‘Dunno.’
‘You were about that. You were four or five years old. All this time we’ve known each other and now you’re getting adopted. I’m so happy. I never thought I’d see this day.’
Their solicitor arrived. He was young, wearing a black suit and carrying a brown briefcase. He shook Minnie’s hand and then bent to shake Daniel’s hand too. Daniel looked at the open palm.
‘Shake the man’s hand, Danny, when he offers it,’ said Minnie.
Daniel reached out and felt his hand tugged by the warm, strong hand.
‘I’m your solicitor,’ the man said, and Daniel smiled at him.
He felt powerful for a moment, in his clean school uniform, with his own solicitor, waiting to see the judge and be adopted. He remembered what Minnie had told him about lawyers.
When it was time, they met in the judge’s chambers. Daniel had imagined that the room would have stained-glass windows like a church, but it was just an office, with a large desk topped with leather and rows of bookcases.
The room smelled of pipe smoke and Daniel remembered his headmaster, Mr Hart, but the judge wasn’t like him. He had a long moustache that was white but yellowing at the ends and his eyebrows rose above his glasses when he smiled. Daniel, Minnie, Tricia and the legal representatives were shown to the sofa area in front of the judge’s desk. Daniel sat in one of the chairs and Minnie sat in the other, facing him. Tricia and the lawyers were on the sofa together and then the judge sat on his own sofa beside the clerk, who took a note of everything that was said. It felt different from the other times Daniel had been in court.
The judge wasn’t wearing a gown. Daniel pushed his hands between his thighs and pressed his lips together as the judge began to speak. He liked the order of the processes and the way that his solicitor kept looking at him, both eyebrows raised, every time his name was mentioned.
‘So,’ said the judge, ‘I suppose it comes down to you, young man. The most important thing is whether or not you want Mrs Flynn to adopt you, making her your mother, and you … her son. Tell us what you think, Daniel.’
There was a hush, and Daniel felt the room turn to him. Tricia was nodding at him to answer; the solicitor’s forehead was wrinkled in expectation.
He looked up and Minnie was looking straight at him, smiling. She was nervous too, he realised. She was twisting her wedding ring, making her finger red and then white.
He cleared his throat and looked at the judge. He was smiling and it caused his yellowing moustache to turn up at the corners. ‘I want to be adopted,’ Daniel said. He said the words looking down at the table, but then grew more confident and looked at the judge and the lawyer in turn.
Only when it was finalised, when the formalities were over, did Daniel look at Minnie again. They stared at each other across the mahogany coffee table, lips apart, breathing hard from excitement as if they had been running at full pace.
Leaving the chambers, Daniel felt his legs were weak. It felt like he had played football for too long. Minnie was ahead of him with Tricia in between and Daniel watched the movement of her hips in her grey skirt. Tricia was talking, smoothing back her hair and reaching into her bag. The solicitor was looking at his watch and putting his hand in his pocket.
‘Well,’ Minnie said, hand on her hip, finally turning to him. ‘Give us a kiss will you, gorgeous, ’cause I feel bloody great.’
She lifted him off his feet and he laughed out loud as she pressed the air from his lungs and spun him. When she stopped he was dizzy and her smile was so big that he could see the tooth that was missing near the back. The sun was streaming into the atrium above and Daniel felt it on the skin of his hands and his face. It felt like they were a prism, refracting their own joy.
‘How old is it?’ Daniel asked.
‘Nearly two thousand years. Imagine all that time ago, before there were cars or trains or electricity, or anything like that, people were able to build a wall like this.’
‘Why’s it called Hadrian’s Wall?’
‘I think he was the Roman emperor who asked for it to be built.’
‘Why did he want to build it, like?’
‘Maybe he wanted someone to remember him in two thousand years’ time!’ Minnie laughed. ‘That would be right. Bet he was an arrogant old bugger, excuse my language.’
Daniel touched the stone bricks, stroking them with his fingertips. He clambered on hands and knees and pulled himself up on top. They were here to celebrate getting adopted and afterwards Minnie was going to take him out for dinner.
‘Careful, love,’ she called to him, one hand on her hip and another shielding her eyes. ‘Watch and don’t fall now.’
‘Come up.’
‘Don’t be silly. I can barely climb the stairs.’
They walked then, side by side, but Daniel high above. He turned and looked at the green hills which folded out before him. He opened his arms wide and spread his fingers. The space made him feel giddy.
‘You get a great view from up here, like,’ said Daniel, teasing her.
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
At the end of one section he stood with toes over the edge, bending his knees.
‘Don’t jump, Danny.’
‘You could catch me, like.’
‘You’ll hurt your knees.’
‘I won’t. I’ve jumped off higher walls than this.’
‘OK, well reach for my hands and it’ll help break your fall.’
He jumped and felt her strong rough hands squeeze his; he fell into her, breathing hard from the thrill of it.
They walked up the hill to find a cup of tea. Daniel glanced up at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was smiling into the distance, her lips parted and her chest rising and falling.
Daniel swallowed then slipped his hand into hers. She looked down at him and smiled and he looked away, embarrassed but feeling a tightness in his abdomen, as if even his stomach was trying to smile. He liked the rough feel of her hand. As she walked she rubbed her thumb across the back of his fingers.
This is what happiness is, he thought: this clear day and the smell of grass, and the wall that had been there for centuries, and the feel of her hand and his lips wet in the expectation of a cup of hot, sweet tea.
He thought of his mother. He wanted her to know this moment. As his hand warmed inside Minnie’s palm, so he imagined that his mother would come and take his other hand. The day was almost perfect, but that would complete it.
Judgement
21
Sebastian’s trial was to be held at The Old Bailey.
Daniel woke up early for his run, but even after his shower his stomach was still tight with tension. He didn’t know why the trial should make him feel so apprehensive. He was used to Old Bailey trials, and murder trials, but today he felt different: as if he himself would be on trial.
The entrance to the Old Bailey was now a throng of angry public and hungry press. He didn’t expect the photographers would know who he was and thought Irene would get the attention, but as soon as he approached there was a cry of ‘That’s one of the solicitors’ and then a flash.
‘Child killer,’ someone from the crowd screamed. ‘You’re defending a child killer. The little bastard should fry. Go to hell.’
As a defence lawyer, he had become accustomed to enmity. In the past he had been verbally abused in the street and sent hate mail threatening his life. Such things only made Daniel more determined to see the case through. Everyone deserved a defence, no matter what they had done. But the fury of the crowd here seemed exceptional. He understood anger at the loss of innocent life, but he could not understand why people seemed so ready to vilify a child. The loss of a child was cruel because it was promise stolen, but Daniel felt the criminalisation of another child was just as cruel. Daniel remembered his foster father calling him evil. Even if Sebastian was guilty, he needed help, not condemnation. He watched the surge of the crowd – jeering faces asking for punishment. Protesters railed on the streets, waving placards that read Life for a Life. They screamed bas-tard whenever they saw someone related to Sebastian and jostled against a makeshift barrier and yellow-vested police officers.