Home Boys by Bernard Beckett Read Free Book Online

lies they had rehearsed. He threw the spade into the hole and stormed offtowards the house.
    Colin walked straight through the open doorway without knocking, into the house he’d never before entered. He expected one of them to shout at him, and tell him to clear off, but instead they said nothing at all, like seeing him there was normal. Mrs Sowby even smiled. All three were sitting at the kitchen table, cups of tea in front of them, as if the Welfare Officer was some old friend, and the visit purely social.
    ‘Colin, this is Mr Wilkes. He’s come to see how you’re getting on,’ Mr Sowby said.
    ‘Hello Colin.’
    ‘Hello.’
    Colin didn’t know what he’d expected the Welfare Officer to be like, but he knew it wasn’t this. Not the same sunburnt leather neck, the same swollen ears, the same way of talking. Taller than Mr Sowby, and thinner, but the same.
    ‘Your spade broken is it Colin?’ Mr Sowby asked.
    ‘No, it’s fine,’ Colin replied, trying to be polite, not knowing how to say it, or when.
    ‘He’s a lazy little bugger,’ Mr Sowby told Mr Wilkes, winking. ‘But I suppose he’ll get better in time.’
    ‘I suppose he will,’ Mr Wilkes agreed. ‘I suppose he will.’
    He turned to Colin and looked at him, as if wondering what he was doing there.
    ‘So Colin, how are you finding it here?’
    Colin returned his stare, knowing the moment had come. In the background, out of focus, he could feel the Sowbys’ turning his way. It would have been easier without them watching, but he knew he only had to do it once. Then it would be over.
    ‘I, they’re mistreating me mister. They don’t let me inside thehouse, they don’t feed me proper. I have to wash from the tap outside, and use the old outhouse, and I do all the work here, and he just drinks and they swear at me and hit me too. I don’t like it here. I want you to take me away.’ The words rushed out, and the tears too.
    ‘Oh dear Lord.’ Mrs Sowby dropped her cup with a clatter. She brought her hand to her mouth in fake horror.
    ‘Bruce, how could he say that, why…’
    ‘He’s an ungrateful little swine is what he is,’ Mr Sowby answered her, making as if to stand. Mr Wilkes motioned with his hand for Mr Sowby to stay where he was and stood himself. Colin was aware then of his true height. He was a giant of a man, six and a half feet at least.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I will deal with this. Colin, I think we need to have this conversation outside.’
    Mr Wilkes walked quietly from the room and Colin followed him, feeling the looks of hatred and warning on the back of his neck as he left. I don’t care. You’re over now. I never have to see you again.
    Mr Wilkes walked as far as his car; black, with dust settled as high as the windows, but new and shiny next to the Sowbys’ old truck. Colin began again, even before Mr Wilkes had turned.
    ‘Come and see where they make me sleep mister. I’ve never even been in the house before. And he drinks most nights, so I have to milk by myself, and it doesn’t matter how hard I try, because he always complains, and finds some reason to belt me. And I don’t see anyone, or have anyone to talk to, and the whole time I’ve just been waiting for you, because on the ship they told me how you’d be coming and how…’
    His words faded as Mr Wilkes stepped forward, towering over him and backing him into the car. Mr Wilkes held a hand up even though it wasn’t necessary. Colin could see his words weren’t reaching high enough.
    ‘Yes, I’ve been warned about you of course.’ Mr Wilkes said it with a satisfied little smile, like he’d just caught Colin out. ‘You and your trouble. Did you think we wouldn’t find out?’
    ‘Find out what?’
    ‘Talking to that stowaway. He was found you know, and arrested.’
    He must have see the pain in Colin’s eyesthen, but his smile only widened.
    ‘What, where, where is he?’
    ‘He’s been sent back home, don’t you worry. You’re