by Linda Green
‘Yeah. Not at all keen, but he went.’
‘Poor mite. Let’s hope he has a better week.’
Terry comes to the door behind me.
‘This is Martin, Finn’s dad,’ I say to him. ‘Martin, our Terry.’
‘Hello,’ says Terry, stepping forward to shake Martin’s hand. ‘Thanks for doing this. Our Kaz says you’ve been a right help.’
‘You’re welcome. It should never have happened. It’s time we got it put right. Are you ready to go?’
‘Aye,’ I say. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
*
There are three of them sitting behind the bench when we go in. Two middle-aged bald men in suits and a woman with silver hair and wearing a pearl necklace.
‘Fucking hell, Kaz,’ whispers Terry. ‘I don’t think we’ve got a hope.’
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Remember what Martin just said. All you’ve got to do is tell truth.’
He nods and we all sit down. The woman in the pearl necklace introduces them and explains what will be happening. Martin looks at me and nods. A few minutes later, he’s standing up, going through the case, reading things out from the big file he’s holding. I had no idea he’d done this much work on it. I passed on the papers they sent, but then I left him to it. He reads the bit out he’d told me about from Doctor Khalil’s statement. The bit where he said that he didn’t feel sufficient weight had been given to the previous instances where Terry had been sectioned after starting work.
I give Terry’s hand a squeeze before it’s his turn to go up.
‘Just remember, if you’re stuck, sometimes, always, never or occasionally.’
Terry manages a smile. He fidgets a bit while he stands there but once they start asking questions, he’s fine. He tells them exactly what happened. How he could hear the rats scrabbling around the toilet. I catch the look on the woman’s face. I just can’t work out if she’s horrified at him, or them for sending him out there.
*
We wait outside in the corridor while the panel make their decision. Terry is walking up and down, fiddling with his buttons again.
‘What do you reckon?’ I whisper to Martin.
‘He’s got a very strong case. Just depends if they’re the sort who’ll be prepared to overturn it.’
We get a call to go back in, fifteen minutes later. The woman in the pearl necklace smiles at us as we go in. She starts talking; I can’t work out some of what she’s on about, but Martin is nodding as she talks. And then I hear it. The bit where she says the original decision was wrong and they’re putting him back on Employment Support Allowance. I grab Terry’s hand.
‘You’ve won,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve won case.’
Terry is quiet when we come out. Quieter than I imagined he’d be. He sits down on the chairs outside, puts his head down and I see his shoulders start to shake. I sit down next to him and put my arm round his shoulder.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘It’s over now.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘But it should never have fucking happened, should it? Not to me, or you or that wee girl. None of it should ever have happened.’
‘No,’ I reply, relieved he doesn’t know the full extent of the toll it took on me. ‘None of it should ever have happened.’
BEFORE 15
15
Finn
The warden isn’t around when we get back to the campsite and the only other tent apart from ours has gone too. Mum gets all the stuff out of our tent and puts it in a pile with our rucksacks. She is doing everything very quickly.
‘If you can try to pack our rucksacks the best you can, Finn,’ she says, ‘I’ll get to work on the tent.’
I look down. I can’t see how all those things actually fitted in, but I suppose they must have. I pack my bee rucksack first because that is easy. Then I start rolling up the sleeping bags like Mum has shown me and stuffing them into the rucksack, putting our toiletries in the side pockets and tying our cooking things on the outside. I have managed to get most of it in by the time Mum has finished the tent.
‘Great job, Finn,’ she says, ‘can you pop and fill our water bottles while I get this attached to the rucksack?’
I run over to the shower and toilet block, where there is a drinking-water tap. When I tell Lottie about this bit, I will tell her I was excited, even though I am actually scared. I don’t want Mum to go to prison. From what I have seen on TV, prisons are horrible big, dark, scary places and Mum is soft and gentle and likes dancing and baking and I don’t think they would let her do those things in there. I thought they only put murderers and robbers in prison. I didn’t think they sent mums who take their child camping there – even if they didn’t tell their husbands about it.
When I get back to Mum, she has already hoisted her rucksack onto her back. I clip the water bottles on.
‘Right, let’s be off, then,’ she says, although she doesn’t look or sound very sure about it. She looks completely different from when we arrived at the campsite. Kind of like all the fun and hope has been squeezed out of her.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far,’ she replies. ‘Somewhere I remember that should be a nice, quiet spot.’
‘What if the police find us before we get there?’
Mum gives me the best hug she can manage with a huge rucksack on her back. ‘Try not to worry, Finn. We’re going to get this all sorted out. Everything will be fine.’
‘OK,’ I say, although I don’t see how and judging by the look on her face, I don’t think she believes it any more than I do.
*
We walk for a long way. Down through the woods to some country lanes and then along the river. It’s still hot and we stop every now and again to have a drink of water. Mum doesn’t put the rucksack down even though I know it is super-heavy and I can see the dents the straps are making on her shoulders. She doesn’t say much either. She has her sun hat and her shades on, but she still looks sad, even though I can’t really see her face. Even the way she is walking is sad.
I wish I could do something to cheer her up, but I have never been good at telling jokes and I don’t think doing the crazy chicken dance and making chicken noises would be a good idea right now.
My legs are tired and I’m hot and bothered but I know I mustn’t complain because that will make her even sadder. Eventually, the river leads into some more woods. It is cooler under the trees and Mum stops for a moment for another drink.
‘Where are we?’ I ask.
‘Copley Woods,’ she replies.
‘But that’s not far from home.’
‘I know. It means we’re halfway there already.’
‘When are we going home?’
‘As soon as Dad’s told the police and it’s all been sorted out.’
‘Do you think he’ll have told them yet?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replies. ‘We can listen to the news on my wind-up radio later.’
‘Everyone at school will know by now, won’t they? About the police looking for us, I mean.’
Mum looks down at the ground. ‘I suppose so,’ she says.
‘They’ll all be talking about it when I go back to school. Asking loads of questions. Saying that I was scared of the tests and ran away. It will be worse than it was before.’
Mum sinks down on to her knees and starts crying. Sad crying, not the sort of crying you do when you graze your knee. I stand there, not knowing what to do. I kneel down next to her.
‘Sorry Mum,’ I say.
She shakes her head and cries even more. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry,’ she sobs. ‘I’m the one who’s messed all this up. I was trying to help but I’ve made things worse and I’m so, so sorry.’
She does some more crying. She is almost bent in half and she still has the heavy rucksack on. I worry she is goi
ng to get completely squashed under it.
‘Take it off, Mum,’ I say. It’ll hurt you. Take it off.’
She sits up and eases the straps off her shoulders. The rucksack falls to the ground with a clatter as the frying pan bashes against the water bottles. The marks the straps have left on her shoulders look sore. I feel bad that I have made her do this. I should have kept quiet about all the stuff at school.
‘Let’s go home now,’ I say. ‘Maybe we won’t get into as much trouble as we think.’
‘You won’t, Finn, but I will,’ she says, reaching out for my hand. ‘I should have realised it was a stupid idea, but I panicked and now look what I’ve done.’
She is crying again now. Big, soggy tears that stream down her cheeks from underneath her shades. She is squeezing my hand and it is like she is squeezing the tears out because I am crying too.
She leans over and hugs me to her.
‘You’ll be OK. I know it’s not going to be easy for you, but Dad will take good care of you.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘They won’t let you live with me after the divorce,’ she says. ‘Not now the police have been involved. They’ll say you have to live with Dad, but we’ll still see each other as much as possible and do lots of fun things together.’
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head in the hope that I may shake the words out of my ears and pretend I never heard them. ‘I want to live with you.’
‘I know,’ she says, ‘but I’ve messed things up, love. They’ll say I’m an unfit mother because of this.’
‘But you said Dad’s solicitor was going to say that anyway.’
‘He was but we could have argued he was wrong. Not now the police have been involved – there’s no way they’ll let you live with me.’
I stare at her, trying very hard not to burst into tears again.
‘But it’s not your fault the note blew down. I’ll tell them that. I’ll tell them that it happened to your shopping list too. They’ll see that it was just a mistake.’
Mum is shaking her head and squeezing both my hands harder.
‘It doesn’t work like that, Finn. I’ve messed up big time and they’re not going to let me forget it. When you’re a kid, it’s OK to make a mistake and learn from it. Even when you’re an adult, you might be given a second chance, but when you’re a parent . . .’
Her voice trails off and she just sits there on the ground. I wish I knew what to say but I don’t because I am a kid and no one at school teaches you what to say when your mum is upset, only how to multiply fractions and label a Viking longboat.
‘Don’t get divorced then,’ I hear myself saying. ‘You and Dad can just carry on in separate rooms like you are now and we can still be together, and I don’t mind about the arguing.’
Mum hangs her head.
‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ she says, ‘we can’t stop it now, we’ve gone too far down that road. I have tried, honestly, but there’s no going back.’
All I can think of is how much I will hate it not living with Mum. I don’t even see how Dad can possibly look after me when he doesn’t know where anything is or what I like in my sandwiches. He will have to phone Mum up all the time and ask her stuff. And she won’t be there when I need a cuddle. And I might still need a cuddle, even when I’m eleven. I feel the tears rolling down my cheeks and the trees around me go blurry. It’s all gone horribly wrong and I don’t know what to do about it.
‘Then why don’t we actually run away?’ I ask. ‘If that’s what they think we’ve done, we should do it. We’ve got the stuff we need with us. We could go to the Isle of Mull, that place where they filmed Balamory, with all the different-coloured houses. I liked it there. They had a really good chocolate shop and if it’s like Balamory, they will only have one policeman and if he’s like PC Plum, he’ll be nice and won’t arrest you or tell anyone we’re there.’
I was hoping it was a good idea, but Mum is crying even more now.
‘We can’t do that, Finn. Not in the real world. I’m your parent and Dad’s right, I need to do the responsible thing and take you home.’
‘But being with you is all I want. You can teach me stuff, like you always said you wanted to. We can make a school in the tent and study flowers and things.’
Mum has her arms wrapped round me now. She is crying softly into my hair and squeezing me so tightly it is getting difficult to breathe.
‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ she says again. ‘I’d like that more than anything in the world, but it just can’t happen.’
‘Can we pretend then?’ I ask. ‘Just for tonight. I don’t want to think about going back and not being with you, so can we pretend that we have run away and that we live in a tent now and I go to school in a tent?’
Mum hesitates and wipes my tears away with her fingers. ‘OK,’ she says, ‘we can. Just for tonight, though. I’ll take you home first thing tomorrow.’
‘Can it be after breakfast?’ I ask. ‘I want to have veggie sausages on the campfire one more time.’
She nods and smiles. ‘We’re out of sausages so we’ll have to pop to a shop and see what we can get.’
‘But what if the police see us?’
‘We’ll go later, when it’s dark. There’s a shop at the petrol station not far from here. They won’t be looking for us by then, anyway. Dad will have phoned them.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Can we find somewhere to set up the tent now? I want to build my school.’
*
The hiding den and school we make is a good one. Mum finds a spot right in among the trees where no one can see us from the path. There is only just enough room to put the tent up, but I like being away from everything and everyone. It’s like we are the only two people left in the world and that’s what I want to believe right now.
We lie down for a bit in the tent and read, then we go and collect some nature things and I draw them in a notebook Mum has brought with her and label the parts of the leaves. If we had some crayons or chalk with us, I would do some leaf rubbings. I love seeing the veins in leaves coming through onto paper. If you try to do a rubbing of your leg, none of the veins come out. I know that because I have tried. Trees are cleverer than humans, really. Trees and squirrels.
‘I liked school today,’ I say as I sit and watch Mum cook the spaghetti hoops later.
She turns and smiles at me. It is a sad smile.
‘It was good, wasn’t it?’ she says.
‘Better than normal school. We don’t do anything outside at school apart from play football and that’s a complete waste of being outdoors.’
Mum smiles again. It’s a better smile this time. ‘I know teachers shouldn’t say this, but you’re my favourite pupil.’
I smile and the smile turns into a little laugh. Mum’s does too. For a moment she has sparkly eyes and a sparkly voice. I think if we lived in the tent all the time there would be a lot more sparkliness.
Mum shares the spaghetti hoops out between our tin bowls. She gives me more than she’s got. I look up with a little frown.
‘It’s OK, you’re a growing lad,’ she says. ‘I’ll have a big breakfast in the morning.’
*
We wait until it is starting to get dark before we set off for the shop. I have my bee rucksack on, and Mum has a little bag clipped on her belt that pulls out to become a shopping bag. It has got bees on too because she says they remind her of me.
‘What time is it?’ I ask, as we walk through the trees.
‘About half past nine.’
‘We forgot to listen to the news on your radio,’ I say.
‘I know. It was nice just sitting and talking with you. I didn’t want to spoil it.’
‘But we don’t know if Dad has told the police now.’
‘I’m sure he has,’ says Mum softly.
‘We could
put it on when we get back, just to make sure.’
‘It’ll be a bit late, Finn.’
‘Well, we haven’t got to worry about neighbours, and we can find some music afterwards so you can have a dance. The floaty lady might be on singing about the dark days again.’
‘The dog days,’ says Mum, with a smile.
‘What?’
‘Florence, the floaty lady. She sings about the dog days being over.’
‘Does she? I thought it was about spring and the dark days being over. What are dog days? Are they good or bad?’
‘I’m not sure,’ says Mum. ‘I read a thing online about it and people couldn’t agree whether they were good or bad.’
‘When that dog bit me when I was five, that was definitely a bad dog day.’
‘Yes,’ says Mum, as she takes my hand, ‘It was.’
‘Maybe it just depends if you like dogs or not.’
*
By the time we reach the main road, it is dark. We have our head torches with us for going back through the trees and I am looking forward to that bit. It will be like a proper adventure.
We walk for about ten minutes before I see the petrol station ahead. As we get nearer my tummy starts to feel a bit funny.
‘What if the person in the shop heard the news on the radio and calls the police,’ I say.
‘I really don’t think they will,’ replies Mum. ‘It’ll probably be some student who’s got more important things to worry about.’
‘Like what?’ I ask, wondering what students who work in petrol stations worry about.
‘Oh, maybe what time they’re finishing, if they’ve forgotten to do their essay and whether they’ll have enough money to go out next weekend.’
I shrug. They don’t seem like very important worries to me, not compared to being hunted by the police and not being able to live with your mum any more. We walk on in silence.
There is only one car in the petrol station when we arrive. The driver is filling it up with the hose thing that looks like an elephant trunk.
As we walk into the shop I look over and see that there is a young man at the till with short, sticky-up hair. Mum is right, he is probably a student and he doesn’t seem interested in us at all. I glance around but I can only see one other person in the shop; an older lady in a grey cardigan, and she’s not looking at us either. She’s wandering around as if she can’t decide what to buy. My tummy doesn’t feel as bad now. We go over to the aisle where the cold things are. I can see meat sausages but no veggie ones.
