I Do Not Sleep (4 page)

Neither did I. I told Joey I’d talk to Adam when he got home. Of course I knew exactly what he’d say. And he didn’t surprise me.

‘Molly, are you out of your mind? Of course Ben can’t live here. I’m hugely fond of him, and he has enormous potential, but he’s a mess.’

‘I know, but that’s his parents’ fault, not his. And we’ve known him since he was four.’

‘Yes, and I’m more than willing to keep a close eye on him at school, although he’s not in any of my classes. I do watch out for him, always have. But I won’t have him living in this house. He has massive problems, Molly. If he moved in here we’d be asking for trouble. And it’s not fair on Danny and Joe.’

I didn’t put up much of a fight. Adam was right. Poor Ben. As it turned out, he seemed to manage in the little flat his parents found for him. He saw his dad sometimes, hardly ever his mother, who had been diagnosed as bipolar and said she simply couldn’t cope with him. Outwardly, Ben didn’t seem to care.

He was a frequent visitor to our house, and both Joey and Danny were enormously fond of him. Did I think his druggie lifestyle affected our two boys? Naturally I worried about it, and so did Adam. But whatever our sons got up to, they never caused us serious concern. Obviously we were on the lookout for problems, but they seemed to have a charmed life. Their schoolwork thrived, they were happy and steady at home. I was constantly wary of Ben and his chaotic life, of course I was, but Danny and Joey seemed impregnable; sturdy high achievers, our boys were, set well on course for university and a prosperous life.

Adam and I both felt for Ben. We wanted to help him, opened up our house and our lives to him within reason. A couple of years passed without incident, and we were happy and relieved when first Danny and then Joey passed their A-levels with distinction. Mind you, so, against all the odds, did Ben.

He had been Joey’s best friend since they met at nursery in Manchester. Together they had spent their primary years at Beaver Road school in Didsbury, gathering cohorts of other little lads around them, all of whom often came back to our house to play. We lived in an Edwardian cul-de-sac with a park at the end of the street, and I used to love those days after school when they all descended for Ribena and biscuits. Being a teacher myself, it was relatively easy for me to be home early for them a couple of days a week, if I traded time with my colleagues. Danny, too, went to Beaver Road, and when he and his friends also flocked to our place after school, it was bedlam, but gloriously so. Our beautiful road, Old Broadway, was built by a White Russian émigré at the very beginning of the twentieth century. Each house was different, some detached, others, like ours, semis, but they were all spacious and full of character.

And Ben? The flat his businessman father bought him made him very popular. His friends – including Joey, as he later confessed – spent many hours there with him, probably smoking weed. Ben’s parents gave him money instead of love, but despite that he did well at school – very well. He got into Manchester University to read English and Drama. So did Joey. I had expected my son to want to move away from home for Uni, like Danny who was studying Psychology at Leeds. But Joey was a home-bird. He loved Manchester, although he moved into a Hall of Residence in his first year rather than stay at home. That was fine by me since his digs were only a mile or so away from us, which meant, as a mum, I had the best of both worlds. An independent son who did his own laundry in Hall, but who still came home regular as clockwork to see his old mum and dad and, however hungover, usually turned up for Sunday lunch each week.

And a lot of the time Ben came with him. They were fast friends. Ben seemed somehow to have sorted himself out; he looked well and happy and was always good company. As for Joey, I couldn’t wish for a better son. He was healthy, good-looking, full of verve and high spirits. Adam and I would grin at each other when the boys left us after a convivial meal, and raise a glass.

‘Hey, Moll. Here’s to us. We must have done something right.’ And we would clink glasses and thank God for our lovely, happy family.

At the end of his first year at university, Joey and I had a heart to heart. My son told me Ben’s drug days were over. ‘I mean, Mum, you know, he does a bit of weed every now and then. But so does everyone else.’

I tried to look unconcerned. ‘Everyone?’ I asked. ‘Including you?’

He grinned. ‘Well, yeah, but don’t worry, Mum. I’m not a druggie and neither’s Danny. I think we imbibed responsible behaviour with our mothers’ milk.’

‘That would be me you’re talking about,’ I said smiling. ‘And I’m glad to hear it. But hasn’t it been difficult for you while Ben was so wild?’

‘No, not really. I mean,’ he said, a little embarrassed, ‘like I said, we have experimented a bit, Danny and me, at parties, that sort of thing. Everyone does. But we were never really tempted to go on with it. I mean, Ben used to go too far. Class A stuff, cocaine, what have you. We saw he was on a knife-edge and it scared us. He could have destroyed himself. He didn’t have the right parents. We did. And anyway, Ben’s so bright. He’s got big ambitions. He wants to be a film director. He’s really talented. You should see the stuff he makes at Uni. The film department think he’s amazing. He gets a lot of positive support, which means he’s finally found the strength to sober up.’

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘He’s stopped using, for good?’

‘Yes, Mum. I promise. He really has.’

And so by the time the boys started their second year at university, Ben was not only clean but flying high. He was full of plans for the future, charming, healthier and happier than I’d ever seen him.

Autumn Term began in October 2008. The following April, when Ben and Joey were just twenty, they went on holiday together. An Easter break, boys only, in Polperro. Where they could both indulge in the hobby they loved most. Sailing. The hobby that took my son away from me, seemingly for ever.

Yes, I lost Joey that day, and I had failed to keep in contact with his best friend. I simply couldn’t bear to talk to Ben afterwards. The thought that he had seen Joey, been with him for those last days when I was going about my normal existence in Manchester, happy, totally unprepared for the cataclysmic shock about to devastate my life, meant that my throat closed up in horror when I thought about calling him. In some irrational way, I blamed Ben for being with my son when I was not. As if I might have prevented his disappearance. I knew I was being unfair, but there it was. Now, five years later, back at the scene of so many happy family holidays, I thought maybe it was time to change that.

Chapter Seven

Present Day

We got back to Coombe in the late afternoon. Edie was sleepy and went down for a nap in her cot straightaway. I could have done with a lie-down myself, but I was still wrestling with my plan to call Ben. Because of Adam’s reluctance, I decided to put it off for a while. Besides, if I seriously intended to ask Ben to stay here with us on our holiday, I had to talk to Danny and Lola. I knew my elder son thought everything was going fine. He was loving Cornwall with his wife and their gorgeous little girl, and he thought I was too. Danny was congratulating himself; his coup to get me down here, his appeal to Adam, had worked. Here we all were, having a lovely time. The future lay hazy, rosy and bright on the horizon. And – guess what? Mum seemed to be having a ball down here, on the beach with her grandchild.

I could imagine Danny whispering to Lola, when they were in bed at night, that it had all been a great success. ‘I knew this would be OK,’ he would say to his wife. ‘I knew I just had to get Mum down here with Edie and she would fall in love with the place again.’ He would smile as he said it and settle down to sleep. Lola would stroke his cheek and murmur soft agreement. But Lola was not deceived. She was, after all, a mother. She knew, more than Danny, more even than Adam, what was going on in my head. She had no illusions that this holiday was for me just a ritual of acceptance. How could it be? It involved remembering the disappearance of my child.

Lola knew that. And she had loved Joey. I thought my daughter-in-law might be my ally.

After supper that night, we watched some television. I was restless, and knew I wouldn’t sleep. Danny and Lola went up to bed early, knowing they’d be woken by Edie before the night was through. Adam went upstairs to read; I told him I wouldn’t be long. I wanted a walk around the garden before I came to bed.

And so, holding a gin and tonic, I stepped outside into the moonlight. The grass was silver, the leaves on the soft-lit trees glittered like diamonds. It was so quiet. The gentle breath of a breeze sighed around me, swaying, holding me steady. And as the clouds drifted softly over the garden the night revealed herself in a sensuous dance. Slowly, minute by minute, she tantalisingly showed me the darkness, as if I watched a curtain pulled teasingly apart by ghostly fingers, quietly, gradually, so as not to alarm me. But as each drape was drawn tenderly aside, I saw more. One by one, tiny glinting fragments opened up the magic moonscape, and there it was, the whole fantastical landscape, stamped on my heart like an impossible fairytale postcard.

And Cornwall suddenly burst upon me.

For all the jolly days we’d had on the beach since we’d arrived, the spirit of this magic place had not yet touched me. I had been out of its reach for years.

Now in the silver, shadowed garden, the essence of Cornwall at last stretched out its arms, its limbs, wrapping itself around me so tightly I could barely breathe. Tendrils of sea mist seeped into my head, swirled around my brain. I was back, claimed once more by the strange, mythical home which had sung seductively in my soul until the day I lost my son.

I’d re-entered this mystic realm, I’d returned, and now all things were possible. I felt I could touch Joey. He was here, next to me. I could feel him, smell him, almost see him. I could certainly hear him.

And what I heard was a long, soughing sigh. What I heard, or thought I heard, was one word:

‘Mother.’

Could this be happening? I listened with every nerve I had, every sensory receptor in my body trembling with fear and pain. Was he trying to reach me? Please God, make it be so.

And his voice came again. Plaintive, pleading, dying, sighing on the breeze. ‘Find me. Find me.’

He sounded so sad. I cried out: ‘Joey. Where are you? Tell me. Help me. Please, Joey. I’m coming, darling. I’ll find you. Wait for me.’

I sank down onto a white stone bench. I sobbed, but I felt happier and more alive than I had in years. He had found me, my boy, at last. As I had prayed he would. He was here. Close, in Cornwall. I would find him even if it killed me.

And I knew this strange, haunted county had stirred again, as it does when the need is great. Cornwall had waited a long time, but until now I couldn’t hear her. The remote landscape of the far West Country had failed to reach me while I mourned my loss in Manchester, the northern town where Joey was born. I had to come back here, to the place he went missing, to be wrapped tightly in its flowing spirit-haunted cloak. Who knew what was real in this land of legends?

That night, wrapped in Faerie, I dreamed about an island. I was puzzled. In my dream I knew where it was. I had been there, surely, in the past? What enchantment had guided me? Something had taken me there, had held me in its spell for many days. So why was the place so mysterious to me? The image of the island cocooned me in enormous grief. Where was it, and when had I seen it? I had to tune in to this new sensibility, the wave of thought that had suddenly presented itself. If I could, I would know the answer to Joey’s fate. If I didn’t, he would be forever lost to me. I had no choice. I had to listen to Cornwall’s beckoning song. I had to let myself be haunted.

Chapter Eight

None of this made any sense in the morning. I had gone to bed, snuggled up to Adam and found comfort in the warmth of his body. But when I woke up I felt bereft, my stomach nauseated with what felt like a hangover. I knew this had nothing to do with alcohol. My brain was sick, scoured, scavenged. As Edie ate her breakfast porridge, I tried fiercely to concentrate on her, this gorgeously predictable little child pulling her usual wake-up faces, making her lovely tiny noises, communicating as always with the adults she knew would never disappoint her. The parents and grandparents who formed the boundaries of her happy baby life, the small circle of security she knew would never fail her.