Breaking the Silence

by Casey Watson

  ‘Giant maggots!’ Georgie suddenly exclaimed. ‘With green slime, unleashed by BOSS – Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor. It killed the miner.’ He paused and turned his head. ‘Green death.’

  Through the mirror I could see Jenson’s jaw drop. Georgie, nonplussed, went back to studying his hands, while his small tormentor decided he’d perhaps leave off the tormenting and look out of the window instead.

  I smiled to myself. There were definitely some plus-points to kids being afraid of things they didn’t understand. And as a defence against being teased, it was priceless.

  Once we got home, Georgie noticed the results of my day’s labours straight away, and walked slowly around each room, studying every picture carefully. His eyes positively lit up when he saw the clocks I’d created, with their times and what each one represented. He turned and grinned at me, even making eye contact very fleetingly.

  ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘Good, Casey. This is Georgie’s house.’

  I felt my throat constrict a little, knowing what I knew and he didn’t; that this was only to be his home temporarily. That, in all probability, just as he had settled in, they would find a permanent home for him, which would mean going through the whole trauma of moving once again. And not for the first time – since that was the nature of my work – I felt bad about it; something of a fraud.

  I smiled anyway. ‘Yes, it sure is, kiddo. And now you know where everything lives, you can help me look after you better, can’t you?’

  Luckily, Jenson wasn’t around to hear that exchange, having gone straight up to his room to change out of his uniform. I had a feeling he already felt a bit pushed out by Georgie, as would any child who felt they’d been usurped by a new arrival, which was why child-care books made so much of all the things you had to do when bringing home a new baby.

  I also had a hunch he resented the fact that Georgie was staying for considerably longer than he was. Mad, when you thought how desperate he was to get back home again, but then, human emotions weren’t always logical.

  I had decided to eat with the boys, rather than waiting for Mike and eating later, as I felt my presence around the table, sharing a family meal, would be important – leading by example, as it were. And as I took their meals and tumblers of milk through to the dining room I was pleased to find the atmosphere was actually one of conviviality. Yes, Jenson was making a big fuss about his upcoming mushy peas, to torment Georgie – licking his lips and waving his fork around, and generally being a bit silly – but, at that level, particularly since Georgie seemed to be ignoring it, I decided it might be best to ignore it myself.

  Besides, I had something of my own to bring up, and though I wavered – should I take Jenson off to his room after we’d eaten? – I had a gut instinct that it might make the whole thing seem less portentous if I didn’t make too big a deal of it. Present it as a logistical problem more than anything; perhaps that way he wouldn’t read too much into it.

  And it looked like I’d have an opportunity. Georgie, his glass empty, started pointing to it and looking at me. He obviously wanted another drink.

  ‘Do me a favour, love,’ I said to Jenson, since he had already finished eating. ‘Come into the kitchen and help me with dessert, yes? And a drink for Georgie,’ I added. ‘There’s a love. Oh, by the way,’ I said lightly, once we were safely out of earshot. ‘I know it’s going to disappoint you, love, but unfortunately your visit to see your mum tomorrow’s had to be postponed. They’re going to rearrange it for as soon as possible, obviously – just not tomorrow. I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ I finished, handing him the fresh tumbler of milk.

  I watched Jenson’s face set into a rigid angry mask. ‘They can’t do that!’ he said. ‘Who said so anyway? Is it the social or her who’ve done the cancelling?’

  ‘Your social worker, love,’ I said carefully. ‘Marie did.’ There was no need to tell him the real truth about it. Indeed, I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to find out. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I know she’ll rearrange it just as soon as she possibly can.’

  ‘Why, though?’ he persisted, as I rummaged in the fridge for yoghurts. ‘Has someone said owt about me? I bet they have. I bet you anything it was that bloody old –’

  ‘Jenson,’ I said calmly. ‘I promise you, it’s not that. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything you have done or not done. This is just stuff that the grown-ups have to sort out. You’ve done nothing wrong,’ I repeated. ‘Nothing wrong at all. And I’m sure Marie will get back to us just as soon as she can, and in the meantime, perhaps –’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Jenson said, immediately slamming down the glass. He banged it down with such force that milk slopped over the worktop, but thankfully I’d chosen sensibly – it was plastic. ‘Fuck off!’ He was by now on his way back through to the dining room. ‘And you can fuck off as well!’ he railed, pointing at a startled Georgie. ‘You can specially fuck off, you fucking retard!’

  ‘Jenson!’ I said firmly. ‘This isn’t helping anything. Now would you please sit back down and calm down and finish your tea. I know you’re upset, but I won’t have you talking like that in this house, you hear me?’

  But Jenson was too enraged now for my words to have any impact. ‘Fuck off!’ he yelled again, running to the dining room door. ‘And yeah, I do hear, okay? Just like I hear everything you say to him!’ He glared at Georgie again. ‘All your stupid pictures. Fucking retard! You can shove the fucking lot of them up your arse!’

  Jenson thundered up the stairs, leaving both Georgie and me staring. But then I realised that Georgie wasn’t just staring; he’d begun rocking. He’d clamped his hands to his ears and was rhythmically rocking; back and forth, back and forth, his eyes fixed on the middle distance, his expression glassy eyed and weird and pained.

  I went across to him, anxious not to startle him with sudden movements.

  ‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ I said softly. ‘Jenson was just a bit upset. He’s just angry because he’s not having a very good day.’

  I was close to Georgie now, and was just dithering about whether or not to touch him when, quite without warning, he emitted a high-pitched scream. It was so piercing and so loud that it made me take a step back involuntarily. Which was just as well, because he clearly didn’t want me anywhere near him. But as I backed away the intensity of the scream got even stronger. Now what the hell did I do?

  It might have been a few seconds, but it might equally have been minutes, but I was still standing there dithering, trying to decide upon a course of action, when salvation appeared to me in the form of Mike, who had just got home from work.

  ‘What the – ?’ he began, till I flapped a hand to silence him and could bundle him back into the hall.

  ‘I don’t know what to do!’ I whispered helplessly, glancing back at where Georgie, his blond locks swinging back and forth along with him, continued to scream the place down. ‘Jenson kicked off,’ I hissed, by way of explanation, ‘which is what seems to have started it. And I don’t know what on earth to do to try and stop it!’

  Mike looked past me, back into the kitchen, where Georgie continued screaming. If it went on much longer he would surely lose his voice. Yet I was heedful of Harry’s warning about how carefully I needed to deal with him. Mike, though, was obviously in a more bullish frame of mind. ‘Georgie?’ he barked, in his most deep and authoritarian tone. ‘It’s okay, mate. No one is angry any more now. There’s nothing to be scared of. Calm down. It’s okay.’

  The decibel level suddenly subsided markedly, I noticed, which seemed a good thing. Perhaps it meant he was listening. He clearly responded well to the depth of Mike’s voice.

  ‘It’s okay now,’ Mike said again, keeping a prudent two or three feet from him. ‘There is nothing to be scared of now. Everything’s okay.’

  The screaming, bit by bit, began to morph into a whimper, and though Georgie still rocked and still had his hands clamped over his ears there was a sense that the tsunami
of distress was now passing. He was finally beginning to calm down.

  But it was a fragile sort of calm; he still seemed wired and not quite with us, a situation not improved by the reappearance of Jenson, who had obviously been upstairs sobbing, while he tackled his own demons. His face was wet and streaked and filthy. And seeing the three of us, he promptly burst into tears all over again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he sobbed. ‘I’m sorry, Casey.’ He gulped a little, wiped his eyes and turned his gaze to Georgie. ‘An’ I’m sorry to you as well,’ he sniffed, marching across to Georgie, where, with a wobbly little smile, he apologised again.

  What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion, as is often the case when something comes at you right out of the blue. Georgie removed his hands from his ears and, with a grimace, accompanied by an inhuman-sounding growl, leapt from his chair and literally launched himself at Jenson. And it was some launch, as well; he pretty much hurled himself at him, as if unexpectedly called upon to wrestle a hungry bear. You couldn’t have witnessed a more dramatic, full-on, fists-flying assault if you’d been watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

  Except this wasn’t funny, this was ugly, proper violence. This might have only been two 9-year-old boys having a scrap, except that Georgie clearly wasn’t like most 9-year-old boys. I’d read about it, heard about it, taken it all in – but that was nothing compared to seeing it in action. And something else was clear: Georgie might not be able to feel pain that deeply, but he sure as hell was good at inflicting it.

  ‘Arrgh!’ screamed Jenson, easily matching Georgie’s earlier volume. ‘Mike, gerr ’im off me!’ he said, as dining chairs clattered to the floor around them. ‘Gerr ’im off me! He’s a fucking nutter!’

  It was probably only a matter of moments before Mike managed to do so, but it was a much bigger job that I think even he expected, and once they’d been separated I was horrified to see what damage had already been done. There was a nasty graze beginning to swell on Jenson’s cheek and, clutched tightly in Georgie’s fist, a shockingly big clump of Jenson’s hair.

  And, of course, Jenson – now livid – was anxious to return the compliment, and had begun trying to thrash around and wriggle from Mike’s grip. ‘Lemme go!’ he screeched. ‘I’m going to fucking kill him, I am. Kill him!’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Mike said firmly. ‘You are both going to calm down.’

  Which Georgie by now had already done, after a fashion. Seemingly spent from his turn as a Tasmanian devil, once Mike had managed to extricate Jenson from his clutches he’d simply flopped. Flopped against me, more specifically. Though ‘flopped’ wasn’t really the word. He now leaned against me in the same way a step-ladder would: completely rigid, with his feet planted squarely on the floor, and with his head – he had his back to me, and I held his upper arms loosely –­ a heavy blond weight against my chest.

  Jenson was still struggling, but with slightly less conviction now. ‘Just lemme go to my room,’ he sobbed to Mike now. ‘Just let me get out of here, please.’

  Mike slowly released his grip. I could see he was still ready for further action, but we could soon tell Jenson had no fight left in him. Clutching his head – which, poor lad, must have been stinging like fury – he turned and once again thundered back off up the stairs.

  I waited for the inevitable door slam, and he obliged me. Then I turned to Mike, my rigid human shield still leant against me.

  ‘Well,’ I mouthed helplessly. ‘What now?’

  In the end, by a combination of cajoling and gently nudging, I managed to ‘herd’ a now completely mute Georgie into the living room. He was still glassy-eyed, but when I said the word ‘Countdown’ he seemed to shift gear, and seemed happy enough to let me arrange him on the sofa and wait meekly for the remote while I switched on the TV. Thank heavens for Sky, I thought, scrolling through the planner. Not to mention my great foresight in series linking the programme.

  I returned to the kitchen to find Mike filling the kettle.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ I said, bringing the dirty dishes to the sink. I felt so sorry for my poor husband – what a thing to come home to after a hard day at work! ‘God knows how we bring them back from this,’ I said, sighing. That bald patch of Jenson’s would be something to see. ‘God, I hope this sort of thing isn’t going to become a regular occurrence!’

  Mike shook his head as he spooned instant coffee into mugs for us. ‘I sincerely hope not,’ he said. ‘And nothing to do with poor Jenson himself, obviously, but perhaps it’s for the best that he’s off pretty soon, eh? I have a hunch that having the two of them here isn’t going to work.’

  I nodded. ‘I suspect you’re right. But there’s been a development on that score.’ I told him about the contact visit cancellation. And the reason.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘That sounds a bit ominous, love, doesn’t it?’

  I agreed that it did. It was echoing my very thoughts. ‘But let’s not jump to conclusions, eh, love? How about your dinner? Shall I finish clearing this lot away and warm yours up?’

  ‘I’m not sure I fancy anything just now, after all that.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘I can always microwave it later – if and when I get my appetite back.’

  I found a smile and dredged it up while Mike poured hot water onto our coffees. ‘Well, there’s a positive, at least,’ I said. ‘Because mine’s disappeared as well. So at this rate, by the time one of them goes elsewhere we’ll have both lost a couple of pounds, won’t we?’

  We both laughed because, as everyone knows, laughter’s the best medicine. But violence is always shocking, no matter how young the pugilists, and, duly shocked, I only had one thought in my head – that I might soon be tearing my own hair out.

  Chapter 13

  ‘What colour is a rainbow, Casey?’

  Not the first thing you expect to be asked in the morning, particularly the very second you open your bedroom door. Nevertheless, that was what Georgie obviously badly needed to know. He was standing right outside it – literally, nose to wood with it. I almost jumped out of my skin.

  ‘Oh, you gave me a fright, Georgie!’ I said, clutching my chest for effect as I mentally tried to remember the rhyme. Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain, that was it. But before I could recite the colours, Georgie had another question. ‘What colour is a chameleon if it goes into a rainbow?’ Then, bizarrely, ‘Do the Aztecs eat meat?’

  This was new, I decided, as I tried to come up with answers, but then I realised that Georgie didn’t even seem to want them. I could tell as I spoke that he wasn’t listening, and was back locked in his own train of thought. Perhaps thinking up questions was just a stress-relieving strategy – and after last night there was certainly plenty of that fizzing about.

  ‘I tell you what,’ I finished. ‘How about you go downstairs ready for your breakfast, eh? I’ll just use the bathroom and then I’ll be there.’

  Wincing slightly as I passed my own grinning mugshot on the bathroom door, I reflected that today might be a stressful one as well. Though both boys had settled again, after the aftermath of their fight – even sharing opposite ends of the same sofa to watch TV with us – I wasn’t naïve enough to suppose they were now friends. For one thing, Georgie didn’t ‘do’ friends, not in the way other kids did, and with a weeping bald patch to remind him what Georgie could do, I had no doubt that Jenson would be keen to get him back.

  I followed Georgie down to find both boys sitting waiting patiently in the dining room, having chosen seats that gave them both a view of the telly in the living room, through the French doors.

  ‘Morning, all!’ I said brightly, picking up the Krispies for Georgie and pouring them into his bowl for him. That done, I went to do the same for Jenson.

  ‘Can I have Coco Pops, instead?’ he said.

  ‘Can I please have Coco Pops, Jenson? And yes, of course you can. I’ll go and fetch them.’

  I knew why Jenson was doing this; it was to wind up poor Georgie. Having homed in on the white-food thing lik
e an Exocet missile, he was obviously keen to target it at every opportunity. I would simply ignore it, though, because it seemed to me that Georgie didn’t even notice. As long as he had what he wanted, it seemed he couldn’t give a fig about what anyone else put in their mouths.

  Not that Jenson wouldn’t get this himself before long. At which point, I had no doubt that he would just try and find something else. The only question being what, and how soon.

  ‘What we doing today, then?’ Jenson asked me once I’d poured out his cereal. ‘Seeing as how I won’t be seeing my mum and Carley.’ He seemed to think. ‘That’s unless Carley is seeing her. Is she? I bet she is.’

  ‘No, love. Neither of you are – just like I told you yesterday. Anyway, Mike’s had to pop into work for a couple of hours this morning, so we’ll decide what to do with ourselves then, okay?’

  Jenson frowned. ‘Bet she’s lying. She likes Carley way more than me. Bet they’ve decided to go girly shopping and just don’t want me there.’

  ‘Love, that’s not the case, I promise you.’

  ‘Bet it is.’

  There was nothing I could say that would change his mind, clearly. Not without spelling out the real reason for the cancelled visit, which was the last thing I wanted to do. And perhaps he had good reason to think that might be the case. Perhaps that was something that happened often – how did I know? Once again I got this feeling that there was something more to their relationship; that, much as Jenson wanted to be wanted by his mother, there was this clear sense that he held a grudge against her.

  Making myself a coffee, I thought back to what the neighbour had said about ‘all that business with the little one’. It wasn’t really anything to do with me – social services would obviously reach their own conclusions – but, given that they had flagged up some concerns regarding the fiancé, perhaps I should make it my business to find out.

  Breakfast soon eaten and Mike due home from work imminently, I told the boys to go up and wash and dress. ‘And while you’re at it you can both tidy your bedrooms,’ I said. ‘Think you can do that?’ I glanced at Georgie to see that he understood what I was saying. ‘That sound good, Georgie? You know how to tidy your room, right?’