Chapter 1

“This isn’t just about you. There’s James to consider.” Robert paced, but not knowing what half the stains beneath his feet were, quickly stopped.

“I’ve considered him.” Gloria tapped her cigarette, missing the saucer she used as an ashtray. The ash fell, leaving a little grey smudge against the filthy blue carpet. For a second a small ember glowed, and Rob tensed, preparing to step forward and stamp it out, but it soon faded like a dying spark of life. Rob stood, silent. He hadn’t even known where Gloria was, hadn’t set sight on her since he was a boy attending his first funeral. Michael’sfuneral. She’d taken off afterwards, disappeared…until now, fourteen years later.

“All his life I’ve consideredhim.” She spoke as of a hardship. Was a mother supposed to feel that way about her child?

She wanted money. Robert, in a position to give it to her, hesitated; if he gave in this once, no doubt she would ask again. Earlier, the moment he turned on to the street, instinct told him to keep going, but the past was not so easy to run from. Her call stirred up memories and feelings of responsibility for someone he once loved, and part of him longed to hear what she had to say, despite his feeling unsafe on the housing estate, and ill at ease in his heart.

Most disturbing of all, he hated seeing how low she had sunk. Despite wild promises made on the way here, Robert could only do so much. He couldn’t get involved with this woman; his own sanity demanded he kept his distance. Michael wouldn’t want him involved. Today, looking at the unkempt condition of the flat and Gloria both, he tried to talk some sense into her.

“I should have married your brother,” Gloria said, before taking another long drag on the cigarette.

Robert opened his mouth, almost correcting her, before changing his mind, closing his lips in a firm line.

His relationship to Gloria was complicated, not by marriage or blood but by connections. Michael was no relation, a mere friend, but Rob’s parents had as good as taken him in for the last two years of his life.

“I should have married your brother,” Gloria said again. “He would have taken care of me.”

Apparently Michael’s insistence on a paternity test slipped her mind, but Robert recalled Michael’s reaction when she tried to demand money. Not because Michael wished to disown James, but because, if he were the boy’s father, he would have done all he could to get his son to safety. Michael might have tried to save the boy anyway, but then too soon…his life was over.

Born to a drunk, another drunk took Michael’s life one night, owing to ‘disorderly’ driving. Rob’s parents moved shortly after, the house haunted by too many sad memories. They had wanted to give their true son a new start. Trouble was, memories hitched a ride in their minds and hearts no matter how much time passed, Robert, a mere eleven years old when he’d stood by Michael’s graveside, so stunned he couldn’t cry. Even today, he found it difficult to fathom how Michael’s life ended so abruptly at just twenty, James only three. Was he okay? Had the mother’s addictions already affected her son beyond redemption?

Rob glanced at Gloria’s face, only to wrench his gaze back to the grey smudge on the carpet. Even that view was preferable to the dark hollow circles of Gloria’s eyes, or the piles of fag ends littering every spare piece of crockery and non-flammable surface. She didn’t even try to hide the empty bottles of booze, or the discarded syringes. When he left, he should call the police, tip them off anonymously. Surely, they’d take James into care, but…He must be seventeen by now. The authorities…if they did anything, might charge the boy with something, too. How could he live with himself, with causing such an occurrence? What could he do?

“Are you going to be an arsehole about this?”

Whatever pity Rob felt for Gloria fled. Was she serious? Here she was, asking after money for…whatever the hell she smoked, snorted, or injected, and hewas the arsehole?

“Absolutely.” He didn’t know he intended to say so until the word came out.

“You’re kidding?” She stabbed out the cigarette with angry gestures. “You’re the one who said there’s James to consider.”

Rob took a deep breath. With arms folded across his chest, he faced her. Despite his feelings, he couldn’t allow this. James wasn’t Michael’s son. The thought helped…a little.

“I’m sorry, Gloria, but we both know that if I give you money, you won’t spend it on James. You won’t even use most of it to buy food. You’ll buy whatever shit it is that helps you forget the situation you’re living in.” Rob’s gaze wandered around the living room. “I’d help if you wanted to change your life, but…” He let the words trail off, shrugged.