Forbidden

At two in the morning, after calling him repeatedly and getting redirected to voicemail, I phone Mum in sheer desperation. She is in a club somewhere – the background noise is deafening: music, shouting, cheering. As we’re already in the small hours of the morning, her speech is slurred and the fact that her son has gone missing barely seems to register. Laughing and breaking off every few words to talk to Dave, she informs me I need to learn to relax, that Kit is a young man now and should have some fun. I am about to point out he could be lying face down in a gutter when I suddenly realize I’m wasting my breath. With Dave she can pretend she is young again, free of the restrictions and responsibilities of motherhood. She never wanted to grow up – I remember our father citing this as a reason for leaving. He accused her of being a bad mother – but then the only reason they got married was because she accidentally fell pregnant with me – a fact she likes to remind me of whenever we have an argument. And now that I am just a few months away from being legally classed an adult, she feels freer than she has done in years. Dave already has a young family of his own. He has made it very clear that he doesn’t want to take on someone else’s. And so she shrewdly keeps him away, only bringing him back to the house when everyone is asleep or out at school. With Dave she has reinvented herself – a young woman caught up in a passionate romance. She dresses like a teenager, spends all her money on clothes and beauty treatments, lies about her age, and drinks, drinks, drinks – to forget that youth and beauty are behind her, to forget that Dave has no intention of marrying her, to forget that at the end of the day she is just a forty-five-year-old divorcee in a dead-end job with five unwanted children. Yet understanding the reasons behind her behaviour does little to stem the hate.

It is now half past two and I am begi

Part of me simply wants to blot the whole thing out – go to bed and just pray Kit is back by the time I wake up in the morning. But another part of me is forced to remember that he is little more than a child. An unhappy, self-destructive child who has got in with the wrong crowd because they provide him with the company and admiration his family do not. He could have been in a fight, he could be mainlining heroin, he could be breaking the law and screwing up his life before it has even begun. Worse still, he could be the victim of a mugger or some rival gang – his behaviour has begun to earn him quite a reputation in the area. He could be lying bleeding somewhere, knifed or shot. He may hate me, he may resent me, he may blame me for everything that’s wrong in his life, but if I give up on him, then he has no one left at all. His hatred of me will have been completely justified. Yet what can I possibly do? He refuses to share any part of his life with me, so I don’t know any of his friends or where he hangs out. I don’t even have a bike to go combing the streets with.

The clock now reads a quarter to three: nearly five hours after Kit’s weekend curfew. He never actually comes home before ten but rarely stays out much past eleven. What places around here are even open at this time? Nightclubs require ID – he has a fake one but even an idiot couldn’t mistake him for an eighteen-year-old. He has never been anywhere near as late as this before.

Fear snakes into my mind. It curls around itself, its body pressing against the walls of my skull. This is not rebellion: something has happened. Kit is in trouble and no one is there to help him. I feel clammy and shivery with sweat. I have no choice but to go out and walk the streets, searching for an open bar, a nightclub – anything. But first I need to wake Maya so she can call me if Kit returns. My mind flashes back to the exhaustion imprinted on her face and the thought of dragging her out of bed sickens me, but I have no choice.

My first knock is far too soft – I’m afraid of waking the little ones. But if Kit is hurt or in trouble, there is no time to lose. I turn the handle and push the door open. Lamplight falls through the gap in the curtains, illuminating her sleeping face, her tawny hair fa

I bend down and gently shake her. ‘Maya?’

‘Mm . . .’ She rolls away from me in protest.

I try again. ‘Maya, wake up, it’s me.’

‘Huh?’ Rolling onto her side, she props herself up on her elbow, looking up at me groggily, blinking beneath a curtain of hair.

‘Maya, I need your help.’ The words come out louder than I intended, the mounting panic catching in my throat.

‘What?’ She is suddenly alert, struggling to sit up, brushing the hair away from her face. She flicks on the bedside light and squints at me, wincing. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s Kit – he hasn’t come home and it’s almost three. I – I think I should go and look for him. I think something must have happened.’

She squeezes her eyes shut and then opens them wide again, as if trying to gather her thoughts. ‘Kit’s still out?’

‘Yes!’

‘Have you tried his mobile?’

I recount my futile attempts at getting through to both Kit and Mum. Maya stumbles out of bed and follows me down into the hallway as I hunt for my keys. ‘But, Lochie, d’you have any idea where he could be?’

‘No, I’ll just have to look . . .’ I rummage through my jacket pockets and then through the pile of junk mail and unopened bills on the hall table, sending them flying. My hands have started shaking. ‘Jesus, where the fuck are my keys?’

‘Lochie, you’re never going to find him by combing the streets. He could be on the other side of London!’

I spin round to face her. ‘What the hell d’you suggest I do then?’

I startle myself with the force of my voice. Maya takes a step back.

I stop and heave a deep breath, cupping my hands over my mouth, then ru

‘OK,’ Maya says quickly. ‘OK, Lochie. I’ll stay down here and wait. And I’ll call you the moment he turns up. Have you got your phone?’

I feel the pockets of my trousers. ‘No – shit – and my keys—’

‘Here . . .’ Maya reaches for her coat on the peg and digs out her phone and keys. Grabbing them, I wrench open the door.

‘Wait!’ She throws me my jacket.

I pull it on as I stride out into the cold night air.

It’s dark, the houses all sleeping save for a few still illuminated with the flickering blue light of television screens. The silence is eerie – I can hear the juggernauts shifting their loads miles away on the ridge of the motorway. I walk rapidly down to the end of our road and turn onto the high street. The place has a deserted, haunted look, the shop shutters battened down over their dark interiors. Trash from the market stall still litters the street, a drunk staggers out of the all-night Tesco and two skimpily clad young women weave their way across the pavement arm in arm, shrill voices crisscrossing the still night air. Suddenly a car, pulsating with music, accelerates down the road, narrowly missing the drunk, its tyres screeching as it takes a corner. I spot a group of guys hanging around a closed pub. They are all dressed the same: grey hoodies, baggy jeans sliding down their hips, white trainers. But as I cross the road and head towards them, I realize they are far too old to be part of Kit’s lot. I quickly turn my head away again, but one of them shouts out: ‘Hey, what the fuck you lookin’ at?’