Guilty

by Jane Bidder

  ‘But I haven’t got any trousers to wear until then. My others are dirty.’

  The Union Jack man snorted. ‘Come to the right place then. This geezer knows all about getting his pants dirty, don’t you mate?’ He jerked his head at Simon who flushed. Clearly the story of his accident had already started to do the rounds.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The apology was meant to have been directed at the boy but somehow it sounded as though he was saying sorry for the bathroom. ‘You’ll need to fill in the form. It’s the rules.’

  The boy nodded and left the hut, his shoulders bowed.

  ‘Next,’ said Simon unnecessarily because the Union Jack man was already in front of him, sweat glistening on his chest where the top buttons were undone.

  ‘I need another pair of trainers.’ His eyes bored into Simon challengingly. ‘Someone nicked mine.’

  ‘May I have your name please?’

  Someone in the queue behind let out a guffaw, repeating what he had just said in an accent that was clearly intended to mimic Simon’s voice.

  ‘Macdonald.’

  Simon found his name on the list. It looked as though Macdonald had been given a new pair of trainers two weeks ago and another pair the week before that. Spencer’s words came back to him. ‘Trainers are big here, mate. They’re currency, like. We like to change them regular; they’re a sort of status.’

  He picked up his pen and put a cross by Macdonald’s name. ‘I’m sorry.’ He was aware he was speaking in his lawyer’s voice as he did when advising a client.

  ‘Afraid you’ve already had your quota. We’re not meant to make more than two replacements in one month.’

  The man let out a low growl. ‘Who says?’

  ‘It’s the rules; although you are welcome to fill in this complaints form.’

  For a minute, Simon thought the man was going to grab the collar around his neck. Then the big hands fell back to his side. ‘Listen to me, you little bit of shit. I used to be one of the most dangerous criminals in Britain. Used to know Ronnie Kray, I did. Get it? Now I’m going to come back tomorrow and this time you’re going to give me those trainers. Got it?’

  Simon was aware that the room had gone silent. If he gave in now, he would be seen as wet. If he didn’t, he could be beaten up. ‘Like I said, you will need to fill in the form first.’

  There was a gasp from somewhere and then Macdonald slowly picked up the piece of paper which Simon had given him and ripped it into two halves before flinging them on the floor. ‘You’re going to be sorry for this,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll see.’

  The hushed air in the hut continued after he left. Even his Liverpudlian co-worker seemed subdued. ‘Better watch out for him. That one’s got friends.’

  For the rest of the morning, Simon continued serving over the counter, sticking religiously to the rules he had been taught. But when he left for lunch or dinner as the others called it, he had a nasty cold feeling in his chest. Looking round the dining room, he spotted Macdonald in the corner of the room. The man then said something to the others at his section of the table and several men stared at him. Simon took his sandwich and sat down, staring at the bits of grated cheese that fell out of the slices of bread.

  ‘Even I’m beginning to feel worried for you now,’ tinkled Joanna. ‘Do be careful, won’t you?’

  To his frustration, there wasn’t time before lunch to ring Claire – he didn’t dare risk a strike – so he had to wait until after tea. ‘Please let her pick up,’ he said over and over in his head. When she did, he was filled with such a relief that he found himself being angry with her.

  ‘Why couldn’t you talk to me, before? What happened? Do you know how difficult it is to make phone calls from this place?’

  ‘Don’t yell at me like that, Simon.’

  Christ, it was so good to hear her voice. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are. Calm down and I’ll explain. Ben and I had to move.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Someone threw a brick through the window. It wasn’t safe.’

  He hadn’t even considered there might be repercussions from The Accident. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He could see it now. There were some crazy people out there. He knew that from his work. His mind went back to a case ten years ago when a wife was murdered by a man in retaliation for her husband having run over his daughter. A bolt of terror shot through him. He couldn’t let that happen to Claire. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Please. Don’t worry.’

  Then she told him about the seaside town she’d moved to. ‘It’s big enough for no one to know,’ she assured him. ‘And the rent is low. We’re going to have to sell the house, you know. We can’t afford the mortgage.’

  ‘I’ve got my savings, remember,’ he butted in. ‘It’s not enough to pay the mortgage but I’ve got to sort out how to get the money transferred into your name. Listen, I’m more worried about you. ’ He tried to picture his wife and stepson living in a place he’d never been to and failed.

  ‘We’re fine. I’ve also filled in the security forms for a visit. They said it could take as long as a month but then I’ll drive over and see you.’

  Drive? Suddenly, the idea of driving terrified him. It was such a long way. Supposing some crazy driver went into her? ‘I’d rather you got the train.’

  ‘I’ve got to drive. For both of us.’

  He knew exactly what she meant. Just because he didn’t feel able to get behind a wheel again, didn’t mean he had to stop her. ‘I love you,’ he said.

  Her voice was shakily calm. ‘I love you too.’

  Relief soared through him like a helium balloon. Claire still loved him. He could cope now.

  ‘

  Really? ’ tinkled Joanna

  . ‘

  Are you sure? Don’t you think there’s still something you need to tell her? About that thing at school? ’

  Chapter Fourteen

  On the first morning in Mrs Johnson’s house, Claire woke, thinking for a split second that she was still in Beech Cottage. Then she saw the flimsy white curtains at the window instead of her blue and pink chintz and at the same time heard the screech of the gulls outside. It was then she remembered.

  ‘Ben,’ she called out softly. There was a shape at the other side of the bed. He had gone into his own room at first last night; a small box room, their landlady had said apologetically, but at some stage during the early hours, she had become aware of the door opening. Just as she had been about to yell out, she’d heard his voice. ‘I can’t sleep, Mum.’ Even though he was far too old to come into her bed, she had let him in and he had instantly fallen asleep on the far side. It had taken her much longer to do so herself.

  There hadn’t been time on the phone last night to tell Simon how she had found this place. It had all happened so quickly. The bricks. The dash into the car and then, just as they were about to check into a bed and breakfast in town, the phone call from Alex who wanted to know how she was doing. ‘We’re worried about you,’ he had said. ‘You’ve got to make allowances for Rosemarie; it’s difficult for her.’

  There had been no need to elaborate. Her friend, who lived and breathed for her social life, wasn’t able to cope with tennis club members who disapproved of her friendship with the wife of a dangerous driver. ‘She’ll come round in a bit,’ Alex had said in a voice that showed he was embarrassed. ‘In the meantime, if you need somewhere to live, I know someone who could do with the rent. We don’t have to give your background. I could just say you’re between homes at the present.’

  Her hurt at Rosemarie’s reaction was mollified by Alex’s kindness. ‘I’m doing it because you’re the innocent party in all this, just like Joanna.’ His voice took on a terse tone. ‘Simon should never have picked up his mobile. Everyone knows you just don’t do that sort of thing any more.’

  Meanwhile, the ‘someone who could do with the rent’, transpired to be a well-turned out widow in her late fifties who lived in one of those tall wh
ite Regency houses in a seaside town that was, as she’d assured Simon, big enough to blend into without attracting too much attention. It was about half an hour from Exeter where Ben was at school and there was a direct bus service.

  He’d caught it only this morning even though she’d offered to take him in on his first day. ‘If anyone gives you any bother, you must go to the school office.’

  He had stared at the ground. ‘Are you sure I’ve got to go? I want to stay here and look after you.’

  He’d become so protective in the last few days! It wasn’t right. Parents were meant to be strong. ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’ve got my book to finish.’

  It was true. Her current project – a children’s book for a small publisher – was almost due to be handed in. Yet the thought of doing something as normal as work seemed impossible.

  Claire wanted to roll over in bed and howl. How could Joanna, who had been so alive one minute, be dead the next? How could her new life with Simon, which had saved her from the misery of her marriage with Charlie, be so cruelly shattered? How could she be living in two rooms at the top of someone else’s house, in a place she didn’t know, and without any of her things?

  Holding her hand over her own mouth so her sobs didn’t escape and wake her son, Claire stumbled out of the room and down the small flight of stairs to the bathroom which Mrs Johnson, her new landlady, had pointed out the evening before. Shutting the door behind her, she sat on the edge of the bath feeling the cold lino underneath her toes, and letting the tears roll down her cheeks. After a while, she heard a quiet knock at the door. It was Mrs Johnson, still in her dressing gown at 9 a.m.; a pale blue silk one which reinforced the air of elegance from yesterday.

  ‘My dear, I don’t want to interfere but it sounds as though you might need a morning cup of tea.’ She held out a mug. ‘I don’t know if you take sugar or not.’

  Claire managed to shake her head through her sobs.

  ‘That’s good, because I’m almost out! Now you’re welcome to take this back to your room or else you could, if you like, come downstairs and have a chat. It’s up to you, dear.’

  Mrs Johnson’s tidy house with its daily polished coffee table and china dogs on the mantelpiece in the front room reserved for guests, was clearly too big for her to cope with on her own. The kitchen, she told Claire, was the only room she used now apart from the small sitting room in the middle of the house where she occasionally watched television. It had been fine when her husband had been alive but now it was very quiet. That was why she took in the occasional lodger which was how she knew Alex. He had been her husband’s accountant and still gave her financial advice.

  ‘Did he say why I am here?’ Claire asked, cupping her hands round the fine bone china mug which had a picture of a cat on it.

  Mrs Johnson shook her head. ‘You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.’

  ‘I’d rather not. Sorry.’

  There was a flicker of apprehension in the other woman’s eyes. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Claire added quickly. ‘It’s just that … well, my life’s changed in a way I didn’t expect. We need a bolthole but I’m not sure for how long.’

  Mrs Johnson nodded understandably. ‘So many marriages break up nowadays.’

  Claire was about to put her right but something stopped her. If Mrs Johnson knew the truth, she might well demand that they left.

  ‘But what about your things?’ probed Mrs Johnson gently. ‘Couldn’t you bring anything with you?’

  With a pang, Claire thought of her mother’s lovely writing desk, not to mention her paintings and her jewellery, all of which had been left just like that. Was that how refugees felt when they had to suddenly up sticks and go? ‘Alex and Rosemarie are looking after them for me,’ she said. That wasn’t quite true although Alex had said he would try and keep an eye on the house. It would have to be sold, of course. They couldn’t possibly meet the mortgage repayments, which was another thing she’d have to sort out.

  ‘Sometimes, you know,’ said Mrs Johnson patting her hand in a rather startlingly familiar way, ‘it’s best not to think about it all at once. I found that when my husband died. Now why don’t you go and get dressed and I’ll get some breakfast ready. If I’m not mistaken, I can hear the sound of someone else getting up upstairs.’ She beamed. ‘It will be nice to cook for a young person again!’

  Claire spent the day doing practical stuff. Phoning the bank to ask for an overdraft. Ringing the estate agent to organise a valuation of the house. Ringing Patrick to see if he could chase the Visitor paperwork that had been sent to the prison. Apparently, her security details were still being checked, Patrick explained.

  Aware that these calls had to be kept from Mrs Johnson, she’d made them from her bedroom which was on the third floor, hoping she couldn’t be heard.

  Then she set out her paints on the small dressing table – the only surface in the room – and tried to work. The illustrations she’d been commissioned to write were about a small rainbow fairy. It was part of a series which had proved successful in the past but somehow she couldn’t get the shapes of the wings right.

  Giving up, she threw down the paintbrush, put her head round Ben’s door, and suggested a walk along the sea front. Her son responded with a shake of the head so she went alone, conscious of a huge empty space beside her that should have been Simon. God how she missed him!

  Yet as she walked down the high street, Claire felt a tinge of expectation in the air that possibly, she told herself, came from a seaside town where the end-of-summer tourists were still dawdling.

  And then she saw it. The sea, stretching out before her as far as the eye could see, ending in an almost perfectly straight horizontal line. Walking down the concrete slope to the beach, Claire made for a rock along the groyne and sat, legs cupped by her arms, watching the waves lap against the beach. Picking up a pebble, she felt the smoothness and traced the pattern with her index finger.

  When she and Charlie had moved down to Devon before Ben had been born, they had chosen to live in Exeter for his work. But now she wondered how she could have passed by the magnificence of these waves that licked her ankles and made her feel there was something beyond all this pain, after all.

  Claire wasn’t sure how long she had sat there for but at some point, she was aware of her skin goose-pimpling. Picking herself up, she reproached herself for having left Ben for so long in a strange place. She also needed to buy something for tea. Now as she headed towards the local supermarket, she passed a building which had struck her earlier on. It was a rather lovely Victorian building possessing a large green door and, on it, was an advertisement.

  ART TEACHER NEEDED. TEMPORARY POSITION. APPLY WITHIN.

  Opening the door before thinking, she found herself in a large cool hall which had another door leading off it marked ‘Office’. A woman sat behind a desk surrounded by piles of paperwork; she raised her face as though she was surprised to see anyone. ‘I wondered if you could tell me about the job,’ Claire heard herself say. And then, because the woman appeared to look blank, she added, ‘The art teacher job’.

  ‘Goodness! Is the notice still up?’

  Claire’s heart sank. The position had been filled.

  ‘We’d found someone,’ said the woman ‘but it so happens that she rang today to say her husband was being sent abroad and she was going with him. Extremely inconvenient it is too at the start of a new term!’

  ‘I could do it.’ Claire’s words tumbled out in desperation. ‘I’m an artist. I illustrate children’s books.’

  The woman looked more interested. ‘You do? Where did you teach last?’

  ‘I haven’t. But I could.’

  ‘You are qualified, aren’t you?’

  Claire found herself nodding.

  ‘Wonderful! Why don’t you fill in this form and get it back to us tomorrow. Between you and me, it’s probably a formality as we’re a bit desperate. Can you start next week?

  She s
houldn’t have lied about the teaching qualification. Claire knew that. But by the time she reached Mrs Johnson’s smart black door with its brass knocker, she had justified her behaviour. She needed a regular income. It wasn’t much but it would pay the rent. Maybe, if her agent could get her more commissions, she and Ben could make do until …

  Claire didn’t want to think that far. Just ‘until’ would do. Opening the door with the key Mrs Johnson had given them, she placed her outdoor shoes neatly in the hall (a house rule that had already been explained) and went up to find Ben. He should be back from school but he wasn’t in his room. A flush of panic gripped her. Then the noise of the loo indicated his whereabouts and immediately she felt another flush, this time of relief. It had been like this ever since the night of The Accident; always fearing the worst.

  When Ben came out, he held his finger to his lips. ‘What?’ she said but he indicated that she should follow him. Their rooms were on the top part of the house but there was another door, beyond the bathroom, which Mrs Johnson had told them was not part of their accommodation. To her shock, Ben was now opening it.

  ‘I don’t think we should,’ she began and then stopped. It was the room of a child. Not a young child but not a teenager like Ben either. There was a single bed in one corner, a blue candlewick bedspread on it. On the desk were several Lego models and in the bookcase lining one length of the wall, were rows of old classics like The Famous Five. There was a calendar on the wall too, showing a picture of a steam engine on the month of August. The year was 1979.

  ‘I wondered how long it would be before you found this,’ said Mrs Johnson’s voice behind them.

  Claire burned with embarrassment. ‘I’m so sorry …’

  ‘It was my fault, not Mum’s.’ Ben’s voice cut in. ‘I found it this afternoon when I was bored and I wanted to show her. I’m sorry.’

  Mrs Johnson was looking at the Lego models as though she had never seen them before. ‘That’s all right. Boys are curious. My Derek was the same.’ She looked back at Claire with eyes that seemed shiny. ‘I’ve kept this room exactly the same since he died. Twelve, he was. Two months off his thirteenth birthday. He was killed by a driver who was overtaking his school bus, just off the main road.’