Aidan paused in front of the house, feeling a twinge in his stomach, certain that he should go ahead but wary of what it might involve. He moved forward into the driveway, enough to see beyond the car through the lounge window to where a male figure sat on a sofa. It prompted another pause, then he realised he didn’t want to be seen hesitating and went to the door, reminding himself that the couple inside were his parents. He rang the bell, heard footsteps and muffled voices, and guessed they wanted to greet him together. Then they were in front of him, both smiling, the woman quick to lean in and press her cheek to his lips.
“Oh Paul! It’s so nice that you’re here at last.”
Paul. It was still strange to hear somebody use it as his name.
“Well, glad I’m here at last.”
The man placed a hand on his shoulder and ushered him inside. Eleanor and Robert. He reminded himself that it would be better not to use their Christian names, but he wasn’t ready to call them Mum and Dad. He handed Eleanor the bouquet of flowers, Robert the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
“You didn’t need to!”
“Well I’m your guest.”
“Your our son.”
He knew. He was still getting used to the fact.
They sat in the lounge – brown leather and dark wood furniture, a big TV, a handful of framed photographs and on the wall two prints of people in formal clothes dancing on a beach – and Robert offered him a beer or glass of wine. As usual he said he would prefer a soft drink then wine with the meal. Eleanor went to get a lemonade and he noticed the magazine rack beside the sofa. It included a copy of that newspaper, the one that often made him cringe. He tried to ignore it: maybe they were the type who read it for the entertainment features and sport and ignored all the politics. Robert asked if his journey had been easy – OK, everything ran on time – then whether he used public transport because he couldn’t drive, or afford to buy a car, or if he had “some issue” about car ownership. Aidan forced a smile.
“I haven’t had a need of one so far. There might be a time.”
Robert didn’t respond, his expression neutral. Eleanor returned with the lemonade, telling him she had bought it in Waitrose, and the small talk resumed. There were questions about his job, his flat – both eighty miles away – his time at university, but nothing yet about about Rosie. After a while Aidan asked a question.
“What about Suzanne? Couldn’t she make it today?”
He noticed the glance between them. Eleanor replied.
“We decided it might be better not to ask her along today. This is an emotional meeting for us, and she might complicate things.”
“How?”
“You’ll find out, in time.”
So he wasn’t going to meet his sister today. He didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved. Then Eleanor said it was time to serve lunch and Robert led him to the dining room.
There were three courses: a slice of smoked salmon with salad garnish; roast shoulder of lamb and vegetables; and a sherry trifle.
“We thought we’d give you something traditional,” Eleanor said. “We like foreign food, but this says something about us.”
Aidan didn’t ask what exactly it said, but he enjoyed the food, and for the first two courses found the conversation innocuous. They wanted to know what led to his choices at university, what prompted him to find a job as an environmental business analyst, and what were his prospects for earning a lot of money? Then they asked about his social life, if he liked any particular kind of music, whether he had a regular girlfriend.
“There was a girl in the second and third years at uni,” he replied. “But after graduating we went to different cities to work and drifted apart. It was pretty amicable.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years.”
“No-one else since?”
“A few brief things. None of them got beyond the third or fourth date. I guess I’m not ready yet.”
“You’ll be ready when the right on comes along.”
“What about you? How long have you been together?”
They took several minutes telling him about their courtship and thirty-three years married, with details about where they had lived, their various jobs and the childhood of his older sister. To him it sounded a little dull, but he thought to himself it was what many people wanted.
“It sounds like you’ve been very happy together,” he said.
“Well, yes, but there was a lot of pain involved, because of that woman.”
It was hard to ignore the anger in Eleanor’s voice. Robert touched her hand. Eleanor stifled a snarl. Aidan suddenly felt anxious. They were talking about the woman he had grown up believing was his mother.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s OK. We know you didn’t mean anything.”
Eleanor’s expression softened a little, but Aidan sensed it was something that wouldn’t fully subside. He was glad that Eleanor stood to get the dessert, and while she was in the kitchen he kept Robert talking about the view of the garden. As they ate the trifle he tried to keep the conversation innocuous by asking about where they liked to go on holiday.
“We’ve always liked the Med – Spain, Italy, Greece – but we’re wondering if it’s time for a change.”
“Other places to see?”
“There is that, but we got angry with what we had to put up with at Malaga this year. All that nonsense with the new EU entry rules at the airport.”
“Yes, I read that created problems in some places.”
“What really annoyed us is that it’s all done out of spite.”
“Sorry?”
“They just want to make things difficult for us, because we’ve shown we can get on without them.”
Aidan tried not to sigh. He had been too young to vote in the Brexit referendum, had grown up to wish it had gone a different way, and knew it was still a very touchy subject with a lot of people. He didn’t want an argument, but he didn’t want to pretend he agreed.
“I suppose there are several reasons for the new rules.”
“Yes, several ways they can make us suffer.”
He allowed them to rant for a couple of minutes, nodded his head a couple of times, then said he needed to use the bathroom. When he came back he was glad that they didn’t raise the subject again. Eleanor had brought a cafetiere with a tray of white cups and saucers, a small jug of milk and After Eight mints. He said he liked his coffee white and it was only on the first sip that he realised the jug actually contained cream. Rosie had told him that was how in the past some people had liked to drink coffee on special occasions, but now you didn’t see it much. Thinking of her made him want to change the subject.
“Have you lived here for a long time?” he asked.
“Eighteen years,” Robert said.
“We found it too painful to stay in the old house, the old neighbourhood,” Eleanor added.
“You must like it.”
“We have, although there are some changes that are making us uncomfortable.”
“What are they?”
“Some of the people moving in around here. I mean, right next door there’s one family, from Pakistan.”
“The husband and wife were both born here.”
“I know, and we’ve got on with them since they moved in. Don’t have much to do with them but we’ve got on.”
“But now another family has moved in, a few houses along the street. We feel less sure about them. We’ve heard them speak, and they sound English, but we’ve seen the man leaving the house in one of those round caps that the Muslims wear.”
“Like he’s going to a mosque?”
“Exactly.”
“Isn’t that what a lot of Muslims do?”
“I don’t think the couple next door ever go – well maybe for weddings and funerals – and we can feel comfortable with that. But knowing that a man up the road goes to one every day. You never now what they’re talking about in those places, or what they’re being taught.”
Aidan didn’t reply, despite an uncomfortable moment in which they seemed to be waiting for him to do so. Then Robert took it further.
“It’s part of the reason our public services are in a mess, All this stuff about diversity and inclusion, it’s leading to them employing people to keep the woke crowd happy, rather than choosing those who can do the job.”
“Some of them can’t even speak decent English,” Eleanor added. “Last month I called the local council to complain about bins that had been emptied over the path in the park up the road. The young man on the phone was African and I had to keep repeating myself, and barely understood what he was saying to me. I still don’t know if he made a legible note of it all.”
“It’s farcical,” Robert said. “But thankfully the backlash is coming. We can see a big change soon, when the right people get to run the country.”
Aidan guessed who the right people’ were, exactly the types he preferred to avoid, and wondered how he avoid an argument.
“I played football at uni with a couple of lads from African families,” he said. “They were good guys, always mixed in well.”
There was a moment when they both stared at him silently, then Robert spoke.
“I suppose a few of them know how to integrate.”
Aidan took an After Eight from the box.
“I do like these. Always felt they were something for special occasions.”
They seemed to take the hint and dropped the subject. There was talk about going for a walk, but raindrops began to hit the window pane and they decided to move back to the lounge. Robert asked if Aidan would like some more wine, or a brandy, but he told them he didn’t like to drink too much during the day. Then Eleanor went to the kitchen and returned with another bottle and three glasses, told him he could change his mind if he wished and poured for herself and Robert. For nearly an hour the conversation was bland and harmless, covering more about Aidan’s time at university, his career ambitions and where he liked to go on holiday. They both had another glass of wine and Eleanor began to slur her words. Then Aidan noticed a framed photo in the corner, slightly younger versions of the two of them with a girl in her early teens. He pointed towards it.
“Is that Suzanne?” he asked.
They glanced at each other before Robert spoke.
“Yes. When she was younger. Before …”
“Before?”
An awkward paused followed.
“Before she made some questionable choices; for her lifestyle.”
“What were they?”
He suspected they involved drugs.
“Choices of friends, partners.”
There was another brief silence, then Eleanor blurted it out.
“Women. We thought it was a phase, especially when she broke up with the first one, but then there was another, and she keeps insisting that’s the way she is.”
“And she has to advertise it,” Robert added. “Short back and sides haircut, men’s waistcoats, big boots. It has to be a statement.”
“It’s enough that she comes around here like that, so all the neighbours can see, but a few weeks ago she turned up at the christening for her cousin’s little boy dressed like she was going to one of those clubs. She just won’t make the effort to moderate her choices. She doesn’t care how we feel about it.”
Aidan thought that he would like to meet her, but reckoned it was better not to say so. Instead he made a comment that he knew was nonsense.
“Well you never know. Maybe in the future she might change.”
They didn’t reply, but he noticed a glance between them that suggested it’s what they hoped. Then he asked Robert about his job, and listened as he spoke for several minutes about the years he had spent in insurance, first as a claims handler, then a manager, then an investigator. It meant little to Aidan but he was relieved that it eased the atmosphere in the room. It went on for at least fifteen minutes until he realised that Eleanor hadn’t spoken, then that she was staring at him with a broad, inebriated smile. At first he tried to ignore it, but she saw that he had noticed.
“My little boy,” she said.
Robert smiled and touched her hand.
“You can’t believe how much we’ve missed you.”
He could. He had sat through the court case, knew all the circumstances of how Rosie had taken him as a one-year-old. She had seen him briefly left outside a park café, took him to her small flat, then two weeks later moved to a town more than a hundred miles away, giving him a new name and telling everyone he was her own. A few months later she obtained a birth certificate, and somehow she had got away with it all for over twenty years. He was still trying to come to terms with knowing that his happy childhood had been based on a terrible crime.
“And we still can’t believe our luck,” Eleanor went on. “That you grew up looking so much like my dad, and then you appearing on that TV show about conservation work. We just saw it immediately, the resemblance, and it gave us something to take to a private detective. What it’s led to has just made us so happy.”
She went to him and gave him a tight hug. He placed his arms around her waist and gave her a squeeze, but not as strong. He could understand her joy, but wasn’t ready to share it. Then he thought of Rosie in prison, where she was going to stay for several years. He was relieved when Eleanor stood and moved back to the sofa. Robert spoke next.
“We’ve lost all those years we should have had with you, but we’ve got you back.”
“Our boy.”
“And we have the satisfaction of knowing that woman is where belongs.”
“It’s not long enough.” Now there was an explosion of bitterness in Eleanor’s voice. “I understand she could be out within four years.”
“It should be a lot longer.”
“If I had my way it would be life.”
“She can stew in her guilt”
“I hope she has an especially bad time in there. I don’t care what was said about her mental state at the time, about the baby she lost and the ex-boyfriend who made her have an abortion. She deserves to suffer.”
Aidan didn’t answer, kept a straight face, silently flashed through a series of memories: the excitement when Rosie first taught him to ride a bike; the times she cooked his spaghetti bolognaise as his favourite feed; the camping holidays; the way she danced with him in the living room as he got into electro. Then there was her little mantra for his life: be kind.
He looked out the window, saw the rain had eased off, but didn’t want to be too blatant in leaving at that point. Instead he made an excuse to go to the bathroom again, gave himself a couple of minutes to think of different subjects to talk about, then returned to the room and asked them about the framed prints on the wall. It led to a conversation about the artists they liked – Vettriano, Monet and Manet – and those they didn’t which seemed to be most others. It kept everything innocuous for fifteen minutes, then Aidan took advantage of a pause to say he was very sorry, but it was time to go.
“The rain’s eased off, and I have to get some work done this evening.”
“On a Sunday!”
“Sometimes it happens.”
It wasn’t true, but it was tactful. They spent another five minutes fussing, offered to drive him to the station, he replied that he could do with the walk, and when Eleanor moved in for a hug he could smell the alcohol on her breath.
“This has made me so happy,” she said.
He acknowledged to himself that he could understand why.
“Getting you back, and knowing that woman’s in prison.”
He felt a moment of pain, stifled it broke away from her, then shook hands with Robert.
“Good to see you son. We’ll come to you soon.”
They saw him to the door, and waved him off with voices loud enough for neighbours to hear.
“Bye son!”
He waved goodbye silently. Then he walked at a steady pace, quickening once he had turned a corner, and kept it brisk all the way to the station. It was only as he passed through the barrier to the platform that he allowed himself to relax, satisfied that they couldn’t suddenly appear behind him. He sat on the platform bench, acknowledging how uncomfortable he felt, recoiling at details of the conversation, then thinking again of Rosie in a prison cell. Something in his head corrected the thought – his mother in a prison cell.
When the train arrived he was glad that the carriage was almost empty and was able to find a seat with no-one else in sight. He took out his phone and held it in his hand without touching any of the controls until the train had almost reached the station where he would make a connection. Then he opened its contacts app, in which he had stored the numbers for Robert and Eleanor a couple of weeks before, when they began to plan his visit. He blocked and then deleted both of them.
November 2026
Footnote: This is a story about an imagined situation that comes with some painful emotional and moral complexities. It’s not meant to make a case for abducting children with horrible parents.