The Mother (8 page)

There was an incident one day when he nearly knocked down a child on a zebra crossing. That's how he tells it, as if the incident involved emergency braking, wild swerving, the black burn of locked wheels across the tarmac, a hairline miss. But he didn't so much nearly knock her down as simply fail to notice her patiently waiting to cross. He didn't see her till he was on the crossing itself driving past. How many drivers have had similar experiences and are still in their cars on the road? Probably all of them. But in Lloydie's mind, this single event has come to symbolize the danger to society he represents behind the wheel, so he no longer drives. He washes it though, polishes it regularly, and vacuums the
inside. He makes sure the tax disc and insurance are up to date. He went down last month from half pay to statutory sick pay. If he does not return to work before his SSP runs out, when money gets even tighter, that car will be the first thing to be sold.

We pass the car and catch the bus, and it is a bit like watching TV together over dinner, each of us staring with fascination through the window as the bus drives through streets we know as intimately as the backs of our hands, and I try to find the words to gently remind him about the Family Day, and fail. The supermarket is much easier. We speak of the things we need, quantities and brands and prices. We talk about how expensive staple items are, the disconnectedness of our government with the people, especially those who have the least and need help the most. We act our parts to perfection, just a regular married couple doing the usual things they do. The conversation winds down after we have paid, comes to an end by the time we board the bus to take us back home.

I help him unpack the bags, separating out the things that need to go next door. Almost the entire morning has passed without my saying a word. This is ridiculous. How bad have things gotten that it should be such a struggle to simply speak?

Finally, I go for it. “Have you remembered about the Family Day?” I ask. “It's this afternoon. I want to go. I really want you to come with me.”

He says, “You go. It's not my kinda thing.”

“You don't have to speak to anyone. Just be with me. That's all.”

“It's not for me.”

“You're not doing anything to help yourself.”

“I don't need that kinda help.”

I am remembering my sister's words of advice, to go in gently, but it doesn't help. I hear myself shout, “What
do
you need, Lloyd? 'Cause I don't know anymore. What is it? Me? Do you even need me?”

He doesn't answer, won't now that I've shouted. Instead he continues unpacking the shopping without looking at me, moving more slowly, hoping, I'm sure, to drag the job out till the conversation's done. And I should stop, I know this clearly, I should back off now, but I can't. I snatch the bag from his hands, hurl it across the room, hear the cans inside it spill out and roll across the floor as I screech, “Are you still my husband or not?”

Still there is no answer. Maybe that's a good thing. He isn't coming and nothing he can say to me is going to make me feel any better about it. He is collecting the cans from the floor as I leave the kitchen, go upstairs, and phone my sister.

I'm not sure quite what I was expecting of the Family Day, only that when we enter the community center hall and I look around, I know it wasn't this. There are French windows running the length of one wall, opening up onto the grounds outside where there are children playing, shrieking and hanging from a climbing frame, screaming and soaring across a bouncy castle. There is a barbeque going, people queuing for food, people and buggies gathered around a seating area beside it; families having fun. Inside, the hall is packed, a large space filled with activities; a table at which adults and children sit making chimes, a corner where head-and-shoulder massages are being carried out, a canteen area where there are cakes and cookies, tea and
coffee. There is hair braiding, a henna stall, manicures being carried out at the table beside it, a long slow queue of children patiently waiting for their faces to be painted. Perhaps it was a more somber event I was expecting, something along the lines of a memorial service. This event has the ambience of a fair.

A woman with a kind face comes over, introduces herself as June, the woman who runs the charity. She tells us to relax, have a wander, meet some of the other families, asks if we brought along a photograph of Ryan, suggests we begin by adding it to the board. The board is exactly what it sounds like and occupies a corner of the room with eight chairs in two rows in front of it like pews. This quiet corner is closer to how I imagined the event would be. There are lit candles on one side of the board, a tall and beautiful vase of elegant flowers on the other. Pinned to it are photographs, so many of them, and so many of the subjects so young and full of life. In the entrance hall at Ryan's school, his old school, there was a wall filled with hundreds of pictures of pupils and staff. I loved the energy of it, all those faces covering that space, the immediate recognition you were in a place concerned with people, children, life. Standing here, the energy is completely different; sad and also shocking. I take my time, move my eyes across the images slowly, consciously examining each face, trying to feel the people they were from the images that are all that remains of them, so many people—how many? thirty-five? forty?—all these healthy happy people smiling for the cameras, posing, every single one of them wiped from the face of this earth, violently. It is the sum of all these images assembled here together in one place that is shocking. What I am look
ing at is sad and shocking and something else besides that I feel but cannot identify or articulate.

Lorna says, “I'm gonna get a cup of tea, you want one?”

“Please.”

“You gonna come with me?”

I say, “I'll wait here.”

She goes off and I stand there, still trying to understand my feelings. It is sadness and it is shock and it is something else that is uplifting, and that puzzles me.

“Which one's yours?” a woman asks. I look up at her, older than I am, early to mid-fifties perhaps, of African descent, tall and dark and slim. I point to Ryan's photo. “Your son?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“He is handsome. What is his name?”

“Ryan. Which one's yours?”

She points to a picture of a boy who looks even younger than Ryan, maybe fourteen or fifteen, all teeth and exuberance, grinning into the camera.

“I love his eyes. They look full of mischief,” I say.

She laughs, a proper laugh, full, deeply tickled. “Ahh, Patrice, he was full of mischief, ach, used to drive me mad, always up to something, used to make me laugh, that boy.”

“When did he die?” I ask.

“In December will be eight years. And you?”

Not
when did he die?
but
when did this happen to you?
“Nearly eight months ago.”

“This time is hard, but it will get better. You do not think it can but it will. Believe me, I know.”

“Thank you for that,” I say, and I mean those thanks
with a depth of emotion that makes me tearful. And suddenly I am able to identify that positive feeling. Since Ryan's death, I have heard every uttering of sympathy, every cliché, been told by so many people that they know what I'm going through, that life goes on, time is the great healer, that in fact there are things to be thankful for; that my son was not suffering illness, his was a quick death instead of a painful one dragged out slowly over time. Lloydie's father came to visit us after Lloydie phoned and told him. It was always going to be a difficult visit anyway because he had so little to do with his grandson throughout his too short life, never really got to know him or spend time with him, but he came as people do when something this tragic occurs, a visit dictated by protocol, and he said, which I will never forgive him for, how lucky I was to be young enough to have another, as if Ryan was nothing more than a car or a winter coat or a boiler. I was too devastated by his insensitivity to reply, but I have replied to others and sometimes thanked them, while at the same time rejecting their condolences and sympathy because, actually, they haven't a clue. This is the first time I have met someone who has lost a child through violence, who has experienced what I have experienced, who has been through what I am going through, who has truly, genuinely felt it. It is the first time in seven months that I have not felt isolated because of my experience, but part of something, in the same way that the photo of Ryan on the board has gone from representing an individual loss to forming part of a collective issue.

I know there is violence in this country. I've seen it on the news and
Crime Watch
. I've read the papers, the stories
about people being stabbed, gunned down, women killed by spouses, children at the hands of the parents who were supposed to protect them, but it has always been a story in isolation, neatly wrapped up before moving on to the next news item. Here, I am surrounded by all these people, sixty, maybe seventy of them, and each one, including the people who run the charity, the guy who's doing the barbeque, the masseur, the woman making the teas, every one of us shares this bloody reality so easily dismissed by outsiders as an aberration, called “isolated incidents” by the media and the police, all these people, of different colors and origins and religions and none, middle and lower and upper class, as diverse a group of people as you're likely to meet anywhere, all together, all bereaved, all coping with hideous grief in our own way. It is the most engaged I've felt at any event since Ryan passed.

I introduce myself to Patrice's mother, learn her name is Fimi, introduce her to Lorna when she returns with the teas, discover her son, like mine, was also a fatal teenage stabbing victim. Apparently he gave the wrong boy a look that was interpreted as disrespect—a look, her son died because of a look—his murderer another young boy, fifteen years at the time, still incarcerated today, eight years on; two more young lives wasted. I feel myself studying Fimi as she speaks and I know what I am seeking. It is there behind her eyes, the grief, but she has pulled through. I want to know how she did it, where she found the strength and how she harnessed it, how anyone harnesses enough strength in this circumstance to keep going, not just to remain alive, but to live.

A little girl runs over to us, pretty and pigtailed, about six,
Fimi's daughter, followed almost immediately by her father, panicking because she was out of his sight for a few moments; their consequent child. As soon as her interest is caught, the daughter skips off with her father in close and watchful pursuit. Fimi joins Lorna and me as we drink our teas, then introduces us to some of the other attendees, whom she has met at similar events in the past.

I talk about Ryan to the woman who lost her husband in a robbery gone too far, to the mother of a daughter killed by the man she didn't want to go out with, a man whose son was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the crossfire between two gangs in a shoot-out that sounds more like a scene from a western than urban Britain. I talk about my son and I listen to them talk about those people they have lost, and the things they have gone on to do after; marathons to raise funds to do good, charities to save potential victims or give comfort to survivors like me, and I am filled with too many emotions to keep track of. I could cry for every person here, all those photographs, the people they represent, for the avoidable, unnecessary pain, the waste. Yet I am elated to be here amongst others who understand the need to remember, to talk about their loved ones, who understand how vital it is to listen—people like me. More than anything I wish Lloydie had come along with me, that he had been part of this.

The day ends at seven, after dusk, with the release of Chinese lanterns into the sky, one for every person here, in memory of those who have brought us all together, and for a short while the night sky is illuminated by a constellation of flickering lights. I wait and watch till the glow from the final lantern
is extinguished, can feel an emotional exhaustion descend upon me as I do the rounds with Lorna before leaving, taking numbers, saying goodbye.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I say to Lorna, when she pulls up outside my home. The house is in darkness. Lloydie is not inside.

“It was good for me as well. I'm really glad I came. Out now. Get some sleep. We've got a big day ahead.”

“I'll see you in the morning,” I say as I step onto the pavement.

She says, “Bye. Sweet dreams,” before I close the car door and she drives away.

THE ALARM AWAKENS ME ABRUPTLY,
severs me from my dream of Ryan dying, the first one from which I have woken wishing it had continued. I turn the alarm off and quickly lie back down and close my eyes in the hope of returning to it, but it doesn't happen. After enough time has passed for me to accept that, I carry out my regular morning assessment; this is a manageable day, on the scale, maybe even good. I will be able to get up without struggle, get ready and over to the courtroom, where I can sit and watch that boy for the entire day. I drink the tea on the side, stroke Sheba, and relive the dream. When I finally look at the clock, I am flabbergasted to discover so much time has passed so quickly, and I go from being as relaxed as I can remember in a long while into a panic, begin a mad dash to get showered and dressed and ready before Nipa arrives. I hear her ring the doorbell, and as I go down the stairs to let her in, the phone rings. I pick up the receiver in the hallway. As soon as she says “Hello,” I know who it is.

She says, “I need to talk to you.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“I just wanna talk . . .”

“Sweetie, I'm at court today, I'm sure you know that.”

“I know you must hate me. If I have to beg, I will, but you've gotta meet me.”

“Look, I haven't got time for this right now. You know where my house is . . .”

“I can't come to your house. You don't know, man, there's people clocking everything I do. It's gotta be outta the area.”

“You'll have to give me your number. I'll phone you back later . . .”

“You can't call me. Look, my money's gonna run out. There's a café, at the top of the market, Hulya's. Meet me there tonight at six thirty. You have to. . . .”

Then nothing. I say, “Hello? Hello?” The line goes dead.

This is bloody ridiculous. I put the phone down, go and answer the door, tell Nipa I'll be just a minute, lock up, and leave. I don't mention the call to Nipa, am not sure I should even be speaking to Sweetie, don't know whether just that phone call has already meant I've broken rules, wonder about the wisdom of meeting with her at all, why I didn't do what I should've done, said no then put the phone down, but that only lasts a moment. There is no great mystery underlying my desire to meet with her. It is the same force that drives me to get up and attend this trial; I want to understand why my son is dead. She is the single link between Ryan and Tyson Manley. She knows why this has happened. She hasn't told the police, but if I meet with her, maybe she'll tell me.

There is so much I wish were different, so many things I wish I could turn the clock back and change, and high up on my list is the wish that Sweetie and my son had never met. When I get into the car, I tell Nipa about my day yesterday,
and when I finish, we drive in silence, and my mind is filled with thoughts of that girl.

He'd been acting strangely for weeks, humming more, happier than usual. Getting ready already took him ages anyway, but it was taking even longer; brushing and smoothing his hair and eyebrows, trying out Lloydie's aftershaves, sneaking splashes of the most expensive brands. I watched him like I had been watching him since he was a baby, with the interest I always had when he was learning or embarked on something new, from swimming to speaking French. I never knew where it came from, his innate capacity to master new things, his fearless ability to venture into the unknown and emerge triumphant, thought it was one of the miraculous blessings of nature, his love of life and everything in it, and when he finally brought it up before he left the house for school, it was as casually as if he were asking for money for lunch, or reminding me he was going to the cinema in the evening with his mates.

“I was gonna bring a friend home later . . .”

“A friend?”

“To do some revision, for English.”

“Okay.”

“She's a girl.”

“A girl?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Er . . . I think we're gonna need some rules.”

“That's
just
what I was thinking,” Ryan said, laughing.

“I'm not joking,” I said, smiling nonetheless. “You both stay downstairs at all times . . .”

“But I wanted to show her the view from my window.”

“And she needs to go home at a respectable time . . .”

“Aww, I was hoping she could sleep over.”

“And no funny business.”

“Are we talking about sexual intercourse?”

“
Ryan!
”

“Mum, we're revising English, not biology.”

“I'm serious,” I said.

“I know. Deal,” he said, still laughing, and kissed me as he slung his schoolbag up onto his back and walked out of the kitchen toward the front door. He had just opened it when I shouted, “What's her name?” Then I heard it close. If he was bringing a girl home, I assumed this must be serious. If it was a milestone for him, it was an even bigger one for me as a parent. I had already had conversations with him sporadically, naturally arising from the circumstances we found ourselves in, about not treating women like the objects they are portrayed as in music videos, celebrity magazines, and porn; about mutual respect, consensual sex, contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases; but they had always been abstract, laying the groundwork for his future relationships. I had been determined to never be one of those parents who buried their head in the sand, who had important conversations in the form of a cussing after things had gone wrong and it was already too late. This development meant some more specific conversations needed to be had, and quickly.

They were in the kitchen when I came in from work. I had left slightly earlier than usual. I'm not suggesting I had a genuine concern that if I arrived back at my normal time, by then I'd be well on the road to becoming a grandma, but Ryan bringing home his first girlfriend had been on my mind for pretty much the entire day.

When I opened the front door, I heard them both laughing in the kitchen. That was my first impression of her, her laugh. You can tell a lot, I think, from a person's laugh, and hers was too loud, what my mother would have described as “brawling,” and it went on for too long. I paused inside the passage a moment, getting beyond the stereotype that laughter presented in my mind, then closed the front door loudly so they had an opportunity to compose themselves while I took off my coat before heading into the kitchen to meet her.

She was sitting on Ryan's lap when I entered the kitchen, jumped up when she saw me standing in the doorway, and quickly sat in the vacant seat beside his, laughing only slightly less loudly, with her hand covering her mouth in what seemed to me to be a display of false modesty, because obviously if she were genuinely modest, she would have gotten off his lap before I made my entrance so that it wouldn't be my first impression of her (discounting the one at the front door, which she might not have been aware had already been taken into account). Ryan looked slightly embarrassed, but also happy, and I got that. She was probably the first girl he liked who'd squirmed on his adolescent lap; of course he was ecstatic, but I was not.

When I'd pictured her in my mind throughout the day, I had imagined a girl who was really a female version of my son, demure and sensible, respectful and modest, bright and polite, convinced for some reason she would be a perfect balance of prettiness, braces, and glasses. This girl was the antithesis of my vision. She was
street
, that was the word that came to my mind,
pure street
, one of those kids who are always outside their yard from the time they learn to unlock the front door and let themselves out. She was a blurred amalga
mation of huge hooped earrings, permed, gelled hair, and short skirt with three-quarter-length socks that ended above her knees and below her skirt, like stockings lacking only the garter. She had managed to make her school uniform look like party attire with her cuffs and sleeves rolled up till they ended above her elbows, and a bold collection of clackety bangles adorned her wrists. Too many undone top buttons at the front of her shirt had resulted in an ample display of cleavage. She
was
pretty, that part I had been right about, but it was a kind of vulgar beauty. She was small, a lot shorter than my gangling son, but fit, like a fully developed woman who'd squeezed herself into a girl's school uniform to make herself look sexy. Ryan looked at me and his face fell and I knew it was because of my expression, which I tried to soften, make it reflect something other than the thoughts going through my mind.

“Hello,” I said.

In his attempt to greet me cheerfully I saw the effort he was making to mask the atmosphere I had created. He said, “Hi, Mum.” Then he introduced the girl, but I misheard him. I thought he said, “This is my sweetie,” and my response was angry. I said, “Your
what
?”

“Sweetie,” she said, blowing a purple neon bubble in her gum till it popped, licking it back in, smiling. “Sweetie by name and sweetie by nature.”

“That's a very unusual name,” I said.

She told me the story of how she got her name like it was some huge jolly jape, and finished with “This is a lush house, man. I'd love to live here.”

Yes, I thought, I bet you would.

While I was at work imagining the studious shy girl with
glasses and braces, I had thought I would give them space, respect their privacy in the communal parts of our home, but she scared me, the girl without a proper name, with the brawling laugh and jiggling D cups. Instead, I tidied up the kitchen around them and started preparing dinner, hardly wanted her to have a second alone with my virgin boy, because she wasn't the sort of girl my son would give a shy first kiss and fumble with for ten months, building up to his first experience of sex. She was the sort who might turn up to revision wearing no knickers! Grandmotherhood was sitting at my kitchen table blatantly taunting me and I'd be damned if my first grandchild was going to emerge from Sweetie's loins.

She stayed about an hour after I arrived back home, and after she left, Ryan went upstairs to his room without speaking to me. He was disappointed in me. He didn't say it out loud, but I saw in his face that my attitude toward Sweetie had disappointed him. To be fair, it had disappointed me, but she had disappointed me, his choice had disappointed me. We were all put out, and frankly, I felt it was a small price to pay to have her gone from his life and a space left for the nice girl I knew was out there somewhere waiting. It wasn't the right time to have the fifty discussions with him I'd been planning all day, so I only said one thing, had to, sitting on the bottom of his bed speaking to the back he'd turned on me when I entered.

“Any girl you sleep with could end up being the mother of your child. Anything could happen; she forgot to take her pill, the condom broke, it was a risky time of the month, anything. If you have the urge to sleep with someone, remember that. And ask yourself if she's the kind of person you'd want to raise your kids.”

Of everything I ever did as a parent, I regret that conversation the most. To be specific, I deeply regret the fact that it wasn't a conversation at all. I made a statement and simply expected him to follow through. We bought Sheba when Ryan was four and I spent hours discussing with him what we would name her, and the ways I thought his suggestion, Big Bird, could be improved on. I discussed such inconsequential things in such minuscule detail, and this one thing, so vast and new and so important to my son, this single issue I failed to discuss at all, just made my point then acted as if the matter had been concluded.

I know he spoke to her a couple of times after that on the phone, though I never heard the words he was saying, but I could tell from the tone of his voice and the defensiveness of his body language that it was her. The only other time I saw her was the day before Ryan died. She came in the evening and they talked briefly before I called him in. I wasn't exactly proud of myself, but I was glad it was a chapter we could close. Then after he died, was taken, I had expected to see her at the funeral amongst his friends, but she didn't show. It is probably a complete double standard, because I never mourned the fact of not seeing her till then, but since that day, my heart has held that particular absence against her.

Our legal team is already assembled in the court foyer when we arrive, with Kwame. I ask and Quigg tells me there is no word yet on whether Tyson Manley will give evidence. She outlines what to expect for the day, starting with St. Clare's cross-examination of Kwame and, depending how long it goes on for, the next witness, Nadine Forrester, the woman who actually saw Ryan's murder. Quigg apologizes to me in advance,
says it will be hard to hear the details of her evidence, says I need to steel myself to sit through it, or to choose not to listen at all, to leave court till Nadine's evidence is done. I say I'll give it some thought, though I already know I will be in the gallery listening. Nipa has gone to get coffee for us both, and while I wait for her to return, I take a seat beside Kwame on the bench and Quigg reminds us not to discuss his evidence. I remember my dream. There are things I want to say to this man that make me feel deeply emotional. I have to avoid them, otherwise I will probably cry.

Instead I say, “You look tired.”

“I couldn't really sleep properly.”

“Valerian and vodka helps.”

He smiles. “Maybe I'll give it a go. How're you bearing up?”

My eyes fill and I shrug. If I speak it will push me over the edge. One of the things I have discovered since the event is that I have the capacity to cry for hours. I struggle hard to get myself under control because I know that if I start I may not be able to stop. More than anything, I want to thank him for what he did for Ryan. One of the worst things for me has been imagining Ryan's last moments, imagining my son's blood oozing out onto the cold concrete ground, and Ryan afraid, in pain, alone, perhaps not knowing in that moment, not thinking about how much he was loved. Last night I dreamed again of his dying, but for the first time Kwame was with him, trying to save him, calling for help and doing everything he could so my son might live. Ryan still died in my dream, he always dies, over and over, night after night, I watch him die, but this time he was not alone. He was in this man's beautiful arms, strong and dark and vital as a baobab tree. I want to explain to him the comfort he has given me, and I will. I just
can't do it now without falling apart. I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. He puts his other over mine and we sit like this in silence till Nipa returns.