Guilty One (19 page)

A hand on his bump, Daniel crouched on the floor of the car, beside the gear stick. She was staring straight ahead, breathing hard so that her chest heaved; her hands still gripped the wheel. Daniel began to laugh. His head hurt, but it seemed funny to be thrown underneath the dashboard, and for the car to be sitting on the wrong side of the road up against the railings.

The expansive beats of Frankie Goes to Hollywood now seemed too loud in the small car.

Her breathing calmed and she reached down to him. Daniel thought that she was going to rub his head and ask if he was all right. Instead she grabbed him roughly by the arms and pulled him up and into his seat.

‘What on earth were you doing?’ she shouted at him, shaking him. All they had been through together, but not once had she raised
her voice. Daniel pulled his shoulders up to his ears and turned so that he had to look at her out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were too wide and he could see her teeth. ‘What did I tell you? I asked you to
put on your seatbelt.
You
must
wear your seatbelt. What could have happened … ?’

‘I just forgot,’ whispered Daniel.

She took him by the shoulders again. Daniel could feel the pressure of her fingers through his jacket. ‘Well, you can’t forget. You have to do what I say. You have to wear your seatbelt.’

‘OK,’ Daniel said, and then louder, ‘all right.’

Minnie relaxed. She was still holding on to his shoulders but not squeezing him so hard. She was out of breath and her eyes were turned down in distress. ‘I just don’t want anything to happen to you,’ she whispered, and then pulled him into her. ‘I don’t want
anything
to happen to you.’

Daniel felt the warmth of her breath against his hair.

Minnie turned the radio off. They sat in silence for a few moments. Daniel swallowed.

‘All right, put it on now,’ she said, and he did as she asked, clicking the seatbelt into place.

She got out and inspected the bumper and the bonnet, then got back in the car. She cleared her throat and started the engine. He could see her fingers trembling on the steering wheel. Daniel rubbed his arms where she had pressed. They drove in silence back to the farm.

Daniel fed the animals while Minnie started dinner. When he came back inside, stocking feet dirty on the kitchen floor, she was pouring herself a gin. Of late she would wait until after dinner, but now he scratched Blitz’s stretched-out stomach as she poured
herself a large glass. He heard the fizz and crack of her ice cubes and looked up. He saw that her hands were still shaking.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking at the dog.

She drank and then exhaled. ‘S’all right, lad. I’m sorry too. Lost it so I did, lost it.’

‘Why d’you drive the car when you hate it so much?’

‘Well, when you’re afraid of something, often the best thing you can do is do that very thing you’re afraid of!’

‘Why are you scared of driving anyway?’

‘Well, I’m sure it’s not really the driving itself. In life most things that frighten us are to do with our own heart and its flaws. You’ll always be afraid of some things – never free from fear itself. But that’s all right. Fear’s like pain, it’s there in your life to teach you about yourself.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Some day you’ll understand.’

Dinner was roast beef, carrots, peas and roast potatoes. Daniel cleared a space on the table and laid out the placemats and cutlery. Chickens fluttered at the window as the day waned. By the time dinner was served, she was on her second gin and her hands had steadied. Daniel felt a familiar, fleeting sadness settle on him, light as a butterfly. He felt his skin goose-pimple. He picked up his fork.

‘Minnie?’

‘Hmm?’ She looked up. Her face was relaxed again and her cheeks pink.

‘Did Tricia call you this week?’

‘No, love. Why? Do you want to speak to her?’

‘Well, I was just wanting to ask her what would happen if I don’t get
adopted, like … when they’ll put me in the home? I want to know when it’s happening, like.’

Daniel felt the warmth of her fingers on his arm. ‘You
will
get adopted. Eat your food.’

‘What if I don’t though, can I stay here?’

‘As long as they’ll let you, yes. But you will get adopted. You want that, don’t you? A new family of your own.’

‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind staying here with you, like.’ He looked at his food.

‘Well, I like you here with me too, but I don’t kid myself that you couldn’t do better. Young parents, maybe even brothers and sisters – that’s what you need – a proper new home.’

‘I’m well sick of new homes, like.’

‘This next one’ll be the last, Danny. I’m sure of it.’

‘Why can’t this be the last?’

‘Eat up now, your dinner’s getting cold.’

They cleared up together, Daniel drying the dishes, as Minnie poured herself another drink. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, noticing that her movements were slower, heavier. Minnie took the takings box through to the living room and placed it open on the coffee table next to her gin. Bending from the waist, breathing heavily, she lit the fire and the spitting smoky coals slowly began to warm the room. She put on a classical record then let herself fall into her armchair and took another sip of her drink.

‘Is this when I get my commission?’ asked Danny, kneeling on the floor by the coffee table.

‘Well, we’ll see. First I want you to count it. Can you?’

Daniel nodded. He separated all the coins and notes and began
to count them, whispering the numbers. The sound of the coal fire crackling was audible above the slow movement of the symphony she had chosen. Blitz sat up straight as he always did when a record was played. He cocked his ears and then turned three times before settling himself at her feet, nose on his paws.

‘How much?’ asked Minnie when Daniel had finished counting.

‘One hundred and thirty-seven pounds, sixty-three pence,’ said Daniel.

‘Well, here, put it back in the box for me, but keep a fiver for yourself. Thanks for all your hard work.’

Daniel did as she asked. He sat cross-legged, staring at the five-pound note.

‘You counted that money fast enough. Are you sure you counted it right?’

‘I’m sure. You want to check?’

‘I’ll check later, but I believe you. You’re a bright lad, aren’t you? You should do better at school than you do.’

Daniel shrugged and climbed on to the sofa, where he lay on his back with his hands behind his head, facing her.

‘Your teacher says as much as well, that you know the answers when she asks you but you don’t ever finish an exam or a test. You don’t finish your homework or do the tasks she gives you. Why is that now?’

‘I can’t be bothered.’

Minnie was reflective. Daniel watched as she raised her chin and stared into the fire.

‘Think about your mother, and your father if you can remember him,’ she said quietly. ‘Would you say they led good lives?’

Daniel
waited for her to turn and look at him before he shrugged.

‘When you think about growing up, what do you imagine doing?’

‘I want to be in London.’

‘What doing? What job would you like to do, and I don’t mean a pickpocket.’

‘I dunno.’

‘Well, do you want to make a lot of money, do you want to help people, do you want to work outdoors …?’

‘I want to make money.’

‘Well, you could be a banker. Work in the City, in Fleet Street …’

‘I dunno.’

She was silent and again turned to the fire. It was dark outside now, and Daniel could see the fire and her face reflected in the window.

‘If we look at your life now, we see that it’s controlled by the law, isn’t that right? You’ve probably been to court more times than I have, and the law has decided that for your own safety you have to be away from your family. I wonder if you’d be a good lawyer? Then you could have a say in all those things, and make a load of money into the bargain.’

Daniel met her gaze but said nothing. No one had spoken to him like this before. No one had told him that he could choose what happened to him.

‘These years coming are probably the most important in your life, Danny. You’ll be going to high school next year. If you do well in your exams the world can be your oyster. Your oyster, let me tell you! You can work in London, do anything you want, believe me.
My little one, Delia, she was like you. Bright as a button. All her classes, maths, English, history, she always did so well. She wanted to be a doctor. She’d’ve done it too …’

Minnie turned to the fire again. The heat from it had warmed the room, and her cheeks were red now and shining.

‘What do you need to do to be a lawyer then?’

‘Just do well at school, love, and then you go to university. Think about all the people that’ve put you down before. That’d show them, wouldn’t it? You graduating from university and becoming a lawyer.’ She cackled to herself, staring at the fire, then heaved herself up to pour another drink. ‘Think how proud your mum would be.’

Daniel lay on the couch, watching Blitz stretch: chin to the carpet and rear legs raised. He remembered his last foster father, holding him by the shoulders and whispering
evil little bastard,
and then one of his mother’s boyfriends who had slapped his face and called him a
sackless nowt
when he brought back the wrong change from the shop after going to buy him cigarette papers. He took a deep breath.

‘So you just need to do well at school?’

‘Well, yes, that’s the first part. And I wouldn’t bother telling you all this if I didn’t think it was worth your trouble. But I know you’re bright. You could show them, I know it.’

She left the room and Daniel heard her fixing the drink in the kitchen. The warmth of the fire was on his skin, and the words that she had said seemed to warm him from the inside too. He felt powerful, but good. It reminded him of caring for the animals.

Minnie threw herself back into the chair, spilling a little of her drink on her cardigan, which she smoothed into the wool with the palm of her hand.

‘So if
I was a lawyer, would I be able to help boys stay with their mum?’

‘Well, there are all kinds of lawyers, love. Some work in family law and if that was what interested you, you could do that. But some work with big companies, some work with criminals, or in the property market … you know, helping people to buy houses.’

‘So it would be like on
Crown Court.
I would stand up in front of the judge?’

‘You could do that, yes. You’d be great too.’

Daniel thought for a moment, listening to the ice tinkling in her glass.

‘Can I put the telly on?’ he asked.

‘All right. Turn the record off, but be careful and don’t scratch it. Mind how I showed you, now.’

Daniel jumped up and gently lifted the stylus off the record. He lifted the record as she had showed him, two hands on the rim so as not to leave fingerprints, and slid it carefully back in its sleeve.

She had an old black and white television with a turn dial. Daniel twisted until he found a comedy and then jumped back on the couch.

‘You should get a colour TV.’

‘Should I now? I have better things to buy with my money. Maybe when you’re a rich lawyer you can buy us one.’

She winked at him and Daniel smiled. He felt warm inside. It was the thought of staying here for years to come and calling this his home. He curled up on the sofa watching
Are You Being Served?
and smiling but not laughing at the jokes, only some of which he understood, still aware of the crackles of the fire and the tinkles of her ice in the background. He felt safe, he decided, that was what he felt. He felt safe with her, even if she was
a drunk and a bad driver and smelled funny. He didn’t want to leave.

When the show was finished, Blitz was asking to go out, and so Daniel let him out the back door. When Blitz came back in, Daniel bolted the door and took a biscuit from the tin. In the living room, Minnie’s drink was empty and she had tears on her face.

The warm feeling faded as he watched her. She was staring at the television but Daniel could tell that she didn’t see it. The grey light reflected on her face. Daniel went to the fire and stood with his back to it, feeling the heat on the backs of his legs.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

Minnie swept a palm over her face, left and then right, but there were fresh tears ready to wet her cheeks.

‘Sorry, love. Just ignore me,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about today. You gave me such a fright, so you did. Promise me you’ll always wear your seatbelt, even if you’re in another car. Promise me …’

She leaned forward, knuckles white on the edge of the chair, lips wet with tears or saliva.

‘I promise,’ said Danny quietly. ‘I’m going to go to bed.’

‘All right, pet, good night.’ She wiped her face once, twice and then again with her right sleeve. ‘Remember to put the money in your piggy bank. No taking it to school and buying rubbish. C’mere … ’

She reached out to him and Daniel walked slowly towards her. She took his wrist and pulled him gently into her, to plant a kiss on his cheek. He lay on her for a second longer than he needed to, aware of the roughness of the wool against his right cheek and the wetness of the wool against his left.

15

It
was after nine and Daniel was eating a takeaway Thai curry in his flat. He still had work to do, and so he sat with the laptop open on his kitchen table, drinking beer and trying not to get sauce on the keys. The radio was on low. He was due in court the next morning for a shoplifting case. Daniel had told his client, a mother of four, that he hoped she would not be given a custodial sentence. Now he sat reviewing the facts and noting down details.

Sebastian seemed to have absorbed more of his time than was necessary. Daniel always prepared well for his cases, and now took time to go over his notes for tomorrow, but Sebastian’s case still interrupted his thoughts.

He turned his attention to his files, but his mind was drifting to the lack inside him. Since he had left Minnie’s as a teenager, he had become used to being alone. At university and after, he had been known as a loner, a heartbreaker, neither a man’s man nor a woman’s man. His own man. A lone man. Keeping his own counsel.