Page 32 of Lessons in Life

‘Well, I was only an insignificant Year 7 when you were in Year 11. You might remember Jessica Allen, my sister?’

‘Sorry, no.’ She shook her head, seemingly uninterested in what I was saying.

‘But you’ve older children as well as Blane…?’ I started. Blane had talked about his two big brothers who’d recently upped and left home, one, apparently, into the army, both unable to cope with their mother’s addiction, according to Blane. By my calculations, this woman in front of me could only be thirty-four at the most.

‘Pregnant at fifteen,’ (of course, that was the scandal!) ‘with Catholic parents who didn’t want to know unless I stopped seeing the boy I was with,’ Loretta said, defiantly. ‘Anyhow, you’ve not come about me.’ She stepped back into the hallway and we followed her in and then on into the sitting room. The gas fire was on full and a clothes horse of damp washing was splayed out in front of it. The steamy, humid atmosphere made me draw in a sharp intake of breath, after leaving the cold outside.

‘Blane,’ Loretta shouted. ‘Someone to see you.’

‘Tell ’em to piss off,’ a voice came loudly from the other side of a bedroom door. ‘I’ve had enough of ’em all. Tell ’emno comment.’

‘Hang on.’ I raised a questioning eye at Loretta and the woman nodded. I moved to the door. ‘Blane? Blane, it’s Ms Allen. Just come to see you’re OK, sweetheart?’

Sweetheart? Where’d that come from? Flushing slightly, I tried again. ‘Come on out, Blane, or let me come in there.’

‘You’re not coming in my bedroom,’ Blane shouted back. ‘I don’t know what your intentions might be.’

Fabian stifled a laugh, which he hurriedly turned into a cough. Intentions? Blimey, big words from the kid I’d always called Whippety Snicket on account of his stature and awful behaviour.

‘Come on, Blane, Mr Donoghue asked me to call in.’

‘Where’s Ms Logan?’

‘Not in school at the moment. D’you remember? I told you that the other day. If you’d been in school more regularly, you’d have known that she wasn’t back yet. Will I do instead?’

‘S’pose.’

The bedroom door opened a crack and half of Blane’s face – one eye with its accompanying brow, one nostril – could be seen. ‘Hang on, who’s that bloke? He’s not come for me, has he? Is this all a set-up?’

‘You’ve been watching too much bloody TV, Blane,’ his mother shouted. ‘Get out here and talk to this teacher of yours who’s come all the way out from school to see you.’

‘But who’s the geezer?’

‘He’s a friend of mine, Blane.’

‘Why’ve you brought him? Is he going to take me off to the police station again? Or into another effing kids’ home?’

‘No, no, not at all,’ I soothed. ‘We’re on our way out for tea and, as we were passing, I said we’d just call in to see you. Mr Donoghue – and me – well, we’ve been worried about you.’

‘McDonald’s?’

‘Sorry? Oh, yes, probably,’ I lied. I bet Fabian had never set foot in a burger place.

The door opened wider and I found myself in a tiny bedroom smaller even than Mum’s box room.

‘Where’d you go, Blane? When you didn’t come home?’

‘I had business.’

‘Oh?’

‘You know.’

‘No, I don’t.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘Tell me.’

‘Can’t.’

‘Why not?’

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