Lisa Ballantyne - Guilty One

16

Daniel was looking at the comics in Brampton News on Front Street. He was aware of being watched and turned quickly to catch a woman in maroon overalls staring at him. When he met her gaze she smiled at him and went back to the cash desk. Daniel felt a hot flush rise on his cheek. He knew the woman as Florence MacGregor, who everyone called Flo-Mac. She bought eggs and sometimes a chicken from Minnie, and always quibbled over the price. She had very black hair and Minnie had told him that she dyed it; some people just can’t take getting older, even though there’s nothing more certain in life than dying itself, she had told Daniel.

Daniel knew that Flo-Mac expected him to steal the comic, and was prepared to do that, so as not to disappoint her, but just as he was rolling it up to slip down his trousers, he thought about his career as a lawyer and how this would look. He unrolled the comic and counted the change in his pocket. He had enough.

As he was walking towards the counter, he heard Flo whispering to her assistant. Daniel couldn’t hear all the words, but he did make out Flynn, orphans, disgrace.

Daniel placed the comic on the counter.

‘Fourteen pence,’ said Flo.

Daniel threw the comic at her. ‘Stick it up your arse,’ he said and walked out of the shop.

At school he played football at lunch and scored two goals. In the afternoon there was a maths test and Daniel finished first, as usual, but this time he had actually filled in the answers. He waited after class and made Miss Pringle mark his paper before him. He got every answer correct and so Miss Pringle gave him a gold star to take home to Minnie.

Daniel walked with the test paper and the gold star in front of him as he crossed the Dandy. All of the other children were home by now and the Dandy was quiet. Billy Harper was alone on the swings and Daniel waved to him and the heavy man waved back, gently swinging back and forth. He remembered the summer before, being beaten as he crossed this piece of land. He felt different now, older. He folded the test up and put it in his pocket, then ran home, stopping occasionally to kick the heads off daisies.

When Daniel got home, Minnie was replacing the bedding in the goat’s hut. He walked up behind her and prodded her capacious hip.

‘I was wondering where you got to. Were you dawdling as usual?’

‘No, I stayed back to get my maths test, look!’ Daniel presented the paper to Minnie.

She frowned at the paper for a few moments then, realising, grabbed him and bear-hugged him, squeezing him so hard that he couldn’t take a breath and his toes lifted from the ground.

‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to celebrate.

A gold star means that we definitely must have crumble and custard.’

Daniel watched as she snatched at the rhubarb that grew out of control to the side of the chicken run. The stalks were three fingers thick and the leaves large as umbrellas. She walked into the house with three stems and then asked him if he wanted one now. While she made the crumble and heated the oil for the chips, he sat at the kitchen table dabbing a stalk of rhubarb into a bowl of sugar. The sweet-coated sourness of it reminded him of happiness and right then he was happy, with the gold star and the smell of chips cooking and the tartness of rhubarb on his tongue.

He was eating the crumble when she broached the subject. She pushed her bowl away from her as he took a custard-slicked slice of rhubarb into his mouth.

‘You remember I was telling you that it is often hard for social workers to find adoptive parents for older children like you?’

Daniel stopped eating. His arm buckled on to the table and his spoon balanced on the edge of his plate. He had food in his mouth, but could not swallow.

‘Well, it seems like Tricia has found a couple that would be interested.’

Minnie was watching his face for some response; Daniel could feel her eyes searching out his own. He was completely still – reflecting her.

‘It’s a family with older children, eighteen, twenty-two, ready to leave. They have four children of their own in total and just the one still there at home. It means you would have that family atmosphere, but get lots of attention. Better than here with just me and the animals kicking about. What do you think?’

Daniel shrugged with one shoulder and looked at his food. He did his best to swallow.

‘They live in Carlisle and they have a big house. You’d have a great big bedroom, I bet …’

‘Who cares?’

Minnie sighed. She reached out towards him, but he drew his arm away with such haste that he knocked his spoon off the table. Spots of custard landed on the wall and the floor.

‘They only want you to go for a try-out,’ she said. ‘They suggested this weekend, just to get to know each other.’

Daniel started from the table and ran upstairs. Blitz was asleep and Daniel caught his tail a little as he fled the room. He wasn’t sure if it was the yelp of the dog or Minnie’s cries behind him to come back that caused the anger to whip. It cracked through his body and as soon as he was in his bedroom he was destroying it: ripping out the drawers and kicking over the bedside table, smashing yet another lamp. This time, for good measure, he stamped on the shade, once, twice, three times.

He was jammed between the wardrobe and the bed, curled up tight, by the time Minnie entered. He steeled himself against the comforting hands that he expected on his back and his hair. He pressed tighter into himself. It reminded him of being attacked. Two of his mother’s boyfriends had beaten him unconscious. He remembered sitting just like this, jammed between furniture, protecting his stomach and his head, letting his shoulders and his back take the brunt, until they pulled him out, screaming, by his hair.

Now, he resisted her comfort in the same way; he was taut to it, so that every muscle in his body was primed to recoil should she come near. His face was pressed into his knees so he could hear and smell his own breath, laced with a sourness that was either the news or the rhubarb.

But Minnie didn’t touch him. He heard the springs protest as she sat down on the bed. He heard her exhale and then there was silence.

He waited for a few minutes, watching the circular patterns that throbbed before his eyes when he pressed his knees into them. He felt the pain of pressure in his eyeballs, yet did not stop. The muscles in his back were straining from curving around his thighs. Slowly, he raised his head. She was sitting with her back to him. He could see her twirling the gold band on her left hand. He had begun to like her hands, the red roughness of them. He liked the feel of them against his cheek and in his hair, as if only hands as rough as hers could bring him comfort now.

Now he watched her with his chin on his knees. She was still, turned from him, watching some invisible fancy in the air. He could see the rise and fall of her chest and the dwindling sun shining in her grey hair, so that it seemed almost white, reflecting all the light.

‘I just want to stay with you,’ he said finally.

‘Oh, Danny,’ she said, with her back still to him, ‘I’m glad you’ve settled here; I wanted you to. But this is a real chance for you. This is a family; imagine what it would be like to have two experienced, professional parents all to yourself. Better than this mucky old farm, and nobody but old me to talk to – I’ll tell you that for nothin’.’

‘I like the farm …’

‘These are real outdoor people, you know? Professional, smart people.’

‘So? Who cares?’

Minnie turned to him. She patted the bed beside her. ‘C’m’ere.’

Daniel uncoiled and sat beside her. She nudged him with her shoulder and asked, ‘You tellin’ me you’re afraid of a weekend away with nice new people? Nobody’s sending you anywhere. This is an opportunity for the taking.’