Someone Else's Son (25 page)

She resumed the position she’d been in when those two idiots had found her, lured her into their sick lives, just so they could probe her about Max. Well, whatever she knew, she wasn’t telling. That bitch. What must she have done to Max for him not even to mention his mother. Fucking Carrie fucking bloody Kent.

Dayna tried to cry but couldn’t. She pulled a fag out of her pocket. It was her last one. She lit it, making sure she hardly paused between drags so that none was wasted. Her lungs seared, not from the dry smoke but because they were right next to her burning heart.

‘Oi,’ came the call across the scrubby grass separating the rows of council houses. ‘Catch this.’

Dayna instinctively lurched sideways. The dog shit hit the tree inches from her shoulder. She retched at the stink. ‘Fuck off, toad.’ She picked up a rock and hurled it back at the nine year olds who were looking for another pile of mess to scoop up and chuck from a polystyrene container. The rock missed and, in return, the boys rained a load of names at her, one of them sending her into a blind rage. ‘That’s it,’ she said, scrabbling to her feet. ‘Come here, you little fuckers.’

Dayna tore across the littered area and managed to grab one of the kids by the collar. He choked as she yanked him round. The other boy fled on his bike.

‘Give me what you’ve got,’ she spat at him. He just stood there and shrugged, a smirk breaking his sallow face. She smacked him round the head and got a glimmer of joy from it before digging her hands into his jeans pockets.

‘Err, get off, you perv,’ he squealed. Dayna held him firmly and pulled out his cigarettes. She grinned. ‘I eat little shits like you.’ She brandished the fags in his face. ‘Now piss off and tell your mate it’s his turn next.’

Her heart thumping, paced by the surge of power she’d got from fighting back, even if it was with a nine-year-old kid, Dayna marched off, fag in mouth, to the only place she felt safe.

When she was inside the hut, when the candle was lit – the one that only recently had scented the air as Max traced the freckles on her arm with his finger – she pushed her face hard against her knees and cried until she fell asleep.

 

It was all on the internet. Time at the computer was rare but, if she was lucky, Kev would fall asleep after a lunchtime session down the Dog and Gun and not bother staring at naked women and videos of teens getting it off.

Sure enough, as she’d hoped, when she got back from the hut – had she inherited it now? she wondered – Kev was sprawled out along the length of the sofa, the dog draped over his legs, both their tongues showing long and dry. He made her feel sick.

The computer was in the same room, tucked away in an alcove under the stairs. It was old, nothing as flash as the modern machine Max said he’d been going to give her. The monitor was huge and caked in a layer of dust. The screen was smeary from Lorrell’s eager fingerprints as she pointed at her favourite cartoons with a strawberry chew in hand, or surfed toy websites wishing for things she knew she’d never get. The keyboard was yellowed from too many smoky fingers passing across its worn-out keys, and the mouse pointer juddered and jerked over the screen as if it, too, was fed up with being old and overused.

Dayna waited for it to boot up, watching Kev sleep, aware that the dog had one eye on her, his short tail giving a half-hearted thump, too lazy to move off his owner’s warm legs to greet her. Eventually, after connecting to the internet, she arrived at the TV station’s website and she clicked straight through to the ‘watch again’ section. Dozens of shows from dramas to chat shows to current affairs programmes scrolled across the page.
Reality Check
was at the top of the popularity list.

‘Why?’ she whispered to the computer.

Why had Max not told her that his mother – his
mother
, for God’s sake – was Carrie Kent? She still couldn’t believe it was true.

As the show page resolved, Dayna hardly recognised the woman she’d sat opposite only a couple of hours ago. Airbrushed and preened to perfection, the glamorous Carrie Kent smiled seductively from the screen, her fingers making her famous gesture that heralded the start of every show.

Dayna chose a show at random. One from last month.

The old computer took ages to buffer the stream and Dayna turned the volume on the speakers right down so as not to wake Kev. She leant in to hear what was going on. When the video player sputtered to life, Carrie Kent was centre stage, dressed in a tight scarlet skirt, black patent heels and a cream blouse that showed more cleavage than any other daytime presenter would dare to reveal. She held her audience captive from the start. She’s amazing, Dayna thought.

‘Today on
Reality Check
I will be talking to Britain’s youngest mum. She’s now sixteen but Jody Burrows gave birth to her first child, Krystal, when she was just eleven years and ten months old. Since then, Jody has gone on to have two more children, each by different partners. She still holds the record of being Britain’s youngest mum. Her own mother, Stacey, is just thirty-two and a grandmother three times over.’

A pause – partly from the jerky buffering of the video stream, and partly from Carrie Kent working the audience, who were gasping in their seats at the facts. Carrie allowed the ripples of shock to percolate the studio before bringing on her guest. The teenager swaggered on stage and sat proudly in one of the blue chairs arranged on the set. She chewed gum as if she hadn’t eaten for a week – revolting, Dayna thought, to do that on the telly – and crossed one ankle up over her knee. Dayna tweaked up the volume a tiny bit. Eleven years bloody old, she thought.

‘Jody, welcome to my show.’ The audience applause settled down and Carrie Kent approached the girl. The teen’s doleful eyes, ringed with a sallow grey colour, tracked the presenter as she parked herself in the chair beside her. Carrie crossed her long legs. The girl said nothing. ‘I invited you here today to talk about your experiences of motherhood and sex and to try to put out a message to other youngsters who might be thinking about having an intimate relationship at a young age.’

Jody Burrows shrugged and chewed. She half nodded to indicate her compliance. Carrie Kent didn’t faze her one bit.

‘Bet she’s being paid a fortune,’ Dayna whispered. ‘Why else would you make a twat of yourself?’

‘Tell me, Jody,’ Carrie continued. ‘Did your mother ever talk to you about sex before you got pregnant?’

‘Nah,’ the girl replied. She laughed. ‘We didn’t do it in school neither.’ She sat up a bit. She was wearing jeans, a denim jacket and a tight T-shirt beneath it. Dayna thought her tummy was flat for someone who’d had three kids. Her own mum spilled over the top of her jeans from having just her and Lorrell.

‘Was the father of your first baby your boyfriend? Had you talked about having sex before it happened?’

‘Nah. We was drunk. Too pissed to know what was happening really. It was at a party. Everyone had been drinking so it was OK. It just kind of happened naturally.’ Jody Burrows sat up straight, enjoying the attention. Dayna shook her head. She bit her lip.

‘How old was the boy, Jody?’

‘At the time, he were fourteen.’

‘And what happened to him?’

‘They tried to charge him with rape. He got some time in the juvy but he’s working in a garage now.’

‘Do you ever see him?’

‘He’s a good dad. He brings me some nappies and fags and takes Krystal out so I can study.’

Dayna snorted. ‘Get wasted, more like.’

‘I’m training to be a beautician at college.’

‘Where are you living now, Jody?’

‘At the moment I’m with my mum, but it’s crowded because—’

Kev groaned and sat up.

Dayna quickly shut down the window. She’d had enough of teen pregnancies. She’d not had enough of Carrie Kent. Her spine stiffened as she thought of Max. She gulped back a sob.

‘What you doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Where’s your mother?’

Dayna shrugged. Kev shoved the dog off his legs and stood up.

‘Ain’t you got nothing better to do?’ He lit up and went into the kitchen.

Yes, thought Dayna, I have. It’s just that I’m too scared to do it.

Carrie had just returned from the cinema with Leah and their flatmates. Was she the only person in the world who hadn’t enjoyed
Cocktail
? There was a note with her name on it slipped under the door. She picked it up. Leah flopped on to the saggy sofa while Jenny and Tina made the drinks.

‘It was implausible and sickly. Made my skin crawl.’ Carrie hung up her coat, while the others chucked theirs on nearby furniture.

Leah threw a cushion at her friend. ‘Oh shut up, Miss Spoil Sport. We loved it.’ She kicked off her shoes and pulled open a bag of corn chips, even though they’d eaten their way through buckets of popcorn at the cinema.

‘Here, get this inside you.’ Jenny handed Carrie a tall vodka and tonic, the glass stuffed full of ice and lemon to make it last longer. It was their Friday night treat. Girls only. Pizza or a movie or ice skating followed by the cheapest bottle of gin or vodka they could buy diluted with slimline tonic. The week’s gossip followed until three or four in the morning, and then the prescribed hangover for the next day. The only cure was to go out dancing on Saturday night and forget about lectures until Monday.

‘I’m in heaven,’ Tina declared, sipping on her drink. She lay back in the bean bag. ‘What’s Mel up to tonight?’ she asked Leah.

‘Studying, of course.’ She attempted a smile while thinking of her girlfriend, but was only saddened by her absence. ‘I was going to invite—’

‘I have to call home.’ Carrie’s voice was stiff and cold. She scrunched up the note and stuffed it into her pocket. She dug in her purse for some change and walked briskly out of the door, running down the stairs to the payphone in the hall.

She tripped on the last few stairs, saved herself by grabbing the banister rail, broke a nail and lunged at the sticky phone handset. She grabbed it by its tangled wire. She was shaking. In her heart, she already knew.

She pushed the fifty pence into the slot and dialled. ‘Come on . . .’

Call home
.
Urgent
was all the note had said, in some unfamiliar scrawl – probably one of the lads who lived downstairs, the same one perhaps who always left his bicycle blocking the corridor.

‘Hello? Mum?’

Carrie listened. She nodded. She sat down gently on the small wicker chair that the landlord had placed beneath the telephone. Her cheeks went scarlet as a motorway of images sped through her mind.

He didn’t suffer
, she heard.
It was over instantly
.

‘By the time the ambulance came, honey, it was too late.’

Carrie coughed. She thought it might turn into a sob, but it didn’t. Her mother quietly expunged herself of the details. About how his face had grown violet; about how they massaged his heart; about how they pumped oxygen and medication into him. She took it all in, trying to recall when she’d last seen him, what they’d said – or not said.

‘Will you come home?’ her mother asked.

‘For the funeral, yes,’ Carrie replied. She almost saw the tight nod of approval. Her mother would rather be alone for the next few days, Carrie knew, to ponder the passing of her husband, to begin the dwelling on things and the solitary existence that would become a lifelong task – no more fun or indulgence or frivolity, not that there ever had been. There would be the sorting, the clothes, the arrangements, all perfect for her to deal with, to occupy her, Carrie thought coldly.

‘Bye, Mum,’ she said eventually.

She slowly climbed the three flights of stairs, barely out of breath when she opened the door to the flat. The sweet smell of alcohol pulled her inside, along with the warm banter of her friends. But they stopped when they saw her.

Carrie pulled a face, not concerned that her heart felt like a bloodless stone inside her chest. ‘Well, that’s a bloody nuisance,’ she said, knocking back her drink.

 

She was missing lectures for the funeral. ‘The Dynamics of the Live Interview’ was being delivered by Glen McGowan, a silky smooth Channel Four presenter renowned for his late-afternoon chat show watched by millions of bored housewives. Carrie was really pissed that she couldn’t go. ‘Of all the days for a funeral,’ she said.

‘Carrie, that’s awful. It’s your dad.’ Leah flung a black sweater at her friend, but Carrie chucked it right back.

‘Black sucks at funerals. I’m going to wear this.’ She pulled a bright pink shirt off its hanger and slipped it on.

‘Carrie, you can’t. It’s not respectful.’

‘He never respected me.’ She buttoned her cuffs and pulled on her only coat – navy wool with giant buttons and a chunky collar. October had given way to November. The air was freshly chilled with the nip of autumn. ‘I’d still rather be at the lecture. Glen bloody McGowan speaking.’

‘All we’re doing after that is research crap.’ Leah helped her friend tie her scarf. She held her shoulders and stared at her, clearly wanting to say something but quite unable.

‘I might be back by then. Take notes for me. McGowan’s good, but I know I can be better. When we’re rich and famous, we’ll invite him on our show.’

‘Oh, Carrie.’ Leah exhaled. She rested her head gently on Carrie’s shoulder. ‘When we’re out of this place we’ll no doubt be one of thousands applying for jobs while we hone our burger-making skills at McDonald’s.’

‘Speak for yourself.’ Carrie tucked a strand of Leah’s wayward hair behind her ear. ‘You might be satisfied with riding the tide for the rest of your life, but I know what I want.’

‘Maybe I’ll hitch a ride in your great wake, then,’ Leah said, closing her eyes as Carrie planted a fond kiss on her head.

‘Nice pun,’ Carrie said, grabbing her bag and leaving. She heard Leah gasp for breath when she realised what she’d said, on today of all days. Carrie laughed as she went down the stairs. It was borderline hysteria by the time the chilly wind cut across her face outside and she realised she would never see her father again.