Summer Brother

by Jaap Robben

  “I see.” The unit manager tacks on a neutral smile. “Well then, that’s settled.”

  “Roping in parents to dig you out of a hole.” Dad twirls his car keys around his finger. “That’s what you get when you bring in cheap labour.”

  “Let me assure you, that is far from being the case,” Santos protests. “These are skilled craftsmen doing an excellent job. The contractor fully appreciates the urgency of the situation. Hence the fund for parents willing to help out.” He glances at his watch. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Chevalier. I will pursue the other avenues available.” He takes his leave with a barely perceptible nod. “Oh yes, and since Lucien’s mother is not contactable at present and we are unable to inform her of any alternative arrangements, would you mind if we kept you abreast of Lucien’s situation?”

  “Come again?”

  “Would you like to know when we have found a place for Lucien?”

  “Yeah-yeah-yeah,” Dad says. “Of course I would.”

  Santos pulls a pen from his shirt pocket and scribbles on a Post-It note crammed with other scribbles.

  “How much is in there, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “In where?”

  “That fund of yours. The contractor’s fund.”

  Santos flips open the binder and sticks the yellow note to the inside cover. “Many parents have had to take unpaid leave or give up their holidays in order to have their child at home. In light of the unforeseen expenses that often arise, the contractor has agreed to provide financial recompense.”

  Santos turns to leave again and Dad asks “So how much do they pay?”

  “It’s important to stress that this is a reimbursement, an allowance if you will.”

  “And how much would that be, then?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have the exact amount to hand. It depends on the length of the stay.”

  “A rough estimate will do.”

  “A little over two hundred and forty euros, if memory serves.”

  “Per?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Per month?”

  “No, per week.” Santos points in the direction of the entrance. “And now if you don’t mind, I really need to be getting on.”

  “The best care for my son, that’s the most important thing, right?”

  “That is always our top priority,” Santos nods. “It’s what our team works day and night to achieve.”

  Dad thrusts his hands in his pockets, then takes them out and crosses his arms again. “And if we were to take him for a while?”

  “That’s very kind of you. But there are still a number of external options I can explore on Lucien’s behalf.”

  “A month should be doable.”

  Santos looks a little dizzy. “But you indicated that you don’t have the room. And then there’s your work. And the fact that Lucien’s main bond is with his mother.”

  “I don’t show up here as often as I used to, but that’s her doing. Can’t let Lucien miss out on that score now, can we?”

  “I couldn’t agree more. A child should never bear the brunt of a parental conflict.”

  “At the end of the day, I am his dad, right? And this would be good for my boys, now, wouldn’t it?” Out of nowhere Dad grabs me by the neck and yanks me toward him. His knuckles ruffle my hair. “This one here’s got the whole summer off. What could be better for Lucien than that?” I squirm out of his grip.

  “If I may be frank,” says Santos taking a firmer tone, then hesitating. “The financial support I mentioned … may in no way form a motive for deciding to look after Lucien at home. And, umm …” He runs out of words.

  “Lucien is my son! And Bry’s on holiday. Care and attention guaranteed.”

  “But what about your work? Your son needs someone at his side constantly. Not to mention the domestic limitations you outlined …”

  “You took me by surprise. What kind of dad doesn’t have a bed for his own kid? I’d sleep out in the garden if I had to. And wouldn’t it be great for my boys to spend time with each other again?”

  Santos and Dad stand there, each waiting for the other one to speak.

  “So? Are we agreed?”

  Santos blanks Dad’s half of a handshake and fiddles with his papers. “I will have to consult on this internally. There are a few formalities to sort out first.” His neat, pink fingers pluck a sheet of paper from the binder. He scans the front, then turns it over. “Is your current telephone number in our system?”

  Dad recites the number and looks on as Santos jots it down.

  “Is the last number a seven or a one?” Dad asks.

  “Didn’t you say seven?”

  “This is a seven.” Dad pulls the pen from his hand and scrawls a great big seven over the final digit. “Just ask for Chevalier.”

  “Very well.” Now Santos does take the hand Dad offers him and shakes it briefly. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Dad plays it cool as we exit the car park and indicates as we turn onto the main road. At the next junction, he even eases up to let someone in. “What’s a couple of weeks?” he says softly, though there’s no one else to hear. “It’ll be good for the two of you, eh? And how much hassle can it be? Your brother’s in bed all day. Spoon a tub of applesauce into him every couple of hours, double helpings if he’s hungry. A little drink from his beaker now and then. They’ll draw us up a schedule. We can stick him under the shower if his nappy is full. Probably shits regular as clockwork, just sit him on the pot and let gravity do the rest. It’s not like he’s going anywhere. I’ll sort out a TV by his bed to keep him occupied the rest of the time and, hey presto, another day gone. Quick wipe with a facecloth, brush his little gnashers and then beddy-byes. Nothing to it, right?”

  “Hmm-hhh.”

  A pizza in the middle of the road turns out to be a rabbit. Birds fly up from its flattened insides as we get closer. The crows stay pecking the longest and are first back on the road once we’ve passed. If the rabbit’s only taken a knock, Dad usually brakes. That’s a sign for me to get out and check for insects crawling around its eyes. If there aren’t too many, I grab its ears or its hind legs and sling it into the back of the van. As soon as we’re home, it goes straight into the freezer for the dogs.

  Every mile or so we overtake a belching tractor or a ramshackle truck that’s missing a licence plate. All bound for barns in Saint Arnaque or the next village along. Leaning towers of hay bales bob and weave on rattling trailers. Dad parps his horn twice before we overtake. Behind the wheel of one of the trucks is a boy my age, too edgy to look to the side when we draw level.

  “We’ll show your mother a thing or two.”

  “What?”

  “Show her we can manage, the three of us. That I’m a decent father.” His free hand trails across the empty place on the front seat made for three.

  “Did you know Mum was going to marry Didier?”

  “If I’d known, you would have heard long ago.”

  My mother got married without me knowing. Maybe I was sat in the pickup at the petrol station fiddling with the radio. Maybe she said “I do” as I was biking home from school. Or jumping into the stream. Or reading a comic.

  There’s a groan of rubber as I grab the handle on the door and wind the window down.

  “Isn’t that right?” Dad yells as the wind rushes past my ears.

  “Yeah!” I shout back, though I’ve no idea what he’s on about.

  His knuckles slam into my left shoulder. “Bry?” Another thump. Same way as he belts a vending machine until a free can rolls out the bottom. He’ll keep on thumping until an answer rolls out of my mouth. “True enough, eh?” Thump.

  “You betcha!” I bawl.

  “You betcha,” Dad repeats and nods along with his own words. He goes on talking, but with my head stuck out the window I can
’t hear a thing.

  -

  3

  The flapping sole of my right shoe gobbles sand with every step. Dad has dropped me off so I can head to the caravan and fry us up some eggs while he drives down the road for chips. There’s rustling up ahead, so I keep still. It’s a scruffy sparrow tossing leaves about. Bathroom tiles peek out of the rubble under the bushes, where someone has dumped bundles of advertising leaflets. The prickly shrubs are hung with shreds of blue bin bag, its contents carried off on the wind. Across the stream, up through the broom bushes, and that’s me home. From the top of the slope, I can smell the bottle bank that stands where the main road skirts the rutted track to our turf.

  A strange car is parked outside our rusty gate. The man on the driver’s side looks down at his lap when my eyes catch his. I stroll on past. He opens his door and gets out. “Excuse me,” he calls. “I’m looking for Maurice.”

  “He’s not home.”

  White-and-blue checked shirt, crease in his trousers, and a braided leather belt. Pointy nose and thinning grey-black hair that looks like it’s been puffed up somehow. Don’t get many of his kind round here.

  “He does live here, doesn’t he?”

  “Depends.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Depends what you want him for.”

  “I understood he has a caravan for rent nearby.” He holds up the card we stuck on the supermarket noticeboard.

  “You’re not supposed to take that.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He looks at the card like he’s only just noticed he’s holding it. “I didn’t have anything to write on. I’ll be sure to put it back.”

  “Unless you rent the caravan. Then you won’t have to.”

  “It would only be temporary.”

  “Temporary …” I repeat. The pause you leave is more important than what you say. That’s one of Dad’s. I clock two removal boxes on the passenger’s side. The deep black of a television gleams between the seats. This gentleman’s in a bind. He can pay full whack.

  “How long do you want it for?”

  “That would depend on what it is you’re offering.”

  I shrug and feign a yawn to stretch the silence.

  “A couple of days …” the man says and shoots me a nervous look. “That would be enough.”

  “A couple of days?”

  “Longer would be more convenient. A few weeks, if possible. It’s all been a bit sudden.”

  “A few weeks, if possible …” I raise my eyebrows.

  Repeating stuff is important too, Dad says. Makes them think you’ve answered and it’s their turn to talk. “More use than anything you’ll learn at school. Follow my lead and you can clinch any deal. That’s what it’s all about. If you’re hard up for cash, first thing you do is talk the price down. That way you can fend for yourself if your old man snuffs it.” Dad likes asking questions and then giving the answer. “Always ask yourself: would you come and live here for the view? Of course you wouldn’t. Anyone who turns up here is out of options.” His story is in my head now, word for word. “We’re talking people with problems. No roof over their head and a good reason to steer clear of hotels and bungalow parks …” Dad has his tactics with tenants: leaving silences that need filling, mulling things over, making them think it’s all tricky-tricky-tricky. Looking around, playing for time. “Patience, patience,” he says, like it’s something I don’t have. “The sooner they open their mouth, the more rent you can get out of them.”

  By this time, we’ve walked a good way into the yard. “A month, maybe,” our gent says.

  “A month, you say?” I narrow my eyes and stare out across our turf with its old workmen’s huts, caravans, shipping containers, and the big iron shed that Jean and Brown Henri use as a garage. The rivets up the sides have nearly disappeared behind stacks of firewood, topped by sheets of corrugated iron that are weighed down by stones. Jean used to do the odd scrapyard run when we first moved here, but his Piaggio three-wheeler has spent the last two winters over by the fence with nettles growing up around its soft, cracked tyres.

  “Tricky, tricky,” I say. We only rent the one caravan but I try to look like I’m weighing up a ton of options, shake my head nice and slow. “Very tricky.”

  Our gent’s eyes stray to the cage in front of our caravan, and Rico and Rita just about bark themselves inside out. They take turns jumping up and snapping at the bars above them. Not keen on visitors, those two.

  This visitor crosses his arms tight across his chest. His eyes are on me but his mind is on the dog cage the whole time.

  “And Maurice?”

  “What about him?”

  “Should I wait for him? Perhaps he’ll know whether there’s something available?”

  “Maurice is my dad.”

  “And roughly what time do you think your father will be back?” I take a good look at his wristwatch. A gold hand the width of a hair glides past the seconds.

  “He’ll be a while yet.”

  “Shall I wait in the car? Or is there no point hanging around?”

  “A month, you say?”

  “If possible.”

  “Come with me. What’s your name?”

  “Emile,” he says, a little awkwardly. An angle grinder screeches in the garage. You can’t see Henri, just the fireworks sparking up the gloom.

  “I’m Brian.”

  “Are there any other children living here?”

  “Not really. How come?”

  “No reason.”

  “Turned sixteen the other week,” I lie myself three years older. “No kids round here.”

  “School holidays?”

  “Yeah, just started.”

  “And where do you live?”

  “There.” I point over my shoulder. “You got someone?” I ask to beat his next question. “Or are you on your own, like?”

  “That’s all a bit …” Emile raises one shoulder. “It’s all been a bit sudden.” For the first time he looks me straight in the eye, gives a shy smile. “Still, at least I have my fish.”

  “Fish?”

  “Nothing special, a small aquarium.” He shows me how small with the space between his hands.

  “Angelfish?”

  “No, nothing that fancy.”

  “You’ve got an aquarium in your car?”

  “Don’t worry, the fish can take it. In this heat it will be a while before the water cools, especially in the car. They should be all right,” he says, mainly to convince himself.

  “Can I see them?”

  “First, shouldn’t we …?” He points to the caravan for rent, standing with its back to an empty concrete swimming pool. “Is that the one?” Green gunk crawling up the sides. Stickers from theme parks and holiday islands, faded and peeling at the edges. Frayed little curtains at the windows.

  “Is it occupied?”

  “Not right now. We keep it free for people who need something temporary.”

  “What kind of people? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Different from you.” Dad didn’t tell me what to do with other people’s pauses. “A while back we had one of them Arafats with a headscarf for a wife and two kids in tow. They lasted a fortnight.”

  Emile nods absently.

  “The guy before that turned out to be a tax dodger. Did a bunk one night, left his coffee maker and everything. Dirty underpants on the floor, right where he dropped them.”

  “And?”

  “Never seen again.”

  “Oh.”

  “That was a year ago. We cleared out all his crap. Kept the coffee maker though.”

  “I’ve brought my own.”

  I show him how to open the door. The air that swamps us is thick and warm, the plac
e has been shut up too long. “Take a look around if you want.”

  With one foot on the aluminium threshold he pokes his head in, looks left, then right. There’s a bald patch the size of a beermat on the top of his head.

  “You’d see more with the light on.” An insulation strip drops off the side and I kick it under the caravan.

  “It’s only temporary,” he says, more to himself than to me. Emile shuts the door and then opens it again. Fiddles with the knob on the lock. “Is there a key?”

  “It only locks from the inside.”

  “Oh.”

  “But no one ever comes here except us.”

  Emile looks out across the yard.

  “Do you want to rent it or not?”

  He nods a “yes” that might be a “maybe” and could still be downgraded to “no.”

  “It’s got aircon.” Emile tries the lock again and looks at it from the inside. “My Dad will need to tinker with it. The aircon, I mean. Just minor repairs, like.” I point out the unit beside the storage box.

  “And your father won’t have a problem with my aquarium?”

  “Can’t see why.”

  “Should I wait till he comes? Or can I discuss the rent with you?”

  “Hundred a week,” I blurt out.

  “Oooh …”

  “No deposit.” I’m not really sure what a deposit is, but it’s what Dad always says. “And you pay up front.”

  “That’s a bit steep.” His eyes settle on my torn earlobe.

  “I used to have an earring.”

  He nods, but it’s like I’ve caught him out.

  “You can park over there. Any problems, just come and see us.”

  “Uh …”

  “You won’t find cheaper round here.”

  It’s not really our caravan. It belongs to two brothers who used to run a scrapyard here, the same guys who started building the swimming pool behind the caravan. Now the pool’s just a concrete pit with a carpet of dried-up gunge at the bottom. We’ve been renting out the caravan ever since the scrap merchants got banged up. I heard Henri say they used it whenever they had a girl over. Jean and Brown Henri have a share in the caravan, or that’s what they told us when we arrived two years ago. Dad didn’t have the money for that, but he gets a cut as long as he brings in the tenants, deals with any hassle, and sorts out any repairs that need doing. Plus he collects the rent and divvies up the cash.