by Casey Watson
I ignored Jenson’s snigger, and concentrated on Georgie, and was pleased to see that funny little smile cross his face. As he spent so much of his time looking so blankly at nothing, I decided it must have some significance. That he understood, perhaps? And that he felt comfortable with it? Just instinct, but then I would have to work on instinct. Till I got to know him better, that was all I had to go on. That and my experience with my own son.
If Georgie was anything like Kieron, of course, I would have nothing to worry about. Kieron would only operate in a room with complete order. Everything would have its own special place and he certainly wouldn’t accept the thought of mess. And something told me that I was dealing with the same sort of mindset. Unlike most boys his age, but in the same way as Kieron, Georgie probably wouldn’t dream of leaving dirty clothes on his floor or randomly discarding toys and games. Children with such dispositions, like Georgie – and also our last child, Abigail – did have some perks, I decided.
The boys off upstairs, I went back into the kitchen to wash the dishes. Annoyingly, it had started to pour down outside. I switched on the radio and turned it up to drown the noise out. If there was one thing I really hated, it was rain. I loved the cold, I loved the heat, and I especially loved snow, but rain just drained the cheer out of everything. Most annoyingly, it had that unique ability to scupper plans, and where with snow you could simply make new, more exciting plans, when it rained there was so much you couldn’t do.
And I had had a plan: to take the boys to the woods. I loved having a patch of woodland just yards from our front door. Not only had it been one of the unexpected bonuses of moving to our current house, it had also delighted us with bluebells and wood anemones and primroses and, best of all, since it had a proper babbling brook running through it, with frogspawn and baby frogs as well.
And, naturally, it also had stones. But if it continued to rain like this we’d have to schedule our visit for another day, and I was just trying to think what else we could get up to when I heard the front door go. Mike. Home from work.
‘Hi, love! I’m back!’ he called, as per usual, from the hallway. I smiled as I put the kettle on for more coffee.
‘It’s awfully quiet in here,’ he said, coming up behind me to give me a hug. ‘Come on, out with it, woman. What have you done with them?’
‘What, my little angels?’ I laughed. ‘Actually, they are both upstairs, cleaning. I am endeavouring to mould them in my image. By the way, what do you think we should do with them today? I did think it would be nice to take them to the woods and tire them out. But now it’s raining.’
Mike peered out of the window. ‘Not that hard. And it looks like it’s easing up, too. So that sounds like a plan to me. But is there any chance of some boiled eggs and soldiers first?’
‘You big baby,’ I scolded, smacking him on the backside with the morning paper. ‘Go on then. Long as you promise to be the one to take them down to the muddy bit by the stream. Do your David Bellamy bit while I stay on the grassy bit, because if I end up on my backside in the mud there will be hell to pay.’
‘You big wuss,’ he responded. Touché, then.
Even so, his breakfast made, I went upstairs and pulled clothes out for all weather eventualities, which was only sensible for summer outings in Britain: my very tatty combat pants, a lightweight baggy jumper that had seen better days and my not-at-all-fashionably-branded wellies. Very chic, I thought, taking my pyjamas off, ready to go and have a shower.
I’d just done so when the still air was once again disturbed by a high-pitched and now familiar scream. I stopped dead. It was obviously Georgie, and in distress.
Grabbing my combat pants and wriggling into them, then pulling a vest top over my head, I yanked the bedroom door open to find Georgie standing in the doorway to Jenson’s bedroom, still screaming and this time also pointing. I then heard Jenson’s voice from inside. ‘Get lost, you freak!’ he was yelling. ‘Stop fucking screaming and sod off!’
Mike had by now joined us on the landing, and crossing it I could now see inside Jenson’s bedroom. He was sitting on his bed looking cross.
Mike sidestepped Georgie, taking care not to touch him. ‘What’s going on, Jenson?’ he said over the racket.
‘Oh. My. God!’ Jenson spluttered. ‘What are you blaming me for? That freak just came in here and started screaming at me! I can’t get no sense out of him. Look at him!’
‘I’m not blaming you for anything,’ Mike said calmly. ‘I’m just asking you because Georgie is obviously too upset to speak.’
At the sound of his name, Georgie’s screams got even louder. God, it occurred to me, what are the neighbours thinking?
Jenson crossed his arms over his chest and looked defiantly back at Mike. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ he said. ‘How should I?’
‘But why do you think he might be upset?’ Mike persisted.
Jenson spread his palms now. ‘I told you – I don’t know!’
I knelt down close to Georgie. ‘Love,’ I said, ‘I can see something’s upset you, but you need to tell us what. Or show me. Otherwise we can’t help you, can we?’
The screaming stopped as dramatically and instantly as it had started, and though I had absolutely no idea what had been the trigger in what I’d said I silently congratulated myself for having found a way through the din. Georgie then marched straight across the landing to his own bedroom, and pointed – very pointedly – at the line of stones just beyond his doorway.
I followed his eyes downwards – it was some kind of moat, I imagined, preventing entry. Had Jenson stepped over it? And then I remembered. I counted. There were nine stones. Before, there’d been ten.
‘Did someone move a stone, Georgie?’ I asked him, even though I already knew the answer.
Without saying a word, Georgie walked, shoulders down, to the bathroom door, where he pointed to the picture of Jenson.
‘Did Jenson take your stone, sweetheart?’
‘Jenson bad,’ Georgie said. He then hung his head and returned to Jenson’s doorway. Once there, he looked straight into the eyes of his tormentor, and promptly began screaming again.
‘Jenson!’ I called, above the noise. ‘One of Georgie’s stones is missing. He says you have it. Now will you please give it back to him. You obviously knew it would upset him, and if you don’t want to be grounded I suggest you do as I ask right this minute.’
Mike, who was by now sitting on the bed with Jenson, patted his arm. ‘Come on, lad, this isn’t funny. Not when you do it to a boy like Georgie. It’s just mean. You know that …’
Jenson bridled. ‘So’s what he did to my fucking hair!’
‘I know, lad, but two wrongs …’
Jenson leapt up then. He reached under his pillow and produced the offending item, then, waving it around above his head for a moment, yelled ‘Here it is, you fucking retard! You wan’ it so bad? Well, you can have it!’ With which he threw it, with unnerving accuracy, straight at Georgie’s forehead.
Here we go again! I thought, as Georgie’s hand flew to his temple and, meanwhile – it was obviously a lucky shot, after all – Jenson , looking mortified, tried to make a bolt for the door. Luckily, Mike grabbed him, and meanwhile (and quite forgetting about the various protocols) I grabbed Georgie and clamped my arms around him. Which again stopped him screaming, but now he started struggling instead, and, to my amazement, managed to shrug me off as easily as he would a coat. I didn’t resist. He was obviously in some sort of shock, but it was only as he got free of me that I saw to what extent, because he immediately hurled himself across the room and slammed his whole body at the wall.
It happened so quickly but he must have done it three times in all – each time more violently than the last – before Mike could grab him from behind and wrestle him gently but firmly to the ground.
They stayed locked there, both rocking from side to side, for some minutes, Mike with his arms wrapped firmly round Georgie’s torso, and wit
h the boy’s legs spread out in front, between his own. It almost looked like some horror-movie version of that dance – the one that goes ‘Oops, upside your head’, that people do at discos in long chains.
Jenson, as transfixed now as I was, hadn’t moved, his bolt for freedom obviously having been forgotten. This was a whole other league of kids having freak-outs, I thought distractedly. I’d been in some scrapes with angry, self-loathing, behaviourally extreme children, but I’d never witnessed anything quite like this before – and certainly not in my own home. And nor had Jenson, I imagined. He had tears rolling down his cheeks again, and was shaking. He looked scared and appalled.
I followed his gaze. ‘Look, Casey,’ he said in a small voice. ‘Look at his head.’
So I looked, and saw a fat thread of blood on Georgie’s neck, which was running freely and beginning to soak into his hair. It wasn’t from the stone; there was no sign that that had actually hurt him, and from where it seemed to come from my guess was a wound on the back of his head. Which wasn’t surprising, given the animalistic way he’d thrown himself against the bedroom wall.
Another instinct kicked in. I mustn’t alarm Georgie. Mustn’t alarm either boy, in fact. Squeezing Jenson’s hand to reassure him, I mouthed the word ‘blood’ to Mike. Forget the woods. We needed to get to A&E.
Chapter 14
Happily, despite the copious amount of blood, Georgie didn’t need any stitches. ‘It’s typical of this sort of head wound,’ the kindly and very patient A&E nurse explained. ‘They bleed like anything, so they tend to look worse than they really are.’ She grinned at Georgie, who had seemed in a daze since we’d got there. ‘You’re going to have to lose a clump of this gorgeous hair though!’
I half expected Jenson to whoop, or cry ‘Touché!’, or something similar, but, like all of us, he seemed to have had the stuffing knocked out of him, and merely stood there, looking on and looking miserable.
We made the journey home in silence, too, Georgie clutching his hank of bloody hair tightly to him. The nurse, though bemused by his insistence that she couldn’t have it, had kindly popped it in a bag for him. And once home and I’d given both boys a glass of milk and a biscuit, we quickly put the day to bed as well. ‘We start afresh tomorrow, okay, boys?’ I told them as I led them both upstairs. ‘Start over. Tomorrow is another day. In this house we don’t carry things over till tomorrow, so we’ll say no more on the matter, okay?’
‘I can’t believe all that just happened,’ Mike said, once I was back downstairs. He patted the sofa, and I flopped down beside him. ‘Just can’t believe it,’ he said again. ‘D’you think having these two together is ever going to work?’
‘I don’t know, love,’ I said honestly. ‘But you know what? I’m too tired to even think about it properly. But you’re right. Poor Georgie. It’s like Jenson hates him. He’s really made it his mission to go all out to torment the poor boy.’
‘Steady on, love,’ said Mike mildly. ‘I don’t think it’s that bad. I think it’s more that Jenson doesn’t understand him. Which is different. And then naturally pushes buttons to see what’ll happen next. Just usual kid stuff, if you ask me.’
I turned to face Mike, a little shocked. ‘What, you mean like he just takes a healthy interest in the autism spectrum? Come on, love! You really don’t think there’s any malice in what Jenson does?’
Mike paused before answering, and I could tell he was choosing his words. And I felt annoyed. Was he siding with Jenson in all this? I was also, if I was honest, a little cross with myself. Like all the kids that came to us, Jenson had his issues, and displaying bad behaviours didn’t mean he was a bad person. Just a troubled one. For which I knew I should make allowances. But, strangely, in this case, I was finding that hard to focus on. He seemed to have this unnerving ability to really wind me up.
‘All I’m saying,’ Mike continued, ‘is that Georgie must be a puzzle to him – as I’m sure he is to any other kid of their age. Don’t you remember when Kieron was little and how the other kids used to treat him? And how he never got invited to parties or anything? How all the other kids thought he was strange?’
‘Of course I remember,’ I said, back on the defensive. ‘But they were never downright mean to him – I would never have stood for that!’ I thought back. And in doing so, another thing occurred to me. ‘And besides,’ I said, ‘Kieron didn’t have half the problems Georgie has.’
I could see Mike’s attention turning back to the TV, confirmed when he picked up the remote. And he was probably right. No point in discussing this while we were both so wound up. And bringing Kieron into the equation would only make me more volatile; I remembered very well how emotionally intense it had been, watching Kieron trying to navigate the business of relationships. Nothing in that department was ever straightforward for him. Some kids over-compensated by being over-protective, but the bulk of them – from nursery school onwards, pretty much – would simply see teasing him as sport; hiding a favourite pencil, or toy-of-the-moment, or knocking his carefully arranged towers of bricks down. And yes, maybe Mike was right – part of it was born out of curiosity. Wondering what might happen if they did X or Y. Perhaps Mike was right; I should try to be more patient with Jenson. But it was hard. Because I could see his malice.
Nevertheless, I tried, and though I was tested many times over the next few days I did make a concerted effort to educate Jenson, to try and help him understand Georgie a little more.
And I even told Kieron, though without getting the response I expected. ‘Mum, he’s 9!’ he laughed. ‘What else do you expect?’
I pulled a face. So he and his father – currently in the kitchen, preparing vegetables with Jenson – were both in cahoots on this, were they?
‘So what do I do, then?’ I bridled. ‘Just let him get on with it? Just leave him to wind Georgie into such frenzy that he constantly screams the house down?’
‘No, Mum,’ Kieron said patiently. ‘But you’re expecting too much. You can’t force friendships. You’ll just make things worse. No one likes being told who they should and shouldn’t like, and, once he decides, Jenson will either like Georgie or he won’t. That’s the way it works,’ he said firmly, ‘and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
Typical Kieron, I thought. Bless him. Simplifying everything. It was all black and white to him – everything in between was just stuff that got in the way. And perhaps he had a point, I thought, looking across to Mike and Jenson busy in the kitchen while Georgie, gently rocking, was sitting watching TV. Perhaps I should stop trying to push them together and instead try to keep them more apart. Give them my time individually. Why on earth hadn’t I thought of that before?
‘Kieron,’ I said, as I went to help with the dinner, ‘you’re a genius.’
‘I am?’ he asked, bemused. Then he regrouped. ‘I mean, of course I am; I already knew that, Mum, obviously. But I am?’
‘Yes, Mr Modest, you are.’
Armed with a new perspective, I had a new and different agenda, and began to make changes to our daily routine. With no date on the horizon for when Jenson’s situation might be changing, I decided to work on the basis that he’d be with us for a few weeks yet, and that I should treat both the boys as if they were with us separately, and stop trying to treat them like siblings. And although this meant some extra work on my part, it soon started to pay dividends.
I began getting up half an hour early and waking up Georgie, so I could take him down and give him breakfast in peace and quiet. Then, with him fed and happily settled in front of the television, I would wake Jenson, bring him down and do likewise. During the school run I allowed Jenson to play on his DS, to keep him occupied, so there was no need to entertain himself baiting Georgie. And after school I’d let Georgie watch half an hour of Doctor Who while Jenson helped me prepare tea in the kitchen.
And by the Thursday of the following week I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. There had been hardly anything in the way of squabbles b
etween the boys, and an atmosphere of calm mostly prevailed. I had even planned on going up to school with Riley and the little ones, as it was sports day and Jenson was running in one of the races, something about which he’d been really excited. But pride, as we all know, generally comes before a fall, and I was naturally about to be tripped up.
It was just after eleven – around playtime, I guessed – when my mobile began trilling inside my bag.
It was Andrea Cappleman. ‘We’d like you to come and collect Jenson,’ she told me.
‘Why?’ I asked her, already fearing the answer.
‘Fighting,’ she responded, exactly on cue.
‘With Georgie?’
‘With Georgie?’ She sounded surprised. ‘No, not as far as I know. I’m still not in possession of all the facts at this point, but there were three boys involved in this, one of whom was Jenson, and since it’s sports day we’ve decided to exclude all of them, as a punishment –’
‘Exclude them?’ I asked, shocked.
‘Yes, but only for the rest of the day. None will come clean about what happened – typical 9-year-olds – and since everyone seems determined to blame everyone else we’ve decided to send everyone home to reflect, in the hopes that they’ll explain themselves tomorrow. Perhaps you’ll have more luck – that’s my hope, at least.’
I drove up to school feeling thoroughly cross. Georgie wasn’t involved in sports day – it was the sort of unscheduled, noisy event that would only upset him, so it wasn’t a worry that I’d miss anything he was doing. But I just felt this overwhelming irritation at Jenson. I understood perfectly that he had his demons to deal with, and the rational part of my mind acknowledged that acting out all the time was a natural result of this. But at the same time I felt exasperated that he’d already managed – by mid-morning – to completely sabotage his own day.