But my Mam started shouting then and said, ‘Don’t you bloody well dare! You’re going! You’re going to that clinic. I don’t care what it costs, I don’t care if I have to borrow to pay for it but we’re going to get to the bottom of all this. I’ve had enough, I have.’
I thought it was funny really, my Mam saying that about getting to the bottom because she was right. And that’s exactly what I was planning to do.
I told my Mam I was going to play out in the back because it was so hot. But she just ignored me. So I picked up a few of my Star Wars figures and went out there. I felt a bit awful really, about not telling my Mam. But I wanted it to be a sort of surprise. I couldn’t wait to see her when I got back and she looked at me and saw I was the nice boy again.
I waited a few minutes. Then I got up off the tarmac and I knew it would all be all right now. I knew what I had to do. I went down to the bottom of our garden and climbed over the fence. I began to run, as fast as I could, up the street and down the cut, past the bread shop and through the gate and over the recreation ground, running past the allotments, into the lane and over the bridge, down to the cinder track and then into the high hay field, running through the long grass, running as fast as I could. It felt funny running because I could feel these bits wobbling on me. But it didn’t matter because it wasn’t really me, this fat boy, this horrible boy, this boy who couldn’t even run properly and got out of breath dead easy, it wasn’t me; it had never been me. I was going back to find me. And everything would be all right then, everything would be back to normal when the fat boy put himself back into the canal where he belonged; and then it’d be the nice boy who came back up out of the water. And everything would be normal again then. All my friends would start to play with me again and I’d get back into the Cubs and my Mam wouldn’t have to shout at me no more. And I almost laughed out loud when I thought about my Mam and how I’d caught her looking at me sometimes, staring at me in that puzzled sort of way and looking at me like she didn’t know who I was any more. And it always upset me when I caught her looking at me like that. But I realised now, I realised that she’d been right to look at me like that! Because it was the wrong boy she’d been looking at. And I couldn’t wait to see my Mam’s face tonight when she glanced across at the settee and saw it was the right boy, the nice boy, sitting there again. I ran, faster and faster, as fast as I could, through the grass, laughing now, laughing out loud to myself as I thought about my Mam and the delight that would be upon her when she saw the nice boy had come back home again.
I didn’t pay it any attention, not then, when I saw the little girl running up ahead of me as I came out of the high hay field and started running along the towpath, past the backs of the bungalow houses and up towards the bridge where the old warehouses and the derelict buildings start.
It was just a girl, that’s all, just some little kid who was running, running like she was playing tick or hide-and-seek with the rest of her friends who were probably hiding somewhere in the high hay field.
She just went running off and I started slowing down, trying to get my breath back now as I walked up to the edge of the canal, up to the exact same spot where we’d done the flytrapping, exact same spot where I’d dived in on that day when I’d disappeared. The water was all lit up on its surface and sparkling golden in the early evening sun; and I knew the water was happy because the Wrong Boy was coming back to where he belonged. And I knew that I was right and that once it had the Wrong Boy back, the canal would gladly give up its captive in return. I knew that the nice boy would soon be free, soon be coming back up again, smiling and normal and nice, from out of the canal.
And that’s why I did it. I waited until I’d got all my breath back. I looked up and down the towpath to make sure nobody was coming and that the little girl and her friends weren’t around any more.
And then I stepped back and I ran towards the canal, leaping up into the air and clutching hold of my knees like I was doing a depth charge. I heard the car coming over the canal bridge, heard it just before I hit the water. But then I couldn’t hear anything any more as I hit the water and started sinking down into the silence; down, down, down …
And I knew I was right. I knew that I’d been right all along. Everything was just the same as I’d remembered it, beneath the waters of the canal, everything undisturbed and exactly as it was before. I reached out and there in the dark murky water, exactly where I knew it would be, was the rusted supermarket trolley and the weeds that had grown around it. I was right, everything was just the same. And even though I couldn’t see anything, I kept my eyes wide open and then, just ahead of me, just where I knew he’d be, I saw something slowly coming into focus. And then he was there! There where I knew he would be, the nice boy, just sat there quietly on the bed of the canal, and smiling slightly like he’d just been sat there patiently waiting for me all this time. And I waved back at him then and I smiled as I started to swim towards him. And at first I thought there must be something holding me back because even though I was moving my arms and thrashing my legs and swimming towards the nice boy, I didn’t seem to be moving at all. I pulled at my tee shirt and pulled at my pants but nothing seemed to be snagged or caught at all so I tried to swim even harder and made my strokes even stronger but still I wasn’t getting any nearer to the Nice Boy. And then the worst thing happened because the Nice Boy slowly turned and he looked at me straight in the eyes. He smiled at first. But then he raised his hand and slowly waved at me; and he started to move away! Started to disappear like he was fading away, back into the darkness of the water. And I couldn’t bear it then, I couldn’t believe that I’d got so close only to lose him again. And I opened my mouth, trying to shout, trying to scream and let him know that I was there and that he could go back up to the surface and be set free for ever. But the more I tried to shout, the more the dark water rushed into my mouth and up my nose and into my belly and all around my head where it was swirling and swooshing and making my arms and legs lose all the life in them and start to feel like wobbly jelly. And the last I saw of him, the Nice Boy, he was gliding away effortlessly swimming like a silver fish, away into the further waters of the canal.
I can’t really remember too much of what happened after that. I was vaguely aware of being in the open air again and a blue light flashing and being dragged and then carried, then something pushing down hard on my back and squeezing my chest into the ground. And I heard bits of voices with panic and urgency in them. And the next thing I knew was waking up and seeing white lights above me and smelling that smell which told me that I must be in a hospital. Then I saw a person in a uniform looking down at me and smiling as he shook his head and said something about I was bloody lucky that they’d been coming over the bridge at that very moment.
He was nice to me, that policeman. He said I could call him Dave. ‘And my mate here,’ he said, ‘this is Eric.’
I turned my head and looked at him, Eric. All his uniform was saturated. He nodded at me and he said, ‘That’s right, I was the one who pulled y’ out. So listen,’ he said, ‘that’s the end of your pocket money for a while, isn’t it? You’re gonna have to buy me a new uniform, Raymond.’
He was smiling at me though; they were both smiling at me and I knew that it was just a joke. I tried to tell them then, but my voice was all croaky and my throat felt like it had just been sandpapered and Eric had to ask Dave what it was I’d said. The other one frowned and said, ‘I don’t know; something about the wrong boy?’
I started nodding my head then and trying to tell them that they’d rescued the wrong boy out of the canal. But they couldn’t understand what I was trying to tell them because Eric said, ‘Has someone been bullying you, Raymond?’
I just shook my head. And then the nurse came and told the policemen that there was a cup of tea for them in the nurses’ room.
Dave reached out and ruffled my hair then and Eric winked at me. And they both said I’d be all right and then told me tarar. They were n
ice to me that night, Eric and Dave. Everybody was nice to me.
The nurse was smiling down at me and she said, ‘Raymond. Hello, Raymond. Look who’s come to see you, Raymond. Look who’s here.’
And that’s when I saw my Mam looking down at me and her face was all stricken with the grief of it. And all that she could say was ‘Son! Son, son.’
And I didn’t want her to be all upset and grieving about everything. I wanted to cheer her up. And even though it made my throat hurt, I managed to speak to her and I told her, ‘It’s all right … you don’t have to worry … Mrs Marks.’
She looked like she’d been smacked across the face when I said that. But I told her, ‘No, it’s all right … don’t worry. You don’t have to worry, not about me … Because I’m not your son. Your son’s still in the canal, Mrs Marks. And all I am … is the Wrong Boy!’
I tried to smile at her then but it didn’t seem to cheer her up at all because she put her hand up to her mouth as she slowly staggered back and leaned there up against the wall. That was when I heard the nurse as she comforted my Mam and sat her down and said something about me being slightly delirious and confused and it was to be expected because of what I’d been through and then they’d had to put tubes down my throat to get rid of all the putrid water. But everything would be better in the morning, the nurse said, because they were giving me something to help me sleep and then I’d be brighter and I wouldn’t be confused no more.
But I wasn’t confused in the first place. I knew exactly what was happening and what was going on. I knew that I was still fat and friendless. I knew that it hadn’t worked. I knew that I was still the Wrong Boy!
But listen, Morrissey, I’m not able to tell you any more about that right now because the coach has just pulled in and I’ve got to get on board. I want you to know though, Morrissey, that that’s all I was doing, that night when I went back to the canal; I was just looking for him, that’s all. Just looking for the boy who’d got lost in the canal and never came back up. They tried to make out it was something else. But it wasn’t, Morrissey. I know it must seem mad, believing that you’re the Wrong Boy and jumping into the canal. But back then, back in that year when I got lost somewhere and couldn’t find myself, it didn’t seem like it was remotely mad at all. It just seemed perfect. And I was never doing what they said I was doing. I wasn’t trying to dispose of myself at all. It was the opposite of that. I was trying to find myself, trying to release the boy who’d got trapped under the surface and had to stay there for four weeks or more, waiting, just waiting for the Wrong Boy to return so that the right boy could be free again.
They didn’t believe me though.
They said I’d got frightened because of what I’d done to Paulette. They said I couldn’t live with the guilt of it and that’s why I’d tried to kill myself. But I didn’t even know who she was. It’d just been some little girl, that’s all, just some little girl who I’d half noticed, running up ahead of me. I didn’t know she’d been lost and frightened, her mind full of warnings and stories about the badness of the place in which she found herself, a place where there lurked a creature as terrifying as the Troll in the Three Billy Goats Gruff, a creature that she knew in her head as the Filthy Beast Boy. And in her panic, in her moment of dread, the little girl had heard a noise in the distance; and turning her head, looking down the towpath, she’d seen exactly what she knew she would see, seen something heading straight towards her, seen the Filthy Beast Boy pounding down the towpath, coming to get her, just like she’d been told he would in the hushed half-warnings and the whispers: the Filthy Beast Boy.
But I’d hardly even noticed her because all I’d been concerned about was trying to find my way back to being the nice boy. I never knew that she’d been running for her life. Because I never heard the whimpering sounds she made or saw the frantic terror in her face or the wild panic in her eyes and the tears that streamed down from them as she tried to escape the clutches of the Beast Boy.
As I found the spot I’d been looking for and prepared to leap into the dark waters of the canal, I didn’t know that just a couple of hundred yards further up from me, a terrified little girl was crawling through a tiny gap in the boarded-up doorway of the disused warehouse in a frantic effort to find a hiding place from her tormentor. And as I was jumping into the water, I didn’t hear the scream of the little girl as her foot found the place where the floorboards had been stripped away by various vandals or broken up and burnt by occasional homeless souls in search of some warmth in the winter.
I never knew, as I was sinking down into the murky waters of the canal, that a little girl was also sinking down, down into the dark vaults of the disused warehouse. I never knew a single thing about any of that. Not till later. Not till I got out of the hospital; and heard, for the very first time, the name of Paulette Patterson.
Yours sincerely,
Raymond Marks
From the Lyric Book of Raymond James Marks
Paulette Patterson was only eight; but already she had sad and ancient eyes.
Though there were some who mistook the look, saying it came as no surprise
That ‘poor little Paulette’ was turning out like her brothers and sisters had done:
‘A touch slow’, ‘a bit backward’, ‘a few currants short of a proper hot-cross bun’.
‘Harmless!’ they agreed, and ‘pretty as a picture’, ‘polite’, and ‘always well-meant,
As if what God had denied her in wit, he’d made up for in temperament’,
But Paulette Patterson wasn’t ‘backward’; just sad and a bit dreamy, that’s all;
Sat at the table with her colouring book as her mam began yelling from the hall,
Warning their Darryl he’d be fuckin’ dead if he didn’t find his shoes,
And telling Paulette to stop arsin’ about and be some soddin’ use!
Paulette put down the blue crayon she’d pinched from the crayon box in school
As her mam began to scream at their Darryl, calling him a fucking fool
And saying if he didn’t shape his stupid arse and get his shoes on, now!
She’d belt him into the back of next week. ‘And as for you, you stupid cow!’
She told Paulette, struggling to help her brother put his shoes on,
‘Get his pushchair and get him strapped in. Come on, get a bloody move on.’
Paulette, as obedient as ever, went and fetched the pushchair,
Lifting her wriggling brother into it as she asked her mother where
She was going and would she be long and what time would she be back.
But Paulette’s mother, deaf to her daughter, told Darryl he’d get another smack
If he carried on kicking and carrying on. She told Paulette to fasten his straps.
Doing up the buckles, as she’d been told, Paulette asked her mother if perhaps
She could come too. And then she could be a big help to her mother,
If she could come she could help with the shopping, help look after her brother.
But Paulette’s mother shook her head, ‘He’ll be home soon. An’ he’s not got his key.’
Paulette looked up and told her mother, ‘Why don’t you leave our Darryl with me?
I could look after him; he’d be all right and you wouldn’t have to bother with the pram.
You could leave him here, do the shopping on y’ own. Why don’t y’ do that, mam?’
‘Because, stupid!’ her mother scorned, ‘I’m takin’ Darryl to town for a haircut.
So you just keep your nose out of it, you! Just keep your little mouth shut!’
Paulette watched in silence as her mam pushed the pushchair over the step and out of the door,
Telling their Darryl if he didn’t stop crying she’d really give him what for.
And Paulette knew she had to do what her mam said and wait in the house for her dad;
She went and sat back at the kitchen table, picked up her crayons and her colouring pa
d.
But the chill in the house made her milk teeth chatter, her lips were blue and her fingers shook
Till Paulette could barely hold the blue crayon against the page of the colouring book.
It was dark in the house but outside it was summer. It was cold in the house but outside in the sun
Bumble-bees bumbled and butterflies buttered the buttercups, cats napped and spiders spun.
Paulette got up and looked out of the window and decided it really wouldn’t do much harm.
She could tell her mam she only went for a walk to make herself warm, just to get warm.
And she could tell her mam she’d not forgotten her father who’d gone off to work without his key,
And that’s why she’d left the door on the latch, so her dad could still get in, you see?
And Paulette wouldn’t stay out that long anyway. She only intended just walking around
Till the sun did its business and made her feel warmer, till her mam and their Darryl got back from town.
Paulette Patterson left the house between about three thirty and three forty-five
Or perhaps slightly later, said the neighbour who’d been polishing his car in the drive.
Mrs Machonochie who worked in the bread shop said definitely; and the reason she was sure
It couldn’t possibly have been any later was that sharp, every day, she knocked off at four.
And it was her last customer who’d pointed and said, ‘It takes me back, that, to when I was a girl,
Skipping down the cut in the long summer holidays, not a worry in your head, not a care in the world.’
And the man with the corgi said he was certain it was her, she’d stopped to give the dog a stroke.
Yes, she was wearing a pale green dress and the strap on one of her sandals was broke.
Sandra Mitchell had stopped on the hill, she was jiggered with the heat and pushing the pram.
When she’d seen Paulette, asked where she was going, Paulette had said, ‘The park to pick flowers for my mam.’
The Wrong Boy Page 14