The first time I brought him home, to see the house and to meet Craig, he used his drawing skills to break the ice. That’s what it must be like to have a talent. You can use it in social situations like that. That must make things a lot easier. I have no talents. Tom shouted at me once, in one row we had, that I had no gifts whatsoever. And I haven’t. No, that’s wrong. Everyone has gifts from God. That’s something Tom told me too. And I think I’ve the knack for talking to people. But Tom’s talent was something that could draw him closer to children especially. At the Rainbow Gang he would have the children queueing when he drew cartoons for them to colour in. Mickey Mouse and the Power Rangers and what have you. Anything they could ask for and he’d scribble it down in a flash. The kiddies thought he was marvellous. I said, “You should sell them drawings.”
When he came to tea with Craig and me the first time, we ate iced buns and salmon-paste sandwiches. Craig was being quiet. The telly was on in the corner, like it always is, but with the sound a bit lower. Next to his plate Craig had his Etch-a-Sketch out. Tom stared at it with interest. I thought Craig was too old for it at twelve, to tell the truth. It was one of the few toys of his that had lasted the years. Something his dad had bought him. It was a kind of plastic board, full of grey, shifting sand. You twiddled knobs to make a black line appear on the screen, you could draw things on it. All through tea Craig was twirling patterns on the screen of sand. And you could see it was just a mess he was making. Just to make a point, just to annoy me, when he knew I wanted him to pay attention to Tom.
“May I have a go?” Tom put his hand out.
Craig shrugged and passed over the Etch-a-Sketch. I watched Tom’s strong hands take it and place it before him. He shook it briskly to make the screen blank and ready. Smash it, I thought impulsively.
Tom pushed aside his tea things and set to work. He twiddled those buttons and knobs and soon he sat back, satisfied. He held up the screen for us both to see. I gasped. He had drawn the most wonderful giraffe.
Later that night I said goodbye to Tom at the front door. We thought it would be pushing it for him to stay the night.
“Let him get used to me slowly.” Tom smiled, holding me. “We’ve got the time. I’m going to be around a while.”
I couldn’t help smiling back at him. When Tom spoke to me like that it was just like hypnotism. I watched his mouth and his teeth and those deep eyes of his and I couldn’t dispute a word he said. There was a slow, magical charm to him and I know it was all to do with sex. And how do you explain that to your twelve-year-old son? How do you explain that it’s important to you to feel sexy now, when you haven’t for so long? Craig would look at me resentful and I’d want to explain, but I never knew the words for it. When Tom wasn’t there I’d start to feel ashamed of myself. That was why it was easier, at first, when Tom did move in. Alone with Craig I would feel accused of things. He’d be looking at me and thinking that I was a silly, middle-aged woman trying to be sexy. I wanted to say, What’s wrong with being sexy? You have to keep yourself sexy, and nice and healthy. It’s all good for you. He couldn’t see that then. I think he can now. It’s about how life goes on. I took that chance with Tom. I fought my son to keep him.
That night I went to clean up the tea table and I saw that Craig had gone back to his room. He hadn’t even moved his own plate and cup. Everything was left lying around for me. His Etch-a-Sketch was left on the table, too. He had given it a vigorous shake and cleared the screen.
They went back home on the bus bewildered. The woman in
charge of the home had told them she would keep in touch. Perhaps Tom had just wandered off. He might soon be back. This had happened before. Confused people became lost in the woods, in the grounds, in the fields about the house here. It wasn’t unknown. It was only this morning he had wandered off. Perhaps he would be home by nightfall. They would let Elsie know what was happening.
“I was certain they were going to say he’d died,” Elsie said to Fran.
“Oh, don’t say that,” said Fran superstitiously.
“But you know what it’s like. When something’s wrong, and you dread the worst.”
“Yes.”
“If he’s out in this cold all night, he might die.”
“They’ll get him back.”
“Exposure. Hypothermia.” Fran couldn’t believe the people at the hospital were being so casual. Who knew how many people they let walk away. There could be any number of missing patients.
“Our best days,” Elsie said, “were Sundays, when he was still big on God. Some of the Rainbow Gang would be invited to our house. The favoured few. Tom would invite these kids and we would have a big family Sunday dinner. Some of those kids had hollow legs. They ate and ate and ate.”
Fran thought she was talking about Tom as if she’d never see him again.
He had wrapped himself up warm, knowing that he would have to traipse the whole distance to Aycliffe across fields. Hitch-hiking didn’t
