A Place of Safety

‘Kelsey was not on drugs,’ said Lilly. ‘It was her mother who was addicted.’

‘Whatever.’ Sheila shook her head as if the details were unimportant. ‘The point is it nearly bankrupted the office.’

‘We got paid,’ said Lilly.

‘Legal Aid scraps, and you know it,’ said Sheila. ‘And as for those scroungers at the Dogs’ Home, I don’t know why you bother.’

‘Because it stimulates my intellect,’ said Lilly. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand.’

‘I understand that having kids means making sacrifices.’ At last Sheila withdrew her arm, bringing with it a battered book. ‘This was stuck at the back.’ She threw it onto Lilly’s desk. The Art of Positive Thinking.

‘Something to stimulate your intellect.’

Lilly put her head on the desk. ‘Do I really have to go for a drink?’

Sheila’s laugh was nothing short of cruel. ‘Rupinder says it’s a three-line whip.’

It’s been a horrid day. A nightmare. Mr Peters had bawled Luke out for not paying attention in Latin. He’d said he was wasting his talents, and that it was nothing short of criminal. Luke had wanted to tell him how close to the mark he was.

During Information Technology he’d surfed the Net to see how long people got for rape, how old he’d be when he got out of prison. He couldn’t breathe when he saw life was an option. He’d seen a politician on the telly saying the government were cracking down, that ‘life should mean life’. He’d bitten his lip until it bled, terrified he’d burst into tears in front of the whole class.

Worse still, Tom had been acting like nothing was wrong. He’d even boasted in the common room about meeting a ‘right little goer’.

The other boys had laughed at him, said he was talking bollocks.

Tom leaned over the snooker table and potted the black.

‘Ask Lukey boy, he’ll tell you what she was like,’ he said. ‘Gagging for it, wasn’t she?’

Luke smiled weakly, but he could still hear the girl screaming and see her slender wrists being held so tightly that they seemed to turn blue-black. A bit like the sky before a storm.

Now the bell is ringing and Luke can finally escape. Thank God he’s not boarding tonight. He wants to go home, to throw himself onto his Arsenal duvet and let it all out. Maybe he should tell his mum. Maybe she could help. Even if she can’t it would stop the whole thing running through his head like a bad film on a loop.

He sees her car parked by the cricket pitch and bolts towards it. Inside it smells of clean washing.

His mum smiles. ‘Had a nice day, love?’

He can’t answer and squeezes his eyes shut.

‘Is everything all right, love?’ asks his mum.

He stirs his pasta with a limp wrist.

‘Luke?’

Her voice is so very gentle. He feels wrung out like a damp cloth, all the moisture down the sink.

She lifts his chin and looks into his eyes. ‘You would tell me if something was wrong?’

He sees in her familiar face a lifetime of wiped noses and birthday teas. This isn’t a broken window or a bad school report. How can he tell her what he has been part of, what he has done? She can’t make it better. No one can.

He forces some words out. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘You look peaky,’ she says, and presses a cool palm against his forehead. ‘You’re not hot but you’re obviously coming down with something.’

He pushes his bowl away. ‘Yeah. I feel sick.’

Relief plays at the corner of his mother’s mouth. This is her territory.

‘Better lie down, love,’ she says. ‘Will you be all right while I collect your sister?’

The thought of Jessie, a year younger than Luke, fills his mind. What if some boys took her to the park…held her down…

He runs from the room, his hand over his mouth, acid bile running through his fingers.

* * *

His bedroom is spinning and Luke concentrates on a small brown water stain on the ceiling.

‘I’ll be twenty minutes,’ his mum calls from the bottom of the stairs. ‘How about I call at Waitrose for some Lucozade?’

Luke doesn’t answer.

When he hears the front door close he lets the tears spill. He curls into a ball and weeps, snot pooling under his nose, sliding onto his lips, until it becomes clear what he has to do.

He wipes his eyes on the back of his hand and packs a bag.

Lilly had tried, she really had. She’d put on her coat and fully intended to head to the bar where her boss and the other partners were waiting for her. But when it had come to it, Lilly had made a sharp right turn and jumped into her new Mini Cooper. Sheila was right about some things. A car that started first time, every time, was a joy on a par with a night with George Clooney.

As she sped down the A5 she pulled out her phone.

‘Rupes, it’s me. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the pub but I need to collect Sam. He said he’d leave home if he had to go to after-school care again.’

It was true that Sam preferred not to stay late at school with the boarders. He said the common room smelled and tea in the refectory was always the same. ‘I don’t know how they do it, Mum, but whatever day you go it’s always some sort of mince,’ he’d said. ‘They give it different names but it doesn’t fool anyone.’

To say he hated it was perhaps an exaggeration, but extreme times called for extreme measures.

Rupinder said nothing. Lilly could imagine her pursed lips and tried to make light of it. ‘You can give me my bollocking tomorrow and save yourself the price of a pint.’

‘Just get your backside over here.’

Lancasters had changed hands again. Now a franchise of a famous chef who had never stepped out of the West End, it had restyled itself as a gastropub. What this meant in reality was sage-green walls by Farrow & Ball and steaks costing fifteen quid a pop. As usual, it was almost empty.

Rupinder and the others were congregated at the far end of the bar. Lilly heard the pop of a champagne cork and her heart sank. Had she missed something important? Whose birthday was it?

‘What’s the occasion?’ she called, all faux bonhomie.

Rupinder held out a glass of bubbly. ‘Your application for rights of higher audience. You passed.’