CHAPTER 7
So there we were, rolling West once more. Eric had bitten the bullet and hired a car, which I hated to admit made life easier.

He had still managed to secrete his road bike in Geoff’s van, and they had Plans, but that just meant more time for us girls to force the children to enjoy themselves. We had all managed to horse-trade the Friday and Monday off, so it was going to be a decent long weekend.

The previous week, I had succumbed. Our judge had clearly read all the reports, and was feeling his oats. I was in civvies, with Kirsty beside me, when he entered.

“All rise!”

It was over quite quickly, apart from the end-game. Bang, bang, bang, the almost-audible sound of cell doors slamming on each of them for “Life, minimum twenty-five years”, the mitigation minimal, the only distraction once more being the feel of those cold, pale eyes as my face was committed to memory. I couldn’t decide whether it was a true threat, or just bravado, but that man scared the shit out of me.

“Helen Patricia Crawford Dodd”

That jerked me out of my little rabbit’s trance, the headlights gone. Kirsty stirred beside me, her hand tight on mine.

“I have examined the reports made to me by a number of people concerning your mental state. They have given me cause for grave concern. You have been convicted of a most serious crime, and it is my duty to ensure that such a conviction is a safe one. If it is shown at any later date that you were not of sound mind sufficient to fully understand the enormity of your actions, it would cast a fatal doubt over these proceedings.

“Accordingly, I order that you be taken to a secure institution, where the state of your mind can be assessed. If you are found to be sufficiently competent to have understood your actions and their import, I will have you before me once more, and you will be sentenced to life imprisonment, and it shall be for a term of not less than thirty years. If you are seen to be of unsound mind, then an appropriate course of action will be followed”

He sighed. “Take them down. These proceedings are at an end.”

I couldn’t quite work it out, till Mr Bentworth collared me.

“Don’t worry about that, he just likes to hedge his bets. It wasn’t her side pushing the unsound mind defence, His Honour just feels that she is, to quote a technical legal term, fucking barking, and he’d like that squared away so there is no escape hatch later”

“So what happens?”

“Broadmoor, or the equivalent thereof. Think Hindley, or Brady. Mrs Armstrong, Constable, did your husband not pick up on that…aspect of her personality when they were together?”

“Erm…not now, OK?”

We said our goodbyes, and wandered off for a coffee before heading to Victoria.

“So cough, Ruthy”

She looked down at her paper cup, the chocolate sprinkled over the top seeming to fascinate her, and dipped a finger in for a taste.

“She was a bit possessive, says my Den. Caught him, she thought she caught him, checking out some other girl’s arse, like, next thing he knows she’s got a fucking knife outta the drawer when they get home. Cut his hand getting it off her…”

“And he stayed with her?”

“Yeah, for a while, till he realised how odd she is. Annie, he still hasn’t said whether he dumped her because he found out she was on the take, or because she was a fucking loony, yeah?”

She was still using her finger to lift foam and chocolate to her mouth, so I took her hand again.

“Drink up, love. Just, don’t ask him just now, aye? There’s still a lot of shit going on there, let him get it out when he can.”

“Yeah, right as ever. How the hell do you do the girl bit so well so quickly?”

I gave her the sweetest smile I could. “What do you mean quickly? I’m on my way to forty!”

Work it out, Kirst…

So, there we were, crossing into the real country, Darren in the back seat with a Welsh-English phrase book trying to make sense of the road signs. I mean, they are bilingual, so the English is actually written under the Welsh, but it was a new thing to him. I realised that this trip was the closest he had ever been to ‘abroad’, and all of my old exploits as Adam suddenly felt a bit hollow. My life, shit as it was in essence, had let me ride all over the place, burn my self-hate out through dragging a bike over mountains and through crap weather.

His had been limited to thieving and beatings. No contest.

We were finally pulling off at Sarn Park for a brew and rendezvous, which amused Darren because there were cattle grids on the slip roads. I had to explain about sheep, then get all the obligatory jokes out of the way before the weekend proper started, the little sod. The Woodruffs were right behind us, but it was an hour and a half before we were joined by two other cars, one of which held the Halls and a particularly lively black and white furball. Pie, obviously. The other car had three teenagers, a comfortably plump woman and half a rugby team. That is how it looked to me, the sheer size of the man. Now, I dimly remembered the two being introduced to me at my birthday party, and the kids were familiar, but I had been so much locked on Chantelle and Darren that I had, possibly rudely, paid them no attention.

Fuck me, he was big.

“Hiya, Annie! How’re the kids?”

I looked up about eight inches. “Shan is fine, just got Darren with us today. Sorry, but I didn’t really get to talk to either of you last time, was a bit distracted, aye.”

“By the kids or the fiancé?”

I had to laugh at that. “Both, really, was a heavy night. What’s this place Tony’s taking us to like?”

“Not been there for a few years. Still a campsite, according to the net, but I doubt it is quite the same. Still, the situation is gorgeous. Look, we’ll want to stop at the top of the hill, by the quarries. There’s a side road there…”

“Gated now, aye”

He grinned. “I think either Steph or Tony can sort that out!”

I went to round up the kids before the last leg, and found them in the arcade on a driving game. I mean, you sit in a car for hours, you finally get out, and the first thing you do is…I am becoming my own mother.

Arris was hovering, and I heard Jim say something to her which sounded odd, and then she replied “Wrth gwrs, bachgen” as he went off to get some snacks. She caught my eye and smiled.

“He’s learnt quite a bit. Still has a crap accent, but Arwel is working on that. Look, as far as he’s concerned, Sar’s his Mam, and he is a very deep boy. Takes his duties to heart, yeah?”

“Aye…just shames me a little, English boy like that, and I don’t have any Welsh”

Arris laughed. “Technically, by proxy, he’s half-Cymro, aye? Now, your boy…”

I smiled back. “Not my boy, Arris. He’s Naomi’s and Albert’s foster kid. I just put him in a cell a lot”

“Bugger me, Annie, you really are blind! That kid looks on you as the nearest thing to a mother he’s ever had. Every time he sees you, I can see it in him. Tell me, what’s he call the fosterers? Naomi and Albert?”

“Er, Nan and Granddad…oh shit. I am going to have to be careful, aye?”

“More than that, cariad. Seen him round my eldest?”

Oh arsebollocks. That one I should have seen coming; teenaged boy, suddenly thrown together with teenaged girls. I realised how inexperienced I truly was in so many aspects of life. Arris was watching my face as it worked through my thoughts along with my mind.

“I sort of expect this of you three, you know? None of you ever had a normal youth, how could you? I don’t know about you and Stephanie, but Sarah did some bloody stupid things before she grew up, things that could have got her killed, so expecting you to understand teenagers…look, I’m a Mam, yeah? I’ve watched them go from bump to shit machine, from sweet kid to surly teen, I have a bit of a head start on you”

“Surly teen? Your three?”

She gave me a truly old-fashioned you-are-kidding stare.

“Just trust me on that one. Daddy’s little princesses, and Mister up and coming Man of the House, they have their moments”

Sun through clouds, her grin. “Wouldn’t be without any of them, though…shit, sorry, not thinking”

My face had given it away yet again. The more the hormones adapted me, it seemed, the poorer my poker face became. She gave me a squeeze.

“Look at Sar. Mother to the core, yeah? You will have your chance. Now…gather the flock, before we end up with cars filled with sweets, aye?”

“Fancy losing one of your three for a while? Stevie, perhaps, give Darren some company for the last leg?”

“Good idea! Let’s roll”

There was indeed a gate on the side road when we got to the top of the A4069, one of my favourite places, or it would have been if it wasn’t for memories of an old Rover…we pulled over in a small group and Steph and Tony approached the gate. I heard a word that sounded like “jigglers” and Tony was twisting something about in the padlock, and it sprang open. I should have known, they spent all their working days opening locks with or without keys.

We shut the gate behind us, and parked neatly on the verge, a huge quarry behind us and a view out over the lower land to the North, as a red kite twisted its tail overhead. Suddenly, both Arris and Sarah were tonguelocked with their husbands as four kids made retching noises.

“This was where they all met”

Steph was at my shoulder.

“I fully understand. It’s like Shrewsbury for Geoff and me, even if the festival turns into a load of rubbish, it will still be ours, yeah?”

I nodded. “Eric and I go back years, so there isn’t anywhere, really, that is a ‘first’ for us.”

“Not even when you got together, you know, at the festival?”

I could feel a little blush just then. “A bit…look, I feel as if I have known him forever, aye?”

“Aye…”

“So all I can do is my best to make the forever bit true, aye?”

She slipped an arm around my shoulders.

“There, my girl, I am with you heart and soul”