Simon Lelic - The Child Who

Megan headed straight for the station. Leo, they agreed, would retrace their route and then meet them, hopefully, on platform two. And so he rewound their day, pacing from the site of one minor failure to the next. None proved any more fruitful on Leo’s second visit, which meant his first instinct had obviously been correct. And so he sprinted, as best he could around pedestrians who refused to part, and braced himself for the prospect of his wife and daughter braced for the prospect of seeing him.

He almost missed them. The train to Exeter was at the platform and there were enough bodies interlacing through the doors that Leo struggled for a moment to distinguish his wife and daughter’s. Then he spotted them, finally – but even as he did, he thought for a second that he must have been mistaken. Because they were getting on. His wife, his daughter ahead of her and with Megan’s hand at the small of her back: they were about to board the train.

They were leaving without him.

Leo, rooted, called out. Ellie by now was already aboard but Megan, behind her, turned. She saw him. There was no question that she saw him. She did not answer, however. She did not wave, nor gesture for him to hurry. She regarded him for half a moment, then turned her back and stepped from sight.

It had, she said,gone something like this.

Stephanie was seated when Karen arrived, facing the door and curiously still. Blake, behind her, seemed powered by the both of them: not muttering when Karen walked in but giving the impression he was merely drawing breath. He was pacing, or seemed to have been, because it took him a second or two after Karen entered to rein in his momentum. He came to a halt beside the armchair, partially obscuring his wife and soundlessly broadcasting his hostility. He checked his watch, as though Karen being ten minutes late were the cause of his disquiet. She should have been on time, of course. She had not intended to leave her office that morning but something had come up and it had taken longer than she had expected to deal with and the traffic, on the way back, had been…

Anyway. The point was Blake was hostile from the start, just as Leo had predicted he would be.

Karen apologised. Blake took her hand when she offered it, though for half a second she was certain he would not. Daniel’s mother did not stand but smiled up at Karen. She seemed calm. Chemically so, Karen would have said. It was a glaze she recognised. One, sometimes, she prescribed.

Blake was not calm. He acted, once Karen was in the room, in a manner to imply he was perfectly in control but his agitation simmered below his skin.

‘So you’re the shrink,’ he said, restating in his own terms Karen’s introduction.

‘ A shrink,’ Karen said and reinforced her smile. ‘Leo. Leonard. Mr Curtice…’ she was unsure, it struck her then, how they would know him ‘… asked me to help out. With Daniel. With the case.’

‘Like you’re not getting paid,’ Blake responded. ‘Like “helping out” isn’t billed by the hour.’

Still Karen smiled. ‘Would you like coffee? Tea? Water or something?’

‘Let’s just get on with this.’ Blake sat on the join between the cushions on the sofa and aimed his knees at ten and two. ‘Shall we?’

Karen waited for Blake’s wife to decide for herself, then settled, when Stephanie shook her head, on the armchair beside her.

‘I was hoping,’ Karen said, impartially alternating eye contact, ‘for a little background. I invited you here because I thought, by talking to you, I might glean some insight into—’

But she need not have bothered with the rehearsals.

‘I have a living to earn,’ Blake interrupted. ‘Steph here has soaps to watch. What is it you want us to tell you?’

‘Well,’ Karen said, ‘I’m not sure exactly. Which is why I thought it important that we should talk. The three of us.’ She endeavoured, with a look, to include Stephanie.

‘Talk. Always bloody talk. That’s all any of you lot seem to do.’

‘Us lot, Mr Blake? Who do you mean exactly?’

Blake flicked a hand. ‘Curtice. Social services. The do-gooders from that charity that keeps bugging us, behaving like we’re the bloody victims. And doctors. Don’t get me started on doctors. God knows we’ve seen enough of them over the years to know they’re all full of piss and air.’

Karen said nothing. She watched.

‘This isn’t easy, you know.’ Blake’s tone was a challenge. ‘The waiting. The moving out, the moving in. The so-called bloody protection. And Steph here – she’s completely messed up about Daniel.’

Blake did not look at his wife but Karen did.

‘I’m upset,’ Stephanie said. ‘That’s all Vince means. It’s Danny, obviously, but it’s other things too.’

‘She means her mates. Former mates, rather. Mates who don’t call any more, don’t answer when she calls them.’

‘And you, Mr Blake? Are you upset?’

‘Course I am. But he’s not my son, is he? It’s different, isn’t it? I don’t feel so constantly bloody guilty all the time. That’s Steph’s trouble. She’s acting like she’s the one who killed that girl, like it’s her fault Daniel—’

‘Vince. Don’t.’

Blake gave Karen a look: you see what I mean? He patted himself down and located his packet of cigarettes.

‘I’d like, if I may,’ said Karen after a pause, ‘to discuss Daniel’s home life. His childhood. I’d like to establish a little background.’

‘What’s the point?’ said Blake. ‘He’s not mad, he’s not retarded – that’s what you told Curtice. He’s just screwed up. Right? So he pleads guilty. What choice does he have? How is talking about his childhood gonna change anything?’

‘You want to help him, Mr Blake, don’t you? You want Daniel to understand why he did what he did?’

‘He has to be guilty first. That’s what I read. No one can help him till he tells them he’s guilty.’ Blake turned aside, his voice dwindling into a mutter. ‘Which, the way I see it, he already has.’ He turned back to face Karen. He held up his cigarettes. ‘You’re gonna tell me I can’t smoke in here, aren’t you?’

Karen winced. ‘Sorry.’

Blake gave a sniff. He tucked the packet of cigarettes back into his shirt pocket.

‘We want to help.’

Karen turned to face Stephanie.

‘Of course we want to help. We just don’t see how we can. That’s part of the problem. That’s the reason we’re finding this so hard.’

Karen nodded. ‘I understand. I really do. We all want what’s best for Daniel and the information you give me should help us establish exactly what that might be.’

‘Why are you asking?’ said Blake. ‘That’s what I want to know. What did Daniel tell you? I mean, if he’s trying to sell you some sob story, blame everything that’s happened on Steph…’

‘Not at all. That’s not at all why I invited you here. When I met with Daniel he was scared, above all. He was confused. He seemed to struggle with his family history and I thought maybe you could help me fill in some of the blanks.’ Karen hesitated, then added, ‘The truth is, I would not, in normal circumstances, be meeting with you both. But Leo and I go back a while and… well… I was hoping, I will admit, to be involved with Daniel’s rehabilitation. Depending on the outcome of the case, of course.’

Blake snorted. ‘So you’re looking for a gig. That’s what this is about. You’re looking for freaks to dissect, to write about in some study.’

‘I want to help, Mr Blake. Vincent. May I call you Vincent? I’m genuinely only interested in doing what I can to help your stepson.’

Again Blake sniffed. He made a face that implied it did not matter now what Karen said: he had her number.