‘I’m really sorry, Bex, but he’s not here.’ The worry in Rowan’s voice reflected the terror Bex was already feeling. ‘Let me come up and help you look. I’ll ask the new school secretary to call straight away if he turns up in the meantime.’
‘No, thank you so much for offering, but you can’t do that. You’re pregnant and you’re needed at the school. He’s probably just hiding out in one of the barns because he hasn’t done his homework or something. It won’t be anything serious.’ She tried to say the final words as though she really believed them, but shecouldn’t quell the fear in her heart. Tom – her baby – seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.
‘Tristan is bringing Ollie down and Matt’s gone out to do a sweep of the barns, and I’m going to check everywhere in the house again.’
‘You don’t think there’s any chance he could have got into one of the caravans you’re storing, do you?’ Rowan’s words were like a lightbulb going on. When they’d first advertised the campsite, they’d been approached by a family living in Essex, to ask if they could permanently store their caravans on site for a reduced fee. They spent all the school holidays in the area, and it made sense to leave the caravans sited on a beautiful pitch and drive up each time, to save the stress of bringing them up such narrow roads. The family consisted of three siblings, each with their own families and touring caravans, and it had seemed like a win-win to guarantee Bex and Tristan some regular income for the campsite right from the start.
‘Oh my God, you’re right. I need to have a look.’ Tom had always had a fascination with campers and caravans, and Bex had often laughed about him being a chip off the old block. If he wanted to hide out for some reason, it was a good bet that he might be there, seeing if he could get into one of the caravans and set himself up a little den. ‘I’ve got to go, Rowan, thank you so much.’
‘Just call me when you find him.’
‘I will and thanks again.’ She wasn’t just thanking her friend for the idea of where to look for Tom, she was thanking Rowan for her choice of words too. She’d said ‘when you find him’, not ‘if’, and right now she needed to believe that more than anything.
When someone had knocked on the camper door, Briony had fully expected it to be Ken. He’d changed his mind about an early start the night before, after Tristan had already taken Merlin, which had made her wish that she’d held on to her beloved dog until the morning. She’d felt more alone than ever without the warmth of his solid, reassuring body lying next to her, and his gentle snoring was better than any white noise app she could have downloaded to her phone. It was only half past eight when the knocking started, but Ken was clearly overthinking the drive to London. So it wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d changed the time of departure again and shown up at half eight instead of half nine. Except when she’d opened the door, it wasn’t Ken standing there, it was Tom.
‘I’m not supposed to be here and I’m going to have to leave my shoes outside ’cos they’re all covered in mud,’ he said, before barging in without invitation and plonking himself on to the sofa.
‘What do you mean you’re not supposed to be here?’ Briony looked at her nephew, who was staring back at her, his hazel eyes seeming to assess every detail in front of him and something twisted in her heart again. She was never going to get to know this child the way she should have done, or be the fun auntie he ran to for a bit of space when his parents were on his case about something. She barely knew anything about him, what kind of games or TV shows he liked, which football team he supported, whether he even liked football, and suddenly she wanted to glean every detail she could, so she could lock the information up somewhere and come back to it when she needed to feel a connection to him. This was a chance she would almost certainly never get again.
‘Mum doesn’t want me coming anywhere near you.’ Tom narrowed his eyes and Briony tried not to gasp and give away just how much his words had affected her, but he wasn’t finished yet. ‘I know you’re her sister and that she doesn’t like you, but I don’t understand why. You seem really nice to me, and it isn’t fair because we haven’t got an auntie. Uncle Triss is great and he buys us a lot of sweets, but we’d get twice as many if we had an auntie, wouldn’t we?’
‘You probably would.’ To Briony’s surprise, a smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. You couldn’t fault Tom’s logic, and he clearly knew exactly what he wanted out of life. She’d have given anything to have a relationship with Bex’s sons, but she knew how carefully she had to tread – for their sake as much as anyone else’s. ‘You should listen to what your mum says, because she only ever wants the best for you.’
‘Then why is she stopping us from having an aunt? She said it’s because you only love yourself, but everyone loves me.’ She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time, because it was true, she already loved Tom, and his brothers, despite the fact she barely knew them. However, what Bex had said about her felt like a punch to the gut all the same, and part of her wanted to set Tom straight. She could tell him everything, including just how much she’d sacrificed to try and save Bex from making the worst mistake she could possibly have made. But that wasn’t a conversation for a child to ever be part of, and she didn’t want to make things between herself and Bex even worse than they already were, if that was even possible. Instead, she took a deep breath, before saying something far more innocuous.
‘Would you like a drink? I’ve got orange juice, water, or tea and coffee?’
Tom wrinkled his nose. ‘Coffee tastes gross. Mum says you can’t drink it until you’re a grown up, but I’m never going to want to drink it.’
‘Come back to me when you’re in your thirties and need to be on the top of your game after about two hours’ sleep.’ Hercomment was met with a blank look and she shook her head. ‘But you’re right, I’m being silly offering you coffee. How about some chocolate milk?’
‘That’s my favourite, but I didn’t think you’d have any ’cos you haven’t got any children.’
‘That’s true, Tom, but just because I’m a boring old adult it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that chocolate milk is the best.’ She turned towards the fridge, taking out the carton and pouring them both a glass. She’d send him straight back home after that, before her sister realised where he was, but she just wanted to do this one thing with him. Just a few minutes, that was all she needed.
‘What’s this?’ Tom gestured towards a small wooden chest that had a map of the world carved into the lid. It had been the last present Bex had bought her when they’d still been in one another’s lives. Briony had often said she wanted to travel and go on adventures, and she was sentimental about keepsakes, which back then could have been anything from a ticket stub to a shell she’d collected from the beach. Bex had bought the chest for her to store her ‘treasures’ in, but these days she used it for a different kind of keepsake.
‘Open it up and have a look. I take a polaroid at each new place I stay at in my van and I keep them all in the box so I can look back and remember all the fun I’ve had.’
‘Is that because you’re always on your own, so you don’t have anyone to remember it with?’ Tom’s innocent question hit her right in the heart all over again. This boy was wise way beyond his years and all she could do was nod, as he picked up one of the photographs. ‘Where was this one taken?’
He chose a photo of a beautifully deserted beach out of the pile and handed it to her. ‘That was at Claigan Coral Beach on the Isle of Skye. I went for a swim in the sea with my dog,Merlin, and we saw minke whales much further out in the water.’
‘That sounds so cool.’ Tom was looking at her as if he was seeing her for the first time and she smiled, enjoying the memory all the more because of his excitement.
‘It was amazing.’
‘Maybe you could take me there one day.’ He gave her such an earnest look and for the second time all she could do was nod, despite knowing it was never going to happen.
‘I’ve been to lots of great places, let me show you the photo I took when me and Merlin made it to the top of Mount Snowdon. Although he was a lot younger then.’ Sorting through the photographs she handed another one to Tom and it was how they got lost in the moment, seeming to lose all sensation of time passing. They were soon talking like old friends and Briony knew she’d found a kindred spirit in her nephew, someone who wanted to embrace all the adventure life had to offer.
The hammering on the door when it came was so violent it made the whole van shake.
‘Open this door right now, I know you’ve got Tom in there!’
‘Shit.’ Briony hadn’t meant to say the word out loud, but some situations called for it, and Tom seemed to find it hilariously funny, although she could only imagine how well it would go down with Bex to see her son laughing when she was clearly filled with rage. ‘I’m coming.’
Jumping up, she opened the door, trying to get her explanation in before Bex had a chance to launch her attack, but she barely got three words out. ‘I’m sorry we?—’
