What I Did

by Christopher Wakling

  There’s a skittery noise in the corridor then, and Grandma Lynne is suddenly right next to me with puffing cheeks. — Oh thank goodness, she says.

  I look down at my shoes. My feet are in them. They do a little jump.

  Grandma Lynne says, — But where have you been?

  — I don’t know.

  — You don’t know? I’ve been running around like a . . . She shakes her head. — Not to worry. It’s okay. Just . . . don’t go off on your own again, promise. She takes my hand. Under her breath she continues, — Particularly not today, of all days.

  — But you told me to go on my own.

  Grandma Lynne doesn’t reply to that because she’s looking over my head through the door window. I turn to have another look, too. Mum’s head is bent farther forward and her shoulders are quivering, but it’s okay because Starling Jean has a wing around her.

  — Come on, Grandma Lynne murmurs. — Let’s go and wait where we were told to wait.

  Mum and Grandma Lynne don’t talk much on the journey back home. Mum is so incredibly tired her eyes have gone night-shifting puffy: to begin with she has to blink a lot and take deep breaths to make the car go. But Grandma Lynne’s hands won’t sit still in her lap. They’re itchy. They make her lean across the front seat before Mum has gone over the humps where the road goes narrow and loud-whisper, — Well?

  — Not now, Mum.

  And do you know what? I can tell, when Mum says not now, that it’s all an act. Keeping quiet for the journey has nothing to do with being tired. It’s to do with keeping something quiet from me! The meeting was all about what was best for me, after all: they must have come up with something so important Mum has decided to keep it a secret, for now.

  I decide not to pester. It doesn’t work anyway, Son, ever. Instead I form a plan. As soon as we’re inside I go up to my bedroom and put the microphone bit of the old baby monitor inside my school book bag. Idiot! I take it out again and switch it onto green lights and put it back in again. Very stealthy, I carry the bag into the kitchen and hook it on the back of the spare chair; it often hangs there: nice camouflage! Not long afterward Mum says — Why not go up to play in your room until tea, and I knew she would, and when it happens I just smile and quite loudly ask Grandma Lynne for my excellent new pencils and arctic activity book and say what a good idea, I’m off upstairs to color in the picture of the northern lights. I’m in genius.

  I don’t actually color in the picture to begin with.

  Instead I take the other part of the baby monitor and plug it into the socket behind the end of my bed. It’s quite tricky to stretch under there. You should never hold the metal bits of a plug: if you do you’ll be electrified. Don’t worry, though, you can touch a Scalextric track if you want, but not at my house because I don’t have one, and anyway, remember never to stick a fork in your toaster. The lights on the monitor thing flash green like a dragon’s eyes. They can see all the way downstairs! And David Attenborough would be proud of me because here’s some evidence: straightaway Mum and Grandma Lynne are talking under my bed. I lie down next to the monitor and listen carefully for the secret of what’s best for me, but sadly all they’re talking about is something else quite a lot more boring instead.

  — He’ll never agree to it.

  — He’ll have to, Tessa. He has no choice.

  — I know what he’ll say, though. And you know what, he’s right. It’s absurd.

  — But it’s not forever.

  — Doesn’t matter. A day is too long. It just won’t work.

  — You’ve agreed now, though.

  — Only because the alternative was worse. If it hadn’t been for Jean they’d have gone for a court order.

  — And they haven’t done that. He’ll realize he’s had a narrow escape.

  — Come on, Mum. You know he won’t. And anyway, even if he agrees, how on earth are we supposed to make it happen? He has Billy more than half the time. He takes him to school, collects him . . . My shifts . . .

  — This is temporary, though.

  — Yes, but so what?

  — They’ll soon see there’s no need . . . on their . . . visits. You’ve only got to spend ten minutes with Billy and Jim to understand. It’s just supervised contact . . .

  — Yes, but under a child protection plan.

  — Like Jean said, they could have applied for an exclusion order. Everything will be back to normal before you know it.

  — They’re monitoring us, Mum. My son.

  — And they’ll stop monitoring you — us — again soon.

  — They think Jim hit him with a brick, or dragged him over a wall.

  — Well . . . but . . .

  — What am I going to tell him?

  — He should have been there himself. It’s his fault, not yours.

  — How has this happened?

  — Look. Tessa.

  — How? My son.

  — Darling.

  The monitor goes quiet then so I open up the activity book and even though coloring-in is really quite boring unless you’re coloring things you’ve drawn yourself, I find my new pencils and make a start on the northern lights page. You never know, Mum or Grandma Lynne might ask to see the results. If I haven’t done what I said I’ll look like an idiot, or worse still a liar. At least the colored pencils are sharp. The ones at school are mostly blunt and often don’t have lead poking out at all. I decide to overlap the colors in the segments to create interesting effects, because life doesn’t come in neat squares, Son. Sooner or later Mum and Grandma Lynne are bound to start talking again and when they do they’ll get to the point and give away the secret surprise instead of talking nonsense about super vision.

  — What am I going to tell work? Mum asks eventually. —How am I going to get the time off?

  — They’ll have to give it to you.

  — But I’ll need to explain. I can’t. I just . . . can’t.

  — I’ll help.

  — Oh, Mum.

  — We’ll get through this. I’ll take him. Or I’ll be here . . . whenever is necessary. I can do that. I want to help.

  — No, but, Jim . . .

  — If he can think of a better solution, let him. The time off isn’t an issue for me: I can work around it. You’ll have to take your holiday. For as long as I’m needed, I’ll be here. Between us, we’ll manage.

  After that there’s some clattering. When you lie on your stomach for a long time on the floor it’s quite funny because it actually feels like there’s something heavy on your back, not your front. Eliza in our class can do a cartwheel but I am better than her at forward rolls. The secret is to keep yourself rolled up into a defensive hedgehog ball for ages: don’t go straight until everything has stopped. My back feels heavy so I wriggle out from under the end of the bed and do a few practice forward rolls, which turns out to be really stupid of me because after about seven I open my eyes and see Mum in my doorway.

  — What’s all the banging about?

  I try not to glance desperately at the monitor under the bed

  — PE. Sorry.

  — Ah.

  But I can’t help looking at the bed-end! Luckily, when I do, I see my northern lights picture just there, so I cunningly pretend I was looking at that by diving on it quickly. I pick it up and start telling Mum all about the cross-patched shading quite loudly. — Let’s take it down to show Grandma Lynne, shall we? I say.

  Mum’s eyes still look puffy tired, but she’s definitely narrowing them at me. — Is everything all right, Billy?

  — Yes fine brilliant let’s go sorry.

  — What are you apologizing for?

  — I don’t know. I’m not.

  She puts her hand round my shoulder and strokes my cheek as we walk downstairs. — You’ve done nothing wrong.

  — That’s what Dad keeps saying.

  — And you know what he means?

  — Yes.

  — Promise?

  — Yes. What’s for tea?

>   Luckily Mum seems keen to move on to the tea stage very cheerfully. She nearly nods her head off, and down we go, and I’m allowed to choose exactly what I like. Excellent! Sausages of course and smashed potatoes, and just to test whether she actually means it I ask for some peanut butter instead of gravy. Mum and Grandma Lynne have a who-can-grin-the-hardest competition when I say that, and Mum fetches the jar so quickly I nearly see whether they’ll give me chocolate sprinkles on top of my carrots as well, but just as I’m about to ask, I don’t, because chocolate-sprinkled carrots would actually be disgusting.

  Did you know that there are rules about eating?

  Well there are. Lots. And here are some examples. You have to eat with your bum on a chair pushed up to the table, saying please before things you want and thank you after them, doing your best all the time not to spill things all over your uniform because washing it costs money. If you don’t like something you have to try it anyway without making a huge fuss. Spicy food sorts out the men from the boys, Son: I like it and so will you if you try hard enough. Whatever you do, when your mouth gets pins and needles have a sip of water instead of spitting everything out like a baby. There are no alternatives in this house: if you don’t like what’s on your plate it’s tough because there are hungry children in Africa so you mustn’t put your elbows on the table, but do ask for help if you’re having trouble cutting up your food. Fingers on the buttons. We’re not pirates. Yes, peas are tricky customers, but you’ll manage if you scoop them up carefully. If you have to, use some smashed potato cement to keep them from jumping all over the place. Spinach makes you strong and carrots give you curly hair and chocolate makes you fat and too much ketchup rots your teeth but everything is okay if you eat it in modern nation.

  Normally the rules are like toasters: I don’t actually want to stick my fork in them anyway; but something funny about Mum makes it hard not to prod about a bit today. It’s as if her wide smile is saying Go on, try stretching me, I won’t snap! My legs slip-slide off the chair and I hold my knife like a stabbing dagger and say, — I don’t want these carrots today after all; what’s for pudding?

  Mum pushes her thumb and finger into her eyes, but asks, — What would you like?

  — Ice cream with . . . something in it.

  — What sort of something?

  — I don’t know. Chocolates sliced up. And jam. Mum’s smile flickers so I quickly explain, — You asked so I said. It’s not fair! But I don’t think I needed to say that anyway because she’s already shaking her head and fetching the ingredients.

  The funny feeling carries on: Mum gives me my pudding and it is ice cream with a some jam and a chocolate square, very tiny, on top, and I say, — It’s not big enough, while eating it up quite fast without bothering to lean forward over the bowl, and nobody says anything at all about the small mess I make; Mum and Grandma Lynne just sit either side of me watching like I’m a really lovely experiment until the door goes click and there’s Dad behind us rumpling his cornstalk hair, staring down.

  — That looks nice, he says, a little too loudly.

  — It is.

  — Good! Great!

  — Jim. I’ll make you some coffee.

  — Coffee. Dad drags the spare chair out from under the table as if it has done something wrong, and sits down on it heavily. — That’d be lovely. Make us all a cup. Lynne would like one, too, I’m sure, seeing as she’s here. Of course she would. Lovely.

  We sit quite quietly for a moment while Mum fiddles with the coffee thing which always needs emptying before you fill it. Hurry up, Mum! My pudding is less good now, but I finish it, leaning right over to catch any spills which I don’t make anyway. When I look up Mum has her head cranked over her shoulder, face headlamp bright, ready to say, — Good boy, Billy! Now, upstairs and get yourself ready for the bath.

  — But Mum . . .

  The headlamp blinks shut when I say that and the funny feeling shrinks away immediately. No buts. Dad grabs me as I slip down from the table, gives me a rough but lovely three-beer-cuddle, then says, — Scoot.

  — I’m scooting.

  — I’ll be up in a bit. We have things to discuss. Okay?

  — Fine.

  Undressing is easier than getting dressed but watch out for done-up buttons: they make it vertically impossible to take off your shirt by pulling it over your head. I tug quite hard but the neck just bites my face even when I turn my head upside down. Some dogs wear funnels that look quite similar. When I was small I thought the funnels were to help the dogs catch balls but they’re not. They’re to stop dogs biting themselves. Dogs are less well developed than me: I wouldn’t bite myself. But actually, I am wrong, because here I am using my done-up shirt button to bite myself! As soon as I realize this I pull my shirt back down and undo the button using my opposable thumbs. Ha! Take that, dogs.

  And since I am doing nicely without asking for help I decide to do another grown-up thing as well: run the bath. If you’re an idiot you forget to put the plug in. I’m not and I don’t. The little grille thing is quite like a Lancaster bomber’s turret, until you cover it with the plug, which reminds me of a miniature dustbin lid instead. Done. I slosh some bubble bath down the bath’s white side and turn on the tap full steam ahead! Scooping up my clothes I run out on to the landing to put them in the washing basket. Ali Baba lives in it with forty sleeves. I’m pushing some of the arms and legs back under the lid when I hear a strange clattering noise in my bedroom. What could it be? Suddenly, I remember: the baby monitor! The voices downstairs make no sense but they’re louder when I’m through my bedroom door, with Mum saying, — Please! and more washing-up crockery noises and a long spell of hissy-water silence leading to nothing.

  Then Dad starts laughing.

  It’s a long low rumbling nothing-funny-here four-beer laugh: ha bloody ha bloody ha bloody ha! And it grows louder. Once a nasty man in a hat — because he’s a jumped-up little bastard, Son — gave Dad a parking ticket when we were just on our way back from the doctor’s: the laugh he did when he tore the ticket off the window and got it stuck to his fingers as he tried to throw it at the man’s shiny shoes was quite similar but less bad.

  Ha bloody ha bloody ha bloody ha!

  I dive at the bed legs, pull the monitor plug out of the wall, and push the whole thing with its dead dragon eyes out of sight.

  But as soon as I’m back up on my knees I hear a door bang open and footsteps on the stairs. Quick! If you were a red squirrel and you’d just buried a walnut you wouldn’t sit there staring at the place where you’d just buried it while a more dominant gray squirrel stood over you telling you that you were supposed to be in the bath, would you? No and neither would I, so with explosive acceleration I leap up from the foothills and sprint across the landing and bang through the steam-pouring door and do a two-footed jump-slide straight splash into the bath.

  It’s hot.

  Hot.

  It’s hotter than hot: it’s almost immediately incredibly burning: so shockingly malting-larvae hot that I jump-slide straight up the bath side again, screaming. But sadly baths are wet and so am I and everything has gone viciously slippery. I crash back into the water on the side of my leg, the steaming-hot water everywhere, screaming.

  Dad’s there.

  He’s above me yelling, — Christ! and yanking me by the leg and arm clear of the fire water.

  I’m screaming.

  He rips the shower from the wall and turns it full-cold straight at me there on the carpet where I’m rolling to get away from myself.

  Screaming.

  And Mum’s here, too, yelling, — What?

  The cold shower water is full of needles. They jab me. My red legs. Red side. Red hand, like Dad’s. And Dad is covered in water as well because he’s holding me. It’s up the wall and squelching beneath me in the gaps between screaming.

  — Empty the bath! shouts Dad. My face is pressed into his soaked shirt shoulder. He has the shower head held high above us. Mum yanks out the
bath plug. I shut my eyes and see fiery bullets called tracers streaming from Lancaster bomber turrets. There’s a picture in a book. The bullets are tearing holes in my skin. Somehow or other somebody yanked the shower curtain down: the see-through starfish covering it are rumpled over Dad’s legs. He lies with me on the plastic sheet aiming the water across us both, going, — Shhhh! while the bath drains out and fills up again.

  I stop screaming and sob instead.

  And then he’s lifting me back into the bath, but the cold water makes my hot bits sting so I scream again. Dad looks like he’s trying to twist his hairs out of his head when that happens, so I try to stop, and manage to go back to just sobbing again.

  The bath looks funny with no shower curtain above it. Up by the tap there’s a plastic submarine. It used to be clockwork but something went rusty inside it and now the winder is stuck.

  And Dad is still holding my shoulders, half leaning into the bath with Mum above him, and Grandma Lynne bobs in and out of the doorway so fast her helmet hair shakes. I shut my eyes. It sounds odd when you cry through chattering teeth. I bite the inside of my mouth until I can’t feel the twisty flame bits of my leg. I open my eyes again. The submarine is made of two plastic halves. The crack between them has gone black: I hadn’t noticed that before.

  Dad’s face is still just above mine, very worrying: he looks like he’s lost something brilliant down a drain, and he’s shivering, too, saying, — What do we do? What do we do?

  — What we’re doing, says Mum. — We cool him down. Which bits hurt, Billy?

  The moaning noise rattles out of me again. I don’t actually know the answer anyway because my body has gone blurry. The black crack along the submarine looks like a smile. It’s no use: I can’t smile back at it.

  — We need to get him to hospital, says Dad.

  — Wait.

  — Get us some dry clothes. What should we put him in?

  — Just wait.

  — He can’t lie in a cold bath indefinitely. He needs looking at.