Owning Jacob (1998)

by Simon Beckett

  'Sorry.'

  Colin took his hands from his chest, giving him a warning look. 'What's the matter with you?'

  'I'm sorry. I lost it a bit'

  'Jesus, Ben!'

  Ben mutely accepted the reproof. The referee, an older solicitor from Colin's firm, beckoned him over. He hung his head as he stood next to the player who had fouled him, saying nothing as they were first told off, then sent off.

  His shoes squelched desolately through the mud as he made his way from the pitch to the sports hall's changing room. Good move, he thought, hitting a lawyer with twenty other lawyers as witnesses. His opponent walked parallel with him, a few yards away. The heavy slap of the ball being kicked resumed behind them.

  'Fucking bastard.'

  Ben looked around. 'What?'

  The other player's lip was swollen. He gave Ben a look of contempt. Their studs made clacking noises as they reached the path.

  'You heard, wanker.'

  The hot anger that Ben thought had gone suddenly boiled up in him again. 'If you've got something to fucking say, fucking say it!'

  'Fuck off.'

  'Are you going to make me?' He felt disbelief as he heard himself, but the desire to lash out was a thick pumping of blood behind his eyes. He could barely contain it.

  The other man looked away with a snort of derision. 'You're not fucking worth it,' he said, but Ben was attuned enough now to see his uncertainty. It fuelled him.

  'Come on, you curly-haired twat!' He had his fists balled. 'Come on!'

  The other man kept his head averted, 'Just leave me alone.'

  There was a moment of savage joy when Ben almost hit him anyway. It burst as swiftly as an overfilled balloon. He stopped and let the other man go into the sports hall ahead of him as the shame rose up. He wanted to chase after him and say he was sorry, that he wasn't really like that.

  Aren't I?

  He could exorcise his frustration on a football pitch, with someone he didn't feel threatened by, but not when it mattered. He would never have dared do it with Kale. So what did that make him? Lavish with self-disgust, he went into his team's changing room to get showered.

  Both teams went for a drink afterwards, filling one side of the pub with the smell of wet hair, deodorant and talc. Some of the players ignored him, especially on the opposing side, but others grinned and made boxing jokes.

  He'd only gone to the pub because he'd hoped to restore some of his self-esteem by apologising to the curly-haired player. He'd visualised shaking his hand, buying him a drink, laughing about how stupid they'd been in the heat of the moment, until he'd begun to feel as though it had actually happened. But in the pub there was no sign of the other man. Ben heard someone say that he'd gone straight home.

  He stood with Colin at one end of the bar. He could tell by Colin's stiffness that he had something to say. Knowing he had deserved it, Ben waited.

  'It's no good taking it out on everybody else,' Colin said finally, when no one else was in earshot. He occupied himself by unwrapping the cellophane from a cigar. It was a habit he had only recently acquired, and Ben still wasn't used to seeing him smoking them.

  'Taking what out?' he asked, even though he knew.

  'This business with Jacob. I know it's frustrating but you're going to have to get hold of yourself.'

  'I lost my temper, that's all.'

  Colin just looked at him. Ben sighed.

  'All right, I'm sorry. But it's just…shit, it's just so frustrating!'

  'Kale's only stopped you seeing him once. He might change his mind once things settle down.'

  'He might let me sleep with his wife as well.'

  Ben wondered if he'd really made that particular comparison.

  Colin lit the cigar and puffed on it self-consciously. 'I admit it isn't very likely, but you're just going to have to be patient and hope he comes round. You can't do anything on the basis of one visit.'

  'It isn't going to make any difference whether it's one visit or twenty. Kale isn't going to budge. He doesn't have to, he's got Jacob now. Everything's on his side.'

  Colin tapped his cigar into an ashtray, frowning. 'He can't stop you from seeing him indefinitely.'

  Ben swirled the beer around in his glass. 'Can't he?'

  He'd already told Jacob's social worker what had happened.

  Carlisle had listened with the weary expression of someone who'd heard it all before. He'd grudgingly agreed to contact the Kales, but his manner grew downright frosty after Sandra told him that Ben had arrived late and drunk. Ben's protests that she was lying were met with a stony insistence that the local authority couldn't intervene in 'personal squabbles'.

  Incensed, he'd gone to see Ann Usherwood. He'd expected reassurances and promises of action. Instead she warned him that the social services were notoriously reluctant to become involved in arguments over contact. If Kale continued to prevent him from seeing Jacob, Ben could eventually take him to court, she conceded. But such disputes were always expensive and messy, and any rulings difficult to enforce.

  Thinking about Kale, Ben knew it might be impossible.

  As a last-ditch attempt he had phoned Sandra Kale, calling when her husband would be at work in the hope of persuading her to appeal to him.

  'I know we got off to a bad start,' he'd said, before she could hang up. 'But I'm not trying to take Jacob away again. I only want him to let me see him occasionally.'

  'It's nothing to do with me,' she'd said, indifferently. 'He's John's kid, not mine.'

  'But you're his wife. Can't you…?'

  'No, I can't,' she'd cut in. 'So why don't you just fuck off?'

  It took an effort not to shout at her. 'I'm not going to just give up.' He could hear her breathing.

  'You would if you'd any sense,' she'd said, ending the conversation.

  But he couldn't. The alternative was to let each month put more distance between himself and Jacob. The boy was only six, and autistic He didn't make the normal associations, might not remember a relationship with someone from a half-forgotten life. And then Ben's last memories of his marriage to Sarah, the family he'd thought he'd had, would be proved ultimately worthless, would turn to dust and blow away.

  He stopped playing with his beer and took a drink of it instead. 'I just don't know what else I can do,' he said, setting down the glass. 'Kale's already made up his mind, and I can't see him having a spontaneous change of heart.'

  The cigar sent aromatic smoke around Colin's head. 'Is there anyone else you could speak to? Somebody like a neighbour or friend, who could act as an intermediary. Talk some sense into them.'

  'I don't think so,' Ben said. But even as he spoke he'd already thought of someone.

  It was the first Saturday he had taken off in weeks, since the hangover hell after the night with Zoe. He woke early and cooked himself scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes. He ate them at the kitchen table, which seemed too big now he was the only person who sat at it. Afterwards he was still hungry, so he had a dish of cereal. He'd noticed he was tasting his food more since he had cut down on the joints.

  He would have set off straightaway, except for the feeling that he ought to visit the cemetery. He'd only been once since the funeral, but that didn't bother him. He didn't feel the need to stand over a patch of ground when he carried thoughts of Sarah around with him every day. That morning, though, he felt an impulse to go.

  The wind held a hint of rain as he made his way to the grave. Sarah had told him that she wanted to be buried during a drunken 'when I die' conversation one night. Ben had said he wanted to be cremated except for his penis, which she could save as a keepsake. The memory of her laughter was carried away on the wind before he had a chance to smile.

  The grave was part of a row of other new ones. There was no stone yet because the ground had to be left to settle. The grass was growing over it nicely, though, which pleased him. He put the flowers he'd brought in one of the two earthenware vases at the grave's head. Someone, her parents proba
bly, had recently left another bunch. They were nearly dead, but he left them where they were because he didn't want to risk upsetting her mother by throwing them away.

  He felt a twinge of conscience that he hadn't been in touch since the whole mess with Jacob had come out. He hadn't wanted to make things worse, but enough time had passed now to soften what had happened. Wiping his hands dry, he told Sarah that he would make the effort, but reminded her that her mother was a difficult cow, so he couldn't promise anything.

  He stood remembering while the wind plucked at him, then went back to his car.

  Islington was ten miles north of Tunford. Ben came off the motorway at the same junction and followed the same route for a while before turning off. The road signs led him past an industrial estate and then back out into a brief splash of green countryside before the town began.

  The house was on a short terraced row with a corner shop at one end and a rubble-filled space bordered by a tall wire fence at the other. Inside it were yellow JCBs and workmen's huts, quiet and deserted for the weekend. A lot of the houses were boarded up, waiting their turn at demolition. Others were obviously still tenanted. The number Ben was looking for had neat flowered curtains and a colourful window box on the downstairs sill. He parked outside and climbed from his car before he had chance to have second thoughts about what he was doing.

  He didn't know what he hoped to gain by visiting Jeanette Kale's parents. He had no reason to think they would have any more time for him than Kale. Kale had lost a wife, they'd lost a daughter, and Ben was the nearest thing to a scapegoat they had. When he'd seen them interviewed on TV, though, Ron and Mary Paterson hadn't seemed bitter. He thought they might be prepared to listen to him, if nothing else.

  It wasn't much to hang a Saturday morning on, but it was all he had.

  The Patersons had moved out of London after their grandson went missing. Ben had traced them by going through the recent newspaper reports in the library until he found a reference to the town where 'baby Steven's' grandparents now lived. Then he had gone through the telephone directory until he found their address. He'd considered phoning before making the journey, but in the end he'd decided not to. Over the phone it would have been too easy for them to say no.

  He knocked on the door. It was grimy from the dust thrown up by the destruction of its neighbours, but the underlying blue paint was sound. They're not going to be in, he thought, but was proved wrong by a muffled 'It's not locked'.

  He went inside. The door opened straight into the kitchen.

  The walls were covered with a yellow floral paper. In the doorway a small rubber mat covered the brown-and-cream swirl-patterned carpet. A sturdy drop-leaf table stood against the wall facing him, a potted geranium in its centre. There was a smell of old cooking, not rancid like the Kales', but one that spoke of Yorkshire puddings and roast meats. It reminded Ben of his childhood visits to his grandparents.

  An elderly man was standing by the sink. He wore brown pleated trousers and a white vest. A peeled hard-boiled egg was in one hand, while the other was cupped underneath it to catch the crumbs. He looked at Ben without saying anything, flecks of yolk around his mouth. Ben recognised him from the TV as Jeanette Kale's father. He felt suddenly embarrassed at seeing him like that, knowing he wasn't whoever the man had been expecting.

  He hovered in the doorway, uncertainly. 'I'm sorry, I heard you say it wasn't locked. I'm Ben Murray—'

  'I know who you are.' Paterson turned back to the sink and went on eating the egg. He pushed it into his mouth and delicately brushed his lips with his fingers.

  'I'm sorry if I caught you by surprise.' Ben somehow felt he was the one at a disadvantage.

  Small dewlaps of flesh swung under Paterson's arms as he wiped his hands on a towel. He had the fleshy build of a once-powerful man overtaken by time. He hung the towel on a hook by the sink. 'What do you want?'

  Ben was already sure it was a wasted journey. 'I'd like to talk to you and your wife. About Jacob.' If he says 'Steven' I'll just turn around and go.

  'What about him?' The man's look was neither hostile nor encouraging. It compelled Ben to be direct. 'John Kale won't let me see him. I wondered if you could help.'

  Paterson turned back to the sink. 'There's nothing we can do to help you.'

  'I thought you could perhaps talk to him. Explain that I'm not trying to take Jacob from him. I just…I just want to see him every now and again.'

  Jacob's grandfather shook his head without looking around.

  Ben remained by the open front door, unable to bring himself to leave but not knowing what else there was to say. A mechanical whine came from a doorway on the other side of the kitchen.

  Paterson glanced at him, then went out. The noise grew louder, an electric motor of some kind. It stopped and he heard voices. There were other sounds he couldn't identify, and then the door at the far end was pushed back. A woman in a wheelchair came through with Paterson pushing it, and Ben realised the whine had been from a chairlift.

  Mary Paterson was stick thin, with hair that must once have been red but was now turning orange from the grey in it. Her eyes were beady and dark, like a bird's as she regarded Ben.

  'Shut the door,' she said.

  They sat around the drop-leaf table, drinking tea. A plate of digestive biscuits had been put out next to the geranium. Ben had taken one out of politeness and then found his hand straying back of its own accord until the plate was half empty. He didn't even like digestives.

  'She left him, you see,' Mary said. She was still in her wheelchair, lower than either Ben or her husband, who sat in the hard-backed dining chairs. She looked like a wrinkled child.

  'She came back to live with us a few months after Steven—after Jacob…' she corrected herself, annoyed at the slip, '…after Jacob went missing. We'd moved back up here by then. We'd only gone down to London to be near my sister, when Ron took his early redundancy. But after what happened at the hospital…well, you tell yourself it isn't your fault, but if Jeanette hadn't come down to stay with us…' She left the sentence unfinished. 'John never said as much, but we always felt he blamed us. Partly, anyway. And then when she left him and came home that was the final straw. I don't think he ever forgave us for that.'

  'But Jacob's your grandson. Surely you're entitled to see him?'

  She looked across at her husband. A wordless message seemed to pass between them. 'So are you. But with John Kale that doesn't make a lot of difference, does it?'

  Ben didn't know whether he was pleased to have found someone else against whom Kale was exercising his unreasonableness, or frustrated that another avenue had come to a dead end. Sympathy for the Patersons overruled either. 'What has Kale said?'

  'Not a thing.' Ron Paterson broke a biscuit in half over his plate, then in half again. He had put on a shirt, explaining that he had thought Ben was a friend of his when he'd knocked on the door, a widower he went shopping with every Saturday.

  He noticed what he was doing to the biscuit and put it down.

  'We haven't spoken to him. Only that woman. She told me not to bother phoning again.' His lips set in a stern line.'Trout-mouthed little tart.'

  'Ron,' his wife warned. His nodded acknowledgment was also an apology. She turned to Ben. 'We've written, but we haven't had any reply. Not that we expected one. But you still hope, don't you?'

  Not any more, Ben thought. If Kale wouldn't even let Jacob's grandparents see him, there was no chance for him.

  'It isn't any of my business, but why did Jeanette leave him?'

  Again they shared a silent look of communication. 'He'd changed,'she said. 'He'd always been a quiet type. Deep. But after Stev…after Jacob disappeared he wasn't the same. No disrespect intended, but it shattered him. Shattered them both, but in a different way. He got harder.' She frowned, shaking her head. 'No, not harder exactly, that's not right. But like he didn't care. And Jeanette…well, she never really got over it. You'd have thought they'd have helped each other, but it w
ent the opposite way. Perhaps Jeanette was as much to blame as John, I couldn't say. But she needed someone to support her, to help her through it. And he didn't do that. I suppose it was his way of coping with what had happened, but he just got more wrapped up in himself. More intense. They'd come around to see us, and he'd sit for hours, staring at nothing, not saying a word. And most of the time he was away anyway, you know, serving overseas. Jeanette was left by herself down in Aldershot So in the end she came back home.'

  Ben dreaded the next question, but it had to be asked. 'Kale said…he told me that it was my wife's fault that Jeanette died. What did he mean?'

  She didn't answer. Her husband folded his hands together on the table. His knuckles were white. She reached out and patted them. Her own hands were swollen and deformed.

  'He meant she killed herself.' She drew in a deep breath that had only a hint of tremor in it. It seemed to inflate her bony frame. 'But I don't know.' She gave her husband's hands a squeeze before removing hers from them. 'I don't know. They say she walked out into the traffic without looking, but whether she meant to, or just didn't think…' She shook her head. 'John had been around the day before. He was on leave. Compassionate leave.' She gave a humourless laugh at the thought. 'He turned up and said she was going home with him. Like that. No asking, no talking. Just straight out with it. Ron told him she wasn't doing anything she didn't want to, and…and John knocked him down.' She glanced at her husband.

  His hands were clenched tighter than ever. He spoke without looking at either of them. 'If I'd been ten years younger he wouldn't have done it. Soldier or not.' His voice was gravelly with emotion. His wife's hands twitched on her lap, as if she were about to touch him again. This time she didn't.

  'John walked out after that without another word,' she went on. 'The following morning Jeanette went for a walk, and the next we heard she was dead.'

  Oh Sarah, what did you do?

  'We haven't seen John since then, except at the funeral,' Mary said. 'And he didn't speak to us there. So I don't think there's much we can do to help you. I'm sorry.'