Chapter 5
5
JOE
Isaac’s on my mind until that volley of knocks on the window. They interrupt Luke Lawson, and until I see who is on the other side of that glass, I think it’s a shame they cut short our conversation. This head teacher is everything the padre promised. Interested in the court-based advocacy role I’ve spent the last few hours fulfilling in meetings with his team. Keen to know my thoughts on Noah’s progress.
He abandons that discussion the moment Isaac raps, loud and insistent, but he extends the same invite to me as the school padre did earlier. “Stay,” he says after getting to his feet to cross the library to that window. “I’d like to hear more about your project work. Your workshops. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you sat in on my next interview. I’d value an impartial opinion.”
“Sorry, Mr. Lawson. I don’t think I should.”
“Luke, please.” He turns, a frown furrowing his forehead. “And why not?”
“Because I’m not the right man to help you.” I nod to the window. “If that’s your candidate, I can’t be impartial. I already know him.”
“Isaac Webber? He’s a friend of yours?”
“No.” Isaac might have been that once, if the circumstances had been different. “He isn’t a friend. I, uh… I didn’t know him in a personal capacity.”
“In your professional one, then.” The headmaster asks this quietly. “As part of your old welfare role?” Before I can answer, he looks over my shoulder. I do too and see we aren’t alone. The padre listens from the doorway.
“Luke, your librarian candidate is here, but I have to be honest. I have a few welfare concerns of my own. I’m not sure he’s ready for an interview.”
“Agreed.”
That gets both their attention. I clarify quickly.
“I just mean that I bumped into him in the bathroom.” I catch another glimpse of Isaac shuffling Lenny away. He looks over his shoulder, and while I don’t see any more of that panic, he does look beaten, and I hate that for him. “He’s... uh. He’s handling a lot.”
The padre nods. “Like the unexpected guest he brought with him. His little brother. Luke, I’m not certain Isaac has anyone to leave him with.”
“Come on in, Hugo.”
Once the padre joins us, Luke faces me head-on, and he isn’t built like a da Silva, doesn’t have the bulk of years of boxing practice, but I still wouldn’t want to spar with him. Not when he asks so fiercely, “Does Isaac having a lot to handle mean you believe he wouldn’t be a safe pair of hands here?” He frowns again. “His clearance checks were perfect. Even the enhanced checks that we need due to some of our children being?—”
I expect him to say vulnerable or fragile.
Instead, he describes me.
“—unwanted. Excluded. Labelled as trouble in the making. Neglected or rejected into having low aspirations. And those same hard-to-reach students gave Isaac the highest score last week after his practical sessions. He didn’t tell them stories. He listened to theirs, then found books with similar themes that some of them haven’t put down since. Found audiobooks and games for our avoidant readers. He knocked their socks off. And mine.” Those forehead furrows deepen. “I almost offered him a job already as a storyteller for our little ones despite him not having a degree yet. To be honest, I only delayed to check that wasn’t a one-off performance. But you’re saying I should fully reconsider instead?”
“No. Not at all.” I can’t let this headmaster think that, even if I can bet that’s why Isaac just sagged as if he felt judged.By me.And I bet I got that judgement ball rolling this morning by firing questions at him in a lay-by.
I can’t leave Luke Lawson with the same wrong first impression, so I stand and glimpse a side view of Lenny at a table outside. He’s happier now. Looks healthy. Is a sight for sore eyes, to be honest, and the icing on that cake is me spotting what he shows off to his neighbour.
The book I gave him.
I have to clear my throat to admit, “I only mean that it might not be fair if I sit in. Because you want an objective opinion, right?” I shrug. “Not sure I can be that.”
“Because you think Isaac shouldn’t have made our shortlist?”
“No.” It’s so easy to mean what I tell him. “Because he’d be right at the top of mine. Wouldn’t even need to hear him read. I’ve already heard him do that plenty for his brother. You want a safe pair of hands?”
Luke Lawson nods. So does the padre, that slash across his face tightening.
“You need someone who knows where your kids have come from?”
They both nod again.
“That’s Isaac Webber. He’s more than qualified.” Here’s my entire truth. “He’s the first choice I’d make any day of the week.” I extend a hand that Luke shakes. “It was good to meet you. I probably won’t need to visit the school again, but I’ll stay in touch about Noah’s court date.” I reach the library door. “And I’ll go and let Isaac know that I won’t be sitting in. He looked?—”
“A bit rattled to see you here?” the padre offers.
“Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck, wondering if I’ve said too much already, but here I go speaking up for someone I just witnessed pulling himself together when he must be running on empty. “You were right about him not being ready. I mean, I bet he could pull off this interview. I never met anyone as motivated. But…” I dig out my phone and show them what I already googled. “This is a knife fight his little brother witnessed.”
The news report I scroll through doesn’t pull any punches, and the padre’s scar whitens.
“Those aren’t knives. They’re machetes.”
“Yeah. Isaac didn’t hang around. I’m pretty sure he packed up all their things and drove straight here. That was yesterday afternoon. Not sure he can have slept since it happened.”
“Thank you,” Luke says, then has a hurried conversation with Hugo about sleeping quarters and rescheduling. “Okay. That should work. I’ll go tell him that we’ll press pause on today. I can wait to hear him read when he’s rested.” This frown is so much softer. “Let both him and his brother have a soft place to land until they’ve had time to catch their breath.”
Christ, does Isaac ever deserve that.
I only know I’ve carried a weight of worry like I used to carry little Lenny on my shoulders when it lifts. “Can I tell him for you?”
That comes out too fast. Too keen. Too intense for someone who should only have a professional interest. I take a breath and slow my roll.
“I mean, I’d like to tell him that he hasn’t got off on the wrong foot here just because you’ve talked to me. I haven’t told you why Isaac and I connected. It isn’t pertinent nor my story to tell. Him believing that I’ve kept his confidences is. Can I send him back in to speak with you once I’ve reassured him?”
“Yes. Ask him to come up to my study after break time and please tell him not to worry. We can press pause for as long as he needs.”
And that’s what I mean to do after saying goodbye to both men, only I spot Isaac as soon as I exit the front door of the school.
He’s in the car park looking as scattered as the books in the back of his van when I join him there at its open side door. Those books had been neatly shelved when I last saw them. Now he kneels in the middle of gruffaloes, cats in hats, and hungry caterpillars a plenty. None of them seem to be what he hunts for, and his hand snagging in his hair spells the same desperation I saw in that bathroom. It gets me speaking up in a hurry.
“Hey. Need a hand?”
He freezes, and yeah, I block this side door, my shadow falling across him, but there’s no avoiding a repeat of seeing what was as clear as day through that library window.
I’m used to frosty receptions from teens on my caseload until they get to know me. My dad-joke game is usually strong enough to thaw them. Isaac isn’t a teen. He isn’t frosty either. He’s as bruised now as when I had to stop supporting his brother. Seeing this close-up reminder makes my usual joking fall flat. “We really do have to stop meeting like this.”
“Stop meeting? Thought you decided that for us a year ago.” He gets back to his task, head bent over a tote box holding more books. “And no, I don’t need any help from you.”
Of course he doesn’t. I’d be the last person he’d ask or let help, unless he was desperate. Like earlier, I can’t ignore someone who is stressed enough that his hands shake. “Listen, Isaac?—”
“No.” He almost shouts that, more evidence of him being rattled. He lowers his volume. “You listen. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but please don’t ruin this for me.” Isaac states his real priority. “Or for Len.”
“You’re trying to leave London for good for him?”
He nods tightly, flipping through book after book.I don’t get to give him news of his reprieve from interviewing. Before I can let him know, he says, “Anyone would leave after what keeps hap—” He cuts himself off abruptly, which I’d investigate in a heartbeat if his family were still on my welfare watch list. Isaac gives up digging through one tote to move on to another. “I’ll get him out of there if I can just find the right story to read.”
Him wrenching off another tote lid dislodges a bag that spills its contents out of the van doorway. A scrapbook falls onto car park gravel. I grab it and corral the cans of Red Bull that follow. A Kit Kat bar slithers out last, and he reacts as if I made a comment about Lenny’s diet. “He eats well. All the food groups. I take good care of him.”
“Of course you do.” I move quickly, reaching for that bag to replace the contents, then I pause at what is drawn on the scrapbook cover. A superhero wears a cape of shining silver so neatly filled in that I bet Isaac helped Lenny stay inside the lines. “That’s all I ever witnessed. You helping Lenny. And that’s what I just told the head teacher. Nothing else. Just that you’d be a safe pair of hands.”
That was true around a year ago when I last saw him. Isaac going all out for a job today, so far from home, suggests he hasn’t yet stopped trying. “And it’s all I wanted to be for you both.” Until I couldn’t. “I did check in a few times with Lenny’s old school until you moved him. Just because he couldn’t be on my caseload anymore doesn’t mean I forgot about him.” I set down the bag I’ve refilled apart from the scrapbook, which I offer to Isaac.
He doesn’t take it from me, or make eye contact. He still kneels over a box of books. Still flips through them, movements fast and close to frantic. “Could have fooled me.”
Isaac repeats an action that, in hindsight, means I was right to pass his brother on to another officer and then switch schools before leaving the role for good. He shoves a hand through wild hair again, and my reaction is the same now as the very first time I saw him with it snagged around his fingers, tangled like how he must have felt inside at what was coming for his family.
And like the night before his mother’s remand hearing, I want to unravel those strands before he can pull on them any harder. I also want to make him face me so he can see he isn’t alone, and I could cup his jaw now to do that. Only for a second, like I did the last time I paid him and Lenny a home visit. Today, I clutch that scrapbook to stop history from repeating. “I didn’t forget Lenny. But I definitely would have been the last person you wanted to see again, right?” I can’t help snorting at that same old, same old. “Can’t say I ever wanted to see that reaction from you.”
“And yet here we are.” He’s still on edge. He must be to shoulder his way past me and get out of the van empty-handed instead of with a book to read out, then stalk away, leaving the side door wide open. He comes back just as quickly, and this glimpse of the Isaac I remember is killer.
He’s as soft as fuck, as gentle, like I saw him be with Lenny so often.
“But thanks.” He rubs his chest, eyes fixed on the centre of mine, where his hand had rested. “For helping me earlier. You didn’t have to do that. It was...” He looks about to say more. Instead, he takes Lenny’s scrapbook from me and returns it to the bag it fell from. “I… I have to go.” He slides the door closed perhaps harder than he meant to. It slams. So does my heart at seeing Luke Lawson at an upstairs window, watching Isaac walk away from me. He nods, and I deliver his message.
“Listen,” I call after Isaac. “You really don’t have to hurry. They said to take your time. And they want you to stay the night here. With Lenny. Read a story tomorrow. Or another time.”
Isaac turns on his heel beside a towering willow. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because I offered?—”
“No. I mean, why are you involved?” He’s so far from frosty. He’s bewildered. “Why are you here at all, Joe?”
“For a one-off work reason. I got what I needed faster than I expected. The head teacher asked if I had time to sit in on an interview. To be an objective observer. I had to tell him why I couldn’t.”
“You told him how you know me?” It’s wild how I can tell when Isaac’s heart sinks. This action replay of him expecting the worst makes me cut to the chase.
“I told him that I knew you, but what he told me is probably more important. About you.”
Isaac freezes again, and I hate to see it.
“He wants you here, mate. Thinks you’ve got a real gift for storytelling. Wondered if you’d be a safe pair of hands with his kids. I told him you would be.”
He laughs.
I used to love that sound. Would work hard to get to hear more of it. Now I wince at this brittle version.“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m not entirely back on your list of good guys.” I meet his eyes and tell him the real truth. “Trust me, if I was a real bad guy, I would have stayed as Lenny’s welfare officer. Only I couldn’t, could I? What you asked me for the night before your Mum’s hearing meant I had to rule myself out.”
I don’t say it aloud. There’s no need when his gaze drops to my mouth as a sign he remembers.
A kiss for luck.
I had to walk away from that request and not look back, even though it killed me. Today, I take the risk I couldn’t when Lenny was on my caseload. I close in on Isaac to finally finish what he started.
And he doesn’t stop me.