The Mother by Tess Stimson

Author:Tess Stimson [Tess Stimson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Lydia

It’s Davy. She sees him as soon as she enters the courtroom, high up in the front row of the public gallery, and she gasps in pleasure and surprise and starts towards him, but of course they hold her back, she’s not allowed to go to him, they usher her instead to a chair in front of a big desk with her back towards her brother.

She twists round in her seat to gaze up at him. He looks just the same as she remembers. Older and thinner, of course; he was thirteen when she last saw him and he’s twenty now. Stubble shadows his jawline, she can see it from here, and his shoulders are broad and strong, like he’s been working outdoors. She has a thousand questions for him: where have you been? What have you been doing? Why didn’t you come back for me? But she can’t even speak to him.

Mae is sitting right behind her; stop fidgeting! she hisses, slapping her with the flat of her hand between her shoulder blades and making her turn back towards the front of the room again.

She wonders for a moment how Davy even knew she was here and then realises that of course he knows, everyone knows who she is and why she’s here. It’s been in all the papers, her photo and everything. The headline writers had a field day with her name, Lydia Slaughter.

She’d thought at first that Mae was being supportive at the police station because she actually cared, but she should have known better. Mae is revelling in her new-found notoriety as the mother of a child on trial for murder. She’s sold stories about Lydia to anyone who’ll pay, sobbing her crocodile tears and describing how wild and uncontrollable Lydia has always been, how she knew she was wicked from the moment she was born. Today she’s wearing a short, bright red dress, her bleached blonde hair piled high, teetering into court on skyscraper heels as if it’s her own personal catwalk.

Lydia looks around as she waits for something to happen and notices two rows of people on her left, gazing intently at her. She leans towards her sad-faced solicitor; why do they keep staring like that, she asks, don’t they know it’s rude? That’s the jury, he says, and Lydia looks puzzled, so he explains, they’re the people who’re going to decide what’s going to happen to you, and she asks how, but he just tells her to shush.

Everything is such a blur, so many faces, all of them turned towards her, all she can see is a swirl of pink smears. She tries to focus on the judge, the man in the big chair in the red robe that everyone keeps telling her is the most important man in the room, but she’s tired and hot and uncomfortable, and everyone keeps staring at her. She twists up again to look at Davy, and he smiles and nods encouragement, and she feels a little better.

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