Bloody Horowitz (23 page)

“It's very kind of you to see me, Mrs. Reed,” he began. He spoke slowly and without very much emotion. “You too, Mr. Reed.”

Arthur Reed had of course stayed in with his wife. The two of them were sitting side by side on the sofa, holding hands.

“May I begin by offering my condolences with regard to your sister.”

Elizabeth had been fearing the worst, but even so, the statement took her by surprise. “I didn't even know she was dead,” she said.

“Then I must apologize for breaking the news to you in this manner. Yes. I'm afraid to say that Janice Carter passed away two weeks ago.”

“Carter?”

“Her husband's name. She married a man named Kevin Carter in 1995. You never met him?” Elizabeth said nothing, so he went on. “They were married for ten years, but I'm afraid after that he left her.”

“How did she die?” Elizabeth asked.

“She had a nervous breakdown.” The attorney took a breath. “She hadn't been well for a long time. And I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but in the end she took her own life. She jumped off a bridge into the River Irwell.”

“Why would she do a thing like that?”

“She didn't leave a note.”

Both Arthur and Elizabeth blinked in surprise.

“It's clear that you had little connection with your sister,” Mr. Norris went on. “Were you aware of her situation? I mean . . . her state of mind?”

Elizabeth shook her head, dumbfounded. “I feel very bad about it now,” she said. “But Janice led her own life. She didn't even give me her telephone number and she hardly ever wrote.”

“We have been trying to contact her ex-husband,” Mr. Norris went on. “But so far there's been no trace of him. We believe he emigrated to New Zealand after the divorce. It's possible he changed his name—”

“Why would he do that?”Arthur asked.

“I can't imagine.”

“He didn't keep in contact with his son?”

“No. And I'm glad you asked that, Mr. Reed, as that's very much the point of this visit. Craig is thirteen years old. He'd just started middle school in Manchester when his mother did what she did. Right now he is being looked after by the local authorities. There are no relatives on his father's side of the family. And the only relatives we've managed to find on his mother's side . . .”

“Are Arthur and me.” Elizabeth completed the sentence.

“So what will happen to him?” Arthur Reed asked. He could see the way this was going and there was a certain dread in his voice.

“Well, under normal circumstances, Craig would have to go into an orphanage,” the attorney replied. “But you are his uncle and his aunt. So we wondered if you might be interested in taking him in.”

There was a long silence. Both the Reeds were thinking of many things, but mainly they were thinking of each other. They had lived together for a very long time and they had become used to being alone.

“Do you have a picture of Craig?” Elizabeth asked at last.

“As a matter of fact I do,” Mr. Norris replied.

He opened his briefcase and took out a color photograph about the size of a postcard. It showed a dark-haired boy in a school uniform with a round face. He was rather plump and he had a crooked tie. Craig Carter wasn't smiling. In fact, he wasn't even looking at the camera. Something seemed to have caught his attention at the edge of the frame and he seemed almost annoyed to be having his photograph taken.

“I won't pretend that Craig is an easy boy,” Mr. Norris said. “He hasn't done very well at school and his report cards don't make entirely pleasant reading. But that said, he is only a boy. He has lost his mother in the most terrible circumstances and I feel certain that a complete change of scene is exactly what he needs. I'm sure you'd agree that anything would be better than an orphanage. On the other hand, the decision is entirely up to you. You've obviously never met him and he doesn't know you exist. Everybody would understand if you chose to walk away.”

But the truth was that Elizabeth and Arthur already knew what they had to do. How could they possibly walk away? It didn't matter that they knew nothing about this boy. He was family. He needed their help. There was really nothing more to be said.

That evening they discussed the entire business over a supper of cheese on toast and hot chocolate, which Elizabeth Reed carried in on a tray. Arthur noticed that she sat down a little more heavily than usual, resting her walking stick against her chair. He could see that she was unhappy and guessed what she was going to say.

“Arthur,” she said. “You and I have been together for many years and we never had children of our own. I suppose we didn't really want any. We were happy the way things were. And now, suddenly, this boy—this teenager—is being offered to us. If you don't want to take him in, I'll quite understand. . . .”

“Of course we must take him in, old girl,” Arthur replied. He had called her “old girl” even when Elizabeth had been young. “Flesh and blood and all that.”

Elizabeth sighed. “He may not find it easy to adapt to our way of life,” she said. “We're very quiet down here. This house is very small. You're too old to kick a soccer ball around and I'm too tired. He'll probably think we're a couple of old fossils.”

“Still better than an orphanage,” Arthur said. “And Instow is a lovely place. Maybe he'll enjoy it. Make friends. A new start.”

“Poor Janice.” Elizabeth shook her head. “What a terrible thing.”

She telephoned Mr. Norris the next day, and a week later the postman brought a stack of documents that they had to sign and return to the council offices. The next three weeks were spent preparing the house. Fortunately, there was a spare bedroom on the second floor, and Arthur Reed got a local man in to redecorate. He had no real idea what a teenager would like but guessed that it wouldn't be floral wallpaper and antique furniture. The room was painted white. A high sleeper bed was brought in with a desk underneath. The curtains were replaced by blinds. At the end of it, the room looked very modern and new.

Craig Carter arrived a week later with a scowling social worker who introduced herself as Ms. Naseby. Apparently, she hadn't enjoyed the train journey down from Manchester and needed two Anadin tablets with her cup of tea. Craig himself sat there with a blank expression on his face. Elizabeth and Arthur hadn't had a chance to say anything to each other, but their first impressions were not entirely favorable. It seemed unfair to judge the new arrival too quickly, and yet . . .

Craig wasn't fat, exactly, but he was certainly out of shape. It was obvious that he had never taken much exercise and had eaten all the wrong food. He had poor skin and his hair, unbrushed, looked dank and lifeless. There was a triangular scar under one of his eyes, and Ms. Naseby explained that one of the other boys at his school had hit him with a brick. Craig shrugged when he heard this but didn't speak. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, both of which needed either washing or (Elizabeth thought) burning, as they were dirty and full of holes. He didn't seem to have much interest in his new home or the people in it. His eyes, a muddy shade of brown, were utterly lifeless.

Ms. Naseby was in a hurry to get back home. She gave the Reeds two telephone numbers—her own mobile and a general help line—and left as soon as she could. She had come by taxi from the station and had asked the driver to wait outside. She ate two sandwiches, drank half a cup of tea and left, the Reeds noticed, without saying good-bye to Craig.

The Reeds may have been old and old-fashioned, but they were not stupid people. They hadn't expected things to be easy and nor had they fooled themselves that Craig would accept them as his new foster parents just like that. But they were both pleasantly surprised by the way things went in the following weeks. Craig appeared to like his new room with its view over the sand dunes. He had never actually been to the seaside and soon his room was full of shells and oddly shaped pieces of shingle that he had found on the beach. He was introduced to a new school in nearby Barnstaple, and although the teachers reported that he was way behind with his studies, they had every expectation that he would catch up. He enjoyed Elizabeth's cooking—she had, after all, spent years working in a bakery—and to begin with he even helped wash up.

Arthur Reed watched the new arrival warily. In fact, for the first time in their marriage there was a certain tension between him and Elizabeth. But it was a tension they both shared, a bit like sailors sensing a coming storm. The sun might still be shining, but they both knew that what had begun as a pleasant cruise might at any time become a howling nightmare with both of them forced to abandon ship.

Things went wrong one step at a time. It was as if Craig had been testing the ground, checking out the opposition before he showed himself in his true colors. And once he had the measure of the Reeds, the school, the neighborhood . . . then it could begin.

He stopped making his bed. That was the first thing. Elizabeth had asked him to make his bed because she had a bad back and found it difficult to lift the mattress. But after two weeks, the bed remained unmade, the sheets crumpled, the pillows on the floor. Indeed, the whole room became increasingly untidy, with a strange sour smell and clothes everywhere. Soon it no longer seemed to belong to the rest of the house.

Arthur and Elizabeth said nothing. After all, Craig was a teenager and all teenage bedrooms are a mess. Arthur had borrowed a copy of
Proper Parenting
from the library, and the author advised him not to make an issue of it. “Young people need their own space,” the book explained. “If they wish to live in conditions close to squalor, then they must be allowed to make that choice.”

Then it was a question of food. Meals became increasingly difficult as there were all sorts of things that Craig suddenly refused to eat—mainly vegetables and fruit. Elizabeth had thought he liked her home cooking, but at dinnertime he would push his plate away and slouch with his elbows on the table and a sullen look on his face. As a result, he began to lose weight. He didn't get thin. He just looked sick and lopsided, and once again Arthur sought advice in
Proper Parenting
. “Many teenagers shy away from fresh food,” it explained. “And the more you try to force it on them, the more they will resist. In extreme cases, it may be necessary to seek medical advice.”

But this wasn't needed in Craig's case because quite soon he began putting on weight again. Even a place like Barnstaple had fast-food restaurants and he had taken to visiting them after school, stocking up on fish-and-chips and kebabs, burgers and takeout Chinese. The house was soon strewn with wrappers from chocolate cookies, chips and ice cream.

And how had he gotten the money to pay for them? That was another worry. Arthur had given Craig a small allowance from the day he had arrived, but one Friday afternoon, he and Elizabeth were shocked to get a telephone call from the principal at St. Edmund's in Barnstaple. It seemed that Craig had been bullying several of the smaller children, forcing them to give him their loose change or, even worse, to steal money from their parents and bring it to him at school.

That weekend, Arthur and Elizabeth sat Craig down in the living room and talked to him seriously about their life in Instow and how they had hoped he would make the effort to fit in. It was a mistake. For that was the weekend that war was declared.

“I know life hasn't been easy for you,” Arthur was saying. “But your aunt and I were really hoping that this would be a new start—”

“I hate it here!” Craig cut in, and the awful emphasis that he put on the word
hate,
the way he almost spat it out, shattered any remaining illusions the elderly couple might have had. “This is a poxy little house in a poxy little place and I wish I was back in Manchester.”

“But if you were in Manchester, you'd be in an orphanage,” Elizabeth faltered.

“At least I wouldn't be living with two wrinklies. There's nobody here my age. There's nobody to hang out with or have fun.”

This wasn't actually true. There were plenty of teenagers in Instow, which, apart from anything else, had a fine sailing club. But by now they had decided to give Craig a wide berth.

“I'm doing the best I can,” Elizabeth explained.

“I don't like you,” Craig replied. “And you smell.”

“I really don't think you should talk to your aunt like that,” Arthur muttered. Two pinpricks of deep red had appeared in his cheeks.

“I'll talk to her any way I like. What are you going to do about it?”

What Arthur Reed did was to call Ms. Naseby that same afternoon. And again the following Monday. In fact he called her, and her help line, several times before his call was finally answered. He was then passed from department to department, from social worker to social worker, but it seemed the bottom line was this. He and his wife had agreed to take Craig. It had been made perfectly clear to them that the child might take a while to adapt. But so far he hadn't set fire to the house or committed any serious criminal act. So like it or not, they were stuck with him. The council had taken Craig off their books and they didn't want him back.

Arthur and Elizabeth had been happily married for more than thirty years. But now, for the first time, they found themselves torn apart.

Elizabeth felt dreadfully guilty. It was she who had opened their door to Craig Carter. She was the one who was related to him. And so all this worry and unhappiness had to be her fault. When Craig was arrested and cautioned for shoplifting, she blamed herself. When he was faced with expulsion from St. Edmund's for threatening a teacher, she actually fell ill. She hadn't been exactly young when Craig arrived, but soon she was looking positively old. One night she slipped on a sneaker that Craig had left on the stairs, fell down and fractured her hip. The neighbors wondered if she would even survive.