by Will Carver
‘Probably that little brat of hers,’ Margot Doyle exclaimed. ‘Always in trouble, that one.’ Her son, Dean, nuzzled himself into his mother’s leg and she rubbed his back affectionately.
Dean ‘The Provoker’ Doyle.
Dean ‘your mum is a killer’ Doyle.
‘Mum, when are we going home?’ he whined, wanting to get out of there before Mrs Raymond and her son emerged with information that would cast him in a bad – and accurate – light.
She stroked at her son’s cheek. ‘What’ve you done now?’ she asked, looking at the graze near his eye.
‘Nothing. I was in goal at lunchtime. Can we go now?’
‘Soon. We’ll go soon. We just have to wait for Mrs Raymond. Okay?’ And she hugged him tighter into her leg.
Telling your daughter she is a princess sets her up for failure.
‘Yes. We should wait,’ said another mother.
‘We should,’ agreed a different friend, looking up at the darkening sky. Both women meaning that they should wait maybe a minute longer before they reassess the situation.
The playground was clearing faster than the sky could fill with dread. Seconds turned into minutes, or at least they felt that way.
‘We don’t know how long she’s going to be. We could be stood out in the rain for ages.’
The insensitivity started pouring out of the circle before the door had swung shut behind Catherine Raymond. The wolves were making suggestions but it was up to Margot to make the final decision.
I hardly interfered.
This was who they were.
And, for all her failings, she hung on for longer than anyone expected.
‘Just a couple more minutes,’ she tried. She knew how it worked. If anything happened, it would be the Doyle name that suffered.
It was getting so dark that lights were turned on inside the school. There were now only four mothers left stranded and drowning in the downpour. Margot looked out onto Stanhope Road. There was no traffic and no people. Life had dispersed. The rain was now so heavy, looking over to the opposite side of the street was like watching a television that had lost its reception.
‘Okay. We waited. I think we are all agreed that we stayed here to support Catherine but, let’s face it, she’s left us high and dry … so to speak.’ Nobody agreed but they also didn’t disagree – leaving Margot entirely culpable should the decision result in a monumental blunder.
‘Come on, Dean. Hold Mummy’s hand.’
Dean ‘Princess’ Doyle.
She gripped her son firmly. ‘Stick together, ladies. Don’t fall behind. Let’s get home.’
And that was it. They followed Margot like sheep. Poisonous, calculating, selfish sheep.
It wasn’t until they were almost at the corner where they would all turn left off Stanhope Road that Margot really noticed the cut on Dean’s lip.
‘I fell,’ he lied.
He protested it again and again until his mother pieced the jigsaw together.
It was at that moment that she stalled. She stopped. She wanted to turn back and give Catherine Raymond and her bastard son a piece of her mind and her mouth.
The other mothers were not as interested. They were still walking.
And Margot Doyle found herself languishing at the back of the flock.
A FISH IN THE PERCOLATOR
The baby was used to the shouting. The screaming. Sometimes, the swearing. It had always been a part of life. He’d become accustomed to the noise. Six months old and desensitised to despair.
His brother was taking another verbal beating. He couldn’t do anything right. In trouble again. Little Charlie didn’t understand why Ben was always spoken to in that way, and he didn’t have to. He was warm in his pushchair and felt cuddled by the blanket that had been wrapped tightly around him, pinning his arms to his body and smothering his feet and legs.
The sound was muffled by the weather. Large droplets of water thrashing against the transparent cover that protected him from the wet. He couldn’t see much of the outside. It was all sound and smell.
The sound of voices nearby.
Shouting from a distance.
Then a sound he had never heard before. That no baby should ever have to hear. That no person would wish to witness.
All he knew to do was cry.
ONE DAY
Ben wept. The vocal scaldings, he was used to. It was her disappointment, her sadness that he could not handle. It was his fault that she felt that way. He had broken his promise. Just one day. It was only one day. He couldn’t stay out of trouble for one stupid day.
He’d tried to explain what had happened but his head teacher was not allowing him the opportunity to put across his side of the story. Dean Doyle had said some horrid things. Things Ben would never utter to another human being. Sure, he’d hit a few people and pushed some smaller kids around. He’d held his hands around Jess Hadley’s throat but he was sorry about that. About all of it.
Ben Raymond was not a spiteful boy. He was simply bigger than his own body.
His mother had fought his corner in there. Though a visit to Mrs Blake’s office was becoming an all-too-regular feature in the Raymonds’ week, Catherine refused to let the school preach to her about bullying and not see that it was exactly what they were doing to her son.
How easy it was for them to pin a misdemeanour on Ben because he had a record of behavioural issues. How lazy of them to assume he was in the wrong. How negligent of them to allow Dean ‘The Dick’ Doyle to wander free while Ben ‘The Bullied’ Raymond was reprimanded without question. Guilty until proven innocent.
If anyone was going to chastise the kid, it was going to be his own mother.
And that is exactly what she did.
Ben couldn’t understand every word his mother threw in his direction, she was even more high-pitched when angry. She swore as soon as they set foot on the playground, the blue door shutting heavily behind them. Then she lectured him and asked him questions that he knew she didn’t really want an answer for and she waved some folded papers she had in her handbag in front of his face and the rain made them wet. And he cried. And she cried. And the rain made everything look pretty.
His mother desisted, eventually. Ben took up his position next to the pushchair, holding on to the frame and walking downheartedly beside his little brother. It was more difficult that day because the rain cover was blocking the part of the frame Ben usually held. He didn’t want to complain. He’d done enough that day already.
On Stanhope Road, the only sound was the thwacking drumroll of water against concrete.
Then more shouting.
Ben could see people in the distance turning up the road he lived on, pushing babies like his mother and holding hands with their kids just like she used to. Mrs Doyle’s red hair was unmistakeable. It throbbed against the greying backdrop of Roylake. She was waving her hand. That fuckwit, Dean, was by her side – acting the victim, no doubt.
Ben felt the pushchair slow then halt. His mother did not say a thing. He was afraid to turn around and look at her. He could not see the disappointment in her eyes again that day.
The little boy was readying himself for the confrontation with the Doyles. And the aftermath where he would be made to suffer once more.
They were coming. Ben took a breath. His hair was flat against his head and rain was wriggling down his face, forming droplets that fell from the tip of his nose.
Then there was the noise.
Charlie started to cry next to him.
And he watched Mrs Doyle fall to the floor, dragging Dean down with her.
SPIT IT OUT
It had been playing on a loop all day, as these things so often do when no new evidence or information has appeared.
RD had been interviewed as a long-standing member of the community and local business owner. Salis and Anderson were two pillars of the community, ticking off the quota for law and religion, and Mrs Wallace was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was
caught unaware and asked a question about being a parent and still taking children to school in the wake of such horrific events.
LITTLE HENRY WALLACE WAS BRAVE
But he was also a child.
A hundred miles from home.
Alone.
And he missed his mother.
So, when he saw her on the television screen as the news stories looped around again and again, the officer in charge spotted the kid’s reaction to the sight of the woman and his suspicion was confirmed when Little Henry Wallace began to cry.
He wanted to go back to Hinton Hollow to his mother and brother and friends. The police officer worked on that to glean all the information required to take that poor boy home.
When the officer called Hinton Hollow police department, an out-of-breath Anderson picked up the phone.
‘I’m in a rush, can you please spit it out.’ The inspector could still make it in time for the end of school if he rushed the call and used one of the cars to drive down.
‘His name is Henry Wallace. We found him a few days ago on a train, on his own, not talking. He says that one of the women on the news about your town is his mother. We would like to bring him home and sort this mess out. Does that cover it enough, Inspector?’
Henry felt bad about not keeping his promise. That’s the kind of emotion that can let me in.
Everyone in Hinton Hollow was worried about the kids in school; I was worried about the one who was coming back.
EVERYTHING BETTER
Catherine Raymond had walked into the school office to find her son standing in front of Mrs Blake’s desk, his hands by his side and his gaze to the floor. The look on the headmistress’s face made Catherine want to punch her; she looked so smug, like she was proud to have dragged Catherine back in for another round of Ben bashing.
Blake just sat and watched while Catherine struggled backward through the door with her pushchair.
‘What’s going on? Are you all right, Ben?’
The little boy’s eyes lit up. He could see his mother. Not the mother who had been shouting at him for the last few months, the one who was tired and couldn’t be bothered to play or read or do puzzles with him. It was the other one. The mother he had before little Charlie came along. Ben straightened his back and puffed out his chest.
‘He’s fine, Mrs Raymond. Which is more than can be said for Dean Doyle who has a bruised eye and cut lip.’ Mrs Blake seemed different from the level-headed teacher who had preached discipline only the previous day.
‘Well, I wouldn’t know because I can’t see Dean Doyle or his mother in the room. They are waiting outside, though, if you’d like to bring them in.’
The mothers outside were already talking about leaving Catherine to rot.
‘This is not about the Doyle boy, this is about Ben and his persistently wayward behaviour.’
Ben winced. He looked up at his mother with sorry in his eyes. He meant it; she could see that. She screwed up her mouth in a way that let him know she was angry but it wasn’t with him. Her eyes were saying, step aside, I’ve got this.
Catherine Raymond put both hands on Mrs Blake’s desk and leant forward. It looked a little threatening. It was supposed to. She catapulted words in the direction of the stunned teacher, asking her questions but not giving her the time or opportunity to answer them.
Where is the Doyle boy? Why is he not on trial, too? What provoked Ben to behave in such a way? Is he not afforded the right to defend himself? What kind of meeting was this? Were the teachers taking the easy way out rather than addressing the larger problem? Where did she get off marching a grown woman into the office for a slap on the wrist? Who did she think she was?
All the while, Catherine’s thoughts were with the folded paper in her handbag. She so wanted to give it to Ben and this bitch was ruining everything. Why could he not have been good for just one day? Was it her fault? She should have kept him off school until things had settled in town.
The mood eventually settled into something more temperate. Catherine Raymond had supported her son. She had stuck up for him even though he had resorted to physical violence on another human being. She had shouted and cursed at the head of her son’s school.
And it had not been the darkness at work.
She was simply being a mother.
The result of the meeting was that Ben would be placed on report. At the end of each day, his teacher would fill out a page in a book describing Ben’s behaviour. It would teach him to take one day at a time, like he was a recovering alcoholic, or something. Catherine wasn’t even sure he would last a day but she didn’t say that out loud.
‘And what happens with the other boy? Dean Doyle,’ Catherine asked, wanting justice.
‘Well, I think he’ll be icing his eye and lip.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know what you meant, Mrs Raymond.’
‘I guess I’ll have a word with the Doyle family myself, as you clearly cannot do your job properly.’ She regretted that comment immediately after saying it but she knew that she was about to leave and the frustration was building in her once again. This time it was heading towards Ben. He’d ruined everything.
Mrs Blake said nothing. If you were doing your job properly as a mother then the school wouldn’t be forced into the position of disciplining the little brat. It was not a thought that usually entered her mind. She loved her job and usually had a real empathy for the more troubled children. But she’d had experiences that week. And they had changed her.
They were changing everybody.
‘Fucking bitches,’ Catherine cursed as she exited the school to find that her safety group had left her stranded in the pouring rain. The day was getting worse. She could feel herself sinking again.
‘You couldn’t just keep yourself to yourself for one day, could you, Ben? I have to get hauled into Mrs Blake’s office. Again. What did Dean do that was so bad, eh?’
Ben went to open his mouth but was cut off.
‘Oh, don’t even bother. Let’s just get home and then we’ll sort this mess out.’
She wasn’t annoyed at him. She was irritated that she’d been forced to behave in the manner she had. She supported her son even though he’d acted irrationally. Then Mrs Blake had still won somehow. And she’d been left alone and at risk by a bunch of selfish mothers. All she had wanted was to pick Ben up and surprise him with something nice. It was her way of saying I’m sorry for being a shit mother recently, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.
Ben was crying. It made her feel worse. She’d held the reward out in front of his face then taken it away. Look at what you could’ve had. It was wrong. She shouldn’t have done it. She just needed quiet. No more talking. No more shouting. No more confrontation.
Then she saw the bright red beacon that was the head of the woman who had deserted her and her boys because of a little drizzle.
Catherine Raymond stopped. Margot Doyle was dragging her goading little spawn towards her.
She looked down at her sons who were waiting patiently with her. Little Charlie, the baby who had surprised her with his unplanned existence, was obscured by the flecks of water that stuck to the surface of his rain cover. She could see the top of his head. Dark hair like his father. She swallowed.
Standing perfectly still next to the pushchair was Ben, her first-born, the one she had planned. He was waiting. He was demonstrating that he could be a good boy. Like he used to be. He’d just stopped crying, though, so he couldn’t look at her. And he knew when she needed quiet so he didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask why they had stopped. He didn’t comment on the Doyles moving closer and closer.
She reached a hand out to stroke him on the back of the head. Just that touch would have been enough to let Ben know that everything was all right, that his mother loved him, she would forgive him of anything.
Catherine withdrew her hand.
Then she closed her eyes.
DRIFTING
T
he man with the gun was standing in the rain. He had watched flocks of women and children being ushered out of the school towards the sanctity of home. But he had not panicked. There would be somebody. And they would be perfect. There was weakness. With mothers, there was always weakness.
The rain was washing the reality away from the scene playing out in front of his eyes. He was invisible to the four women packed closely together. The last rabble, kids huddled between them as though muscle and fat and bone and sheer force of will would be enough to protect them.
He watched. The woman with the bright-red hair stopped but the others did not. She was the lame or injured cub who limped behind its stronger siblings.
Then, to the left, another. Perhaps more feeble. He had seen her before. That day when he had approached Rachel Hadley. She was fast that day. She was strong.
He drank it all in, this man, this ordinary man. He soaked up the situation. And he knew he did not have much time. It would have to be now.
The mothers and children were walking towards each other. The one with the vibrant hair must have seen him cross the road because she started shouting but the storm swallowed her words.
He pushed his gun into the back of Catherine Raymond’s head and told her to be quiet. He asked her the same question that he had asked Faith Brady. The same as he had asked Rachel Hadley.
She did not have to die; she simply had to make a choice.
He could not imagine that she would have him kill the baby. It would be the boy with his back turned to her. That was his guess. But, Faith Brady had chosen her youngest child. And, in his mind, Rachel Hadley was protecting herself, not her children, when she attacked him.
The mother with the gun poking at her skull did not answer him straight away. He could hear Margot Doyle in the background, still yelling and dragging her son by the arm.
Directly ahead of him, he saw this mother raise her right hand. He was wary. He recalled Rachel Hadley’s angered reaction. But this woman was not going to strike him. She was reaching out to her son.