Dear Robert and Angela,
I’ve made my decision. I’m sorry but I don’t want to see Mike whilst I’m in here – at least not for a while. Not for a long while. Tell him I love him very much and that he’s not to blame for any of what happened, but I don’t want him in this place. It would break his heart – and that would break mine. When I’ve got myself together, I’ll write and explain my feelings to him, but I can’t yet. Please tell him that I’m not turning my back on him and he’ll always be the one thing in this world that I love more than my own life.
But I won’t sign a visiting order and that’s final. This is hard enough as it is. Every day I have to hold on so tight I feel that one sneeze would shatter every bone in my body. Seeing Mike would be the last straw, for both of us. Please, please don’t ask me again.
And, Robert and Angela, I hope that one day you will find it in your hearts to forgive me for what I did to your son. I don’t expect miracles, not any more. If you decide that you’ll never forgive me, believe me I’ll understand, but please don’t blame Mikey in any way for what happened. Although I never really got the chance to get to know both of you as well as I would’ve liked, I really don’t think either of you would do such a thing, but I believe now it’s best to get these things out into the open. That was my mistake with Ricky. When he lost his job and started drinking, I should’ve put my foot down then but I didn’t – with tragic consequences for all of us. So take care of Mikey for me. Give him a chance and you’ll find out that he is a lovely, loving boy. Don’t tell him that I refused to see him. I’ll trust both of you to come up with a reasonable excuse. Give Mikey my love. He’ll have it always. But I don’t want to see him.
Yours truly, Marsha.
Mike read it and read it and read it again. It was only when he saw drops of water falling on the paper that he realised he was crying. He rolled up the letter slowly and put it away with all the others.
His mum didn’t want to see him.
She’d written as much to Nan and Gramps. Gramps had lied. He’d made it seem like he hadn’t written to Mike’s mum and all the time . . . all the time his mum didn’t want to see him. She said she loved him but actions spoke louder than words. She did blame him. What other reason could there be for refusing to let him visit her? Mike had always thought that maybe she might blame him. It was the ultimate thing he feared. But thinking it and seeing it written down in his mum’s own handwriting were two different things.
His mum didn’t want to see him.
There was no room for any other thought in his mind.
His mum didn’t want to see him.
Nothing else mattered but that. He didn’t care about anything else. And in that moment, Mike decided that whatever happened to him now, whatever he got, he deserved.
39
Gemma
Nothing
Gemma stood outside Material Girl, reading her magazine and occasionally looking up and down the street. The afternoon was bright and very warm to the point of being muggy. Maybe the sunshine was a good omen? Strange, but she didn’t feel in the slightest bit anxious. She didn’t feel sick either. Late last night, she’d decided that feeling nothing was a wonderful feeling in itself. Even nothing was something. She’d get the jumper . . . correction, Mike would get her the jumper and that would be only the beginning. She’d be able to get anything she wanted, anything in the world. And all she had to do was ask Mike.
So where was he? He was late. Gemma turned back to her magazine. She frowned down at the page before her. She’d been reading the same page for the last fifteen minutes and she still had no idea what it said. She had to concentrate. She had nothing to be afraid of.
Five minutes passed. Gemma still had no idea what she was reading. With a sigh she closed the magazine. Someone was standing in front of her. Mike. Gemma gave a start of surprise. She hadn’t even heard him arrive. How long had he been standing there? Having him appear just like that was disconcerting, to say the least. She’d wanted to set her expression before he arrived. Now he could see she was flustered and embarrassed.
‘I’m here. Now what?’ Mike asked, his voice glacial.
‘You get me what I want.’ Gemma hoped she had matched his tone.
‘So you haven’t changed your mind?’
‘What d’you think?’
‘I think you’re the nastiest piece of work I’ve ever met. You should’ve met my dad. You two would’ve got on like a house on fire.’
Gemma swallowed hard before she could trust herself to speak. The remark had darted under her defences, hurting her – but she was OK now. But the fact that he’d been able to get to her at all was alarming. What had happened to not feeling anything? Another illusion? Or was the word – delusion?
‘Well, what happens now?’
Gemma shrugged and pointed to the shop door. ‘In you go.’
‘You’re still determined to force me to do this?’
‘I’m not forcing you. You have a choice. You don’t have to do it,’ Gemma told him.
‘And if I don’t, you’ll ruin my life – and the lives of all my family,’ Mike said bitterly. ‘That’s some choice.’
Gemma shrugged again. ‘You’d better go in and get the jumper before the shop closes. Remember, I’m a size ten.’
‘I don’t give a stuff what size you are.’
‘You will if you come out of the shop with a jumper that’s the wrong size,’ Gemma told him.
After giving her the filthiest, bitterest look she’d ever seen in her life, Mike entered the shop. A chime sounded as the door opened, then closed. The moment he was out of sight, Gemma felt strange. A feeling crept over her, so slowly at first that she had trouble working out what it was. Beads of perspiration broke out all over her body like tiny pinpricks, making her skin itch. Her palms were moist and her stomach was churning like a food processor. Her mouth filled up with saliva. Gemma swallowed. It filled again.
She watched the closed shop door, wondering what was going on. She took a step closer, then another. She was at the shop window now but she couldn’t see a thing. Cupping her hands around her face, Gemma tried to get a closer look. The churning in her stomach was getting worse. Why couldn’t she see Mike? Where was he? What was he doing?
40
Mike
Moon And Stars
‘Can I help you?’
The shop assistant was at his side the moment he entered the shop.
‘I . . . er . . . I was looking for a present for my . . . my mu . . . sister,’ Mike stammered.
The shop assistant smiled at him. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘A . . . a jumper. She wants a jumper.’
‘We have some lovely ones over here . . .’
‘No, er . . . she wanted a specific one. It’s navy blue and it’s got the moon and stars on it.’
‘The only ones we’ve got like that are these ones for fifty pounds,’ the shop assistant said doubtfully. ‘That’s a lot of money. Maybe your mum and dad will chip in. You could give your sister the present from all of you.’
‘You can put a deposit down now if you like.’ A voice sounded behind Mike, making him jump. He turned quickly, to see the friendly, smiling face of a reed-thin, reed-tall beautiful black woman with her hair pulled back into a pony tail and tied with a long, flowing scarf. This woman looked like she didn’t have on a thing that cost under fifty pounds. She was immaculate. She reminded Mike of someone but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out who.
‘The deposit will ensure we keep the jumper for you whilst you have a word with your parents and, if you decide not to buy it, we’d give you back your money. But it’s entirely up to you.’
Mike looked at the jumpers hanging on the circular rack. They were just navy blue jumpers with bits of silver and gold ribbon sewn onto them. Nice enough but certainly not fifty pounds worth of nice. At least, not as far as he could tell. Why was Gemma so determined to get one of them? Or maybe the jumper wasn’t the mos
t important thing? Maybe Gemma just wanted him to jump through hoops for her and this was one way to do it.
‘Do you have a size ten?’
The shop assistant had a look. ‘You’re lucky. This is the last one left.’
She held it up for him to have a closer look. Somewhere in the distance, a telephone rang.
Mike took the hanger from the shop assistant as she turned away to answer the phone. He held up the jumper and looked at it. If he had any sense he would hand it back, thank the women and get out of there as fast as he could. But Gemma was outside, with her threat hanging over him like the sword of Damocles.
‘Mrs Spiner, phone call for you,’ a voice called from beyond the fitting room.
The immaculately dressed woman turned and headed in the direction of the phone and the voice. Mike looked up at the shop assistant.
‘I’ll leave you to have a look around and make up your mind.’ The shop assistant smiled.
‘Thank you,’ Mike said gratefully.
How was he going to do this? He had no idea. The jumper was on a hanger, so his first job was to get it off. Since it was round-necked, there was no way he could do it easily. He might’ve got away with it if he was a girl cos then he’d have had the excuse of trying it on. Mike put it back on the rack. The shop assistant caught his eye and smiled at him again, then she turned back to opening a large brown cardboard box. Mike looked around. No one was watching. He picked up the jumper again and pulled it off the hanger. Rolling it into a ball, he stuffed it under his jacket beneath his left arm and headed straight for the door.
41
Gemma
Worth It
Gemma’s focus adjusted. She was no longer looking through the window, but staring at her reflection in the glass. Her normal, everyday face had vanished, to be replaced by a mask of total misery. She swallowed past the pain in her chest and carried on looking at herself. All this was supposed to make her happy, to get her what she wanted come hell or high water. But look at her. It was as if her sanity, her very life was blowing up in her face. And it occurred to her in that moment that she wasn’t what her mum had made her, or even what her dad had made her. Everything she was now, she’d done to herself. There was no blinding flash of light, no thunderbolts from the sky, just the certain knowledge that for once she was telling herself the truth. She had turned herself into something she wasn’t, to stop herself from being hurt. And all she’d done was hurt herself worse. It was as if she’d literally cut off her nose to spite her face.
She had to do something. Now. At once. Something to make things right, to put things – and herself – back to normal. Otherwise she’d be lost for ever, stuck in a twisting spiral of unhappiness and guilt.
Taking a deep breath, Gemma took a step towards the door, then froze as it opened. Mike came out. There was something bulky inside his jacket under one arm. Gemma moved away from him. She backed away, step after step, before turning. But she didn’t get the chance to run. The shop door opened again. The chime sounded like a church bell.
‘You! Come back here!’
Gemma turned her head. A shop assistant Gemma had never seen before stepped out of the shop and placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder. Gemma bent to tie her shoelaces.
‘What’ve you got under your jacket?’ the shop assistant asked angrily.
‘Nothing. Let me go!’ Mike struggled to get away but the shop assistant had him in a vice-like grip.
And then the jumper fell to the ground.
Gemma straightened up. She turned and started walking away.
‘Mrs Spiner, call the police!’ the shop assistant called back into the shop.
Gemma carried on walking. She wanted to sprint away but she forced herself to walk slowly, calmly.
‘You there!’ the shop assistant called after her.
Fixing a look of curiosity and nothing else on her face, Gemma turned.
‘D’you know this boy?’ the shop assistant asked.
Gemma stared at Mike. He looked back at her, not saying a word.
‘You’re both wearing the same uniform so you must go to the same school,’ the shop assistant said with impatience. ‘So do you know this . . . this thief?’
Gemma saw Mike flinch at that, as if the shop assistant had hit him.
‘Well?’
‘No,’ Gemma whispered.
‘Pardon?’
‘No, I don’t know him,’ Gemma replied.
And then she turned and ran.
42
Mike
Understand
The bench was hard. The room was stifling hot. Mike longed to ask someone to turn the heating down. Why did they keep it so hot? If they didn’t turn it down soon, he was going to be sick.
‘Are you ready to tell me your name now?’
Mike looked up. A police officer sat behind a large desk. Sergeant Wilson? The sergeant had told Mike his name but Mike had hardly heard him. Wilson . . . Yes, that sounded right.
‘M . . . Mi . . .’ Mike swallowed hard, then tried again. ‘Michael Woods.’
‘Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.’ Sergeant Wilson picked up his pen and started writing. ‘And your address?’
Horrified, Mike shook his head. No way. He didn’t want Gramps and Nan dragged into this. It had nothing to do with them. And what would happen when they found out? They’d be sorry they took him in. He could just see them now, the look on their faces that would say, ‘like mother, like son’. And the worse thing about it was that they would be wrong. He wasn’t like his mum. Like his dad maybe, but not his mum. Mum deserved better than the son she’d been lumbered with. If Mike could have snapped his fingers and just ceased to exist then he would have done it at once, with no hesitation.
‘Come on, son. What’s your address? We’ll find out sooner or later so you might as well tell us now.’
Mike bent his head and forced the words out. He couldn’t get his voice above a whisper but it didn’t matter – the sergeant heard him anyway.
‘You live with your mum and dad?’
Mike shook his head. ‘My . . . my grandparents.’
‘And their names are?’
Mike told him.
‘And are they on the phone?’
Mike nodded.
Sergeant Wilson waited patiently. Mike reluctantly told him the phone number.
‘Fine. We’ll phone them now. They can come and pick you up.’
Mike lowered his head. He didn’t want to look at anyone. He didn’t want to be seen by anyone. Where was he? In something called a custody suite. But how had he got here? He tried to remember but his head was whirling with different images. He couldn’t remember everything that had happened, just flashes. Like his mind was taking photographs for a scrapbook rather than recording everything. He remembered the shop assistant pulling him back into the shop. He remembered her fingers biting into his shoulder until his upper arm began to tingle. And he’d never forget the look she’d given him, her whole body rigid with contempt – like he’d just crawled out from underneath a dirty rock.
The police had arrived almost immediately. They cautioned him and it was like something off the telly – except he couldn’t hear what they were saying above the sound of his own blood thundering in his ears. One police officer asked him something. Mike could tell that by the expectant look on the officer’s face when he finished speaking. Mike hesitated then nodded, but he had no idea what he was agreeing to. The police officer seemed satisfied though. And then Mike was sitting in the back of a police car with two policemen at the front. One kept glancing back and shaking his head.
Mike hadn’t spoken at all in the car. His voice had deserted him as sheer panic had washed over him. Now here he was at the police station, in a room with a bench against the wall and another police officer behind a desk. He’d been asked a lot of questions, most of them at least three times before they’d sunk in. It had taken a long while before he found his voice again.
Mike leaned his head back ag
ainst the wall, his eyes closed. He missed his mum so much it hurt. If only he could do something, anything, to stop it from hurting . . .
Someone was sitting down next to him. Mike opened his eyes. It was Gramps and Nan. Gramps was shaking his head. Nan opened her arms and without hesitation Mike moved into them. She hugged him so tightly that he could hardly breathe, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to move.
‘I’m trying to understand, Mike. Help me to understand. Tell me why you did it,’ said Gramps.
Mike wanted to cover his ears and close his eyes. He desperately wanted to get away from the hurt in Gramps’s voice. He drew away from Nan to see her quickly look away so that she could wipe her eyes. That was even worse.
‘I don’t understand,’ Gramps said again. ‘Why would you want to . . . to take a jumper – and a woman’s jumper at that?’
Mike didn’t answer. He studied well-worn dark blue carpet beneath his feet.
‘Mike, why did you do it?’ Nan asked again. ‘Tell us why.’
Because I had no choice. Because I didn’t want you to think even worse of me. Because I didn’t want you to find out the real truth about me – the truth that I hide from everyone, but which Gemma has discovered.
Which reason should he give? One of them? All of them? Mike kept silent.
‘I am so ashamed.’ Gramps couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘I have never, ever even set foot inside a police station. And now I’m here because my grandson takes it into his head to become a thief.’
Silence.
‘Have you ever stolen anything from a shop before?’