Witness - [60]

‘It’ll be okay, you know,’ Joe said.

Cheryl began to laugh, tears in it too.

‘What?’ He indicated, pulled out.

‘It’s not nerves – well, I am scared, but I’m pregnant too.’

‘Ah, morning sickness.’

Oh, God. It was all too much: the baby, Nana, the room she was heading towards. She was tired and shivery. She didn’t want to cry, she wouldn’t cry. Not now. She covered her eyes with her hand.

Joe said okay and left it. She was glad he didn’t keep talking, didn’t ask questions or try and cheer her up.

He parked up and she lit a cigarette as they walked around to the witness entrance. Her eyes flicking here and there, watching for familiar faces, ready to duck or run. ‘Can I finish this?’ she asked him as they reached the door. He nodded.

‘Ta.’ She smoked it quickly like it was oxygen and she needed it to breathe. There was no ashtray so she had to chuck it down, grind it underfoot. The pavement was littered with tab ends. Some had lipstick on. Cheryl had no make-up on, hadn’t even combed her hair. She wondered if the jury would trust her more looking plain and washed out.

‘Ready?’

Her stomach clenched. She nodded once. In through security and up to the office, not the waiting area she’d seen last time.

Benny, the volunteer, explained why. ‘The family are here, we don’t want them to see you.’

They were here! Danny’s twin Nadine, his parents, Nana Rose. Nana Rose didn’t know about Nana. Cheryl hadn’t had a chance to ring anyone. Nana Rose had a mobile, Cheryl knew that much, Nana had given Cheryl the number; she should ring and tell her. It would look weird if she hadn’t. She explained to Joe, who agreed. Did she want tea, coffee?

She didn’t know if she dare. She shook her head. ‘Just some water, ta.’

Cheryl rang Nana Rose. It went to voicemail. ‘It’s Cheryl, Nana’s not well. They’ve taken her into MRI. She fell this morning. They think it’s a brain haemorrhage. She needs a scan, that’s the next thing. I’ll let you know. Bye. Bye.’

It struck Cheryl that if Nana had been well, she’d be here somewhere too. Going into the court and hearing Cheryl’s voice all disguised and not knowing it was Cheryl.

Benny brought her the witness statement to read. All the stuff she’d said that Joe had typed up and she’d signed. ‘Take your time,’ Benny said, ‘read it through and let me know if there’s any mistakes. This is the statement the defence have a copy of; this is what they’ll ask you about.’

Cheryl tried to read it but it was hard, her mind kept dancing away, floating off to brood on Nana.

Joe returned with her glass of water. ‘How’s it going?’

‘My mind’s in bits,’ she sighed.

‘Read it out.’

‘What?’

‘Read it to me, out loud.’

Her cheeks grew hot, was he teasing her?

‘It helps to say it out loud, to practise. After all, you’ve never spoken about this to anyone but me.’

‘But I won’t have to read this when I go in there?’

‘No, you just use your own words to describe what happened, then answer their questions, maybe elaborate if they ask you to.’

She drank some water then did as he said, her voice husky from being sick, tripping over some words and finding others that made her voice tremble and her heart ache. But she got through it.

‘How about a biscuit?’ Joe offered.

‘Or toast?’ suggested Benny. ‘We have a toaster.’

Cheryl covered her mouth, blinked and nodded. ‘Dry,’ she managed as Benny reached the door. ‘Dry toast.’

Before she could finish the toast Benny came to tell her, ‘It’s about ten minutes now, we should go down.’

Cheryl couldn’t swallow. The food lodged in her mouth. She felt embarrassed, face burning as she had to spit out the wad of toast on to the plate.

‘Good luck,’ Joe told her. ‘Soon be over. You need to leave your phone.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

Then they were going downstairs, this way and that. Into the box. The cell. That’s what it felt like to Cheryl: underground, warm and lit and carpeted but still like somewhere you were locked up. Cheryl was trembling, she kept thinking of Carlton now, her guts iced-water at the thought he might find out she was here. Benny reminded her about the red card in case she got upset. He asked her if she would make the oath on the Bible and she said yes.

Cheryl sat on the chair.

‘A bit closer,’ Benny said. ‘Good, and when you talk just look at the screen, don’t worry too much about the camera – if you’re looking at the screen then they will see you. Can you clip this on?’ Benny passed her the little microphone and Cheryl stuck it to her top. Then Benny handed her a plastic cup of water.

There was a feeling running through Cheryl and she tried to place it: like the moments before the dentist, or waiting for a test at school, or the week before Milo was born. The sensation of something looming, no escape, no way back. A steamroller rumbling towards her, the ground shuddering.

When she was having Milo, when the pains got really bad, she was crying and saying to Nana, ‘I can’t do this, Nana, I just can’t.’

‘No goin’ back,’ Nana had said. ‘Baby’s coming and no one can stop it. You nearly there.’ Nana had rubbed Cheryl’s back, really hard, and that had helped a bit then she felt the pain rolling inside a different way and they told her to push.