David Belbin - Bone & Cane

Sarah replayed this scene, as she had many times before, with one crucial dialogue change. In the attic bedroom, her sexual initiation was brief but satisfying. When the fantasy was over, though, she felt emptier than before. In real life, just after this failed seduction, acne set in. The hard contact lenses hurt her eyes. They kept falling out and, in the end, had to be discarded. Male interest shrivelled and, partly in retaliation, Sarah adopted a hard feminist line. Short skirts were out. It was four years until Nick arrived and she found out how good sex could be. Better than it had been since.

‘You want to hang on to that one,’ Grandad said, after meeting Nick, not long before he died. ‘He’ll go a long way.’

12

You’re letting him stay?’

‘The only convictions on his record are so old they don’t count against him. The city council say he can have a license. I’ve said I’ll give him his knowledge test next week.’

‘What about the customers, when they recognise him?’

‘All they’ll remember is that he got off. But you know how it is, most people don’t even look at their taxi driver.’

‘His victims’ kids still live round here!’

‘Nick, he’s innocent. What’s your problem?’

Nick couldn’t explain, not without letting on about Polly. He didn’t want Joe to know about her. His brother would let it slip to Caroline, then Caroline might invite Polly round and Polly might think there was more to their relationship than there was.

‘Ed got off, Joe. Doesn’t mean he’s innocent.’

‘Whatever. He’s a good driver. I don’t take people on because I like them. I take people on because they’re reliable and they make me money.’

‘He could lose you money, too.’

‘I’ll take that risk. I met the bloke. He seems okay. A lot of people reckon he deserves a decent shake.’

Nick gave up. Nobody likes their big brother telling them what to do. Ed might fail the test. If not, Nick would have to warn Polly not to use Cane Cars. Joe had lots of drivers but, one day, Polly was bound to draw Ed.

‘Time I was getting back for dinner.’

When Joe had gone, Nick picked up the tabloid on the table and folded the paper back to the front page: ‘NOTHING SLEAZY ABOUT MY TRYST WITH TORY’ SAYS UNDERAGE GIRL. According to the daughter, now nearly thirty and hanging onto her anonymity, her father had inflated the incident with Barrett Jones out of all proportion.

There were several crucial differences between this story and the one Nick had read three days before. Jones wasn’t a friend of the girl’s family. He happened to be staying in the next holiday cottage. The family had taken pity on him because he’d just split up with his wife, who was meant to be there with him. The girl insisted she had come on to Jones, not vice versa. He had not taken full advantage of the situation.

‘I would have slept with him if he asked me,’ she said. ‘I prefer older men, always have. My current boyfriend’s forty-six.’

Absorbed by the story, Nick didn’t look up when he heard the door open and close. ‘Things got physical,’ the article went on. The paper used innuendo to describe how the teenager had masturbated Jones beneath a towel on the beach. Later in the day, she had offered her virginity to him. He demurred and gave her oral sex instead, saying it was safer and he was very good at it. Her father, unknown to her, had a second key to their hiding place. He’d found the minister-to-be going down on his fourteen-year-old daughter on the floor of the family’s quaint old beach hut.

‘I’m not sure Barrett knew how old I was before, but he found out then.’

Nick laughed out loud. He became aware of the other driver looking over his shoulder.

‘Silly slut,’ said Ed Clark. ‘She thinks she’s doing him a favour, telling the world he let her wank him off when he could have fucked her. That’s not a man.’

‘Hardly a vote-winner,’ Nick said, carefully.

‘I reckon my Sarah’s gonna get back in now.’

‘Follow elections closely, do you?’ Nick asked, trying not to let a sardonic note slide into his voice.

‘Only this one. Personal interest, like. You’re same as me, aren’t you?’

This threw Nick. Ed wasn’t talking about prison. ‘How so?’

‘Shouldn’t be driving. Doing it on the side. No choice.’

‘No choice,’ Nick agreed. Was there an implicit threat? Be sweet to me or I’ll shop you to the taxi authorities or Probation.

‘Blokes like you and me, we ought to stick together.’

‘Right,’ Nick said, though his crime hardly equated with rape and murder.

‘There’s a club a few of us go to when it gets quiet. The Ad Lib.’

Nick remembered a club with that name. He’d seen bands there in the 1980s. Ed told him where the place was. Not the same.

‘There’s women, if you need one. They’re all pros, like. But they go there to relax, too.’

‘I might come along later,’ Nick said. He ought to stay friendly with the other drivers. Suppose Polly was wrong about Ed? The only thing Nick had against Ed was his claim to have screwed Sarah. It was bollocks, but it didn’t make him a murderer. If Sarah believed Ed, then, regardless of whether she fancied or fucked him, maybe Nick ought to believe him too. At least give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.

Bob announced himself with a chummy ‘Ay up’. Nick had to drive him home before starting his shift.

‘Might see you down there, then,’ Nick told Ed as he left.

On the drive to Bob’s, Nick passed a trade union office he hadn’t noticed before. It had a big new sign in the window: SARAH BONE MP, CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS, surrounded by red and yellow NEW LABOUR – SARAH BONE posters. Nick decided to go in later, see if they wanted help.

This election, the party insisted that all candidates be reachable by mobile phone. Sarah kept forgetting to turn hers on. It rang as she was driving to the campaign HQ, distracting her to the extent that she nearly hit the car in front. She pulled over at a bus stop. She had only given out the number to a handful of people: her staff, her agent and Brian Hicks. Important calls only, she’d said.

‘They’ve booted Jones out,’ Brian told Sarah.

‘For making a fool of himself or claiming to be good at cunnilingus?’

‘They’re having an emergency selection meeting later tonight.’

‘Won’t Central Office impose somebody?’

‘The Tories aren’t Stalinists like your lot. Local parties have complete autonomy. They’ll choose a local candidate.’

‘Jeremy Atkinson?’ Sarah said. He was the businessman she’d beaten in the by-election.

‘I doubt it. They don’t like losers. Got anything for me?’

‘A quote? How about: It doesn’t matter who their candidate is, New Labour won’t let this seat go back to the Tories .’

‘Perfect. Catch you later.’

In any canvas, there were a handful of people the MP ought to see in person. Not party members. They were either ignored or gently nagged to put up a poster. Sarah needed to see community leaders. She also had to visit vociferous voters with outstanding grievances, to reassure them that their case was still being looked at. Even when it wasn’t true, like in her first call tonight. Best to get it over with. Sarah rang the doorbell of Polly Bolton’s council house.

‘Mum!’ A seven-year-old in a Batman T-shirt yelled. ‘Visitor.’

Sarah was led through the crowded hall, past the blaring telly in the front room, into the kitchen-diner. The dinner table had been folded up to make room for an exercise cycle. Polly, in a baggy T-shirt and sweat pants, was pedalling away. She glanced up expectantly, the look of a woman hoping to see a lover. Finding Sarah instead, her face fell.