GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE WINNER, 2020/21
EDWARD HOGAN
‘Single Sit’
RISING THROUGH THE DOWNS, Frank called his 8 o’clocker from the car, half-hoping she’d cancel. He looked out the window as the phone rang. A heatwave had stripped the landscape. Nothing out there but hay-bales and evening shadows.
She picked up.
‘That Mrs Cortez?’ he said.
‘Yep, who’s this?’
The bad news: Mrs Cortez was Northern, despite the name. He heard the twang through his speakerphone.
‘Frank McCann, South Coast Conservatories, calling to confirm our appointment.’
‘I almost forgot. I’m finishing dinner, but yes. I’m here.’
‘I’d really like to meet Mister Cortez, too, and show him the designs. Is he there, or is it just yourself, this evening?’
‘Just me.’
‘Right.’ Frank did his little laugh. ‘Only, I know my wife would never let me choose a conservatory, alone. She’s got better taste than me, for starters.’ Frank and Eleanor had been divorced for twenty years.
‘We’re separated,’ Mrs Cortez said. ‘Trust me, Frank. I buy what I want.’
‘Lovely! I’ll be there, presently.’
A revenge conservatory, Frank thought, hanging up. Even if he sold it tonight, the order would be cancelled, eventually. That he’d accepted the lead at all was a sign of how bad things had got for him as a rep (or ‘design consultant’), and for the industry in general. In the 90s he’d have flat out refused a single sit.
A single sit Northerner.
*
On her street, he sat in the car, vaping with the window down. This cul-de-sac of 1960s bungalows, in Woodingdean, had once been a goldmine; he’d done plenty of business here, back in the day, when he worked in windows. The residents had been upwardly mobile, but not too posh for uPVC. Some houses backed onto the South Downs Way, and had sea-views, if you strained your neck.
But his heart sank when he got out the car and walked down the drive. Through the bay window, he saw a wall lined with bookshelves. Middle class people didn’t buy conservatories.
Stay open to the possibility of yes, he told himself as he rang the bell, repeating the mantras from his motivational CDs. You only get what you expect. Keep asking the question.
A tall, broad woman opened the door. Early forties, short shock of brown curls. She held a bowl of noodle soup. ‘You must be Frank,’ she said.
‘I promise I will be!’ His classic opener.
She smiled, revealing big, regular teeth. She wore a grey running vest, the straps of a luminous green sports bra visible on her shoulders. Cut-off leggings like sealskin. Her eyes a glassy green.
She led him through the house: saffron sofas, green rugs, the old walls of the bungalow knocked through. As she slurped the last of her noodles at the kitchen breakfast bar, he noticed a tattoo on the inside of her arm, depicting a ruler like the one Frank’s daughter had used at school. The ruler extended from the wrist, up her forearm, six inches by its own authority. It had the word ‘Shatterproof’ on it.
‘It’s been another stunning day,’ Frank said.
‘Good old global warming.’
‘What would be nice,’ he said, mock-stroking his chin, ‘is if you had some sort of comfortable shelter – a predominantly glass structure, perhaps – from which you could enjoy such pleasant evenings.’
‘Imagine.’
A bass thud came from deep in the bungalow. Frank visualised Señor Cortez in a back room, with a mariachi band and a collection of torture implements, although he got no bad vibes, here. Some houses, you did.
‘My son,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the noise.
‘How old?’
‘Eleven.’ She tapped a photo on the fridge, of a slight kid with thick black hair.
‘Great age. He can help me measure up.’
‘He’s going to bed.’
‘So early?’
‘He has a sleep condition,’ Mrs Cortez whispered.
‘Ah.’
‘So. Frank. How’s business?’
‘Fantastic. We’re very busy on account of this summer offer.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Our builders struggle when the weather turns, so we’ve knocked off thirty percent for a limited time, to get the job done quickly for people like yourself.’
‘I see. You wouldn’t want to be building in mid-winter.’
‘A pain for the fitters, a pain for you. Nobody buys a conservatory for Christmas.’
‘And when does this summer offer finish?’
‘End of August.’
‘I’d better act fast, then.’
Frank wondered if she was taking the piss. ‘You need to be sure, obviously.’
‘What are you going to do, Frank, when the offer finishes? It’ll be much harder to sell at full price, surely.’
‘Well.’
‘Unless,’ she said, holding up a finger. ‘Unless there’s another offer. An autumn offer. And, then…a winter sale.’
She was definitely taking the piss. ‘Conservatories are a luxury item, Mrs Cortez. People pay because they’re reassured by quality. We’re not talking about windows, here.’
Windows, which had lifted the unwanted, half-raised, unteachable teenage Frank out of the 80s dole queue, and given him the money to take a girl like Ellie to the pictures. Windows, which – after Mrs Thatcher sold the council stock to its proud occupants – had bought Frank a house of his own, and then, after the divorce, two smaller houses. Windows, which had granted him country club membership and foreign holidays; which had sent his daughter, Jodie, to university; which had forced the branches of his family tree up towards the light, before the bubble burst.
‘Nothing wrong with windows,’ Mrs Cortez said.
‘It’d be dark in here without them. But a conservatory is a lifestyle choice.’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m being a bitch. I’m a woman on my own, and sometimes I get carried away, trying to show people – men – that I won’t be pushed around.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs Cortez.’
‘I’ll take you through to the garden.’
*
A dry-stone wall separated her yellow lawn from the Downs. Peachy pink light and blue shadows filled the fields, which sloped away at a crooked angle to the ruled line of the English Channel. On the horizon stood the wind farm: a row of turbines in the sea, arms still.
‘A real suntrap, this garden,’ he said. ‘Perfect for a conservatory.’
He took the iPad from his satchel and opened the design app. ‘Mind if I take a photo?’
‘Sure.’
He put on his spectacles. ‘I’m not used to these glasses. You’ll understand when you get to my age,’ he said, though there was probably only ten years between them. ‘Everything goes.’
‘They’re nice. You look like one of them Italian football managers.’
He hoped she didn’t mean Trapattoni. For a while, he’d copied the younger lads, with their tight trousers, pointy shoes, and that 1940s fighter pilot hairdo, undercut and swept to one side. On Frank, that hairstyle had looked like a comb-over, so he kept it short, now, welcomed the grey, going for the Silver Fox thing.
He took a photo of the house, and waited for it to load. ‘This’ll blow you away,’ he said. He cropped the picture, made the colours vivid. He drag-dropped an image of a Victorian lean-to over the house, to show her how it would look (if the company could afford to pay the suppliers and the fitters didn’t screw it up). But when he zoomed in, he noticed something odd. In the photo, a child stood at the window, though nobody was there, now.
‘That your boy?’ he said, showing her the iPad.
She tilted her head, bit her lip. ‘I’ll go and see if he’s all right.’
*
After ten minutes, Mrs Cortez returned with two tumblers containing deep red Negronis, orange slices and ice, which she set down on an iron garden table before slumping into a chair.
‘I don’t usually drink on a call,’ Frank said, sitting opposite her. ‘Is your boy okay?’
‘He sleepwalks, basically, and so he worries about going to bed.’
‘My girl was a sleepwalker.’
‘This is extreme.’
‘Once, I went in the kitchen, four in the morning, and Jodie’s standing on a stool, making strawberry cheesecake, totally in a trance.’
‘There are worse things to do in your dreams,’ Mrs Cortez said, glancing back at the house. ‘Before he goes to bed, he practises guitar for hours, and I wonder if he’s over-stimulated.’
‘Could be. You know how we cured Jodie?’
‘How?’
‘Massive bowl of cornflakes before bed. Worked a treat.’
‘It is hard to sleep when you want for things,’ Mrs Cortez said.
‘Exactly.’
Frank gave her the iPad, and explained how to change the dimensions and position of the superimposed lean-to. Mrs Cortez put her feet on the spare chair and worked away happily on the tablet. ‘Tell me about the security aspects of the conservatory,’ she said.
‘Air Force One,’ he said. ‘Triple-lock system.’
‘Good,’ she said. After a while, she put the iPad down, and he saw that she’d been playing Angry Birds 2. Frank sighed, removed his glasses, and took a big gulp of his Negroni.
*
Some customers followed your lead, and others (men, mainly) tried to dominate, tried to make you talk price too early. But Mrs Cortez didn’t fit any of the categories.
They both had one child, and so they talked about what it was like for their kids to grow up without siblings. He admitted he was divorced, and they discussed the pros and cons of marriage breakdown. Frank found himself confessing his regrets, which he rarely did. Night fell around them.
‘How old is your daughter?’ she asked.
‘Jodie’s twenty-seven. We had her young. She got married two weeks ago.’
‘Congratulations. Do you like the guy?’
‘Rick?’ he said, rolling the R. ‘He’s all right. Clever, like Jodie. But you have to let him win.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He sulks if he loses. So, if we’re playing cards, or going bowling, or even if we’re having a kick around with my nephews in the garden, I always make sure he wins. I miss on purpose.’
‘Really?’
‘Makes him nicer to be around.’
‘I could never do that.’
‘Competitive, are you?’
‘I’m a nightmare. Ruthless. You’re a better person than me.’
‘I try to be a good loser.’
‘But it was a nice day, the wedding?’
‘Yeah. You know, three hundred degrees in the shade, as it is these days. But Jodie was happy.’
He didn’t tell her everything about the wedding. After Jodie and Rick had caught their taxi, and he’d said goodbye to his ex-wife, Frank had driven (drunk) to the beach, and stood on the stones, watching the ‘Brighton Pier’ sign change from red to blue and silver, watching those colours reflected in the small white crests on the water. He was, he’d realised, a family man with no family. He’d thought about wading out into the sea, in his good suit, just swimming towards the wind farm until his body gave up. But he couldn’t do it on Jodie’s big day. Besides, it was the Sunday after Pride, and a load of buff gay lads were cooking on disposable barbecues, and they’d have dived in and saved him.
He kept quiet about all that. ‘I like your tattoos,’ he said to Mrs Cortez, pointing to the one on her leg. Puddles, the tattoo said, in a vintage script, alongside her shinbone.
‘What they called me when I was a kid. Puddles, or Pudsy, or Jemima Puddlefuck.’
‘How come?’
‘Long story.’
‘I’d like to hear it.’
‘You’d do anything for a sale.’
‘Times are hard.’
‘It was a prank. When I was about twelve, me and my best mate Nicole were obsessed with Kriss Kross.’
‘You what?’
‘The rappers.’
‘Oh. Jump Jump.’ Frank remembered it from the radio.
‘We wanted to be them.’
‘The white Kriss Kross.’
‘Nicole wasn’t white. One Christmas, she got a camcorder and we decided to make a music video. So, we put on our Joe Bloggs jeans and we went to this retail estate, nearby. The Meteor Centre it was called. You know the sort of place. It had a Rollerworld, a PC World.’
‘A lot of worlds.’
‘Yeah. So, it’s January, and we’re in the carpark, early in the morning, and it’s been raining for days. No cars or anything, and Nic has this idea. We’re going to jump in the puddles. She’s going to put a slo-mo effect on it.’
‘Good concept.’
‘I was miffed. I hadn’t Scotchguarded my new Jordan Bordeauxs, yet. But I’d’ve done anything for Nicole, you know.’
Frank shook his head.
‘Nic went first, jumped in a few puddles. Jeans clinging to her skinny little legs. Then it’s my turn, and she guides me over to this particular puddle. She’s like, this one is perfect. Starts filming. So, I jump up, legs together, arms by my sides. Tombstone. But when I hit the water, my feet just kept going, down and down, and pretty soon I’d dropped about four foot through the ground into this bloody sinkhole. It came up to my braids.’
‘Jesus,’ Frank said, laughing.
‘Nicole knew. She’d planned it all, taken the hazard signs away, everything.’
‘She got you bad.’
‘I come up gasping for air, soaked through with this filthy water, mouth and nose full of grit and God knows what.’
Frank howled.
‘And she’s lying on the ground, bloody convulsing with laughter, much like yourself.’
‘What a video, though!’
‘We must have watched it a thousand times.’
‘These days it’d be a viral sensation.’
‘Yeah, I had a viral sensation, the day after.’
‘You must have been mad with her.’
‘I was until I saw the tape. It was like magic. You could pause it at a point where I was almost completely gone. I was Puddles, after that, forever more.’
‘She still got the tape? This Nicole.’
‘No.’
Mrs Cortez wrinkled her nose. ‘Tell me a sales secret, Frank,’ she said. ‘A trick of the trade.’
Frank tried to think of something not too shameful. He took a piece of paper from his satchel and folded it in half, lengthways. ‘You know in-store canvassers?’
‘What’s that?’
‘People who stand outside Homebase, under a gazebo, handing out leaflets.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘Stand up.’
She did, and so did he. ‘You’re the customer,’ he said. ‘You’re walking in, and I’m waiting at the entrance.’
She strolled towards him, smiling.
‘I hold out the leaflet and you’re thinking, if I just take one, he’ll leave me alone. Right?’
‘Not far off.’
‘Try it.’
She did.
‘But now I keep hold of the leaflet, applying subtle pressure with my thumb and forefinger, and I walk alongside you.’
‘It’s a trap!’ she said.
Both gripping the paper, they ambled across the scorched roots of Mrs Cortez’ lawn. ‘Now we’re joined,’ he said. ‘And you’ve no choice but to talk to me. I’ve got five seconds, but if I’m good, that’s all I need to make you stop.’
She stopped.
‘It’s all about feel,’ Frank said. ‘I’ve trained bodybuilder types, and they’re dragging customers all over the shop, people dangling from the end of a leaflet with their feet off the ground. I tell them it’s like fishing. You have to reel them in gently, so the line doesn’t snap.’
‘But you’ve got to remember, Frank,’ Mrs Cortez said. ‘When you catch a fish, the fish sort of catches you, too.’
He let go of the folded paper, and they fell silent for a moment. Mrs Cortez shivered. ‘I’m going to make some tea, check on my boy. Will you come inside for a bit?’ she said. ‘Close the deal?’ She rolled her eyes. It occurred to Frank that Mrs Cortez might be the most truly confident person he’d ever met.
*
He waited in the lamplit living room. Everything throbbed with colour: the saffron sofa on which he sat, the lime green rug, the spines of the books – it was like she’d used the design app’s ‘vivid warm’ filter. Frank didn’t know what the hell was happening to him. His heart banged.
‘He’s fine,’ Mrs Cortez said, as she came in. Frank stood, and she kissed him. Her mouth held the bitterness of Campari, the sweetness of orange, the heat of chilli. Their teeth bumped, but she didn’t seem to care. They put their foreheads together. She held out the blank, folded piece of paper – their leaflet. He took it, but she didn’t let go, and led him like that to the bedroom, a finger over her lips.
He’d had a fair amount of sex in his forties, after the divorce. During that period, he’d found that sex had become increasingly influenced by pornography. Everyone tried to get into positions where they could look at each other, or look at themselves, or create a grandiose sex statue. But this, with Mrs Cortez, was different. It felt more like his earliest experiences, in that she turned off the lights, in that they actually lay down on the bed, in that their bodies pressed together so he could feel her breasts spreading against him. He didn’t think about his performance. No fancy stuff, no showboating, no posing. At one point, he thought he might cry. There was probably a word for what it felt like.
He lay there, afterwards, a ripple of energy charging repeatedly up the length of his body, the way beams of streetlight climbed over you when you drove a car at night. She slept straightaway, but he couldn’t. After an hour, he put on his underwear, and crept into the garden to vape. The air had cooled, and he stood by the dry-stone wall, peering through his cinnamon smoke, out towards the distant lights of the pier. It took a long time for his heart to slow, a long time before he could return to the bed and finally fall asleep beside her.
*
He woke in semi-darkness to see Mrs Cortez striding naked through the room.
‘It’s not morning, is it?’ he said.
‘He’s gone.’
‘Who?’
‘My son.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Did you go outside?’
‘I went for a smoke.’
‘Did you lock the door when you came back in?’
‘I don’t know. Christ. What, he’s left the house? Sleepwalking?’
She slipped into shorts and a vest, a long cardigan, and he felt guilty about his desire for her. Her movements had an urgency, but she didn’t panic.
‘What’re you going to do?’ he said.
‘Find him.’
‘Is it dangerous? Is he going to be okay?’
‘He’s eleven. He’s on his own, half-asleep, on the Downs, at three in the morning.’
‘You should call the police.’
He couldn’t really see her face, just the shape of her. ‘I did that last time. They found him on top of the cliffs by the Marina, with a sprained ankle, which is why we have a fucking social worker. If I call the police, the police will call social services who will find out that the salesman I was sleeping with left the door open.’
Frank said nothing. He was angry with himself. Silly mistakes. He always made these silly mistakes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was out of order. It’s my responsibility, not yours. This is what happens when I do things for myself.’
She left the bedroom, and smashed around in the hallway.
Frank got out of the bed, pulled on his trousers and shirt, and went to her. ‘I want to help.’
‘Come with me, then.’
‘I’ve got the car.’
‘A car’s no use.’
She passed him a heavy-duty torch, put on her running shoes, and glided through the kitchen to the backdoor. He stepped into his Chelsea boots, no socks, and followed her out into the garden, past the table, where orange rinds lay in the empty glasses. One of the chairs now stood by the dry-stone wall. Mrs Cortez cursed under her breath. She climbed over the wall easily, and Frank went next, hindered by the leather-soled boots and his tight hamstrings. He dropped down onto a slim path which led between two fields.
‘How are we going to find him? This place is huge,’ Frank said.
‘He has a couple of routes,’ Mrs Cortez said.
Their torch beams raked the dark. An odour leaked up from the hard ground, and it smelled like human breath. Mrs Cortez shouted a shortened version of the boy’s name as she walked through the fields.
‘What’s he called?’ Frank asked.
‘Estéban. Esti.’
Frank had never said the name Estéban out loud, and he didn’t know how.
‘At the bottom of this field,’ she said, ‘there’s a path which leads up to the satellite tower, and another which goes down towards Saltdean. I’ll make for Saltdean, you go up to the tower. If he’s not there, he sometimes heads for Lewes.’
‘What shall I do if I find him?’
‘What?’ she said, a sharpness to her voice.
‘I thought you weren’t supposed to wake a sleepwalker.’
‘If you find him, bring him home.’
They arrived at the junction of the paths. ‘Do you have your phone?’ she asked.
He took out his mobile and entered the passcode and she took it from him, dialled her own number. Her phone lit up in her cardigan pocket, and she killed the call. ‘Ring me,’ she said, ‘if you find him.’ She returned his phone, and he saw the tears in her eyes, her face clenched to stop them falling. Then she turned and ran through the tall white crops towards Saltdean, with its fast coast road and its clifftops.
*
Frank’s path took him uphill. After twenty minutes of walking, he felt hungry, hungover, spent, desperate. Without socks, the boots gave him blisters, but he kept trudging on. The red hazard light from the satellite tower glowed at the top of the rise. The sky lightened in grey bands – just a warning. He already missed Mrs Cortez, but his only hope of ever speaking to her again was to find her boy.
Rabbits scurried from the beam of his torch. He found a single workboot in the undergrowth, and a guitar plectrum: a thin, neon pink piece of plastic, almost heart-shaped. Mrs Cortez had said her son played guitar. Frank tucked the plectrum into the breast pocket of his shirt, and continued up the track.
He tried calling the name, quietly at first, unsure of where to place the stress. Then he raised his voice. ‘Estéban?’ It seemed impossible that the boy would respond, but Frank’s whole working life had required him to ask increasingly hopeless questions.
Estéban Cortez. It sounded like the name of a famous person.
A sign on the metal fence enclosing the satellite tower said: Danger of Death. There was nobody around, only a few blank-eyed sheep. The landscape on all sides was dark and featureless, but for those small, brittle trees, permanently crippled by the Downland winds. Even in the middle of a heatwave, bad weather left its impression.
Beyond the satellite tower, Frank saw the lights of Lewes in the distance. He could make out the brewery and the prison, and he knew he wasn’t going to find Estéban Cortez. For a moment, he considered walking away from the situation. But he’d parked his car back at the cul-de-sac, and left his iPad and samples in the house. Eventually, he’d have to return, alone. He would have to confront Mrs Cortez with his failure.
For now, he carried on, along a narrow trail cut into a high, steep hillside. The valley revealed itself gradually: bale towers and hunched, shadowy farm machines, tiny in the stubble fields below. The view made him queasy with vertigo, and he kept one hand on the chalk face while he followed the curve.
As he stepped between patches of dry gorse, his torch beam fell on the figure of a boy, pissing off the edge of the path, his stream glimmering as it arced into the valley.
‘Estéban?’ he called.
The boy squinted at Frank, and then casually finished his piss, shook off the drops and tucked himself into his pyjamas.
‘Are you Estéban Cortez?’
‘You have to take the plug out? Otherwise it doesn’t work?’ the boy said.
‘What?’
The boy’s eyes were wide open, though he remained in his sleepwalk trance. In the torchlight, Frank saw a handsome eleven-year-old, with a helmet of thick black hair, and skin darkened by the long summer. His teeth were big for his face, which gave him the look of a little animal.
‘Look, mate. You’ve got to come home. To your mum’s,’ Frank said. ‘You’re sleepwalking.’
Estéban sighed. ‘You have to unplug.’
Frank had half-expected him to have an accent. Spanish, or whatever. But he didn’t. He didn’t use his mum’s northern vowels, either. He spoke like a southerner, like Frank. He wore soft, light blue jersey pyjamas. The elasticated cuffs of the trousers stopped midway down his calf. He was barefoot. When Frank put a hand on Estéban’s shoulder, the kid brushed it off, flinching.
‘It’s all right, buddy,’ Frank said. ‘Your mum sent me. But you need to snap out of it.’
Estéban rubbed his face with one hand, leaving a streak of white chalk dust across his cheeks and brow. Looking out on the violet darkness of the Downs, his breath came heavily. He was confused, now, afraid. Frank reached out again, but this time, Estéban pushed him, and ran in the opposite direction.
‘Wait!’ Frank said. He lumbered after the boy on the winding hillside path, but Estéban was as nimble as a deer, and soon out of sight. Frank pumped his arms, and when he came around the bend, he saw him, and called out again. ‘Just wait!’ Estéban glanced over his shoulder, and then lost his footing in the loose chalk and slipped from the path. Frank heard his sharp cry as he went over the edge and disappeared.
‘Oh, shit,’ Frank whispered, slowing to a walk.
He reached the skidmark in the chalk, where Estéban had gone over. Frank looked down into the valley, holding the torch above his head, afraid of what he might see. The grassy slope was steep, but not sheer. The boy was balled up, halfway down, clasping one knee to his chest.
‘You okay?’ Frank called.
Estéban stood unsteadily, leaning into the gradient. He limped up the hill for a few steps, but then slipped again.
‘Wait there,’ Frank said. He placed the torch on the ground, sat on the edge of the path, and began to shuffle downhill, using dried out hoof-prints as footholds.
‘Stay away from me,’ Estéban said.
Frank stopped. ‘I’m trying to help.’
‘I don’t even know who you are.’
‘I’m Frank. I know your mum.’
‘How come I’ve never seen you, then?’
‘We just met. Look, I came to sell her a conservatory, and we got on. Anyway. It’s my fault you escaped. I went in the garden for a smoke, and I forgot to lock the door.’
Estéban looked up at him for a moment. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ he said.
The question on every customer’s mind. It took a child to ask it out loud. ‘Well,’ said Frank, casting his arm out over the valley. ‘Feel free to choose from one of the many other people rushing out here to help you in the middle of the night.’
‘Prove you know her,’ Estéban said. ‘What’s her name?’
Frank opened his mouth, then closed it. ‘Mrs Cortez,’ he mumbled.
Estéban gave him a quizzical look, as if Frank was a complete moron. For a barefoot boy in pyjamas, clinging to a hillside, he had some attitude. But he was right. Frank didn’t know her first name.
‘I’ll call her,’ Frank said. ‘She’ll tell you about me.’ He reached into his pocket, but his phone had gone, fallen into the scrub somewhere. ‘Idiot!’ Frank roared. ‘Every time! Stupid fucking mistakes.’
Estéban lowered his head.
‘Sorry,’ Frank said. ‘I lost my phone. But listen – the tattoo! Puddles. Your mum got the nickname when she jumped in the massive sinkhole.’
‘That old stupid story,’ Estéban said.
Frank slid down a few more metres. ‘It’s a good story,’ he said.
‘You’ve probably only heard it once,’ Estéban said. He began to crawl up towards Frank. ‘After the millionth time, it starts to sound pretty lame.’
‘It’s funny,’ Frank said. ‘Your mum is funny, and kind, and she’s worried sick.’
Estéban looked away. The kid would have done anything to be with his mum, right then. Frank understood that sense of equality and care between the mother and child which sometimes followed a divorce. Like his Jodie, and Eleanor.
‘Why don’t we get you home?’ he said.
‘I don’t know the way. I don’t know where I am.’
‘We can think about that when we get to the top.’
Frank extended his hand, like in a film, but Estéban climbed beyond him.
*
Back on the path, Frank led the way. Every few minutes, the boy grunted with pain.
‘You all right?’ Frank said.
‘Stones are sharp.’
‘You should sleep in your hiking boots.’
‘No need, when the door’s locked.’
‘Fair point.’ Frank took off his boots, revealing torn skin on his heels, smears of blood. ‘Here,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘They’re giving me blisters, anyway.’
He left the boots on the ground, and Estéban stepped into them. They were a couple of sizes too big. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘They look good with your jim-jams,’ Frank said.
The kid made a sarcastic face.
They continued along the path, flint pricking Frank’s feet. A buzzard peeled out of the field below, and soared up over the valley. ‘Woah,’ Estéban said.
Up ahead, a white light blinked in the long grass by the side of the path. As they came closer, Frank realised it was his phone, and someone was calling. He’d put it on silent, but it rumbled and shone. He picked the phone up and answered, as if he always left it there. ‘Frank McCann,’ he said.
‘It’s me,’ said Mrs Cortez.
‘I’ve got him,’ Frank said. ‘I found him.’
‘Oh, thank God. Is he okay? Is he hurt?’
‘Yeah, no, he’s fine. Totally fine. We’re walking back. I gave him my boots. Anyway.’
She moved the phone away from her ear, and he heard her sob. She pulled herself together. ‘Frank, can I speak to him?’
He held out the phone, and Estéban took it, then wandered off, mumbling so that Frank couldn’t hear.
He’d found the boy. That had to count for something. And Mrs Cortez had called him by his name – a good sign. No, he thought. Give it up. Dawn broke over the hill, and the scalped fields seemed to smoulder. Soon, the dog-walkers would emerge. He had a ten o’clock lead: a retired couple in Portslade who wanted an orangery.
Estéban returned the mobile. ‘She wants to talk to you,’ he said.
‘Yep,’ Frank said into the phone.
‘I’m about twenty minutes away,’ she said. She was running.
‘I can’t tell how far we are, but I know the way back,’ Frank said.
‘I’ll meet you at the house.’
Frank wanted to say something more, to ask for her first name, but she hung up.
*
Estéban strode ahead, now, eager to get home.
‘School today, is it?’ Frank asked, as they passed the satellite tower and began their descent.
‘Holidays.’
‘Of course. Must be upsetting, all this. The sleepwalking.’
‘Sleepwalking’s fine,’ Estéban said. ‘Waking up is the hard part.’
‘Hey, is this yours?’ Frank said, taking the pink plectrum from his top pocket.
Estéban shook his head.
‘I found it on the path. Your mum said you played guitar. Do you want it?’
‘I don’t use a pick,’ Estéban said. He held up his right hand. The nails were long, smooth and shaped. They had dirt beneath them, but Frank could tell they’d been well cared for. He’d never seen such a thing on a boy that age. Frank rubbed the plectrum between his finger and thumb.
‘You play?’ Estéban asked.
‘Nope.’
‘Never too late to learn.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Frank said.
The house came into view, and soon Mrs Cortez appeared, cutting across the field towards them. ‘Esti!’ she called.
Estéban hobbled to meet her, in the outsized shoes. Frank crouched by a dried-out dew pond, exhausted, and felt the soles of his feet tingling on the cool ground. He watched Mrs Cortez embrace her son, and he waved, but she had her eyes closed tight, so he looked over at their bungalow, which would never have a conservatory. This, he thought, was an entire marriage compressed into one night. They’d already moved on to the everyday arrangements – the tender post-split negotiations, the co-parenting, the handover of the child. The hollow sadness of wanting her, but knowing there was no chance. The kid was right: waking up was the hard part.
He studied the dew pond – a bowl of cracked, parched earth. Frank imagined Mrs Cortez as a teenager, unwittingly jumping into that sinkhole in the retail park. The Meteor Centre. He pictured himself plunging into the filthy water, his mouth and ears filled with the stuff. Silence, darkness, a blank place away from pain and shame, and other people. Like wading into the sea, or sleepwalking. A glimpse of oblivion. But there would always be the moment afterwards, when the dirty water settled in the sinkhole, and you stood up straight, gasping, in it up to your neck, and you had to wipe your eyes, put your elbows on the tarmac, and hoist yourself out again.
EDWARD HOGAN is from Derby, and now lives in Brighton. He works for the Open University. His novels include The Electric, Blackmoor, and The Hunger Trace. His recent short stories have been longlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and shortlisted for the V.S. Pritchett Prize, and the Manchester Fiction Prize.