Pat Barker - Border Crossing

‘So what happened?’

‘Nothing happened. He left. It was only a temporary appointment anyway.’

There was a story here, Tom thought, and he wasn’t being told it. ‘And he left before you got to the murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘And no more attempts after that?’

‘In prison I joined a therapy group. Which was pathetic. Load of wankers telling the same lies they’d told in court. But the guy in charge had one really good idea, or anyway I thought so. He used to give people a tape recorder and tell them to say whatever they wanted, let it all… you know, spew out, and the only rule was you had to burn the tape at the end. I really liked the idea of that. So I got the tape recorder, and off I went, and… you were sort of supervised. There was somebody outside the room. And I couldn’t say a bloody word. I just sat there and watched it going round.’

‘What was going through your mind?’

‘Frustration. And then I started to think perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea. I mean, what’s to stop somebullshitting from beginning to end? You know…’ His voice became an aggressive whine.’ “It wasn’t really my fault, other people had a lot to do with it, I’ve had a hard life…” Why would somebody tell the truth just because they’re talking to themselves? That’s the world’s most uncritical audience. You need somebody who can say, “Hey, c’mon, it wasn’t like that.”

A sort of a…’

‘Bullshit detector?’

‘Yeah, something like that. A reality checker.’

‘And you couldn’t do that with the therapist?’

‘No, he only did group work. And anyway…

’ Danny stopped, and for a moment Tom thought he wasn’t going to go on. But then, looking out of the window, he said, ‘Whenever I’ve imagined myself trying to talk about it, it’s always been with you.’

‘Because I was there?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘I can see it might make things easier.’

‘No, not easier. But the thing is, I can be Danny with you. I can’t be Danny with anybody else.’

Tom said slowly, ‘I’m surprised you still trust me.’ ‘You mean, because the last time I spilled the beans it all came out in court?’

‘If you think you “spilled the beans”, Danny… You were the most self-contained, wary kid I’d ever met.’

‘There, you see? That’s exactly what I need. Somebody who knows what it was like.’

‘I wasn’t there most of the time.’

‘No, but you’d know if I was lying. To myself, I mean. Obviously, I won’t be lying to you.’ He laughed. ‘No point.’ Despite the laughter, he was sweating. Suddenly, he stood up. ‘Do you mind if I pop out for a bit? I need a cigarette.’

Tom held out a polystyrene cup with cigarette butts floating on the dregs.

‘Yeah, I know, but…’ He jerked his head at the ‘No Smoking’ sign. ‘I’m a good boy, I am.’

That smile, Tom thought, as the door closed behind him. It was enough to make an atheist believe in damnation.

Restless, he got up and went across to the window, wishing that he too could escape from the fetid little room, but reluctant to leave, in case Danny came back and found him gone. There wasn’t too much antagonism there, he thought. Some. Probably rather more than Danny admitted, but not enough to matter. The fact was, anybody trying to help Danny would need a pretty robust identity to cope with some of the things he was likely to throw at them. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but he’d decided to do it. In the end, the question was not whether he would take Danny on, but whether he was prepared to abandon him. This wasn’t the start of a professional relationship, but the continuation of one that had begun thirteen yean ago.

The smell in this room was intolerable. Tom went to the door and flung it open, only to see Danny coming along the narrow corridor towards him, head down, striding along as if he were in open country.

Baulked of his need to escape, Tom retreated into the room, and sat down. ‘Better?’

‘Yeah,’ Danny said, with an apologetic smile. ‘Filthy habit, can’t kick it.’

‘Is that the only one?’

Danny blinked. ‘Apart from temazepam, yes.’

‘I just want to get one or two things straight. Have you seen a transcript of the trial?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think that’s confused your own memories?’

‘No, it didn’t have any impact at all. It was too different. Anyway, it’s the… It’s not the trial I want to talk about.’

‘So we’ll be focusing on your childhood. Well, the bit of your childhood that came before…’

‘That’s all of it. There wasn’t much childhood after.’

‘What we talk about is entirely up to you. I might ask you to fill in something I’m not clear about, but that’s all. Basically, you decide. Is that all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘The other thing is, do you mind if I talk to other people? Obviously, I won’t repeat anything you tell me.’ He saw Danny smile. ‘No, this time the confidentiality is absolute. Only, if I were going to talk to other people, I’d probably need to tell them you were seeing me. Is that all right?’

Danny was shaking his head.

‘It’s entirely up to you.’

‘I don’t want my father involved. As far as I know he doesn’t know where I am, and that suits me fine.’

‘I was thinking of the headmaster at Long Garth.’

‘Mr Greene?’ He looked surprised. ‘Yeah, all right. I don’t mind that.’

‘All right, then. One more thing. If I think you’re becoming more depressed as a result of the sessions, we’re going to have to think very carefully about whether we go on.’

‘I don’t want to start, and then give up.’

‘No, but there’re all kinds of compromises. I was thinking twice a week initially, but if things get a bit tough there’s no reason why you can’t take a week out. All I’m saying is we need to be flexible.’

‘All right. I do want to get on with it, though.’

‘I’ll have a word with Martha, and as soon as I’ve done that we can arrange a time.’

‘Okay.’

Danny seemed subdued now, bracing himself perhaps. The moment Tom made a move, he stood up and held out his hand. As Tom took it, he was remembering the embrace that had ended their first meeting, the child’s hot, sticky face pressed into his midriff. And then the warder’s comment: ‘Well, he is a horror, isn’t he?’ echoing in his head, as he walked back to his car, where, waiting for him, spilling out of the file and over the back seat, were the photographs of Lizzie Parks, the horror of the images impossible to connect with the child he’d just left.

Danny was right, in one way. He did need to do this. He needed to make the connection.

It was nonsense what Danny had said about the trial, and Tom knew it was nonsense. He had an adult memory of the proceedings and Danny did not. Simple as that. But Danny’s words niggled away at him, nevertheless. Along with other problems. Lauren was proving difficult to contact, and that had to be deliberate. Often when he phoned, she was out, and she didn’t reply to messages left on the answering machine. When he did succeed in getting through to her, she was remote and monosyllabic. The book too had reached a sticky patch, when he simply had to stop and do some more research before he could move on again. Nothing much was going right, but he just had to put his head down and get on with it.

He spent the morning after his interview with Danny in the medical library, looking up papers on the microfiche. He hated the machines, which produced, if he persisted in using them long enough, visual disturbances that resembled a migraine, though without pain. By the time he left the library, feeling physically and mentally sick, he knew he was in for one of them. The sunlight flashing on windscreens and bumpers hurt his eyes. By the time he got to his car, there was a dark spot at the centre of his field of vision in his right eye, surrounded by a halo of tarnished silver light. He moved his head, as he always did, trying to get rid of it, though he knew it was pointless. The black circle moved with his head. A patch of temporary ischaemia on the surface of his retina. As a boy he’d been fascinated by it, because he was looking at the absence of sight, and the paradox pleased him. Now it was merely a nuisance.