Sweet Sorrow(98)

‘She lives with this guy; I never call her, she calls me.’

‘Your address then. We’ll send someone round to your dad’s.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Mike. That man there. He’s got my mum’s number.’ The policewoman stood. ‘I need to make my phone call now.’ I had it in my head that I would only be able to make one.

‘’Course. Just don’t run away this time, okay?’

It was getting late, the corridor filling with town-centre casualties, and I was no longer the only boy wearing clothes sticky with blood. I found the phone booth and, to my relief, local phone directories. I flicked through the grubby pages and found the number. In the scratched aluminium of the booth I could just about make out my reflection, face pale, hair gelled with sweat and the blood from my hands. I dialled the number, and imagined the phone ringing in a long, wood-panelled corridor. I cleared my throat, ready for my nice-young-man voice. The phone rang and rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Polly?’

‘Yes?’

‘Polly, it’s Charlie here. From the play?’

‘Charlie?’

‘Yes, Benvolio. From the play?’

‘Yes, I know who you are.’

‘So – are you and Bernard in bed?’

She sighed. I seemed to be making everyone sigh. ‘Charlie, it’s very late. Is something wrong?’

‘No. No, I just need to tell you something. To ask you a favour really, to pass on a message.’

‘Can it wait until Monday?’

‘No, no it needs to be now. The thing is, you know the little cottage at the start of your driveway? The gatehouse? The thing is – I’m sorry – but there’s someone waiting for me there.’





Forceps


I wish the nurse had not shown me the forceps. Each cube of crystal made a clear tinkling sound as she dropped it in the kidney dish, and she seemed to be enjoying herself, digging and probing, humming and muttering. In a Western or an action movie, I’d have been given a stick to bite on as she doused the wounds with rough liquor. Here, I simply mashed my face into the paper towel that covered the trolley. ‘Ooh, nice big one,’ said the nurse, and there was the rattle in the dish.

Turning my head I saw my mother standing in a gap in the screens. She was wearing her best black party dress, her make-up smudged, her face flickering between fury and concern and fury again, and I had the feeling, not for the first time, that I’d taken her away from something. She looked extremely beautiful to me, and painfully disappointed, and I was grateful to have the sting of the antiseptic spray as an excuse for my red eyes.

In the car, the discomfort meant that I was obliged to lean forward in the seat as if I might at any time open the door and pitch myself out onto the dual carriageway. This seemed a viable option. Mum, who had been obliged to leave her own dinner party – she had dinner parties now – had abandoned concern and settled comfortably into fury.

‘Garage glasses! Honestly, who the hell steals garage glasses?’

‘I wasn’t stealing them.’

‘When they steal at the golf club, they steal bottles of vodka and gin. They steal joints of meat! They steal money.’

‘I wasn’t stealing the glasses, I was getting rid of the glasses.’

‘Yes, Mike told me, so you could steal money!’

‘I wasn’t stealing money.’

‘So what was it then?’

‘It was just … scratch cards.’

‘Which you then exchanged for …’

‘Money, but the money didn’t exist unless someone—’

‘What?’

‘Scratched the card.’

‘Ah, so it was only stealing conceptually. Maybe they’ll send you to some sort of abstract, conceptual magistrate, maybe there’ll be some sort of theoretical, fourth-dimensional sentencing procedure. “Yes, I’ve got a criminal record, but it’s in a parallel universe.”’

‘I’m not getting a criminal record. Am I?’

‘If you’re found guilty of a crime, yes! You were stealing prize money! It’s the same as taking it out of Mike’s pocket!’

‘No it’s not.’

‘In the eyes of the law!’

‘What do you know about the eyes of the law?’

‘I know that you’re in trouble, Charlie, I know that.’ She indicated left, turned off the main road. ‘Mike said you had an accomplice.’

‘When did he say that?’

‘In the hospital, he told me there was someone else coming in and taking the money, the same face every shift. He had it on video. Who was that? Was it one of your friends? Was it Harper?’ I said nothing. ‘Honestly, Charlie, what happened? We didn’t raise a thief.’

‘Except clearly you did. So.’

This time she said nothing, and we drove in silence as I bunched the stiff, stinking T-shirt in my hands. As a further indignity, my clothes had been too shredded and gory to wear so Mum had brought her lover’s oldest tracksuit, a baggy grey thing like prison garb. We drove into The Library estate. ‘I’m sorry you had to leave your party.’

‘Yes, well. They were playing Trivial Pursuit so I’d almost rather be in casualty. Almost.’