They Do the Same Things Different There

by They Do the Same Things Different There (v5. 0) (epub)

  About half past five the parents started arriving for their kids, and I’d go out into the garden to help find them. I’d ask for the kids’ names, and I’d stand in the middle of the lawn, and start calling. It was funny how they all looked the same.

  And eventually Paul was the only kid left. A thought occurred to me: “But where’s little Robin? Where’s the birthday boy?” Robin had left the party ages ago, apparently, he’d gone downtown with his mates. I asked Paul to thank Mrs. Hood, and he did, very politely, and I thanked her too. We had to get a taxi home, I was a little over the limit. I asked Paul whether he had enjoyed the party, and he said he had, very much; he thanked me for making him go even though he hadn’t wanted to; he said he was sorry, he said he hadn’t been nice to me lately, he loved me, he said. He was very good, he wasn’t sick in the taxi, he waited until we were safely home.

  I went back the next day to pick up my car. All the balloons and streamers had been taken down out front, Robin Hood’s house looked like any other. I supposed Robin Hood was inside, he’d probably come home by now, and I waited for a bit, but I didn’t see him.

  I was asked to come into the school and see the deputy headmistress. I waited outside her office on a little plastic chair, and I felt nervous, as if I were the one in trouble!

  She was very stern. She told me that Paul was a very promising student. She said that his take on Winston Churchill had been good, the words she used were “spirited” and “rousing.” But, she said, Paul was mixing with the wrong sort of company. He’d been seen in a gang. There’d been lots of complaints about this gang, they’d hang about the shopping precinct, and drink, and be noisy, and play with traffic cones. They hadn’t done anything illegal yet, no one said they’d stolen anything, but it was only a matter of time.

  She told me the ringleader was Robin Hood, and advised me to keep Paul away from him. “Don’t let Paul give up on his future,” she said. She told me she knew he was going through a difficult time, that there were domestic problems, and that she was sympathetic. But the school couldn’t condone anti-social behaviour. “How do you think it’s going,” she asked me, “the relationship you have with your son?” I didn’t want to discuss relationships. I didn’t want the school to know about my problems with Janet, what had Paul been saying about me?

  I spoke to Paul that evening. He told me that the gang didn’t have a leader, it wasn’t that sort of a gang, and that if the gang did have a leader it’d be Nicky Culshaw, it wouldn’t be Robin Hood, Robin Hood just hung out and did shit the same as everybody else. I told Paul that maybe Robin Hood was a bad influence all the same; could I rely on him, could I trust him, that if he went out with his mates downtown to play and Robin tagged along, could Paul make his excuses and come home? “Sure,” said Paul.

  In retrospect I felt angry, and ashamed, and I phoned the deputy headmistress the next day. I told her that whatever “relationship” my son and I enjoyed it was none of her business, her business was to teach him, that was all. And besides, it was all a storm in a teacup, the gang wasn’t doing anything wrong, they were just kids having fun. What was wrong with having fun if no one got hurt? Couldn’t she remember being young once? She didn’t answer. Maybe she couldn’t.

  It was in the local paper—a cat had been shot with an arrow. The owners found it in the morning when they were taking their kids to school; the cat had dragged its way to the house and tried to get in through the cat flap, but with an arrow sticking out of its side it had got stuck, and it’d spent the night half inside and half out. The arrow was in its flank, just above the hind legs. Miraculously, the cat had survived, the arrow hadn’t gone in too deep, that was one lucky animal. Though, mind you, it had to have one of the legs amputated, there was a photo in the paper, nasty.

  A few days later a dog was found, and this one was dead, chained up to a kennel, an arrow through its neck. This one had been a more expert kill, and the only consolation the owners could find in the interviews they gave—because by this time the national press had got hold of it, it was even on the telly, in the evening news—was that at least the kill had been quick and the dog wouldn’t have suffered. The police urged people to keep their pets indoors and safe, although they were certain whoever was responsible would be caught soon and there was no need for panic. It was odd seeing pictures of our town on the television; I know those streets, but they looked bigger on the screen somehow, and all the signposts and wheelie bins looked like movie props.

  Young Robin Hood confessed the very next day. It’s said that he didn’t offer any explanation or show of remorse; he just went up to a policeman and said, “I did the pets,” and as proof showed his bow and his quiver. “I Did The Pets” was one of the headlines the next day; others used “The Face Of A Monster,” alongside a photograph of Robin. He looked calm and insolent, and that meanness around his eyes was plain for all to see.

  He wasn’t sent to prison the way the public demanded on chat shows; he was too young for that. He was expelled by the school, of course. And he gave a statement to the papers that said he was bitterly regretful of all the distress he had caused, and that he blamed temporary insanity—it was only a written statement, the press weren’t allowed to interview the lad. They tried to track down his father for comment, but the family had gone into hiding—the one time they got him on camera he kept silent and tight-lipped, pushing his way through the reporters toward his car, and I was surprised at how ordinary Robin Hood looked, really, how thin, how old.

  I didn’t see Stacey again after that. I suppose we both used the scandal to put an end to things, but in truth it was on its way out already. The last time she’d come to my house she’d asked me where I thought our relationship was headed.

  “Is it a relationship?” I asked. “I didn’t know we’d got that far!” I was only joking, I was only trying to make her laugh.

  “I just don’t know what it is we’re doing,” she said. I didn’t know what to say, and she sighed, and got out of bed, and got dressed.

  And I said to her, that she was lonely, and that I was lonely, and that there was nothing so evil in two lonely people meeting up every so often to make themselves feel better. What was wrong in having fun?

  “But I’m married,” I went on. “And I love my wife, and one day we’ll get back together. And you love your husband, don’t you? And it’s not as if you love me.”

  She just said, “I don’t know what we’re doing if it’s never going to mean anything.”

  We’d only ever met up at my place. Saturday afternoons, when Paul was safely with his mother. I thought that was simpler, and she’d agreed. Better that our sons didn’t know we were seeing each other, after all our sons were close friends. But there was more to it than that. I just didn’t fancy going to the great Robin Hood’s house and having sex with his wife in his own bed. I suppose you could say there’s a moral ambiguity surrounding Robin Hood and the way he pursued a life of crime for a greater good, but whichever side of the argument you come down on, Robin Hood as folk hero or as social menace, surely the man deserves better treatment than that.

  Paul brought me the bow and the remaining arrows. He’d taken them from the Hood house, but insisted he hadn’t stolen them. There were so many bows and arrows just lying about there, how could it be stealing if no one would notice they were gone?

  He didn’t know why Robin had confessed. He told me that if Robin hadn’t confessed, he would have done so. In fact, he’d just been on his way to confess, and then Robin had got in, just ahead of him.

  “He doesn’t even like archery,” he said. “Any of that stuff his dad was into, he thought it was all bollocks.”

  Paul was sorry about the cat. He hadn’t meant to hurt anything. He was just mucking about, he never thought he’d actually manage to hit the thing. “What about the dog?” I asked. He didn’t say anything to that.

  “Are you going to tell the police?” he asked.

  A
nd he stared at me, and he seemed frightened. Or maybe it was just another sort of defiance, one I wasn’t used to.

  “I don’t think we should even tell your mother,” I said.

  I took the bow and the arrows. I said I’d get rid of them, I’d dispose of the evidence. I put them upstairs, nicely under my bed.

  I asked Paul if he wanted any supper. Normally he’d say no, he’d go out with his mates. That night he agreed to stay in.

  Neither of us quite knew what to say as we ate.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “This is all my fault.”

  He looked genuinely surprised by that. “Is it?”

  “I just wish,” I said. “I don’t know. I’ve always wished. You’d be the sort of son who’d want to take after his father. That I’d done something, achieved something, worth taking after.”

  He said nothing, just toyed with his apple crumble. That was probably the kindest thing.

  After supper Paul asked if he could be excused from the table. That was polite of him. So I said yes.

  The next evening when Paul came home from school, I asked him if he wanted any supper. “No,” he said. “I’m going out.”

  There was still a gang, but no one pretended that Robin Hood was in charge of it anymore.

  I had rather hoped Paul might stay in, that the two of us could do something together. I told him this. And he said we’d do something soon, yeah. But he had to go out, he’d promised, and the others wouldn’t know what to do without him.

  I watched some television. I went upstairs, from under the bed I took my bow and arrow. I wondered whether Robin Hood had ever killed anyone with them. I wondered whether he’d ever killed anyone famous, like King John, or one of the sheriffs of Nottingham. I texted Stacey. She didn’t reply.

  On Thursday night Janet called and told me she wouldn’t be able to fit Paul in this weekend, she’d be at an impromptu conference in Frankfurt instead. I said I’d tell him.

  On Friday morning I broke the news to Paul. If he felt rejected, he didn’t show it. I asked him whether he had any plans for Saturday. I knew he wouldn’t have had time to make any—that got him.

  On Saturday I showed Paul what I’d found.

  From the attic I’d brought down whole boxes of my past, I’d been through them to find all the best bits. There were photographs, of me as a child, me with my parents, the brother I hadn’t spoken to for years. My wedding day. Janet looked so beautiful. I looked a bit fat.

  And things I had forgotten. My Cub Scout badges, one for orienteering, one for knots, one for helping the old folk cross the road. A little medal I’d won at school for swimming. Certificates proving I was a qualified chartered accountant. A prize-winning essay about the great hero Sir Francis Drake. Valentine’s cards.

  “This is who I am,” I said to Paul.

  “Right.”

  “No bows and arrows! Ha! Nothing as exciting as Robin Hood could show his son. Ha!”

  “No.”

  “I’m no one special. But. Maybe there’s something here that might inspire you.”

  Paul didn’t look very convinced. I sort of smiled at him, encouragingly. He sort of smiled back. He put his hands deep into one of the boxes, as if it were a lucky dip, and he pulled out some old postcards from somewhere or other.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” I said.

  “This is all shit,” he said. Not even unkindly.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” I said again. And I walked out of the room. And I closed the door. And I locked it.

  “Hey!” said Paul. “Let me out!” He banged his fists on the door. They were heavy fists; Paul was already so strong, stronger than me. But I thought the door would hold.

  I went upstairs to my bedroom. I decided I wouldn’t free Paul for a while. It was tempting, he’d be so angry when he got out. But if I wanted this relationship to work, I had to believe in it, give it a fighting chance.

  I pulled the string from the bow, and I broke all the arrows, I snapped them in two.

  I went to sleep for a while. I don’t know how long.

  And at last I went back downstairs. I trod softly, I didn’t want to disturb my son. He had stopped shouting and banging at the door, I hadn’t heard a sound from him for ages. I stooped, I peered through the keyhole. It was hard to see properly, and I could only guess at the expression on his face, but he was holding that swimming medal to his chest, hugging onto it tight, and I thought it might have been with pride and with awe and with love.

  MEMORIES OF CRAVING LONG GONE

  No one ever saw her smile. But hers was a face you wouldn’t want to smile—something as hard and as sour as that wasn’t made for smiling, and the contorted effort of it would surely have been too much, it would have given nightmares to the children. The children were already frightened of her, she was what parents threatened them with to get them to behave: “You calm down, or we’ll take you to Frau Loecherbach. We’ll give you to Frau Loecherbach, and she’ll make sausages of you!” But it was a good fear; the children followed her around market and sniggered; they’d call her a witch, a troll, they’d say she was in league with the Devil—but never to her face, always out of earshot, only in fun, just fun. A good fear, a healthy and exciting fear, full of adventure and the possibility of magic.

  She wasn’t the public face of the restaurant. Charm, clearly, was not her thing. Her husband Alois served the tables, and he was amiable enough, he would joke with the guests as he took their orders and recommended the specials of the day. And her three sons, Franz, Hans, and little Johann, they would help out too, they would bring out the food from the kitchens—great steaming plates of it, of Knödel and Schweinshaxe and roasted Rindswurst. Frau Loecherbach would stick to the kitchens. No one doubted the genius of her culinary skills. But that didn’t mean anyone wanted to look at her.

  When you ate one of Frau Loecherbach’s meals, you somehow didn’t want to like it all that much. Because the cook was so displeasing a human being, you wanted her pancakes and her borscht to reflect that. But it wasn’t possible to resist. The food was good. She could do miraculous tricks with a chicken, she could make it fizz with flavour, no matter how dubious the quality of your average chicken to be found on sale in that market square. Her breads tasted light as air. Her soups were rich and thick like steak, and spiced with something you couldn’t quite identify but seemed as familiar as nostalgia itself. To eat at Loecherbach’s was expensive. And these were hard times, and the townsfolk resented the expense. They resented the expense, and they resented Julia Loecherbach, strutting around the town with her hard face and her tight bosom as if she owned the place. But still they came back. And still they wanted not to like her food quite so much that they paid for it dearly. And still they couldn’t help themselves.

  No one knew how she had managed to snare herself a husband like Alois. And people wondered why her three sons didn’t leave home. They weren’t exactly handsome lads, Franz, Hans, and little Johann, but they were strong, the girls of the town could net themselves worse; no one quite understood why they didn’t cut themselves free of their ugly mother’s apron strings and set out to find futures of their own. But Julia Loecherbach kept her men close. The gossip said she must have put a spell on them. It wasn’t just the children who thought there was a spot of devilry to her.

  By the time the news reached the town that they were at war, the war was nearly over. Still, the garrisons demanded that every man fit enough to wave a sword must join their number. The army would continue its march toward the front the next morning; the towns were expected to give up their men to them then. It didn’t look much like an army. The soldiers seemed like children wearing adult clothes, all baring their teeth with adult disdain, smoking and spitting and swearing the way adults do; there were old men too, squeezed into uniforms too small for them, their white beards now tapered toward sharp martial points. They carried mostly cudgels and sticks. But they were very in
sistent—they were an army, really they were—and the leading officer carried some sort of seal, and said that it gave him authority direct from the emperor of Austria himself, so that was that.

  Franz, Hans, and little Johann prepared to go to war. They put their favourite belongings into knapsacks; little Johann took a toy boat his father had carved out of wood for him when he was a child. They all seemed very excited. Alois prepared for war too. He took out the greatcoat his father had worn the day he had been called to war; Alois now mostly wore it when the weather turned fierce in the winter, and sometimes killed the chickens in it—but nevertheless it had been part of a uniform, and his father’s uniform at that, and Alois was rightly proud of it. Julia watched her men busy themselves with men’s things, how they laughed, how they swaggered, how they jabbed at each other with sticks and pretended to kill and pretended to die. And she said not a word. And went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

  Frau Loecherbach let it be known that there would be a special dinner at her restaurant that night, and all were invited. People need only pay what they wanted. This was to be a celebration feast. There would be room for all—there would be tables lined up the streets, everyone would be able to eat at Loecherbach, man, woman, child. And, as one, the town came. Because though no one liked her very much, and she never smiled, and she was a witch, still her food was to die for.

  “Do you want me to wait tables, liebchen?” asked Alois. And Alois was standing in his greatcoat, and already stroking at the places where he imagined his medals might hang. And his wife told him no; no, tonight he too would be a customer, tonight he would be able to sit back in their restaurant and relax and eat his fill. And the same was true for her sons; tonight would be a busy night, the busiest night of her life thus far, but still she would manage all by herself.