The Mother (20 page)

St. Clare asks, “Mr. Manley, what are your ambitions?”

“My what?”

“Dreams. For yourself. What do you hope for yourself, for your future?”

It is the first question to which Tyson Manley doesn't have an off-the-cuff response, that he appears to really think about. The pause before he speaks is so long, I begin to wonder if he understands the question. Finally he answers, “I don't have no dreams.”

“You must have one.”

“Nah, I don't.”

“Not one single hope?”

A pause, then, “To be alive still, when I'm older.”

My eyes fill. The ache inside me makes my heart pound and that pounding continues throughout the time St. Clare flicks through his papers with slow deliberation, allowing his client's words sufficient time to sink in.

“Mr. Manley, how would you describe the relationship you had with Miss Nelson?”

“She weren't my girlfriend, I'll tell you that much. She hung around the guys and she would sleep with anyone. Yeah, I slept with her from time to time, she was chucking it about like it weren't no big thing. Then she started telling me she wannid us to be girlfriend and boyfriend, like man's gonna wanna be serious about any girl who ain't got no pride in herself.”

“So you were not boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“No, sir.”

“I see. Much has been made of the fact that Miss Nelson and Ryan Williams, the deceased, were seeing each other and in telephone contact in the months before Mr. Williams was killed. The suggestion is that you were jealous of this relationship and because of this, intended harm to Ryan Williams.”

“That ain't true.”

“Did you know Ryan Williams?”

“No.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you aware of anyone Miss Nelson has been out with in the past?”

“Seriously, I don't know, but she's slept with near 'nough every man I know.”

“And how did you feel about that, knowing that she was seeing other men, ‘sleeping' with them, as you say?”

“I never felt no way. She weren't my girl. I couldn't care less.”

This is what happens when there are no rules, when there is no adult steering and guiding, when children are allowed to make bad decisions then follow them through. Ms. Manley is responsible for that. How can any woman raise a son so unconscious of any responsibility to treat women with respect, capable of the things this boy has done, able to come into court and lie his head off regarding his actions? What kind of person would keep her youngest son off school to witness this? What on earth does she think he's learning? If my Ryan had ever spoken in my hearing about any girl he'd had relations with in that way, I would have gone in hard. First of all I would have wanted to know if she was so low, what it said about him that he still chose to have intercourse with her? That would have been the starting point and the conversation would have been downhill from there.

“Mr. Manley, as you are doubtless aware, Miss Nelson has made a series of grievous allegations against you. She has said that you and your friends monitored her phone . . .”

“Nah. That ain't true.”

“That you listened to a message Ryan Williams left on her telephone and you flew into a rage . . .”

“There woulda had to be some kinda relationship in the first place. I never said she couldn't see who she wannid.”

“She says you made threats about ‘sorting' her and Ryan Williams . . .”

“That's just lies, man.”

“You're saying the evidence Miss Nelson gave to this court yesterday was not true?”

“I'm saying it was bare lies. Bare lies.” He shakes his head as if it completely disgusts him; dishonesty disgusts him. A number of the jurors have the same expression on their faces and I wonder if they are merely reflecting his expression or whether, like me, they think he has overplayed his hand, gone just a little too far with the drama. Kwame was right; he is showing off.

St. Clare questions him about Sweetie wanting him to be her baby's official father on the birth certificate, his refusal, the manner in which she stormed off following the discussion, and how this led to Tyson Manley thinking she was going to try to do something to get him back. This neatly brings him back to the issue of why he thinks she lied under oath. They finish up with his version of the events of March 18, his arrival at Sweetie's at four in the afternoon, just as she said in her original statement, more than two hours before the murder occurred, and his assertion that he remained at Sweetie's home till after eight the following morning. By the time St. Clare has finished with his questions, it is quarter to one and the judge directs the court to break for lunch.

Lorna, Lloydie, and I go to the pub over the lunch break. We are a little earlier today than the last time we were here, and it is easier to find a table, quicker to get settled, order.

I say, “I wanted him to explain it to me, that's what I was hoping for, even if I disagreed with his actions, that boy would explain them and maybe I would understand.”

“Understand how one kid kills another for nothing? You think there's a way he could've explained it that you would understand?” Lorna asks. “You think he understands? You're probably giving him more credit than he's entitled to. He's had a shitty innings, and he was just jealous.”

“No, I don't think you're right. Sweetie said he never cared about her. He doesn't. He doesn't care about anyone. He wasn't some jealous lover . . .”

“He wasn't jealous of Ryan's brains or looks, he was jealous Sweetie had found a route to possibilities, to maybe being happy, when he hasn't, possibly never will. His future's so bleak. He was jealous that for a second it looked like hers might not be.”

Lloydie says quietly, “What I don't understand is he looks so . . .
normal
.”

Lorna leans over and gives Lloydie a big hug, rubs his back. Under the table, I take Lloydie's hand. I know exactly what he means. I came to court to hate him. I came to court to see evil personified, and instead of a devil, have found myself looking at a boy, a confused and severely damaged boy the same age as our son.

He says, “I just don't understand it.”

I say, “There's no logic, Lloyd, to any of this.”

Lorna says, “Marcia's right, there's nothing to understand. It just is.”

“What's she like?” I ask. “The baby?”

Lorna smiles. “Gorgeous. She has a tiny curly coolie afro. She's absolutely adorable. I have to stop on the way back and
pick them up some bits. When they turned up yesterday, Sweetie had the baby in one arm and a carrier bag on the other, one of those big hospital property bags with all their stuff inside. Everything she has was in her arms. I could have cried.”

I remember taking Ryan home the day after he was born. Lloydie had decorated the nursery while I was pregnant. We'd done the shopping for the cot and buggy and car seat. We'd bought a chest of drawers, the one still inside his room now, and the top drawers were filled with delicious tiny baby clothes, the essentials, Babygros and vests and socks and mittens, and gorgeous gift outfits bought by Dan and Rose, friends at work, my mother, Lorna in excited-auntie overdrive. We spent ages trying to decide which outfit we would put on him for his first-ever trip, from hospital to home, couldn't make a decision, brought two in the end to the hospital with us, made the choice of what to dress him in on the day. Lloydie had left us a few hours after Ryan was born, was gone for ages. When we arrived back, dinner had been cooked and there was a bottle of Champagne on the kitchen table, two new flutes beside it. I remember looking at those flutes, at my husband, at the beautiful baby we had made, thinking,
I will never forget this moment, it is perfect.

“Who does she look like?”

I meant the question to sound more neutral. I should have asked,
Does she look like her mum?
But that's not what I want to ask. I want to ask, Does she look like Ryan? Does she look like Ryan did at the same age?

“She looks like a newborn baby, a tiny sweet newborn baby girl.”

“Are they both okay?” Lloydie asks.

“They're fine. They're well. I fed the baby this morning before I left home. Sweetie was sleeping, poor thing. She's exhausted.” She shakes her head. “I was watching her while I was feeding the baby and I just couldn't believe someone so young has been through so much.”

She could be speaking about Leah, I hear it in her voice, a maternal defense rising; she's ready to fight for her, this girl from the streets, a nobody. I hope Sweetie doesn't let my sister down, that she hasn't robbed Lorna and vacated her flat by the time she gets home. It is an uncharitable thought. Despite St. Clare's efforts to paint her as a compulsive liar, in all my dealings with her, she's been nothing but candid. Our help could do it, help her change her life, completely change the outcome for that baby.

I ask, “Do you think she'd agree to do a DNA test?”

Lorna stops raising her glass to her lips, midway. “Why should she?”

“So we can know for sure, either way, for definite . . .”

“I don't know. I'm not gonna ask her. I don't think you should, either.”

“What, you don't think it's important to know whether she's my grandchild or not?”

“No, I don't.”

“Well, that's fine for
you
to say.” I don't expand, don't add that her child is still living, that hers is the comfortable perspective of those whose children have not been slain, wiped out for good. I don't need to expand, because she knows exactly what I mean and is furious.

“Don't you ever, ever talk to me like I never loved Ryan!
Don't you ever, ever speak to me as if I don't hurt, as if I don't mourn and bleed and cry for him, as if when he died, part of me didn't die with him as well.”

“So can't you understand that I
need
to know?”

“Why? Because if that baby is Ryan's child that makes her valuable? Because then, she can count on our support and help and some chance of a decent future? And if she's not, we can all just turn our backs and leave them to fend for themselves? If she doesn't bear your precious genes, Ryan's DNA, it'll be fine for the whole bloody world to ignore her, for her to be chucked out of school, chucked out of society, chucked on the heap, to be drugged up, beaten up, for videos of her being raped to be plastered on YouTube? Don't you understand that's exactly what's wrong with everything?”

“I have a right to know.”

“If it's your right,
you
ask.”

“It is and I will,” I say.

Because I know she is. She has to be my son's child, because I need her to be so much. Because there is nothing more I want, nothing more. It is the only outcome that can bring some sense to the senselessness of what has happened, give us a reason to go on. This baby is my grandchild. Despite the National Lottery odds, someone still wins the jackpot.

Lloydie doesn't look at me as he says, “Supposing she's not?” His voice is quiet, as empty as a cocoa canvas strip.

What if she's not?
Suddenly the volume of the noise inside the pub is turned up; people talking, laughing, a woman shouts, the clink of cutlery against plates, a tray of glasses being set down on the side, everything except answers.

Finally Lloydie clears his throat. “So this afternoon's our side's turn to question Manley?” he asks.

Lorna says gently, “Yes.”

And the topic is moved to grounds less fraught. We speak only about the case during the rest of our lunch and it strikes me as ironic. Who would have guessed that talking about Ryan's murder trial could ever have been an easement?

Quigg rises to her feet, approaches the witness box boldly, stops in front of it, and smiles at Tyson Manley. He smiles back. It seems a little too much, the smile he gives back, almost a sneer. He doesn't want to smile at all, but he doesn't want to create that impression. He should be concentrating on just giving his evidence but he's not, he's concentrating instead on how he looks. Silly boy.

She thanks Tyson Manley for the evidence he has given to the courtroom and asks if he would mind her asking a few more questions.

He says, “Be my guest.”

“Mr. Manley, you have stated under oath that you arrived at Miss Nelson's home on March 18, the day Ryan Williams was killed, at four p.m.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Did you have a key to let yourself in, or did you knock?”

“I knocked.”

“And Miss Nelson opened the front door to you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“So that would have been the first moment you noticed her injuries?”

“I don't know nothing 'bout no injuries.”

“I'm asking whether when Miss Nelson opened the front door, you noticed that she had any injuries?”

“And I've told you I don't know nothing 'bout no injuries.”

“Mr. Manley, I want to know, after you knocked on the front door, and Miss Nelson opened it and was standing in front of you, did you or did you not notice that she had some injuries?”

“Yeah, I did notice she had some injuries, I'm saying I don't know how she got them.”

“So you noticed she had some injuries. You didn't know how they had been sustained. Did you ask her?”

“She said she got mugged.”

“Did she tell you she had been hospitalized the previous night and discharged that morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she tell you what her injuries were?”

“Nah, she never.”

“Would you describe for the court the injuries you were able to see for yourself?”

“Er, she had a black eye. And I think her wrist was sprained.”

“Was it bandaged?”

“Yeah.”

“What about her nose?”