The Boy Who Could See Demons

by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

  I nodded. ‘Definitely. Mum loved Dad. He made bread rolls dance.’ And I told her all about him cooking bruschetta and the guns in the piano, and then about the blue car. And the policemen.

  ‘OK,’ she said after a long time. ‘But first there’s somewhere else we have to go.’

  ‘Where?’ I said, and just then Anya got up and went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea, but I think she was just being polite so Auntie Bev and I could chat in private.

  Auntie Bev turned to me and for a moment it seemed that she didn’t know what to say, or how she was going to say what she wanted to say. She pulled at her short white hair and smiled. ‘I bought a house, Alex. You’re coming to live with me.’

  I blinked at her. ‘A house? Not this one?’

  ‘Is that OK? Would you mind?’

  I think my eyes turned into saucers. ‘No, I would love that!’ And I started asking about the house – did it have a garden and a big kitchen and a driveway for her small fast car? And Auntie Bev said it had all of those. I was ready to burst. Then I thought about something.

  ‘You mean, I’m moving to Cork?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m moving up north,’ she said. ‘I want you to be close to Anya, so she can make sure you get better. And it’ll be close for you to do more acting if you want, and you might not even have to change schools.’

  She pulled out a map of Northern Ireland which looks like a witch’s head, and Auntie Bev’s new house is on the witch’s nose. I pointed this out and she laughed. ‘It’s called the Ards Peninsula,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you been there?’

  I shook my head. ‘Can we go?’

  Auntie Bev put the map away and said we could, though we’d have to come back to my and Mum’s old house a few more times to make sure we got all my stuff.

  Anya came back in and shook Auntie Bev’s hand and kissed her cheek. Then she bent down and took my hands.

  ‘Remember what I said, Alex,’ she whispered. ‘You are Alex. Nobody is like you, and you are like nobody else.’ She paused. ‘In fact, you can be anyone you want to be.’

  I nodded and felt my face go hot when she kissed my cheek, and then we waved her goodbye. Though not really goodbye, she said, because she would be seeing me again in a few weeks’ time.

  Auntie Bev flung her car around lots of sharp bends until we came to an industrial estate not far from the city centre. When she stopped I felt sick.

  ‘Is this where we’re living?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘No, Alex. Look.’ She pointed at a big blue sign on a wire fence straight ahead of me. RSPCA. I stared at it. Why were we here?

  ‘To pick someone up,’ Auntie Bev said, smiling. And then my brain clicked.

  ‘No way,’ I said, because I didn’t dare believe it.

  She grinned. ‘I bet he’s missed you.’

  I jumped out of the car and ran through the gate. All the kennels were quiet and Auntie Bev told me she would go and ask the lady at reception because she was certain he should still be here. For a minute I panicked. What if someone had taken him?

  And then I heard it. Woof’s bark, loud and frantic on his leash, walking in front of a lady who was wearing a big fishing jacket and black wellies and a hoop through her nose. As soon as he saw me he started pulling her behind him, his front paws paddling at the air to get him closer. I ran to him and he jumped up on me, licking my face and making lots of high-pitched barks.

  The lady looked annoyed. ‘He’s missed me,’ I explained to her, and I let him lick my face until he started to bite my nose and then I just wrapped my arms around him and held him. ‘Hello, boy,’ I said, and he whined and did a little spin and then climbed up on my knee and tucked his head under my arm. His fur was less white than usual and I could feel his ribs a little more than before but he was still the same Woof.

  Auntie Bev came and signed some forms, and soon Woof was sitting on my lap in Auntie Bev’s car and we were driving to our new home.

  It took us a while to get there, and by the time we arrived Woof was snoring on my lap with his head between my knees and the sun was turning the sky gold. The city was replaced with lots of green fields and the blue ocean, and when the car started to get slower I knew we were almost there, but I couldn’t believe it. We were driving up a long driveway with crunchy white stones towards the house I had pictured in my mind long, long ago. It was the exact same house, literally as if whoever built it had read my mind: it was a huge white house with a big red front door with two little trees in blue pots at either side of it. There were eight windows with curtains inside and a fake chicken beside the chimney pot. Even from the outside I could tell the kitchen would be massive. The only difference between the house in my head and the one we were in front of was that there was a huge willow tree right beside this house, and its branches looked like silver rivers.

  ‘How many bedrooms does it have?’ I whispered to Auntie Bev.

  ‘Four,’ she said, and I started to cry. I cried so hard that Auntie Bev looked very alarmed and asked if I’d hurt myself, and so I rubbed my nose on my sleeve and told her no: I was just really happy. Auntie Bev stopped the car on the white gravel path and as soon as I opened the door Woof jumped out and splashed in the puddles that were left by the rain, then raced up to the front door.

  Auntie Bev got out of the car and gave a big stretch. ‘What do you think, Alex?’

  I got out and looked at the house. There were window-boxes hanging from the downstairs windowsills with flowers that looked like colourful hankies. ‘Are all the gardens ours?’ I said, because there was one at the front and it continued round both sides, and when I stepped to my right I could see a long one at the back, too. Auntie Bev said we had a quarter acre of gardens, which apparently is big enough for a set of swings and a strawberry patch.

  ‘Hello,’ a voice said as I was staring at the gardens. I spun round to see a boy standing on the white gravel path. He had bright orange hair that stuck up and was a little bit taller than me and his teeth were covered in metal braces and he was holding a green model airplane that made me think wow.

  ‘Are you living here now?’ the boy said.

  I nodded. ‘Do you live near here?’

  He turned his head and pointed at the house on the hill nearby. ‘I live there with my mum.’

  ‘That’s a cool airplane,’ I said.

  He looked at his feet for a moment. ‘I’m Patrick.’

  ‘Alex.’

  He held up the model airplane. ‘It’s a jetfighter. My dad built it. He takes me fishing sometimes. It’s boring.’

  I shrugged. ‘Do you think I could dress up as you and go in your place?’

  His eyes went wide. ‘We should give it a go.’

  There was a moment when I was thinking of fishes and then sharks and I wondered if I could fit whole inside one. Then I realised Patrick was staring at me.

  ‘Do you want to see my other airplanes?’ he said. ‘I’ve got tons more at home.’

  I said yes and he said, ‘Yes!’ but much more excited and he ran off. About a minute later he turned and waved his hand for me to follow. I hesitated because I suddenly felt sad. I missed Ruen’s jokes, especially the ones about the sandwiches. I missed him telling me what to say to people when they were being sarcastic. I missed him strutting around our house with his arms behind his back, lecturing me about the insights of Lucretius and dead languages and someone called Nero.

  But I didn’t miss him telling me I was nothing. And I didn’t miss him telling me lies.

  ‘Who’re you talking to, Alex?’ Auntie Bev said, slamming the boot shut.

  ‘A friend,’ I said. I saw Patrick waving from his house in the distance. ‘I have a new friend now.’

  Auntie Bev looked up and her face was worried. ‘A friend? Where?’

  ‘There.’ I pointed at Patrick on the hill, running up to his house. He turned and shouted.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  Auntie Bev gave a long sigh as if she was really r
elieved.

  ‘Do you want me to help you with the bags?’ I said. She grinned and shook her head. ‘Go on and play with your new friend.’

  ‘OK.’

  So I turned and ran up the hill towards Patrick where some fat grey clouds were hanging over his house. One of them looked just like Woof and another looked like a cheeseburger. One of them looked just like Ruen as the Old Man.

  I stopped halfway up the hill.

  ‘Come on,’ Patrick shouted from his doorway. I looked up at the cloud, nervous because I could have sworn I saw Ruen’s horrible eyes up there too.

  But then a wind swept up and brushed the cloud on, and there was nothing in the sky but the first wink of stars.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, I wish to thank my husband, Jared Jess-Cooke. Partners suffer so much during the writing of a book, not least in terms of having to watch their beloved become more and more zombified. Thank you, my love, for your patience, for Alex’s jokes, for generally putting up with me while I wrote this, and for your endless encouragement.

  I consider myself extremely fortunate to have both an amazing agent and editor. To my fabulous agent, Madeleine Buston, a kung-fu bow of respect, love and thanks for reminding me to follow my instinct, and for seeing the good when I could only see the bad – I am eternally grateful to have you in my corner. Thanks also to the team at Darley Anderson for all that you do. To my editor, the marvellous Emma Beswetherick, thank you for your infectious passion, careful eye for detail, for your utter brilliance – and for tons of fun. You are both just wonderful. Warmest gratitude to Lucy Icke for sterling suggestions. Thanks to all at Piatkus and Little, Brown for cheering me on.

  The research I carried out for this book gave me a lot of respect for the people involved in children’s mental health in the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland. In this regard, I am indebted to Dr Marinos Kyriakopoulos, who helped enormously with my enquiries into early onset schizophrenia, and who was generous enough to do not one but two very thorough fact-checking reads of drafts of this book. Thanks also to Dr Stephen Westgarth for his help and advice on childhood psychotic disorders, to Dr Aditya Sharma for his generosity and insights, and to Helen Stew for information on social services. All errors – including my deliberate sidesteps from fact in the pursuit of good fiction – are mine. Thanks to the gifted Peter Tickell for assisting with the transcription of my composition ‘A Love Song for Anya’. Thanks also to Sae Sae Norris for being a true friend.

  Love and thanks to family who championed me throughout, especially my mother-in-law, Evita Cooke, who as always was there to help out with childcare at a moment’s notice. Having someone who was willing to feed, bathe and put the children to bed while I was nine months pregnant and struggling to finish the first draft of this book was a true (and characteristic) act of generosity and kindness.

  A warm thank you to those readers whose kind emails – often with the line ‘Don’t stop writing!’ – serendipitously reached my inbox on those days when I most needed encouragement.

  Finally, I want to thank my little ones – Melody, Phoenix and Summer. There is no greater inspiration in my life than the three of you.

  LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR

  Dear Reader,

  I feel I should explain the origins of the piece of music at the beginning of this book.

  Around the beginning of 2002 I had toyed with an idea I had for a screenplay about two guardian angels. Ultimately I never finished the story (though one day, I might) but a friend had recommended I read The Screwtape Letters by C S Lewis – which is about an older demon writing to a novice, giving him advice on how to tempt – for its take on angels and demons.

  I read it – and fell in love. I hatched a plan for a film version that I would write and direct, one that would build a story around the idea behind The Screwtape Letters and began sending tentative emails to the companies and individuals who held the rights to Lewis’s book.

  Back then, I did a lot of composing, too, and one night I woke up thinking the radio had been left on. It wasn’t – I just had a new melody in my head, blaring loudly. I fumbled around for a sheet of paper and a pencil and scribbled it down. By the time I worked out which note was which the music faded, but what I managed to jot down is now on the pages of this book. I didn’t exactly know where the music would fit in the film I was writing, but I knew it had something to do with a demon character.

  Eventually the response about the rights to The Screwtape Letters book hit my inbox – I would never get the rights. Not for love nor money. Still, the ideas and characters I had developed never left me.

  When I started writing The Boy Who Could See Demons in May 2010, the demon character from the project I had had to abandon years earlier rose up again in the form of Ruen. I let the characters guide the story, careful not to plan too much in advance. So it shocked and intrigued me when Ruen asked Alex to give Anya a piece of music he had written. In the chapter where Alex is transcribing the music according to Ruen’s instruction, the long-silent piece of music I had written during the night many years before came flooding back – as if a radio had been left on.

  I knew it was Ruen’s music.

  THE BOY

  WHO COULD

  SEE DEMONS

  Reading Guide

  READING GROUP DISCUSSION POINTS

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  How successfully does the author balance the Anya and Alex chapters?

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  Which is your favourite character and why?

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  How important is the setting of Northern Ireland in the story?

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  Can you discuss the presentation of the demonic elements – whether Ruen is real or a product of Alex’s mental illness?

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  How sensitively does this story deal with the subjects of suicide and schizophrenia?

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  Can you comment on the author’s weaving of Hamlet into the story?

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  Did Alex’s ten-year-old voice feel authentic?

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  How emotional did you find Anya and Poppy’s story and how successfully did it complement Alex’s own journey?

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  Can you discuss the role of mothers in the story? You may like to talk about the part that Bev plays as well.

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  How satisfying did you find the ending?

  AUTHOR Q&A

  Following the success of The Guardian Angel’s Journal, how difficult was it to sit down and write your second novel?

  I found it difficult to untangle myself from The Guardian Angel’s Journal, but that had more to do with how involved I was with the story than its success. So preoccupied was I with the ‘world’ I created in The Guardian Angel’s Journal that I felt I had more exploring to do, particularly when it came to demons. I had become fascinated by Grogor (the key demon in that novel) and by the impetus and rationale for the evil he propagated. At one point in The Guardian Angel’s Journal I wrote that demons were ‘pack hunters’ and that they were ‘scientists of human nature’ – this seemed to come out of nowhere, and I wanted to pursue it.

  This book follows a few of the same themes as The Guardian Angel’s Journal. Do you have an interest in the real world’s blurring with the supernatural?

  I am primarily interested in investigating the human condition and confronting those universal questions of life and death. I don’t believe either book to be fantasy or science fiction; rather, each uses the supernatural as a fascinating ‘lens’ through which to consider fundamental questions about humanity. I am curious about things we can’t see and can never define or pin down: intuition, for instance, as well as inspiration and belief. It might originate from my Irish heritage but the immaterial has always been of a massive interest to me.

  What made you decide to write part of this story from the perspective of a little boy and was it a challenge?

  Alex’s voice and character followed closely on the heels of the development of the id
ea for the book. I was interested in visiting some of the things I’d written about in The Guardian Angel’s Journal and wanted to re-capture the idea of overcoming tough obstacles. Alex is beset by huge challenges and was a wonderfully charismatic character to write, but ultimately I had to sit back and let him tell the story. I was never quite sure if he would make it…

  Why did you choose to set it in Northern Ireland?

  In many ways Northern Ireland is a central character to the book, but I didn’t plan it that way. Having been born and raised there my initial impulse is usually to opt for more exotic settings, but somehow I found myself returning again and again to Belfast and essentially exploring my own complicated relationship with that place. I wanted to write about Northern Ireland’s shift from a long period of political unrest and violence to relative peace and prosperity, about the healing process. Alex is of a generation that is supposed to be enjoying the new face of Belfast, but as he told his story I discovered that ghosts arising from its past had affected him, too.

  What prompted you to choose schizophrenia as your central theme?

  It became an almost natural curve of the story once Alex comes clean about his ability to see demons. Instinctively I felt that this was the conclusion Anya might draw about his condition – when I researched the (vast) areas of mental health issues I found that the highly delusional aspect of Alex’s claims (amongst other issues, portrayed in the book) made him a likely candidate for early onset schizophrenia.