an
excerpt from...
Snatched
by William Stewart
SYNOPSIS
Margaret Allen, an artist, and Donald Lyle, an environmentalist at Stirling University meet in 1980 and marry in 1981. Margaret delays starting a family until she is assured of success. When she is seven months pregnant, her father dies. Jamie is born in October 1992, and dies of a cot death in December 1992. Margaret shows signs of mental instability, something which has been simmering away since their marriage. She believes that Jamie was kidnapped; counselling does not shift this delusion.
Visiting her mother for the first anniversary of her father’s death, Margaret abducts baby Matthew from a store in Southampton.
Although the remainder of the story is about the snatch, and the trauma of the parents and grandparents, and how they cope during that week, it concentrates more on what is happening within and to the abductor and her husband and those involved in her life.
Donald is caught in a cleft stick. On the one hand he wants to protect the baby, yet on the other, he is snared by his adoration for Margaret, and his desire to protect her. He is bewildered, terrified, and distraught, for one minute Margaret is rational, the next, caught up in her delusion that Matthew is Jamie. Donald even begins to doubt his own sanity.
Margaret tells people Jamie has been adopted, but with Donald she builds on the delusion that she found him and took him back from the woman who abducted him. Donald, acting on the advice of the psychiatrist of eight months before, decides to play along with Margaret and hope she will come to her senses.
The snatch acts as a trigger to Margaret’s delusion, and over the week her sanity crumbles. Like a cancer, the delusion invades Margaret’s total personality, and she turns against Donald, in a violent scene. She goes berserk – screaming, swearing, smashing everything within sight. The baby’s life is in danger.
The story ends in joy and tragedy.
EXCERPT (Chapter 5)
Mike rolls over in bed, puts his arm around Lesley and kisses her. ‘Happy birthday, darling.’ As she starts to get up, Mike says, ‘No, you stay there. I’ll get breakfast and see to Matthew. OK? This is your day.’
‘You darling. But you’re on holiday, and...’
Mike puts a finger across her lips. ‘Not another word.’ Slipping on his dressing gown he pads across from the bedroom to the kitchen, looking in on ten-month-old Matthew, who is playing contentedly with his teddy. ‘Hi-yah, big boy. You okay?’ Mike makes Matthew gurgle as he kisses his bare tummy. ‘See you in a minute, son.’ Mike goes into the kitchen, smiling with satisfaction and anticipation.
While Mike prepares breakfast he thinks of how thrilled he was when Lesley became pregnant. Then a cloud passes over his happiness when he remembers the anxiety and pain of the miscarriage. Then the joy of another pregnancy that was overshadowed by how dodgy the pregnancy was. But what a joy Matthew is now, just trying to stand, and how much pleasure this little lad has brought to them all.
Lesley switches on Radio Two and listens to the chat programme, and thinks, This is good. She stretches out, luxuriating in being spoiled. Soon the clink of china and the smell of cooking bacon makes her mouth water.
She sighs with contentment, allowing her mind to wander over the past two years since they married, and the years before that. She thinks of the time soon after Mike came back to Bishopstoke.
At a dance, while he had gone to get drinks, a chap had come up and was pestering her. Mike tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘You heard her. Buzz off!’ The guy turned round already to be the big man, but when he saw Mike his face dropped and he slunk away. Touching six feet, and even when clothed, Mike looks like Man Mountain, with his shirt stretched tight across his chest and his sleeves almost acting like tourniquets on his upper arms. His short-cut hair emphasised his muscular neck. That’s my man, Lesley nods her head. Yet Mike never throws his weight around, and he is as gentle as a lamb.
She smiles at the photo on the bedside table, of the three of them when Matthew was one month old. Mike had been wonderful at the birth, but scared to hold Matthew straight away, and when he did he looked so big beside the tiny baby, everybody had laughed. She thinks of the past ten months and the tremendous joy their little boy has brought to them, and to his grandparents.
‘Here you are, birthday girl!’ Mike jokes as he comes in with a tray; a full cooked breakfast, steaming hot tea. He was out and in again, holding Matthew. ‘Say happy birthday, mummy.’ Matthew gurgles as Mike holds him out to be kissed, before taking him away to attend to him.
Lesley takes pleasure in her breakfast, thinking how lucky she is. The letterbox clangs, then Mike is there with her cards and presents: a fabulous under water scene paperweight from her mother; twenty pounds from her father, and dozens of cards. A teddy bear card which reads ‘With lots of love, from Matthew,’ and lastly a large envelope.
‘I think I recognise this writing,’ Lesley chuckles, opening the envelope and a beautiful card of a thatched cottage in the New Forest, with a smaller envelope inside. ‘Fifty pounds! You darling!’ She pulls Mike down for a long kiss. ‘I think I’ll go into town today, Mike. I know how much you like shopping! So I won’t ask you to come. Anyway you and Bobby are off fishing. Right?’ Mike nods as he picks up the tray and Lesley rises.
Mike smiles as he thinks of the surprise party he, with his parents-in-law, has arranged for that evening.
In the past year Mike has added a sidecar to the bike. ‘One of these days we’ll get a car, but not yet. I won’t get into debt over a car. We’ll save.’
‘Suits me fine. I’m happy as we are. I don’t want for anything else. You and Matthew, the two best men in my life.’
Mike waves Lesley off to catch the bus, pushing Matthew in the buggy, before he roars off on his bike to meet Bobby and their fishing trip.
* * *
Margaret picks up the silver photo frame from the bedside table and whispers to the curly, fair-haired baby, ‘You’ll soon be back with us, Jamie, darling. After all this time...’
‘What did you say, dear?’ Marjory Allen asks, from the half-open door.
‘Just thinking aloud,’ Margaret, turning her body between the case and her mother, slips the photo between her dresses, then snap the locks shut, and gathers up her other bags.
‘Sure you’ve got everything, dear?’
‘Yes, mother. I’ve got everything.’ Margaret’s impatience starts to show.
‘I was only asking. You sound so cross this morning. Anything worrying you?’
To herself Margaret says, Keep calm. Don’t let her see there’s anything amiss. She feels excitement start to build up as she thinks of the task that lies ahead. Today is the day. I just know it. Aloud she says. ‘No mother. Nothing worrying me. Everything will be just perfect.’
Marjory shuffles painfully to the gate behind Margaret. ‘It’s been lovely having you, Margaret, especially just now...’ She dabs her eyes. ‘Will you be all right?’
Margaret stops packing her cases into the boot of her dark-blue Escort, hired the previous week, straightens up and interrupts. ‘Yes, mother, I’ve...’ she hesitates over the next word but decides to use it anyway, ‘enjoyed being here...’
Mrs Allen carries on as if she hasn’t heard. ‘I don’t know how I’d have managed, the first anniversary, and all that, specially as you couldn’t get to the funeral.’
Margaret sighs at the implied rebuke, and tries not to sound impatient, for if her mother had said it once... but frustration sharpens her tone. ‘I know, mother, you were shattered at Daddy’s death, and he was only young, and you weren’t prepared, and I couldn’t come because I was seven months pregnant and had blood pressure, and Donald had to come instead. Yes, mother, I know all that, and I’m sorry you feel I let you down, and yes, I know, Stirling is four-hundred miles away, and I know you can’t travel all that way on your own, and I know you feel sorry for Donald and me and yes, I will be all right.’ She stops, feeling she had said far too much.
Marjory, still living on her own, with help, in spite of failing eyesight, sniffs back her tears. Margaret can be so cutting, at times, where does she get it from? Life’s become so tedious since John died last year.
‘I just wish, dear, that you didn’t live so far away. Scotland is like another country...’
‘It is another country, mother.’ Margaret tries to laugh it off, but her irritation shows. ‘I’d better go, I’ve a lot to do.’ She bends and kisses her mother on the cheek. Then with a perfunctory wave, drives off.
Mrs Allen limps slowly indoors, muttering, ‘She’s changed, that one. Never seen her so edgy. She painfully eases herself into her rocking chair. Come on, Ginger!’ Ginger curls up on her lap. Leaning over, she switches on the radio at her elbow, picks up a novel, and muses as she and Ginger gently rock.
Margaret fills the fifteen minutes journey from Chandlers Ford to Southampton reflecting on what her mother had not said. Margaret’s face is grim as she thinks of the strained relationship with her late father, her excuse for being here. When she’d met Donald, she said, ‘I’ve found a scientist with feelings, and that’s just unbelievable. I thought you were all like my lawyer Daddy. I don’t think he’s got any.’
She recalls the frequent and impassioned rows with her father over her aim to be an artist. Now, Margaret thinks, with a self-satisfied smile, with the Paris exhibition successfully behind me, I’m well established in the international scene.
The glossy, coloured brochures for the Paris exhibition was costly to produce, but, she smiles in pleasure, it was really worth every penny. She thinks, with pain, of that week, the hours of searching the streets of Paris and not finding Jamie. She remembers, with a sigh, by contrast, the atmosphere, the glitter, and the excitement of being part of the huge exhibition. She comforts herself with the undeniable fact that the tasteful brochures, in a few pages, told her story to perfection.
It’s a pity I couldn’t get down for the funeral, she broods, but how could I? The specialist advised against it. I’m glad she took that decision out of my hands. Donald was a good ambassador at the funeral, though. The thought of her father’s funeral starts a train of thought to another grave – a tiny plot under a.tree in the Stirling churchyard. She dismisses that image.
Margaret is good at stamping on her feelings; that’s what she did then, and what she does now, driving down the Avenue towards Southampton. None of that! she tells herself, sternly, shaking away the tears that start to prick her eyes. Keep your mind on the job. Keep the speed down, mustn’t be nabbed; not now.
* * *
Southampton is already starting to fill up. Margaret finds an empty space in East Street, just by the entrance to the Bargate Shopping Centre. Don’t get boxed in, she tells herself, making sure that hers is the last car in the line. From the boot she takes out a child’s car seat and straps it in the nearside back seat. Taking out a brown leather overnight bag, she closes the boot, and centre-locks the doors. As she drops some coins into the parking meter, she checks her gold wristwatch. Made good time, Maggie, only just nine. An hour should do it. She goes down the escalator and into the toilets.
In the cubicle she exchanges her pretty, flowered, cotton dress for a cream silk blouse, and a royal blue, well-cut suit, to which she fastens a fob watch. She pins up her hair and covers it with a straight black wig, formed into a French roll. Burgundy-coloured, high-heeled shoes, emphasising her height, replace her flat driving shoes.
Excitement makes her breathe more quickly. Steady now! Propping up a small mirror on the cistern, she carefully darkens her eyebrows. Dark-rimmed glasses complete the transformation. ‘I need them for a play,’ she told the assistant in the opticians, when she requested ‘Just plain lenses, please.’ Gathering up the bits and pieces, then finally taking off her engagement and wedding rings, and her wrist watch, putting them carefully into her black leather shoulder bag, she opens the door, smiles with approval at the stranger in the mirror. Opening her handbag again, she dabs a drop of perfume behind her ears, and on her wrists, takes one last check in the mirror, picks up her bag and leaves. Ten minutes. Not bad timing.
She quickly deposits the brown bag in the boot, locks up the car again, then passes briskly through the Shopping Centre to Above Bar. There, with clipboard in one hand, and pen in the other, her handbag slung over one shoulder, she takes up position outside John Dunne’s store. Excitement quickens her pulse again. From time to time she looks around, up, down and across the precinct, and makes notes, and occasionally glances at her watch. She talks to herself. It has to be today, it just has. I know it. Today is the fourteenth.
* * *
As the bus draws into the stop, Lesley gently prods sleeping Matthew awake and prepares to get off.
‘Here, let me help you, love,’ an elderly man offers. ‘Let me hold your little boy. I can’t manage these new-fangled things.’
Lesley laughs and passes Matthew over. ‘Thank you very much. I’m used to it,’ she deftly arranges the buggy, and straps Matthew in.
‘My! You’re a lovely boy,’ the man says with a smile, tickling Matthew under the chin, which evokes a sleepy chuckle from Matthew.
Taking hold of Matthew’s hand Lesley helps him to, ‘Wave at the nice man, Matthew.’
The old man cheerily returns the wave, and walks away, smiling, thinking: What a nice girl! Doesn’t look old enough. Ah, well, must be my age. Lesley looks at Matthew and smiles. The weather’s been so hot recently, no wonder he’s already nodding. She pats her pocket, smiles again as she thinks of how many extra hours Mike must have worked to save that fifty pounds. And the twenty from her dad means that she can buy something really special. She thinks that Mike has probably arranged a birthday tea, and that mum and dad, and Bobby would be there. But I’m not supposed to guess that! She breathes deeply and feels her pulse race with the sheer joy of the day.
Copyright © 2000 William Stewart