He pushed his chair away from the desk. ‘I need a slash. Back in a minute.’
In the Gents he went into a cubicle, locked the door and sat down: 11.10 a.m. Harry would be on his way home. Dom allowed himself to try and imagine his son’s feelings. Relief? Happiness? Excitement about coming home and getting back to normal? Full of plans for what he was going to do? No. Not Harry. He’d be worrying, stressing about the reception that awaited him. Harry had refused to believe Dom when he’d told him that life had moved on and no one really talked about the crash any more – today’s news, tomorrow’s chip paper.
Dom rested back against the toilet cistern. Through the thin walls he could hear the lads in the office next door working the phones, hustling, chasing up orders and closing down sales, making a good living off their wits, their dubious charms and their cheek. Harry could have wiped the floor with all of them…before the accident, before he’d fallen apart.
Watching someone you love struggle, and not being able to fix it, was awful and so frustrating. Dom had tried – he really had – but Harry had rejected his help and advice time and time again. Look where that had landed him. And every time Dom had hacked all the way up to Darlington to see him, it had been the same – the two of them sitting opposite each other, barely talking or, worse, arguing, surrounded by that collection of no-hopers. The longer it had gone on, the more the stuffing had been knocked out of both of them.
That the change had come in the shape of Fran had hurt Dom, badly. A woman’s touch. Could it really be a clichéd as that? Was that what Harry had needed all along? A surrogate mother – even if it was an irate, unstable, grieving woman whose motivations were clouded by the need for reparation. Apparently so. Because Dom had to acknowledge that the turning point had come after the restorative justice meeting. Something had clicked, or snapped, at that meeting – he still did not know what – and as a consequence Fran had changed, and so had Harry. And out of that combustion of emotions had developed a weird, but seemingly important new connection. It was a connection that Dom didn’t understand. No matter how often Martha tried to reassure him that Fran’s motives were sound, he couldn’t totally bring himself to trust what he was seeing. Fran helping the boy who had ‘killed’ her beloved daughter. It felt wrong.
But there was no denying that since Fran’s seeming change of heart, Harry’s confidence had slowly started to return. It was as if something deep down inside him had finally woken up and started fighting back.
And if it really had been a ‘mother’s’ attention that Harry had craved all along, where did that leave Dom? Out of the picture, that’s where.
Whatever he’d done, it would never have been enough.
He stood up, flushed the loo and unlocked the cubicle. He washed his hands thoroughly, stroked a hand over his bald head, straightened his tie and headed back out to the fray, determined to kick Kev Walton’s lazy arse.
Chapter 84
‘IT’S GOING to feel really weird, isn’t it – him being home?’ Mo watched Harley disappear under some bushes, hunting real or imaginary squirrels. ‘It’s like he’s been stuck on pause while everyone else has kept going.’ Mo was into his second year at York, and Tish – despite her great A-level results and plenty of uni offers – was in a job she loved, working for the tourism department of the council, earning, spending, travelling, coming home to Mo full of enthusiasm and grand plans: Japan in the summer, then a flat together, by autumn at the latest.
Tish bounced along the path, trying to keep warm. ‘Well, that is the point of prison.’
Mo was more reflective. ‘Harry’s served his time.’ He could testify to that. Mo had been true to his word and kept hacking up to Darlington to visit Harry as often as his course and his budget would allow. They were friends, and that’s what friends did: stuck around when the going got tough, even when it became complicated. Mo didn’t let himself think about Tish and Harry being together. Or, at least, he tried very hard not to. ‘Do you feel all right about seeing him again?’ he ventured.
Tish hurried on, brisk steps, blowing on her fingers to warm them up. ‘Yep. Totally fine.’
Harley reappeared with a beard full of leaves and mud and started dancing around them, demanding attention. Mo threw him an imaginary stick, and Harley was daft enough to hare off after it.
Tish stopped yomping ahead. She fell back into step with Mo, slipped her arm through his and pulled him close to her. ‘Hey. Quit worrying, will you? Besides, if you think about it, it’s down to Harry and the accident that we’re even together.’
‘Are you saying you wouldn’t have looked at me twice otherwise?’ Mo asked, only semi-seriously.
Tish laughed. ‘Twice! Not even once!’ She pulled him to a stop. Planted a full-on kiss on his cold lips, then thumped him hard on the arm. ‘Don’t go all “complex” on me about this. It’s going to be okay. I promise. Nothing is going to change between us – ever. So stop being such a doofus.’
Mo smiled. ‘Thanks for that. Your eloquent expression of affection makes all the difference.’
She laughed. ‘Hey, mate. If you want poetry, you’d better find yourself some nerdy chick at uni to wax lyrical over your lovely arse and your tortured soul.’ She kissed him again, then ran off across the grass, chasing a barking, bonkers Harley, and Mo raced after her.
Chapter 85
FRAN PULLED over to let a white van past. Harry kept his eyes on the fields blurring by – it was soothingly hypnotic. Perhaps she would keep driving, down the A1, on and on until they ran out of road. Harry wished she would. But of course she didn’t. He heard the tick-tick of her indicator. They took the exit. He had another twenty minutes, tops, before he was home.
‘It’ll be all right.’ She didn’t look at him when she spoke. Kept her eyes on the road. He studied her profile. She was so familiar, and yet she was a completely different person now, just like him.
‘Um.’ He wasn’t convinced by her determinedly positive perspective.
‘It will. You being back might raise eyebrows for a day or two, but that’ll be it.’ She pulled up at the lights. Handbrake on. ‘Old Harry’ would’ve been irritated by that – he’d have seen it as typical middle-aged-woman driving.
‘Have you heard back from any of the colleges?’ She obviously wasn’t going to give up on the ‘what’s next?’ questioning.
He wanted to lie to her, but couldn’t. ‘I haven’t put in my application yet.’
‘Harry!’ She moved off smoothly – first, through second into third. ‘You promised.’
‘I didn’t have time.’ His own poor attempt to lighten the mood was ignored.
‘You have to. You’ve got your grades. Otherwise all that study will be a waste.’
He knew what she was thinking. She was thinking of another total waste. Jess would have aced her exams, had her pick of Manchester or Edinburgh or Lancaster, would be well into her second year by now, would have dumped him for someone more her level – just as she should have done. She would be alive and happy and with someone who would have appreciated her and kept her safe.