The Weight of a Thousand Feathers

by Brian Conaghan

  I reach into my pocket, pull out a coin.

  ‘Here, Dan, do you want fifty pence to get yourself a packet of crisps in the tuck shop tomorrow?’ I say.

  His face beams.

  ‘Really?’

  I flick him the gleaming coin, which he catches one-handed.

  He examines it.

  ‘Fifty pence, brilliant.’

  Feeds it to his pocket.

  ‘That’s to buy crisps, not chocolate and not a sugar drink, OK?’

  ‘Gotcha. Thanks, Bobby.’

  ‘I mean it. No fizzy drink.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  ‘Right, get that homework done now.’

  ‘Double Roger that.’

  I open the fridge to see what’s available. Slide the two drawers at the bottom towards me. Listen to the huffs and puffs Danny makes over his maths. I remove some bright orange cheese, start cutting its crusted edges away.

  ‘Bobby?’

  ‘What is it, buddy?’

  ‘I don’t think Mum is in an OK place.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Her eyes are different. I see them – she thinks I can’t but I can.’

  ‘Her eyes are tired, mate.’

  ‘It’s like her eyes have lost weight.’

  ‘Just lack of sleep, Dan.’

  ‘But she hardly ever comes downstairs any more or asks how our day has been.’

  ‘The stairs knacker her. They’re too much sometimes.’

  I see him withdrawing into himself and tutting.

  And tutting more.

  ‘She doesn’t even crack jokes the way she used to.’

  ‘She’s not a bloody comedian, Dan!’

  I don’t mean to snap … actually I do.

  ‘Keep your jeggings on! I’m just saying.’

  ‘What, Dan? What are you just saying?’

  ‘I don’t think she has a cold like you said.’

  I did say that. Guilty!

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Yes, you told me that she had a cold, but I know it’s much worse.’

  ‘Like what?’ I fire at him, and continue hacking at the diseased cheese, hoping he’ll stop.

  ‘It’s not a cold, is it?’

  I glare at my cheese-gripping hand.

  ‘Is it, Bobby?’

  ‘No, it’s not a cold.’ I can’t look at him.

  Now, here’s a conundrum: should I lie, tell him everything’s one big jolly lollipop, manipulate his misunderstanding of Mum’s illness, take full advantage of Danny’s sense of the world, or should I tell the truth?

  ‘So tell me,’ he says. ‘I’m part of this family too. If you know, then so should I.’

  I go to him. Sit down. A gesture that makes his eyebrows droop with worry.

  ‘What, Bobby? What is it?’

  ‘Look, mate, Mum needs a bit more help these days. Her illness is affecting her more than it used to.’

  ‘Like how more?’

  ‘Well, she’ll need someone to work her muscles, Danny.’

  ‘Like footballers?’

  ‘A bit, I suppose.’

  ‘Maybe we could put her in a bath.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘With ice. Cristiano Ronaldo does that and it helps him play like a demon.’

  ‘Mum needs to exercise her legs, to get moving. She needs us to help her with walks and stuff.’

  ‘She’s not a blinking dog, Bobby.’

  ‘No, I know, she’s –’

  ‘So don’t treat her like a dog!’ Danny screams. ‘She doesn’t bark.’

  ‘Dan, it’s her muscles, they aren’t working so well.’

  ‘Why don’t her muscles work, Bobby? I don’t understand how your muscles can stop working.’

  ‘It’s just part of what’s happening to her.’

  ‘Is that why she wobbles?’

  He’s on the cusp.

  I know the signs.

  ‘Partly, Dan. Partly.’

  ‘Bobby, tell me, is she going to be OK tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the –’

  ‘Stop, Dan!’

  ‘Answer then.’

  ‘Yes, she’s going to be OK tomorrow. You shouldn’t be thinking things like that.’

  ‘You promising?’

  ‘Look, Danny, Mum’s going to have days when she’s feeling really unwell and days when she’ll be upset because she’s unable to do things she used to do.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Like going to the park and the shops.’

  ‘And McDonald’s?’

  ‘And McDonald’s.’

  ‘And coffee at Costa?’

  ‘Look, she might be in a really good mood tomorrow,’ I say.

  ‘So that’s a promise then?’

  ‘No, Danny, I’m not promising anything …’

  ‘I told you, I’m not stupid, I see things. I know when the shit stuff is happening, like the other night.’

  ‘No one is saying you’re stupid, Dan. No one’s ever said that. I don’t even know why you’re saying that.’

  ‘People at your school think I’m stupid.’

  ‘My school? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘They think I’m stupid. That’s why they wouldn’t let me go there.’

  ‘Not true, Danny. And don’t go around saying stuff like that, OK?’

  ‘That’s why I was sent to my school.’

  ‘It’s a bit more convoluted than that.’

  ‘I know what convoluted means, Bobby, so there’s no use using big words.’

  ‘Well, it is convoluted.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to your shitty school anyway.’

  ‘What you talking about then?’

  ‘I’m talking about why you won’t tell me that Mum isn’t going to die.’

  ‘God, would you give up, Danny!’ I spit. ‘Mum’s not well, she’s fucking ill.’ I find myself welling up, which I never do in front of him; it isn’t something I want Danny to witness. ‘She’s sick and in a lot of pain sometimes.’

  ‘Is that why she cries a lot?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘So it isn’t me who makes her cry then?’

  I’m not sure if I should scud him with his maths book or squeeze some love and security into him. I freeze, stare his way and compose myself. I speak calmly.

  ‘No, it isn’t you, Dan. She’s having a rough time and it’s important we’re there for her, that we don’t cause too much trouble around the house. You and me both.’

  Danny’s eyes are glued to the kitchen table.

  ‘I well and truly Roger that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like to see her in pain, would you?’

  ‘Never. Not Mum.’

  I try to redirect our conversation, more for my benefit.

  ‘How’s school going?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s going shitey knickers.’

  ‘Can’t be that bad.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I thought school was going well?’

  ‘It’s flaps!’

  ‘Danny! Who’s teaching you these words?’

  ‘I know loads of cool words.’

  ‘Yes, but who told you that one?’

  ‘Bel.’

  ‘Bel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you went to that group thing one night.’

  ‘Well, it’s not a good word. I’ll be having it out with Bel. I don’t want you saying it again, OK?’

  Danny nods. And yet again I morph into his parent. Suppose I’d better get used to it.

  I resume cheese-slicing duties and put bread under the grill.

  ‘Cheese toastie good for you?’

  ‘Bobby?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Will you look after me if Mum dies before we do?’

  Feels like a stiletto slashing my spleen. I want to yank him from his chair, hold him tight against my chest, reassure him, stroke his hair. I look at him. Pause. I don’t know
how to react; I tell him what he might want to hear.

  ‘Jesus, Danny, of course I’ll look after you. Course I will.’

  ‘You’d better,’ he says, shoving his nose back into the maths book.

  ‘I’ll always look after you, Dan. Always.’

  He doesn’t look up from his homework.

  ‘Can I have ketchup on my toastie?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Alphabet Chat

  It’s quite possible Mum doesn’t want it now, since she doesn’t remember asking me in the first place. Yet her memory could be restored any time: tonight, tomorrow, next day. And when it does, I want to be ready with her present – if Lou can sort me out. However, if she doesn’t recall a thing, well, I guess me and Bel will be having a Joint Food Friday sesh. A win-win situation.

  I hover around outside the hall plucking up the courage to go inside. I know tonight’s meeting is going to be different somehow. I play over what I’m planning to say and how I should say it. And, after that, I do it again. Bel and me have done some serious practice, although practice never really prepares you for the real thing, does it? Practice doesn’t account for severe dry tongue, a croaky throat and the other person’s interjections. In this instance, practice will certainly not make perfect.

  I’m standing out of sight, watching them all roll in. Roddy arrives first, driving some pure dive of a car. This gunslinger gets out, twirling the car keys around his finger and whistling some ditty. He opens the boot and removes a large suitcase. New clothes for the poor young carers? He slams the boot shut, locks the doors manually – that’s how old this car is – all the while maintaining his twirling and whistling. Safe to say, Roddy is riding on some high cloud.

  Lou follows shortly after. He takes his helmet off, fixes his hair in the little mirror on his bike. He then unstraddles, stands for a split second before yanking his jeans up, and I mean really yanking them up. Runs his hands through his hair another time and adjusts his shoulders: a prizefighter at a weigh-in. This is followed by further jeans-yanking. God, imagine if he sees me, standing here pure gawking at him. What excuse could I provide? Imagine if the others see me. Lou heads inside, sort of semi-running, bounding even. Strange eagerness, I think, given his apathy towards anything to do with Poztive.

  Harriet has her hood up – it isn’t hood weather – and walks purposefully, a human Do Not Disturb sign. I guess her hood is to do with street cred. Or to shield her from embarrassment in case anyone in her school nobbles her.

  The rest follow as though they’re straight out of a Lowry painting.

  Which leaves just me. They won’t start without me, will they? They won’t make any plans? I give it a couple of minutes to allow the nerves to settle.

  No crescent-shaped seating this time. People are lounging on the floor. On beanbags. I pause to take in the scene. Very hippy, dippy, trippy. When I see Roddy I do a double take. He’s standing rigid, microphone in hand. Behind him a screen, and on it are words: words of song titles. The penny drops. Oh, no. Please say it isn’t so. Can we not do the sticking-pins-in-eyes game instead? Where in Roddy’s mind did he get the idea that bringing a karaoke machine to our Poztive meeting would excite anyone? At what point in his day did he think, I know, I’ll force a group of reticent young carers to sing in front of each other, that’ll be a wicked idea.

  I arrive just as the music kicks in. I recognise the song instantly. ‘Bat Out of Hell’ isn’t a bad tune, but I hate it with a passion.

  With his non-mic hand, Roddy waves me forward, indicating that I should plank it on a beanbag. As I walk towards the rest of the group, Harriet turns and fakes her own hanging, complete with dangling tongue like a dog in a drought. Lou catches my attention too, his eyes wide as if to say: Get this guy, dude – what the fuck! The others are in a state of hypnotic, cultish mortification. I sit, well, sort of collapse next to Harriet, who gives me a look that captures her sense of exasperation perfectly. Her face suggests that she’d much rather be at home reading Chat magazine to her mother, anything not to have to bear this torture.

  ‘All right?’ I say.

  ‘Don’t even ask,’ Harriet murmurs.

  ‘We’re doing karaoke now?’ I whisper.

  ‘No we about it,’ she says.

  Roddy’s eyes are closed and he’s well into the guts of the song. The sound quality is awful, but nowhere near as bad as his singing.

  ‘I don’t even know what he’s chanting,’ Harriet adds. ‘Is that even a song?’

  ‘Don’t know what it is,’ I lie, but I could’ve sung the whole song myself without the lyrics being beamed on to a screen.

  ‘It’s crap, whatever it is,’ she says.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Like a bat out of hell … Like a bat out of heeeelllll.’ Roddy holds that final note much longer than the machine music requires, finishing with an enormous crescendo and sweeping swipe of an arm.

  You can practically hear the toes curling inside everyone’s knackered trainers. This definitely isn’t the first time he’s performed this, no way. This is born out of hours, maybe even years, of rehearsal in a bedroom somewhere.

  There’s no applause. No whooping. No congratulations. Just lots of staring at the floor, shuffling feet and miscellaneous beanbag noises. Erin looks as if she wants to burst out crying. I know how she feels. Lou seems paralysed by this parallel universe he’s somehow found himself in.

  Breathing heavily, Roddy lowers the mic.

  ‘Who’s next?’ he bleats.

  There’s no way any of us are about to volunteer our singing services. No stampede to rush and tackle the mic out of his hand. We could be sitting here until the Queen dies and no one would volunteer. Roddy points the mic towards each of us in turn. What ensues is a kind of karaoke stare-off.

  ‘No way I’m getting up to sing,’ Harriet finally pipes up.

  ‘Just exercising the right to say no,’ Cal says.

  ‘Me too,’ Erin says. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No danger, don’t even ask,’ Tom adds.

  ‘Not even if you paid me, dude,’ Lou states.

  ‘Kill me now,’ Clare says.

  I don’t give Roddy the courtesy of a verbal rebuttal: a simple finger wag is enough.

  ‘So … OK then … that means … well … OK, that’s fine … I accept your decisions, I am cool with that … I mean, you’re adults, right? Young adults. You can opt out of activities, yeah? You can say no, that’s your right, right? I mean … I mean, it’s not Stalinist Russia we’re living in here, is it?’ Roddy stutters out.

  I genuinely feel sorry for him. The way he’s being demeaned by the group is wrong. All he’s doing is trying to cut us some slack, trying to help us escape our domestic strife. Trying to put a smile on our miserable mugs. He only belted out a song. Not as if he ran his own child-burning cult. No crime has been committed. Well, maybe against light entertainment.

  It’s clear he wants to let loose a torrent of abuse, roar at us for being selfish and ungrateful little bastards. And who’d blame him? But that’s the thing with the type of teenagers we are: people are warned to tread carefully, to show compassion. In other words, don’t do anything to knock our emotions off-kilter. While I sympathise, Roddy should know the score. He’s been where we are. I’m half thinking of grabbing that mic and telling him to hit the ‘All You Need Is Love’ button. Only a fleeting thought though.

  ‘But look, guys, when we go off on our residential in a couple of weeks there will be many activities that you’ll be expected to take part in,’ Roddy states.

  ‘But we’re not at the residential, Rod,’ Lou says. ‘We’re sittin’ on some nasty-ass beanbags.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, Lou, but the message I’m getting here is that people are reluctant to drop their guard and participate in something that will take them out of their comfort zone.’

  ‘I guess that’s about the size of it,’ Lou says.

  ‘I’m so bad at singing,’ Erin says. ‘Really sorry.’
>
  ‘I’m a terrible singer too,’ Roddy says.

  ‘Yeah, we know,’ Lou says.

  Everyone laughs.

  ‘That’s the point,’ says Roddy. ‘Who cares? It’s about having fun, enjoying yourselves. Fun! Remember that feeling, guys? That feeling of being young, of letting your hair down, remember it? Of not caring what people think about you, of not giving a shit about what perception you’re giving off? No? Well, you should be living that time right now. These are the times when great memories are created, guys. I’m talking about you, you the individual, not the stuff that goes on at home, that’s out of our control, but this –’ Roddy points to his head and heart ‘– this right here, this is something that you and you alone have real control and power over. Never let anyone take that power away from you, guys. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t do something because it makes them feel awkward or embarrassed. Do it because it makes you feel good.’ Roddy’s panting and a little sweaty with the strength of feeling he’s put into his speech. Although that could be the remnants of ‘Bat Out of Hell’.

  After those rousing words, if he isn’t able to get the masses to rise as one and break into a rendition of ‘Single Ladies’ or ‘Uptown Funk’ then I’m afraid Roddy is flogging not only a dead horse but an entire stable full of them. We sit in a shameful silence.

  ‘Right, speech over,’ Roddy bellows, clapping his hands. ‘Someone help me put this stuff away, and get yourselves into pairs. Shove those nasty beanbags to the side and grab a chair. Face your partner. Girls you can create a group of three.’ We dance to his tune, do exactly what he asks.

  Lou makes a beeline towards me. Sits his chair in front of mine. I rub my sweaty hands on my thighs.

  ‘Hey, sorry for the no-show on Friday, dude.’

  ‘Friday?’ I act like I don’t know what he’s talking about. ‘Friday? Oh, yes, Friday. Not a problem, Lou.’

  ‘Some other time, yeah?’

  ‘Totally some other time.’

  ‘Cool,’ he says, but doesn’t move away, obviously wants to make sure we’re paired together. I’m trying to be ultra-smooth but my insides are like a simmering volcano.

  ‘That Roddy shit was super intense,’ Lou says.

  ‘Intense is the word,’ I say. We sit facing each other. I cross my legs. Lou’s are spread apart. I focus on his eyes.