Good People. Ewart Hutton

      5

      Sally Paterson opened the door before I managed to knock. She had been watching for my arrival. Her hair, which had been pinned into a loose bun, was escaping in straggling wisps, and she was still wearing the sickly pink polyester housecoat that doubled as a uniform at the Sychnant Nursing Home. I followed her through to the kitchen, her handbag gaping open on the table where she had dropped it before checking the answering machine. She had shadows of fatigue under her eyes from her night’s work, and was speedy with worry, her heels working like castors, seeking solace from motion.

      ‘Did you make the calls I suggested?’ I asked.

      She nodded distractedly, and I guessed that she hadn’t picked up much comfort. ‘I went back to the Transport Officer at Brize Norton. No change there. Boon’s about to be officially classified as absent without leave.’

      ‘What about his base in Cyprus? It could be a simple case of army SNAFU.’

      She shook her head. ‘He never arrived. And he’s not on the way. There were no alternative travel arrangements. He was expected on the Brize Norton flight.’

      ‘Did you get in touch with the taxi company?’

      ‘I rang the one he usually uses. They didn’t get a call to pick him up on Saturday night.’

      ‘We’ll ring round,’ I said soothingly. ‘They may have been too busy.’

      ‘They would still have known if he had called,’ she snapped. She threw her head back and screwed her eyes closed tightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I mustn’t take this out on you.’

      ‘That’s okay.’ I persuaded her to sit down. She was frayed from trying to contain the arcing sparks of her anxiety. The night shift hadn’t helped. I made a pot of tea and sat down opposite her. ‘How did he get home?’ I asked.

      ‘Home?’ she replied, eyeing me blankly.

      ‘The minibus dropped him off in Dinas. That’s at least five miles away. How did he get back from there?’

      She shook her head while she was thinking about it. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at me wanly. ‘Is it important?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘What do I do?’ she asked, trying hard not to let helplessness in.

      ‘The first thing you ought to do is try and get some sleep.’

      She shook her head in a vague protest.

      ‘Is there anyone you can get to come over? Family? Any friends you would like me to contact?’

      ‘My mother’s in Dorchester, but I wouldn’t want to worry her.’

      ‘Any special friends?’

      She smiled weakly. ‘You’re very tactful, Sergeant Capaldi. No. No special friends. Boyfriend. Or girlfriend.’

      ‘You can call me Glyn, if it helps.’

      ‘Glyn …’ She tasted it. Then nodded. She looked up, eyes suddenly alert now, as if she had reached a decision. ‘Do you know why he doesn’t talk to me any more?’

      ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I said quietly.

      ‘No, I want to. I have to keep trying to understand this myself.’ She arranged the words in her head for a moment. ‘It’s because he blames me. Blames us, I should say, but his father’s not around any more to take his share. He blames us for bringing him out here. For depriving him of his culture, he tells me. His heritage. You see, now that he’s in the Army and teamed up with other Afro-Caribbean men, he’s accusing us of dragging him away from his natural background.’ She laughed self-mockingly. ‘And to think that we deliberately brought him as far away as we could from that background. To keep him safe, we thought.’

      I glanced out of the window. Cold slate roofs, grazing sheep and slanting rain. About as far away from life on the Street as you could get. ‘Why Wales?’ I asked.

      ‘It wasn’t meant to be Wales. We just wanted to get out of the city. Boon was six months old; we wanted to be in the countryside. I thought we could try somewhere like Oxfordshire or Northamptonshire. Somewhere not too far from town. But Malcolm was offered a good job here in Mid Wales.’ She shrugged. ‘Housing was cheap, we could buy a nice place, and still be relatively well off.’

      ‘What kind of a job?’

      ‘History teacher. Head of a small department. And then he ran away.’ She smiled, punishing herself. ‘It looks like that pattern’s repeating itself.’

      ‘How did Boon get on?’ I asked quickly, to stop her dwelling on it. ‘Socially? As a boy growing up here?’

      She looked at me, and for a moment a sparkle came back into her eyes. She had recognized the question that I had been waiting to ask. ‘This brings it round to the others, doesn’t it?’

      I nodded. ‘Do you like them?’

      She was silent for a moment. ‘In their own way they were kind to Boon, I suppose.’

      ‘In their own way?’

      ‘It’s not their fault, they were children, but there is a certain endemic ignorance in country people. When I say “ignorance”, I probably mean intolerance. They don’t like change. They’re not used to things being different. Somehow it’s not quite right.’

      ‘They gave Boon a hard time?’

      ‘Let’s just say that they made him aware of his difference.’ She pulled a face. ‘I’m being unfair to them. They did become his friends. And they stayed that way.’

      ‘But … ?’ I prompted.

      She smiled weakly. ‘I think that he was always made aware that that friendship was a gift. I remember one time he came home after a football match. He must have been about ten. They had been playing a team from another school who started giving him a hard time, calling him names. But what he was so pleased about was how his friends had stood up for him. “Mum,” he said to me, ever so excited, “Mum, and do you know what Gordon said back to them? Gordon said, ‘He may be a bloody Coon, but he’s our bloody Coon.’”’

      Neither of us laughed.

      ‘He broke the bond?’ I asked. ‘He went away to join the Army?’

      ‘That was another difference. They all had farms or family businesses to move into.’

      ‘And he liked the Army?’

      ‘Yes. He was a bit overawed at first. A bit scared, although he wouldn’t admit it. You know, out there in the bigger world, and the regimentation, and the discipline. And then he discovered his Soul Mates, and I turned into the cruel bitch who had deprived him of the funky upbringing that they had all shared. Boys and the Hood, or whatever the hell it is.’

      ‘Why would he not turn up at Brize Norton?’

      It was a question she had been torturing herself with. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I told you, he didn’t talk to me any more.’

      ‘Was there a girlfriend?’

      ‘If there was a current one, I hadn’t been told about her.’

      ‘Current?’

      ‘He had quite a serious affair with a Czech girl he met in Germany when he was stationed there. Then he was posted to Cyprus. As far as I know, he hasn’t had a long-term relationship since then.’

      She tried to smile to cover her distress, but her hands came up to