by R. G. Adams
Once in the car, Kit got her phone out, ready to text Tyler and arrange for him to come over. But inviting Tyler over was bound to lead to another bout of him trying to tell her something that she didn’t want to hear. And actually, she was feeling lost with the Cooper case and it would be good to talk it over with someone. She texted Ricky instead and, finding that he had arranged to meet Maisie for a drink in town later on, she agreed to meet them there. Then she drove home, where she fell into a shallow sleep on the sofa until it was time to leave. In her dreams, she was in that teenage bedroom again, the TV on low. She saw Lucy speaking, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Chapter 6
Ricky and Maisie were already settled at a table in the corner when Kit arrived. The bar had been a night shelter until the previous year, but it had become an embarrassment: sitting right in the centre of Sandbeach’s latest regeneration attempt, spilling the homeless out onto the street whenever there was a fight inside, and generally spoiling the outlook. The shelter had been relocated to the grim ghetto of Welfare Services behind the police station, and the building had been transformed into the kind of place that had unisex toilets and served food covered in half a pound of avocado, smashed. Ricky loved it, otherwise Kit wouldn’t have set foot in there.
Ricky had already ordered Kit a bottle of Beck’s and she downed half of it immediately.
‘It didn’t go too well then?’ As usual, Maisie was keen to hear the bad news.
‘I wouldn’t say that. It was difficult but I think I’m getting somewhere with Lucy.’ Kit glanced around, conscious that anyone might be listening. The place was deserted.
‘Well done. Much good may it do you. It’s one of those cases, isn’t it?’ Maisie took an uncharacteristically delicate sip of her pint, waiting for someone to press her for her expertise.
‘What do you mean?’ Ricky was completely lost.
‘There’s not likely to be a successful prosecution, that’s the reality. It’s not going to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, is it? But the standard of proof we work to is different. It’s civil law, so it’s lower. So say this fella gets off with no criminal conviction, because the evidence isn’t there for beyond reasonable doubt. He thinks he’s home free. But could be enough evidence on the balance of probabilities. It’s a mess.’ Maisie frowned with concentration as she rolled a cigarette, which she then put into her tobacco tin, ready for when she got outside.
‘Is that right? Really?’ Ricky looked up from ripping open a bag of dry-roast peanuts.
Kit held out her hand for some nuts. ‘I guess that’s the top and bottom of it, yes. The children seem fine. The truth is that the allegations against Matt Cooper are the only worry. We’d be nowhere near this family otherwise. Somehow, I’m meant to work out whether those allegations might be true, and whether we can justify putting the whole family through a court case. A bit of me thinks we’ve got a bloody cheek to be interfering at all. Maybe he should be innocent until proved guilty.’
Maisie was unearthing her velvet tie-neck money pouch. ‘Same again?’
‘Yeah, go on.’
Maisie set off for the bar. Kit threw a few more nuts into her mouth. She realised she hadn’t eaten for hours.
‘This case is really getting to you, isn’t it?’
Kit realised with a shock that Ricky was right. ‘Yeah, it is. I’m being asked to guess whether something has happened or might happen. And I have no way of knowing. No way whatsoever.’
‘Well, that’s true. If something is going on, he’s certainly not going to tell you; his wife probably doesn’t know herself or she’d have left him; and he knows how to make sure the kids don’t tell, otherwise they’d have told and he’d have been caught already.’
‘You’re not making me feel any better.’
‘I suppose what I’m saying is, it’s out of your control. You can do your best, but that’s it. So why have you been letting it get to you so much?’
Maisie arrived back with the drinks and a plate of bar snacks. ‘Bruschetta?’
It looked like chunks of rubble covered in slime. ‘No, thanks. The thing is,’ Kit continued, focussing on Ricky and hoping that Maisie would be distracted by the food, ‘there’s all these threats about me losing my job. It seems like Mr Cooper’s father is practically royalty in Sandbeach. He’s gunning for me, Cole’s not standing up to him, everyone’s panicking, even Vernon. A lovely family gets wrecked for no reason, or kids could get hurt. That’s the choice and it’s down to me.’
‘That’s what the job’s all about, isn’t it?’ Maisie had managed to clear her mouth.
‘Guesswork, you mean?’
Ricky laughed. ‘Forget about the grandfather and Cole and all the fuss. Spend some time with the kids and see where that leads you. They’re not going to come straight out with it, are they? Look at indirect stuff.’
‘You mean, like anxiety, bed-wetting, all that?’
‘Yes, but more than that – clues and hints maybe. Sometimes kids want you to know, but they can’t say it, so they lay a trail and hope you’ll follow it. They think they’ll get into trouble for telling, I suppose. So they end up a bit ambivalent about it – putting a clue forward then panicking and backing off. They need an adult to pick up on it.’
Kit shook her head. ‘That’s OK usually, but in this case, it’s not going to happen. Lucy can’t do any of that. I tried to let her know I’d help if there is anything wrong, and I probably risked getting sacked in the process. But she can’t just respond, Ricky. It’s so hard for her to tell me anything.’
‘Just keep talking to them, Kit. If something’s not right, I reckon you’ll pick it up, then you’ll just keep nagging at it like a total pain in the arse, the same way you do about everything.’
She recognised herself in the description and felt better than she had done for a few days, as if she’d clicked back into being the real Kit, the one who could always get to the bottom of stuff. ‘Thanks, Ricky. That does help.’
‘No worries. Right, I’m guessing from your face you’re not sold on the food. What about some chips?’
The three of them finished their drinks and headed for the chip shop where they bought cheesy chips and gravy and picked up some cans as well. The sun was still warm so they got their chips wrapped to keep them hot and walked up the footpath to the side of the Bryn, passing the estates on the way up and then dipping into the forest, finally emerging into sunlight again at the break in the trees just below the summit of the hill.
They sat on the grass and, after a few minutes of regaining their breath, and a puff of Ventolin for Maisie, unwrapped their chips and opened their cans of lager. The whole of the bay was visible in front of them, sweeping out to both sides of the town as far as the two curving headlands that hugged the sea on either side. In the shimmering gap between the arms of land, a few boats bobbed about, the finishing touches in a scene too picture-book perfect to seem real. In the distance wisps of smoke rose from the beach, as people lit makeshift barbecues and settled in for the evening. Others could be seen pitching tents for all-nighters. Neither were allowed, but nobody cared about that; it was the town’s beach. Everyone felt it belonged to them.
‘Shame about the crap down there.’ Maisie waved her fag in the direction of the estates. ‘Shocking. They should tear them down.’
‘I grew up on the Coed actually.’ Kit bit back her irritation. She should be used to this.
‘Didn’t mean to offend you, I’m sure. Nothing personal. But you can’t deny it’s an eyesore.’
Kit didn’t reply, because she couldn’t be bothered. They sat in silence a while longer and eventually Maisie moved out of the sun and lay back on the grass behind them. She put her head on her folded cardigan. After a few minutes, she started to snore quietly.
‘I didn’t know you grew up on the Coed,’ Ricky said.
This was the dow
nside of friends as far as Kit was concerned. You had to tell them stuff about yourself. She knew all about Ricky’s childhood in Harare and his parents’ ambition for him to become an architect, a lawyer or an accountant. She admired his resolve to do what he wanted, even if she thought he had been naive to jump at the offer of getting some post-qualifying experience in the UK. She’d got the gist of him. Now he was wanting to know more about her.
‘Yeah, well, I was in and out of care. We all were. But I got a foster placement after a bit, two retired teachers, a big house out west at Cliffside. The others weren’t so lucky. They stayed in Redbridge House.’ She hoped that would be enough for now. She looked about for a means to change the subject but Maisie was still snoozing.
‘What was happening with your parents?’
‘They’d split up, so it was just my mother. She wasn’t great, she drank and that. I didn’t see much of my dad – still don’t now.’
‘Why’s that?’
He really was not going to give up. It was time for her usual strategy. If she gave Ricky a good chunk of the misery memoir, that would be enough for him to chew on and he wouldn’t see any further than that. He wouldn’t have to know about the real tragedy. Not yet.
‘My mother didn’t have a great start in life. Her dad died when she was quite young, her mum was in and out of psychiatric hospital. She more or less brought herself up. But in the end, she got lucky, with my dad. He was the best-looking boy in the school. She was pregnant at sixteen and had five by the time she was twenty-three.’ The five had slipped out. She was usually more careful than that.
‘Bloody hell,’ Ricky said. ‘Five kids in seven years. Is that even physically possible?’
‘Just about. And I’ve got a twin brother.’
‘Sounds like a nightmare.’
‘I don’t think it was, not at the start anyway. I think my mother felt special for a while. My dad’s family had the Italian café in town. He ran it for them.’
‘Posh Welsh, eh?’
‘Not exactly, but they did all right.’
‘So how did you end up in care?’ Ricky turned to face her, crossing his legs and settling in for the long story.
‘I think my dad got a bit fed up with having a milk bottle cracked over his head every time he came in late from the pub. He met someone else. They sold the café, they run a wine bar up the coast a bit now.’ She thought of Marilyn, with her bleach-blonde hair and her low-cut tops. She could see why Marilyn had seemed a better prospect than Christine, but it had quickly become obvious she wasn’t up for any parenting. Gino might as well have gone to the other side of the world. He sent money, turned up to see them for Christmases and birthdays. That was about it.
‘So, then you ended up living on the estate?’
‘Yeah. My grandparents threw us out of the house they’d bought for my parents, so the council put us there. The Coed was new then. It had won awards and everything. It’s all right actually, if you look at it properly.’ She looked down at the square white houses of the estate, all the same as each other. The houses were a good size, and solid. The streets were wide and there were playgrounds and grassy areas dotted around. It wasn’t far from town or the schools and shops. It definitely wasn’t the design that was at fault. But the estate was tatty and badly maintained now, and the residents were losing the battle against vandalism and crime. The look of the place didn’t fit with Sandbeach’s civic ambitions towards smart coastal affluence either, and the fact it could be seen from every single part of the town was a niggling thorn in the side of the council.
‘I guess so. So what happened to your mum?’
‘She didn’t cope. She went downhill pretty quick, we all got taken off her. She still lives down there. So do my two sisters – they ended up moving back after they left care. They’ve got kids. They’re doing OK. That’s about it.’ She started to stretch her legs out, ready to stand up, indicating that she had drawn a line.
‘That’s four.’ Maisie had sat up on the grass behind them.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was meditating. Four. You, your twin, two sisters. You said there were five.’
Now she was screwed, because this was the one thing she couldn’t manage to lie about. Bloody Maisie.
‘Yeah. I had another brother. He died.’
‘Oh Kit, I’m sorry.’ Ricky stopped packing their chip papers into his rucksack and looked up at her, his eyes wide with concern. ‘How did it happen?’
‘Long story. Shall we make a move now? How’s it going with Meg, by the way?’
Inviting Ricky to talk about his new girlfriend was a sure-fire way of diverting him. He chatted happily all the way back down the hill. Kit listened with real interest. She liked Meg, a self-assured paramedic Ricky had met on a difficult call involving a suicidal teenager. Kit hoped that Ricky would stick with her, not least because that would extend the membership of her own friendship group by one. Maisie walked beside them in silence; being in the present, Kit assumed. When they got to the bottom of the hill, they stopped to say goodbye, then Maisie and Kit continued towards Maisie’s turn-off.
‘Was your brother Danny Goddard?’ Maisie couldn’t contain herself any longer.
‘How did you know that?’
‘I worked it out. It wasn’t hard. It was in the papers when he died, wasn’t it? About the right age, grew up on the Coed, care leaver, same surname. All the clues.’
‘Yes, that was him.’
‘Serious-case review said Child Services weren’t at fault, if I remember correctly. No one knew why he’d done it?’
‘Spot on.’ Kit prayed Maisie wouldn’t push for more details. If she remembered the story at all, surely she must recall Danny had hanged himself in the park, that he’d been found alive by a man walking his dog but had died in the ambulance? A few seconds earlier and he might have lived. Kit still couldn’t think, let alone talk, about it. She upped her pace. The end of Maisie’s street was only yards away.
‘I expect you’ve got your own views about why he did it?’ Maisie persisted.
‘Not really. Well, here we are. See you tomorrow then.’ She didn’t wait for Maisie’s reply.
*
Once in her flat, Kit put the TV on and flopped on the sofa but couldn’t settle. Familiar feelings were washing over her, and she knew she wouldn’t sleep, in spite of the lager. Her mind couldn’t keep away from Maisie’s question about why Danny had killed himself. Her response, that she didn’t really know, was partly true. She certainly hadn’t bought into the story constructed by everyone at the time; the one where Danny was doing well, getting his life together, had no reason to do it.
She knew it had been more complicated than that. She’d known things weren’t right with him. But the worst thing was that he’d tried to tell her about it. Her thoughts slid out of control and she found herself replaying the scene, as she had done over and over. Danny turning up at the café where she was waitressing, sleepy after the long bus ride out to Cliffside, looking for a free breakfast to kill his hangover. Alex would never charge him for food, or any of Kit’s family for that matter. He had sent her on her break as soon as Danny arrived, giving them the chance to sit together. She hadn’t seen him in a few weeks and he’d looked rough. Danny had never really bothered with drugs much, but she’d guessed he’d been on one of his long drinking binges. He did that a few times each year, keeping going until he was really ill, getting into fights and spending nights in the cells. If he didn’t land up in prison, he’d go on and on until one day he would just decide to stop. Then he’d dump the latest damaged and besotted female, hit the gym hard, and not touch another drink until something or other triggered the next bout. She didn’t know what the triggers were, and he’d never volunteered a reason. She kept away from him during those times, preferring not to know what was going on, waiting for him to get back in control o
f himself again. Sooner or later he’d turn up to see whether whatever she was doing met with his approval.
When she’d seen him in the café that morning, she’d assumed it was one of these check-in visits, and she’d been pleased at the idea he’d got himself sober in time for her GCSE results. She’d watched him devour his double bacon and eggs, white bread and butter and a large glass of Coke. Alex had brought over a brownie, too, placing it in front of Danny with one hand and giving Kit’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze with the other. He’d seen both Tyler and Danny in various states enough times to know when something really wasn’t right.
‘What?’ Danny had caught Kit and Alex exchanging concerned glances.
‘You OK? You look awful.’
‘Thanks very much. No, I’m all right. Just hungry and a bit wrecked, that’s all. What’s happening with you?’
She’d told him that she was going to get her exam results in a couple of days and that she was excited because she knew she’d done well, rambling on about which A levels she was going to take and what she had finally decided she wanted to do after that.
‘A social worker? What the fuck?’
Her heart had sunk. She had been half expecting this, but it had needled her at the same time. ‘Why not?’
She couldn’t find a way to explain, of course. Not without saying outright that she’d been the lucky one and that, although the social workers had been pretty crap for most of the time, Carmel had been the exception. Even at thirteen, Kit had admired Carmel’s attitude. To the others, the only answer was to try to keep the five Goddard kids alive until they were old enough to stop being the department’s responsibility, at which point they could all be dispersed into prison or psychiatric care or homelessness, and everyone in Child Services could breathe a sigh of relief. The five of them had marked time, moving aimlessly around the system together, not for their own sakes but because no one had the time or patience to untangle which of them needed what and make a proper plan. Until Carmel arrived, and immediately became determined to get Kit out of residential care and into a foster placement, a battle which she had won in the end, leaving Kit to contend with an uneasy combination of gratitude and survivor guilt.