Witness - [20]

The day wound on, the lights came on in the hall, half the guests were outside smoking. Cheryl had lost count of the people she’d spoken to, the cigarettes she’d had. Vinia had been cosying up to one of the boys from Birmingham, even though she knew he was due to be a daddy with another girl.

When they finally left, Vinia walked back with them. A starless sky. The streets looked tired in the sodium light, jaundiced. Cheryl wanted Vinia gone but Nana asked her if she’d like to stay and she said yes, double quick.

Milo never stirred when Cheryl put him in his cot. He’d got his second wind late afternoon and been on the go ever since, playing hide and seek and tig with the other kids. Cheryl looked at him lying there, his cheek sticky with sugar from some cake, his knees grubby, the curls at the nape of his neck tangled. He was perfect. Beautiful. Every time she saw him afresh she felt the glow in her heart, the big, hot, rush of love for him.

Nana was sitting in her chair, eyes closed, head resting back while Vinia made some tea. Nana looked old, the skin slack on her jaw, draped loose on her neck. Her brow and the sides of her mouth, deep furrows. When she opened her eyes to take the mug from Vinia, Cheryl saw that the whites of her eyes were yellow.

‘It’s a terrible thing.’ Nana blew on her tea.

Cheryl and Vinia murmured in agreement. Though Cheryl felt like strangling her if she said it again.

‘And no one speaks up. Someone knows.’

‘It’s not easy, Nana,’ Cheryl said.

‘I ain’t saying it’s easy but it is right. There is right and there is wrong.’

‘It was a lovely service.’ Vinia tried to head Nana off but she wasn’t for turning.

‘It wasn’t easy for Dr Martin Luther King but he speak out,’ she began the litany. ‘It wasn’t easy for Nelson Mandela but he never give in. Never.’ The skin on her face wobbled as she shook her head for emphasis. ‘Years in prison.’ She was on a roll now, jabbing her finger at them, her frown deeper, voice husky like she was wearing it out. ‘It wasn’t easy for Rosa Parks but she stood up.’

‘No, Nana, she sat down.’ Cheryl quipped. She’d been reared on the stories of these heroes, Rosa Parks refusing to go to the back of the bus, parking herself on one of the ‘white’ seats, a civil rights pioneer. Vinia laughed.

Nana snorted her displeasure, her eyes grew hard. ‘There’s talk your stepbrother might know something,’ she challenged Vinia.

Cheryl tensed, pressing her toes into the floor. Was that why Nana had asked her friend if she wanted to stay? To try and shame her into saying something?

‘That’s crazy,’ said Vinia. ‘Stupid talk.’

‘No way!’ Cheryl backed Vinia up.

Nana sipped her tea. ‘Sad day,’ she said and struggled to her feet. Cheryl didn’t know if she meant the day was sad because of the funeral, or because people were afraid to speak about the murder. ‘Goodnight and God bless,’ she told them.

‘G’night,’ Cheryl said, hands cupping her own drink, the heat hurting her fingers, studying the tremor on the surface of the tea, unable to meet Nana’s eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mike

Mike woke suddenly at five. Bolt upright in bed, slippery with sweat. He grabbed a breath, listened, wondering whether Megan had cried out, though she usually came into their room if she’d had a bad dream and wriggled between them. No one got much sleep after that, her elbows and knees sharp as tacks. Plus she snored. A four-year-old! Mike asked Vicky once if they should get her checked out. Vicky rolled her eyes and told him to forget it: they’d enough on their plates seeing doctors for Kieran, Megan was just fine.

The house was quiet. Vicky, beside him, turned over and pulled at the duvet. Mike lay back down and closed his eyes. Had he been dreaming? He didn’t usually remember his dreams. Now he sensed an aftertaste, like a blurred reflection of something wrong, something shameful. The old sour feeling from way back, times he didn’t want to think about. He wiped it away, steam on a mirror, and tried to sleep; if he got back off sharpish he’d have another two hours.

Their routine proper began at seven. Kids up and dressed. Breakfast, packed lunches. At twenty past eight Vicky did the school run. Kieran was at Brook School, a place catering for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. There’d never been any suggestion of him going into mainstream schools, his needs too varied, too complex. Stick him in the local primary and he’d have sat in the corner for six hours, unreachable.

The staff at Brook were fantastic. Kieran had his own programme, a combination of one-to-one and group sessions to assist with his physical, mental and social skills. He’d come on in leaps and bounds, now able to greet people he’d not met before and sometimes answer simple questions. They all knew there were limits to what Kieran would achieve. He’d never live independently. Probably never take a bus ride unaccompanied. That frightened Mike more than anything. That when he and Vicky went, not to be maudlin or owt, Kieran would be in the care of the state. You couldn’t put that on to Megan, she’d have her own life to lead, maybe her own family. Might live abroad or anything.