Summer Brother

by Jaap Robben

  All the while, Lucien sucks on the facecloth and rubs his forearm over the ridges on the wallpaper. “I’m going to teach your feet to walk like they used to. Promise.”

  Once I’ve done both ankles, I run my thumbs over the soft skin of his soles. His toes fan out. “They’re awake now, too.” Then I brush away the sand and the black fuzz. I don’t remember Thibaut doing that, but I guess it can’t do any harm.

  Then I knead his calves. His legs are so thin and bony, I’m not really sure what to do with them. Skin is all that seems to be holding his kneecaps in place. When I try to pin one down between finger and thumb, it shoots away like a bar of soap that’s been washed smooth. I start to worry I’m going to break something.

  His thighs are easier to knead. Lucien starts to shudder a little.

  “Now we’re going to cycle.” I climb onto the bed. “Come on. Pedal, pedal.” By tickling the back of his knee, I get one leg to bend, then do the same with his other knee. In a reflex he almost kicks me in the face. “Watch out!” He rams his feet against my chest and his head hits the headboard, snapping forward.

  “Careful or you’ll break your neck.” But Lucien’s feet keep on pushing. I climb off the bed. “Okay then, let’s walk.”

  By tugging on his arms, I manage to raise his upper body from the bed. Then I slide one arm under his knees to lift his legs. It’s no good—his bum stays anchored to the mattress. He makes a grab for my face. I’m not going to be able to do this alone.

  “Lie there, I’ll be right back.”

  Emile holds the door to his caravan open a crack. “Can’t you get your father to help you?”

  “He’s away. Working.”

  There’s no way I can ask Henri or Jean, so that just leaves Emile.

  “All you have to do is help me carry him outside.”

  “All right. It’ll give me a chance to meet him.”

  Meet him? A spot of heavy lifting’s all I’m asking for.

  “Is he much older than you?”

  “Three years. He’s sixteen.” A pair of storks circle the electricity pylons in the distance. “Has Louise …?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

  “Yes I do. And the answer is no.”

  “Oh.”

  “Every time the phone didn’t ring, it was her.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a line from a song.”

  “You’re good with words.”

  “I studied English. That’s how I ended up teaching.”

  “That makes it sound like you took a wrong turn.”

  “You’re not far wrong.”

  “So you’re a teacher?”

  “Indeed I am, my boy.”

  Lucien has got hold of a corner of the curtain. Emile is lingering by my desk. I don’t know what’s so fascinating about my notebooks and comics. Or my cupboard with its open doors and empty shelves. Or the clothes I’ve worn, waiting in heaps on the floor until they’re clean enough to put on again.

  “So, you’re Brian’s brother?” Emile strokes Lucien’s calf briefly. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “He can’t talk.”

  “Can he understand me?”

  “Kind of.”

  Without taking a moment to get used to him, Emile slides his arm under Lucien’s armpits.

  “Or would you rather take this end?”

  “No, no. I’m fine.”

  Lucien’s knees bend easily. He stares intently at Emile, absorbing this new face. “The tighter you hold him, the less scared he is.”

  “Okay,” Emile says.

  I count to three and we lift him off the bed. Lucien gives himself over to us without hesitation, as if he senses we’ve never done this before and he has to cooperate. Taking care not to bump into anything, we carry him out of my bedroom.

  As we pass the kitchen counter he lunges for the cups. “Whoa,” Emile shouts. Lucien’s other hand trails past the framed photo of my gran on the wall. “Look out.” Too late. The portrait comes clattering toward us. Gran with her huge glasses. Skin sucked tight around her jaws and cheekbones. Her mouth a crease of disapproval, because she knew we would let her fall one day. Glass shatters across the floor.

  Startled, Lucien jerks and yells, “Feffe, feffe, feffe!”

  “Apologies,” Emile says. “I didn’t see it in time. Couldn’t get my hand free.”

  Once we’re outside, we put Lucien down with his feet on the Astroturf. Over in their cage, Rico and Rita perk up. “Right,” Emile says. “Where do you want him? On the bed?”

  “We’re going for a walk. He’s supposed to practise.” I hold out my arm to Lucien, and he latches onto it all by himself. His feet mash up and down on the spot.

  “Can you manage without help?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can do this on my own. He’s my brother.”

  I want Emile to bugger off, but as soon as he walks away it feels like something’s missing. “Do you want something to drink?” I call out.

  “No thanks.”

  Lucien claws the neck of my T-shirt and his other hand tugs at my hair. “Let go of me. Let go!” Emile runs back over and grabs Lucien by the wrist. His grip loosens.

  “Ngang-ngang-ngang.”

  A few loose hairs blow from Lucien’s fingers, his feet stamp the Astroturf.

  “He nearly had you by the throat.”

  “You can go. I’ll be all right from here.”

  Emile still has a firm hold on Lucien, who tries to sit down on an invisible chair.

  “Take my arm,” I tell him. “The way you did Thibaut’s.”

  He doesn’t respond, so I hold my arm right below his paws and clamp them around it. Emile lets go.

  “First this foot.” I’ll show Emile I’ve got this sorted. “Now that foot.” I tap his toes with my flip-flop.

  “Shouldn’t he be wearing shoes?” Emile asks.

  Where are those stupid velcro shoes of his? “They’re in the caravan. Can you hold him a sec?”

  “Why don’t we just lay him on the bed?”

  “But he has to walk.”

  Lucien lets go of my arm and reaches for the bed rail. He clutches it, then puts his other hand down next to it. Without any help from us, he shuffles one step, then two, around the foot of the bed. “Good lad!” Emile says.

  “Pfff,” Emile sighs once we’ve got Lucien onto the bed. “That was hard work. You’re good at this, you know.”

  “At what?”

  “Good with him, I mean. He trusts you.”

  “But he barely even walked!”

  “A little further every day. Your brother needs to get used to things too.” Emile wafts a cool breeze over his belly with the front of his shirt. “Shame about that photo.”

  “That was my gran.”

  “Your father won’t like that much.”

  I shrug. “He only started calling her ‘dear old mum’ after she died. We only visited her five times in my whole life.”

  In my memory, smoke came out of her mouth even when she didn’t have a cigarette between her lips. There was always something smouldering inside her. She sat there coughing and watching telly all day, especially the adverts. “Don’t need that,” she’d mumble, shaking her head. “Don’t need that.” And every once in a while, “Already got one of them.”

  “Dear old mum.” Emile smiles. “Sometimes you appreciate people more when they’re gone.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I have far better conversations with my father now that he’s dead.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “No, no. But at least his gravestone lets me finish a sentence.”

  Emile sizes up our caravan
.

  “Don’t you want to live in a house?”

  “What’s wrong with this place?”

  “I’m sure there are agencies that could help. What, with you being a child.”

  “I suppose.”

  “A caravan gets pretty cold in the winter, I’ll bet.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “A house is nicer. Gives you more stability. More people your age in the neighbourhood. I don’t see anyone your age around here. Or am I missing something?”

  “They’re all away on holiday now anyway. Besides, you live in a caravan too.”

  “Yes, but that’s temporary. I’ll move back into a house one day.”

  “Will you?”

  Emile looks straight at me for a while, then catches himself doing it. He lowers his eyes. “At least I hope so.”

  -

  21

  An itchy cloud of mosquitoes is swarming above a mountain of car tyres. The sun has already dipped behind the treetops, but it’s still warm enough for Lucien. Curled up on his side in his outdoor bed, skin shining. A sea creature washed up on the beach, panting for breath. His hair is wet from the shower but a smudge of tomato sauce still clings to his chin. He’s lying on a couple of towels to stop the mattress getting too wet. “Let’s leave him to dry in the breeze,” Dad said when I started towelling him down. “Then all we’ll have to do is give him a quick rub in a little while.”

  “How did you manage to get him outside anyway?” Dad asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was out here when I got back but I left him inside with you.”

  “I lifted him.”

  “Alone?”

  “No.”

  Dad looks over at the garage.

  “The tenant gave me a hand.”

  “The tenant? You let him handle your brother?”

  “Lucien’s too heavy for me on my own. And you were gone all of a sudden.”

  I’ve never seen a back as white as Lucien’s. The darker skin of his ball sack bulges between his legs and there’s a kind of seam that runs through the tight clutch of wrinkles and disappears between his buttocks. I wonder if I’m going to get one of those. At least his dick has shrunk back to normal again, the size of a smooth pinecone. We both have black hair, though his is blacker than mine. Lucien’s eyes are staring at nothing. The way he’s lying deepens the long dent in his breastbone.

  When he still lived at home, Mum used to bath us together. I had to squash up or there wasn’t enough room for my brother to lie down. I used to sit with my bum on the plug and that metal thing in my back. “Stop moaning,” Mum would say. “Be happy you can sit up by yourself.” Bath toys bobbed around us. Lucien lay with his ears underwater, sucking on a flannel.

  Whenever Mum left us alone for a bit, I would dunk the toy watering can below the surface and pour water over him to make a little pool in the dent in his chest. Then came the best bit. Lucien would hiccup and splash as soon as I started filling the watering can again, his toenails scratching the side of my bum impatiently. Then I let the water rain down on his willy, which stiffened and sent a fountain of wee over his belly and my squashed-up legs.

  In the shower just now, Lucien’s dick got bigger too. Dad didn’t mention it.

  He plops the top off a bottle of beer with his lighter. “I’ve earned this.”

  “Feffe, feffe,” Lucien mumbles. A gust of wind sends a shiver up his back, all the way to his neck. Dad is leaning over the bed rail, middle finger stuck in the mouth of the bottle. That’s how he always holds his beer.

  “Feffe, feffe.” Lucien begins to shake. “Feffe.”

  “Yeah yeah, son. Tell me about it,” Dad says. He takes a long swallow.

  Lucien’s hands are like the grabber in a fairground machine. You never win a cuddly toy at the fair. But Lucien grabs the bottle in one go.

  His eyes light up and his whole body shudders with excitement as he strains to pull his prize toward his chest. “Oh no you don’t! Let go.” Gulps of beer splash over Lucien’s belly and his sheets. “Let go!” Dad commands. Rico and Rita spring to attention but can’t figure out what they’ve done wrong. Dad tries to twist the bottle from Lucien’s hands without spilling any more. “Let go, you little …!”

  “FEFFE!” Lucien bellows. I stand there hesitating, wondering whether to help. “FEFFE!”

  “All right, have it your way.” Dad pulls Lucien’s hand over the edge of the bed and tips the bottle until the rest of the beer spills onto the grass.

  “Were you paying attention in the shower?” Dad nods at Lucien.

  Did he notice Lucien’s dick after all? I shrug.

  “Then you can manage it without me next time.”

  “On my own?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Uh … together?”

  “Together? We can’t do everything together.”

  “Are you going to leave me here alone every day?”

  “Your brother’s getting cold.” He tucks one of the towels around Lucien. “We’ll put a clean nappy on him in a while. There’s another thing you’ll need to learn.” So far I’ve managed make myself scarce when Dad cleans him. “Or would you rather leave him lying in his own shit whenever I’m away?”

  “Of course not.”

  Our eyes follow the bee buzzing above Lucien’s face. Just as Dad’s getting ready to swat it away, it flies off and vanishes into a sandy tunnel in the grass, smaller than a mousehole. The entrance is dotted with orange-black bits of fluff, all dead.

  “Do you remember that time with the bumble bees?”

  “Huh?” I try to look puzzled but I know exactly what Dad is talking about. I like to hear him tell it, mainly because he always ends by giving my nose a gentle tweak. No idea why.

  “We went swimming one afternoon, it was when your mum was still around. Over at the sand quarry, remember?”

  “The one where the diver drowned?”

  “Might be, yeah. You saw those little buggers flying around and asked ‘Dad, are bumble bees fur coats for pixies?’”

  “Did I really say that?”

  “Ha! Bet your life you did. You were about this high.” His hand pats my invisible head at hip height. “Genius! Give me a coat of bumble-fur any day.” He slides two knuckles over my nose and tweaks.

  “When’s your birthday?” I ask.

  “If you start skinning ’em now,” Dad chuckles, “you could run me up a sleeve for my fortieth.”

  -

  22

  “What do you think you’re playing at?” I hear Dad shout. “It’s the crack of bleedin’ dawn!”

  “Any later and you’d have done another runner.” Henri’s voice. “Seems like you’re hardly ever around these days.”

  “Some of us have to work for a living.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “Damn right!”

  “Even if it means leaving your youngest to take care of his own brother?”

  “I can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “First you have your disabled son shipped in and suddenly you’re out working all hours.”

  “Only because you keep banging on about the fucking money I owe you.”

  “No need to play the victim, Maurice. You’re months behind. And where’s our share of the tenant’s rent?”

  “What share?”

  “The tenant was supposed to cough up at the end of the week.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Listen, Maurice …” Jean’s there, too. “We gave you a chance … two days … to come and see us.”

  “About what?”

  “That boy of yours … for Brian we made an exception. But this …”

  “Where else is my Lucien supposed to go?”

  “We made ourselves crysta
l clear … and still you fetched him here.”

  I ease open my door. Henri and Jean are standing with their backs to me. Dad is pacing up and down in his underpants, scratching his arms like his tattoos are itching. “It’s only for a few more days,” he says to calm things down. “He’ll be gone before you know it.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  Dad’s eyeballs just about pop out of his head. “I’m not lying!”

  “A month! A fucking month, Maurice. That’s what we heard.”

  Silence.

  “That’s … that is … not true.”

  “Oh no?”

  “A week tops.”

  “And that bed is still being sold on at a profit?”

  “Lucien’s in it for now. Meanwhile, it’s up for sale.”

  “Well, we’re in the market. How much do you want for it?”

  “No can do.” Dad hesitates. “Already found a buyer.”

  “Liar!” Henri spits the word in his face. Dad reels from an unexpected jab to his shoulder and his head slams into a cupboard door. Jean reins Henri in.

  “We’re giving you one week, Maurice.”

  “For what?”

  “To settle what you owe. Every penny.”

  “A week?”

  “Plus our share from the tenant. If you’re working as much as you say you are, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Or else?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Dad clenches his fist and pounds his chest. “You two can’t touch me.”

  “You heard, Maurice.” The pair of them turn on their heels and march out. As they go, only Jean sees me watching. “Ten days!” Dad calls after them. “Give me ten days.”

  As soon as they’ve left, he dives into his clothes.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “To work.”