Luke and Jon

by Robert Williams

  This all happened after Liam Dewhurst, a boy with a speech impediment, was bullied so much that he swallowed half a bottle of pills and had to be rushed to hospital to have his stomach pumped. He’d left a note and named names and it was on the local news and in the local paper. His parents were interviewed and there was a photograph on the front page where they looked upset, angry and defiant all at the same time. They said that they’d tried to approach the school but had been told that it was in hand, that it was being dealt with. They said that they’d done what they could but the school didn’t want to know. The school had sent them away when they needed help. Liam’s mum said that if her son had died the school would’ve had blood on its hands. That was the line the paper used as the headline.

  The next day the school rocket-launched itself into action. The police were called and kids expelled and excluded. The headmaster gave an assembly in front of the whole school. An angry address. Teachers lined the hall walls, arms folded and grim-faced. None of them warmed their hands on their usual cups of coffee. They stood straight-backed and silent. The headmaster stalked down the hall, from the oldest kids at the back to the youngest at the front, his head high, his face concrete. Each footstep echoed with intent. When he was in front of the microphone he didn’t speak for a while, just shuffled some papers, taking his time, thinking things through. Eventually he looked out over the lines of children, methodically taking in each and every face. Looking for a reaction. He began with his voice a whisper, his tone thin. Later he occasionally leapt to a roar only to drop back down again. It didn’t matter: everybody heard every word regardless of volume. And everybody felt guilty. Even the good kids. He spoke about cowardice, lack of honour, cruelty and consequence. He said that it would not happen in one of his schools. Ever. Again. In all his years in the teaching profession he said, he had never been angrier than he was right now. And everyone believed him. When we all trooped out, forty minutes later, exhausted and silent, I saw that some of the faces of the kids from the year below mine were smeared and mucky with tears, eyes red and puffed. Even some of the older children looked pale. As we left the hall nobody pushed and shoved and mucked about, we just filed out quietly, the way the teachers wanted us to every day.

  It struck me that Duerdale High was less concerned with bullying as an issue. Maybe because it had yet to have a suicide attempt and the local camera crews camped outside. The way Jon was treated would never have happened at my old school. Kids shouted out ‘Slack Jaw!’ as they passed him on the corridor. And I saw teachers smile, in on the joke, just a bit of fun, no real harm. But if that happened when they were there, what did they think happened when they weren’t?

  It was only when we were getting changed for PE one afternoon that I realised how serious it was. We were stood facing the changing-room wall, reluctantly getting ready, and Jon had taken his shirt off. As he raised his arms to hang it on the peg I saw a rainbow of colour flash in the air. I turned to look and made him hold his skinny arms out towards me. They were covered in bruises, all running into and over each other.

  It wasn’t as if I was the only person who could see them. There were at least thirty of us in that room, but nobody else reacted. And why would they? It was Slack Jaw. The weird granddad-looking kid from the fell. The kid who hid in the Library all the time. The one who couldn’t catch or kick a ball. The one that everyone said stank of piss. (He didn’t.) And what did he expect anyway? Dressing like that and looking like that? It was inevitable.

  Later that lunchtime we were in Duerdale Library. Jon was sat at his usual desk and I was opposite, pretending to read. We had a conversation that quickly escalated from hissed whispers to loud voices and one of the librarians had to look over and shout that we would be out if we carried on. Jon looked at me as if that signalled his final and winning point: No, he did not want to talk about Kieran Judd. No, he did not want me to do anything about Kieran Judd and would I please shut up about the whole fucking thing and let him read his book. I stormed out, banging the door behind me, the noise exploding through the stuffy calm of the Library. I left him in the safe, warm silence with his stupid, frustrating, bloody head buried in a battered copy of Amazing Facts about the World in which You Live.

  Fat wrists

  I knew why I was so angry. I wanted to make amends for what happened with Peter Corkland. Peter was a boy at my old school and his life was hell and one day I made it worse. Even after they clamped down on bullying, little changed for Peter. He was the fattest boy in school, the fattest boy in town, and everyone called him Peter the Pie Man. It’s not cruel to describe him as fat though; it’s just the truth. He was massive. Every part of him was big, even his wrists and ankles. They looked like they belonged to a fat baby, flesh rolling over itself at the joints. He had his own special chair in the classroom because the standard chairs might not be safe. There were only a couple of these chairs in the school and somebody had to make sure that one of them would be in his next lesson. Normally a teacher got one of the other kids to take one because it would take Peter too long to carry it.

  He used to wear his dad’s old clothes to school and it was a strange sight until you got used to it. There he was, twice as wide as any of us, in his dad’s shirt and trousers looking ready for the office, but with his school bag slung over his shoulder. He didn’t wear a blazer because they just didn’t make them that big. He wasn’t allowed to do sport with us; the teachers wouldn’t risk it. They were worried he would collapse and die or something so they just made him walk around the playing field while we played football or did athletics.

  He eventually got diagnosed with Prader Willi Syndrome, which meant he ate too much, but it wasn’t his fault. He never felt full, even after a big meal. One of our teachers said that trying to stop Peter eating was like trying to stop ice melt in the midday sun. And it was a bit mean the way he said it in front of everyone, but it was true. Sometimes people give excuses for why they are fat. They say it’s because of water retention, glands, big bones or a thyroid problem, things like that. And nobody really believes them. But Peter did have a reason, there was an excuse, but he never bothered to explain, he never used his illness as a reason for his size. Maybe he couldn’t see the point, couldn’t see that it would change anything.

  He was always eating. On the way to school he would eat crisps from his left pocket and take swigs from the drink in his right pocket. He kept his chocolate in his school bag. He stashed food in his desk at school and ate during lessons. Nobody else was allowed but the teachers gave up trying to stop Peter. He seemed a nice guy really, but he was a bit shy I think, and I never really got to know him. I had my few friends and my drawing and we just never seemed to be in the same place at the same time. And I suppose it’s hard to be friends with someone who has to stop and rest when walking from one class to the next, someone who can never join in with any games or sport because he gets too tired. It didn’t bother me that he was fat though; I never had a problem with him at all. I was never one of the ones who called him the Pie Man or threw food at him in the canteen. Like I said, my family welcomed outsiders. That’s what makes what happened worse.

  It was lunchtime and it was pouring down and it had been raining all day. This meant that the art room was packed. I was here every lunch but on wet days they opened it up to everyone. I hated it like that. People just mucked around and shoved each other about and flirted and argued and you could never get anything done. There were loads of us sat round a big table but only a couple of us were drawing, everyone else was just bored and wishing they could be outside. Some of the boys were a couple of years older than me and my friends. I didn’t know any of their names and they were loud and looking for people to pick on. I was keeping my head down. Just drawing. After a few minutes I could sense one of them was stood behind me, looking. I thought he was going to take the mick, grab my drawing off me, make me plead for it back, that kind of thing. Instead he said, ‘That’s brilliant, that’s really good. That’s him, isn’t it
?’ He pointed at my friend, Ian, who was sat opposite me. I nodded. One of the other older boys came round and had a look too. He said that nobody in his year could draw like that. They seemed really impressed. I won’t lie; I was proud, it felt good.

  Just then one of the older lads shouted, ‘Look at the Pie Man!’ People ran to the window and watched Peter below, out in the rain, walking slowly towards the school with rain running down his face and dripping off his nose and chin. He seemed oblivious to the weather. He stopped every now and again and leant on a wall to get his breath. As he got closer some of the boys banged on the window and chanted, ‘Pie Man! Pie Man! Pie Man!’ But he didn’t look up; he was very good at ignoring people, and they got bored and things quietened down. I carried on trying to finish my drawing before the bell for the next lesson went. The room fell silent for a few minutes and it was good; it was like it normally was. As I was concentrating on getting Ian’s hair right, spikes in all the right places, I felt somebody’s eyes on me. I looked up and saw the older boy who had complimented my drawing looking at me with a glint in his eye and a smile on his face. He leaned forward. ‘Do you know what? You should draw the Pie Man …’ There was a second’s silence and then, suddenly, that’s what the whole room was saying. ‘Yeah, draw him. It’ll be brilliant …’; ‘Come on, just do it quickly, draw him …’; ‘Get him some more paper. Give him some room …’; ‘Shut up, let him get on with it …’

  I had never been the centre of attention before and I never want to be again. And I didn’t want to draw Peter. I really didn’t. The shouting didn’t stop though, and they were all crowded around me, waiting for the picture, telling me how brilliant it would be. I tried to stand up to leave but I got pushed back down. I quickly drew a picture where Peter wasn’t half as fat as he really was. They ripped that up and started getting annoyed. I got a shove to my head. I felt a fist in my back. They knew I could do it well.

  I tried to get it over with quickly. I did it fast, in a couple of minutes. A quick, horrible caricature. As I drew somebody shouted, ‘Show him eating!’ So I put the drink bottle in one pocket, the crisps in another, and a hand full of food going up to his open mouth. Crumbs everywhere. It was finished. It was horrible. I wanted to rip it up. One of the older boys shouted ‘Brilliant!’ Tore it off me and ran out of the room followed by his mates.

  My drawing was photocopied and pinned up on classroom boards and handed out to kids as they walked between lessons. Someone had written, ‘The Pie Man!’ across the top before it was copied, just in case anyone was too stupid to tell who it was. Before long people were sending it from phone to phone. It wasn’t long until the teachers saw it and I got dragged in front of the headmaster. And not long till they called my mum and dad.

  My mum couldn’t believe it. She’d never been so angry and upset with me. She could barely look at me and she couldn’t look at the drawing. When the headmaster pushed it in front of her she ripped it up. When we got home she said she didn’t like me right now, and asked me to leave her alone. I tried to apologise but she didn’t want to hear it and Dad told me that I needed to give her some time, that I needed to let her calm down. And anyway, I didn’t know how to explain. What could I say? ‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t want to do it. I just wanted them to go away.’ It sounded pathetic and it just didn’t sound true. How could I be made to draw a picture? I don’t know if she ever really forgave me properly. Things weren’t right for days after that and I wish I’d never drawn it and I was sorry that I was cruel to Peter. He never said anything though. I think he just thought it was the kind of thing that would always happen to him. There didn’t seem anything I could do to make things right and it still upsets me sometimes, even now. It makes me angry that she knew that I did that before she died and that I never really managed to explain how it had happened.

  I should have just let them beat me up. That would have been much better.

  Bad backs and sore arms

  It was harder than he thought it would be. I could tell after the first day. When he drove me and Jon to school the back of the car was already loaded with the first piece of the carving to be taken to the clearing. He said he would start off slowly, start off easy, so he took one of the lighter sections to carry. He arrived back at the house just as I returned home from school and climbed out of the car a different man. There was mud streaked across his face and his shirt was dirty. He walked slowly, bent over like a flamingo’s neck. ‘You all right?’ I asked. ‘Kind of,’ he replied. ‘A bit tired, that’s all.’ He shuffled passed me, through the front door and into the kitchen and lowered himself into his chair with a grimace on his face. He was asleep before the kettle boiled.

  The next few days followed a similar pattern. And every time he returned to the house I thought that would be it. That he would admit defeat, say it was too hard, a bloody stupid idea and let’s please not mention the stupid bloody wooden horse again. I expected the whisky bottle to come out and a toast to knocking the whole thing on the bloody head. The whisky bottle did come out, and he had a drink, but I was watching closely and he wasn’t drinking like he did when we first arrived in Duerdale, when a bottle could disappear in a night. After a few more days, I noticed the slightest changes. He was still as tired when he got home, but in the mornings, even though he complained and moaned about the pains in his bones and joints and hobbled about like an old man, he seemed a little brighter and stronger despite all of this. He didn’t look as fragile as eggshell any more. A few days after this change I noticed a muscle in his arm that flickered as he stirred his coffee. I hadn’t seen that before. There was even the slightest touch of colour to his cheeks, a thin veil of red resting on the grey. He was still as skinny as ever but it seemed less of a hospital bed thin, less of a dangerous thin. I thought to myself that I must be imaging things, that a few days dragging lumps of wood through a forest couldn’t change a man much surely? But each time I risked a glance, I could clearly see that he was ever so slightly starting to look healthier.

  I offered to help with moving the carving but he said that there was nothing I could really help with and I knew that he was right. I’d tried to lift some of the pieces in the workroom and I could do, just. But it would have been impossible for me to move them further than the car outside, never mind all the way through the forest. Each morning when Jon clambered into the car he looked in the back to see what parts were being transported that day. He would see that it was one of the flanks or thighs and say, ‘Whoa! That’s a big piece, that must kill you!’ And Dad would say, ‘Yes, Jon, it might just about do that.’ And we would wish him luck as we climbed out of the car and said goodbye and he would drive off with a look in his eye that made you think he might be going to war.

  Unexpected speed

  I always thought that organisations like Social Services moved slowly. That they crept along precariously like a mobile home being moved on a motorway. That isn’t always the case. Duerdale Social Services could lumber forward as fast as an angry rhinoceros when it wanted to. Mr McGrath and Ms Green turned up with a signed order from the Family Court saying they had a right to inspect the premises. And they brought a policeman. Just in case either grandparent miraculously rose from their chair, grew strength and power into their thinning, shrinking bones and wrestled the social workers to the floor.

  Jon was at school when they arrived. The first he knew about it was when he turned the corner in the lane and saw his grandma being wheeled into an ambulance with a look of astonishment on her face. His granddad was next and he gave more resistance but there was no power in the swats he aimed at the ambulance men. It was as futile as a man falling off a cliff trying to air-grab his way back to safety. Jon ran forward down the lane as fast as he could towards the ambulance, police car and social workers when he should have really turned and run the other way. He was put in the police car and all three vehicles travelled in a convoy to Duerdale Hospital. The policeman told him not to worry, that he wasn’t being arrested, but Jon said he did
do that ‘pushing your head down thing’, so it can’t be bumped on the car roof and you can’t sue for assault later.

  I only learnt all this when the phone rang that night. That was unusual in itself and I was already half expecting some kind of trouble before Dad called me down from my room to the chilly hallway. He passed me the phone and mouthed, ‘Jon.’ He sensed that something wasn’t right too; he lingered by the open kitchen door, his shadow falling out into the hall as he pretended to dry the dishes.

  I sat on the stairs, and said, ‘Hello?’ There was no reply, just the hum of the phone line. Then I heard the sound of footsteps squeaking on hard floor. I was trying to work out where he could be when he spoke.

  ‘I’m at the hospital.’

  ‘Hospital?’

  He told me about turning the corner in the lane, about Mr McGrath and Ms Green, his grandma’s bewilderment, and his granddad’s resistance. He told me about the policeman’s hand on his head and the convoy to the hospital. He told me that he was being kept in, that they were doing tests to see if he was malnourished or vitamin deficient or something. They said they wanted to establish his ‘general level of health’. They’d checked his height, checked his weight, checked his body mass index, he said. They’d shone lights in his eyes, lights in his ears, lights in his mouth, lights up his nose. They’d listened to his chest from front and back. They’d rooted through his hair and peered at his scalp. They’d smiled fixed smiles at him and spoken in singsong voices. They were too kind, too gentle with him, he said. Like he might be made of breadcrumbs. Like part of him might just fall off. Then they found the bruises on his arms. It was like they’d got home and found a smashed window and their faces turned hard and their note-taking increased. Jon saw what was going on and told them that his grandparents hadn’t done that. They had never done anything like that. A nurse told him not to worry; they weren’t suggesting that they had. He should just try and rest. He needed to rest and worrying wasn’t resting, was it? He said that they wouldn’t or couldn’t answer the question he kept asking, ‘When can we go home?’