Brian, Sue recalled. She’d known him for years and watched him grow up, a credit to the local Boys Brigade with a real chance of making something of himself before he slipped slowly into the ooze of petty crime and substance abuse that surrounded so many young people in the area. She’d hauled him out on several occasions, the last only a few months ago when he had been part of theprobation team in the Raft Race, but it looked as if he was going under for the third time and even Pauline had little hope they could rescue him again.
‘What was all that racket anyway?’ Sue asked.
Pauline snorted impatiently. ‘Well, for goodness’ sake! Simon was out there trying to park his lorry. You know the way he moves backwards and forwards and makes all those beeping noises?’
Sue nodded. Like half of the town she was familiar with young Simon Adams and his imaginary lorry. The lad ran everywhere, normally on bare feet and along the roads, ‘driving’ a truck that existed only in his mind. It was a miracle he’d not been run down and seriously injured, if not killed, but no-one had yet been able to persuade him away from his fantasy.
‘Well,’ Pauline continued, ‘that bunch of half-wits,’ she jerked her head towards the workshop where the day’s arrivals were now labouring under the eagle-eyes of Eddie, ‘they decided to ride imaginary motorbikes around him and box him in. Simon found he couldn’t move his lorry without hitting one of the ‘bikes’ and he was in tears before they left him to come inside.’
Back upstairs in her room, Sue laid her head on her desk and closed her eyes. She was suddenly very, very tired, almost overwhelmed by a sense of the futility of her actions. Nothing seemed to change, or it took so long to change it was often too late, and for every one she helped out of a life of crime there were two more at the door. It was hard to remember that although she saw the same old problems time and again, they were embodied in different people. She tried to keep in mind that it was this lad’s big brother or older cousin she had helped last time and this problem was a new experience for a new offender. A young lad who maybe felt no-one could possibly have felt like this before, so there was no way out of this situation and no way anyone could help. With their hard eyes and crude letters tattooed on their knuckles, their suspicions and the scorn with which they treated this, theirlast chance, they were becoming interchangeable, indistinguishable one from another except for the occasional lost, gentle soul like Simon. Some days she wondered why she bothered.
Alex spent the morning sulking in bed and when she wasn’t sulking she was dozing. Despite all her protestations she was still desperately tired and her whole body had been weakened by the ferocity of the virus and the effects of the roaring temperature she had endured for two days. Her eyes hurt when she tried to open the curtains and it was too dark to read in the dimness of the shaded room, so she lay, helpless and fractious, with boredom her only companion. Life really sucked, she thought. She was supposed to take up her new post several weeks ago and she was becoming increasingly concerned they might decide to forego her skills and experience and appoint someone else – and then where would she be? Truly everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.
Then she opened her eyes as the door creaked open and Alison peered round the frame. They blinked at one another for a moment and Alex re-evaluated her level of misery. Alison had never failed to irritate, infuriate and generally piss her off the whole time they had been forced to work together.
Alison gave one of her trademark sniffs and smiled feebly. ‘Oh hi, are you awake?’
Alex grunted, biting down on the obvious. ‘Well I am now.’ It was nearly midday and to her surprise she felt hungry, the first time in days.
‘I can get you some lunch.’ Alison suggested.
Alex forced
‘What was all that racket anyway?’ Sue asked.
Pauline snorted impatiently. ‘Well, for goodness’ sake! Simon was out there trying to park his lorry. You know the way he moves backwards and forwards and makes all those beeping noises?’
Sue nodded. Like half of the town she was familiar with young Simon Adams and his imaginary lorry. The lad ran everywhere, normally on bare feet and along the roads, ‘driving’ a truck that existed only in his mind. It was a miracle he’d not been run down and seriously injured, if not killed, but no-one had yet been able to persuade him away from his fantasy.
‘Well,’ Pauline continued, ‘that bunch of half-wits,’ she jerked her head towards the workshop where the day’s arrivals were now labouring under the eagle-eyes of Eddie, ‘they decided to ride imaginary motorbikes around him and box him in. Simon found he couldn’t move his lorry without hitting one of the ‘bikes’ and he was in tears before they left him to come inside.’
Back upstairs in her room, Sue laid her head on her desk and closed her eyes. She was suddenly very, very tired, almost overwhelmed by a sense of the futility of her actions. Nothing seemed to change, or it took so long to change it was often too late, and for every one she helped out of a life of crime there were two more at the door. It was hard to remember that although she saw the same old problems time and again, they were embodied in different people. She tried to keep in mind that it was this lad’s big brother or older cousin she had helped last time and this problem was a new experience for a new offender. A young lad who maybe felt no-one could possibly have felt like this before, so there was no way out of this situation and no way anyone could help. With their hard eyes and crude letters tattooed on their knuckles, their suspicions and the scorn with which they treated this, theirlast chance, they were becoming interchangeable, indistinguishable one from another except for the occasional lost, gentle soul like Simon. Some days she wondered why she bothered.
Alex spent the morning sulking in bed and when she wasn’t sulking she was dozing. Despite all her protestations she was still desperately tired and her whole body had been weakened by the ferocity of the virus and the effects of the roaring temperature she had endured for two days. Her eyes hurt when she tried to open the curtains and it was too dark to read in the dimness of the shaded room, so she lay, helpless and fractious, with boredom her only companion. Life really sucked, she thought. She was supposed to take up her new post several weeks ago and she was becoming increasingly concerned they might decide to forego her skills and experience and appoint someone else – and then where would she be? Truly everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.
Then she opened her eyes as the door creaked open and Alison peered round the frame. They blinked at one another for a moment and Alex re-evaluated her level of misery. Alison had never failed to irritate, infuriate and generally piss her off the whole time they had been forced to work together.
Alison gave one of her trademark sniffs and smiled feebly. ‘Oh hi, are you awake?’
Alex grunted, biting down on the obvious. ‘Well I am now.’ It was nearly midday and to her surprise she felt hungry, the first time in days.
‘I can get you some lunch.’ Alison suggested.
Alex forced
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