Lost Angel by Mandasue Heller Page A

can’t keep doing this, Jon. I’ve lived with Les for near enough ten years, and I know him inside out. If he was like that, I’d know.’
    ‘So all the bruises I started getting after he moved in just came out of thin air, did they?’
    ‘Lads play rough. You were always getting scuffed up when you were out with your mates.’
    ‘Not when I was nine ,’ Johnny reminded her. ‘You didn’t let me play out till I was eleven, ’cos you always wanted me where you could see me after my dad left. Don’t you remember?’
    ‘Oh, so now I’m a bad mother because I tried to protect you?’ Cathy shot back defensively. ‘The kids round here were a load of hooligans; I didn’t want you ending up like them.’
    ‘I’m not saying you were a bad mother for keeping me in,’ Johnny replied coolly. ‘Just for leaving me with a man you didn’t even know, then calling me a liar when I told you what he was doing to me. Any mother who cared about her kid would have kept an eye on the bloke if she heard something like that. But not you – you just fucked off out and left him to it.’
    ‘I had to work,’ Cathy reminded him.
    ‘No, you wanted to work,’ Johnny corrected her. ‘You got a buzz from it. Used to come home boasting about you and Julie getting all the tips ’cos you had a “special way of flirting with the punters”.’ He did speech marks in the air with his fingers.
    Cathy’s eyes sparked with anger and she gritted her teeth. ‘Don’t you dare try and make out like I was some kind of tart.’
    ‘I’m not. I’m just saying if it was me , and my kid was covered in bruises every time I came home from work, I wouldn’t care how much I liked my job, I’d jack it in and stay home to make sure it never happened again – even if I didn’t really believe him.’
    ‘You can think what you like, but until you’ve been there you haven’t got a clue what it’s like bringing a kid up. A parent knows when their kid’s lying. And you were a born liar – just like your dad.’
    They locked eyes across the table and glared at each other for several long moments, the silence broken only by the sound of their breathing. Inhaling deeply through his nostrils when he’d had enough, Johnny stabbed the butt of his burned-down cigarette into the ashtray, scraped his chair back and stood up.
    ‘So, that’s it?’ Cathy peered up at him with a hint of victory in her eyes. ‘You’re just going to piss off like this is all my fault?’
    ‘No point staying if you still think I’m lying,’ Johnny replied. Calmer now, but no less angry, he added, ‘You’re my mum, and I love you, but you’re wrong about Les. He ’s the one who caused this, not me. I just hope you can live with yourself when you realise I’ve been telling the truth all along.’
    ‘Won’t happen.’ Cathy shrugged. ‘You’re lying, and we both know it.’
    Johnny shook his head in disgust. He could understand why she might have believed Les rather than him when he’d been a trouble-making teenager, but not when he’d been a scared little boy crying out for protection. But if the bruises hadn’t alerted her, and she hadn’t thought it strange that a nine-year-old who hadn’t wet the bed in years would suddenly start again for no reason, then nothing was ever going to convince her.
    ‘I’ll see myself out.’ He headed for the door.
    ‘You’ll let me know about the baby, won’t you?’ Cathy called after him. ‘I’m going to be its grandma, so I’ve got a right to see it. I’ll take you to court if I have to.’
    ‘Whatever,’ Johnny called back, slamming the front door firmly shut behind him.
    He trotted down the stairs, walked out into the crisp air and breathed in deeply. It had been going so well to start with, but he should have known it would end like that. As long as his mum insisted on making out like he was the devil and Les was some kind of saint they were never going to rebuild that shattered bridge. Which left him