by Peters, Joe
Having put the case for the prosecution, she then put her other cap on and spoke up brilliantly in my defence, talking about what an exceptionally well-behaved young man I had been in prison, which came as news to me, as I had thought I had been a complete pain to everyone who had come into contact with me.
‘He has obviously learned his lesson and has had time to reflect on the error of his ways.’
I sat in silent awe and listened as she continued to make up stuff about me, which made me sound like a much nicer person than I had ever thought myself to be. Most amazingly of all, the judge seemed to be accepting everything she told him. Once she’d said all she wanted to say, he ordered a short break before sentencing, during which my champion went into the judge’s chambers, no doubt to show him some of the choicer bits from Matt’s and the probation officer’s reports. I was no longer worried about this invasion of my privacy if it meant I didn’t have to go back to Lewes.
‘I think,’ the judge said once I was called back up in front of him, ‘that these crimes warrant a custodial sentence.’ My heart sank. ‘However, you have already spent several months on remand. Are you sorry for what you have done?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, repressing every instinct to say something cheeky and realizing at last that someone was offering me an opportunity. ‘I’m very sorry. I’m really ashamed, Your Honour.’
‘As you seem sincere,’ he went on, ‘I will be lenient.’
He put me on probation for three years and told me to pay £400 towards court costs and £600 in compensation costs. The idea of me finding £1,000 was so completely outlandish I didn’t even bother to think about it; I just concentrated on the fact that I was now going to be able to walk out of the courtroom a free man and I was not going to have to go back to the cell with old Frank. It was like a lead weight lifting off my heart.
‘You are free to go,’ the judge said.
It was explained to me later that they had decided to put me on probation because they thought that a probation officer would be able to offer me at least a little of the support and guidance that I should have received from my parents but which I obviously had never had. They kept me in the cells until the duty probation officer, Mr Jenkins, was able to come and meet me and bring the address of a probation hostel that I was to report to. He gave me a £10 note to make sure I had the money to get myself there.
‘They’re expecting you to be there by four o’clock,’ he said, ‘so make sure you go straight there.’
I nodded my understanding, although the moment I got out I intended to run to the outreach centre to find out what had happened to Lisa. The volunteers had always been straight with me in the past and I thought I would get more sense out of them than I would get from anyone at the hospital. The months of thinking about her and worrying about what might have happened to her after the birth were finally over, and I couldn’t wait to see her and be reunited. I knew that the baby had gone now and I would never have another chance to see him, but that didn’t mean that she and I couldn’t get back together and support each other and maybe have another go at starting a family in a few years’ time. There had been so many long, sleepless nights in the prison cell, which I had only managed to get through by imagining our future together.
Chapter Eighteen
Looking for Lisa
It felt strange to walk out of the court alone, having been escorted everywhere since the night of my arrest nearly five months before. I half expected to feel a hand on my arm at any moment and find someone was telling me there had been a mistake and I wasn’t to go free after all. For months I had been told exactly what to do every moment of the day, but now there was no van or car waiting to swallow me up, just an address written on a slip of paper that I had to find my own way to.
I was taking a deep breath of fresh air and savouring the moment when I saw Ben, Jock and Jake and the others coming towards me. For a second I was pleased to see them; then I saw that they looked angry and determined, as if they had a mission and it wasn’t to give me a welcome-home hug. They must have heard I was coming out and decided to come looking for me, but I wasn’t sure why they were looking so angry. I waited for them to get to me so that I could tell them everything that had happened to me, confident they would be pleased that I had never given anything away, and that I had taken the fall for them just as it had always been agreed and given a ‘no comment’ interview.
They didn’t give me a chance to say more than a couple of words before starting to lay into me, shouting about how I had ‘grassed them all up’ and that they had lost their home because of me. Realizing they were too drunk and riled up to listen to reason, I just wanted to get past them and run to the outreach centre to find out where Lisa was. If these people who I had assumed were my friends had all turned against me, she was my only hope. They wouldn’t be daring to lay into me like this if she had been there to give them a piece of her mind. I fought as hard as I could, but the sheer weight of their numbers knocked me off my feet and their fists and feet rained down on me.
‘Oi! Police,’ a strong voice shouted and my attackers all scattered, leaving me on the ground as an out-of-uniform policeman jogged over to help me, flashing his badge.
‘We’ll radio this in and report it,’ he said as he helped me up.
‘I don’t want you radioing in anything,’ I said. ‘I just want to go.’
‘Don’t you want to report them for that attack?’
‘I don’t want to report anyone. I’ve had enough of coppers and courts.’
‘OK,’ he said, holding up his hands and backing off. ‘Only trying to help.’
He watched with a puzzled expression as I stumbled away before he could say anything else, diving off the main road into the back streets where I was less likely to be spotted, and making my way to the centre and to Lisa as quickly as I could. I burst in through the doors, knowing I would be safe as soon as I was inside. When the staff saw me, they all rushed over and gave me a cuddle, bombarding me with questions about everything that had happened since they last saw me. Relieved to be safe and enjoying being the centre of attention, I sat down and explained everything to them. I played them some of the police tape, which I had been carrying around in my bag, where I had said ‘no comment’ all the way through as Ben and Jock had taught me.
‘I want to know where Lisa is,’ I said when the initial excitement had died down.
They exchanged uncomfortable looks.
‘We tried to ask the prison to let you out for your baby’s funeral,’ someone said, ‘but they just wouldn’t do it.’
‘Where’s Lisa?’ I asked, feeling they were avoiding answering. ‘I need to speak to her. I need to see her.’
‘She was sectioned.’
‘I know that. What hospital is she at now?’
‘She’s not in the south any more. She’s gone back to her relatives up north.’
‘Can I have an address or a number for her?’ I asked. ‘Or for these relatives?’
‘We’re sorry,’ they said. ‘They specifically instructed us not to pass on any details.’
‘Not even to me?’ I asked, feeling as if someone had just kicked me in the teeth.
‘Not even to you. We’re so sorry. Lisa wants to make a new start.’
‘We were going to make a new start together,’ I protested, trying to make them understand. ‘In Penzance.’
I couldn’t understand why they were being so evasive when all I wanted was straight answers. I felt all the frustrations and the miseries and injustices of the previous months boiling back up again. I jumped up, shouting and punching the door, unable to sit down calmly for a moment longer.
‘Where is my son buried?’ I screamed. ‘I want to know where he is!’
‘They had him cremated,’ one of the key workers said.
I’ve never been able to get my head round the concept of cremation. It seems too final for me to cope with. I thought there should be somewhere where that perfect little body I ha
d helped to create could lie. Somewhere that I could visit. Seeing where his ashes were was likely to bring me little comfort. I remembered the arguments that went on after my father died and how my mother insisted on having his remains cremated, even though it was well known that it would be against his wishes. Now it had happened again: other people had been making decisions about the most important things in my life, taking the people who were most precious away from me and leaving me on my own at the mercy of other people who seemed to hate me and want to hurt me.
Charlotte had finished with Jock, but was still hanging around the centre and didn’t seem to share the others’ anger with me. She believed me when I said I hadn’t grassed anyone up and agreed to come with me to visit the ashes at the crematorium. When we got there, I realized there was nothing there for me to look at and I felt as if I had lost him all over again. He had gone and I had never had a chance to say goodbye. I felt I had been cheated. I felt there was nothing left for me to hold on to. I had imagined Lisa and I were going to be there for one another, supporting each other through the pain of our loss, but I could see now that wasn’t going to happen.
When we got back to the centre, the others were there again and wanting to go back to where they had left off giving me a kicking when the policeman interrupted them. They were even drunker and shouting at the key workers to send me outside because they were going to kill me. I was so angry at the whole world by then I felt ready to take them all on, even though I wouldn’t have stood a chance, not caring about the consequences.
The key worker who had listened to my police interview tape tried to convince them that they had got it all wrong, that I wasn’t the one who had grassed anyone up and that it had been Jake who had told the police everything.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Ben said, although his face told a different story as it dawned on him that he might have been lied to.
‘All through his interview he stuck to saying “no comment”,’ the key worker insisted, ‘just like you told him to.’
‘Give him the bloody tape,’ I said to Charlotte, fishing in my bag and handing it over. ‘And tell him to keep it.’
Ben agreed to come into the centre to listen, while Jock and Jake mysteriously disappeared. He listened to nearly the whole thing, convinced for a long time that he was going to come across a bit where I had grassed, but he never found it.
‘I’m happy,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m really sorry, Joe. You’ve been stitched up and I believed Jock and Jake. I’ll tell the rest of them that it wasn’t you and I’m sorry for giving you a belting earlier.’
I just shrugged, because there was nothing else to say. It seemed this was just the way my life was always going to be. I was tired and I wanted to sleep, so I fished out the address of the hostel that the duty probation officer had given me. By the time I got there it was dark and way past the time I was meant to report in.
‘Why are you so late?’ the grumpy-looking warden asked as I handed over my slip. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I had a few things I had to sort out,’ I snapped, not in the mood to be told off by anyone else. ‘What’s it fucking got to do with you anyway?’
‘There’s no need for that. I won’t tolerate that sort of language here.’
‘Just show me to my room and I’ll stay out of your way.’
Although I was relieved to be out of prison, I was broken-hearted to find that Lisa hadn’t wanted to stay in touch with me. The shabbiness and stale stink of the halfway house, with cigarette burns in the furniture and worn lino on the floors, did nothing to rescue my plunging spirits. I was shown to my dormitory and I felt cold and empty inside as I sat on a bed in a flimsy cubicle. I just wanted to get away from the area and all the treacherous people I had got involved with–people I had foolishly thought were my friends but I now realized didn’t care for me in the least. I could see clearly now that all my plans of spending my life with Lisa had just been the dreams of a foolish young boy. I knew I was going to have to move on and start all over again, but I felt totally lost and unable to work out what direction I should be heading in.
I had come to London because I’d heard other people talking about it as a sort of promised land; I had known no more about it than that. The same was true of Penzance. Lisa hadn’t been the only one to tell me that it was a cool place for homeless people to go to and make fresh starts. Not having anywhere else to go to, or anyone else to ask, I decided I would take myself off there anyway, even though I would now be travelling alone and not as part of a happy little family as I had been imagining just a few months before. If I’m honest, there was a part of me that still dreamed that maybe Lisa would find her way there too and we would bump into each other, rekindle our feelings for one another and pick up where we had left off.
The next day I remained lost in thought. Other inmates at the hostel tried to make conversation, but I wanted to be left alone with my plans. I’d had enough of being forced to be with people all day long when I was in prison; now I wanted to guard what little private space I might have left in the world.
I went back to the outreach centre again, since the key workers there were the only people I had left and I still hoped that if I pleaded with them they would give me some clue as to where to find Lisa. I took my bag with me, carrying all my worldly possessions around as usual, not wanting to leave anything at the hostel and hoping I wouldn’t have to go back there again. Of course they hadn’t changed their minds and steadfastly refused to tell me any more.
Charlotte told me that Ben and Jock had fallen out now that Ben knew the truth, and Jake and Jock started on me again as soon as I walked into the centre, which got them chucked out and confirmed in my mind that I had to get away from the area, because they would never ultimately leave me alone. I realized now that everything to do with Jake had led me into trouble, and Jock wasn’t much better.
I told the key workers that I wanted to go to Penzance and they agreed that it was a good idea. I think they were probably quite pleased to think I would then be someone else’s problem. They bought me a train ticket the same day so that I didn’t even have to go back to the hostel that night, plus some lunch and a bit of spending money.
‘Have you informed the probation office of your plans?’ they asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ I lied breezily. ‘It’s not a problem.’
I had no intention of telling anyone in case they said I couldn’t go. I’d had enough in my life of being told what I could and couldn’t do by other people.
I felt miserable and alone as I headed for the station with my bag over my shoulder once more and no idea what lay in store. I knew I was breaking the rules of my probation, but I was past caring. I was becoming more and more convinced that life wasn’t worth living and was never going to get any better for me. All I had wanted was to be with someone I loved and who loved me. I kept on thinking about Dad, just as I had all my life, and now I found my thoughts straying to Lisa and my son as well. It didn’t seem as if the pain was ever going to stop.
Chapter Nineteen
On the Beach
I had no idea how far it was to Cornwall until I had already been travelling for several hours and was changing trains for the second time at Exeter. Everyone else I came across on the journey seemed to be in high spirits, most of them heading off on their holidays, travelling with friends and families. The further west we travelled the higher I found my own spirits rising too. I still hoped in my heart that I would bump into Lisa once I arrived and that she would realize she couldn’t live without me, but if that didn’t happen then perhaps Cornwall would be the place where I would meet someone else, fall in love and finally live happily ever after. No matter how dark my depressions were, there were still these little outbreaks of optimism to keep me going.
I’m not sure what I expected to find when I got there, but it wasn’t the bleak-looking town that greeted my eyes as we drew in at the long platform stretching alongside the main road in Penzance. I hadn’t realiz
ed that the town was primarily a fishing port rather than a beach resort. I guess I had imagined walking straight into a community of people in the same position as me, just as I had imagined when I arrived at Charing Cross, but I couldn’t see any homeless people anywhere. Everyone I overheard talking had strange accents that reminded me how far I was now from where I had started life. As I walked out of the station, there was a steep hill in one direction and a choppy-looking grey sea in the other.
‘Is that it?’ I wondered, all the high spirits and optimism that had risen inside me on the journey seeping away once more, leaving me feeling lost and alone.
It was already getting late and I didn’t want to have to deal with any other officious people like hostel managers just yet with all their questions and recriminations. I wanted to get my bearings and find my feet before letting the authorities back into my life. I knew the probation services were going to be angry about me not letting them know I was moving town and I didn’t want to be put back on the next train before I had even had a chance to explore.
Despite the fact that it was already growing cold and dark, I felt drawn towards the rhythmic sound of the waves on the shore, finding it strangely calming. As I got closer, the sound drowned out every other noise, making it feel as if the rest of the world was disappearing behind me, taking all its problems with it. I walked down on to the beach and began to search for a sheltered corner where I might be able to get out of the wind and perhaps eventually sleep for a few hours. I had a sleeping bag that the workers at the centre had given me and I still had some of my provisions left in my bag, so I knew I would be OK for a few nights. I walked along the promenade to an area of rocks where people went to fish before I settled myself down, huddling out of the wind, listening to the sea and counting the stars in the sky above.