the door. ‘Let’s hit the road, then.’
They walked down the path and turned left, coming out within a minute or so onto the road along which the bus ran. There was a crowd of youngsters gathered at the stop, and she could feel the tension pouring off him as he braced himself and walked towards them.
‘See you, Mum,’ he mumbled, and she made herself hang back and watch from a distance as he joined the group.
A black boy separated from the crowd, tall and gangling in baggy jeans, his head completely shaved. ‘Yo, Woody, how you doin’, man?’ he yelled and gave her son a high five, then flung an arm around his shoulders and dragged him into the crowd.
She grinned to herself and turned away. He’d be all right now. Al would take care of him. Al’s baby sister had cerebral palsy, too—the double disadvantage of being black and disabled. Al understood Woody—and Al was a good kid with a heart of gold, even if his hairstyle made Judith flinch. Yes, he’d take care of her son.
And who would take care of her? She stifled a sigh, tugged her jacket closer against the wind and walked briskly towards town and the job centre. Term time meant finding a job to hold body and soul together—and she’d have to find one or there was no way she dared to take Woody out tonight for a pizza, or it might be the last meal they ate for a long, long while.
‘So, how was it?’
He shrugged. ‘OK. I’ve got Mr Greenhill for Maths.’
Her eyebrows shot up and pride surged in her chest. ‘Really? Well done.’
She watched as he pulled off another slice of pizza and wrapped his tongue round the trails of stretchy cheese, hooking it into his mouth with conscious deliberation.
‘It’s no big deal. I can do the work easily.’
She smiled. ‘I know.’
He pushed the pizza towards her. ‘Here. You’ve only had one bit.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she lied. ‘You eat it.’
He put the slice down and met her grey eyes with his blue ones. ‘Did you get a job?’
She swallowed the fear that seemed to grow ever larger in her chest. ‘Uh—not today. They’ve got another one or two they’re looking into for me,’ she lied, and wondered if her thirties were going to be remembered for the number and range of lies she was to tell her son.
‘Something will turn up,’ she promised him, and to take the worry out of his eyes she picked up the slice of pizza she’d meant to save for her lunch tomorrow and ate it. As it was they had bought one from the supermarket to save money rather than go to the Pizza Hut, and she’d only done that because she’d promised him pizza and the fresh ones from the supermarket were nearly as nice and not quite as expensive.
Tomorrow would be sausages or mince or fish fingers as usual.
Please, God, she thought, let me find a job.
‘How about a game of chess?’ she suggested brightly.
Woody eyed her sceptically. ‘Does that mean I have to let you win because it’s your birthday?’
‘Cheeky monkey. I might beat you anyway.’
He grinned, lopsided and teasing. ‘Yeah. After all, there’s always room in the world for another miracle.’
She chuckled, cleared away the pizza plates and put the chess board on the table. ‘Right, you, do your worst,’ she challenged, and wondered, if there was a spare miracle lying around, whether it could please be dedicated to her finding a job and not thrashing her cocky son at chess…
Nothing was ever easy. There was no job, neither the next day nor the one afterwards, and on the Thursday evening Woody was late back from the bus. She was walking down the path to investigate when he came into view, walking even more awkwardly and his face twisted with pain.
‘Woody? Whatever’s wrong?’ she asked, running the last few steps towards him.
‘I fell,’ he said tersely. He looked withdrawn and mutinous, and she could tell he was suffering.
‘OK. Let’s get you in and inspect the damage. I want to hear all about it.’
‘I’m fine, I just fell,’ he repeated, limping painfully up the little step to their front door.
Judith doubted that he ‘just’ fell. Oh, he did sometimes genuinely fall, of course. She knew that. She also knew that look on his face, that stubborn, determined look which overtook him when someone had cut him to the bone—just as she knew that there was more to this than a simple fall, but she could do nothing.
To interfere and fuss would simply make it worse.
‘Cup of tea?’ she offered, allowing him to deal with it in his way.
‘Mmm, please.’ He sat at the kitchen table, a muffled groan escaping from his tightly closed mouth, and she shut her eyes and counted to ten.
She put the mug down in front of him. ‘Here. Drink this while I run you a hot bath,’ she said softly, and went out before she gave in to the urge to cry her eyes out.
He didn’t deserve this—whatever ‘this’ was. Life was tough enough without some bully going for him. She wondered if he would ever tell her what had really happened.
He wouldn’t let her help him with the bath. That didn’t surprise her. He’d been independent in that department for some years now, struggling to cope alone while she metaphorically bit her nails on the other side of the door.
This time, though, he was ages and she could hear the groans from the kitchen.
There was a time for his pride, she decided, and a time when she just had to be a mother.
She waited until he had gone into his bedroom, then knocked on the door.
‘What?’ he growled.
‘Edward, I want to come in.’
The door opened to reveal her son, clad only in a pair of briefs and some colourful bruises. ‘Why do you always call me Edward when you want to pull rank?’ he said mildly, and turned away.
She swallowed a retort and studied his body. Thin, a little twisted, never moving smoothly, it was even more stiff and jerky than usual tonight. She ran her practised eye over him, looking for strains and stresses, and her eyes settled on his spine.
‘Have you put your back out, falling?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll live.’
‘I don’t doubt it. Where did you fall?’ She tried to keep the edge of irony out of her voice but failed.
‘On the stairs,’ he told her defiantly. ‘I tripped over my foot.’
Plausible but not the truth. Her son could never lie to her, she knew him far too well. Sure, he’d tripped over a foot, but whose? ‘I’ll bring you some ibuprofen tablets.’
‘I’ll
