Humber Boy B (4 page)

“That could be a very short conversation,” Cate said, considering her reliable but boring navy suit, “but I’ll give it my best shot.”

She was back at her desk forty minutes later when she got the call from Dot on reception to say Ben was in the waiting room.

“Better come get him,” Dot said, always quick to assess the individuals in her waiting area. “He’s looking at the door like he could bolt at any second.”

When Cate first saw Ben he was sat on the edge of the chair nearest the exit and she could see what Dot meant. He looked terrified.

“Ben? Come this way, please.”

She led him to her office and let him settle, arranging himself awkwardly in the chair, his bag precariously propped against the wall. As he bit his thumb and looked around, Cate considered the boy in front of her. Penny had described him as looking like a choir boy, and Cate knew exactly what she meant by that. He was small with fine blond hair cropped close to his head and, unlike most teenagers who swaggered into the probation office, he had clear skin. He had neat ears, a small nose, as if being locked away had stunted his growth, and the way he curled his hands and slouched didn’t help. His Superman T-shirt and jeans made him look even younger. Why hadn’t the prison staff given him some advice on clothes? Eighteen-year-olds don’t wear cartoon T-shirts and they don’t wear jeans that dark and neat.

Ben rolled his shoulders and Cate could see all the trapped tension in his body, bunched up inside. She saw that being in an interview situation was torture for him. The paperwork could wait.

“Okay, let’s get out of here,” she said.

He frowned. “Where are we going?”

“To see your new flat,” Cate said, picking up the key from her desk.

The docklands area had climbed many social rungs from what it had once been, and Cate noticed all the changes as she passed the new dance academy, the Italian delicatessen, even the sweet shop looked expensive with jars of aniseed balls and pineapple chunks lined along the window, sweet enough for the middle class’ insatiable appetite for retro. Other shops were empty, with To Let signs in their windows instead of the anticipated goodies. Most of the flats hadn’t been snapped up by young professionals, so they had been converted to affordable housing, the only way to stop it becoming a ghost town, so how much longer the deli and the sweet shop would last was anyone’s guess.

“Don’t be tempted to buy food in these places,” she told Ben. “It’ll cost you an arm and a leg.”

“Okay.”

“Did you do any shopping as part of your pre-release? Learn about prices or anything like that?”

Ben shook his head, looking down.

“Well stick to supermarkets for the moment. We can do a budgeting plan, help you work out how to spend your first giro, which you collect tomorrow. I’ve arranged for you to sign on at ten.”

“Sign what?”

Cate was so shocked she stopped. “Really? They didn’t even teach you about benefits?”

Ben shrugged. “Maybe. It all felt a bit unreal when I was inside. I didn’t really believe they’d ever let me out.”

Cate nodded, looked at the nearest flat to check its name. “Come on, let’s keep walking. The planners obviously decided against numbers when they built these apartments, too helpful. Your block is called Wolsey.”

They walked along the waterfront. Beside them, tethered boats knocked hollow sides and seagulls were screaming at each other over scraps. Ben seemed lost, his eyes darting from this place to that, he flinched occasionally and looked over his shoulder. Cate thought how this client would be a change from the others on her caseload. She would need to work in a way probation officers used to, before everything became about offending behaviour. Ben would need to learn life skills: budgeting, cooking. Surviving. She’d have to be teacher and social worker and maybe counsellor all rolled into one. The poor kid didn’t seem to have a clue.

“Here it is. Your block.”

They went to the pristine main entrance, and with the key made their way into the lobby. Here, everything changed. Junk mail was piled up on the filthy carpet and the paintwork was scored with black marks at the exact height of buggy tyres. From the lower ground flat, rap music was blaring, and the door had a dent from where someone had kicked it. However much the local area was attempting to deftly climb social rungs, here the ambition had stumbled, landing in a heap at the bottom of the ladder.

She pressed the button for the lift and it opened its doors crankily, but when Cate stepped in, Ben remained rooted to the spot. The door began to close and she had to keep it open with her foot.

“Come on then.”

He didn’t move and his eyes darted towards the stairwell.

“You’re on the top floor, Ben.”

“I’ll meet you there,” he said, and in a split second he was gone.

Cate let the door close and the lift take her up, a glass panel giving a clear view of the marina below. She caught sight of herself and saw she had a toothpaste mark on her jacket, mornings being a rush of hair and teeth and cornflakes. Paul had spent their lunch hour telling her to go shop, to get back out there, and she’d made the mistake of mentioning the French detective, knowing Paul would enjoy the details of his well-cut linen suit, his glossy hair. She hadn’t mentioned how Olivier had seemed to be looking at her every time she glanced his way.

The lift came to a jerky halt and she focused back on her real life; tonight she would sit down with Amelia, listen to how her first day of the new term had been, the start of her final year at primary school. In just four weeks Amelia would be eleven, and they should start thinking about her birthday party. Her little girl was growing up.

The sun sparkled on the water below but Cate knew that summer was almost over, despite the heat.

The lobby on level five was small but clean, a charcoal carpet that was so new it still bore the fluff from where it had been cut to fit. Ged had told her that Ben would be the first person to live in this flat. When he finally arrived on the landing, huffing from the exertion of the stairs, she handed over the key.

“Welcome to your new home.”

Inside was a surprise for both of them. They stepped into the lounge and stood in silence taking in the large glass windows that looked directly onto the blue sky, the boats down below looking like toys on a pond and the Orwell Bridge like an iconic landmark in the distance. The grey blinds had been pulled back so the view was dominant.

When Cate finally turned back to the room she saw that the small lounge had a simple sofa and matching chair in slate grey and a low glass coffee table. It was quite lovely, and she wondered who had picked it all. Not Ged, he didn’t look like he’d have such taste, and anyway she suspected he’d deliberately pick something nasty to spite Ben. Maybe this had been the show-flat, back when the architects hoped to sell it to an ambitious commuter.

“No TV. Still, that view would take some beating.”

Off the lounge was the small galley kitchen, with a sink, built-in oven and fridge. “You’ll have to eat in the lounge until you get a table in here,” she said, opening the fridge. It was brand new, the ice containers were still wrapped in plastic. “Right. Just one room left.”

The bedroom was a reasonable size, with a double bed and wardrobe, as well as a pine bedside table. The room had an en-suite bathroom, also small but with a powerful-looking shower.

“I think,” she announced, “that you’ve landed on your feet here Ben.”

But he had turned back to the lounge and was once again stood by the window, staring out. Not at the sky, but down to the waters of the dock below.

8

Ben

My first night of freedom is bad.

Night is always the hardest part of the day. Even in secure I was always most worried as I lay in bed, fretting over what the newest arrival might do to me the next morning in the showers, more scared than I ever was when it was actually happening. Held fast under the tepid water, waiting for the dull thump on the jaw as he proved himself by ragging on the fragile. Because they always found out, in the end, that I wasn’t a burglar or car thief. Once, at a secure unit in Birmingham, a kid came in from Lincoln and recognised me from some Panorama Special that had been on the previous month called ‘Kids Who Kill’. I’d been the main focus of the programme, so I was told. I never watched it myself but Mum ranted about it in another of her letters, the ones she’d write when she was drunk and angry and feeling sorry for her lot in life. Anyway, this new lad remembered the artist’s sketch, the one drawn in the courtroom that has hounded me ever since. I still had my Hull accent back then. He put two and two together and yelled “Hey, Humber Boy B!”, right across the dining hall so everyone saw when I looked up. They moved me overnight. ‘Ghosting’ they call it, whisking you away like you never existed, spiriting you in a van through the night, full of fear, to somewhere new. New but the same.

It’s fear I feel now, waking to my first day in my new home. I wish I could hear the lock turn, have the safety of knowing I can’t leave. I could make this flat another prison, but what kind of life would that be? No. I have to go out. Besides, Cate told me that I have to collect my giro at ten and even though it’s not yet eight I need to find the benefit office. Start to get my bearings.

At half past ten I’m staring at the money on the post office counter, £20 notes which I’ve never seen before and £2 pound coins, which I have – though I haven’t handled too many. I can hardly believe this money is all meant for me.

“Thank you so much,” I say to the grouchy woman behind the glass, guiltily scooping up the notes and coins. Fifty-seven pounds and forty-five pence seems like a fortune to spend in one week. I don’t even have a wallet so it all goes into my back pocket and I instinctively look around for anyone who might nick it, but there’s only an old woman with a shopping trolley and a mother looking at birthday cards with her toddler. She glances up at me and I tense, but then she looks back at the cards and I breathe out. She doesn’t know who I am, what I did. No-one here does. I reach for a random card, which happens to have a picture of bright balloons on the front and a bottle of champagne with the word ‘Congratulations’ underneath. I push it under the grille to the grouch.

“And this please, with a first class stamp.”

Outside there is a brisk breeze and I gulp it in, tasting the warm then cool that must be what September is like, this air that can’t seem to settle on being summer or autumn. I’ll soon need a jacket, and that will eat into my fifty-seven pounds and forty-five pence. Despite this, I long for rain, for snow, for blistering sun and all the other types of weather I’ve missed, I want to know the seasons, to recognise winter and spring. I want rain on my skin and sunburn too because that’s what it means to be free and even though seasons changed throughout the years I was locked away, it all happened beyond the bars. My clothes never changed, I never needed a coat or sunscreen. My world was a constant cool, always the smell of bleach and cooking fat.

I’m finding the noise of birds to be deafening, the sounds of traffic and people and the world is too loud. It’s as if my senses are just waking up.

With my body weighed down by the fortune of cash in my back pocket I walk from the post office towards the town centre, forcing myself to look up. It was in prison that I began looking at the floor, a way of trying to avoid a fight. “What you gawping at?” one boy had said, just after I arrived in secure, and promptly punched me, bloodying my nose, which was swollen for the rest of the trial. The social worker dabbed at me with a tissue, “Well this won’t look good for the jury,” she said, as if a bruised nose could make anything worse.

I taught myself to avoid eye contact and now I’m in danger of tripping up.

Cate told me to go to the supermarket for food, and there’s a Spar on the corner of the docks near the cinema, a red and white sign, people coming in and out.

I follow a man who looks like he knows what he’s doing, copying him by taking a silver trolley, though mine has wonky wheels and skids me into the stack of pot plants. Fruit is first. Fruit is good, but there’s so much of it and not just apples and oranges. I pick up a spiky yellow fruit, then put it down. I might hate the taste. What food do I like? Chips and porridge and sausages. I’ve never had a pointed fruit so instead I choose a bag of apples that say Value on them and go to the next section, which is dairy. The fridge in the flat isn’t big, so I just buy milk and margarine but even then there are so many different types and I don’t know if I want sunflower or olive oil or butter, or skimmed or full fat milk. I push the trolley, still mostly empty, round to the checkout because I’m worn out and it’s already taken too long to buy just the few things I have. Also, I’m worried about the money side of it even though I know my milk and apples can’t possibly come to fifty-seven pounds and forty-five pence. I’m lined up behind other trolleys when I realise that I want to try something new, that I’m Ben now and my life is different. When it’s my turn to put my food on the conveyer I see that the woman on the till is watching me, a pleasant face with deep wrinkles worn by smiles.

“Hello, love.” Her name badge says SHIRL.

I think of Mum suddenly, this woman is about her age, and I wonder why she never smiled like that, why she was always in bed with a headache when a job would have helped her feed Adam and me. I can feel my face going red as I think about these things so I concentrate on placing my items on the black belt that moves them towards the woman: bread, milk, beans, coke.

“Do you need any help packing?” she says, and I don’t know what she means, then she laughs and I realise it’s a joke because I only bought a few things.

“Can I go and get something?” I say. “Something I forgot.”

Shirl looks behind me, where other customers with heaving trolleys wait in line. “Be quick,” she says, and I dash back to the fruit aisle and pick up the strange pointed fruit. I run back with it, and the man behind me, the one I followed coming in, glares at me as I hand it to Shirl.