When Mr Flynn stuffed a handkerchief into my mother’s mouth, fear made me urinate over the floorboards again. A look of terror replaced excited hysteria on my mother’s face and her eyes made a futile plea towards her captor. I stared as he penetrated her with hard, violent, relentless thrusts.

In the darkness I hummed London’s Burning, but only in my head. Mother and I used to sing it together. She would join in on the repeat stanza, always one beat behind. We would collapse in laughter when we reached Fire, Fire as the rendition got noisier. We tried to foil the concentration of the other. On that day I sang silently, mouthing the words for both of us until the bed springs quietened.

Next day, after school, I popped by the Flynns’ house to return the red tie. I handed it to Connor’s mum, using considerable acting prowess by denying all knowledge of the item. I had no idea how it came to be in our house. On the way out, I passed Mr Flynn on the garden path. I clambered over rusting objects and a couple of slashed tyres on the way.

‘Good evening, Mr Flynn.’

He nodded, no idea of what I’d done.

The following day he forced his way into our house and beat my mother black and blue. He screamed abuse, calling me all sorts of names and yelling at my mother for having spawned a devil child. Sly, evil and psychopathic twisted little bastard were the words he used. I’d no idea what psychopathic meant back then, but I got the gist.

I watched my mother’s frail frame hurtle backwards and forwards across the kitchen. But it would be the last time. My innocent manipulation of events ensured that Mr Flynn never came back. I learnt early on that positive outcomes could be achieved with only a small measure of cunning.

66

Arthur

Amber agreed to meet. Ted had reluctantly given me her phone number when he realised I wasn’t going to give up. A calculated mention of my mother’s misery, now that she’d been abandoned, helpless in a nursing home, seemed to prick his conscience.

I suggested the café in the park at midday on Saturday. At first I didn’t recognise her. The skinny mousy woman who turned up with a lifeless mongrel in tow shocked me. I hadn’t expected such a rapid decline. Amber was only thirty-two but looked older than my own mother.

Perhaps I was overly harsh in my judgement owing to the fact that I was riding the crest of a wave in my own new-found confidence. My Plan imbued me with a sense of the invincible, that anything at last was possible.