The Mother (15 page)

It makes no difference whether she is rude to St. Clare or not. He is patiently relentless, will not stop or back off. Sweetie stops fidgeting, looks down. I don't see it, but I imagine she sighs. “Y'know, it ain't just him, he's got his crew.” Her gaze flicks upward to the gallery briefly, to the man beside Ms. Manley.

“You mean his friends?”

“Yeah.”

“So now you're afraid of him
and
his friends?”

Judging from her expression, she knows exactly how he's trying to make her look here. “Yeah, I'm afraid of him
and
his friends.”

“I see. Just how many close friends would you say Mr. Manley has?”

“Four. There's others, but close ones, four.”

“And these four friends, are they not your friends also?”

“No, they ain't my friends.”

“Do excuse me, but I must be clear on this point; these four people whom you say are not your friends, how many of them have you had intercourse with?”

Sweetie doesn't answer. She looks at the judge. He does not help her. There is no one in the room on her side to stop St. Clare from going too far. It's normally the job of the barrister on the other side to say, “I object! It is entirely inappropriate for the witness to be questioned in this fashion, Your Honor.” But Quigg isn't here for Sweetie. No one is. The question is repeated. Her shoulders slump. Her voice when she answers is low.

“I'm sorry?” St. Clare asks, though I heard her response in the public gallery, so I'm sure everyone in the courtroom did as well. “Did you say
all
of them?”

“Yeah.”

“Yet you maintain they are not your friends?”

“They ain't my friends.”

“I see. Miss Nelson, how old is your baby?”

I shake my head, imagine I have misheard the question till Sweetie answers, “Two weeks.”

“And still in the hospital?”

“Yeah. She was early. And small. So they kept her in.”

I look at her breasts again. They are much larger than they were before. But other than that, she is carrying no pregnancy weight whatsoever. Her body bears no other indication she has recently given birth. That's why I missed it. And it
all makes sense now, her tiredness, why she's wearing the same grubby outfit. Presumably she's come directly from the hospital today. Her mother's in rehab. Perhaps she has no one looking out for her, washing her clothes, bringing her a decent meal; Sweetie's a mother.

“And who is the father of your child?” St. Clare is patient, brushes something from the front of his robe, gives her time before prompting, “Miss Nelson; the father?”

Finally Sweetie answers, “I don't know.”

“I see. What about Mr. Manley. Could it be him?”

“Yeah.”

“These four people whom you say are not your friends, could it be any of them?”

“Yeah.”

“The deceased, Ryan Williams, might he be the father of your child?”

My heart begins to accelerate. Sweetie glances at Tyson quickly, looks away, downward. “Yeah.”

Now it is thudding inside my chest. Lorna says, “Oh my God!”

“It could, in fact, be any of them?”

“Yeah.”

I have a list in my mind of things my son never did, ordinary things people normally do during their lifetime, many of them things they probably took for granted, of no special note, hardly treasured experiences, regular things like he never drove a car, never cooked a meal, never visited Paris, got married, passed a GCSE or an A level, or skied. He never raved all night or got properly drunk, opened a bank account or left home. It is infinite the number of things his life was never long enough for him to do. Never had sex was on that list, and never had children.

The hope that is ignited inside my chest is like an electric shock. Seven months of despair and suddenly my heart is pounding, alive with the possibility that her baby might be my grandchild, Ryan's daughter. I try to talk myself down, think reasonably, be logical—
Why would it be his? She's clearly slept with everyone. The odds are better getting a winning line on the lottery than her baby being my son's
—but it is a hope that is impossible to diminish that easily. I do the maths. The dates work. My son was seeing her. This really could be.

Lorna takes my hand, whispers, “Calm down.” Her grip is so tight she's crushing my fingers.

Quigg finally stands, “My Lord, I am having difficulty understanding where my learned friend is heading with his line of questioning. It is probably my own lack of understanding. It would, however, be very helpful if he would make it clear.”

The Judge asks, “Counsel, is this leading to a relevant point?”

“I assure you, My Lord, it is. I ask you to permit me some latitude, and the purpose of these questions shall shortly become clear.”

“I hope they do, and swiftly,” the judge says.

“Thank you, My Lord. Is it not the case, Miss Nelson, that you visited Mr. Manley at Feltham Young Offenders' Institute three weeks ago, and that you argued with him about your baby and who the father was?”

“Yeah, I visited him.”

“And you argued. Specifically, Mr. Manley advised you that you did not have his permission to put him down on the birth certificate as the father of your child?”

Sweetie doesn't answer, doesn't need to. The question seems to physically deflate her.

St. Clare pushes, “That is the truth, is it not?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“Miss Nelson, I put it to you that Mr. Manley
did
arrive at your home on March 18 at four p.m., and that the statement you made to the police on March 19 stating this was in fact true. I put it to you that because you had no idea who the father of your child was, you hoped to legitimize her by having Mr. Manley, with whom you had been having intercourse on and off for a period of at least three years, put his name on the birth certificate as her father. I submit that his refusal to do this—and I shall leave it to others to judge whether this decision was reasonable or not—upset you a great deal, in fact it made you extremely angry. The truth is that you have changed your story now about the time he arrived at your home,
not
because you have decided to tell the truth, but because you want revenge?”

Sweetie looks as though she is close to tears. She shakes her head. “'S not true.”

St. Clare says, “I have no further questions.”

Then something truly hideous happens. A patch begins to grow on Sweetie's blouse at the site of her left breast. It is wet and the moisture makes the thin cotton transparent as it spreads, so that the lacy detail of her bra becomes visible. Another patch begins on the right. She is younger than Leah by a year, this girl before the court whose baby is in the hospital and whose milk is leaking, and she is mortified with embarrassment, ineffectually tries to raise her handbag, her hands, to cover herself, to preserve some dignity here where
there is none to be found. Lorna begins to cry, gets up, walks out of the public gallery, stumbling past us, bumping the legs of Ms. Manley, still seated at the end of the row.

Quigg stands and asks for an adjournment, to which the judge agrees, and the security guard directs everyone in the gallery to leave as well. Lorna is standing at the top of the stairs, trying to compose herself. I touch her arm. She shakes her head, cannot speak.

Nipa says, “Let's go outside, get some air,” and we go down the stairs and outside, where Lorna pulls off her jacket and her cardigan, hands the cardigan to Nipa.

“Please, please give this to her. She can keep it. I don't want it back.”

We go with Nipa to the court reception, wait at the desk as she goes through security, disappears up the stairs.

“This is terrible,” Lorna says. “Terrible! That poor, poor girl.”

And it is awful. It is the worst thing I can imagine that could happen to any new young mum on the stand. But most new mums would not be on the stand. Most new mums with a two-week-old baby in the hospital would be at the hospital, beside the cot. And as bad as I feel for her and what has just happened, it is secondary to the hope, as unlikely as the chances are; can it really be possible that Sweetie Nelson has given birth to Ryan's child?

The first time I met Sweetie, that very first time, the thought of her being the mother of my grandchild was abhorrent to me. I have been trying to understand Ryan's death, why it happened, what it was he ever did that he should die the way he died, but if there was some purpose or meaning to it, perhaps it was meant to be a lesson not for him, but for me, maybe the taking of my son was meant to teach
me
some
thing, a lesson of such magnitude, one I had no idea I needed to learn: humility. I have gone from abhorrence at the idea of Sweetie bearing Ryan's child to it being the greatest thing I could ever wish for, the gift of life from this girl I deemed so low, the continuation of my son's line, the infinity of future generations bearing his genes.

I need to keep calm. That baby may not be his at all, probably isn't. And yet there is a chance, the smallest, remotest, unlikeliest chance, and it flickers in my chest like a beacon.

WE HAVE SHIFTED, LORNA AND
I. I feel it when we are back in the public gallery, when we are looking down at Sweetie on the witness stand wearing Lorna's cardigan, buttoned to the top and slightly too large. Somehow I am stronger. Where it has come from exactly I cannot say, but it is to do with hope, it is to do with light, it is to do with energy I have not felt for at least seven months that has given me a supercharge. Lorna holds a tissue at the ready in one hand and I hold her other hand in mine. Ms. Manley sits in the second seat from the end of the row, beside the young man accompanying her, face forward, back erect.

The judge asks Sweetie, “Would you rather sit to give your evidence?”

She nods. “Yeah, I would.”

He directs a clerk to bring a chair for her to sit on, and while this is being done, he advises Sweetie to let him know if it becomes too much or if she wishes to have a break. She says she will and thanks him. Every time I have ever looked at her before she has seemed older than her years, too grown-up for
my liking. This is the first time I have looked at her and seen her for what she is, a woman who has given birth, and at the same time, little more than a child.

Quigg begins scene-setting, starting with Sweetie's relationship with Tyson Manley. I don't know whether the jury have been studying her as closely as I have throughout this trial, whether she seems less confident to them as well, more tentative, probably because she doesn't know all the answers in advance. I think it makes her seem warmer, more human, and the result is that Sweetie's responses to her are less defensive than her responses were to St. Clare, more open and full. Sweetie tells the court she lives in a small block of flats around the corner from Tyson's home. She had friends who lived on his estate that she spent time with outside of school. A few of them had been involved with Vito, the elder brother, were part of a shifting group that hung out together there. Her friends always teased her about Tyson fancying her, but she had just laughed it off, because he was simply Vito's kid brother. Up until Vito got shot, they were just friends. Afterward, Sweetie says, everything changed, including Tyson. He was filled with anger. There were all manner of rumors circulating about who had shot Vito and why, and the fact the police seemed to treat the investigation as if it were a low priority did nothing to help. Over a short time Tyson went from being almost a cheeky younger brother to not knowing what to believe or whom he could trust. Her biggest mistake was thinking that maybe with her influence, she could keep him on the right track. Though she doesn't actually say the words, I think she felt sorry for him.

“'S like he was tryin'a be an older when he was just still a younger, and 'cause of that, he had to be harder. Like
anything nice made him look weak and he was determined no one was gonna think he was weak. Yeah, I was stupid, I thought we was gonna be tight. I'm not saying wifey or nothing, but 's like he went from being my friend to only sleeping with me when he wannid, like that was all I was good for. I thought it was gonna be more. Yeah, he bought me stuff, gave me money and that, but I didn't wanna just end up being some stupid crackhead ho. I know it sounds lame, but I really cared about him and I wannid him to care about me back, and Tyson never, he never did. But even though he just wannid to link with me, 's like somehow he owned me, like no one else was supposed to check me, even though he weren't really checking me hisself. Twenty-four seven, him and his man-dem was grilling me, what I did and where I went, who I spoke to, what for, and by the time I realized I wannid out, it was too late.”

“Couldn't you just have told Mr. Manley you no longer wished to have this relationship with him?”

“You don't tell someone like Tyson that you don't wanna be with them then just go home. And I never had nowhere to go except home. I'da been finished.”

“When you say ‘finished,' what exactly do you mean? What would have happened?”

“I can't tell you things I've seen, things I know man's done to girls. I doubt you'd even believe me. Let's just say it wouldn'a been good.”

“Miss Nelson, is it true you were seeing the deceased, Ryan Williams, that you had a relationship with him of some kind?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell us about that relationship? Were you boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“I wouldn't exactly class us as boyfriend and girlfriend; we were friends, good friends. He asked me out. That's no big thing to you probably, but no one ever asked me out before. I was used to man telling me what I was gonna do, when and how. When he asked me out, it's like I had a choice. I never chose nothing before in my life that wasn't some shit choice between one bad thing and the next worse . . . sorry, I shouldn't have said ‘shit,' should I?”

“Probably not. But please go on. You were explaining about your relationship with Ryan Williams, that when he asked you out, it felt like you were able to make a choice.”

“Yeah. But I was scared as well 'cause Tyson never wannid me seeing no one. I knew from day one the whole thing woulda ended in some kinda beef, so I told Ryan no, but it never made no difference. He wasn't in my face or nothing, he just kept asking and I just kept saying no, and it was like the more I said no, the more he asked me. He was a nice guy, really sweet, and I wannid that, just one good thing that I wannid and got to pick myself. So one day I just said yeah. I never said I'd be his girl or nothing, I just said we'd go out and see how it went.”

“So you went on a date with Ryan?”

“Yeah. He took me to Kentucky. Bought me a Meal Deal. He talked to me, proper talked, and listened. I never had no one ever wanna listen to me before, and he weren't even tryin'a get down my knickers or nothing, I mean I know he was hoping, but it was more than just that. He wasn't using me or cussing me or dissing me, he really liked me, and even though I never meant to, I started liking him back. But it was like the more I liked him, the scareder I got, 'cause I didn't know how it could work, y'know? Anyway, in the end I called
it off, I said we couldn't meet no more, 'cause I was used to the way them man-dem done things and I could deal with whatever went down, but Ryan wasn't on that level, and I was scared what would happen if it came out.”

“Can you tell me when you called it off with Ryan, was it days before he was killed? Weeks? Months?”

“About three weeks before. At school. I told him I didn't wanna see him no more, said he was just a youth, a boy, that I didn't give a sh— . . . never had no feelings for him. I told him to leave me alone, but he never. He wouldn't stop calling me and texting, and he said he knew I had feelings for him and he weren't gonna stop till I told him the truth. So I did, told him about Tyson and me, and he still never stopped. He said I deserved better. Me. He said, ‘Every single creature in the world is entitled to happiness.'” Sweetie laughs. It is a sad laugh. “Those are the exact words he said.”

My son, the champion of worms, the liberator of spiders, of course that's what he said to Sweetie. Maybe he would have grown up to become a fireman or counselor or doctor. He was destined to rescue, save lives. Her helplessness would have made him stick his heels in, her plight would have brought to the fore everything within him that was decent and strong and optimistic. She was vulnerable and he would never have turned his back on her, would never have washed his hands clean and walked away, would never have abandoned this girl, especially, as I think is clear for the courtroom to see, especially when it was obvious how much she cared about him.

“Miss Nelson, did Mr. Manley find out you had been seeing Ryan?”

“Yeah. Ryan rang when Tyson was at my yard one night. I ignored it. I never put Ryan in my contacts 'cause Tyson and
his crew was always checking my phone and I made sure I deleted all our texts and that, but the phone rang and Tyson was there and Ryan left a message and Tyson took my phone and listened to it.”

“Do you remember the date that happened?”

“It was March 17.”

“What happened next?”

Sweetie glances at Tyson nervously. He is watching her with an expression that sits somewhere between menace and mockery. I glance at Ms. Manley at the end of the row. The woman is a robot. I'm sure she is sitting exactly as she was the last time I looked. My eyes return to Sweetie. She is squeezing her hands together, realizes, stops. Perhaps to keep them still, she clasps the top of the witness box hard.

“He said I was fuckry bitch, called me a sket.”

“A sket?”

“A ho. He said he was gonna deal with us.”

“Mr. Manley said this to you?”

“Yeah.”

“When he said he would ‘deal' with you, what did you take that to mean?”

“
Deal
with us. Hurt us, innit.”

“Both you and Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you respond to that?”

“We was arguing and I was tryin'a tell him it weren't nothing, then one of his man-dem rung him 'cause someone got shanked . . .”

“Shanked?”

“Stabbed. Tyson put his clothes on and went.”

“What happened next?”

“I wannid to ring Ryan and warn him, but Tyson still had my phone, so I went to his house . . .”

“Ryan Williams's home?”

“Yeah. I told him Tyson knew about us, that he had to watch his back. I gave him a knife, told him to keep it for protection. Tyson wouldn'a felt no way about shanking Ryan, I knew that. I don't know if Ryan thought I was exaggerating or what, 'cause he just kept telling me not to worry. Then he said I could stay at his if I wannid.”

“And what did you reply?”

“I said no. I'd already met his mum and I knew she never liked me. I didn't blame her. If he was my son, I wouldn'a wannid him mixed up with someone like me; it's not like I didn't get it. I said I was cool, that he needed to worry about hisself. Then his mum called him in and I walked around a bit but there wasn't nowhere to go, so I went back home.”

“This was still the evening of March 17?”

“Yeah.”

“You're sure of the date?”

“That was the last time I saw Ryan. I'd never forget that date.”

“Thank you. So you went back home . . .”

“No.”

“I'm sorry?”

“I
was
gonna go back home, but I got mugged.”

“On the way home?”

“Yeah.”

“Mugged?”

Sweetie is quiet for a moment, nods her head, glances at Tyson Manley briefly then down at her lap. Her voice is low. “Yeah. My bag got stole. They broke my nose, had to be reset, you can still see the mark . . .” She lifts her head, touches the
raised ridge on the bridge of her nose, puts her hand back down. “. . . I'll probably always have it. The hospital kept me in overnight.”

Quigg says, “I see.”

I feel sick. It is the glance that did it, achieved the seemingly impossible, evoked a response from Tyson Manley for a second only, shifted the indifference in his eyes to a coldness I would not expect to see in the eyes of a child, a seventeen-year-old boy. His expression returns to indifference again so quickly it is hard to believe such a coldness was ever there at all. But it was, and I caught it. She wasn't mugged at all; he did it. I don't know why Sweetie doesn't say that. But if I caught that glance, it's likely Quigg did too. I wait for her to pick up on it, but after a pause Quigg says, “So the day before Ryan Williams was murdered, you were the victim of a robbery?”

“Yeah.”

“You sustained injuries?”

“Yeah.”

“You went to the hospital, where you were treated and kept in overnight?”

“Yeah.”

“And the following day, you were discharged?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you remember what time that was?”

“In the morning, about ten.”

I realize I have been holding my breath, release it, trying to understand why Quigg has simply let it go. I have to trust that she knows what she is doing, even though I don't.

“So you got home at what time?”

“Musta been eleven.”

“And you were at home, alone, from eleven until Mr. Manley came around?”

“Yeah.”

“What time did he arrive?”

“Quarter to seven, in the night.”

“And you let him in?”

“He came in, he never asked.”

“Can you remember what he was wearing?”

“A brown sweat top, black jogging bottoms, Nike trainers.”

St. Clare appears absorbed in the details of the folder open on the table in front of him. He does not look up as Quigg shows Sweetie the photograph of Tyson Manley lifted from his Facebook page, asks, “Miss Nelson, is this the top Mr. Manley was wearing?”

Sweetie says, “Yeah.”

“Thank you.” Quigg addresses the judge. “My Lord, I'm aware it is almost one o'clock now. This may be a convenient moment for the court to break for lunch.”

The judge finishes the note he is writing, looks up. “Thank you, counsel. I believe it is.”

I ask Nipa to give us some space over lunch and I head with Lorna and Kwame to the pub we ate at on the first day of the trial. As soon as we are out in the fresh air, Lorna says, “You know the chances of that baby being Ryan's are slim to none, don't you?”

“They're just slim, aren't they?”

“You tell me. Do
you
think Ryan slept with her?”

I think about Sweetie squirming on my son's lap, my fear of leaving them alone together the first time I met her, feel the hope rising. “It's possible.”

Kwame asks, “Why would she make it up?”

“I don't know,” I say.

“Maybe she's still looking for a father to stick on the birth certificate. That could be a motive,” Lorna says.

“Even if she did sleep with Ryan, she also slept with at least five other guys around the same time,” I say; not one or two,
five
. Not just my son and Tyson Manley in a kind of love triangle that would make some sense of my son's murder, but loads of guys; loads. This is the caliber of the love of my son's too short life.