The world, for all its positives and beauty, can also be a cruel violent place, proven by the recent news that has infiltrated every home. She is torn between being repulsed by the coverage of the missing boy and feeling compelled to watch it over and over, gleaning what she can from every new piece of information, filtering out the dross and storing the important stuff, keeping it in her mind so she can apply it to her life and keep her son safe. She has taken to watching every repeat of the reports until she is unable to think straight and is able to replicate the news correspondents’ script off by heart.
She slips out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. A crack of light spills onto the carpet from the landing, highlighting the small mound under the bed sheets that is Joel’s body. His hair is mussed up, his skin like porcelain, smooth and unblemished. She thanks whichever God may be listening for gifting her this boy, this wonderful clever human being who never fails to bring her joy even when he is tired and grumpy and backchats and refuses to do his homework. Even then, she is eternally grateful that he is hers and hers alone.
She pads down the stairs, careful to avoid the creak of the third step which is as familiar to her as her own skin. She could sidestep it blindfolded having lived here for over ten years. She made many trips up and down here in the dead of night when Joel was a screaming baby, her body at its lowest ebb after giving birth and suffering from sleep deprivation for months on end, and then being abandoned by a man who decided that fatherhood wasn’t for him after all. A stab of annoyance still darts through her at the thought of Samuel and his lack of compassion and wafer-thin veneer of resilience that broke after only a few weeks of being subjected to an exhausted wife and a crying baby. It should have waned after all these years, that sentiment, that anxious fretful feeling, but it is still there, sharp and angular in her mind, as if it was only yesterday when he walked out of the door never to return.
The bottle of Malbec in the kitchen tugs at her. She tries to resist but it’s so hard. It’s midweek and she has an early start in the morning. Her boss is out dealing with customers for the next few days, leaving her in charge of a busy office with their recently trained assistant who is still acquiring the essential skill required to deal with irate engineers faced with broken machinery and thousands of hours lost. She will have to open up the office and man the phones. It’s the end of the month and she needs to process any outstanding orders and make sure all the invoices are paid. A clear head is a necessity. She bites at her lip. She also needs to de-stress and prepare for a difficult day and what better way than a glass of the good stuff? Just one. That’s all it will take to help her unwind. Just the one.
So often, thinks Emily, the idea of doing something is far more appealing and satisfying than actually doing it. The wine leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, coating it with a residual oily tang, making her feel marginally nauseous. She places the glass down on the coffee table, her mind raking back over the disappearance of little Leo and how it has lodged in her consciousness. The more she tries to dismiss such thoughts, the more they creep in, slithering into her brain, soiling and tainting her little world, her tightly protected family unit. She takes another swig of the wine despite feeling ever so slightly sick. She needs it to blur her growing feelings of disquietude, to stop her thinking about how it could have been Joel.
Leo Fairland’s bed is currently empty, his sheets taut and cold. She lets that image linger for a while before she turns her thoughts to his family, to his parents and possible siblings, wondering how they are coping. She would be a wreck, unable to hold herself together. She knows this for certain. Just the thought of it makes her dizzy with fear and dread. No number of drugs designed to calm and sedate her would stop the screams from escaping. She would be inconsolable, a trembling quivering hollowed out version of herself. There would be no way of climbing out of that yawning abyss.
Her palate gradually acclimatises to the sour yet now appealing tang of the wine. She takes another long slug, hoping it will dull her thoughts, stop her from torturing herself over something that may never happen. Atenby is the village next to Middleham, where she and Joel live. So close. Close enough to make her feel permanently on edge. Things like this don’t happen around here. They shouldn’t. Not in their neck of the woods. They are a close-knit community here in Middleham. They have a small library, a quaint post office and a village school. She tells herself that these things, these quintessentially middle-class things, will protect her and her boy from such an atrocity, but then reminds herself that Atenby also has a quaint post office and a village school as well as a tiny little church and a village green complete with pond and ducks. It’s a slightly bigger village with a larger school, but still…
Before she knows it, panic has gripped her and she is already convinced that Joel is next. She visualises a stranger waiting outside the school gates, a sinister individual, somebody in a raincoat who will scoop up her boy and take him away to do God knows what to him before dumping his body in a dirty alley somewhere, miles away from home.
She is shivering and her glass is suddenly empty. The need to refill it is overwhelming; an itch she needs to scratch. She knows that she shouldn’t, but a long and weary night stretches ahead of her. Just one more, she tells herself as she stands up and shuffles her way into the kitchen to pour another. Just the one. She drops back down on the sofa, her body bone-achingly tired, her mind clogged up with dread, and savours the taste as it slips down her throat. No more after this. She has a busy day ahead of her tomorrow. A really busy day.
Her mouth is gaping open, her tongue gritty, her throat dry as sand. Her eyes flicker open. She stretches and lets out a protracted yawn. The empty glass is still balanced in her hand, her fingers tightly clasped around the smooth thin stem.
She stands up, her limbs weak and watery, and places the glass on the coffee table with a dull thunk. The thump in her head accelerates as she leans forward, a large rock rolling and banging against her skull, making her feel sick. It’s time for bed. She staggers through the living room, exhaustion weighing her down.
Deciding to not look at the clock for fear of it being so late that she suddenly discovers she has only got a few hours left until it’s time to get up again, she turns off all the lights and checks the front door, shuffling her way through to the hallway. To her horror, she realises that it’s unlocked. Her chest is tight, her flesh suddenly ice cold. She fumbles around for the keys, dipping into her bag that is slung over the newel post, her fingers cold and clumsy as she drags them across the bottom of it, scraping and fumbling, panic stripping away her dexterity. They’re not there. A handful of old tissues and a rogue lipstick is the best she can come up with. Dropping everything onto the floor in a messy heap, Emily spins around, eyes wild as she scans the small shadowy hallway, eventually finding the keys on the console table, hidden behind a stack of mail. She grabs them and locks the door, her palms slick with perspiration.
Forgetting to keep the noise down and to avoid the creaky step, she runs upstairs and races around the landing, peering into bedrooms looking for intruders, stopping outside Joel’s room to catch her breath. With a hand placed on her breastbone in an attempt to still her thrashing heart, she pushes the door ajar and lets out a rasping staccato breath when she sees him lying there, curled up safe in his bed, still wrapped in the strong nurturing arms of sleep. Thank God.