‘Claire?’ Liz says from behind me. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’ll be fine. I just need some water.’
As I twist the cold tap something in the bin by the basin catches my eye.
‘No!’ Liz shouts as I reach for the newspaper. ‘Claire, don’t! Don’t read that.’
I turn my back on her and angle myself into the corner of the room as I unfold the newspaper. Billy’s name is on the front cover.
BRAWL OVER MISSING BILLY
There’s a photo beneath the blaring headline: me, wide-eyed and frantic with Mark at my shoulder. I’m reaching across the journalists for Jake who has his head against the wall, his hands balled into fists on either side of his face.
Pandemonium broke out at the six-month appeal for missing Knowle schoolboy Billy Wilkinson yesterday when his mother, Claire Wilkinson (40), was interrupted during her message to camera as Jake Wilkinson (19), the missing boy’s older brother, burst into the council offices. Wilkinson, who was visibly intoxicated, was heard to shout that he had a right to speak. His mother Claire and father Mark (42) abandoned their appeal to intervene and Mark Wilkinson was heard to exclaim, ‘Get him out of here! Get him out of here!’ Mrs Wilkinson looked visibly upset as the family was bundled out of the room.
Bristol Standard reporter Steve James spoke to a neighbour who watched the appeal on the television. ‘We’ve never had any run-ins with the Wilkinsons. They seem like a perfectly normal family but you have to wonder whether someone knows more about Billy’s disappearance than they’re letting on.’
‘Claire!’ Liz snatches the newspaper from my hands before I can read another word. ‘It’s all crap. They make stuff up to sell copies. No one believes that shit.’
She reaches an arm around my shoulders but I twist away from her, knocking her against the basin in my desperation to get out of the bathroom. It’s unbearably hot and I can’t breathe.
I take the steps down to the hallway two at a time and wrench open the front door. The second I step outside I run.
I stand at the end of the bed with my feet pressed together and my arms outstretched and I tip backwards. The bedspread makes a delicious floop sound as I hit it and the bed springs squeak in protest. I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.
‘No!’
I look to the right, in the direction of the voice, but there’s no one beside me on the bed. I’m alone in the room. There must be someone in the corridor. A woman arguing with her husband perhaps, although I can’t hear the low rumble of a male voice.
‘No!’
The voice again, quieter this time but closer, as though someone has spoken the word directly into my ear. I sit up in bed and pull my knees in to my chest.
‘NO!’
I clamp my hands to my ears but there’s no blocking out the woman’s voice as she shouts the word, machine-gun fast – NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.
It’s inside my head. The voice is coming from inside my head.
‘CLAIRE!’ it shouts. ‘I AM CLAIRE. I AM CLAIRE.’
Claire? Who is Claire? I recognize the name but I don’t want to. I don’t want to know who Claire is. I just want to get back to the seafront. Back to the sunshine and wind and the café on the edge of the pier.
‘I AM CLAIRE! I AM CLAIRE!’
The voice fills my brain, screaming and buzzing, and my head is vibrating and the light, happy feeling inside me is fading.
Dark. Light. Dark. Light.
My thoughts are dark and foggy, then brighter, clearer and then, just for a second – a split second – I know who Claire is, then the darkness returns and with it a confusion so disorientating my hands instinctively clench as I try to anchor myself to something, anything solid. There is something smooth and slippery soft under my fingers. Bed linen. I am sitting on a bed. But this is not my bed, this is not my room. There is a framed art print on the wall to my right: a faded Lowry, stick people milling around a town. There is a lone boy in the centre of the scene. He has his back to me. He’s looking at the crowd of people spilling out of one of the buildings. Who is he looking for? Who has he lost?
A shrill sound makes me jump. A small black mobile phone jiggles back and forth on the orangey pine bedside table to my right. A name flashes onto the screen. A name I don’t recognize. But the noise hurts my head and I need it to stop.
I reach for the phone and press it to my ear.
‘Mum?’ says the voice on the other end of the line.
I want to reply but I can’t talk. I can’t think. I can’t … it’s as though my mind has shattered. I can’t focus … I can’t form coherent … what’s happening to me?
‘Mum?’
‘Claire.’ I say the word out loud. It sounds strange. Like a noise, a sound, an outward breath. ‘Cl-airrrrr.’
‘Mum? Why are you saying your name?’
My name?
‘Cl-airrrrrr.’
‘Mum, you’re freaking me out. Stop doing that.‘
‘Claire.’ The word crystallizes inside my mouth. It tastes familiar. As though I’ve known it for a long time. Like buttered toast. Like toothpaste. ‘Claire. Claire Wilkinson.’
‘Oh Jesus Christ. Dad, I think she’s having a stroke or something.’
My head … my head … my brain hurts … no, aches … but not a headache … foggy … and then a thought, breaking through the darkness and I grip hold of it as though it is a rock to tether my sanity to.
‘Is my name Claire Wilkinson?’
‘Yes, yes, it is. Jesus, Mum. We’ve been trying to ring you for hours. Where are you?’
Mum. I am a mum? The man on the phone sounds scared. Is he scared for me? Or of me? I don’t know. Nothing makes any sense.
‘Where are you?’ says the voice on the phone.
‘I’m … I’m …’ There are gingham curtains at the far end of the room and a full-length mirror, smeared with fingerprints. Beneath me is a bedspread. Pink, satiny, puffy. I dig my nails into it and cling to it, rigid with fear. ‘I don’t know. I don’t recognize this room.’
‘It’s okay, Mum,’ the man on the phone says. ‘Just … sorry, hang on a second …’ There’s a muffled sound like a hand being placed over the receiver but I can still make out the low rumble of his voice.
‘Mum?’ His voice is clear again. ‘Is there a door or a window you could open? Tell me what you can see.’
I don’t want to move from the bed. I don’t want to open the pine door to my right or the closed gingham curtains at the far end of the room.
‘Please, Mum. As soon as we know where you are we can come and get you.’
We? Who is we? Who is coming to get me? I’m in danger. I need to run but I can’t move.
‘Dad’s here, Mum. Do you want to speak to him?’
‘No,’ I say and I don’t know why.
‘Are