Kate O’Riordan - The Boy in the Moon

‘All right. I spy with my little eye something beginning with M.’

‘Em … Mum?’

‘No. Motorway. Your turn.’

‘You didn’t give me a fair chance …’ Sam was about to protest.

‘Do you want me to take over?’ Julia interrupted, shifting up on her seat.

‘OK,’ Brian said.

‘Pull in.’

‘I thought you meant with I Spy.’

‘Pull in, pull in. I’ll drive now.’

‘You’re not supposed to stop on the motorway.’

‘Pull in.’

Brian sighed and stopped on the hard shoulder. They swapped seats. The rain was pelting down in fat crackling drops. Julia swerved out on to the motorway. She was nervous, he understood, about the journey, about the destination. He experienced a spasm of pity for her. And then he felt a spasm of pity for himself, because he would pay the price for her nervousness.

Halfway across the Severn Bridge, Brian turned to Sam. ‘We’re in Wales now, Sam.’

‘How long more?’

‘Oh, we’re a few hours off Pembroke yet.’

Julia stopped at the next service station and they all got out. She stalked ahead to the Ladies with Brian and Sam following behind her. When she came out again, Brian was standing by the large rain-streaked windows, sipping coffee from a cardboard cup.

‘Where’s Sam?’ Julia asked.

‘Isn’t he with you?’

‘What do you mean?’

Brian held the cup in mid-air. ‘He followed you.’

‘No he didn’t – I thought you were taking him to the Gents.’

‘He ran off – after you.’ Brian held his gaze steady and sipped from the cup. ‘Check the Ladies, will you?’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Julia cast him a contemptuous look and whirled around. Her feet pounded the floor away from him. She returned within seconds, breaking into a run as she approached. Brian frowned and sipped again; he knew he should be doing something but he was overcome by the peculiar sensation of being grounded that he experienced whenever Julia charged into action. ‘He’s not there.’

‘Don’t panic. He’s probably in one of the shops.’

‘Well? Are you going to stand there drinking coffee all morning or are you going to help me look?’

Brian drained the last of his coffee and observed over the rim the whitening of her face and the clenching of her left fist. ‘Take it easy,’ he said, deliberately drawing his words out slowly. ‘C’mon, you check that one there’ – he nodded toward the newsagents behind her – ‘I’ll check the Gents.’

As he headed for the Gents he saw her running up and down the aisles in the shop. They met by the window again. ‘Not there,’ he said with his mouth pursed, jerking his head back toward the male toilets.

‘Jesus – Jesus Christ – Jesus Jesus Jesus.’ Julia was frantically looking around her. ‘Run around, quick,’ she shouted over her shoulder.

‘Julia, it’s …’ he called out, fixing a smile on his lips for the people who had begun to stare at them. He shoved a hand into a trouser pocket, formed his mouth into a whistle and broke into a trot after her.

‘Sa-am!’ Julia was calling. She stopped suddenly and turned. ‘Not after me, you fool. You check upstairs.’

Brian veered toward the escalator; he took the steps two at a time. There were probably video games up there, that’s where Sam would be. He started to run to the left, stopped, turned and walked to the right, his mouth still silently whistling. He checked the upstairs grill room, the toilets, the shops. His palms were sweaty by the time he returned to the escalators. Then he whistled aloud and descended with both hands in his pockets. There was no sign of Julia at the bottom. He raised his eyebrows and gazed around.

She came running from the area behind the shop. Her skin was stretched tightly over her face, her blue eyes opened wide and unblinking. She stopped stock-still when she saw him. Her mouth opened. ‘You’re sure he’s not upstairs?’ She panted.

Brian shrugged and his forehead creased into a frown. He gazed out toward the carpark.

‘The carpark?’ She was screaming now, people were beginning to stop and edge toward them, attracted perhaps by the almost palpable scent of her fear.

‘Sam would never leave the building on his own,’ Brian offered. He could feel the skin on his own face begin to tighten and stretch.

‘On his own?’ she shrieked. ‘But what if someone told him that we were there?’

He fervently wished she had not said that. ‘He’s here somewhere, let’s look together,’ he said, brushing past her outstretched arm. ‘Where are the video games in this place?’ he called over her shoulder.

She ran after him. ‘At the back there,’ she pointed.

They looked around. A boy not much older than Sam pulled and hauled at a lever and stared into the flickering screen. ‘He’s not here.’ Julia’s voice sustained a quavery note that set Brian’s teeth on edge. ‘I’m going to the carpark – you stay here in case he appears,’ she said.

He watched her from the glass doorway. Her hair was matted to her scalp by rain as she ran up and down the labyrinth of parked cars. He saw her stop for a moment to catch her breath with her torso bent forward and her hands resting on her knees. She glanced up and he could feel her eyes sear him from the distance. He looked around for a security guard. Julia burst through the doors, blinking rapidly. ‘Jesus. Jesus ,’ she said.

‘I’ve been looking for a security guard,’ he said.

‘And?’ She looked around hopefully.

‘Haven’t seen one yet,’ he said.

‘He’s got to be here,’ she said. It was a question, he realized too late. She brushed past him and ran up the escalator.

‘He’s not –’ he began but she was gone. Brian started to run around the downstairs shops and eateries. He ran in circles. Around and around. He kept ending up by the video games. That was where Sam should be. The boy was still there, staring at a blank screen now. He gazed up at Brian.

‘A boy,’ Brian gasped, ‘about this high – dark wavy hair, freckles, brown eyes, red raincoat. Have you seen him?’

The boy looked around for his parents. He shrugged. Brian ran back to the escalators. Julia was pulling her wet hair back with two hands and shouting at some man in a uniform. Brian heaved a sigh of relief. A uniform. At last. But the uniform was not looking very reassuring; his face wore a decidedly worried expression as Julia gesticulated at it. Then the uniform turned and ran up the escalator, speaking into a radio at the same time. Brian’s heart beat twice, then seemed to stop; he had to remember to breathe. Julia’s expression was dazed when she turned to him. She staggered backwards with her hand over her mouth. Brian approached slowly but her other hand began to make a waving motion, a film clouded the blue of her eyes. Brian remembered to breathe again. He took another step but she ran sideways and crashed through the door of the Ladies.

She was blacking out. Little sparks of light erupted then vanished on the periphery of her vision. Her heart felt like a huge dysfunctional machine within her chest. It hammered down on her ribcage. Beads of sweat solidified on her forehead. She ran to a sink and splashed cold water on her face. A long, slow moan erupted from the pit of her stomach; she felt it carry up, through her gut, into her lungs, strum silently on her vocal chords for a moment, until it broke free and the sound made her body shudder. She saw little fat legs kicking, she heard the muffled sound of his terrified screams, she saw his exposed, vulnerable white belly, she heard him call her name … She splashed water again. Her legs could not sustain her weight. They buckled. She hunkered down and from some unknown corner of her consciousness she saw, beneath the cubicle door which skirted the floor by a foot, a pair of white sneakers, standing perfectly still, perfectly aligned, and perfectly familiar. She dry heaved and called his name. The lock on the cubicle slid back. A brown eye peered through the crack.