Witness - [52]

Now Cheryl cleared the plates and scraped the chicken bones into the kitchen bin. She washed up and put the kettle on for coffee. She stepped outside for a cigarette and leaned against the wall, blowing the smoke up into the air, making smoke rings one time.

Vinia came out and sat on Milo’s rocker, her knees tucked up to her chin. ‘You want to try these.’ Vinia held up a packet of cigarettes. ‘I can get you some really cheap, two hundred for twenty quid.’

Smuggled they must be, or stolen, thought Cheryl. ‘Ta, can you split them?’

‘Yeah, just a packet if you want. They herbs?’ Vinia nodded at the troughs along the side wall, full of thyme and chives and oregano.

‘Yeah.’ Cheryl waited. No way was Vinia interested in Nana’s garden. So what did she really want to say? Cheryl blew another smoke ring.

‘The trial,’ Vinia said, ‘will you come with me?’

Cheryl’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Vinia, Miss Self-Sufficient, asking Cheryl for help. And doing it knowing how badly Cheryl felt about Danny’s death, how she despised Carlton and Sam, how she thought Vinia was messing up getting involved with Sam. Cheryl couldn’t say yes: she’d be down in that little basement room giving evidence, her voice all gruff, sneaking out afterwards. Was this a trap? A test? Was there some way they’d found out that Cheryl had betrayed them? The possibility made her mouth go dry, sweat prickled under her arms.

Cheryl flicked the ash from her cigarette, tried to ignore her heart bumping in her chest. Suddenly she had the answer. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘If Nana’s going, I won’t have anyone to look after Milo. Sorry.’

Vinia shrugged and lit her cigarette. Cheryl took another drag and hoped Vinia wouldn’t notice how badly her hand was shaking.

Cheryl got up with Milo at half past three. His nappy was dirty but once she’d changed him, he settled back okay. She sat by his cot a moment, watching the way his eyelids fluttered and the perfect curve of his cheek in the glow from the nightlight.

She had not been down to Bristol yet. She’d put Jeri off, explaining that Nana wasn’t great, the doctors had mentioned anaemia and her blood pressure was too high so she tired more quickly; two nights would be too much.

Jeri was disappointed but brightened up and promised he’d get up to see her in Manchester soon, could well be last minute as he was doing a lot of travelling: summer festivals and parties. She should come! He could put her on the guest list for the Spanish one, the last weekend in September. ‘Bring the baby. It’s lovely,’ he told her, ‘really chilled. Dancing on the beach till dawn. You’d love it.’ He talked about introducing her to people – they were always looking for new talent for the music videos. With looks like hers she’d walk it. She’d be brilliant.

Cheryl didn’t have a passport. Milo neither. She had never been abroad and passports cost money they didn’t have. She smoothed it over saying she’d have to apply for them, it would be nice to see more of the world.

Cheryl stood up to get back to bed and heard a noise from downstairs. Her belly flipped. She opened her bedroom door and saw, with a rush of relief, that Nana’s door was open, her light on. Nana wasn’t sleeping too good. ‘It comes with age,’ she told Cheryl, ‘I sleep like a baby again.’

‘You’re not that old, Nana,’ Cheryl had said, ‘going on like you ninety or something.’

Cheryl went down to check. Nana was in her chair, eyes closed, a rug over her knees. ‘You okay, Nana?’

She opened her eyes. ‘Queasy, is all.’

‘The chicken?’

‘The chicken was fine, fresh and cook through,’ Nana objected. Then suspicious, ‘Why, you feel sickly yourself?’

‘A bit,’ Cheryl admitted. But she knew most of it was nerves, the whole business with Vinia and the trial, her insides all knotted up with it. Sometimes it felt like she was the one going to be in the dock. ‘Maybe a bug,’ she said.

‘Dry toast and water.’ Nana’s remedy for any bellyache.

‘G’night.’

‘God bless, sweet pea.’

Cheryl dreamt she was at the beach with Jeri. It was warm and the sea was still and aquamarine. She was dancing with him, Jeri’s hands on her hips, his face close to hers. Then she was looking for Milo, she had lost Milo, she was begging people to help her find him but they were just laughing at her like she made no sense. Cheryl was running to find him but the sand was dragging her down, her ankles, her muscles burning with the strain, only able to move in slow motion. Sam Millins had Milo! Sam and Carlton had him! In the distance they were walking away. Milo was bigger, almost grown, and he was in the middle, Carlton on one side doing his rolling walk, Sam with a gun in his hand. Cheryl called for Milo again and again but he never looked back.

Cheryl started awake, still wrapped in the dream. The sheets were damp with sweat and she felt greasy, shivery. She still felt sick. She threw up in the bathroom and had dry toast for breakfast. She just hoped Milo didn’t catch it too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Fiona

Joe Kitson came with her to visit the court, at the beginning of September, a couple of weeks before the trial. He met her in Albert Square, near the Town Hall, and they set off to walk down to the Crown Court. She was grateful for his company. She trusted him, she realized. And his calm manner, his steadiness, allayed her own anxieties. Good midwives, good doctors had something of the same quality. She herself had it at work but in this alien context it deserted her.