Sleepwalkers (19 page)

‘You found him!’

‘They think they can control the internet,’ he said angrily. ‘The fucking arrogance! They think they can control the greatest democratic creation in the last millennia, the fucking, fucking … just shut us down …’ He reached into his bag. ‘They think they can control us because we’re lazy and stupid and we won’t be bothered to do it in the old-fashioned way …’ He held up a collection of newspapers. Held them up like trophies. ‘Well fuck ’em.’ And now he allowed himself a smile. ‘Read all about it.’

*

Toby listened as his mother lovingly explained the reasons she thought that it was time he went back to school. He’d been so happy at home, cocooned away from the bullies and careless teachers, but the law was the law, she told him, and he could only hide away for so long.

‘You’ll fall too far behind if you miss any more and then we’ll have to drop you down a year. And you’d hate that.’

He wasn’t sure if he would. He hated school in whatever form it came, but he nodded anyway.

‘It’s not right, really, for me to be the only person you spend your time with. I’m not good at computer games and all those things that you like.’ She took his hand. ‘You need to live.’

He nodded, even though he wanted to argue that this wasn’t what he wanted to do at all. ‘Living’ had, for as long as he remembered, been a complete fucking disaster. But he didn’t want to let her down. She’d packed his things and he walked, head down, to the door where Michael was waiting for him. His father placed a hand gently on his son’s shoulder.

‘Come on, then.’ The two adults stared at the boy. When he looked up, he seemed close to crying.

‘It’s only school, my love.’ His mother pulled him tight to her. ‘I’ll be here at the end of the day. What would you like for dinner? You can choose. A favourite, anything you want. How about it?’

He smiled through the tears. ‘Can I have steak?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘And chips?’

‘A whole plateful!’

He grabbed his bags and took them to the back of the car. He dumped them into the boot, shutting the car door with a confident slam. His hands felt suddenly light without the heavy bags and he didn’t know what to do with them. He noticed a scar that ran horizontally across his fingers. It looked like they’d been shut in a door, or attacked with a blade or … he couldn’t remember. He looked up and saw his parents watching him.

‘Pepper sauce on the steak?’ called his mother.

‘You bet!’ He gave her two thumbs up and felt stupid and childish as he did so.

‘Let’s go then, beat the traffic,’ said his dad, striding past him to the car. ‘You can choose the music today.’

‘Choose something really loud!’ his mother called out, egging him on.

‘Ready to feel your ears bleed, Dad?’

‘Lord help me!’

*

Anna caught sight of Toby by pure chance. She was heading off to class because the bell was due to ring soon and only happened to glance out of the window to see him heading through the gates. Immediately she turned heel, grabbed a small folder from a locked drawer in the staffroom and went to find him.

He was skulking in the corridor, clearly waiting for the bell to ring before he entered his class. It was a classic sign of a child trying to avoid bullying. She went up to him and stood by his side as he peered nervously into the classroom.

‘Toby.’

‘Oh hi, Miss.’

‘I didn’t know you were back today.’

‘No. Me neither.’

‘Come with me.’ She walked down the corridor, expecting him to follow, but Toby didn’t move and she had to go back to him. ‘Toby. Come on.’ He hesitated, so she grabbed him by the wrist. ‘Come on.’

She pushed open the door to a small, cramped music room. Music wasn’t the school’s strongest department and this solitary practice room was grubby and stuffy. She felt jittery as she closed door and turned to face the boy.

‘Miss?’

‘Sit down.’ Toby did as he was told. Anna reached into her bag and pulled out a newspaper.

‘Teddy bear,’ was all she said. If he knew what she was alluding to, his face showed no sign of it. He just waited, politely, for her to continue. She flicked through the pages, found the one she wanted and placed it on the music stand so they could both see it. The big headline announced MIRACLE CHILD SURVIVES HORROR CRASH on faded, yellowing paper. Below it was a photograph of a car which had smashed into a tree: a mangle of crumpled metal. Two policemen stood by the car. One of them held a small boy in his arms. The boy, three years old, was laughing. Next to him, the other policeman held up a teddy bear – he held it aloft like a trophy and the little boy was staring up at the bear and laughing. His smiling features contrasted sharply with the bleakness of the accident. Although you couldn’t see them, the photograph seemed to imply that there were people inside the destroyed vehicle. Dead people. Dead parents.

‘See the small boy?’ she asked. Toby nodded. His mouth was agape, his eyes locked onto the photograph. ‘He’s three. His parents were killed instantly in the crash, but he wasn’t hurt.’

Anna took out another newspaper cutting. She passed it to Toby who took it and stared down at it.

‘Here he is again. In hospital after getting the all-clear. Can you see that small scar by his right eye?’

Toby’s hand instinctively went to his own eye. To his own identical scar. Anna knew she didn’t need to say any more. She waited, resting against the battered piano. He looked up again at the newspaper article on the music stand, then at the paper
in his hands. His head stayed down for a long time and just as she was about to speak, Anna saw a tear splash onto the paper.

‘Can you remember what happened to you after that, Toby?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Toby?’

‘I remember this.’ He spoke with his head down, more to himself than to her. ‘I’m sure … I think … the teddy was called Lolo.’

‘Your real name is Toby Warner. Here.’ She handed him a birth certificate. ‘Those names there, those are your real parents.’ He looked at the piece of paper, running his finger over its fine calligraphy. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

He looked up at her as if he hadn’t noticed her for a while. ‘This is just a piece of paper,’ he said.

‘I think it’s the truth.’

‘What were they like, Mr and Mrs Warner?’

‘I don’t know much. He was a plumber. She—’

‘Did I go to their bed in the night when I was scared?’

Anna paused, took a breath. ‘You had no other family beyond them. Their parents were dead and your father had an estranged brother who lived in Australia, who had never met you. It took the police a year to find him and tell him the news.’

‘Did they read to me? Was she, Mrs Warner, did she rub my hair to help me sleep?’

‘I think Michael and Laura—’

‘Mum and Dad.’

Anna didn’t know what to say. She knew the photos carried such a punch that the information was like a screaming siren. She knew that this poor boy needed and craved love. And why shouldn’t he?

‘I’m sorry. I just want to help. Stop you from being hurt. They’re not your real parents, Toby.’

He handed the birth certificate back to her in silence, then with a sad smile he said, ‘It’s too weird, all this, isn’t it? Which do you think is the weirdest? Is it that I’m a messed-up kid who keeps getting into trouble and drives his dad mad? A bit of an attention seeker. Or is that I’m … what? Snatched? That my mum isn’t real, that she’s hurting me? On purpose? She makes me spaghetti bolognese and apple crumble and then tortures me when I go to bed? Which sounds the craziest to you, Miss?’

‘Toby—’

‘No. No, I’m sorry, you’re a nice lady, dead nice for a teacher, but Mum and Dad, they’re … they’re mine. Sorry. You’ve been really kind but this … Sorry. I’m sorry.’

And with that, he stumbled out of the room just as the bell rang. Anna came into the corridor as he disappeared into class. She heard a boy shout ‘Fucking hell, it’s back!’ and a roar of laughter from within the class before the teacher inside cooled the hysterics. Soon the corridor was empty and her own class awaited. She sagged at the thought, then saw that Kath was watching her from the other side of the corridor.

‘Kath. Hi.’

‘Hey. What was that?’

‘What?’

‘You and that boy.’

‘Oh. Me not following your advice again. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Right,’ said Kath, frowning. When she spoke again, it was quieter. ‘I do, though. You should be careful.’

‘Yeah, well …’ Anna crumpled the newspapers in her hands and started to walk towards her classroom. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’

‘Why not?’ her friend asked, walking with her.

‘Whole thing’s a waste of time.’ Anna wondered how Toby could turn his back on her, on the truth as simply as that. She wanted to kick him. But something about his refusal was also a relief for her. This could all go away now.

Kath seemed pleased by this. Relieved, almost. Anna wondered why she should care, but then she saw two girls outside her class shouting and she forgot about her almost immediately.

*

Toby didn’t even glance in Anna’s direction as he walked out of the school gates at the end of the day. His father was waiting for him as he always did and greeted him warmly. They laughed together about nonsense during the drive home and his mother gave him a long, tight hug at the front door. He dismissed their concerns about the abuse he’d received that day as a trifle and chomped happily on the steak he’d been promised. That night, he lay in his bed with his hands behind his head, content. Ghosts laid to rest. He turned off the bedside light, closed his eyes and didn’t move for ages, until a restless muscle made him twitch and his eyes flickered open.

He stared at the ceiling as the house got darker and quieter. He heard his father brushing his teeth, heard the loo flush. He listened to a murmured conversation about groceries from his parents’ bedroom. And then the house hunkered down for the night. Outside, all was quiet.

Toby tried to hold his eyes shut. But a whisper fluttered, featherlike, across his thoughts. It twisted and turned. Toby Warner.

Eventually he could resist it no more. He pulled the covers off. Silently he tiptoed out of the bedroom. He paused on the landing, listening. He heard his father’s heavy breathing and, emboldened, he slipped downstairs.

He walked into the dark kitchen, not sure what he was looking for. There was a big clock on the wall which ticked with an old-fashioned tock. Everything had been cleaned, tidied and put in its rightful place. He opened a drawer; it was full of familiar items – wooden spoons, a corkscrew, a ladle. He stared at them, then slid the drawer shut, enjoying the order, the silence, the reassurance of the clock’s heartbeat.

In the living room, he sat on the carpet in the middle of the room. He collected the framed photographs of him and his parents that adorned every available surface and laid them out in a circle around him. One by one he inspected each photograph. He saw his grinning face between his parents on a beach in Cornwall, outside a museum in London, at the top of a fell in the Lake District. He stroked the frames, as though they were friends or pets.

His father’s office was even tidier than the kitchen. A computer lay on a curved desk that they had bought in Ikea. Small piles of carefully organised paperwork sat in neat rectangles. All present and correct. Toby spun around in the office chair. There were graphs on the walls, a photograph of his parents on their wedding day, a paperweight and a stack of biros. Another photograph showed his dad on a fishing trip with some buddies that Toby didn’t know. He held up a gigantic fish, laughing, exuberant. There was a joy and wildness in his features that Toby had never seen. Toby ran his hand along the bookshelf, but it was all work stuff which bored him. He
slumped in front of the desk and pulled open the drawers which had nothing of interest inside. Except one. Which was locked. Toby glanced around, irritated. Then he remembered a set of keys his father always had attached to his belt.

The keys lay next to the telephone on his father’s bedside table. The room was dark, with heavy curtains and a deep carpet that allowed Toby to slip into the room unnoticed. He watched his dad sleeping. It was something he’d never done before. His father’s face was only inches from the keys on the bedside table and Toby felt a jolt of nerves. But he reached forward regardless and put his hand around them, clutching the keys tight to avoid any clinking. Carefully he raised his hand … and took five slow steps backwards and away to the relative safety of the landing.

Back in the study, he could feel his heart beating hard – he could actually see his T-shirt vibrate to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He looked at it for a while before sitting back in the chair, placing the key in the lock and turning it. He pulled the draw open and stared inside. Everything was neatly arranged. Some sterile cloths and wipes in one corner. Next to them were several small bottles. Toby pulled them out, one at a time, returning them to their exact original position. They had different contents. Some had pills, white and smooth. Others had liquids – pale yellow in some, colourless in others. They were labelled with names Toby didn’t understand: ‘Sinemet’ and ‘Amantidine’. It was hard to understand the chemical phrases, but the word ‘anaesthetic’ and ‘disinfectant’ stood out. He carefully opened a bottle and sniffed. The smell reminded him of his wounds in the morning. At the back of the drawer were several small, white, rectangular paper boxes.
Toby took one and opened it. From inside, a syringe slipped out onto his open hand. Each box contained ten syringes. The box he held was half empty.

Toby placed the box back in its place. He checked through everything inside once more and tried to imagine a reason for their existence. A locked drawer might just be to keep them safe, to prevent misuse. Maybe his father had a medical condition that he had hidden from Toby to spare his concerns. Maybe this was his medicine. He tried to think up favourable scenarios for each. But when he finally closed the drawer, locked it and returned the key to his father’s bedside, he knew who the drugs were really for.

He stood on the landing at the top of the stairs. Below, by the locked front door, he noticed the alarm sensor fitted on the wall. Its red alarm blinked away, ever-ready. Until now, Toby had never paid it much attention. He’d imagined that, just like the many locks, it was there to keep the bad people out. But now he felt scared of it. He backed away, as though it could see him. Frightened and unsure what to do, he went back to his bedroom.