Authors: Kate Eberlen
There was a wedding ring on his slim, bony hand. Was it a picture of his wife in the silver frame? Or his children? If there was ever anything wrong with one of them, was he the first or the
last to see it?
‘What causes Asperger syndrome then?’ Dad asked.
‘It only became a distinct diagnosis fairly recently, in the nineties. We’re still not sure about the exact cause.’
‘We’ve had a lot of sorrow in the family with my wife dying,’ Dad said. ‘My Tess does her best, but she’s young, you know what I’m saying, doctor?’
I couldn’t believe he’d said that! Though I’d given up everything to look after Hope, while Dad’s life had hardly changed at all, I was still somehow to blame for her
difficulties! A ball of fury rose in my throat and I had to consciously purse my lips and grip the chair to keep myself seated instead of getting up and walking out there and then. That
wouldn’t do Hope any good, would it?
‘It’s not a matter of upbringing at all, Mr Costello,’ said the consultant.
I wanted to rush round the desk and give him a hug.
‘This is something Hope was born with, I’m afraid. And it’ll be with her all her life.’
No cause for hugging then.
‘There’s no cure?’ said Dad, sounding so bewildered that I started feeling sorry for him again.
‘What we can do is help Hope and the people involved in her life with some strategies.’
‘Strategies!’ my father shouted. ‘You’ve brought us all this way for strategies! Have you any idea how much we’re paying for the parking?’
On the way to the zoo, we stopped off at the children’s play area in Regent’s Park and Dad bought us ice lollies from the kiosk. I think we all felt exhausted from
being inside such a long time, breathing hospital air, being told things that affected our lives profoundly by people who didn’t know us at all. Neither Dad nor I were saying anything, but
you could almost hear the levers in our brains cranking to reconfigure the implications.
I was relieved to have a diagnosis, because that meant we’d be able to get a statement of medical need so that Hope could get some funds allocated for a trained helper, but there was also
a drumbeat of guilt for insisting on having her assessed. If nothing was really going to change, Dad was right, what was the point?
There was also this strange, empty feeling of loss, because now I’d never again have the comfort of telling myself it might be nothing.
I watched as Hope tried to negotiate her way up to the top of the climbing frame, knowing the determination on her face would turn to anger when she got stuck. Wasn’t anger an emotion? Why
was she capable of that, but not of affection, or empathy, or any of the ones that would make her life easier?
‘Come on now, darling,’ said Dad, lifting her high above his shoulders and placing her at the top of the slide so she could whoosh down like the other kids. The diagnosis seemed to
have knocked the stuffing out of him, softening him, for the moment. ‘We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo . . .’ he started singing.
‘You can come too, too, too,’ Hope sang back.
I thought it might be an idea to leave them together.
‘Would you mind if I met up after?’ I asked Dad.
‘What will you do?’ he asked, immediately suspicious.
‘Just have a bit of a wander, you know . . .’
‘You’ll be outside the zoo entrance at four, or we’ll get caught up in the rush hour,’ Dad warned.
‘What is the rush hour?’ Hope asked.
‘From five o’clock to around six-thirty there’s terrible traffic because of all the people going home from work,’ Dad explained.
‘Five o’clock to six-thirty o’clock is one and a half hours,’ Hope pointed out.
‘Clever girl,’ said Dad, with a bit of a gulp in his voice. ‘She’s clever to work that out, isn’t she now, Tess?’
Dad, Doll, even Dave would have thought I was mad walking into University College quad just to stand there imagining what my life would have been like. Groups of students were
sitting on the grass eating their lunch, some lying on their backs reading, books aloft to shade their eyes from the September sunshine. I thought they looked a lot younger than me now, with a
casual confidence that allowed them to wear cut-off shorts and flip-flops on a weekday, whereas I was dressed in smart navy trousers and a blouse for the hospital. I was aware of quizzical glances,
which made me feel like I shouldn’t be there at all, but they were probably only wondering what this crazy person was doing staring up at the grand colonnaded portico like it was some kind of
shrine.
What I love about London is the complex jigsaw of neighbourhoods, each with its individual character: the elegant Georgian squares of the university district; the solid Ionic pillars of the
British Museum; the narrow cobbled streets around Seven Dials, lined with shop windows displaying items you think would somehow change your life if only you could afford them, like pretty boxes of
tea, Florentine writing paper, or a vintage bikers’ jacket slung over a 1950s dress patterned with giant yellow roses.
I wound my way down to the river and stood in the middle of Waterloo Bridge, looking at the panorama, my hair blowing in the dazzling breeze, and water churning below, the colour of coffee with
milk. I’d forgotten that feeling of sheer exhilaration I’d always had when Doll and I used to come up to town as teenagers to explore and fantasize about our future.
The Millennium had changed the skyline. The London Eye was like a giant, incongruous paddle-steamer wheel stuck onto the South Bank. To the east, new skyscrapers were going up in the City,
mirror windows glinting in the sunshine. Just down the river they’d converted an old power station into the Tate Modern.
I looked at my watch. There wasn’t time to go today, but what was to stop me coming back? Dave always claimed he didn’t like London, but he’d only ever been once on a school
trip to the Natural History Museum. We wouldn’t
have
to do museums, or art galleries. I could show him all the little villagey bits that Doll and I had discovered, or explore some new
ones. Kentish Town, Pimlico, Swiss Cottage, even the names were intriguing. Dave had never even heard of Portobello Road, but what was not to like about pubs and antique shops and market stalls
piled with pyramids of luscious tropical fruit?
I got on a 168 bus to Chalk Farm. When we were teenagers, I’d insisted on learning the Tube map and the major bus routes. I used to test Doll on the train journey up.
‘I’m at Charing Cross. What’s the quickest route to Holland Park?’
‘Why do we have to do this?’ Doll always moaned. ‘There’s a map in every station, isn’t there?’
‘But we won’t look like Londoners if we’re reading the map, will we?’
The bus crawled back up through Bloomsbury and across the Euston Road to Camden Town. I got off at the final stop and walked across the railway bridge to the street that curved around towards
the bottom of Primrose Hill. People were sitting at cafe tables, leisurely drinking coffee, with their children running around the wide pavements, like they did in Italy. The appetizing scent of
charcoal grills and frying garlic drifted out of restaurant doors, the evening specials chalked up on boards outside.
What must it be like to live somewhere where you could choose to eat Greek, Italian, or even Russian food and see a different film or play every night of the week? Somewhere nobody knew who you
were, so you had the freedom to discover the person you were meant to be?
I had to run the last couple of hundred yards to get to the zoo on time.
Dad was looking up and down the street, then at his watch.
‘The lion was sleeping, Tree,’ Hope informed me as we walked towards the car.
‘There were hundreds of other animals, though, weren’t there? All of them awake!’ Dad’s voice had that edge of someone unused to spending three hours with Hope.
‘The lion was sleeping,’ said Hope.
I started humming the tune of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’.
‘Will you get a move on, now!’ said Dad, increasing his pace so we had to run to keep up. ‘At this rate, I’ll miss the karaoke.’
‘Karaoke?’ said Doll, the following Sunday.
Fred’s team were just back from pre-season training in the Emirates. She and I were in the back seat of Fred’s Range Rover, with Fred driving and Dave in the front passenger
seat.
It was supposed to be a nice lunch for the four of us, but with Doll making the arrangements, it wasn’t just lunch. When she’d read about the facilities at the hotel, she’d
booked us girls a programme of treatments in the spa, and the boys a round of golf to make a day of it.
‘Dad used to sing before he got married,’ I said. ‘His voice is OK, to be fair. He practises “Islands in the Stream” in the bathroom. What with him and Hope . .
.’
‘She’s Kylie at the moment,’ Dave told Fred. ‘Puts a sheet round her head and writhes around singing “Can’t Get You Outta My Head”. Sounds exactly like
her, though, doesn’t she, Tess?’
I didn’t quite like Dave talking about her like that to Fred, although I wasn’t sure why, because Dave and Hope had a great relationship. His knowledge of pop songs was encyclopedic
and he could do things like tell you every track on an album in the right order and how long they were, right down to the second. Sometimes when we were driving somewhere, Hope would get his CDs
out of the glove compartment and read out the number of the tracks to test him; he’d test her on her collection when he came round to our house. For her ninth birthday, he’d bought Hope
her own personal CD player that she wore round her neck like a giant medal, and which had earphones, that improved everyone’s lives. There’s a limit to the number of times most of us
can listen to ABBA’s
Greatest Hits
.
‘So, who’s your dad’s Dolly Parton, then?’ Doll asked me.
‘How do you mean?’
‘“Islands in the Stream”, duh! It’s a duet, isn’t it?’
It was so obvious now that she’d said it. Dad had been paying much more attention to his personal hygiene recently. He’d even bought himself a couple of new shirts, but the idea that
there was a woman in his life simply hadn’t occurred to me, and I wondered now whether that was what had made him so reluctant to babysit Hope today.
I pictured Dad and some woman with big hair singing at each other with microphones in front of the dartboard. How long had it been going on? And was it serious? Should I prepare myself for
sharing the house with her? How would she react to Hope? And Hope to her? Were the three of them even now sitting at our usual table in the Carvery?
In the front of the Range Rover, Fred and Dave were talking about who they’d buy in the transfer window if they were football managers.
Before they met, I’d wondered how the two of them would get along. Dave was so impressed when I first told him, because he was a lifelong supporter of Fred’s team, I’d been
terrified he’d ask for an autograph or something. Thankfully, he didn’t. With Dave being that bit older and able to do proper man’s stuff like unblock a U-bend or install a
boiler, Fred respected him. They played off the same handicap in golf and though Fred was the professional footballer, Dave seemed to know just as much as he did about the game. Listening to them
picking dream teams, I was struck by how similar the two of them sounded to when Dave was talking to Hope. The consultant had told us that Asperger syndrome was more common in males than females.
Perhaps they had a touch of it themselves, I thought. Maybe we all do.
‘It’s a proper bromance with them two, isn’t it?’ said Doll, linking my arm and pointing me towards the spa entrance, where the staff handed us big fluffy robes, slippers
and complimentary baskets of aromatherapy toiletries.
‘It’s funny,’ she said, as we stripped off in the changing room. ‘When you’re rich, people are always giving you stuff. Chocs on your pillow, goody bags . . . you
don’t get that at the Travelodge, do you, even though you’d be much more grateful? Talking of which,’ she delved into her pink leather tote bag, ‘I got you a little
something in Dubai.’
Inside the small cardboard carrier bag was a Day-Glo yellow Gucci bikini.
‘You’re not wrong about it being little.’ I held the tiny pieces up against my robe.
‘Bought one for myself,’ said Doll, pulling the exact same item in Day-Glo pink out of her bag, which made me feel less guilty about her extravagance.
I couldn’t help noticing that Doll had got rid of all her body hair, which was a shock because, with her petite frame, it made her look like a child again. Standing shamelessly naked in
front of the mirror, she pushed her tiny breasts up to give herself a cleavage.
It must be far easier for Doll to check herself, I thought, because there was hardly any flesh to probe, nowhere for the lump you thought you’d felt to slide away and hide.
‘What d’you think?’ she asked. ‘Fred wants me to get them done.’
‘A boob job?’
‘It’s all right for you,’ she nodded at my chest, ‘but everyone else does.’
I drew my robe tighter around me. I didn’t consider my breasts an advantage. Clothes never looked like they were supposed to on me, which is why fashion models are flat-chested, I guess.
Until meeting Dave, I’d been such a good Catholic girl, I’d genuinely believed that letting a man touch your breasts was something you did only when a relationship was serious because
men were driven by lust. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I was supposed to like it too.
‘You’d have to buy all new clothes,’ I said.
‘You’re supposed to be putting me off, not encouraging me!’ Doll laughed, which was a relief, because for a moment there, I’d thought she was seriously contemplating
surgery, and I would have found it difficult to be neutral about that. Mum had one breast removed, and it wasn’t pretty and had given her a lot of pain, so I didn’t have much time for
perfectly healthy women choosing to go under the knife voluntarily.
Our massage tables were side by side. The lights were low, and the soothing sound of running water was coming from somewhere, I thought probably speakers rather than an on-site waterfall.
‘Is Dave into porn?’ Doll asked, as our masseuses ran surprisingly strong fingers over our backs.