The Graft

by Martina Cole

  Her lips moved silently in the Lord’s Prayer and then she beseeched Him to watch over her grandson. Begged him to make Jude’s grief easier to bear, and offered her own life in exchange for that of the boy she loved more than anyone else in the world.

  Her daughter Maureen came in then with a small black rum for her mother.

  ‘Drink this, you need it.’

  Verbena shook her head. She rarely touched alcohol.

  ‘Please, Mummy.’

  She knew then it was not good news and duly took the glass and drank it down. The burn felt surprisingly good and the taste was as she had remembered it. It brought back the smell of new-mown grass, the aroma of sunlight on polished windows, and relay radios playing along the street. It brought back the sounds of summer, hearing the cricket results and listening to Barrington Levy. It brought back the taste of Akee and salt fish, and the laughter of her father when he would allow her a small sip of dark rum from his heavy glass on a Friday night. The sounds of the cicadas and laughter, the sounds of happiness, were replaced by her feeling of dawning despair.

  It had been good remembering, but it was ruined forever now, replaced by the bad news she was sure was to come. Why else anaesthetise her?

  ‘Maureen, has Jude rung?’

  The young woman shook her head.

  ‘Not a word. I am going to the hospital in a minute, Mummy.’

  Verbena nodded absently.

  She knew it was a lie, a kindly one but a lie all the same. The news had arrived by one of those text things, she guessed, having heard the noise earlier on. The incessant beeping that told the young people of the world they were attached in some way to the rest of their peer group. The rum would give her heartburn, she knew, so she took a couple of Tums. But her heart was heavier now than it had ever been. Her boy, her Sonny Boy, was dying and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She looked around the room and pictured him there, lying on the sofa listening to Beenie Man or Bob Marley, singing along to the music, his eyes dancing with happiness and his body flourishing from her love and good cooking. All wasted now. But forever in her mind’s eye, no matter what anyone else thought, he was her heart and always would be.

  Verbena braced herself for the bad news she was sure was going to come.

  Judy Hatcher was holding on to Tyrell. She could smell the distinctive mix of cigarettes, grass and deodorant. He looked as good as he smelled. She was shaking with sadness and hurt and he held her to him gently as they watched their comatose son.

  ’All right, Jude, everything will be all right.’

  It was just something to say, crap, because they both knew nothing would ever be all right for her or him again.

  Nick Leary looked at the policeman’s face on the monitor and buzzed him in. It seemed an age before the man had driven up the drive and reached the front door. Tammy put the kettle on and smiled half-heartedly at her husband. For the first time in ages she felt protective of him. It was usually Nick protecting her. But seeing the whiteness of his face and the shaking of his hands she wanted to cry for him. In twenty-four hours their lives had been turned upside down, and all because some kid had decided he wanted to take what they had. What they had worked for all their lives.

  It was wrong, all wrong, that they might have to fight to defend themselves in court. Their brief had already warned them about that.

  Nick was not a saint, she knew that. But he did not deserve all this. He had ducked and dived, but that was for his family, his wife, his kids.

  As Tammy poured water into the teapot the policeman entered the kitchen with her husband. Detective Inspector Rudde was sound. She knew he was on their side.

  ‘Mr Leary.’

  He nodded his head respectfully.

  ‘Mrs Leary.’

  She smiled back at him and raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea? A Scotch?’

  ‘Both, if you don’t mind.’

  They all grinned, the ice broken but the fear still tangible; still there between them all like a pane of glass.

  ‘I’ve got a good malt in the study, twenty years old.’

  Nick left the kitchen as fast as his legs could carry him. He could feel his own heartbeat, hear it roaring in his ears. He hoped that this would all come to a head. He was even at the stage where if they were going to nick him, he hoped it would happen soon. Anything was better than this limbo, this endless waiting.

  In the kitchen Tammy stared into Rudde’s eyes.

  ‘What’s going to happen to Nick?’

  He smiled gently.

  ‘If it’s left to me he’s in the clear, but obviously I can’t speak for the CPS. My recommendation is that the whole thing is dropped, forgotten about.’

  ’And the boy?’

  ‘They are going to turn off the life support.’

  She nodded. After swallowing deeply she asked, ‘So it could be a murder charge?’

  Rudde nodded.

  ‘But I doubt that very much. Manslaughter, maybe.’

  She busied herself with the tea, her fear of losing Nick overwhelming her once more.

  ‘What a waste of a life.’

  The detective didn’t answer her, he didn’t know what to say. He saw a lot of wasted lives in his line of work and had given up worrying about them.

  ‘Me and Nick, we came from fuck all, us two. Council house kids us. But we grafted. We worked. Still do. We made the life we’ve got, and it was fucking hard work sometimes. But we pay our dues and we live our lives. Why should we have this hanging over our heads because that thug decided to come in our home and steal from us?’

  Tammy Leary beseeched him with her eyes to answer her question.

  ‘Why do I feel we’ve done something wrong? That we are the bad people in all this? Because we’re not! We are good, law-abiding people, and now our lives are ruined over that worthless little bastard.’

  She started to cry.

  ‘He should never have been here in the first place. We didn’t invite him, he invited himself! This is our house, we paid for it fair and square, why should we feel bad because he forced himself in here? My husband was looking out for us, for me and the kids. He’s a good man, a decent man. Ask anyone who knows us.’

  She was crying now, sobbing with fear.

  Rudde stared at her for long moments, not knowing what to say to her. This was part and parcel of his job. He had had to tell people their daughter was not coming home because she had been murdered. He had told people their son had died in a fight in a pub over the most obscure reason ever. Had often explained that people had lost loved ones in car crashes and train wrecks. And it never got any easier, no matter how often he had had to do it. Now this family were decimated because the husband had tried to defend what was rightfully his.

  Rudde would have done the same, given the circumstances, but he wouldn’t say that, of course. Instead he drank the tea and the Scotch and tried silently to convey his solidarity with them both.

  But the tea was like piss and the Scotch went straight to his head. On top of all that he realised he was getting old.

  He didn’t know which depressed him more.

  Chapter Two

  The interview on GMTV had gone better than anyone had expected. Tammy was in her element visiting the studio. Now that the shock had worn off and the imminent danger of prosecution had receded into the background, she was finding their newfound celebrity status quite enjoyable.

  Plus, they were in the right. The more she thought about it, they were in the right. That boy had been robbing them, he was armed and he was dangerous. Her Nick had only been protecting his own. It seemed GMTV had never had so many calls and emails regarding a guest and the consensus seemed to be that Nick was only doing what anyone else would do in the same predicament.

  She was proud of him, proud that he had taken the stance he had taken and glad that it had worked out well.

  Because Nick could have been shot and killed. They al
l could.

  That was what frightened her most in the dead of night, when her veneer of hardness was stripped away and she felt once more the shock of fear the sight of a gun can bring to the uninitiated. That boy was a thug, a young thug but a thug nevertheless. He had to have expected to pay some kind of price for his behaviour. Unfortunately it was the ultimate price but that was not their concern.

  He should never have been there in the first place, and then he would still be all right. On the plus side, they now had offers coming in from all angles, the TV and the newspapers. It seemed their lives were up for public scrutiny and Tammy couldn’t get enough of the attention.

  As she meticulously applied her make-up she imagined the reaction down at the country club where she was meeting a few friends for lunch later. She almost hugged herself. In forty-eight hours their lives had been turned around, and excitement was now officially the order of the day. It would give her new Jimmy Choos an outing as well. She had been going to save them for a more formal occasion but she must look her best these days, the photographers were everywhere.

  In her heart of hearts she knew that a boy was dying and her mood of elation was out of place. But Tammy was the kind of person who made the best of everything, took any opportunity that came her way and didn’t give a toss who she trampled on in the process. She wasn’t cruel or unkind, saw herself more as a realist, someone who looked out for her own.

  And notoriety was fun, she would not deny that.

  Tyrell was staring down into his son’s face. Sonny was a good-looking boy still but now, with all the tubes attached to him and the ventilator noisily breathing for him, he looked so very vulnerable.

  He remembered when Sonny was a baby how he would fetch him for the weekend. As much as he had wanted his son with him, he knew the weekends gave Jude the time and space to get out of her nut and so those occasions had been spoiled for him, like so much else. Jude took every opportunity she could to obliterate the present and both the men in her life had suffered because of it. Yet his son had loved her, adored her. When Tyrell later broached the subject of Sonny’s living with him full-time the boy had smiled and said, ‘But what about me mum?’

  It had been more of a statement than a question. It had been the reason for his whole existence. No one else had ever been able to cope with Jude like Sonny had, everyone else became worn out one way or another. Heroin addicts wore everyone out in the end. They lied, cheated, cried and fought to get what they wanted.

  It was the nature of the beast.

  Jude had tried, he would never take that away from her, she had tried so hard to be a better person, but somehow the world in general had never been kind to her and it showed: in her eyes, in her stance, in everything about her. She looked ten years older than she was, and that was on a good day. Smack did that to people. But what she had going for her, what people rarely saw, was the kindness of her, and the bigness of her when it came to her son.

  She had tried for Sonny when she wouldn’t even try for herself, and Tyrell had stood beside her and tried to help her on her way.

  But that was in the past now.

  Sonny had always looked out for her after that, had tried to be the man who finally took care of her. Like Tyrell had tried all those years before until he had realised he was wasting his time. Jude was a junkie. They even called her Junkie Jude on the estate where she lived. It was as if her mother had picked her Christian name out in advance.

  Junkie Jude. Jude the Junkie.

  Sonny Boy had lived with that stigma all his life.

  Be happy in thy own self.

  Where did that come from? Tyrell’s mother probably. Well, Jude had never been happy, it was beyond her. It was as alien to her as voting or living in the real world. She had lived her whole life on the periphery of happiness, frightened to embrace it in case it kicked her in the teeth.

  And now her son was dying after trying to pull off an armed robbery.

  Sonny Boy was only seventeen years old and for all the trouble he had been, and he had been big trouble over the years, Tyrell still had difficulty believing his son was capable of that.

  He had spoken to the police but there was no doubting the boy’s intentions, apparently. The gun had been loaded and was so far untraceable, though it had been used in an armed robbery before.

  But for all Sonny’s faults, and they were legion, Tyrell still could not for the life of him see his son with a gun.

  Someone else had to have been behind this robbery. Sonny couldn’t work out the day of the week for himself without a piece of paper and a pen. It was ludicrous for anyone to think he’d dreamed up and executed a crime like this on his own.

  Jude crept into the side ward. She crept everywhere it seemed. Tyrell looked into her haggard face and his heart went out to her. He knew she had gone out for a drink or a lift of some sort, probably both, knowing her. But Sonny was all she had. Was all she had ever had. And Sonny had adored her. It was why he had never tried to take him away from her. Sonny had tried in his own way to take care of her always, first and foremost, as she had never been able to take care of herself.

  ‘Sit down, Jude. Take the weight off, eh?’

  She smiled at him, as usual glad of a kind word from this man who had left her because she couldn’t go from one hour to the next without some kind of chemical enhancement.

  In fact she didn’t know what the real world felt like any more, it was years since she had faced the day like normal people.

  But none of that had bothered Sonny Boy; he had taken care of her as if she was his child instead of the other way round. He was a kind boy, always had been, one who loved his half-brothers dearly. Who had had to live with his mother and her lifestyle because he was frightened to leave her alone. It was the main reason he had skipped school: he had been frightened of what he might come home to if he didn’t watch over her. For years she had speedballed, smoked dope and injected herself with anything she could get her hands on. Jellies were everywhere around the house. She had even injected Mogadons in the past. Oblivion was all Jude craved, and she would crave it even more now.

  Tyrell closed his eyes and his heart to the trauma she would experience once the machines were turned off, as turned off they would be.

  Sonny, their Sonny, was already gone. It was all about picking up the pieces now, clearing up the mess.

  Jude looked at him with haunted eyes. They had once been a dazzling blue, but were so faded now as to be almost colourless.

  She turned on him suddenly.

  ‘You want to turn it off, don’t you? Get rid of him once and for all.’

  Tyrell didn’t answer her.

  When Jude went into one of her rants he always kept quiet even when he felt like telling her exactly what he thought. She was hurting. Better she took it out on him than the police or the doctors.

  She was shaking her head as if she somehow felt enormous pity for him, which of course she didn’t. It was all gestures with Jude when she was out of it. Elaborate gestures she wouldn’t remember twenty-four hours after the event. He could feel her hurt as if it was his own.

  He saw her then as she was when he had first laid eyes on her. It was at a party. She was stoned, everybody was, all puffing away and listening to Curtis Mayfield. She still had the same vacant look in her eyes she had had then, only nowadays it troubled him. Where once it had attracted him, now it scared him because he had no idea what she was on and neither did Jude most of the time. Tyrell had sussed her out, that was what hurt her. She knew it and he knew it. He could almost smell her fear.

  He wondered if she could smell his.

  Tammy walked into the country club as if she was a movie star. She was even wearing sunglasses. She stood for a few seconds in the doorway to make sure everyone saw her before removing them and walking towards the restaurant. She looked good and she knew it. Always immaculate, she had taken extra care with her grooming this morning.

  She waved to other friends as she made her way over to th
e table that held her band of closest cronies. That was what her husband always called them and Tammy protested, but to call them all close friends would have been pushing it, she knew that.

  None of this lot would know a friend if they fell out of a tree and hit them on the head. What they all had was something in common: husbands who bankrolled them, a nice life, big houses and top-of-the-range cars. And Tammy was queen of them all because her husband could buy and sell the lot of theirs.