The Sister shook her head. ‘Dr Barnes won’t be here tomorrow!’ she said. ‘Dr Barnes isn’t attached to this hospital. She’s a locum. She was just filling in for somebody today.’
My Mam looked around her, as if she thought if she looked hard enough she’d see Dr Janice somewhere in the corridor.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Sister said, ‘but I can’t help you.’
She turned as if to walk away but my Mam said, ‘Where is she? Where could I find her?’
The Sister turned back and sighed out loud. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘even if I knew where to get hold of Dr Barnes I couldn’t just give out information like that.’
‘It’s important,’ my Mam said, ‘it’s very important. Couldn’t you just phone her and tell her I’ve got to see her. Tell her it’s Mrs Marks. And Raymond.’
‘I can’t do that!’ the Sister said. ‘Apart from anything else I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with her. I’ve told you, Dr Barnes is a locum. I don’t know where she’s going to be working tomorrow. She could be in Leeds, London. For all I know she might have left here tonight and flown straight out to Canada or New Zealand or somewhere.’
My Mam stood there, frowning and staring all around her. ‘Couldn’t you just—’
‘Look! If you don’t mind,’ the Sister said, ‘I’ve got a ward to run here and I’m extremely busy tonight. And I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave now.’
It was like my Mam finally understood. And when she understood, it seemed as if she just crumpled up inside. She took a deep breath like it was one of those sobs that you make when you’ve been crying really hard. And when she breathed it out it was like it had just become a tiny whimpering sigh. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
But I don’t think the Sister even heard her.
And my Mam turned around and started walking back along the corridor. I just walked along beside her. And I had to tell my Mam where to turn left to get back to reception because she just kept walking like she didn’t know where she was; and didn’t care.
And when we got to the entrance at reception, my Mam just stopped and stood there. And I stood there with her, waiting for her to tell me what we were going to do now.
But she didn’t move.
And I had to say to her, ‘Mam, what are we doing?’
She just looked at me like she was too far off in her head to see me. And a nurse who was walking past even stopped and said, ‘Are you all right, son? Is your mum OK?’
I just nodded. And the nurse said, ‘Are you sure?’
So I nodded again and the nurse went on her way.
And I don’t even know why I told the nurse it was OK. Because it wasn’t OK. Everything wasn’t all right, the way my Mam had been convinced that everything would be all right once she’d spoken to Dr Janice. Dr Janice wasn’t there any more. Dr Janice was in Leeds or somewhere in an aeroplane. And my Mam was just stood there, in the hospital reception, not knowing what to do next.
‘Mam,’ I said, ‘what are we doing? Where are we going?’
But I knew that she couldn’t answer me. I knew that she didn’t know. And I knew that I had to do something.
‘Come on.’ I tugged at the sleeve of her coat. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we can’t stop here, Mam.’
My Mam slowly started shaking her head. And she said, ‘Not there. Not back there. I’m not going back there, not to the house.’
‘You don’t have to,’ I said. ‘Come on, Mam.’ I led my Mam outside and walked over to where the taxis were waiting.
* * *
My Gran could hardly believe it when she opened the door and it was half-past eleven and me and my Mam were stood there on the step. My Gran just took one look at my Mam and then put her arms around her and led her into the house. And my Gran didn’t ask no questions at all, she just took my Mam through to the front room and told me to go upstairs and bring the duvet and some blankets down. My Mam was sitting curled up in the big comfy armchair and my Gran took the blankets and wrapped them all round her, tucking them in, under my Mam’s feet and all along the sides of her. My Gran told me to go and make a hot-water bottle and when I brought it back, my Gran was sat on the arm of the chair with my Mam cradled in her arms. And it was the first time that I ever really understood that my Gran was my Mam’s Mam. My Gran was being lovely with her child. And I knew it was doing my Mam good, all the loveliness that my Gran was giving her. And as I stood there, I started crying, silently crying because I didn’t want to disturb my Mam who looked like she was dropping off to sleep now, in the arms of my Gran.
My Gran saw that I was crying. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered to me. ‘It’s all right.’
And it was. At least it was sort of all right. Now that we were with my Gran.
We crept through to the kitchen, me and my Gran, and left my Mam asleep in the big comfy chair. And after she’d quietly closed the kitchen door, my Gran said, ‘Right!’
And I thought she was going to ask me about everything. But she just said, ‘Are we having peanut crunchies or Garibaldis?’
We went for the Garibaldis in the end. And my Gran said she was glad about that because there was something uplifting about a biscuit named after the father of Italian unity. Whereas the peanut crunchie was a biscuit sadly lacking in significant history and what it lacked in heritage, the Americans had tried to make up for with too much sugar.
‘But that’s the Yanks!’ my Gran said, as she put the kettle on and got the Garibaldis down from the cupboard. ‘Very clever, some of them, very clever indeed. But too much sugar! And it’s never good for a nation, y’ know, Raymond, if it gets too much of a sweet tooth!’
I sat there at the table, nodding and just listening to my Gran as she talked about things like America and Mark Twain and they might not know how to make a biscuit but you couldn’t entirely dismiss a nation that gave us Huckleberry Finn. And it was good, just sitting there listening to my Gran going on about things. She never asked me any questions at all. She just carried on making the tea and telling me about the Great Depression of the 1930s and all the rich people in California spraying the fruit with creosote so the poor people couldn’t eat the oranges.
And only when she’d made the tea and we were sat there at the table dunking Garibaldis, did my Gran look at me and say, ‘Right, son. I think I’ve done enough talking, don’t you? But now I’m going to shut up. And I’m going to leave the talking to you, Raymond.’
She sat there staring at me. ‘Now what’s been going on?’ she said.
Me and my Mam, we never went back to our house after that. My Gran said it would be too dangerous for us to go back there. I didn’t know what she meant at first. But she said she didn’t have time to explain and explaining would have to wait till later.
‘Right now, son,’ she said, ‘there’s things to be done and done quick, if you and your Mam don’t want to lose everything.’
She phoned up my Uncle Jason then and told him to get his van and bring it round, quick!
I could hear my Uncle Jason yelling into the phone and saying it was middle of the bloody night and had my Gran finally gone doolally.
But my Gran just told him, ‘Listen, from what I hear, Jason, you’re used to working in the middle of the bloody night! And if you want to keep your more clandestine activities quiet, you’ll get yourself round here with that van and a couple of those dubious associates of yours to help out.’
I could hear him, all outraged and protesting and saying he didn’t have dubious associates or clandestine activities. But my Gran just said, ‘Oh aye? So where did all the brick and slate and Readymix come from to build that new extension of yours?’
Then my Gran just put the phone down and told me to go and look in my Mam’s bag and see if the house keys were there. When I came back with them, my Gran had her coat on. I asked her what was happening and where she was going.
My Gran sat down then. And she reached out and held my hands as she said, ‘Listen, son. Sometimes there are things
that happen and they’re just not fair. Like this isn’t fair, none of it! It’s not fair at all, son. But sometimes, Raymond, there’s nowt much you can do about it. I know what they tell y’ at school. About how y’ can trust policemen and how we live in a just society and if you’re innocent then you’ve got nowt to fear.’
My Gran nodded and looked at me very closely.
‘And fortunately, son,’ she said, ‘a good deal of the time, that is true. But sometimes, when it comes to certain matters, you can’t rely on all that stuff they tell y’ at school. Do you understand?’ she said. ‘Do you understand the sort of matters I’m talking about?’
I nodded. ‘I think so,’ I said.
My Gran nodded too. ‘Matters to do with sex,’ she said. ‘Sexuality.’
I shook my head and I couldn’t help it, I just started crying again. ‘I didn’t do it, Gran,’ I said. ‘I never touched the little girl.’
‘I know that!’ my Gran said, as she took my head in her arms and pressed me to her bosom. ‘I know you didn’t do it, son.’ And my Gran was crying herself now as she said, ‘You? You’re as soft and gentle as your own father was and I know you could never hurt a little girl.’
My Gran rocked me in her arms as she kept saying she knew I could never have done something like that. Then she took my head in her hands and looked at me with her watery eyes. ‘I know that you’re quite innocent, Raymond,’ she said. ‘But you see, son, sometimes just being accused of something – never mind whether you’re innocent or guilty – just the accusation itself is enough to put civilised behaviour on the back burner and send common sense flying out the window. And unfortunately for you, son,’ my Gran said, ‘with what they’ve accused you of doing, all the innocence in the world might not be enough to protect y’. That’s why it’ll not be safe for you and y’ Mam to go back home, son. When it comes to something such as a little girl being interfered with, it’s not just the police that y’ have to worry about. You’ve been accused, son. And in the eyes of some people, that’s all they need to send them rushing to judgement.’
There was a knock at the door then. And my Gran let my Uncle Jason in. He came into the kitchen and when he saw me he scowled. I hadn’t seen him since all the fuss over Princess Leia.
‘What’s he doing here?’ he asked my Gran. ‘Hasn’t our Shelagh told y’,’ he said, ‘what he’s been getting up to? The sort of things he’s been saying to our little Sonia?’
‘He’s told me about that himself,’ my Gran said. ‘So y’ can stop spuddlin’ on. Right now we’ve got a damn sight more to be worrying about than the delicate sensibilities of little Sonia. Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s get a move on. I just hope we can get there and do what we have to do before the word’s leaked out all over the estate.’
He frowned then, my Uncle. ‘What word?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’ Then he scowled at me again, and he said, ‘What’s the little bastard done this time?’
My Gran turned on him then and her voice was all low and growly and thick with warning. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘he’s done nowt! Our Raymond hasn’t done a thing! Did you hear me?’
My Uncle Jason shrugged and looked uncomfortable. ‘All right!’ he said, his voice becoming high-pitched. ‘All right, all right. I never said nowt, did I?’
My Gran gave him the glare and she said, ‘No! And that’s exactly how it’ll remain; with you saying nowt! There’ll soon be far too many people with far too much to say. We’ll have to put up with that. But I’m warning you now, Jason,’ she said, frowning and fixing my Uncle with her glare, ‘if I ever hear that you’ve joined in, if I get so much as a whisper that you have judged and condemned our Raymond, on the basis of nowt but malicious gossip and the word of a bullying policeman; if I ever hear that you’ve helped blacken the name of this lad, I’ll see to it that you pay the price for every single scrap of Readymix that never quite got to where it should be going! Did you hear that?’ my Gran said. ‘Did you hear me?’
I didn’t know what my Gran meant, about the Readymix. But my Uncle Jason obviously did because he got all huffy and shifty-eyed then and said, ‘Come on, come on. I thought y’ said you were in a bloody hurry to get going. Well, come on, get a sodding move on will y’!’
He marched out the kitchen then and down the hall.
‘Right,’ my Gran said to me, ‘if your Mam wakes up before I get back, put her in my bed. All right? Y’ can both sleep in there for tonight.’
I asked my Gran where she was going. But she just kissed me and said tarar. I went through to the front room, got some cushions and lay down on the sofa.
And I lay there watching my Mam who was still fast asleep in the big comfy chair.
And when we woke up in the morning, Morrissey, I knew where my Gran had been all night. Because the hall and the spare room and the back bedroom upstairs was full of all our furniture and stuff from our house. My Gran said they’d taken as much as they could. She pointed to a box and said she’d got all my comics and my books because she knew how important they were to me.
‘And as much of the furniture as we could shift,’ she told my Mam. ‘I’ve put all your clothes in the spare room, Shelagh.’
My Mam just stood there frowning and looking at all our furniture in the wrong place. It was like my Mam couldn’t take it in at all. And she said, ‘What have y’ done, Mother? What’s happening?’
‘We’re going back there this afternoon,’ my Gran said. ‘As soon as Jason’s had a few hours’ sleep, we’ll get the carpets and the odd bits that still need picking up.’
My Mam looked at my Gran. ‘There’s no need for all this,’ my Mam said. ‘We’re not moving in with you.’
My Gran shot me a look. And then she said to my Mam, ‘So where are y’ gonna live, Shelagh?’
My Mam frowned. ‘In our house!’ she said.
‘Is that right?’ my Gran asked. ‘And how long do you think it’ll be, Shelagh, before that detective lets it be known that he’s powerless to do anything about our Raymond?’
My Mam just stared at my Gran with a puzzled look on her face.
‘And once that gets out, Shelagh,’ my Gran said, ‘once people round here start to learn that the police are certain who did it but still can’t take any action, because of his age … because they’ve got no evidence, d’ you really think people are just gonna shrug it off and forget about it, Shelagh? Because if you do, love, you’ve got more faith in mankind than I’ve ever had.’
My Gran went through to the kitchen and me and my Mam followed her. As my Gran put the kettle on, she stared out the window and she said, ‘I know he’s just a lad, Shelagh, just a lad who’s done nowt to nobody and it’s worse than wicked that it should have come to this. But come to this it has, love. And when you’ve got people who can only believe what it suits them to believe then it’s a bloody sad do. This might be modern-day Failsworth, Shelagh; it might be the far end of the twentieth century, with everybody living in glass conservatories and purchasing pot plants from garden centres, going to worship in the air-conditioned shrines of the supermarkets. But don’t be tricked by any of that. Civilisation! It’s a thin veneer, Shelagh. There’s still many a barbarous bugger behind a supermarket trolley. Take away their pot plants and their honeysuckle and there’s many a sadist stalking the garden centres. Don’t go putting too much faith in so-called civilisation, Shelagh; given the whiff of a chance there’d soon be routine hangings and regular floggings and the burning of witches in the car parks at Asda and Tesco and Sainsbury’s PLC. And they’d all be there, in their Armani suits and their Head and Shoulders hairdos, with their pot plants and Perrier water and chargrilled marinated Mediterranean tuna ready to be popped on the barbecue and savoured outside the conservatory after a sunny Saturday morning’s beheading at the KwikSave car park.’
My Mam suddenly screamed at my Gran and told her to stop going on for Christ’s sake and weren’t things bad enough as it was without my Gran bleeding well banging on about sodding sadists in t
he supermarket?
‘But that’s what you’re gonna be up against, Shelagh,’ my Gran said. ‘Mob mentality. And that’s why you’re gonna have to stay here, with me. Until we can get something else sorted out.’
My Gran poured the water into the teapot. And my Mam told her she was sorry for shouting at her and she knew my Gran was trying to do her best.
‘But this isn’t necessary,’ my Mam said. ‘We don’t have to stay here. I’ll give Jason a ring and ask him if he’ll move all this stuff back for us this afternoon.’
But we never did move back. And we never even got our carpets. Because just before dinnertime that same day, somebody poured petrol through the letter box of our house. And then threw a match in after it.
My Gran did her best. She said we could stay with her as long as we wanted. But we had to move in the end. It was awful, Morrissey, those weeks when we were living at my Gran’s and I couldn’t go out anywhere because my Gran said it wouldn’t be safe. It was awful for my Mam. Because even though she tried to tell my Gran about it without me hearing, sometimes she’d forget that I was sat there in the cubby hole under the stairs and I’d hear her, telling my Gran about being spat at in the street. Or when she was at work and the customers would move to another checkout even though the other checkouts had long queues at them and my Mam’s was empty. And the supervisor told my Mam she was really, really sorry but she’d have to put my Mam back on packing. I knew it was awful for my Mam. And sometimes I’d hear her asking my Gran, ‘What are we going to do, Mother?’
But it was like even my Gran didn’t know what we were going to do and she’d just sigh and sound all weary as she said, ‘Christ knows, love, Christ knows.’
Then my Mam’d remember about school starting again in September and she’d say, ‘He can’t start there. There’s no way I can let him start at that comprehensive.’
It was awful, Morrissey. My Gran’s house was just filled with gloom from morning till night. Sometimes my Gran tried to cheer things up, asking me if I wanted to watch the Spanish news on the satellite with her. But I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to stay in the cubby hole where it was all closed in and no-one could see me and I could just get on with cataloguing my comics all day.
The Wrong Boy Page 21
