What You Don't Know

by David Belbin

  On Sunday afternoons and evenings, Nancy did preparation and marking for the teaching week ahead. She didn’t want to eat with Nick’s brother and sister-in-law, who kept inviting her. She didn’t want Nick at hers, either.

  After dinner at Joe and Caroline’s, then the football, Nick cycled to the drop-in centre near the train station. He wasn’t due to do a shift. Since starting at the Power Project he’d cut down the number of nights he volunteered. Tonight, though, he was at a loose end, and an extra body was always welcome.

  Sundays were interesting. Less underclass, more of the amorphous middle class looking to work out how to get through the long week ahead. Alice was among them. She had been clean of hard drugs for several weeks: no relapses this year.

  ‘Completely clean or are you using other substances?’ he asked her, after the usual small talk.

  ‘A bit of spliff. A lot of vodka and fags.’

  ‘You’re doing great.’

  ‘Keep telling me that. We’re short staffed. I’ve got to do four twelve-hour shifts this week. Even one five-pound bag would make them a lot easier to get through. And I ask myself, where’s the harm? Lots of people manage a habit their whole lives.’

  ‘They manage it until they don’t manage any more, or they get a batch that’s way stronger than they’re used to and they OD.’

  Alice gave him a dismissive look, as if to say, this is me you’re talking to.

  ‘Okay, let’s say you’re right, and some people manage a smack habit their whole lives. They enhance their lives with a weekend fix or three. But you’re not like that. You keep shooting up until it’s gone and then you want more. It’s called an addictive personality.’

  ‘Have you got one of those too?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I managed okay without the booze in prison. Giving up weed was harder but I did it, rather than lose remission.’

  Alice pointed at the cigarette in Nick’s hand.

  ‘One day, cigarettes will have to go, too, but I’ve cut down. Ten a day.’ And a half-ounce of tobacco for his spliffs, but he didn’t mention that.

  She stood up to go. ‘When are you next at the hostel?’

  ‘Seeing Jerry on Saturday.’

  ‘I’m on shift then, drop in and have a brew with me.’

  ‘I’ll walk you out,’ Nick said. He let the co-ordinator know he was going, then saw Alice to her bus stop. On the way, he made a small confession. ‘I mentioned that I might be doing those drug advice sessions to Jerry, so she could prime some of the other girls. I hope that was all right.’

  Alice didn’t seem to think he’d gone behind her back. ‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ she half apologized. ‘Tomorrow I’ll check with the others. But if some of them are away, it becomes my decision, and I’ll say yes.’

  He thanked her, then asked something that had been on his mind. ‘Where do they get the stuff, your girls? Dealers, boyfriends, pimps?’

  ‘All three are the same people,’ Alice told him. ‘For someone who spent five years inside, you can be quite naive sometimes.’

  Nick stopped off at the Peacock on his way home. The pub used to be his regular haunt, back when he was a young teacher with a Labour party membership card. He’d only been back once since getting out. That night he’d been snubbed by a couple of people he used to know well and felt out of place. But that was on a weekday night. This evening he was unlikely to know anyone, and fancied a decent pint before he went back to his cold flat.

  Nick took a quick look in the public bar. It was nearly deserted. He headed into the lounge and ordered himself a pint of Home’s bitter.

  ‘Nick! Haven’t seen you for a while. Won’t you join me?’

  It was Tony Bax, who used to be – maybe still was – chair of the Nottingham West Labour party. They had only met briefly since Nick’s release and Tony, too, was on his own. This was a chance to catch up.

  ‘What brings you this way?’

  ‘I do a bit of volunteering at this drop-in centre down by the station.’

  ‘I know where you mean. Good for you.’

  Tony was twenty years older than Nick, but they had always got on well. Nick discovered that Tony’s wife had died a couple of years ago. Breast cancer. He offered his condolences. He told Tony about his job, being turned over by the Daily Mail, and a little about his time in prison. By their third pint, Nick was getting the older man’s frank assessment of Sarah’s performance as an MP.

  ‘She’s a fast learner, but she’s also a workaholic. She’ll have spent all day doing her Home Office boxes. I doubt the woman has a social life. You used to be friendly with her, yes?’

  ‘At university.’ This was the line that he stuck to. Apart from his brother and Andrew, there weren’t any people left in Nick’s life who knew that he and Sarah had lived together for the best part of two years. Nick meant to keep it that way.

  ‘What side of the party was she on then?’

  ‘No side. It was student politics. We weren’t Marxists or in a faction like Socialist Organizer. I suppose you’d say we were on the Bennite left.’

  ‘Most of us were. Did she have a lot of friends at uni?’

  ‘There were always people around because of the campaign, and then with her being president. I didn’t know her before. Why do you ask?’

  ‘You know what they say: it’s useful for politicians to have a hinterland.’

  That’s right, Nick thought. I used to be her hinterland.

  Pubs closed early on Sundays, at half ten. The two men walked up Mansfield Road until they got to the top of the hill, where they went in different directions.

  ‘I’m glad to hear you’re at the Power Project,’ Tony said, in parting. ‘There are quite a few people talking the place down. They think Bell’s lightweight. Good to know that there’s someone we trust there.’

  Nick walked along Forest Road with a pleasant buzz of belonging. He knew how King would hear Tony’s use of the word ‘we’. White people had one of their own inside. But the ‘we’ that Nick heard was different. It was an Old Labour, socially committed ‘we’. The ‘we’ that thought it understood the way the world worked and wanted to make it work more fairly.

  This weekend, Nick had made a start at turning his job into something that made sense. Tonight, his only regret was that he didn’t have Nancy to go home to. A taxi approached and he considered flagging it down, showing up at hers as a late-night surprise. But he didn’t want to push things. It was nearly eleven. She might already be asleep. He turned left onto Alfreton Road and into the unlit side passage beneath his flat. Getting out his keys, he anticipated the joint he would have when he got in, accompanied perhaps by a whisky. Just a small one: he didn’t want to be hungover tomorrow.

  The first blow, to the back of his head, caught him by surprise. The second left him on the hard dirty ground. Then the kicking began. He managed to cover his head. His attacker didn’t speak, but went about his job thoroughly, until every part of Nick’s body cried out with pain. He was left spread crooked across the concrete, barely conscious and desperately cold.

  19

  Sarah decided to visit the Power Project before she caught her Monday train to London. The receptionist, an attractive woman with cheap clothes but designer glasses, seemed to recognize her.

  ‘King isn’t in yet. Shall I give him a ring on his mobile?’

  ‘No need. I’d like to see Nick Cane first. Is he here?’

  She wanted to make sure that Nick’s suspension had been lifted, as promised.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She rang his office. Sarah could hear his phone ringing from the reception area. No reply.

  ‘Sorry,’ the receptionist said.

  ‘Is there anyone in, apart from you?’ Sarah asked.

  Her silence said it all. Sarah looked at her watch. If she walked briskly, she could make the ten twenty-eight to St Pancras. She left without another word.

  At the Home Office, Sarah checked her diary for the week. In addition to her usual round of minister
ial meetings, paperwork and briefings, she had to answer questions in the House, a monthly task that required careful preparation. On Wednesday, before Prime Minister’s Question Time, she was to meet the Prison Governors Association. On Thursday it was Stonewall, the gay rights organization. They would want to know when she was going to act on her campaign to allow condoms in prison, to reduce the spread of HIV.

  Sarah had undertaken that campaign in the last parliament, when she was in opposition, before she became a junior minister. The issue featured nowhere in Labour’s manifesto. Stonewall would have to accept that, while Sarah remained committed, the time wasn’t right to implement a move that would be too much of a challenge to people’s prejudices. She might mention President Clinton’s gaffe in legalizing homosexuality in the army too early on in his presidency. The resultant furore had cost him a lot of his political capital. Their time would come, Sarah intended to argue. She was in the right job to make it happen.

  A knock on her door.

  ‘Come in.’

  Paul Morris stood there, grinning.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I had a meeting.’

  She knew that Paul had a special adviser role at the Home Office, but he was always cagey about which department he was advising. Assuming he’d had to sign the Official Secrets Act, she’d never pressed him about it.

  ‘I left a message inviting you to dinner the other day.’

  ‘I was confused by it. I thought you couldn’t cook.’

  ‘More likely I told you that I don’t cook. As a rule. But I can cook, as you would have found out, if you’d returned my message.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been really backed up. I still am, for a week or two. But I’ve got my diary on me. Why don’t we fix a date?’

  They arranged for him to come round on the first Wednesday of February. There was a sparkle in his eyes that told her he knew this really was a date. Despite her scruples, he was on a promise. Sarah returned to her paperwork pile. At least, now, she had something to look forward to.

  The police decided to treat the assault on Nick as the random mugging of a drunk on his way home. Not just a drunk, but an ex-con. They discounted Nick’s being relatively sober and not having been robbed. The Queen’s Medical Centre wanted to keep him in for a day, then sign him off work for a couple of weeks. He had a cracked rib, and bruises all over his body, but it was the effects of exposure that the doctors were most worried about. He had not been found until three in the morning, when a passing student heard him moaning and dialled 999.

  The hospital, at Nick’s request, phoned his girlfriend and his brother, but it was his sister-in-law, Caroline, who came first, baby in arms.

  ‘Joe’s on an airport run,’ she explained, ‘but he sends his best. We’ve agreed you must come and stay with us until you’re feeling well.’

  Nick thanked her without actually accepting the offer. He asked her to ring work, let them know he’d be off for a fortnight.

  ‘Who did it?’ Caroline asked, after he had told her the full story. ‘Don’t tell me it was a jealous husband.’

  ‘No.’ Not surprising she should ask that, given Joe’s record, but Nick had never knowingly cuckolded anyone. ‘The guy didn’t say anything, but he was waiting for me. I suspect it had something to do with my job.’

  ‘How come?’

  Nick didn’t know the answer to this. What had changed in the last week that might have resulted in somebody attacking him? He’d been pilloried in the Daily Mail. He’d arranged to see teenage drug users, some of whom, doubtless, had pimps.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ was all he said.

  ‘You must have an idea.’

  ‘Another visitor for you,’ a nurse interrupted, and they were joined by Nancy. Nick watched the two women sizing each other up. Nancy had been home after work and changed. She wore a short pleated skirt and black boots with heels that made her taller than Caroline. Beneath her expensive black leather jacket was a figure-hugging cashmere sweater. Caroline was still in her teaching get-up: practical trousers and a sweater over a prim, dark blouse. Her long hair was tied back.

  ‘Nick’s coming to stay with us for a few days when he gets out tomorrow,’ Caroline announced. Nick hoped that Nancy would challenge this, make her own offer. But all she said was, ‘That’s very good of you.’

  ‘It’s what family do,’ Caroline said. ‘I’ll go and make that phone call to your work, Nick.’

  When she was gone, Nancy leaned into the bed and gave him a full-on kiss. ‘At least he didn’t damage your face,’ she said.

  ‘He tried.’ Nick gave an abridged version of the account he had given Caroline, and the police. Already he was tired of the story. He would get over it.

  Caroline returned. ‘I spoke to someone called Chantelle. I didn’t much like the sound of her. She gave me a this is probably bullshit but I don’t give a damn attitude. Then she remembered to tell me that Sarah Bone came looking for you this morning. Evidently your boss wasn’t best pleased that you weren’t there to greet her.’

  ‘I’ll bet he wasn’t in either.’

  ‘That was the impression she gave me.’

  ‘Nice to see you boys all jump for a powerful woman,’ Nancy commented.

  ‘Sarah certainly used to make Nick jump,’ Caroline said, and Nancy gave one of her funny little frowns. Nick knew that frown well, from his earliest mentor sessions with her. It meant that she was connecting dots.

  Phoebe began to cry. ‘Better go,’ Caroline said. ‘Joe will give the hospital a ring in the morning, find out when it’s okay to bring you home.’

  ‘Appreciate it,’ Nick told her. ‘If you’re sure it’s …’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Caroline hugged him, then nodded at Nancy. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘So,’ Nancy said, when Caroline was gone. ‘You and Sarah Bone. How long ago was that?’

  ‘Fifteen years. We were friends at uni.’ He faked a chuckle. ‘Good friends.’

  Nancy smiled and slid a hand beneath the covers to stroke him. ‘Fifteen years ago I can cope with,’ she said. ‘Though, now I think about it, I was just about ready for you when I was fourteen. I was an early starter.’

  ‘And I was a late starter,’ Nick said. ‘You’d have probably scared the life out of me.’

  She laughed and kissed him. Crisis averted. Then he had to push her away. His ribs were beginning to ache again and he needed more morphine.

  20

  ‘No, I don’t support the bombing of Iraq!’ Sarah told Paul Morris over dinner. ‘But I’m a member of the government. I have to vote for things I don’t agree with. Anyway, I didn’t vote in that division. I was visiting prisons in Scotland.’

  ‘Very convenient,’ Paul said, pouring her a second glass.

  ‘It saved me a lot of bother in the constituency. We’ve been bombing the relatives of some of my constituents. I mean, I accept that Saddam is an evil man, but we can’t go round the world invading regimes that mistreat their own people. Where would it end?’

  ‘And who decides who is evil?’ Paul asked.

  In the case of the Iraqi dictator, Sarah thought the issues were fairly clear-cut, but she had decided to go to bed with Paul tonight and wanted to agree with him as much as she could. She murmured, ‘Exactly.’

  Paul asked after her mum, who was in hospital. Sarah had visited her at the weekend.

  ‘They found something and they’re waiting for the biopsy results. It looks like it’s cancer, but they’ve caught it early. It should be operable. I wish the NHS worked more quickly. She puts on a brave face, but …’

  Paul squeezed her hand. ‘You must be worried sick.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’ She changed the subject. ‘How’s your new job?’

  ‘I thought you might have invited me round to discuss the Power Project,’ Paul said, pushing aside the last of his Harrods chicken kiev.

  Sarah had a meeting about the project later that week. She had scheduled half an hour with Suraj Ha
nspal, the head of the charity that provided its main funding. She sensed trouble, but didn’t want to involve Paul.

  ‘I invited you round because I owed you dinner and I fancied your company. There is one thing I wanted to know about the Power Project, though. Who came up with the absurd name?’

  ‘I did,’ Paul admitted, with a wry laugh.

  ‘What were you trying to ape, the Manhattan Project?’

  ‘The Crack Action Team was a million times worse. It sounded like the SAS. By the way, there was something I wanted to tell you.’

  What now? Sarah regretted joining the project board. It was one piece of bad news after another.

  ‘I’m not going to be in Nottingham much from now on, except to visit the kids. I wanted to hang in there, but things have got too strained for Annette. We’ve agreed to go for a legal separation.’

  Sarah had been sort of hoping to hear this, but was careful to make light of the announcement. ‘I’m sorry you and Annette have decided to call it a day. I know it’s been a long time coming.’

  ‘I’m not sure Annette realized until recently,’ Paul confessed, and she felt sorry for him. She reached across the table and held his hand. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers softly, near the nails.

  ‘You’ve been very patient with me,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been patient, too,’ she told him. ‘But you don’t have to be patient any longer.’

  *

  The doorbell rang around four on Thursday, just as it was getting dark. Nick, still in his dressing gown, struggled to the door. He’d been back in the flat for a couple of days, but hadn’t returned to work. A call from Kingston had indicated that it would be in everybody’s interest if he kept his head down for a while.

  Nick thought it would be Nancy. She hadn’t visited him during the week he was at Joe and Caroline’s. He had left a message saying he was back home and he knew that her school day finished twenty minutes ago.

  It wasn’t Nancy, but Jerry. She was still in school uniform.