Simon Beckett - Owning Jacob - SA

He almost didn’t recognise the brief shot of himself, hurrying away like a criminal.

Kale’s residence application had been approved, and that afternoon Ben had taken Jacob for the final handover to his new parents. He’d told himself all the way through that it was the best thing to do. Best for Jacob. To have contested Kale’s right to his son would have been selfish. No matter what he felt personally, no matter what Sarah’s parents thought, John Kale was Jacob’s father. All the other arguments failed in the face of that. If the social services had found anything, any reason why Jacob shouldn’t be returned to his natural father, then that would have been different. But they hadn’t, and Ben had agreed to abide by their decision. And he had. Right up till the end.

I’m sorry, Sarah.

He remembered how Jessica had accused him of not wanting the responsibility of looking after Jacob, and wondered if his motives for giving him up without a fight had been completely pure after all. His reasoning now seemed blurred and muddied.

He watched as the television report cut to an elderly couple in a tiny flocked-wallpaper living room. Jeanette Kale’s parents.

The woman was in a wheelchair, obviously uncomfortable in front of the TV cameras. Her husband sat holding her hand, a composed-looking man being slowly dragged down by age.

Yes, they were very happy, they said. Yes, they wished their daughter were alive to see her son’s return. When they were asked if they had seen their grandson yet, Ben saw the woman glance at her husband. He hesitated. “No, not yet.” When would they be seeing him? the interviewer pressed.

Again there was an awkwardness.

“Soon, we hope,” the man answered. He didn’t look at the interviewer as he said it.

The item ended with a shot of the Kales taking Jacob into their house. The cameras had obviously stayed at the top of the path and were filming over the gate. The overgrown garden with its piles of junk wasn’t shown. Its squalor would presumably have struck the wrong chord for the ‘up’ tone of the rest of the piece. Ben watched as Jacob was absorbed into the black rectangle of the hallway and a smiling Sandra Kale reluctantly closed the door.

He turned the set off. He went into the kitchen, got himself another beer from the fridge and sat down at the table to roll himself a joint. He was smoking too many and drinking too much lately. Fuck it. He drew down a lungful of the bitter-sweet smoke, held it, then blew it out and took a gulp of beer to cool his mouth.

Once a month.

That was his reward for doing the right thing. That was how often he’d been granted access to Jacob. Not that it was called ‘access’ any more. The new word was contact, as if the name made any difference. It still meant he would only be all owed to see him one day out of every twenty-eight.

Once a fucking month.

Even Ann Usherwood had been confident that it would be weekly, or fortnightly at the worst but, although the police had absolved Ben of any guilt, any complicity in what had happened, the social services had still decided that it wouldn’t be in Jacob’s ‘best interests’ to see him too often. They appeared as taken with the romantic story of ‘little boy lost, little boy found’ as the lowest of the tabloids. Not that they admitted it. It was all couched in the most respectable, reasonable terms. Jacob was already settling into his new home surprisingly well, Carlisle, the social worker, had told Ben. In view of the circumstances, and his condition, far from helping that process, frequent contact with his former stepfather might actually disrupt it. He said they were sorry.

Which made everything all right, of course.

Ben drained the bottle of beer and went upstairs to Jacob’s room. What used to be Jacob’s room, he corrected himself, drawing on the joint. He looked at the toys and clothes that Kale hadn’t wanted, the Rebus symbols and brightly coloured posters on the wall. He didn’t know which was worst, seeing what was left behind or noticing what was missing. He’d taken the previous day off work so they could spend it together. They’d gone to the zoo. He’d carried the boy on his shoulders around the caged and penned animals, trying to make him laugh, wanting it to be a day they’d both remember. Jacob seemed to have had a good time but it had been too emotionally loaded for Ben to enjoy it. A part of him was forever standing back, self-consciously observing everything they did in the awareness that it was their last day. Telling himself that he’d be able to see Jacob again in a month’s time didn’t help. He knew it would be different then. His mood had continued even when they were back home. That morning he’d helped Jacob dress, made his breakfast, all with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be doing any of it again.

It was harder than ever to convince himself that he had made the right decision.

He closed the door on the room that Jacob wouldn’t be spending any more nights in and went back downstairs. He killed the joint and took another beer from the fridge. A photograph of Sarah stared down at him from the kitchen wall. He had always liked it because she seemed to be smiling even though, taking each of her features in isolation, she wasn’t. It had only been recently that he could bring himself to put it up. Sarah thought it was vain to have photographs of herself on display unless either Ben or Jacob were in them too, and after she had died he’d found it too painful to see it every day. He looked at it now, but even after several joints and beers he couldn’t fancy that he saw any reproach or criticism in it. It hadn’t changed.

It was just a photograph.

The doorbell rang. Ben stayed where he was. He didn’t want to see anyone. He had switched off his mobile, and as soon as he had arrived home he had taken the phone off the hook to preempt the sympathy calls he knew would be coming. He felt a little guilty for avoiding Colin, but he could always phone him later. It was even possible that his father might feel obliged to ring again, and Ben felt bad enough already without having to go through that. There had been a call when the story first broke, a short conversation that left Ben more depressed than ever. Most of the conversation had been taken up with his excuses for staying away, an apologetic ramble that boiled down to his wife feeling under the weather. Ben had noticed that she always came down with something whenever anyone put any demands on her husband’s attentions. “You know how it is,” his father had finished, and Ben had agreed that yes, he knew how it was.

Thanks, Dad.

The doorbell shrilled again. Ben resolutely sat at the table, but this time it didn’t stop. He pushed back the chair and went to see who it was.

Zoe was leaning with her thumb on the bell. She jerked it away when he opened the door. A taxi was double-parked on the road behind her, its engine still running. She gave a grin that didn’t manage to conceal her nervousness. “Hi. I tried to ring, but the phone’s been engaged.”

Ben was still trying to adjust to seeing her. “I took it off the hook.”

“Oh.” She put her hands in the back pockets of her tight black jeans. They rode low on her hips. The movement hunched up her shoulders. “I heard about what had happened on the news. I thought I’d see if you were okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He remembered his manners. “Are you coming in?”

“No, it’s all right. The taxi’s waiting.” Zoe watched herself stub her toe up and down on the step. Her hair was red this week. “So what are you doing now?”

Ben recalled the solicitor’s talk of an appeal over his contact with Jacob, but it had been half-hearted. And just then it seemed too abstract, too effortful for him to concentrate on now. “I don’t know.”