Harry kept his head down. His eyes roved, recognising everyone’s footwear: his father’s suede shoes, his mother’s blue ankle boots, his grandmother’s heeled sandals and his grandfather’s black brogues. Everyone’s but Uncle Justin’s, because Uncle Justin wasn’t there. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t dared show his face since the collapse of the trial. They’d come home to Clapham, filing into the sitting room, no one capable of speaking, no one able to frame the right question for the boy who’d lied from the word go. Rather than break the ice, they went in and out of the room, whispering in the kitchen or corridor, returning to sit down or walk to the window. Harry just watched their shoes moving across the wooden floorboards.
He knew what they were thinking.
They were all thinking about that report from Mr Whitefield. The one about Harry telling lies to Mrs Quirke about the broken window and to Mr Elliot about the chocolate bar. They were all asking themselves if he’d lied at school and lied to his parents and lied to Sanjay … then maybe he’d lied in court. They were all feeling sick: maybe nothing had happened to Harry at all. The boy had caused a storm out of nothing, to steal some attention roused by Neil Harding’s death.
But that’s not all they were thinking. There was something else.
They were rehearsing the monk’s insinuations about Uncle Justin. Those pointed questions about the key and Harlech. They were wondering if anything had occurred during those two hours that Harry had been away. They were asking themselves the inconceivable: was it possible that Justin could have … but that’s how they found the assurance they needed, making sighs of relief whenever they left the room: it was just inconceivable. Ludicrous. Justin was his grandparents’ son, his father’s brother and Harry’s uncle. He’d founded the Bowline. So if Justin had done nothing wrong, what did that leave?
‘We need to talk,’ said Harry’s mother, her boot heels squeaking against each other. ‘Remember what Mr Whitefield said about lying? That it only leads to more lies? Well, we have to know what happened … if anything happened.’
‘The time to speak is now,’ added his father.
His grandmother joined in: ‘We’ll believe anything you say as long as it’s true.’
Only Harry’s grandfather had the sense to keep quiet. He’d told Harry he must always tell the truth while secretly hoping he’d lie. They’d looked at each other, both of them grieving, both of them knowing something terrible had just happened; that they’d never be the same; that their relationship was secretly over.
‘Gran’s right,’ said Harry’s mother. ‘We’ll believe anything, but it has to be true.’
Harry felt the knot tighten in his stomach. He didn’t belong here. Not in this room, not with these people. A flush of sweat made his scalp tingle. He felt suddenly cold. They didn’t even realise it, but they were against him: they didn’t want to believe a truth that didn’t bear thinking about.
‘You don’t want to know,’ said Harry.
‘Sorry, darling?’ asked his mother.
‘None of you want to know, not really.’
‘That’s not fair, Harry,’ complained his mother, lovingly.
Harry looked up from the spread of shoes to appraise each harrowed face: his grandfather turned away as if accused; his grandmother blinked slowly, waiting for Harry to say something she was prepared to believe; his mother bit her lip; his father stared back, ready to defend his absent brother; the brother he hardly knew. They all looked absolutely shattered. But most of all they were embarrassed. Mortified. Wondering what the neighbours and Mr Whitefield were going to say. Harry couldn’t stomach the sight of them any longer.
‘I want to be alone for a while,’ he said. ‘Is that all right?’
His father spoke for everyone. ‘Of course. But think about what Gran said, okay? This can’t go on.’
Harry went to his bedroom, leaving them to argue. He’d made a decision that morning, before going to court, and it was almost time to make a move. The only person who understood what Harry was going through and what he’d been through was Fraser. And Fraser was leaving. He’d told him yesterday while they were in the garden.
* * *
‘I’m goin’ home, laddie,’ said Fraser on his knees, pulling out small weeds with weak roots. ‘I’m goin’ back to Scotland. That’s where I belong.’
Harry felt a surge of confusion; it would mean they’d never be together again.
‘I havna told your parents because they wouldna understand. They’d only try and make me stay and make a fuss, so I think it’s best if I just up and go.’
Harry watched Fraser stroke the heads of the flowers. He seemed to be making sure they looked clean and smart before he went away. He spoke quietly of the Western Isles. That’s where he was heading. A croft on the Isle of Barra. Near Castlebay. His grandfather’s birthplace. A cottage in a dip of land facing the Atlantic. A wild place. A wonderful place. He should have gone there years ago rather than come down to London. Though if he’d done that, he’d never have met Harry.
‘I want to thank ye for what ye’ve done, okay? For not treating me like dirt on the pavement.’ Fraser leaned back on his heels and took a long, slow breath. ‘You’re the only one who knows why I left Glasgow, al’right? I never told anyone else, okay? Not even your Uncle Justin. No one. Just yourself.’
Harry thought of Ryan, Katie and little Ellie. Fraser had brought them up on his own after their mother took the bus back to her mother in Kilmarnock. He’d worked for the council cleaning the streets, coming home to cook and wash and iron and clean. And he ‘hadna minded because I’d been left with three angels’. But one night he agreed to meet some friends at the Duke of Argyll. Just for an hour. Three minutes away. Round the corner. ‘Only the babysitter hadna turned up, Harry. I called ma pals and they says, haway man, come down anyway, just for a wee swally.’ So he took a chance. He left the children alone, locking them in to keep them safe. While he was out, Ryan got up and jammed some bread in the toaster. The toaster was near a curtain. Within ten minutes the whole flat was in flames. ‘The poor laddie tried to put out the fire all by himself.’ Meanwhile Fraser heard a siren – he even mentioned it to his pals – and then he carried on watching Celtic v. Rangers.
‘I told you, Harry, because, to be honest, you remind me o’ ma wee boy. And I’ve never been able to beg his forgiveness. Say I’m sorry. Never been able to thank him for tryin’ to save his sisters, ma girls. For tryin’ to do what I shoulda been there to do.’
Harry had found faces for the names. Fraser had given brief, hurried descriptions, but Harry had added all sorts of detail. He could see Ryan’s freckles, Katie’s golden bunches, and little Ellie’s pixie nose. He could see Ryan running frantically around the flat in his pyjamas throwing cups of water at the flames. He could see Katie and little Ellie fast asleep in the same, small room. Fraser reached for one last weed.
‘I was hoping you’d do me a favour after I’m gone, Harry.’
Harry nodded and so Fraser explained. He said he’d made a memorial. He’d put three plants on the bridge spanning the tracks where Justin had saved his life. ‘He told me to think o’ someone I loved and to live for them.’ Now there were three pots standing close together on the pavement. No one had ever taken them away or damaged them. But they needed looking after every now and again.
‘I can tell you where they are or I can show you,’ said Fraser. ‘I dinna mind. All I want you to do is to keep your eye on them, okay? Keep ’em tidy. Keep ’em bonnie. Would you do that for me?’
Harry thought for a long while, watching Fraser’s gentle hands touch the heads of the flowers. And he thought of the Western Isles, far from London. It was almost like Spain. A new life without much sun. But a new life all the same. ‘I’d like you to show them to me,’ he said, at last.
They’d agreed to meet at the bandstand on the common the next day, so, after checking the time, Harry put on his coat and picked up his sports bag. He tiptoed across the room and slowly opened the window. When he was sure there’d been no pause in the quarrel downstairs, he climbed out onto the flat roof over the kitchen, dropping into the driveway of Mr McGregor, the next-door neighbour. Within minutes he’d scaled a wall and was walking quickly along a cycle path that ran behind a line of houses.
Harry had learned a long time ago how to control his feelings. He’d trained himself to function like a tap, so he could let out the pressure as and when circumstances would allow. Between times, he’d felt nothing, save when he took the time to burn his skin. But now, leaving behind those who would love him, he could almost feel the pain in his hands as he tightened the hot and cold, knowing in some deep part of himself that he’d never be able to open them again.