In the Heart of the City (3 page)

‘Whatever they call it. Or wear something over it.’

‘A paper bag,’ Ruby slung back, and they both cracked up laughing.

‘One of those . . .’ Louise put her hand above her head, waggled her fingers.

‘A fascinator.’ Ruby curled her lip.

‘You’ll have to decide soon,’ her mother cautioned. ‘First week of January – and if you do want it styling, some places will be closed over the holidays. Now – I need a cuppa.’

‘Get us a hot chocolate?’

Louise raised an eyebrow.

‘Please.’ Ruby curtsied. She began to practise one of her dance steps, the furniture around the edge of the room juddering as the floor shook.

‘Watch the china,’ Louise said.

‘Cheek. Where’s Luke?’

‘Out,’ Louise answered as she walked into the kitchen.

‘Where?’

‘God knows,’ she called out. ‘I told him to be back by eleven.’ She filled the kettle. She peered through the window. It was snowing. Maybe they’d have a white Christmas.

‘I don’t know why you bother.’ Ruby came into the kitchen.

Louise didn’t reply. She switched the kettle on. ‘When we get the tree up, you’ll have to practise upstairs.’

‘My room’s too small.’

‘Use mine, then.’

‘Cool. When are we getting it?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Louise said. ‘Carl’s bringing one down.’

‘Is it big?’

‘Big enough.’ She got the drinking chocolate out.

‘That means it’s titchy.’

‘Wait and see.’ Louise smiled. She’d paid for a six-footer. It would look great. And she was off Christmas Day.

Carl was at the agency with her, home help, social care. Closest thing she had to a boyfriend, but she kept it casual. She liked the company, someone to share a meal or a laugh or a bed with, but nothing more serious. He was a nice bloke, a bit dim, but well-meaning, sociable. Polish. The agency work was crap money really, but for Carl it was way more than he could make back home. The job itself was okay: cleaning, shopping, feeding, changing, a lot of listening. Some of the people Louise had been calling on for years, knew more about them than their own families did. But the agency was always trying to screw as much as they could from you.

Louise looked back out at the garden. Some of the snow had settled, on the grass and the shed roof, but the path was gleaming wet. Be nice if it did stay. Course, it caused problems, people falling and fractures and buses not running, but it looked lovely.

‘Or a wig?’ Ruby said. ‘Like a dead bright colour, yeah? Red, like my shoes.’

He thought he heard something over the noise of the shower. Banging? Perhaps Jason had forgotten his key. More than likely. Andrew tipped his head back, let the water play on his face. In fact it was unusual for Jason to remember his key. A dreamer. It drove Val round the bend, her son’s lack of focus, his apparent ineptitude.

‘Is it a boy thing?’ she’d demanded of Andrew one day when Jason was about six. Still struggling to tie his shoelaces, still forgetting his book bag, his games kit, his permission slip, to brush his teeth, to turn the television off.

‘He’s just made like that, I guess,’ Andrew said.

‘All I do is nag,’ she complained. ‘And if I don’t, nothing happens.’

‘He’s only little.’ Andrew pulled her to him, kissed her. ‘D’you want me to nag?’

She shook her head, still exasperated.

‘Maybe he’ll never be the world’s most organized person, but he’s bound to get a bit better.’

‘You think?’

‘I hope.’

But Jason’s absent-mindedness had persisted; his relationship to the practical, physical world had never become one of mastery or precision, though he was skilled in other areas. He could play any instrument he picked up, despite never having had a lesson in his life; he’d overcome his moderate dyslexia to get four A levels and a place to study geography at Durham.

‘Geography!’ Val had exclaimed when Andrew told her Jason had been talking about it. ‘He can barely find his way home from school without a sat nav. He’s no sense of direction – in either sense of the word.’

‘He loves geography, though,’ Andrew had said. ‘Remember all those maps we used to make?’ Pieces of lining paper scrawled on with felt pens: islands littered with treasure troves and hazards; sharks and sinking sands, whirlpools and stingrays. Staining the paper with used tea bags, singeing the edges with the kitchen matches and setting the smoke alarm off, rolling them into scrolls, tied with broken shoelaces.

‘He liked maps because you did,’ Val said.

‘Maybe. Does it matter? It’s good to know there’s something he wants to do – and his marks have been great.’

‘Yes.’ She softened, gave a rueful smile. ‘I just worry about him, that’s all,’ apologizing, acknowledging the tension she brought to the discussion, that for all his charms, her child’s flaws still irritated her, made her feel impatient and then guilty.

Jason had seen it through, taken the offer from Durham, got his grades and moved into halls twelve weeks ago. The house had been deadly without him, ghostly without the trail of debris, the piles of laundry, the racket as he moved about the place, heavy-footed, clumsy, big-boned. Now he was back home for Christmas. He’d gone to the pub tonight, to catch up with his mates from school, the group scattered to universities around the country.

Andrew turned, let the jets of water drum on his back, inched the temperature control up a notch. He bent for the shower gel.

‘Andrew! Andrew!’ Val braying at the bathroom door. Was there a leak? The shower flooding into the kitchen below? Her voice frantic, furious. For a moment he wondered if he had done something wrong, or failed to do something, but what would merit such fury? He stopped the shower. ‘Get out here!’ she yelled. ‘There’s a fight outside. Jason’s there!’

He almost slipped stepping out of the shower, swiped a towel down his front and across his back, pulled on clothes from the floor, his jeans and pullover, the wool itchy against his skin. He hurried downstairs, where he could see the front door open, Val just inside, the phone in hand, her voice urgent, shaky as she gave their address and then shouted to Jason.

Andrew went past her on to the front lawn. Jason was tussling with a boy, dragging at his sleeve; on the grass beside them lay a figure, curled small. Two people waited at the gate, yelling: a girl in a white coat and another bigger lad in a hoodie, popping-out eyes. Andrew ran forward, yelling too. The boy wrenched himself free from Jason, leapt over the prone figure and ran. Andrew went after them, screaming, his heart thumping fiercely in his chest, fury red at the edges of his eyes. He lost his footing on the slippery pavement, he had no shoes on, and went over, his shoulder and hip hitting the ground hard. He scrambled up but the trio were already near the junction and he saw them veer off. He’d never catch them now.

He ran back to the house, the ground cold and wet and gritty beneath his feet. The crystals of snow on the grass squeaking as he went to his son. Jason was bent over, hands on knees, breathless, panting. He swung his head, saw Andrew. ‘Dad, call an ambulance.’ He was close to tears. ‘I think they’ve killed him.’

‘Oh God!’ Andrew’s phone was upstairs. But Val was already . . . ‘I think your mum . . .’

‘Call a fucking ambulance,’ Jason screamed at him.

Tears started in his eyes, at his son’s anguish, at the pathos of the scene. He ran upstairs, grabbed his phone and punched in 999. He hurried back down and the operator answered on the second ring and transferred him to the ambulance service. Val was still talking. ‘Three of them, a girl and two boys, they’ve only just gone.’

Outside, Andrew hunkered down. The boy on the floor was still; his face was bloody and swollen. Andrew’s stomach flooded with acid; his heart was still pounding, and he was trembling. He followed what the voice on the phone said, tried to answer their questions as best he could.

‘I think he’s dead,’ Jason gasped. ‘He was jerking, like a fit.’

Andrew repeated the information for the operator, and listened to her instructions.

‘They’re coming,’ he said.

‘We should do something.’ Jason’s voice was wild with panic. He was batting his fists together. The boy was still; by his head, the snow was pink, like sorbet with raspberry sauce. Flecks of snow landed and melted on his hair, on his poor, poor face.

‘I need to check if he’s breathing,’ Andrew said.

Jason began to cry.

‘Hey.’ Andrew straightened up, folded him into his arms. Felt a tremor ripple through his son. And another. ‘You’re freezing, go in.’

Val came out. ‘Jason.’

‘Mum.’

‘Take him inside,’ Andrew urged. He heard sirens howling in the distance. Coming here, he prayed.

‘No, I’m not—’ Jason began to protest, but Andrew shushed him.

‘Come inside, Jason,’ Val said.

‘I think he’s in shock,’ Andrew told her. ‘He must have seen it all.’

‘Oh, Mum. Mum.’

‘Come on, love. Dad’ll look after him.’ Jason went with her.

Andrew crouched down closer to the boy. He could smell the blood raw on the night air; it made his gorge rise. He put his hand gently on the boy’s chest and felt movement, a slight rise and fall. Yes! Oh, thank God. He scrambled to his feet and ran to meet the ambulance, aware that neighbours were coming to their gates and others pulling their curtains back, peering out through snowy stencils, their faces illuminated by twinkling fairy lights and the garish pulse of flashier outdoor decorations.

The paramedics wanted Andrew to move away while they assessed the victim, and a police officer asked for Val. Andrew took him inside. Val was coming downstairs with a blanket for Jason. ‘He’s still shivering,’ she told Andrew.

‘Sugar,’ he said. ‘I’ll make him a drink. The police want you.’

The officer nodded and introduced himself and asked Val if she could tell him what had happened. He followed her into the front room. Andrew looked in. Jason was white as a sheet; he looked awful, just like he used to before he was sick as a child after an unwise fairground ride, or a long car journey. ‘Jason?’

‘Dad.’ His voice was thick, gluey. Val glanced over, stopped talking. Andrew felt it in the room, a current, electric, biting at the back of his neck, crackling up his spine. He moved towards his son. ‘I feel—’ Jason slumped forward, his legs skittering on the carpet. There was a dark stain on the back of the armchair, wet, deep vivid red. The same on his parka.

‘Oh my God!’ Val dropped the blanket and ran to him.

‘Jason!’ They were both beside him. Then there was blood coming from his nose. Andrew grasped his shoulders, tried to straighten him up. His mind screaming:
What do I do? What do I do? Help, please help
. Sounds colliding around him, shouts, and a paramedic pulling his arms away from Jason. Jason on the floor, on his side, Val weeping. Someone pulling them back, getting between them and their son.
Stab wound
. Who said it?
Stab wound.
Panic rearing inside him like waves, higher and higher, and he couldn’t stay still. Val biting her fist, shaking her head, strands of her blonde hair stuck to her face. Then they were moving him and someone would take them to the hospital. Did they have their house keys? Phones?

Outside it was snowing again, fat flakes pirouetting in the street lights, settling and turning red on the front lawn.