I Hear You Calling Page 14

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  ‘My life has become part of a soap opera,’ I told Barney. He looked at me intently, his huge brown eyes full of concern. ‘We are going from cliff-hanger to cliff –hanger and I have no idea what will come next. You see,’ I told him, reaching out for my half empty glass, ‘I haven’t seen the bloody script.’

  Barney pushed his soft muzzle into the crook of my arm and his tail began to slowly thump the carpet. It was good to feel listened to and understood.

  I didn’t get much sleep that night thinking about Richard, where Chris might have taken him and what they might be doing. I couldn’t pretend to understand Janet’s reaction. If it was me I would have called the police straight away. But then, would I? How many times must people have not understood my reaction to Jim’s behaviour over the years? It’s so easy to look in from the outside and not so bloody easy to live in the middle of it all.

  Richard

  My cheek is all sticky and sweaty and my mouth is so dry I can’t swallow.

  When I open my eyes I realise that I am still in the car. It’s morning now though and the car is parked in a big field with lots of tents and caravans all around the outsides. For a minute I think that Dad has brought me to the kids from my new school but he says no, this is a different camp site. He pushes a bottle of water into my hand and tells me to have a drink. It isn’t cold water and it isn’t nice at all but I drink it all because I am so dry.

  We go into an office which is really just a shed. There’s an old man sitting behind the desk. He has a bald head and little glasses and a big moustache. He looks like one of the faces from my “Guess Who” game.

  ‘Can I ‘elp yee?’ he asks Dad.

  ‘We’re looking for a van for a couple of nights. Nothing fancy but a toilet would be good.’

  While Dad is talking I look out of the window. There are a couple of kids, maybe my age, kicking a football about and a fat man is sweating as he carries a bucket of water to his tent. I can smell sausages cooking somewhere and my tummy rumbles. Maybe we can have a cooked breakfast later?

  ‘Have you got a swimming pool?’ I ask the man as he hands Dad some keys.

  ‘This ‘ere aint the Costa Brava,’ he laughs.

  I have no idea what he means but I guess the answer is no.

  The caravan is very small and it smells funny. There is a tiny cooker and a little table and chairs. The settee is orange and red with big flowers on it. Mum isn’t going to like that when she sees it. And she definitely won’t like the stains and scratches on the toilet.

  Then we go to the café and have bacon and eggs and sausages and Dad doesn’t even notice that I put tomato sauce onto my food not onto the side of my plate.

  ‘Shall we ring Mum and see if she’s better now?’ I ask as we leave the café.

  ‘Already done it. She’s not better yet.’

  I am sad that Dad hasn’t rung Mum when I was there so I could speak to her.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ I ask as we leave the café.

  ‘We’re going back to the van and we are going to meditate.’

  ‘Then tonight can we go to the cinema?’

  ‘Not tonight – we have to meditate tonight.’

  ‘All day and all night?’ I am gutted.

  ‘If need be.’

  ‘But we never do more than 20 minutes at home.’

  ‘We have to have patience. If it takes all night then we will make ourselves available all night.’

  ‘What are we waiting for?’

  ‘Guidance and instruction.’

  ‘I don’t understand Dad.’

  ‘You don’t have to. Just do as I tell you and it will be ok.’

  Some holiday this is going to be, I think as I walk behind Dad back to the caravan. Mum doesn’t know how lucky she is to have a bad head.

  So, we meditate all day and half the night. Well, Dad does, I go off to my place and float above the lake.

  The little bed in the caravan is not as big as mine at home and a couple of times I nearly fall out of it when I turn over and the duvet is really thin and I have to get out of bed and put my sweatshirt back on ‘cos I am cold.

  The next morning Dad looks awful; he hasn’t shaved for two days so he has a bit of a beard growing and his hair is sticking up a bit but it’s more than that; his eyes look kind of weird.

  ‘How long are we staying here Dad?’ I ask as we walk to the café for breakfast.

  ‘Not sure son. Maybe one day maybe ten, not sure yet.’

  ‘It can’t be ten Dad, I need to go to school before then.’

  ‘Sometimes, what we think we need to do is not what we need to do at all.’

  I don’t know what to say to Dad when he starts talking like this, I need Mum to come soon.

  ‘Is mum better now? Will she be coming to us soon?’

  ‘And sometimes the people we think we need around us are not the people we really need around us.’

  I have no idea what he is talking about and he is creeping me out a bit.

  ‘Can I go and explore the fields Dad?’

  ‘No. You don’t go anywhere without me now. We might go for a walk together a bit later on.’

  I have a horrid feeling that we are in for another long day of meditation.

  Rae

  Janet looked like a little old lady when she opened the door to me. Her hair was unbrushed, she had red puffy eyes and she was wrapped in a large fluffy dressing gown that I guessed belong to Chris, which may well have given the shrunken appearance. I hadn’t been at all sure what I was going to say to her but as we looked at each and her eyes filled with tears I just opened my arms and she fell into them. There was no need for words.

  ‘I have no idea of the hell you must be going through.’ I told her when we stepped back from each other.

  She just shook her head and slouched through to the kitchen. Even in all of this she was going to make me coffee.

  ‘Have you thought any more about contacting the police?’

  ‘I don’t want to get him into trouble with the law,’ Janet hugged her mug of tea as if it were the most precious item on earth. ‘I just keep hoping he will calm down and come back soon.’

  ‘Is his mobile still switched off?’

  She nodded and then her drawn face crumbled again. ‘It’s my fault he has done this. I was being horrible to him and he felt I had turned against him.’

  ‘I don’t think you can blame yourself.’

  ‘He’s not a bad man, he’s just frustrated and confused.’

  ‘I know. But we have to think about Richard don’t we?

  ‘He’ll look after Richard. I’m sure he will have calmed down by the end of the week. I just need to keep myself occupied and give him enough space to think straight.’

  And then I had a real dilemma. If Chris was keeping in touch with her it wouldn’t have been such a problem, but he was hiding it seemed to me. That made it an abduction and I knew about it and so had a professional duty to report it. At the same time I could understand her wanting to see it as just an angry husband needing time to calm down, and a caring Dad who would make sure that no harm came to his son. I didn’t trust Chris like she did. I could see the manic side of him.

  I had to report it if she wouldn’t.

  I tried to explain this to her as gently as I could.

  I saw the last bit of energy drain from her as I talked, it was like watching the air go out of a helium balloon, and what was left when I finished talking was a shell of a woman.

  ‘I’ll ring the police,’ she whispered.

  ‘And I’ll ring Tom and ask him to come over and be with you for a while.’

  I should have felt happier as I drove away, the correct procedure was being carried out. Then why did I feel like a total shit?

  ………

  ‘Hi Rae,’ Tom s
poke quietly down the phone. ‘Can’t stay on long, just thought you would be anxious to know what’s going on here.’

  ‘You are so right.’

  ‘Well, she made the call and two officers have just been around and taken some details and photographs and things away with them. Janet is pretty well messed up right now as you would expect, she’s just popped to the bathroom so I thought I’d call you.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘They are going to put the details out to all officers and start a search.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  ‘I know, but this has made Janet start thinking of it now in a different light. She has gone from the “my husband has taken my son away for a couple of days break” to “that bastard has kidnapped my child”. It’s a bit freaky to be honest with you. Oh, I can hear her coming down stairs, better go.’

  I worked on automatic pilot that afternoon; each time my phone rang I was hoping for good news but none came.

  Richard

  So, I open my eyes in the morning and Dad is throwing stuff into the carrier bags again.

  ‘Are we going home now?’

  ‘No – we’re moving on to another place.

  And the stupid tears are stinging the back of my eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to go Dad, I want to go home now.’

  ‘We have things to do and we have to do them. My guide spoke to me in the night and now I know what they want for us.’

  ‘But how will mum know where to find us?’

  ‘If Spirit want her there they will make sure she gets there.’

  ‘But I want her there.’ I fall back onto the hard bed and cry and bang my feet on the thin duvet like a little kid. Dad ignores me and carries on packing.

  ‘Please Dad, let’s go home and get mum first.’

  ‘Not going to happen Richard my son. Now pull yourself together and finish your packing so we can get gone.’

  I am still crying and swallowing down snot as I throw things into a bag. When I felt a bit calmer I try again.

  ‘Well can I ring mum then and speak to her before we go?’

  ‘Maybe later. We have to leave now so hurry up.’

  We don’t speak at all in the car – Dad is leaning forward over the steering wheel all the time he is driving and his face is white and his mouth looks like he has eaten a lemon sherbet. I am looking out of the window but I don’t see much ‘cos I am crying a lot.

  Then we stop outside of a row of shops. Dad buys me two new football magazines and a Mars bar and he buys himself a bottle of whisky.

  Then he drives on again. I try to look at my magazines but reading in the car makes me feel sick so I give up and throw them onto the back seat. I am getting worried about Mum, she has had this headache a long time and she doesn’t usually get bad headaches. I keep thinking of her being home on her own and feeling so poorly with no-one to make her a cup of tea or give her a tablet even, and it makes me feel very sad.

  I close my eyes and go to my place and float above the lake.

  ‘C’mon,’ Dad sounds excited. ‘Get out.’

  I open my eyes and I can still trees, trees that stretch as far as I can see. It isn’t like the pine woods in my place, these trees are not so tall and they don’t look so nice. There are no caravans or tents here so I don’t think it’s another holiday park.

  ‘Where are we going to sleep Dad?’

  ‘In the great outdoors my boy – the great outdoors, just as God intended.’

  I get a bit scared then, I don’t want to sleep in the great outdoors, I want my bed and my Superman duvet and my big soft pillow.

  ‘I don’t want to do it.’

  ‘Course you do, you will feel the real power of the spirit in this place. Bring your bag now.’

  He takes the car blankets from the boot and starts to walk away.

  ‘Dad you haven’t locked the car,’ I call after him.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He has a big smile on his face. ‘It’s not important now.’

  I have a really horrible feeling inside of me, it feels like I have swallowed something very big and it is stuck in my chest but I don’t want to make Dad angry again so I just walk after him.

  We walk really deep into the woods, my legs are starting to ache. I love woods usually but I am hating these. And then we come to a place where the trees stop, it’s like a big circle of sandy stuff with the trees all around it like walls.

  ‘Oh yes, just the spot,’ Dad shouts, putting his bag down onto a broken tree stump. He stands in the middle of the circle and throws his arms out wide. He has a big grin on his face like he has just seen Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyland.

  I drop my bag on the ground and sit on it; all around us are tall trees and thin grasses that make me think of hidden animals and other scary things that might come and get us in the night.

  ‘Can I ring mum now?’

  Dad takes his mobile phone out of his bag and throws it across to me.

  I am so happy as I catch the phone. I need Mum to tell Dad it’s time to come home.

  I press Mum’s number in contacts and put the phone to my ear, closing my eyes as I wait to hear her voice.

  Nothing. I look at the phone. ‘Dad, there’s no signal.’

  ‘Oh what a shame, it must be all the trees. Richard, don’t start crying again for goodness sake; I need you to help me make a fire and then we can eat the sandwiches and crisps I bought at the petrol station. Come on, I’ll be Robinson Crusoe and you can be my man Friday.’

  When it gets a little bit dark we make a camp fire and then we sit round it and eat cheese and onion sandwiches and crisps. I have a can of coke and Dad is sipping whisky from his bottle.

  His face looks happy in the light of the flames. He hasn’t looked happy for such a long time that I am suddenly glad we are here and doing this.

  ‘Dad, I’m sorry I was such a baby earlier.’

  ‘That’s Ok, feeling better now?’

  ‘A bit, thanks.’

  ‘Good, good.’ He stares back into the fire.

  ‘What will we sleep on?’ I ask.

  ‘God’s mattress,’ Dad smiles as he points to the grass. Then he laughs, ‘Don’t look so shocked, we have a blanket each to wrap up in. Imagine Rich, we are going to lie out here together close to nature and watch the night sky. What a treat eh?’

  I am wrapped up in the thick tartan car blanket with my head on my bag for a pillow. I am really tired but a bit too scared to close my eyes in case wild animals or mad axe-men come creeping out of the trees. Dad is still sitting by the fire sipping from his bottle every now and again.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Yes son?’

  ‘Tomorrow can we go out of the woods for a while and ring Mum?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  And I can’t answer him or ask any more questions ‘cos my eyes won’t stay open anymore and I fall asleep.

  In my dream I am back in my place; floating above the lake and looking down over the treetops. It’s all quiet except for birds singing in the trees.

  I feel safe.

  Rae

  I was scoffing a TV dinner, the supermarket’s own brand of lasagne, and watching the local news when suddenly a picture of Richard Banks flashed onto the TV screen.

  ‘Police in Eadstone have today appealed for anyone who has seen the father and son to come forward………..’

  Suddenly Tom appeared on the screen with a police officer on either side of him. ‘Chris, please come home and bring Richard to his mum,’ he said. ‘We know that you love Richard and that you want the best for him, bring him back and we can work it out.’

  Then there was an interview with the police officer who was leading the enquiry. He explained that the Banks’ had been missing for almost a week now with no contact whatsoever. Concern was
growing, he explained, due to the father’s state of mental health which had been deteriorating over a period of some months prior to their disappearance.

  The feature ended with another photograph of Chris and Richard, they were kneeling on the beach making a sand castle and both had huge great smiles on their faces. The number to call if you thought you knew their whereabouts flashed across their photo and stayed on the screen for a full minute.

  I put my half eaten lasagne down on the coffee table where Barney eyed it hungrily.

  Tears pricked the back of my eyes and I had to swallow really hard to force back the huge lump that was in my throat. I had noticed with the events of the last few weeks that some of my emotions were thawing out at last, the numbness seemed to be cracking and crumbling. I was definitely starting to feel again but mainly in a negative way.

  Anger and sadness were running through my system like they were having a race to see which one could bring me to my knees first. I was scared to be honest, I was scared that this was how it was going to be now for the forty odd years I might have left. That I would live the rest of my life either being numb or being angry and sad.

  For the first time I wished I had Tom’s faith and could turn to some omnipresent power to help the situation.

  ………………..

  This cloud was still hanging over me the next morning and I knew I was being unreasonable but I was a bit annoyed to find Pam buzzing with obvious happiness.

  ‘Have you won the lottery?’ I asked her. She was positively glowing.

  ‘Me and Tom are back together,’ she giggled like a school-girl.

  ‘Tom? You don’t mean Tom Little? You and Tom Little are an item?’

  She nodded and her dark eyes danced.

  And then the penny dropped. ‘When you say back together, does that mean you two have a history?’

  ‘We were together in High School, can’t even remember what we fell out over to be honest, but then he went to college and met Lindy and they got married and that was that. But I never quite got him out of my system.’