Owning Jacob - SA (15 page)

There were plenty of others to replace it. Once his initial indignation had died down, he stifled the self-destructive voice that urged him to tel them al to fuck off and accepted everything he could. It was al work, and anything that kept him occupied at the studio and away from the hol ow bricks and mortar he'd once thought of as home was welcome.

He contented himself instead with raising his fees.

It meant he could pay Zoe more, which helped ease the guilt he felt after their night out together. He'd woken on the Saturday with a sense of curdling shame and a ful -body hangover. He'd folded himself over the toilet and vomited until only dry heaves were left and the sweet stink of it blocked his nose. Even then he'd had to wait until the throbbing in his head had eased enough for him to pul himself feebly to his feet. Rinsing his mouth and splashing cold water on his face and neck made him feel cleaner but no better. He'd braced his arms on the washbasin and studied the palsied wreck of his reflection in the mirror. His face was pouchy and colourless, except for his lips, which were an unnatural red. There were lines under his eyes he'd never noticed before.

He felt racked with self-hate as he'd looked at himself. His thirty-third birthday had been the month before. Christ had changed the world and been crucified by that age. Ben didn't!

give much for his chances of founding a religion, but the way

IZ2 things were going he felt that crucifixion wasn't out of the Πquestion.

He'd taken a pint glass of water and a bottle of paracetamol and gone back to bed.

The prospect of trying to apologise to Zoe over the phone was too daunting, so he'd waited until Monday morning. He hadn't been sure if she'd turn up at the studio, but she had, no later than usual but uncharacteristical y subdued. They'd skirted around each other, quietly polite, until Ben had final y blurted, 'Look, I'm sorry for running out like that.' She stopped with her back to him. 'It's okay.' i 'It was just too soon.' He winced at the cliche. Zoe had turned but didn't look up. She ducked her head in agreement.

"Yeah. Bad idea al around, real y.' There was a pause when they both found other things to look at. 'Do you stil think we can work together?' Ben asked.

She was very stil . 'Do you want me to leave?' No, course not. I just didn't know if you wanted to.'

'No. Unless you want me to.' , 'I don't.' Zoe nodded. She put her hands in her pockets, then took hem out again. Ben picked up the camera and examined it.

'So how did you feel on Saturday morning?' he asked.

She pul ed a face. 'Like death.' They had grinned at each other, and although there was til some embarrassment, at least it had been faced. When he leard her swearing down the phone at someone later he knew kings were back to normal.

Yet not quite. Once, as Zoe crouched to adjust the hem

f the model's dress, an image of her kneeling in front of him Mid flashed into Ben's mind. He'd looked away, quickly, but the uemory had triggered something else that had been tugging at til subconscious. Reluctantly, he'd let himself acknowledge it.

He couldn't remember having an erection.

Specifical y, he could remember not having one. He'd been drunk, anaesthetised with alcohol, and he was glad nothing more had happened, but he couldn't deny that he'd been up for it until the point when he'd pul ed away.

Except that part of him obviously hadn't been.

What was even more unsettling was the realisation that he hadn't had an erection since Sarah had died. Which might or might not be a natural reaction, but the fact remained that it had been over four months now. Not a long time in itself, and it wasn't as if he was ready to sleep with anyone else yet.

But even the guilt he felt at thinking of such a thing couldn't stop him worrying about it.

As he sat outside the courtroom in the roped-off waiting area, though, his lack of a hard-on wasn't foremost in his thoughts. There were other people waiting to be cal ed as witnesses but he didn't recognise them. No one spoke to anyone else. There was a heavy-set, middle-aged woman whose bust fil ed her dress like a rol of carpet. She had red hair piled up into a bun and squinted with concentration at the paperback novel she held with the cover bent back against the spine. The hand that gripped it had thick sausage fingers, scrubbed pink as if they were used to being in water.

Ben decided she was a nurse from the hospital Jacob had been taken from. The Asian man a few seats away he tagged as the doctor who'd attended Sarah after the 'birth'. There were two policemen, one in uniform, one in plaindothes but with a jacket, trousers and short haircut that identified him just as clearly. He kept scratching in one ear with a finger, giving it a surreptitious wipe afterwards on his trousers. There was another man, and two other women, but by then Ben had tired of the game.

He'd probably guessed them al wrong anyway.

His turn came in the afternoon. He felt something like stage fright as he went into the courtroom and took the stand.

His voice sounded unnatural y loud when he read the oath.

He couldn't see Jessica at first; there were too many faces al staring at him. And when he saw the woman in the dock it wasn't the Jessica he remembered.

She'd lost weight. Her brown frock hung on her like a sack. She was stil pudding-faced but now the line of her jaw and cheeks was visible, and a wattle of loose skin hung below her chin. Her skin was pal id, her hair lank and lifeless.

Even across the court, Ben could see the streaks of grey in it. She only once looked at him, an apathetic glance without recognition or interest, before staring off again at some point on the floor. With a peculiar mingling of revulsion and pity, Ben realised that the trial was irrelevant. Nothing anyone did would make any difference to her now.

The prosecuting counsel questioned him, then he was passed over to the defence. It was as bad as he'd expected.

When he was told to stand down his legs shook. He kept his eyes set straight ahead as he left the court.

The verdict was reached two days later. Ben heard it on the radio as he was driving. Jessica had been found guilty of Aiding and abetting, and sentenced to three years.

He turned the radio off.

Once the trial was over there was nothing to get in the way of his anticipation of seeing Jacob. He expected to feel excited, but as the Sunday he was due for his first contact approached, the anxiety he'd felt over the court case seemed simply to be transferred to the new target.." .

Colin had offered to go with him but he'd declined.

There was stil a bump on the bridge of Colin's nose from the last time he had provided moral support, and Ben's relationship with Maggie was strained enough as it was. He didn't want to risk anything making it worse, if nly for Colin's sake.

But the real reason was that he wanted to see Jacob by himself.

The journey seemed quicker now that he knew the route. It was a close, cloudy day. The fields were stripped bare, bleached to a golden stubble instead of the lush green they'd been the last time. Some of them were blackened from fires that in places were stil burning, trailing curtains of smoke like mist across the road. Ben had thought that stubble-burning was il egal now. If it was no one around Tunford seemed to care.

He had phoned the Kales the night before to arrange what time he should arrive, but there had been no answer.

He hadn't been in touch with them since the handover - not that they'd spoken much then, either. He'd been tempted to cal several times to see how Jacob was, rehearsed what to say, assured himself it could be kept casual. But he hadn't No matter how much he worried about Jacob, he wanted to be seen to be keeping his side of the bargain. He didn't want to give John Kale an excuse not to keep his.

The possibility that Kale might not need an excuse was something he tried not to dwel on.

As he drove through Tunford he wondered if they could have forgotten it was his day for contact and gone away for the weekend. Or remembered but gone away anyway. That stirred up al the other fears, and he was wondering if Jacob could have forgotten him in a month when he turned on to their road and saw Kale's car outside the house.

It was an old Ford Escort, a 1980s model, dappled with rust but with a serviceable air about it. A coating of dried mud and dirt dul ed the original red paint. He had seen the Kales getting into it once outside the local authority building, but he would have known who it belonged to anyway. It seemed to fit Kale, somehow.

At least they're home. He parked behind the Escort and looked inside as he walked past. The seats were covered with a black nylon stretch fabric, holed and gritty with crumbs. A puzzle

the one Kale had given Jacob at their first meeting lay on the back seat. The sight was strangely painful. Ben turned away and went down the path.

There was even more junk in the front garden than he remembered. It was al car parts; chrome bumpers spotted with corrosive acne, doors with gaps where the handles used to be, decaying bonnets, wings and headlamps. The colours were gradual y oxidising into a universal shade of brown. Grass and weeds sprouted through glassless windows, tangling dead metal with splashes of living green. Where pieces had been moved there were tel tale imprints of flattened yel ow stalks and slimy soil. Wondering why anyone would want to litter Sis own outlook with scrap metal, and what the hel Kale did irith it al anyway, Ben skirted the radiator gril e of a Mini ind went to the front door.

It had been white once, but what paint was left was peeling tway like fragments of eggshel . The wood underneath was grey and weathered. The entire house and garden were a working model of entropy, a physical reminder of the natural trend cowards dissolution and decay. Ben felt fresh outrage that this pas the environment to which Jacob had been entrusted, and mmediately ashamed for thinking it. Don't be a snob. But the jbjection he felt was both more intrinsic and less definable than that Using the mottled flap of the galvanised letterbox, He knocked and stepped back The sound was loud in the Sunday stil ness. It died away.

["here was a noise from the next garden. He turned. A woman lad emerged from the house, holding a long-handled sweeping Brush. Ben gave her a smile.

'Morning.' fhe greeting went unacknowledged. She regarded him

ŠIdly, making a few half-hearted sweeps at the path with her brush. Across the street a man in a vest was leaning on his gate, ipenly watching. Ben turned his back on both of them.

It's the Hlag of the fucking Damned. He knocked on the door again.

He was conscious of their scrutiny as he waited. The scrape of the woman's brush punctuated the quiet. He wished someone would hurry up and answer the door. He counted to ten then knocked again, harder.

The door opened. Sandra Kale regarded him sul enly. Her eyes were puffy and her bleached hair rumpled and uncombed.

She had on a pale pink bathrobe that ended mid-thigh. It needed washing. A sour, warm smel of bed came from her.

Ben waited for her to say something. When she didn't he said, 'I've come for Jacob.' She folded her arms under her breasts. The movement pushed them up against the terry-towel ing bathrobe. 'He's not here.' There wasn't as much anger as he would have thought It was as though he'd been expecting it. 'But I'm supposed to be picking him up today. It's my day to see him.' She hitched one shoulder indifferently. It caused the bathrobe to gape, showing cleavage where her arms pressed her breasts together. Without make-up her face was younger and less hard, but no more friendly. 'Tough. I've told you, he isn't here.' She began to close the door. Ben put his hand flat on it to stop her. He caught a waft of the odour of the house from behind her, a stateness of fried food and unemptied ashtrays.

'So where is he?'

'Gone out with his dad.'

'When wil he be back?'

'Don't know.'

'Can I wait?'

'Do what you fucking like,' she said, and pushed the door shut.

A shard of loose paint shot off and stung his face like miniature shrapnel. He heard the woman with the brush chuckling in the next garden. Feeling his face burning, he I banged on the door with the side of his fist The sharp-edged

paint crunched underneath it, digging into his flesh before flaking off. He carried on hammering.

The door was yanked open. Sandra Kale's face was pinched and angry. 'He's not fucking here! Now fuck off!'

'Not until I've seen him.'

'Are you fucking deaf? I've told you-' The door was pul ed from her hand. Ben instinctively stepped back as Kale appeared in the doorway. He was naked except for a pair of brief black shorts. His wife looked startled, then moved meekly aside.

He had been exercising. His entire body was beaded with sweat and flushed pink, as though he had been scalded. The thin shorts moulded his hips and genital bulge, but tight as they were there was no overhang of fat Each muscle was clearly defined, not with the sculptured physique of a body-builder but with a cleanness that was entirely functional. Ben automatical y pul ed his own stomach in.

Tve come to col ect Jacob,' he said. Kale was breathing deeply and rhythmical y. He didn't answer. Ben went on.

It's my day to see him. We agreed on every fourth Sunday.

rat's today.' Moisture dripped from Kale's brow. He made no attempt

wipe it. Ben looked past him into the hal way. There was no sign of Jacob. I "There's nodiing here for you.' Kale spoke flatly. Ben turned to him.

"Where's Jacob?'

'I said there's nothing here for you.'

'I'm not going without seeing him at least' He held iis ground against Kale's stare. It was like leaning into the wind.

Kale moved his head fractional y towards his wife. "Fetch Jim.'

'John-' i 'Fetch him.'

Her face reflected her unease for a second longer, then settled into the hard lines of irritation. She disappeared inside the house.

Kale remained where he was. Ben watched the empty hal way, glad of the excuse to look away. He'd always thought that Kale's eyes were expressionless, but that wasn't true. Their gaze was unsettling because it gave a view of a personality that, like his body, had been rendered down and stripped of inessentials. It was like looking into the sun.