On Loving Josiah (34 page)

‘I’m not sure how much I believe in genetics.’

‘There speaks a good student! I suppose you have to believe in people being able to change, otherwise what’s the point in being in our trade? But I’ve been a senior social worker here for twenty years. I’m retiring soon. And every year, I’m afraid, I become increasingly cynical. We can’t make people better than they are. We can’t make people better parents. We can’t make people kinder. Or less self-
centred
. I simply despair at what humanity is. One huge, self-serving mess, no part of which holds together with any other part. Love your neighbour! That’ll be the day, Elspeth.’

They looked at each other for a while, and each surveyed the other with pity.

‘How much disillusion lies in store for this young, pretty
enthusiast
!’ thought June Briggs.

‘How bitter, how twisted, how unhappy this middle-aged woman is! And she should dye her hair!’ thought Elspeth.

Elspeth stood up to go. ‘About those files,’ she said.

Ms Briggs didn’t even look up at her. She was playing with the end of her pen. The spring had broken.

‘Ask Marie at reception,’ she said. ‘She’s got them ready for you.’

Elspeth was shown into an empty interview room; she was offered tea, which she accepted, and after a few minutes, a small tray with tea and biscuits arrived, along with three fat files. She didn’t even open them for ten minutes, but sat there, catatonic, licking the chocolate off a digestive biscuit as a child might. Then she braced herself.

The first entry was in March 1984. Josiah was still a six-
month-old
foetus in his mother’s womb. They don’t miss much, thought Elspeth. Eager beavers, these social workers. It was a photocopy of the minutes of a case conference held at Fulbright Hospital. It had been given the title
Aftercare Proposals for Gibson Nelson and Eve de Selincourt,
and Elspeth scanned the list of people present: Dr Tim Aggs, Dr Michael Fothering, Patricia de Selincourt (
presumably
Eve’s mother, Elspeth surmised), Alison Streetly, Laura Jones (student), Janet Holloway, and June Briggs: there she is, in the story right from the beginning.

Elspeth was not thorough: her curiosity drove her onwards and onwards, faster and faster, and June was right, there was barely any mention of Eve’s husband, Gibson. He was featured as this large weight, harmless, hovering in the background. It was Eve that
confounded
them all, it was Eve that no one could bear.

Again and again,
Eve did not co-operate, she read. Eve did not behave appropriately. Josiah walked in half way through the interview. He was covered in mud. Eve didn’t respond; she didn’t seem to realise he might need her. Eve was dressed in the saffron robes of a Buddhist. It’s possible Eve might be acting as a prostitute. Eve is absent again. Gibson doesn’t seem to know where she is. Eve had no interest in looking around
the local schools for her son. Eve refuses to send her child to school. There is no evidence that Josiah is receiving an education at home. Eve is obstructive. Eve is rude. Eve has an irritating laugh. Eve always thinks she knows best.

‘For God’s sake, you control freaks, can’t you let that woman be? Have you ever seen her drunk? Have you ever seen marks on Josiah’s body? Don’t you have any serious case against her?’ Elspeth had already skimmed the first file. Eve had been some sort of hippy manqué, she decided. But nonetheless she was a mother. She was Josiah’s mother.

The second file she barely had the stomach for. By now Eve had disappeared, but Elspeth couldn’t quite grasp the events that had led up to it. She looked back to the end of the first file, in case she had missed something. Suddenly Josiah seems to be in a foster placement because both his parents have gone: Gibson turns up, but Eve never does. But there is no account of an argument, an ultimatum… no, there it is, a few pages back, a photocopy of a letter dated August 20th 1991. For God’s sake! A letter from June Briggs to Eve, one of many, yet more hectoring than any of them:

And they did take extreme measures. Josiah’s parents didn’t just walk off, they didn’t just desert him. They were as good as taken away from him. They weren’t quite good enough, were they? No, they didn’t quite come up to scratch. They were an itch on the
backside
of the system, they had to be corrected. And no one grieved when they went. Just the boy. And who was the boy, if he didn’t complain?

By now Elspeth could only read a line or two in every twenty pages. Josiah’s unhappiness was too palpable. As each foster
placement
broke down, a social worker would write about Josiah’s
incommunicativeness
, his wistful look, or even the fact that he was a ‘pretty child’. But no one went further than that, no one took responsibility for what they had done to him. Where was the weeping and the gnashing of teeth? Where, for God’s sake, was the guilt?

The letter which was to change everything was folded and small, and hidden about a quarter of the way through the third file. It was from Eve Nelson herself, written from an address in Naples. Josiah would have been about eleven years old. In it, she confessed to setting fire to several schools. She said that she missed her son, was sorry for everything she ever did, and wanted to come back home. She needed advice about how she might do so.

Elspeth felt physically sick. She looked for some photocopy of June Briggs’ letter back to her, but found none. Was it possible that Eve Nelson was still waiting?

Elspeth’s first instinct was to confront the woman, make her remember there and then how she had responded to this pathetic plea from a mother. But she realised she was far, far too angry. So she smuggled the letter into her bag and returned the three files to the reception desk.

Elspeth wrote to Eve Nelson that very afternoon. She introduced herself, made various apologies, hoped she was still at the same address, but quickly got to the heart of the matter. ‘We need you here in England,’ she wrote, ‘Josiah is missing you more than he can say.’ 

THE NOTE IN ELSPETH’S TRAY READ
, ‘Eve Nelson. Tues. 27/2 Duxford airport. Please meet approx. 3 p.m.’

‘I didn’t know there was an airport at Duxford,’ said Elspeth to the receptionist.

‘You learn something every day,’ said the receptionist, which was a phrase she often used, but rarely lived up to.

‘Did you take down this message?’

‘I did. Have I left out something?

‘What did she sound like?’

‘She was friendly. Quite a posh voice.’

‘She didn’t say anything else?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Thank you, Margaret,’ said Elspeth. She laid the note out on her desk and had it before her all day long, as though it contained some secret code. While the recidivist Jason Mulvey was giving Elspeth an account of his week, and how he’d failed in his quest for a job at the local chippie, Elspeth was mulling over the word ‘Please’. Had Josiah’s mother actually said the word, or was that Margaret’s poetic license? Had she been polite? Had her voice been steady? How she wished that Margaret had been more perceptive, and could have given her some clue as to Eve’s state of mind!

Elspeth was relieved to find a little aeroplane printed on her
Ordnance
Survey Map. At half past two on Tuesday 27th February (she had been watching the clock all day) she set out for Duxford Airport. From her car she spotted a runway and several small aeroplanes
parked near the hangar, and was content to be on course. The signs which directed her to the ‘Imperial War Museum’ surprised rather than disturbed her. When she was further directed to the car park, she was sufficiently satisfied to be only mildly interested in the signs which pointed the way to the ‘Museum Entrance,’ which she momentarily considered a charming adjunct to any small airport trying to make ends meet. A further sign, ‘Tickets this way,’ doubly reassured her, as did the sight of a small plane coming in to land. She presumed that Eve Nelson was both very rich and very eccentric, for she was quite sure that the plane was one of those vintage ones without a roof, and if this was the kind Duxford Airport catered for, even its proximity to Cambridge wouldn’t have lured your average businessman.

So, mulling these things over to herself, she walked into the ticket office. It was empty, apart from a couple of bored-looking women behind a till. There were a dozen or so books and leaflets on their counter, mostly on the history of flying, but Elspeth was still oblivious.

‘Are you expecting a flight from Naples?’ she asked.

Those women didn’t quite get was she was saying; one of them asked her, ‘So do you want a ticket or not?’

‘Oh no, I’m not flying. I’m meeting someone off a plane.’

They both looked at her, nonplussed.

Then suddenly Elspeth almost hugged them in relief. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I think I see her.’

Through the window of the ticket office, Elspeth could make out two figures standing by the plane which had just landed. They were both dressed top to toe in leather, and were taking off their flying goggles; and the shorter and slimmer figure was throwing her arms around her companion, kissing one cheek and then the other.

‘That’s Eve, all right,’ thought Elspeth. She walked through an outside door to reach them. She was barely conscious of the
hectoring
women behind her, ‘You haven’t got a ticket! You can’t go
through there without a ticket!’ But hey, it was a bitterly cold
February
day, and they didn’t follow her. Three pounds fifty wasn’t worth catching your death for.

Elspeth walked towards the leather-clad duo; the woman began waving at her excitedly. One by one the features of Josiah began to appear, as out of a haze: the long blonde fringe, which she kept in place with a ruby-encrusted hair-grip; the lips, full and beautiful; the eyes, brown, alert and shifting.

‘Antonio,’ she said, as Elspeth approached, ‘this is my saviour, Elspeth Hardy. Elspeth, you’re a wonderful woman. And you’re exceptionally pretty too. Antonio, you never told me whether you were married or not. If not, darling, this might be your lucky day!’

And when Elspeth found herself at a loss for words, Eve said, ‘You are Elspeth Hardy, are you not?’

‘I am,’ managed Elspeth, just.

‘Do you mind, then, if I embrace you, you person of the highest echelons?’

Elspeth stiffened while Eve’s arms enfolded her.

‘You are lovely. I adore black hair. One always lusts for what one doesn’t have, don’t you find?’

And then, after the air, and spirit, had been squeezed out of her, Elspeth asked, ‘How was your journey?’

‘Exhilarating, in a word. A tiger moth is quite new to me, you know. This amazing machine,’ Eve said, as she stroked it ‘is sixty years old today, isn’t it Antonio?
Oggi ha sessanta anni, no? Il aereoplano.’

‘
Si, ha sessenta anni,
’ confirmed Antonio, with an equal look of tenderness.

‘It’s the star performer in an air show on Saturday. And it was by the merest squeak of good luck that I managed to cadge a ride. It’s always an advantage to have friends in high places.
E
sempre una buona cosa avere i amici in posti elevati, non e vero, Antonio?
’

Antonio smiled. He seemed quite as confounded as Elspeth.

‘But now, to business, my dear. Where’s your car? Let’s get out of here.’

‘Don’t you have to sign in or anything? Haven’t you got any luggage?’

‘Darling, I’ve got four layers of clothes under these leathers, which, incidentally, I’d better return to my dear friend. And
somewhere
amongst all of this is a toothbrush.’

‘But what about your passport?’

‘God, that expired years ago. Passports are for ninnies, aren’t they, Antonio?
I passaporti sono por gli stupidi, no?
But it does mean you have to be on your toes. Did anyone notice you coming out here?’

‘Well, yes,’ said Elspeth. ‘There are two ladies in the ticket office over there.’

‘Well, then, we shall have to find a gap in the perimeter fence.’

‘You can’t!’ pleaded Elspeth.

‘Watch me. Antonio, pass me my wire-cutters.
Passame le cesoie, per favore.
’

Antonio did as he was told, removing them from a large pocket on his thigh.

‘Molte grazie, Antonio. Allora, vai alla biglietteria, parla con le due donne la, spiegagli tutto, domanda dell’ ingegnere.’

‘What did you say to him?’

‘Just to waylay the ladies while we get the hell out of here.’

‘But you’re breaking the law!’

‘The law is for the innocent!’

‘What about my job?’

‘For God’s sake, Elspeth, show some fighting spirit. Just keep your head and follow me.
Arrivederci, Antonio. Grazie per tutto.
’

In the event they didn’t even need to cut through any wire. The Amazon found a weak link in a corner post and ushered Elspeth through it. They walked quickly to her car and drove away; Elspeth was shaking.

‘I’m sure someone’s going to follow us,’ she said.

‘Rubbish. People only get followed in the movies.’

‘Movies are nothing on this,’ said Elspeth.

‘Relax,’ instructed Eve. But then she held out her hands in front of her. They were shaking quite as much as Elspeth’s. ‘Humph,’ she observed, ‘We’re quite a pair, you and I.’

‘You give me the impression you break the law all the time.’

‘I do,’ said Eve, ‘but it’s not every day I go to meet my son.’

Eve took off a couple of jumpers and extricated a lipstick from the back pocket of her jeans. She pulled down the passenger mirror and attempted to apply it, but it was an impossible task and she ended up by wiping the whole lot over the back of her hand.

‘I look awful,’ she said.

‘You look pretty good to me,’ said Elspeth.

‘You don’t know how I normally look. Does Josiah live in the middle of Cambridge?’

‘I’ve actually booked you into a B and B. I thought you might want to freshen up. He’s not expecting you, you know. I thought we might have a chat on how best to introduce you.’

‘A “chat”?’ repeated Elspeth contemptuously. ‘Good God, I didn’t fly back to England for one of
those
!’

‘Don’t you want me to fill you in at all?’

‘You think
you
can fill
me
in? Frankly, if there is a yawning gap within my soul it’s not you who can fill it.’

‘Is there nothing I can tell you?’ pressed Elspeth.

‘Listen, my dear. He’s either fucked up or he isn’t fucked up.’ And then suddenly Eve softened her tone and sighed. ‘Well, he’s bound to be a bit fucked up, I suppose.’

‘That’s just what I want to talk to you about,’ said Elspeth.

‘All right, then. Tell me this. Is he healthy? Does he look well?’

‘Oh yes!’

‘And he’s not on drugs? Does he drink?’

‘Nope, he doesn’t even smoke.’

‘Then you can leave the rest to me.’

‘He has got a Probation Order you know.’

‘Yes, I know. And you’re his Probation Officer. You told me.’

‘Don’t you want to know what he did?’

Eve shrugged. ‘I shall ask him what he did.’

‘Don’t you want to somehow… prepare yourself?’

‘Darling,’ said Eve, ‘I’ve been preparing myself for this for nine years and a hundred and fifty-two days. I don’t need your help.’

‘I’ll take you straight there, then.’ It had taken Elspeth forty minutes to surrender.

Eve stood on the pavement waiting for Elspeth to drive well away, and took in a deep breath.
The
Hollies
was already being overrun by children returning from school, but Eve was pleased: the front door was open and she could smuggle herself in. It’s so strange, she thought, that even this promising and not unattractive
Victorian
House can smell like an institution: over-boiled cabbage, stale cooking oil, and bleach-based cleaning fluids. There were boys, even a girl, walking in and out of the kitchen carrying white jam sandwiches and plastic cartons of squash, sucking at them through straws; so intent were they on their consumption that no one seemed to notice her. Finally she approached one of the few who didn’t have a straw in his mouth.

‘I’m looking for Josiah,’ she said.

The boy told her where his bedroom was, and she went upstairs to find him. The landing was large and light, its carpets cheap and frayed. There was a large wicker bin in the corner with a sheet of paper cellotaped to it requesting ‘Dirty Laundry Please’; and pasted above it was an old poster of Freddie Mercury singing his heart out.

She knocked at his door. There was no reply. Even a second knock went unanswered. Slowly she opened the door and walked in. Josiah was lying on his bed in the dark, his curtains closed.

‘Josiah,’ she said, quietly. ‘Is that you, Josiah?’

Josiah didn’t even move, but let the words wash over him.

‘Josiah?’

He wanted the voice again, so he held tight.

‘Josiah? It’s me.’

Even three times wasn’t enough. He needed his name again, just to make sure the tide was finally coming in. So he kept himself still, and his eyes tight shut. Eve closed the door behind her and slowly walked up to his bed. She knelt beside him and stroked his hair.

‘Josiah, it’s me, Eve. Your mother.’

Josiah’s breathing became deeper, and he said not a word, but listened very hard. His mother gently kissed his eyelids, kissed his cheek.

‘It’s no good, is it, being loved from a very long way away. It’s not enough, is it?’

Josiah shook his head, and a tear or two escaped him.

‘It’s funny,’ said Eve, ‘to look down on someone else and see my mouth, my lips. It’s like we were made in the same factory, you and I.’

Josiah opened his eyes, and when he’d wiped them dry with the backs of his hands he sat up and looked very solemn. Several times he tried to speak, but was like someone who had lost his place in a book, unable to pick up the thread. He stared at his mother and tried to understand.

‘My life is yours now, you’re the boss. If you hate me and tell me to go, I’ll go. I’ll do just what you tell me to. Do you want me to go? Shall I just go now?’

Josiah shook his head and began to cry again, more convulsively this time, and he put his arms around his mother and cried into her 
shoulder. Then Eve gave way too, and all she could utter above her own tears, again and again, was ‘I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!’

Not a word of explanation from the mother, not a word of any sort from the son, and, strange to relate, those two fell asleep together, and despite Josiah now being taller than his mother he somehow shortened himself, curving his back and bringing up his knees, lying his head on his mother’s chest as if he were a boy of six; and Eve knew, perhaps for the first time in her life, what it was like to be the protector of some other person, and to commit to that role forever.

The noise of children coming up to bed woke them. They lay there in the dark aware of each others’ breathing.

‘What happened to your father?’ asked Eve.

‘He’s dead,’ said Josiah.

Eve sighed. ‘That’s no good, is it?’

After a while Eve got up and opened a window. The smell of stale cooking oil greeted her.