‘What happened?‘
‘But he has hurt his arm quite badly so one of the juniors has taken him to Helford hospital.’
‘Right.’ Stephanie pulled out to the fast lane, wishing she had a hand free to let the hooting truck driver along side her know what she thought of his impatience. ‘I’m on my way.’
The speed control camera flashed as she tore up to Acorn Junction. There was no turn-off before then. She roared back eastwards calling in to her client to cancel their meeting, threw the Cherokee down the slip into Helford, hurtled along North Broadway to the hospital, wedged it into the last space in the car park, sprinted a quarter of a mile back to the building, found the emergency entrance and arrived breathless at the desk.
‘Max Sands,’ she gasped. ‘Boy of five, fell off a climbing frame, hurt his arm?’
With maddening slowness the clerk put menus up on her screen. ‘Ah,’ she said, pointing with her ballpoint as if Stephanie could see. ‘Should be up in X-ray by now. Take a seat, will you?’
‘Can’t I go up and find him?’
‘You’ll get lost. Just take a seat.’
‘But how long—’
‘We’re very busy. He was lucky to have seen the nurse already.’
‘One of his teachers is with him – they must need her back at the school.’
With a bad grace, the clerk leaned towards the security glass and indicated a sign halfway down the corridor. ‘Go up to the fifth floor, turn left. There are more signs up there.’
In the X-ray department she found Max watching with interest through an open door as five nurses tried to hold a drunk homeless man down on the table. The nursery assistant who sat beside him snapped out of her coma of boredom as Stephanie approached and got to her feet.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, obviously intending that Max should not hear. ‘I didn’t see it. He’s been awfully brave but I think something must be broken.’
‘All right,’ Stephanie murmured, wondering why she was reassuring the girl instead of the other way round. ‘I’m here now. I’ll take over. Hi, darling …’
‘Mum.’ Max acknowledged her with the face that hoped she was not going to make a fuss.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked. The arm, the left arm, was packed in a plastic splint which he was holding carefully against his chest with his other hand.
‘Not much,’ was the stolid reply. She ruffled his hair and he flinched away.
After the tramp was finally strapped to the table and dealt with, the nurses called in a patient in a neck brace on a trolley, a young man knocked off his motorcycle. Next came an old woman in a wheelchair, hit on a pedestrian crossing. Max’s turn came after seventy-seven minutes.
Back in the emergency waiting area another hour slipped by. Stephanie went to the pay phone, cancelled her afternoon appointments and warned Inmaculada that the house might be empty when she got there.
Back on the ward, there was no sign of Max. The clerk reluctantly verified that he was with the doctor, and even more reluctantly pointed out the curtained cubicle.
‘And you are …’ The doctor was a thin young man with an unhealthy grey-white skin studded with raging post-adolescent acne. He looked up from a file as if she had no right to enter the sacred enclave.
‘I’m Max’s mother.’ Stephanie always felt proud to say it.
‘Ah. The mother.’
‘So – how is he?’
As if to remind himself of the diagnosis, the doctor held one sheet of X-ray film against the ceiling light and then put it down and picked up another. ‘I think we’re looking at a break in one of the bones …’
I took biology, you can use long words. Stephanie smiled encouragement at him. ‘Yes,’ was all she said.
‘Not, unfortunately, a simple break, although one that’s quite common in children. I’m getting an orthopaedic surgeon to take a look, which won’t be until he finishes his afternoon schedule, say around four o’clock.’
‘So we wait here until four pm?’
‘Well, in the waiting area. Now, Max, can I borrow your Mummy a moment to answer some questions?’
‘Sure,’ Max gave his mandarin nod.
‘Good boy.’ The doctor patted the good arm.
Take your patronising mitt off my child. Stephanie smiled and followed the doctor to a windowless, coffin-shaped little room off a corridor, which contained one table and two chairs. She took the seat he indicated.
‘You’re Max’s mother?’ The doctor asked, clicking his ballpoint. Was he 23? 24? Was it a sign of growing old when you thought doctors looked impossibly young?
‘Yes,’ Stephanie confirmed.
‘And your name would be …’
‘Sands. Stephanie Sands. That’s Stephanie with a p h.’ She noticed that he entered her name in a box and ran up the form with his pen to check it against Max’s name at the top. She was getting to be paranoid about forms.
‘And you were not there when this accident happened?’
‘Well, it happened at school. I was on my way to work.’
‘And what work do you do?’
‘Garden designer.’ It was shorter to write than landscape architect and besides she was not sure she deserved the grand appellation.
‘And the father …’
‘My husband’s name is Stewart.’
‘No, I mean, where was he?’
‘He isn’t at home at the moment.’ She was too weary to get into the whole explanation. If this was a place where no one read the Helford & Westwick Courier, she was grateful. Besides, if they told the truth this squit would probably decide to call in a psychiatrist and a strait jacket as well.
‘Do you mean not living with you at the moment.’
‘No.’
‘So you are a single mother, is that it?’
‘No, we’re married. He just isn’t home right now.’
‘Because I have here that you are a single parent.’
‘Well, I’m not. Where would you have got such information?’ Such care she had taken to correct Miss Helens, and she had not passed on the facts to her staff.
‘From the young woman who came in with him …’
‘She’s just a nursery assistant, she obviously had the wrong impression.’ Damn Miss Helens to hell for this.
‘I see. So, is this a – uh – full-time employment?’
‘Yes, it’s full time.’
‘So how much time do you spend with your son, Mrs Sands?’
‘Time?’
‘Yes, how much time?’
‘Do you mean in hours?’ You are going to sweat for this, sunshine, I’m going to make you sweat for this.
‘I mean, how much time?’
‘Well, rather more than most of the other parents at our very nice Montessori nursery school, Dr …’ She leaned forward to read his name label. ‘Dr Wallingham. I do the car pool in the morning Monday, Wednesday and Friday and since my office is at home I’m working there on those afternoons. I do the car pool in the afternoon Tuesday and Thursday, when we have tennis squad and swim squad respectively, and since I’m my own boss I can pick my own hours and so I pick a couple on those days to stick around and watch. And if something goes wrong at that very nice little school, as you see, I can be with Max in no time at all if I have to. And then unless he goes to play at a friend’s house we’re together all weekend.’
‘Except when you go out, presumably?’
‘I don’t go out.’
He blinked. ‘You are still a young woman.’
‘Oh gee, thanks. But I gave up rave parties when I was pregnant and going down the crack den’s so difficult with a toddler, you know.’ He was still blinking, his pen hovering over the page. Stephanie stood up. ‘Joke, joke,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders but momentarily unable to smile. ‘Don’t you think I should go back to Max before he starts wandering up the ward picking up needles or something? I take it you have finished. You don’t need to apologise or anything. Just-don’t put any more
lies on paper, OK? And better cross out the ones you already have. I will sue.’
‘I don’t appreciate your attitude,’ he snapped after her.
‘Same goes here,’ she threw angrily back over her shoulder.
By 7 pm they were home, Max with his arm in a better splint. The word of the surgeon was that the fracture was simple and should heal without any further treatment. They were both exhausted. Stephanie put a pizza in the oven and took Max to the bathroom where she set about undressing him ready for a shower. The nurse had already cut off the arm of his shirt but Stephanie found she had to cut through the shoulder as well to ease it over the splint.
‘There you are.’ Sadly, for it was as cute a garment as her son would agree to wear, she dropped the ragged remains in the bin, and set about the trousers, the socks, the shoes and finally the pants. She ran the water in the shower, pulled out a clean towel, checked the temperature and helped Max to step in. His body was almost dappled with bruises, old and new. Square in the centre of his back was the print of a shoe, a trainer, every ridge in the sole clearly outlined in black and purple.
Since her personal panic button had been stuck down all day, Stephanie’s head was full of white noise and she was perfectly calm. She made the shower gel foam between her hands and spread it over his rounded little shoulders, agreed that there was no need to shampoo hair after such a heavy day, made him giggle by spraying his little penis after he soaped it, wondered if that might be construed as sexual abuse, turned off the water and wrapped the dear body in the towel.
‘So who else was on the climbing frame when you fell off?’ she asked, trying hard not to sound crafty.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said at once. They had all adopted Rod’s name for Courtenay.
‘Sweetheart,’ she repeated, still expectant.
‘And some boys.’
‘Which boys?’
‘Ben and Jon.’
Of course, of course. Why had she been so blind? He never wanted to play with the Carman boys, never went willingly to the Carman house and now the connection was made she remembered the many times he had left there with the red-faced, rumpled look she should have recognised. ‘So was it Ben who kicked you, or Jon?’
‘It was Ben,’ he said, yawning with unconcern. ‘Jon stomped on me on the ground.’
She made no reply, knowing he would retreat from further questions. After a while he suddenly gave her a dark, pained, humiliated look that stabbed her heart, the first expression of real distress he had ever worn. ‘They always do, Mum. They hate me. They hate everybody. Ben tried to push Sweetheart off too, but she was too strong. I hate them.’
‘I wish you’d told me before.’ He allowed her to hold him but lapsed into silence. Soon he was half asleep, and as she tucked him into bed Stephanie felt a pulse thumping at her temple and her hands hot and sweating, as if her anger was running through her blood and bringing it to the boil.
14. A Natural History Society
‘You’re kidding me,’ said Rachel. Her voice over the phone had that half-connected tone of someone doing something else at the same time. ‘Ben and Jon? Look, this is just boys, you know? Boys being boys …’
‘No,’ Stephanie insisted, earnestly calm. ‘Look, we’re friends, I don’t want to be having this conversation. He was pushed off the climbing frame and kicked on the ground. He had a broken arm and a bruise the shape of a shoe in the centre of his back. He says Ben pushed him and Jon did the rest.’
‘Aw c’mon.’ Was Rachel chewing gum? It sounded like it. ‘They were just rough-housing. Play-fighting. Our tiger cubs. They do it all the time. You should see the things they do to each other.’
‘I’m afraid it was deliberate, Rachel. I talked to some of the other kids, they all saw it. And I don’t think this was just once – it’s been going on for a while.’
‘That Fuller kid? Hyperactive, gender-confused; father’s a personal trainer, for God’s sake? Can’t you see what’s going on with her? She just wants to be a boy, Steph, that’s why …’
‘And I’d picked up the signs myself, Rachel. I’d been asking myself why Max always tried to avoid Ben and Jon. It’s been going on for months.’ Get the sleeping tigress here. Stephanie shook her mane, amazed at her own strength of purpose.
‘Max has to plough his own furrow, you know, Steph. You shouldn’t try to protect him all the time. He’s a boy, boys fight.’ Down the telephone came a loud, unmistakable slurp. Coffee. Rachel was putting down her breakfast there. The scrape of a fork was also detectable.
‘This isn’t fighting, this is bullying and I want it to stop.’
‘What can I do about it? It’s human nature.’
‘You could stop whatever you’re doing and pay attention to me,’ suggested Stephanie acidly.
‘Oh my, we are stressing out this morning.’ Defiant clattering testified that Rachel was applying herself to her plate with enhanced focus. ‘OK, tell me this, Steph – if it’s being going on for months, why hasn’t Max said anything before?’
‘You know what he’s like, he doesn’t talk. It’s pride as much as anything.’
‘So, maybe Max was feeling a bit of a fool for falling off the climbing frame yesterday and decided to whine about some other child and get into a blaming thing to make himself feel better.’
‘I had to trick him into telling me, Rachel. Then I checked the story out. Don’t take my word for it, come around and take a look. Call up Helford Hospital and get the X-rays. Meanwhile, I’m afraid I’m not coming to pick up your boys this morning. Max is my son and I have to protect him.’
‘You don’t have to fight Max’s battles for him, Steph. Or teach him how to run away from trouble. Ben and Jon are my sons and I’m not going to fret over them, turning them into little wusses because that’s what you think a boy should be. I think we should just leave our boys alone to sort things out between them. Now excuse me, I have patients waiting.’
She crashed down the phone. Stephanie stopped herself slamming her own receiver back in place, took three deep breaths, opened her office door and called Max, despising her phoney bright voice. This was not how Stewart would have handled things.
Stewart would have gone into his crumpled-forehead mode for a few hours then come out with icy dignity, grave concern, regretful intervention. She had seen it a few times when he and Marcus had disagreements. A real physical transformation. He could look as if he had grown three inches and aged fifteen years. Icy dignity. She pulled herself up and straightened her spine.
They drove in silence to Church Vale for Chalice then on to The Magpies. As she stopped the Cherokee, Josh Carman came out of the gate, looking blackly self-satisfied. Through the classroom window she saw Ben Carman standing on a table sounding off for the benefit of the infant audience gathered around his feet, his arms folded in defiance.
Could we have a word, Stewart would say. ‘Miss Helens, could we have a word?’
The headmistress had an office, but showed no sign of leaving the playground. ‘How is Max?’ she enquired, eyes bright with unfelt sympathy under their turquoise swags. ‘Such a brave little boy.’ The rings glinted as she put her hand on his head.
‘In you go, Max. Teacher’s waiting.’ She was expecting the don’t-embarrass-me cringe but instead he walked off with a businesslike bustle which said that he knew very well that she had to do what she had to do and it was OK with him. Which gave her strength.
‘Shall we go inside?’ Stephanie suggested.
‘Is that really necessary?’ Miss Helens spoke as if confronted with some irritating, outmoded educational convention like rote-learning the names of all the capital cities of all the countries in South America.
‘I would prefer to talk in private.’ Icy dignity, steely politeness. With reluctance, Miss Helens retreated to her office.
Gingham curtains here even. The dinky plastic tables loaded with copies of Pre-School Monthly. Desk with a blotter and a rose bowl garnished with dried hydrangea heads. A cheque resti
ng on the blotter, no doubt the reason Miss Helens had been reluctant to return to her office. She sat heavily in the headmistress’s wing chair and put the cheque in a drawer.
There were two rush-seated chairs for parents, one with arms, one without: Daddy’s chair and Mummy’s chair. Deliberately, Stephanie pulled out Daddy’s chair, sat sternly in it and went through the facts.
‘Surely not,’ Miss Helens said the minute Stephanie drew breath, eyes darting like fish around the room.
Stephanie suppressed cynicism; I must be an adult, I can rattle a headmistress. ‘I am quite sure.’
‘Little boys are always …’ She was struggling through guilt to defiance, ritually moving her pen pot around her desk as if some magician had hidden the solution to the problem underneath it.
‘Not to this extent. Max has severe injuries and the Carman boys have been picking on him for quite a while. I had suspected it before.’
‘Dr Carman has already spoken to me; he assures me he will deal with the situation.’
‘I am glad to hear that, although I’m sorry to say that wasn’t the impression I got from the other Dr Carman half an hour ago.’
‘Max is such a quiet boy,’ Miss Helens advanced in her defence. ‘This business with his father … and your only child. Only children do find social interaction more difficult …’
Stephanie felt a power surge; from the glow of rage in her heart, a charge of energy running through her veins, a murderous lucidity shedding from her mind. ‘I hadn’t noticed Max having difficulty with social interaction, Miss Helens. Not that Stewart and I ever taught him to regard beating up other children as a proper way of reacting to anything. So is what you’re saying that because my husband isn’t home Max ought to expect violence from other children? Or that a quiet child deserves to be attacked by the noisy ones?’
First blood to Stephanie.
‘Good heavens, no, of course not. Mrs Sands, you’re—’
‘I was hoping you would at least agree that this is not a desirable situation to have in the school.’
‘Of course I agree with that, Mrs Sands. Of course …’
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