Elisabeth Carpenter - 99 Red Balloons

‘Pardon?’ I say.

‘Daydreaming again, are you?’ Mum looks so tired. She smiles at me. ‘I said I’ve ordered a taxi. I’ll spend the night at home and be back in the morning.’ She walks over to me, brushes a strand of hair from my face and tucks it behind my ear. ‘My beautiful girl. Always so strong.’ She bends over and kisses my cheek. ‘Night, love.’

When she leaves, Matt shakes his head. ‘She’s certainly unpredictable, your mum. I don’t know how you deal with her being so contrary all the time. One minute she’s snapping at you, the next she’s sticking up for you.’

I don’t say that his behaviour towards me has been the same.

‘It’s always been like that between Mum and me. I can’t remember when it started – it might’ve always been this way. It’s like we couldn’t get along – I felt she was always disappointed with me just being myself. She’s worse now that Dad’s not here, though. He always stuck up for me.’ I look down at my hands. ‘Not that I need someone to protect me now – I’m a grown woman. Ignore me. Everything’s insignificant now that Grace is missing.’

He stands up and reaches over for my plate. ‘It feels like we’re living in a nightmare.’

I put my hands over the dish. ‘Leave this – I’ll see to them. You go to bed, be with Emma.’

‘She’ll be out for the count with the tablet Milly gave her. I didn’t know she took Valium.’

‘I didn’t either.’ I get up and take the plates over to the sink. ‘I’ve been thinking. That thing we were doing; I think we should stop. I think we should delete it. We were drunk.’

He frowns, rubbing his forehead with his hand. ‘I know. I can’t stop thinking about it – if that’s what started all of this… Shit. If Emma found out she’d kill me.’

‘She’d kill me first.’

He smiles a sad smile. ‘That’s probably true.’

I fill the sink with hot water and leave the dishes to soak. ‘I’ll get my work laptop from upstairs.’

‘You don’t look surprised,’ I say to Jim.

He’s looking at the photo of Scott as a child. He’s wearing his school uniform; fourth year juniors, last year at primary. He was such a lovely boy – cheeky, but charming. 1976 it must’ve been – he still went out with his dad then, on Saturdays when the weather was nice. The pair of them would head out to the canal carrying their fishing rods. They’d leave early morning and not come back until teatime – starving as they’d eaten their sandwiches at eleven o’clock. ‘I caught one and it was this big ,’ Scott said one time, holding his arms out wide. I looked to Ron, and he nodded. ‘Aye, he did, Mags. I got the moment on film.’ He pulled the camera out of his pocket and placed it on the kitchen table.

I can’t remember seeing that picture of Scott and the fish he caught. The film could be upstairs, still in the camera.

Tears spring to my eyes as I think of that time, before everything went wrong.

‘It’s not that I’m not surprised,’ says Jim. ‘When we worked together, Ron didn’t talk about his family much – a photo on his desk of the four of you, that’s all. You know what he was like – he liked to keep work and family separate, and I wasn’t one to pry. But he did mention Scott – just briefly – at the pub one time, years ago.’

‘He did? He never mentioned it to me.’

‘He didn’t go into details. He thought he saw Scott from a distance… shouted his name across the bar. It wasn’t him – or if it was, he made a sharp exit.’

I try to remember a time that Ron might have behaved differently after his and Jim’s trips to the pub – three pints in the afternoon without fail after he’d retired – but I can’t. He was a lot quieter after Zoe anyway, but he never once mentioned Scott and what he did.

Some experts say that addictions are hereditary – could that be the case? Ron’s three pints in the afternoon, Sarah’s dependence on drink to get her through the day after Zoe. And Scott – well, he took it to another level.

‘I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about what happened,’ says Jim.

‘No, not really,’ I say. ‘I’m ashamed of what I did to Scott. That’s not to say it wasn’t the right thing, but that was the end for him. He wanted nothing more to do with us after that. Who could blame him?’

I handle the card from the flowers in my hands.

‘But, it can’t be him,’ Jim says, nodding to my hands. ‘The card says Maggie , not Mum .’

‘He stopped calling me Mum a long time ago.’

I slump back against the settee, not caring if I’m able to get up again. Why is everything coming back to me now? Sarah, Scott. And the feeling that I’m connected to every child that goes missing. Am I having to confess my sins now, because it’s nearly the end for me? Perhaps that’s wishful thinking.

I sit up and shuffle my bottom to the end of the settee.

‘I’ll make us some tea.’

We’re both sitting at the kitchen table after I’d busied myself making drinks with proper teacups and getting out the fingers of shortbread that have been in the cupboard since Christmas.

‘So Ron didn’t mention anything to you about what Scott did?’ I say.

‘Nothing. We talked about the football, the old times. If Ron didn’t want to talk about a particular subject, then he stayed quiet.’

‘That’s right.’

I thought Ron and I might have had a conversation about our son at some point in our lives, but his heart attack came so suddenly, in the end we said nothing. I merely held on to him for dear life.

‘Shall we not talk about this any more, Mags? You’re getting upset.’

I shake my head. ‘I think I have to. It’s like a confession, I suppose.’

Jim slurps from his teacup, but says nothing.

‘Where to start? He was such a good little boy, but most children are, aren’t they? When the world hasn’t spoilt them. He started smoking at high school, but we didn’t mind then. He used to love to go fishing with Ron until he was about fourteen.

‘But then he got in with a bad lot – it always sounds like passing the buck, but he wouldn’t even listen to his dad. Ron didn’t usually have an input with raising our kids, but he had to step in. After Scott left school he had a few jobs, but nothing that lasted more than a couple of months. He was only twenty-one when Zoe was abducted. A few months after, I could tell he was going downhill. He wouldn’t wash for days, weeks. He’d spend the whole day in his room, only popping out for a few hours, then rushing back up there.’

I drop two lumps of sugar into my lukewarm tea, and stir it. I don’t even take sugar.

‘It was the nineteen eighties; Ron and I were in our fifties. We didn’t know anything about drugs or stuff like that. Perhaps we should have kept a better eye on him, tried to talk to him, but our heads were somewhere else.’

I rest my hand on the table. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be said out loud, all of this. Maybe I just have to revisit it in my mind.

‘I understand, Mags,’ says Jim.

It’s these words that bring tears to my eyes. That someone can comprehend what Ron and I went through. I’ve never described this to anyone before. And there’s nothing but kindness in Jim’s eyes.

I take a deep breath.

‘Fast-forward to three years after Zoe disappeared. Sarah was drinking, Ron was putting his brave face on everything, even though at night I knew he lay awake. I never saw or heard him cry, but he must have done. What else is darkness for if you can’t shed a tear? Anyway… one of those nights we heard banging downstairs. We didn’t have mobile phones in those days. What were we supposed to do? Ron went to the top of the stairs and shouted for them to get out. He got brave, and went down. I heard a terrible noise – I actually thought we were all going to die.