The World Out There - 32. Thirty-Two

Liam heard many times talk about MDT meetings ever since he’d come to Nurton Cross. Sometimes they were talked about in almost hushed tones; other times kids on the ward excitedly talked about them, as they heralded their chance of discharge from there.

It had been months before he learnt what MDT meant - Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting - though that explanation didn’t tell him what actually happened in one.

But he’d never had one. And though they seemed a type of mystery, he didn’t worry about them because they had never affected him.

That Wednesday afternoon, he’d returned to the Education Centre and found that Mrs Williams wasn’t there. She had been there that morning - he’d had a lesson with her - but suddenly she wasn’t there when he returned after lunch. He didn’t ask anyone where she had gone. He just didn’t do that. Mrs Williams had her own reason and he just got on with his work.

A little after one-thirty, Cindi entered the education room where he was. She quickly walked up to where he was sat and said:

“Sorry to interrupt, but I need you to come with me. They need you in your MDT meeting now.”

“What MDT meeting?” he asked her.

“It all had to be arranged at short notice.”

“Why?”

“Liam, they’ll tell you everything down in the conference room where it is. Now come on - we can’t keep them waiting.”

He followed Cindi out of the Education Centre and down to the conference room at the front of the hospital. As always, it seemed to take an age to reach there, Cindi opening the doors in front of them and then locking them as they passed through them, all with the keys attached to the belt on her trousers by its metal chain. Liam was used to this - it was normal now - but it always made things seem to take so long.

When they reached the conference room, Cindi knocked loudly on the door before pushing it open. She walked straight into the room, so Liam followed her. It was what was expected of him.

“I’ve got Liam,” Cindi announced to the room.

“Thanks Cindi,” Janet’s voice replied.

Liam was just inside the room when Cindi walked past him, leaving it.

“Please sit down, Liam,” Janet told him.

He’d only been in this room once before, but it seemed exactly the same now. It was a dull and square shaped room with only one window along the opposite wall to the door, and its glass had been frosted over, so it only allowed in a pale white light and no view. Its walls were painted a very pale grey, with a thin dark blue carpet covering the floor, neither of which lifted the room out of the dullness that always seemed present there, though its dullness didn’t snap at his attention as he entered.

The room was dominated by a round, polished wooden-topped table. The table was over three-quarters full of people sitting around it - so many people from his life. Was this an MDT meeting? Everyone involved in his life was there. Well, almost everyone.

His eyes quickly swept over those sat at the table.

At the head, well in the seat facing the door and him, was Janet. She was dressed in her usual work clothes, neat and simple, and in front of her were three closed file folders. Sitting on the righthand side of her was Dr Sayeed. Her dark hair was again tied back from her face, and again she didn’t seem to be wearing any make-up, though her face was as soft and attractive as always. She was wearing a pale cream V-necked jumper, under which she wore a dark red t-shirt, and in front of her was an A4 note pad, covered with her small and neat handwriting. Next to her sat Mrs Williams. She was wearing the same dark green smooth dress she had been wearing that morning, but she didn’t have a notepad or files in front of her.

On the lefthand side of Janet sat Aiden. He was wearing the black and white checked shirt he’d been wearing that morning, though his hair seemed neater and more in control than earlier that morning. In front of him, on the table, was one red file folder. Next to Aiden, and the last person at the table, was Mark. Today Mark was dressed in his work clothes, his solicitor clothes - a brown suit over a white shirt and red tie. His clothes were slightly ruffled as though he had been wearing them for more than a few hours. In front of him was an open leather folder, a yellow A4 notepad on one side of it.

Mrs Williams and Mark smiled their welcome at him as Liam sat on the only empty chair at the table which was directly in front of the room’s now closed door.

“You know everyone here,” Janet said to him. “And Mark Hiller is here as your representative.”

“I’ve taken over from your mother because… Well, you know why,” Mark added.

“And we are very grateful to you Mark,” Dr Sayeed said.

“We had to call this MDT meeting at short notice,” Janet said. “That’s why we weren’t able to tell you about it.”

Liam just nodded his agreement. It wasn’t as if he could refuse to attend, but why was he here? Well, they must tell him soon.

“This meeting was called because we’ve had a request for someone to come and interview you,” Janet added.

“The police?” Liam asked. Did they want to question him again, but why? Had something else happened?

“Not the police,” Dr Sayeed said.

“It’s from Leanne James,” Janet said.

“Who?” Liam asked.

“You’re old English teacher. She was at the police station with you,” Mark said.

“Miss James?” Liam replied.

“Yes,” Mark said.

“But you said she was ill?” Liam added.

“She’s better now and she’s writing a book,” Mark said.

“A book?” Liam asked.

“Mark, let me explain,” Janet said. She turned towards Liam. “Leanne James has approached us because she wants to come here and interview you. She wants to write a book about what happened to you, including your trial.”

“She does?” Liam said.

“She says she wants to tell the story behind the headlines,” Mark added.

“Everyone who writes a book about a crime says that,” Dr Sayeed said.

“And I think she’s trying to do just that,” Mark said.

“She wants to talk to me?” Liam asked them.

“That’s why we called this MDT meeting,” Janet said. “She didn’t just say she wanted to visit you. She made a formal request to come and interview you.”

“Because we are all involved in your care, we have been discussing whether it would be beneficial or not for her to interview you,” Dr Sayeed said.

“Okay,” Liam said.

“You have been with us a year now,” Aiden said. “But you have barely talked about what happened with you and Rhys Clarke.”

“I killed him,” Liam muttered. He had done so, and he couldn’t take that back no matter how much he wanted to.

“I’m not asking you to start talking about it now. I’m simply saying,” Aiden replied.

“We’ve discussed the questions Leanne James wants to ask you,” Dr Sayeed said. “We are concerned that they would trigger too many negative memories for you.”

“Negative memories?” Liam asked.

“What happened between you and Rhys Clarke,” Aiden told him.

“You are doing so well here. Your school work is coming on in such an impressive way,” Mrs Williams said.

Liam just nodded his reply to her. He enjoyed his school work so much. He was actually good at it.

“This is why we are going to contact Leanne James, on your behalf, and refuse her request to interview you,” Dr Sayeed said.

“On my behalf?” he asked them.

“Your mother has officially told us that she is not prepared to be involved in any decisions about your care,” Janet said. “That is why we called this MDT meeting. We, everyone here, including Mark, are acting in her place. Because of your age, we need to make these decisions for you. But we can’t do this without you. We need to discuss these decisions with you.”

“Do you want to talk to Miss James?” Mark asked him.

He turned towards Mark. “I… I don’t know.”

It could be nice to see Miss James again, but could he answer any of her questions? He still couldn’t tell Aiden what had happened, and he really trusted Aiden.

“Everyone else here doesn’t think it would help you,” Mark said. “You don’t sound like you want to speak to her either.”

“Not really,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” Janet said. “You don’t have to speak to everyone who asks to interview you.”

“Even the police?” he asked them. What if the police wanted to ask him questions about Rhys Clarke all over again?

“They would have to have a really good reason to question you,” Dr Sayeed said.

“They’d have to have a bloody good reason and I’d want to know the legal reasons behind it,” Mark added.

“I think that’s your answer,” Mrs Williams said, with a little smile as she did.

“We want to make these decisions for your best interests,” Janet told him. “We are not just making them. We want to have your best interest at heart. We don’t want to be making any decisions that will hurt you. We want to help you and help you be well.”

“I see that,” he told them.

“Is there anything you want to ask us?” Dr Sayeed said.

“Will this happen every time there’s a decision needing to be made?” he asked her.

“Yes, until your sixteen,” Dr Sayeed added.

“Why sixteen?” he asked.

“When you’re sixteen you can legally start making some of your own decisions,” Mark told him. “It’s not the same as when you’re eighteen. That’s when you are legally responsible for your decisions and actions.”

“Right,” Liam said. Sixteen seemed such a long way away. He’d almost be an adult then. Where would he be then?

“Thank you, Liam. I think that’s us we’re all finished now,” Janet said. “If no one has got anything else?” She quickly glanced around the table, but no one answered. “Right. Thank you all for your work.”

“Aiden?” Mark asked, looking straight at Aiden.

“Yes, the Visitors Room is empty,” Aiden replied.

“What for?” Janet asked.

“I want to have a chat with Liam,” Mark said.

“Is this a legal conversation?” Dr Sayeed asked.

“No, a friendly one,” Mark told her.

<><><><>

Aiden had left them and sat down at the nurses’ table just inside The Visitors Room’s door. Mark led him across the room, to one of the tables in front of the room’s large window. They sat down together at it.

“I need to talk to you about Leanne James’s book, well, the one she says she’s going to write,” Mark said.

“Why?”

“She wants to interview me and Bernie Stewart-Graham.”

“About me?”

“About your trial.”

“Right.”

“And Bernie and I have agreed to meet her, though we’ll be doing it separately.”

“What will you be talking about?”

“About your trial. Bernie and I want to tell her about the way the judge tied our hands and stopped us running a true defence for you.”

“Will you tell her what I did?”

“She knows what happened. She was there.”

“Oh yes.”

“She knows about what Rhys Clarke did. She was there at the school.”

“Yes… How do you know this?” he asked Mark.

“I’ve spoken to her. We’ve spoken a couple of times over the phone. I needed to know why she is doing this.”

“Why is she doing this?”

“She feels guilty about what happened to you. She saw what Rhys Clarke was doing to you, at school, and she didn’t stop it. She saw what happened in the playground, that day, she saw exactly what happened.”

“Why didn’t she tell my trial?”

“She was too ill. She had a breakdown, a very bad one, and she couldn’t have possibly given evidence. Anyway, that old fart of a judge wouldn’t have let her tell the whole story anyway.”

“And you’ll tell her about my trial?”

“Yes, and probably about the time leading up to it after you were arrested.”

“Will you tell her about visiting me here?”

“No. She doesn’t need to know about that. It’s not important to her book.”

“What does she want to do with her book?”

“I think she wants people to look again at what happened to you and why you were sent here.”

“I like it here. I don’t want to be sent anywhere else.”

“I know and I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think they’ll move you.”

“I don’t want to move.”

“Yes, you’ll stay here.”

“Will she talk to my mum. Miss James, I mean.”

“God, I hope not. I didn’t ask her.”

“My mum has been very angry.”

“And that was never your fault.”

“Yes,” he agreed with Mark. Was it true though? He had done so many different things that had made his mother angry. She was always angry at him.

“Do you think her book will do any good?” he asked Mark.

“I don’t know. People will know what really happened if they bother to read it, and it could start the discussion we really should have had when you were arrested. But I’m not really sure. Do books ever really change things. I don’t know.”

“Then why are you going to speak to her?”

“I want people to really know the truth - that your trial was rigged against you. I know, as a solicitor, there often isn’t just one truth. Two people can experience the same thing and have two different experiences of it. But almost everyone doesn’t know the facts behind your trial. Hopefully, this should be the chance to make them known.”

“Should I read her book when it comes out?”

“That’s for your nurses to decide, but I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

“I see,” he told Mark. But did he really? This was all a lot to take in. Would it make him famous/infamous again?

“I’ve got to go now,” Mark said. “This had to be just a short, little chat. I wanted you to know what Bernie and I are going to do and why. We will look after your best interests and we’re not going to tell Leanne James anything personal, anything she shouldn’t know.”

“Thank you.”

As they both stood up from the table, Mark quietly said, “Let me give you a hug goodbye.”

Liam nodded his agreement.

The hug was brief though Mark’s body felt solid and warm. Mark’s suit smelt of aftershave and books. Mark’s hug was strong, holding him tightly for a moment. For a moment he felt safe.

<><><><>

Liam sat at the table, but his mind couldn’t focus on the maths problems in front of him. Aiden had taken him straight back to the Education Centre from the Visitors Room, after Mark left. When he arrived there, Mrs Devine was waiting for him with some maths work for him to do. At least he didn’t have to write an essay. Maths was just following formulas and equations. He didn’t have to think deeply about them nor stretch his imagination. But even those maths problems couldn’t hold his attention.

Mrs Devine left him alone to work at one of the tables there, but as soon as she left him his attention drifted away.

It was the idea of Miss James’s book: what would that lead to? Would it rake up everything from his trial again? Would it make him infamous again? Would she even tell the whole truth in it? What would she say about Rhys Clarke? Would she say what everyone else had said?

He’d hated all the attention he’d received at his trial. Arriving and leaving the court each day he heard those people shouting and banging on the side of the prison van, shouting for his very blood. They shouted for him to be hung as he was led out of that prison van and into the court. Inside the courtroom, it was as if he was on some bizarre stage, the star of a play that no one bothered to give him the script for, and he could barely see over the edge of the dock at that bizarre stage in front of him.

Though he didn’t read them at the time, he couldn’t forget those newspaper articles Britney had given him: how those rows and rows of printed text had portrayed him. None of them had been true; none of them had come remotely near to the truth, painting him as some sort of monster, calling for hanging to be brought back just for him. Would that happen again if Miss James’s book got published? Would he even know?

If the newspapers did portray him as a monster again, he wouldn’t get to know about it. The nurses wouldn’t let him see them - Janet certainly wouldn’t. But they would still be out there. They would still be telling lies about him and making people hate him and… It would be in the world out there and he had no control over that world. He didn’t even visit it, and… it was safe here. He’d been honest when he told Mrs Stewart-Graham that he felt safe here.

Were they right for him not to talk to Miss James, his MDT meeting? Yes, they were. He still had nightmares about killing Rhys Clarke - not every night, not even every week - but they were still happening and as real as when it all happened - all red blood and anger. He couldn’t even talk about it with Aiden. Whenever Aiden had raised the subject, he just clammed up. Silence was still his favourite option to avoid unpleasantness. Could he have answered any of Miss James’s questions?

But that didn’t stop her writing her book and what would happen when it was published? What would happen? It was all so uncertain and… He just didn’t know.

“Liam, are you alright?” Mrs Devine’s voice interrupted him.

He looked up and saw her standing next to his table.

“Yes,” he quietly replied.

“Are you having problems with your maths? You’ve barely started them.”

“I… I… I can’t concentrate,” he mumbled.

“You had an MDT meeting this afternoon,” Mrs Devine’s voice dropped in volume.

“Yes.”

“Was it bad?” Mrs Devine’s voice remained quiet.

“Not good.” It was the nearest to the truth he could think of.

“Do you want to go back to your room and have a lie down?”

“Please.”

“It’s not every day you have one of those meetings. Luke, one of the nurses from North Ward, is here. I’ll get him to take you back.”

“Thank you,” he told her.

<><><><>

Coronation Street was playing on TJ’s television. Liam, as always, was sat on the floor of TJ’s room, leaning back against TJ’s bed. Chrissy was sat on the one chair there, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees, her eyes focused solely on the little TV screen. TJ, again in his usual position, was lounging back on his own bed, his head behind Liam’s.

Liam wasn’t concentrating on the TV soap. There was some storyline about one woman stealing another woman’s baby, or boyfriend, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t interrupt Chrissy to ask her. Chrissy had that expression of focused attention, and she wouldn’t want to be interrupted. But he wasn’t interested in the soap opera. He was letting its noise and images just wash over him.

It was Miss James’s book that was playing on his mind. Would what she wrote change how people thought of him? Would that be for good or bad? What would happen? It was the not knowing that was the worst. His mind could imagine what might happen, but it was only limited ideas, his imagination was not that good, but he kept coming back to those crowds shouting for his blood as he arrived at court. Was that what could happen?

His eyes stared at the television screen, but his mind kept repeating those unanswerable questions.

“You okay?” TJ’s voice cut through his thoughts, as TJ’s hand lightly tapped his shoulder.

He glanced backwards and saw TJ’s concerned eyes watching him.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You had an MDT today.”

“Yes.”

“How was it?”

“Sort of okay, sort of,” he mumbled.

“They usually are,” TJ said.

“Shh!” Chrissy protested. “She’s going to get her boyfriend to confront what’s-her-name!”

TJ gave him a warm smile and gave his shoulder another gentle squeeze.