Beautiful Child

by Menon, David

  ‘I’m full of surprises, doc.’

  ‘Paddy, you’ve styled all this like a novel. It’s all in the third person. Why have you done that?’

  ‘I thought it might be less painful to…’ Paddy folded his arms across his chest and stretched out his legs, ‘…well to think of all the shit happening to someone else. Does that make sense to you?’

  ‘It does,’ said Angela, ‘but what do you intend to do with this? I mean, it’s a manuscript. Do you want to get it published?’

  ‘I guess it wouldn’t be worth it otherwise.’

  ‘Some would say you shouldn’t profit out of anything in your situation.’

  ‘They’re the ones who haven’t had the bloody life I’ve had,’ said Paddy.

  Angela raised her head slightly at Paddy’s deepening, firmer voice and the look of sheer anger shooting through his eyes. She’d obviously touched a nerve. ‘You’ll have to be prepared for it though, Paddy,’ she said, ‘you do realise that?’

  ‘Yeah, I do, doc’ said Paddy.

  ‘Okay,’ said Angela who put down the file she’d been looking through and raised her eyes to take in once more the shadows all across his prematurely aged face.

  ‘So you want to start in 1962?’

  ‘Yes, doc.’ said Paddy. ‘Like I said, the day before my fifth birthday. And what I should point out first of all is that I was called Sean back then. The name of Paddy came later.’

  ‘Alright.’ said Angela. ‘ Just a point before we start, though. Is there anything here that talks about the time before that day in 1962?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Because I thought I was happy before then,’ said Paddy.

  ‘Thought you were?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paddy, ‘like I thought I had a mother who loved me.’

  1962

  ‘…he’d hit his little hand against the glass of the window so many times that the whole of his arm was aching. His Mummy had told him they were going to have tea with the Nuns. She’d told him there’d be cakes and jelly and ice cream. One of the Nuns had taken him out into the garden to play with some of the other kids and when he’d gone back to the room his Mummy had gone. The Nun told him that his Mummy was very sorry but she couldn’t cope with him anymore and was trusting him to the care of the Children’s Home. He told them they were lying and one of them had slapped his face. He’d made for the door and they’d grabbed him. They held on to him as tight as they could whilst he screamed and cried and tried to kick his way to freedom. His Mummy couldn’t have left him. Why had she left him? He’d been a good boy. He’d done everything she wanted. He hadn’t been naughty. He’d eaten everything on his plate. Why would she want to do this to him? He’d just started school. The other kids had a Daddy but he’d never asked her where his Daddy was. The big man who’d started to come round hadn’t talked to him. He’d tried to talk to the big man but the big man wasn’t interested. ‘Mummy!’ he wailed. ‘Mummy!’ Why had she just left him there? He wanted to run all the way home but he didn’t know the way. Maybe he could’ve got round to his Grandma’s house but he couldn’t remember how. His Mummy only took him there once in a while but his Grandma cuddled him and made him feel nice.

  ‘I want to go home to my Mummy’ he said.

  ‘You can’t, sweetheart,’ said Rita, her heart breaking for him. When she’d got to work that morning she was asked by one of the Nuns if she could do something with the new boy. She knew what that meant. If he didn’t shake himself out of it soon the Nuns would beat the shit out of him until he couldn’t cry anymore.

  ‘Your Mummy left you with us. We’re going to take care of you now.’

  ‘But I want to go home to my Mummy!’

  ‘This is your home now, Sean,’ said Rita. She was running out of time. Once the Nuns got hold of him he’d know about it. They could be cruel. They could be sadistic. Rita had witnessed them break the spirit of many a child. They always said that children born out of wedlock were an offence to God but Rita didn’t buy any of that. The offence was made by the stupid parents who dumped their kids here and didn’t seem to give a flaming damn. She remembered Sean’s mother. She’d seemed respectable enough. Nice coat, nice shoes, leather handbag. Hair had obviously only recently been done. What the hell was she doing walking into a children’s home with her son and walking out without him?

  ‘This is not my home,’ said Sean, ‘and where’s my Daddy?’

  Rita held his hand. ‘Sweetheart, you’ve got to get used to it. You’ve got to accept that your Mummy isn’t coming back and you’ve got to start fitting in and behaving yourself. I know you can’t make sense of any of it, love, but you’ve got to try. And I’ll be here to help you. I promise. I’ll be here to help you get through it.’

  Sean was sobbing his heart out. ‘Will I be able to see my Mummy?’

  ‘ No, sweetheart,’ said Rita who then cuddled him close, ‘but I’ll be here. I’ll be here always but you’ve got to promise me to be a good boy otherwise the Nuns will get cross with you and you don’t want that. So promise me to do as you’re told and try not to wet the bed.’

  Whenever the nuns were getting a child ready for shipment they never gave a hint to the child as to what was about to happen to them. Packing their clothes, what little of them that some of them had, took place whilst the child wasn’t near enough to notice. Rita hated doing this. She hated looking into the eyes of a child who’d already been rejected by their family and who was about to be sent to the other side of the world without them knowing anything about it or being part of the decision. They were already bewildered by what had happened to them so far but the nuns didn’t have any thought for that. They could make some money for their association from trading children with other Catholic societies, even in a far off land. These children were mostly born from immoral acts as far as the nuns were concerned. That made them unworthy of the same consideration that was given to children born into normal families. Normal families? Rita herself had been lucky that George had wanted to marry her after she became pregnant with Michelle. If he hadn’t then her child might’ve ended up in a loveless hole like this one. It sent a shiver down her spine to think that she’d come that close.

  Rita had developed a special bond with little Sean. She’d love to get hold of his mother and demand of her how she could’ve been so cruel to just leave him there but her actual identity was a secret locked away in a filing cabinet in the Mother Superior’s office. Rita had even put it to her husband that they might think about adopting Sean but her husband was dead against it. He didn’t want to ‘bring somebody else’s bastard into our home’ and he wouldn’t hear anymore of it. But Rita worried about little Sean. There was just something about him that made her worry about his future. Call it a premonition or an instinct. But it was there.

  It broke her heart to have to get his things together and pack them in the little suitcase. She was going to miss him and she knew that he was going to miss her. She could take the cowards way out and swap her shift so that she wasn’t on duty when all the children left. But she couldn’t do that to Sean. His own mother had kicked him in the teeth and she was about to do the same. Except she couldn’t offer him her home and her family in which to nurture him and make sure he grew up feeling loved and wanted. She had to play her part in sending him off as if he’d done something so wrong and so terrible when the only thing he’d done was to be born.

  She was about to take his little suitcase downstairs when she turned and saw him standing watching her at the door. It was written all over his face. He knew.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  Rita sat down on his bed and tapped the space beside her. ‘Come and sit with me, love. I need to talk to you about something.’

  Sean didn’t move. ‘What about?’

  Rita held out her hand. ‘ Come on, Sean, love. Come and sit with me?’

  Sean started to cry. Rita went over to him but he cowered away from he
r. She’d never felt more awful in her life.

  She knelt down and held his shoulders. ‘Sean, you’ve got to be a very brave boy for me. Do you understand? You’re going away to a far away place and … ‘

  ‘…why can’t you come with me?’ he pleaded, trying to untangle himself.

  ‘I can’t, sweetheart, I just can’t. I’m sorry.’

  As she tried to calm him down one of the nuns, Sister Philomena, a particularly nasty bitch who liked using a ruler on kids’ knuckles, came storming down the corridor.

  ‘Mrs. Makin!’ she raged. ‘ I warned you about getting too attached to these urchins!’

  ‘They’re not urchins!’ Rita retorted. ‘They’re in pain and they need love.’

  ‘Oh I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous,’ snapped Sister Philomena. ‘ We, the sisters, give them a good home and you criticise us for it? Collect your cards from the Mother Superiors’ office!’

  Sister Philomena grabbed Sean so violently that the fear inside him made him wet his pants. She didn’t like that one bit. She pulled his trousers and underpants down and rubbed his face in them before thrashing the living daylights out of him. Rita tried to intervene but Sister Philomena was stronger and she pushed her away. Sean disappeared, screaming in agony and hurt, his eyes full of fear, looking back and appealing to Rita as Sister Philomena dragged him along the floor by his hair. But Rita knew she was helpless.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rita as she sobbed, her hands reaching out to him but not being able to go as far as he needed them to. ‘I’m sorry, Sean. God bless you, sweetheart.’

  ‘Rita! …Rita! …Ree – ta!‘

  *

  ‘But how did you interpret what Rita Makin was thinking?’ asked Angela. ‘How did you work that out?’

  ‘I didn’t have to,’ said Paddy, who was feeling tired after his great disclosures. He wasn’t used to going down so deep into talking about himself. ‘Rita used to talk to me a lot. I knew what she was thinking.’

  ‘But you were so young.’

  ‘But I remembered it, I soaked it all up because she was the only one who cared about me then. I didn’t know what it all meant at the time. It was only later that it all started to make sense. Then when I was older I was able to work a lot of the other stuff out like when they were preparing a child for shipment for instance.’

  ‘Even at the age you were then you still remember her words in such great detail?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Paddy.

  ‘Do you still think of Rita Makin, Paddy?’

  ‘Oh yes, doc,’ said Paddy, ‘quite often.’

  ‘But it was such a long time ago and you were so young.’

  ‘Doc, you never forget those who show you love even if it was a lifetime ago,’ said Paddy, ‘you just never forget them.’

  ‘I can understand that’ said Angela.

  ‘Especially when you’ve been shown as little as I have.’

  ‘Is it sympathy you’re after, Paddy?’

  ‘No, doc.’ said Paddy. ‘It’s a recognition that I was done wrong against by the very person who should’ve protected me from any harm and that her actions sent me down a path to disaster.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘Exactly, my mother. A crime is never simply a crime, doc, despite what all the hang ‘em and flog ‘em brigade try and bullshit. A crime is just the end of the story.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Matt woke up and peered out from under his duvet at the small electronic clock on his bedside table. It was 6.09. He groaned and turned over and must’ve fallen back to sleep again because the next thing he knew was the sound of a hammering on his front door downstairs. Who the hell could that be? How embarrassing in this quiet tree lined avenue of Didsbury, the suburb of Manchester’s thinking professional classes. This was where people liked to think of themselves as the middle class with a conscience. They used to vote Liberal Democrat because they’d fallen out with Labour over the Iraq war but now they’d fallen out with the Liberal Democrats over their support for the Tories so were going back to Labour. They read the Independent but sneak a look at their cleaner’s Daily Mirror when she’s doing the upstairs. In short, they didn’t do hammerings at the door.

  He got out of bed and crept over to his bedroom’s large bay window. He pulled the curtain back slightly and looked down. It was his sister Susie. He threw a robe over the t-shirt and shorts he’d been wearing in bed and went downstairs to let her in.

  ‘What are you doing here at this time?’ he asked as he stood to the side to let her through.

  ‘Nice to see you too!’ his sister replied. She was in full running gear and carrying a plastic bottle of water.

  ‘Have you run all the way from Bowdon?’ he asked as he closed the door behind her.

  ‘No, you tit. I’ve just been to the gym and I thought I’d drop in on my big brother so that he can make me my breakfast.’ She gripped his face. ‘You look a bit second hand this morning. Late night?’

  ‘No, I stayed in.’

  ‘How many bottles of wine?’

  ‘I just about remember getting through the second one.’ Matt admitted.

  ‘You doctors are all the same. You tell the rest of us to drink responsibly and yet you lot put away enough for all of us.’

  ‘Yeah, well, those are the breaks,’ said Matt who’d felt particularly lonely last evening and had used wine to help kill the pain. ‘Come through and I’ll put a pot of coffee on. Fried eggs on toast do you?’

  ‘Lovely.’ said Susie, following Matt into the kitchen. ‘Got some tomato ketchup?’

  ‘You know I don’t buy it,’ said Matt, ‘I hate the stuff.’

  ‘But what about your guests?’

  ‘Well when you’re a guest in my house you have to abide by my rules’ said Matt, smiling at her sulky face. ‘So didn’t Angus go to the gym with you? Or did you keep him up way past his bedtime last night?’

  ‘Oh do you know you’re so funny that you’ve missed your vocation and should be doing a turn at the Comedy Store in town,’ she said, turning up the corner of her lip to match the sarcasm of her words. ‘You know very well he’s only six years younger than me. It’s so bloody sexist. If it was the other way round nobody would bloody well notice.’

  ‘Ladies and Gentleman, appearing at my kitchen diner for one morning only, it’s Miss Germaine Greer!.’

  ‘Oh and they keep on coming.’ Susie was smiling the self-satisfied smile of someone who was in love and thinking of how gorgeous her fiancé had looked after they’d made love in the small hours. Sex always brought out the best look on Angus, like a naughty boy who’d been allowed to play an adult party game.

  ‘Well if you will be a cougar.’

  ‘And what would I be if I were the man and he was the girl?’

  ‘Lucky.’ teased Matt, ‘You know how it works.’

  ‘Well that’s where I rest my case.’

  Matt laughed. ‘Your face! Relax kid sister, I’m on your side.’

  ‘That’s only because you’re a practicing homosexual with no moral code.’

  ‘I’m not practising!’ Matt protested. ‘I’m very well accomplished in my role. So anyway, what did you do with my future brother-in-law?’

  ‘He’s on an early flight to Malaga,’ said Susie, referring to Angus’ job as a co-pilot for a holiday charter airline based at Manchester. ‘Poor baby. He had to be at work at half-six. He’ll be back the middle of the afternoon though and then he’s got tomorrow off so we’ll have a nice cosy weekend together.’

  ‘How idyllic’

  ‘It will be,’ said Susie, noting the clear sound of envy in her brother’s voice. She didn’t like to come across like she was rubbing his nose in it but what could she say except the truth? She respected him too much for that.

  Matt took a frying pan out of the cupboard and placed it on the cooker hob. He poured a little olive oil in and waited for it to get hot. He liked his kitchen. Everything was stored in an ‘island’ in the centr
e with only the sink, cooker, fridge, and dishwasher along the back wall. Susie was sitting at the diner on a high stool. She watched her brother pour them some orange juice into a couple of glasses and thanked him when he handed one to her. Matt thought about Susie’s kitchen which had Angus’ work roster pinned to the notice board and he wondered if his work roster would ever be pinned to anybody’s notice board.

  ‘So anyway,’ said Matt, ‘how’s the world of trailer trash?’

  Susie had taken over at the helm of the family business some five years ago when their father retired. He’d built it up over thirty years and now Schofield Caravan Parks had eleven sites at locations stretching across the northwest from Buxton in the Peak District right the way up to the Scottish border. They were all a mixture of long lease caravans that people tended to make their permanent home and holiday caravans that people came to for one or two weeks at a time. There were also large spaces available for those who brought their own caravans with them. Susie had just done a deal with a national pub chain that was going to open on each of the sites in time for next season. All four members of the family had equal shares in the business but Matt had never shown any interest in running it. Susie on the other hand had been at her father’s side since she could talk so it had been entirely logical that he’d handed the reins to her.

  ‘Don’t be so disparaging. Anyway, it’s booming and you should be grateful because the value of your shares are going up. A lot of people are downsizing because they can’t afford their mortgage payments and many others are staying in this country for their holidays this year and I agree with them.’

  ‘Well you would, it’s your business.’

  ‘Our business,’ Susie corrected. ‘We’re all equal partners. I’m just the boss.’

  ‘And despite your self-interest, do you think everybody should stay at home for their holidays this year?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Susie, ‘support the home economy and all that.’