I went into the house and was relieved to find I was alone after I hollered a couple of hellos and poked my head around Karen’s door to make sure there was no sign of Steve. I made a herbal tea and went out to the summerhouse. I sat and closed my eyes, my tea cradled in my hands. The sounds came floating through, the same sounds I had been hearing for weeks: the pained cries of a child. My body flooded with the same fear I had been plagued with for years. I stood up and put my mug down on the table and went to the doorway. The child’s cries were strong and persistent. I couldn’t look over the fence again. I remembered the hedge at the end of our garden. Although I had yet to explore it further, I was sure that it could take me through to their garden. I left the summerhouse and headed towards the hedge. I shot a look back at the house to make sure that no one was watching me from the window and got down on all fours. Edging forwards, I clambered to my right, through the undergrowth until I could feel I was pushing my way into their garden. The hedge opened up again into a small clearing.
Finally, I could see the child. It was a little boy. My heart pounded and tears sprung into my eyes. He was almost exactly like… No, it couldn’t be. The long, unruly hair, the size and age of him, it was all so familiar. He was standing just inside the house next to an open patio door. Alone. I took a chance and shifted myself forwards into the clearing. I was still surrounded by shrubbery with a wide view of the patio and a small patch of grass in front of me. As though he could sense me there, the little boy looked up at me with his big eyes in alarm. He was standing quietly, no longer crying, but I put my finger to my lips and a small ‘shhh’ escaped them. He edged forward so his feet were balancing on the patio-door ledge. He looked uncertainly behind him, then placed one foot on the patio. He took another precautionary glance over his shoulder, then placed the other foot on the patio. My heart was filling up with maternal love as I imagined him breaking into a sprint and running into my arms that had been so empty for so long. But he just stood there. I looked around the garden and noticed how there were no toys, no sandpit, no push bike, scooter or football. Nothing. The garden was perfectly clear and exceptionally well pruned. There was shout, a name was being called.
‘Raff… Raff,’ came a woman’s voice, the same woman I had seen and heard before. The boy looked panicked and rooted to the spot.
‘Raff! Raff!’ she was screeching in the European accent I still couldn’t place. Then she continued to shout in a language I didn’t recognise. Raff, who was still frozen to the spot, let out a high-pitched wail. I shuffled backwards as I heard the woman arriving at the doorway and turned my body into the shrubbery. The screams continued and then faded as the patio doors were slammed shut. I shuffled back, but I was still looking at the spot where he had been standing where there was now a small puddle.
I felt sick as I went back into the house. I paced around the kitchen, looking for something to do to relieve the panic that was building through my body. I raced upstairs, wringing my hands, an act that I only did when things were spiralling out of control. I opened and closed my window six times, making sure the latch was firmly across on the final lock. Then I paced my room, desperately thinking of ways to feed the monster who had reared his ugly head. I went back downstairs and began pacing the kitchen again.
Suddenly, I heard the front door close and I stopped dead. I couldn’t see anyone like this. I went to the kitchen door to make my way back upstairs again, but Sophia was already there before I could make my escape.
‘Hey, how are…’ She trailed off. ‘Regi, are you okay? Do you want to sit?’
She dropped her bag on the floor and strode over to the cupboard, took a glass down and filled it with water. She guided me to the table and I sat, shaking; I couldn’t keep my legs still. She sat next to me and I placed a hand on my quivering leg.
‘Regi, what is it?’
I looked at her. ‘The boy, the boy next door, I…’
Sophia looked quizzical. ‘What boy?’
‘There’s a child, a boy, long hair, and his mother…’
I stopped.
The mother; her face and her voice were suddenly so familiar to me. I had met her before.
‘Who is his mother?’ Sophia stroked my hand lightly.
An image from a few weeks ago sprung into my mind. ‘I remember, I saw her, she was in the shop. She couldn’t afford a kid’s bottle of paracetamol. So I bought it for her.’
Sophia tightened her grip on my hand. ‘Oh, Regi, that was such a nice thing to do. Good for you.’ Sophia tilted her head to one side. ‘And the boy?’
I looked down at Sophia’s hand on mine. I now felt embarrassed for what I had done, sneaking into someone’s garden that way.
Sophia was still looking at me intently, waiting for a reply, and even though I had been trying for so long to hold it all in, the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
‘He reminded me of my son.’
18
Then
A baby boy arrived late summer shortly after my twentieth birthday. I called Mum and told her, saying I would try to get over to see her. But I never did. I wasn’t surprised when there was
