You Against Me (21 page)

Tom was scared – Ellie knew it from the way he concentrated on the floor in front of his feet, the tight pinch of his shoulders. He was wearing his new suit, chosen by Dad for its fine weave and quality stitching. But under his arms and along his spine, sweat would be gathering.

Mum leaned across and nudged her. ‘The mother’s just come in. I heard Barry say.’

Ellie turned her head slightly, pretending not to be that interested. Mikey’s mum looked as if she was trying hard to be focused as she walked up the aisle, her head very straight, her neck straight too. Behind her came Mikey. And trailing behind him, his mate Jacko. Ellie couldn’t take her eyes off them as they hunted for seats.

‘She’s very young,’ Mum whispered. ‘You reckon those two boys have different fathers?’

‘They’re not brothers.’

‘They might be. How do you know?’

Ellie didn’t even bother replying. Her heart stirred with softness for Mikey as he helped his mum to a seat and encouraged her to take off her jacket. She looked very nervous as her eyes darted about the place.

Mikey’s gaze swept the room as he took his own coat off. He clocked Tom, Dad and the solicitor, their heads bent together, locked in last-minute discussions. Then he saw Ellie and it was like an invisible electric wire joined them across the room. She turned away quickly and focused her attention on the high window above the judge’s bench. There was a line of grey cloud shifting across the sky. Under her chair, she crossed her feet, uncrossed them, recrossed them.

Mum nudged her again. ‘Here we go. Here’s the judge.’

The usher cried, ‘Court rise.’ And everyone stood up as the judge came in from a side door. He had a better wig than the barristers and was wearing a black and purple robe. He sat behind a long bench under a heraldic sign and everyone was told to sit down again. The usher sat below at a small desk and the barristers faced the judge with their laptops and their files of paper.

Ellie found it hard to concentrate, hard to focus. Mikey was behind her, three rows back on the other side of the aisle. The bride’s side.

The barristers took it in turns to stand up and talk to the judge. They talked about statements on which the prosecution were relying and material that might benefit the defence. Legal jargon was tossed back and forth, and the crowd leaned forward, trying to make sense of it.

Was Mikey looking at her? How much of her could he see from where he was sitting? The back of her neck? Her shoulders?

On and on the barristers went, and just as people started to shuffle their feet and Ellie began to hope that Barry was right and people would get bored and go home, Tom was asked to go and stand in the dock. The crowd pressed forward in their chairs.

The dock was to the side of the barristers, a semi-partitioned area with steps up to it. When Tom stood there in his best suit, everyone could see his face. He looked paler than he had in the car, and very scared.

The judge said, ‘Is your name Thomas Alexander Parker?’

‘Yes, it is.’ He sounded young, his voice achingly familiar.

The judge read out his date of birth and then his address. He even included the postcode. The room seemed to tilt as he read the charge out. The words
sexual assault
echoed inside Ellie’s head. Tom was asked if he understood what he’d been accused of doing.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’

Like a vow.

‘And how do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?’

Ellie could feel her own heart beating, her brain ticking, as the room slowed down. He could refuse to plead. He could plead insanity. He could say he did it.

‘Not guilty.’

A babble of objections broke out across the room, as well as a spattering of applause. Some of Tom’s friends must have come in, because a boy yelled, ‘You tell ’em, mate!’ The judge banged his little hammer and asked for quiet.

In the fuss, Ellie stole a look at Mikey.

He was staring at the floor as if he’d given up. Her whole body felt cold looking at him. Mikey loved his sister, that’s why he’d tried to help her. He loved his mother too – see how he put his arm round her, see how she leaned in to him? He’d do anything for them, probably – isn’t that what people in families did for each other? Isn’t that what Tom was always telling her? But now Mikey would have to go home and tell Karyn that in a few short weeks, she’d have to leave the flat and come to court and talk about what happened. Her life would be taken apart and examined by strangers, and anyone could come and watch.

Not guilty
.

The words repeated inside Ellie’s head. Every time she blinked she saw them flare.

Mikey was making coffee in the kitchen and spying on Karyn and Jacko at the same time. He didn’t want to be making coffee, he wanted to be in the car on his way to work, but Mum had bolted upstairs as soon as they’d got back from court and he knew caffeine was the best way to entice her down.

Karyn was curling her hair over and over one finger and listening intently to Jacko as he told her he’d called Tom Parker a wanker from the crown court steps.

‘We all booed as he came out,’ Jacko said. ‘He put a coat over his head, he was so ashamed. There were loads of people on your side. Lots of your mates from school were there.’

‘I should text them,’ Karyn said. ‘I’ve been a bit crap about that. Sometimes it’s hard to believe everyone hasn’t forgotten about me.’

‘Forgotten you? No, girl, we’re here for you.’ Jacko rabbit-punched the air with his fists. ‘Trouble is, the courts are full of bullshit. They should’ve left it to the masses. We’d have lynched him in the car park and hung him from a tree.’

‘Bad idea,’ Karyn said. ‘Look what happened to Mikey when he got too close.’

Mikey scowled at her. ‘What’re you talking about? I landed plenty of punches.’

‘You were trying to make yourself feel better.’

First she’d told Gillian about the fight, now she was mocking him in front of his best mate. He was astonished at how ungrateful she was.

‘You came home looking like a horror film,’ Karyn went on. ‘How did that help anyone?’

She shook her head at him like a disappointed parent.

‘He went solo, that’s why,’ Jacko said.

‘Yeah, forgot to take the brains with him.’ She leaned across and tapped Jacko’s head with a finger, which made them both laugh.

They were really beginning to get on Mikey’s nerves. Here he was making the drinks, and neither of them offered to do anything. They should be tidying up instead of sitting there. The table was crowded with stuff – ashtrays, coffee cups, plates from the scrambled egg earlier, a glass with scummy white lines from Holly’s milk. The whole room smelled faintly mouldy, like something was festering. Mikey knew this would all look the same when he came home from work tonight. He also knew that something had shifted in Jacko, something he didn’t quite understand. As Jacko riffed on about court, it was like he was suddenly in charge. It never used to be that way round.

‘The sister nearly fainted,’ Jacko said. ‘She had to be led out by her mum. They sat her on a wall and fanned her with a newspaper.’

‘Ellie Parker, you mean?’

‘Yeah, that’s it.’

‘She was in the house the night it happened,’ Karyn said, ‘and now she’s pretending not to know anything. I told you about her, didn’t I, Mikey?’

Mikey nodded as he fiddled about with sugar and spoons. Ellie’s name sounded very loud from where he was standing.

‘I remember more and more,’ Karyn said to Jacko. ‘I spoke to her a few times that night. She even got me a bucket in case I was sick, but on her statement she said she was asleep the whole time.’

Jacko frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you tell the cops?’

‘I did, but they say it’s not enough – just my word against hers. And she’s hardly going to grass her brother up, is she?’

‘You hungry?’ Mikey asked her, desperate to change the subject. ‘Did you eat anything when we were gone?’

‘Not really.’

Jacko shook his head at her disapprovingly, like he was the chef. ‘You should eat properly,’ he said. ‘Mikey told me you’re not looking after yourself.’

‘Did he?’ Karyn glared at Mikey as he stirred milk into the coffee. Great, another reason to sulk with him.

‘Anyway,’ Jacko said, ‘as a mark of how brave you are, I bought you something.’ He rummaged in the carrier bag he’d brought in from the car and pulled out a tin of Quality Street. Mikey knew they were from Lidl – he’d seen the offer, two for the price of one. He wondered what Jacko had done with the other tin.

The way Karyn grinned, you’d think he’d bought her an iPod. She looked right at Mikey with a
why don’t you ever do anything nice for me?
face as she peeled the sellotape from around the edge of the tin, opened it up and stuck her face right in there to sniff.

‘Smells of Christmas,’ she said.

Mikey knew lots of things his sister liked – prawn cocktail crisps, white chocolate, Smarties, Pringles. Any of them would have done, so why hadn’t he thought of it? He could have cooked her a whole meal in fact, beginning to end, that would have been more impressive. It made him mad to see Jacko doing all the right things, but none of the legwork. Jacko didn’t have a clue what it was like living with three women. He’d like to see him try.

Karyn blinked at the chocolates and all the bright wrappers glowed back at her. She took a green triangle and offered the tin to Jacko. He took one without looking, unwrapped it and stuffed it in his mouth. Mikey hoped it was coconut.

He slopped a coffee down in front of them both. ‘Don’t take too long drinking that,’ he told Jacko. ‘We have to go in a minute.’

‘Plenty of time,’ Jacko said, and he reached out and took another chocolate.

Mikey had a sudden urge to see Sienna because she thought Jacko was a tosser. He went back to the kitchen and texted her. She texted straight back,
Die you creep
. Why not? He deserved it.

To make himself feel worse, he went to his outbox and skipped through the stacked-up messages he’d written to Ellie but never sent. Like heartbeats, over and over.
I miss you. Meet me. Forgive me
.

He deleted the lot.

She was on her brother’s side, Karyn was right. He’d been an idiot to think otherwise.

As Mikey walked back through to the lounge, Jacko was going on about how Karyn was by herself too much, how it was bad for her and she should invite people over.

‘I could’ve sat with you this morning,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t’ve minded.’

‘I was fine. Gillian was here.’

Jacko looked confused. ‘Gillian’s her cop,’ Mikey told him. ‘Karyn thinks the sun shines out of her arse.’

Karyn shook her head. ‘Don’t make me sound like a prat, Mikey.’

‘I’m taking this drink up to Mum,’ he said. ‘We’ll go after that, Jacko, yeah?’

Jacko nodded, then turned straight back to Karyn. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you think you could face leaving the flat soon, for a drive or something?’

What a wanker.

Upstairs, his mum sat on the edge of the bed with the ashtray on her lap. He put the coffee next to her on the table.

She said, ‘How’s Karyn?’

‘Surprisingly chipper.’

‘You told her he pleaded not guilty?’

‘Gillian did. It’s hardly a surprise though, is it?’

‘I suppose not.’ She took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke towards the window. ‘I don’t know what to say to her, Mikey.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Jacko’s filled her in.’

‘I don’t mean about today, I mean about everything. I’ve been sitting here trying to work it out.’ She turned to him, something urgent in her eyes. ‘I feel angry with her, and that’s not right, is it? I keep thinking,
Why do we all have to go through this? Why did she let this happen?
You know,
Why did she get so drunk, why didn’t she fight him off?
’

Mikey stood very still. He’d thought the very same things himself at times, but he didn’t think you were supposed to say them out loud.

Mum took a last drag of her fag and ground it into the ashtray. ‘I feel angry with the boy who hurt her, angry with myself for taking her to the police station, angry with her mates for dumping her. Where are they all now, eh? We haven’t seen them for weeks.’

‘She won’t see them, that’s why.’

‘Well, it would be easier if she’d never said anything in the first place. She should have carried on as normal and tried to forget. It’s not impossible to do that. You simply push bad things down and pretend they never happened.’

‘You don’t mean that, Mum.’

‘Well, how is this trial any good for her, eh? I think she should go back to school and do her exams. She’ll feel better if she does that, and then she’ll be able to get a job and forget all this. But no, when I suggest it she shakes her head and carries on sitting on that damn sofa.’ She reached for the coffee, took a swig, then put it straight down again as if it tasted disgusting. ‘Tell me how I’m supposed to handle it, Mikey. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.’

‘You have to keep being her mum, that’s all. Helping her and stuff.’

She put her head in her hands. ‘It goes on for ever though. I had no idea.’

He wasn’t sure if she meant the court case or looking after kids in general.

‘We’ve got social services breathing down our necks,’ she said. ‘They even had the cheek to offer me a parenting course – shoving leaflets and phone numbers at me.’

He knew he had to get out of there. ‘Jacko’s downstairs waiting,’ he said. ‘I have to go now.’

She looked up at him. ‘Are you getting Holly?’

‘No, I’m going to work. You’re getting her, remember?’

‘Can you do it?’

‘I’ve got a late shift. I swapped it so I could go to court.’

‘They were supposed to sort out an after-school club. They can’t even do the simplest things.’ She stood up and went to the window. ‘I can’t drink that coffee, by the way.’ Her voice had changed, hard somehow. ‘I need something in it. I want you to tell me where my bottle is.’

‘No, Mum.’

Her mouth was a thin line as she twisted from the window. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Mikey. In case you’ve forgotten, I am actually your mother and this is my roof you live under, so can you go and get it, please?’