Page 10 of August's Thief
Dawson sighed and sat up. “I wasn’t going to bother you with it; it’s only down at the local magistrate’s court, but my hearingdate came through this morning. Set for a week on Monday. They’re not going to leave it at just a seventy quid fine.”
“Bloody hell, Dawson! Why wouldn’t you bother me with that?”
“Er… because it’s fucking humiliating? Going to court for thieving fucking socks and Weetabix?”
“It’s not humiliating. I won’t have you say that. I’m proud that you stole things for Mikey. That you were prepared to put everything on the line for him. And whatever the fine this time, I’ll pay it.”
“I know.” He sighed again. “Although I wish you didn’t have to. But what if it’s not a fine? I laughed it off, but that copper warned me I might get a custodial sentence. They’re clamping down on shoplifters. My solicitor agreed.”
I’d watched too many movies; images of Dawson roped to a hook in a bare grey cell with clanking chains tethering his ankles flashed through my mind. “How long for?”
“Not long,” he said. “No more than a few weeks. To teach me a lesson, make an example of me.”
Climbing off the sofa, he walked over to the narrow window above the sink and looked out, seeing nothing. A solitary tear trickled down his cheek. I was straight there after him, wrapping his trembling body in my arms, breathing him in. “It’s okay, Dawson, it will all work out.”
“It won’t, Gussie.” He shook his head as more tears fell. “What if social services get involved and I lose Mikey? It would be my own stupid fault. For thinking I could keep him. Eileen told me I should stop nicking stuff last time I got caught, and I didn’t fucking listen. Because I want Mikey to have it all. I want him to have any bloody sheepskin rug he needs. The best socks too, and the best medicines, the best Weetabix, and the best fucking custard creams. Because he’s the best brother in the world, and if I lose him, then I’ve got nothing.”
He sobbed then, an awful noise from deep in his gut and plunging straight into mine. “No, you haven’t, Dawson, don’t say that. You’ve got me. We’re a team now, and we can sort this. Every social service report you’ve had says he’s having excellent care. They can’t fault you. You aren’t going to lose him.”
He wiped at his tears. “Most of the time I know that, but in the middle of the night my mind races, you know? I think of the worst.”
“He’ll be fine, even if you have to do a few weeks. I’ll be here—we can show we’ve got support in place. Me, Eileen, the day centre. I’ll employ a fucking nurse, just for show, if I have to. And it will be an open prison. We’ll be able to visit, and you can talk to him every day. It will be over in a flash, I promise.”
He was calming, wiping his eyes. This meltdown was always going to happen sooner or later. Better now so we could have our ducks in a row, not a last-minute scramble. Even my money couldn’t overcome the magistrate’s decision, but we’d damned well do everything to minimise the impact.
“Okay,” he said, sagging against me. “But then what? Two months ago, it was just me and Mikey, surviving. Sort of. And now, you’re offering me a dream on a plate. But have you thought it all through, Gus? What about the future? Mikey isn’t going to suddenly disappear, you know. And he won’t get any better either. He’s part of me. The routines, the responsibility, the tie of being with him 24/7. It’s my normal, and I’m happy with that, but the novelty palls pretty fast for everyone else. Wait until he gets a chest infection and we’re in and out of the hospital for days on end.”
I pressed my lips against his neck, not caring that my repulsive scarring was smooshed against his perfect flesh, for the simple reason that Dawson didn’t care either.
“If you’re trying to scare me away, my love, then it’s not working. I’m here for the long haul, and if that means doingwhatever we must, and me spending whatever money I must, to ensure Mikey has what he needs and is never parted from you, then that’s what we’ll do. And if dropping that on you is all a bit heavy, then I don’t care. It’s…” I hesitated.I love youtrembled on the tip of my tongue, but it was way too soon. “Anyhow, waking up next to this ugly mug gets pretty thin pretty fast too. Who says you’re not going to tire of me? I might be able to ease your money worries, but I’m not exactly a knight in shining armour, am I?”
Dawson swivelled in my arms, rising on tiptoes to kiss my mouth. “Do you mean all that, Gussie?”
Christ, how much more did I need to do to convince him that I was the winner here? That since he’d sprung into my world, I hardly recognised this new, happy, confident version of me? “Yes, I mean it. I love you, and I want you both in my life. Every day. For as long as you’ll have me.”
With exquisite tenderness, he traced the pitted ridges and furrows of my cheek and jaw, eyes glittering with unshed tears. And with steel behind them, too; my perfect match possessed plenty of that. “Who wants a knight in shining armour? Shining armour hasn’t won any battles. Me and Mikey prefer our knights a bit battered and bruised. Like you.”
CHAPTER 8
I drove Dawson and Mikey via the back way into the estate, too embarrassed by the overblown majesty of the place to bring them up the long sweeping drive. Even so, Dawson’s eyes were as big as dinner plates by the time I switched off the engine. As he clambered out of the front seat, surveying his lush surroundings—and by that, I mean the huge bloody mansion passed down several inbred generations of my family and sitting on a plot of land roughly the size of Gibraltar—he performed a ridiculous curtsey.
I frowned. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Doffing my cap and tugging my forelock. This gaff is awesome!”
He beamed; it was infectious, and I found myself grinning back. “Idiot.”
Sliding my arm around his waist, I tucked him into my side. He fit against me like a hand in a glove. “Thisgaffis a million times nicer with you here.”
“That’s good because you’re gonna have to crowbar me out!” He wriggled from my grasp. “Somebody else is very impatient to see it. Let’s get his things out of the car and explore. Meand Mikey want a tour of everything, even the parts you haven’t discovered yourself yet, seeing as this place is so effing big!”
Our first stop was an urgent assessment of the cows. Dawson displayed a hidden talent for mooing; Mikey’s attempt to copy him had all of us rolling around. After that, we waved to the sheep, who scampered away in a fluffy, panicky flock, as sheep are wont. Then we visited the ducks, feeding them breadcrumbs specially prepared this morning, and counted how many were paddling on the pond, how many were hiding in the reeds on the far side and pondered whether any, in fact, were cygnets masquerading as ugly ducklings. For all I cared, we could have been cataloguing pterodactyls because all I saw were Dawson and Mikey. As if I was discovering the estate with them for the first time.
By the time we finally headed back up to the house, Dawson’s pale cheeks were flushed with ruddy good health. The weather gods had blessed us with a cool wintry sun and nothing but a light breeze, and we took it in turns to push the wheelchair over green lawns mown especially short in preparation for this visit. For a few minutes, Mikey hummed with contentment before nodding off. I had reels of photos of the two of them, Dawson’s grinning face pressed to Mikey’s against a backdrop of pale blue skies, then more snaps of Dawson affecting a ridiculous lord of the manor pose.
“We need a picture of us together now,” he insisted as we laboured over the gravel drive. I added an all-terrain wheelchair to my ever-expanding shopping list. “Come on, cuddle in for a selfie.”
“I’ll break the camera,” I joked, my stock response over the years. Two photos of adult me were in circulation: one my passport, the other my driver’s license. “Let me have another of you instead, next to the ivy growing up the house.”
