The Disappeared (6 page)

Then one day he passed the shop and saw that she was no longer there. For weeks he returned, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. But she was gone, and only the dream of her remained.

It was thanks to the other person whom he adored that Farid was able to manage his grief. The following academic year saw the arrival of a new English teacher at St Catherine's Academy. Stephen Haycraft had something of Abdul Kassab's gentleness. But he was also deeply and intriguingly English, with the informal manners and the stoic solitude that were, in Farid's eyes, the distinguishing marks of the gentleman. Abdul never ceased to remind his sons of the debt of gratitude that they owed, and emphasized that they must look for the things to admire, and not the things to disparage, in the country that had adopted them.

Mr Haycraft was a person to admire: more, he was a person to love, and Farid attached himself to his English teacher with a devotion that was all the greater on account of his still warm longing for Muhibbah. Mr Haycraft radiated a sense of safety; in his presence Farid no longer felt the reverberations of those nightmare years. He was persuaded that a world that contained Mr Haycraft was a world of law, normality and good will. It was inconceivable, in such a world, that a girl could be captured, disgraced and done away with, and in Mr Haycraft's presence he became sure that Muhibbah Shahin was somewhere secure, protected by England even if not quite belonging to it – as she never could belong, since she was a vessel for a pure soul placed in her by angels.

Because he felt this way it was a joy to Farid that Mr Haycraft wanted to learn from him. He went eagerly to school each day in the hope that he would be side by side with his teacher during the lunch break, moving their fingers together along the verses of a bilingual Koran, his going from right to left, Mr Haycraft's from left to right, sometimes meeting in the middle, when they would both burst into laughter.

‘All holy things,' Abdul told his sons, ‘are only partially revealed to us, for our minds are finite and the light that shines on us is of a dazzling strength. Hence holy things require an effort of interpretation, which the jurists called
ijtihad
. Many of the Sunnites deny this. They tell us that all has been settled eternally and “the gate of
ijtihad
is closed”.' In Abdul's view that was pernicious nonsense, which made the Holy Koran not an instrument of peace but a declaration of war against all who reasonably questioned it. Abdul's approach permitted scepticism, and even rejoiced in it, as Rumi rejoiced in disappointment.

So Farid took pleasure in the holy book as he read it with his sceptical teacher. From Mr Haycraft he learned that you could live in doubt and uncertainty and still be protected by law, that this way of life may even be what the modern world requires. There was a path of freedom, which was also a path of loneliness. And this noble loneliness was what Farid perceived and loved in Mr Haycraft. Freedom, doubt and loneliness were not to be feared, but to be triumphed over, as his father had triumphed over disappointment at last, and learned to rejoice in the very fact of it. Then one day, without warning, everything changed.

Stephen had begun his class on the theme of magic in Shakespeare's
Tempest
. He had printed a hand-out, summarising the art of alchemy as it was practised prior to Shakespeare's day. He had looked up sources in connection with the occult, and with the mystique of the printed book. He had prepared some thoughts about Paracelsus, his life and influence. He had especially studied the use that Shakespeare makes of the idea of healing. He wanted to impress on his class that for Shakespeare healing was a far wider notion than any considered by the National Health Service. It was a notion that touched on the meaning of personal life. At a certain point during the previous evening he had felt certain that, if he stared hard enough into this idea, the goal of his own life would be revealed in it, like a face looking up at him from the depths of a pool. The image stayed with him for a while, then wavered and vanished. Now, trying to recapture it, he stumbled over words, and avoided the eyes of his pupils as they watched him from the sparsely occupied benches. Sharon's absence was like a wound in his thinking, through which the life-blood flowed away. He added words and more words, as though to staunch the flow. But the argument grew weaker and weaker, and was on the verge of dying when she came in quietly through the door at the top of the hall.

The envelope containing her essay and his invitation – written ten days before – lay on the lectern in front of him. Conveying it this far had been easy. Getting it to her would be difficult, maybe impossible. She was trying not to look at him. Her thin-fingered hand was at work on a sheet of paper. Fine blond hair concealed her face; the long neck, unnaturally pale against a smudged school pullover of navy blue, was all that he saw of Sharon's flesh. She had opened her soul to him, but the soul is incarnate and she was now, inescapably, flesh to him. The thought caused him to break out in a sweat. Maybe he should tear up the note he had written. Just hand back the essay without a word. Maybe that's what he should do.

He decided not to decide. And for a few minutes he felt better. He realised that his sentences had become vague, slurred and incoherent. He began again with the topic of Ariel and the idea of a spirit imprisoned in a tree. Imprisoned spirits, he told the class, were of great importance to the alchemists, who specialised in capturing and releasing them. They were a symbol of power and freedom. Once released they were nowhere and everywhere, disembodied but with powers beyond the reach of human bodies.

Suddenly she looked up. There was a light of enquiry in her eyes. He sent a quick involuntary smile in her direction. She blushed and turned back to her work. Soon he had reached the point when he could set the topic for an essay; he had already decided on ‘Ariel: his character and powers'. But her blush had changed everything. He asked them to write about compassion in
The Tempest
, and the many forms it took. They packed up their books and filed out into the upper corridor. Sharon didn't linger, but went quickly through the door that another girl held for her.

Stephen tore open the envelope, took out the note and pushed it into his pocket. He dropped the essay in his briefcase and left for the staff room. His hands were trembling, and he walked jerkily, like a puppet. In the corridor outside the staffroom Jim Roberts waylaid him, pushing him by the elbow through the door. Most classes had not yet finished and the staffroom was empty. It had a sad, end-of-day feeling. The out-of-date maps on one wall, the broken clock on the neo-Georgian mantelpiece, the portrait in oils above it of the Headmaster, The Rev. Father John McMurty, who founded the school, the worn Edwardian chairs in turned oak and leather, the modern coffee machine on the bench beneath the window of leaded glass and Gothic mullions – all these were already imbued for Stephen with an aura of defeat. This was a place where hope and belief were set aside and where truth prevailed – the truth that must be hidden in the classroom if you were to get through the day. He read this fact in Jim Roberts's lurking eyes and jabbing finger. Jim turned to Stephen and made as though to pin him to the wall.

‘It's about Sharon Williams,' Jim said.

Stephen froze. His letter of resignation formed quickly in his mind. Send it now, send it yesterday, send it before all this madness arises!

‘What about her?'

‘Some information we need…'

Jim tailed off and looked from side to side, as though suspecting eavesdroppers.

‘Information?'

Her blushing downturned face. Her small sweet blemished mouth. Her dreams of Ferdinand. ‘Chains of enchantment'. He felt sick at heart.

‘Well, she's in your class. I thought you could speak to her.'

‘About what?'

In the rush of relief he looked eagerly at Jim, willing to oblige, to do his schoolmasterly duty in anything, even to speak to Sharon Williams!

‘Angel Towers again. Social housing, bloody hell. Anti-social housing rather. The long and short is, the social workers were called in, on account of a shindy involving the woman she calls her mum. Turns out Mrs Williams is not her mum at all, but someone who thought she could make a few quid as a foster parent, when the council were offloading children they had taken into care. Now they have put her on a list of children ‘at risk', as they put it. Every fucking child in Angel Towers is at risk. But before they do anything, or rather nothing, as is their usual game, they have asked us to make discreet enquiries – you know, do you love this slut who screams at you and are you happy with her latest cokehead of a boyfriend who is always trying to get you into bed and kicking the shit out of your brothers, who are not your brothers at all but feral primates rounded up by some joker of a social worker who is waiting to release them on the middle classes at election time. Just the kind of job for which you are suited, Stephen, squeezing the secrets from a traumatised child.'

Jim laughed cynically, and jabbed Stephen twice in the chest.

‘And supposing she talks to me,' Stephen replied, attempting hesitation. ‘What then?'

‘We have to provide any information we can gather, to be put in the file, to back up the general decision to do nothing. So that when the girl has been gang-raped, sold into slavery and finally done to death somewhere in Saudi Arabia the social workers can say they did what they could, and in any case they are overworked and underfunded and it is all the government's fault. That kind of thing. When were you born for Chrissake?'

He gave Stephen a few more admonitory jabs, and then swung away with a sigh.

‘How did you learn this?'

It occured to Stephen that the story was an invention, maybe a trap. You couldn't be a secondary school teacher for as long as Jim Roberts without wishing for revenge.

Jim looked up at him through tangled eyebrows.

‘How do you think? Did I go round to Angel Towers, ring the bell outside a door from which the howls of an abused and abusive menagerie assail my ears, as ready with my polite enquiry as an old Etonian canvassing for the Conservative Party? Or did the social worker turn up in my classroom this morning, leading Ryan Williams, not by the earlobe as I would have done, nor by the scruff of the neck as was once recommended, but by the elbow, with sweet lovey-dovey pushes and melting official empathy, as they call it, asking me to excuse the poor little mite whose absence from school for the last three days could be easily explained if I would grant her a word in private? I mean how the hell does a teacher get involved in this kind of mess for Chrissake?'

Stephen thought for a moment.

‘Why is Sharon Williams at risk? Who is threatening her?'

‘Who, you mean, apart from the rapists on the eighth floor, the drug-addicts on the sixth, and the slave-dealers in the basement? Could it be, frinstance, mum's latest boyfriend, the knife artist from the defunct Romanian circus that ran out of cash last Wednesday, or the Afghan fathers who are so keen to preserve the virginity of their daughters that they kidnap fatherless girls for their sons to play with, or, let's see…? For fuck's sake, you know the kid. Why don't you ask her?'

‘Ask her?'

Yes, ask her, save her, protect her. Stephen was trembling again.

‘Why not? She's a sweet kid. Probably sweet on you too: after all, you are the only human being she has ever met. The only gentleman, at least – fancy that!'

Jim's cynical laughter dwindled quickly to a mutter, as he crossed the room to toy with the coffee machine.

‘I'll look into it,' Stephen said. He pretended to search for essays in his locker. He snapped shut his briefcase with a business-like flourish. He slowly and laboriously writhed into his overcoat. He sucked air into his dry mouth, and uttered a stifled goodnight. But Jim turned away, and merely smiled.

She was waiting for him in the alley behind the car park. Without a word she fitted her steps to his. They walked for a while in silence. He looked at the wall to either side of them. A smear of yellow light lay along the glazed brick coping. Once this had been the back alley to terraced cottages, housing the workers for a smelting works. Now it shielded a group of warehouses, which lay silent amid pools of darkness like beached ships of steel. Stephen was going beside her into the unknown, with no one to call on for help.

He carried the briefcase away from her in his left hand, and buried his right hand in the pocket of his overcoat. They entered the car park, and still they had not spoken. Then, slowly, softly, she put her hand into his pocket and wrapped her fingers in his. They walked on a few more paces. It was Sharon who broke the silence.

‘It's OK though innit, sir, me thinking about you and me. I mean there inna no harm in it.'

‘Not if we don't take it any further,' he answered, and at once regretted the words. ‘We' made him part of what was happening. And he realised that she had been hoping for that very word.

‘Actually, Sharon, it's best not to talk about it.'

‘That's OK, sir. I dunna wanna talk about it neither. Just write it in essays, cause they go special from me to you.'

‘But there is something else we need to discuss.'

They were outside the block of flats. The unfriendly door of glass and steel stood before them. To go through it, shutting her outside, would be to make the barrier between them absolute. And he sensed the desolation she would feel, turning away towards Angel Towers. It could not be wrong to invite her in.

He unwrapped his fingers from hers and searched his jacket pocket for the key. He unlocked the door, pushed it ajar and turned to her. She was watching him, her clear blue-grey guileless eyes fixed on his.

‘Do you want to come in for a moment?'

She nodded and ducked quickly beneath his arm. He noticed that her feet hardly sounded on the concrete steps, as though she drifted above them in the air.