Autumn Music

by Dulcie M. Stone

  The same official chair the obnoxious psychologist had occupied, the same visitor’s chair she’d occupied, the same open pages of the same file she’d read a year ago. Time was up.

  He was ill at ease. Quieter, older and subtly more remote, she’d once counted him a friend. He understood her turmoil, had supported her through all Sean’s school years. But he had a job to do. Friendship no longer counted. His place was with the specialists and the bureaucrats, hers with her son – and no one else.

  Pleasantries over, the principal’s hand rested on the open file. “This has to be done, I’m afraid.”

  She waited. He’d get no help from her.

  “Technically,” he continued, “as an intellectually disabled child, Sean’s not compelled to attend school.”

  “He never has been,” she countered. “So what’s the problem now?”

  Surprised, he stiffened.

  She knew the problem too well. The enemy behind the desk was going to have to spell it out. Sean’s future was the primary concern here, not her debt to the man who’d enrolled him despite usual practice and personal cost.

  Quickly recovering, he was, as always, gentle. “Come, Tess. You know the problem as well as I do. His fourteenth birthday is almost on us. The time is arriving when we’ll have no choice. We’ll be compelled to let him go. As a matter of fact, we risk a significant cut in funding, at the very least. We can no longer…I’m so sorry.”

  “He loves school. He wants to learn.”

  “Granted,” he agreed. “Here is not the place.”

  That, she knew. Sean knew.

  “I have looked into it.” Closing the file, he pushed it to one side. “There’s no place here he can continue his education. There’s only one alternative.”

  “I send him away.”

  “Precisely,” he confirmed. “Tess…I’m so very sorry.”

  “A hell of a lot of good that does!”

  Embarrassed, John Lane spread helpless hands across the desk. “I’d give anything not to have to be telling you this.”

  She flushed. “That was unwarranted. I do apologise.”

  He pushed the tissue box across to her. “I’ll leave you a moment.”

  The school was hushed, no sound of children, no sound of any kind, not even the principal’s shoes in the corridor. She must stop crying. She must keep fighting.

  He returned with tea and biscuits, as he had so often before, and resumed his place behind the desk.

  “I’m sorry,” she reiterated. “I shouldn’t take my anger out on you.”

  “You’ve reason to be angry,” he consoled. “I guess I’m the messenger. I don’t want to be.”

  “Don’t kill the messenger? Isn’t that transference?”

  “Psycho-babble,” he laughed. “You have been busy!”

  “I told you. I’ve been reading all the right books. I’m sorry I blew up. I value your friendship.”

  “Then consider your options.” He was very earnest. “If you still won’t consider special school, why not look into the possibility of Sean attending a training centre? He may not be able to continue academic learning, but there are trades…crafts…he’d make friends, continue learning in a different way. He’d not be lonely.”

  “We’ll never consider sending him away from home. We never have. We never will. There are no circumstances under which I can ever imagine it happening.”

  “Not even if it benefits him?”

  “I can’t.” She rejected the tacit criticism. “How can I be sure it would benefit him? Who knows? Unless I’m able to monitor the situation constantly, as you’ve allowed me to, how can I be sure? I can’t send him away to strangers. I can’t trust anybody.”

  “It’s not like the old days, Tess. You have to trust somebody.”

  “You believe I overprotect him.”

  “That’s not for me to say,” he shook his head. “Don’t ask. How could I say?”

  She persisted. “What would you say if you could?”

  He was thoughtful.

  She’d learned to be patient. If he could help, he would.

  “I do have a question,” he decided. “Have you heard from Mrs Cooper?”

  “Bernie’s mother – no. Why?”

  “She’s very worried about Bernie,” he answered. “She tells me he’s become more aggressive than ever.”

  “Since his transfer.” He was helping. He was saying that Bernie’s move had been unsuccessful, that Harriet was in trouble.

  “She believes so.”

  “Will you be able to do anything?”

  “No Tess, we won’t. We’re in totally different departments. I know no one personally. I haven’t even a tenuous contact. I have nowhere to start.”

  “Has Harriet told you what she intends to do?”

  “I’m afraid there’s not a lot she can do. Unless Bernie’s behaviour dramatically changes for the better, bringing him home is not really an option. Mrs Cooper tells me moving away from here is certainly not possible for herself and Joe.” He paused and added, “I take it you haven’t considered moving away either.”

  “No,” she confirmed. “It’s not possible for us either. You know that. We’re in the same situation. Rory’s business…He had to make a compromise for Sean in the first place. He gave up his career. It’s pure luck it worked out for the best. It suited him. He’s made a go of it here. It’s too late to go back.”

  “I’m sorry. There really is no other solution. If you can’t move…”

  “You must understand! Even if we did find somewhere, we can’t throw it all away to give Sean a couple more years’ education. I can’t ask my husband to do that all over again.”

  “May I ask? Have you talked it over with him?”

  She looked away. They’d been working together for a long time; he knew better.

  “Tess…” His concern was as strong as ever. “What will you do?”

  “Tell me he can stay until next Christmas.”

  “You’re not listening!”

  “Why can’t he stay a little longer?”

  “Tess! You need to listen! All the good is being undone. The new children haven’t grown with him. He’s ridiculously overprotected. His teachers have no choice. He’s coddled. He knows it. He plays on it. He’s becoming a clown!”

  Sweet Jesus!

  “Tess – I’m so sorry. I can’t begin to tell you…”

  She pushed away from the desk. “I’m sorry, too.”

  He was a good man, a caring man. She’d exploited his goodwill. She’d pushed him into a corner. Was he still friend – or enemy?

  When they’d started, years ago, Sean had found riding his bike over the rough dirt road all but impossible. As always, his determination had overcome the hurdle. Now, despite the appalling road and his still imperfect balance, he enjoyed it.

  Heart aching, she followed as he wobbled homewards. Inevitably, he almost fell as he skirted a deep pothole, regained his balance, waved confidently back at her and therefore almost fell again. They’d laughed about it – often. But not today. Today there was no laughter.

  Everyone was right, even the hateful psychologist. He was too big and too old for his class. He’d been lucky to have lasted this long. No, not lucky. Fortunate. Fortunate to have had John Lane in his corner. Is there a difference? Fortune and luck? Or are they the same? Subtle differences…is there such a thing as subtle difference? Different is different. Amen.

  He raced her to the front gate, waited politely for her to pass through, closed it and followed her to the garage.

  “Hi Rusty!” His first after-school tasks – unchain Rusty, fetch their afternoon tea; biscuits and tea for himself, a bowl of milk and biscuits for Rusty.

  From the kitchen window, she watched. First the snack, then the wrestling, then the game of chasey around the garage and through the trees.

  In the background the morose pre-winter mountains, smoke-hazed from the burnt offerings of fallen leaves. In the foreground, the greens and
greys and vivid reds and yellows of autumn and the acrid scent of scorched eucalyptus. And still high up, limning the fire-ravaged skyline, the dead branches of dead trees and dead hopes.

  Next Christmas, many months away. Sean’s birthday, a mere few months away. Decisions to be made. From what choices? Decisions pre-supposed choices. There were no choices.

  He could not continue school. The secondary school, miles away and academically demanding, was out of the question. Nor could he stay at home day after day with no companions, no goals, no stimulation other than the limited activities she might contrive with the help of pertinent books from the library; if they existed. The old days, the early days when she’d reared a child as a child, long gone, not to be recalled. He’s grown up.

  Not so. He’s a teenager. With all its confusing realities. How does he feel? What does he feel? The books, the few specific books she’d been able to locate, had told her nothing she’d not already disproved – or he’d outgrown. Academia declared there were no places for children like Sean that were not in some way apart; apart from mainstream children. Mainstream children like Todd, still his best friend. Thank you, John, both enemy and friend. What was to be the future? How could decisions be made when there was inadequate and unreliable information on which to make them?

  Games and snack ended, he left Rusty and started on his chores; chop the wood, light the fire, feed the fowls, help cook the tea, set the table, wait at the door for his father – however long it took.

  “Hi, son.” Rory, arriving just after six, patted his son’s head. “Good day?”

  “Mum came to school.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Determined to talk only when she was ready, she concentrated on the cooking.

  “I have a meeting later.”

  “You’ll need to hear this, Rory.”

  “Go along outside for a while, son.”

  “It’s dark!” She protested.

  “Sean – we want to talk.”

  She protested. “I’m cooking!”

  “If it’s that important, leave the meal. Go to your room, Sean.”

  Without protest, Sean obeyed, closing the door behind him. Obedience went so far and no further. A teenager, he’d obey when it suited him and sneakily disobey if he thought he could get away with it. Impossible to monitor what he’d be watching on television. If they opened the door right now, they’d catch a quick flick of the remote and see a disarmingly innocent face. After initially trying, they’d given up.

  Six o’clock and guaranteed violence. Today’s headlines would grab him. He’d see the appalling vision of the attempted assassination of the Pope. His and Beth’s generation had grown up accustomed, expecting to view, pictures of violence. Science was bringing increasingly brutal images into every corner of their world. It was not possible to cut him off from life as it now was.

  Time and habit had partially solved the problem. He preferred cartoons – too often comical violence. Did he enjoy the humour or the violence? Did he comprehend that, unlike the cartoons, the blood in the news stories was actual blood? Who could know?

  He shied away from discussing his feelings, discussing anything, especially lately. Because he was his father’s son? His mother’s son? Or because of an inability to adequately express himself? Did he in any way comprehend his difference from others, from Todd? Would she ever know? Would he ever let her know? His inner life was secret. What was in the mind behind that disarmingly innocent face? Defence? Genuine innocence? Resentment? Or…? Questions unanswerable, so never asked, except in her frustrated mind.

  Deeper still than frustration, dreaded and not previously admitted, she felt rebellion. Monumental rage, ruthlessly repressed, had been held in check only by the few scraps of information she’d so far unearthed. Fragments that revealed bureaucracy’s ineptitude and the helplessness of science. All dispensed by remote theorists pontificating from remote castles on remote islands insulated from grass-roots reality and from personal responsibility.

  After today, rage ruled.

  “I’m waiting, Tess.”

  He was waiting! She turned off the gas. The meal would be ruined, if he stayed to eat it.

  “What’s happened?” He pressed. “What do I need to hear?”

  “I saw John Lane. Sean has to quit school by his birthday.”

  “Right,” he nodded. “So what’s the big deal? It had to come.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say!”

  “What else is there to say? He’s to leave school. He’s had a good run. Get over it.”

  Careful.

  “It’ll work out, Tess. You worry too much.”

  “I thought…” Control was essential. “I thought you’d be upset.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know what to do!”

  “Not to worry, Tess. You’ll think of something.” He tapped on the closed bedroom door. “Tea time, Sean.”

  “Rory! Please!”

  “For God’s sake!” He was roused. “What’s so bad about special school? Joe’s kid goes there. Do it! Enrol him!”

  Sean slouched from his room.

  She served the meal. His favourite, sausages and mash and home-grown spinach.

  “Cheer up, son.” Rory pulled their chairs to the table. “The world’s not going to end.”

  “Can I still go to school?”

  Of course, he’d been listening at the bedroom door. “We’ll see, love. Let’s get to your birthday first.”

  “After?”

  “Of course you can,” Rory reassured. “Only it’ll be a different school.”

  “Miss Forrester told me. I like school.” He speared a sausage.

  “You remember Miss Forrester?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s ages since she came.”

  “Uh uh.” He shook his head.

  “I haven’t seen her,” she argued.

  “She’s there. Don’t you worry.”

  “She’s the psychologist you’ve told me about?” Rory asked.

  “The one who started all this.”

  “She’s there,” Sean snorted. “She’s always on Miss Clayton’s back. Rides her like a bloody prize bull.”

  “So much for what he learns at school!” Rory pushed away his untouched meal. “I’ll eat in town.”

  She protested, “They’re farm boys!”

  “Can I have Dad’s sausages?” Sean used the familiar tension to his advantage.

  Rory fetched his coat.

  “What time can we expect you home?”

  “I don’t know. It’s Chamber of Commerce.”

  Late.

  Waiting until the car had driven off, she chided, “You mustn’t swear, Sean.”

  “Dad’s cross.”

  “You mustn’t be rude, either.”

  “I wasn’t rude.”

  “You know perfectly well you were rude.”

  “It’s not really rude,” he grinned. “It’s not nice. Todd says Bernie’s not nice.”

  “You should listen to Todd.”

  “Todd’s gone to a new school. Bernie’s gone to a new school too.” Feigning disinterest, he busily scraped his plate.

  “Do you want an apple?” Sometimes, especially when he was bargaining, he could be persuaded to eat fruit.

  “I’m too full.” He burped theatrically.

  He’d obviously decided that copying Bernie was going to get him into the new school, which everyone, including his father, praised.

  “Sean, it’s talk time.” Because he was quick to evade uncomfortable conversation or jest his way out of trouble, she’d long ago learned to monitor attempts at serious talk. Setting and atmosphere needed to be controlled in a way that would signal the necessary gravity.

  “Can we do the dishes first?” He reacted as anticipated.

  “Not this time.” She granted no opportunity for dissent.

  Following her into the sitting room he seldom visited, he staidly took his place
in one of the two fireside chairs.

  Deliberately solemn, she asked, “Do you like Bernie Cooper?”

  “He’s a pig.”

  “This is not the time to be funny, Sean.”

  “I’m not. Todd says he’s a big fat pig.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  He shrugged.

  “Do you like it when kids call you names?”

  “Todd says not to listen.”

  “But Todd calls Bernie names.”

  “That’s different.”

  “What’s different about it?”

  “Because he is.”

  “Because Bernie’s fat,” she nodded. “I see. So tell me about the names they call you?”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “What – the names?”

  “Todd says don’t listen.”

  “But you do listen.”

  Less cocky, his eyes immediately masked, his lips clamped. She waited, willing herself to silence. Soon, when his calculating brain had been given sufficient time, he might talk. He might not.

  She shivered. If only she’d known the talk was due, she’d have lit the fire. She should have known; she should have lit the fire. It was only in here, in the studied formality she’d cultivated for these special occasions and in this atmosphere of sustained gravity, that she could be certain of his unreserved attention, though not of his co-operation. Sean was already his own person. For which she was eternally grateful – with obvious reservations. If only she could have it both ways. If only he could be…

  He broke the silence. “Mum?”

  “Yes, love?”

  “What’s a retard?”

  Sweet Mother!

  “It’s a bad name, isn’t it.”

  Her throat closed.

  “Mum…” He was uncertain. “Mum…please don’t cry.”

  Steadying, she summoned reassuring words. “I’m not crying, love.” Tears would be easier.

  He fidgeted in his pocket, passed across his crumpled handkerchief. “It’s okay to cry, Mum.”

  There were no tears.

  He was waiting.

  “Give me a minute, Sean.” How to answer? Sweet Mother. How do I answer?

  He switched on the table lamp. The chill room reflected its amber glow; deceptive warmth. She shivered.