more than five minutes had gone by when I turned back to my book and Daniel.

No more than five minutes. The book was still lying on the grass. No Daniel.

I didn't panic. The trees he'd been playing under were huge; he would be around the other side of the massive trunks, out of sight.

I called his name as I walked to the trees. The yellow bulldozer and the shabby Hot Wheels car lay in the dirt between the roots. His small footprints were clearly visible in the earth he'd disturbed with his game.

He wasn't on the other side of the trunk, nor anywhere else in the stand of trees. I hurried back into the open space, turning wildly to check every point of the compass. Nothing.

I ran down toward the road, dashed across it to stare up and down the sea wall. There was a group of older boys playing about with bikes; I ran to them, demanding to know if they had seen a little boy, this high, fair hair, wearing jeans and . . . what
was
he wearing? They shook their heads and shrugged, riding off looking embarrassed. And I couldn't remember what Daniel was wearing, couldn't remember what I'd put out for him to wear that morning, a lifetime away. Was it his red turtleneck sweater or the little Aran Mum had made him for his birthday? Did he have sneakers on? Or boots? What colour socks?

Fear swelled inside me, drumming at my temples. It clutched at my throat, squeezing until I gasped for air, swallowing convulsively and fighting the weight in my chest that threatened to break my ribs from the inside. I heard a distant mewing and realized I was the source. I held my lips shut with a tremulous hand and ran, casting about like a dog on a weak scent, retracing my steps, looking in garbage cans and bushes, accosting everyone I met, leaving behind a trail of shaking heads and blank looks.

I raced around the pitch, pushing through the spectators, searching every group whose legs might have concealed my child from view. He will have come over to watch Neil, I reasoned, sure he will. But he hadn't. The Gibsons bunch were all on one side of the field, and I rushed up to them, shouting, “Daniel! Daniel! Have you seen him?” My friend Ella swung round as I passed. I caught the dismay on her face and heard her cry out, “Livvy! Whatever's the matter?” But I dared not stop. If I am just quick enough, I told myself, I'll catch up to him and it will be all right.

“It's Daniel! He's gone! I can't find him!” I howled over my shoulder. Heads turned in my direction; laughter abruptly ended as I pushed past three men, jostling the arm of one so that his beer slopped over his wrist.

“Watch it!” he shouted. “Crazy chick!”

As I ran past the Gibsons coach, I heard his startled exclamation, “What the f . . . ?” followed seconds later by “Livvy! Get off the pitch! What the hell d'you think you're doing? Come off there!”

But I knew where I was going. I headed straight for the tall figure with the filthy headband round the fair hair, and without a thought for the bodies thundering toward me, the leather boots with their mud-choked cleats, the sodden ball hurtling through the air, I led a trail of anxious women through the melée to Neil. When I got there, I said, “Daniel's gone, he's disappeared,” and when Neil's mouth formed the shape of incomprehension, I beat my fists on his chest, pounding him with my terror, and howled like a dog.

The game died. Immediately, there were mud-plastered players in shorts and striped jerseys scouring the park, women and children accosting joggers and walkers towed behind their anxious, straining dogs, hands shoving cups of bad coffee into my hands and patting me awkwardly. A mounted policeman rode up on a gleaming bay, a centaur with a radiophone who marshalled bigger forces. The warm smell of the horse unlocked something in my mind: Daniel has blond hair, I said, light blue eyes, a tiny scar at the corner of his mouth where he once jabbed a branch in his face, blue Oshkosh jeans, a red cotton turtleneck sweater with a blue stripe on the collar, navy padded jacket, white socks, white runners with purple stripes down the sides.

He was there, so complete in my mind I could hear his infectious giggle. Could see him folding and stroking a piece of his hair in the hypnotic way he did when he was tired, feel his small body leaning trustingly against me, his hand tucked in mine. Just as yours is now, Stephen.

In all the strain of the protracted search and investigation that followed, it seemed more and more important to cling to the images and sensations; I carried the toys he had left under the tree everywhere, just as he had; they were the most real things in a completely surreal world. Certainly the process of searching for Daniel became increasingly isolating as more and more police and volunteers were involved.

Neil's arm was always around me, his head against mine, as we talked to the detectives, repeating and repeating the story as far as we knew it, dredging for details, unconsidered snippets, a person, a car glimpsed and not seen again. We racked our brains for motive, a grudge, malice, envy, with the same disbelief you would experience on being told to look for slugs in your underwear drawer.

By the evening all ferries, major roads, and airports were under surveillance. Customs, police, and coastguards were alerted. Daniel's disappearance was the lead story on the evening news on radio and television. Neil appeared on
TV
looking gaunt and dishevelled, appealing for the return of his son. According to the detectives, tips were starting to come in.

There was no question of us leaving Vancouver. The wife of the captain of the Vancouver Yacht Club team put her basement at our disposal and provided us with house keys. “For as long as you need it,” she said. “Don't worry about a thing.” I asked Ella, who was the secretary at my school, to tell the principal what was happening and to visit the house and feed Maisie, our cat.

Two days later, after forty-eight sleepless hours in a police station growing more and more desperate, we found ourselves sitting stiffly side by side on a couch in the basement of a strange house on West 31st. I was clutching a small vial of sleeping tablets some doctor had given me, somewhere. Our hosts had gone to bed. The house made its small settling sounds. Every now and then, the furnace sprang to life with a click and a dull roar. The dim standard lamp in the corner seemed the only light in the world; we huddled in the little yellow puddle it cast, while beyond its range, the darkness pressed, absolute and empty. That was where Daniel was, alone in the dark.

“I'm scared,” I whispered.

Neil's cold hand tightened on mine. “So am I,” he said.

We stayed for six weeks. It was a seesaw time of hopes and disappointments. The police had hundreds of tips to follow up, but small, blond, blue-eyed boys in jeans are two a penny. You came, as soon as we phoned to tell Mum and Dad the news. I will always remember how Mum reacted: “How could you let it happen?” she asked, as if it was just some monumental carelessness on my part. We made posters and trudged the streets attaching them to hydro poles and lamp posts, store windows and café menus and laundromat bulletin boards. The police had me make an appeal to the abductor that was aired on all the channels, hoping that the weeping mother would pluck at someone's heartstrings, but by that time I was numb, too desolate to weep, too tired for any emotion but stony endurance.