Dedication
Dedicated to
Pongo, Eggo, Shy Bollocks and Snooty
Title Page
THE
WRONG
CHILD
BARRY GORNELL
Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Acknowledgements
About the author
Copyright
Prologue
It was the last child’s final morning. It broke crisp and clear. The winter sun struggled up the east gable of his isolated clapboard house, illuminating its disrepair. The front of the building was forever sunless. Iron gutters, heavy with weeds and roof tiles, overflowed with icicles. The slow drip of morning thaw fed the stains and rot. The last coat of paint had crackled into a dull glaze and offered scant protection. A mop was frozen into a bucket of murky ice, crusted with fallen leaves beneath a dusting of snow.
In a first-floor window a knife-shaped shard of missing glass revealed a slice of face.
Dog Evans stood at the window, watching through the broken pane. He sweated in the cold. In the mean light that pierced the interior his moist skin appeared translucent, barely containing the blood crawling beneath the surface. His grey eyes and salmon lips were lurid in comparison. Outside, thick rimy frost covered the basin of marsh, part of which separated his home from the rest of the village, away to his right. A common postal code was his only token of inclusion; the occasional delivery his only form of contact.
On the opposite side of the marsh, the harsh November sunshine reflected off the concrete remains of the abandoned schoolhouse. Within those walls, planted in remembrance of the generation lost there, trees thrived. Twenty-two children had been in the class. Twenty-one trees grew in the school.
Dog Evans wanted to be a tree.
1
He had watched those trees grow, left behind to witness their skyward progress. Out of sight, their young branches had sought each other until they touched, then intertwined, creating a tight ring. The growth of the saplings had been visible through glassless frames; straining ever higher until tousled green tops peered above the walls. One autumn morning, their growth had pushed over a section of the weakened wall, causing the earth to shake in an echo of the explosion that destroyed the building.
The villagers’ response to this attempted breakout was to erect a chain-link boundary fence around the memorial. A large white sign with block red letters was planted between wall and wire. The single word ‘DANGER’ once filled the board, the word itself enough to weigh down the sign and render its footings redundant. The nature of the danger was unspecified. The villagers had stood together, some weeping, some still clinging to teddy bears. They considered the new sign for a while, then walked away, their backs turned.
As time passed, the lower boughs of the nearest trees had grown over the sign, lolling in heavy, insolent swags, twisting it in the first stages of destruction. Dog Evans had watched leafy fingers extend to obscure the first letter. In recent months, ANGER had been its only message and Dog Evans its only reader.
Dog Evans turned the brown Bakelite knob on the bedside radio. He took pleasure in the dull spring-loaded click that preceded the gentle humming of the valves as they grew bright with warmth. They brought the voices into another day. The voices were his company, welcome and invited. He heard the long-gone sing-song of playground and parent, the fractured metre of handclap rhythms and footstep melodies that he was never part of, the skipping rope too fast, the circle exclusive, the ball not his; and laughter. The joyous shouts and shrieks of playtime release shot through his mind like swooping birds, a comfort that caused him to smile and turn to the blur in the mirror.
Dog Evans no longer had a reflection. Moribund blossoms tarnished the silvered glass, their petals spreading as if resisting his image. He had a face that invited blame. Even as a baby, nursed at arm’s length, his strange doll-like features had driven away all but the most determined. His appearance had been the start of his mother’s isolation, described to others by the midwife, whose visits struck Rebecca Evans as brief and perfunctory. She rarely took her coat off or handled the baby for long, choosing to focus her attention on the mother in order not to have to look upon the child.
Rebecca’s determination to breastfeed was encouraged, but was compromised from the start by the baby’s strenuous sucking and the extreme soreness of her nipples. It went beyond the pain and tenderness she had been prepared for after the initial seconds of each latching. It lasted the duration, biting and sharp and insistent. The midwife assured her she was doing everything right, that the boy was fully latched on, there was no sign of engorgement and none of the usual causes of discomfort were evident. She advised Rebecca to line the cups of her bra with a cabbage leaf in addition to using the recommended ointments and salves. The leaves helped, soothing between each feed, but did nothing to lessen the dread of the moment she had to take her breast out to stop him wailing. All the good was undone the moment he clamped on, pulling and arching as he drained her.
Within a week her nipples were cracked and bleeding and the ordeal of nursing became intolerable. Rebecca resorted to formula milk. The baby vomited the first bottle and refused to take another, turning away from the rubber teat when it was offered yet howling from hunger.
Weight loss took him back to mother’s milk.
Shep came home one evening to find Rebecca crying as the baby guzzled.
‘Hey, Becca, come on now.’ He held her, looking down at his son. ‘I bought new ointment, more cabbage.’
‘It’s not that,’ she said, between sobs.
‘Okay, that’s good.’ Shep dried her cheeks. ‘What is it?’
‘He’s doing it on purpose, hurting me.’
‘Hey now, you’re tired. It hurts, I know, but—’
‘He is, believe me.’
‘Rebecca.’
‘I’m telling you, Shep.’
‘He’s a baby. He can’t think that way. Look, he’s happy, he’s even smiling.’
Rebecca frowned as she examined their baby, his face wet with her tears.
‘Is that a smile?’
‘I think so.’
It was this smile that had caused the teacher, Mr Corrigan, to turn away, convinced it was a sneer, refusing to be riled. The other children noticed, saw it as a chink in the adult world. Dog Evans had enjoyed this power. He saw his peculiarity as a gift. He was never one of them, but he knew he calmed them, his presence akin to snowfall for the children of the one-roomed school. He’d worked by the window, knowing the daily hush that attended his arrival was what truly disturbed the teacher, took away his authority. The pupils ignored Mr Corrigan. They worked hard and excelled as a collective prodigy. Dog Evans would find chocolate or cake on the windowsill where he sat, a sweet within his desk: tokens of gratitude. His innate strangeness precluded any open friendship with other children. There was never a note, nothing traceable, but some anonymous offering. They knew their debt.
On the occasion of Dog’s exclusion, the school’s first suspension – f
or reasons kept from the other pupils – he had worked hard in bed, desperate to be back at school. On his return, things had changed. The children had changed. The teacher had reasserted lost authority. Jonny Raffique looked stronger and more defiant. The others gathered around and behind him. Alice Corggie held his hand. They judged Dog that morning, facing him as one alongside the teacher. Speechless, he screamed his loudest at them, at what they had become. He scared them. He was happy when Mr Corrigan confined him to the storeroom. On that first day back, Dog Evans withdrew yet remained: wedged into the rough brick corner of the room. He took comfort from the smells of the virgin materials: graphite, paper, rubber, adhesive and crayons. Pencils of light passed into the space through the ventilation grill fixed head-high in the door. On the other side of the door, the class was working. He was content to watch.
Dog Evans sat at the kitchen table in the dying afternoon, the carcass of his meal barely covering the plate. His hand swept across the tabletop, pinched a stray shard of bone from the Formica surface and forced it between his canine and molar. Pulling it down released a sinewy shred of meat that was sucked free and swallowed. The tip of his tongue rolled around his teeth, checking the space was clear. Another cat leapt up to sit next to him. He stroked the feline, his slender fingers rippling the glossy black fur up to its shoulder blades. The creature lay still on the bench, purring, until a twitch from the whiskers and a flicker in one ear signalled it was time to leave. It stretched as it would after a deep sleep. He took satisfaction from its liquid fall to the floor, its rough tongue as it licked his wrist before disappearing into the kitchen. Dog Evans scratched the pigskin that had been grafted on to his lower arm. The porcine smell, scraped into the dirt beneath his chipped nails, was held up to his nose as a fragrant delicacy.
Leaning back on two legs of the chair, he opened the under-table drawer, took out the only newspaper in the house and spread it flat. The corners of the ancient broadsheet shone with the greasy deposit of years of handling. Blunt marker lines ran through columns of text and advertisements, crossed out as irrelevant, forcing the eye to the single dominant story that ran on almost every page. The accumulated effect of the images of the school’s collapse and destruction – distressed parents digging through rubble by hand as snow fell; neighbours holding each other for support and comfort; the wailing faces of the mothers being held back from the covered stretchers by fathers with the weight of death already in their eyes – was compounded by the centre pages. They were a roll call of the dead. Four monochrome rows of fresh faces, young and clean, pristine uniforms washed and ironed, top buttons fastened, ties straight, all ready for the photographer’s visit. Each grin, squint, frown, pair of glasses, ponytail, side parting and severe fringe was alive, a sliver of individual character that combined to make up the group’s potential. A name and address was printed beneath each child’s face, connected to the diagram of the village with a straight line, forming a cat’s cradle of grief in which every street, lane, close and wynd was affected. Dog Evans’ fingers called at each empty home in turn.
Seven years earlier
Struan House was the largest residential building on the map and the first any visitor saw upon entering the village. It was set back from the main road at the end of a long gravel path that snaked through acres of topiary and cultivated woodland. Calvin Struan opened the front door and gaped at the heavy flakes of falling snow. A fat child forced into expensive clothes to the detriment of his appearance, Calvin was loud of voice and small of mind, like his father, the laird: landowner and beneficiary of dubious rites of inheritance. Unlike his father, Calvin attended the village school. This break with tradition was in order to assuage the separation anxiety suffered by his clingy mother, who refused to countenance the idea of her boy being dispatched to boarding school, regardless of reputation or expense. Her mollycoddling was merciless. Calvin strove to be a copy of his father, who appeared to him to be in need of no one and nothing. Already tweed-clad and brown-brogued, the boy had assumed the portly bluster of minor gentry with little shame.
On the morning of the tragedy, Calvin was first out of the house, waiting in the front seat of the estate Range Rover to be driven to school. He patted his pockets for the umpteenth time. One held chocolate, the other his lunch money and a similar amount he had taken from his mother’s purse for Dog Evans, just in case. He had turned the engine on and the cab was warm by the time his father appeared, his gloved hand clutching a sheaf of brown envelopes. Calvin had read the addresses and knew them to be letters advising of rent rises. He was keen to get to school. He wanted to inform his classmates of the imminent increases before their parents received official notification. He relished the power to affect their day. It would be all pleasure and no responsibility. Like his father, he was impervious to approaches with regard to repair or injustice, as if the ‘No Entry’ signs about the run-down grandeur of Struan House applied to their persons also.
Passing the gatehouse at the pillared entrance to the property, Calvin noticed the lights were on and smoke rose from both chimneys. The front path was clear of snow. He knew that Jonny Raffique would have done this willingly for his mother without being asked. But that was Jonny, and his mother. Calvin would have liked to do things for Jonny’s mother.
Turning on to the main road, Calvin’s father stopped the Range Rover at the corner postbox. He pushed the manila envelopes into Calvin’s hand and pointed at the box.
‘There’s a good chap.’
Calvin stepped out of the heated car onto the dirty mound of road-cleared snow. The extra height it afforded him meant he didn’t need to stretch to reach the slot. He pushed the letters in as a bundle.
Climbing back into the car, he heard the squeals of laughter coming from the next house along. He closed the door against them. The Voars were throwing snowballs and their father was joining in the fun, a mini blizzard of swishing arms and white powder as he chased them in circuits around their small rented garden. At the sound of Mr Struan revving away from the kerbside, Maggie Voar looked up and with a squawk of mock panic gathered her two siblings and her father to stand alongside her, forming a human shield. Clearly visible under the street light, yesterday’s short, fat snowman had been joined by another, half the height but just as stout. The Voars tried not to giggle as they lined up in front of them, elbowing each other as the Struans passed by. Robbie and Cameron surprised Maggie by daring to wave. Calvin could see the two snowmen they were trying to conceal. He had no doubt whom they represented. His father snorted, dismissing their childish insult.
‘Postman will soon wipe the smiles from their faces, don’t you think?’
Calvin turned to sneer at Maggie as he pictured the brown envelope arriving with the white of early Christmas cards. He felt better when he saw the joy slip from her face.
Calvin’s father winked at his son.
Red-eyed with grief and lairdly anger, Ruaridh Struan had been the first parent to voice it: ‘Why did it have to be him?’
2
Shep Evans withdrew the notes from the cash machine. Folding them into his palm to stop the wind stealing them away, he crossed the main street of the seaside town to the post office.
Inside, his pen hovered over the pad of writing paper. Looking above the service counter, he saw the date on the electronic calendar.
‘This is a bank holiday weekend, isn’t it?’
‘You bet,’ answered the guy at the counter, obviously pleased. ‘I’ve got three days of fishing ahead of me.’
‘This time of year?’
‘Cod’s coming through.’
‘You must enjoy your fishing.’
‘Enjoy the catching even more. And you can only catch them when they’re here.’
‘Need to use the window you’re given.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Likewise,’ said Shep, indicating the pad he was about to write on. ‘When will this arriv
e, if I post it now?’
‘You’ll catch the last collection, but it’ll still be Tuesday at the earliest.’
‘Okay. Fingers crossed for that then.’
Shep returned to the pad. He clicked the ballpoint down and wrote, ‘I hope this gets to you for your birthday’, having been told that it wouldn’t. He signed with the swirl of an S. Teasing the paper from the pad, he wrapped it around the banknotes and slid it into an envelope he had already addressed.
When he pushed it across the counter, the postmaster, according to his lapel badge, saw the address and raised his eyebrows.
‘Tuesday’s optimistic.’
‘I know. I forgot about the holiday.’
‘Special occasion?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘You want it recorded, proof of posting? I happened to see it was cash.’ The postmaster held the envelope in his hand and gave Shep a look that said he thought this would be the best option, for peace of mind.
‘No, seeing you take it is all the proof I need, thank you.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘I am.’
The man weighed and stamped the envelope, then dropped it into a postal sack. He was about to ring the sale when he saw Shep scanning the gift counter.
‘Get you anything else?’
‘Your best box of chocolates.’ Shep pulled a large note from his wallet.
Leaving the chocolates with his briefcase in the passenger footwell, Shep took a cigar from a tin in the glove compartment, locked the car and cut between the shops, through to the promenade.
He sat in a shelter and smoked as he watched redshank and ringed plover at the water’s edge, mincing up and down the tideline, feeding on whatever the waves had left behind. A yappy mongrel puppy triggered the kyip, kyip, kyip of the redshank’s alarm call and the instant departure of all the birds, a low cloud, wing-points skimming the water on their way to a safer stretch of shore. The pup splashed after them, closely followed by a shrieking toddler in wellington boots and flapping jacket, impervious to the bitter conditions, waving a plastic spade at the now distant flock. His parents hugged each other as they walked, enjoying their son’s glee. Shep took a final draw, rolled the smoke around his mouth, let it go, tapped the cigar out on the concrete wall and left the shelter.
The Wrong Child Page 1