Gone, My Boy
A few months ago, when it was still summer, the shoes started appearing.
The first time, I was leaving my block at night, on the way to my cleaning shift. I work nights. As I closed the door behind me, I saw them. My legs almost crumbled. A high, full moon was shining down on a pair of trainers, sitting side-by-side on the scrubby green in the middle of the estate – just like Mikey’s, twenty years ago. The shoes were smallish, belonging to a boy about to become a man. I thought, We all see lost shoes, now and again, but I was just acting in my head, if you see what I mean. The sight of them made my arms go cold and bumpy, even though it was a warm night.
The shoes had gone by the time I trudged back from work at sunrise. Picked up by some other kid, I suppose.
A month later, once I had put it out of my mind, another pair appeared in the same spot – black ballet slippers, the kind a girl might wear to school, neatly laid out. I turned my head away and pretended not to see, but found it hard, suddenly, to breathe.
A few weeks after that, a small pair of white plimsolls.
I thought I should mention it to someone – that’s what a normal person would do. I tried the newsagent down the road, but he just gave me a look, like I’m a madwoman. Then I tried my downstairs neighbour, Nadia, when I ran into her on the stairs. She was with her boy, Aziz, and they were both carrying bags of shopping. Such a helpful lad. Mikey never helped me like that – not without a fight. Feeling breathless, I tried to sum up the situation, as Nadia nodded politely.
“So you’re sure your son hasn’t lost any shoes?” I said.
“Well, Aziz, have you?” said Nadia, looking at the boy. He was a quiet sort, small for his age. He shook his head.
“I guess not, then,” I said. “Thanks, though.”
“No worries,” she said, turning to unlock her door.
By the time a fourth pair appeared – a pair of leather lace-ups – it was late autumn. The sun came up late and went down early. In the mirror, my face was grey, depleted. Ancient, really. The shoes played on my mind. I dreamed of Mikey.
Mikey, my son, disappeared at night, so that’s when I feel close to him. That’s when I last heard him – unlatching the door and letting himself out. He was a night owl, had trouble sleeping; hung out with a bad lot. Before he left, I’d often lie awake at night, listening to him and his friends hanging around, laughing and boasting, in the centre of the estate. I didn’t hear them that night. All we found were his trainers, left on the patch of grass. There was a police investigation, which came to nothing. It didn’t make the news. Wherever he went, he went barefoot. He was thirteen years old.
Time passed. People moved out of the estate, and well-to-do young people moved in – don’t know why they’d want to live here. I quit my office job and started working nights, kept out of everyone’s way. I wasn’t always a cleaner, you know; I did all right.
As a kid, I was afraid of the night. Long after my parents were asleep, I would be awake, my little heart beating hard against my chest. I could feel a presence, something hovering at the edges of the room. These days, I like working when everyone else is asleep. I catch the bus to Canary Wharf when the sky is coal-black, say hello to the night porter at the office and get the lift to the forty-third floor. I don’t know what they do on the forty-third floor – something that makes money. There’s often some eager sod at his desk at 2am, yawning and downing coffee, but usually it’s just me and the other cleaners. In summer, I finish work when the sun rises, glimmering through the tall glass windows. In winter, it’s still dark when I get home from work.
One time, I tried to tell the girls at work about the shoes, during one of our occasional after-work teatimes. It was dark outside, but the lights of Canary Wharf shone through the sealed windows like stars. We were sitting on plastic chairs, rubbing our feet and eating stale biscuits pinched from someone’s desk. I told them the story, almost all of it.
“You’ve been finding shoes on your estate, love?” said one.
“Well, that’s nothing to worry about, is it?” said another.
“Just kids, playing around, stealing each other’s shoes and chucking them away when they’re not the right size.”
“Maybe it’s spontaneous combustion. Did you read it in the paper the other day? Some bloke just caught fire, like that, poof!”
“I wish the kids on my estate would spontaneously combust. You’re lucky, you are.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It just gives me the willies,” and they went back to talking about kids, husbands and money. I went to the kitchen, washed out my mug and left the building without any of them noticing. They don’t know about Mikey – hardly anyone does. Everyone who knows has either died or left the estate by now. No one wants to stay for long. There was a time when I thought we might leave too.
I got on the 277 back home, nodding a quick hello at the driver, who often tries to chat. But not on that particular night – he forced a smile but looked exhausted, empty. There aren’t many people on the bus at that time, going in that direction – away from Canary Wharf, where people work, to Hackney, where people live.
Along the way, a few kids got on, moon-eyed and excited, talking a lot of rubbish. They were older than Mikey was, in their late teens, but were dressed like he used to dress: checked shirts, longish hair, heavy boots and jeans. One of the boys said to me, “All right, love?” as they clambered on, but I looked away, out to the darkness.
The kids got off at the same stop as me, Dalston Junction, and they ran up the street laughing and holding onto each other, heading up Kingsland Road. Rich kids, you can tell by the way they move and the way they talk, even when they try not to show it. Just one of them stayed behind – a slim girl with long blond hair, who started making her way up Boleyn Road, up to the estates, like me. She wasn’t dressed for the cold, in her denim shorts and tights, and she hugged herself as she walked up the road, looking back and visibly relaxing when she saw an old woman, me, walking behind her. She turned right and I went on a bit further. The moon was just a sliver of light, and moths flickered around the dim streetlights. It was so dark that I could barely see my own feet.
I turned left onto my block and my vision went white. There was a light – a bright, white light – shining in the estate; so bright and so white that I had to shut my eyes and cover them with my hands, dropping my bag onto the ground. But I forced them open, just a bit. The light rubbed out all the buildings, all the detail. My eyes focused and I saw him: Aziz. In the middle of the block, on the patch of grass. His figure was hazy, shrouded by the whiteness. He stood with his eyes closed, as if meditating.
“Aziz!” I wanted to shout, but no sound came out of my open mouth. My legs wouldn’t move either; I was rooted to the spot, with my hands shielding my eyes.
It was like a dream. You’ll never believe me. But this is what happened: Aziz’s body began to rise, slowly, up towards the sky. I could feel my heartbeat in every cell of my body. Aziz went all floppy and his feet slipped out of his shoes. He hung in the air, five metres above the ground, right in the centre of the estate. All the lights of the flats were off, each window covered in blackness; it was Aziz, floating in the centre, who was emanating the light – he was the source. My legs finally crumpled and I fell in a heap on the pavement, hitting my head and passing out.
When I came to, the sky was pale and birds were singing – such a lovely sound that it took me a while to work out where I was. The light had gone and so had Aziz, gone to wherever Mikey had gone, to the moon or Jupiter or heaven or just turned to dust. His shoes – some house slippers – were left on the grass. I sat up and then stood, rubbing my head where I’d hit it on the pavement.
My energy came back. I ran to the entrance of my block, made my way inside, hurried up the stairs to Nadia’s flat and knocked on the door.
The door opened and there was Nadia, wearing a pink tunic and jeans, her dark hair pulled back into a plait. Her smile was reluctant, wavering.
“Oh, hello there,” she said.
It took some seconds to find my voice.
“Your boy Aziz, he’s gone,” I said.
She stopped smiling.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s gone,” I said. “His shoes, just his shoes remain. Just like Mikey.”
“Who’s Mikey?” she said.
“My son.”
She wrinkled her brow.
“Aziz is sleeping in his bedroom,” she said. “He’s getting up for school soon. I think you’d better leave.”
I pushed past her, into the flat. It had the same layout as mine: two bedrooms, kitchen, living room; everything small and shrunken, but brighter, somehow, than mine – there were pictures of the family on the walls, and a spicy cooking smell. Nadia stood with her back to the wall, by the door, her eyes wide with surprise.
“I think you should leave at once,” she said, her voice quivering. “Or I will call the police.”
“Where’s his room?” I said. “Where’s Aziz?”
Nadia ran ahead of me and jumped in front of a bedroom door.
“Leave!” she said, just as the handle turned and out popped Aziz’s sleepy head. He looked at me, confused.
“I saw you,” I said. “I saw you last night. Where did you go?”
“What?” he said.
“How did you get back?” I said. “I need to know.”
“What’s she talking about, mum?”
“Aziz, go back into your room,” said Nadia.
“Weirdo,” said Aziz, doing as he was told and closing the door behind him.
“Now you must go,” said Nadia. “If you go now, I won’t call the police.”
Her arms were spread across the door, protecting her boy like I should’ve protected mine.
“I’m sorry, Nadia,” I said, covering my face with my hands.
Shame was rising in my body, from my feet to my flushed face. I left the flat and she slammed the door behind me. I picked up my bag from the floor and stood there awhile, listening to Nadia shouting at Aziz, asking him where he’d been the night before. He was saying, “I was here, mum, I was here.”
I walked back upstairs to my flat, to its white walls and colourless carpet. Usually by that time, I would have pulled down the blackout blind, made a cup of hot milk and gone to bed, but not that day. I took a cigarette out of my bag and went out to the balcony, which overlooks the centre of the estate, that patch of grass. Aziz’s shoes weren’t there any more; maybe they were never there at all. He’s gone, my boy, I thought. Gone for ever. I shielded my fag against the morning breeze, lit it with a match and watched the trickle of people walking out of their blocks, blinking at the white autumn light, on their way to work. It was 8am. The last time I’d seen that time of day with my own eyes, I don’t remember.
Luiza Sauma is a Brazilian-born, British-bred writer and journalist. “Gone, My Boy” is her first published short story. Her journalism has appeared in The Independent on Sunday, The Independent and The Guardian. For more info, go to luizasauma.com.
