Shtum

by Jem Lester

  He doesn’t reply. Jonah stands in the doorway clutching three slices of bread with a beseeching grin on his face. Dad beckons him in.

  ‘Come, JJ, sit here with me and watch your grandma on the television.’

  Jonah skips to the sofa and sits, unable to believe his luck, and my father pulls him to his hip.

  ‘Go to bed, Ben, you look tired. Leave him with me, we’ll be fine.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Go, before I change my mind.’

  Even though the sound remains down, I can’t sleep. It’s not easy, sleeping in your childhood bedroom for the first time in almost twenty years; examining the half-removed stickers by the light of a streetlamp through curtains that never quite close or reach the sill. The mattress feels thin and the bed narrow and the sheets restrictive, tucked in as they are, army style. But most significantly, I am by myself in this single bed, which almost physically hurts.

  I like being a husband, was desperate to be a father. I lived a fairy-tale life in my head before I even met Emma and the fairy tale became real for two years. Then Jonah was born and it was fluffy clouds and sleepless nights. But as he reached three, the fairy tale revealed itself an imposter – the red hood fell away to show the Big Bad Wolf of autism.

  Lying here, this Sunday night, I feel cast adrift. There is insanity in this situation; even though it’s a charade, the fear is three- dimensional, lapping against the sides of the bed, undermining my stability. I have lost my compass in the haste of the move, my head spins, so I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the Lowry print, counting matchstick dogs. In the bedside drawer I discover an old Bush transistor radio, still tuned to Capital Radio, as I’d left it decades ago. I plug it in and turn it on, half expecting songs from the seventies and eighties, to drag out a bit of melancholy in this evening of oddities – but all I get is hip hop. It takes me twenty minutes to dial a decent signal for Radio 4 and three seconds to dial my home number.

  ‘This is horrible,’ I tell her. ‘What are you doing right now?’

  ‘Just got in, ordered an Indian.’ She sounds drowsy, a little slurred.

  ‘Bit late, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s only ten, Ben. How’s Jonah?’

  ‘Eating smoked salmon.’

  I hear the entry phone buzz.

  ‘Need to go, that’s my curry.’

  ‘Speak tomorrow?’

  ‘Ben, I can’t cope with going over it every night. Look. I’ll phone you. I’m being sent to Hong Kong in a couple of days, anyway. There’s a chance I may have to stay for a month.’

  ‘A month! When were you planning on telling me?’

  ‘Look, they only told me today.’ I hear her sigh. ‘Ben, you’re going to have to handle this, okay? You need to do the school visits, deal with the local authority, sort out the barrister. It’s all in the file – you’ll have to read it all.’

  ‘You know I can’t bear to read about Jonah.’

  ‘You can’t remain above this, Ben. This is not blissful and you cannot maintain the ignorance. You can’t just be his good-time dad.’

  That stings me. ‘Okay, okay. Where do I find this file?’

  ‘I put it in the boot of your car. You have your father and we can talk about it by email. It’s not so terrible. Give Jonah a hug for me.’

  And she’s gone.

  I’m marooned, confused, disorientated. A month? She’s away regularly with work, but now? The timing stinks. I could be round there in ten minutes, but instead, I pad gently down the stairs and take the ancient bottle of whisky back to bed for company. Within minutes I hear the whumping of my father and son. They are at the top of the stairs and Dad’s still talking, talking his bollocks to the only person who’ll listen to him. Poor Jonah.

  ‘JJ, did you enjoy yourself today? Were they nice to you at your play club? There are some things I need to talk to you about, but you must promise not to repeat anything I say. These things will be our secret, just you and I – here, give me your hand, we must shake on it. Good boy, where to begin? Your geography’s not so good, I think, so let me just explain a bit about our family.

  ‘My grandfather, that’s your great-great-grandfather, JJ, was an important man. He was an educated man, a man of wisdom, but a man of few words. Rather like you, my little JJ, yes. He lived in a village, in Hungary, not far from the town of Balaton, on the shore of a beautiful lake. Our whole family lived there in peace for many generations. Anyway, Josip was a man of principle – rather like your father, JJ – and as a merchant he had many dealings with the local count, Szelezny – a decent-enough man, if a bit of a Jew-hater.

  ‘I was born in Budapest – it’s two cities actually: Buda and Pest, divided by the River Danube but united by a great bridge. Well, JJ, the Friedmans – that was our name back then – were not unhappy there. We were a good family, a big family, your great-grandfather – my father – Louis, was a physician. That’s a doctor, and he had many patients and we lived well.’

  Friedman? Our name changed? In a rage, I jump from my own bedroom to Jonah’s. Only the sight of Jonah stops me from flying at my father.

  ‘Can we help you?’ my father asks, looking me up and down. Then he continues as if I wasn’t there.

  ‘Your father was born here, he’s English, but he was the first of our family to be born here – you are the second. I don’t know if you know this, but we are Jews – not an easy thing to be, but a good thing to be.’

  I slink away trying to work out how to confront him about this without killing him. Am I just some form of psychological experiment – withdraw all stimuli and see just how crazy you can make me? Why has he never told me this? Of course, I’ve asked about our family many times, but he just dismisses my questions with a flick of his left hand and four words: ‘gassed by the Nazis’. It’s as if he gets pleasure from having me floating around like an unanchored dinghy.

  When I was thirty, I spent months searching genealogy sites, Holocaust databases and historical accounts, yet found nothing. Now I understand why, because I had the wrong bloody name. As far as I knew until this evening, Georg Jewell just appeared out of thin air, or was crafted from clay like the Golem, and, by extension, so was I.

  I can’t face asking again, only to hear him evade my questions. I’d like to force it out of him with Sodium Pentothal and some gardening shears. I bury my face in the pillow. Let him tell his parables to Jonah and I’ll drink his whisky until I pass out.

  ‘What day is it?’ I croak.

  ‘Monday, here.’

  He passes me a cup of coffee. There’s milk in it and it’s horrible. I hadn’t passed out until four and I woke up in a panic, but Jonah is miraculously ready apart from his sweatshirt, which is back-to-front.

  ‘Thank you, Dad.’

  The phone goes and Dad rushes to answer it, turning his back on me. I hear a muffled conversation and he returns with a jotted note.

  ‘Jonah’s school wants to see you at noon.’

  ‘I forgot,’ I groan. ‘The transition meeting. Was that them on the phone?’

  ‘No. You want to send him away?’

  ‘Was that Emma? Why didn’t you pass me the phone?’

  ‘It was just a message. So you want to send him away to school?’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later, I need a shower.’

  ‘Answer me, Ben.’

  ‘Later, Dad.’

  He shouts at me as I mount the stairs. ‘Emma won’t be there, so I’ll come with you.’

  I put my head round the banister. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, Dad, I’ll talk you through it later.’

  ‘This car is a disgrace.’

  ‘It’s a working vehicle.’

  ‘Why would you need a working vehicle?’

  He kicks his feet around the footwell; envelopes and empty cigarette packet
s fly up.

  ‘Stop it, please.’ He takes off his seatbelt and bends to pick up a sheet of paper. I glance across – it’s a bank statement. ‘If you don’t drop that now, I’m stopping the car and you can walk home.’

  He releases the statement with a flourish and it floats back to the floor.

  ‘Put your bloody seatbelt back on and when we get there, say nothing.’

  He mimes a zip across his lips.

  I am desperate to see Jonah in class, to witness the experts work their apparent miracles, but if he sees me, he’ll be distracted and it’s better if we both wait in the family room for Mrs Porter, the head teacher. We sit in silence, lukewarm drinks perched on our knees and the supposed evidence of Jonah’s progress before us in his recent school reports.

  Mrs Porter bursts in followed by Jonah’s class teacher, Maria, and a large blonde minute-taker.

  ‘Sorreee, Ben.’

  I smile at her and greet Maria with a wave. The three sit opposite us.

  ‘So how do you think Jonah is doing?’ asks Mrs Porter.

  ‘That’s what we’re here for, you to tell us, so tell us.’ I look at Dad, firing little incendiaries of indignation at him.

  Dad shrugs.

  Mrs Porter says: ‘I’m sorry, who are you?’

  ‘Georg – Jonah’s grandfather.’

  ‘Well, as you know, we’re here to discuss Jonah’s transition to secondary school at the end of this academic year.’

  ‘Which secondary school?’ he keeps on.

  Mrs Porter glances at me, I nod.

  ‘Well, the borough’s provision is growing all the time with a number of mainstream secondaries either already having integral units or opening them in September. However, given Jonah’s obvious limitations I think we would all agree as was stated in the borough’s letter that Maureen Mitchell School is the preferred option for Jonah.’

  Dad says, ‘He’s going to Maureen Mitchell then.’ We all look at him. ‘That’s it,’ he says.

  ‘No he’s not,’ I say.

  ‘Ben,’ Mrs Porter says, ‘Maureen Mitchell has been completely restructured in the last three years and it’s now the borough’s specialist autistic secondary provision. We have been working very closely with them and they will be using identical methods to us so it is, in effect, a new facility but an extension of here.’

  Dad is smiling, his hands folded contentedly across his stomach.

  ‘Would you say, Mrs Porter, that Maureen Mitchell is as good as Royston Glen?’ I ask.

  Mrs Porter hesitates. ‘Well, of course it will take a little time for them to get up to speed. Roysten Glen has been operating for eighteen years now – but, with our help, Maureen Mitchell will avoid all the mistakes we had to make.’

  ‘So, if I’m correct, what you are saying is that Maureen Mitchell isn’t currently as good as here and will take some time to achieve that level, yes?’

  ‘Inevitably, I suppose that’s true, yes.’

  ‘And it may take a couple of years?’

  ‘Realistically, I suppose. But rest assured we are consulting with them on a regular basis.’

  ‘Oh good, good – consultation. And do you think Jonah can afford to wait another two years for this new “school” to sort itself out?’

  ‘Well, I …’

  ‘Well let me put it another way. How long has Jonah been here?’

  ‘Six years.’

  ‘And when he arrived he was in nappies and as he’s about to leave he’s still in nappies. So after six years of the best specialist education the borough can provide, my beautiful son still cannot use a toilet. So tell me, Jenny, just what is this new, cobbled-together excuse for a provision going to do for my son when in six years you couldn’t get him to piss on a toilet.’ Mrs Porter looks indignant, while Maria seems crestfallen and I’m now full of shame. I like Maria; she cares about Jonah.

  ‘But you know how different all these children are …’

  ‘I don’t care, Mrs Porter. We’re talking about my son.’

  I scan down Jonah’s annual report, the paper shaking.

  ‘Literacy, Numeracy, Science, Religious Education, Geography, History,’ I quote: ‘“This term, Jonah has really enjoyed learning about the Victorians.” That’s remarkable,’ I say, addressing Maria. ‘Dad was only telling me the other evening how he’d had a most enlightening chat with Jonah about the iniquities of the workhouse system. Jonah thinks it served them right for being poor.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ he says.

  ‘Shut up!’

  Mrs Porter manages hurt and sympathetic in the same cock-headed grin.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Porter, Maria, he’s been happy here but he’s made no progress and this is his last chance for a bit of personal dignity. I want him to go to Highgrove Manor – it’s a residential school. Check the website, you’ll understand why. I love the way you have cared for my son, but understand, if he was “normal” and couldn’t read a word at the end of primary school, wouldn’t everyone be up in arms?’

  ‘Ben, we all admire your devotion to Jonah’s future, especially given the recent change in your home circumstances, but we truly believe – as do social services – that it would be detrimental to remove Jonah from the community …’

  Dad nods his approval.

  ‘A community of one …’ I say.

  ‘A community he has grown up in and Maureen Mitchell will be an outstanding school, I can assure you. Have you visited it yet?’

  I grudgingly accept that I haven’t.

  ‘Maria, could you get Ben a brochure?’

  Maria disappears for a minute or two, while Dad and I play ‘nasty-look tennis’. She returns clutching a folder and joins Dad and me as we head out the main door toward the car park.

  ‘Mr Jewell?’

  Both of us look up.

  ‘Ben, could I speak to you for a moment?’

  I hand Dad the car keys and he strides off, in a temper. Maria and I sit down on a bench by a small, oval patch of lawn with shrubs.

  ‘I’m really going to miss Jonah,’ she says, staring at her shoes. ‘He’s so, so lovely.’

  ‘He certainly is,’ I say.

  ‘Often, I wonder how my kids would be if they didn’t have autism, because their personalities still shine through, despite all the tics and obsessions and difficulties. Don’t you find that?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but I’ve always wondered if anyone else did or could.’

  ‘One just has to look a little bit harder. I mean, Jonah …’ She stops, draws breath and looks up at me as if checking for permission to continue.

  ‘Please go on,’ I oblige.

  Her voice rises and her eyes smile. ‘Well, Jonah I imagine ambling across the campus of some university, his crazy hair blown around by the wind, a very pretty, petite, long-haired girl chatting animatedly by his side. He is studying philosophy, or English, is regularly late for morning lectures and has a talent for making people laugh. Does that sound about right to you?’

  I turn away, not wanting her to catch the sadness in my eyes. Maria has just sketched out a perfect portrait of me as a twenty-year-old. She sees me in Jonah. It has never once occurred to me that such an inheritance could take place, as if autism breaks the chains of DNA as well as hearts. Maria’s insight, her care for Jonah, has opened my eyes. He’s not just my autistic son, he’s my son.

  ‘Ben, have I upset you?’

  Her hand is on my shoulder. ‘Not at all,’ I say, reaching back to take her hand. ‘It’s just a little melancholy, that’s all.’

  We sit with our own thoughts for a minute or two. I can’t get the image of the student Jonah out of my head.

  ‘Ben, look, I really think Jonah deserves and needs everything you’re trying to win for him. I would really like to help if I can.’

  ‘Mari
a, that’s a very uplifting thing to hear, but it will put you in a difficult position, won’t it?’

  She nods in acknowledgement. ‘My phone number and email are on a piece of paper in the school brochure.’ She passes it over to me. ‘Really, if you need anything, help with Jonah, anything …’ She bites her lip. ‘I know that things are difficult for you and Jonah at the moment, so please don’t hesitate, okay?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

  I walk back to the car, clutching the glossy folder like a parking ticket. Dad mutters under his breath as I get in. The inside of the car windows steam up the moment I close the door.

  ‘Bravo,’ he says.

  ‘Could you possibly just shut up – for ever?’

  The next ten minutes, sat in traffic, are spent in silence, but I can sense his itching tongue. Finally, he has to scratch.

  ‘Who hatched the plan?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘This business, this sending-away business.’

  I actually try to pull my own hair out. Then light a cigarette.

  ‘Are you trying to give me cancer? Put that out and answer my question, Benjamin.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have a right to know. I’m his grandfather.’

  ‘Where do I start?’

  ‘You can start by explaining why I haven’t seen you since Yom Kippur and all of a sudden it’s okay for me to be your landlord?’

  I turn the engine off again. ‘God, you’re just so obtuse!’

  ‘From you, obtuse?’ he says, poking the finger. ‘I made something of myself without all the advantages I gave you—’

  ‘Yes, you spent your life washing other people’s shit off crockery. Splendid.’

  That’s busted the anger and replaced it with shame. ‘Sorry, that was uncalled for.’

  His face has softened. ‘Maybe, but there is no lie in it. It’s not what you do, Ben, it’s why you do it. So, you’re unhappy running the business?’

  ‘You’ve noticed?’

  ‘I don’t need sarcasm when I try talking to you like an adult,’ he says.

  ‘Dad, I am an adult.’