THE DAY THAT WENT MISSING ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © Also by Richard Beard Fiction X20: A Novel of (Not) Smoking Damascus The Cartoonist Dry Bones Lazarus Is Dead Acts of the Assassins Non-Fiction Muddied Oafs: The Last Days of Rugger Manly Pursuits (or How To Beat the Australians) Becoming Drusilla ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © Richard Beard THE DAY THAT WENT MISSING A Family’s Story Harvill Secker London ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Harvill Secker, an imprint of Vintage, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London sw1v 2sa Harvill Secker is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © Richard Beard 2017 Richard Beard has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published by Harvill Secker in 2017 penguin.co.uk/vintage A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 9781910701560 Typeset in India by Thomson Digital Pvt Ltd, Noida, Delhi Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives PLC Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council ® certified paper. ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © THE DAY THAT WENT MISSING ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © Contents 1. What Will Survive 1 2. 18th August 1978 87 3. Words Are Singularly Useless 179 Acknowledgements 275 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © 1 What Will Survive ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © ost days, on holiday in Cornwall, the family walks Mto the beach. A path drops steeply, and either side wheat-like heads of wild grass grow at waist-height. Some of the seeds strip away neatly between childish fingers, and some do not. Each time I scatter a pinch of seeds into the greenery I win. I made the right choice, and at the age of eleven it feels important to be right, or lucky. We are a family from Swindon, England, on our sum- mer holiday to the seaside. In 1978 this is what landlocked families do: spend a high-season fortnight on the coast, in Wales or Cornwall, in search of quality time that later looks bright and simple on film. The family is Mum, Dad and four boys. I am second in a declension that goes 13 , 11 , 9, 6. My brother Nicholas Beard is nine. For nearly forty years I haven’t said his name, but in writing I immediately slip into the present tense, as if he’s here, he’s back. Writing can bring him to life. 3 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © On the sand at the wide Cornish beach we set up camp. Mum lays out a blanket, while we tip plastic buckets and spades from a canvas bag. We take off our trainers, stuff socks inside. The picnic is in a wicker basket, and hope- fully today’s Tupperware contains hard-boiled eggs, my favourite. The beach is huge, the sand compacted and brown. We sprint up and down, leaving crisply indented footprints, evidence that we exist with boyish mass and acceleration here, now, or verifiably just moments ago. Every year, wherever the holiday, we run faster – the prints lengthen and deepen, rows of four in races for a made-up podium. In the sea, we jump the waves. Look, look out, here comes another. We cherish our special knowledge that every seventh wave will be bigger. We swear by our one and only fact about the rhythms of the sea, but rarely count to seven to check it’s true. Some waves are suddenly huge, not thigh- or waist-height, but up to the chest, the neck. These are the best of waves, sent from the mysterious deep to amuse us. We don’t go out further than we can stand, and we’re not interested in swimming. The fun is in the contest against wave after wave, whatever the Atlantic’s got; we tumble for ages like apes, never feeling the cold. At some point we’ll dry off and try a game of cricket, but coastal winds blow the ball off-line and the bounce on sand is variable. The cricket never really takes because Dad wants everyone to bat, as if life is fair. He doesn’t under- stand that we’re in it to win it. 4 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © What do I know? I mean what I remember, what I carry with me. One summer day in 1978, eleven years old, towards the end of a bright seaside afternoon, I left the broad stretch of beach with my brother Nicholas, aged nine. I don’t remember why. Facing the sea, we ran to the right, away from the family camp, and clambered round or over some rocks. On the other side we found a fresh patch of unmarked sand. I see this place as a cove, with dark rocks close in on both sides, rising steeply to cliffs. The new sandy beach doesn’t reach back very far. The two of us are in the sea, jumping as the waves roll in. Until now I have tried not to know this and many times I’ve stopped, squeezed shut my eyes and closed the mem- ory down. I can do that, crush it out of existence. All it costs me is the effort. We were having fun, buffeted and breathless. I can believe I know this, even though the effort to forget has been immense. The memory is in ruins, but the founda- tions are traceable. He was out of his depth. He wasn’t and then he was. I can’t remember everything, not each separate moment. I don’t know how, but suddenly he was out of his depth. I think I tried to push him back in, but the logistics are confused and I, too, am up to my neck. With my feet touching the sand my mouth is barely above the water. The instinct, because I’m not a good swimmer, is to walk back in towards the shore but when I feel with my toes 5 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © the sand sucks out from beneath me. The next time I try, only the tips of my toes touch solid ground. The ocean floor sweeps from beneath me. Nicky is further out into the sea than I am, and I don’t know how that happened either. Is he? His head is to my left as I look towards the horizon. I’m looking to him, away from land and safety, so I must be worried. He’s further out than me and too far to reach by walking, and anyway I’m in too deep to walk. I don’t understand how he got there. I search with my foot for solid ground and my head is under and I just about touch and the sand rushes out. I push back up. His neck is stretched taut to keep his nose and mouth in the air, and he is panicked into a desperate doggy-paddle, getting nowhere. He whines, his head back, ligaments straining in his neck, his mouth in a tight line to keep out the seawater. I couldn’t reach him and I didn’t want to go in deeper. I shouted at him not to stand. He had to swim. I shouted he shouldn’t try to stand. He tried to put his foot down and his head went under. Out of my depth, I was about to die. Nicky was trying to stand in water that was too deep, and in any case the undertow would drag him out. I decided to leave him. A conscious decision. I kicked my legs up and launched into a desperate crawl, face submerged, no breathing, a last resort to create forward momentum towards the shore. Front crawl was the fastest stroke over the shortest 6 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © distance, though I didn’t really know how to do it, and if I stopped to breathe I would die. I smashed my arms and hands into the water, head down, feet thrashing, because I understood that for me it was now or never. Faster! Harder! I understood with absolute clarity that I had one go at this. Run out of breath too soon and I would drown, exhausted and unable to find my footing. Keep going and I might get close enough in to stand, to live. The memory is unsatisfactory. I experience the pain of remembering though I can’t clearly remember. I was going to die so I decided to save myself, and staying alive took total concentration. I swam my frenzied approxi- mate crawl until finally I had to breathe, and when my legs dropped down, my feet touched sand. The sand dragged me out, but I was far enough in to fight the undertow. I swam again, until I needed to breathe again. Chest-high in the water, waist-high, the sea was around my thighs and I could almost run, heaving my hips one way then the other, driving hard towards land, knees raised, escaping the water. I don’t remember looking back, or arriving at the camp on the main stretch of beach. I’m out of the water and running. I see a man. He is higher up, on rocks (or on a path above the rocks?). I tell him . I don’t know what; whatever I said isn’t part of what I know. I communicate the situation and the man stands up, gazes out to sea as if primed to make a decisive intervention. He takes off his 7 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¡ ¤ ¦ § ¢ ¨ ¦ © ¨ ¨ © sunglasses, and in a purposeful gesture hands them to the distressed and dripping boy.