the nondescript little house that had once been David’s home came into view. Framed in the centre, David’s stepfather was at that moment finishing his breakfast. As David watched, Ben Bishop removed his napkin from where he’d had it tucked into the front of his shirt and dabbed it around the corners of his heavy-lipped mouth. Then, getting up from the table, he pulled his braces up over his big shoulders and put on his bus driver’s jacket that had been hanging over the back of the chair before he disappeared from view as he walked away from the window into the interior of the house. The bastard must be just about to go to work, thought David as he retreated back down the street and, sure enough, five minutes later, David caught sight of Ben with both hands on the wheel of his car as he turned carefully onto the main road, headed for the bus depot.
Back at the house, David suddenly felt an attack of nerves, and his hand shook as he pressed the bell and heard it chime behind the frosted glass of the front door. And all at once, before he’d had any time to compose himself, there was his mother standing two feet away from him, wearing the same pale blue housecoat that she always wore, with a pack of John Player Navy Cut cigarettes in the breast pocket, and a lit one in her hand that she dropped in shock on the doormat when she saw who it was who’d come to call. David reached down to pick it up, and, as he straightened up, he saw how the expression on her face had changed from surprise to fear, almost panic.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘I know you’re not pleased to see me, but I only need a few hours. I’ll be gone long before he gets back.’ He held the cigarette out to her like it was a peace offering, but she shook her head and so he threw it back behind him onto the path where it burnt uselessly, the blue-grey smoke curling up into the cold morning air. And still she said nothing, just stood staring at her son like he was some kind of horrible apparition.
‘Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?’ he asked, injecting a false cheeriness into his voice. ‘I used to live here, you know — once upon a time.’
‘You’ve escaped,’ she said in a dull, flat voice. It was a statement, not a question.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve escaped, and I’ve hurt myself too. Here, in my shoulder. And I need your help, Mother. Please.’
Suddenly he swayed in the doorway, stumbling over his words as his legs began to buckle beneath him, and instinctively she put her hand under his arm and supported him over the threshold, before he fell to the floor in a dead faint.
He came to on the hallway carpet. There was a cushion under his head, and a boy whom he didn’t at first recognize was squatting down beside him holding a glass of water. The boy was wearing the most enormous pair of glasses that David had ever seen — he thought they were an illusion at first as his surroundings swam in and out of focus — but behind the glasses were eyes exactly the same colour as his own. David knew who the boy was now: it was his half brother, Max, Ben Bishop’s son. He’d doubled in size since David had last seen him nearly three years before and grown a thick mop of curly black hair on top of his head, and his skin was oddly pale, as if he spent all his time inside.
‘You fell over,’ said the boy. He spoke slowly and with an extraordinary seriousness, as if he was disclosing a vital piece of information.
‘Yes, I fainted.’
‘Fainted? I don’t know fainted.’
‘It means “pass out”. Like when you crack your head,’ David added lamely. But Max seemed to understand, and it was almost as if David could see the boy’s mind working as Max carefully added another important word to his store of vocabulary.
‘Do you want some water?’ asked Max, holding out the glass, and David took it gratefully in both hands, swallowing the water down in great gulps.
‘Where’s…’ David hesitated, unsure of what name to call his mother, but Max came to his rescue.
‘Mum?’ he said. ‘She’s in the kitchen. She’s getting you something. I’ve already had my breakfast: toast and jam and cornflakes.’ Max counted off the items like he was making a list.
‘Sounds good,’ said David, smiling.
‘Mum’: the way Max said the silly one-syllable word touched David suddenly. He and this strange boy had something in common, something vital, and for a moment David felt a deep sense of kinship with this half-brother of his that he hardly knew; for a moment he didn’t feel quite so all alone in the world as he always did.
His mother’s stern-sounding voice brought him back to reality. ‘Can you walk?’ she asked.
‘I think so,’ he said, getting gingerly to his feet.
‘Well, you’d better come in the living room if you want me to look at this wound of yours. The light’s better in there.’
He lay down on the sofa, the same sofa where he used to sit listening to the radio after school what seemed like a lifetime ago, and his mother knelt down next to him, placing the tin box in which she kept her medicines beside her on the floor. He remembered it from his childhood — the bright red cross emblazoned on top of the white tin and, inside, the bandages and elastoplasts and little bottles with strange-sounding names on their labels. He remembered how the box had frightened him and made him feel safe all at the same time.
Clearly it was an object of fascination to Max as well. The boy’s eyes seemed to get even bigger when his mother opened the box, but that was all he got to see.
‘Go and do your homework, Max,’ she said. ‘You know what your father said.’ Reluctantly the boy obeyed. He looked back for a moment at the door. David weakly raised his hand in a farewell gesture, and the boy responded wordlessly in kind.
‘Making friends I see,’ said David’s mother. There was no pleasure in her voice, and David sensed her hostility.
‘Is that a crime?’ he asked, rising to the challenge.
‘No, but escaping from prison is.’
You don’t know the half of it, thought David. He had his eyes tight shut, determined not to complain about the pain as she helped him out of the stolen jacket and the ripped-up prison shirt underneath and washed the dried blood away from his shoulder with a wet sponge.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Someone took a shot at me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was escaping,’ he lied. ‘I could feel the blood afterwards, but I don’t know if the bullet’s in there. Can you see?’ he asked, clenching his teeth and his fists, setting himself against the agony as she probed the wound with her fingers.
‘It’s superficial,’ she said eventually. ‘It’ll heal if you give it a chance.’
He let out his breath in small gasps, physically experiencing his relief as his mother began to dress and bandage the wound. If Claes had really got him with that second shot, then he’d have needed a doctor, and David knew he hadn’t a hope of finding that kind of help without getting caught, however much money he had in his pocket. Now he still had a chance.
He closed his eyes, daydreaming of freedom, of foreign cities — places he’d never been, where nobody would know him or ask questions — and then suddenly came to when his mother shouted out his name. He looked up: her face was contorted with rage, but there was fear there too, and the beginnings of despair. She was holding the gun in her hand, dangling it between her fingers and thumb like it was something diseased, and he realized what a fool he’d been to forget his mother’s mania for order, for hanging things up. He should never have let her anywhere near the jacket.
‘Give me the gun,’ he said. ‘I need it.’
‘Not in my house you don’t. Do they know you’ve got this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you used it?’
‘No. I tell you I haven’t,’ he added, half-shouting when he saw the look of disbelief written all over his mother’s face, but the repeated denial did nothing to soften the severity of her expression.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter what you did with it. They’ll shoot you when they come if they know you’ve got it. And me too. And Max. He’s only six years old. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Why did you have to come here, David? Why?’ Her voice was rising all the time. Soon she would start to scream.
‘Because there was nowhere else. I told you I wouldn’t stay. Just something to eat and a few hours sleep
