Simon Lelic - The Child Who

On screen there was confusion, briefly, until someone approached the group and guided them with an outstretched arm. The camera, though, floundered. Someone was missing. The picture panned left, then jerked right, before settling, it seemed, on a target. A woman and a girl, hand in hand, rounding the lead car from the passenger side. Felicity’s mother and Faye, Felicity’s sister, had emerged off screen, under cover of the mother’s improbably wide-brimmed hat. Again the camera jerked, as though jostled, and the picture switched to a different angle. The girl’s face – a more fraught, less rounded version of Felicity’s – became visible but the picture passed her by. The director, the cameramen: they wanted the mother. Anna Forbes’s hat, however, had clearly been chosen for a reason. Tipped towards the cameras, it masked all but her pale chin, until the aunts and the grandparents drew around her, her daughter too, and curtained their passage towards the church.

The commentator found his voice and Leo switched off to it. He looked at his lap again and only caught sight of the coffin from the corner of his eye. Was that Felicity’s father bearing it? Alongside her uncles? Megan gave a whimper and Leo decided he did not want to know. He tried to concentrate on the task he had set himself but there was silence again from the screen and the silence, in a way, was more of a distraction than the punditry.

He set aside the paperwork and picked up the mail he had collected that morning from the office. Grateful for something that required physical engagement, he inserted his finger into the topmost envelope and tore.

‘Leo. Please.’

Leo met his wife’s tear-smudged frown.

‘The post,’ she said. ‘Do you have to deal with that now?’

‘I’ll do it quietly,’ Leo said. He lifted the letter, acting as though studying it but focused, rather, on the television screen.

The coffin was three-quarter size. He could not, at first, work out what seemed odd about it but that, he realised, was it. Three-quarter size and a pure, lustrous white. Felicity’s family members bore it towards the cathedral entrance as though it were a tray of crystal. The two men at the rear – the girl’s uncles, it looked like – had their adjacent arms wrapped around each others’ shoulders, whether to help keep their burden steady or to give each other comfort, Leo could not tell.

The images on screen were transmitting now from inside the cathedral. The pews, needless to say, were full. The coffin, being threaded so carefully along the aisle, was a stark contrast to the collective pall of black. Some mourners tracked its advance, Leo noticed. Others looked conspicuously away. They stared at their hands or their feet or the backs of their eyelids.

‘You can watch, you know. You don’t have to pretend you’re not.’

Leo hastened to pick up another letter. ‘What? I know. I’m not pretending.’ He turned the envelope and acted as though intrigued by it.

‘Just watch it, Leo. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’

This time Leo scowled. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Megan sighed. ‘Nothing. I… Sorry.’

Leo glared for a moment. He looked again at the envelope he was holding and tossed it without bothering to finish opening it. There was quiet: in the room, on the television.

‘Leo.’

He did not look.

‘Leo.’

He did.

‘Don’t be angry,’ Megan said. ‘I was only… I only meant…’

Leo waited.

His wife sniffed and gathered herself. She shuffled to face him. ‘I only meant… that no one would blame you. I wouldn’t. Certainly your daughter wouldn’t.’ Megan tipped her head to the ceiling, a gesture towards Ellie shut away in her room.

‘Blame me?’ Leo set his head at an angle. ‘Blame me for what?’ They were clearly not talking just about the funeral any more.

Megan shook her head: not an answer but a dismissal. ‘Look, Leo. Just look.’ She pointed to the screen. Neither of them turned to it. ‘And your face. Have you seen what he did to your face?’

Leo brushed his fingertips across the scores on his cheek. ‘It was an accident.’ He let his hand fall. ‘I told you how it happened.’

Megan frowned.

‘What?’ said Leo.

‘Nothing. It was an accident. Fine. But I’m just saying. That’s all. If you handed over the case. If you decided it wasn’t worth it. I’d understand.’

‘Not worth it? What do you mean, not worth it? This is about the only thing I’ve ever been involved with that feels remotely worthwhile!’

Megan bridled. ‘I’ll ignore that, Leo. I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.’

‘Professionally. I meant professionally.’

‘You mean you’re bored. Is that it? You’re putting your daughter, your wife, yourself through this because you’re tired of the same old commute?’

The commute. Leo thought again of the processions of cars, the parade of drunk and disorderlies. He thought of his father, of his bitterness at his cigarettes-and-TV existence and his hope that Leo would achieve something more. Yes, he wanted to tell his wife: that’s it exactly. Because how else to put it? How else to admit that a year… No. More. Almost two years. How else to admit that almost two years after his father’s death, he was yet to move on? Was yet to see a means to.

He said nothing. He picked up another envelope.

‘You have a family, Leo,’ said Megan after a moment. ‘You have a daughter. Ever since Matthew died you’ve been—’

‘I’ve been what?’ said Leo. He snapped. He did not mean to.

Megan hesitated. ‘You don’t want to talk about your father,’ she said. ‘I get it. But Ellie’s terrified. Can you not see that? About going back to school. About leaving her room.’

‘Megan, please. Ellie will be fine. I went to the school, didn’t I? I spoke to the headmistress.’ Inside the envelope was a query about an invoice that should really have gone straight to admin. Leo flipped the folded page in the direction of the floor.

‘Well,’ said Megan. ‘That’s okay, then. If you went to the school. If you spoke to the headmistress. That makes the fact that someone threw blood at your daughter perfectly all right.’

‘It was ink! For Christ’s sake, Meg.’ There was a final envelope to open and Leo started his assault on the seal. On screen a eulogy had begun. Felicity’s death, the minister was saying, had not been in vain. Justice, apparently, would prevail. Over whom, he did not elucidate.

‘What do you think, Leo? That they would have resisted throwing blood if they’d had any? That the fact it only looked like blood made your daughter any less upset? That she came away any less traumatised?’

Traumatised. Jesus Christ. Leo’s head juddered. He tugged at the sheet of paper caught inside the envelope.

‘Do you know what I don’t understand?’ Megan leant towards him. ‘What I can’t – ’ his wife splayed her hands, gripping something solid but invisible between them ‘ – what I can’t grasp?’

Leo did not ask for the answer. He focused on the note in his hands.

‘It’s that he did it. It’s that you know he did it. He’s told you he’s guilty and still you insist on putting his well-being above your daughter’s.’

It was a prompt for him to rile and he almost took it. The note, though. He could not stop looking at the note.

‘He killed an eleven-year-old girl, Leo. He doesn’t deserve you. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to be defended at all, by anyone!’

Leo felt for the empty envelope he had discarded. It was ripped now but the address, like the words on the note itself, had been typed or printed and gave away nothing more.

‘Leo. Talk to me! Don’t just ignore me. Don’t you dare just ignore what I’m saying!’