Recognition by Vane Kate

Author:Vane, Kate [Vane, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-three

Jennifer was in the supermarket when she got the call, getting a few things in for the boys. That was boys plural, because as well as Jim, Tom was coming over from Leeds with his new girlfriend. Howard would be away, something to do with work, he’d said, and no one had argued, and no one had said that Tom should come that particular weekend because his dad wouldn’t be there, but it had all come together none the less. Things always did, somehow, when it was just a matter of Jennifer and her boys, without Howard’s presence looming over them.

She was looking forward to spending time with Tom and, she had to admit, with Jim. She should give him more attention. Though she would joke, if asked, that the last thing a boy of Jim’s age wanted was to spend time with his mother, she wasn’t altogether sure that was true.

Her absence put a greater burden on Jim to be with his dad, and she knew it, and she knew that Jim was a sensitive child, more than his brothers, and whether this was cause or effect, she wasn’t sure, but she’d just been worn down over the years, and couldn’t be that buffer any more. Not much longer, she thought, soon he’d do his ‘A’ Levels and she had a bit of money put away for him so he could go away in the summer, though he didn’t know that yet, because she couldn’t risk Howard finding out. She could stand it but Jim wouldn’t, and he’d hand the money over rather than see her hurt.

All this was in her mind in Sainsbury’s when the call came. It was Trevor Steel, the retired police officer who was co-founder and board member of Stand Up for Victims. She’d met him a few times, and was always a little over-awed by him. She knew that some of the activists resented him a little, because he got most of the publicity, and he wasn’t even a victim/survivor himself, like the rest of them. But she admired him for setting up the group, because he felt so strongly, when he could have just spent his time on the golf course.

He explained that he’d been due to appear on Five Live that evening, to take part in a discussion about victims and the justice system. He had to cancel for personal reasons. Was there any chance she could step in? She would be able to do it from the BBC’s studio in Leeds, although the programme was broadcast from Birmingham.

She was about to say no, because it was ridiculous, people like her didn’t do things like that, but then she hesitated. Misinterpreting her silence, Robert explained that she wouldn’t have to talk about her personal situation, only about Stand Up for Victims and its policies. He said he was sure she’d do a good job of that, and remembered a small presentation she did to a group in Ossett.

And she thought, why not

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