by Jon Bauer
‘Put your seatbelt on and shut up!’
She doesn’t look at me, just flails hysterically for the door handle. I slap her hands away from it, holding on to her wrists, her mouth arcing open at my grip.
She stops crying, just like that. Something in her reconfiguring itself. I let go of her and she wipes her face. A long breath coming out of her.
I take a similar breath. ‘You have to calm down.’ I reach out to unpick some of the glass from her clothes but she shoves my hand away.
‘No.’ Tears threatening again but she sucks them back. ‘NO!’ She roars it out, right up close to me. Her face that angry shape.
I feel my teeth nibbling at my own bottom lip, that anger coming up, both of us mirroring the same angry face to one another.
‘We’re going home and we’re going to talk about this. And you’re going to shut up about Robert. He shouldn’t have been using them anyway.’
I sit here beside her, hands on the wheel, engine running, my gaze looking straight ahead, staring into the distance and wondering, if I drove fast enough towards those houses at the end, whether the flux capacitor would kick in and we could both go back in time. Or just smash into the shops and stop time altogether.
Anything but the present.
10
Robert wants to go out to dinner for his birthday. Then his parents are going to come and have an access visit for the first time since he invaded our house. They have to have a social worker with them though cos they can’t be trusted.
It’s me and Robert at breakfast. I eat slower than him so he’s already washing up his bowl and putting away the breakfast things. I’ve got my eye on him.
‘Why aren’t we going ice-skating, Robert?’ He shrugs and puts the sugar away. ‘Still need the sugar.’
He comes back with it but he’s looking up at the ceiling like I’m tiring him out. ‘I just changed my mind, I suppose,’ he says, ‘about the ice-skating.’ He shrugs again, standing there holding on to the back of Mum’s chair and waiting to see if I’m going to say anything else. He swallows. ‘You don’t want to go out for dinner?’
‘Boorrring!’
‘It’ll be fun.’
After he’s said this he gets ants in his pants. I think birthdays make him nervous, maybe because he did lie about when his birthdate is so him and his folks could get some free presents out of us good people.
‘Then your real parents are going to pick you up, Robot?’
He stops fidgeting. I put a bucketload of sugar on my Krispies. I like it when you get to the bottom and there’s just the milk left and it’s crunchy with the sugar sort of half dissolving inside it. You don’t even really need the Krispies.
‘Try and smile a lot when you see your parents, Robot. And you might maybe want to think about being less nerdy or something. Then they’ll like you more and want you back. There’s a good lad.’ I feel like Three Lips Macavoy. Like I could put the moves on him. Meanwhile Robert looks like he’s trying to push out a sideways poo.
‘You looking forward to seeing your bad parents, Robot?’
‘Don’t call me that!’
‘What, Robot? What?’
He has white fists on instead of hands now. Plus his face is red. Red and white Robot. White and red monster. He’s standing there like the chemical plant, steam coming out of him.
‘It’s your birthday, Robot, you should be happy.’
‘I’d be happier if you were dead, crazy brain.’
‘Telling Mum you said that.’
‘She won’t believe you she always believes me.’
‘SHE DOESN’T LOVE YOU SHE LOVES ME. NOBODY LOVES YOU!’
Feelings haunt you like you’ve got ghosts. Feelings are supposed to belong to you but they don’t and I’ve gone and said it too loud and Mum comes in behind me and tugs me from my sugar milk and her finger is right up close to my face and I can’t hear what she’s saying cos I’m concentrating on not crying, which means thinking about my feet and wiggling my toes like Dad taught me.
Robot is watching, this look on his face.
‘Say sorry to Robert!’
I look at his shoes. The front of them are pointing in towards each other like they’re having a chat.
‘1’
‘He says things too!’
Robert puts on a wounded innocent face.
‘2’
I say it.
‘So he can hear it!’
‘Sorry.’ Robot.
‘That’s better. Now upstairs with you.’
I walk away, Mum right behind me and Robert smirking at the table, clearing my sugary milk away.
She follows me all the way upstairs and I’m waiting for the spanking but she stops outside my room, me inside, the temperature gauge on my window looking at me.
‘No more nasty comments to Robert, he doesn’t deserve it. He’s here as long as he needs us, just like you are. Get used to it.’
‘He says things too, only QUIETER!’
‘I’ll have a word with him as well.’
She shuts the door and I don’t know what to do with the snake inside wanting me to do horrible things to my room. To Robert. And today’s his 13th birthday so he’ll probably ride in the front on the way to some boring prawn cocktail elbows off the table evening, rather than ice-skating and burgers! And I bet his parents aren’t better or off the stuff.
I bet I’ll be stuck with Robert until I’m 99.
I creep back down to hear what Mum might be saying about me. Alfie is curled up in front of the empty fire as if he’s waiting for it to be lit. He doesn’t know we don’t ever light it anymore. The vase of walking sticks is guarding it now.
Robert’s reading his homework out to her. A project on clouds. Snore. When I have to do a project it’ll be on spies or private detectives or blood. I listen to a bit of it and Mum is encouraging him with mhmms and yes’s and very goods.
If Mum is the top dog at home then Alfie is bottom dog, even though he’s a cat. He normally keeps away from me but he’s asleep so isn’t expecting it when I pick him up and carry him up the stairs.
Cats always land on their feet. This is their amazing fact. All animals have one. Like fleas can leap loads of times longer than their bodies and dogs have antiseptic tongues. All animals have one superpower. Flies can walk on the ceiling. Elephants can remember. Bears can hug. Rabbits can stare.
There are twelve stairs on the staircase but I usually test Alfie’s superpower from the sixth one. I just dangle him in thin air, do a countdown like at Cape Canaveral, then let him go. He always manages to land on his feet.
Today is Robert’s birthday and there were flowers on the table this morning for him. Plus Mum’s been shopping for presents. That’s why she was late to get me from school yesterday.
Alfie made it from the ninth step yesterday but today’s his big day, like Robert. I carry him right up to the twelfth step and squeeze him between the railings, dangle him out above the ground. I like how his claws hang on to my arms and hurt. Then I turn him so his back is facing the ground to make it more impressive. Plus I decide to throw him down rather than just drop him.
He makes a really big THUD. His superpower worked but he walks away a bit wobbly cos he used up one of his lives.
I run down and catch him again, stroke him cos I love him. I like how warm and fat he feels. Sometimes he sleeps on my bed if I make him, and stroking him always makes my heart feel softer.
Mum comes in and asks me what I’m doing out of my room and am I ready for school and I say yes even though my bag isn’t packed and I have swimming today (drowning). I pretend to kick her once her back’s turned.
She goes out to the kitchen and says something happy to Robert and he has his voice on too and I don’t recognise him saying such long sentences as he does to Mum. He doesn’t need to breathe when he’s talking to her.
I bury my face in Alfie’s fur but he smells a bit bad and his body is all stiff like my insides. I carry him into the bathroom a
nd lock the door.
‘You smell, Alfie. You need a shower.’ I put him down in the shower and it’s still a bit wet from earlier. I close the glass door, Alfie trying not to walk on the water in there. Cats hate water. It’s their Kryptonite.
I turn on the hot tap but the water comes out cold at first and gets my arm wet. Hate that. I shut the door again and watch through the glass. Cats must REALLY not like water.
Before the hot comes there has to be exactly as much cold water come through as the length of pipe between the shower and the water heater. I love things like that. The way the world never forgets to do what it does. Like a bike doesn’t forget to rust or a ball to fall. Meanwhile Alfie is running on the wet shower floor and it makes me feel sad but better too. And anyway, he’s a cat and can land on his feet.
Now the water is starting to steam and Alfie is getting very wet, making quiet little noises and looking up at me but I’m holding the door shut, misting up the window a bit on my side. Except the inside is steaming up too now but higher, not down where Alfie is. Heat rises.
Wow. Cats hate hate HATE water. I flush the toilet so Mum doesn’t worry about the noise. She’ll be glad he’s getting a wash. She likes things clean.
The toilet is filling up again, hissing. Alfie looks funny with all his fur flatted down and making a fuss about the heat. He even looks skinny now he’s washed. All little. His ears flattened too and his tail.
Mum calls me so I reach in and nearly burn my hand off from shutting off the tap. I look at my scarred for life hand with the water on it, the layers of sort of melted skin there. I hate it and like it, my scarred for life hand.
I dry it off with a towel. Meanwhile Alfie is panting like a dog and still trying to get his feet out of the hot water. There’s steam coming off him.
He meows at me, a really big beggy meow.
‘You’re clean now, Alfie, you dirty little boy. Nobody loves you do they, little boy. Why don’t you go play with the traffic or something.’
He shakes all the water off and I didn’t think cats could do that, only dogs and beavers and tigers. I open the shower door for him and carry him to the front door and put him outside so he can dry in peace. Then I go wash all his fur off the shower tiles so Mum won’t worry.
I’m whistling while I pack my bag. I learnt to whistle last Christmas. Soon I’ll be able to raise one eyebrow like Dad can. I’ve been practising in the mirror. Three Lips Macavoy would be able to whistle and raise one eyebrow during a fight.
I feel a bit better now. And a bit worse too. Like I’ve got elevators passing each other in opposite directions in my chest.
I come downstairs and Mum is mixing a cake for Robert’s birthday. She looks at me like she’s measuring me. I keep my face very still. Robert stops reading to her, shuts his school project and gets up from the table.
‘Why you stopping, Robert?’ she says and he shrugs and looks at me, goes upstairs. Mum is mixing her love cake. I waggle my fingers to doom it so that it’ll collapse in the oven or burn or choke Robert.
School time and we go out to the car but Mum has to take a picture of Robert first because he’s wearing a proper uniform, not the shirt and trousers he’s been having to go to school in. The uniform is one of his birthday presents from us so he won’t get picked on anymore. Mum says he’d be in an old people’s home by the time Social Services came up with the money.
Then she gives me the camera and asks me to take a picture of her and Robert. They stand in front of Dad’s hedges and put their arms round each other, Robert looking up at Mum like she’s heaven.
I chop their heads off and they won’t find out until the film’s developed. Dad gets it done cheap cos one of the clients he juggles the books for is a film developing shop.
Now Mum asks Robert to take a picture of her and me and while he gets to grips with the camera she puts her arm round me and looks right into my face with her softest eyes and says ‘You’ll be the death of me, Sonny Jim. But only cos I love you so much.’ She turns to Robert. ‘Take the picture then, starey pants!’
Robert is putting Mum’s camera in his school bag after but I don’t say anything cos she’s trying to catch Alfie to find out what’s wrong and I’m holding my breath.
Robert gets in the front seat. He has his eye on me while he’s doing it, and biting his lip. Mum walks up to me and says ‘Here, put this in your lunch box, special treat today.’ Three chocolate biscuits wrapped up in plastic with a note in. ‘Eat them in the car if you want,’ she says.
Three Lips Macavoy can’t be bought.
In the car I’m looking out the window or playing with the robot and don’t look at Robert up in the business end, except once when I can’t help but peek and the back of his head is just over the seat. The seatbelt is quite high up near his neck which means he should really be sitting on the first aid kit. I don’t say anything and don’t look again, except one more time while I’m daydreaming about an accident where we crash and the seatbelt cuts his head off.
It’s only a little accident but Robert has no head and his bad parents are crying at the funeral and it’s all their fault. Serves them right.
We drive past a lost dog sign stuck to a wooden power pole. You never see found animal signs. I worry about all the lost animals. Our town has so many bits of paper stuck to lampposts and walls and they’re all for bands playing and lost dogs and garage sales. And people just come along and put their car boot sale on top of other people’s lost dogs. It’s so sad. Sometimes I wonder if maybe right at the bottom of all that paper would be an advert for a lost dinosaur.
The snake is fat inside me all day at school then it’s Dad who’s come to collect me.
‘Why aren’t you at work, Dad?’
‘You don’t like your dad collecting you?’ He’s holding the first aid kit and the front door open like a chauffeur, especially cos he’s in his work suit.
‘Doesn’t Mum want to pick me up anymore?’
‘Don’t be daft. Hop in.’
I run up to the door and hope everybody is seeing me with my dad and getting in the front seat.
When we get home Robert has a split lip and tissue paper sticking out his nose. Plus his brand new uniform is ripped at the shoulder and the pocket and Mum is looking like she has a storm cloud instead of hair.
Now the whole car is full of storm clouds because we’re all on our way to the restaurant, Mum’s perfume arguing with Dad’s aftershave and Robert not sitting in the front cos he got into a fight.
Yesss!
‘Did you win the fight, Robert?’
‘Shoosh about that, thank you,’ Dad says, then looks at Mum. She has her head on her hand and her face up close to the window, watching Snoresville go by.
‘Will Robert get in trouble with school, Dad?’
‘What you going to have for dinner do you think, kiddo?’ he says, and it’s prawn cocktail probably, then chicken kiev. Dad knows this. He’ll have steak but whitebait to start. Mum usually has a glass of wine while we eat first course, and then something for main course that’s never really the same thing each time. She normally leaves a bit of food and Dad tucks in and I call him Alfie cos Alfie is a fat cat. Except he didn’t eat his dinner today for the first time ever. Maybe cos we fed him sooner than usual.
It feels funny going out for dinner so early. This should be homework time. Plus everyone is all serious even though this is supposed to be a birthday. I like that Robert is in the kennel, it makes tonight almost as good as ice-skating. Right up until I spill my prawn cocktail and the sauce goes all over the plate. I eat some of it off and Mum isn’t at me about my manners tonight. Robert would usually have eaten all his by now but he’s barely nibbled. Maybe cos of his parents coming.
When the waitress takes my plate her thumb goes into my cocktail sauce and I am totally puked out that she’s touched my leftovers. She might touch my next plate after her thumb’s gone in someone else’s leftovers. Which means we have other people’s dribble and uneaten
food on our dinners and plates and I’ve probably eaten everyone’s leftover germs in my prawn cocktail, especially since I spilt it on the plate she held with her dirty thumb.
Maybe AIDS came from waitress thumbs. AIDS is the latest craze and sometimes I think I’ve got it even though Dad says it’s just for queens.
I watch when the waitress picks up Dad’s and she misses the grease and lemon juice on his plate, like it’s luck what you get in your dinner.
I hope nobody in the restaurant has been eating broccoli.
Robert is sulking. Mum and Dad start off trying to cheer him up, then leave him be. There’s a bag of his presents and cards in the back of the car and it looks bigger than a bag of presents should be for someone who isn’t even their son.
I left my car door unlocked specially. Tonight would be the perfect night for our car to be stolen.
Dad lets me have a sip of beer then rubs his hands together when the filthy thumb on the waitress puts his bit of cow down with the blood running out of it cos when she asked how he likes his steak he said ‘I want it so that it’s still mooing.’
She asks him if it’s bloody enough and Dad is being all interested with her and chatty like she’s from Baywatch. Meanwhile Mum is looking the waitress up and down as if she’s from Mars.
When the waitress goes away for the rest of the food I ask Dad if she’s from Sweden. Mum looks away and sips her wine. Dad says Sweden is where pretty was invented.
Kiev is in Russia. The best thing about chicken kiev is when it gets to me with all the garlic butter still in it. Sometimes it leaks out though and if it’s at home Mum usually lets me swap with hers. Then you get to dig your knife into the kiev, really slowly, so that there’s this splurt like you killed it and it has butter and herbs for blood.
When the waitress brings my kiev out Mum looks at me and my plate and says ‘Oh dear.’
This is the worst day of my life.
Robert hasn’t hardly touched his lasagne and Mum isn’t really eating her risotto. I bet Alfie wishes he was here. If Dad can’t eat all the leftovers he’ll probably ask for a doggy bag but we all know it’s a kitty bag really. Although quite often we get home and it ends up being a Daddy bag.