Boy A (23 page)

Hacendado was ghosted halfway through the Boks: moved in the middle of the night to a different prison. No reason was given, but it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. He was allowed only his essentials, so
A
inherited his wealth. And had the cell to himself for a while. He used to get the soaps out and dust their pearly skin while he listened to the radio. He never sold or rented any of the stuff. It didn’t seem right. So he lost it all when he got starred up: sent to adult prison. Allowed to keep only the trainers that he’d had on his feet.

Adult prison was easier.
A
, obviously a graduate, was left alone. It was a much less aggressive place anyway. Three or four times less attacks than Feltham, they reckoned. Fewer men in for violent crime, and there seemed like less to prove. Most were pros, took a fall as a part of the job, same
as watching
Antiques Roadshow
. Looking for tips, not looking for grief, just counting the days until release.

They moved him to Ford Open Prison, near the end, when his EDR approached. A wind-down, to adjust the institutionalized to freedom. The mattresses were still Rizlathin, rumpling under him in the night, so that every morning started uncomfortable. They were still fenced in too, but freedom isn’t about open spaces. It’s about doing what you want to do. Most days were still like playing the same tape over and over; but the music was much better in open prison.

Some people had spent their whole sentences at Ford. Embezzle a bank and you get a different ride to robbing one. There was a disgraced cabinet minister in there, and a failed mayor. Both Tories, hard on crime and punishment. Both as famous as him, or the boy he’d once been. Mostly they kept their heads down and their mouths shut. In a way
A
felt sorry for the toffs that had it soft, because for everyone else Ford was the finishing posts. They had to watch while one by one all around them were freed. One of them said once that it cost the same to keep a man in prison as it had to send his daughters to Cheltenham Ladies College. It made
A
wonder about the money that had been spent on him over the years. What could have been done with it.

They tried to teach them skills at Ford. Skills other than weaving lines out of blankets to pass things between cells.
A
started to cook, which he hadn’t done since the secure accommodation. He felt a pride when the steady crackle and bubble of pans was his to command. He was allowed to cook a meal for Terry once.

Terry came by quite often. Visiting was much more relaxed. Everything was more relaxed, even the screws.
A
supposed that the high cat. prisons punished the staff too.

A
couldn’t believe he was going to be freed until Terry confirmed it. It was too big, he couldn’t grasp the idea. He
was even allowed to choose his own first name. It seemed like a psychologist’s game, another trick to try and get inside his mind. So he picked one that was straightforward, normal, that gave nothing away. Which were also things he wanted to become.

Terry gave
A
one last pair of shoes, on the day that he became Jack. A set of brilliant white Nike Air Escape. Top name. Top of the range. Top of the world. And on top of the box were some words of advice, from the goddess of victory, not Terry: ‘Just Do It’, they said. And he did.

And in the car, which might as well have been a plane, because it took him to another world, and travelled faster than seemed possible without taking off, it was explained that he had family again. Because Terry was now his uncle.

Terry groans awake. Alcohol is a curse, like something out of Dante. The more you drink, the more you want to drink, and still you’re left dehydrated. That’s a better torture than pushing boulders uphill. His hand clutches around the bedside table, hoping to find a glass of water. Failing to do so at about the same pace as his brain reminds him he forgot to put one there. He can feel the daylight beyond his eyelids, but wants to delay it a moment or two longer. The rude electronic abuse of his alarm clock is still going, though. There isn’t any satisfaction in lying in bed with its torrent bouncing around the walls. He’d throw something at it, but it sits beside the desk his computer’s on. Well, the police’s computer. It’s a lot of kit, and it’s Jack’s lifeline. You can’t mess around with that.

He can hear his son clattering around in the kitchen, probably cooking him breakfast again. He’s changed since he’s come up here, or maybe Terry’s just noticed it now they’re spending a bit of time together. He used to be so surly, so uncooperative, like he’d been in teenage suspended animation. He’ll be twenty-seven next year, Terry’s pretty sure. How old does that make him? He staggers to the cheap wood-framed mirror on the bedroom wall. Not such a good plan.

There was an item on Radio 4 about how Mick Jagger was pissed off because they put his picture on the front of
Saga
magazine. Terry rubs at the yellow goo that lines his bloodhound eyes. If he looked as good as Jagger he wouldn’t care where they put his picture. These days he feels as wrinkled as Keith Richards’ bollock.

‘Breakfast’s ready,’ comes a shout from the kitchen. ‘Do you want it in bed?’

‘No, I’m just coming,’ Terry croaks.

Breakfast in bed. Zebedee’s really grown up. It’s taken over twenty-five years but he’s finally there. ‘Zebedee’; well, you can hardly blame the boy for resenting him a bit, saddled with that for life. He was named for the
Magic Roundabout
though, not the Bible. They were different times. Should have called him Ben, for Mr Ben, the number of different jobs he’s had.

Terry crosses the hallway in his dressing gown and into the flat’s kitchen. Zebedee grins and salutes with a spatula.

‘You all right, Dad?’ he says. ‘We knocked back the whisky last night.’

He’s wearing a Fred Perry shirt; the tight sleeves emphasize his probably steroid-enhanced arms. Old Fred must be back in, Terry thinks, for Zeb to be wearing it. Everything he wears seems to have someone else’s name on it: Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Sergio Tacchini. When Terry was growing up he used to wear clothes with other names on too, tags in the back from the previous owner. It’s funny, but he’s never lusted after money, like some of his friends from those days did. Not having it never made it mystical. Money’s a metaphor, that’s all, it’s standing in for what you need, and so you need
it
to a point, but it’s not the be all and end all; it has no intrinsic value. Cuts your fingers when it’s new and stinks when it’s old, that’s what Terry always says about money. Didn’t make much of an impact on Zeb, though.

Zebedee carefully transfers an egg, two sausages and two rashers of bacon from a large frying pan to his father’s plate; on which a monstrous split, grilled tomato already lounges. He cracks two more eggs for his own breakfast, while Terry sits down, staring at the mountain of food for a moment, feeling slightly queasy, knowing that the grease will help to set him right, though. Or else give him a coronary. It’s all right for his son; he’s probably off to the gym, calories converted to muscle by lunchtime. He’s laid out the usual suspects of condiments on the Formica table, and Terry takes the ketchup, squeezes a splash of colour between the dead pig products. A scab of decrepit sauce has formed around the plastic lid of the bottle. He scrapes it off with a fingernail, and then regrets doing so, when he sees nowhere better to put it. In the end he wipes it on his dressing gown, which needs a wash anyway. Zeb puts a cup of coffee down beside him, and Terry says: ‘Ah, thank you,’ and picks up his knife and fork, as if he’d just been waiting for this final piece of the puzzle to begin. He dunks a chunk of his tomato into the ketchup, before he realizes the absurdity of the action, and then finds that, in fact, even tomato is improved with ketchup.

After five minutes of hunting, Terry locates his tie, hanging from the key on the back of the wardrobe door, still formed in yesterday’s noose. He slips it over his head and tightens it to an approximation of straight. He’s got other ties, but they don’t have his ID clipped to them. He scratches up a pocketful of coins from the sideboard, as he shouts goodbye, and grabs his wallet and keys. At least it’s Friday.

The car skips the first start. It’s just messing with him, though; comes in with a roaring over-rev when he hits the accelerator on the second try. He had to pull a lot of strings to get his job transferred up here, to work in another secure unit, alongside being Jack’s liaison. Everything’s gone like clockwork so far. He doesn’t want today to be his first fuckup.
He’d swear Zebedee’s trying to turn him into an alcoholic. They’ve been getting drunk far too frequently since he moved in. But it’s been good to spend a bit of quality time with his son. They haven’t had that much of it. Though Zeb’s always been close to his heart. He laughs to himself, at his little joke, and touches the medallion behind his shirt. It can open up, like a tomato, split into two neat halves; and inside that secret space there’s a pair of tiny photos: one of a baby Zeb and one of a young Zeb, taken not long before the divorce. Terry’s worn it ever since then. Of course he’d never tell Zebedee about the hidden compartment. Zeb’d think he was a sentimental old fool. No, they don’t have that kind of a relationship.

He turns on the radio as he eases out of the side-streets and into the rush-hour traffic. He’s just about on schedule. Still feeling rougher than ideal, for a full day of dealing with disturbed kids; but the fry-up and the aspirin are starting to kick in. Two girls are waiting for a bus, next to where his Sierra stops for the red light. College kids, by the looks of it, probably art students – they’re wearing flares.

When Terry wore flares they meant something; they were a statement of intent, not just a fashion statement. No one gives a shit any more, that’s the way it seems. Where are all the marches? Where are the demonstrators? Has no one noticed the world’s worse than ever?

There’s a fly in the car. It should have died off by now, or hibernated or whatever flies do. Maybe it had and the heating’s woken it up. It’s moving tiredly around, banging at the windows, buzzing at the tension in Terry’s head. It’s a big, blue, loud bugger. He swipes at it with a backhand, and swerves over the white lines, nearly hitting a Cherokee in the inside lane. It veers away, mimicking his movement, heading for the pavement, but seeing the pedestrians there it swings back again, over-compensating. Crunch. Terry jerks forwards in his seatbelt.

Shit. Whose fault’s that? He started the swerving, but it was the Cherokee that hit him. They weren’t going that fast, maybe it’s not too bad. He gets out of the car and the fly plunges out with him. The Jeep looks all right; it’s got massive steel side-protectors fitted, thinly disguised as steps. The left-front wing of Terry’s trusty Sierra is crumpled like foil on to its wheel. The driver of the Cherokee gets out, and smiles in slightly smug satisfaction at the unblemished state of his vehicle. He’s young, tall, balding, chalk-striped. Someone sounds their horn from the midst of the traffic which is rapidly piling up behind them. The man raises a long arm to the sound, with a single finger at the end of it. But concedes to Terry, in a public school accent which doesn’t fit in Manchester, that they’d better pull over to swap details.

Terry bends down to try and pull the wing from the tyre it’s bitten into. He can’t get it out; clumps of rust and road dust crumble away on his hands. He looks up to see where the Cherokee driver has parked. And discovers that the man has simply driven off while his back was turned. Cars are tearing through the empty space next to him, gunning their engines to demonstrate their displeasure at being held up.

‘Do you think I did it on purpose?’ Terry shouts, to no one in particular.

Eventually, a car heeds Terry’s indicator, and lets him pull over the inside lane and on to the pavement. Luckily he’s rear-wheel drive. But the front tyre that isn’t turning properly leaves a scar of rubber on the road; and his engine sounds like it would burn out under any more strain.

He phones the secure unit, apologizing profusely. Knowing this means some of the boys will have little or no activity today. Then he phones the AA. Maybe it’s better him and the Jeep driver didn’t get into blame for the prang. They’d probably have had to get the police involved; he might technically still be over the drink-drive limit. Terry can usually see a bright side.

He wonders whether the Sierra’s worth repairing, while he waits for the canary yellow cavalry. He can’t even remember how long he’s had it. From the days when Jack was still in the home, he knows that. And Jack used to ask about the car when Terry visited the prisons.

‘How’s the motor, Terry?’ he’d say, a proper little cockney. He’d sounded like a kid from Byker Grove when Terry first met him. First realized there was something more to him. It was the day his mother died that changed it all. Terry can remember sitting down on the bed and putting his arm around that puny, ugly, despisable child, and discovering that he could love it.

And somehow after that, the boy had become like his ward, his responsibility. None of the other staff in the secure accommodation had much time for him anyway. They weren’t cruel at all, just didn’t seem to care. Except that second psychiatrist, maybe, Elizabeth something. She was the only one that ever seemed to really try. Him and Jack both had a lot to thank her for: she’d made the recommendations that had led to the ruling allowing them to maintain contact. All of this would be different if it weren’t for her. And she’d made the breakthrough with the boy. It had started to seem like he really might not be guilty, he denied it so strongly, until she’d helped him to come to terms with what he’d done.

What had he done? Something horrible, something terrible, but something he’d done as a child. Can you commit murder in innocence? It’s too big a thing for the human mind to take in, that’s the problem. And it grew with the ever-larger newspaper pictures of a girl who was near enough an angel, even before she died. Only the young die good. And Angela Milton died young enough to be perfect. A martyr to modern society. Evidence that we are fucked. Though records suggest we always have been. Her hair and eyes had clamoured from the front pages of every paper:
‘Never mind locking away, let them swing.’ One of them did. She was only ten, but had looked twelve, would soon have been sixteen, though nobody said it. ‘The Angel that could have been a model’, wrote the
Star
and the
Sun
, brave upholders of women’s rights.