The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

Tom had gone to college to study for A levels when he left school, but he found he didn’t enjoy the subjects he’d chosen. The principal wrote to us to say he was falling behind with his studies. Then he got into his boxing and was excited when he found out that another local college did a year-long sports science foundation degree. He’d applied and was waiting for an interview when that terrible night changed the course of his life.

‘We can talk about it all when we get home,’ I said, deflated. I refolded the piece of paper and pushed it back into my handbag.

‘Your mum has worked really hard for months and months getting all this stuff set up for you.’ Robert lifted his flinty eyes to the mirror. ‘You might show a bit of gratitude.’

‘It’s fine, Robert. He’s tired, that’s all it is.’

Tom sighed. ‘Thanks, Mum, I appreciate it, but I have some plans of my own I want to follow up on, too.’

‘What sort of plans?’ I said carefully.

‘I thought we might discuss it later.’ His voice sounded strained. He must be under tremendous pressure with this new, intimidating world bearing down on him. This was when he most needed our reassurance.

‘If it’s money that’s worrying you, Tom, there’s no need. I don’t want you to be embarrassed to talk about finances and I’ve put something in place for that too,’ I said with renewed vigour. ‘I know all this must seem immense so soon after your release and I won’t go into all the details right now, but I wanted to set your mind at rest.’

‘He’ll have to earn his own money at some stage,’ Robert said coldly. ‘The last time I looked, there was no money tree growing in the garden.’

I’d noticed he kept sniping about money. There certainly never seemed to be much of a balance in our current account any more. I knew we had modest savings to fall back on, but that wasn’t the point. I barely went out, so if money was being squandered, it was Robert’s doing.

‘I’ve every intention of earning my own money,’ Tom said, and I felt surprised at how resolved he sounded.

‘I very much look forward to hearing how you intend doing that,’ Robert said with a smirk.

I set the Oasis soundtrack playing at a low volume. I saw Tom had closed his eyes, but he was feigning sleep, because his face was too still and tense. He’d done the same thing as a small child when he didn’t like the way a conversation was going.

I sat back in my seat and folded my arms. He’d been through such a lot, I couldn’t blame him for shutting us out. It didn’t matter because at last I had my son back home. We had all the time in the world to discuss his plans, and I felt confident, if they turned out to be a bit too ambitious, he’d be open to some gentle encouragement.

He’d always been the same. If he had his heart set on something inappropriate, I had only to pick my moment to distract him and set him on a different path.

That was one thing about my boy. He always saw sense in the end.

Ten Bridget

Tom texted to say they were leaving the prison and I’d quickly sent a message back.

Can’t wait to see you. Can’t wait for us to be together.

Three hours to go and it would be time.

There were many people that were going to struggle to accept our decision to be together but that was their lookout. We were a couple in the eyes of the law. We’d been through too much to let anyone get in our way now.

Following Jesse’s death, there was an explosion of unexpected press attention when Tom was charged with the assault. The dubious glamour of Tom being a professional boxer, that he was Jesse’s best friend and a good-looking young man from a respectable family seemed to feed the media’s appetite for a sensationalist story.

But even in the midst of debilitating grief, I noticed a subtle change in the reports in newspapers and online. They began to refer to Jesse as a known troublemaker and the fact that he had a knife on him that night supported this image. Nobody mentioned that the weapon was a legal Swiss Army penknife that he kept on him for any impromptu repairs to his unreliable old motorbike. The obvious subtext of it all was that he had somehow contributed to his own demise.

I was the first to admit my son hadn’t been perfect, but did those spells of laddish behaviour cancel out his life completely? Did they render what had happened to him unimportant, as if he’d somehow deserved to die? No, they did not.

The anger at the injustice of the media’s reporting of the incident engaged the thread of steel I’d always had inside me. It had provided the inner strength I’d clung to as a young person in foster care, the resolve that had kept me going for years bringing Jesse up on my own and working two jobs to pay the bills.

I fought against the inequality of being different. Of being poor. Of being a single parent with a son who’d died in a violent situation. I clung on to my resolve like a life jacket.

Inside I was breaking into pieces, but I didn’t let them see that. When the older kids at the children’s home slapped my face and called me ugly, I stood tall and swallowed down the hurt until it was nothing but a little hard knot in the bottom of my stomach.

I remember feeling that fighting for my boy’s memory was the final thing I could do for him.

I didn’t have to look far to find examples of young working-class men who had died in tragic circumstances over the last ten years. Men subconsciously labelled failures, perhaps because they were not university-educated or