Lisa Ballantyne - Guilty One

She put his pyjamas on the toilet seat for him and then placed a towel on top. There was a stool by the side of the bath and she leaned on the sink and lowered herself down on to it.

‘How’s your bath? Are you feeling any better?’

He nodded.

‘You look better, I have to say. What a fright you gave me with all that blood. What happened to you? Look at your arms. You’re covered in bruises.’

‘Got in a fight at school.’

‘Who was it? I know them all in Brampton. They buy my eggs. I can talk to their mothers.’

He inhaled. He was about to tell her that he got a kicking because of her, but he decided against it. He was too tired to fight with her and he liked her, just a little bit – just right then, for fixing his nose and running him the bath.

‘You’ll be hungry.’

He nodded.

‘I had stew for dinner. I still have yours in the fridge. If you want I’ll heat it up for you.’

He nodded again, touching his nose to check if it was bleeding again.

‘Or do you just want cheese on toast since it’s so late? Cup of cocoa.’

‘Cheese on toast.’

‘Right you are then. I’ll get it started. You should get out soon. Stay in too long, you’ll get a chill.’

‘Minnie?’ He put one hand on the edge of the bath as she passed. ‘You know the butterfly – why do you like it so much? Is it worth a lot of money?’

She pulled her cardigan around her. He wasn’t being cheeky. He wanted to know yet he could sense her withdrawal.

‘It’s worth a lot to me,’ she said. She started to leave, but then she turned at the door. ‘My daughter gave it to me.’

Daniel leaned on the side of the bath so that he could see her face. She looked sad for a moment but then she was gone and he heard her sighing as she made her way down the stairs.

Later, in his bedroom, listening to the creaks as the house fell asleep, he checked that his mam’s necklace was still there and his knife was still under his pillow.

7

Daniel pushed his shoulder blades back into the driver’s seat as he drove up the M6. He drove with the window down and his elbow out. The noise of the wind almost drowned out the radio, but he needed the air. Driving north, he felt an almost magnetic pull. He had not planned to go up for the funeral but had spent a restless weekend, his mind tormented alternately by thoughts of Sebastian and Minnie. He had woken up with a headache at six o’clock in the morning, showered, dressed and got straight into the car. He had been on the road for nearly four hours, driving in a mindless way, looking forward and remembering, letting his foot fall heavy on the accelerator.

He imagined arriving in Brampton and being slowed by the unrepentant green, the smell of manure threading the air. He imagined pulling up at her house and listening to the barks of her latest pound-dog. It would come running towards him: a boxer, or a mongrel, or a collie. Whatever trauma the dog had experienced, it would still stop in its tracks and heed her when she called for it to stop barking. She would tell the dog that Daniel was family and there was no need for the racket.

Family. The kitchen floor would be unwashed and the putty around the windows would be pecked by the chickens. She would be half drunk and offer him one and he would accept and they would drink gin in the afternoon, until she cried at the sight of him, and wept for his loss. She would kiss him with her lemon lips and tell him that she loved him. Loved him. What would he feel? So long since he had been close to her and yet the smell of her would be familiar. Even though he was angry enough to hit her, the smell of her would bring him comfort and he would sit down with her in the living room. He would enjoy her company and watching the way her face flushed when she spoke. He would feel relief to be near her, listening to her lilting Irish voice. It would be baptismal and deliverance would flood him, soak him like the northern rain, and leave him clean before her and ready to accept all that he had done, and all that she had done. He would forgive them both.

He pulled into the service area.

I’ll never forgive you, he had screamed at her once, so long ago.

I’ve never been able to forgive myself, lad. How could I expect you to, she had said, later, years later, over the phone – trying to make him understand. She had called often after he moved down to London, less as the years went by, as if she had lost hope that he could forgive her.

I only wanted to protect you, she would try to explain. But he would never hear of it. He had never allowed her to explain, no matter how hard she tried. Some things could never be forgiven.

Daniel bought a coffee and stretched his legs. He was only twenty miles from Brampton now. The air was cooler and he thought he could already smell the farms. He set his coffee cup on the roof of his car and put his hands into his pockets, pushing his shoulders up to his ears. His eyes were hot from the effort of concentrating on the road. It was nearly lunchtime and the coffee was like mercury in his stomach. He had driven halfway up the country and now that seemed inexplicable. If he had not come so far already, he would have turned back.

He drove the last twenty miles slowly, keeping to the inside lane, listening to the friction of the air against his open window. At the Rosehill roundabout he took the third exit, wincing at the turning signposted Hexham, Newcastle.

After the trout farm he saw Brampton ahead of him, set among the tilled fields like a crude gem. A kestrel hovered by the side of the road and then disappeared from view. The warm smell of manure came as he had expected and was instantly calming. After London, the air tasted so fresh. The red-brick council houses and neat gardens seemed smaller than he remembered. The town felt primitive and quiet as Daniel checked his speed and drove right through it to the farm he had grown up in, high on the Carlisle Road.

He parked outside Minnie’s farm and sat for a few minutes, his hands on the wheel, listening to the sound of his breath. He might have driven away again, but instead he got out of the car.

He walked very slowly towards Minnie’s door. His fingers were trembling and his throat was dry. There was no mongrel barking, no hoarse cockerel or clucking chickens. The farm was locked, although Daniel thought he could still see the impressions of her man-boots in the yard. He looked up at the window which had been his bedroom. His hands made fists in his pockets.

He walked around the back of the house. The chicken run was still there, but empty. The door of the shed swayed in the wind, scant white feathers clinging to the mesh. There was no goat, but Daniel could see the impressions of hooves in the mud. Could it be that the old goats had outlived her? Daniel sighed as he thought of the animals leaving her and being replaced, like the foster children she had raised and then let go, time and again.

Daniel pulled out his house keys. Alongside the key to his London flat, he still had Minnie’s house key. The same brass Yale that she had given him when he was a boy.

The house smelled damp and quiet when he opened the door. From its depths, the cold reached out to him like elderly hands. He slipped inside, pulling the sleeves of his jumper over his hands to warm them. The house still smelled of her. Daniel stood in the kitchen, letting his fingers move from crowded work surface to sewing kit, to the boxes of animal feed and the jars of coins, buttons and spaghetti. The kitchen table was piled high with newspapers. Mindful spiders scuttled from the floorboards.

He opened the fridge. There wasn’t much food but it had not been emptied. The tomatoes were shrunken, wearing furred grey hats. The half-bottle of milk was yellow and sour. Lettuce wilted to seaweed. Daniel closed the door.