Arnie, Mervin, & The Blood of Kings

by Pedliham, Luke

  “Some magic would be nice.” says Elaine dryly as she takes the small off-white card from Mr Brownstone.

  Elaine knows she won’t be able to afford the psychologists rates as she has been unable to work since she hurt her back in an accident before Arnie was born, and her disability allowance combined with Hector’s job seekers allowance will not cover these kinds of costs. She thanks Mr Brownstone anyway, stands up and walks out of the room feeling quite broken and a little angry. As she passes Miss Boyle again she stops and places the business card she had just been given on her desk and says;

  “Perhaps you should give him a call. He might be able to help with that childish streak. Failing that he might know a good surgeon that can remove that crap from your face!”

  Miss Boyle looks at the card and then at Elaine and purses her lips to speak but no response is forthcoming due to the shock, and Elaine walks away feeling slightly better about the situation.

  As she walks away she stops suddenly as she is overcome with a strange, almost supernatural feeling of reassurance which both warms her heart and gives her a chill at the same time. She inhales deeply and in the moment realises that she and Arnie are both fighters, and that somehow, everything will all be alright.

  Chapter Three: A brighter day

  As the high pitched beeping of his alarm went off, a warm embracing feeling came over Arnold Gibbs as he opens his eyes to the morning sun bursting through the cheap, almost transparent curtains of his bedroom.

  He stretches his arms and legs out of bed while drawing a gratifyingly deep breath and exhales forcefully as he reaches over and turns his alarm off on the first sunny day he has seen this year. He swings his legs out of his bed and springs up onto his feet feeling strong and vibrant and with just the right amount of verve a teenage boy should have. He opens the curtains and allows the sunlight to fill the room as it effortlessly hovers over the concrete mecca Arnie calls home.

  He sits up on his chest of drawers and marvels at the sunrise and the positive, warming effect it has on all of its surroundings. He can see that the few lonely looking trees that are scattered around the estate are doing a bit better now and even have some greenery and a few fledgling flowers on them. Arnie’s gaze lingers on the Cherry tree for a moment which blossoms early in the year, while he bathes in the suns warm glow and marvels at the way the trees delicate petals fall and sway in the light spring breeze before laying themselves down gently on the ground - decorating the cracked, grey paving stones like a piece of modern art.

  Lady jumps up on the chest of drawers next to Arnie and shares in his admiration of the unseasonal golden glow that the room is currently wrapped in. She sits there happily wagging her stumpy tail and lets out a little sigh of contentment as she lies down and cosy’s up to her master and best friend in one of those rare perfect moments that life can sometimes surprise you with.

  Arnie closes his eyes and inhales deeply whilst basking in the suns embrace. He puffs out his chest and fills his lungs with as much oxygen as he can and holds it in. He feels calm and serene as he slowly exhales and relaxes in the knowledge that nothing in this particular moment has any urgency about it. He looks down at his best friend Lady who is similarly content in the moment and gently strokes her head.

  “Everything’s going to be alright girl. I just know it.” he says calmly.

  Lady gives a little ‘woof’ back in agreement as they continue looking out the window onto an area that would be considered and eyesore on any other day, at any other time were it not for the beautiful sepia portrait the sun had created right outside his window.

  Hector enters the kitchen dressed only in a scruffy looking paisley dressing gown and slippers. He walks up behind Elaine who is already up and is looking out of the kitchen window with a subdued smile on her face also enjoying the morning’s golden glow. He places his hand on her shoulder and kisses the back of her neck gently.

  “Morning babes” he says croakily.

  Hector grabs his cigarettes whilst simultaneously forcing out a short hacking cough to clear the phlegm from his chest, and lights one. He walks to the kettle, switches it on and asks;

  “Why I’m up at this time in the morning I have no idea! I didn’t sleep at all. I dunno what time I got in and can’t remember where I…..” he stops mid-sentence as he realises that Elaine has just started sobbing quietly whilst still looking out of the window.

  “Hey,…..what’s the matter?” he asks in a concerned voice.

  Elaine wipes her eyes, laughs a little and points out into the garden where Arnie is playing ball with Lady, laughing and frolicking happily in the sunshine.

  “I’m just being silly. It’s just…..he’s happy!” says Elaine abruptly in an almost resentful tone.

  “I don’t get it. I just don’t understand! One minute he’s so withdrawn and miserable that I can barely get a word out of him, and the next minute he’s a totally different kid who just wants to laugh and play! I mean, what is that?”

  Hector sighs and shakes his head before unhelpfully offering;

  “Didn’t that head-doctor you took him to say he could just be sad or something?”

  “No! He said it sounded like he might be suffering with S.A.D which stands for Seasonal affective disorder. It’s a real thing and can actually be quite serious!” says Elaine scornfully.

  “Yeah, well that sounds about right doesn’t it? Seasonal affection dis…..thingy!” replies Hector ignorantly.

  “Well, yes but because we didn’t have enough for the ‘follow up’ sessions, we didn’t get a proper diagnosis or even find out if it can be treated did we? Anyway, it was just the bias opinion of one so called expert.” replies Elaine defiantly.

  “You know he said I should get him a light box? Do you know what that is Hector?” she continues:

  Hector shakes his head as he yawns and looks at Elaine with a look of tired bemusement on his face as the ash falls from his fag onto the floor;

  “It’s a box that lights up. That’s it! It’s meant to make people feel better somehow but frankly I don’t see it. I mean what a bloody waste of money. I may as well just buy him a sodding lamp and put it in the fish tank!” she says angrily before continuing;

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy he’s happy, but,….I just don’t feel like I can enjoy it and enjoy being with him because I’m too worried about how he’ll be when he’s down again. I mean,…GOD,..is that really selfish of me or what?”

  “No babes, of course not!” replies Hector;

  “I mean,..I guess in a way everything we do is selfish. There are very few unselfish….”

  “Selfless” interrupts Elaine.

  “What?” replies Hector, caught slightly off guard;

  “You mean selfless.” continues Elaine very matter-of-factly.

  “Whatever….” says Hector dismissively;

  “…..the point is that we actually do most things to satisfy ourselves. We buy our kids the trainers they want so we don’t get a headache from all their nagging. We encourage them to play football because we think that if we push them hard enough, one day they might sign their first contract with Chelsea and be able to give us a few quid. We help an old lady across the road with her shopping because it makes us feel good for doing it and you don’t want that “what if she got hit by a bus” thing running through your head all day. It’s not because you really give a crap about her or how long it takes her to get across the road. If that were the case, why not take her home, cook her a meal, watch Countdown with her or play her at backgammon? I’ll tell you why, it’s because it’s easier to walk across the road with her and then walk away forever thinking that you have made a difference in her life. I mean, she’s gonna need to get back to the other side later but are you gonna wait? No, you’re gonna go home and watch Jeremy Kyle aren’t you?”

  “I think you might be missing the point Hec…” says Elaine in an attempt to let Hector down gently as he is only trying to help in his own naïve way. Hector interrup
ts again however…..

  “Even if you believe in all that ‘what goes around comes around’ stuff, that in itself is a selfish philoso…thingy! You do all these ‘selfless’ things because you believe that good things will happen to you in return. It’s what the Indians call Korma.”

  Hector sits back in his chair and sips his tea proudly after delivering his cynical and somewhat stupid views. Elaine looks back at him with one eyebrow raised. Whether this was at his general cynicism or at his misinterpretation of the word ‘Karma’ is unclear, but in all probability it was a bit of both. Nevertheless, Hector’s ill-informed ramblings have in fact lightened the mood a bit.

  Elaine shakes her head looks back out into the garden where Arnie is still frolicking around with Lady and seemingly having a whale of a time. She gives a melancholy sigh, blows her nose into a hanky and walks over to the table where she sits down with Hector. She lights a cigarette and reaches over to hold Hector’s hand….

  “Right listen, we’ve got two weeks until Arnie’s birthday, and I want to make it a good one for him after all he’s been through recently. So how about we have a little party for him?”

  Hector exhales his smoke suddenly and coughs violently whilst wearing a somewhat surprised look on his face;

  “Here?” he asks as he chokes on the cigarette smoke.

  Just as he is about to dissuade Elaine from the idea, he catches a rare glimpse of hope on her face that he simply doesn’t have the heart to demolish with his tales of practicality.

  “…..yeah, I guess we could do,….something for him here, I mean…..”

  “Great! We’ll need to invite all of his friends…..” exclaims Elaine excitedly:

  Then the realisation that Arnie doesn’t really have any friends practically jumps up and slaps her in the face, stifling her flow momentarily. Although saddened by this thought, Elaine gathers herself and continues onwards with her stubborn optimism;

  “Ok,…..we’ll see if Arnie has anyone at school he would like to invite, but we’ll invite all the family too! We’ll get his cousin Alfie over, and we could invite the Patterson’s from across the way there - they have a son [he’s called Alfie too] who’s about Arnie’s age who has that thing …”

  Hector looks confused for a second and then asks;

  “You mean the kid in the wheelchair?”

  “Yeah that’s him!” barks Elaine excitedly;

  “He has cerebral palsy and the poor soul doesn’t have many friends himself, so I’m sure he’d be excited about a party, don’t you?”

  “Well, sure I mean….probably. I’m just not sure he or his parents will appreciate your reasoning behind inviting them that’s all. I mean, don’t you think it’s a bit….” Hector stops in an attempt to choose his words carefully;

  “A bit what?” asks Elaine sharply as she stares intently at him with her hands on her hips.

  “Well,…a bit insulting! I mean, inviting a disabled kid over that Arnie barely knows because he doesn’t have many friends himself and because he will go some way in making up the numbers is, I think - a bit of an insult! Don’t you?”

  Elaine becomes increasingly defiant in tone towards what she considers to be Hectors slanderous accusation and responds by saying;

  “Well actually no, Hector, I don’t! Arnie actually helped Alfie get up the kerb in his wheelchair a few weeks ago and stopped and chatted with him afterwards for about seven minutes. I timed it! They were playing with some toys that Alfie had on him. So I asked Arnie about it and he was happy because he’d made a new friend. So don’t sit there on your high horse and judge me ok?”

  Hector looks back at Elaine and simply says “Ok” as he doesn’t want to upset his wife any more than he already has. Nevertheless, it was obvious to him that Elaine was reaching and being a little politically incorrect, but it was also obvious that her heart was in the right place.

  The point was that both children are troubled in their own way. One has physical issues and the other mental and they’re both lonely as a result of how cruel other so-called “normal” children can be, and how alienated someone, especially a child, can become because of it. So perhaps engineering another meeting between the two was not such a heinous idea after all, and who knows it might even prove to be the beginning of a great friendship.

  Hector considers this, and sees that Elaine is at heart only trying to make her boy’s special day that little bit more special, and he could not fault that gesture no matter what. He reaches over the table to hold Elaine’s hands as she is still quite visibly upset and pulls her close for a hug over the table, still with his fag hanging out of his mouth in quite a sweet moment. Hector pulls away, removes the cigarette from his mouth and exhales the smoke;

  “Ok,…..who else?”

  “Thank you.” says Elaine gratefully as she acknowledges Hector’s willingness to look past his own preconceptions and assist her in her quest.

  Two weeks later, on his birthday, Arnie rushes down the stairs to answer a knock at the front door. As he opens it the tall, athletic and smartly dressed boy stood there smiles at Arnie while holding a spherical gift wrapped in Spongebob Squarepants wrapping paper.

  “Cain!” exclaims Arnie excitedly.

  This was Cain, Hector’s son and Arnie’s idol. A plethora of questions run through Arnie’s mind in a split second - about the falling out, how he had managed to travel up from Somerset, how long he was going to stay for and where his mother was amongst other things. But in all the excitement Arnie could only muster;

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You didn’t think I would miss your Birthday did you bruv?” says Cain as he grabs the back of Arnie’s head and rubs it playfully as only an older brother can do.

  Arnie grins from ear to ear and his eyes well up with emotion. He turns around and shouts at the top of his voice;

  “MUM! CAIN’S HERE!”

  As he turns, Arnie sees that his mum is standing right there and sharply quietens toward the end of his announcement. She too is a little overcome with emotion but Hector just stands there expressionless as it is clear that although he and Cain are in the same house, there are still a few unresolved issues between them. Arnie either chooses to ignore this or just misses it and instead turns back to Cain who is still standing in the doorway and says;

  “Come in, come in.” as he gestures to Cain, and literally pulls him through the door by his shirt all the while his eyes are unintentionally fixated on the gift in Cain’s hands.

  “Thanks.” says Cain politely.

  Cain then goes to hand Arnie the badly wrapped gift he has been holding as he can see that Arnie is desperate to have it, but decides to wind him up a bit first as older brother’s do.

  “This isn’t for you, it’s for Lady! You want it don’t you Lady?” says Cain as he playfully pulls the gift back and teases Lady with it.

  Lady stands on her two hind legs and barks back twice in excitement as if to say “Yes, YES! It’s clearly a ball and I’m a Dog. Of course I want it!” Cain waves the gift under Lady’s nose to tease her some more before eventually handing it to Arnie.

  “It’s not much but I know since I left you haven’t had one to use, so……, well anyway, happy birthday mate!”

  Arnie looks at his mum as if he was looking for permission, Elaine nods for him to go ahead. He tears away the Spongebob Squarepants paper in a millisecond to reveal the football they already knew was lying under the not-so-clever disguise.

  “Nice one Cain!” exclaims Arnie as if he’d never seen a football before;

  “Me and Lady have been playing with an old tennis ball which is all dirty and soggy now. Lady still likes it but it’s no fun getting slobber all over your shoes when we’re playing.”

  Cain looks down at Arnie, smiles and gets him in a friendly headlock and says;

  “This is an official Fifa ball! So before Lady gets her teeth into it and slobber all over it lets go and have a kickabout so you can show us what you’ve got. Penalt
ies, best of five?”

  Arnie nods his head, still in a headlock before Cain lets him go and they both walk to the garden. As Cain walks past Hector they make eye contact and engage in the briefest of acknowledgements. Elaine notices and smiles modestly at Hector despite the slightness of the greeting. At least it’s something!

  There is another knock at the door. As Elaine walks to answer she jumps and clutches at her chest as there is a huge ‘CRASH’ from the garden. Cain just kicked the ball into the slatted wood fence that surrounds their concrete “garden”, scored a goal and succeeded in scaring the life out of everyone in the process. Elaine rolls her eyes as she watches Arnie and Lady scramble around the tiny garden to recover the ball.

  She lets go of her chest and continues on to open the door, greeting Mrs Patterson and her son Alfie as she does so;

  “Hi!” says Elaine in a high pitched and slightly over the top fashion;

  “Please, do come in.” she continues in her best posh voice.

  Alfie moves his electric wheelchair into the hallway with the help of his mum and hands her the birthday card he is clutching.

  “Arnie’s in the garden with his brother Cain. Go on through Alfie. There are some sandwiches and crisps on the table, and some drinks in the fridge.”

  “O.k.” says Alfie shyly.

  “Aww, lovely thanks. Come on, let’s get you something to eat Alfie, then you can play with the others.” says Mrs Patterson.

  As she is finishing her sentence, another ‘CRASH’ comes from the garden. This time they both jump and clutch at their chests in unison as Alfie tries to look through the kitchen and into the garden, stretching his body upwards out of his wheelchair like a Meerkat - intrigued as to what was going on.

  Elaine looks back at Mrs Patterson and says;

  “There playing penalties with Arnie’s new Fifa ball. They’re using the back fence as the goal.”

  Mrs Patterson and Elaine roll their eyes and shake their heads as mothers do when they get together and talk about their kids. Alfie wheels himself out through the kitchen past the food and into the garden. As he does the ball bounces off the fence again (making another loud crash) and into Alfie’s lap which he happily picks up and spins on his middle finger to show off a little. Arnie and Cain both look suitably impressed by his skills and then greet him accordingly. Arnie introduces Cain and re-introduces his best friend Lady who is currently standing with his paws up on Alfie’s lap – waiting for the ball to be thrown. Elaine and Mrs Patterson watch from the hallway smiling, while Hector helps himself to the sandwiches in the kitchen, making a mess as he does so as a big piece of egg mayonnaise falls out of the sandwich and onto his shirt.