Authors: Helen Black
Read on for an exclusive extract of Helen Black’s
new novel,
A Place of Safety
,
coming in 2009.
Things, as Luke Walker’s mum is fond of saying, are getting out of hand.
The voices of his friends jar his ears as they stumble through some song by Lily Allen, clapping out of time urging the girl on. Tom whoops like a small child at Christmas, saliva dribbling down his chin. Charlie digs Luke in the ribs and shouts something in his ear but the words are lost in a fit of giggles. The girl is in the middle of their ramshackle circle, her laughter almost hysterical. She says something none of them can understand and spins round and round so that her skirt flares up and the boys can see her knickers. Tom reaches out to touch her. ‘Yeah, baby,’ he brays but the momentum makes him lose his balance. He gropes the ground and swears.
Luke feels sick. He wants to go home. He would go home but he’s boarding tonight and if the House Master catches him in this state he’ll be in detention for a month.
And anyway the field is spinning and he doesn’t think he can stand.
‘You like?’ asks the girl.
Tom and Charlie applaud but Luke can’t even nod his head. He doesn’t like, not at all.
That night had started like any other. With prep finished and Mr Philips dealing with one of the new boys, homesick and in tears, Luke and his friends sneaked out of school to mooch around the village. They pledged how different their lives could be when they could drive. Charlie’s the eldest and is getting lessons for his seventeenth but that’s not for over two months. Luke should be next but every time he mentions it his parents exchange the look and talk about how many young men die in road accidents. As the youngest of the group Tom will probably still be the first to pass his test. His Dad already lets him drive an old jeep across their land.
They wandered down to the off-licence. Luke doesn’t know why they bothered because Mrs Singh knows they’re all underage. Tom called her a ‘fucking paki’ and knocked over a rack of crisps. Luke hates it when Tom does stuff like that. They finally dragged him out with Mrs Singh threatening to call the police and there was the girl leaning against the post office window opposite.
She was one of that lot from the hostel. You could tell by the way she dressed, the way she wore her hair. And she stood like they all do, hunched in on themselves as if they trying to disappear. She was smoking what smelled like a spliff.
‘Let’s have some of that,’ Tom shouted.
She looked startled at being spoken to and threw what was left of her roll up into the gutter. She was about to move on when Tom dashed across the street and caught her arm.
‘Do you want to earn some money?’ he asked. ‘Money,’ he repeated and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as if she were deaf or an imbecile. So they paid her five quid to get them some bottles of cider and headed to the park. It was built for the local kids but they’re all at home on their Nintendos. Only the boarders use it when they manage to slip out. It’s cold and deserted but at least they can get pissed in peace. Luke doesn’t know why the girl came with them. Maybe she liked the look of Charlie who’s tall and dark, and all the girls fancy him. Or maybe Tom talked her into it. He’s ginger and has a big gap in his front teeth but he has a way of getting people to do what he wants. Leadership qualities his Mum calls it. Either way she came and sat on the swings. She shared their booze and they shared her grass. She said her name was Anna and Luke remembers thinking how pretty she was.
Now things are going pear shaped.
Tom has managed to pull Anna onto the ground. She’s still laughing but trying to push him away.
‘No, no no,’ she says.
Tom mimics her accent. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
She tries to push him away but she’s not very strong and Tom’s the captain of the first elevens. Luke notices how tiny she is and Tom easily holds the sticks of her arms above her head. Her sweater has ridden up and Luke can see her ribs protruding through her skin.
‘Come on, Tom. Leave her alone,’ says Luke.
‘Fuck off,’ says Tom, his breath coming in hard pants. His forehead is greasy with sweat and the unmistakable bulge of his cock pushes against Tom’s trouser leg.
Luke feels the acid burn of bile in his throat and tries not to retch.
The girl struggles to free herself.
‘Give me a hand, Charlie,’ says Tom.
Charlie seems unsure and hovers above them.
‘Hold her arms,’ Tom grunts. When Charlie still doesn’t move Tom snarls at him.
‘Hold her fucking arms, you queer.’
Charlie steals a look in Luke’s direction. He’s terrified of what’s about to happen but more terrified of defying Tom. Luke wills him to walk away, make a joke out of the whole thing. He doesn’t. He kneels above Anna’s head and presses firmly on her wrists.
Luke realises now that she is screaming. Tom clamps one hand over her mouth and uses the other to pull at his flies. Luke tries to get to his feet but falls sideways and ends up flapping like a fish in a net.
Tom laughs. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn Lukey boy.’
He thrust his hips forward and Anna’s eyes shoot open. Luke feels his own sting with tears and wishes for tomorrow morning.
The sky outside the office window was clear. The pale autumn sun attempted to make its presence felt and Lilly longed to take her lunch time walk. She’d instituted a daily turn around Harpenden Park after a four week kidnapping case that had frazzled her mind. She found the fresh air calmed her mind and it stopped her from wolfing more than a sandwich for her lunch.
She turned her gaze back from the window to her client and sighed. Mr Maxwell was so absorbed in his story he’d failed to notice his solicitor’s lack of interest.
‘I simply cannot justify another penny,’ he said. ‘And I cannot see why she should be able to sit at home all day why I am working my socks off.’
Lilly wondered why a man with such a profound lisp would choose so many words beginning with ‘s’ and pretended not to notice the spittle that was accumulating on his tie.
‘She has three children to care for,’ said Lilly, ‘and they are your children.’
‘We have an au pair for them.’
He fixed Lilly with eyes that bulged like marbles in an otherwise flat face. ‘You have a child, Miss Valentine, and you seem to manage to work without too much trouble.’
Lilly thought of her ridiculously complicated childcare routine involving her ex husband, friends and anyone prepared to offer a lift to school.
‘What do you think she could do to earn some money?’ Lilly asked.
Mr Maxwell gave a dismissive shrug. ‘She used to be a model.’
Lilly tried to hide her shock. What beautiful woman would go for this unappealing specimen of manhood?
Mr Maxwell gave a tree frog blink. The sort who would be happy to sit on her fat arse all day and count his money was the obvious answer.
‘As galling as it seems, Mr Maxwell, the court has ordered you to pay maintenance to your wife,’ said Lilly.
‘Ex wife.’
Lilly nodded. ‘So you will have to pay.’
Mr Maxwell shuffled his whinging backside out of Lilly’s office, his eyes pulsating like a dark star.
As he left the building she watched him limp up the road. Lisp, blinking eyes, a limp – maybe she was being too harsh on the poor man. Then a bleached blonde bounced towards him, her breasts fighting to escape. She covered his bald head in tiny kisses and squealed.
Mrs Maxwell mark two was waiting in the wings. Some men never learn.
Lilly checked her watch and groaned, realising that her next client was due any minute. She tried to leave a gap between them but these private divorce cases always overran. These people paid by the hour so it was their funeral if they blabbed over their allotted appointment. When it came to splitting up the marital assets this lot would argue over the contents of the hoover bag.
Lilly missed her care cases. Stroppy teens who might spare you ten seconds between shop lifting in Tescos and meeting their mates in the arcade. Sometimes they didn’t turn up at all but left convoluted messages about ASBOs, social workers and pregnancy tests.
God, she missed it.
She pulled a Kit Kat from her bag. Chocolate and no exercise, a double whammy. The only thing keeping her sane was the weekly trip to Hounds Place. At least there she could do some good. Some real good.
‘Might pop over there after this client,’ she mused.
‘Don’t even think about it.’
Lilly turned to the door where the ever-scowling secretary-cum-receptionist Sheila had appeared.
‘You don’t even know what I was talking about,’ said Lilly.
Sheila crossed her arms. ‘You want to go running off to the Dogs Home.’
‘It’s called Hounds Place,’ said Lilly. ‘As you bloody well know.’
Sheila scooped up some papers fanning the floor and slid them back into their file.
‘Do you keep your house as tidy as this?’
‘Have you just come to annoy me or did you get bored with filing your nails and fancy a chat?’
Sheila tried to put the file back in its drawer but the runners were jammed. She pushed and pulled, the metallic groan of the drawer matching her own.
Lilly sighed. ‘Do you actually want something, Sheila?’
‘The powers-that-be want to take you for a drink after work,’ she said, without turning around.
Lilly put her head in her hands. ‘Bloody marvellous.’
‘Stop whining,’ said Sheila and thrust her arm into the cabinet. It disappeared like a vet’s arm in a cow. ‘They probably want to thank you for hard work and good attitude.’
‘In my new role as advisor to the rich, ugly and divorcing, I make them shitloads of money. Good attitude is not part of the package,’ said Lilly.
Sheila was now virtually inside the cabinet, her shoulder and chest lost in its recesses, her face pushed against the handle. ‘I don’t know why you’re so miserable. It beats the bunch of no-hopers that used to come here thieving the staplers.’
‘Vulnerable kids,’ Lilly sniffed.
‘Junkies, most of them.’ said Sheila, her cheek contorted by the pressure of the metal. ‘And as for those scroungers at the Dogs Home, I don’t know why you bother.’
‘Because it stimulates my intellect,’ said Lilly. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand.’
At last Sheila withdrew her arm, bringing with it a battered book.
‘This was stuck at the back,’ she said and threw it onto Lilly’s desk.
The Art of Positive Thinking
.
‘Something to stimulate your intellect.’
Lilly put her head on the desk. ‘Do I really have to go for a drink?’
Sheila’s laugh was nothing short of cruel. ‘Rupinder says it’s a three line whip.’
It’s been a horrid day. A nightmare. Mr Peters had balled Luke out for not paying attention in Latin. He’d said he was wasting his talents, and that it was nothing short of criminal. Luke had wanted to tell him how close to the mark he was.
During computer studies he’d surfed the net to see how long people got for rape, how old he’d be when he got out of prison. He couldn’t breathe when he saw that life was an option. He’d seen a politician on the telly saying the Government were cracking down, that ‘life should mean life.’
He’d bitten his lip until it bled, terrified he would burst into tears in front of the entire class.
Worse still, Tom had been acting like nothing was wrong. He’d even boasted in the common room about meeting a ‘right little goer.’
The other boys had laughed at him, said he was talking bollocks.
Tom leaned over the snooker table and potted the black. ‘Ask Lukey boy. He’ll tell you what she was like,’ he said. ‘Gagging for it wasn’t she?’
Luke smiled weakly, but he could still hear the girl screaming and see her wrists being held so tightly they seemed to turn black-blue. A bit like the sky before a storm.
Now the bell is ringing and Luke can finally escape. Thank God he’s not boarding tonight. He wants to go home, to throw himself onto his Arsenal duvet and let it all out.
Maybe he should tell his mum. Maybe she could help. Even if she can’t, it might stop the whole thing running through his head like some bad film on a loop.
He sees her car parked by the cricket pitch and bolts towards it. Inside smells of clean washing and lavender water.
His mum smiles. ‘Had a nice day, love?’
He can’t answer and squeezes his eyes shut.
‘Is everything alright, love?’ asks his mum.
He stirs his pasta with a limp wrist.
‘Luke?’ her voice is so very gentle.
He feels wrung out like a damp cloth, all the moisture down the sink.
She lifts his chin and looks into his eyes. ‘You would tell me if something was wrong?’
He sees in her lined face, a lifetime of wiped noses and birthday teas. This isn’t a broken window or a bad school report. How can he tell her what he has been part of, what he has done? She can’t make it better. No one can.
He forces some words out. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘You look peaky,’ she says and presses a cool palm against his forehead. ‘You’re not hot but you’re obviously sickening for something.’
He pushes his bowl away. ‘Yeah. I feel sick.’
Relief plays at the corners of his mother’s mouth. This is her territory.
‘Better lie down, love,’ she says. ‘Will you be alright while I collect your sister?’
The thought of Jessie, a year younger than Luke, fills his mind. What if some boys took her to a park … held her down …
He runs from the room, his hands over his mouth, acid bile running through his fingers.
His bedroom is spinning and Luke concentrates on a small brown water stain on the ceiling.
‘I’ll be twenty minutes,’ his mum calls from the bottom of the stairs. ‘How about I call into Waitrose for Lucozade?’
Luke doesn’t answer.
When he hears the front door close he lets the tears spill. He curls into a ball and weeps, snot pooling under his nose, sliding onto his lips, until it becomes clear what he has to do. He wipes his eyes on the back of his hands and packs a bag.