by David Belbin
Having got through that, it was a relief to be grilled about escapes from open prisons. At least her boss was pleased. Afterwards, he congratulated Sarah on her performance.
‘You’re clearly on top of your brief. Actually, there’s a little something extra you might be interested in taking on. Let’s talk next week.’
Sarah had a sneaking suspicion she knew what the something extra was.
22
‘He wants to see you,’ Chantelle said. ‘Soon as you get in.’ ‘Fine,’ Nick said. This was the first time that King had already been in the office when he arrived at work. Wasn’t he meant to be in Manchester today? Perhaps he wanted to give Nick his long-overdue assessment interview. It was only a formality, but would mark the end of Nick’s probation period.
King didn’t ask Nick to sit down.
‘What were you doing at the hostel in Alexandra Park last night?’ he wanted to know.
Caught on the back foot, Nick tried to explain. ‘I was being proactive,’ he said. ‘Those girls might not have serious drug problems yet, but will have soon. The earlier we get them reconsidering that behaviour, the better.’
‘You know I’m on their management board?’
‘I wasn’t aware of that.’
‘So I got a call last night from one of the wardens, said there’d been a fight outside and it all connected back to a visit you’d made that evening.’
‘I did clear it with the warden first.’
‘You cleared it with a warden, one I’m told you’re either sleeping with or counselling or both. She’s going to get a written warning. I’m told you’ve been visiting the hostel for months, seeing a fifteen-year-old girl.’
‘That’s right, I –’ Never apologize, never explain, John Wayne once said, but Nick didn’t need to stop speaking, because Kingston interrupted him.
‘Are you aware of the problems the previous organization got into with underage girls? Exchanging drugs for sex? Prostitution! And you sully my work here with your dirty –’
Nick knew that he had to reply definitively, at once.
‘I am not having sex with that girl!’ he interrupted. ‘I’m teaching her, and have been since before I began work here. If you spoke to the warden –’
‘Who is a junkie herself! A troubled woman employed out of charity, who should never have allowed you into the place. I’m not going to ask about your relationship with her. I don’t want to know. But I’m issuing you a warning, a written one, and this time it won’t be rescinded, no matter how important your friends are. Get out of my sight.’
Humiliated, Nick couldn’t face returning to his office. He had nothing to do there. He left the building, ignored by Chantelle, who was busy typing a letter. Probably his written warning. The moment he was outside, Nick got out his fags and sucked on a Marlboro Red. Unless he found a way to turn this situation around, he’d be back on roll-ups soon.
Nick might have fucked up by not getting proper clearance but, in the big picture, he was sure he’d got it right. There was nothing to stop him being in that hostel except, perhaps, the possibility of embarrassment to his boss, whose connection with it he had been unaware of. He was too proud to ask Sarah to intervene again. And the situation wasn’t as clear cut as when she had helped him before. Then, he had been ambushed. This time, he had walked into trouble with his eyes open. Anyway, it was the wrong end of the week to find Sarah in Nottingham. She would not be here until Thursday evening at the earliest.
He needed an exit strategy. The ideal time to get a new job was when you still have the old one. He walked down to WH Smith’s by the Broadmarsh Centre and picked up a copy of Time Out, with its jobs section. Nick wasn’t going to sign on the dole again, not if he could help it. He could stay with Andy in London. The papers said the country was enjoying a New Labour boom. There ought to be a place in it for him.
He’s supposed to be working away, but you see him in town when you’re coming out of the safe sex centre. He doesn’t see you, so you follow him. You think he’s going to the Power Project, but he isn’t. He turns the other way, towards the Victoria Centre. You used to shoplift there when you were younger. You nearly got caught once. Then you started seeing him and he spotted a silk scarf you’d taken, asked how you could afford it. You told him and he made you promise never to do it again, said it was too easy to fuck up your future.
You watch him turn into Jessops, the big department store. He walks purposefully, like he knows where he’s going, over to the left-hand side. The toys section. And then there’s a girl, no more than ten, running to him.
‘Daddy, Daddy!’
He lifts her up and hugs her. You hear him say, ‘Happy birthday!’
So that’s why he’s here.
The little girl is not alone, of course. There’s a boy, a couple of years older, wearing the same uniform, one that belongs to a private school up the hill. You pass the kids coming out of there some days when you skive off early. Then there’s the wife. You try not to look at her. She’s nothing like you. A little overweight, but that’s what comes of having two kids and living on your own during the week. Comfort eating. That’s if she is living alone. Why would he lie to you about being away during the week? But if he’s lying to her, he can just as easily lie to you.
You watch them play happy families. Then he glances in your direction. You turn sharply without making eye contact, hurry away. Outside the hostel, you smoke some weed with Shaz and have a few slurps of her cider. Beany comes round and asks you to go back to his. Right in front of Shaz, who he’s screwing, he tells you that you’re the best-looking lass in Alexandra Park and, if you go with him, he’ll treat you like a film star. He’ll get you higher than the moon. You tell him to dream on. Your mobile rings.
‘Did you see me earlier?’
He might be lying to you, but you can’t lie to him.
‘I was in town for the clinic. I just happened to see you in Jessops. I wasn’t following you.’
‘I didn’t say you were. Listen, honey, it’s you I love. You I want to be with. When you’re old enough, I’ll leave them for you. I mean it. But you have to be patient. I’ve got a position in the world. I can’t be with you in public, not until you’re older.’
‘I am patient. I can wait. But can’t I see you tonight? Just for a while.’
‘I don’t know. It’s my daughter’s birthday. I’d be lucky to get out of the house for half an hour. That’s not enough time.’
You know where he lives. You know that he is telling the truth. It would take him half an hour to drive to you and back home again.
‘I don’t mind if it’s only for five minutes. Text me if you can make it and I’ll meet you up the road, okay?’
‘I’ll try. If I do come, it’ll be late.’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
He hangs up. You try to work out how you feel. He is married, with two kids. You suspected all of that before. It’s no surprise, still less a betrayal. Now that you’ve seen his wife, you know she’s no competition. She’s twice your age and twice your size, blacker than him. The good thing is he’s told you about her, about his kids. Honesty’s important. So is family. You could be a big sister to his daughter, you’d like that, not having any brothers or sisters yourself. You could be a kind of aunty to his son. The kids’d resent you at first, of course they would, for stealing their dad from their mum, for being white. But they’d soon see how much you love him, how much you need each other.
There are worse things than growing up without two parents. There’s never knowing who your dad is, being taken into care when you’re six years old and having a mother who last visited you when you were ten. There’s being sat down by a social worker you’ve only met once before and being told that your mum has done herself in and no, you can’t go to the funeral because it’s already happened and there probably wasn’t much of a funeral anyway because it doesn’t sound like she had any family or friends.
Ther
e’s going back to your third foster home in as many years and finding out that you’re bleeding between the legs and not understanding what’s going on and not wanting to talk to the foster carer who you can’t stand and having a row with her in the morning because there’s blood on the sheets and don’t you know how to use a Tampax, then being told that you’re not wanted and you’re old enough to live in a hostel now, with other forgotten girls like you, until you’re old enough to fuck things up on your own. That was when you thought about doing yourself in, too, now that suicide had become a family tradition. But you didn’t. You kept your head down. You worked at school. You plotted. You saved your virginity for someone worth giving it to. And one day, at long last, he turned up.
He doesn’t call tonight. You sleep badly. Then he’s there, next day, in his four-by-four with the shaded windows, on your walk to school. The other girls tease you after he slides the door open, just a little way, so they can’t see who’s waiting for you inside. You’re an hour late when you get into maths and a couple of the girls clap. The teacher is mad with you. But you don’t care, because he took his time and made you come. Then he made you promises, promises that you know he’ll keep, if you will only wait for him.
You will wait as long as it takes.
23
Caroline invited Nancy round for Sunday lunch. Nick wanted to take her, but Nancy wasn’t keen. On Sundays, she tended to be hungover. Also, she had marking to do, lessons to prepare. Caroline, used to getting her way, switched the invitation to dinner on a Saturday night.
Family mattered. Joe, Caroline and Phoebe were the only family Nick had. He pressed Nancy to accept, even though he figured the two women were unlikely to hit it off. Why did relatives insist on meeting girlfriends? If a couple were engaged or living together, okay. But Nick and Nancy were having a good time, was all.
‘You’ll like Joe,’ Nick insisted the evening before the meal. ‘And Caroline’s fine, when you get to know her.’
‘I’ll be on show all evening. I don’t do dinner parties. Nobody does, any more.’
‘It’s not a dinner party, just family supper, with lots to drink.’
‘Why can’t we eat out?’
‘They’ve got a new baby and they’re not comfortable with sitters yet. It’ll be all right, I promise.’
They were sharing a bath, lit by candles on the window ledge. Nick cradled Nancy from behind and gave her a back rub. The doorbell rang. She shot out of the bath like it was about to explode, crushing Nick’s thighs.
‘Hey! I’m still recovering from the last time I got knocked about.’
‘Sorry.’ She grabbed a towel and hurried downstairs, leaving the bathroom door half open. Nick heard somebody come in, followed by muffled conversation. He could almost hear what was being said. A bloke. The voice was familiar. Somebody who hung around the hostel where Jerry lived. A young black guy he’d nodded at when locking up his bike. Or not. Lots of people had similar voices. Was there a takeout service that delivered near by?
Two minutes later, Nancy returned.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked.
‘A little treat. You’ll find out later on.’
She had brought the bottle of wine back to the bath and refilled their glasses.
‘I’ve told you about my week. What about yours? How was work?’
Nick had yet to decide whether to go back to the hostel on Monday. Alice had probably told the girls that the session was cancelled. Nevertheless, he felt like he owed it to them to turn up, tell them what was going on. If Kingston was embarrassed by that, tough. Nick was already on his way out. He explained all this to Nancy.
‘If you don’t get through your probation period, what will you do? Can you afford to keep on the flat?’
Was she going to offer to let him move in with her? Nick wondered.
‘I’ll get by,’ he said. He wasn’t going to tell her about the money he had stashed – the rainy day money from Andy, given out of guilt that he wasn’t around when Nick was arrested. Some secrets were best kept secret. He and Nancy weren’t at the stage in their relationship where they told each other everything. Maybe they never would be. She washed his hair. Then she started hassling him again about Saturday evening.
‘Tell them I’m not well. I really am stressed, Nick. I get headaches all the time and I’m not good with new people. They’ll understand.’
‘They won’t. And Caroline has probably already prepared lots of the food. I’d still have to go round. You’ll enjoy yourself, I promise.’
Nancy did not look in the least convinced.
They spent Saturday together, shopping and eating lunch in town. At Boxer, on Bridlesmith Walk, Nancy bought him a new shirt to wear that night. Then she asked what he wanted her to wear. Always a difficult call, when a woman asked about clothes. Nick suggested that she not show too much cleavage. Caroline hadn’t got her figure back after the baby, he said. What he meant was that he didn’t want to spend the evening with Joe staring down his girlfriend’s top. Nor would Caroline.
But when she came out of the bathroom that evening, an expanse of breast bursting out of her top, he saw that she’d ignored him.
‘These days,’ she told Nick, ‘if you’ve got it, you flaunt it.’
‘It’s only my brother and sister-in-law.’
‘This should make the evening more interesting.’ She lifted her bag from the table to reveal two neat lines of coke laid out on a mirror beneath.
‘I dunno …’
‘Confidence booster,’ she said. ‘Always works.’
She had her head down and hoovered up the line in one go. Nick hesitated before following suit. Joe wasn’t stupid. He would spot that Nick was coked up, probably be pissed off if there wasn’t any for him. And Nick was trying to stay off the class A drugs. Their taxi sounded its horn.
‘You’ve got some more to take with us?’ he asked Nancy.
‘What do you think that delivery was, yesterday night?’
Ping! It was the first line he’d had this year and it sent his mind into overdrive. It was odd, how much one could enjoy the taste of bitter mucus sliding down one’s throat. It was odder still, to him, how much Nancy loved the stuff. Other women he’d known had only dabbled. Probably Nick ought to feel guilty, snorting a line before going out to dinner. He wondered how many people across the city were doing the same.
24
He needn’t have worried about inappropriate cleavage. Caroline, in a flattering red dress, showed off just as much bosom as Nancy did. Nick’s sister-in-law hugged him tight, reminding him how close they had once been. He guessed she’d had a couple of glasses already.
‘I can let go a bit tonight,’ Caroline said. ‘We’ve moved Phoebe onto the bottle, so I don’t have to worry about getting her drunk on breast milk.’
Nancy, Nick noticed, didn’t even pretend to be interested in Phoebe and her development. The two women talked school in the kitchen, while the brothers chose music and talked about bands. Pulp had a new album coming out at the end of the month. This Is Hardcore.
‘Think they’ll play Nottingham?’ Nick asked his brother.
‘Not likely. They’re an arena band now and we don’t have an arena.’
‘I hate gigs in arenas.’
‘If you want to see major bands, you’re going to have to get used to it.’ Joe lowered his voice. ‘You keep sniffing. Have you done some charlie?’
‘Nancy had a line waiting for me when I showed up,’ Nick confided.
‘She’s a find, int she? What’s she doing with a loser like you?’
Nick laughed. ‘If you’re interested, I expect she’ll sort you out later.’
‘Just don’t let Caroline twig. She’d freak.’
When he was a footballer, Joe stuck to pints and not too many of them, but he’d been retired six years, grown a bit of a beer belly and was up for most of the things that he’d missed while pursuing a football career. Fatherhood didn’t appear to be slowing him dow
n.
Nancy joined the men.
‘Tell me what Nick was like when he was young,’ she asked Joe.
‘Give me a line of coke and I’ll tell you anything you want to know,’ Joe said, with a wink.
‘Naughty boy.’
An understanding was reached that this was not for Caroline’s ears. She tolerated Nick and Joe smoking dope but class A drugs were another matter. Joe took Nancy upstairs, ostensibly to see the photos from his footballing days. Nick joined Caroline in the kitchen.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ Nick felt bad that everyone but her was about to destroy their appetite.
‘You’re as bad as Joe, timing your arrival for when everything’s done. Need your drink freshening up? Dinner’s only ten minutes away.’
‘Mind if I stand in the doorway and have a quick smoke?’
‘Be my guest.’
This could have been his home, Nick reflected, as he watched Caroline dress the salad. Phoebe could have been their baby asleep upstairs. He and Caroline had been lovers for a few weeks, seven years ago. Joe had finished with Caroline, but came to his senses, asked her back out. Caroline, who had kept her relationship with Nick secret, kicked the elder brother into touch. She got Nick to promise that he would never tell Joe about the two of them.
An unexploded bomb lay waiting for his brother, but it had been buried so deep that it was no longer a threat. Since Nick got out of prison, Caroline had only referred to it once.
‘How are the injuries?’ Caroline asked when Joe had poured the wine and the four of them were dipping wedges of French stick into home-made dips. Nick noted that she’d waited until Nancy was around to ask this question. Nancy, who had not visited once while he was staying here, convalescing.
‘Okay,’ he told her. ‘The odd ache and pain, but I take a couple of paracetemols and I get by. Solpadeine are the best. You get a shot of caffeine and a taste of codeine as well.’
‘Codeine’s a lovely drug,’ Joe said. ‘I had it neat when I broke my leg.’
