Guilty One (6 page)

‘No, Danny,’ she said, taking him by the elbow and pulling him back. ‘Don’t! He’ll go through you like you wouldn’t believe. The old goat’s got a soft spot for me. He wouldn’t have liked what you did there. Just leave him, now. You get gored with one of those horns and that’ll be the end of you.’

Daniel allowed himself to be pulled away. He walked towards the house, moving sideways so that he was facing the goat. As he reached the
doorstep, he stuck his tongue out at Hector. The goat charged again and Daniel ran into the house.

Minnie told Daniel to get washed and get ready to go out. He did as she asked, while she stood in the kitchen, washing the eggs and repacking them.

He washed his face in the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then crept to his bedroom. The egg was still whole in his pocket and he put it in the drawer by his bedside. He sat it on a glove and placed three socks around it, like a nest, to warm it, closed the drawer and was about to start downstairs, when, as an afterthought, he went back into the room and took his mother’s necklace from under his pillow and placed that in the nest too, right beside the egg. He checked his back and buttocks for scratches from the goat’s horns. He had grazes on both palms from when he fell.

Minnie was winding a pink woollen scarf around her neck. She was still wearing the same grey skirt and boots that she had worn the day before. On top of her long cardigan, she put on a green coat. It was too tight for her to button up, and so she went out like that, with it open and the pink scarf swinging.

Minnie said they were going to register Daniel at the local school and then they would buy him some new school clothes.

‘We’ll walk,’ she said, as they passed her car. It was a dark red Renault with spiders’ webs strung across the right-hand wing mirror. ‘Need to show you the way to school anyway, don’t I?’

Daniel shrugged and followed her.

‘I hate school,’ he told her. ‘I’ll only get kicked out. I always get kicked out.’

‘Well, if you have that attitude, I’m not surprised.’

‘You what?’

‘Think positively. If
you do, you might just be surprised.’

‘Like think about me mam getting better and then she will?’

Minnie didn’t say anything. He was a pace behind her.

‘I wished that for years anyway and it never ’appened.’

‘Being positive’s different to wishing. What you’re talking about is just wishing.’

It was fifty feet from her house before they reached a proper path. Minnie told him it was a twenty-minute walk to school.

First they walked through estates, then a park, then a field with cows in it. As they walked, Minnie told Daniel about Brampton, although he told her he didn’t care. He wouldn’t be staying long.

Brampton was just two miles south of Hadrian’s Wall, she told him. When he said he had never heard of the wall, she said she would take him one day. It was ten miles to Carlisle and fifty-five miles to Newcastle.

Fifty-five miles
, Daniel thought as he walked behind her.

‘You all right there, pet?’ she asked. ‘You’re looking right down in the mouth today.’

‘M’all right.’

‘What is it you like to do? Not used to boys, so I’m not. You’ll need to keep me up to date. What is it you like, eh? Football?’

‘I dunno,’ he said.

They passed the park and Daniel turned to look at the swings. There was a heavy-set man alone on one of them, letting his foot gently rock him.

‘Want to have a shot? We’ve got time, you know?’

‘That bloke’s there,’ he said, squinting at the sun which was now high in the sky.

‘That’s just Billy Harper. Billy’ll not bother you. He loves them swings. Always has. He’s all right. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Around here, pet, everyone knows everyone else. It’s the worst thing about the place, you’ll find out. But the good thing is once you have everyone’s measure you’ve nothing to fear. There’s no secrets in Brampton.’

Daniel thought about that: no secrets and everyone knowing your measure. He knew small places. He’d been put in a few of them, when his mam was sick. He didn’t like small places. He liked Newcastle. He wanted to live in London. He didn’t like people knowing his measure.

As if she had heard his thoughts, she said, ‘So you like Newcastle then?’

‘Aye,’ he said.

‘Would you like to live there again?’

‘I want to live in London.’

‘My, really? London, I think that’s a fine idea. I loved it there. If you grow up and move to London, what do you think you’ll be?’

‘I’ll be a pickpocket.’

Daniel thought she might tell him off then, but she turned and gave him a little push with her elbow. ‘Like Fagin, you mean?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Haven’t you seen
Oliver Twist?’

‘Maybe. Aye, I think so.’

‘There’s an old man in that – pickpocket – comes to bad end.’

Daniel kicked at some stones. A cow turned in her path and moved towards him. Daniel jumped a little and skipped behind Minnie.

She laughed. ‘Och, lad, cows’ll not ’arm you. It’s the bulls you got to watch for. You’ll learn.’

‘How can you tell if it’s a cow or a bull?’

‘Well, lucky you.
You’re here in Brampton. A town full of farmers – you can find out the answer.’

‘But that’s a cow, is it?’

‘It is.’

‘An old cow like you.’

She turned to him on the path, stopped walking and looked at him. She was out of breath a little and her cheeks were red. The light in her eyes had gone again. Daniel’s heart began to beat very fast, the way it did when he used to come home to his mam’s after being away. His heart would thump as he touched the door handle, not knowing what he would find behind the door.

‘Have I insulted you since you’ve been here?’

He looked at her, with his lips just parted.

‘Have I?’

He shook his head.

‘Speak up.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘All I ask is a similar courtesy. Do you understand?’

He nodded.

‘And while we’re at it, you know your time is soon up with that butterfly.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I said you could have it for a few days, but now I need it back. This evening, when you wash your face and brush your teeth, I want you to return it, do you understand?’

He nodded again, but her back was turned.

‘I said do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ he said, louder than he had meant.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad we understand each other. Now let’s forget it.’

He followed her along
the path, watching her boots in the grass and noticing that the back of her skirt was splashed with mud. His arms felt funny and he shook them to get the bad feeling out of them.

‘Look!’ she said to him, stopping and pointing at the sky. ‘Do you see it?’

‘What?’

‘A kestrel! See it with the pointed wings and long tail?’

The bird sculpted a wide arc in the sky and then perched on a high tree top. Daniel saw it, and raised his hand to see more clearly.

‘They’re beauties. We have to watch them from getting the chickens when they’re small, but I think they’re elegant, don’t you?’

Daniel shrugged.

When they got there, the school was an old building surrounded by run-down huts. He didn’t like the look of it, but followed Minnie up the steps. She hadn’t made an appointment and so they had to sit and wait. He didn’t like schools and he felt the ceiling of the place pressing down on him. Again, she seemed aware of how he felt.

‘It’s all right, pet,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to start here today. We just need to get you enrolled. After you’re all booked in, we’ll get you some new togs. You can choose them yourself. Within reason, mind you, I’m not made of money, like,’ she said, leaning into him.

She smelled almost floral. The definite ming of last night’s gin, but then the lemon and the damp smell of her wool, the chickens, and somehow the whiff of the summer grass they had brushed
through as they walked to the school. For a moment, smelling her, he felt close to her.

The head teacher was ready to see them. Daniel expected Minnie to ask him to sit outside, but she pulled him up by the elbow and together they stepped inside the head teacher’s office. He was a middle-aged man, with thick glasses. Daniel hated him before he had even sat down.

Minnie took ages to get into the chair beside Daniel, in front of the head’s desk. She unwound her scarf and took off her coat and then spent time rearranging her cardigan and skirt. Daniel noticed that she had left muddy footprints which trailed from the waiting room into the office.

‘Minnie,’ said the head teacher. ‘Always a pleasure.’

Daniel could see from a triangular nameplate on his desk that his name was Mr F. V. Hart.

Minnie coughed and turned towards Daniel.

‘Yes,’ said Hart. ‘And whom do you have for us today?’

‘This is Daniel,’ said Minnie, ‘Daniel Hunter.’

‘I see, and how old are you, Daniel?’

‘Eleven,’ he said. His voice sounded strange in the room, like a girl’s. Daniel looked again at the carpet and Minnie’s muddy boots.

Mr Hart’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Daniel. Minnie opened her bag and put a piece of paper in front of Mr Hart. It was paperwork from Social Services. Mr Hart took it and lit his pipe at the same time, biting hard on to the stem and sucking until the dirty, heavy smoke drifted over Minnie and Daniel.

‘It seems we don’t have his papers in from the last school he was at. What was the last school he was at?’

‘Maybe you could
ask him? He’s sitting right there.’

‘Well, Daniel?’

‘Graves School in Newcastle, sir.’

‘I see. We’ll request it. What kind of pupil were you there, Daniel, would you say?’

‘Dunno,’ he said. He heard Minnie breathe, and thought she might be smiling at him but when he turned she wasn’t looking at him. Hart raised his eyebrows and so Daniel added, ‘Not the best.’

‘Why do I sense that to be an understatement?’ said Hart, relighting his pipe and sucking until smoke blew down his nose.

‘This is your new start,’ said Minnie, looking at Daniel. ‘Isn’t it? You plan on being proper exemplary from here on in.’

He turned to her and smiled, then turned to Hart and nodded.

The next morning, Daniel awoke with the thought of the new school pressing on him, heavier than the blankets of his bed. So many new schools. He listened to the chickens in the yard outside and the pigeons cooing in the gutters. He had dreamed about his mother again. She was lying on the couch in the old flat and he couldn’t wake her up. He called an ambulance but the ambulance wasn’t there yet and so he was trying to wake her, trying to give her the kiss of life as he had seen on television.

The dream was close to something which Daniel had actually experienced. Gary, his mum’s boyfriend, had beaten up Daniel and his mum and then left, taking most of the money and a bottle of vodka with him. Daniel’s mother had spent what was left of her dole money on a hit because she said she wanted to feel better. When Daniel woke in the middle of the night she was hanging off the couch with her eyes half open. Daniel had been unable to
wake her and had called an ambulance. In real life the ambulance came quickly and they revived his mother. Daniel had been five.

Again and again he dreamed of her. Each time he could not save her.

Daniel lay on his side and reached into the bedside drawer. His hands closed on the egg, which was cold as a stone now. He warmed it in the palm of his hand. Again he reached into the drawer, his fingers searching for the cheap gold necklace that she had worn around her neck and given to him one day when he was good.
When he was good
.

It was gone.

Daniel sat up and took the drawer out. He placed the egg on his pillow and searched through the drawer for the necklace. He upturned the drawer, and shook out the sock and the children’s books, the biros and old stamps torn from envelopes which had been left in the drawer by her other children. The necklace was not there.

‘I can’t go to school,’ he told her. He was dressed in the clothes she had laid out for him: white vest and pants, grey trousers and a white shirt. He had done the shirt up in a hurry and the buttons were mismatched. He stood before her frowning, with his hair sticking up.

Minnie was spooning out porridge for him and dropping aspirin into a glass for herself.

‘Course you can, love. I’ve made your lunch.’ She pushed a bag of sandwiches towards him.

He stood before her trembling, the egg in his right hand. His clean socks were getting all hacky mucky from her kitchen floor.

‘Did you steal my necklace?’ He could only whisper it.

Minnie raised an
eyebrow at him.

‘It was in a drawer with the egg and now it’s gone. Give it back, now.’

Daniel threw the egg on to the kitchen floor and it smashed with a splat that sent Blitz skipping back to his basket.

Minnie bent and put the sandwiches into his school bag. He ripped the bag from her and threw it across the floor after the egg. She stood up very straight and clasped her hands in front of her.

‘You have to go to school. If you replace the butterfly, I’ll replace the necklace.’

‘I’ll smash yer fuckin’ bu’erfly if you don’t gimme my necklace, you thieving old cow.’

She turned her back on him. He thought about getting the knife out of his pocket but the knife hadn’t worried her before. He turned and ran upstairs. He had hidden the butterfly under his mattress.

‘Here,’ he said, putting it on to the work surface. ‘Here’s your stupid bu’erfly, now give me the necklace.’

She was wearing his necklace. He couldn’t believe it. She took it off and handed it to Daniel, then put the butterfly in her pocket.

‘So, what have we learned from that, Danny?’ she said as he got his breath back.

‘That you’re a fat thieving slag.’

‘I think we’ve learned that the both of us have precious things. If you respect mine, I’ll respect yours. Do you remember the way to school?’

‘Fuck off.’

He slipped on his shoes and slammed the door, dragging his
school bag behind him. On the way he kicked at the nettles and dandelions that grew. He picked up stones as he went and threw them at the cows, but they were too far away. Billy Harper wasn’t on the swings, so Daniel stopped and swung them right round so that none of the other children could play on them. He was late for school but he didn’t care.