Facing the World (20 page)

When Netta returned at eleven o’clock, Valmai heard her coming along the pavement and from the sound of her footsteps, changing from walking to running, she had suddenly begun to feel guilty.

Netta was surprised to see that her house was in darkness and she wondered whether Walter was already asleep, and whether he had made a meal for Jimmy. ‘Poor Jimmy,’ she said aloud.

Valmai waited in her doorway and allowed Netta to go upstairs and realize Jimmy wasn’t there. She heard a scream and stepped towards her neighbour’s back door. ‘It’s all right. This time!’ she shouted over. ‘Jimmy is safe with us. What are you doing to the child? Leaving him alone like this?’

‘Walter was here. He said he’d stay while I went to see Mam. He promised.’

Netta carried the sleeping Jimmy, still wrapped in the blanket, back to his bed and covered him. She sat beside his bed for the rest of the night, determined that the first thing he’d see on waking was her sitting there, smiling at him, able to reassure him that all was well and it would never happen again.

A week later, when frost covered the ground in a sparkling reminder that winter was about to descend, Jimmy disappeared.

Rows were constant. When both Netta and Walter were at home there was either silence that was palpable and more than Jimmy could cope with at such a young age, or shouting matches that drove him from the house. On this particular night he heard blows being struck and the sound of his mother throwing china. He dressed in as many clothes as he could squeeze on to his skinny frame and, when the couple eventually went into their separate bedrooms, he crept downstairs. He dragged a couple of blankets with him, which he wrapped around his shoulders and tied with string around his waist. Two carrier bags were filled with as much food as he could carry and he left, heading first for the mill.

In the morning, his mother left early, shouting to Walter, telling him she would be out for the day and to stay with Jimmy. An hour later, neither of them having checked on Jimmy, Walter too left the house.

Valmai went to Netta’s house at lunchtime that Saturday wondering where Jimmy was as he had promised to come to the shed to help make a pull-along duck for Sadie. The back door was wide open and she called then went inside. Everything was in disarray.
Pots and pans were piled up ready to wash, dirty plates were
everywhere
, many broken and left where they had fallen. The grate was filled with cold ashes and the temperature suggested it hadn’t been lit for a long time. Alarmed she ran upstairs and looked in each room. They had all gone. Why hadn’t she been told? Something was
seriously
wrong.

She ran back to tell Gwilym and he told her they had to call the police. She ran to the phone box and dialled 999 and waited, staring up and down the road hoping to see the three of them walking back with explanations.

The police searched the house and before they had finished, Walter came back.

‘She told me I was to stay and mind the boy,’ he said. ‘No one tells me what to do. He’s her kid not mine.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Valmai asked. ‘Of course he’s yours.’

‘I didn’t want him. She did and I’m not staying home while she goes out and has fun. What sort of a man d’you take me for?’

‘Where is your wife, sir?’ one of the policemen asked.

Walter shrugged. ‘Says she’s visiting her mother.’

‘The address?’ Walter gave it, the information was passed on and he was then asked, ‘And the boy? Did he go with her?’

Walter shrugged again.

Police were sent to Netta’s parents’ home and at once a search was on for Jimmy. Neither parent knew where he could be. The day passed and no one saw or heard from him.

When Sally heard about Jimmy’s disappearance she went at once to the mill after telling the police it was his favourite place.

With a powerful torch she nervously entered the building, calling his name as she climbed the precarious steps to the top floor. He wasn’t there. His friends were contacted but no one had any idea of where he might be.

Hiding in a tree that was covered in a thick coat of ivy that concealed him completely, Jimmy watched. When first Sally then the police had searched the mill and gone away, he crept down and settled to sleep in the top room, safe from more searchers at least until morning.

THE PEOPLE CONCERNED
about Jimmy didn’t expect to sleep. Throughout the evening searches were made of outhouses and barns. Torches patterned the air as more and more people joined in the worrying exploration of every place they could think of where a small boy could hide. So far no one had suggested any danger or harm, only that he had run away and was hiding.

People were increasing in number as news of the missing boy spread and they went off in different directions with policemen making notes of where they went. Rick went back to the mill in case Jimmy had returned after the earlier search.

As he heard him coming, calling his name, and seen the torch flashing from side to side, Jimmy ran from the mill, grabbing his bag of food – some of which he dropped – and went back to the invisible safety of the ivy-covered tree. He thought the branches would never stop moving, especially as he disturbed them to try and retrieve the food he had unfortunately dropped, but by the time Rick came out of the mill again, nothing was moving and there was no sound to betray his presence, so close to where he stood.

Unable to just wait, Sally thought of David. He would surely help. Leaving Valmai to stay with Sadie, who was blissfully asleep, Sally ran to where David lived with his mother and asked if he would help them find the boy. She knew that he walked the fields and woods day and night and he’d know of places no one else had considered.

‘Sorry I am,’ Mrs Gorse said, ‘but he’s out. Never one to stay in, he goes out walking and watching wildlife most nights. I’ll tell him if he comes back before I go to sleep but he never comes in very early.’ 
She chattered on, making excuses for David’s inability to help, and promised to tell him the moment he came home. ‘He’ll come straight away when he knows, sure to.’

Sally walked away and on impulse knocked on the door of the local teacher, Joy Laker. Joy offered to come at once. ‘Wait and we’ll go in the car,’ she said. ‘That way we can search a bit further away.’ She went to the drive and stared about her in astonishment. ‘My car! It’s gone!’

Sally waited while Joy rang the local police, then Joy shrugged. ‘I’ll come anyway. An extra pair of eyes will help.’ They hurried back to Sally’s house in School Lane. ‘Such a nuisance about the car. I need it tomorrow to go and see my mother. And it might be damaged.’

‘Maybe it’s been taken by someone too lazy to walk home. Borrowed, not stolen.’

‘I hope so.’

Eric stood and looked down the lane towards the mill. ‘I still think he might be around there somewhere,’ he told PC Harvey. ‘He knows the place well and he’d have found a dozen places to hide.’

‘Shall we go for another look? It’s getting late and he might have fallen asleep thinking we’ve finished searching until tomorrow.’

Eric patted his pockets. ‘I’d like to go on my own. I think I’ve an idea how to coax him out. Just give me an hour, will you?’

The policeman conferred with the others and they agreed to stay away from the mill for an hour and leave Eric to try and persuade the boy to show himself. ‘I’ll wait within calling distance, in case there’s been an accident and you need help,’ the constable promised.

Eric gathered dry grasses and small kindling wood and soon had a fire burning. He took from his pockets a few small potatoes and, wrapped in greaseproof paper, a couple of meat pies. He had known as soon as he had learned of Jimmy’s disappearance that food would be the best way to tempt him from hiding. Once the fire had a heart he placed the potatoes in the glowing ash and sat and waited, his ears alert for the first sound.

Just out of sight but as patient and aware as Eric, PC Harvey also listened to the night. Voices were heard occasionally, calling to others as the search moved around them. A rustling sound gave brief hope
as a fox ambled past him. He heard the fox rustling some paper, then the unmistakable lip-smacking sound of it eating. Lucky fox, he’d found a morsel for his supper.

In the tree, safely out of sight, Jimmy tried to stretch his stiff limbs. Tiredness was making his eyes droop. The cold night air was seeping into his body and shivers warned of worse to come. He
tightened
the duffel coat tighter around him but it no longer made any difference. If only they’d go away so he could get into the mill again. Worst of all, he was hungry. He had dropped his sandwiches and the chocolate bar as he’d climbed into the ivy and every time he decided to go down and look for them, a faint sound, a voice or the rustling of feet pushing through the dead grasses stopped him. Now they had been enjoyed by a fox.

Then he smelt smoke and his eyes opened wide. Someone was at the mill. Could it be Eric? It had to be. No one else would be there on such a cold night. More cautiously than the fox, he moved down from the tree. Eric, just a distorted silhouette, was sitting beside the fire, stirring the ashes with a stick. Without turning his head, he said, ‘Hello, boy, come for some supper, have you?’

‘Yeah. The fox pinched mine.’

‘Take one of these pies. That’ll warm you up. Then I think we’d better go home.’ Constable Harvey was smiling as he watched the boy biting huge mouthfuls of the welcome food.

‘Taters aren’t cooked, are they?’

‘Not yet. Perhaps we’ll finish them off tomorrow.’

With Jimmy eating a second pie, a partly cooked potato in the other fist as a hand-warmer and Eric’s arm around his shoulders, the man and the boy walked back to Mill Road after telling the relieved police all was well.

Walter came running out of the house shouting and raging against Eric.

‘What have you done to the boy? Where did you take him? Evil you are, Eric Thomas, always thought you were a bit funny in the head and—’

He was stopped as Netta pushed him out of the way and hugged Jimmy. ‘Shut up!’ she said, and Jimmy tensed. Surely they weren’t going to start arguing straight away?

‘Are you all right? We’ve been so worried. Why did you go away?’

‘Fed up with the rows. And I know they’re my fault,’ Jimmy said, trying to hold back sobs. ‘I try to please Dad but he hates me.’

‘What rubbish you talk,’ she soothed. ‘We both love you very much.’

Walter was still shouting at Eric. ‘Keep away from my son. Right? Spending time with children like my Jimmy. You’re weird! No wonder your wife and daughter left.’

‘The police were with me all the time,’ Eric said, his eyes wide with shock. ‘I’d never harm Jimmy, or any other child.’

Constable Harvey came then and led a still protesting Walter inside, where he warned the man against repeating unconfirmed and nonsensical accusations about the man who found his son and brought him safely home.

It was very gradually that the crowds dispersed, everyone wanting to talk about the events of the day and the surprising rescue by old Eric. When Sally was going into her house to allow Valmai to go home, David appeared.

‘What’s happened? Have they found him?’ He showed relief to be told the boy was back with his parents. ‘Up in the wood the other side of the park I was, watching a family of badgers. Sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.’

When Joy Laker reached her house, the car was back in her drive, almost precisely where she had parked it after coming home from school. Almost but not exactly.

When Valmai reached home Gwilym was upset, although relieved to know Jimmy was safe. ‘I should have been helping. I should have been out there with the others,’ he said.

Valmai knew that sympathy hadn’t persuaded him to get out and face the world and her new method just might, so she said. ‘Yes, you should have been there.’ Then, leaving him to settle on the day bed in the living room, she went upstairs without another word. She hated treating him like this, but sympathy was too convenient an excuse for him not to try.

Childcare workers and a woman police officer called on Netta and Walter, and Joy Laker, as Jimmy’s teacher, gave him more of her time. She went to talk to Netta and Walter and tried to make them see what their arguments were doing to a boy who couldn’t understand but could only accept blame for their misery. None of these visits
were discussed outside the privacy of their house and Valmai could only hope that some good would come out of them. Jimmy was neglected by being in the middle of two very unhappy people and how could he not blame himself?

Jimmy still hesitated before walking into the house. He felt happier when his mother was there but more and more often these days she was not. The table would be covered with newspapers and dirty plates where Walter had made food for himself. Jimmy had to wait until his mother came home from work and the time she arrived was becoming later and later. He had brought home a picture he had made, nothing special, except he had painted it with a design of clouds and the glow of sun across the sea. ‘Dad,’ he said hesitantly, ‘Miss Laker said this was good. What d’you think?’

‘What’s it supposed to be? It’s a picture with nothing going on. That’s a strange one. She was being kind to you, son. You’re better off doing sums and things if you ask me.’

Jimmy nodded, ‘Yeah, none of us did anything special. Just messing about.’ He’d long ago decided it was best if he agreed. ‘I’d better leave it to show Mam, though.’

He couldn’t decide which was worse, the rows and his mother there, or this long wait with his uncommunicative father who had eyes and ears only for the newspapers, the radio or the television. He cut a slice of bread and jam and went up to his room. If he noticed he had gone, Walter didn’t acknowledge the fact.

Jimmy put the painting on the table beside the bed, stared at it and wondered whether his father was right and he shouldn’t waste his time on things no one wanted. Perhaps he’d give it away, but who would want it? Perhaps the box he was making in woodwork would please him. Or maybe the teacher would like it – if he could manage to finish the lid.

David’s new job of maintenance for a firm responsible for several houses and other properties meant he had to travel and after a few weeks of getting about on his bike, the manager accepted that his work and reliability were satisfactory and gave him the use of a van. Fortunately it was a popular model, and there were many to be seen, unnoticeable, just what he liked. With the name of the firm
emblazoned on its side and with no encouragement to keep it clean, he felt able to travel around in it, with mud partially disguising the number plate, and find a few houses to rob.

He made sure to walk far away from where he parked the van and what he took were often not missed for a long time and in many cases never reported to the police. He was conscientious about the work he was given but sometimes he was so tired he parked up and dozed. It was on one such occasion that Sally saw him.

She stopped and asked if he was all right and he happily assured her he was, now she had appeared. She asked about his mother and said, ‘Why don’t you bring her to the house for coffee on Sunday morning? Sadie loves company and we haven’t seen her apart from the night Jimmy was missing.’

‘Mam won’t come, she’s busy all morning preparing her famous roast dinner,’ he said, ‘but I will. See you about half ten?’

‘Bother,’ she muttered. Now she’d have to invite a few more or he’d get the wrong idea and she didn’t want any more complications in her life. She smiled then. She was like a teenager fighting off unwanted suitors. But it wasn’t really funny; she had the eerie feeling that friend though he was, David could make a nasty enemy.

David’s savings were growing. Thanks to his mother’s generosity he didn’t pay anything to the home, she having decided he needed a few months to get on his feet. One evening he left the van and walked and found an uninhabited house at the end of a lane ten miles from home. With the aid of his torch he peered inside and saw there were several paintings that to his inexperienced eye looked as though they might be valuable. The place was locked, the windows secured but it was a simple task for him to enter. Trained as a carpenter, he was adept at removing locks, which he then replaced.

He put three paintings in the van, hidden by the tools and
materials
he carried, and drove away. How could he learn of their value and how, if they were worth something, could he sell them? Perhaps he’d do better to wait and claim a reward. Although that would be risky; he might have left evidence of being in the house. Unless….

The next day, he called on Sally and told her how he had helped the police and nearly caught a burglar.

‘I saw a car drive away, see, and curious, I went to see what was along the lane. There was this house and the door was open and I
went inside and looked around. Then I relocked the door and went to call the police.’

‘That could have been dangerous. You should be careful,’ she said. ‘Did they find the paintings?’

‘The police didn’t. I did! They were hidden in the hedge – the thieves probably planned to pick them up later. No one was caught though,’ he added.

A few days later, having been told by a dealer how much he’d have paid for the paintings, David found the house again. What a pity I couldn’t get Rhys’s fingerprints on a few things in that house, he mused. That would finish him for good.

Milly saw the postman about to take letters to Valmai and to Netta and Walter. ‘Here,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Save yourself a few paces. I’m just going to call on them both. It’s about a Bring and Buy on Saturday. Tell your wife, will you?’ The postman thanked her and hurried on.

Milly glanced at the envelopes and smiled in satisfaction. One was for Valmai and Gwilym and the postmark was Bristol. It must be from that runaway son of theirs.

‘Hello, Valmai, any chance of a cup of tea?’ she called as she went through the gate. ‘Letter here from your son. Lovely to hear, even if he never comes home, isn’t it?’

Valmai snatched the envelope and glared at Milly, who was smiling innocently.

‘From your Rhys, is it?’

‘I don’t know till I open it.’

‘Don’t tell me it’s been so long you’ve forgotten his handwriting. Sad that is.’