The Mother (2 page)

I have seen the courtroom already. Nipa brought me here last Friday for a visit after the court day had ended and I saw it then. I shake my head. He will be there from the start. “Do we know if he's actually going to give evidence?”

Quigg says, “Not yet. As soon as we know either way, we'll let you know.”

I take a deep breath. “What about the mother?”

Nipa answers this time. “She'll be upstairs in the public gallery as well. I'll make sure she doesn't speak to you or sit beside you.”

I nod. The legal team talk about the case in whispers, about strategies and documents. Nipa is leaning against the wall beside the bench, doing the thing she does so well, of being present unobtrusively. I need to focus on something else, stop thinking about myself.

I ask Lorna, “Did Leah get away okay?” My niece. Eighteen. Alive and doing the normal things you expect your eighteen-year-old to be doing; off on the great adventure of university and independence for the first time. She wouldn't be talked into attending a London uni close to home where we could keep an eye on her, make sure she was safe, chose instead to go to Nottingham, which has the highest murder rate in the country.

“Auntie, people can be killed anywhere,” she had said, then hugged me.

“If leaving half the stuff you need to get you through the year at home, then phoning your mother to drop it off at the weekend as an emergency, counts as getting away okay, then yes, she did,” Lorna says. “So of course, I've got to go up to Nottingham tomorrow. Why don't you come? Keep me company on the drive?”

It's strange having a weekend break so soon, hardly seems worthwhile this case starting on a Friday, just enough time to get going followed by an entire weekend to dwell on it before continuing.

“I'll think about it,” I say. I don't have anything else planned but I know better than to commit myself to future
events, never really know till the morning what kind of day it'll be. “I'll ring you early if I am.”

“Are you nervous?” Lorna asks.

I shake my head. “I don't think so.” And it's true, I'm not nervous, I'm impatient. I've been impatient for this case to begin and now it's about to, I'm impatient for it to be over, impatient for closure—if such a thing is possible—impatient to understand why my son is dead.

Nipa comes over. “We should go up to the public gallery now, in case there's a queue, make sure we get our seats. You ready?”

Lorna and I stand. I'm as ready as I can be. “Yes.”

We say goodbye to Quigg and Henry and Isabelle. Henry tells me not to worry, we have a strong case and Quigg is excellent at what she does. I thank him. A court official leads us through the building to the hallway outside the public gallery of Court 16. We wait there in silence till the court session begins and the security guard allows us inside.

The public gallery is a small space crammed with three rows of seats. The security guard tells us that the first bench is reserved for family members only, which isn't very reassuring because of course family includes not only family members of the victim, in this case my son, but also family members of the boy who murdered him; the small front row is for both sets of family to share. There is a space in the courtroom I could have sat in, but I couldn't get permission for Lloydie and Lorna and Nipa as well. Even though he isn't here now, I harbor the hope my husband will come to his senses and join us. I sit in the public gallery like anyone else, the three of us at the far end, Lorna beside the wall, me in the middle, and Nipa on the other side of me like a bodyguard.

Other members of the public file into the seats behind us. Two of Ryan's friends have come along. They are young, as he was, tall boys masquerading as men, unsure how to behave in this formal space. I have fed and watered them for years, lovely boys, bright, polite. Luke leans over from the row behind, hugs me, cannot find words, just shakes his head and hugs me hard again, then composes himself, gets himself under control, sits down. The boy with him is Ricardo, who waits his turn patiently, then hugs me as well. The rows fill up behind us. I don't recognize anyone else, a number of individuals who appear to be on their own, an elderly couple dressed up as if attending an evening at the theater, and a group of four young girls who could be students of some kind or might equally well have known my son. I turn around and focus on the courtroom below us.

He is bigger than the last time I saw him, bulkier. Prison food must agree with him or maybe stodge agrees with him, and I don't know why I'm calling prison food stodge when for all I know he's probably eating a better-balanced diet than Lloydie and Ryan and I ever did. And anyway, that bulk isn't fat. The extra weight looks like muscle, solid, as if he has been working out nonstop every day and eating steroids. His face is fuller and the fullness of his cheeks makes him look younger, but there is nothing childish about the way he holds himself or the expression on his face. Tyson Manley.

Ryan went through a growth spurt that started when he was fourteen. It began one day out of the blue and just didn't stop. Over two years he went from five foot two inches to five eleven. We had to replace his wardrobe about three times. I don't know if his growth spurt had ended, will never know the exact height my son would have achieved as a man, the
heights. His was the growth particular to adolescent boys, as if he'd simply been stretched on a rack, a lengthening that left him thin and gangly, slightly awkward, as if his limbs were too much, too long, as if he wasn't quite used yet to occupying more space.

Tyson Manley is not like that. He fully inhabits his frame. His body language suggests he is completely in control of every limb, every muscle, almost in command of the space around him. It is the body language of an older man, one who is established and doing well, confident and yet relaxed, and this is reinforced by the suit he wears, brown, expensive, designer, perfectly coordinated with the colors of his shirt and flamboyant tie. It unsettles me, this juxtaposition of manhood and his boyish face. He has an old scar running from the left corner of his mouth that stops mere millimeters from his eye, and it emphasizes the overall impression of a boy who means business.

He is sitting in a chair on the other side of a glass wall, between two people who look like officers of the court, but who I know from Nipa are actually employed by the prison service. His seat is at one end of the courtroom directly opposite the judge's bench on the other, and though the judge has not yet entered, Tyson Manley stares so fixedly in that direction you would think the judge was sitting there speaking to him about something totally engrossing. And although the court is filling up, with our legal team and his legal team and several clerks and a number of other people whose function I have not yet determined, despite the chatter and movement and noise, he stares ahead as if it is all beneath him, and as usual I find it unnerving. I have to say that this single quality in him is enough to convince me he did it, is guilty, because
he has something in his aura of the type of person who could kill someone at six thirty, stroll home, have dinner and a hot bath, followed by an early night of unbroken sleep. That's what makes me think he's done it, his aura, and of course the fact he knows the girl without a proper name; I just don't know why. Understanding has been my problem from the start. How is it possible for my son to have been doing all the right things, that as parents, Lloydie and I, we were doing all the right things, and yet still Ryan is dead? This is the crux of my difficulty, the reason why, unlike my husband, I have to be here. I pray he does take the stand. I want to hear from his own mouth why he did this. I know it is his prerogative to speak or remain silent, but I need him to explain so I can properly understand. Perhaps if I can understand, I can come to terms with it, because so far I have not; I have not come to terms with the fact that I will never see or speak to or hold my son again. I can't get my head around how this could have happened.

Ms. Manley hasn't arrived yet though it is now just after ten. I'd feel more relaxed if she were here already. It would be over then, she could sit down and we could all move forward. Instead I am awaiting her arrival with trepidation. I am almost as obsessed with her as I am with her son. What kind of mother would turn up late to her son's murder trial? The answer is obvious; the kind of mother whose son could commit murder in the first place. I force myself to focus on the activity in the courtroom below. The public gallery is elevated above the courtroom and the view from where I sit is a good one. I am side on to Tyson Manley, which means I can study him throughout without his noticing; no expression or response shall escape me. I am also opposite the jury box, so I will be able to monitor the impact of the evidence on the
jurors once the trial gets going. And I can see the witness stand and the judge's bench clearly.

The clerk who sits at the table in front of the bench gets up and walks over to the adjacent doorway and loudly says, “Court rise! All persons having any business with the court draw near and give your attendance. God save the Queen.”

And everyone begins to stand, including the officers behind the glass with Tyson Manley, till everyone is standing except him, and only as the judge actually enters the courtroom does he rise slowly, as if bored with the proceedings already, and when the judge sits down, everyone else's cue to sit down, as with standing, he is the last to take his seat. It is deliberate and annoying, being difficult simply for the heck of it, and I wonder what he would have been like as a pupil at school, what it would have felt like being a teacher trying to teach him, or a mum.

Lorna whispers, “Talk about a whitewash.”

I look around. Everyone in the courtroom with a part to play in this trial is white, apart from the defendant and Henry and the two prison guards. It's the kind of detail my sister never misses and that I rarely notice till she points it out. She's a charge nurse, on leave from work till this trial is over, and when people talk about slack disengaged nurses working in the National Health Service I know they've never met her. She is always awake, always aware of what's going on around her, taking in the fine detail. Despite the fact we grew up together, I've often thought there is little middle ground in our outlook, though it always fascinated me that her Leah and my Ryan were so similar to each other, you would have thought they'd been raised in the same household. People often mistook them for siblings.

“He's going to be tried by a jury of his peers,” I say.

“Looking at this room, that's lucky for him,” Lorna says.

I do not answer, because luck is not what I wish for Tyson Manley.

She whispers, “Here they come. Let's take a look at these peers.”

They file into the courtroom below us looking not like jurors but like people at a bus stop on a warm day, holding their bags and coats, and in some cases, hats and scarves. They seem alert, excited even, eagerly glancing around the courtroom, taking everyone and everything in. There are more than twelve, more like twenty of them.

“I guess they bring in more than they need in case some are excused,” Lorna whispers.

They are called up one by one. Each has their name read out to the court. The first three are white women who take their seats in the jury box. The fourth is an Asian man. He enters a whispered discussion with the judge and subsequently leaves court with his rucksack and jacket. The next is a young black woman who doesn't look much older than twenty. I can't decide, don't know if a black or white person is better at determining innocence or guilt, have no idea whether young and idealistic is better than a middle-aged mum who maybe will identify with me, or who might, on account of her teenaged son, identify with Tyson Manley. It is impossible to call.

Two white men follow. Then two more white women, a young Asian man, and an elderly black gentleman who looks bemused to find himself in these surroundings. A young white guy is next to whisper to the judge, and whatever he
says is resolvable because he takes his seat in the box shortly after. Finally a white female pensioner who has nothing to whisper sits down in the twelfth seat. The jury of Tyson Manley's peers consists of five men, seven women. Of the men, one is the elderly black man, the other is the young Asian guy. Of the seven women, one is black. This is London, one of the most diverse cities in the world, yet of the twelve peers, only three of them are people of color.

I am anticipating Lorna's breath in my ear, so when it comes, I am not surprised. “Do they look like the random selection of a dozen people from your road?”

I do not answer, but the honest answer would be, they don't.

The judge temporarily dismisses the jury and the legal arguments begin. Quigg wants to present all of Tyson Manley's previous charges and convictions to the jury. She says they are relevant to the charges against him and recent, though it seems a given to me that his offenses—the full murky list of which I have seen—would be recent because he's only just turned seventeen. Guy St. Clare, defense counsel, opposes this. He says the admission of the previous convictions would be prejudicial and that it would be highly unfair for charges of which Mr. Manley has been exonerated to be presented in evidence against him. It is hard to guess St. Clare's age, he could be anywhere in his late fifties or sixties or early seventies even. His eyelids are saggy and hooded in a way that reminds me of a hawk, and when he speaks he leans slightly forward, not a lot, just enough to reinforce that impression, and his face is so red that for some reason port comes to mind and I wonder if he drinks a lot of it, imagine he does. He seems like the sort that might be found in the drawing
room passed out, cravat askew, empty decanter within arm's reach on the floor beside him.

They agree that only the convictions relevant to the charges the defendant faces will be admitted. There is no need for the jury to be privy to the rest.