Authors: Rosen Trevithick
“I was ill for
four
days. I couldn’t look after him.”
“Four days?” he asked, almost laughing. “Four days? Is that
all?”
“Your parents don’t see it that way. Remember the day they
met me? I was ill then.”
“But that was one bad spell during your
entire
pregnancy. You’d just finished tapering off your lithium.”
“They don’t see it that way.”
“No, of course they don’t, because they see everything in
black and white. I tried to tell you not to trust them!”
“Oh well, as long as you can say ‘I told you so’.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “They’re not nuanced enough to
appreciate that somebody can have a mental illness whilst simultaneously being
utterly lovely.”
I was taken aback. “You think I’m utterly lovely?” I
croaked.
“Well, I didn’t say you, specifically,” he said, looking
down.
“I’m not sure that Social Services understand either.”
“What? Social Services are involved?” He shook his head from
side to side in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” I wept.
He took a deep breath, stepped forward and wrapped his arms
around me, pulling me close to him. Then, holding me firmly, he took a step
back and looked me in the eye. “I’m going to bring him home, whatever it
takes.”
* * *
Was Simon right? Could he sort out this huge mess and bring
Joseph home? As much as I wanted to believe it, I’d learnt to be cautious. He
wouldn’t necessarily be able to find his parents. Then, even if he could talk
sense into them and bring Joseph home, that wouldn’t necessarily stop Social
Services from taking him away again.
We talked for over an hour, interspersed with pacing,
researching our rights and brainstorming where they might have gone. At least,
without his birth certificate, it seemed unlikely that they could have taken
him abroad. Finally, we decided that the best plan would be for Simon to drive
to places where he felt his parents might be.
“You don’t think they’ll let any harm come to him?” I asked
Simon.
“They’re stubborn, intolerant, self-righteous people but no,
I don’t think they’ll let any harm come to Joseph. Mind you, I didn’t think
they’d harm
anybody
and they’re putting you through this.”
This was doing nothing to ease my pain. “I’m coming with
you!” I tried to insist, for the umpteenth time.
“We’ve talked about this. It’s better for you to stay here.
I could be driving all night and you need regular sleep or you’ll be ill
again.”
“I can’t do
nothing
!”
“Keeping yourself well is not ‘nothing’, Emma. It’s the most
important thing you can do, for Joseph.”
“That’s what I thought seven days ago, and look where that
got me!”
“Where’s Joseph’s car seat?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I lent it to your Dad.”
“Great. So now I’m going to have to escape with Joseph
and
a bulky car seat.”
“Are you planning to just
snatch
him?”
“Where’s his birth certificate?”
“What are you going to need that for?”
“In case I have to prove I’m the father.”
“To
who
?”
Suddenly, a phone started ringing; it wasn’t mine.
Huh?
Simon rushed to find it, scrambling under clothes and other
items that he’d earlier removed from his suitcase.
“I thought you said you left your charger at home.”
“I found it,” he said quickly. “Turns out I left it at
yours.”
“Where?” I asked. “I didn’t see it.”
Suddenly, I caught sight of the phone. I instinctively dived
towards it.
“Emma! No!” he cried, and tried to pull me back, but I
already had my hand securely locked around the phone. I dragged my body closer
so that I could look at the caller display without fear of having it snatched
off me.
I read ‘Mum’.
“Emma! Don’t answer it!” ordered Simon. “Talking to her won’t
help.”
So he knows who it is then
! He wrestled with me, grabbing my hand
and prizing the handset out from my fingers. Eventually he had the phone.
Immediately, he cancelled the call.
The ringtone stopped.
“What did you do that for?” I demanded.
“You would have said something to her that would have blown
everything.”
“What? We’ve been here for over an hour, wondering how on
earth we’re going to find your parents, then your mum rings and you
cancel
the call
?”
“Let me handle it, Emma.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Simon?”
He turned away.
“If you know where they are, you have to call the police!”
“They’re my parents!”
“And this is our son! Now what is it that you’re not telling
me?”
Chapter 14
I called Tina; not only was she a good friend but she had a
car. I didn’t care what problems she had had in the past, she was a good person
and one I could trust. I knew that, as a single mother, she would not find it
easy to drop everything, but with Nicky and Dave away, who else could I call?
“Tina, I need your help!” I cried into the phone.
“What is it? Has Joseph turned up?”
“No, but … Oh God … It’s Simon. I think he might
be in on it!”
“
What
?”
“He’s been on the phone to his mother. I think he just came
here to get some of Joseph’s things.”
“What? Seriously?”
“I think so. I can hardly believe it. We seemed to be
getting on so well – at least, most of the time! Perhaps he was just buttering
me up so that he could do this.”
“Shit. That is unbelievable. I’m so sorry, Emma. I hope
you’re mistaken.”
“Is there any chance I could borrow your car?”
“Can you drive?”
“No. I kind of need to borrow you too.”
“How can I help?” she asked, without even pausing for
thought.
“He’s in my house at the moment. Upstairs. I need to follow
him when he leaves. I think he’ll take us right to them.”
“Where are you?”
“In the garden. It’s freezing but I can’t risk him knowing
that I’m onto him.”
“I’ll have to get somebody to look after Aimee. How long can
you keep him there?”
“I don’t know. I’ll stall him for as long as I can.”
We said goodbye and I hung up the phone. I walked slowly
back towards the house – hindered by the ever-increasing fractures to my world.
Was this really happening? Was I losing Simon as well as Joseph? I felt as
though a pair of forceps was mashing up my heart, ventricle by ventricle, but
this couldn’t be heartbreak. There was nothing romantic between Simon and me.
I began to wonder if he’d even been to Antarctica; he wasn’t
in the group photo. But why lie about something like that? Why make up
something so elaborate? The trip involved a dead friend – a friend after whom
we’d called our son. Surely he wouldn’t lie about something like that …
“Ah, there you are,” said Simon.
I managed a weak smile.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began, “perhaps I should move in
here for a bit.”
“Huh?” What was the point of saying that? If he was planning
to run away with Joseph, why bother making overblown gestures now? Perhaps he
was softening me up, trying to lure me into a false sense of security.
I needed to delay him until Tina arrived, so I asked, “How
would that work?”
“You think it’s a good idea then?”
“Sure, why not?” I said, without giving the proposition any
thought.
Just buy more time.
He became suddenly animated. “I could be invaluable to you!
I could be here for you and Joseph just in case you get ill but more
importantly, with a live-in healthy adult, Social Services will
know
they have no cause for concern.”
I felt a peculiar blend of warmth and pain. I knew that,
were Simon sincere, this would be the single noblest thing anybody had ever
done for me. Somebody who was prepared to give up his own home, and move in
with a girl he’d only really known for a few weeks, to give their son the best
possible start in life, should be treasured. Conversely, somebody who would
make overblown gestures to facilitate the abduction of said son would be a
monster.
On the one hand, I wanted to melt in the warmth of this
incredible gesture, but I couldn’t dare allow myself to believe it. If Simon
were so sincere, so wonderful and giving, then why had he lied and said his
phone wasn’t charged? He must have already known where his mother was,
otherwise why cancel her call? Why cut off what would otherwise be our only
lifeline?
My phone buzzed. It was the text from Tina letting me know
that she was just around the corner, with the engine running.
“It’s getting late,” I said to Simon. “Like you said, you
could be driving into the night.”
“Will you be okay?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine. I have a friend coming over,” I told him,
truthfully.
He took my hands and looked me in the eye. His gaze was
intense and seemed so sincere.
Why do you have to make this so hard?
He
pulled me close to him. I could smell his cool, tea tree shampoo mixed with the
warm aroma of his neck. My heart was pounding in my chest. I felt sure he could
feel it through the two layers of wool that separated our flesh. “I’ll let you
know as soon as I hear anything.”
I nodded, mute. It would be so easy to believe that that
embrace had been real, so comfortable to believe that that pleasing scent was my
instincts telling me to trust him. I had to remind myself of the facts. He’d
told me his phone battery was dead, and yet somehow, miraculously, his mother
had managed to call him. He was definitely keeping something from me and, with
everything at stake, I couldn’t afford to ignore any evidence.
* * *
It was a harsh night. Enraged clouds stormed towards the
moon, only to be shoved away moments later by the ferocious winds. The
relentless blusters tore at the trees. Great gusts sent curtains of water splattering
against the windscreen, urging us to turn back. But the night had no idea what
it was reckoning with – how desperate I was.
“He’s heading for the moors. But, there isn’t anything up
there
besides
moorland,” I pointed out.
“That’s good, it means he’ll stop soon,” Tina pointed out.
“That’s if he really is just going to one place, and not driving around until
he finds them.”
“He knows where they are, I
know
he does. Why else
would he ignore a call from his mother? He must have already spoken to them. He
wouldn’t charge his phone and then
not
try to call them, would he?”
“I don’t know,” she conceded.
I found Tina’s guiding influence peculiar. Earlier this year
she had been the vulnerable one and I had been her adviser, helping her to work
through practical solutions to her problems. Now things had been reversed
entirely. Here she was, with her life together, her baby safely under her own
roof, supporting me through this horrific ordeal.
We’d only been driving for thirty minutes, and it seemed as
though our journey was already about to end. Part of me prayed that I was wrong
about Simon, but another part of me hoped that I was right. If I was correct in
my assumption that he was driving straight to his parents, I may be able to
glimpse my baby boy within minutes!
What would I do if I saw him? Could I just burst in there
and grab him? Surely Tina and I were no match for the three of them. If I
caused a scene, Joseph could get hurt in the scuffle.
Thus far, I had no particular plan of action in mind. I had
to know who my friends were – who was on my side, and who was trying to keep my
baby away from me. Without that information, snatching Joseph would be a brief
victory.
Eventually, Simon pulled off onto a dirt track. Surely there
wasn’t any property up here? But then, I realised that there had to be
something here; else why the track? Where better to hide a baby than in the
middle of nowhere? Presumably, they hadn’t been planning on hiding here for
long. Perhaps Simon’s arrival was what his parents were waiting for. I felt in
my jeans pocket. Thank goodness I’d kept hold of Joseph’s birth certificate.
Simon’s car drove out of sight, but it would be hard to lose
him on such a remote road. We followed the faint glow of his headlights until
eventually we spotted a small cottage. The windows were ablaze with the
comforting glow of interior lights. There were people here. I felt sure that
one of them would be Joseph.
“We’d better stop here,” Tina told me, pulling in to a
narrow lay-by. “I know they won’t recognise my car, but I think they’d be
suspicious if they saw
any
traffic near here.”
“Good point.”
I was unstrapped and ready to go by the time the car rolled
to a halt. I clambered out into the petulant night.
“Do you want
me
to go?” asked Tina. “You could wait
here.”
“Why?” I asked, allowing myself the shelter of the car for a
moment longer.
“It could get rather fraught. Remember when you asked me to
wait outside while you spoke to the council?”
“Tina, that was because you kept calling the officials
‘worthless cock baskets’. Profanity minimisation isn’t going to make a
difference here.”
She nodded, and climbed out of the car. In seconds, the rain
turned her bouncy blonde hair into a sodden rag. I could already feel the rain
running down my neck. A puddle soaked through my shoes.
As we approached the cottage, I lifted myself onto tippy
toes in case I could catch a glimpse of Joseph through the window. Alas, the
curtains were drawn.
We turned into a … well, I suppose you could say it was
a car park, but it was more of a dirt space retaining deep pools of water. That
was odd – there were three cars here. I recognised Gerald’s dark Audi, skulking
in the shadows like a mafia assassin. Then, I saw Simon’s midnight blue BMW,
haphazardly parked. I sank down, in case he was still in his car. I couldn’t
really see because of the headrest, but I assumed that he wouldn’t drive all
the way here and then dawdle. I stood myself up again and faced the third car.
The moon graced us with a quick flicker. I had to blink a few times. Wasn’t
that … wasn’t that Nicky’s yellow Mini?