they blabbed over their allotted appointment, which invariably they did. When it came to splitting up the marital assets, this lot would argue over the contents of the hoover bag.
Lilly missed her care cases. Stroppy teens who might spare you ten minutes between shoplifting in Tesco’s and meeting their mates in the arcade. Sometimes they didn’t turn up at all but left convoluted messages about ASBOs, social workers and pregnancy tests.
God, she missed it.
She pulled a Kit Kat from her bag. Chocolate and no exercise, a double whammy As sugar and hydrogenated fat entered her system, she realised that the only thing keeping her sane was the weekly trip to Hounds Place. At least there she could do some good. Some real good.
‘Might pop over there after this client,’ she mused.
‘Don’t even think about it.’
Lilly turned to the door, where the ever scowling secretary-cum-receptionist, Sheila, had appeared.
‘You don’t even know what I was talking about,’ said Lilly.
Sheila crossed her arms. ‘You want to go running off to the Dogs’ Home.’
‘It’s called Hounds Place,’ said Lilly. ‘As you bloody well know.’
Sheila scooped up some papers fanning the floor and slid them back into their file. ‘Do you keep your house as tidy as this?’
‘Did you just come to annoy me or did you get bored with filing your nails?’
Sheila tried to put the file back in the drawer but the runners were jammed. She pushed and pulled, the metallic groans matching her own.
Lilly sighed. ‘Do you actually want something, Sheila?’
‘The powers-that-be want to take you for a drink after work,’ she said, without turning around.
Lilly put her head in her hands. ‘Bloody marvellous.’
‘Stop whining,’ said Sheila, and thrust her arm into the cabinet. It disappeared like a vet’s arm in a cow. ‘They probably want to thank you for your hard work and good attitude.’
‘In my new role as advisor to the rich, ugly and divorcing I make them shitloads of money. Good attitude is not part of the package.’
Sheila was now virtually inside the cabinet, her shoulders and chest lost in its recesses, her face pushed against the handle.
‘I don’t know why you’re so miserable. You’re making good money, aren’t you?’
It was true. Lilly’s wage had increased by fifty per cent since the firm had reallocated her caseload.
‘The root of all evil,’ she said.
Sheila’s cheek was contorted by the pressure of the metal. ‘You weren’t saying that when you didn’t have any, you just moaned endlessly about the state of your house, how your car was knackered and you couldn’t afford Sam’s school uniform.’
‘But it’s so boring.’
‘Grow up,’ Sheila grunted. ‘It beats the bunch of no-hopers that used to come here thieving the staplers.’
‘Vulnerable kids,’ Lilly sniffed.
‘Junkies, most of them,’ said Sheila. ‘Like that bleeding nutter who drank the bleach.’
‘Kelsey was not on drugs,’ said Lilly. ‘It was her mother who was addicted.’
‘Whatever.’ Sheila shook her head as if the details were unimportant. ‘The point is it nearly bankrupted the office.’
‘We got paid,’ said Lilly.
‘Legal Aid scraps, and you know it,’ said Sheila. ‘And as for those scroungers at the Dogs’ Home, I don’t know why you bother.’
‘Because it stimulates my intellect,’ said Lilly. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand.’
‘I understand that having kids means making sacrifices.’ At last Sheila withdrew her arm, bringing with it a battered book. ‘This was stuck at the back.’ She threw it onto Lilly’s desk. The Art of Positive Thinking.
‘Something to stimulate your intellect.’
Lilly put her head on the desk. ‘Do I really have to go for a drink?’
Sheila’s laugh was nothing short of cruel. ‘Rupinder says it’s a three-line whip.’
It’s been a horrid day. A nightmare. Mr Peters had bawled Luke out for not paying attention in Latin. He’d said he was wasting his talents, and that it was nothing short of criminal. Luke had wanted to tell him how close to the mark he was.
During Information Technology he’d surfed the Net to see how long people got for rape, how old he’d be when he got out of prison. He couldn’t breathe when he saw life was an option. He’d seen a politician on the telly saying the government were cracking down, that ‘life should mean life’. He’d bitten his lip until it bled, terrified he’d burst into tears in front of the whole class.
Worse still, Tom had been acting like nothing was wrong. He’d even boasted in the common room about meeting a ‘right little goer’.
The other boys had laughed at him, said he was talking bollocks.
Tom leaned over the snooker table and potted the black.
‘Ask Lukey boy, he’ll tell you what she was like,’ he said. ‘Gagging for it, wasn’t she?’
Luke smiled weakly, but he could still hear the girl screaming and see her slender wrists being held so tightly that they seemed to turn blue-black. A bit like the sky before a storm.
Now the bell is ringing and Luke can finally escape. Thank God he’s not boarding tonight. He wants to go home, to throw himself onto his Arsenal duvet and let it all out. Maybe he should tell his mum. Maybe she could help. Even if she can’t it would stop the whole thing running through his head like a bad film on a loop.
He sees her car parked by the cricket pitch and bolts towards it. Inside it smells of clean washing.
His mum smiles. ‘Had a nice day, love?’
He can’t answer and squeezes his eyes shut.
‘Is everything all right, love?’ asks his mum.
He stirs his pasta with a limp wrist.
‘Luke?’
Her voice is so very gentle. He feels wrung out like a damp cloth, all the moisture down the sink.
She lifts his chin and looks into his eyes. ‘You would tell me if something was wrong?’
He sees in her familiar face a lifetime of wiped noses and birthday teas. This isn’t a broken window or a bad school report. How can he tell her what he has been part of, what he has done? She can’t make it better. No one can.
He forces some words out. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘You look peaky,’ she says, and presses a cool palm against his forehead. ‘You’re not hot but you’re obviously coming down with something.’
He pushes his bowl away. ‘Yeah. I feel sick.’
Relief plays at the corner of his mother’s mouth. This is her territory.
‘Better lie down, love,’ she says. ‘Will you be all right while I collect your sister?’
The thought of Jessie, a year younger than Luke, fills his mind. What if some boys took her to the park…held her down…
He runs from the room, his hand over his mouth, acid bile running through his fingers.
* * *
His bedroom is spinning and Luke concentrates on a small brown water stain on the ceiling.
‘I’ll