When She Was Good

by Robotham, Michael

  He ignores my outburst. ‘Patrick has a family … people who love him.’

  The word family puts a bad taste in my mouth. I want to yell at him to leave me alone; to stop analysing me and looking into my past. I don’t want him to discover the truth about me – what they did to me, what I became. People think Terry Boland was a monster who kept me locked in a secret room. They called him an evil pervert who raped me and burned me with cigarettes. None of that is true. They don’t know the whole story. The real story. How it began …

  I thought Terry was a giant when I first met him. He was the biggest man I’d ever seen, with arms like legs of ham, covered in tattoos that had faded and merged into a mottled blue mess. He had a crooked nose and bushy eyebrows and hair cut so short that it stood up like a scrubbing brush.

  Terry was supposed to wear a coat and tie when he drove the Merc, like a proper chauffeur, but as soon as we were clear of the big house, he would shrug off his coat and loosen the tie and undo the top button of his shirt. He had a chain around his neck with a small silver medallion. He told me later that it was a medal of St Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. ‘You pray to him when you lose your car keys, or your wallet, or your phone, and he helps you find them.’

  I wanted to ask whether St Anthony also found lost families, but I didn’t speak to Terry for the longest time. I wouldn’t even look at him. Instead, I curled up on the back seat and covered my face. Terry didn’t seem to mind. He talked as though we were having proper conversations, commenting on the weather or the scenery or pulling random facts out of the air, like the time I sneezed and Terry said, ‘Bless you’ and told me if someone forces their eyes open and sneezes, their eyeballs can pop out. Who discovers something like that?

  I began sneaking glances at him in the mirror while he was driving. Sometimes, he’d catch me looking and I’d pretend I was cleaning my fingernails. His eyes were soft. Not like the other men, who had hard eyes, or hungry eyes.

  One day I fell asleep before Terry came to collect me. He carried me to the Merc. I breathed him in, the sweat and oil and mint. I put my face close to his shirt and it filled my nose.

  Terry rode a motorbike when he wasn’t driving the Merc. I would hear him pulling into the courtyard beside the kitchen, parking under the big tree, where he took off his helmet and unbuckled his leather jacket. While he changed his clothes, I waited downstairs. Dressed up. Looking pretty. Sometimes I wore pinafore dresses, or tunic frocks, or a school uniform. Mrs Quinn would do my hair in pigtails, or ribbons, or a single woven plait that fell down my back.

  Mrs Quinn was the housekeeper. She made my meals, but I didn’t eat very much. Nothing would stay in my stomach. Terry would sometimes come into the kitchen and drink coffee or make toast. He wasn’t allowed in the rest of the house.

  ‘Hello, Scout,’ he’d say. ‘You ready?’

  He called me Scout because he said that was the name of a little girl in his favourite book about a mockingbird that died.

  When Terry drove, he talked. ‘Hey, Scout. Look at the cows!’ he’d say, like I’d never seen cows before. ‘Hey, Scout, look at the wind-farm.’

  I said nothing. The steering wheel looked small in his hands and he had a ring on his pinkie finger that had a little silver skull and red stones for eyes.

  When we reached the address, Terry would jump out and open the door like I was a film star on a red carpet. He would carry my overnight bag and ring the doorbell.

  ‘I’ll pick you up here tomorrow,’ he’d say, as the door opened and he made sure I was at the right house. The next morning, he’d be standing on the doorstep, taking the bag, never asking about what happened inside.

  One day we stopped and picked up burgers and fries on the way home. Terry ate and drove, cramming chips in his mouth from the bag on his lap. My food grew cold because I was too scared to swallow.

  ‘Maybe you like your food on a plate,’ he said to me. ‘Like a proper princess.’

  The next time he picked me up, he produced a plate and a knife and fork from the glove compartment. He put my burger and fries on the plate and kept glancing in the rear mirror, hoping I would eat something, but I didn’t touch the food.

  Terry didn’t get angry. And he didn’t stop talking. He told me he used to work as a bouncer at a strip club, stopping the girls from being ‘touched-up’ by the punters.

  ‘What’s a strip club?’ I asked. These were the first words I’d said to him.

  He looked embarrassed. ‘It’s a place where women dance.’

  ‘Who are punters?’

  ‘Customers.’

  ‘Do they touch the dancers?’

  He glanced in the mirror. ‘No. It’s not … it’s … complicated.’

  Another day, we stopped at a park where kids were playing on swings and climbing on a colourful pyramid of painted metal poles.

  ‘Do you want to climb?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m wearing a dress.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘And I’m a bit old for playgrounds.’

  ‘Right. Good. Sorry. I should be better at this. I got two boys. Jonno and Dean. They’re nine and seven.’

  ‘Where do they live?’

  ‘With their mother.’

  Terry made them sound like they were perfect children, well-behaved and good at school. ‘Everything I wasn’t,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t dumb. I just didn’t listen.’

  Whenever we passed someone on a motorbike, he made a point of telling me the make and the model and the engine size and how fast it could go.

  I asked him how it stayed up.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why doesn’t it fall over?’

  ‘You balance it. You must have ridden a bike before.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re pulling my leg.’

  ‘How can I pull your leg when I’m back here?’

  He laughed and I felt foolish. Angry. I didn’t speak to him again for the rest of the way home and when we reached the big house, I went inside without saying goodbye.

  When Terry picked me up the next time, I opened the car door without waiting for him and sat in the back seat, directly behind him, so he couldn’t see me in the mirror. I didn’t answer any of his questions, or laugh at his stupid jokes. And I didn’t fall asleep and let him carry me to the car when it was time to go home.

  The time after that, I got in the Merc and saw a shiny plastic helmet on the seat. We drove. I said nothing. I ran my finger over the helmet. He caught sight of me, but said nothing.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a surprise, but you have to get changed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You can’t ride a bike dressed like that.’

  He tossed a bag over the seat. It had a pair of jeans, a jumper, socks and trainers.

  ‘I won’t look,’ he said, tilting the mirror.

  I got changed and sat up front until we arrived at a bike shop in a small town with a stone bridge over a river.

  ‘Is this your little girl?’ asked the woman behind the counter. ‘What pretty hair!’ She reached out to stroke my head.

  Terry blocked her, knowing I don’t like people touching me. ‘We want to rent two bikes.’

  She took us out back where dozens of bikes were propped on stands, or hanging on racks by their front wheels. She measured me up against a height chart, before adjusting the seat and handlebars on a purple bike with a white basket on the front. She took longer to find a bike for Terry because he was so big. She put extra air in the tyres, which seemed to sag when he put his backside on the seat.

  The woman showed us a map with different bike paths along the canal, or around the grounds of a castle. Terry folded the map into the pocket of his jeans and we wheeled our bikes to the towpath.

  He leaned his bike against a tree and took mine, lifting the back wheel and spinning the pedals until they were the same height.

  ‘This is the brake, OK? But the trick is not to stop.
You have to keep pedalling. If you slow down, you’ll get all wobbly. The more speed, the easier it gets.’

  ‘What if I crash?’

  ‘Aim for the water.’

  My eyes went wide.

  ‘I’m joking. I won’t let you crash.’

  I sat on the seat. Terry had one hand on the handlebar and the other hooked into the back of my jeans.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘One … two … three.’

  He pushed me and I lurched forward, steering wildly. He held me steady and pointed me along the path.

  ‘Pedal … pedal … faster.’

  He was running next to me, holding on to the seat, occasionally touching the handlebars to straighten me up. I made it about fifty yards, splashing through puddles, before Terry stumbled and let go. I crashed into a bush and grazed my knee.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You want to give up?’

  ‘No.’

  We tried again. I pedalled and Terry ran alongside me, puffing and sweating. As I got faster, he grew slower, until I realised that he wasn’t holding on to me. I looked over my shoulder and almost steered into the canal, but corrected in time.

  ‘Keep going,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t stop.’

  I kept pedalling. It was like I was floating over the ground. Trees and bushes and fences and canal boats were rushing past me. I was free. I wanted to keep pedalling into the future, away from Mrs Quinn and the uncles and aunts and the ‘special friends’.

  I heard Terry’s voice. He was behind me, getting closer. He overtook me at speed, making brmmmm brmmmmm noises like he was riding his motorbike. He had his bum in the air, off the seat, and he was pedalling with his knees going out at strange angles. I laughed because he looked like a circus clown on a tricycle.

  We rode our bikes for miles along the towpath, until we collapsed under a tree, ignoring the wet grass and staring up at the sky.

  ‘What’s your real name?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s whatever you want it to be.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk to me like that – I’m not like those other men.’

  He looked at me with his soft eyes, but I didn’t believe him. Not yet.

  10

  Cyrus

  My skin crawls. My skin screams. My skin bleeds. Each prick of the needle creates an odd sensation, a mixture of pleasure and pain as the endorphins send signals to my brain. Sometimes, if I concentrate hard enough, I imagine I can feel the ink spreading out beneath the epidermal layer, painting me inside and out. I wonder what a tattoo looks like from the inside. Is it a mirror image? Or is it like a tree, taking root beneath the skin? Alive. Growing.

  Badger is working on a hummingbird on my inner right arm, above the elbow. I traced the design from a book I found in the library. I don’t know what it means. I could find some symbolism, but that’s not how I roll.

  I’ve known Badger since I was seventeen. That’s not his real name. I think it might be John Smith, which couldn’t be less appropriate. Badger is not a cliché. Badger is a purist. Badger is an artist. He works without a machine, using a needle-bar wrapped in gauze, which he holds like a paintbrush between his fingers. He dips the needle into the ink and leans forward, working freehand, puncturing my skin with a steady hand.

  He looks like a Viking warrior with his woven beard, piercing blue eyes and shaved head. Tattoos cover his arms and neck, some as delicate as lacework, creating the impression that he’s wearing an extra set of clothes beneath his tight-fitting T-shirt.

  After my parents died, my grandparents did their best to make me feel loved and protected, but they couldn’t save me from my survivor’s guilt. I became a cutter and gouger; using razor blades, knives, box-cutters and protractors to carve insults into my skin.

  COWARD

  TRAITOR

  LIAR

  FAKE

  I wrote in capital letters. Always somewhere on my skin that could be hidden beneath clothing.

  PHONEY

  FRAUD

  WIMP

  These home-made tattoos were eyesores until Badger found a way of hiding the evidence of my troubled youth, covering them with proper artwork. I know the various theories about tattoos, but mine are not meant to reinforce my identity or facilitate reflection or celebrate a core belief, or make me stand out. I don’t see them as a badge of rebellion or defiance, or attention-seeking, or alternative living; any more than they are a sign of low self-esteem or masochism. I do not seek to belong or to protest or to be part of a culture; and my body is not a billboard or a message. The needle is my escape and my salvation. The needle turns art into suffering and suffering into art and speaks to nobody except me.

  Right now, I’m in Badger’s studio in the Lace Market district of Nottingham. Maverink is a cross between a barber shop and a dentist surgery, with tilting leather chairs and sterilisation cabinets. The only difference is the corkboards, pinned with drawings and photographs. New designs and old ones.

  Badger has a flat upstairs where he lives with Tilda, his wife, who has flawless skin. Unmarked. Unstained. Inkless. Tilda has never wanted a tattoo, yet she loves Badger with a passion that is obsessional. She’s the granddaughter of a Tory MP, a former Minister, who once accused Badger of having kidnapped and deflowered his only grandchild. This could explain why the studio has twice been raided by the police, looking for drugs or stolen property, but Badger refuses to blame anyone or to bear a grudge. It’s only a matter of time, he says, before Tilda’s family accept him.

  He rolls back his stool. ‘Want a break?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Well, I need one.’

  I glance at my arm, seeing the bloody outline of a bird caught in mid-flight, hovering beneath my bicep.

  ‘How is Tilda?’ I ask.

  ‘She wants a baby.’

  ‘Is that such a bad thing?’

  ‘I’m an anti-natalist.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘I believe that we should avoid bringing children into the world because all human life involves suffering and death.’

  ‘But having babies is how we got here.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the biological paradox,’ says Badger, wiping his needle. ‘We are the only creatures to have evolved a consciousness, which means we can analyse our fate. We want to live, but we know we are destined to die. Any other outcome is a self-deception and the only way to avoid inflicting this fate upon others is to abstain from procreation.’

  I can’t tell if he’s joking.

  ‘Don’t you want a little Badger running around the place?’

  ‘Kant said a man should never be used as a means to an end, but always be an end in himself.’

  ‘What does Tilda think about that?’

  ‘She thinks I’m talking out of my arse.’

  ‘You’re lucky to have her.’

  ‘Very true.’

  Badger examines his handiwork. ‘That’s enough for today. I’ll start adding the colours next time.’ He tapes a large square of gauze over the tattoo and seals the edges. ‘Avoid direct sunshine and try to keep it dry. Change the dressing every day.’

  I carefully pull my shirt on to my arms and over my shoulders.

  ‘Does the gentleman require anything for the weekend?’ asks Badger, playing the barber routine.

  ‘You could find someone for me,’ I say.

  ‘A girlfriend?’

  ‘No. A person.’

  He frowns. ‘I don’t do that stuff any more.’

  ‘Nothing illegal.’

  Badger spent his early twenties running with a digital hacktivist group called Anonymous, who became famous for their Guy Fawkes masks and voice-changed online posts. This loose collection of computer geeks and hackers launched cyberattacks against governments, corporations, institutions and the Church of Scientology, protesting a list of grievances that grew longer by the month. That’s why Badger dropped out. He said their aims were never clear. Some were again
st capitalism, or corporate greed, or economic inequality, or organised religion, or democracy, or censorship, while a few were outright anarchists aiming to torch the world to see what happened next.

  ‘Who do you want to find?’ he asks.

  ‘Two people,’ I say, pushing my luck. ‘Do you remember Eugene Green?’

  ‘The paedophile?’

  ‘I’m looking for his mother. She was living in Yorkshire when Green stood trial. She came to the court every day and sat in the public gallery. But I can’t find a phone number or an address.’

  ‘What’s the other name?’

  ‘Terry Boland was murdered seven years ago in London. I’m looking for his ex-wife, Angela Boland. She was living in Ipswich when they were married.’

  ‘Why can’t the police help you?’

  ‘It’s a personal request.’

  Badger understands the subtext.

  ‘I’ll cover your costs,’ I add.

  ‘When have I ever asked for money?’ he says dismissively. ‘You can come to dinner on Saturday. Tilda has been asking. She likes you.’ He makes it sound surprising. ‘She’ll probably try to set you up with someone. Her friends are pretty nice. A couple of them are batshit crazy, but you’re just the man to sort them out.’

  Tilda yells down the stairs. ‘My friends are not batshit crazy.’

  ‘Please stop eavesdropping,’ calls Badger.

  ‘Is he coming?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  11

  Evie

  Vegetables boiled to a pulp, grey-looking mystery meat and mashed potato that looks like yesterday’s porridge. I bet lab rats eat better than we do.

  Ruby has saved me a seat and is shovelling food into her mouth.

  ‘How can you stomach this shite?’ I ask.

  ‘You haven’t tasted my mum’s cooking.’

  Davina looks at my untouched plate. ‘You have to eat, Evie.’

  ‘I had a big lunch.’

  ‘At least have an apple.’

  ‘Can I have a yoghurt?’

  She sneaks a tub from the breakfast trolley.

  ‘You’re too good to me.’ I blow her a kiss. An apple and a yoghurt – I’ll be feasting tonight.