Finding Davey

by Jonathan Gash

  “You run a computering firm, Mr Maddy?”

  “I design computer systems. If you want a cheap PC —”

  “Certainly not! I pay the proper price.” He drew breath and went for it, in for a penny. “I have a young, er, relative who’s extremely able. I’d like, please, for her to be employed.”

  “If she’s such a wiz, why isn’t she already employed?”

  “She has difficulty with words, Mr Maddy. Dyslexic, with some autism.”

  “Autistic? A rival firm’s got two – playing the Benefits Agency, squeeze the government. Too much malarky for my liking.”

  “No, Mr Maddy.” Bray said, almost not lying. “She’s developed her own colour scheme and, er, everything. She invents computer bits as she goes along.”

  “Relative, you say?” Maddy mused. “Very well, I’ll see her. How much longer would I have had to wait for my order if I hadn’t agreed?”

  Shamed, Bray confessed. “I moved your order to priority this morning, Mr Maddy. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to bribe you.”

  The businessman laughed. “Mr Charleston, don’t ever go into business. You’d starve.”

  They made arrangements for an interview.

  Roz Saston was pleased by the boy’s progress. He spoke oddly. She told her husband, and put it down to being raised in New England.

  “Marvellous that she was able to have a child so late, though of course Clint’s rising seven.”

  “Doctors can do anything,” her husband Phil said. “It’s money.”

  They discussed Roz’s tutorship’s fantastic salary.

  “He’ll probably go to the Gandulfo-Meegeren.” Roz became wistful. “Costliest in the state.”

  “It might help you get tenure if he gets in.”

  “If?” Roz echoed. “She mentioned funding. Money talks.”

  The boy was increasingly alert, his acumen brisker by the day, though the first lessons needed repeating, some twice over. He showed a curiously lopsided ability to take on facts and images to an extraordinary degree. Roz concluded that somebody had worked herself to the bone. Or maybe Clint was just made that way?

  “It’s almost,” she told Phil, “as if part of him was asleep.”

  “Hospitalisation, poor kid. Once he’s back among kids he’ll be fine.”

  “Some Florida doctor visits. I leave him tapes and reports. I don’t get feedback.”

  “They’re being mighty careful.”

  “Wouldn’t you be, if it was Roberta or Clay?”

  They agreed parents never lost that feeling.

  Doctor audited the recordings of Roz’s lessons and gave Mom a favourable report. It would necessitate – his term – more two trips to Tain, each a three-day sojourn. Hyme grumbled.

  Mom rebuked Pop. “Expertise isn’t only dollars, Hyme.”

  Hyme snorted, because life was. He’d winced at Doctor’s latest hotel bills. To listen to tapes? “We could mail the tapes, Chrissakes.”

  “And see them lost, is that what you want?” Mom fumed. It was late, Hyme still clicking maddeningly at the screen waiting for some numbers so they could sleep. “We do as Doctor says.”

  “Once Clint does this, once Clint does that,” Hyme said morosely, eyes on the percentages that plagued him. “It was once Clint gets a tutor. Now it’s school.”

  “That’s life. His life.” She lay facing him. “You’re not having regrets?”

  “Never. Doctor’s taking his time is all.”

  Mom promised to phone Doctor’s clinic the very next day and ask outright when Clint could start school. A difficult thing to ask, but she had to. Once Hyme got his teeth into finance he never let go.

  The lessons began to make sense.

  Clint was surprised that he could delight Roz by remembering something real well. He liked her, tried hard to please.

  Manuela was nice, and Maria who sometimes helped Manuela bang pans in the kitchen though Maria was not much good because she kept asking Manuela what to do and Manuela shouted at her in words Clint didn’t know. It wasn’t really bad shouting.

  Manuela didn’t mention the jokey boy, and he was careful not to say anything. He could have asked, except that might make her not nice, like that nurse at the clinic where the trees made patterns from sun shadows on the ceiling.

  He made some of the same patterns in dough. Manuela kept the knife away, and you needed a knife – any knife, if you hadn’t proper ones – or the patterns got slopey. He never got one right. You needed tools.

  He made palm tree shapes but they weren’t any good. Maybe you could do it better with bread. Maria made bread that got hard and Manuela threw it out. She never put bird food in a carved wood thing, but left it on the balcony in a pot.

  Clint wondered if it was time for his tablet. He was having fewer now. Manuela said he’d soon go to school. Everybody was pleased with him.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The probation officer, Mr Catchpole, turned out to be a harassed individual carrying sheaves of papers. The office was sparse. Bray thought he could at least have shaved, then forgave the worried man. Who knew how many Kylees he had to help?

  They made staccato conversation across the plastic table, the officer keeping an eye on the time.

  “You wish to help Kylee Walsingham.”

  “My son and his wife would assist. I’d bear all the expense.”

  “Is adoption in mind?”

  Bray hadn’t spoken to Geoffrey about it. “Well, Kylee—”

  “Is a near autistic and dyslexic, and in serious trouble. You heard about the police business?” Bray nodded, but he hadn’t.

  “You’re aware of the circumstances, Mr Catchpole.” Bray had been frank about Davey after Catchpole’s promised confidentiality. “I want to help some child. Kylee’s bright. Her father knows she does computer work for me.”

  “Mr Charleston, your offer is not unprecedented. A family suffers a bereavement and wants to simulate their lost child.”

  “In case you doubted my motives, I would pay for her education here or elsewhere, if that’s the kind of thing you do. And if her parents would agree.”

  “I see.” Catchpole’s wariness dwindled.

  “She needn’t know where the money comes from. Your department could simply bill me, be the disbursing agency and leave me out of it. Even if she was fostered or something. Only, she deserves better.”

  “Better from whom?”

  “All of us.” Bray’s resolve strengthened before the other’s sharp defensiveness. “I’ll make no bones, Mr Catchpole. If I weren’t divorced, I’d adopt Kylee and do my best for her. If my son’s wife weren’t ill, I’d try to persuade them to do the same.”

  They spoke of possibilities, Bray dismayed at the complexity of things. He left after an hour, his offer declined. They would review it in six months. Kylee had said nothing about any police business. What was it? He decided not to ask.

  The final report was compiled to Mom’s satisfaction three weeks later. Pop thought it wasn’t good enough, that Roz Saston must be dragging her feet, lengthening her highly-paid sessions, spreading her butter.

  “We both know why, Clodie,” he told his wife darkly.

  Mom flared up. “Is money all you think about? It’s always dollars.”

  It was safe to raise their voices. Clint was out walking with Roz Saston by the wide lake that lay this side of the public gardens.

  There were sands there, real dunes just like a genuine seashore. Ambulatory rest-revision, Doctor told Mom to regard those walk-talk-no-chalk sessions. Clint enjoyed running to the water and back. He always checked where Roz was, though, because they’d warned him he was to do that. Mom and Pop could see him from their roof garden, which was totally enmeshed for Clint’s safety. Roz did lessons in the roof’s open air, good for a growing child. You had to think of these things. Mom relished motherhood, her forte.

  Now he was better, Clint came back red of face and breathless, eyes shining. Look at him in those m
oments, nobody would ever believe he’d suffered any accident whatsoever. Completely renewed, completely theirs. Clint was the perfect boy.

  Doctor said he was bright. Medication was withdrawn “practically down to homeopathic levels”. Doctor promised that Clint’s first week in school would be the end of all treatment. Doctor’s very words: “No problem!”

  Mom thought Pop totally boorish and said so.

  “I’m donating a year’s salary to that school, Clodie!”

  “Tax deductible!” she shot back. They lay on recliners in the morning sun, drinks to hand and Mrs Saston’s reports on the striped decker. “You regret it? Well, do you?”

  “Tax deductible means it’s higher value!” You couldn’t beat Pop on tax.

  “It’s still only money!”

  “Money got Clint! What if I’d been broke?”

  “Donating to a school’s an investment, Hyme.” Mom turned to wheedling, knowing she’d made a mistake.

  “That’s true,” Pop said grudgingly. He kept his eyes on Clint below, who was looking at some kid flying a kite. “Maybe I ought to walk with them.”

  “Oh, Hyme. That would be great. Walking with his pop!”

  An oriental kid, some thin guy along. Slants were always thin. Pop wondered if exercise might get the gut down on that artificial money-made beach down there.

  Clint was watching the kite, talking to Roz. She better be teaching Clint, not just wasting time. Pop thought, how come I pay, everybody else do F A?

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll go with them tomorrow.”

  “I’ll get the camera —”

  “No cameras, hon. You forgot the rules.”

  “Just one wouldn’t do any harm.”

  “Clodie,” Hyme warned. His wife fell silent. No cameras was Doctor’s rule.

  Lakeside, Roz let Clint run beside the darker skinned boy. They made a pretty picture, Clint so fair and the other, a year older, dark. The boy let the coloured box sink against the blue sky.

  Marvellous, Roz Saston thought, how some cultures – what, Vietnamese? – went for garish colours. Maybe organic dyes in their home countries? Clint was laughing.

  “I’m Clint,” Clint told him. The other boy was Kim.

  Clint stood behind Kim and looked along the cord to the kite.

  “Dad made it.” Kim quickly wound the string as the breeze fell. “It’s got three wraps, see?”

  Red, and a brilliant orange. Struts poked from the ends. Dowels? Clint thought he’d ask Roz about dowels. He felt excited at the way Kim made the kite stagger then suddenly soar.

  “Do it again!”

  Kim’s father laughed, called some words Clint didn’t know. Kim made the kite dance, its garish long tail waving like a…like anything, then climb. Clint clapped. A straight line was brilliant.

  Roz was real nice. She let Clint stay with Kim some more minutes then called him because it was time to do the lesson about pets and fishes, who belonged to different sets. Clint called so-long to Kim and Kim’s daddy and the kite.

  Roz and Clint started back. Two boats with white sails were gliding on the blue water, except where the clouds made the lake grey.

  “Can we come back tomorrow, Roz?”

  “If Mom and Pop say, sure.”

  “Maybe Kim’ll be here. Roz, what’s dowel?”

  Roz thought a moment. “Isn’t it round wood? From the hardware?”

  “Did you see Kim’s daddy’s hat?”

  “Sure did. Pretty, all colours. Lots of new Americans keep to their usual clothes. On a born American a pillbox hat would look kinda stupid, but on him it’s okay, right?”

  “Right,” Clint said, looking back.

  “Okay, Clint. Pay attention. How do we group different living things?”

  “Colour.”

  “Colour’s good, honey. But plants are different in all kinds of ways.” They had been over this twice.

  Clint was looking back, which worried Roz. She was under firm instructions to make precise reports for Doctor. One vital marker was attention span.

  “What are the colours on the kite?”

  She wondered about Daltonism. “Red, different blues, yellow, orange, purple. And the side panel’s dark green. See it?”

  He repeated the colours when he stopped to scuff the sand.

  “You got a favourite colour, Clint?”

  He stood looking back. “Blue,” he said, looking up at her. “Is blue okay?”

  Roz was touched. He seemed so anxious. “Sure, honey! It’s my favourite too!”

  Later, she entered up her summary, careful to include Clint’s own phrases, his interest in the boy Kim’s kite.

  She was surprised but pleased when Clint’s father said he would walk with them tomorrow. Increased contact could only improve a child’s learning, which meant that soon she would be superfluous and Clint would go to school. She was fond of the boy, but how could he develop if he simply stayed at home?

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The visiting college students hadn’t done well choosing woods. He’d let them go on for two mornings, ruining several good pieces. It would be worth it, if they learned.

  “Pine,” he told them. “Spruce, Western red cedar will be fine too. Douglas fir is reliable. Who chose hemlock?”

  Silence. A sour youth in a sweat shirt stirred. Him?

  “A poisoner?” a girl said, to laughter. Nigh forty years, and the same jokes.

  The workshop was quiet. Craftsmen saw the students as intruders.

  “The Tsuga genus,” Bray continued. “It’s beautiful, but splits quick as look. The benefit is its grain, so straight and even. Western Hemlock, of course.”

  “You marked me down,” the girl said irritably. She was comely and knew it, so how dare an old past-it bloke criticise. “Some grain business.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You didn’t tell us to pick wood sawn like that.”

  “Quarter sawn wood, straight and even grain.” Bray looked away, embarrassed to contradict her outright. His weakness was the reason Kylee was so abusive. Would he ever improve? “I did sketches in your handout.”

  She only looked angrier. “You didn’t say which pages we needed!”

  Bray felt his years. “Read all of it, miss.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so, mister?”

  “Forgive me,” he said without dryness. “Shall we look at your cuts?”

  The teaching bench held their eight pieces. He mentioned mistakes he’d made, Spruce catching him out with its knots and unexpected resin pockets, showing them how to auscultate by listening for the ominous buzzing sound when tapped. They seemed uninterested and sulky.

  He apologised for going on and said they could go. The scruff picked the hemlock up when Bray said they could take their work.

  “Ask if you’ve any questions,” he called lamely.

  They couldn’t get out fast enough. Bray stood for a moment.

  Davey knew how to auscultate wood, though his little fingers weren’t yet firm enough to percuss. He used a pebble.

  Would Davey remember? Would the students? He felt wasted.

  “Memory,” Doctor said, “is stigmata. Not Padre Pio’s holiness, your common insult.”

  “I don’t understand, Doctor,” Nurse Linda Hunger said.

  Doctor loved to be reminded that he was the expert. She’d heard this talk before, when her special friend Lissette was briefed for a snatch kid who’d eventually gone to a showbiz couple in Maine.

  “This is your first domiciliary, Linda?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I’m thrilled.”

  A scrip issue, now the clinic was decently valued, would soon come her way. She’d get her share after this job. A nest egg is a nest egg is money.

  “Listen up, Linda.”

  For an instant, Nurse Linda Hunger judged Doctor as a male, and saw that fussiness might obscure steel beneath. The man, for all his wonderful if illegal work, was a dragon in its cave. Perhaps, she reasoned, he really needed
company? What a philosophy his was, removing kids from uncaring parents and, who knew, possible abuse, to a better life. Doctor was brilliant. You couldn’t argue with success.

  There was the usual staff talk about him. Her friend Marge, another nurse, hinted that Doctor had put the question to her when she’d been on a California domiciliary. Marge wouldn’t say if she’d done it with Doctor. Another nurse, Leah, fully fledged, went on home visits with scarcely a nod. Plain as day, right out she told Linda that it was one of Doctor’s perks. Where was the harm? Leah said you were either in or you were out, girl, and remember where the money came.

  Nurse Linda listened. Doctor’s voice became muted.

  “Have you ever considered what an insult memory is, Linda?”

  “No, Doctor.” And she hadn’t.

  “Memory is a series of cruelties instilled into the brain. As babies, we’re unaware of calamities out there. Then we start to see.

  “Events, Linda, are all simply trauma. No such thing as a pleasurable event. Slings, arrows, blows, toxins. You feel pleasure sometimes? No! Pleasure is an interlude between pangs we call experience.

  “So with the boy. One of many. Clint has been rescued, Linda. His parents were incompetent uncaring bastards. Anybody wants proof, look-see what happened: they let my abduction team whisk him away. We saved the boy.

  “The last vestiges of Clint’s infant memory need expunging. The residues will be there. My therapies and your nursing will eradicate them during your housekeeping duties in their home. Any traces that surface, the boy will never know whether it was a dream, or a TTVW – the Tired TV Watcher – syndrome. He’ll never know it might represent reality.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Linda committed herself. “I hope I can do you justice.”

  “I’m sure you will, Linda.” Doctor poured a bourbon. “The hotel in Tain is confidential. I’ve a visit in Houston, be back day after tomorrow.” He waited. “Will that suit?”

  She hardly paused. Her own man needn’t know. “Of course, Doctor.”