Authors: Jonathan Gash
The probation officer, Mr Catchpole, turned out to be a harassed individual carrying sheaves of papers. The office was sparse. Bray thought he could at least have shaved, then forgave the worried man. Who knew how many Kylees he had to help?
They made staccato conversation across the plastic table, the officer keeping an eye on the time.
“You wish to help Kylee Walsingham.”
“My son and his wife would assist. I’d bear all the expense.”
“Is adoption in mind?”
Bray hadn’t spoken to Geoffrey about it. “Well, Kylee—”
“Is a near autistic and dyslexic, and in serious trouble. You heard about the police business?” Bray nodded, but he hadn’t.
“You’re aware of the circumstances, Mr Catchpole.” Bray had been frank about Davey after Catchpole’s promised confidentiality. “I want to help some child. Kylee’s bright. Her father knows she does computer work for me.”
“Mr Charleston, your offer is not unprecedented. A family suffers a bereavement and wants to simulate their lost child.”
“In case you doubted my motives, I would pay for her education here or elsewhere, if that’s the kind of thing you do. And if her parents would agree.”
“I see.” Catchpole’s wariness dwindled.
“She needn’t know where the money comes from. Your department could simply bill me, be the disbursing agency and leave me out of it. Even if she was fostered or something. Only, she deserves better.”
“Better from whom?”
“All of us.” Bray’s resolve strengthened before the other’s sharp defensiveness. “I’ll make no bones, Mr Catchpole. If I weren’t divorced, I’d adopt Kylee and do my best for her. If my son’s wife weren’t ill, I’d try to persuade them to do the same.”
They spoke of possibilities, Bray dismayed at the complexity of things. He left after an hour, his offer declined. They would review it in six months. Kylee had said nothing about any police business. What was it? He decided not to ask.
The final report was compiled to Mom’s satisfaction three weeks later. Pop thought it wasn’t good enough, that Roz Saston must be dragging her feet, lengthening her
highly-paid
sessions, spreading her butter.
“We both know why, Clodie,” he told his wife darkly.
Mom flared up. “Is money all you think about? It’s always dollars.”
It was safe to raise their voices. Clint was out walking with Roz Saston by the wide lake that lay this side of the public gardens.
There were sands there, real dunes just like a genuine seashore. Ambulatory rest-revision, Doctor told Mom to regard those walk-talk-no-chalk sessions. Clint enjoyed running to the water and back. He always checked where Roz was, though, because they’d warned him he was to do that. Mom and Pop could see him from their roof garden, which was totally enmeshed for Clint’s safety. Roz did lessons in the roof’s open air, good for a growing child. You had to think of these things. Mom relished motherhood, her forte.
Now he was better, Clint came back red of face and breathless, eyes shining. Look at him in those moments, nobody would ever believe he’d suffered any accident whatsoever. Completely renewed, completely theirs. Clint was the perfect boy.
Doctor said he was bright. Medication was withdrawn “practically down to homeopathic levels”. Doctor promised that Clint’s first week in school would be the end of all treatment. Doctor’s very words: “No problem!”
Mom thought Pop totally boorish and said so.
“I’m donating a year’s salary to that school, Clodie!”
“Tax deductible!” she shot back. They lay on recliners in the morning sun, drinks to hand and Mrs Saston’s reports on the striped decker. “You regret it? Well, do you?”
“Tax deductible means it’s higher value!” You couldn’t beat Pop on tax.
“It’s still only money!”
“Money got Clint! What if I’d been broke?”
“Donating to a school’s an investment, Hyme.” Mom turned to wheedling, knowing she’d made a mistake.
“That’s true,” Pop said grudgingly. He kept his eyes on Clint below, who was looking at some kid flying a kite. “Maybe I ought to walk with them.”
“Oh, Hyme. That would be great. Walking with his pop!”
An oriental kid, some thin guy along. Slants were always thin. Pop wondered if exercise might get the gut down on that artificial money-made beach down there.
Clint was watching the kite, talking to Roz. She better be teaching Clint, not just wasting time. Pop thought, how come I pay, everybody else do F A?
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll go with them tomorrow.”
“I’ll get the camera —”
“No cameras, hon. You forgot the rules.”
“Just one wouldn’t do any harm.”
“Clodie,” Hyme warned. His wife fell silent. No cameras was Doctor’s rule.
Lakeside, Roz let Clint run beside the darker skinned boy. They made a pretty picture, Clint so fair and the other, a year older, dark. The boy let the coloured box sink against the blue sky.
Marvellous, Roz Saston thought, how some cultures – what, Vietnamese? – went for garish colours. Maybe organic dyes in their home countries? Clint was laughing.
“I’m Clint,” Clint told him. The other boy was Kim.
Clint stood behind Kim and looked along the cord to the kite.
“Dad made it.” Kim quickly wound the string as the breeze fell. “It’s got three wraps, see?”
Red, and a brilliant orange. Struts poked from the ends. Dowels? Clint thought he’d ask Roz about dowels. He felt excited at the way Kim made the kite stagger then suddenly soar.
“Do it again!”
Kim’s father laughed, called some words Clint didn’t
know. Kim made the kite dance, its garish long tail waving like a…like anything, then climb. Clint clapped. A straight line was brilliant.
Roz was real nice. She let Clint stay with Kim some more minutes then called him because it was time to do the lesson about pets and fishes, who belonged to different sets. Clint called so-long to Kim and Kim’s daddy and the kite.
Roz and Clint started back. Two boats with white sails were gliding on the blue water, except where the clouds made the lake grey.
“Can we come back tomorrow, Roz?”
“If Mom and Pop say, sure.”
“Maybe Kim’ll be here. Roz, what’s dowel?”
Roz thought a moment. “Isn’t it round wood? From the hardware?”
“Did you see Kim’s daddy’s hat?”
“Sure did. Pretty, all colours. Lots of new Americans keep to their usual clothes. On a born American a pillbox hat would look kinda stupid, but on him it’s okay, right?”
“Right,” Clint said, looking back.
“Okay, Clint. Pay attention. How do we group different living things?”
“Colour.”
“Colour’s good, honey. But plants are different in all kinds of ways.” They had been over this twice.
Clint was looking back, which worried Roz. She was under firm instructions to make precise reports for Doctor. One vital marker was attention span.
“What are the colours on the kite?”
She wondered about Daltonism. “Red, different blues, yellow, orange, purple. And the side panel’s dark green. See it?”
He repeated the colours when he stopped to scuff the sand.
“You got a favourite colour, Clint?”
He stood looking back. “Blue,” he said, looking up at her. “Is blue okay?”
Roz was touched. He seemed so anxious. “Sure, honey! It’s my favourite too!”
Later, she entered up her summary, careful to include Clint’s own phrases, his interest in the boy Kim’s kite.
She was surprised but pleased when Clint’s father said he would walk with them tomorrow. Increased contact could only improve a child’s learning, which meant that soon she would be superfluous and Clint would go to school. She was fond of the boy, but how could he develop if he simply stayed at home?
The visiting college students hadn’t done well choosing woods. He’d let them go on for two mornings, ruining several good pieces. It would be worth it, if they learned.
“Pine,” he told them. “Spruce, Western red cedar will be fine too. Douglas fir is reliable. Who chose hemlock?”
Silence. A sour youth in a sweat shirt stirred. Him?
“A poisoner?” a girl said, to laughter. Nigh forty years, and the same jokes.
The workshop was quiet. Craftsmen saw the students as intruders.
“The
Tsuga
genus,” Bray continued. “It’s beautiful, but splits quick as look. The benefit is its grain, so straight and even. Western Hemlock, of course.”
“You marked me down,” the girl said irritably. She was comely and knew it, so how dare an old past-it bloke criticise. “Some grain business.”
“Afraid so.”
“You didn’t tell us to pick wood sawn like that.”
“Quarter sawn wood, straight and even grain.” Bray looked away, embarrassed to contradict her outright. His weakness was the reason Kylee was so abusive. Would he
ever improve? “I did sketches in your handout.”
She only looked angrier. “You didn’t say which pages we needed!”
Bray felt his years. “Read all of it, miss.”
“Then why didn’t you say so,
mister
?”
“Forgive me,” he said without dryness. “Shall we look at your cuts?”
The teaching bench held their eight pieces. He mentioned mistakes he’d made, Spruce catching him out with its knots and unexpected resin pockets, showing them how to auscultate by listening for the ominous buzzing sound when tapped. They seemed uninterested and sulky.
He apologised for going on and said they could go. The scruff picked the hemlock up when Bray said they could take their work.
“Ask if you’ve any questions,” he called lamely.
They couldn’t get out fast enough. Bray stood for a moment.
Davey knew how to auscultate wood, though his little fingers weren’t yet firm enough to percuss. He used a pebble.
Would Davey remember? Would the students? He felt wasted.
“Memory,” Doctor said, “is stigmata. Not Padre Pio’s holiness, your common insult.”
“I don’t understand, Doctor,” Nurse Linda Hunger said.
Doctor loved to be reminded that he was
the
expert. She’d heard this talk before, when her special friend Lissette was briefed for a snatch kid who’d eventually gone to a showbiz couple in Maine.
“This is your first domiciliary, Linda?”
“Yes, Doctor. I’m thrilled.”
A scrip issue, now the clinic was decently valued, would soon come her way. She’d get her share after this job. A nest egg is a nest egg is money.
“Listen up, Linda.”
For an instant, Nurse Linda Hunger judged Doctor as a male, and saw that fussiness might obscure steel beneath. The man, for all his wonderful if illegal work, was a dragon in its cave. Perhaps, she reasoned, he really needed company? What a philosophy his was, removing kids from uncaring parents and, who knew, possible abuse, to a better life. Doctor was brilliant. You couldn’t argue with success.
There was the usual staff talk about him. Her friend Marge, another nurse, hinted that Doctor had put the question to her when she’d been on a California domiciliary. Marge wouldn’t say if she’d done it with Doctor. Another nurse, Leah, fully fledged, went on home visits with scarcely a nod. Plain as day, right out she told Linda that it was one of Doctor’s perks. Where was the harm? Leah said you were either in or you were
out
, girl, and remember where the money came.
Nurse Linda listened. Doctor’s voice became muted.
“Have you ever considered what an insult memory is, Linda?”
“No, Doctor.” And she hadn’t.
“Memory is a series of cruelties instilled into the brain. As babies, we’re unaware of calamities out there. Then we start to
see
.
“Events, Linda, are all simply trauma. No such thing as a pleasurable event. Slings, arrows, blows, toxins. You feel pleasure sometimes? No! Pleasure is an interlude between pangs we call experience.
“So with the boy. One of many. Clint has been rescued,
Linda. His parents were incompetent uncaring bastards. Anybody wants proof, look-see what happened: they let my abduction team whisk him away. We saved the boy.
“The last vestiges of Clint’s infant memory need expunging. The residues will be there. My therapies and your nursing will eradicate them during your housekeeping duties in their home. Any traces that surface, the boy will never know whether it was a dream, or a TTVW – the Tired TV Watcher – syndrome. He’ll never know it might represent reality.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Linda committed herself. “I hope I can do you justice.”
“I’m sure you will, Linda.” Doctor poured a bourbon. “The hotel in Tain is confidential. I’ve a visit in Houston, be back day after tomorrow.” He waited. “Will that suit?”
She hardly paused. Her own man needn’t know. “Of course, Doctor.”
At the door she looked back but Doctor was already jotting notes and didn’t return her goodbye. Hundred per cent, she thought, leaving. That’s what Doctor is. Never wrong, fixated on success, dedicated. Where was the harm in a quickie with somebody like that? Which was okay, authority wanting repayment, get a return. Ambition paid if done right. Power appealed.
She wondered if he was married, put the thought out of her mind.
Intensively briefed though Roz Saston was, she thought Clint less animated than she’d hoped during his first visit. She was anxious for him to make a good impression at the Foundation, though his admission would mean the end of her teaching. Aware of this, she brought up the question of Clint’s medication.
Mom flared up immediately right there in front of the boy.
“Doctor has laid down Clint’s treatment, lady! Not another word, hear me?”
It was ejaculated with such venom that Roz actually recoiled. Manuela had just finished serving the breakfast. Roz stammered apologies, said of course she’d spoken out of turn. Mom saw to Clint’s sports attire. Some quirk left Clint cold about football items, baseball catchers’ essentials, but Roz knew that accidents could do mighty strange things.
The school she already knew, the head teacher Joan Daley. Of middle age, the deputy Mrs Amarance appeared smart and spoke well at fund-raisers. She and Mom hit it off, Pop’s large donation influencing Mrs Amarance’s attitude.
They were shown round during the morning break by Mrs Daley herself. She asked no questions, which suggested that Mom’s lengthy calls had paid off. Clint was calm to the point of docility.
“Yes, we’ve taken on a new housekeeper, Mrs Daley,” Mom gushed at the school’s vaunted exhibition gallery. “To coincide with Clint’s return to schooling.”
“How thoughtful!” the head exclaimed. “You’ll have more free time —”
“To focus on Clint’s schoolwork,” Mom capped pointedly.
Mrs Amarance opened the double doors. Roz exclaimed at the spaciousness. An expanse of grey carpet emphasised the displayed paintings and collages. A feature was the brilliant illumination. Roz remarked on this clever touch. Joan Daley modestly disclaimed originality.
“We copied the style from museums back east, Mrs Saston. It works!”
“Clint seems taken by it!”
He was standing before a cluster of drawings.
“All art is the children’s own work,” Mrs Amarance announced. “The stage is angled, notice that? Adaptive usage! Even our swimming pools can be automatically covered by a safe – safety first, right? – retractable flooring!”
“That sounds great.”
“Roz, why don’t you take Clint to see pictures?” Mrs Daley suggested.
As Roz Saston complied, both teachers asked Mom if she had details of Clint’s previous school record.
“Next week,” Mom replied brightly. “My husband’s going over it.”
“Fine,” the head teacher said. “We keep continuous records.”
Mom passed it off with a laugh, reminding herself to catch Hyme.
Clint proved hard to move on. A long display table held some two dozen small figurines, bowls and vases.
“They have a great pottery class, Clint!” Roz said brightly.
He said, “Some aren’t coloured.”
“No, well, maybe they will colour them later.”
It was heavy going with the boy today. Roz could hardly elicit a response. No resuming lessons later. The boy seemed pooped.
“They might,” Clint said, eyes on the figurines.
She drew him to the end of the display where futuristic terracotta creations stood on a polished driftwood swirl. Clint came passively.
“Teachers love imagination!” Roz said. There was something wrong. The day had augured so well, yet Clint
was in a dream world. Clint said something she didn’t quite catch.
“Really, honey?” she said mechanically.
“We’ll see the sports fields,” Joan Daley announced, advancing to the french doors. “You’ll see just how extensive they are!”
For a further hour they toured the school. Mom approved of the close supervision. The exits from the school were guarded by uniformed patrollers.
Mrs Amarance elaborated on the school’s security, casually mentioning the costs but pointing out the inestimable benefits to the school community.
That afternoon Mom allowed Clint and Roz to go walking along the lakeside, Pop with them. Clint was quiet. Little Kim the Vietnamese boy was not there. Roz showed Clint where the new baseball pitch would be, telling him how great it would look against the lakeshore. Clint trudged tiredly along.
Later, a new housekeeper arrived. She was called Mrs Linda. Roz left when it was time for dinner. Manuela rolled her eyes at Clint secretly when Linda said something about hot things on the table. Clint knew Manuela didn’t like Linda straight off.
Linda was boss. Sometimes even Mom had to look at Linda to see if you were saying the right things. Maybe Linda was boss over Mom?
Clint knew he’d seen Mrs Linda before, maybe at the clinic where the palm trees made shadows on the wall just before it got dark.
That night at home Roz remembered what it was Clint had told her in the school’s exhibition room. He’d said the same again by the lakeside. She’d paid it no mind. Now it
struck her as a bit odd.
“The table’s bad,” Clint had said.
“Really, honey?” she’d answered.
“It rocks,” he’d said. Yet nobody had touched the solid display table.
She mentioned it to her husband in bed. They marvelled at a child’s mind, how strange that some triviality seemed special to a kid. No doubt about it, though, Clint would start at the Foundation, so it was goodbye. Roz felt quite tearful, but that was a teacher’s lot. Kids come, and kids go. The usual things.