The Chaos

  ‘What’s up, Adam? You poorly?’

  ‘No, it’s just … just …’ I can’t put it into words. How huge it all is, how hopeless it is trying to do something about it, how frustrating it is to be me, trapped in this body, with this face.

  ‘Drink your tea up, you’ve only had half.’

  I reach for my mug. As I sit up, I look towards Sarah on the sofa. She’s awake, at least her eyes are half-open, and her number, her precious number is there. I put my tea back down and scrabble over to kneel beside her.

  I stroke her forehead.

  ‘Sarah,’ I say. ‘You’re home with us. I found you, and I brought you home.’

  I don’t know if she’s heard me. She don’t say nothing. There’s a deadness in her eyes and she looks straight past me.

  ‘Sarah,’ I say, ‘it’s all right now. You’re going to be all right.’

  I want her to look at me, but she won’t. Instead, she closes her eyes again, but her lips are moving. I lean closer to hear what she says.

  ‘She’s gone,’ she whispers. ‘They took Mia. She’s gone.’

  Chapter 54: Sarah

  It takes a while to explain. I’m numb from the cold, and numb from what’s happened to me. So it’s not until I’ve had a Cup-a-soup, and the warmth from the fire has really soaked in that I can tell them what’s gone on. Adam and his nan listen in silence.

  After I’ve finished, Adam says, ‘We’ll get her back, Sarah. We will. We’ll get her back.’

  ‘They won’t give her back to me.’

  ‘You’re her mum. You’re a good mum, I seen you with her. Why wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I’m sixteen. I’ve been in trouble in every school I’ve ever been to. I ran away from home. I lived with drug dealers and I just hurt a copper, scratched his face from his eye to his chin.’

  ‘You must have had your reasons for all that.’ Val coolly lights another fag, and I think how lucky Adam is to have her. She’s not judging me or telling me what to do.

  ‘Tell Nan the rest,’ Adam says. ‘About your dad.’

  I can’t. She may be a diamond, but I don’t know her well enough. Not for that. I shake my head.

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’ I shrug, and he tells her. The cigarette burns down towards her fingers, unsmoked, as she listens.

  ‘And Mia’s …?’

  ‘Mia’s His,’ I say. ‘Well, He’s the father. But she’s not His, she never will be. She’s mine.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ Nan says, ‘go to the council. Tell the truth and don’t stop telling it ’til they listen. She’s your baby. She should be with you. We’ll go with you. We’ll help, won’t we, Adam?’

  ‘Course. Course we will.’

  ‘We’ll do it,’ she says, bathing us both in her nicotine fumes. ‘We’ll fucking do it. We can’t let the bastards win.’

  But it’s not that easy. Because the next day when I do go to the One-Stop-Centre and finally get to see a social worker, they call the police. And I’m taken down to the station and charged with assault.

  The worst thing is they charge me under my own name. The smokescreen I thought I’d created around me and Mia has been blown away. They picked up my coat when I ran off from Paddington Green, and, of course, my ID card was in the pocket. I can’t believe I was so stupid. I should have binned it, or shredded it. Why did I hold on to it? What did I think I was holding on to? Did some part of me think I was going to go back to my old life one day?

  So they’ve been piecing together my story, the police and the Children’s Services. They’ve put together the bits of the jigsaw: home, school, Giles Street, Mia, except no-one knows she’s called Mia. Vinny and the boys obviously haven’t told them anything. So they keep calling her Louise, and I think I’ve still got that. Her real name. Who she really is.

  And through all the questioning and the hanging around and waiting, I keep her in my head – her face, the feel of her in my arms, the way she smells, her smile. It kills me to think about her, but it’s the only thing that will keep me going through all this.

  Now they’ve got me, they don’t want to let me go. They’re running through the options: foster care, a place for young offenders … or home.

  ‘We’ve told your parents that we’ve found you. They’re on their way here.’

  I feel like I’m dropping into a black hole.

  ‘No. No. I don’t want to see them.’ The woman frowns. She’s fifty-something and looks as if she was born fifty-something.

  ‘They’re your parents. You’re sixteen.’

  ‘I ran away. Don’t you get it? I ran away from them.’

  ‘You ran away because you were pregnant.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. Okay, yes, it was, but it’s not what you think.’

  ‘What was it? Tell me.’

  And I can’t do it. In this bare interview room. With this stranger. I can’t tell her about my dad, what He did to me. I know it was a crime, and this is the place where you report crime, these are the people you tell, but I can’t. It’s personal.

  ‘Tell her, Sarah.’ Val is sitting in with us. She leans forward in her chair.

  It’s no good. I clam up. The social worker carries on asking questions, but I stay silent, and all the time I’m thinking that Mum and Dad are in a black Mercedes somewhere, getting nearer and nearer. This is what piles up the pressure in my head. This is what finally makes me speak.

  ‘I know I’ve done things wrong,’ I say. ‘I know I shouldn’t have hurt that policeman. I hold my hands up. I did it and I’m sorry. I’ll apologise to him face to face, if you like. I’ll write him a letter. Anything. They’d just taken my baby away from me. I was upset.’

  They’re listening.

  ‘I need to see my baby. I need to be with her. If she’s with a foster mum, perhaps I can go there too. You can watch me twenty-four hours a day, I don’t care. See how I am with her. Let me prove I’m a good mum. I have been up to now. You don’t believe me, but I have been.’

  I can hear the pleading tone in my voice. I hate myself for it, to be crawling to them like that, but I’d do anything to get Mia back. Anything.

  ‘Louise is safe now, and her safety is our number one priority.’ The social worker says. ‘You’ve been leading a very … unstable … life. She needs stability, routine. Obviously, while we’re … helping you, if we can place her with family, then that’s the best solution.’

  ‘With family …?’

  ‘Your mother and father. Louise’s grandparents. It’s an option, one we’ll discuss with them when they get here.’

  ‘My parents. Are you mad?’

  ‘It’s often the best solution. When clients, parents like you, are finding their feet, grandparents often step in to help.’

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding!’

  ‘You may have had a difficult relationship with them, but they …’

  I jump to my feet and the chair clatters backwards onto the floor behind me.

  ‘Do I get a say in this? Do I get any say?’

  ‘Sit down, Sarah. Please.’ I stay standing. ‘We’ll obviously listen to your views, but ultimately the decision will be made by the Children’s Panel in consultation with the Children’s Magistrate. Above all, we have to think of Louise.’

  ‘I can’t stay here. I can’t see them. If you’re going to lock me up, just do it. I’d rather be in a cell than here.’

  ‘We don’t want to lock you up. You’re being bailed for the assault on PC McDonnell, so we’re looking for somewhere suitable for you to stay, assuming that you won’t go home.’

  ‘I won’t go home. I’d kill myself first.’ She looks at me then, and, too late, I realise that that is just the sort of thing you don’t say in front of a social worker. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I blurt out quickly. ‘I’m not going to kill myself.’

  ‘I’ll have her at mine. I’ll look after her.’

  ‘Mrs Dawson, I’m not sure …’

  ‘She won’t go anywhere, run off, not withou
t the baby. She needs somewhere clean and warm, some good home cooking. I’m used to teenagers. Brought up enough of them.’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s the father …’

  ‘The father?’

  ‘Your great-grandson, Adam Dawson. Louise’s dad.’

  Val’s ready to bust out laughing now. Her face twists up and she starts to say, ‘Adam? No, he never …’ but then she looks at me. I’ve got my eyes wide open and I’m nodding at her.

  She raises her eyebrows and says, ‘Right … yeah, Adam … and Sarah.’

  ‘He’s been in trouble.’ The woman looks back at her screen and starts scrolling down. ‘Quite a bit of trouble.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s been in trouble. What sixteen-year-old hasn’t? He’s a good lad, though. Good with the baby. You don’t need to worry about him.’

  I guess it’s not easy to find places for delinquent teenagers like me, because two hours later they end up agreeing that I can stay at Val’s. I have to sign a load of forms, and so does she.

  On the way out of the police station, we walk past another interview room. The door’s slightly open and I glimpse the two people sitting on the other side of the table. My mum looks smaller and older than I remember her, even though it’s only three months since I left. But my dad’s just the same. The sight of him makes me want to vomit. I have to swallow to keep down the bile rising up inside me. He glances up and our eyes meet, just for a second. There’s nothing there, no spark of recognition, no warmth, no hate. Nothing. What does he see when he looks at me? I don’t know and I don’t care. But the thought of him seeing Mia, holding her, turns me inside out.

  ‘Get me out of here,’ I say to Val, and I clutch her arm.

  ‘Was that them?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’d like to skin him alive, what he did to you. You need to tell people. They need to know.’

  ‘I can’t, Val. I can’t. Let’s go. Please. Please.’

  Outside, I have to stop to be sick.

  ‘It’s not right,’ Val keeps saying. ‘This isn’t right. It’s not fair.’

  I can’t say anything, even when I’ve cleaned myself up a bit. I hold onto her arm as we walk to the bus stop. I like the fact that she’s so fired up – it feels good to have someone on my side. It feels good that that person is Val.

  Sitting next to her on the bus, she has the tact not to say anything about Adam, but I’m not so controlled. There’s something about her. She understands so much.

  ‘Val,’ I say, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For letting me stay. For sticking up for me. For keeping quiet about Adam – I had to say something. They found a picture of him at the squat. It was the first thing that came into my head.’

  She snorts.

  ‘That’s okay. He’d make a nice dad, Adam would. He’ll make someone a nice husband one day. Can’t go wrong with a Dawson. Bit wild, sometimes, like my Cyril and Terry, of course, but they’re solid underneath.’ She’s looking straight ahead, hands fiddling with the clasp on her handbag. She’d be happier with a cigarette in them.

  ‘Val?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He knows, doesn’t he? Adam knows your number and mine and Mia’s.’ She sighs.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘he does, poor lad.’

  ‘Would it be better to know?’

  She looks up then.

  ‘No, Sarah. What good would it do? Better to live your life how you want to, take each day as it comes.’

  She’s right, of course, but as the bus trundles along I can’t help thinking. 112027. Adam. Val. Me. Mia. Will any of us see the second?

  Chapter 55: Adam

  ‘You did it, Nelson, you’re a star! You did it!’

  ‘You did too; you’ve been all over the media. Forty million hits on YouTube.’

  Forty million? That’s colossal.

  ‘We’re doing it, man. We’re doing it!’

  ‘I gotta go, Adam. I just wanted to check in with you. Say goodbye …’

  ‘Where are you, man? Are you safe?’

  ‘I can’t say. I can’t talk for long – I think they’re listening to my phone.’

  ‘Are you out of London, though?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Nelson. Go. Go now.’

  ‘Yeah, I will. You need to get out too, though, don’t you?’

  ‘We’ll go. Just a few things to sort. But we’re going. Nelson?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘That’s okay. We did a good thing. We—’

  The phone goes dead. I redial straight away, but there’s nothing, no voicemail or anything.

  ‘That your mate?’ Nan asks.

  ‘Yeah, but we was cut off.’

  ‘Happens, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. S’pose. He said he was being listened to. On his phone. Do you think they picked him up?’

  ‘No, it’s just the bloody phone system. Don’t make something out of it, Adam.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him. He put himself out for me.’

  ‘You can’t worry about him now. We got things closer to home to think about.’

  Nan tips her head towards Sarah. She’s sitting like a zombie on the sofa, eyes on the telly though she’s not really watching. She’s been like that since she and Nan got back from the police station. Nan’s been trying to cheer her up and so have I, but she’s so down, she don’t hardly speak.

  ‘We’ll get her back, Sarah. We will. If they won’t let you have her, they’ll at least let you visit, and then we could … grab her.’

  Nan’s flapping her hands, trying to shush me. Sarah looks at me.

  ‘They won’t even let me see her,’ she says, with scorn in her voice. ‘Not for ages. Maybe not ever. And I don’t know where she is. Not for certain.’

  ‘We can think of something …’

  She shoots me a look then that says ‘Shut up’ as clearly as if she’d shouted it in my face. So I do. I perch on a chair and pretend to watch the TV. We’re on a news channel, showing different scenes from various bus, coach and rail stations around London. There’s an unconfirmed report of someone crushed on the tube. Panic’s starting to spread across the city.

  ‘I didn’t want this. People getting hurt trying to get out. That’s not part of the deal.’

  The screen cuts to the pavement by King’s Cross tube. There’s a body carried out on a stretcher, and their face is covered.

  ‘Oh my God! This isn’t right. This isn’t right.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Adam,’ Nan says. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  I’m up on my feet now.

  ‘Of course it’s my fault! I got it out there! I got half of London trying to leave.’

  ‘People have to take care, look after theirselves.’

  Two steps and I’m over to where Nan’s standing.

  ‘Shut up, Nan! Just shut up! What if everyone else is right and it’s just screwed-up stuff in my brain? What if I’m mental, disturbed? Nothing’s going to happen on the first. Only now people are dying trying to get away from something that isn’t going to happen.’

  ‘Calm down, love, calm down.’

  Everything she says makes it worse. I thought she understood, but she can’t. If she understood she wouldn’t tell me to calm down.

  ‘Don’t tell me that! It’s in my head, Nan. It’s inside me. All this stuff. I thought I could do a good thing, but it’s turning into a bad thing. I don’t want it! I don’t want people to die! Why are people dying? Why are they dying, Nan?’

  She’s backing away from me, but I can’t stop shouting. There’s so much rage inside me. It’s like the cork is out of the bottle now.

  ‘I’m killing people, Nan. I’m killing them. I never meant to. I …’

  ‘Adam, look. Look.’ It’s Sarah. Her voice stops me in my tracks. ‘Look who’s on now.’

  The screen has cut from King’s Cross to the Prime Ministe
r.

  ‘Oh God, not ’im,’ Nan growls.

  ‘Shh …’

  ‘He was bloody useless the first time. God knows why they voted him back in, pompous prat.’

  ‘Nan, shut up. I wanna hear.’

  I sit on the arm of Sarah’s sofa.

  ‘People of Britain, it’s become my custom to talk to you at New Year, to reflect on the past twelve months and look ahead to the year to come. I’m talking to you now, a little earlier than usual, to appeal for calm.’ His face is flushed, his bald head’s shining in the TV lights. ‘I know you will have heard the rumour that London is facing a crisis. I want to assure you that it is not.’

  ‘Look at ’is hands. He can’t keep them still. He’s lying.’

  ‘Shut up, Nan.’

  ‘This is a pernicious rumour promoted by people who wish to spread terror throughout our nation. They will not succeed, and I can assure you that we will find those responsible and they will feel the force of British justice. We have the most advanced monitoring systems in the world, the most sophisticated intelligence service. For your reassurance, I have raised the country’s security level to red which means that all government personnel are now fully engaged in maintaining your safety. I urge all of you to go about your everyday business calmly. London is safe. You do not need to leave the capital. I will be here today, working in Downing Street as normal, and I will be here tomorrow. The best thing you can do for yourself, for your family and for our country is to keep calm and carry on. Thank you.’

  The channel switches back to the news studio. Nan reaches for the remote and turns the sound down.

  ‘It’s all right for him, I ’spect he’s got a bloody great bunker under Number Ten, don’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Do you think anyone will listen to him?’

  ‘I dunno. Someone must have voted for him. Perhaps they’ll listen.’

  I feel so churned up. There’s a million thoughts flooding through me.

  ‘I don’t know if I want people to go or to stay now,’ I say.

  ‘We want people to go, don’t we? You’ve seen it. You and Sarah. You’ve seen what’s going to happen. You’re not mad. You’ve been given something. You’ve been given a chance to make a difference. Anyway,’ she sniffs, ‘it’s not up to you now, love. You’ve set the ball rolling but it’s on its way now. I reckon it’s out of your hands.’