The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

  And instead of my Mam being stood there, it was him stood there, standing right between me and the telly so that I had to move my chair to see it properly.

  He pulled over another chair and sat down beside me then. I thought maybe he wanted to watch Emmerdale with me. But he started talking. Straight away he started talking. He said, ‘Raymond, I’m afraid your mum’s not going to be able to come in and see you tonight. She did want to, Raymond. But in the circumstances, I managed to persuade her that erm … well, it might be better if I came and saw you this afternoon instead.’

  He was looking at me. But I was still watching Emmerdale. Then I felt it, his hand on my arm. I looked at him then.

  And his voice became all grave and suitably solemn as he said, ‘It’s your Gran, Raymond.’

  I looked at him. I said, ‘What’s my Gran?’

  He sort of sighed a bit and frowned as he said, ‘Your Gran, she’s gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’ I said.

  He looked down at the carpet. ‘Gone, Raymond,’ he said. ‘She’s gone.’

  I felt it coming up from somewhere deep inside me. And then I felt it breaking out all over my face; this big smile. When he looked up at me again he had this severe frown on his face.

  ‘Raymond,’ he said, ‘did you hear what I just said? Your Gran … has gone. Do you understand what I’m saying, Raymond?’

  I nodded. And then turned back and stared at the telly again. Only I wasn’t seeing Emmerdale any more. All I could see was this picture of my Gran legging it down the drive of Stalybridge Sanctuary for Seasoned Citizens, legging it like mad with everyone chasing her, clowns and comedians and hearty folk singers, all the chirpy nurses, with balloons in their hands and red noses on their faces as they legged it down the drive, trying to catch my Gran. But they didn’t stand a chance, because my Gran was too swift for them and went hurtling down the drive and into the road just as the bus appeared; the big black bus with the sombre tyres, swerving in and slowing slightly as the extremely elegant frock-coated conductor with the long white hair leaned down from the platform, his arm outstretched as my Gran leaped and seized it and was pulled up onto the big black bus. And the two of them stood there together on the platform as the bus picked up speed and roared off up the road, leaving behind for ever the cheery chirpy nurses with their bright red noses, the hearty folk singers and all the peddlers of fun.

  Then the big black bus was approaching me, passing the place where I was stood. And it slowed for a second, just for a second. And they were there, waving to me from the platform, my Gran waving and smiling at me; with Thomas Hardy, the Master of Misery, by her side.

  ‘Did you hear me, Raymond?’ he said. ‘I’m afraid your Gran has passed away.’

  I nodded then. ‘I know,’ I said, ‘she’ll be very glad about that.’

  He just looked at me. Then he sighed as he got up. He stood there looking at me. He was blocking the telly again though and I had to move my chair again. He sighed and shook his head. And he said, ‘Your mum was hoping you’d be fit enough to attend the funeral.’

  It seemed all wrong really; somewhere at the back of my head, it just seemed wrong, everybody dressed up like that and having a funeral for my Gran. It was a good job she was dead! That’s what I said to them, in the back of the big black limousine; I said, ‘It’s a good job my Gran’s dead, isn’t it?’

  They all glanced at each other; apart from Mark and Sonia, who were still sat there staring at me like they’d been staring at me ever since I’d got into the car.

  Mr Wilson patted me on the arm and said, ‘It’s all right, Raymond.’ Then he smiled at my Uncle Jason and my Aunty Paula who were sitting facing us.

  And he said, ‘Don’t mind Raymond. It’s bound to be somewhat strange for him today. You have to remember he’s not used to being out in a normal environment.’

  My Uncle Jason glared at me and my Aunty Paula shot me a nervous glance. Then she said, ‘It’s very good of you, Mr Wilson … Ted. It’s very good of you. It’s not everyone who’d do this. Because it’s a big responsibility, isn’t it, when they’re like that.’

  She nodded at me, without looking at me. And Mr Wilson said, ‘Well, it’s not such a huge responsibility, Paula. Raymond and me, we understand each other and we get along just fine; don’t we, Raymond?’

  I nodded.

  And he smiled at my Aunty Paula as he told her, ‘Normally, you see, the hospital would have insisted upon one of the nurses being in attendance. But Raymond’s consultant didn’t consider that necessary, on the strict condition that he would remain in my care for the day.’

  ‘Well yes,’ my Aunty Paula said, ‘because they’d trust you, wouldn’t they, Mr Wilson. You see, a man like you, they know, the authorities, don’t they, they know that you understand all this stuff, don’t you, with the mind and that?’

  Mr Wilson smiled again.

  I leaned forward and looked across at my Mam who was sat there on the other side of him. She looked so sad and sorrowful, but still lovely though; my Mam, all dressed in black. She didn’t look back at me though. She was just staring somewhere far off out of the window. And I knew she must be thinking about my Gran, who’d been her Mam; and now my Mam didn’t have a mam any more. And I didn’t have a gran.

  I just leaned back in my seat again.

  And I said, ‘It’s a good job she’s dead, isn’t it?’

  But my Uncle Jason blew a big huffy sigh and said, ‘For Christ’s sake, can’t somebody bloody shut him up!?’

  ‘Raymond!’ I heard my Mam quietly tell me.

  So I just sighed and sat there saying nowt, watching Moronic Mark as he leaned into his dad and tried to whisper.

  We all heard it though, everybody heard him saying, ‘Our Raymond’s mad, isn’t he, Dad, he’s mad.’

  My Aunty Paula tried to tell him to be quiet and just look out the window at the scenery.

  But Wilson felt compelled to get involved and told him, ‘We try not to use words like that, Mark, words like “mad”. Your cousin is poorly, Mark, certainly. But being poorly in the mind, Mark, that deserves just as much sympathy, as much understanding, as somebody who is physically poorly.’

  Moronic Mark just gawped at Wilson and shrunk back into his dad as he tried to work out whether he was being bollocked or just patronised to death. My Aunty Paula laughed her nervous laugh and came to his rescue, saying, ‘Oh that’s what he meant, Mr Wilson; didn’t you, Mark? You meant Raymond was poorly, didn’t you?’

  But by now Moronic Mark didn’t know what he meant, so he just carried on gawping as another awkward silence ensued.

  And I said, ‘So it’s a good job, isn’t it, because if my Gran wasn’t dead, she wouldn’t be coming to this funeral, would she?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ my Uncle Jason declared. ‘I don’t know if I can put up with much more of this, y’ know!’

  My Mam said, ‘Raymond!’ again. So I tried to remember to be quiet.

  Sickening Sonia was looking at me. And I just smiled at her. But she moved up closer to her mam and whimpered, ‘He’s looking at me, Mummy. He keeps looking at me.’

  I just kept smiling at her though. Somewhere at the back of my head I could remember that she sickened me and I couldn’t stick her. But she didn’t seem to bother me now. Like nothing seemed to bother me any more, even the funeral for my Gran. I knew they shouldn’t be doing it, giving my Gran a Christian burial. I knew I should be shouting at them all really and telling them it was a blasphemy, having a church service when my Gran had always hated the church and said it was nowt but a font of false hope and fantasy for the faint-hearted. And my Gran never wanted a funeral neither because my Gran always said she just wanted to be put in a biodegradable box and buried beneath a majestically melancholic oak tree.

  And that’s why I was glad she had gone; because I knew she wouldn’t know anything about it, this funeral they were giving her; so it didn’t matter, none of it mattered. That’s why I just did what I was told,
did what they said I should do, went where they said I should go.

  And the only thing I said about it all, as we sat there in the back of the funeral car, was, ‘Well, I’m glad for my Gran and it doesn’t really matter what kind of a box she’s in, does it, because she’s off with the Master of Misery now and so she’s probably ecstatically unhappy.’

  Only that’s when my Uncle Jason erupted, saying he’d had enough, when he waved his finger at me and told my Mam that if she couldn’t shut me up then he was stopping the funeral car and I’d have to walk the rest of the way to the church.

  My Mam quietly told him I wasn’t walking anywhere.

  So my Uncle Bastard Jason started kicking off at my Mam then, saying he shouldn’t be expected to put up with all this when he was in such grief and mourning for the loss of his beloved mother.

  And I don’t know what it was that made me remember; I don’t know if it was my Uncle Bastard Jason shouting at my Mam or whether it was the way he was pretending to be sad about my Gran when all his life he’d never done nowt but scrounge and cheat and take from her. Like he took her satellite dish! And that’s what made me remember, made me remember about that freezing cold night when I’d been back in Failsworth and I’d gone to my Gran’s house. Only it hadn’t been my Gran’s house, not any more. Because there was a new porch and people partying inside. And stuck there in my Gran’s garden had been a For Sale sign; with the word SOLD pasted right across it.

  ‘So anyway’, I said, ‘it is a good job she’s dead because—’

  ‘Right! That’s it!’ my Uncle Jason snapped. ‘I’m stopping this car, I bloody am! I’m too distressed for this. I’m stopping this car and he can get out and walk.’

  But I just carried on and said, ‘Because if she wasn’t dead, my Gran’d be a homeless person. Because she wouldn’t have anywhere to live any more, would she?’

  I stared at them, my Uncle Jason and my Aunty Paula, who were both sat there now, each one of them staring back at me like two kids who’d been caught in the Kwiky with their pockets full of Mars bars.

  ‘Not now,’ I said, ‘not now that my Gran’s house was sold while she was in Stalybridge Sanctuary for Seasoned Citizens!’

  They were staring at me, staring like a pair of rabbits caught in the headlights. But Mr Wilson intervened then and said, ‘Come on now, Raymond, just try and be quiet for a while.’ Then he beamed a smile at my Uncle and my Aunty and told them it would soon be time for my next medication.

  ‘You can always tell,’ he explained, ‘just from Raymond’s behaviour you can always tell when he’s due for his next dose; he starts slipping into repetitive speech patterns again, and generally making less and less sense.’

  My Aunty Paula quickly nodded her head and said, ‘I suppose that’s what we’ve got to remember, isn’t it, Ted? It’s a sickness after all, isn’t it? I suppose he doesn’t even know what he’s saying himself half the time, does he?’

  I could see them then, my Uncle and my Aunty, relaxing like they’d just wriggled off the hook again. And they might just have swam away and all. Wilson was explaining to them about my condition, telling them that one of the problems is that sufferers often experience paranoid delusions and make all kinds of accusations. And the thieving pair of them thought they’d got away with it then.

  Only that’s when my Mam bent forward in her seat and stared at me, her brow all creased up in puzzlement.

  And ignoring Wilson and the others, she asked me, ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘Shelagh,’ Wilson interrupted my Mam, ‘don’t get upset, he doesn’t really know what he’s—’

  But my Mam ignored him and she said, ‘Say that again, Raymond, about your Gran’s house.’

  Everybody was looking at me then. And it was like I was on Blockbusters with Unbearable Bob and everybody looking at me and waiting to see if I could answer the question.

  But that’s when I started to get a bit panicky; and began to wonder if it was just like the Lerts all over again, not real, just something in my head, and perhaps my Gran’s house hadn’t been sold at all; because maybe it was like Mr Wilson said and it was nearly time for my medication, so that’s why I was starting to hate him again, my Uncle Bastard Jason.

  That’s why, instead of saying anything more to my Mam, I just shrugged instead. And my Bastard Uncle shook his head, like he was being all sympathetic and considerate as he sighed and said, ‘It must be hard though, mustn’t it, when y’ can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s just tricks in the mind.’

  He shook his head some more.

  And Mr Wilson said I’d be fine as soon as I’d had my medication. Then he was explaining, telling my Uncle Jason how the drugs acted as an inhibitor and kept everything suppressed within my brain so that I remained levelled out and calm. He nodded, my Uncle Jason, nodded like he was interested. But I could tell, I could tell that even my Uncle Bastard Jason was being bored to bits by Mr Wilson.

  That’s when it first started coming back into my mind again, for the first time in ages, about Wilson being a Lert. And I sat there thinking that with a bit of luck, Wilson might just be able to bore my Uncle Jason to death.

  But before there was even a chance of that happening we were at the church and all of us getting out of the car. And as I stood there on the pavement, that’s when my Mam, looking as sad as a woman of constant sorrow, stepped forward, quickly linked her arm through mine, and said, ‘Come on, son; let’s you and me walk into church together.’

  And I was made up with that, because I wanted to be with my Mam.

  But he said, Mr Wilson said, ‘Shelagh! Shelagh, he’s got to have his medication.’

  My Mam looked even sadder then. And she frowned and said, ‘It’ll only be an hour or so. It can wait just an hour, can’t it?’

  He looked at my Mam, Mr Wilson, looked at her as if she was a very very stupid child sort of person.

  So my Mam nodded then. And slipped her arm from mine. And she walked into the church on her own as Mr Wilson led me into the vestry and ran some water from the tap so that I could take my tablets.

  He said it was very important, Mr Wilson said; it was extremely important that I took my medication at exactly the right time every day; because it was all about maintaining the balance, he said; it’s the imbalance, the chemical imbalance within the brain, he said, that’s what causes everything to go out of kilter.

  ‘And on a day that’s as naturally stressful as this, Raymond,’ he said, ‘we don’t want you having to cope with more than is absolutely necessary, do we?’

  I shook my head and he handed me the cup of water as he went fiddling in his pockets to find my tablets.

  I liked taking my tablets, anyway. I didn’t feel things when I took my tablets. And I didn’t want to start feeling things, and imagining things; and having strange funny things start happening to me again.

  So I don’t even know why I did it really!

  But I think it might have been something to do with my Mam; and seeing her having to walk into the church all on her own, without me.

  He put the tablets carefully into my hand. Then he stood there watching me as he said, ‘Go on then, Raymond. You take those, then we can go inside and join the others.’

  And I was just lifting up my hand, about to swallow my tablets, when he walked in, the new young vicar, and said, ‘Hello there. Is everything all right in here?’

  He turned around quick, Mr Wilson, saying, ‘Hello, vicar. Yes, absolutely fine. Raymond here just needed a drop of water for his tablets. How are you?’ he said, walking over to shake the vicar’s hand.

  The two of them stood there then, with Mr Wilson asking the vicar how he was finding his new parish and was he settling in in Failsworth.

  That’s when I realised that they both had their backs to me. And that’s when I saw he’d left the tap running in the sink. And as he stood there talking with the vicar, I just flicked them really; just flicked the tablets into the sink and stood t
here watching them as they dissolved away and disappeared down the plughole. I was staring at the sink, wondering why I’d done it.

  But then he was turning round again so I took a gulp of water out of the cup as if I was washing down my medication.

  He said, ‘All right, Raymond? All done?’

  I just nodded. And he reached out, took the cup out of my hand and swilled it under the tap.

  ‘Come on then, Raymond,’ he said. ‘This way.’ And he took hold of my arm and started leading me out of the vestry and into the church.

  And that’s when I began to get worried. Because the chemicals in my brain would all start to go out of balance now, without my medication. I started to feel really panicky and wonder why I’d done such a stupid thing. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me.

  But then we were in the church and he was leading me down to the front and into one of the pews. But it wasn’t the same pew as the one where my Mam was sat; me and Mr Wilson were sat behind her where a few of my Gran’s friends from the Positive Pensioners were sat.

  My Mam turned round and pointed to the spare place next to her. But Mr Wilson leaned across and whispered, ‘He’ll be better here with me, Shelagh, at the end of the pew. Then if I need to take him out we won’t be disturbing anybody.’

  My Mam stared for a second. And then slowly nodded as she turned back to face the front. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be with my Mam, alongside her. I said to Mr Wilson, ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I won’t need to go out. I want to go an’ sit there. I want to sit by my Mam.’

  I was getting up. But he got hold of my arm and he was holding onto it dead tight.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ he said. He was smiling at me. ‘Come on now, Raymond,’ he said, ‘you sit down.’ He was pulling me then. ‘You just sit down here with me and everything will be all right.’

  That’s when I noticed it, branded across his forehead, the word Lert. That’s when I knew I should have taken my medication. Because the Lerts were coming back again. Things were starting to happen to me again. I was starting to feel really panicky. So I thought I’d better just do what he said and sit back down.