Land of Dreams: A Novel (7 page)

Julian recited the number with an ease that was obnoxious and suggested that he had no fear of his mother, so I said, “I should also like your father’s place of work and telephone number in California, so that I might contact him when I get there.”

That struck a chord. Cunningham started flapping around like a black crow in his teacher’s gown (which he doubtless kept on for the visit for added gravitas—like a priest—to intimidate me, no doubt). “Now, really, there is no need . . .”

“Mr. Cunningham, my son—who was in your care—has gone missing and, as far as I can gather, one or both of this boy’s parents could be at least partly responsible. Either you proffer me contact details for Mr. Knox, so that I can make my own investigations, or I put this matter immediately into the hands of the New York Police Department—in fact, perhaps I should hand this matter entirely over to them.”

Julian blushed bright red and started talking.

“I think his name was Fred—I’d never seen him before, so he doesn’t know my parents, honestly. There’s no point in calling my—”

“What was his surname?” I asked.

“I don’t know—I can’t remember.”

“Go on.”

“He gave Leo his business card, and Leo made a real fuss about it and kept going on about how he was going to be an actor. it was very annoying . . . ,” the boy said under his breath, threatening to trail off.

“Continue, Julian,” the headmaster boomed. Julian looked at him with pleading eyes, but knew he had to go on.

“Last week I dared him to call Fred. Leo and I sneaked into the secretary’s office and telephoned him—Leo had kept his card.”

“How did you get in?” the headmaster snapped. “That door is kept locked.”

“The window from the gym,” Julian said. “Everybody knows that.”

The headmaster covered his face with his hands and drew them down slowly in despair as the boy continued.

“Fred said he remembered Leo and that, if he made his way to his office in Hollywood, he’d arrange a screen test for him.”

“For the love of Christ, boy!” The headmaster had lost all semblance of propriety.

“Leo had stolen some money from his family in Yonkers the last time he was there.” I gasped with shock. Leo, steal money? “He said he had enough for a one-way ticket. He left last night on the train—that’s all I know, I swear.”

“Where is this man’s office? What is his full name?” I asked.

“I don’t kno-ow,” Julian wailed and then started to cry. “Leo took his card with him. Honest, I don’t know who he is. Please don’t ring my father, ma’am? Please, sir? He’ll kill me, he’ll . . .”

I picked up the telephone and held it out to the headmaster, but he declined to take it from me.

“Please, Mrs. Irvington, allow me to contact Mr. Knox myself, on your behalf. I promise I will get onto it directly and contact you immediately after I speak with him.”

My hand tightened around the telephone. Men needed to hold on to their power, especially in front of other men—even boys. I wanted to hit him across the face with it—
You have lost my son! You stupid idiot, you let my vulnerable, sensitive son walk straight out of your charge!
—but instead I put the handset back in its cradle.

“One hour,” I said. “I expect to hear back from you, one way or the other, in one hour, otherwise I shall be calling the police.”

“Of course,” he said, with the boy sniveling beside him. I stood aside and ushered them out of the door.

I had no intention of contacting the police. Leo, for all that I was petrified of what might have happened to him, was sixteen years of age and therefore old enough to look after himself, in the eyes of the law. Reporting him missing might only result in his arrest for vagrancy and even worse trouble. In any case, I could deal with this myself. I was his mother, and therefore more capable of finding my son than all the cops in America. Wherever he was, whomever he was with, I would find him and make things right.

When the door closed behind them I sat for a moment in the hallway of my empty apartment. What was this place now? I could hardly call it home anymore, yet that’s what I had intended it to be, for Charles and our two boys. Once it had been a family home: that clean kitchen table had been littered with the day-to-day detritus of family life: bills, invitations, discarded cups, gloves, a drawing from Leo awaiting my approval, a half-eaten sandwich discarded by Tom. The dresser had been neatly stacked with crockery; the small larder packed with dried goods; our outdoor garments and coats hung messily on the backs of chairs. Now it was just the pied-à-terre of a wealthy artist who preferred to live elsewhere. Fire Island felt like my home, although I had no history in the place, but perhaps that was the very reason I felt so comfortable there. The simple, barefoot life between beach and studio suspended me in limbo each day: no looking back or forward; no fear of the future, no pain of the past. This apartment had once held the dream of how my life could have been—the vibrant, busy life of a loving couple in the heart of a big city with their two children. Now it was just a holding place for the forgotten accoutrements of a family life once lived: the jigsaw that nobody could be bothered to finish, left behind on the dresser; a bag of rotting flour for cakes that would never get baked; drawers of Charles’s starched evening shirts and my fancy silk underwear—clothes for the corpses of our marriage. The family life that I had craved for so long seemed only to exist in these unwanted belongings, abandoned fragments from our life together.

It was late afternoon. I would have to act fast if I was going to get on my way that night. It had taken Leo the guts of three days to get there over the summer. For him, it had been a great adventure, traveling across America by train. How I wished he had done that journey with me! Perhaps, if I had been a more attentive mother, taken him on more adventures myself, he wouldn’t have needed to go chasing off looking for one himself.

The quickest way would be to fly. Some years ago Charles and I had considered a plane ride to Los Angeles on a Douglas Sleeper Transport passenger plane. The trip took seventeen hours and thirty minutes westbound, with stops in Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Albuquerque. The flights were very expensive, but Charles had almost persuaded me, except that in the end I had not wanted to travel without the children, so it had become just another source of friction between us; another unlived dream. I was on the point of scrabbling around his desk to look for the brochure when I remembered that air travel was impossible. There was a war on (even though it didn’t really feel like it in New York), and a lot of aircraft had been commandeered by the war effort. With a sudden panic I realized that I had heard on the radio recently that the authorities were following suit with train travel. “We will all have to make sacrifices,” Roosevelt had said. I had taken no notice whatsoever at the time, but now that bit of unimportant trivia came booming into my head as a glaring headline: “Restricted train travel as a result of war effort.”

With my hands shaking, I called Grand Central Station and cried, “Thank God!” with relief when the man booked me into the last private compartment on the
Broadway Limited
, an express passenger train with limited stops. It left at six that evening and arrived at nine the next morning into LaSalle Street Station in Chicago. “Just fifteen hours to Chicago,” the ticket seller boasted.

From Chicago the next train to Los Angeles was
The Golden State
, which left at 10:15 that evening and arrived at 5:15 p.m. two days later. At more than forty hours’ travel time, it was somewhat slower and slightly less smart than the other trains, but neither of them left Chicago until early the following morning.

Two more days. That was three days’ travel in total. It felt like a lifetime.

Maureen arrived as I put the phone down.

“Ellie”—Maureen grabbed my hands—“this is all my fault!”

She had checked in her bureau drawer before leaving and found that Leo had emptied the envelope of money that I regularly sent her for his keep. Maureen rarely spent the money, so there was a tidy sum piled up—she had no idea how much, but certainly enough to buy him a train ticket.

I waved her guilt aside. There was no time for recriminations. I was still absorbing the fact that Leo had lied, and stolen, as well as run away to Hollywood, of all places! In any case, we had to leave for the station.

As we were going out the door Mr. Cunningham, true to his word, called me back.

“The man you are looking for is called Frederick Dubois and, as far as Mr. Knox could find out, he can be contacted at the Chateau Marmont—a sort of hotel, it seems, in North Hollywood.”

I wrote it down, my stomach sickened even at the spelling of his name. What did “sort of hotel” mean, and what kind of person would live in such a place? The kind of man who would lure a young boy away from his family?

“Mr. Knox would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused and assure you that Julian will be punished accordingly.”

Cunningham’s voice sounded dry—as if he knew the boy’s punishment would be greater than the crime. Julian Knox might have been a troublemaking weasel of a child, but I did not want him hurt.

“You can tell Mr. Knox there is no need to punish his son. I am sure Leo was just as responsible.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Cunningham replied, as if this whole thing were my fault, and putting another child’s welfare on my conscience.

Honestly,
I thought, not for the first time,
men really are such petty fools—always passing the blame and never taking responsibility for problems they cause.
Men were brave when it came to their rash and usually pointless acts of war, but they were cowards, each and every one, when it came to owning up to their mistakes. If women were running the world, how much smoother and more sensible our lives would be.

I rang the operator and asked to be put through to the hotel that Cunningham had mentioned and asked to speak to Mr. Dubois.

“You mean Freddie?” the man asked and then, before waiting for an answer, got off the line and another man came on.

“Mr. Dubois?” I asked.

“Yes—this is he.”

He sounded arrogant—young. I tried to keep my voice steady. Although every inch of me was aching to scream hysterically down the phone, I didn’t know this man and it was important not to antagonize him.

“My name is Mrs. Eileen Irvington. I understand my son, Leo Irvington, is with you?”

“Leo? He’s on his way here, he called me last night. Is there a problem?”

How could he ask me such a thing? And yet his voice sounded so calm, with no hint of contrition or fear. For a moment I considered this stranger’s question. Leo was sixteen. In less than two years’ time he would be eligible for conscription into the US Army. John had joined the Irish Republicans and fought when he was barely a year older than Leo was now. Some might consider Leo already a man. Leo was not my natural son and had only been in my care for six years; it was too short a time, and I was not ready to let him go. Not yet. He was confused, distraught. Despite having run off in this way, Leo was not ready for me to let him go, either. Even if he did not know it yet.

“No problem,” I said. “I was just concerned about him, and was checking that everything was all right.”

“All hunky-dory,” the idiot man said. He didn’t sound dangerous, but then, what does dangerous sound like? I established that he and Leo would be staying at the Chateau Marmont indefinitely, but decided not to tell him that I was on my way to Los Angeles. Frederick sounded innocent enough, but nonetheless I did not want to give him the opportunity to abscond with my son; nor did I know what hold he had over Leo. I loved Leo as much as if he had been my natural son—at least I believed that to be true. However, at that moment I realized that I was not as certain of his love for me. Leo was doubtless confused, and somewhat lost, after the death of his father. The world was a big place, and I was sharply aware that if this man decided to move them away from the hotel for any reason, they might disappear into the big wide world and I could lose my son forever. The idea of that was intolerable to me, so I gave no indication that I was coming to get Leo; I merely established his whereabouts, in case I needed to get in touch for any reason.

At least I knew where Leo was. Now all I had to do was find him and bring him back home.

On our drive to the station both Maureen and Patrick offered to come with me to the West Coast, individually and together, until they ended up squabbling over it. I told them I would prefer to travel alone. I would focus my mind on what needed to be done and get through the journey that way. We agreed that they would collect Tom from Fire Island and keep him in Yonkers until I returned, hopefully in a few days’ time, and with Leo.

Patrick collected my ticket and loaded my case onto the train, while Maureen took a moment to take my hands and settle me. We had been through a lot together and she never forgot my original act of kindness to her family. I didn’t need her thanks. She had more than repaid any debt she thought she owed me, but she was the only person from whom I would take advice.

She squeezed both my hands in hers and said, “At least you know where he is now, Ellie. Leo is a sensible boy. He’ll be fine. Now, you call me—as soon as you get there.”

I nodded, at a loss for words. Then she hugged me and, taking my shoulder, said, “Have you everything you need—enough money? Do you need to get a cardigan out of your bag for the journey?”

“Stop,” I said.

“I will telegram Patrick’s cousin Anne, in Chicago, and have her collect you from LaSalle Station. She lives nearby.”

“There’s no need, Maureen, please . . .”

I did not need, or want, the company of some strange woman.

“Rubbish,” she said insistently. “It’s a long journey, Ellie, and there is a full day to kill before your train leaves for Los Angeles. You’ll be glad of some interesting company once you get there and, believe me, Anne will provide quite a distraction.”

“Really, there’s no need.”

“It’s done,” she said as if doing me a huge favor, and I could not disabuse her of the notion that she was helping.