Secrets of the Tides (23 page)

There was a jangle of keys in the front door. Helen unfolded herself stiffly and went to meet her husband. He walked through the door, ashen-faced and crumpled in his business suit, and pulled her into his arms. They stood together for a long while, just holding each other and letting the enormity of the situation sink in.

‘Our baby,’ she whispered, ‘our poor baby. He’s out there,’ she cried.

Richard stroked her hair and shushed her like a distressed infant. ‘We’ll find him.’

There was a creak on the staircase. Helen didn’t look up but she felt Richard turn his head and then slowly, he opened his arms and she felt the warm body of their daughter join their embrace. She breathed in the sweet smell of Cassie’s golden hair and closed her eyes. Richard was right; they would find him.

For a few moments the three of them stood together in the hall, clinging desperately to each other, and the hope that Alfie would be back in their arms at first light. When Helen did eventually open her eyes she looked up and saw Dora standing alone at the top of the stairs. She was watching them anxiously through tear-stained eyes. Helen gazed at her coldly for a moment. How could she have broken her promise? How could she have left Alfie and Cassie and gone off with that boy? She stared at Dora a moment longer, unable to hide her disgust, before turning her back and heading into the kitchen to fix Richard some tea.

‘I’ve been speaking with the police,’ Richard said a few minutes later. He’d joined her in the kitchen and sat fidgeting at the kitchen table. ‘They’re going to start up the search again at first light. They’re bringing dogs with them. We’ll find him, Helen, I promise.’

Helen didn’t say anything. Instead she concentrated on the steady cloud of steam rising out of the mouth of the kettle. She wondered how long she would be able to stand the scalding heat of it if she were to hold her hand out over the vapour.

‘Apparently they’ve had lots of locals volunteering to help too,’ he continued. ‘Bill Dryden’s coming to the house first thing. We’ll get search parties organised and head out across the cliffs to the beach. Alfie’s probably just got himself lost and is tucked up asleep in a warm little nook somewhere on the cliffs; or in a ditch in Farmer Plummer’s fields. We’ll be laughing about this in a few days, you’ll see. It will be one of those stories we’ll tell at his twenty-first to embarrass him.’ His smile was forced.

Helen nodded, wanting to believe him. ‘At least it’s a warm night,’ she relented. ‘Thank goodness he’s got long sleeves and trousers on. I never thought I’d be so grateful for his Superman obsession.’

Richard gave a small smile.

‘Are you hungry?’

He shook his head.

‘Shall I make you a cup of tea?’

‘I’m fine.’

The kettle released its piercing whistle into the silence and Helen turned it off, uncertain what to do next. In the end she turned and pulled a chair out opposite Richard at the kitchen table. The wooden legs scraped against the floor tiles with a slow, painful scream.

‘The police offered to send a GP up to us, but I said it wasn’t necessary.’

Helen nodded.

‘I doubt we’ll sleep tonight, but I couldn’t bear the thought of taking painkillers and being out of it when they find him. Did I do the right thing?’

Helen nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. She didn’t want anything to numb her pain; she needed to feel every shard of it deep in her heart.

‘Do you think the girls are OK?’

Helen shrugged.

‘It’s very quiet upstairs.’

‘They’ve probably gone to bed. Best place for them. I’m not sure I can face them right now. I’m so disappointed in Dora.’

Richard raised his head and looked at her.

‘I
told
her they had to stick together. I told her they could only go to the beach if they
all
stuck together.’

Richard looked down at his hands. ‘I thought we’d always said the beach was off limits for Alfie unless you or I were present.’

Helen looked up at him guiltily. ‘They’re nearly adults, Richard. I thought I could trust them. But it seems Dora decided to head off on her own. She went to buy ice cream and met up with some boy from school.’

Richard sighed and they sat in silence a while longer, before he cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t realise you had to work today, Helen. I thought you weren’t due back for a week or so.’

Helen felt a flush of shame spread across her face. It seemed like a lifetime ago now that she had lain in that field with Tobias and made love to him while the birds rustled and the crickets chirruped in her ears. ‘I had to go in . . .’ she blustered. ‘I had to go through my timetables with the Dean.’

Richard nodded. ‘Sorry, I’m not . . . it’s not . . .’ He held up his hands. ‘Nothing matters but us finding him, first thing tomorrow.’

As Helen looked into the tired, troubled eyes of her husband she wondered, for just a split second, whether she should tell him. It was only ever supposed to be a bit of fun. Nobody was ever supposed to find out. What would she achieve now if she were to lay this secret upon Richard and expose her infidelity to him? Would it really help the desperate situation they found themselves in?

No.

She couldn’t do it. They had enough to deal with right now; and really, what difference did it make where she was? What if she had actually been called onto campus? They would still be living the same nightmare now. No, there was no need to confess about the affair to Richard. It wasn’t her fault. Helen swallowed back the cold, hollow feeling nagging insistently at her belly and reached across for Richard’s hand. The warmth of his skin surprised her and she gripped it tightly in her own icy hand.

‘I keep wondering if he could make his own way back to the house,’ Richard murmured. ‘Do you think he knows the way?’

Helen shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ve wondered the same myself. He’s a bright kid.’ She looked out at the blackness of the night pressing against the windowpane and shuddered. ‘I just keep thinking if he could come home, he would.’

Richard looked up sharply. ‘What do you mean, “if he
could
come home”?’

Helen swallowed. ‘I want to believe, I really do.’ She faltered and swallowed again. ‘It’s just his cape,’ she said finally, in a quiet voice. ‘Why was it on the rocks, by the pools? Why did he take it off there?’

Richard shook his head quickly. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t think like that. We have to stay positive. We won’t get anywhere if we give up now.’

‘I’m not giving up. It’s just—’

Richard held up his hand. ‘Stop, Helen. Just stop.’ He stood up with another loud scrape of wood against tiles. ‘I’m going to take a shower. It’s going to be a long night.’

Helen slept in Alfie’s room; at least, she lay on his bed underneath his duvet and inhaled the sweet little boy smells of Johnson’s shampoo and vanilla Play-doh and baby breath as soft and sweet as a delicate summer breeze. And as she lay there she submitted herself to the strange, twilight world between waking and sleep where dreams become most surreal and vivid. Her head whirled with a crazy mix of images: Tobias moving over her with his eyes closed and perspiration forming on his brow, Alfie gleefully crayoning vivid scrawls onto the dark walls of the Crag, Dora bursting into the house with that fearful look on her face and Richard, strong, dependable Richard, squeezing her cold hand in his warm one and reassuring over and over, ‘We’ll get him back. I promise, we’ll get him back.’

She didn’t think she slept, but she must have done, because Richard was suddenly shaking her from her strange slumber and whispering in her ear, ‘It’s nearly daybreak; time to find our boy.’

After he had left the room Helen lay for a moment on the little bed and let the enormity of Alfie’s absence engulf her all over again. She felt it tickle the back of her throat and then slowly pour down through her insides like cold, liquid mercury, moving faster and faster before it settled in a painful, heavy pool in her gut. She sighed and pulled herself up from the mattress, feeling her fear slosh and settle as she moved. It was still dark outside but she could hear Richard clattering downstairs in the kitchen, preparing for his departure. Before she left the room she made Alfie’s bed carefully; he would be tired when they brought him home.

In the bathroom she splashed cold water on her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was like looking at a stranger. Her green eyes were red and lifeless and there were dark rings of make-up smudged around them. She needed to change too. She was still in the same clothes she’d been wearing the day before. She pulled her T-shirt over her head, unclasped her bra and slipped her crumpled cotton skirt down over her calves. As it landed on the floor she saw, once again, the dark grass stain from the day before. It stared up at her accusingly. Helen looked at it for a moment and then swept the skirt up into her arms and flung it with a sob into the rubbish bin under the sink.

Then she sat on the edge of the bath and gave in to deep, painful sobs that made her body shudder and shake. She sat naked and alone with her hands wrapped around her belly, keening for her baby, feeling the ache of his absence deep in her core.

Richard was letting Betty and Bill Dryden into the house when she came down the stairs. Bill shuffled awkwardly by the front door, holding his cap before him in his weathered hands, but Betty walked straight over to Helen and pulled her into her motherly embrace.

‘You poor dears, you must be going out of your minds with worry. I’ll get the kettle on, shall I? Make us a nice cup of tea?’

Helen nodded into the top of Betty’s grey, curled hair, grateful that somebody seemed to be taking charge.

‘We’ll be off, Helen,’ said Richard. ‘We’re meeting the police down at the car park. I’ll call you as soon as we find him.’

Helen nodded again and watched as Richard and Bill let themselves out of the front door.

‘Come on.’ Betty ushered Helen into the kitchen. ‘Let’s get this kettle on. The girls will be up soon and you’ll all need breakfast. Got to keep your strength up – for Alfie.’

Helen followed Betty into the kitchen and watched as the elderly woman fussed and bustled around the kitchen, finding tea bags and putting mugs on a tray.

‘I’ll put a little sugar in your tea, Helen,’ she said. ‘You look like you could do with it.’

Helen nodded again. It seemed she had lost her voice. Instead she turned to look at the colourful paint scrawls she’d tacked to the wall earlier that year, all abstract masterpieces by Alfie. She’d looked at them many times in the past, but she observed them now as if through fresh eyes, drinking in every brush stroke and every splotch of colour as if it were the first time she’d seen them. One was called ‘Pirate Ship and the Moon’. Another, ‘Dinosaur on a Slide’. It hurt to look at them, but Helen couldn’t drag her eyes away. He was out there, somewhere. They would find him.

If anything, the second day was worse than the first. The house quickly filled with police officers and well-meaning friends who descended upon them, everyone desperate to help, but no one really knowing what to do. They flapped and flitted from room to room, conducting intense, hushed conversations while Helen remained seated at the kitchen table, in a state of disbelief, watching the machinations of the search revolve around her, while her head remained fixed in one position, turned towards the telephone, waiting for Richard to ring with the triumphant news that they had found Alfie.

At lunchtime she glanced out of the window and saw several cars and a large white van parked at the end of the driveway.

‘What do they want?’ she murmured to a passing police officer, carrying a tray of tea out of the kitchen. She noticed absent-mindedly that he had used Daphne’s best china cups.

The man followed her gaze up the drive. ‘The vultures are circling,’ he said apologetically. ‘The media have got the sniff of a story.’

Helen shrugged. ‘Perhaps they can help? Perhaps if they cover the story someone will remember something important from yesterday?’

The policeman gave a polite nod and left her alone in the kitchen.

Betty bustled in moments later. ‘Do you want me to fix you some lunch, Helen? You haven’t eaten a thing all morning. You really should try to eat something . . .’

Helen shook her head. ‘I couldn’t, really.’

Betty looked worried. ‘Well, what about the girls then? Can I do something for them?’

Helen shrugged. She hadn’t seen either of the girls since breakfast. Cassie had shuffled into the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea and taken herself off somewhere. Dora had gone out at first light, following Bill and Richard at a distance down the driveway. Helen had been glad to see her go.

‘You’re very kind but really, we’re fine. I’m not sure anyone is terribly hungry.’

‘Well at least let me fix some sandwiches for those nice policemen? They’ll need something in their tummies to keep them going.’

Helen nodded and then excused herself from the kitchen. She didn’t think she could stomach the sight or smell of food. She felt like a gulping grey fish, washed up on a sandbank, drawing in her last gasps as the tide sank further and further away from her. Each breath she took physically hurt, a terrible searing pain that gripped at her insides, each breath signifying another moment without Alfie.

She was in the conservatory when Dora found her a little later. Helen didn’t hear her approach until she stood just metres behind her and gave a loud cough, making her jump and spin with surprise.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ Helen turned back to the garden with disappointment.

‘Mum, there’s something I need to tell you. Something important.’

Helen swung around again, eyeing Dora carefully. ‘Go on.’

‘Yesterday, when I left the Crag, there were two people near the cave. They were lying in the shade of the rocks. Grown-ups. A man and a woman. I remember he smiled at me and waved. It was a bit strange.’

Helen felt her breath catch in her throat.

‘The man had long dark hair,’ Dora continued, pulling at her T-shirt sleeves nervously. ‘I thought he was a woman, at first. He was wearing jeans. And a T-shirt, red, I think. Yes, definitely red.’