Hidden Depths Read Free Page B

she needed to catch her breath. She thought Geoff had known all along that there was something wrong with Luke. You could tell by the suspicious way he’d stare at him when he was playing. He just didn’t want to admit it.
    It was eight-thirty in the morning. They were still sitting in her neighbour’s house, in Sal’s front room. Outside the postman walked past, staring at the cop standing by her front door. The kids further down the street were chasing and giggling on their way to school.
    The fat woman detective leaned forward, not pushing Julie to continue, more showing her that she was content to wait, that she had all the time in the world. Julie sipped the tea. She didn’t tell the woman about the way Geoff had looked at Luke. Instead she moved the story on a year.
    ‘The tantrums started when he was about six. They came out of nowhere and you couldn’t control him. Mam said it was my fault for spoiling him. He wasn’t in Mrs Sullivan’s class then, but she was the only one at that school I could really talk to, and she said it was frustration. He couldn’t explain himself properly and he was struggling with his reading and writing and suddenly it all got too much for him. Once he pushed out at this lad who was teasing him. The lad tripped and cracked his head on the playground. There was an ambulance and you can imagine what it was like waiting to pick up the bairns that afternoon – all the other mams pointing and whispering. Luke was dead sorry. He wanted to go and see the lad in the hospital, and when you think about it, it was the other lad who’d started it with his teasing. Aidan he was called. Aidan Noble. His mam was all right about it, but his dad came round to the house to have a go at us. Mouthing off on the doorstep so the whole street could hear.
    ‘The head teacher called me in. Mr Warrender. He was a short plump man, with that thin sort of hair that doesn’t quite cover the bald patch. I saw him in town the other day and I didn’t recognize him at first – he’s taken to wearing a toupee. He wasn’t nasty. He made me a cup of tea and that. He said Luke had behavioural problems and they weren’t sure they could cope with him in school. I showed myself up. Started crying. Then I told him what Mrs Sullivan had said about it being frustration and if they’d pushed for Luke to see a specialist earlier on then he might not have worked himself up into such a state. And Mr Warrender seemed to listen because Luke did see someone. They did tests, like, and said he had learning difficulties, but he should be able to stay in school with some support. And that was what happened.’
    Julie paused again. She wanted the fat woman to understand what it had felt like, the relief of knowing that the tantrums and the moodiness weren’t her fault. Her mam had been wrong about that. Luke was special, different, had been from the beginning. Nothing she could have done would have altered the fact. And the woman seemed to know how important that had been because at last she allowed herself to speak.
    ‘So you weren’t on your own.’
    ‘You don’t know,’ Julie said, ‘how good that felt.’
    The woman nodded in agreement. But how could she know, when she’d never had children? How could anyone know, if they hadn’t had a child with a learning disability?
    ‘I could put up with people talking about us and the whispering at the school gate about the special help he was getting, because it was out in the open and most people were dead kind. There was a classroom assistant who came in just to help him. And Luke did all right. I mean, he was never going to be a genius, but he tried hard and his reading and writing came on, and some things he was good at. Like, anything to do with computers he took to really quickly. They were good years. Laura had started school too and I had some time to myself. I got a part-time job in the care home in the village. My mates couldn’t understand why I enjoyed it so