Whatever our religious differences, the children brought us closer. The four of us shared the love and pleasure of Adam and then Sophie, and had so much in common there, a mutual sense of joy and privilege and a similar way of caring for the kids that, thankfully, overrode those divisions.
Day three of my trial and the drizzle has cleared: a fierce wind has pushed all the clouds away and the sky is a piercing blue, bright enough to sting my eyes as I’m transferred from the prison to the van.
Travelling into the city centre, I look up out of the small rectangular window in my compartment at the buildings. I spy the light grey modern British Telecom building, at Castlefield near the Mancunian Way, and then the imposing brick bridges that carry the railways across the end of Deansgate. The railway arches have been converted into bars and clubs. Further along, there are old banks and warehouses, insurance companies and office blocks, most of them raised in the Victorian era during the cotton boom. They bear witness to the craft of stonemasons, with their fine carving and columns, finials and trims. The window is too small for me to see the top of the Hilton skyscraper. Halfway down Portland Street and way up high on one building, I notice words, cast in brick, bas-relief: ‘honesty’ and ‘perseverance’. Admonitions to the city’s workforce. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
And then we are at Minshull Street and pull up alongside another prison van. The back entrance that we use is solid oak, studded and imperious. Either side of it frolic gargoyles and demons, legs splayed like lizards, faces contorted with sadistic glee.
Today I am in a different cell at the opposite end of the corridor. It is ten o’clock. The courts begin each day at ten thirty. There is a lot of waiting about. Between the paralysing tension of the courtroom there are interminable stretches of dead time when it’s hard to find anything to do. I should like to sketch but I am not permitted to carry a pen or pencil in case I use it as a weapon against myself or someone else.
Tension gathers in my back. I stand and stretch and roll my shoulders to try to release it. I am on my feet doing side stretches when the viewing panel in the door slides back and the guard tells me Ms Gleason is here to see me.
We sit on the bench.
‘How are you?’ she asks. ‘Did you get any sleep?’
‘Some,’ I answer.
‘We’re expecting Mrs Draper this morning and possibly Dolores Cabril. It’ll depend on when the judge decides to break for lunch.’
Dolores Cabril is the psychiatric expert for the prosecution. She is my greatest threat. If she convinces the jury that I was sane when I helped Neil die, they will have to return a guilty verdict. Dolores is aptly named as far as I’m concerned – Spanish for ‘sorrows’. She threatens to bring me grief. But at the moment I am more worried about facing Veronica.
‘And that’ll be the end of their witnesses?’ I check with Ms Gleason.
‘Yes.’ Her clothes are smart today. She’s made an effort, or perhaps just had a chance to do some ironing. There are a couple of short white hairs on her lapel. When did I get to be so fussy? What does it matter? Compared to Mr Latimer and his scuzzy wig, Ms Gleason is perfectly groomed. Should I point it out? I do.
‘God,’ she huffs. ‘My dog’s moulting. Black’s a nightmare.’ She picks the hairs off.
‘Does anyone ever wear anything else?’
‘At their peril.’ She releases the tips of her thumb and finger, lets the hairs float to the floor. ‘Tradition is all,’ she drawls, in her laconic, fruity Bolton accent.
When she has gone, the usher sends for me and a guard escorts me up to the courtroom. The barristers are already there, like so many crows pecking over their papers and dipping their heads together for a quick confab.
Glancing up to the public gallery as I make my way to the dock, I see Adam and Jane in their places. Then my eyes fix on the row behind. There is Sophie. Sophie and her grandpa, Michael. A pain burns in my heart and for a moment I lose my balance, stumble slightly by the steps. I think I might faint but the dizziness eases and I am left with nausea. The back of my neck and the back of my knees are damp.
It hadn’t occurred to me that after giving her evidence Sophie would attend the trial. And why shouldn’t she? She wants justice for Neil. I have no idea where Michael stands in all this, whether he agrees with Sophie and Veronica’s desire to see me prosecuted.
And my children? How are they faring? Sophie has her grandparents and Adam has Jane. Looking at him now, Adam’s face is like thunder. Is this because Sophie is there or because his grandma is due on the stand? Or is it nothing to do with the trial? Maybe he’s getting ill again. I feel so bloody helpless and make a mental note to ask Ms Gleason if she can find out how he is. While I am on trial I cannot have visits so I won’t be able to see him for myself.
Chapter Sixteen
When Adam first became ill, he was in the third year of secondary school. He was fourteen. The change to a bigger school had seemed to go fine at first. Neither of us expected him to be top of the class – he was too lazy, too disorganized, to be a high achiever. The school had a programme in place to support his dyslexia and although he muttered darkly about being bunched in with the other special needs ‘saddos’, his reading and writing were clearly improving. He had friends too: Jonty and a bunch of others, who steered a careful line doing just enough work to avoid trouble and spending every waking minute they could hanging out with each other. They moved from household to household, grazing through the freezers, a lanky, clumsy, well-meaning, deodorant-drenched herd. Now and again, I smelled smoke on Adam, but I hoped he was only trying it out and would outgrow it. Then in the third year, year nine, as Neil would remind me it was now called, the glow went out of Adam. We heard from school that he was missing days. When we challenged him about it, he was surly and close-mouthed.
‘Adam,’ I insisted, ‘we need to know what’s going on.’
‘Nothing,’ he repeated.
‘You should be in school,’ Neil said. ‘And if there’s some reason why you’re deliberately missing it then tell us about it.’
‘It might be something we can sort out,’ I added.
Adam raised his eyes long enough to shoot me a look of utter disdain, then let his head fall back down between his shoulders. We got nothing out of him but things seemed to settle for a week or so. Then I came home at midday, after a meeting with a client, to find him in bed.
‘I feel sick,’ was his excuse.
I didn’t believe him. ‘Have you been sick?’
‘No.’
‘Well, don’t eat anything and we’ll see how you are in the morning.’
He languished in his room till we were all in bed and then I heard him roaming round the house. Was he becoming an insomniac like me? The next morning he was still ‘ill’. I decided to test him. ‘I’ll make a doctor’s appointment, shall I?’
‘’Kay,’ he replied dully.
Halfway through the morning, I went into the house to empty the washing-machine and called up to see if he wanted anything. My own behaviour was lurching from maternal to authoritarian and back. Did he need nurturing or a kick up the bum? I’d no reference points. My own adolescence had been trouble-free, as far as my mother was concerned. She’d had no idea what I got up to outside the house and I was canny enough to keep it concealed from her. As for my brother, Martin, he didn’t have a disruptive bone in his body. He was shy, very reserved, anxious only to blend in. The childhood memories I have of my big brother are of helping him with one of his methodical games, lining up toy soldiers in serried ranks, the way his face clenched if I knocked any over by mistake, though he never said anything by way of reproach. Martin didn’t like dirt or clutter or playing with other kids much, while I was never happier than when I was breathless, my windpipe burning and cheeks hot from running, mud-smeared, twigs in my hair, the glory of a day-long game of cowboys and Indians. Building dens from giant stalks, beating them hard to dislodge the earwigs. Martin was happier with his books and his Airfix kits and he cherished the daily routines that I carped against. We were like lodgers sharing a home but each independent of the other.