‘No.’
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see that V had dropped something which she was leaning down to retrieve from the floor. When she straightened I saw it was only a tissue, which she used to wipe at her nose.
I wasn’t annoyed with Elaine, because why should she understand the nature of our Crave? That was what made it so special, the fact that only V and I could decipher its intricacies. It was worth being misunderstood for, even worth going to prison for.
‘Would you say Mr Hayes is a fantasist?’ Petra asked.
Elaine looked over at me and this time I met her eyes. She smiled ever so slightly at me. ‘No, just confused.’ I smiled back.
Petra looked at the jury. ‘Very confused, some might say.’ I looked back again at V as surely it was impossible that Petra had just said some Oasis lyrics in the middle of the trial without being instructed to do so? I kept my eyes fixed on the side of V’s head, where her hairline was pulled into a tight ponytail, but she didn’t turn towards me. I willed her to, just once, so I could let her know I got it, I too understood that we are the only people ever to have felt the way we do. But her eyes stayed trained on her lap.
‘I believe, Mrs Marks, that Mr Hayes bought your house for you from the council eighteen months ago.’
Elaine blinked. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘That was very generous of him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ask him to buy it?’
‘No. In fact, he didn’t tell Barry and I until he’d almost done it.’
‘If someone had done that for me I would feel very, very grateful to them.’
Elaine looked at me. ‘We are. We’d have lost the house if Mike hadn’t bought it when the council decided to sell.’
I smiled at her. I would have bought Elaine’s house for her a hundred times.
‘I would find it hard to say anything bad about someone who had done that for me,’ Petra said, ruining the moment.
But Elaine looked straight at her. ‘I know what you’re implying, but that’s not right. Mike is as lovely as I said. He bought the house because he’s a good lad.’
‘I understand that you care very much for Mr Hayes and, in his own way, he probably cares for you. But that shouldn’t stop you from telling this court what you really think him capable of.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Elaine said and it was as if her hair stood on end.
‘I mean,’ Petra said, ‘I think Michael Hayes is a dangerous fantasist and I think you feel the same way.’
‘I do not.’
‘But can you sit there and say that you have no concerns about him at all? Can you honestly say you find the fact he killed Mr Metcalf totally shocking, totally out of character?’
Elaine hesitated, looking over at me. ‘Mike wouldn’t have meant to kill Mr Metcalf. He would never intentionally hurt anyone.’
‘Yes, but with his violent past and his stalking of Verity, are you surprised?’
Xander leapt up. ‘Objection. Mr Hayes is not on trial for stalking.’
‘Sustained,’ said Justice Smithson.
‘Apologies,’ Petra said, ‘wrong word. Perhaps I should say his devotion to Mrs Metcalf. Are you surprised this all ended in violence?’
Elaine scrunched up her face and for a moment I thought she was going to shout. ‘Not much surprises me when you’ve seen the things I have. When you’ve listened to the stories I’ve heard about children that make you wish you didn’t have ears.’
‘I understand that, Mrs Marks. I understand the nature of what you do. But you’ve already said you saw something different in Mr Hayes. Is part of that difference his instability, his violence?’
‘No.’ Elaine shook her head. ‘No, it’s not.’
‘Would you like to tell the court about the time you and Verity had to call an ambulance because Mr Hayes had become so out of control?’
Elaine looked first at Petra, then me. ‘That was years ago.’
‘Four years to be precise. And I think we would still like to hear about it.’
I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but I knew how that would look.
Elaine drew in a deep breath. ‘It was his birthday and we were having supper at home, just Mike, Verity, Barry and me. His mum had sent him a card and I should have handled it better. I should have waited for a quiet time to give it to him, but I just handed it over, across the dinner table. He read it to himself and Verity asked if she could see it, but he didn’t reply. He went very red and I wanted to reach out and snatch the card back because I realised what I’d done. He hadn’t spoken to his mother or heard from her for years and I just handed the card across the dinner table like a great big idiot. He stayed silent for ages and none of us could make him even look up, but then he threw the card on the table and went into the garden. Then he started screaming and we all went outside and tried to get him to stop, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t get him to move at all. We called an ambulance because we didn’t know what else to do.’
It’s ridiculous for Elaine to blame herself and I must remember to tell her that when this is all over. She wasn’t to know how seeing those bald words ‘To Mike, Love Mum’ written round the printed Happy Birthday was going to be too much. If you’d asked me before it happened, I wouldn’t have known it was going to be too much. And even though I was sitting round a table with V, Elaine and Barry, those words seemed like the bleakest, hardest thing I’d ever seen. It was like nothing else existed, as if they had picked me up and thrown me back into my bare room in my miserable flat. I don’t remember leaving the table, I don’t remember going into the garden, but I can still hear the sound of the scream, or more accurately I can still feel it, because it wasn’t a scream of pain; it was more like a release, like an air bubble popping, like an acknowledgment of all the times I never made a sound.
‘Were you worried for your safety?’
‘No – I was worried about his.’
I sneaked another look at V but she still had her head down, although she was shredding the tissue she had been holding, its white fibres falling to the floor at her feet.
Petra put her glasses back on and flicked through her notes. ‘I have the medical report here. Michael was seen by a Dr Hahn that evening. He was injected with a high dose of Valium and spent the night on the ward. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dr Hahn’s diagnosis reads as follows, and I quote: “Severe case of nervous exhaustion, semi-psychotic episode brought on by shock or maybe PTS.” That’s post-traumatic stress. “Am satisfied no need for sectioning, but have advised patient and family to seek help from GP. Patient would benefit greatly from a course of therapy and possibly medication. Have advised they seek this help at the earliest opportunity.”’ Petra looked back up at Elaine. ‘Did Michael visit the GP?’
‘No.’
‘Did you want him to? Did Verity want him to?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you argue about it?’
‘A bit.’
‘What were Mr Hayes’s reasons for not going?’
‘He said he was fine.’
‘But in your and Verity’s opinion he wasn’t fine?’
‘We thought he could do with some help.’
Petra sighed and turned her back on Elaine, placing the papers back on her desk.
‘He’s a good lad,’ Elaine said, her voice rising over the court. ‘Mike is a good lad.’