Mad Joy (23 page)

It was gone midday before we realized he was missing.

I warmed up a vegetable stew from the day before, and all the children had come in from playing or helping outside. They eventually sat around the table after being sent off to wash their hands or stamp the mud off their shoes. All except Andrew, and Jill indicated he was looking at the pigs. It was only much later we discovered that what she’d really meant was he’d been looking at the pigs when she’d last seen him. Not long after breakfast.

When he didn’t appear for the jam pudding I went out to call for him, and when he didn’t come I went to the pigsty to find him. He wasn’t there, and Mr Rollins hadn’t seen him since about eight thirty. A rush of nausea gripped me. I began shouting his name over and over, until I was screaming it at the top of my voice, and the children ran out to see what was the matter, and Howard came full pelt from the vegetable garden, running like a giraffe.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’

We split up: me, Howard, Mr Rollins, Mrs Bubb and the children in pairs, and we searched the grounds. We searched in every shed and in every hedge; Mr Rollins dragged an old horse trough and I closed my eyes in dread; we combed the field and
the orchard, emptied every chest in the house, opened every cupboard, pulled everything out from under the beds. Every second was charged so full of fears it bulged into an hour’s length. And every moment all I could think was what if we were looking in the wrong place and his life depended on us finding him right now? Time, that had dragged so long and so wastefully throughout the war, now seemed to be priceless. All I could hear was my breathing – quick, heavy lungfuls – and my voice shouting for my lost son. I passed Howard in front of the house. We were both panting, and I could see wisps of his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.

‘It’s Celia!’ I thought I had just formed the words in my head, but I’d said them out loud.

‘Why would Celia want to take him?’

‘It’s Celia – I know it! Car’s gone.’

‘Of course it has. She left about nine.’

‘Oh, God! She’s had him for three and a half hours! Oh, God!’

But I could see he was beginning to panic as well. The children were straggling back to the house.

‘Perhaps she took him for a drive,’ suggested Johnny. ‘I would’ve gone.’

I started running to the road, and Howard came after me. I looked up the road to the hills and down the road to the village. Which way? Which way? Panting before I started, I began running at full tilt into the village, asking anyone I met en route if they had seen Andrew.

The centre of the village was deserted, except for Vile It who told me to fucking fuck off and stood with her arms out to protect the entrance to her bus shelter. I stood distraught and tried to catch my breath, when the lone figure of Mr Bearpark rounded the bend in the road up ahead, pushing his dear polished bicycle.

‘Mr Bearpark!’ I screamed. ‘Have you seen Andrew or have you seen an open-roofed car with Celia in it?’

‘Lord, you’re out of breath, young lady. You want to get your breath back. Cycling’s done my lungs a power of good, look. You want to—’

‘Have you? Have you seen him?’ asked Howard, running up.

‘Oh, good afternoon, sir. I didn’t see you there. Well, now … I haven’t seen either of them recently…’

‘Thank you! Sorry to bother you!’

‘… but what I
did
see earlier this morning was Celia Buckleigh in a car with young Andrew, but that was around about nine o’clock this morning, I’d say … maybe more like—’

‘Where?’

‘T’was going that way, towards the east.’ He waved his free arm vaguely. ‘Don’t know where it goes, don’t want to know. Happy here in Woodside, I am …’

‘Where’s the nearest nuthouse?’ I demanded.

‘Nuthouse?’ He looked momentarily offended.

‘Mental asylum – we think that’s where they’re heading.’

‘Oh. You’d be talking about the one somewhere out by Dip Woods. What’s it called now …? Down under the old hill fort…?’

‘Good Shepherd House,’ said Howard. ‘It’s Good Shepherd House – she said. I’ll get the car.’

I stopped breathing. My mouth filled with saliva that tasted of bile. I thought I was going to be sick.

‘… quite content I am in my …’ I could hear Mr Bearpark wittering on.

‘Joy?’ I heard Howard, too. ‘Are you all right?’ But I couldn’t move. Pom pom pom pom pom went my heart. I thought it was going to break out of my chest. ‘
Joy
?
’

I looked at him: ‘D’you have petrol?’

He drew his hand across his face. ‘Damn and blast! There must be some somewhere! I’ll run back and see what I can find. You ask around the village.
Someone
must have enough to get us that far.’

‘How far is it?’

‘Four, five miles.’

‘
Five
miles
?’ I closed my eyes.

‘It’s not
that
far!’

‘I know.’ It was no distance at all. I had been living just five miles away from that terrible place all this time.

I grabbed Mr Bearpark’s bike. ‘I’m sorry! It’s an emergency!’ and I started cycling furiously as I let the adrenalin work my legs.

‘I’ll catch you up!’ Howard called after me. ‘I won’t be long!’

‘Use the gear!’ wailed Mr Bearpark. I turned briefly to see him standing on the pavement, bereft. ‘It’s not used to …’

I cycled out of the village at a fair old rate, and it was a relief to feel my body using up all the energy I had become suddenly endowed with.

It had rained the night before, a heavy summer downpour that had excited all the flowering plants and set them off sending out their pollen, offering themselves to the bees all along the hedgerows. The air was thick with it, sweet and rank and heavy. My own sweat added to the frenzied scent as it prickled on my brow and in my hair, ran between my breasts and behind my pumping knees. I saw nothing, only felt the smell of things, and the heat. I smelt my first baby, awash with sweet, earthy fragrance. I breathed him in, keening for the instantly familiar smell of his head, his neck. I gasped at it, gulped at it, found myself panting so loud I was groaning, pushing on the pedals through the dead weight of the air.

What did Celia want with him? I could see her arch smile:
What would I do with children
? And what
would
she do? Why would she take him back to Good Shepherd House? I was wasting my time. They could be anywhere by now. Anywhere.

I came to a fork in the road and took the right without stopping. It was a wasted trip, a stupid, futile waste of time, but I had no other ideas and my legs wouldn’t stop. If I ever found
him again I would hug him and hug him and hug him and never let him go. If I found him … I kept finding him and running towards him and holding him, holding him. If I kept thinking it, it would happen.

And why did I think Celia had him, anyway? What if he’d just wandered off away from the house … what if someone else, some pervert had lured him away and … what if …? I was losing valuable time. I was cycling the wrong way but my legs wouldn’t stop. There was something about Celia’s hostility that I had batted away, because it would hurt too much. But now I let it in. I let her spite wash over me and I remembered it:
We all know
why
she’s
so
special
,
don
’
t we
?

I stopped pedalling. Turning, I saw a figure on a bicycle on the long sweep of the road behind me. It was shouting.

‘Joy! Joy!’

As he came closer I could see that Howard was exhausted. He had found his old bike from before the last war and his long legs had made up the time between us. Now he was shattered.

‘Howard!’

‘I’m coming with you!’

We stood in the middle of the road, panting.

‘I’m sorry!’ he breathed. ‘No petrol. Nothing. Everyone’s searching. Mrs Bubb’s called the police.’

‘She thinks he’s your
real
grandson.’

‘Mrs …?’

‘
Celia
does.’

We cycled on without talking. I knew Dip Woods because the bus used to pass it on my way home from leave. Passengers got off there. People got on. We turned off down the unsigned lane leading to the woods. I was alert now, looking out for clues, not sure which side it was on, searching for entrances.

And then we saw it.

Two pillars covered in ivy rose beneath the trees at the side of the lane. They were widely spaced, and between them a
straight, imposing driveway led up to the porch of a
pink-stoned
symmetrical building.

I put my bicycle against one pillar. ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

‘I’m not letting you go alone,’ said Howard, dropping his bicycle. ‘That’s why I’ve come – to be with you.’

‘There’s no need.’

He took my arm and placed it through his, folding his other hand over mine. ‘I was insensitive earlier. I completely forgot: this is your nemesis, isn’t it? They’re your idea of hell, aren’t they, places like this?’

‘This very one.’

‘
This
one?’

I nodded. There was the same pink-brown façade, like a smear of old blood. It was smaller than I remembered it, but no less terrifying for that. Its tall windows reflected no light from the woods, and stared blackly into the darkness. There were pale quoin stones at the edges of the building, making it look like the piping on Celia’s school blazer. There was a smell. A sickly, sweet familiar smell that sent me reeling back in time, and I was walking down this path with someone older, someone taller, someone holding my hand.

I clung on to Howard hard, and he responded with a little pressure on my hand which said he had tight hold of me.

I willed my feet to keep going, but I was wading not walking. We could see Celia’s car parked up ahead to the left of the building, and it kept my legs going.

‘Can they put me back in?’ I asked.

Howard squeezed my hand. ‘Why should they? You’re just visiting with me.’

‘I was signed over to them. Surely they have to take me back if they find me.’

The building was getting larger, we were nearly at the door.

‘Don’t say who you are.’

As we approached the front door itself there were new
horrors. The musty mix of old flowers and old coats and floor bleach made me freeze. I had scrubbed this porch floor so many times. I flinched at the instant recognition of the tile pattern. Memories I’d thought were dead.

Howard rang the bell. My breathing stopped and I tried to think of Andrew. That hug …

A short, grey-haired woman answered the door. I was relieved to see that I didn’t know her at all. Howard explained that he had come to see his daughter, Celia, and we were invited in.

But there were more horrors. Standing in the entrance hall I was assaulted by the spiteful shoe-polish smell of orchids. It smacked me about the face like Sister Conceptua had done. It reeked from every outpost of my memories and I wasn’t going to let it in. I would find the orchids – there they were in that pot – and I would snap off the heads and stamp on them. I would smash everything, unlock all the doors, set all the inmates free.

But the grey-haired lady smiled pleasantly, the red-stoned brooch of a dove sparkling innocuously from her soft, grey twin-set. I tried to dislike her, wanted her to show something of the horror I’d known in this place, so that Howard would understand.

‘We’re having a cup of after-lunch tea in the rest room at the moment, if you’d like to join us.’ She indicated a room off to the side, where we could see easy chairs and some
dazed-looking
people, and I realized that ‘we’ did not refer to the staff. ‘Some of the residents like to have a little nap, so we’ll keep our voices down.’

We followed her into the long room which I couldn’t remember ever having entered before. It was lit at both ends by tall windows, and a dozen or so residents were lolling in chairs, napping or sipping at regulation cups of tea.

I saw him straight away: the top of his little brown head as he read a comic on his lap.

‘Andrew!’

‘Mummy!’

I ran over to him and he leapt to his feet. I could tell he was pleased to see me, and he let me hug him and make a fuss. ‘Oh, Andrew! Andrew!’ I began to kiss him and kiss him, and he wriggled free, laughing.

‘I’ve made lots of friends. This is Mabel who plays the piano …’ A middle-aged woman in girls’ plaits stood up suddenly and curtseyed at us. ‘… and that’s Mr Man who sings songs and reads me stories …’ He indicated a man napping in a chair, the
Beano
covering his face. ‘… and this is Aunty Celia and she drives a big car and is Granddad’s daughter and she’s got
loads
of
Beanos
and
Dandys
I can have …’

I looked at Celia, and she looked down at the cup of tea on her lap.

‘Are you the Princess Royal?’ asked Mabel suddenly.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked devastated.

‘Are you the King of England?’ she asked Howard.

‘Yes. Yes I am, actually.’ Mabel genuflected and Howard held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. So glad you could be here.’

Mabel beamed.

I wrapped my arms around Andrew again, but once more he wriggled free and went to show Howard his comic. Only then did I become properly aware of Celia and I sat down next to her.

‘Tea?’ The grey-haired lady held out a cup for me. ‘I might be able to find you a biscuit.’

‘That’s all right. I’m fine.’

She bustled off to fetch some tea for Howard, as bright and as smiley as a fairy godmother.

‘Celia—’

‘I suppose you’re going to accuse me of kidnapping him.’

‘You
did
.’

‘He wanted a ride in the car.’

She looked at me now with a slow bat of her eyelids, as if it were the only respectable thing she
could
have done.

‘You took him without telling anyone.’ I may have said it through gritted teeth, I’m not sure. The man behind the
Beano
was beginning to stir and I was trying to keep my voice down.

‘All right!’ she hissed. ‘So I took him without asking. He’s my nephew, isn’t he?’

She was trying to pull the rug from under me again. I looked at Howard, but he was deep in a cartoon with Andrew, who was sitting on his knee.

‘Have you
any
idea
what you’ve put us through?’

She said nothing.

‘
Have
you? You know the police have been called?’

‘Oh dear,’ she sighed.

‘Why did you do it?’

‘He’s quite a sweet boy, isn’t he? Well done you.’

‘
Why
?’

She leant back in her chair and turned her head to face me. One of her toffee-coloured curls had come unpinned and fell down the side of her face. Her eyes, as they met mine, filled with tears.

‘I wanted to know what it was like to be real,’ she whispered.

I watched as a tear spilled over and ran down to her chin.

‘But you
are
real.’

‘I mean … the genuine article.’ She dabbed at her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘The favoured one.’

‘Who? Andrew?’

‘Andrew …
you
. Andrew
because
of you. You’re both real relatives of Howard. I’m just a pretender.’

‘I’m no more a real Buckleigh than you are.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you even know it, Joy? Don’t you see? You’re his love child. Gracie and he—’

‘Celia, I ran away from this place when I was about five. Gracie took me in. I know she’s not my real mother. I’ve met my real mother, and she’s dead now.’

Celia sniffed for a few moments. ‘So Andrew’s not Howard’s
real
grandson. I thought …’

I put my hand on hers. ‘Why does any of this matter? Why do you care about it so much?’

She looked at me in helpless astonishment, her eyes pink and uncomprehending. ‘How could you understand? At least you had a mother who loved you!’ Then she began to sob, and I was embarrassed and intrigued by her loudness.

‘Well, actually …’ But she was right. I
had
had a mother who loved me. And only now I began to glimpse the atrocities that Celia had known at the hands of
her
mother. For how could it be that Celia, of all people, felt unloved? How could this strong, manipulative, confident child be the same woman who sat before me, crushed and sobbing for someone to say that she mattered in the scheme of things? That without having to comply with a set of requests, without having to supply information, run errands, spy on others, achieve unreachable goals, break unbreakable hearts, look better, smarter, more fashionable, more glamorous than anyone else’s daughter, without having to do any of these things, she was lovable anyway, just as she was.

Andrew came over to ask why Aunty Celia was crying and climbed on my knee. As I squeezed his shoulders and breathed him in, I saw something through the tall back window which opened on to the garden.

Howard came and sat next to Celia on the other side of the couch to me, and took her hand in his. At the far end of the long garden I saw a dark figure moving like a phantom among the rose bushes. I knew before I saw the startling band of white in the blackness of her forehead that I couldn’t escape her. She was heading this way.

I stood up quickly and grabbed Andrew’s hand. ‘There’s something I need to do. I’ll be back.’