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  * * *

  The door opens. Here he comes.

  “Right, Ben lad. I brought you a cup of tea.” He is carrying two steaming polystyrene cups.

  “Thanks.” I don’t like tea, but I guess that now is not the time to tell him that.

  “Have you had time to have a think?”

  “I suppose.” I don’t look at him, but stare at the floor instead.

  “Now look Ben.” The furrows in his forehead don’t seem quite so deep now as he sits down and leans towards me. “I peeped in through the door a couple of times, and you looked as if you were thinking so hard your head was going to fall off. Now, as soon as I come in you clam up and behave like Kevin the teenager. You know I’m not going to charge you, thanks to your Mum, but I can try and help you. I really don’t want to see you again in a few months because you’ve done something even worse. I don’t like to give up on people.”

  I look across at him. He doesn’t look so hard now. He looks more like a… well a Dad.

  “So Ben, you don’t need to tell me your whole life story, but try to tell me why you think you ended up doing what you did today."

  I hesitate. I know what’s inside my mind, but usually I can’t express it to other people. I end up getting angry or staying silent, thinking that it’s not worth the effort, that no-one will understand. But something deep inside tells me that here is an opportunity that I shouldn’t waste. Well, here goes nothing.

  I look at this now not so scary policeman, and try to maintain eye contact as I speak.

  “I think because I was scared.” This sounds stupid as soon as I say it, and I look away, but he doesn’t seem surprised. He even looks more sympathetic.

  “Scared of what, exactly?"

  I look at him again, and dig my nails into the polystyrene cup. “Scared of being on my own, I suppose. I’m just a kid. I don’t know how to be a man, and look after myself. My Dad’s not around, either.”

  “So what happened to bring it to a head tonight?”

  I think for a minute, and bite my lip so hard I can taste blood. “It was when I found out that she’s changed the locks and rented my room out. I felt that she had written me off, and I was petrified. I went home because I needed some stuff, but I was homesick, too. I wanted to see the house, and I thought that eventually, if I did the right thing, Mum would let me come back. But when I got there and found that I couldn’t get into my own house anymore, I freaked. I really felt that she had given up on me for good.”

  He nods, thoughtfully. “I can see that, but what on earth made you hit her, your own mother?”

  “I didn’t really hit her. I sort of grabbed her. I was angry and I wanted to talk to her, but she was shouting at me. it made my head hurt. I couldn’t get through to her, so I reached out to her, to get hold of her. I wanted to make her listen to me. I never meant to hurt her, but she went berserk and called you lot.”

  He's looking at me and nodding his head. I can imagine how it must sound to him. I can hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room.

  “Why do you think she did that, if she knew you weren’t going to hurt her?”

  “Because she was angry with me," I say. "She wanted to get me out of her life.”

  “Do you really think that?” he asks, screwing up his eyes.

  “Yes, I’m sure of it," I say, but suddenly, I'm not.

  “What if I told you that she called us because she was scared of you?”

  “Scared of me, but that’s ridiculous. She’s my mother.”

  “How tall are you, Ben?”

  “About 6ft 2.”

  “And how tall is your mother?”

  “5ft 4, I think.”

  “And you don’t think she’s scared of you?”

  This brings me up short. “But I’m just a kid," I insist, "and I’d never hurt her.”

  “But she doesn’t know that.” He’s sounding exasperated now. “Do you know if your father was ever violent to her?”

  “Yes, he was. That’s why she kicked him out.”

  “So what your mum sees is the danger of history repeating itself, and she knows she can’t go through that again.”

  I'm angry now. I start to stand up. “I’m not my father. I’m not like that.”

  “Of course you’re not." He gestures to me to sit back down and I do. I feel stupid. "But your mum has had to be mother and father to you and your brothers. That’s hard enough when you’re little. But when you become teenagers, if a gulf grows between you, it becomes impossible. And that’s when the communications break down and things start to go wrong. That’s when the anger starts and the understanding goes out of the window.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Well, I’ve been talking to your mother, for a start. That’s why I’ve been so long. She’s been doing some soul-searching too. Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring things into focus. And, I see problems like yours every day. But I think your family problems can be helped. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been bad for a long time.” I'd love to believe it, though.

  “Do you want to be back with your mum?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “Do you think she wants you back?”

  “I doubt it, after this.”

  “Well, let me tell you that she does, whatever she may have said earlier. Although she saw anger on your face, she saw pain as well, and she wants to make it better.”

  “She does?”

  “She does. I would like the two of you to talk to each other now. But if it’s going to work, you’ve got to leave your anger and hurt outside the door, so the two of you can communicate, and see the other person’s point of view. I’ve said exactly the same to your Mum. She knows that she made a mistake too. Do you think you could handle that?”

  “I could try.”

  “You need to do more than try. Your future depends on it. Are you ready?”

  “OK”

  “Come with me then.”

  He leads the way, out of this room, down the corridor and into another room that looks exactly the same. There is my mum. She gets up and comes over to me. I can see that she has been crying. She gives me a hug. I can’t remember the last time she did that. I hug her back, again the last time for this is just a distant memory, if that. I notice that Mum has to stand on tiptoes to hug me. I see no anger in her face now, only regret and confusion. I wonder what she can see on mine. We’ve got a long way to go, but for the first time in a very long time, I don’t feel scared.

  ~ ~ ~

  Clare Tanner is the author of The Tranquillity Project, a novel set in the near future.

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