Months slunk past. At least summer evenings made it easier to stay out. Jonah rarely came home until it got dark. It was amazing how slow you could walk, how many detours you could make, if you put your mind to it. There were refuges that he soon learned about: the local library, though he couldn’t stay there too long without an adult; the shopping centre; the park until the gates were closed. You had to watch out for the older boys, but if he ran quickly he was usually OK. Mum was angry that he no longer came straight home, mainly because it meant he missed several of Thomas’s visits.
That meant she didn’t get paid.
That meant they didn’t have money for new shoes, or food.
She said it was his fault.
As July wore away, Jonah wondered bleakly what he would do for lunch during the school holidays. He wasn’t looking forward to August.
One night in the last week before the holidays, when he did eventually get back home, Mrs Richardson downstairs invited him to sit with her in the darkened front room. This was where she watched her quiz shows. He’d got to know the schedule and enjoyed the biscuits and squash she got in for him. He wondered what she thought was going on upstairs.
‘Your mum has a lot of friends, doesn’t she?’ she said, a glint of intelligence in her watery eyes. She’d never mentioned it before. Fiddling with her hearing aid, it let out a loud peep like she was stuffing a chick in her ear and it was protesting.
He nodded. ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is on next.’
That was the limit of her probing. She accepted the change of subject. Jonah considered himself like the neighbourhood cats whom she welcomed in on their own terms, never making them stay, feeding them enough to keep them coming.
‘Oh good,’ she said. ‘I like that Chris Tarrant. So clever.’
‘I don’t think he really knows all the answers. The people who make the programme do.’
Hand shaking, Mrs Richardson spilt some tea on her lap and wiped it away with a Kleenex tissue, which she took from a box hidden by a crocheted cover – not knitted, she’d once told him, shocked that he didn’t know the difference between a crochet hook and a knitting needle. ‘I wouldn’t do very well if I were on there but you’d walk away with a fortune. You’re a clever boy, Jonah.’
He scratched at a graze on his hand where he’d fallen over in the playground. The teachers had sent home an incident report in his book bag but Mum hadn’t read it. He’d got in trouble for not showing it to her. Someone was going to ring. Again.
‘Don’t look like that! I’ve never met a brighter boy in my life – and so kind keeping an old lady like me company. You should be out playing. In my day, you could play in the streets.’
‘It’s getting dark now, Mrs Richardson.’
‘So it is.’ She looked over to the faded red curtains he had pulled for her when he arrived. ‘Goodness: look at the time! Won’t your mother have your tea waiting for you?’
When she said something like that, it was the signal for him to pretend everything was normal. He knew all the answers too. ‘Yes. I’d better go. Here’s the remote.’ He pressed it in her bony fingers, which were swollen at the knuckles. Wedding band hung loose like a curtain ring on a pole.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonah.’
‘Bye, Mrs Richardson.’
Jonah sat on the stairs for as long as he could, then walked up to face his mother.
There was no sign of her in the kitchen. The oranges she had bought to impress Mr Hardy, the social worker, before his last visit, had shrivelled a little, skin going black in places. Jonah dug his fingers into the peel and took it off with difficulty, making a mess of his T-shirt. The juice stung in his cuts. The pieces tasted lovely though. He sat on the floor with the segments on a plate and gorged himself. He had thought to save half for Mum but found he couldn’t stop. The taste drove out the sick feeling of eating too many dry biscuits downstairs. He liked the idea that all those good fruit things – vita-somethings – were flowing into him. When he looked down, the plate was empty.
That might infuriate her.
Better destroy the evidence.
He washed the plate and put it away wet as there was no tea towel. His hands still smelt orangey. Washing up liquid didn’t seem able to cover it up. She’d notice.
Jonah crept into the bathroom and washed his hands at the sink with her soap. Now he smelt of coconut as well, which was much better. It would confuse her. He could tell her it was a new soap that Mrs Richardson had in her loo. He breathed more easily.
There were no sounds coming from the front room. He knocked lightly just in case. Nothing. She was probably in one of her spaced out moods which meant she wouldn’t stir until morning. That made it a good evening for Jonah. Peeking inside, he saw her huddled under a duvet. She was alone. The room smelt sicky and smoky but that wasn’t unusual. Her gear was lined up next to her, so he knew she was tripping or sleeping. Either way it was safest to leave her. Taking off his stained T-shirt, he rinsed it out in the bathroom sink, using washing up liquid to clean it as they’d run out of soap powder some time ago. He squeezed it out as hard as he could, remembering how his mum had once told him to imagine he was wringing a chicken’s neck. He hadn’t liked that idea but she’d spent some years on a farm and told him not to be so squeamish. He shook it out but it still dripped. The only place he could leave it was dangling over the bath taps. Realising he didn’t have any clean underpants either for school, he took his off and washed them the same way. They went over the side of the bath. It was unlikely they’d be completely dry the next day but it was better than being called stinker or fleabag.
After a quick brush of his teeth, he was ready for bed. He bypassed his mother and got quietly under his duvet. The room was silent apart from the burble of the quiz show coming up through the floorboards. It was comforting to think of Mrs Richardson down there, probably falling asleep in front of the telly.
Waking to a rumbling stomach, Jonah got out of bed and hurried to the bathroom to pee. He splashed water on his face and wondered what was for breakfast. Mum usually liked it if he made her a cup of tea. Going into the kitchen, he scouted around for something to eat and was surprised to find some Weetabix and just enough milk. He had to stint on that so he could put some in Mum’s cup, but if he added a little water, the cereal got soggy enough to eat. He sprinkled some sugar from a little sachet he’d stolen from the coffee shop in Asda. He put the rest in Mum’s tea.
Eat first or take her the cup? He decided to eat because if you left Weetabix it bloated into a horrible mush. If you ate it immediately after you put the milk on it kept just enough crunch. It was a skill to know exactly the right moment.
Bowl finished, washed up and put away, he carried the mug carefully into the front room.
‘Mum, I’ve made you tea!’ he called softly. She didn’t like loud voices in the morning. He knelt down beside her and put it next to her syringe. Normally by now she would be stirring. He reached out to touch her shoulder.
She was very cold, her arm having slipped out of the covers.
He tapped her cheek. That was cold too. He couldn’t hear her breathing.
Then he knew.
‘Mrs Johnson! Mrs Johnson!’ He bolted down the stairs and banged on her door. She took a very long time to answer, probably not yet got her hearing aid switched on. His mind was a scream. He’d slept all night with Mum like that! Slept next to a dead body!
‘Jonah?’ Her face was all crumpled because she’d not yet put in her false teeth.
‘It’s Mum. Please! She’s … call an ambulance!’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Come in.’ Mrs Johnson was flustered but she made the call. She told him to sit in her armchair in front of the blank TV while she made her painful way upstairs to see if there was anything she could do. By the time she came back, the paramedics were at the door. Curled up, hugging his knees, Jonah could hear them talking in the hall.
‘Where’s the patient?’ a man asked. Not Thomas though, so that was OK. Jonah was terrified Thomas would turn up and take him away. No one would stop him.
‘Upstairs. Her little boy found her like that. I think she’s long gone.’
The stairs creaked as heavy footsteps made their way to the first floor. Mrs Johnson came back into the front room and shut the door.
‘Do you have a daddy, Jonah?’
He shook his head.
‘Did your mum talk about any relatives? A sister? A mother?’
Another shake. Mum had been fostered by a couple on a farm, then adopted by some people in Harrow but that hadn’t worked out. They’d got divorced fairly soon after and they’d handed her back. I’ll never give you back, Jonah, she’d go on to say. It’s us together until the end. Mummy and her little angel.
Mrs Johnson huffed and realised she wasn’t wearing her teeth. ‘Not to worry. I expect the nice ambulance people will know what to do. Lord, I must look a fright.’ She left him to repair her appearance.
But nobody seemed to know what to do with him. Mrs Richardson made it clear that she wasn’t up to looking after a nine-year-old boy who was no blood relative of hers, thank you very much. The school didn’t have a next-of-kin listed on his file. No one stepped forward to claim the body, or the child, so social services took over.
Jonah disappeared into the system.