The Mother (18 page)

She's standing at the sink, her back to me when I enter, staring at a small framed picture of Ryan, taken at school last year, in full uniform. I think you can tell a lot about a person from a good photograph, and the picture she is looking at is one of my favorites. He looks like Lloydie when I first met him, when we were young, yet there are traces of me, around his eyes, in his smile. He looks so healthy and happy, so healthy and happy and young and full of promise. He was such a handsome boy, his skin tone an even muscovado brown. His cheeks are full, his eyes intelligent and soft; that's what that photo managed to capture so piercingly, his intelligence and his softness, his beautiful interior world that was demonstrated in the way he spoke, the way he cuddled back. Her shoulders are heaving as she sobs. Sweetie turns around.

“I never meant for this to happen. I swear to God, I never meant for none of this.”

She looks wretched, distraught. As I move toward her to hold her, she steps back, away from me.

“They were already there that night, when I got home, in a car outside my flat, and they came inside. They were drinking and burning and I knew what was coming and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was so scared. I kept thinking maybe it'll be enough and they'll just leave Ryan alone, but they wouldn't stop. I swore I'd never see him again, I swore and I never did! I told Tyson we went to the same school, that's the only thing I told him, I never wannid to but they wouldn't stop, and that bastard still broke my nose . . .”

“It's okay, Sweetie, you don't have to explain, I understand—”

“No you don't! You don't understand. They recorded it! On their phones! I was crying and begging them to stop and they filmed it. They were laughing when they were recording and they sent it to me, like I was just some big joke. They've all got it, could be watching it and laughing right now! Oh God! It's my fault. Everything! I'm sorry, so so sorry. If I could go back, change everything, I'd do it, on my baby's life. He was the only good thing I ever had, but I'd give it up, every second if it would bring him back, if I could just bring Ryan back.”

I take a step toward her again and this time she doesn't back away, but lets me cuddle her, comfort her, hold her head against my breast inside my arms as she cries it out. There were no muggers. There was violence on that day, and worse, but it was Tyson Manley and his friends who did it. I called Ryan inside and closed the door in her face and she went back to the only place she had, where they were waiting because they knew she had nowhere else to go. She was the catalyst, because she existed and caught my son's first-love eye, but this girl did not shape Tyson Manley. She's not responsible for the person he's become. She wanted to be happy, that's all, and she was entitled, that's what he said; sixteen years of age and Ryan knew that already. Happiness, how small a thing to wish for, so tiny and so catastrophic. She was only a little older than Ryan, this mother who is little more than a child, that's what she feels like in my arms, a young girl. I can forgive this, forgive her, have to, in fact. It's the only pathway that leads to the possibility of me ever forgiving myself.

“It's over now. It's okay.”

She pulls away from me. “It's not okay. All those people in court thinking I'm nothing but a liar. No, it's not okay. I should've told them what he did! I should have told everyone what really went down. I wannid to, but I just couldn't, I couldn't do it . . .”

“You made the right decision. If you'd told the court what really happened, they would have had to have a retrial, the case would've ended.” She would have relived that terrible night, the beating, the filming of it, the laughter of Tyson Manley and his friends. She would have showed the court the mercilessness of his character, and all it would have achieved was the trial coming to an end, either before or just after St. Clare accused her of lying about that as well.

“You know the truth and now I do as well. It doesn't matter what the court thinks.”

“It matters a lot, to me.”

“There's no point going around it. Right now, this moment, the thing that matters most is what you're going to do.”

I sit her down, tell her the plan, such as it is, and write down Lorna's address on a piece of paper while she goes to the bathroom to wash her face and compose herself. Her handbag is on the kitchen chair, the top unzipped. I move the handle to drop the folded sheet of paper inside it. The handle slips, the bag gapes open, and I am astounded to find myself staring at a gun.

It is on the kitchen table in front of me when she returns, on top of a sheet of kitchen roll meant for wiping spills, drying glasses, a world away from what it's being used for now, a barrier between the surface of the table we eat on and this weapon of death. I look up at her. “Is it loaded?”

She doesn't answer, instead walks quickly over to the table, goes to pick it up, but I grab her hand, stop her. “Are you out of your frigging mind?”

She says, “You don't know shit about my life! You got no idea, none! I'd rather die than go through what I went through before, and I'll kill every last fucking one of them, they ever try anything like that again.”

“And what about your baby? What should she do when you're dead or serving fifteen years? What happens to her then? You know you'd probably end up in prison if the police just caught you carrying this . . .
thing
around, even if you didn't use it. This is madness, Sweetie, total madness.”

“I'm not you! I can't do what you want me to do! You think the police is gonna be beefing up some big campaign 'cause someone rapes me or stabs me or shoots me? If I'm dead, it might get a little shout-out on the local news. They'll say my mother's doing bird 'cause she's a crackhead and I was Tyson's link. People won't even stop eating dinner. They'll be like, “That explains it;
next?
” If I'm gonna make it, if I'm gonna remain alive, it'll be 'cause I did it, I managed, no one caught me slipping and killed me first!”

And finally it is clear to me, I see it, the war Ms. Manley spoke of, the fight not just to be unhurt and unmolested, to stay alive, but to live. Sweetie's right; what do I know about any of this? I let go of her hand, she picks up the gun, wraps the sheet of kitchen roll around it, and I watch as she swaddles it like a baby, puts it back inside her handbag. All I have ever wanted was to protect my little family, the precious people inside it.

“You cannot take that gun into my sister's house. You'll be safe there. You have to trust me.”

“Trust? You wanna talk about trust? I don't trust no one,
no one
, not even myself! There's whole cemeteries out there full up of trusting people.”

I close my eyes. She's right. It's what she said before, my son was too trusting, and that's exactly where he is, the cemetery. I say, “Sweetie, in court you said you felt with Ryan like you could make a good choice, not between one shit thing and another, but something different, good. Right now, this moment, you have the chance to make that choice again. You can go to my sister's, stay till we sort you out, find you somewhere safe to live, maybe get into a college with a nursery for the baby, find a job, provide a life for you both that is different to what you have now. I'm begging you, put the gun back down, leave it here, please. It belongs in your old world. You have a choice to stay in that world or move out of it into something new.”

I look at her. She looks away, down at the floor. She wants more than the tiny tight corner of the world she's been consigned to. That desire, that hope, is what's brought her here. I push. “Well? What's it gonna be?”

She takes the gun out of her bag, and as she does, the piece of paper with Lorna's address on it is pulled out as well and falls to the floor at her feet. She puts the gun back onto the kitchen table, then bends down and picks up the folded sheet, unfolds it, reads the address. She looks up as I stand, watches as I grab the house phone to call her a minicab. I pause a moment before dialing.

“Well done. You probably just made the best decision you'll ever have to make as a mum.”

The cabdriver rings me back on the house phone to let us know he has pulled up outside, and from the moment I put
the phone down, Sweetie goes up a gear into hyperdrive. She looks out of the living room windows quickly, checking to see if the coast is clear before heading for the side door. Clutching her handbag tightly, she virtually runs from the door to the cab, and belatedly I run after her, my eyes going up and down the street fearfully, looking for I hardly know what, wishing her fear was less contagious, as paranoid now as she is, berating myself for behaving like a fugitive when I'm not. Her head is down, her shoulders rounded, conspicuously avoiding being seen. She practically yanks the back door open and gets in in one movement, slamming it shut behind her. She says something to the driver and the cab has begun to move almost before I have made it to the curbside. Her departure is so swift, I haven't had a chance even to properly say goodbye. I wait a moment so that if she looks out the back window I can give her a reassuring wave, and from nowhere, two figures hurtle past me, running down the center of the road after the cab as it begins picking up speed. One of them almost catches it, but as he can't maintain that pace, and as the cab pulls farther away, he reaches out in frustration and slams the palm of his hand loudly onto its boot. The cab gets to the top of my road and turns left onto the high street.

And I am still standing there, in shock I think, as they both stop running and watch the cab disappear from sight, then finally turn so they are looking at me. My heart inside my chest pounds wildly. I spin casually, as if I have seen nothing, begin walking back to my home as swiftly as I can without looking as though I am trying to get away. I try not to give the appearance of panicking despite the fact that I am. I know consciously, acutely, that I should not look back, because then they will know that I know they were here for Sweetie
and now she's gone, possibly for me, but I can't resist it. When my head swivels around, I discover that not only are they no longer standing watching me from the end of the road, they are both jogging in my direction, and from that moment, the pretense is off, and they both begin charging at full speed toward me. They are wearing hoodies, and because it is dark, it is virtually impossible to make out their faces. Now I understand the terror that made Nadine Forrester trip at the Sports Ground. My focus is on two things and two things only, running with all my might as fast as I can to get back to the house, and not falling over on the way.

And I make it to the side door, manage to get myself through it, into the kitchen, grab the door with both hands and have almost shoved it closed when I feel the push from the other side. I imagine one of them has landed a flying dropkick with all his body weight behind it against the door, because it crashes open with a force that sends me flying across the room, hurls me onto the kitchen table, and my weight tips it over and onto me as I fall to the floor. I hear the clatter of a chair as it comes to a stop in the hallway outside the kitchen doorway. I look around desperately and down, and it's there on the floor beside me, Sweetie's gun. I pick it up and stand like a police officer in a gangster movie, both hands wrapped around the grip, the muzzle of the gun and my arms forming a horizontal V, and the effect is instantaneous; they both stop moving so abruptly you might have thought I'd shouted “Freeze!” But I have used no words. I don't need to. What I have in my hands speaks volumes in the language they understand; I have the power to take their lives. Now I can see their faces, here, in the light of the kitchen, scared, two pairs of wide eyes fixed fast upon the jerky movement of the gun. They are young boys,
like my son was, mere kids, and they are fearful because they do not want to die.

I move back a little, swinging the muzzle from one to the next to stop them moving forward and closer. They have gotten over the shock now, had time to think about what they're seeing, what they're really looking at; a middle-aged woman with tufts sprouting here and there from her balding head, whose arms are shaking violently as she subdues them with a gun. I really don't need to ask to know they can hardly believe their eyes.

They say that in the moments before you die your life flashes before your eyes. Since Ryan's death, it is something I have thought about a lot, the fact that most people's lives are relatively long, a flash little more than seconds, deduced that in that moment, it has to be the case your brain must be functioning under duress with maximum efficiency, and even then to play out your whole life, even one as short as Ryan's, would be impossible, so your mind must select them for you, the memories of the most important moments, and give them back to you in that instant with such clarity and detail, it feels as if time has virtually ground to a halt. This feels like such a moment, except instead of memories, time has slowed and my mind is filled with thought. I am thinking that I am holding a gun in my hands,
me
, pointing it at these boys as young as Ryan, and the whole scenario is insane; I am as far removed from taking life as it is possible for a human to be.

This is Sweetie's world, not mine, the world of those who have nothing to lose, people without functioning families or jobs or prospects or hope, and I am not one of those people. The life I have, though broken, still has value to me and I won't spend the next decade of it sitting in an anger management
circle with other prisoners, discussing how I came to be at Holloway serving life. I have a choice to make here, like Sweetie, and I need to make it fast before this all goes horribly, horribly wrong, before the moment shifts and one of them moves, and from sheer terror, I fire and one of them ends up dead. I lower my hands to the floor, drop the gun, take a couple of steps back away from it, from them, feel the unyielding coolness of the kitchen wall pressed against my back.