by Liz Jensen
Back in the living-room, Freddy has woken and is watching the DVD. I pause it – he doesn’t object – and I slide Sunny Chen’s suicide drawings on to the coffee table in front of him without comment. Then I press record on my little machine and wait.
His eyes quickly scan the page, left to right, top to bottom, and then back the other way, tracking the circle of the necklace, the ‘all-seeing’ eye and the neat little hand-print in the bottom right corner.
I say, ‘Who drew this?’
‘One of us.’
Freddy puts his own hand over the print. It’s a perfect fit.
‘Who’s us?’
He shrugs. ‘Us is us.’
‘Children?’ He nods.
‘And what about this shape here?’ I pull the necklace out of my jacket pocket and put it on the table next to the drawing. ‘You made this for Stephanie. From papier mâché. It’s just the same, see?’
‘It’s bones.’
‘What do you mean, bones?’
I recognise the shudder that runs through his body because I’ve seen it before. It denotes a mental switch. ‘Why are we talking about bones? You’re being a weirdo, Hesketh.’
‘But Freddy K, you just said—’
He slams the crayon down. ‘Why are you asking me all this blibber-blobber? All this lap-sap? What’s the matter with you?’
Blibber-blobber is a Freddy-word. Lap-sap is not. Jonas Svensson used it. He called me a ‘fucking grown-up’ and ‘fucking lap-sap.’ This can’t be a coincidence.
‘Freddy K, Freddy K, Freddy K. Because I want to know the answers.’ I don’t care how angry he gets. I need to get him out of this.
‘Well I like it better when you just shut up and don’t say anything, freakman!’ He tips out all the pencils and they roll across the table.
‘So the other kids. Where are they now?’
‘How should I know?’ Is he angry because he can’t remember, or because he’s confused? Or both? ‘They’re everywhere!’
I’d like to switch him off and then switch him back on again, forcing a basic reconfigurement. He’s still Freddy, but he’s not functioning normally.
Is he still Freddy?
Would I stake my sanity on it?
I go online. There are almost too many options to choose from on the BBC’s home page. Follow us on Twitter. Send us your stories and pictures. Crisis Helpline numbers. Watch live CCTV feeds from your area. Worldwide, the attacks by children have lessened due to increased vigilance on the part of parents, but the UK government has urged all families with young children to observe the curfew and remain on the alert. It’s estimated that as many as one family in four is affected. Religious leaders are appealing for calm, and urging their followers to pray for the children.
There is nothing from the ophthalmologist in my inbox, but the renal expert Ashok hired as a consultant has sent her response to Svensson’s autopsy. In it, she reports that firstly, Svensson’s eye infection at the time of death is highly unlikely to be related to his renal anomaly. Multiple kidneys, she writes, are by no means unprecedented. The phenomenon is documented to be increasing globally, particularly in coastal regions. A recent (disputed) hypothesis points to an ‘evolutionary shift’ to cope with increased salt levels due to the Earth’s accelerated water cycle, as already documented in many animal species. However, it is noteworthy that the subject’s two supernumerary kidneys are significantly smaller, and in significantly better condition, than the ‘parent’ kidneys, which are unremarkable for a male of this age.
Unless the other autopsies show similar anomalies, this information is unlikely to shed any light on matters, but I forward the mail to Professor Whybray, Ashok and Stephanie anyway.
Naomi Benjamin has sent me Battersea’s standard admission form: it points out my legal requirement, as parent or guardian of the child, to accompany him slash her to and from the Care Unit according to the schedule agreed by the Manager on arrival. The parent slash guardian must agree to supply the child’s doctor’s name, address and practice code in order to obtain his slash her medical dossier. Recent height and weight measurements of the child should also be provided if possible. Each day-visiting child will be provided with two uniforms. NB. Adult volunteers are welcome, especially those with medical skills or a background in psychology.
Freddy’s height chart is still in the kitchen, with little Post-its showing his age and weight on certain dates. Kaitlin used to record it every six months: on his birthday in January and his ‘half-birthday’ in July. Not for the first time, I wonder about his biological father. Whenever that happens, my heartbeat alters pace. How could a man opt out of his responsibilities in this way?
Or did Kaitlin never tell him?
The former is wrong. The latter is immoral.
Why can’t I be Freddy’s real father?
I fold three water-bombs.
While I’m completing the form, Stephanie calls again. She sounds exhausted, and describes her work with the family support group as ‘extremely distressing’. I tell her about Freddy’s behaviour, and the nature of our recent conversations. But she doesn’t probe deeper.
‘Are you avoiding him?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Since you ask.’ She sounds very tense.
‘Well that’s unfair. He’s just a boy.’
She sighs heavily. ‘Tonight I’ll come home and the three of us will talk.’
‘Good. We need to.’
For the rest of the day Freddy seems listless, and is mostly silent. I can’t lure him into conversation, so I let him watch four Dry Worlds in a row.
Stephanie comes home at six. Her eyes are red and when she takes off her jacket I can see her shoulder blades through her sweater.
‘Freddy’s in his bedroom,’ I tell her. She flops on to the sofa. ‘I’ll call him down.’
‘No. Don’t.’ Her voice is very flat. I can’t read her.
‘Why not?’
‘Hesketh, Freddy needs to leave.’
‘Why?’
‘Because when Kaitlin comes home, I don’t want him anywhere near her.’
‘That’s not for you to decide. He lives here. You can’t say that.’ I have not stopped hating her.
‘Yes I can.’
‘No. It’s up to Kaitlin. She can decide as soon as she wakes up. I’m going to call Freddy down,’ I say. ‘You need to see him.’
‘No!’ she says sharply, sitting up. ‘No. No. Not now. Hesketh. Listen to me. She’s not waking up. Ever. Not properly, anyway. It’s what they call a severe insult to the brain. Common in closed head injuries. It’s inoperable.’
She breaks down.
I watch as her body shudders with sobs. She reaches for a cushion and holds it against her belly, as though she has been shot there and is staunching the blood.
With some reluctance, I go and sit next to her, and deploy Ashok’s strategy. But I don’t feel comfortable with it. After a while, she recovers a little and apologises and relinquishes her cushion. I stop patting her bony shoulder and fetch her a glass of water; she thanks me for it and she drinks it down. Then she reaches in her handbag, hands me a transparent file of printed papers and abruptly disappears upstairs. A moment later I hear the bath running.
There are seven printed sheets. Normally when I am presented with any kind of text I scan it in its entirety, and memorise what I deem to be its crucial elements. But on this occasion I don’t read beyond the first set of bullet points. It is headed: Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: What to Expect. I think about Kaitlin’s brain. A brain I once enjoyed knowing, along with the body that housed it, but then stopped knowing: a brain now traumatically injured and severely insulted. Kaitlin’s brain is no longer the same. Personality changes often occur in patients who recover cognitive function.
Insult. The word – suggesting violent damage – is well chosen.
What happens to the rules of love when a person changes?
Are mother and son still the same people?
I will alwa
ys love Freddy, I will always love Freddy, I will always love Freddy.
Out of Page One I make a butterfly. And Page Two becomes a frog.
I will love him no matter what.
CHAPTER 10
Friday 28th September. I wake at 6.18. The net’s working. Forecast: partly cloudy skies, a low front shifting westward, slight chance of rain. High of sixteen, dropping to twelve at night. The ophthalmologist has sent me her analysis of the autopsy report: I make a mental note of the information it contains.
I’d anticipated speaking to Stephanie before Freddy wakes, but she has already left. There is a brief note on the kitchen table next to the butterfly and the frog informing me that she will return Kaitlin’s car tonight, after which it is mine. She signs it with an S, and a PS wishing me ‘all the best’.
People can be very unspecific, when they are distracted.
I unfold the two origami figures, read the information about brain injury and mentally file it. It’s geared to the non-medical reader, and neutral in tone. But when I rise from the table I’m aware of an extra weight on my shoulders. It’s a very physical and concrete sensation, like the pull of a fifteen-kilogram rucksack. This gives me pause for thought. For a man of my size, fifteen kilograms is bearable. I once loved Kaitlin. But Freddy’s love for her is active and current. So, I must presume, is Stephanie’s. Each, in their own way, is an unknown quantity: Freddy because his reality is inexplicably ‘suspended’, and Stephanie because I don’t know her well enough to be able to predict her reaction – though to judge from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s description of the grief cycle in her seminal work On Death and Dying, she is likely to go through a process similar to that of a bereavement, but with additional complexities stemming from the fact that Kaitlin is not actually dead. This process will doubtless involve the classic phases of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But in what combinations will these manifest, and in what order? I would expect her assessment mechanisms to be severely compromised and her volatility to increase. She has already expressed hostility to Freddy.
‘Which is irrational. Stephanie must realise that: she’s a psychologist. Her resentment has no logical foundation,’ I tell Ashok. I’ve managed to reach him on Skype. His hair, normally sleek with gel, is sticking up in odd tufts, giving him an agitated, vagrant look. He shakes his head.
‘That’s what the textbook says, Maestro. But like I’ve been trying to tell you, the rest of us are way off the page here. I’m ready to personally strangle those two little shits who just destroyed my sister’s entire life. And I’m feeling less forgiving with every hour that goes by. This is one fucked-up mess.’
‘You’re still a little manic, Ashok.’
‘Sure. Sure I’m manic. What the fuck. What else can I be?’
‘There are a number of options.’
‘Yeah, well you do your thing, Spock, and I’ll do mine. Either way, we’re operating in a whole new dimension here.’ In quantum mechanics, the most advanced theories are counter-intuitive, I think. ‘How’s Kaitlin?’ I tell him the prognosis. ‘Jeez man.’
‘Stephanie’s still with her in the hospital.’
‘I didn’t think you guys socialised.’
‘We don’t. But Stephanie and Kaitlin did. In a manner of speaking.’ I shut my eyes and tell him the rest, quickly and concisely. I am glad I practised it.
‘Wow. That’s some heavy stuff. Jesus, if I’d known, I’d never have sent her to Dubai.’
‘It worked out. I got to see Freddy.’
‘And you’re not regretting that?’
‘Why would I be?’ I don’t always understand Ashok.
‘Forget it. I need more coffee. Hang on in there.’ Ashok moves the laptop and I get to see the vast kitchen of his apartment, full of high-sided pots, cast-iron skillets, bamboo steamers, stainless-steel tongs, sieves, colanders and industrial-looking scales. I watch him load his espresso machine. ‘You heard about that plane crash in France this morning? Sabotage. It’s everywhere. It’s being played down. But it’s happening. You’ve seen the news. If you and Old Man Whybray are right, and this is one epidemic and not two, then we’re dealing with a whole new world out there. I mean, can you believe what those kids did? My own flesh and blood, for fuck’s sake!’ Manju walks in to say dinner’s ready and finds Amit bleeding to death on the carpet. The kids are just sitting on the sofa, watching, like he’s the TV. They’re drinking Coke and snacking on those mini-poppadoms. He’s gasping and then he’s dead. Snacking for Christ’s sake, like nothing’s wrong!’ A jet of steam shoots from his machine: he removes the coffee cup with a yell of irritation. ‘He wasn’t a bad dad. He took them on great holidays, bought them all the expensive crap they wanted. There’s no way he deserved having his throat cut with a fucking kitchen knife.’
‘It’s random. You know that.’
‘I know that. Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ He’s spilled his coffee and burned himself. He jumps about, yelling and flapping his hand. ‘Look at me. Jeez. This is nothing. Nothing! You think I’m manic? You should see Manju. She’s climbing the walls.’ He starts mopping up the coffee. ‘I took the kids to the Hendon Care Unit last night and handed them in. They’re keeping them full-time. Turns out they do special deals on what they call multiples. Manju won’t go visit them. Older kids say they never want to see them again. Our parents have this crazy idea about taking them abroad and starting over. But I’m telling you, they’ll feel differently when they see them in that Care Unit. Those places, Jeez man. Imagine a trip to a fucking zoo.’
‘What do you mean?’
He hunches his shoulders and swings his arms. ‘Picture the monkey cage. Hoo-hoo-hoo. These aren’t kids any more. They’re freaks from some other planet. Good luck working with Whybray. But any meetings, we’re holding them here at HQ. There’s no way I’m setting foot in one of those places again.’
Although Ashok has a tendency to exaggerate, I do recall Naomi Benjamin referring to the unit environment as ‘distressing’. Now I’m more keen than ever to observe the children for myself. The sight I caught of them on the screen in Dubai, milling about in their red uniforms, intrigued me.
If Freddy and I were going on a trip to the zoo, which is what Ashok has suggested I prepare for, I would take a bottle of water and my camera and a book about fauna in case the zoo’s labelling system was sub-standard or inadequately informative, as is so often the case.
‘Anyway what is this place?’ he asks.
I look up from the map: I can’t rely on my mobile’s GPS so I’ve been planning and memorising routes. ‘It’s called a Care Unit. It’s a place for kids who have to stay off school for a while. The ones whose parents or friends or family have had accidents like Mum did.’
‘Cool!’ When Freddy grins he sometimes looks like the Cornish pixie on page 392 of my illustrated compendium of supernatural traditions. Now is one of those times. There’s no repeat of his earlier, brief distress about Kaitlin. But I suspect it will come.
I can’t raise a taxi, so the only option is for me to walk and for Freddy to ride his small red bike. I took off the stabilisers and got him up and running as a cyclist just before I left. He got the hang of it very fast.
It’s a dull day, with thick wads of stratus cloud on the horizon, layered like insulation material. Apart from birdsong, it’s very quiet, with no planes overhead and very little traffic on the roads. Many cars are parked at skewed angles, as if abandoned in a hurry. On eight occasions a driver honks his horn at us. As we skirt the vast orange ziggurat of Sainsbury’s, a man behind the wheel of a huge lorry waves his arms angrily, as if to sweep us out of his line of vision. From a pedestrian point of view, the A308 is an unappealing stretch of road. Things improve on the A3220, but by the time Battersea Bridge comes into view, we are getting tired and Freddy starts to complain that his legs hurt, so I take the handlebars and stoop down to push him from behind. The rucksack weight of his comatose mother – my psychosomatic grief symptom – is still there. I wou
ld like to have a discussion with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross about the significance of this, and how she envisages it developing.
On Battersea Bridge we stop on the pedestrian walkway to sample the panorama. Freddy rests on his bike and stares, but makes no comment when I point out Albert Bridge to our left, downriver, the Physic Garden, and the Victorian lamp-posts that stud the bridge itself. The Thames is a dull brown, flecked with silver. I see a man on a roof scanning the horizon with binoculars, and make a mental note to start carrying my own. I estimate we are still 1.2 miles from our destination. No vehicles pass us, but there’s a cluster of human figures on the far side of the bridge, on the opposite walkway, heading for the north side of the river. As they come closer I make out three adults and a child. Two men, one woman. The child is a girl. I guess that like Freddy, she is being escorted. She is taller, but not much older. Ten perhaps.
Just as they are about to pass us, the child stops. She looks up and her hand flies to her brow, as if she is about to give a soldier’s salute. But it’s a fist she forms. Then quickly she opens up her hand like a stretched starfish with fingers splayed, then closes it again just as rapidly. Two seconds is all it takes. But it’s long enough for me to make a connection that tightens my throat and precipitates an intense storm of thought.
When I glance at Freddy he’s already returning the salute, closing his fist at eye level and then opening it.
Within seconds, the little group has passed us. I turn and stare at them. The girl doesn’t turn to look back, and Freddy is gazing at the river again.
‘Freddy K. That signal she gave you. That girl. You gave it back. What does it mean? What were you saying to each other?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I think of the ‘all-seeing eye’ on Sunny Chen’s drawings: an eye with rays emerging from it.
‘She signalled to you and you signalled back. Like this.’ I show him. Again and then again. My excitement is turning to agitation. I need an answer. Right now. ‘What does this mean, Freddy K? What does this signal mean?’ I may be shouting.