Relationships
In Search Of A Lost Child
Somewhere in a faraway land
It was about March 2014 when early in the morning my mobile phone rang. I looked at the display and could immediately see who it was. As soon as I saw that it was my ex it raised my hackles. Calls from her where never anything akin to good news. The call that followed was more mysterious than anything else
"Hello."
"Hi, I want to meet you with a friend of mine in a local bar somewhere for a little chat."
"A little chat about what exactly?"
"I don't want to say on the phone."
"Then I'm not interested."
"Well you should be, it's about your son."
"What about him?"
"I'm not saying, but it is in your interest."
"And who is this friend?"
"It's my friend Pierre."
"Can Pierre Speak English?"
"No."
"Ok, so I can bring a friend along too huh."
"Yes, that's ok. I'll call you back with the details about where when I check back with Pierre."
The line went dead and I was really none the wiser what this was all about. All I knew was that whatever was afoot I smelt a rat. Time would tell. Five minutes later the phone rang again and sure enough it was my ex.
"Ok, I spoke to Pierre and he said no to you bringing a friend."
"Then forget the whole thing then, you can message or email me with whatever you want to say. Bye. And that was the end of that, or so I thought.
A week later I got a recorded delivery of a letter from some local solicitor inviting me to a meeting to discuss some unspecified matters connected with my son. The letter stated that should I decline to attend the meeting there could be serious legal consequences against me. Interestingly it was signed by somebody called Pierre Toussaint. Not wanting any more problems with the law, after ten years of legal persecution for trivial and false accusations, I decided to at least go and investigate what it was all about.
A week later I went into Pierre's third floor offices and entered a small office plastered with certificates, about a hundred in all, for all the different courses he had attended. Clearly this was somebody who had a point to make.
I sat down and we had a long discussion in French about problems I had suffered with my ex in terms of her persecution and constant refusals to let me see my son for the periods the law had stated I was entitled to. As we spoke I started to have a nagging feeling that I had seen Pierre somewhere before. Suddenly some female came into the office and joined in the conversation. She told me that she was treating my son for psychological problems to do with my divorce. And as I sat now looking at her I realised I had also seen her before. Suddenly it all came back to me.
Three months before I had had to take my ex to court, yet again, to try to enforce my visiting rights. And I remembered noticing Pierre and this woman sat behind my wife signalling her when she was being questioned by the judge about why she would not let me see my son. My ex said it was because my son did not want to be with me, which was an outright lie. He and I were as thick as thieves, as close as any loving father and son could be. What my ex was offering the court was a cop out, and the judge didn't buy it. My ex was told it was not my son's decision and it was incumbent upon his mother to encourage contact. Case won. And things did get better after that, until this mysterious intervention by Pierre and his female accomplice.
Pierre told me that my ex wanted to go and work abroad somewhere in Europe and asked if I would have custody of my son for six months. Of course, I jumped at the chance, at last I could be with my little hero for some good quality time over the coming summer months. We loved to go sailing and surfing, the cinema and we even chilled out for hours at a time on the Play Station I had bought him for Christmas.
The meeting with Pierre came to an end with Pierre telling me that over the next day or so he would draw up legal papers for me to sign and would call me when all was ready. Before I left I asked him who was paying for his services since I did not have any spare cash. Pierre told me not to worry as the county council were picking up the tab through a special social services scheme for dysfunctional families. And at that I left to go about my daily business.
Two days later I got a text message from Pierre's accomplice inviting me to go and sign the papers they had prepared. We made an appointment for the next day. When I arrived I was quite surprised to see my ex and our son also waiting at the front door to Pierre's office. Everything about our entrance was pleasant enough, which was more than I could say about my exit.
Upstairs Pierre took our son to a playroom leaving me and my ex alone in his office. She turned to me and said "You know Liam, you are going to have to start trusting me, this is all for the best." How little did I know exactly what was being planned, though I would find out soon enough. More to the point, how hollow those words asking for trust would echo through my mind in view of what was really afoot. As a matter of course, I never trust anybody who openly demands it, it always ends in tears.
Pierre came back into his office and asked my ex to leave us alone awhile. As soon as she left the room Pierre slid the last page of some document across his desk for me to sign. I refused saying I wanted to read the document first. Pierre frowned.
"It says what was agreed the other day, all you have to do is sign please."
"Sorry Pierre, not without reading that document. In fact, I first of all want a copy of the document to take to my solicitor to run his eyes over, and if all is well I can sign it no problem."
Pierre started to get a little agitated. "Listen, I'll read it to you...." he said.
"No Pierre, I want to read it, my French reading is excellent, I don't need you to read it to me like I'm a child, thank you."
"But we haven't got time, just sign the document and be done with it."
"I don't see the problem with time Pierre, it has to be done right."
"The problem with time is she is leaving the country on Sunday."
"That is not my problem Pierre." I said emphatically.
By this time I was well suspicious about what was in the document and I was not going to be railroaded into signing it unread by some pushy solicitor friend of my ex wife.
"Listen, I am your solicitor, and I am advising you to just sign the paper."
"No you are not my solicitor Pierre, I did not contract you (I had declined to do that earlier on with some other cock-a-doodle papers he'd prepared). "You are her friend, the one that wanted to meet me in a bar a few days ago, remember? The one that I saw sat behind her advising her three months ago in court, you and your female cohort who is also in on this, whatever this is. At this Pierre totally lost the plot and started to scream and shout at me.
"You bastard, sign the document I gave up my good time preparing for you. Or do you just want to fuck me over? SIGN THE DOCUMENT MOTHERFUCKER!" he ranted as he stood up and began to punctuate his outburst with smashing his clenched fist on his oak desktop.
I was now absolutely certain that whatever was in that document was not in my or my son's interest and I was not going to sign it come hell or high water. I stood up to leave and told him he needed to calm down and learn how to behave in front of his so called client. Then I turned on my heels and left.
Pierre was not quite finished. As I made my way down the short hallway to the top of the stairs he called out as calm as cucumber "You're making a big mistake Liam, you are going to miss a great opportunity to have custody of your son." He was making one last effort to pull me in but I was having none of it.
A few weeks later I got sent a copy of the document my ex and Pierre so desperately wanted me to sign. Unbelievably, given the contents of the document, they denounced me for being uncooperative in not signing a document that was for the good of our son. Here is what that document actually stated that they stupidly presented to the courts.
"That I, Liam Ireland, not feeling any parental love nor interest in our child, and recognising that neither did the child love me, hereby renounce all of my parental rights and give my full unconditional permission for my ex wife to leave the country with our child and totally agree to breaking off all contact for the rest of our lives."
Let that sink in a moment in the light of what I recounted above about the document purporting to give me temporary custody for six months.
I immediately denounced Pierre to the law society of France for malpractice and attempted fraud. The law society banned Pierre from practicing the law for three months. His revenge was to send me a bill for his time threatening to sue me if I did not pay him one thousand euros within seven days. This too I took to the law society and demanded he be banned and punished for a much longer period. I heard no more from the rat, though I did see him a time or two around town when he screamed and shouted insults across the street at me.
Three more things I found out about this shambolic attempt at fraud were as follows. One, Pierre was not contracted by my ex. He met her at a singles club night were he had the habit to go fishing for work with disgruntled ex wives. And even if he didn't get paid, he might get something by way of physical favours. Two, Pierre was not contracted by the county council neither as they had no such scheme he had told me about. Three, Pierre had been hounded out of another part of the country due to his fraudulent ways. His infamy followed him wherever he went.Oh, and those visits my son had to treat his so called psychological problems, I now believe they were sessions he went to so that they prepare him for a life without me with whatever brainwashing the bastards could muster up between them.
On the Sunday after my fateful meeting with Pierre my ex did indeed leave the country and at one point I suspected she might try to kidnap our son. As it happened she went alone and set about planning all her next moves. She was meticulous if nothing else.
In her absence, the visiting rights I had been given upon my divorce many years before were trodden all over by her elderly mother and brothers and sisters who had been instructed to not let me see my son. For this I instigated legal proceedings against her family, all to no avail.
I was looking forward to the summer when I was allowed to have my son for the second two weeks in July and the second two weeks in August. Suddenly I got a message from my ex from abroad telling me that she had booked a two week summer camp for our son during my two weeks of July and I was to pay for it. Not wanting to disappoint my son I complied. The last time I saw him was at the end of the two weeks when I went to collect him from the club and return him to his grandmother's house.
At the end of the first two weeks in August I called my son to tell him I was on my way to collect him from his grandmother's house to come and stay with me for two weeks. This is the response I got on my mobile.
"Pappy, you can't collect me, I'm not in France, Pappy."
"Where are you then?" I asked.
"Wait a minute Pappy. Mammy, he wants to know where I am, can I tell him?"
"No, put the phone down, don't speak to him."
The line went dead as my son, fearful of his mother's ire, disconnected the call. So the woman had even conspired to do me out of a summer holiday with the boy, a holiday I had already bought tickets for us to go to the UK. How mean and nasty does somebody want to be? And of course, trying to tell somebody like that that they are also hurting the child they profess to love is a waste of time. I'm afraid my ex loves only herself and nobody else.
The very last time I heard from my son it sounded like he was trying to call me on the quiet. It was Christmas and the phone rang. I didn't recognise the number and so took the call. "Pappy" my son whispered. "Pappy, are you there?" Just as I replied his mother came into the room and shouted something at him and the line went dead. That was seven years ago when he was just fourteen, and by now for sure I wouldn't know him from Adam.
Of course, I did try to contact my son via email and Facebook but I have been blocked. What is hurtful in the extreme is that my son has Pierre listed as a Facebook friend. Touche Toussaint I guess.
Even after all of these years I do think often about the son I lost in such an underhanded way. And one of the most hurtful things is to think that the boy has been brainwashed to believe that his father doesn't love him. I'll never forget nor forgive what we were both put through to satiate the sick feelings for revenge and jealousy (my ex was insanely jealous of the close bond that existed between me and my son and had spent years trying to break it)on the part of his mother, ably assisted by her family and her solicitor friend Toussaint. A woman madder than a bucket full of glutinous frogs and a man slipperier than a bucket full of slimy eels. And to think that she told me I had to trust her! Excuse me whilst I piss myself laughing at that one.
I try not to dwell too much on what has happened and just try to get on with whatever is left of my life as best as I can. It's a good life, though of course it is tinted with more than a little sadness. But sad feelings aren't going to solve anything, so I try not to indulge myself too much in that feeling. Perhaps one day he will have the balls to stand up to his vicious mother and come looking for me, but I seriously doubt it after all these years.
It's a cloudy, rainy day here in Japan and more than a little humid. Otherwise I am at peace with the world and whatever it has planned for me next. I can do nothing about the past nor the future for that matter. All I can deal with is the present, the it-ness of my existentialist life and all that prevails in the here and now, and now, and now, and now.....................a rustic sandwich on wholemeal bread at the Blue Frog should lift my spirits a little.
https://readmedium.com/what-happened-to-the-boy-fba1fab2c255?sk=30eb3739cf9bc04b11ae6a9c5e57bdac
https://readmedium.com/a-true-love-story-253578ee4deb?sk=396b6b589a099c09457d4e2edd40721c