Guilty One

by Lisa Ballantyne

  Daniel waited while Cunningham retrieved the cardboard box from the boot. The smell of the fields and the farms did not calm him.

  ‘There you go,’ said Cunningham. ‘Not worth a lot, but she wanted you to have it.’

  To avoid a second handshake, Cunningham saluted Daniel in the crematorium car park. Daniel was confused by the gesture, but nodded goodbye.

  The box was light. He placed it in the boot of his car, without looking inside.

  8

  He slipped his feet into the too-big wellington boots. Through his socks they felt cold, like jelly gone hard. He scattered kitchen scraps for the chickens as she had asked. He tried not to touch the cold vegetables with his fingers but some corn got stuck on his nails. He flicked it off like snot. Minnie had told him she thought his nose was broken. He found it hard to breathe as he fed the chickens. He didn’t mind so much as he hated the ming of them: ammonia and rotting vegetable and damp feather.

  It was Saturday and she was making bacon and eggs for him. He could see her at the kitchen window. She was always quiet in the mornings. He knew it was the other side of the gin. He was eleven years old and knew about hangovers of the drug and drink kind, although he had never had one. He had been drunk, though. He had taken two tins of lager to bed with him one night and drunk them watching Dallas on the portable black and white in his mother’s room. He had been sick all down his pyjamas.

  He wore his mother’s necklace as he fed the scraps to the birds – didn’t care if it made him look like a girl. He wanted to know the necklace was safe. He wanted to know she was safe. He wondered what the social worker had told Minnie the night before. In the car on the way back, when Tricia told him that she didn’t know anything about his mother and the fire, he had felt there was something she was holding back.

  Daniel sidestepped back into the house as Hector the goat watched him ruefully. His goat face reminded Daniel of his social worker. He slipped off his wellies in the hall. Blitz was lying right in front of the door. He lifted his head when Daniel entered but did not move and so he had to step over him. The kitchen smelled of fat and pork and onions.

  Minnie served up. The sausages were so slick they slid over the plate. He took his fork and pierced their skin. That was what he liked best: piercing the skin and watching the juices ooze.

  ‘Are you feeling better this morning?’ she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders, looking at his food.

  ‘How’s your nose? Could you sleep OK?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  He looked up at her face; his fork paused on his plate. Her eyes were opened a little wider than they usually were. Daniel felt his appetite fade, felt the oil from the sausages greasy in his throat.

  ‘Sometimes when bad things happen to you it probably seems easier just to run away, but I want you to try not running, to face the things you don’t like instead. It seems harder but in the long run you’re better off. Trust me.’

  ‘I wasn’t running away.’

  ‘What were you doing then?’

  ‘I was going to visit me mam.’

  Minnie sighed and pushed her plate away. He watched as she bit her lip and then leaned forward, reaching out for his hand. He pulled away from her slowly, but she stayed like that, with her hand stretched out towards him across the table.

  ‘We’re going to find out what happened to your mum. I want you to know that I am on the phone to them every day about it. I promise I’ll find out for you … ’

  ‘She’ll be all right. She’s always all right, like.’

  ‘I believe that too. I just want you to trust me. I’m on your side, love. You don’t need to do everything on your own any more.’

  Promise. Trust. On your own. The words hammered inside his chest. It was as if he hadn’t heard her or as if the words were stones, hitting him. Love. Trust. Own. Daniel was not sure why they bruised.

  ‘Shut up about it.’

  ‘Danny, I know you want to see your mum. I understand it. I’m going to help you find out where she is and within reason we can talk to your social worker about visits. But you have to watch out, Danny. I can’t have you running off all the time. They’ll take you away from me, you know, and that is the last thing I want on this earth.’

  Daniel was not sure if it was the thought of not seeing his mother or being taken from Minnie that frightened him. He was tired of going to new places and then being sent away, yet he didn’t expect to stay here. He knew the leaving would be soon. It was best that he should initiate it.

  First he became aware of his fingers, still sticky from the corn, sticking together as if they were webbed, then his heart began to beat hard and he couldn’t breathe. He stood up from the table and his chair fell back on to the floor. The bang of it startled Blitz, who jumped to his feet. Daniel ran out of the kitchen and straight upstairs to his room.

  ‘Danny!’ he heard her call.

  He stood at the bedroom window, looking down at the yard. His eyes were hot and his hands were trembling. He heard her on the stairs, pulling on the banister to heave herself up. He turned round and the dizzy rosebuds on the wallpaper swarmed at him.

  He put his hands into his hair and pulled it until tears came to his eyes. He screamed long and hard until he was out of breath. As soon as she entered the bedroom, he took the jewellery box from the dresser and smashed it into the mirror on the wardrobe. When she moved towards him, he took the dresser and toppled it in her path. He saw her climb on to the bed to get to him and he started to bang on the glass of the window with his fist and then his head. He wanted out, away from her. He wanted his mam.

  He couldn’t hear what she was saying but her lips were moving and her eyes were turned down in distress. As soon as he felt her hands on him he spun and smacked her across the mouth. He turned away from her then. He didn’t want to see the reproach in her eyes. He started to bang on the window again, with his fist and then his head, and it cracked, but then he felt her hands on his shoulder. He swung round with his fists tight, but she pulled him into her and down on to the floor.

  She had her arms around him. His face was pressed against her chest and he could feel her arms around him like rope and the sheer weight of her. He fought it. He kicked and he tried to get free, but it was no use. He tried to scream again, but she only held him tighter.

  ‘That’s it, lad, you’re OK. You’re going to be OK. Let it out now. Let it all out. You’re all right.’

  He didn’t mean to cry. He didn’t even try to stop it. He was just so tired. It just came out of him, the tears and the breaths. He couldn’t stop. She sat up and leaned against the broken mirror of the wardrobe, all the time keeping him close to her. She stopped pinning his arms, but she pulled him tighter. He felt her lips on his forehead. He was aware of the noise that he was making: his stolen, broken breaths and the smell of her. The damp wool of her was suddenly soothing and he breathed her in.

  Daniel didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but it was a long time. The weather changed outside and the damp morning was replaced with bright sun thrown on to the doused house and farm. He had stopped crying, but he kept breathing in sighs and sucked breaths, as if he was tasting something very hot. He was spent as a coin. He didn’t know where he was going next.

  ‘There now, hush, my love,’ she whispered to him, as he tried to breathe evenly. ‘You’re all right. I’m not your mum. I can never be your mum, but I’m here all the same. I’ll always be here if you need me.’

  He was too tired to sit up or reply to her, but part of him was glad she was there and he tightened his grip around her waist. She held him a little tighter in response.

  After a while, he could breathe properly again. Slowly, she let him go. Later, in bed early, he tried to remember if anyone else had held him like that. Most people didn’t get that close to him. His mother had kissed him. Yes, she had run her fingers through his hair. She had comforted him once or twice when he’d been hurt.
<
br />   Daniel helped Minnie to her feet and then together they tried to put the room back in order. The window was cracked and the mirror was smashed. Minnie sighed when she surveyed the destruction.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break them,’ he said. ‘I’ll get them fixed for you, like.’

  ‘Didn’t know you had that kind of money,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘I could get some.’

  ‘That you on about your pickpocket career again? I don’t think so.’ She bent to pick up the jewellery box from the floor. She bent at the hip with her bum sticking up and her skirt riding up at the back, so you could see her white legs and her man’s socks that came up to the knee. He could see that he had wearied her. Her cheeks were red and she had sweat on her lip.

  ‘I’d get a paper round, like.’

  ‘Paper round indeed? You can help me on the stall at weekends. Help me deliver the eggs. I’ll get you pocket money for that.’

  ‘All right then.’

  ‘Aye, but mind you, I need someone careful. Can you be careful with the eggs?’

  ‘I’ll be careful. I promise.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see then. We’ll have to see.’

  9

  In the car, Daniel drove above the speed limit, the windows open again, enjoying the fresh air and taking deep breaths that stretched his diaphragm. He frowned at the road, trying to understand why he had been so upset at the funeral, and then so angry at Cunningham. It had been childish and emotional. He berated himself, gently cursing under his breath as he drove.

  Now that he was on the road again, he felt better: relaxed but tired. Brampton was a downer; the distractions of work still seemed far away. He took another deep breath and wondered if it was the scent of manure doping him. He should have taken the M6 straight down to London – he wanted to be home before dark – but he found himself just driving with the window open, smelling the fields, observing the small houses and remembering places he had visited as a child.

  He found himself on the A69, almost by accident, and then he was trapped in traffic, with Newcastle ahead of him. Daniel had not intended a detour, but there was something that he wanted to see again; something he needed to do, today of all days.

  Daniel drove into the city and past the university, out on to the Jesmond Road. He drove much slower here, almost in fear of arrival.

  When he got out of the car, the sun was hidden behind cloud. He was mindful of the long drive ahead of him, yet he wanted to stay and see her one more time.

  The entrance to the cemetery was a maternal arch of red sandstone and he found himself drawn into its depths. He knew where to go; he had followed the path with teenaged footsteps, finding the place where she was laid to rest.

  Daniel was surprised how quickly he found her gravestone. Its white marble was now discoloured and stained. The black-painted letters of her name had almost entirely flaked away, so that from a distance her name read Sam Gerald Hunt, instead of Samantha Geraldine Hunter. Daniel sighed, with his hands in his pockets.

  It was a simple cross, with gravel at its foot, so as to negate the need for flowers, upkeep, protestations of love.

  Rocking on his heels before the grave, Daniel thought about the words from Minnie’s ceremony: Commit. Body. Elements. Earthly. Dust. Ashes. Trust. Mercy. He remembered standing before this grave as a younger man, feeling wounded because his own name was not engraved on the cheap marble. He had wanted it to read Loving Mother to Daniel Hunter. Had she been a loving mother? Had she loved him at all?

  He had been angry about this death for a long time, but now he stood unmoved by the fact that his name was not on the gravestone. He knew that he shared DNA with the bones below his feet, but he had no need for these bones any longer.

  He thought of Minnie, immolated and cast on the wind. In his mind he could smell her, feel the chuff of her cardigan on his cheek, and see the glee in her watery blue eyes. Like the present itself he would chase her, ephemeral, like the ever un-snatchable now. Years he had shunned her, but now she was gone: not in the old house, not in the farm, not in the cemetery, not in her sister’s eyes. Minnie had disappeared from the earth without so much as a piece of marble sitting dumbly to tell of her passing.

  Daniel remembered crying at this grave. Now he stood with eyes dry and hands in pockets. He could remember Minnie more easily than he could recall his own mother. He had been so little when he last lived with his mother. For years their meetings had been fraught and brief. He had run to her and been dragged away.

  He had stayed with Minnie. She had been with him as a child, a teenager and a young man. Now that she was gone he felt strangely calm, but alone: more alone than he had before he knew of her death. It was this that he could not fathom. She had been lost to him years before, and yet now he felt her loss.

  Losses should not be weighed, he thought. And yet now, considering the loss of both his mothers, he felt Minnie’s loss the greater.

  Driving back to London, Daniel stopped at the service station at Donnington Park. He bought petrol and a coffee and then checked his phone for the first time since he had left.

  There were three missed calls from work. Sipping lukewarm coffee and inhaling petrol fumes, Daniel called Veronica. He sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, listening to the hoarse whisper of the motorway behind him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Veronica. ‘We’ve been trying to get in touch with you. You are not going to believe this … How was your funeral, by the way, not someone close, was it?’

  Daniel cleared his throat. ‘No … no, what’s happened?’

  ‘You’ve not been answering your phone!’

  ‘Yeah, I … turned it off. I had stuff to deal with.’

  ‘You have the Sebastian Croll case back if you want it. Will you take it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Kenneth King Croll is well connected.’

  Daniel rubbed a hand across his jaw. He hadn’t shaved and he felt the stubble against his palm.

  ‘The case ended up with McMann Walkers, but … believe it or not, Sebastian wouldn’t work with them. He had a massive tantrum and said he would only have you as his solicitor!’

  ‘Why wouldn’t Seb work with them – what did they do?’

  ‘Well, the solicitor from McMann Walkers went to see Sebastian the day after you left. I know him, Doug Brown, apparently he’s an old school pal of Croll’s …

  ‘Anyway, I don’t have all the details, but Sebastian was very rude to him. His parents stepped in but then Sebastian started screaming and shouting and saying that he wanted you back. He actually asked for you – for his lawyer, Daniel.’ Veronica twittered with laughter. ‘In the end it was so bad that McMann Walkers turned it down. I’ve had that King Kong bloke, whatever you call him … calling me non-stop. They want you back to keep Sebastian happy.’

  Daniel finished his coffee and bit his lip. He had felt an urge to protect the boy, to save him. Sebastian was the same age that Daniel had been when he stood in Minnie’s kitchen for the first time. But now Minnie was gone and Daniel felt drained. He wasn’t sure that he was ready for the case.

  ‘So, will you take it back?’ asked Veronica. Her clear voice was insistent. ‘I looked at the brief and it seems strong.’

  ‘Of course I’ll take it,’ said Daniel, but the words were robbed from his lips. The motorway growled behind him and he turned from its callous, aberrant noise.

  ‘Great. Will you call Irene’s chambers tomorrow? Make sure she and her junior are still available? I would have approached her, but I wanted to check with you first.’

  Daniel drove fast, leaving the north behind him. He stopped off at the office to pick up Sebastian’s case notes. It was late, and as he walked through the office’s surreally quiet spaces, he felt relieved that none of his colleagues was there.

  The day was waning when he finally returned to Bow. He picked up a takeaway in South Hackney and then found a parking space not far from his flat on Old Ford
Road. The sun was setting on Victoria Park, the pond with its fountain like a watery sundial reflecting the bloodied sky. He could smell the vestiges of barbecues in the air. Opening the boot of his car, he lifted out the box that Cunningham had given him and walked to the flat chin-down, the box in one hand and the takeaway and his keys in the other.

  He felt strangely deflated, the empty farmhouse inside him still, creaking with her loss. He heard notes again, painful as exposed bone. They chimed cold and hard.

  He put the box on the kitchen table but still did not open it to see what it contained. Instead, he ate his curry quickly, hunched over the table in the box’s shadow, then had a shower. He made the shower too hot and leaned into the jet, holding on to the nozzle with both hands. His skin stung as he towelled himself dry. He stood naked in the bathroom, looking at his face in the mirror as his skin chilled, and thought of the kestrel he had seen hovering over the Brampton moors. He felt himself to be alone and unyielding, stiffening his wings and rising on a thermal.

  The last two days left him cowed, but he didn’t know if it was fear of the boy’s case and all that it implied, or fear of her loss – fear of life knowing that she was gone; he didn’t need to ignore her any more.

  Loss. Daniel considered as he rubbed a hand across his chin and chose not to shave. Loss. He wrapped a towel around his waist and exhaled. Loss. It was like everything else. It could be practised. He almost did not feel it any more. His mother was gone and now Minnie was gone; he would be fine.

  Daniel dressed and began to leaf through Sebastian’s case. He hoped that Irene would still be free and willing to take it on. He would call her clerk first thing. He and Irene had worked closely on several cases but particularly on Tyrel’s gang shooting the previous year. They had both been devastated when Tyrel was convicted.

  The last time he had seen her was at the party to celebrate her promotion to QC in March, although he had barely managed to say two words to her. She was a Londoner, born in Barnes, and several years older than Daniel, but she had read Law in Newcastle. She liked to try to impress him with her Geordie. Daniel couldn’t bear to think of anyone else defending Sebastian.