Another Life Read Free Page B

and Danny go off with him down the corridor. Their conversation starts in whispers, but it doesn’t take long for the volume to go up. He makes his escape quite
quickly.
    ‘He’s going to lodge an appeal against the sentence,’ says Danny, striding back to us. ‘Jesus. Talk about useless.’
    ‘When can we see him, Nicki, did you ask?’ says Ty’s gran. Nicki is white-faced, dry-eyed.
    ‘I told him,’ she said, and her voice is almost a growl. ‘I told him never to get into trouble. “I won’t come and see you in prison,” I said. I told
him.’
    ‘It’ll only be six weeks,’ says Grandpa, ‘assuming he behaves himself.’
    ‘Six weeks,’ wails Ty’s gran, ‘it’s a disaster, a disaster.’
    Nicki snaps, ‘Stop crying, Mum, it’s not going to help anyone. It’s OK. It’s only six weeks. At least we’ll know he’s safe.’
    And then everyone realises all at once that a Young Offender Institution is a really unsafe place for Ty to be.
    Danny and I run after the lawyer. We catch up with him on the street. Danny grabs his arm.
    ‘Ty – he’s got enemies, kids in custody. What if they put him in with some of them? What’s going to happen then?’
    ‘They know his background,’ says the lawyer, in a smooth, get-your-hands-off-me kind of voice. ‘They know they need to be careful about his security.’
    ‘They’d better,’ says Danny.
    They won’t
, I think. I know Ty’s opinion of police protection, and it’s not high.
    We go and sit in a greasy spoon, opposite the court, just like the end of
The Apprentice
. I could point this out, but I’m not sure if they even watch it and they all seem too gloomy
to be cheered up by being compared to a bunch of losers.
    They order tea and coffee. I get egg and beans on toast, chips, a diet coke and an iced bun. Nicki wrinkles her nose when my food arrives. Danny says to her, ‘What about a sandwich or
something?’ She shakes her head. I douse my chips in vinegar, ketchup and a splash of mayo.
    ‘What the hell did they think they were doing,’ says Danny, ‘putting him in prison, for that . . . for nothing? For carrying a knife. Jesus.’
    Nicki’s staring into her coffee. ‘Oh come on,’ she says. ‘Why wouldn’t they? We all know what happens when young lads run around with knives. People get killed.
Ty’s bright enough to know he was doing wrong. I’ve warned him, all his life I’ve warned him. “Don’t get into trouble,” I told him. “Don’t get in
with the bad boys. Keep your head down, keep out of trouble, work hard at school.” Don’t blame
me
for this. It’s not
my
fault.’
    ‘No one says it’s your fault,’ says Grandpa, ‘least of all Ty. I’m sure he knows very well that this is all his own mess. But to put him in prison – I mean,
what do they expect to achieve? The most likely thing is that it’ll set him off on a life of crime. Those Young Offender Institutions, they’re like academies of crime. Community
service, surely, would’ve been more appropriate.’
    ‘Thanks a lot, Dad,’ says Danny, glaring furiously across the table.
    ‘I’m going to ring your mother,’ says Grandpa, completely oblivious. ‘She’ll want to know what’s happened.’
    He can’t get a signal on his mobile in the café, so he goes outside. Danny puts his arm around Nicki.
    ‘It’ll be OK,’ he murmurs into her hair. ‘Six weeks he’ll serve, just six weeks. It’ll be OK.’
    Ty’s gran is shovelling mashed banana into the baby’s gaping mouth. Her face is candle-pale and little drops of sweat bead her forehead.
    The baby spits and dribbles the banana, and in the end Ty’s gran gives up and hands her a biscuit.
    ‘How’s your mum, Archie love, how are the family?’ she asks – she used to be my mum’s nanny back in the olden days – but when I start telling her about
everyone, tears streak down her face again and she disappears into her tissue.
    ‘What’s going to become of him?’ she wails. ‘Poor