Boy A (8 page)

The barely reverend R M Long finished with a drone that confirmed this was just work to him. Work that was nearly done. There wasn’t going to be a reception for
A
’s mother.
A
had to go back to the home with Terry. His father had to sort out some affairs.

Though he was not supposed to, Terry left the two of them alone for a few moments before they got into the car. A chance for them to speak unencumbered by the presence of strangers. Something they had not done in nearly two years.

As it turned out, they didn’t have a lot to talk about. When there’s so much, where do you begin? They shook hands, brittly. And
A
’s dad told his son that he loved him, and that he’d come and visit soon; as mechanical as the digger in the distance.
A
said that he loved his dad too, and that he’d look forward to it.

A lie for a lie. A truth for a truth.

A month later
A
received a letter from his father. It explained that he had been offered work abroad. Part of a government contract in the rebuilding of Kuwait. Part of a protection plan, to shield him from the hate and the hysteria. He said he had to leave immediately, wouldn’t be able to visit before he went.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

They weren’t the only family separated that winter.

Terry told himself it was nothing, at first. Ignored the fact that his wife had started to rush to pick up the phone at certain times. Times when she was in any case lurking near it. Not setting any great store by his own appearance, Terry was curiously sensitive to that of others; and on some level he was aware that she was now wearing to work clothes which had previously been reserved for occasions. But he liked to see things used, and thought that this was good, marked a change perhaps in her hoarding habits. Even when a certain pair of French knickers appeared in the spiralled
Ali-Baba basket. A pair of white silk pants that aroused him even in thought. That he had only ever known her to wear when she wanted him to see them. Even when he found them dirty for the third week running, he could still believe that nothing was wrong.

Some people would simply not have spotted the signs, but little got past Terry. Friends, of whom he had many in those days, would describe him as acute, sensitive, intelligent; he was not a man easily duped. But above anything else they would call him optimistic. He was more determinedly positive even than Oscar, his hyperactively happy Labrador. Terry could set a spin on dark facts at which unemployment statisticians would hesitate. Engrossed as he was with his new charge, and the nagging question of whether the boy might indeed be as innocent as he continued to protest, Terry was easily able to sweep aside little inconsistencies in his wife’s daily routines.

He took pride in his family and in his family life. His son, Zeb, having turned fourteen, was becoming a young man, in body at least, being still slightly tantrumous in temperament. Whenever Terry looked at him he felt a warmth in his chest, a happiness that life could have allowed him to produce such a thing. A human being had grown from nothing, a whole new person from the love of him and his wife. And now the tiny creature, that he had nursed and nurtured, that had once had hands so minute they couldn’t wrap around Terry’s smallest finger, now his son was beginning to want his freedom. To begin the part of life that Terry had always hoped would hold a father’s greatest joy: watching his son carve his own place in the world; find the things that would make him an individual; perhaps some of the qualities of Kippling’s ‘If’ poem, that Terry had hung in the bathroom.

They ate every night as a stable nuclear unit: father, mother, son. Home-cooked, nutritionally balanced meals,
prepared, Terry presumed, with love. He and Zeb never did any of the cooking, but they sometimes did the washing up. Terry believed that his place at the dinner table was to try and discuss adult themes, to build his son’s sense of self, and of right and wrong. Though he could feel his wife wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, he often talked about his work in the secure accommodation, and in particular about the boy, only two years younger than Zeb, who had come into his care. Sometimes he even played up his charge’s positive attributes a little, to try and show Zeb the complexities of life. How nothing was ever as straightforward as it seemed. How even criminals could be victims. How even killers could be in need of love.

Only when he felt sufficient gems of wisdom had been imparted would Terry finish his food. But he was a firm believer in leaving the tastiest part of a meal until last, so right until the final bite he could look forward to the best bit. Sometimes he discovered that the savoured morsel had become too cold or dry by the time it was reached.

Zeb chewed his food more times than was strictly necessary to swallow, and always ate his favourites first. After which he would sit sulkily and grudgingly toying with the rest. Or, if allowed, he would put his plate down for Oscar’s over-enthusiastic, chomping chops.

Zeb’s looks came from his mother: dark hair, brown eyes, skin that tanned at the mention of sunshine. But Terry had always secretly hoped that in teenage years his son was going to show that his character came from his dad. Not that he believed there was anything wrong with his wife’s character: she just no longer seemed to care about things the way he did. Only about money and work.

She was personal assistant to the boss of a big construction company. She did his filing and his appointments, typed his letters. And eventually was persuaded to clutch him to her in regular, rough, stock-cupboard sex.

When she told Terry this, his fingers clawed into the paisley-patterned cloth of the sofa on which he’d been sat. He felt like he had been battered, and had to fight to suppress his own violent thoughts. He threw a figurine of Buddha at the wall, where it smashed and left a dent in the plaster. Only the plump, pink, smiling face survived, of what had been one of Terry’s most prized possessions.

‘Why?’ he had asked her.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe because you seem to care more about your work, about vicious little thugs, than you care about us. Than you care about me.’

He said: ‘You know that’s not true,’ and she admitted that she did. But it was the best she could come up with. Other than that she didn’t seem to love him anymore.

Terry wanted details, and he kept digging until he got them. Cutting himself deeper each time, like a self-harmer – the kids in the home who had discovered the only way to take away pain is to find a fresher, nastier pain. Which works, until the shock dies off and you need a new wound to concentrate on.

He ran through the images in his mind of the boss, the best lover the world has ever known, never failing or even straining to make his wife scream to climax. And the two of them, laughing in the contented aftermath, about the shoddy second-rate sex she used to have to make do with.

And he pictured everyone else he knew, all their mutual friends, who surely had been keeping a pitying silence about the affair. Who at best must have felt sorry for him, through the ridiculous small talk of dinner parties he’d been to, as the oblivious straight man to a charade of a couple. But who might have been sniggering behind his every word.

So they went their separate ways. Agreed a blameless split, for the sake of Zeb. There seemed little need for him to learn the sordid details of his mother’s overtime duties. She
didn’t want to be with her boss anymore than she wanted to be with Terry, and soon moved company, with a glowing reference and a golden goodbye.

Terry moved to a small flat with few furnishings but a 24-inch TV, a video player and a settee which could turn into a bed, for when Zeb came to visit. The sofa-bed didn’t get as much use as Terry had anticipated. He watched a lot of movies on it, but rarely his son sleeping. Another of life’s pleasures had gone. He could no longer just look in at Zeb’s peacefully heaving chest. No more see such calm, such protected contentment on his face.

Unable to break his promise and tell Zeb the full facts, Terry came to feel that he was taking the blame for the separation in his son’s eyes. When they saw each other they didn’t talk like they once had. There was no family dinner to engage over, just tinned food and takeaways. And as the weekends started to become more and more important to a teenage boy, his father began to see him less and less.

Finally Terry realized that he had been robbed. Not just of a wife, but of a son. He was not going to be allowed to partake in what he had relished for so long. He was not going to witness his boy’s transformation into a man. Only from a distance. Only as a casual bystander. He was not going to be allowed his youth again, to live vicariously through his own genes. He was never going to hear what happened at the parties and the pubs. Never going to be a mate, a support, a friendly ear, a person to turn to, to depend upon. He would just be another absentee father, like the fathers of most of the boys in his care.

The people in the sunken garden are cheering again, when Jack gets out of the toilet. As he navigates his way back, he rolls his sleeves up like a sailor’s, to hide his wet cuff. Jack feels like he’s been a long time. He’s relieved to see that Chris and Steve the mechanic are still there at the table. In fact they’ve been joined by someone, someone large and longed for. A red spotlight shines from behind her, illuminating like a halo.

‘I was beginning to think you were avoiding me, Jack,’ Michelle says. ‘Remember, this was going to be our night first of all.’ Her words are bold, but she seems less certain than normal, more coy. Or maybe the drink has made Jack more confident. Michelle tilts her head in a deliberately sexy way. Like Jack’s a camera. Like she’s a young Marilyn Monroe, size 16, from Salford.

‘Come on, Chris, let’s go for a wander,’ says Steve the mechanic, winking almost imperceptibly at Jack.

Chris looks unsure, but goes when Steve the mechanic nudges his shoulder. Jack takes a slug of his beer, which is slightly flat but very welcome.

‘So, you having a good night, Jack?’ Michelle asks. She is stroking her plump hand up and down her tall thin gin and tonic. It takes a minute or two for Jack to construct this as
carnal. He was thinking how the fluorescent lumps of ice look like the undersea shots from polar documentaries.

‘Yeah, really good. Best night in ages,’ he says.

‘So what d’you know, Jack?’

He’s come across this before, it’s an invitation to converse. He knows that, but not much more. He knows that she has a place inside her, a space that it’s possible for him to be in; and he knows that this thought is bizarre, and yet compelling.

‘Luton are playing at home tomorrow.’ Idiot,
he
doesn’t even care about that. Why’s he telling her?

‘Come on, Jack, what d’you know?’

She’s teasing him this time, he can see it in her smile. But, fuck, it’s a lovely smile. Come on, say something good, say something clever. What would Chris say?

‘Have you got a mirror in your knickers?’

Michelle laughs. ‘Jack!’ she says, feigning indignation. ‘That’s not the Jack I know.’ Then she leans across the table and strokes a finger down the back of his left hand. ‘What makes you think I’m wearing any knickers?’

Jack swallows, and looks at his hand. He almost expects to see a line down it. He can still feel where she traced, a tingle that stops at his knuckles. He plays back her words, ‘what makes you think I’m wearing any knickers,’ expecting to be unnerved by them, but finding them quite comfortable, finding that they fit somehow. In fact the words start to float. Washing up and down his chest with his breathing. Spreading waves of pleasure. They’re mingling with the tingling in his hand. And that’s flowed right up his arm now. And across his chest. Down the other side. Is this love? It must be. It must be love.

Trembling with delight, Jack looks deep into Michelle’s come-to-tea eyes. He sees her looking into him too, and she seems even to like what she finds.

Jack has become intensely aware of the music. He can’t stop his toes tapping, and his hands, moving like they’ve got
minds of their own. He manages to push his mind back to Michelle. He loves her, he must do. Rushes of it flood him now, every time he exhales. He has to tell her, no more wasted opportunity, no more men in suits, he has to tell her.

‘Michelle,’ he says.

‘Jack,’ she says.

‘I love you,’ he says.

‘Oh my God,’ she says.

‘I love you,’ he says again.

‘You’re drunk, Jack.’ She ruffles his fine blond hair. ‘And those words are over-used. You don’t really mean it.’

‘I do, Michelle, I love you, I really do. I can feel it all over. I’ve never felt anything like this before.’

She takes his hand, which is jigging about on the table, and holds it in both of hers.

‘Stop moving a sec, you little nutter. I mean, you just said a massive thing. I wasn’t even sure that you fancied me, and then you say that.’

Jack smiles at her. He can feel the grin spreading, taking over his face, releasing even more waves of pleasure. Being in love is amazing. No wonder they make so much fuss about it. ‘All you need is love,’ someone once said. He’s pretty sure it was Jesus. This could restore his faith. That ginger bloke in the toilet was right: it is heaven in here tonight. Being in love is like heaven, it’s like total fucking ecstasy…

Oh shit.

‘Oh shit,’ says Steve the mechanic, as he returns to the table to find Jack maniacally drumming on it.

‘Oh shit,’ says Chris, as he sees Jack’s giant pupils and monster grin. ‘We were starting to think they were duds. I guess not, heh, Dodger.’

‘You shit,’ says Michelle. ‘I should have fucking known. You’re off your head, aren’t you! You don’t even know what you’re saying.’ She turns and walks off, leaving her drink, not once looking back.

‘Oh shit,’ says Jack.

‘Leave it, Jack,’ Chris tells him. ‘They’re best left when they’re like that. I don’t think you’re in a frame of mind to talk her round now anyway.’

‘What happened?’ asks Steve the mechanic. ‘You decide not to chunder it?’