‘Minnie?’
‘Hmm?’ She looked up. Her face was relaxed again and her cheeks pink.
‘Did Tricia call you this week?’
‘No, love. Why? Do you want to speak to her?’
‘Well, I was just wanting to ask her what would happen if I don’t get adopted, like … when they’ll put me in the home? I want to know when it’s happening, like.’
Daniel felt the warmth of her fingers on his arm. ‘You will get adopted. Eat your food.’
‘What if I don’t though, can I stay here?’
‘As long as they’ll let you, yes. But you will get adopted. You want that, don’t you? A new family of your own.’
‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind staying here with you, like.’ He looked at his food.
‘Well, I like you here with me too, but I don’t kid myself that you couldn’t do better. Young parents, maybe even brothers and sisters – that’s what you need – a proper new home.’
‘I’m well sick of new homes, like.’
‘This next one’ll be the last, Danny. I’m sure of it.’
‘Why can’t this be the last?’
‘Eat up now, your dinner’s getting cold.’
They cleared up together, Daniel drying the dishes, as Minnie poured herself another drink. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, noticing that her movements were slower, heavier. Minnie took the takings box through to the living room and placed it open on the coffee table next to her gin. Bending from the waist, breathing heavily, she lit the fire and the spitting smoky coals slowly began to warm the room. She put on a classical record then let herself fall into her armchair and took another sip of her drink.
‘Is this when I get my commission?’ asked Danny, kneeling on the floor by the coffee table.
‘Well, we’ll see. First I want you to count it. Can you?’
Daniel nodded. He separated all the coins and notes and began to count them, whispering the numbers. The sound of the coal fire crackling was audible above the slow movement of the symphony she had chosen. Blitz sat up straight as he always did when a record was played. He cocked his ears and then turned three times before settling himself at her feet, nose on his paws.
‘How much?’ asked Minnie when Daniel had finished counting.
‘One hundred and thirty-seven pounds, sixty-three pence,’ said Daniel.
‘Well, here, put it back in the box for me, but keep a fiver for yourself. Thanks for all your hard work.’
Daniel did as she asked. He sat cross-legged, staring at the five-pound note.
‘You counted that money fast enough. Are you sure you counted it right?’
‘I’m sure. You want to check?’
‘I’ll check later, but I believe you. You’re a bright lad, aren’t you? You should do better at school than you do.’
Daniel shrugged and climbed on to the sofa, where he lay on his back with his hands behind his head, facing her.
‘Your teacher says as much as well, that you know the answers when she asks you but you don’t ever finish an exam or a test. You don’t finish your homework or do the tasks she gives you. Why is that now?’
‘I can’t be bothered.’
Minnie was reflective. Daniel watched as she raised her chin and stared into the fire.
‘Think about your mother, and your father if you can remember him,’ she said quietly. ‘Would you say they led good lives?’
Daniel waited for her to turn and look at him before he shrugged.
‘When you think about growing up, what do you imagine doing?’
‘I want to be in London.’
‘What doing? What job would you like to do, and I don’t mean a pickpocket.’
‘I dunno.’
‘Well, do you want to make a lot of money, do you want to help people, do you want to work outdoors …?’
‘I want to make money.’
‘Well, you could be a banker. Work in the City, in Fleet Street …’
‘I dunno.’
She was silent and again turned to the fire. It was dark outside now, and Daniel could see the fire and her face reflected in the window.
‘If we look at your life now, we see that it’s controlled by the law, isn’t that right? You’ve probably been to court more times than I have, and the law has decided that for your own safety you have to be away from your family. I wonder if you’d be a good lawyer? Then you could have a say in all those things, and make a load of money into the bargain.’
Daniel met her gaze but said nothing. No one had spoken to him like this before. No one had told him that he could choose what happened to him.
‘These years coming are probably the most important in your life, Danny. You’ll be going to high school next year. If you do well in your exams the world can be your oyster. Your oyster, let me tell you! You can work in London, do anything you want, believe me. My little one, Delia, she was like you. Bright as a button. All her classes, maths, English, history, she always did so well. She wanted to be a doctor. She’d’ve done it too …’
Minnie turned to the fire again. The heat from it had warmed the room, and her cheeks were red now and shining.
‘What do you need to do to be a lawyer then?’
‘Just do well at school, love, and then you go to university. Think about all the people that’ve put you down before. That’d show them, wouldn’t it? You graduating from university and becoming a lawyer.’ She cackled to herself, staring at the fire, then heaved herself up to pour another drink. ‘Think how proud your mum would be.’
Daniel lay on the couch, watching Blitz stretch: chin to the carpet and rear legs raised. He remembered his last foster father, holding him by the shoulders and whispering evil little bastard, and then one of his mother’s boyfriends who had slapped his face and called him a sackless nowt when he brought back the wrong change from the shop after going to buy him cigarette papers. He took a deep breath.
‘So you just need to do well at school?’
‘Well, yes, that’s the first part. And I wouldn’t bother telling you all this if I didn’t think it was worth your trouble. But I know you’re bright. You could show them, I know it.’
She left the room and Daniel heard her fixing the drink in the kitchen. The warmth of the fire was on his skin, and the words that she had said seemed to warm him from the inside too. He felt powerful, but good. It reminded him of caring for the animals.
Minnie threw herself back into the chair, spilling a little of her drink on her cardigan, which she smoothed into the wool with the palm of her hand.
‘So if I was a lawyer, would I be able to help boys stay with their mum?’
‘Well, there are all kinds of lawyers, love. Some work in family law and if that was what interested you, you could do that. But some work with big companies, some work with criminals, or in the property market … you know, helping people to buy houses.’
‘So it would be like on Crown Court. I would stand up in front of the judge?’
‘You could do that, yes. You’d be great too.’
Daniel thought for a moment, listening to the ice tinkling in her glass.
‘Can I put the telly on?’ he asked.
‘All right. Turn the record off, but be careful and don’t scratch it. Mind how I showed you, now.’
Daniel jumped up and gently lifted the stylus off the record. He lifted the record as she had showed him, two hands on the rim so as not to leave fingerprints, and slid it carefully back in its sleeve.
She had an old black and white television with a turn dial. Daniel twisted until he found a comedy and then jumped back on the couch.
‘You should get a colour TV.’
‘Should I now? I have better things to buy with my money. Maybe when you’re a rich lawyer you can buy us one.’