Angel 93 (case for the defence)

‘We’re all daeing the best we can,’ said Angel through her tears. ‘But sometimes that’s no enough. I don’t want my baby taken into care.’

The guard slinked back into the room and took her seat near the wall. She picked up a book,  and hid behind the Tom Clancy book cover.  

Pizza Face stared at her, he turned his back on her presence, hunched his  shoulders, leaning over the bed, ‘I’ll no be here. So I cannae help.’

‘I’m sorry, Angel,’ Bruno kept a firm grip on Adam’s shoulder and pulled him backwards as he tried to crawl under the bed. ‘We just couldnae dae it. We’ve enough on our hands wae this one.’

‘Whit about your ain mum?’ Tony picked Adam up and the boy clung to him, draped over his chest and chin resting on his shoulder.  

Angel swaddled the new-born and rocked him as he cried, she cried too. She shook her head looking up at the worried faces looking back at her, she tries to brush away tears. To remain upbeat. She gasped for breath and spluttered, ‘My mum’s an alcoholic. She cannae even take care of herself. Fat chance, she can take care of a baby.’

Tony walked back and forth at the side of the bed, stroking the back of Adam’s hair. ‘You never know.’

Bruno sat on the bed and leaned across, pulling Angel into a cuddle. ‘There, there,’ he stroked the baby’s forehead and the infant screwed his face up, but stopped crying. His eyes shut into a slit and fell asleep. ‘Beautiful boy,’ Bruno grinned.

Angel lifted the baby and tucked him into the cot clamped to the bedframe.  

Pizza Face worked his way around, staring at the baby, but his eyes flickered across to Angel and to where Bruno was now standing. ‘My mum could maybe take the baby,’ he announced and spoke cautiously, as if trying to convince himself. A smile flickered across his face as he leaned down and very gently kissed the baby’s hairless head and breathed him in with the smell of talcum powder. ‘You think I could lift him?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ Angel propped herself up and scooped the baby up, blankets up around and chin and handed the warm parcel of head and body to Pizza Face. ‘Remember and cradle his neck.’

The baby moved its head and opened its mouth like a fish and Pizza Face laughed with delight as he rocked him back and forwards.

‘You think your mum would really take the baby?’ Angel asked. She hadn’t seen Pizza Face’s mum in over ten years. But she remembered her as a big broad woman holding her wee hand as they’d walked to Dalmuir school on her first day—that had ended in tears.

‘Aye, she loves kids.’

‘I would hope so,’ Tony swung around with Adam on his shoulder so they were almost touching at the end of the bed. ‘There was about twenty in your family.’

‘True,’ agreed Pizza Face. ‘But we’re all gone to pastures new,’ his voice trailed off, ‘Apart from Peggy’.

‘She still with your mum?’ Angel remembered Peggy, his sister, as being what they used to call slow, half-witted, but she couldn’t remember what she looked like. Only her size. Big boned like her mother and she’d trailed after Pizza Face’s mum that first day at school too.

‘Aye, still there like a bad smell.’ A note of irritation crept into Pizza Face’s voice. ‘But I suppose she keeps her goin’. After whit happened.’ He stopped pacing and handed his son back to Angel.

Angel bit her lips. She cuddled her son, not sure what to say. The guard flicked another page and looked over her novel at her. She’d cried so many tears because of Jaz, Pizza Face’s brother raping her as a child, his death was a relief. Even when her own mum was arrested for his murder. She glanced at Tony and he shook his head in warning – say nothing.

Angel changed the subject, ‘Whit about your da?’

‘Deid!’ Pizza Face said.

‘Sorry,’ Angel replied, automatically, but in a way it made things easier. A feeling there was too much of the Jaz in him. She’d never really liked him.

‘Time we were goin’ anyway,’ Bruno said. ‘Adam needs to get to his bed.’

‘You got his jacket?’ Tony asked.

Bruno picked up a plastic bag from the chair behind the curtains and pulled out a padded jacket. ‘It’s cold-y, woldy, out there,’ he said in a high-pitched voice, shaking the bag to catch the boy’s attention.

Adam’s head jerked up, ‘It’s cold out there,’ he said in his wee high voice and glanced around the adult’s faces for approval.

Angel laughed in delight and clapped her hands the others joined in. Tony held onto Adam as Bruno helped put his jacket on. Adam yawned open-mouthed, showing his white teeth.   

‘Say goodbye to yer mum,’ Tony yawned too and took a step towards the bed. He held Adam out for her to kiss and cuddle, but the child pulled away.

‘No-oooo,’ Adam screeched his body bucking in rage.

‘It’s OK,’ Angel said.

Tony hauled her son away near the door, holding him tight. ‘He’s no always like this.’

‘Aye, he is,’ Bruno retorted after Adam had settled down.

Angel felt like tears creeping into her eyes. She knew what he was like, he was her child. She tried to keep them out of her voice. ‘Hugs,’ she demanded, before Adam left.

Adam settled on the bed with her, with Bruno and Tony crowding in, like a convention of monks blessing a body. She kissed the top of Adam’s hair. Then watched as they took him away. Tony turned to wave, but Adam ignored her. Bruno stood outside holding the door open.

‘You got any fags?’ Angel asked Pizza Face. ‘I just need one puff.’

Pizza Face tapped his denim pocket. ‘Aye,’ he turned his head to look at the guard. ‘But you cannae smoke in here.’

‘You could watch the baby and I could go outside to the corridor.’

The guard looked over the top of her book. ‘No, you cannae. Don’t even think about it.’

‘Shut up, you,’ said Pizza Face to the guard.

The guard put the book on the floor. ‘Shut up, you.’ She stood up. ‘I’ve been watching and listening to you. I can see you’re nothing but a bully.’

Pizza Face’s eyes narrowed. ‘Uniform or nae uniform, if you were a guy I’d smack you one.’

The guard tilted her head and looked past Pizza Face at Angel, ignoring him. ‘He’s a delight, eh? I don’t know why you keep talking about social workers taking your baby off you—we’ve a Mother and Baby Unit at the prison.’

‘Whit dae you know?’ said Pizza Face. ‘She’s already been in it.’

‘So?’ said the guard. ‘Babies as young as that, we’ve a legal obligation to offer a place.’

‘Fuck off, yah lesbian cunt,’ said Pizza Face. ‘Whit are yeh, Petrocelli?’

Angel patted at her tousled hair, but there was a note of hope in her voice. ‘Is that true?’

‘Think so,’ the guard’s dark eyes met Pizza Face’s grim stare. ‘But I’m going to phone the police for backup. I’m afraid I’ll need them to come and remove your bully of a boyfriend from the premises.’

‘If I got back on Mother and Baby Unit, I could have Adam back with me too,’ said Angel.

‘I’m leavin’ anyway. Yah, stupid cunt.’ Pizza Face sauntered towards the door ‘Even if you did call the police, I’m turnin’ myself in anyway…So, fuck off.’