The Mother

by Yvvette Edwards

  After Nipa left, Lloydie was sitting in the kitchen at the table, just holding them and crying. I was watching him and remembering the last time I had seen my son. Ryan’s final morning had been no different from any other morning. You imagine when something like what happened to Ryan happens, perhaps that day the sky was unusually dark, mayhap the cat was hissing, the birds quiet. But it was a normal morning, ordinary, mid-March, chilly though bright with new spring sun, and the only quiet that morning came from Ryan.

  I thought he was still angry with me about Sweetie, that’s what I put his silence down to. He was quiet and contemplative and I thought he was punishing me. After he finished breakfast, I stood up and kissed him goodbye. It was the kiss of a parent who feels both guilty and right. Isn’t that what parenting is about, feeling guilty but right? Refusing the sweets they want because you’re the adult and you know too many will result in cavities? With that kiss I was trying to appease, wanted him over her and back to normal, and he accepted my kiss but did not return it, merely said goodbye. Then, as he opened the front door, Lloydie shouted to him that his football boots were still in the hallway.

  “Don’t forget them,” he said.

  And Ryan returned and packed them.

  After Nipa left I watched Lloydie sobbing while crushing the boots against his chest and I was consumed with rage.

  I said, “Those bloody boots! This would never have happened if you’d just kept your mouth shut!”

  Then I walked out and went upstairs to the bedroom. I heard the front door open and I went to the window and watched as Lloydie threw those boots into the bin and slammed it shut. He must have returned and retrieved them afterward, has had them all this time, kept them hidden here in this sterile place. I don’t touch them, can’t. I replace the lid and put the box back under the table where I found it. I brush sprinkles of mud from the table, erasing the evidence of my presence as a child might. Finally, I stand.

  It is a strange walk home, fast and driven by panic, haste bringing me closer to a destination I am fearful of reaching. Uppermost in my mind is the conversation we had last night, the terrible words I said—yet more of them. I have to steel myself as I put the key into the lock and turn it, open the front door, step inside. He is not in any of the rooms downstairs. I go upstairs, check our bedroom, the bathroom, hesitate a moment before turning the doorknob of my son’s room and open the door. Lloydie is lying on Ryan’s bed, fully clothed, curled around Sheba, eyes closed. I walk over, stand beside him, hold my breath, and watch his chest to see the rise and fall of breath in this man from the life that I had in the Before, this man that I have failed as much as he has failed me. He stirs. Sheba awakens and stretches. His eyes flutter open and he sits up, surprised at first, then embarrassed to be discovered in here.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  I don’t know what to say to him, where to begin. Instead I sit down on the edge of the bed bedside him and kiss his head. I cannot bring myself to mention the allotment. He has been going there every day, seven days a week, and he has made an effort to pretend it is for some purpose, presumably for my sake, to protect me from the barren horror of his day-to-day reality.

  “I must have fallen asleep,” he says.

  I kiss him again. It feels like I’ve read his private diaries behind his back and discovered in them something personal, something so intimate it was never intended for me to see or know. And so I don’t mention it, never will, just need to find a way to draw him back from the solitude and hopelessness of that place, into the light, where there is the chance for living things to survive and thrive and grow.

  He says, “I don’t know why I came in here.”

  But I know. It was to find something of his old self, the old life that has gone, to try to restore something of that time, to be close not just to his spirit but to the Ryan we loved who lived, and the people we were during that time, who seem to have vanished with our son to leave a cocoa-colored empty space. I take off my coat, sit on the bed beside him, and instead of another chaste kiss, I kiss his lips, like I have done a thousand times, slowly, lingering, a lover’s kiss. Immediately he stands, flustered, like someone who has found himself on the verge of intimacy with the wrong person. He runs his hands over the shock of his grief-bleached hair.

  “I need to start dinner,” he says, “I’m sorry,” and leaves me with Sheba on the bed. It smells of Lloydie in here, of Ryan when he helped himself to his father’s aftershave, like a delicious memory springboarding a current event. I am afraid to tell him about Sweetie, afraid to bring him face-to-face with what he is avoiding most. I don’t know what to do for the best, whether pushing him too hard is likely to send him over the edge of the precipice he’s so precariously balanced on. My ignorance as to how to best help him overwhelms me, makes me feel helpless, and in the end I do what has become habit now: nothing. I pour myself a drink and run a bath.

  Don’t discuss Ryan. Don’t bring up the case. Don’t talk about Sweetie. Don’t mention the allotment. I talk about the dinner Lloydie has cooked as we eat at the table in the kitchen. This is where the return lies, in normalcy, the doing of the things we used to do, in refusing to allow the cowardice of avoidance to set the terms. I talk about the food and we speak about Rose and Dan and I sit at the table with my husband and ignore his discomfort, the awkwardness that has become a feature of his body language when it’s just us two alone. I’m sure he’s relieved at the end of it when I finish and leave him downstairs, go up on my own to our bed.

  I ring my mother, speak to Leah, then Quigg, and afterward call Lorna on her landline at home. She doesn’t answer, and I have already started dialing her mobile number when it occurs to me she may be sleeping. I put the phone down. I don’t want to wake her if she’s having an early night. My life, this case, it’s enough to knock the stuffing out of anyone. I put the TV in the bedroom on instead and stare at the colors while I wait for my regular nighttime combo to take effect.

  The next morning, there is a cup of tea on the side and I take it downstairs and drink it, sipping slowly and watching Lloydie tidy the already clean counters, wipe out the spotless interior of the fridge. He does the tiny pile of washing-up hurriedly, then leaves before Nipa arrives, and I cannot think of where he’s heading or I’ll cry.

  We are first into the public gallery as always, take our regular seats at the end of the front row. There is an air of excitement in the courtroom that is palpable and appears to have everyone, apart from the accused, in its grip. Even Ms. Manley appears to have been able to get out of bed when the alarm went off this morning. She is punctual for the first time, alone, wearing her signature sunglasses, sitting on her customary seat at the farthest end of the front row.

  The judge gives us another telling off before the case commences. He tells us if we cannot contain ourselves, if there are any further outbursts or disturbances, he will have the gallery cleared. Whereas normally the security guards merely pass in and out as needed, today, one of them remains inside the gallery once the case gets under way. I take this as a sign the judge means business, and hope Ms. Manley has noted this and behaves herself; while she probably visits many courts, attending lots of cases, so being chucked out of this one might not be such a big deal for her, this is the only one I’ve ever attended, and it is vitally important to me I see it through.

  The judge reiterates what Quigg told me last night on the phone, that St. Clare has made an application for Sweetie to be treated as a hostile witness. I think about those two girls at the café, her terror when she saw them, and I feel sick. I’m desperate with the hope that her resolve has not weakened overnight and with the anticipation of listening to her evidence if it hasn’t. But I am also scared, on her behalf, sick and scared. St. Clare will do everything he can to destroy her credibility as a witness, and once he’s finished with her and she leaves this courtroom, her exit will mark the beginning of an entirely new set of problems. I told her she could make choices, and now that she has, I feel resp
onsible for what is about to unfold.

  When she is called to the stand, she steps inside the witness box nervously. She looks extremely tired, as though last night she managed hardly any sleep. She is wearing the same outfit she had on yesterday, but it is a little grubby, a bit more creased with wear, and I can’t help but feel that her appearance makes worse what is already a position of serious disadvantage. The young man who was with Ms. Manley yesterday arrives. Ms. Manley moves her bag and he takes his seat beside her. He is wearing large designer sunglasses as well, and instead of support, he looks like part of her entourage.

  St. Clare stands as he did with Kwame, hands buried deep in his pockets as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He is immaculately dressed and shod, but looking a little worse for wear himself, probably from the liquor he was knocking back last night while trying to get his head around how exactly he was going to front this case. He reminds Sweetie that she is under oath and has sworn to tell the truth before he begins, speaking slowly and putting an emphasis on his words that leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind he’s of the opinion she’s come to court with the full intention of lying her head off. She glares at St. Clare as a hostile witness might. I can’t decide whether her anger is better than the nervousness it has replaced, but it appears to bolster her confidence. As St. Clare speaks, the resilience of the woman with the kinky afro seems to grow.

  He begins by asking her about her relationship with Tyson. She has been seeing him for about three years.

  “So the defendant has been your boyfriend continuously for all of that time?”

  Sweetie answers, “I wouldn’t exactly class him as a boyfriend.”

  “May I ask what you would class him as?”

  “We link up from time to time, that’s it.”

  “When you say you ‘link up,’ you mean you meet specifically for intercourse with each other?” St. Clare says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you ever go out on dates, to the movies for example, or to restaurants for meals?”

  “No.”

  “So your entire relationship revolves around meeting for intercourse?”

  “I s’pose.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yeah, yes.”

  “Yesterday, you told the court that the reason you gave a statement to the police on March 19 stating that Mr. Manley arrived at your house on March 18 at 4 p.m. was because he had told you to lie about the time he arrived.”

  “’S right.”

  “That seems a rather unlikely thing to do for someone with whom you are not in a relationship.”

  “Well, I never exactly had a choice.”

  “Really? Would you tell the court why you felt you had no choice other than to take actions which could well be deemed to have perverted the course of justice?”

  A pause, then, “I was scared.”

  “Of what?”

  Sweetie glances at Tyson Manley. “Him.”

  “Of Mr. Manley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “At the time you made your statement, were you aware Mr. Manley was being questioned about a murder?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were aware that a person found guilty of murder would likely be sentenced to a prison term?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And knowing this person you claim to be scared of might go to prison, you thought the best thing would be to lie and by so doing, ensure he remained free?”

  “That weren’t exactly how I thought about it.”

  “Would you be so kind as to tell the court exactly how you did think about it?”

  “I just . . . y’know . . . he told me what to say and I said it.”

  “Even though he was not your boyfriend or someone with whom you were in a relationship?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you really expect the court to believe that?”

  Sweetie’s voice is raised as she replies, “Look, you’re the one asking what happened! I’m just tryin’a tell you.”

  St. Clare does not acknowledge her annoyance. His own tone is unchanged. “Miss Nelson, if, as you claim, you were afraid of Mr. Manley, would it not have made more sense for you to have said he was not with you, thus increasing the likelihood of his going to prison?”

  It makes no difference whether she is rude to St. Clare or not. He is patiently relentless, will not stop or back off. Sweetie stops fidgeting, looks down. I don’t see it, but I imagine she sighs. “Y’know, it ain’t just him, he’s got his crew.” Her gaze flicks upward to the gallery briefly, to the man beside Ms. Manley.

  “You mean his friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So now you’re afraid of him and his friends?”

  Judging from her expression, she knows exactly how he’s trying to make her look here. “Yeah, I’m afraid of him and his friends.”

  “I see. Just how many close friends would you say Mr. Manley has?”

  “Four. There’s others, but close ones, four.”

  “And these four friends, are they not your friends also?”

  “No, they ain’t my friends.”

  “Do excuse me, but I must be clear on this point; these four people whom you say are not your friends, how many of them have you had intercourse with?”

  Sweetie doesn’t answer. She looks at the judge. He does not help her. There is no one in the room on her side to stop St. Clare from going too far. It’s normally the job of the barrister on the other side to say, “I object! It is entirely inappropriate for the witness to be questioned in this fashion, Your Honor.” But Quigg isn’t here for Sweetie. No one is. The question is repeated. Her shoulders slump. Her voice when she answers is low.

  “I’m sorry?” St. Clare asks, though I heard her response in the public gallery, so I’m sure everyone in the courtroom did as well. “Did you say all of them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yet you maintain they are not your friends?”

  “They ain’t my friends.”

  “I see. Miss Nelson, how old is your baby?”

  I shake my head, imagine I have misheard the question till Sweetie answers, “Two weeks.”

  “And still in the hospital?”

  “Yeah. She was early. And small. So they kept her in.”

  I look at her breasts again. They are much larger than they were before. But other than that, she is carrying no pregnancy weight whatsoever. Her body bears no other indication she has recently given birth. That’s why I missed it. And it all makes sense now, her tiredness, why she’s wearing the same grubby outfit. Presumably she’s come directly from the hospital today. Her mother’s in rehab. Perhaps she has no one looking out for her, washing her clothes, bringing her a decent meal; Sweetie’s a mother.

  “And who is the father of your child?” St. Clare is patient, brushes something from the front of his robe, gives her time before prompting, “Miss Nelson; the father?”

  Finally Sweetie answers, “I don’t know.”

  “I see. What about Mr. Manley. Could it be him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “These four people whom you say are not your friends, could it be any of them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The deceased, Ryan Williams, might he be the father of your child?”

  My heart begins to accelerate. Sweetie glances at Tyson quickly, looks away, downward. “Yeah.”

  Now it is thudding inside my chest. Lorna says, “Oh my God!”

  “It could, in fact, be any of them?”

  “Yeah.”

  I have a list in my mind of things my son never did, ordinary things people normally do during their lifetime, many of them things they probably took for granted, of no special note, hardly treasured experiences, regular things like he never drove a car, never cooked a meal, never visited Paris, got married, passed a GCSE or an A level, or skied. He never raved all night or got properly drunk, opened a bank account or left home. It is infinite the number of things his life was never long enough for him to do. Never ha
d sex was on that list, and never had children.

  The hope that is ignited inside my chest is like an electric shock. Seven months of despair and suddenly my heart is pounding, alive with the possibility that her baby might be my grandchild, Ryan’s daughter. I try to talk myself down, think reasonably, be logical—Why would it be his? She’s clearly slept with everyone. The odds are better getting a winning line on the lottery than her baby being my son’s—but it is a hope that is impossible to diminish that easily. I do the maths. The dates work. My son was seeing her. This really could be.

  Lorna takes my hand, whispers, “Calm down.” Her grip is so tight she’s crushing my fingers.

  Quigg finally stands, “My Lord, I am having difficulty understanding where my learned friend is heading with his line of questioning. It is probably my own lack of understanding. It would, however, be very helpful if he would make it clear.”

  The Judge asks, “Counsel, is this leading to a relevant point?”

  “I assure you, My Lord, it is. I ask you to permit me some latitude, and the purpose of these questions shall shortly become clear.”

  “I hope they do, and swiftly,” the judge says.

  “Thank you, My Lord. Is it not the case, Miss Nelson, that you visited Mr. Manley at Feltham Young Offenders’ Institute three weeks ago, and that you argued with him about your baby and who the father was?”

  “Yeah, I visited him.”

  “And you argued. Specifically, Mr. Manley advised you that you did not have his permission to put him down on the birth certificate as the father of your child?”

  Sweetie doesn’t answer, doesn’t need to. The question seems to physically deflate her.

  St. Clare pushes, “That is the truth, is it not?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Miss Nelson, I put it to you that Mr. Manley did arrive at your home on March 18 at four p.m., and that the statement you made to the police on March 19 stating this was in fact true. I put it to you that because you had no idea who the father of your child was, you hoped to legitimize her by having Mr. Manley, with whom you had been having intercourse on and off for a period of at least three years, put his name on the birth certificate as her father. I submit that his refusal to do this—and I shall leave it to others to judge whether this decision was reasonable or not—upset you a great deal, in fact it made you extremely angry. The truth is that you have changed your story now about the time he arrived at your home, not because you have decided to tell the truth, but because you want revenge?”