The Wild Heart by David Menon

hands on her jeans.
         ‘ I’m an old friend of your son Duncan’ said Graham ‘ Graham Armstrong? Remember me now?’
         Pat took a moment but then it all came back to her. She did remember Graham. He’d been at the house many times but that was all a very long time ago.
         ‘ I do remember’ she said ‘ But I doubt if Duncan will. I haven’t seen you at the grave before’.
         Graham knew he didn’t have any right to be but he couldn’t help but feel hurt at Pat’s reproachful tone. ‘ Sorry, Mrs. Laurence. I did always mean to come’.
         ‘ I’m sure you did’ said Pat, unconvinced. None of her son’s friends had visited his grave. She could never forgive them for that.
         ‘ How are you?’ Graham asked. She looked like someone who got by from day to day without too much thought. She was wearing a pair of jeans, trainers, and a white blouse that she hadn’t tucked in. She didn’t look scruffy exactly. She just didn’t look like she bothered with herself that much.
         ‘ Getting by. A mother doesn’t expect to bury her child’ she said, looking down at the grave of her son. ‘ It’s the wrong way round’.
         ‘ I understand they never found the other driver? The one who caused the accident?’
         ‘ No’ said Pat ‘ He got away Scot free and is probably still out there somewhere. They never let me see his body, you know? They said it was burned beyond recognition. He had to be identified by his dental records’. She broke down and began to cry. Graham placed his hand on her shoulder.
         ‘ It’s been twenty years, I know’ she blubbered ‘ But it doesn’t get any easier. There isn’t a day goes by without me thinking about him’.
         ‘ You wouldn’t be a mother if you didn’t’.
         ‘ I ache for my son, Graham. Even after all this time’. 
         Graham wanted to tell Pat that the body lying in the grave wasn’t that of her son. He wanted to tell her that Duncan was alive and that he’d only played dead the last twenty years. But he couldn’t tell her. Not until he’d gone over to Manchester and checked it out for himself. 
         ‘ I’ll leave you to it, Mrs. Laurence’ said Graham. ‘ I’ll be on my way’.
         ‘ Why did you come here today?’ she demanded.
         Graham hesitated. The look of hurt and pain in her eyes was killing him.
         ‘ I mean, why wait twenty years? You and Duncan were good mates and you’ve just wiped him off like he never existed at all’.
         Graham took a deep breath and then said ‘ It never seemed the right time, Mrs. Laurence’.
         ‘ Oh never seemed the right time’ she scoffed ‘ That’s what everybody says when they can’t be bothered’.
         ‘ It’s not like that, Mrs. Laurence. Really it isn’t. Duncan’s death had more of an impact on me that you’ll ever know’.
         ‘ I expect you’re married now’.
         ‘ Yes’.
         ‘ Children?’
         ‘ Three’.
         ‘ Aye, well’ said Pat ‘ My Duncan would’ve made a great father. His sister has two girls. They keep me going’.
         ‘ I’ve never forgotten about Duncan, Mrs. Laurence. Can you find it in your heart to believe that?’
         Pat looked into Graham’s eyes and said ‘ Yes, son. I think I can. I’m sorry about before’.
         ‘ There’s no need to be. I understand. Can I give you a lift anywhere?’
         ‘ No thanks’ she said ‘ I’ll be here a while longer yet and besides, I have my own car’.
         ‘ Are you still in the same house on Craigavon Road?’
         ‘ Yes, we never moved’.    
     
         Ian pushed the team to their limits during the Sunday morning training session but it was less than a week to go before the deciding match of the season and everyone was feeling the tension. Even the owner of the club, local businessman and