think we all know what happened, don’t we, what with those books that’ve been written? Go into too much detail, I think.
Anyway, I’d been going about my daily business, making the beds, laying the table, making the dinner and the tea. Washing, ironing, watching the telly, waiting for Colin to come home, then waiting for him to go out so I can be on my own.
I was still making enough food for three, just in case he came back. He’d been gone a year by this time: Christmas, Mother’s Day, Thomas’s eighteenth birthday. I’d bought him a card for Christmas and his birthday, you know, just in case. I’ve still got them all here in the drawer, cards for every year. But nothing from him.
I was convinced that if he was still alive, he would have sent me a card on Mother’s Day, and I got out every card he had made me over the years, as if this made me into some kind of mother whose son wouldn’t disappear—a good parent.
I knew people were saying things about me, ‘she must have been a bad mother for her own son to up and go like that’ and ‘well, who can blame him, look at her windows.’ I’d never been a very good housewife, but somehow now it seemed the dirt on my windows was in some way connected to my son being ‘missing person.’
I’d kept his room the same, his posters up, and all his football things in his drawers. The police had been through it, but I just put it back exactly the same as before. I still washed his bedclothes every week, with ours. Set him a place at the table, and I could see Colin’s face tighten when he saw me put the knife and fork down carefully.
‘Come on, Bess, he’s not a bloody saint. You can’t do this all the time. You’re going to have to get used to it, you know.’
Usually I just nodded. There was no point talking to him anymore because he didn’t understand what I was saying. We’d start a conversation about Thomas and I’d tell him how I was feeling. He’d get a funny look on his face and he’d sort of close down, blank over, until I’d finished talking.
It was a look of dread, sort of pain. At first I thought it was because he was feeling the same as me, but later he told me it was because he was bored with it. Bored with hearing about our son, who we didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Bored.
Anyway, this particular day I’d caught the bus down to the market. I’d been sitting thinking in the morning about how happy I’d been the day Thomas went missing. How I’d been laughing really loudly.
I’d jumped up and looked in the mirror to see if the crow’s feet were still there. Sure enough, they were, but slightly faded. I was aging backward! My mouth had turned upward slightly, as if, for the first time in a year I might smile.
The hard, invisible casing stopped it, tightening up around me, forcing me back into the prison of my own horrible mind, where Thomas was dead in a ditch somewhere, but no one else believed it.
I’d spoken to Florrie Taylor, who’d asked outright on the bus if we’d heard anything.
‘So have the police come up with owt?’
Her ferrety face was poking toward me and I reddened.
‘Not yet. No.’
I was expecting the usual ‘Oh, he’ll turn up when he’s hungry’ or ‘bake him a cake, he’ll be back.’ The sort of cheery things people who have never lost a child say.
‘Mmm. Bad business this. They say another child’s gone missing as well. And a girl. They’re linking it now. The four of them from round ’ere.’
It was horrific, but music to my ears as well. I stared out of the bus window at a flock of starlings swirling above the church spire, thousands of little birds, all gathering together to make a big black cloud. Thicker and thicker until it disappeared over the hill, then I saw them again over the bus station as the bus pulled in.
They were early that year; the beginning of October is very early for starlings. It was a kind of Indian Summer; the blue sky, but nippy outside, you still
Anyway, I’d been going about my daily business, making the beds, laying the table, making the dinner and the tea. Washing, ironing, watching the telly, waiting for Colin to come home, then waiting for him to go out so I can be on my own.
I was still making enough food for three, just in case he came back. He’d been gone a year by this time: Christmas, Mother’s Day, Thomas’s eighteenth birthday. I’d bought him a card for Christmas and his birthday, you know, just in case. I’ve still got them all here in the drawer, cards for every year. But nothing from him.
I was convinced that if he was still alive, he would have sent me a card on Mother’s Day, and I got out every card he had made me over the years, as if this made me into some kind of mother whose son wouldn’t disappear—a good parent.
I knew people were saying things about me, ‘she must have been a bad mother for her own son to up and go like that’ and ‘well, who can blame him, look at her windows.’ I’d never been a very good housewife, but somehow now it seemed the dirt on my windows was in some way connected to my son being ‘missing person.’
I’d kept his room the same, his posters up, and all his football things in his drawers. The police had been through it, but I just put it back exactly the same as before. I still washed his bedclothes every week, with ours. Set him a place at the table, and I could see Colin’s face tighten when he saw me put the knife and fork down carefully.
‘Come on, Bess, he’s not a bloody saint. You can’t do this all the time. You’re going to have to get used to it, you know.’
Usually I just nodded. There was no point talking to him anymore because he didn’t understand what I was saying. We’d start a conversation about Thomas and I’d tell him how I was feeling. He’d get a funny look on his face and he’d sort of close down, blank over, until I’d finished talking.
It was a look of dread, sort of pain. At first I thought it was because he was feeling the same as me, but later he told me it was because he was bored with it. Bored with hearing about our son, who we didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Bored.
Anyway, this particular day I’d caught the bus down to the market. I’d been sitting thinking in the morning about how happy I’d been the day Thomas went missing. How I’d been laughing really loudly.
I’d jumped up and looked in the mirror to see if the crow’s feet were still there. Sure enough, they were, but slightly faded. I was aging backward! My mouth had turned upward slightly, as if, for the first time in a year I might smile.
The hard, invisible casing stopped it, tightening up around me, forcing me back into the prison of my own horrible mind, where Thomas was dead in a ditch somewhere, but no one else believed it.
I’d spoken to Florrie Taylor, who’d asked outright on the bus if we’d heard anything.
‘So have the police come up with owt?’
Her ferrety face was poking toward me and I reddened.
‘Not yet. No.’
I was expecting the usual ‘Oh, he’ll turn up when he’s hungry’ or ‘bake him a cake, he’ll be back.’ The sort of cheery things people who have never lost a child say.
‘Mmm. Bad business this. They say another child’s gone missing as well. And a girl. They’re linking it now. The four of them from round ’ere.’
It was horrific, but music to my ears as well. I stared out of the bus window at a flock of starlings swirling above the church spire, thousands of little birds, all gathering together to make a big black cloud. Thicker and thicker until it disappeared over the hill, then I saw them again over the bus station as the bus pulled in.
They were early that year; the beginning of October is very early for starlings. It was a kind of Indian Summer; the blue sky, but nippy outside, you still
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