Zed laughed.
“My socks are well trained.” Henry smiled. “Just a little slow.”
Jonas huffed.
“We’ll give you an allowance of ten pounds a week,” Henry said, “but we’ll pay for clothes, books, travel costs, trips out, anything required by the school. The ten pounds are for you to do what you like with. Spend or save. If you need something big, ask us. Oh, and I’m getting you a phone and a laptop.”
Zed seriously worried he was going to cry.
“Any idea about A levels?” Jonas asked.
“Music, geography and maths.”
“And further maths too?”
Zed nodded. Could he manage that?
“I’ll get onto the school tomorrow.” Henry pushed to his feet. “There’s no TV in your room. Do you want one?”
“No thanks.”
Jonas held out his hand and Henry put a five-pound note in his palm.
“Jonas said you’d say no.”
“I’d like it in the bathroom, please,” Zed said.
Both men laughed.
They cleared the table, took everything back to the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher.
“Like to play us something?” Jonas asked.
“Okay.”
When Zed walked into the music room, he stopped so quickly, he stumbled.
“A gift for you,” Henry said.
A cello. Then Zed did cry. It was Jonas who wrapped his arms around him and Zed clung to him.
“Happy tears?” Jonas whispered.
Zed nodded but they were guilty tears too because he was thinking of Caspian and how Caspian’s world had shrunk while his had grown.
The following evening, Jonas gave Teddy Robinson back to Zed.
“Wow. He looks fantastic. Thank you.” He wanted to hug the bear, but he was too old to do it in front of anyone.
“These are for you too,” Henry said and handed over a laptop and phone.
“Thank you. Those two words don’t seem enough. But thank you. I should phone Tamaz.”
“Yes, you should,” Henry said. “What are you going to tell him?”
“That I don’t want to be a burden to him, that I’ve been found a place to live in Greenwich and I’m going to go to school to do my A levels. I think I need to give him that much or he’ll be suspicious, but I can say I don’t want to tell him the address because if our father asks, I don’t want Tamaz to lie. I should offer to meet him.”
Henry nodded. “I suggest the park. But tell me when and where.”
“You’re going to watch me?”
“We don’t want your father swooping in. Or anyone else.”
Zed shuddered. “Let me call him while you’re listening. Then if it looks as if I’m saying something I shouldn’t, you can stop me.”
“Fine. This is how to put the phone on speaker.”
Zed tapped in the number. Henry sat next to him while Jonas sat on the couch and watched.
Tamaz answered quickly. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Alhamdulillah!”
Of course the first words would be to praise Allah.
“Are you okay? No one would tell me anything. Are you still in Woodbury?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Not in prison. My lawyer told me Parwez confessed to planning to detonate a suicide bomb at the Olympics but said I wasn’t involved.”
“They believed him?”
Zed glanced at Henry. “Well, I wasn’t involved but he implicated Wasim and…” Henry shook his head. “…some others so I guess they thought if I was involved, he’d have blamed me too.”
“Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”
“There’s no need. Social services have found a family for me to live with. They’re really nice. They don’t make me eat zaban.”
Tamaz laughed. “I wouldn’t make you eat it either.”
“I know, but I’m okay here. More than okay. You have enough to do without having to look after me and I don’t want to make things difficult for you with Dad. It’s better that I stay here. I have my own room and they bought me a… laptop.” He’d nearly said cello. “And this phone.”
“Where are you living?”
“Greenwich. You want to come and see me? Not at the house. Maybe in the park?”
“Why not at the house?”
Henry shook his head.
“I’m not supposed to have people here while they’re at work.” Zed winced. That was weak. “I mean, they don’t know me yet. I might run off with their TV. Though it’s humongous.”
Tamaz chuckled. “All right. Where then? What time?”
“The Pavilion Café in Greenwich park? Whatever time works for you. Still the school holidays for me for a few more weeks.”
“Eleven thirty tomorrow. I’ll buy you lunch. I hear they do zaban.”
Zed mock-gagged and they ended the call.
“Well done,” Henry said. “Now we need to practise what you say.”
Tamaz was waiting at the café when Zed arrived. He flung his arms around Zed and hugged him. Henry had told him someone would be watching, just in case, but it wouldn’t be him or Jackson.
“Inside or out?” Tamaz asked.
“Out. It’s too nice to sit indoors.”
They ordered from the waitress. Tamaz insisted on buying Zed lunch.
“I’m so glad you’re out of Woodbury,” Tamaz said.
“I was really scared.”
“Dad is still going on about you coming home.”
“I won’t. Now I’m sixteen he can’t make me. I want to do the subjects I like at A level and not the ones he picked for me.”
“He only wants the best for you.”
“He thinks he can beat that into me?”
Tamaz sighed. “So how did you do in your GCSEs?”
“Eleven A*s.”
Tamaz gaped at him. “That’s amazing.” Then he frowned. “I thought you were doing ten?”
Shit. “I did a GCSE in Farsi in my own time.”
That earned him a broad smile.
“Have you heard from Fahid?” Zed asked.
The smile vanished. “He’s gone back to Pakistan. Don’t talk of him again.”
“He left me in the house and ran. I might have been trawled up in what they were planning. I was trawled up. I went with Parwez to get the tickets for the event he was going—”
Tamaz grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard enough to make Zed yelp. “No more about Fahid.”
“You think he was wrong though, don’t you? I was worried you had something to do with it.”
“I said no more. Forget it ever happened.”
Oh shit.
Zed went back to the house and told Henry everything. He could almost remember it word for word. Henry made no comment apart from praising him for his quick thinking on the GCSE, but Zed worried he’d just hammered a nail into Tamaz’s coffin.
School was better than Zed could ever have imagined. He wasn’t bullied. He’d made friends. The work was hard but studying subjects he liked made all the difference. He joined the orchestra and started to learn the guitar as his third instrument. He’d even been asked to be in a band. Not that he’d be telling his piano or cello teachers, but Zed thought he liked the guitar best. If it hadn’t been for Caspian, Zed would have thought life was more or less perfect.
But he would not forget Caspian.
He saved up his allowance and bought propelling pencils, notebooks and an MP3 player and posted them to Woodbury. He wrote to him every week but Caspian never wrote back. Zed knew he didn’t like writing, but he still thought he might have managed a short note.
In the end, worry drove him to ask Henry to find out if Caspian was still in Woodbury. He was. Zed didn’t give up. He was careful about what he said to Caspian because going on about how great his life now was when Caspian was locked up in prison was just going to hurt him.
But his life was great because it was full of music. He played the cello while Jonas played
his violin. He accompanied Jonas on the piano. He went with him to LSO rehearsals and sat at the back listening.
One day Jonas told him he could play the piano after they’d finished rehearsing. Zed crept onto the stage and played the powerful opening chords of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. It sounded so much better in a proper auditorium. While he was playing, Jonas came back with his violin and played alongside him. Then another person joined him and another until about half the orchestra had returned. It was the best feeling ever.
SUMMER FOUR
Chapter Seventeen
2013
Caspian’s case came to court the following May. He’d been on remand in Woodbury longer than almost anyone in there. He’d have been in court sooner but the mother of one of the girls had killed herself a few days before Christmas. His PO had told him on Christmas Eve the reason why his court appearance in February had been postponed. Caspian was pretty sure the timing was deliberate.
He hardly moved off his bed the next day. He didn’t have anything to eat, even though it was supposed to be the best meal of the year. His pad mate, who worked in the kitchen, had gone on and on about it and Caspian had pulled the pillow over his head, part wishing he could suffocate himself.
He’d wondered if Lachlan had spared the woman a thought or whether his brother had by now convinced himself he hadn’t even been fucking driving that day.
Christmas had probably proceeded as usual at home. Only artistic decorations allowed. Strategically placed holly, red berries compulsory. Colour-coordinated baubles on trees in the dining room, drawing room and hall. Elaborate parties pre and post-Christmas Day.
They exchanged gifts after breakfast. Tasteful, expensive presents to be opened carefully, admired by everyone, followed by a huge amount to eat. Games played. A bit of TV watched. Everyone having fun. A ski trip to follow. Caspian bet they’d still gone skiing. He tried not to torture himself wondering what Zed was doing, but it was hard. He’d find out soon enough. Zed was still writing to him every week even though Caspian didn’t write back. He lived for Zed’s letters but he couldn’t let him think they had a future.
Every time his lawyer came to see him, he asked Caspian if he wanted to change his mind about pleading guilty, pointing out that silence would allow people to assume the worst. Caspian didn’t care. Appleby didn’t ask if Caspian had been driving. He just assumed that was the case. Efforts to try and get him to explain exactly what had happened on the basis the charge might be reduced to careless driving failed. When the lawyer said they could use Caspian’s dyslexia in his favour, that a psychologist would produce a report, Caspian had told him to fuck off and not come back, but he had. He had no power to stop him.
Caspian had been persuaded to attend a course about forgiveness because he refused to engage about what he was supposed to have done. He did the course but wouldn’t speak. He also wouldn’t speak to the prison psychologist who knew all about him, his background, his education, his dyslexia, everything except the truth. What are you afraid of? the guy had asked. The answer, though Caspian maintained his silence, was that if he started to talk, he wouldn’t be able to stop.
He also had to see a probation officer who was responsible for writing a pre-sentence report that would be given to the judge and prosecution and defence lawyers. The report was supposed to consider Caspian’s age and maturity, the seriousness of the offence, his family circumstances, any previous offending history and whether he admitted what he’d done. Caspian gave some personal details, but he refused to discuss what happened that day, refused to show remorse and refused to admit the offence.
When the report was done, Caspian was given it to read. It took him a while. He didn’t come out of it looking good. Unable to come to terms with his situation. Unwilling to cooperate or engage with those trying to help him.
His lawyer was furious with him. How am I going to get you out of here if you sabotage yourself?
The first thing Zed sent Caspian were propelling pencils, an eraser and sketch books. An MP3 player that Naughton had delivered with the comment—someone’s getting preferential treatment—was hardly ever out of Caspian’s pocket. Along with the music he and Zed had listened to, Zed had recorded himself on the piano, cello and guitar. There was a song called For You that Caspian found hard to listen to without choking up. Zed’s voice was… perfect.
Always for you
Only for you
I long for you
I breathe for you
Please breathe for me
Please long for me
I’m waiting for you
Zed’s letters were all about school and the two guys he lived with. Tamaz was rarely mentioned. Caspian worried when a letter didn’t arrive from Zed, yet he also wished Zed wasn’t writing to him. Zed was making it all so much harder. Though Caspian devoured the words because they gave him life, kept him breathing. He’d wanted to let Zed go but he couldn’t, not until Zed let go of him.
Caspian decided to write back and he’d managed to write short letters and poems only to rip them up again. He was supposed to be pushing Zed away, though what was there to say? His world was tiny and repetitive, unsafe, always teetering on the brink, subject to unpredictable eruptions and there was nowhere to run. Caspian knew everyone in the wing but had no friends. No one did, though they might think otherwise.
It wasn’t easy to hear about the outside world without feeling jealous. He knew Zed was being careful about what he told him, playing down fun stuff. He had a life and Caspian didn’t begrudge him that. How could he? But it hurt because it was a life without him.
Zed couldn’t visit on his own until he was eighteen. He’d tried to come on several occasions but Caspian had refused to see him. He didn’t want to hurt him, but Zed was hurting himself by clinging to the hope that they could have a life together. From the moment Lachlan had hit the girls with his car, Caspian’s future had been set in stone. In the brief time he’d had in here with Zed, he should have been building a wall, pushing him away and instead he’d clung to him until the last moment. Zed had the chance to fly without him and Caspian had lost the chance to make him see that. Now all he could do was not write to him, not see him.
Caspian wouldn’t accept visits from his family either, he ripped up every letter they sent, refused every gift, destroyed his birthday cards, tore up photographs and wouldn’t use the money they put in his account. He kept every one of Zed’s letters. He could read them without faltering because he knew them off by heart.
He was polite and respectful, but only spoke when he had to. He attended lessons and tried to learn but still struggled. The teachers were kinder and more patient than he was used to but Caspian felt doomed to his level of literacy. Almost half of those in Woodbury had some form of learning difficulty; dyslexia or attention deficit something or other. Eighty percent had a type of mental disorder. Caspian thought he probably fell into that category too. Being locked up made the sanest person crazy.
Most of them didn’t pay attention in class, particularly in maths. They knew they needed it to get a job but the majority were worse than Caspian.
“What’s five times one?” the teacher had asked one guy.
The idiot had fucking got it wrong.
“What's 560 pence in pounds?”
A different guy had said, “560 pounds. No…er…56 pounds.”
Caspian had looked out of the window in despair. He saw now how disruptive boys who didn’t want to learn or couldn’t learn could be. There was a one-way mirror on the side of the classroom, allowing security staff to monitor what was happening inside. But they were looking for violence not chatter.
Sometimes the teacher picked up on it. “Let's not talk about beating someone up, boys. It's not a nice conversation.”
Yeah, right.
Pens were removed from them at the end of the lesson and they were searched before they could leave. Yet Caspian was allowed pencils in his cell. Sometimes rules made no sense.
T
aking classes filled time and that was all Caspian was interested in, apart from the money he earned and used in the vending machine to buy essentials like toothpaste. Hard to express any enthusiasm for studying creative writing, healthy living, catering, motor vehicle maintenance, horticulture or industrial cleaning.
Nor did he want to work in the kitchen, laundry or library, but he needed money for basics so he chose to work in the gym, tidying equipment, wiping it down, cleaning the floor. He took guitar classes in the evenings and finally found something he enjoyed and was good at. But guitars weren’t allowed in your pad. Strings could be lethal. The guy in with him now seemed okay but how could Caspian know what he was thinking—planning?
While his conventional education stuttered along, he learnt plenty of stuff he wasn’t supposed to know. Put in prison to be taught a lesson, they learnt the wrong lesson instead. He overheard others discuss the best way and right time to break into houses, the make of cars still easy to steal, how to rob convenience stores, how to weigh up drugs and sell them at the best profit, how to get visitors to bring you drugs, which prison officers could be bribed. His cellmate was yet another drug dealer and because Caspian didn’t touch them he was apparently the perfect person to share a pad with. But sometimes, when he saw the blissed-out state that could be attained, he wondered about the point of denying himself a way out, even if it was a temporary one. Unhappiness and anxiety were hard to cope with day after day.
Few people bothered him. He tried to stay out of trouble, but trouble happened, so he learned how to fight. Being quick was the most important thing. Any altercation would only last seconds, maybe minutes before a guard stepped in, not always fast enough to stop an inmate getting hurt. Caspian never started any fight, tempting as it had sometimes been because there were some dickheads in there, but he’d been attacked and been glad he’d known how to defend himself, how to hurt the other person as quickly and efficiently as he could, where to kick, bite or punch. When to back away. Never to snitch.
He drew the line at making shanks or shivs but he admired the inventiveness. Toothbrushes were turned into weapons by heating handles with a lighter or by short-circuiting a battery. Caspian had heard that one guy had even made a shank by melting sweets and moulding them inside tin foil. There was no way Caspian was risking making a weapon.
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