Every Sunday afternoon I would take the bus back to my parents’ house on Jackson Street, and spend exactly fifty minutes drinking tea and trying to make conversation. Sometimes my father would offer me money, which I always declined. Sometimes, I would bring Emily. But no aspect of my life – neither my job, nor my daughter – seemed to hold their interest. Conrad’s absence had swallowed them both, and they only ever came alive – briefly, and erratically, and then only on good days – at the mention of his name.
And so we spoke of Conrad: always in the present tense; as if at any time he might just walk into the living room. Above the relentless litany of the numbers station, they would go over school grades, his sporting successes, his qualities; while I sat watching the second hand of the living room clock go round and round.
‘Conrad’s so good with children,’ my mother would say over her cooling tea. ‘When he gets home, he’ll be so surprised to find he has a little niece.’
‘Have a Bourbon,’ my father would say. ‘Go on. They’re your favourites.’
In fact they were Conrad’s favourites; I had never liked them. The same went for Coco Pops, Conrad’s preferred cereal, which my parents had served me relentlessly for breakfast every morning, and Scotch eggs, which appeared in my school lunchbox every morning without fail, and which I would drop from the bridge into the canal on my way to school, where they floated like small orange buoys, and were eaten by the water rats who lined up solemnly on the bank like children in a dinner queue. It was almost as if, by feeding me Conrad’s favourite foods, my parents could continue to pretend that he was still a part of our lives.
‘I don’t like Bourbons. Remember?’
‘I suppose you’re on a diet,’ my mother would say. ‘You shouldn’t, you’re thin enough as it is.’
‘Honestly, it isn’t that.’
‘Conrad always eats like a horse. It’s all that running about he does. You ought to get out in the open air. That’ll give you an appetite.’
In the end I always gave in. It’s only a biscuit, I’d tell myself. What harm does it do to indulge them? And so I’d eat one, very fast, to get it over with quickly, and she would look at me and say; ‘See? You were hungry after all. I’ve got Scotch eggs in the pantry.’
Meanwhile, between caring for Emily and my job at the care home, I managed to finish my A-levels, then on to an Open University degree, then a teacher training course at the Tech and finally, aged twenty-three, ended up as a supply teacher at Sunnybank Park Comprehensive. It was not all I’d dreamt of, or what my parents had hoped for me. Nor was it the kind of life I wanted for my daughter. Over those six years, I barely slept; I bought my clothes from charity shops and lived on packet noodles. But over six years, I grew strong. I learnt to develop my talents. And that was how I met Dominic, and although that didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, you might say Dominic saved me.
I said you might say that, Roy. I’ll even let you believe it. Men like you – like Dominic – love to think that of yourselves. You see us as fragile orchids, ready to wilt at the slightest change. But orchids are tougher than you think. We happen to flourish on neglect. Mine require nothing but a soaking every week or two: and when they flower, they do so for months, their blooms like moulded rubber. And yet they seem so delicate; so pretty and so vulnerable. They make you believe they are helpless things. Just like women. More fool you.
Dominic Buckfast was Head of Art, and some nine or ten years older than I. He was charming, funny and smart – much too smart for Sunnybank Park. He could have taught at the Grammar School, or even the University. But Dominic was a Labour man. He didn’t believe in grammar schools. The son of a Trinidadian woman barely able to read and write, he was a born romantic, always looking for a cause to espouse: in this case, that of a single mother and her six-year-old daughter. To my surprise, he was aware of my family’s history. He’d been the same age as Conrad the year my brother disappeared. He’d read about the case, and was shocked at what it had done to the family. He had a house on April Street – a three-bedroom house, with a garden. He took to Emily straightaway. Best of all, he was single.
And so I allowed him to save us. After six years of fierce independence, of working every hour I could; of buying clothes from charity shops; of always buying the cheapest food; of hoarding coins for the meter; after six years of refusing to be patronized, or pitied, or used, I let myself be saved by a man.
The things we do for our children, Roy. The complicated decisions we make. But Emily was six years old. Old enough to compare herself to the other girls at school. Old enough to understand that we were somehow different. Not because we were poor, but because there was something lacking. I’d taught her independence, determination and courage. But there was something missing, I knew; something I’d never had myself.
As a child, I’d always assumed that, one day, I would fall in love. It happened in stories and on TV. The newspapers were full of it. Even at six, Emily’s life was dominated by fairy tales. But I had never been in love. Not with Johnny Harrington, or any of the boys I’d fucked. I’d never even had a crush on a pop star or an actor. I must have loved my parents once. I knew I must have loved Conrad – but all of that had disappeared into one of those sink holes that had swallowed so much of my past. And whatever I felt for Emily – that strange and fierce protectiveness – never came out in the normal way, as kisses and bedtime stories.
Remember, Straitley, I was young. I still thought a man could complete me. And he was a good man, in so many ways; and my child needed a father. It didn’t quite work out as I’d planned. And yet, I would probably do it again, if I had the chance to go back. But this is where my story starts. I’ve always known I would tell it one day. It seems oddly fitting to tell it to you. And it starts, not the day Conrad disappeared, but eighteen years later, in Dominic’s house, when Emily came home from primary school with a drawing, painstakingly labelled with the words:
Mr SmoLface.
2
St Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys Academy
Michaelmas Term, September 4th, 2006
Yes, of course. I remember the case. A tragedy for all involved. Conrad Price, a Third-Form boy at King Henry’s Grammar School, who disappeared on the last day of term, never to be seen again. If he had been one of ours, I probably would have made the connection sooner, but King Henry’s is six miles away, as well as being a rival school, and I suppose it had slipped my mind.
‘I’m so sorry, Headmaster,’ I said. ‘It must have been a terrible loss.’
‘Are you going to keep calling me that?’ Her eyes still shone with amusement. I realized that my sympathy was neither welcome nor warranted.
‘Headmaster is traditional,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Then by all means use it. But my brother’s death was a long time ago. Don’t feel the need to sympathize: that isn’t why I’m telling you this. But I owe you a full explanation before we decide where to go from here.’
For a moment I was puzzled. Where else to go with a body but to the police? And yet, if these were her brother’s remains, then maybe she deserved the right to decide when to make the announcement. Then a terrible thought crossed my mind, and I forbore from comment. Why would a boy from King Henry’s be buried in St Oswald’s grounds? Could there be another link than accidental geography?