Daniel shifted slightly and kicked the piano a little; it sounded, a hollow moan as if wounded by him. Daniel sniffed. In
his position, he could smell the unvarnished wood of the piano and breathed it in. The smell comforted him.
‘C’m’ere.’
Normally Daniel would not go to her. He would stay where he was and she would either wait near him if he was upset, or go next door to wait if he was quiet. Today, not wanting her to go, he got up and sat on the arm of her chair. She pressed him into her. He liked the fact that she was so big. Even when he was a small child, his own mother had seemed fragile. When she held him the bones of her sometimes hurt him, needled him with their insistent pressing.
Daniel felt the round edge of Minnie’s chin on the top of his head. ‘I think they just want to have a chat with you, OK? Then you can come back and I’ll make you roast beef for tea. When you’re out I’ll buy it specially. We’ll have Sunday roast on Saturday, just for you.’
‘With Yorkshire puddings?’
‘But of course, and gravy, and some of your carrots that you’ve grown yourself. They’re the tastiest that the earth’s ever produced. You’ve got a knack, so you do.’
She eased him up off the chair. ‘All right then, go clean yourself up. Tricia’ll be here soon.’
Daniel looked over his shoulder at Minnie as Tricia led him towards her car. He was wearing a checked, short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. He had a familiar feeling in his stomach, as if his insides had been taken out and replaced with pieces of crushed paper or dried leaves. He felt stuffed, but empty and light. He had put on his mother’s necklace and he now rubbed it between finger and thumb as he sat next to Tricia in the car.
‘You’ve been doing a lot better, Danny. You keep it up.’
‘Am I going to live with me mam?’ he asked, looking out of his side window as if a passer-by might answer.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Are you putting me someplace else?’
‘Not for now, I’ll take you back to Minnie’s tonight.’
Still looking out of the window, Daniel bit his lip.
‘Will I get to be on me own with her?’
‘Yer mam? No, Danny, it’s a supervised meeting, I’m afraid. Do you want to listen to the radio?’
Daniel shrugged and Tricia twiddled the dial until she found a song she liked. Daniel tried to think about collecting eggs or planting carrots or playing football, but his mind was dark and blank. He remembered sitting in the wardrobe in his mother’s smoke-blackened flat.
‘What you sticking out your tongue for?’ said Tricia suddenly.
Daniel withdrew his tongue. He could taste the charcoal.
‘Eeeh, wee man, look at the size of ye.’
The bones of her were still painful to him. He tensed even before she embraced him in expectation of rib and elbow. She looked the same, but her eyes were black underneath. Daniel was shocked that he didn’t want to touch her.
Tricia stood holding her handbag in two hands. ‘I’ll go get us something to drink, give you a few moments to catch up, then I’ll come back and help you through it.’
Daniel was not sure who she was talking to. He didn’t know what they needed help with.
He saw that his mother was about to cry. He stood up and stroked her hair in the way that she liked. ‘It’s all right, Mam, don’t cry.’
‘You’re always my hero, aren’t ye? How you been? You living somewhere nice?’
‘S’all right.’
‘You been playing football?’
‘Bit.’
Daniel watched as she wiped her eyes with her bitten nails. She had bruises on her forearms, and he tried not to look at these.
Tricia came back with two cups of coffee and a can of juice for him. She sat down on the sofa and placed one cup of coffee in front of his mother. ‘There you go. How you getting on, eh?’
‘I can’t do it. I need a fag first. Have you got one?’ She was standing up, looking down at Tricia with her hands in her hair. He hated when she did that; it made her face seem thinner. ‘Have you got one, Danny? I need a fag.’
‘I’ll go get you one,’ said Daniel, but Tricia stood up.
‘No, stay here. I’ll … I’ll get some cigarettes.’
They were in the social work office in Newcastle. Daniel had been there before. He hated the sloped-back, orange and green chairs and grey linoleum floor. He slumped down in one of the chairs now and watched his mother pace back and forth. She was wearing jeans and a tight white T-shirt. He could see her spine and the sharp angles of her hip bones.
With her back to him, she said, ‘I won’t say this in front of her, but I’m sorry, Danny. Sorry I’ve been rubbish. You’ll be better off, I know that, but I just feel shit, like …’
‘You’re not rubbish …’ Daniel started.
Tricia came in and handed cigarettes and a lighter to his mother. ‘Managed to scrounge half a pack of Silk Cut from a colleague. He says you can keep them.’
Daniel’s mother leaned over the table and lit her cigarette with her hand cupped around it, as if she were outside in a wind. She sucked hard and Daniel watched as the skin of her face clung to her skull.
‘Yer mam and I were at court this week, Danny,’ Tricia prompted.
Daniel watched Tricia’s face. She was looking at his mother with too-wide eyes. His mother was looking at the table and rocking slightly. The hairs on her arms were sticking up.
‘I had my last chance, Danny. This is the last time I get to see you, like. No more visits ever; they’re putting you up for adoption.’
Daniel did not hear the words in the right order. They swarmed at him like bees. His mother didn’t look at him. She looked at the table, elbows on her knees, inhaling twice before she finished what she had to say.
Daniel was still slumped in the chair. The dry leaves inside him shifted.
Tricia cleared her throat. ‘When you’re eighteen, you will have the right to resume contact if you choose to …’
It felt as if the leaves had suddenly ignited in the sparks from his mother’s cigarette. Daniel tightened his stomach muscles. He jumped up and grabbed the cigarettes and threw them in Tricia’s face. He tried to punch her but she had his wrists. He managed to kick her on the shin before she pinned him to the chair.
‘Don’t, Danny,’ he heard his mother say. ‘You’re just making it harder on everybody. It’s for the best, you’ll see.’
‘No,’ he screamed, feeling the heat in his cheeks and the roots of his hair. ‘No.’
‘Stop it, stop it,’ Tricia was shouting. Daniel could smell the milky coffee on her breath.
He felt his mother’s fingers through his hair, the gentle tingle of her nails on his scalp. He relaxed under Tricia’s weight, and she stood up and then lifted him up to sit on the chair.
‘That’s it,’ said Tricia. ‘Just behave yourself. Remember you’re on your last chance too.’
Daniel’s mother stubbed out her cigarette in the foil ashtray on the table. ‘C’m’ere,’ she said, and he fell into her. He smelled the cigarettes on the fingers that touched his face. The bones of her yielded for him again, and he felt the pain of them.
Daniel let his head roll from side to side as Tricia drove him back to Minnie’s. He felt the vibration of the tyres on the road. Tricia had the radio off and every now and again she would talk to him, as if he had asked for an explanation.
‘So, you’ll be at Minnie’s for now, but we’re applying to have you adopted. It’s a great opportunity, really. No more moving around – your own home, a new mum and dad, maybe even brothers or sisters, imagine that … Of course you’re going to have to keep behaving yourself. Nobody wants to adopt a boy with be’avioural problems, do they? No new mum and dad is going to want to get kicked or punched … Like your mam said, it’s for the best. Older boys are ’ard to place, but if you’re good, we might be in luck.’