Apple of My Eye by Patrick Redmond Read Free Book Online Page B

apologizing profusely for doing so, but he was always as good as gold. June’s neighbour, Penelope Walsh, had said that she would never employ a cleaner who had an illegitimate child, but June refused to condemn someone for what was nothing more than simple human frailty.
    She gave Ronnie his squash and offered him the biscuit plate, urging him to take two. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Sanderson,’ he said. His manners were beautiful. A real credit to his mother. On the pad was a drawing of ships at sea. For a boy of not quite eight it was remarkably good.
    ‘That’s wonderful, Ronnie,’ she told him.
    ‘It’s for you.’
    ‘What a lovely present. Isn’t it good, Albert?’
    Albert nodded. ‘You’ve got a talented boy there,’ he told Anna, whose face lit up with pleasure, making her look like a child herself.
    Ronnie sat beside his mother. She put her arm around him while Albert told them about the television set they were buying so they could watch the Queen’s coronation. Ronnie said that the parents of a boy in his class called Archie Clark had just bought one but had no idea how to work it.
    Anna smiled down at Ronnie, her eyes full of uncomplicated love. Once, during a rare exchange of confidences, she had told June that she had promised to buy Ronnie a big house of their own in the country. Perhaps she would, but it was hard to see how on her meagre wages.
    June wished she could do something to help. But there was nothing.
    Summer 1953.
    ‘…
always polite and attentive. Ronnie learns his lessons well
.’
    *
    October 7th 1953. The evening Thomas didn’t come home.
    At first no one was worried. As they sat down to supper Auntie Vera was more angry than anything. ‘What a waste of good food! He’ll feel the rough side of my tongue when he decides to show his face.’
    But by the end of the meal her mood had changed. Anger replaced by apprehension. Such behaviour was out of character for Thomas. ‘He’ll be with that no-good Johnny Scott. Peter, go round to their house and fetch him.’ Peter did as he was told and returned with the news that none of the Scotts had any idea of Thomas’s whereabouts.
    Time passed. Other friends were visited and all gave the same answer. Auntie Vera’s anxiety increased. Uncle Stan tried to calm her. ‘He’ll be all right. He’s not a baby.’ It didn’t work. ‘He’s only twelve! He shouldn’t be out this late. Not without telling us. God, where can he be?’
    Anna suggested calling the police. Auntie Vera began to panic. ‘You think something bad’s happened to him, don’t you? Don’t you!’ Ronnie’s mother denied it. Said that it was only a precaution. Ronnie sat with Peter, watching the scene, their respective bedtimes forgotten in the atmosphere of rising dread.
    The rest of the evening was a blur. The house filled with people. Mrs Brown and her husband. The Jacksons from next door. Neighbours from Baxter Road they had barely seen since moving. The air wasfull of anxious voices, Auntie Vera’s increasingly shrill. The clock above the fireplace ticked away, oblivious. Ten o’clock. Eleven. Midnight.
    The police arrived. Questions were asked. Notes taken. One of them advised Auntie Vera to get some rest. She screamed at him. Called him an idiot. ‘How can I sleep when my child’s missing?’ All the while she kept rubbing her left arm with her hand, not seeming to care that the sleeve of her blouse had slid up and the damaged skin was visible to all.
    At last the house emptied. The five occupants were left alone. Stan and Auntie Vera sat by the fire, holding hands, telling each other to be brave in voices that dripped with fear. Peter crouched at their feet while Ronnie sat on his mother’s knee. ‘You should be in bed,’ she whispered. He shook his head and she did not force the issue.
    Eventually he slept and dreamed that the police returned, saying that Thomas had been found safe and well before leading in a skeleton dressed in Thomas’s