Summer Brother

by Jaap Robben

  From there, I lower us until we’re lying flat out. That’s what me and Selma like best. Dad too. He lies there beside me, contented. When he opens his eyes and sees me looking at him, he doesn’t crack a joke or slam his fist against my shoulder. I almost want to hug him.

  “How are we going to get this thing inside?”

  “Never mind that, Bry. Fold us double one more time.”

  Two wheels on the pickup, the other two in the grass. Whatever we try, we can’t get the bed off the truck.

  Brown Henri must have seen us struggling and ambles over to see what’s going on. “Not a word about your brother,” Dad says. Jean is tagging along behind with his oxygen tank.

  “Bought yourselves a hospital bed?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Dad answers. “We’re going to leave it out here next to the fridge.”

  “Expecting an accident?”

  “Can’t be too careful.” Dad drags a few pallets aside, even though they’re not in the way. “Give us a hand, will you? That thing’s too heavy for Bry.”

  Jean peers at the stuff on the front seat of the pickup.

  “What’s all this for?”

  “We’re starting a hospital,” I say so they’ll lay off interrogating Dad.

  “Are you now?” says Jean. “Can’t say I’d fancy my chances as a patient.”

  “It’s for people with a death wish,” I say.

  Everybody chuckles.

  “The bed comes from a wholesaler.” My father’s eyes flash from Jean to Henri and back again. “He was looking to get rid of it, sharpish like, so I took it off his hands for a couple of tenners.”

  “Tenners?” Brown Henri inspects the underside of the bed like he does with his cars. “Bloody cheap.”

  “That’s what I thought. Sell it on at a tasty profit.”

  “So we’ll be waiting even longer for our money?”

  “You’ll get it soon enough.”

  “And the tenant’s rent?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “How about we pay him a house call? Or you chuck him out if he refuses to cough up?”

  “Give him a bit longer, eh?”

  Henri clambers onto the truck and lifts the head of the bed. I lift our end along with Dad. Jean looks on.

  “That’s it, that’s it,” Dad groans. “This way. A little more.” Rita crouches in our way and earns herself a swift kick up the arse. “A little further and we’re clear!” Dad shouts. “Down, down, down.”

  Jean sizes up the door. “How do you plan to get that thing inside?”

  “I don’t.”

  “So what are you going to do with it?”

  “It’s an outdoor bed.” Dad fetches two half-litre cans of beer from the fridge. “Thanks for your trouble, gents.” He hands one to Henri and tosses the other over to Jean. “One for the road. I’d ask you to stay, but me and Bry have got things to do.”

  Jean bumps the toe of his shoe against one of the wheels on the bed. Henri tries to read the sheet of paper under the plastic that’s wrapped around the mattress.

  “And who’ll be sleeping in this bed?” asks Jean. Dad nips into the caravan. “I asked you a question, Maurice.”

  “Told you already,” comes the offhand answer through the kitchen window. “We’re selling it on.”

  The two of them exchange glances.

  “Brian?” Henri asks.

  “What?”

  “Is this bed for that brother of yours?”

  “Nah, course not.” I shake my head for as long as it takes them to believe me. “You heard my dad, didn’t you?”

  Once the pair of them leave, Dad appears in the doorway. “Do you think it might rain?”

  “How should I know?”

  To be sure we drape a length of farmer’s tarpaulin over the bed. It crinkles in the breeze. Dad straps it down with two bungee cords and secures them to the frame.

  “What are you going to say when they see Lucien on the bed?”

  A big orange bee bumbles around us slowly. Rico snaps and it buzzes into a hole in the ground.

  “Once they clap eyes on that brother of yours, they won’t dare say a thing. Trust your old man.”

  -

  14

  With an old shirt of Mum’s, I’m trying to get a shine on the rims on my scooter. Rusty spatters rip the cloth and leave a cut in my finger.

  “Hello.” Out of nowhere, Emile is standing at my elbow.

  “Do you always creep up on people?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  The sun’s so bright I can’t look straight at him. “Dad’s not here.” I stand up. “He’ll be back in an hour.” A wasp hovers over the can of energy drink between my feet, sipping at the yellow drops around the opening. I shoo it away, carefully so as not to get stung. “Got a problem?”

  “No, no.” His eyes take in the bed. “Like you said, I can’t stay inside all day.”

  “The bed’s for my brother. He’s arriving today.”

  “Your brother?”

  Emile examines the grip you can pull yourself up on. “Is he rehabilitating?”

  “What?”

  “Recovering … from an accident.”

  “He was born that way.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “I don’t think it’s got a name. Something went wrong inside my mum’s belly.”

  Emile looks at the pallets, the sagging coffee table Dad once used as a ramp for his motocross bike, the chunks of scrap metal with blades of grass shooting up around them.

  “He’s only staying a couple of weeks.”

  “I thought you were an only child.”

  “I kind of am. He’s more of a long-distance brother.”

  “Well,” Emile gestures toward the gate, “I think I’ll take a walk. Nice talking to you.”

  “What about you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Just wondering,” I shrug, not exactly sure what I mean. “Do you have kids?”

  That smile pops onto his face again. The little smile that softens what he says. Or apologizes in advance for what he’s going to say. “Uh … no.”

  “Didn’t Louise want any?”

  “She did. Yes, certainly she did. But you don’t always get what you want. Perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “Why do you always smile when you say stuff?”

  His face turns red. “Is that … Do I do that? Yes, I suppose I do. Some people stutter when they’re nervous. This is my nervous tic.” He does his best to hold his lips steady.

  “Does that mean you’re nervous now?”

  “Not because of you.” The smile’s back again. “It’s just …”

  “Did Louise call yet?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t you try her on another number?”

  “I must have tried every number in the country.”

  “Are you two married?”

  He nods. I want to tell him about Selma, but I don’t know where to start.

  “Can’t you call one of Louise’s friends?”

  “You’re asking an awful lot of questions.” Emile crosses his arms.

  “Don’t you like questions?”

  “Questions are fine, only … I’m not sure who’s asking.”

  “I am.”

  “Yes, but we don’t really know each other.”

  I squat beside my scooter. There’s a glimmer of grease on the axle where I haven’t polished yet. Black ridges are burning under my nails, so I wrap the shirt tighter around my fingers and buff the metal clean. Emile remains standing.

  “You ask good questions, you know.” His toes shift under the dusty tips of his shoes. “To be honest, I’ve tried to contact her through a friend and t
hrough her parents, but they must be able to see who’s calling.”

  “Either that or she’s never home.”

  “Yeah, could be that,” he chuckles.

  I’m itching to fit a new spark plug, though Dad said I can’t do it without him.

  The axles are shining again. I pick up the spark plug from the hot saddle and play with it. Emile can see I’m not exactly sure where it should go.

  “Below that cable.” And when I pull on the wrong one: “No, that one with the connector.”

  “Do you know about this stuff?”

  “I was young once.”

  I dig a wrench from the jumble of tools in Dad’s plastic bag. It doesn’t fit.

  “You might be better off with an extended socket wrench.” His voice is so quiet it’s less like something he said and more like a thought that occurred to me. “Number twenty-one, if I remember rightly.”

  “Just what I was looking for.”

  The old spark plug loosens easily. I fit the new one like I knew what I was doing all along. Emile doesn’t say anything, so I don’t know if I’m doing it right. I hold still a second. “Like this?” I ask at last.

  “Fine. You could use the wrench to tighten it.”

  “Did you have one yourself?”

  “In my day everyone rode one of these. I was interested in the technical side but most of the time it stood idle in the shed. I wasn’t really the scooter type … that’s tight enough.”

  I must be overdoing it with the wrench.

  “With a bit of luck, she should start again now.”

  “All I need is petrol.”

  “Not unimportant,” he laughs.

  I gather up the tools in the bag.

  “Can I ask you something?” Emile asks.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, you’ve been asking me all kinds of questions.”

  “Um … fair enough.”

  Emile takes a look around. “You live here alone with your father?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So where is your mother? I mean, if your brother’s going to be here too.”

  “She’s on honeymoon.”

  “Oh …” he says excitedly, as if I’ve just told him it’s my birthday.

  “I don’t know the guy she’s with.”

  “Oh.”

  “Only saw him when he dropped Mum off one time. His name is Didier.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “I’m not bothered.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Mum says Didier chose her, not everything that came with her. That Lucien was already a present he hadn’t bargained for. Didier thought one kid was enough, so I live here with Dad.”

  “Oh, that’s …” But Emile doesn’t say what that is.

  “Mum had all kinds of people. Her family and that. And Lucien. And now Didier. Dad had no one but me.”

  “And you’ve lived here ever since?”

  “Pretty much.”

  A sparrow lands right beside us and starts cleaning itself in a pool of sand.

  “Then your father’s a lucky man.”

  “How come?”

  “To have you. As his son.”

  All I can do is shrug. Little wrinkles next to his eyes change his smile.

  “I’ll be off then. Have fun.”

  “Fun?”

  Emile nods at the bed. “With your brother.”

  -

  15

  “It just wasn’t doable.” That was Mum’s standard answer when asked why Lucien wasn’t living at home anymore. “Not with Brian around. And not for Maurice either.” That’s what she said to other mothers we met in the supermarket. Sometimes before they even asked.

  Lucien’s bedroom was supposed to remain unchanged, for when he came to stay at the weekend. In the meantime our clothes rack moved in, then the hoover. Lucien’s bed was soon home to a mound of washing that needed ironing. Beside it stood the box our new TV came in.

  I thought living there would change him. That maybe he’d get better. But standing by his bed every Sunday, I saw that everything about him stayed the same.

  Mum seemed to spend most of her time waiting for someone who never came home. She called constantly to ask how he was doing. I don’t think I missed Lucien. He just wasn’t there. It wasn’t like he’d disappeared, more like someone had switched him off. Put him to sleep. Like he dozed off after every visit and dreamt of us all week long. And on Sundays, right before we pulled into the car park, a nurse would wake him up.

  I knew it wasn’t true. He often had cuts on his hands that I had never seen before. Or a new scratch on his face. One time his thumbnail was blue. So Lucien was sometimes awake without us.

  Mum was sparing with her bedtime kisses, as if she didn’t want to give me too much of what Lucien was missing. That’s why we visited him as often as we could. When he had been there a couple of weeks, we took him for a day out at the reservoir.

  I had to stay in the car while Mum went in to get Lucien, because that would be quickest. Dad went with her to push the wheelchair. The building looked a bit like a school. “A school where no one learns anything,” Dad said. There were a few residents standing around the entrance. I knew they existed but apart from Lucien I had never seen one before. To me they were all half-dinosaur, each one so different that they must be the last of their kind.

  “Here he comes,” I said out loud to myself as Lucien was wheeled to the car. Walking would have taken too long. Seeing him again, I realized I’d missed him. I began to tug impatiently on the door handle, but the child lock was on.

  “You sit in front,” Mum said. Quick as I could, I squeezed between the seats. Dad lifted Lucien onto the back seat while Mum kept her hand on his head to make sure he didn’t bump it.

  “Hiya,” I said.

  “Ku-wa-waa,” he replied, as if I had said something to annoy him. “Ku-wa-waa!”

  “Hey there, love. Mum’s going to sit with you.” She slid onto the back seat beside him, took his hand, and stroked the skin between his pinkie and his ring finger, but he didn’t want her to. “Ku-wa-waaah!” Mum licked her fingertips and tried to smooth down a stubborn tuft of hair. She bent to kiss him but Lucien twisted as far away from her as he could. “Isn’t this special,” she beamed. “The four of us together again.”

  “The four of us together,” I repeated. “Eh, Dad?”

  “The four of us,” he said.

  We had all said it, so it felt like a pact.

  “Hmm-hhh, hmm-hhh.” Lucien nodded with every hum, as if he was agreeing with us. That tuft of hair was already sticking up again.

  Our little beach at the old quarry looked nothing like the holiday brochures. The sand was hard and greyish, and when I tried to dig it hurt under my nails. A sandcastle was out of the question. On our beach all you could really do was scoop a few shallow holes. The sand was speckled with duck shit. Trails of greenish black flecked with white, as if a bunch of elves had started colouring them in and scampered off when they heard us coming. The splats of shit were hard to avoid but I knew better than to complain, because Mum would just fold up the towels and we’d head straight home. A diver had vanished in the reservoir once. I always thought it was eerie how the smooth surface never let you see how deep the water went.

  The clouds made it goose-bump cold, but when the sun came out it was hot enough to make your skin prickle. Lucien’s skinny arms put up a fight as Mum pulled a T-shirt over his head.

  “Maybe he wants a drink!” I shouted. Mum lifted one of Lucien’s legs and pulled a pair of swimming trunks over his nappy, though he never went in deeper than his ankles. She examined the insides of his elbows and knees. Looked closely at the hollow of his neck.

  It was a while before Dad came to sit with us. Something under the bonnet of the car needed
topping up. He arrived carrying a couple of cans of beer in a plastic bag. He never held a bag by its handles, but clenched in his fist like he was afraid something might escape. That’s how my father held onto everything that was his.

  Lucien rooted about under the trees. I was standing where the green water reached to just under my swimming trunks. My willy didn’t want me to go deeper. I kneaded the cold sludge between my toes and shivered. Instead of footprints, my feet left little black clouds that billowed in the water.

  Dad lay on his belly next to the towels Mum had spread out and leaned on his elbows to take a beer from his bag. Mum turned to see where Lucien was. “He’s over by the trees!” I shouted. He had one hand in front of his eyes. Maybe my brother thought we couldn’t see him if he couldn’t see us. He took his hand away and laughed out loud.

  “You can lie back and sunbathe, Mum!” I yelled. “I’ll keep an eye on Lucien.”

  “No need to shout, Brian.”

  “Leave the boy alone,” Dad snapped.

  I felt something sharp under my foot. A shark’s tooth maybe. I tried to pick it up with my toes but lost my grip. Mum pulled the neck of her wide blouse down over her shoulders, examined her skin, and turned again to look at Lucien. “He’s playing!” I shouted. She lay down. Dad looked at her sideways when she closed her eyes for a minute. I ducked underwater. The closer you got to the bottom, the greener it became. I could barely see my pale hands waving in front of my face and even with my lips pressed together I could taste the water. “I saw a fish!” I shouted when I came up for air. “It was this big!” I spread my arms. “I nearly caught it but it got spooked and swam off.”

  Dad gave me a thumbs-up.

  “And I think I saw that diver too. Maybe.”

  Mum was looking at Lucien again. He had found a branch and was fighting something in the air. Sometimes he hit a tree by accident. He would make a rubbish knight, except when he got angry. Then he could bite you or smash a coffee maker. Or wreck the spin-dryer in the bathroom.

  Dad fiddled with the back of Mum’s blouse. She shifted to one side and pushed his hand away.

  “Go on, take it off,” he said. “There’s no one around.”

  Mum shot another look at Lucien. “Hands off my bra, Maurice.”