Episode 18

Samuel was familiar with the slow turning wheels of bureaucracy. The forms, the interviews, the statements; in duplicate and triplicate, and going through the story again and again to make sure they had all the details. Then when all was done and typed out, the papers and statements and forms had to be read back to the relevant people and signed until Clara wanted to scream with frustration.

“What about my son?” she said, wringing her hands beseechingly.

No one seemed very keen to want to get up from behind their desks and do anything. God must have a special place in hell for civil servants such as these.

One of them spoke. An untidy little man with cigarette ash on his lapel. They all stank of cigarettes. That’s all they seemed to do. Smoke.

“Now don’t you worry. All that can be done is being done. It’s all under control. You just leave it to us.”

All of two hours must have passed and no one had moved a muscle. Some officers even had their feet up on the table and were laughing and joking with one another.

And all the while Beulah sat holding her mother's hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze every time she felt her mother start to unravel.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing more you can do here Mrs. Mitke…Mr. Mitke. You should go home and get some rest.”

“But where’s my boy?” said Clara, not budging an inch.

“Come on Clara,” said Samuel, touching her gently on the arm. Clara screamed and leaped away from him like a live wire.

“Don’t you touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again.”

The shabby policeman looked at Samuel suspiciously.

“Come ma,” said Beulah. “Let’s go. He isn’t here. We’ll talk at home and work out what to do.”

Clara simply nodded her head and let Beulah lead her out of the room.

The two women sat in the front seat next to Samuel on the way home. Everyone was quiet, just waiting for the journey to end…except for Clara. Her eyes flicked this way and that as they drove, continually searching for any sign of Joshua or the old lady.

From the light of a streetlamp sweeping into the car, Clara saw the blood on Samuels knuckles and wondered briefly what that was all about.

“Our boy is missing, Samuel,” were the only words she spoke all the way home.

Gently they helped her out of the car and into the house. Beulah made her drink a cup of tea and then coaxed her upstairs to her bedroom.

“I don’t want to go in there,” she said.

“That’s okay,” said Beulah. “We’ll go to my room.”

Without removing their clothes, the two of them got into her single bed and Clara was asleep before her head touched the pillow.

When Beulah came downstairs an hour or so later, Samuel and Alice were still sitting round the kitchen table – as still as the grave.

Beulah went to the fridge – took out a yogurt, opened it, and sat down without looking at them. When she finished the pot, Samuel asked.

“How is she?”

“Asleep.”

“Umm,” said Samuel, listening to the faint rumble of thunder through the window. ‘Storm coming,’ he thought. ‘Damn, better get that car heater fixed.’

“Hadn’t you better be doing something?” asked Beulah.

“Like what?”

“Like looking for your son,” she said quietly.

He shrugged.

“The police are doing everything possible.”

“You used to be a policeman. Shouldn’t you be out there ‘doing everything possible’?”

“Someone has to look after your mother.”

“I can do that. Alice can do that.” She looked questioningly at him, refusing to let him off the hook. Without a word he picked up the car keys and walked out of the house. Beulah continued to sit and stare at her empty pot.

“There’s no more,” she said to Alice, pointing at the fridge. “There’s no more yogurt. Weren’t you supposed to do the shopping? It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Or is it?”

Alice didn’t answer.

“Tell me Alice. Exactly why are you here?”

“I’ve come to help…..”

But Beulah had already turned her head away disinterestedly. With an exaggerated yawn she got up and poured herself a glass of milk.

“Well, I’m looking after them now. So you’re not needed anymore.” She wasn’t a child anymore.

“Your father will tell me when I am not needed anymore.”

“I’m sure he will.” She winked at Alice and took a drink of the milk which left a white moustache on her upper lip. Looking at Alice meaningfully, she licked it off seductively.

Alice was watching Beulah now with her snake eyes. It seemed she wasn’t dealing with a Clara clone here. No. This girl had some of her father’s blood in her. Alice’s blood. She gave a little knowing smile and sat back in her chair.

“We’ll ask your dad to decide. Then we’ll see who he likes best.”

“Yes. But I’m his daughter…and I’m still a virgin – and you know how he likes virgins.”

For two hours the girls sat unmoving – staring at each other, hardly even blinking. The battle had commenced. Only one of them would walk away from this in the end.

Eventually Samuel came in. From the kitchen they heard his slow, tired movements as he hung up his coat and walked through to the kitchen. Neither of the girls wavered. Without a word he sat down at the table. Samuel looked at the empty teapot for a moment – but on second thoughts decided he couldn’t be bothered.

“I’m going to get some sleep,” he said, and they heard him receding into the hallway and up the stairs.

A minute later he was back down again in complete disarray.

“She’s gone!” He shouted.

“No she’s not,” said Beulah. “She’s in my room.”

“No she’s not. She’s gone.”

Tick, and the time winds by in foreverland…leaves drifting on a midnight lake. A child’s toy, a teddy bear, fallen and discarded…like a life - soon forgotten - the child is nowhere to be seen, just this haunting reminder of where he has been. And she cannot move on from this place, for this is all there is, the place where he was last, where she could imagine him, alive and laughing on a sunny day. And time ticks once more and the leaves sink, or drift to the shore. This is time going by…without him…the discarded teddy bear still smiling its eternal grin, and each tick of time strikes a death knell until it has struck all twelve…..midnight and the hour of no return.

She walked as a ghost, accompanied by his memories, his laughter echoing emptily in the cold landscape. A wind picked up and Clara wrapped her coat tightly about her. She found herself in the local children’s playground. The chilly wind was gusting up and gently turning the merry-go-round. Clara watched it for a moment and then sat down on one of the swings, squeezing her hips in between the chains.

“This is where Joshua plays,” she said as if reading out of a book to him. “This is where Joshua used to play. Will play,” she corrected, and started to cry.

The swings squeaked in sympathy at the sound.

“Shut up! Shut up, you foolish woman,” she said. She got up and began walking around; looking left and right, as if Joshua might be playing there somewhere out of sight. She ran up to the tumble-horse, but there was nothing inside.

 Deep down in her womb she felt a scream begin to build. She knew if she didn’t stop it, it would grow like a gathering tidal wave and not stop until all was blackness. He was still alive. She must remember that. There was at least a chance that he was still alive. She had to hold on and not surrender to the darkness.

She’d always been afraid of the night, now she had to live in it. When she had lived in the light she had taken it for granted: complained and criticized, moaned about this and that. Now she couldn’t stand the normality of daylight: the bare facts so starkly illuminated and irrefutable; common sense and logical conclusions brightly stabbing at her eyeballs. At night it didn’t seem so cut and dried…it didn’t seem so inescapable and irresolvable. Things were softer. In the night she could feel him close to her, as if he was with her in a halfway world where life and death didn’t matter. So she walked and talked to him while she looked for him all over. Mad mother of the night, clinging to one little ray of hope...her life this close to being over should that light go out.

Then without warning she collapsed to the ground and lay there, unable to move. It felt as if her legs were paralyzed. She tried to get up but she couldn’t. Her breathing became heavy and laboured, pain striking deep into her chest. “Oh God,” she thought. “Please don’t let it be a heart attack.” And she began to cry. She hadn’t cried since the incident. She had been too busy trying to cope. Now the floodgates opened and there was no closing them. Soon she was howling her pain up at the moon, and all the dogs in the neighbourhood took up the call.

But no one came, and after a while she settled down into some comfortable sobbing. The wind plucked at her collar as if trying to console her. Then she fell asleep and there was quiet again. Not a soul stirred and nary a dog barked. The wind blew a leaf or two against her still body. After a while a shadow detached itself from the darkness and walked over to her. It was the young man from the bus. He took off his jacket and placed it over her. Then he sat down next to her and kept watch over her.

When Clara awoke a little while later, he was gone. She never even knew he had been there. She got up and dusted herself off. She looked down sadly at her scraped knees and torn stockings; then with stony heart and leaden feet, turned her steps towards the town.

She had been walking most of the night but she didn’t even feel the pain of her broken blisters, the exhaustion in her legs, or how her back ached. Where was he? Where could she look? There were over ten thousand residences in Mercia: two hundred shops and offices, fifty hotels and boarding houses, millions of backstreets and alleys and empty lots; garbage dumps and sewers, and parks and garages and garden walls to hide behind. Was he still alive? And why had he disappeared? Clara was pretty sure the old lady had a hand in it…but why? And where would she take him? Was she a witch, or just crazy…just collecting things…like a child? Why would she want a child?

At one stage Clara had found herself at some traffic lights on the edge of town near the ‘City Limits’ motel. For more than an hour she had stood hypnotised by the changing traffic lights in the fog….as if they somehow held the answer, as if a door would open when they changed to green…or red, and let her through into the afterlife, or otherworld, to finally be with her beloved son. She did not mind being anywhere…as long as he was there…alive or dead…she didn’t care.

Then she had a thought. Perhaps her mother was there? She was dead. She was an old lady. She met all the criteria…perhaps she knew? Perhaps she was with Joshua right now? With new resolve, Clara turned her footsteps towards the graveyard where she was buried. Perhaps she’d find the answers there. Perhaps her mother would finally speak to her. Perhaps now Clara would finally listen to her.

The closer she got to the cemetery however, the slower she walked; her eagerness now overshadowed by doubts and misgivings. This was insanity really. This was one step away from voodoo dolls and stuff. She had to be careful. Didn’t want to lose her mind and end up in the ‘Sanny’. Joshua would never find her in there. But still she had to try.

Like a shadow, she slipped in the same gate her daughter had emerged from earlier, the Virgin Mary still standing there forevermore. By the light of the streetlights she made her way round the side of the church to the graveyard at the back.

Then she was on her knees at her mother’s grave, and to her surprise, despite all their bitter battles, she had tears in her eyes and genuine affection in her heart. She ran her fingers lovingly over the unkempt grass above her dead body.

“Hi mom,” she said. ‘How you doing down there,’ she thought, and had to reign in her giggles: the ultimate sign of a mad woman.

“I need your help,” she said, sniffing and gathering her thoughts. “I suppose you know Joshua is in trouble. He’s in a coma…and now he’s disappeared. We think an old lady has taken him.”

Clara stopped to listen for a reply. Nothing. For the first time her mother was silent. Clara laughed out loud at the irony. Rocking back on her heels she sat her bum down in the damp grass and smiled at the joke God had played on her. Isn’t that just the way it goes? She relaxed and leaned back on her arms. So quiet here. Peaceful. A blackbird flitted onto a nearby gravestone and gave her his beady eye. ‘Soon he’ll be up and away, singing his midnight song in the trees,’ she thought. She looked at her mother’s tombstone.

‘Jemima Wichall. Born…died…and caused all sorts of hell in between. Tight-lipped, tight-arsed, and…….easy girl. That’s not going to get you anywhere’.

She sat quietly for a while, trying to still her thoughts and concentrate on what she wanted to say.

“Please mom. If you help me find Joshua, I’ll…” she began, but was interrupted when a white haired old lady, as pale as a ghost in the moonlight, rose from behind the tombstone where Clara knelt. For a moment her heart stopped as her mother came to life before her eyes. She gave a shriek and fell over flat on her back. Quickly she scrambled to her feet and rubbed her eyes but the apparition was still there, looking, however, distinctly older than her mother at second glance, and not quite as dead as she thought at first.

“Who are you……?” And as the old woman smiled, the recognition came flooding in like a river. “YOU! You’re the one who took my boy,” she shouted so loudly she set the crows a cawing in the old ash tree.

The old lady merely lifted a warning finger to her lips and came a little closer.

 “What have you done with him?” said Clara, her fingers curling in anticipation of grabbing the old crone by the throat and squeezing the information out of her.

“Touch me and you’ll never see your boy again. If you do anything but what I tells you, you’ll never see him again. Understood?”

The two women stood confronting each other over Jemima’s grave.

“What have you done with him? Is he alright? Why have you taken him?”

The old lady waited until Clara had run out of words and then spoke quickly in a low tone of voice.

“Your boy is safe and well…for the moment. I’m a qualified nurse so I knows how to look after him.”

“Then why have you kidnapped him?”

“Because I need you to do something for me; your husband actually.”

Clara stopped fretting and turned her full attention to what the old woman was saying.

“I also have a son,” she began, looking down at her hands. “He was also taken away when he was quite young. Not as young as your boy, but close. And I want him back.”

“Taken away? Where….how?”

“He was….put in prison…for something he didn’t do,” she added hastily.

At the mention of prison Clara began to get an inkling of what was to come.

“I know your husband works there as a warden. I want him to release my boy. Set him free. Then you can have your son back. You give me mine and I’ll give yours back to you. But see you don’t tell no one. No police, nothing…or else.” The old lady put her finger to her lips again.

At that moment the blackbird began to sing in the old ash tree overhanging the graveyard.