The Child Who

by Simon Lelic

  ‘Just…’ The man smiled, incredulously, and gestured to the sea, the square, the sky. And then he ran.

  Someone screamed. Megan? Leo tensed and almost darted but in the end there was no need. The man managed barely a second step before he stumbled, tripping on the protruding wheel of a pushchair. He fell gracelessly, his instinct to save his camera. Someone in the crowd laughed. Before the man could recover his footing Leo was looming over him.

  ‘What’s on the camera?’

  The man tried to wrap the camera in his overcoat. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Pictures of the sea.’

  ‘Give it to me.’ Leo took a step and reached. The man scrabbled backwards on his heels.

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘Give me the camera!’ Leo made to lunge but felt a hand grip his arm.

  ‘Leo! What are you doing? What’s going on?’

  ‘I said, give me the…’ Leo shook off his wife and swiped. The man was quicker. He rolled and staggered upright and held the camera aloft.

  ‘They’re just pictures! I’ll delete them! Just mind the camera, will you!’

  Leo grabbed and the man lurched. The camera floated out of Leo’s reach.

  ‘What kind of pictures? Who are you? Why are you taking pictures of us?’

  ‘I don’t know. They just said for me to get pictures!’ The man’s eyes darted across Leo’s shoulder. Leo turned to track his gaze but saw nothing. But then he did: Ellie, standing alone and watching, listening.

  Leo whirled back. ‘My daughter? You were taking pictures of my daughter?’

  The man took a step away. ‘I’m just doing what I was told. Okay? It’s just a job!’

  ‘Leo! What’s going on! Will you please—’

  ‘You’re a photographer.’ Leo stopped his advance. ‘You work for a newspaper?’

  The man gave Leo a look, like why the hell else would he be here? ‘The Post,’ he said. ‘But it’s only a gig. I’m freelance really. I’ll delete the pictures, I promise. I’ll tell them I lost you at the station.’ The man backed through the boundary of onlookers.

  ‘Leo. Leo!’

  Leo turned slowly towards his wife. He was aware, vaguely, that the people around them were dispersing, all except for a man in a woollen hat who was clearly holding out for something more climactic. But even he, when he noticed Leo glance, tucked his chin behind his upturned collar and fell into step with the rest of the crowd. Leo and Megan were left alone.

  They were alone.

  Leo looked left, right, then back at his wife, who was watching him with something like fear, something like disgust. Until her expression changed too, even before Leo could ask what they were all of a sudden both thinking.

  ‘Where’s Ellie?’

  They found her discarded tub of ice cream atop a bin at the edge of the square. The contents had turned to soup, the raspberry ripples into streaks like blood.

  From the square, at Leo’s suggestion, they split up. She had gone home. Of course she had gone home. She would be at the railway station or already aboard a train. And she was fifteen, not a child: it was not like she had never caught public transport by herself. Yet Leo did not want Megan to see his rising panic. His wife, anyway, seemed happy to go her own way. She seemed delighted, in fact, at the prospect of being able to escape the sight of him.

  Megan headed straight for the station. Leo, they agreed, would retrace their route and then meet them, hopefully, on platform two. And so he rewound their day, pacing from the site of one minor failure to the next. None proved any more fruitful on Leo’s second visit, which meant his first instinct had obviously been correct. And so he sprinted, as best he could around pedestrians who refused to part, and braced himself for the prospect of his wife and daughter braced for the prospect of seeing him.

  He almost missed them. The train to Exeter was at the platform and there were enough bodies interlacing through the doors that Leo struggled for a moment to distinguish his wife and daughter’s. Then he spotted them, finally – but even as he did, he thought for a second that he must have been mistaken. Because they were getting on. His wife, his daughter ahead of her and with Megan’s hand at the small of her back: they were about to board the train.

  They were leaving without him.

  Leo, rooted, called out. Ellie by now was already aboard but Megan, behind her, turned. She saw him. There was no question that she saw him. She did not answer, however. She did not wave, nor gesture for him to hurry. She regarded him for half a moment, then turned her back and stepped from sight.

  16

  It had, she said, gone something like this.

  Stephanie was seated when Karen arrived, facing the door and curiously still. Blake, behind her, seemed powered by the both of them: not muttering when Karen walked in but giving the impression he was merely drawing breath. He was pacing, or seemed to have been, because it took him a second or two after Karen entered to rein in his momentum. He came to a halt beside the armchair, partially obscuring his wife and soundlessly broadcasting his hostility. He checked his watch, as though Karen being ten minutes late were the cause of his disquiet. She should have been on time, of course. She had not intended to leave her office that morning but something had come up and it had taken longer than she had expected to deal with and the traffic, on the way back, had been…

  Anyway. The point was Blake was hostile from the start, just as Leo had predicted he would be.

  Karen apologised. Blake took her hand when she offered it, though for half a second she was certain he would not. Daniel’s mother did not stand but smiled up at Karen. She seemed calm. Chemically so, Karen would have said. It was a glaze she recognised. One, sometimes, she prescribed.

  Blake was not calm. He acted, once Karen was in the room, in a manner to imply he was perfectly in control but his agitation simmered below his skin.

  ‘So you’re the shrink,’ he said, restating in his own terms Karen’s introduction.

  ‘A shrink,’ Karen said and reinforced her smile. ‘Leo. Leonard. Mr Curtice…’ she was unsure, it struck her then, how they would know him ‘… asked me to help out. With Daniel. With the case.’

  ‘Like you’re not getting paid,’ Blake responded. ‘Like “helping out” isn’t billed by the hour.’

  Still Karen smiled. ‘Would you like coffee? Tea? Water or something?’

  ‘Let’s just get on with this.’ Blake sat on the join between the cushions on the sofa and aimed his knees at ten and two. ‘Shall we?’

  Karen waited for Blake’s wife to decide for herself, then settled, when Stephanie shook her head, on the armchair beside her.

  ‘I was hoping,’ Karen said, impartially alternating eye contact, ‘for a little background. I invited you here because I thought, by talking to you, I might glean some insight into—’

  But she need not have bothered with the rehearsals.

  ‘I have a living to earn,’ Blake interrupted. ‘Steph here has soaps to watch. What is it you want us to tell you?’

  ‘Well,’ Karen said, ‘I’m not sure exactly. Which is why I thought it important that we should talk. The three of us.’ She endeavoured, with a look, to include Stephanie.

  ‘Talk. Always bloody talk. That’s all any of you lot seem to do.’

  ‘Us lot, Mr Blake? Who do you mean exactly?’

  Blake flicked a hand. ‘Curtice. Social services. The do-gooders from that charity that keeps bugging us, behaving like we’re the bloody victims. And doctors. Don’t get me started on doctors. God knows we’ve seen enough of them over the years to know they’re all full of piss and air.’

  Karen said nothing. She watched.

  ‘This isn’t easy, you know.’ Blake’s tone was a challenge. ‘The waiting. The moving out, the moving in. The so-called bloody protection. And Steph here – she’s completely messed up about Daniel.’

  Blake did not look at his wife but Karen did.

  ‘I’m upset,’ Stephanie said. ‘That’s all Vince means. It’s Danny, obviously, but i
t’s other things too.’

  ‘She means her mates. Former mates, rather. Mates who don’t call any more, don’t answer when she calls them.’

  ‘And you, Mr Blake? Are you upset?’

  ‘Course I am. But he’s not my son, is he? It’s different, isn’t it? I don’t feel so constantly bloody guilty all the time. That’s Steph’s trouble. She’s acting like she’s the one who killed that girl, like it’s her fault Daniel—’

  ‘Vince. Don’t.’

  Blake gave Karen a look: you see what I mean? He patted himself down and located his packet of cigarettes.

  ‘I’d like, if I may,’ said Karen after a pause, ‘to discuss Daniel’s home life. His childhood. I’d like to establish a little background.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ said Blake. ‘He’s not mad, he’s not retarded – that’s what you told Curtice. He’s just screwed up. Right? So he pleads guilty. What choice does he have? How is talking about his childhood gonna change anything?’

  ‘You want to help him, Mr Blake, don’t you? You want Daniel to understand why he did what he did?’

  ‘He has to be guilty first. That’s what I read. No one can help him till he tells them he’s guilty.’ Blake turned aside, his voice dwindling into a mutter. ‘Which, the way I see it, he already has.’ He turned back to face Karen. He held up his cigarettes. ‘You’re gonna tell me I can’t smoke in here, aren’t you?’

  Karen winced. ‘Sorry.’

  Blake gave a sniff. He tucked the packet of cigarettes back into his shirt pocket.

  ‘We want to help.’

  Karen turned to face Stephanie.

  ‘Of course we want to help. We just don’t see how we can. That’s part of the problem. That’s the reason we’re finding this so hard.’

  Karen nodded. ‘I understand. I really do. We all want what’s best for Daniel and the information you give me should help us establish exactly what that might be.’

  ‘Why are you asking?’ said Blake. ‘That’s what I want to know. What did Daniel tell you? I mean, if he’s trying to sell you some sob story, blame everything that’s happened on Steph…’

  ‘Not at all. That’s not at all why I invited you here. When I met with Daniel he was scared, above all. He was confused. He seemed to struggle with his family history and I thought maybe you could help me fill in some of the blanks.’ Karen hesitated, then added, ‘The truth is, I would not, in normal circumstances, be meeting with you both. But Leo and I go back a while and… well… I was hoping, I will admit, to be involved with Daniel’s rehabilitation. Depending on the outcome of the case, of course.’

  Blake snorted. ‘So you’re looking for a gig. That’s what this is about. You’re looking for freaks to dissect, to write about in some study.’

  ‘I want to help, Mr Blake. Vincent. May I call you Vincent? I’m genuinely only interested in doing what I can to help your stepson.’

  Again Blake sniffed. He made a face that implied it did not matter now what Karen said: he had her number.

  It was Stephanie who broke the silence. ‘How can we help? What is it that you want to know?’

  Karen regarded each of them in turn. She spoke to Blake. ‘What you said before, about Daniel blaming your wife. What did you mean by that?’

  ‘What? Nothing. It’s what kids do, isn’t it? It’s what everyone does, all the bloody time. It’s Mummy’s fault. It’s Daddy’s. It’s anyone’s fault but my own.’ Blake looked at his wife looking blankly back at him. ‘Back me up, Steph, for Christ’s sake. You of all people know exactly what I’m talking about.’

  Stephanie’s jaw tightened.

  ‘You think he blames you for something?’ Karen, this time, addressed Stephanie. It was Blake, nevertheless, who answered.

  ‘I just said. Didn’t I? It’s what kids do. It’s what everyone does. I didn’t mean anything by it.’ He began muttering again, something about something being exactly the type of thing he was talking about.

  Karen watched him for a moment. She sighed. ‘You can smoke, Vincent. It’s fine. I’ll open a window.’ She offered Blake a smile.

  His eyes narrowed. He wrapped his arms across his chest and reclined on the sofa. Karen looked to her lap.

  ‘Can I?’

  Karen raised her head. Stephanie pointed to her handbag.

  ‘Of course,’ said Karen. ‘Go ahead.’ She stood and moved to the window and struggled with the sash until it was ajar. She checked around her, then crossed to her desk and tipped some pens from a mug. She set the empty mug on the arm of Stephanie’s chair, and one of the pens and a notepad beside her own seat. Stephanie exhaled towards the window but the draught nudged the smoke back the way it came.

  ‘You were asking about Daniel’s childhood,’ said Stephanie once Karen was seated. ‘About his home life.’

  Blake was glaring at his wife, at the cigarette dangling from her hand.

  ‘That’s right,’ Karen said. ‘I wondered…’ She coughed. Stephanie moved her hand, her cigarette, across her body. ‘I wondered about the kind of things he might have been exposed to,’ Karen continued. ‘This isn’t about blame, you understand. I’m not here to judge anyone. But, well…’ She swallowed. ‘Violence, for instance. Physical harm. Vincent is your second husband, Stephanie. May I ask why your first marriage ended?’

  ‘It ended cos Frank walked out on her. That’s why it ended. Steph would still be clinging to that loser if he hadn’t shaken her off.’

  Karen waited for Stephanie to answer.

  ‘He didn’t hit me, if that’s what you mean.’ Stephanie focused on her cigarette, tapping it repeatedly over the makeshift ashtray even though the ash had already fallen.

  ‘And Daniel? What was his relationship like with Daniel?’

  Stephanie shrugged. She ground out her cigarette awkwardly against the inside of the mug and started fishing right away for another. ‘Normal,’ she said. ‘I suppose. Not like television normal, like kicking a ball to each other in the park, but normal in the neighbourhood we lived in.’

  ‘Did he ever hit Daniel? Or…’

  ‘No. I mean, not really. He’d give him a tap now and then, I suppose. Mostly when he deserved it. He was a drinker so sometimes he hit him harder than he meant to but he never hurt him. Not properly. He was always quite a gentle man, actually.’

  ‘He’s doing time for assault,’ said Blake. ‘That’s how gentle he can be.’

  Karen considered the scar on Blake’s face; the boxer’s bend to his nose.

  ‘That’s different.’ Stephanie looked to Karen. ‘Isn’t it? That was business. That’s not what the doctor’s talking about.’

  Karen made as though taking down a note. When she looked up Stephanie had a flame to her second cigarette, her eyes drawn together and trained, it looked like, on the tip of her nose.

  ‘Is it possible,’ Karen said, ‘that Frank ever touched Daniel? Ever interfered with him in any way?’

  Stephanie expelled the smoke in her lungs. ‘None. Never. I would have known.’

  ‘But you said he drank. Might his behaviour have been different when he was intoxicated?’

  ‘I don’t see why. And anyway I still would have known. Besides, he hated that kind of thing. It made him furious. Really properly furious.’

  This time Karen did make a note. ‘What about, I don’t know. Uncles. Male friends. Older boys. Anyone else.’ She did not look at Blake directly but she was watching for his reaction.

  Blake did not move. His wife shook her head.

  Karen tapped her pen against her notepad. ‘When Frank left,’ she said, ‘Daniel was, what? Eight?’

  Stephanie thought, nodded.

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘Who? Danny?’ Stephanie made a show of trying to recall. ‘He – Frank, I mean – he wasn’t around much by that time anyway.’ She pulled on her cigarette and her frown deepened. She held in the smoke for so long that Karen felt sure it was not coming out again. ‘Danny wasn’t happy about it, obviously. But
I wouldn’t say he was specially unhappy either. He just… I don’t know. Went on being Daniel.’

  ‘Was Daniel generally happy, would you say? As a child. When he was younger.’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Stephanie. ‘He wasn’t ever, like, joyous. Is that a word?’ She glanced at Karen and Karen nodded. ‘Danny wasn’t ever that kind of boy. It isn’t his nature.’

  ‘ To be happy?’

  ‘ To be… I don’t know. Laughing all the time. Things like that. It isn’t Daniel.’

  Stephanie finished her second cigarette. She adjusted herself in her seat, transferred her handbag from her lap to the floor. There was the rattle, as she moved it, of pills in a jar. Or mints in a tin, of course. Vitamins, paracetamol – it might have been anything.

  ‘What about you, Stephanie?’ Karen said. Blake, before, had been fiddling with his packet of Rothmans. The box ceased dancing all of a sudden in his grip. ‘How did you cope when Frank left you?’

  ‘Me? I…’ Stephanie looked down.

  ‘She coped just fine. Didn’t you, Steph?’ There was malice in Blake’s tone; anger in the look Stephanie, in response, cast towards her husband.

  ‘I coped,’ she said.

  Karen waited for Stephanie to say more. ‘You coped,’ she said after a pause. ‘May I ask what you mean by that?’

  ‘She means she coped,’ Blake said. ‘What could be clearer?’

  Karen left another silence but neither of Daniel’s parents sought to fill it. ‘What about motherhood? More generally, I mean. Did you enjoy it? How did you cope, would you say, with being a mother?’

  Stephanie glanced towards her husband. ‘I don’t know. Okay, I suppose. It was hard but everyone finds it hard. Don’t they?’

  Karen let the question go unanswered. ‘Hard in what way, Stephanie? Can you explain?’

  Stephanie hesitated and Blake leant forwards, forcing himself into Karen’s sight line. ‘This is about Daniel. Isn’t it? I thought this was supposed to be about the boy.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Karen said. ‘It’s just background, that’s all. It’s just to help us try to understand—’