My darling boy, p.1
My Darling Boy, page 1
About the Author
Helen Cooper is from Derby and lives in Leicester. She has taught English and Academic Writing in both Further and Higher Education and was Head of Learning Enhancement at the University of Birmingham. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University and has been published in Writers’ Forum, Mslexia, Woman, the Bath Short Story Award Anthology (2014) and the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize Anthology (2018).
Also by Helen Cooper
The Downstairs Neighbour
The Other Guest
The Couple in the Photo
My Darling Boy
HELEN COOPER
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Hodder & Stoughton Limited
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Helen Cooper 2024
The right of Helen Cooper to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover photograph © Karina Vegas/Arcangel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ebook ISBN 978 1 399 70110 5
Hodder & Stoughton Limited
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50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
For two darling boys, Idris and Aryn
Contents
About the Author
Also by Helen Cooper
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Acknowledgements
Prologue
New Year’s Eve 2021
The mothers are in the cellar of the pub when it happens.
Eight minutes until the new year, and the two friends are arguing. Standing between the barrels with their hands moving in the air. The one in the faded band T-shirt speaks quickly, shaking her head, thrusting back her curly hair as it falls into her face. The tall one in the green velvet dress presses her temples as if she’s in pain. When her friend gives up pushing back her hair, she tucks it behind her ears for her, with an angry, impatient intimacy.
The first thud reverberates over their heads. Louder than the rumble of pub noise; loud enough to make them pause and glance towards the closed cellar door. That’s all it is, at first, just a pause. The woman in green frowns and touches the silver locket at her throat, her skin flushed from collarbone to chin.
When there’s nothing more, they turn back to each other. Both talking at once, drawing closer together – skin still flushed, curls falling free again. Then a far bigger crash, an eruption of shouts, and they stop dead.
For a moment, they’re still. Eyes locking. Chests moving up and down. Their argument is freeze-framed and dust particles hang in the air.
Then the cellar door flies open.
Alice! Chrissy! You need to come! You need to come now!
Instantly, they are running. Their sons’ names are being shouted at them. Talk of an argument, an ambulance …
What? What is it? the mothers yell over each other. One trips on the stairs and the other pulls her upright. Are they hurt? What’s happened?
In the dim chaos of the pub, a crowd blocks their way. They push into the gaps, clutching each other’s hands, the crowd splitting wide open as people see them coming through. A hush falls. Heads turning, palms held over mouths. Spatters of red on the floor amid the trampled crumbs and spillages of the night.
The two women come to a halt in the space that has formed around them. One son is on the floor. The other stands over him. Somebody is sobbing in the crowd, saying they can’t watch, they don’t understand.
Is he breathing?
It all happened so fast.
The mothers each scream a different name as they break hands and run forward.
My darling boy …
Tell me you didn’t …
What has he done?
Outside, the church bells start to ring in the new year and a blue flashing light streaks through the dark.
Chapter One
Thursday 7th December 2023
Chrissy
Chrissy clutches her phone and stares towards the tall metal gates. Where is he? What’s taking so long? The whole place feels deserted and it strikes her that she’s never been here in the morning before. The sky is winter-white above the coils of barbed wire and the car park is only half-full.
She thinks of all the times she has waited in cars for him in the past. Picking him up from football matches, friends’ houses, gigs in nearby towns. She used to crank her stereo up loud as she waited, Leo looking half-embarrassed and half-proud when he appeared. She was the only mum who listened to Nirvana live albums and Sabbath B-sides. The only one who owned a pub and sang guest vocals in her son’s band.
Now she sits in silence, her stomach in shreds, waiting for him to come out of prison.
He really should’ve appeared by now.
Flicking on the radio, she whizzes through the stations in search of something he’ll like. But all the songs seem fraught with pointed lyrics or painful memories, so she hits the ‘off’ button and the silence returns. Maybe it’s better, so they can talk on the way home. Leo has been subdued during her recent visits. She’d thought he’d be buoyed by the prospect of early parole, as it began to look more likely, but instead he seemed to withdraw, seemed to flinch at her tentative excitement. Now she realises: he must’ve been terrified – must be terrified. She flings open her car door, unable to sit any longer.
Her curls blow across her face as she paces towards the prison. She can hardly believe he’ll come walking out this time, that she’ll be able to take him home with her. The wrench of those fortnightly goodbyes. And the rush of guilt, always close behind, that Alice never got to say one to Robbie.
How will it be, though, once Leo is back with her in the village? Will they be ostracised even further? Will the whispers grow louder?
Will the notes continue to arrive?
Just shy of the gates, fresh panic stops her dead. She was so sure it was the right thing to do, bringing her boy home, refusing to be driven away. But now her heart pounds in every part of her … Is she making a terrible mistake?
‘Shit,’ she hisses, looking back at her phone as if it will tell her what to do.
All she has is a solitary email, but her head jerks back when she sees who it’s from.
Alice, who never speaks to her anymore. Alice, who blocked her number a week after Robbie’s death, when Chrissy said the stupid thing, the careless thing, and ruined their friendship forever.
Her stomach turns to liquid as she opens it and sees the words, ‘Dear Christina’. Only her husband ever called her that. And Alice knows this all too well.
Dear Christina,
I am writing to inform you that your son, Leo Dean, is strictly prohibited from entering Cromley’s pub [previously The Raven] once it has reopened.
Violence will not be tolerated under the new ownership. Strong action will be taken if he attempts to enter the premises.
Although we cannot impose any restrictions beyond this, we also ask, on behalf of the village, that you consider the effect of your continued residency here.
Sincerely, Alice Lowe and the Pub Committee
Chrissy exhales shakily, then rea
It was manslaughter, she thinks, her eyes blurring with tears. Involuntary manslaughter. He pleaded guilty. Haven’t we been punished enough?
If a parole board can decide Leo is no threat to his community, why can’t people who’ve known him all his life try to do the same? People who saw the two boys grow up to be as inseparable as their mums. People who couldn’t be certain, when questioned, whether it was a push or a punch that caused poor Robbie to fall.
And Leo has no plans to go bursting back into the pub. He looked stunned when Chrissy finally told him, only a couple of visits ago, that it was going to reopen. He knew she’d had to put it on the market, of course, after hanging on to the shell of it for longer than she could afford. But she’d put off admitting that half the village had joined together to ‘reclaim’ the place.
‘About … twenty of them put money in, I think,’ she finally explained three weeks ago, squirming in her plastic chair. ‘With a smaller committee doing most of the actual decision-making. Fixing it up …’ she remembers pausing at the implication that it needed fixing, needed exorcising, ‘and … reopening it.’
Leo sat forward. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Mum?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Who owns it, now, exactly?’
‘Well …’ She muttered a few names, including Georgie,
the newcomer Leo has never even met; then she came, eventually, to the point: ‘It’s being led by … Alice.’
He stared at her across the table. They’d stopped mentioning Alice and Robbie’s names some time ago, without really acknowledging that they had. ‘Alice?’
Footsteps pull her back to the present. She looks up keenly, shoving the phone and its shitty email into her pocket. But it’s an older man with a straggly silver beard, walking with a slight limp. Chrissy looks back at the prison. What if there’s been a problem? A complication … a delay to Leo’s release? She knows it happens, but it never occurred to her, foolishly, that it might happen to them. Maybe she should go in and check. Leo asked her to wait here, though, said he wanted her to see him walk out.
That’s it, she can’t stand it anymore. She tosses back her hair and strides towards the prison entrance. Reaching the external reception booth, she peers through the holes in the glass screen, at the uninterested man poring over crosswords that she has never, in two years, seen him finish.
‘My son – my son’s being released today,’ she says. ‘It should’ve happened already. Do you know if there’s been a … a problem?’
He shunts the crossword aside. ‘Name?’
‘My son’s?’ she says, then feels stupid. She tries to speak clearly as she tells him Leo’s name, but her tongue sticks and she fluffs her lines.
The man types something into his computer, narrows his eyes, then turns his back to pick up a phone. After a minute or so he swings around to face her, putting down the phone in the same motion.
‘My colleagues inside the building are checking.’
He returns to his crossword and Chrissy is left standing there, craving a cigarette, churning her keys in her pocket. There are some visitors arriving, now. A woman with three children in tow and a baby bawling in her arms. Must be a special visit, extended family time; she remembers hearing about those. She has a precarious sense of wading against the current even though she’s standing still. Preparing to leave with her loved one – please don’t tell me otherwise – instead of going inside for regulated hugs and muted conversation. The longer she waits, though, the more her thoughts spiral. What if Leo’s ill? What if he did something stupid, got in trouble just before his release? What if they’re having second thoughts about him living in the village, even after all those discussions?
The phone in the booth rings. The guard picks it up without glancing at her, and she presses her face to the holes in the screen. He is nodding, frowning, not giving much away. She hears him mumble something like, thought so, before he drops the receiver and looks up.
‘Leo Dean was released an hour ago.’
Chrissy stares at him. ‘What?’
‘All paperwork was completed. He was free to go. And …’ he gestures towards the main gates ‘… he went.’
‘But …’ She feels her whole face start to twitch. ‘How did he … did anyone collect him?’
He shrugs. ‘Sorry. Not our job to check that. Once the paperwork’s—’
‘I was almost here! Why didn’t he wait? Where did he go?’
Something changes in the man’s expression. ‘Hopefully to the agreed address, or to his probation officer,’ he says, peering over his glasses. ‘As per the terms of his release.’
Chrissy’s stomach lurches. She steps back, clamping her mouth shut.
The guard continues to frown at her. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Ms Dean. He’s gone. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll report to his PO asap.’
‘Yes …’ Chrissy backs off, fumbling for her phone. ‘He will, of course he will.’
Alice’s email is still on the screen, an extra taunt. Chrissy closes it and brings up Leo’s number, walking briskly away from the guard. She hasn’t dialled her son’s mobile in two years. Their last message exchange is too painful to dwell on and she stabs at the call icon. It goes straight to voicemail, as if his phone is still locked in a box, and she realises, with a mental slap, that of course it wouldn’t be charged.
Even so, she pleads with his voicemail. ‘Where are you, Leo? Are you okay? I’m here at the prison. I don’t know what’s happened. We agreed you’d wait if you got out early. And we’ve … I’ve …’ Her voice catches, and she can’t even finish her sentence: I’ve been waiting for so long.
Hanging up, she looks desperately around. Could he have made his own way back to the village, or to his PO? But there aren’t any buses; a taxi would cost too much. And why would he, when she’d promised she would meet him, cook him anything he wanted for dinner?
She drums out a text: Leo, please let me know you’re okay xx
No blue ticks appear. It doesn’t even flag up as delivered. As she turns on the spot, still hoping to glimpse him, one of the arriving visitors catches her gaze. Another woman with a brood of children, her weary eyes flicking to Chrissy’s band T-shirt – Leo’s in fact – beneath her battered leather jacket. Chrissy turns away, no longer feeling in a superior position. That woman knows where her loved one is, at least. For the first time in twenty-two months, Chrissy has no idea.
Chapter Two
Thursday 7th December 2023
Alice
There is somebody in Alice’s house.
She sits bolt upright in bed, listening to them moving around downstairs. All night she has dreamed of Leo’s face at her windows, his silhouette in her doorway, and now it’s the morning of his release and there is someone in her house.
She grabs her phone from the bedside table. Where is Beech? Why isn’t he barking wildly at the intruder? She stretches out a foot and feels his warm, sleeping bulk at the end of her bed. He springs up at her touch, sticking close to her side as she edges to the door of her room.
Alice’s heart is thundering. She gets her brother’s number ready on her phone. She should call the police, really, but she still thinks of him as the police. Inching onto the landing, she listens hard. A deep, male voice is speaking very softly. Beech’s ears prick and then he is gone, bounding down the stairs, Alice’s thumb hitting the ‘call’ icon in panic.
User busy. Fear spreads all the way through her. She takes dark comfort in imagining Beech pouncing on Leo, somehow knowing he’s no longer a friend, tearing at his clothes, baring his teeth …
Then something clicks in her brain. The voice. Beech’s lack of frantic barking, even now. She creeps to the top of the stairs and her legs almost fold. It’s her brother. It’s Peter. She leans on the banister, swearing under her breath, then walks unsteadily downstairs.
Through the half-open kitchen door, she sees him on his mobile, pacing back and forth, Beech dithering inquisitively around him.
‘Okay,’ he is saying, quiet and serious. ‘Okay. Just … keep me posted.’
‘Peter?’
He swings around, hanging up the phone. ‘Al! Did I wake you?’
