‘Is that funny?’ demanded Blair.
Paul came back to him, in open insolence. ‘Sometimes she’s funnier.’
Blair’s hand tingled with the urge to slap the stupid expression off his son’s face. Instead he said, ‘When? When she’s in a police station, hearing how you planned big, important robberies? When she’s in court, hearing how you show what a great big guy you are, ripping off nickel and dime stores? When she’s in a doctor’s surgery with a bottle of your piss on the table in front of her, hearing how it shows that you’re part of the crowd, not brave enough to be different, passing around butts with everyone else’s spit on them, in some shit-smelling bathroom? Is that when she’s funny? Is that when she’s a laugh-a-minute, full of wise-cracks and unable to believe her luck at having a son like you, someone she can trust and know she can be proud of?’
This wasn’t how he’d intended to handle it – not that he’d had any clear idea how he was going to handle it – but the bravado had gone now and they were paying attention to him, so it would do. ‘Well?’ he said.
Paul looked away, unable to meet his father’s demand. ‘Just a crack,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean anything.’
‘So tell me what means something,’ insisted Blair not letting him get away. ‘Tell me why my son – a son I love, despite your not believing it – wants to become a thief and a drug dealer. I want to know, Paul. Tell me.’
Paul’s head moved with the aimlessness of a cornered animal and his body twitched, too. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Look at me,’ ordered Blair. ‘Look at me. Stop shuffling like some idiot. And don’t say nothing when I want to know why you stole and why you wanted to sell drugs and why you want to take drugs.’
‘What’s it to you?’ said Paul, trying to recover the insolence.
Blair rubbed one hand against the other, to wipe away the urge. ‘OK,’ he said, extending the gesture to put both hands between them, their own physical barrier. ‘OK, so because of what happened between your mother and me, you can’t believe that I have any more feelings for you. Any more feelings for her, even. So answer me this. If I’d been coming in along the Parkway this morning and I’d seen some perfect stranger, someone I’d never seen in my life before, lay themselves down in front of my car, what would you have expected me to do?’
John looked sideways at his brother and sniggered and Paul sniggered too. ‘Stopped, I guess.’
‘Stopped,’ echoed Blair, glad the boy hadn’t suggested swerving, which would which have taken a lot of the point away. ‘I would have stopped, to have prevented their getting killed. Don’t you think I’m going to try to do something – everything – to stop someone who’s not a stranger – someone I love, despite what you think – killing himself. And not just for yourself. For your mother. And for a younger brother who admires and respects you so much that he actually tries to walk like you, halfway across the room.’
John blushed, at being caught out and sniggered again and Blair wondered desperately if he were penetrating any of the barriers.
‘Not trying to kill myself,’ muttered the older boy.
‘You’ve laid down in the road and invited everyone to run over you,’ insisted Blair, pleased at the way his impromptu analogy was working. ‘You’re not stupid, Paul. Not really. What you’ve done is stupid but you’ve known that it was. Haven’t you known that it is?’
‘Suppose so,’ conceded the boy, reluctantly.
‘Suppose so,’ Blair said relentlessly. ‘You don’t suppose so. You know so.’ There’d been training courses on interrogation at Langley, long lectures on when to be soft and when to be hard. But never in circumstances like these. Was he doing it right? he wondered.
‘Maybe,’ said Paul.
Blair realised he wanted to open the door, not smash it into the kid’s face. Switching from hard to soft – actually softening his voice – he said ‘OK. So why?’
‘Everyone else was doing it: decided to try it.’ Paul was still reluctant, biting the words out.
‘So if anyone else laid down on the Parkway, you’d do it too, to see what it was like?’
Beside his brother John gave a small laugh. Blair hoped the child was laughing with him and not against him. Just as he hoped the roadway analogy wasn’t getting a bit thin.
‘Course not,’ said Paul.
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Lot of difference.’
‘Feel good, when you were stealing? And when you were smoking? Good enough to want to go on doing it until the time when a cop didn’t wait to see you were a kid and didn’t have a gun and blew you away? Or was that the next move, after you’d set yourself up as a dealer, get hold of a Saturday Night Special and become a real hotshot?’ Blair was aware of Ruth turning away, unable to face the onslaught.
‘Didn’t think about it.’
‘What did you think about? Did you think about your mother and breaking her heart? Or me, who loves you? Or John, who looks up to you?’ Blair realised he was risking repetition but he wanted to get more reaction than this out of the kid.
‘When did you think of me!’ blurted the boy.
It had been a long time coming but Blair was glad it finally had. ‘Who are the others, Paul?’ he said.
‘Others?’
‘Arrested with you.’
‘Jimmy Cohn,’ set out the boy, doubtfully. ‘David Hoover… Frank Snaith… Billie Carter.’
‘So tell me about Jimmy Cohn and David Hoover and Frank Snaith and Billie Carter. How many of their parents are divorced?’
‘David Hoover’s,’ said Paul at once.
‘But not Jimmy Cohn and Frank Snaith and Billie Carter?’
‘No.’
‘So what’s their cop-out?’
‘Don’t understand,’ said the boy, who did.
‘It won’t do, Paul,’ said Blair. ‘Don’t try to use what happened between your mother and me as the excuse and expect me and your mother and every counsellor and social worker to sit wringing their hands and sympathising with what a raw deal you got. OK, I’m demanding you to be honest with me so I’ll be honest with you, as far as that honesty need go to be honest. You did get a bad shake. So did your mother. So did John. And I’ve never stopped thinking of you. Or your mother. Or John. Or being aware of what I did and feeling sorry for the way it happened. But it did happen. There’s nothing any of us can do now, to turn the clock back. Life isn’t like that, a place for second chances. Not often anyhow. And don’t try to con me or anyone else by pretending that this was some half-assed attempt to bring your mother and me back together, because I’m not buying that either. You didn’t think of anyone when you stole and robbed and smoked grass and shoved shit up your nose. You just thought about yourself. You made yourself a self-pity blanket and wrapped yourself up in it and decided there was no one else in the world more important than Paul Edward Blair.’ Maybe he shouldn’t have sworn and maybe he’d gone on too long but he hoped some of it was getting through.
Ruth managed to look back into the room. Eddie was being far harsher than she had expected – far harsher than she imagined the juvenile officer would want him to be – but a lot of it needed saying. What had he meant by there not often being an opportunity for second chances? Would he have talked about their getting back together, if he hadn’t obviously thought about it? She stopped herself, guiltily. She and Eddie were not what they were talking about, not directly anyway.
‘You haven’t said much, Paul,’ encouraged his father.
‘Nothing to say,’ said the boy.
‘That’s a kid’s reply,’ said Blair. ‘You a kid?’
‘No,’ said Paul.
‘No what?’ pressured Blair.
Momentarily Paul didn’t comprehend. Then he said ‘No, sir.’
‘So when are you going to stop behaving like one? When are you going to start thinking of someone other than yourself?’
The boy made another of his animal head swings. Or was it something like being punch-drunk? wondered Blair. He’d hit the kid hard.
‘I’ve been out of the country for a long time,’ said Blair. ‘Expressions change but do you know the expression I remember to describe people like you, Paul? It was punk. And before that it was jerk. They meant the same,
