by Nicky Black
What puzzled him most about this case was that Mark’s last offence before this more recent arrest for dealing had been four years earlier for aggravated burglary. This was a long gap for someone intent on law breaking. He’d avoided prison for that last burglary offence by the skin of his teeth. After three months on remand in Durham Jail, he’d had time to get dry, grow up and think. In the file was a letter he’d written to the judge. The handwriting was like that of a ten-year-old, written on a ruler to keep it straight, the words slowly and carefully formed and corrected at various intervals. The letter told the judge how sorry he was for frightening the people who had disturbed his crime: he never would have hurt them. He’d never hurt anyone in his life, just things. He acknowledged his difficult past, his drug habit and his disregard for other people’s possessions that they’d worked hard to get. What touched Lee was his seemingly total commitment to change:
I have made a promise, on my sister’s life, and she is the most precious thing to me, that I will never reoffend or take drugs again. The choice is now up to you, whether to keep me locked up or to let me go, and I will respect your decision because it is your job to protect the innocent. But I promise to you that if you give me a chance, I will turn my life around and give something back to the world.
Lee was pretty sure that Mark would not swear on Nicola’s life without one hundred per cent meaning what he said. And, by all accounts, he had turned his life around. He’d kept his nose clean, got married, had a baby. He was volunteering and training as a youth worker. He’d shown no signs of addiction, his boss and colleagues had all given positive character statements to the court, saying he was their best worker and that the kids respected and admired him.
The judge who had presided over the aggravated burglary case had read the letter in the peace and quiet of his own home over a glass of port. Something in it was authentic enough for him to actually give Mark the benefit of the doubt. He released him into Nicola’s care on a four-year suspended sentence. Alas, for Mark, he was released on licence which hadn’t quite expired when he was arrested this time for drugs offences. There was no question he would have faced a long prison sentence if convicted – four years for the burglary and probably longer for dealing. How convenient, though, that he was arrested just before the licence expired. Maybe someone wanted him out of the way. He’d made the police’s life hell for years and they wanted retribution. Or maybe he’d had enough of bringing up his family in poverty and wanted a way out. Maybe he was just guilty.
For about the tenth time that afternoon, Nicola stopped what she was doing, blushed and smiled uncontrollably. She put herself on the bench again, feeling the warmth envelop her like a snug winter duvet. She could have stayed there all day, just kissing like kids at a bus stop. She’d smiled Hiya! at everyone on the way home from school, skipping with Michael who was delighted to see her happy again.
A sharp rapping on the front door wrenched her from her dream.
Micky stood, his hands clenched together at his chin, his tongue feeling his top teeth as if he’d just eaten something pippy. He didn’t give her time to speak. ‘I thought I’d give you the benefit of doing it voluntarily,’ he said.
‘Doing what?’ she asked warily.
‘Coming home, to me.’
‘Dad! Dad!’ Michael came running to the door. ‘Are we coming home?!’
‘This is your home,’ said Nicola, but Michael wasn’t listening and continued to smile widely from one ear to the other. Micky stared at her questioningly. Well?
‘I’ll get the ball,’ called Michael, already in the kitchen.
Nicola held up her hands. ‘Micky....’
He was having none of it and pushed past her into the house.
What a dump.
Rufus growled and snapped at his feet and Micky kicked him harshly away in disgust, making the dog yelp and skulk beside the armchair, licking his back leg furiously. Michael, now standing at the kitchen door with the ball under his arm, looked uneasily at Micky’s foot. Micky ignored Michael’s hurt look as his elder son put the ball down cautiously on the floor and sat next to the shaking dog, stroking his head and telling him he was a good boy. Liam, sitting on the floor eating the ham from the middle of a sandwich, was soon at his side, and they both petted their beloved friend. Micky’s top lip curled and he sat down on the frayed armchair, his elbows on his knees, his hands joined as if in prayer.
‘Get your things, you’re coming home,’ he said to the children.
Nobody moved. Nicola stood by the window and watched Michael Jnr’s eyes flitting now and then in Micky’s direction, Liam continuing to chunter in a language only he and Rufus could understand.
Nicola stayed calm. ‘I said, this is our home.’
The blood vessels in Micky’s temples pounded and Nicola moved to the little table by the door where her bag was, the panic alarm next to it on full display. She stood by the table as casually as she could. Micky got up and walked towards her. She stiffened and put her hand over the alarm. He took hold of her arm and squeezed tightly. Feeling Michael and Liam’s eyes on him, he spoke affectionately to her while squeezing tighter.
‘Come on, sweetheart, hurry up. Michael wants to watch the big telly, don’t you, son?’ Michael wasn’t so sure. He bent down to put his face by Rufus, covering the dog’s whole body with his own in a big hug, more for his own comfort than Rufus’s.
There was a knock on the front door, making everyone jump except Micky.
‘Milk!’
Rufus was at the door like a shot, barking incessantly.
‘Get it,’ said Micky sharply.
Nicola closed her hand around the alarm and pushed it up her sleeve, hanging onto the edge with her fingertips. She walked to the hallway to open the door, pulling the dog back by his collar.
‘Can I give it to you next week? My giro hasn’t come,’ shouted Nicola over the din. The milkman shook his head. Micky rolled his eyes, fucking hell. He went to the front door, taking a wad of money out of his pocket. He peeled off a ten pound note and gave it to the milkman while Nicola slipped back into the living room and put the alarm into her back pocket. When the milkman was gone, Micky closed the front door and came back into the living room.
‘Look, Micky,’ said Nicola, ‘can we just calm down and talk about this?’
‘I’m not talking anymore. I’m going out for a couple of hours, and when I come back, if you and the kids aren’t home, you’ve had it. Do you understand?’
Nicola stared at him defiantly.
‘There’s your keys. You left them.’ He held out a set of keys to her, but she didn’t move. He put them on the table, then put a small plastic carrier bag down next to the keys. He made his way to the front door, looking at each one of them individually with a touch of menace and no goodbye.
Nicola gave Michael Jnr’s confused face a reassuring smile as she took the bag from the table and tipped out the contents. Her mobile phone and charger. The phone rang and she jumped away from it as if it were a venomous snake. The display blinked MICKY at her. She picked it up and switched it off, dropping it back on the table like a hot coal. She wouldn’t let him intimidate her. This place might be damp and musty and sparse of furniture, but it was hers, and she wasn’t going to let it go that easily.
While Michael hugged the football to his chest in front of the TV later, she pushed the bolts across the front door.
That evening, Lee sat opposite Debbie at the restaurant table. She looked nice with a little make-up and a red dress that showed off her toned arms and tiny waist. Next to him sat Louise, lording it over the table, the centre of attention and loving every minute of it. Around them sat about twenty teenagers, a bumbling mixture of braces, pimples and shiny foreheads. Like Louise, many were as thin as sticks, wearing tiny, grown-up clothes that left little to the imagination. Lee wondered when this happened. His memory of being a teenager was to be surrounded by girls wearing anything but clothes that would cling to their bodies – big, ba
ggy, batwing jumpers, sweatshirts and leg warmers. These girls looked like pageantry, pouting and constantly pushing straightened hair from their eyes with perfect nails.
By the end of the main course most of them seemed to have settled into small groups of three or four, leaning over each other to bitch about some poor sod on the other side of the table. They made no attempt to hide who they were talking about, often turning quite deliberately to throw an evil glance at someone before swirling their hair back to the witches’ coven to drag up some more filth. A couple of boys sat together next to Louise, playing on their Game Boys and generally ignoring the screeching of the oestrogen-sodden air.
The flat hunting had been stressful. Louise had made her feelings quite clear. They’d seen four flats – one in Byker, ‘full of charvers’, she’d stated. The second, a Victorian property with amazing fireplaces: ‘Studentville’, and the third, a cute, one-bedroom place on the Quayside. As he stood at the window he could see downriver to the cranes and half-structure of a bridge being built for the new millennium. The deserted Baltic Flour Mills, a dilapidated fortress and home to countless pigeons and their grey shit, grimly faced the bedroom window. Clothed in scaffolding, it prepared for its new life. He’d liked it, until Louise flounced out of the bathroom, ‘Well, where am I going to sleep?’ she blurted. Finally, at the very top end of his price range, was a two-bedroom mezzanine apartment in the old cigarette factory building on the Coast Road, an Art Deco monster that had lain in ruins for years, now a monument to housing redevelopment for the professional classes.
‘We’ll take it,’ she said to the estate agent, her head turned upwards towards the twenty-foot, spotlit ceiling. Lee blinked at her.
‘What!?’ she declared. ‘You can afford it!’
They sat in the car afterwards with their McDonald’s milkshakes from the drive through, Louise reeling off the list of friends coming to her birthday pizza. Lee waited patiently, sucking hard to get any ice cream through his straw and shaking his head.
‘So?’ she demanded. She had a lot of friends! Surely he’d prefer that to her being some kind of weird loner with ringworm and fungi toes. He’d choked on his drink and she’d grinned a gappy, imperfect grin at him over the straw of her milkshake. He was hooked. And she knew it.
The waiters brought out dessert menus and there was much shaking of heads and sharing of spare tyres between the skinny ones, and round-eyed delight from those of a more robust stature as their mouths drooled in anticipation of chocolate fudge cake and squirty cream. There was a hush around the table as girls conferred with each other on the menu, some leaving their chairs, pulling their tiny skirts down and wobbling on heels down to their pals further down the table to help them decipher what a crème brûlée was.
With the puddings devoured and the second bottle of red wine going down well between Lee and Debbie, the waiter brought out a small birthday cake with candles, another waiter by his side with a ukulele hanging from his neck. Everyone turned to face Louise and she squealed excitedly.
The music began and everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’, the other diners in the restaurant joining in good-humouredly. Louise took the knife from the waiter and Debbie stood up to take pictures. Louise cut the cake to applause. She looked around her sincerely and thanked everyone for coming, for her cards and presents, and for her mam, and dad, for making it a lovely birthday. She was sixteen and couldn’t believe it! Everyone laughed and Lee looked up at her proudly. She was beautiful.
Louise glanced at her mum, looking really pretty for a woman of her age, and caught her staring at her dad over her glass of wine. She smiled dreamily and plonked herself back down next to Lee, asking if she could have a bit of wine just for the toast.
‘No,’ said Debbie firmly. She pointed at Lee. ‘Don’t you let her have any,’ she said, ‘I mean it.’ Debbie stood up and made her way to the Ladies while Louise slumped back in her seat, her bottom lip hanging out. Lee realised that he saw none of his own characteristics in Louise, only Debbie’s – the non-stop talking, the wonder and optimism at the world around her, demanding, bossy, bold and impulsive. And funny as hell. When he left her he felt like he’d run a marathon, exhausted but a little thrilled.
‘Can I come and live with you?’ she asked Lee petulantly.
‘Erm, no.’
‘Why?’
‘Coz your mam would go mad,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘It’s not up to her.’
‘She’s brought you up, sacrificed –’
‘– That’s all she ever says,’ said Louise rolling her eyes, ‘I can’t stand her.’
Lee didn’t answer: he wasn’t going to fuel a teenager’s manipulative motives. She sat up in her chair, trying another tack. ‘Is it because you don’t like me?’
‘Of course I like you.’ Lee put an arm around her shoulders and she relented a little.
‘But you don’t love me enough to want me all the time.’
Lee was lost for words. ‘Louise....!’
‘Did you love my mam?’ Lee looked away embarrassed and Louise threw her arms up in the air. ‘Why won’t anybody talk about it!’
Lee fiddled with his serviette and Louise kept charging at him, keeping her eye on the ladies' toilet room door, trying to cram it all in before her mother ended the conversation with a look that would cut steak. ‘If you never got married, how long were you together? Were you, like, childhood sweethearts? She was only my age when she had me. How old were you?’
Lee shook his head, but she persisted.
‘Please tell me, why did you go?’
‘Because I was a coward. Leave it at that, Louise.’
Debbie returned to her seat, fresh lipstick applied, trying to stay composed after drinking the majority of the wine on top of a glass for Dutch courage before she left the house.
Louise stared at them both crossly. ‘I wasn’t a one-night stand, was I?’ she demanded.
Debbie and Lee both looked at her with raised eyebrows, giving nothing away. Lee hid a smile behind his hand as Louise huffed out of her seat and went to give big, teary hugs to a couple of her friends who were putting their coats on to leave. Lee looked at Debbie who pursed her lips and scratched at her forehead. He raised his hand to the waiter and indicated, the bill please.
‘Sixteen,’ said Debbie with a shrug. The age rang in both their heads. How young they had been, how grown-up they’d thought they were, how stupid and naive. How much would Lee want to murder any cocky adolescent who touched his daughter. Debbie remembered her mother and father, the lack of shock on her mother’s face when she’d told them she was pregnant, as if she’d expected it all along from one of ‘her kind’. She wondered sometimes why they’d adopted her in the first place. Her father was fun and showed her off to his friends, but they’d shown her little love, and she’d never bonded with them. She’d concluded some time ago that people are people and she supposed she was better off with them than in a children’s home. Still, she would always live with the rejection, from both her mothers. The adoption of her own baby was, therefore, never a possibility, despite Debbie’s mother trying to make arrangements with agencies behind her back. Debbie had had to be resilient in the extreme. She’d stood her ground, she’d fought back to the point where her mother gave up and her father bought her a little flat in Jesmond. Anything to bury the disgrace and shame.
‘There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Lee, sitting forward and bracing himself.
‘Yeah?’ said Debbie cautious but smiling.
‘About money. I’d like to help out.’
‘We can manage,’ she said, her smile fading.
‘Well, I don’t want you to just manage.’
‘Why, Lee? Why bring this up now?’
The waiter put the never-ending bill in front of him and he leant in towards Debbie. ‘Because I realise how daft I’ve been. If I’d tried harder, if I’d been braver, I could have had you, her –’
‘– Don’t flatter
yourself.’ She saw him wince and she regretted it the minute it came out of her mouth. But she was no victim. Old habits died hard, and he couldn’t just bat his eyelids at her and expect her to fall at his feet.
‘I just want to help,’ he said, all eye contact gone. ‘If there’s anything I can do, just ask,’ he said, giving the waiter his credit card.
Debbie drained her glass. Maybe he didn’t deserve her spite, maybe he could be a good dad to Louise. Maybe she could trust him.
‘Well,’ she said, thoughtfully, ‘she really needs to go shopping for more new clothes.’ She looked at Lee and grinned wickedly. Lee swallowed. He saw Debbie’s cheeky smile and narrowed his eyes at her humorously.
Touché.
‘What shall we do now?’ she asked. Lee hesitated. ‘Eighth party city in the world, Newcastle,’ she smiled at him.
He looked amused. ‘Who’s seventh?’ he asked.
‘Rio de Janeiro,’ she said, grinning.
As he signed away nearly three hundred pounds, his phone rang, and, as he recognised the panic button number, grabbed at it more quickly and with more anticipation than Debbie would have liked.
‘Work,’ he said, and went outside to take the call.
The house was quiet, the children asleep, the little television keeping Nicola company. She lay curled up on the armchair under a blanket, watching a romantic comedy. As she watched the couple on screen kissing, she sank into her sadness. Micky’s visit earlier had put paid to any stupid romantic notions of seeing Lee again anytime soon. But she remained in her house, the alarm in her pocket, phone by her side, knife at her feet, bolts across the door. But she was still frightened, and she braced herself for another fitful night.
She closed her eyes and saw Kim’s colourless face. Despite instructions to stay away, she’d been to the house that afternoon. When Kim eventually opened the door to her, she knew immediately. The stench of dope pervaded the house. Kim’s eyes, red-ringed and watery, stared into nothing and didn’t even register who she was for at least three seconds. Nicola barked at her angrily, asking if the baby had been fed and changed. When was the last time she’d washed herself and Amy? What the hell would Mark think of all this?