Guilty One

by Lisa Ballantyne

  He walked in darkness into the kitchen, where he took a beer from the fridge. The brief light from the fridge taunted him. He felt cold and the chill bottle caused goose pimples to rise on his arms. He bit his lip and then drank deeply from the bottle, finishing half of it before letting it fall hard on to the kitchen work surface.

  Daniel put one hand over his eyes. He was so cold, but his eyes were burning. He put the back of his hand to his lips, uncomprehending, as hot tears coursed down his cheeks. It had been so long since he had cried. He covered his face with the crook of his arm, remembering the comfort of her flesh wrapped in the rough wool of her cardigan. He swore, and bit his lip, but the dark was forgiving; it allowed it.

  20

  It was spring. The air was strung with the scent of manure and brave new buds. Daniel’s wellington boots squelched in the mud of the back yard as he fed Hector and the chickens. The door of the shed was hanging off its hinge and some of the wire mesh was torn. Daniel knelt in the mud to repair the mesh and screw the lock back into place. Foxes had killed chickens at the farm next to Minnie’s. Her own birds had only been startled, set clucking and fluttering against the mesh in the middle of the night until Minnie had gone out with Blitz to scare off the fox.

  It was six thirty in the morning and Daniel’s stomach yawned with hunger as he worked. It was still cold and his hands were pink to the cuff. He was growing out of his clothes again, and his shirts had begun to ride up his forearm. Minnie had promised to get him new ones at the end of the month, along with a football strip. He was striker now in the school team. But today was Saturday, and they had the market.

  Daniel could see Minnie at the window, filling up the kettle and making the porridge. In the morning, her grey hair hung down, held back at the sides by two tortoiseshell clips. Only after she got dressed would she wind it up on top of her head.

  Daniel’s mother’s hair had been light brown and short, but she dyed it blonde. As he emptied the last of the scraps into the chickens’ run, Daniel remembered the feeling of her hair between his fingertips. Her hair was thin and soft, unlike Minnie’s heavy curls.

  After the trouble with the Thorntons, Minnie had told Daniel that she would apply to adopt him. They had done all the paperwork together, spreading the forms over the kitchen table. Now they were just waiting. The idea of being someone else’s son, at the same time as being his mother’s son, was strange to Daniel, yet he had agreed and felt a strange auspicious joy at the thought.

  Minnie had asked him if he wanted to change his name to Flynn, but he had decided to keep his own name: Hunter. It was Daniel’s mother’s name, not his father’s. He wanted to keep her name because he liked it. It was his name, but he also reasoned that when he was eighteen his mother might want to find him. If she ever looked for him, he wanted to be easy to find.

  Inside, Daniel washed his hands in the bathroom, enjoying the feeling of the warm water on his cold fingers. When he was finished, he leaned on the sink and stared at his face in the mirror. He stared at his dark hair that was almost black, and his dark brown eyes, which were so dark that you had to look really closely to distinguish the pupil from the iris. Daniel had often felt estranged from his own face. He looked so different to his mother. He did not know where his features came from.

  He had never known his father. Several times Daniel had asked for his father’s name but each time his mother refused, or told him that she didn’t know who he was. Daniel had seen his own birth certificate but his father’s details were blank.

  Soon he was to have two mothers: one the state approved of and another which the state did not; one he had to care for and another who cared for him. But still no father.

  Minnie had the radio on in the kitchen. She was stirring the porridge and moving her hips to the music. When she served up, Daniel blew on his porridge before adding his milk and sugar. Minnie had taught him to pour the milk on to the back of the spoon so as not to pierce the skin of the porridge.

  ‘Starving,’ he said, as she poured him some orange juice.

  ‘Well, you’re a growing boy, so you are. Eat up.’

  ‘Minnie?’ said Daniel, taking a mouthful of the sweet porridge.

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘Will it be this week we hear?’

  ‘Should be. That’s what they said. You’ve not to worry, mind. It’ll happen. But when it does, we should celebrate.’

  ‘What’ll we do?’

  ‘We could go for a picnic. We could go to the beach …’

  ‘Really? But you’d have to drive.’

  ‘Well, we could take it slow. Take our time.’

  Daniel smiled and ate the rest of his porridge. He had never been to the beach and the thought of it made his stomach flutter.

  ‘Minnie?’ he said, licking his spoon. ‘After the papers come, will I call you Mam?’

  She got up and started to clear the breakfast things. ‘As long as you’re civil, you can call me whatever you like,’ she said, ruffling his hair.

  Above her pink cheeks, her eyes were shining. Daniel watched – not sure if she was happy or sad.

  *

  It was still cold, and Minnie made him wear his parka as they set up the market stall. Daniel was now well practised. He pinned the plastic cloth over the wooden table, as Minnie took an inventory of the produce in the boot of her car. She was wearing two cardigans and gloves with no fingers.

  Minnie arranged her table: eggs and three chickens she had slaughtered, plucked and gutted herself, new potatoes, spring onions, carrots, swede and cabbage all fresh from the earth. She had pots of her jam to sell as well: apricot and strawberry, and eight rhubarb tarts.

  Daniel opened up the ice-cream tub that was her till, and counted the float. Anything to do with money was his job. He took the money from customers and counted the change. He counted their profits and his own wage as a percentage. When the car was emptied and the stall was ready, Minnie got out the flasks and the sandwiches: milky coffee for Daniel, sweet tea for her, and strawberry jam sandwiches. If it was busy they would probably not finish the sandwiches until they were packing up to go, but if the stall was quiet they would eat them all before eleven.

  ‘Zip up your jacket.’

  ‘I’m not cold.’

  ‘Zip up your jacket.’

  ‘Zip up yourself,’ he said, doing as she asked.

  ‘Don’t be cheeky.’

  The stalls were arranged around Brampton’s Moot Hall, which had stood in the centre of town for nearly two hundred years. There were about eight other stalls besides Minnie’s. Most sold either vegetables or meat, or home-made produce, but Minnie was one of the few who offered a range. Her farm was not big enough for specialising. She sold what she made for herself.

  The first hour passed quickly, and Minnie sold two chickens, and several half-dozen eggs. She knew that her chickens were the best and even those who disliked her would buy her eggs because of that.

  Daniel’s hands were pink from the cold. When Minnie saw him tucking them into the sleeves of his jacket, she rubbed his hands to warm them. She made him put both palms together, as if in prayer, and then she rubbed them between her own hands until the heat returned. She rubbed him vigorously, so hard that he shook.

  As the blood returned to his fingers and his arms, Daniel remembered rubbing his mother’s hands. She had always been cold: too thin and not enough clothes. He remembered the bones of her hands against his young palms. He wondered where she was now. He didn’t feel the same need to find her, but still he wondered, and he wanted to know if she wondered about him. He wanted to tell her about the farm, and about Minnie, about counting the float and taking his cut. He remembered the touch of her thin hands, brushing the hair off his face. When he thought of it, he would feel a pain underneath his ribs. It was like an intense hunger – a yearning – to feel her sweep the hair off his face again.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Minnie asked.

  Daniel took the plastic cup she handed him
into his two hands, so that he could steal its warmth. He shrugged and took a mouthful of sweet tea.

  ‘You were miles away!’ Minnie reached out to him and Daniel twisted away. Again, she seemed to know what he needed. But it wasn’t the same and it never could be.

  A tight-lipped woman approached their stall. Daniel recognised her as Mrs Wilkes from the sweetshop. She was his friend Derek’s mother. Daniel knew she had called an ambulance for Minnie’s dying husband. She had also reported two of his classmates to the headmaster for stealing gobstoppers.

  She worried her lips as she considered Minnie’s jam, narrowing her eyes when Daniel caught her eye. He put his hands into the pockets of his parka.

  ‘How much is the jam?’ she asked, the corners of her mouth turning downward.

  ‘Two pounds fifty,’ said Daniel, with one of his best smiles, although Minnie had priced the jam at one pound fifty.

  ‘That’s a disgrace,’ said Mrs Wilkes, slamming the jam on to the table with a force that shook the eggs.

  Minnie turned at the noise and frowned. She was holding a half-eaten sandwich.

  ‘Quality comes at a price, Mrs Wilkes, you should know that,’ said Daniel, taking a hand out of his pocket to straighten the jam.

  ‘So it would seem.’ Daniel was aware that Mrs Wilkes had now lost interest in him and was addressing Minnie. Minnie had her mouth full and the wind was blowing her hair in her face, but she turned, her eyes giddy with mirth and crumbs on her chin.

  ‘You all right, Jean?’

  ‘I’m just baulking at the price here. That’s daylight robbery.’ Mrs Wilkes pushed a pot of jam gently, disturbing Daniel’s display again.

  ‘Take one, then,’ said Minnie.

  Jean Wilkes’s mouth turned down at the corners.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean have one, a gift from me. It’s good jam. Have it, enjoy it.’

  Daniel turned to look up at Minnie, but she was finishing her sandwich, watching Jean.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly. I’ll give you what it’s worth and not a penny more.’

  ‘Nonsense, take it. Enjoy. Thanks, Jean.’

  Minnie turned her attention again to the flasks and the picnic which she had arranged in the boot of her Renault. She helped herself to another sandwich.

  ‘You’re ridiculous, Minnie,’ said Jean, thrusting three pounds into the ice-cream tub of money which Daniel guarded. ‘You ask for the world and then give it away. It’s like these kids. Everyone knows you’re just doing it to make yourself feel better. Can’t care for your own and then all of a sudden you’re mother to the world … But you’re right, your jam is good.’ Jean held the jar in the palm of her hand. Her tight mouth was pressed inward, as if to smile.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Daniel turned to Minnie’s whisper. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

  ‘I said, despite it all, we agree your jam is good.’

  Daniel could see that Jean Wilkes’s teeth were brown and he wondered if it was all the sweets that had ruined them.

  ‘No, before that.’ Minnie was still whispering but now she had her stomach pressed against the stall and was leaning towards Mrs Wilkes. She was leaning hard on the table and Daniel could see the white marks forming on her pink hands from the strain. ‘Can’t look after my own? Is that what you said?’

  Jean Wilkes was walking away.

  Minnie stood up again and pushed the hair out of her face. Daniel noticed that her fingers were trembling. She opened a box of eggs and slipped her red, rough fingers inside.

  Thwatt.

  Daniel was still standing with his hands in the pockets, but he opened his mouth as Minnie took aim and hit Jean Wilkes square between the shoulder blades with one of her own well-reared eggs.

  Jean looked round, mouth turned down at the corners, but Minnie already had another egg in her hand. To Daniel’s joy and amazement, Jean Wilkes broke into a run, trotting crisscross in her navy heels in an effort to get out of Minnie’s firing range.

  Daniel pulled Minnie’s elbow and punched a victory fist into the air. Minnie tutted at him and pulled her arm away.

  ‘That was ace. You showed her.’

  ‘Enough!’ Minnie said. Daniel did not understand why she was angry with him. Her cheeks were pink and her blue eyes were shot with rage. ‘Get tidied up. It’s too cold and it’s time to go anyway.’

  Daniel’s fingers were almost numb with the cold, but he started to pack away the stall. She was working beside him, slapdash. The flasks were thrown back into the bag. Usually she would have emptied them in the gutter then carefully packed them away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said, but she didn’t hear him.

  She was pulling her cardigan around her and straightening the leftover boxes of eggs in the boot of her car.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, louder this time, reaching out to tug on her cardigan.

  She turned to him finally, confused, angry little darts of light shot through her watery blue eyes.

  ‘I didn’t mean to set her off, like,’ he explained. ‘I told her it was two pound fifty. The jam. Was just winding her up, like. Thought we might make a bit extra out of her. Didn’t mean for her to …’

  ‘Never mind, love.’

  In the car on the way home, Daniel held the takings and looked out of the window. The small Brampton houses, the whiff of farms and the occasional sweep of undulating green was still surprising to him. Some part of his mind expected the tight red brick of Newcastle, its estranged estates and urban muddle. Some part of him still felt out of place here. He wondered about Minnie and the fight with Mrs Wilkes. He didn’t understand why so many of the locals disliked her. Some of them seemed to hate him too, because of her.

  Minnie’s hands were clenched on the wheel. She drove sitting forward, her stomach against the bottom of the steering wheel and her chin reaching over the top. Daniel watched her as she licked her lips and pressed them together.

  Minnie had her window down and strands of her curly grey hair fluttered in her face. Whenever Daniel had been in the car with her, she had kept her window down, regardless of the weather. She said that she felt claustrophobic in the car.

  Daniel took a deep breath before he said: ‘Not a lot of people like you around here, d’you know that?’

  She didn’t like talking in the car. She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but Daniel could tell that she had heard him as her hands tightened their grip on the wheel.

  ‘It doesn’t matter though,’ he said. ‘Ah like y’.’

  Again, she said nothing, but she pursed her lips together in what Daniel knew was meant to be a smile.

  *

  It was the day of the court case. Minnie had told him that it was just a formality, that she would definitely be able to adopt him, but still he was nervous. He got up before the cock crowed and did his chores and was ready to go before she came downstairs for breakfast. He had put the porridge on already and fed the dog.

  She rubbed his shoulder when she came into the kitchen, pushing a handkerchief into the pocket of her dressing gown. She made tea and put the radio on as Daniel set the table, putting out the butter and jars of her jam. She smiled at him as he milked and sugared their teas. Minnie liked three sugars and a lot of milk; Daniel liked one sugar and a little milk. He put her tea on the table by her bowl then stood in the middle of the kitchen, drinking his tea.

  He looked around the kitchen as he sipped his tea. Blitz was asleep on a full stomach, his thin legs twitching in his dreams as he lay on the kitchen floor. Daniel watched the movement of Minnie’s hips as she stirred the porridge, the spangle of light that the old windows spilled on to the spoons. He knew the song that was on the radio and tapped his foot to its beat. The room was warm with the smell of morning and Daniel held it in his mouth, as if to taste it. This was his home; this was going to be his home.

  He watched as she yawned over the porridge pot, hand on the small of her back. After today, she
would be his mam, and they would live in this house for ever. Daniel almost could not believe it.

  ‘Why aren’t you eating your porridge?’ she said to him, scraping her bowl clean.

  ‘I am eatin’ it, look.’ He took a spoonful into his mouth.

  ‘You’re always first finished. What is it? Butterflies?’

  ‘Bit, like,’ he said, letting his spoon rest with a clatter against the porcelain.

  ‘You shouldn’t be nervous. It’s exciting.’ She reached across the table and tugged gently at his sleeve. ‘You do want this, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You know it’s up to you.’

  ‘I want to, like.’

  ‘Me too. Today I get to be your mum, not just your foster mum, but … your real mum.’

  Daniel watched as her eyes filled, and her cheeks coloured. She gave him a big smile and it was only that, the rise of her cheekbones and the scrunching up of her eyes, which caused the tears to flash, instantaneous, thin, one down each cheek. Quickly, as if to brush away a crumb, she swept the palm of her hand across one cheek and the back of her hand across the other. The tears were gone and only her smile was left.

  Real mam, Daniel remembered as he waited at the bottom of the stairs for her to get ready. Real mam, he reminded himself as he looked out of the bus window on the road from Brampton to Newcastle. They were getting the bus there and back so that Minnie didn’t have to drive in Newcastle city centre.

  Daniel was wearing his school uniform and Minnie was wearing shoes. They weren’t proper women’s shoes. They were flat and brown and they laced up, but they weren’t boots and Daniel stared at the strange sight of her feet in them. He hadn’t seen her without her boots. She wore her grey skirt and green coat and a black top under it that was cleaner than some of her others.