Owning Jacob - SA

Chapter eight

The sun had almost disappeared behind the rooftops. The small garden was dappled by shade. Jet contrails criss-crossed the orange-to-indigo vignette of evening sky, slowly dispersing into petrochemical imitations of cirrus clouds. Ben blew his own contribution up at them and stubbed out the joint on the heel of his sandal. He dropped it in his empty beer bottle and leaned back against the garden wall. The bricks still retained some of the sun’s heat, but that was the only comfort to be had from their ungiving roughness. There were perfectly good wooden sun chairs a matter of feet away, and Ben had no reason not to sit in them instead of on the hard-baked ground. But he wasn’t uncomfortable enough for it to merit the effort of moving.

The creak of the swing provided a metronomic counterpoint to the sweeter but unstructured birdsong from the trees. Whenever it began to slow, Ben reached out with his foot and set it going again. The empty seat arced lazily backwards and forwards. Jacob could sit on it for hours without growing bored, just watching the grass zip by under his feet. Ben had taken photographs of him, using a high-speed film to capture the movement without blurring.

A camera lay beside him now. He’d focused it once on the untenanted swing, but had put it down again without pressing the shutter release. It would have made too bald a statement.

Another plane crossed the sky, invisible except for the white chalk mark that trailed behind it. Ben raised the camera and took a couple of shots of the geometric tracery above him. He knew it was the wrong sort of camera, wrong sort of film, and that he was in the wrong sort of mood to get anything decent, but, just as there was no reason to go and sit in a chair, neither was there a reason why he shouldn’t waste some film if he wanted to. Nothing seemed any more or less worthwhile than anything else.

It was amazing how quickly things could turn to shit.

Objectively, it was only three months since the disastrous visit to the scrapyard, but so much had happened that to his subjective timescale it seemed much longer. When he had gone to see the solicitor the day after the encounter with Kale he still hadn’t any real idea what was in store for him. Ann Usherwood was in her late forties, tall and sparely built with greying hair and a severe business suit. Her office was smart but unpretentious, functional almost to the point of being spartan. She had been professionally blunt as she told him he was in a legally vulnerable position. “A step-parent doesn’t have any automatic rights to their spouse’s children. You ought to have made an application to the court for something called a ‘residence order’ as soon as your wife died, so Jacob could continue living with you.”

“Won’t Kale be able to just take Jacob back anyway?” he’d asked.

“It doesn’t work like that. Although, from what you say, there’s no doubt that John Kale is the natural father, the child’s welfare is always the first consideration. No one’s going to simply tear Jacob from his home and hand him over to a total stranger, natural father or not. Mr Kale will still have to apply for a residence order himself, unless you voluntarily agree to return Jacob to him.”

“The fact that Jacob was stolen...” supplied Ben, brutally.

“I was going to say unlawfully taken by your wife, but, however you put it, a child isn’t a piece of property to be returned to the original owner, regardless. Taking him was a criminal act, however, and I imagine the midwife will be investigated and quite possibly charged.” She paused. “You’ll have to satisfy the police that you didn’t know anything about what your wife had done until you found the cuttings. Taking steps to find Jacob’s father will weigh in your favour, although it might be argued that you should have gone to the police straightaway instead of going to the scrapyard.”

“I only wanted to see Kale for myself.”

“Hopefully the police will accept that. In any event, you’ve got to make a decision on how you want to proceed. Given that John Kale will probably make an application for residence, are you going to contest it?”

Ben rubbed his temples. “What’ll happen if I do?”

“A court welfare officer — or in this case perhaps a social worker — will be appointed to consider Mr Kale’s application and make recommendations. Then the court will decide where Jacob’s going to live. They’ll take into account his own wishes and feelings, which is obviously more difficult when there are communication difficulties. But under normal circumstances you’d probably have a reasonable prospect of keeping him.”

He felt too tired to think. “And if I don’t contest it?”

“Then, after a period of assessment, Jacob will probably go to live with his natural father.”

“Will I still be able to see him?”

“You might be allowed some contact, but I can’t say how much. That’ll depend on what’s felt to be in his best interests.”

Best interests? Ben thought about the shabby little town, the house with its junk piled in the garden. He hated the idea of Jacob living somewhere like that. He didn’t want to give him up, couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if he did. The thought of what Sarah would say, what she would think, was a dry anguish in his gut. The rights and wrongs of how she came by him apart, Jacob was her son. She had loved him, looked after him. And so had he. How could he just let him go now? But against that was the memory of Kale limping forward with six years’ pent-up grief. Where’s my boy? He realised the solicitor was waiting.

He gave her his answer.

John Kale saw his son for the first time in a dirty concrete-and-glass social services building. Ben held Jacob’s hand as they went with Ann Usherwood to the room where the meeting was to take place.

The social worker appointed to carry out the assessment was a man called Carlisle. He was a few years older than Ben, with a stubble cut, chinos and a habit of looking down his nose.

John Kale and his wife were there already, Kale in a dark green suit that was too heavy for the weather, his wife in a short, sleeveless pink dress. Ben braced himself as Kale stood up, but the other man didn’t so much as glance at him. He was staring at Jacob.

Everyone in the room seemed to hang on the moment.

Kale limped over and stood in front of his son, never taking his eyes from him. His face was as unrevealing as it had been in the scrapyard, but now Ben fancied there was a tentativeness about him. He squatted down, looking intently into the boy’s face without speaking. Ben expected Jacob to make his pushing-away gesture, but he didn’t.

“Hello, Steven,” Kale said. “I’m your dad.” Jacob kept his gaze averted, then cautiously shifted it to the man crouching in front of him. They looked at each other, and Ben felt a little slip of unreality at the resemblance between them. Then Kale turned and fixed him with an unblinking stare.

“What have you done to him?”

The social worker stepped forward. “I think perhaps we should all just take a seat. This is going to be very difficult for everyone, and it’s important to keep calm and remember that we’re here to discuss what’s best for Jacob.”

“Steven,” Kale said. His head swivelled from Ben to the social worker. “His name’s Steven.”

Carlisle faltered, then rallied. “I’m sorry, Mr Kale, but unless you want to confuse and upset him, you’ll have to start thinking of your son as Jacob now. That’s the name he knows and has been brought up with, and trying to change it now could prove very difficult for him.”

Ben saw Kale’s jaw muscles bunch as he looked down again at Jacob.

The social worker turned in silent appeal to the overweight man with a thick moustache and glasses sitting with Sandra Kale. By his dandruff-flecked suit and briefcase, Ben guessed he was their solicitor.

The man reluctantly rose to his feet. “Why don’t you sit down, Mr Kale?”

Kale ignored him. He fished in his pocket and brought out a small parcel. “Here.” He offered it to Jacob. Jacob just looked at it.

Kale unwrapped it for him. Ben saw that his hands were square and broad, the fingers stubbed and callused. The object was a puzzle, a clear plastic case in which two or three tiny silver balls rolled freely. It was similar to the ones Jacob had at home. Kale gave it a little shake, rattling the balls, and offered it to him again. This time the boy accepted it. He shook it himself, copying Kale, then began trying to manoeuvre the balls into holes in the puzzle’s base.

Kale passed his hand softly over the boy’s head before going back to his seat. As if that were their cue, the rest of them also went to the collection of low chairs set around a squat rectangular table. The informal setting did nothing to relieve the atmosphere in the room.

“Before we go any further, I think one thing I have to stress is the need for us all to co-operate,” the social worker said. He was careful to address all of them, not just Kale. “This is a very emotional time for everyone concerned, but we mustn’t lose sight that our priority is Jacob’s welfare, not, ah, not venting personal differences.”

“I want my boy,” Kale said. He was hunched forward on the edge of his seat, still watching Jacob.

In the next seat his wife was chewing on one corner of her red-painted mouth as her eyes darted from her husband to her stepson. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin dark lines. Her face was sharp-featured and the roots of her straw-coloured hair were dark brown, but there was a vulpine, shopworn attractiveness to her. An edge of white bra strap was showing on one shoulder. She looked up and caught Ben watching her. He turned away.

Carlisle nodded placatingly. “I know you do, Mr Kale, that’s why we’re here. But you must understand it isn’t a simple matter of you taking Jacob home with you. There are still procedures we have to go through.”

“Like checking up on us, you mean.” It was the first time Kale’s wife had spoken. She had a cracked cigarette voice.

“We’re not ‘checking up’ on you as such, Mrs Kale. But we can’t simply turn a child over to someone without assessing what’s best for him.”

“I’m his father,” Kale said. Ben could see him rhythmically squeezing his fists, pumping the veins on his forearms until they stood out. “He’s got no right to him.” His chin jerked in Ben’s direction. “He’s kept him from me all this time. He’s not keeping him any more.”

Ann Usherwood shifted forward slightly in her seat. “Mr Murray won’t contest your residence application if the local authority and social services are satisfied that it’s in Jacob’s best interests to live with you and your wife, Mr Kale. And for the record I must remind you that no blame for what happened is attached to my client whatsoever. The police have accepted that he believed the boy was his wife’s natural son until after her death, and if not for him acting on that information none of us would be here now.”

There was a snort from Sandra Kale. “Give him a medal.” She had a cigarette in her hand. As she raised it to her mouth the social worker said, “I’m sorry, it’s no smoking in here.” She looked across at him, the cigarette gripped between her lips. “You’re trying to tell me that I can’t have a fag?”

Carlisle looked flustered and strained. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Put it away,” Kale said without looking at his wife.

She glared at him, then angrily snatched the cigarette from her mouth. Ben noticed the red smudge of lipstick on the filter as she threw it in her handbag.

The social worker looked at her, then away. “As Ms Usherwood said, Mr Kale, there’s no question of anyone contesting your application for a residence order. But these things do take time, and meanwhile, although you’ll all be owed frequent contact, it’s best if Jacob remains with Mr Murray—”

“No.”

“I appreciate how you must feel, but—” He broke off as Kale abruptly rose to his feet. Ben stiffened as he came around the table.

“Ah, Mr Kale...?” Kale ignored the social worker as he went over to where Jacob was standing. He crouched down in front of him as he had earlier. “Steven?”

“Mr Kale, I really must ask you not to—”

“Look at me, Steven.”

Jacob continued playing with the puzzle as though he were unaware of Kale’s presence. Kale reached out and slowly pushed it down. Jacob gave a little grunt of annoyance and jerked away.

“You’ll upset him,” Ben said. Kale took no notice.

“Steven.” He took hold of Jacob’s chin and gently lifted it. “Don’t,” Ben began, but stopped when he saw that Jacob was paying attention.

“I’m your dad. Tell them you want to come home with me. Tell them.”

No one moved. Father and son regarded each other, and for an incredulous second Ben thought that Jacob was going to respond. Then the boy turned back to the puzzle.

The tinny rattle of the silver balls had broken the quiet.

“He can’t help it,” Ben had said, feeling obscurely sorry for Kale. Yet at the same time he couldn’t deny he was pleased.

Both emotions had chilled as the man turned to him with his wide-eyed stare. It was unsettling in its blankness. You can’t tell what he’s thinking, what he’s going to do. He’s like a fucking Rottweiler.

Kale went back to his seat and didn’t speak again for the rest of the meeting.

After that the days had sunk into a montage of dour offices and stern, official faces. The police interviewed Ben several times and took the newspaper cuttings. He didn’t care if he never saw them again. Besides, if it was newsprint he wanted, there was plenty of fresh material. The media had latched on to the story of ‘Baby Steven’s Return’ with glee.

Seeing the number of ‘exclusive’ interviews that Quilley gave, Ben guessed that the detective had finally found a market for his information.

He hoped he choked on it.

He had called Sarah’s parents before the news broke, wanting to spare them hearing about it first on the TV or radio. He spoke to her father, the words tripping him up so that he had to backtrack constantly to untangle himself.

“I don’t understand,” Geoffrey said when he’d finished. His voice was an old man’s.

“I didn’t want to tell you like this, but the press have found out. It’s... well, it’s going to get pretty bad.”

“Oh no. Oh no.”

“I’m sorry.”

But his father-in-law wasn’t listening. “What am I going to tell Alice?” he asked.

Ben was trying to think of something to say when the receiver was fumbled down at the other end.

His mother-in-law called him that same night, after it had been on the evening news. “Are you satisfied now?” she hissed. “You couldn’t leave well alone, could you? Isn’t it enough that Sarah’s dead? Did you have to destroy what we’ve got left?”

“Alice—”

“He’s our grandson! He doesn’t belong to you! He’s all we’ve got left, and you’re giving him away! God, I despise you! I despise you!”

Ben couldn’t blame her. He didn’t feel too good about himself.

The garden was completely in shade now. The swing creaked, almost at a standstill. Ben gave it a final push with his foot and stood up. His flesh under the dun white shirt felt brittle with goose-pimples.

He went inside. The front of the house was west-facing, and the lounge was still bright. A rhomboid of yellow light was shafting obliquely on to the carpet through the window. Ben sat in it, closing his eyes and turning his face up to the day’s last dregs of sun.

His vision became a red field. Red on red, backed by red, lit by a red glow. He gave himself up to it. It was a Friday night. He didn’t want to have to think about what he was going to do with himself for the rest of the weekend. Or the ones after that. Weekends spent with Sarah and Jacob had developed a rose-tinted distortion in his memory that he knew wasn’t real but didn’t question. He didn’t want to think about that either. It was easier to tilt his head to the dying sun and think of nothing.

The red universe darkened to black. He opened his eyes.

The sun had shifted so that a horizontal shadow of window frame fell across his face. The patch of sunlight had shrunk to a stripe, too narrow to sit in. Ben put his hand down to push himself up and felt something hard. A single piece of jigsaw puzzle was lying face down on the carpet, concealed by the tassels of a rug. He picked it up. The shiny side was bright blue. A thick orange line cut across it. Ben couldn’t imagine what it could be a part of, or which of Jacob’s jigsaws it was from. He turned the irregular piece of cardboard in his hand, then looked at his watch.

It was time for the news.

It was one of the last items, a feel-good wind-down to the programme. The newsreader had a smile as she announced that Steven Kale was now back with his real father. It’s Jacob. Not Steven. There was no mention that he’d been seeing the Kales more and more frequently as part of a supervised ‘rehabilitation’ process. The coverage showed John and Sandra Kale outside the social services building that afternoon, with Jacob between them. Journalists and photographers scurried alongside and in front. Kale acted as if they didn’t exist, but his wife was loving every second of it. She played up to the attention, cheaply sexual as she posed and postured, the only one of the reunited family who was smiling. She beamed at the cameras, holding on to Jacob’s hand, and Ben could see that her knuckles were white with the effort of keeping it there. Jacob’s head was down, refuting the activity around him. Ben felt his own chest tighten.

He almost didn’t recognise the brief shot of himself, hurrying away like a criminal.

Kale’s residence application had been approved, and that afternoon Ben had taken Jacob for the final handover to his new parents. He’d told himself all the way through that it was the best thing to do. Best for Jacob. To have contested Kale’s right to his son would have been selfish. No matter what he felt personally, no matter what Sarah’s parents thought, John Kale was Jacob’s father. All the other arguments failed in the face of that. If the social services had found anything, any reason why Jacob shouldn’t be returned to his natural father, then that would have been different. But they hadn’t, and Ben had agreed to abide by their decision. And he had. Right up till the end.

I’m sorry, Sarah.

He remembered how Jessica had accused him of not wanting the responsibility of looking after Jacob, and wondered if his motives for giving him up without a fight had been completely pure after all. His reasoning now seemed blurred and muddied.

He watched as the television report cut to an elderly couple in a tiny flocked-wallpaper living room. Jeanette Kale’s parents.

The woman was in a wheelchair, obviously uncomfortable in front of the TV cameras. Her husband sat holding her hand, a composed-looking man being slowly dragged down by age.

Yes, they were very happy, they said. Yes, they wished their daughter were alive to see her son’s return. When they were asked if they had seen their grandson yet, Ben saw the woman glance at her husband. He hesitated. “No, not yet.” When would they be seeing him? the interviewer pressed.

Again there was an awkwardness.

“Soon, we hope,” the man answered. He didn’t look at the interviewer as he said it.

The item ended with a shot of the Kales taking Jacob into their house. The cameras had obviously stayed at the top of the path and were filming over the gate. The overgrown garden with its piles of junk wasn’t shown. Its squalor would presumably have struck the wrong chord for the ‘up’ tone of the rest of the piece. Ben watched as Jacob was absorbed into the black rectangle of the hallway and a smiling Sandra Kale reluctantly closed the door.

He turned the set off. He went into the kitchen, got himself another beer from the fridge and sat down at the table to roll himself a joint. He was smoking too many and drinking too much lately. Fuck it. He drew down a lungful of the bitter-sweet smoke, held it, then blew it out and took a gulp of beer to cool his mouth.

Once a month.

That was his reward for doing the right thing. That was how often he’d been granted access to Jacob. Not that it was called ‘access’ any more. The new word was contact, as if the name made any difference. It still meant he would only be all owed to see him one day out of every twenty-eight.

Once a fucking month.

Even Ann Usherwood had been confident that it would be weekly, or fortnightly at the worst but, although the police had absolved Ben of any guilt, any complicity in what had happened, the social services had still decided that it wouldn’t be in Jacob’s ‘best interests’ to see him too often. They appeared as taken with the romantic story of ‘little boy lost, little boy found’ as the lowest of the tabloids. Not that they admitted it. It was all couched in the most respectable, reasonable terms. Jacob was already settling into his new home surprisingly well, Carlisle, the social worker, had told Ben. In view of the circumstances, and his condition, far from helping that process, frequent contact with his former stepfather might actually disrupt it. He said they were sorry.

Which made everything all right, of course.

Ben drained the bottle of beer and went upstairs to Jacob’s room. What used to be Jacob’s room, he corrected himself, drawing on the joint. He looked at the toys and clothes that Kale hadn’t wanted, the Rebus symbols and brightly coloured posters on the wall. He didn’t know which was worst, seeing what was left behind or noticing what was missing. He’d taken the previous day off work so they could spend it together. They’d gone to the zoo. He’d carried the boy on his shoulders around the caged and penned animals, trying to make him laugh, wanting it to be a day they’d both remember. Jacob seemed to have had a good time but it had been too emotionally loaded for Ben to enjoy it. A part of him was forever standing back, self-consciously observing everything they did in the awareness that it was their last day. Telling himself that he’d be able to see Jacob again in a month’s time didn’t help. He knew it would be different then. His mood had continued even when they were back home. That morning he’d helped Jacob dress, made his breakfast, all with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be doing any of it again.

It was harder than ever to convince himself that he had made the right decision.

He closed the door on the room that Jacob wouldn’t be spending any more nights in and went back downstairs. He killed the joint and took another beer from the fridge. A photograph of Sarah stared down at him from the kitchen wall. He had always liked it because she seemed to be smiling even though, taking each of her features in isolation, she wasn’t. It had only been recently that he could bring himself to put it up. Sarah thought it was vain to have photographs of herself on display unless either Ben or Jacob were in them too, and after she had died he’d found it too painful to see it every day. He looked at it now, but even after several joints and beers he couldn’t fancy that he saw any reproach or criticism in it. It hadn’t changed.

It was just a photograph.

The doorbell rang. Ben stayed where he was. He didn’t want to see anyone. He had switched off his mobile, and as soon as he had arrived home he had taken the phone off the hook to preempt the sympathy calls he knew would be coming. He felt a little guilty for avoiding Colin, but he could always phone him later. It was even possible that his father might feel obliged to ring again, and Ben felt bad enough already without having to go through that. There had been a call when the story first broke, a short conversation that left Ben more depressed than ever. Most of the conversation had been taken up with his excuses for staying away, an apologetic ramble that boiled down to his wife feeling under the weather. Ben had noticed that she always came down with something whenever anyone put any demands on her husband’s attentions. “You know how it is,” his father had finished, and Ben had agreed that yes, he knew how it was.

Thanks, Dad.

The doorbell shrilled again. Ben resolutely sat at the table, but this time it didn’t stop. He pushed back the chair and went to see who it was.

Zoe was leaning with her thumb on the bell. She jerked it away when he opened the door. A taxi was double-parked on the road behind her, its engine still running. She gave a grin that didn’t manage to conceal her nervousness. “Hi. I tried to ring, but the phone’s been engaged.”

Ben was still trying to adjust to seeing her. “I took it off the hook.”

“Oh.” She put her hands in the back pockets of her tight black jeans. They rode low on her hips. The movement hunched up her shoulders. “I heard about what had happened on the news. I thought I’d see if you were okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He remembered his manners. “Are you coming in?”

“No, it’s all right. The taxi’s waiting.” Zoe watched herself stub her toe up and down on the step. Her hair was red this week. “So what are you doing now?”

Ben recalled the solicitor’s talk of an appeal over his contact with Jacob, but it had been half-hearted. And just then it seemed too abstract, too effortful for him to concentrate on now. “I don’t know.”

She looked down the street as if something there had caught her attention. “There’s a party in a new club in Soho. I’ve got an invite. Fancy going?”

It occurred to him that perhaps she hadn’t been asking about his long-term plans after all. He took in the lipstick and make-up. The orange top she had on was even briefer than the ones she wore to work, little more than a bra that clung to her small breasts. “No, I don’t think so. Thanks for asking, though.”

“You got something else on?” She squinted up at him.

“I don’t really feel like going out.”

She nodded. “So you’re just going to stay in and get shit-faced by yourself?”

“Zoe, it’s nice of you to come round, but...”

“But you’re going to stay in and mope, yeah?”

He felt too enervated to be angry. “I’m not feeling very sociable.”

“Who said anything about being sociable? You can get shit-faced in company.” She looked more serious. “I just don’t think you should stay in by yourself tonight.”

That was exactly what he wanted, to stay in and surround himself with memories of Sarah and Jacob, to wallow in his lost family. It was easier than making the effort to drag himself out of the hole he was sliding into. All he wanted to do now was give up and enjoy the ride down.

Except that Zoe was looking at him, waiting for an answer.

He tried to produce one, but somehow couldn’t get beyond shaking his head.

“Come on,” she said, sensing blood. “You’ll feel better.”

I don’t want to feel better. But it was too much of an effort to argue. “I can’t go like this,” he said feebly, glancing down at the creased trousers and the shirt smudged with dirt from the garden wall. He realised when he saw the grin spread across Zoe’s face that she’d won.

“I’ll tell the taxi to wait while you get changed.”

The club was a sweat-box. It was small and dark and cramped, humid with the breath and perspiration of too many bodies. Anonymous buttocks, hips and crotches pressed up to their table, leaning on the edge, the sharp corners digging into denim and leather and satin and flesh.

“They don’t know what causes it,” Ben said. “They say it’s some kind of brain disorder, like epilepsy, but when it boils down to it they haven’t a clue why some kids are autistic and some aren’t. It might be hereditary, it might be linked with childhood illnesses or vaccinations, lack of oxygen at birth. You name it.”

Zoe sat with her elbows propped on the table, chin resting on cupped hands as she listened, sitting close to him to hear above the thump of music. She took another drink from the neck of the beer bottle. Ben nursed his own, peeling off the corner of the label. Paper scraps were scattered around it.

“It’s not something like Down syndrome, where it’s obvious if a kid has it or not. It isn’t always easy to diagnose. Sometimes it’s so mild kids can go to a normal school, and sometimes it’s so bad they have to wear nappies all their lives. And it changes all the time — you get different symptoms as the kid grows up.”

He took a drink from the bottle. The beer tasted warm and stale, although it was a new bottle. Or was it? His head was fuzzy. It was difficult to tell. He set it back down and carried on peeling the label.

“Jacob’s pretty mild compared to some of the poor little sods. With him it’s more of a communication difficulty. He couldn’t cope at an ordinary school yet, but there’s always the chance he’ll improve. Sometimes, he looks at you and you feel he’s just on the edge, that one little nudge and he’d be a normal kid. And then he’ll go away again, and it can be like he’s from a different planet. It’s really frustrating, you feel he’s sort of stuck inside his own head, but if you could only get him to come out...” He broke off. “Sorry, I’m talking bollocks.”

“No, you’re not.” Zoe shrugged. “It’s interesting bollocks, anyway. You don’t normally talk much about him.”

“There’s nothing more boring than listening to people going on about their kids.” Especially when they’re not really theirs. He raised his bottle to his mouth again but it was empty.

“Did you ever think about adopting him?” She immediately grimaced. “Sorry, that was tactless.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind. Sarah and I talked about it, and agreed that I should at some point. We’d talked about having kids of our own as well. But there didn’t seem to be any rush.”

That sank the conversation like the Titanic. Ben felt his mood going down with it. He knew he was on the way to being drunk and maudlin, that he should stop talking and stop drinking and go home, but the thought was whisked away from him almost as soon as it occurred. “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said. “I’d probably still have let Kale have custody — sorry, I mean ‘residence’ — anyway.” He moved on to safer ground. “I just can’t believe they’ll only let me see Jacob once a month. Once a fucking month.”

“Can’t you talk to his father? Explain, I mean. He might let you see him more often.”

Ben thought about the way Kale looked at him. He shook his head slowly and deliberately from side to side. “Not a chance.”

“But that’s so unreasonable.”

“I don’t think he’s a reasonable man.”

It struck him that he had put his finger on a simple truth. Whatever reasoning processes went on behind Kale’s tan-coloured eyes were unfathomable. Perhaps he was like Jacob in more than just looks. Ben tried to pin the idea down so he could scrutinise it further, but it got away from him. Another thought replaced it. “I hope Jacob’s okay with him.”

Zoe put her hand on his arm. “I’m sure he will be. They wouldn’t have let him have him if there was any doubt.”

“God, I hope so.” But he remembered the house, and the junk piled up outside, and Sandra Kale’s feral face that had only smiled for the cameras. Jacob seemed small and vulnerable amongst all that hardness and sharp edges.

Someone nudged him. He looked up. Zoe was holding out a glass. He hadn’t even noticed that she’d been to the bar.

“Beer time’s over,” she said. “Time to get serious.”

He sniffed at the drink. Vodka. Zoe anticipated the refusal before he could make it.

“I thought you wanted to get shit-faced,” she said.

There were windows of sobriety, when he would emerge from the alcohol like a drowning man coming up for air, just long enough to look around and see where the current had carried him before he sank under its pull again. The club became hotter and more crowded. The air was thick with body odours, perfume, cigarette smoke and spilt beer. The angry lights and screaming music pounded with migraine intensity. The only way they could hear themselves speak was to lean close and shout. He found himself at one point aware of the sensation of Zoe’s mouth brushing his ear as she shouted into it. Her breath was hot on his skin. She smelled of sweat and a spicy perfume, and ever so faintly of garlic. She had her hand on his shoulder as she spoke. It was warm and damp through his shirt.

He could feel the heat coming off her bare flesh. The halter top clung to her, exposing her midriff, arms, shoulders and chest. He closed his eyes. Everything was physical sensation, noise and touch without sense. He could hear her words but no longer understood them. He went away for a while and when he came back he was in the same place and nothing had changed. There was a pressure in his ear, small pushes of air that he finally associated with someone talking to him.

He opened his eyes. Zoe’s head filled his vision, too big to focus on. He drew back and watched her lips forming shapes.

He made an effort not to drift off again.

“What?” he asked. His voice sounded far away.

“I said are you going to dance?”

Ben shook his head. It felt heavy, unattached. “You go.” She said something else, but he couldn’t hear what. She stood up. Ben found himself looking at her stomach, pinkly suntanned and sweetly curved. When she turned and began to push through the crowd jammed up to the table, the waistband of her jeans moved away from her back, exposing a further inch of knuckled spine below the imprint it had left of itself.

She vanished into the wall of bodies. Ben felt he had strands of tar pulling at him. Every movement had to fight their resistance, but every now and again they would snap and his limbs would move in uncoordinated lunges. He knocked over an empty beer bottle as he raised his arm, and two more as he tried to grab it. They chinked but the noise was lost in the larger cacophony. He was suddenly thirsty. There was beer left in some of the bottles on the table but the thought of it nauseated him. He picked up a glass that had liquefying ice cubes in the bottom and tipped them into his mouth. Then he drank the dregs of lukewarm ice-melt from the other glasses on the table. It made him more thirsty than ever.

He looked above the people bunched in front of him. The ceiling over the dance-floor was mirrored. He could see heads and shoulders suspended upside down, rhythmically bobbing and heaving, outflung hands waving like seaweed in the erratic blue and red lights. He felt sick.

Zoe came back. He had no idea how long she’d been gone.

Her hair was plastered to her forehead and her arms and torso were flushed and shiny with sweat. Her breasts rose and fell after the exertion. The halter top was dark in patches, sticking to her. She carried two glasses. She grinned as she gave one to Ben. He was aware that he had already had too much to drink but the glass was cold and had ice cubes in it.

He emptied it while he was still wondering if it was a good idea.

Then they were somehow outside and it was quiet and cool. Ben had a buzzing in his ears. His arm was around Zoe’s shoulders and he felt hers around him. They were in a taxi and she was leaning against him. Her skin was burning hot and slick. The thought circled that he was going to fuck her. Somewhere miles away in his head was a protest but it was too distant to bother with. His hand stroked her bare back under the flimsy top. Her mouth was covering his. Her tongue and teeth seemed huge, covering him. The hard pebble of her nipple pressed into his palm through a thin layer of fabric.

Cold air hit him as he climbed out of the cab. He looked up at the sky. There was a faint lightening towards the horizon.

The stars wheeled above him. He stepped backwards to keep his balance, swaying as she unlocked a door. For a moment of clarity he saw Zoe again, the girl he worked with. Then he was going into an unlit hallway. A door creaked open and he was in a bedroom. She was pressed against him, cooling skin and hot, wet mouth. His hands were down the back of her jeans, inside her pants. His shirt was open. Her hands were on his chest, his stomach. The buzzing in his ears grew louder. It went away and he was looking down from a dizzying height at the top of a dark head. He felt a chill on his naked skin, but no sensation other than that. He didn’t know where he was. The head wasn’t Sarah’s. He felt panic, and then it came back to him in a rush that she was dead, that he was at Zoe s, and he stumbled away from her.

“I’ve got to go.” His voice sounded thick and unfamiliar.

He began pulling on his clothes.

“What’s wrong?” He didn’t answer, not knowing, not able to speak anyway.

He began to dress, and the buzzing returned with the motion.

He overbalanced and almost fell. His trousers were on now, and his shirt, and he was searching for his shoes. Zoe was a shadow kneeling on the floor, watching him. She didn’t say a word as he went out but he knew without looking that she was crying.

On the street he began walking without any idea of where he was or where he was going. He wanted only to get away, to put distance between him and the memory of what had happened. The sky was lighter now, the stars beginning to pale. A police car slowed. Two white faces watched him.

He shivered without feeling the cold and walked past them.

Unfamiliar streets stretched out ahead and behind. He took them at random until he came to a main road. The sodium lamps on the pavement had winked out before he flagged down a taxi.