Someone Else's Son, page 12
‘Are we close?’
‘They’re up ahead. About fifty feet away. There are some shops. They’ve stopped for a smoke. Spotty’s kicking litter.’ Fiona gently pulled Brody to a stop. ‘We shouldn’t go any further. They’re probably just going back to school. What’s the big deal with following a few manky kids?’
This would be as good a time as any, Fiona thought, to kiss him, to distract him. She hadn’t kissed a man for years, not since Daniel broke her heart and walked out two weeks before their wedding. She stared up at Brody’s face, looming above her, his glazed eyes staring right over the top of her head. There were similarities between the two men, she thought. The same determined jaw bone, broad shoulders, full lips and a smile that didn’t break often but when it did, it came direct from the heart. She shook Daniel from her mind. He had no place in her life now.
‘It’s personal.’
He did that mouth-rolling thing, where his lips became virtually nothing. He sucked them in before releasing them and then did it all over again.
Fiona had learnt very gradually about the silent battle Brody fought with his emotions. He worked tirelessly to keep anyone from seeing them. She often felt blind herself as she fingered her way through his life, waiting for her touch to stumble across an hour of sadness, a moment of desire. Usually all she felt was the rough brick of the wall that he’d built up around himself. Today, though, she sensed – almost smelt – the welling emotion seeping through the cracks. It was, she thought, an awful lot like anger.
Fiona linked her arm with his again. She didn’t know what to say. ‘They’re making a move. Well, a swagger.’
Brody let out a sigh that had obviously been stuck at the bottom of his lungs for a very long time.
‘What was that for?’ she asked.
‘It’s complicated, Fiona. Family stuff.’
Fiona stared between him and the kids they were tailing. She shook her head. Family stuff – it sent ripples of jealousy through her as well as the desire to create her own. With Brody. But he’d already got a family. She didn’t have anything to do with his ex-wife but the son had been a problem. She steered Brody round a couple of mums and their pushchairs. She wanted to remind him that she was here for him, but even by the second word, she regretted saying it. ‘But you don’t have a family any—’
‘Don’t you ever, ever say that to me again.’ Brody swung round and grabbed her upper arms tightly, miraculously locating her first time. He pushed his face close to hers. Fiona caught the fry-up on his breath; the anger, the hate, the sadness mingled with the grease. They stood there, in the middle of the street in the lunchtime rush, stiff as boards, each waiting for the other to crack.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She felt wretched and meant it. It barely diffused things. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ But she stopped. Brody was already walking on, about to plough straight into a bench.
She ran up to him. ‘I really am sorry.’ She took his arm and guided him to the left. ‘Bench,’ she said.
‘Just follow the boys.’
Brody instructed Fiona to take him right up to the school gates. In the past, he’d kept quiet enough about his family – a good thing, he now realised – and he doubted very much she would figure out that this was the school Max had decided to attend after eschewing private education, of which, Brody had to admit, he was not a fan. When Max was eight years old, it was something he’d just gone along with, trusting Carrie’s motherly instincts to make the right decisions for their son.
Brody’s heart beat heavy in his chest. Max skulked in here every morning, pack weighing him down, life making him stoop even more. He couldn’t see the place, of course, but the blackness in his eyes was representative of how Max must feel to act so rashly. Where did he go when he truanted? Brody wondered. He’d had four phone calls from the school so far, a meeting with the head threatened if the absences continued. He’d tried to bring the subject up with Max – what parent wouldn’t? – but the time had never been right. In his head, Brody had run through the conversation they might have but reckoned the damage to their tenuous relationship would be too great. Max was living on a knife edge as it was, adjusting to the new routine post-boarding school, coping with his mother, who Brody knew would have been livid about Max’s decision to quit Denningham. He couldn’t do it to the boy. Not yet. So what if he missed a few lessons.
But it was the messages last week that finally caused Brody to take matters into his own hands. It would kill the boy if he knew. Watch yer back, you freakin’ loser . . . We’re following you, lowlife scum . . . Say anything and we gonna shank yer ass in school . . . We know you fucked yer own mother you ugly shitface . . .
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. They’ve just gone back into school like good little children.’
Brody imagined Fiona’s face, squinting and peering through the school gates on his behalf. He realised in all the time they’d worked together, he’d never once asked what she looked like. In his world the visual took a back seat. If pressed, he reckoned she was a redhead – a petite but feisty little thing with freckles all over her nose that she covered up with powder. He could sometimes smell it.
‘Can you still see them?’
‘Brody . . .’
He didn’t reply.
‘Is this to do with Max, by any chance?’
Silence.
‘Is it?’
‘Why?’ He’d really not wanted to talk directly about his son.
‘Because he’s walking right towards us.’
Brody pulled his arm from Fiona’s. Damn. Damn a thousand times. He hadn’t reckoned on running into Max.
‘Hello, Max,’ Fiona said a certain way. Cautious, Brody thought.
In meetings or when they came across colleagues, she would take the introduction initiative – stating names, angling her voice so he got a sense of position. It gave Brody immediate knowledge. She was his missing sense. She was good at it. He couldn’t argue with that.
‘What are you doing here, Dad?’ There was an indignant wobble in Max’s voice.
It was Brody who made the awkward teenage noise. Caught red-handed.
‘Are you checking up on me?’ Max found it in him to laugh. If they switched places, Brody reckoned he would be angry too. ‘Thanks a lot, Dad, for parading around here like a . . .
‘Stop. Don’t say it.’ Brody held up his hands, palms out. Kids could be so cruel.
‘Your father and I have just had lunch. We were walking back to the car,’ Fiona intervened.
‘Right,’ Max said sourly. ‘I’m OK, you know, Dad. I’m at school. English next, then double physics. We’re doing sound waves.’
‘That’s good.’ Brody picked up the scuff of his son’s trainer on the tarmac. ‘You at your mother’s tonight?’
‘Guess.’
‘Come round for some food if you like. I’ll cook.’ Brody put on his best father-son voice – one that promised a takeaway, a beer, a movie, silly banter. They could talk.
‘Nah. Already got plans.’
Brody wanted to ask what. Was he doing something with his mother? He doubted that. A girlfriend. Was he taking her out? That would be a good sign. Or maybe he just had loads of homework. But then how could he if he was skipping as many lessons as the head had told him?
‘OK, son. Well, let’s—’
‘Brody. He’s gone.’ Fiona’s hand clamped round his forearm. It was little comfort. Every time Max went away, Brody knew there was less of his life left in which to get things right.
‘Sure.’ Brody walked off and Fiona pulled him round in the correct direction. ‘Take me back to the car.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But only if you tell me what that was all about.’
When he’d strapped himself into the passenger seat, Brody felt along the dash for the air conditioner. It wasn’t that warm, but he was sweating. ‘What’s with all the blackmailing, woman?’
He heard her laugh. Something that didn’t happen very often. Fiona was quite intense. ‘Are you going to fire me?’
Brody didn’t reply. He heard the crunch of first gear as she drove off. She always did that, never quite depressed the clutch enough. Once, he’d forced her out of the driver’s side and got in himself. ‘Just be my eyes. Left or right. Fast or slow.’ They didn’t make it out of the university car park before Brody had crumpled the left wing on the gatekeeper’s booth.
‘See what you’ve done?’ Fiona had said, running her hand over the impacted front panel.
Of course I didn’t see, he thought, but he did now. As Fiona forced the gear stick into third then fourth, he saw quite clearly what was happening. He imagined Max veering off from the school entrance as all the other kids reluctantly went back to lessons after the lunch break. He would take a detour down to the canal or the railway for a smoke, to think, to ponder the car crash that was his family, his life.
‘What this is all about,’ Brody said slowly, ‘is saving my son.’
‘From what?’
He heard the indicator ticking as they sat still at a junction, the whir of Fiona’s thoughts. Was she working it out - his obsession with the lads in the café, the book on bullying he wanted her to read to him, hanging around the school?
‘Never mind,’ Brody finally replied, thinking that, apart from the bullies, what Max needed saving from most was his parents.
FRIDAY, 24 APRIL 2009
By mid-afternoon, Carrie had managed to change into a pair of trousers, a plain sweater. She was in the kitchen. Why were there so many people in her house? Everything was fuzzy. She didn’t understand. Someone had made her a cup of tea.
She found herself opening her laptop, feeling strangely serene. Her fingers tingled and her skin danced as if she’d been out in the sun, whereas her heart beat slowly as though it was on ice. She thought she might be hungry. Did a part of her not realise?
‘They say this happens, Carrie. Just go with it.’ It was Leah’s voice, prising apart the shroud. ‘Why don’t you sit somewhere more comfortable?’ A hand on her shoulder, another on her waist.
‘But I want to check my emails.’ Perched on the kitchen stool, one foot hooked over the rail, Carrie tried to log in. ‘I eat a snack and sometimes check my messages here. It’s what I do.’ She sighed and nodded, entering her password. The computer made a noise and rejected the log-in attempt.
‘But today I think you should take it easy. Come and sit over here.’
‘No.’ Carrie entered the password again. Log-in failed. She turned her head and looked at the woman beside her. It was definitely Leah, but she was all misty, like a photo taken through a filter. She thought Leah looked beautiful.
Carrie smiled. ‘Why can’t I remember my password?’
‘Because you’re in shock. Your emails don’t matter. I wish you’d come—’
‘I want to remember my fucking password.’ She punched in more keys, but it just didn’t feel right, wasn’t the familiar pattern her fingers made every morning to get things going, to see who was going to be on the show, to find out from her agent about the week’s bookings, interviews, appearances . . . ‘Leah?’ Carrie gripped the worktop. Words were grit in her mouth.
‘Do you remember the phone call from school, Carrie? Being at the hospital?’
Carrie felt Leah wrap around her, the tickle of her hair as it brushed her face.
‘Yes. I think so.’ Everything was blurred. Carrie pulled away and stood up. She went for more coffee, but it was all gone. It had made her heart beat faster; made her blood plump up her veins.
‘I’ll make some more.’ Leah refilled the machine. ‘Dennis wants to talk to you. He needs to.’
‘Yes.’ Carrie walked around the kitchen, her shoes clicking on the tiles. ‘Why?’ She felt it was right that they should talk; there was always so much to discuss. Sometimes they even spoke about when they were lovers, but for the most part they skirted around their brief affair. ‘Is it about Max?’ Carrie allowed her feet to fall sideways out of her shoes.
‘Yes. About Max.’ Leah guided her towards the living room. It was filled with police. ‘Talk to Dennis about Max, honey.’
She was used to everyone falling silent in her presence. She adored it when all eyes were on her. Being guest of honour at receptions, opening shopping centres, being interviewed on late-night chat shows, hosting Reality Check, Carrie Kent was never happier than when she was the centre of attention. But this wasn’t right.
‘I need to ask you some questions, Carrie. And I need your permission to take some of Max’s things away for analysis.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘That’s all fine.’ She felt better sitting down, her long back supported by the white leather of the chaise, her head not so crazy. Whatever Dennis wanted.
‘First of all, I need to ask you if Max had any enemies. It may seem obvious but it could make things incredibly easy. Anyone he’d fallen out with.’
Easy? Things didn’t feel as if they would ever be easy, though her mind wouldn’t allow her to know exactly why. She thought her lips might be swelling up.
‘He didn’t have any enemies.’
‘Are you certain?’
She felt the nip of a frown. ‘He was a quiet boy.’ Carrie recalled telling him to stop making a din when he played that guitar. He had obeyed immediately and the house had once again become peaceful. She thought she might have heard a sob but that was all. ‘I don’t think he had any enemies.’
Something snagged in her heart.
‘What about at school?’
‘School?’ Carrie allowed her eyes to close. She saw a little boy aged eight, posing in his new uniform. They’d just bought it. He’d wanted her to take a photograph of him in his blazer and cap. Maroon and green. ‘He went to boarding school when he was eight.’ Then an image of a taller Max, a young man with a smattering of stubble and close-cropped hair, unlike the frizz of his boyhood; an image of him shouting, thumping the wall, yelling that he couldn’t go on there any more, that he was leaving.
Was blood leaking from her vessels, seeping into the tissue, bursting from under her fingernails?
It hurt so.
Carrie counted six people in the room apart from her. She wasn’t even sure she was actually there. Her soul felt loosened from her body, detached from reality. She wouldn’t have minded if they’d separated completely. She counted the panes in the Georgian windows. Thirty-six.
‘Tell me about his school.’
There was so much. She summed it up. ‘He was average.’ Why did she settle on that?
‘How long had he been at Milton Park High?’
Carrie had to think what month it was now. April. Not long since her birthday. Max had given her a garden shredder. He’d wrapped it in pink paper. She’d left it in the garage for the man that came on Thursdays to use.
‘Since last September. Two thousand and eight. He left Denningham the previous term.’
‘How come?’ Dennis sat close to Carrie. She sensed the urgency in him, smelt it on his breath. She looked away.
‘There were some kids, he said. Mean kids. That kind of stuff.’ Carrie swept back her hair. Her voice was a whisper, barely there. Did saying it mean it was suddenly true? ‘Max was different. Sensitive.’ She’d never introduced Max to Dennis the few times he’d stayed over. Either Dennis had left before Max got up, or the other way round. Max would have caused a fuss.
‘Was he being bullied?’
Carrie thought about this. She’d met some bullies in her time on the show. Parents who bullied their children, employers who made their workers’ lives hell, deranged men who drove their wives to seek refuge – they came in all shapes and sizes.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Definitely not. He would have told me.’ She felt sick.
‘But you just said there were mean kids—’
‘I didn’t say they were bullying Max, did I? There’s a difference.’
Dennis pulled a face which told Carrie that he didn’t think there was.
‘And how was he getting on at the local comp?’
‘It’s not local.’ Carrie briefly covered her face. ‘The school is in Harlesden near where his father lives.’
Carrie saw clearer than ever the precipice upon which she existed, that precarious place between the two realities of her life. Hampstead and Harlesden, only a short bus ride or chauffeur-driven limo apart. The desperate people she had on her show and her own privileged existence were at opposite poles of the universe but she couldn’t do without either.
Then there was her and Brody – a marriage doomed from the start.
Mother and son.
Her life then. Her life now.
Her life yesterday. Her life today.
Black and white.
‘Did it happen at school?’ A seepage of truth, of realisation. Sudden clarity.
Dennis nodded.
‘I want to see.’ She’d never even been to the comprehensive.
Dennis looked at his officers. A series of nods were exchanged. ‘When we’re done.’ He continued. ‘Carrie, was your son involved in any gangs? Perhaps since he moved schools he might have fallen in with the wrong crowd. Did he take drugs? Was he a drinker?’
‘Why are you asking me these things? Of course not. Max was a good boy.’ Carrie pressed her fingers against her temples. The pain between them was unbearable. Max would never be in a gang. He wasn’t like that.
‘Shall I get you a painkiller?’ Leah stood up from crouching beside her and soon returned with some pills.
Carrie took them. She began to rock. ‘This wasn’t meant to happen. He was my son. No one takes my son.’
