Shtum (4 page)

Dad nods his approval.

‘A community of one …’ I say.

‘A community he has grown up in and Maureen Mitchell will be an outstanding school, I can assure you. Have you visited it yet?’

I grudgingly accept that I haven’t.

‘Maria, could you get Ben a brochure?’

Maria disappears for a minute or two, while Dad and I play ‘nasty-look tennis’. She returns clutching a folder and joins Dad and me as we head out the main door toward the car park.

‘Mr Jewell?’

Both of us look up.

‘Ben, could I speak to you for a moment?’

I hand Dad the car keys and he strides off, in a temper. Maria and I sit down on a bench by a small, oval patch of lawn with shrubs.

‘I’m really going to miss Jonah,’ she says, staring at her shoes. ‘He’s so, so lovely.’

‘He certainly is,’ I say.

‘Often, I wonder how my kids would be if they didn’t have autism, because their personalities still shine through, despite all the tics and obsessions and difficulties. Don’t you find that?’

‘Yes, I do, but I’ve always wondered if anyone else did or could.’

‘One just has to look a little bit harder. I mean, Jonah …’ She stops, draws breath and looks up at me as if checking for permission to continue.

‘Please go on,’ I oblige.

Her voice rises and her eyes smile. ‘Well, Jonah I imagine ambling across the campus of some university, his crazy hair blown around by the wind, a very pretty, petite, long-haired girl chatting animatedly by his side. He is studying philosophy, or English, is regularly late for morning lectures and has a talent for making people laugh. Does that sound about right to you?’

I turn away, not wanting her to catch the sadness in my eyes. Maria has just sketched out a perfect portrait of me as a twenty-year-old. She sees me in Jonah. It has never once occurred to me that such an inheritance could take place, as if autism breaks the chains of DNA as well as hearts. Maria’s insight, her care for Jonah, has opened my eyes. He’s not just my autistic son, he’s my
son
.

‘Ben, have I upset you?’

Her hand is on my shoulder. ‘Not at all,’ I say, reaching back to take her hand. ‘It’s just a little melancholy, that’s all.’

We sit with our own thoughts for a minute or two. I can’t get the image of the student Jonah out of my head.

‘Ben, look, I really think Jonah deserves and needs everything you’re trying to win for him. I would really like to help if I can.’

‘Maria, that’s a very uplifting thing to hear, but it will put you in a difficult position, won’t it?’

She nods in acknowledgement. ‘My phone number and email are on a piece of paper in the school brochure.’ She passes it over to me. ‘Really, if you need anything, help with Jonah, anything …’ She bites her lip. ‘I know that things are difficult for you and Jonah at the moment, so please don’t hesitate, okay?’

‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

I walk back to the car, clutching the glossy folder like a parking ticket. Dad mutters under his breath as I get in. The inside of the car windows steam up the moment I close the door.

‘Bravo,’ he says.

‘Could you possibly just shut up – for ever?’

The next ten minutes, sat in traffic, are spent in silence, but I can sense his itching tongue. Finally, he has to scratch.

‘Who hatched the plan?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This business, this sending-away business.’

I actually try to pull my own hair out. Then light a cigarette.

‘Are you trying to give me cancer? Put that out and answer my question, Benjamin.’

‘No.’

‘I have a right to know. I’m his grandfather.’

‘Where do I start?’

‘You can start by explaining why I haven’t seen you since Yom Kippur and all of a sudden it’s okay for me to be your landlord?’

I turn the engine off again. ‘God, you’re just so obtuse!’

‘From you, obtuse?’ he says, poking the finger. ‘I made something of myself without all the advantages I gave you—’

‘Yes, you spent your life washing other people’s shit off crockery. Splendid.’

That’s busted the anger and replaced it with shame. ‘Sorry, that was uncalled for.’

His face has softened. ‘Maybe, but there is no lie in it. It’s not what you do, Ben, it’s why you do it. So, you’re unhappy running the business?’

‘You’ve noticed?’

‘I don’t need sarcasm when I try talking to you like an adult,’ he says.

‘Dad, I
am
an adult.’

And here is the point at which it always breaks down. I say the word, but do I believe it? Am I an adult? Do I want to be? I feel like a child that is desperate to join his older sibling’s party. Like the fourteen-year-old who got turned away from the X-rated film when all his peers got in. I look around at my friends, at Emma, and I’m bemused. How do they know what to do? How to act?

I half turn to him. ‘Dad, why do I always feel as if I have to ask your permission to do anything? I even feel as though it’s your money in my pocket, or Emma’s money.’

‘Benjamin, when you asked me to stop coming to the warehouse, did I not stop?’

‘Not until Christmas, no. And before that, your weekly visits, Dad, looking over my shoulder, telling Valentine what to do, tutting, checking the deliveries.’

‘But do I say anything?’

‘You don’t need to say anything.’

‘And do you like it more, when I’m not there?’

‘I hate it less.’

‘Ben, the business is not my son; you are. But even if I give you permission to stop being a victim, would you?’

Bastard. ‘Now you’re my therapist.’

‘And I don’t charge. But how is any of this Jonah’s fault? Why should you deprive us of seeing each other? To punish us? Why?’

I look at the pedals and shake my head. ‘Yom Kippur, Dad.’

‘Yes, I remember it, so what?’

‘You turned on the business mobile.’

‘What use is it off?’

‘You answered it, you promised on my behalf, you made me leave my family at four in the afternoon on Yom Kippur – to deliver ten fucking tea plates to Knightsbridge. Why is my time so cheap? That bloody mobile phone is like an instrument of torture. Why do you always send me off like the hired help?’

‘What? I should have phoned Valentine and ruined
his
day? And for this you punish me? So, again I ask, what’s all this rubbish about sending Jonah away?’

Where on earth will I find some tranquillity? I sit on the closed toilet, smoking and drinking from a quarter of vodka, trying to read
Heart of Darkness
, but it’s a bit light for my current tastes. Through the plasterboard wall I feel the whump, whump, whump of the industrial dishwasher’s spinning rotor arm and hear the almost metallic notes of Valentine loading and unloading dinner plates. The sickly-sweet smell of two-day-old curry hangs in the air like a heat haze. I’ve turned the warehouse phone off.

The cubicle door flies open, almost removing my nose.

Johnny looks me up and down. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you it’s better to drop your trousers before you take a shit?’

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Valentine’s cursing you rotten. I’d be scared if I were you.’

‘What are you doing here, Johnny?’ I say, closing my book, sliding the vodka into my pocket and dropping my cigarette on the floor.

‘I was worried about you. You haven’t been returning my calls, you rude bastard.’

‘I’ve had a bit of domestic trouble,’ I say.

‘I know.’

‘You know?’

‘What can I tell you? Girls talk.’

We leave the toilet and I peer round the door to check on Valentine.

He spots me. ‘What you doin’?’

‘Just popping out with Johnny for a bit. Business talk.’

‘What about the washin’-up? Can’t do it all by myself, you know.’

‘I’ll only be an hour.’

‘Said that yesterday, never saw you again,’ Valentine says.

‘Take your lunch now too, then.’

‘Ain’t hungry, it’s only eleven.’

‘Well … just do what you can. Bye.’

Johnny is grinning. ‘You could do with some management training.’

‘I could do with a pint. Come on.’

‘You’re being very furtive,’ Johnny says.

‘Sure you don’t want a pint?’ I ask.

‘No, bit early for me. Anyway, what’s going on, Ben?’

‘You probably know more than me.’

‘Well, I know you’re at your dad’s and Emma’s going away …’

I wince.

‘What’s happened?’

‘It’ll be fine, Johnny. She’s just going away for work.’

He gives me a sideways glance.

I drop my face to the glass of my pint and draw some Guinness into my mouth. Maybe I should confide in him? But he has a way of skewering my stupidity. Over the thirty-plus years I’ve known him, he’s never put a foot wrong – well, almost never. I am his foil and his vicarious escape.

Only once have I been able to save him the way that he regularly bails me out. He wasn’t always so good with money. When we were sixteen I took a beating on his behalf over a poker debt he failed to pay. His parents would have killed him if they’d known how much he gambled; what he’d stolen and sold as a result. Whereas Dad accepted my excuse of a mugging and handed me a bottle of Dettol for my cuts.

‘And what has Amanda told you?’ Johnny’s wife and Emma are best friends.

‘Just that Emma’s exhausted, confused and at the end of her rope with you. Doesn’t sound like it’ll all be fine, Ben. Why are you smiling?’

I hadn’t realised I was. But the thought of the shared secret of this conspiracy, of Emma’s apparent performance, somehow turns me on. Like, I guess, an affair would feel. The frisson of risk and excitement. And now I’m nervous that I may already have said too much, been too upbeat. I indicate to Andrea that I need another pint.

‘What do you expect me to say?’ I offer.

‘I just want you to know that I’m here for you, all right?’

And now the guilt of deceit. ‘Look, Johnny … the thing is …’

‘What?’

‘It’s not real.’

‘What are you talking about, Ben?’

‘The separation. We’re only doing it to help our tribunal case.’

‘It’s all an act?’ I nod. Johnny’s eyes look at me from the side, like he’s sizing me up, and his scepticism turns the ground beneath me spongy, infirm.

‘It just seems, well, a bit extreme, if it’s all for show.’ Johnny backtracks, clumsily. ‘Just overheard Amanda on the phone to her, probably got the wrong end of the stick,’ he says.

I just drink – to disguise my face and calm the agonising cramp of fear.

‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘now you’ve got yourself into this ridiculous situation, is there anything I can do?’

‘I could use some help with Jonah. Company would help.’

‘No problem, Tom would love to see Jonah. Call me and we’ll make some plans.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Need to get back, but you will call me, won’t you?’

‘Yes, I’ll call you. Thanks.’

We hug and he leaves. I watch him through the window as he strides purposefully toward the tube and out of sight.

Why don’t I hate him? I despise being rescued, it’s the kind of dislike that comes with familiarity. I seem to feel most belittled when I have to ask for help; even more so when it’s uninvited, like it so often is from my father and from Johnny. It’s a knight’s complex – when someone saves your life you are forever in their debt, even if there is no obligation or sense that it’s desired. But I hate being in debt. I can suffer owing money to the bank, or an impersonal monolith like the Inland Revenue, but emotional debt? The kind I carry around like a rucksack filled with rocks? I received the empty luggage and the first stone as a birthright from my parents, and while they filled it year on year, they never demonstrated the art of unpacking. I need a geologist, an archaeologist as well as a psychologist, and I can’t expect my best friend to be all three.

The Bell’s Whisky clock tells me it’s already one-thirty and I’m well past the point of return. The business phone remains switched off. Emma won’t be calling me, I’ve just seen Johnny and my father hasn’t phoned me in ten years – he just turns up like a bailiff with a sledgehammer. And, of course, Jonah won’t be ringing me anytime soon. So I wallow like a hippo in the mud of anonymity, shunning the lure of the snug and the glories of a conversation about plastering, wondering about my wife, worrying about my wife, missing my life.

Clown

HEADTEACHER: DR. C. WARDLE
SITE MANAGER: MR J. HENRY

3rd February 2011

Dear Mr Jewell

Thank you for your phone call regarding a visit to Maureen Mitchell School. I am pleased to confirm an appointment for you to tour the school has been arranged for Thursday 14th February 2011.

I am sure that you will be delighted to discover just what our school has to offer your son, Jonah.

If this date is inconvenient, please contact me on 020 8555 2319 ext 658 to rearrange. If not, I look forward to meeting you then.

Kind regards

Diane Caulfield

Deputy Headteacher

I feel stiff, cold and depressed this morning – Valentine’s Day, what a laugh. My dreams kept waking me last night, a recurring scene aboard a jumbo jet. I was sat in the very back row, hemmed in by the largest family in the world. They passed me over their heads to the aisle and I struggled down the length of it towards the front of the plane. But it went on for miles, an aisle stretching beyond the horizon, and when I finally reached a curtain, two burly stewards refused me access. ‘But I’m joining my wife,’ I kept saying, ‘she’s in first class.’ But they wouldn’t let me pass, kept slapping me in the face and from behind the curtain I could hear Emma laughing …

‘Keep an open mind.’

‘Sorry, Dad, what was that?’

‘Keep an open mind,’ he says.

Jonah is already at school and we sit in the kitchen drinking coffee.

‘My mind is completely open.’

‘Empty, for sure.’

‘No, actually, I am completely open to the idea that it’s going to be shit.’

‘Emma couldn’t come?’

‘We’ve decided it’s for the best that I handle things at the moment. She trusts my judgement.’

‘She’s brave.’

I ignore the sarcasm and drain my coffee. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

Dad follows me down the hall, where the front door has opened and Maurice waits patiently on the step. Maurice is short and rotund. Toad of Toad Hall in a shiny charcoal suit. The rank entrails of old cigar are clinging to my nose. ‘Is he coming along?’

‘He likes a day out.’

‘What’s wrong with Cliftonville? They do coach trips from Golders Green bus station.’ My whole life has been film noir, shot through the fog of Maurice’s cigars, but their odour has become strangely comforting. He is always here in good and bad.

‘I’m not deaf,’ Maurice croaks.

‘Yeah, but could you just act it for the next couple of hours.’

‘Such a charmer, your son.’ Even after all these years in England, he still pronounces ‘s’ as ‘sh’.

‘Maurice will just keep quiet and look inquisitive, won’t you?’

‘Not a dicky bird, God forbid.’

In four hundred yards you will have reached your destination.

‘It’s a Satmap,’ Dad says over his left shoulder.

‘I know what it is, you think I’m a fool? Think I don’t know technology? Look.’

An iPhone is waving back and forth between us.

‘Look, apps, the whole megilla.’

I’m struggling to find a parking space along this Red Route nightmare and it’s not helped by the drumming rain and steamed-up windows. The resulting 200-metre walk to the school’s entrance – a box of wire mesh and an intercom cut into a daunting twenty-foot-high metal perimeter fence – has not improved Maurice’s mood and he hangs back in the rain with his hand over his mouth as I press the button.

‘You coming in or not?’

‘Leave him, Ben. Maurice, there’s a café across the road, go have a breakfast, we’ll meet you there later.’

Maurice ambles back across the glistening road as a muffled voice utters something indiscernible and buzzes us in.

The hallway is narrow, council green and unnaturally quiet. We drop into two plastic, upholstered chairs and await our tour guide.

‘What got into him?’

‘Sometimes he gets spooked, that’s all.’

‘Doesn’t seem the type.’

My father nods, sagely.

‘Mr Jewell?’

We both stand and offer our hand to a thirty-something lady with close-cropped blonde hair, bouncing in her shock-absorbing trainers.

‘Jonah’s father?’ she asks.

‘That’s me, Ben. This is his grandfather, Georg.’

‘I’m Diane Caulfield, the deputy head here at Maureen Mitchell. Pleasure to meet you both. I understand Jonah is to join us in September.’

‘He’s keeping his options open,’ I say.

‘Yes, of course he is. If you’d like to follow me, I thought we’d start with a year seven class which is where Jonah will be based when he arrives.’

We troop in single file to the far end of the corridor and stand quietly, gazing through a door window at nine children sitting in a semi-circle in front of a teacher. When she gets the nod, Miss Caulfield eases us in. Memories flood back. It’s a little shabbier, the children are bigger, but the outlook is pretty much the same. Individual workstations – small desks with side-panels to avoid distractions, little wheeled drawer units, lines of PECS cards on Velcro strips – their simple pictures resembling the reels of a fruit machine – single-glazed windows built for condensation, but no toilet. No en-suite.

‘Are all the children in the class dry?’

‘No, one of the girls, maybe, but the others are still in pads.’

‘So where’s the toilet?’

‘There is a bank of cubicles down the hall near the front door. You would have passed them on the way to the classroom.’

‘What methods do you use for getting them dry?’

She looks at me, confused.

‘Well, look, at Roysten Glen each classroom has its own toilet so the kids can be taken every fifteen minutes or so and I still get a steaming plastic bag returned to me with Jonah almost every day. So how are you going to get my son dry when the toilets here are at the other end of the school?’

‘It is far more practical to have the toilets situated where they are best for all the children’s needs. We went through a long period of consultation before redesigning the school.’

‘Oh really, so in an autism-specific school, running them up and down the corridors on the off-chance of a piss is good practice?’

‘Mr Jewell, I assure you that those children with autism are perfectly well catered for.’

‘Not a blade of grass,’ Dad says.

‘Sorry?’ Dad is staring out the window into the school’s quadrangle.

‘Not a blade of grass. Not a tree.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Where will he play? There is no grass, or plants. Where will he find things to hold in front of his eye like he does, Ms Caulfield? Do you know he needs to twiddle with something to keep himself calm?’

‘We have a sensory room and a soft gym. Would you like to see those?’

‘He won’t like it here.’

‘Mr Jewell, we go on plenty of outings to the local park. I’m sure Jonah …’

‘Don’t give me outings. Give me grass and leaves. You think, what? This is good enough? She wasn’t a gardener then, your Maureen Mitchell?’

‘And we have three guinea pigs.’

‘I’ll meet you outside, Ben.’ And he’s gone, striding the twenty yards down the corridor to the exit, blaspheming to himself.

‘How do you get out of this damn place?’ Dad shouts.

‘Press the green button, Mr Jewell,’ Ms Caulfield says.

‘Huh,’ he shouts, ‘finally she finds something green.’

She looks at me, quizzically.

‘Jonah likes being outside. It’s his thing,’ I explain.

There is a commotion, a slamming door, pounding feet, shouting, and I find myself on my back watching two sprinting arses head for the entry door. The athlete coming second grabs the winner in a bear hug.

‘Fuck off, cunt.’

‘Come on, David, back to class.’

‘Let me out, you fucker.’

A second staff member arrives from an adjoining corridor, as Ms Caulfield helps me back to my feet, and between them they manhandle the giant child back past us, his rubber-soled trainers squeaking on the concrete floor. As they reach me he looks me straight in the eye and pokes a finger in my chest.

‘What you looking at, fuck?’

Diane puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘That’s David,’ she says. ‘He’s in year eleven. He can be a bit of a handful. He has emotional and behavioural difficulties. Sorry about that.’

‘He doesn’t have any problem with eye contact, does he?’

‘No, no, he’s one of our special students. From when we were a special school.’

‘And now you’re what? Ordinary?’

She laughs. ‘No, we were a special school before we were designated autism specific.’

‘But David, who just “designated” me a fuck, doesn’t seem specifically autistic?’

‘No, he’s special.’

‘Yes, you already mentioned that. Is he the most special? Or are there kids more special than David? Specifically?’

‘Well, there are still a number of special children in the school who have been here since we were special and before we became autism specific.’

‘Define “specific”.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Sorry, was I not specific enough? What do you mean when you say Maureen Mitchell is autism specific?’

‘It’s a school specifically for children with a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder.’

‘But it’s not, is it?’

‘Yes it is, Mr Jewell. It was designated as such in August last year. We have a sensory room and a soft play area.’

‘They have a soft play area at Jungle Jim’s.’

‘I don’t understand?’

‘Clearly.’

She looks at her watch. ‘Dr Wardle should be free now. Would you like to meet him?’

‘Is he the designated headteacher?’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘Then I’d love to.’

Dr Wardle has a ponytail. The wall behind his desk is a patchwork of certificates.

‘I was head-hunted,’ he says. ‘Coffee?’

‘Thank you.’

He has one of those filter machines with a glass jug on a cabinet next to him. He fills two mugs bearing the legend ‘Keep Calm and Hug it Out’.

‘It’s decaff.’

‘Fine. Mr Wardle …’

‘James.’

‘James …’

‘Did Di show you the sensory room? We’re super proud of it. It’s pretty psychedelic.’

‘Mr Ward … James, can I be candid?’

‘Of course, Ben, please, continue.’ He interlocks his fingers and rests his chin on them.

‘I don’t want Jonah to come here.’

‘But let’s explore for a few mos. Indulge me, if you would?’

I’m imagining scissors and fists full of hair. ‘Please.’

‘Well, Ben, it’s about transition, smoothness. Jonah needs consistency. Let’s not make waves for him, let’s make it seamless. You see? Roysten Glen,’ he draws an imaginary line in the air, ‘Maureen Mitchell.’

‘I have some questions.’

‘Fire away.’

‘Speech and language therapy?’

‘Once a week from Roysten Glen.’

‘Occupational therapy?’

‘In the pipeline.’

‘Physiotherapy?’

‘Ditto.’

‘Educational psychologist?’

‘You’re looking at him.’

‘You’re a qualified edpsych?’ I scan the certificates behind his head.

‘Child psychology is my passion, but …’

‘So no full-time edpsych?’

‘Did I mention I am a reiki master, too?’

‘Guinea pigs, I ask you? Not a blade, Maurice, not a single blade.’

‘Leave it, Georg,’ Maurice says. ‘Here, try the black pudding.’

‘Nothing like keeping an open mind then, Dad,’ I say.

‘There’s open minds and then there’s open minds. JJ’s the outdoor type.’

‘Georg, Bear Grylls he’s not,’ Maurice adds.

‘Who asked you?’ Dad barks.

‘I was just saying – maybe his chakras
are
blocked?’

‘What do you know of chakras, Maurice? You’re a Dutch Jew not a Hindu.’

I finish my bacon sandwich and grab my car keys from the table. ‘Come on, Sunshine Boys, let’s go.’

The traffic’s nose to tail and they don’t stop bickering. I try to drown them out with a music station, but they insist on Radio 4. ‘The Archers’, for fuck’s sake, they’re both addicted, like their childhoods were spent in some bucolic idyll in the West Country. They have both felt the need for reinvention to some extent, I suppose. I look across and study my father. He has a strong profile, a square jaw, he must have been striking as a young man.

There is a redness on the right side of his neck, it looks swollen and angry. The more I stare, the larger it gets.

‘What’s wrong with your neck?’

‘Uch, it is a shaving rash.’

‘Since when did you shave your neck, Dad?’

‘Stop fussing, it is nothing.’

‘How long’s it been there?’

‘Since you moved in, I am allergic to you.’

‘You need to get the doctor to look at it.’

‘It is nothing.’ He’s indignant.

‘Maurice, will you tell him to go to the doctor?’

‘Go to the doctor, Georg.’

‘All right, if you stop the nagging I’ll go.’

‘I’ll phone,’ Maurice says, flashing his iPhone. ‘Ben, how do you turn this thing on?’

It’s only 3.20 and I need some time to contemplate, and the best place to contemplate is a pub. So I hole up in The Ship for a session of beer and self-pity – my only current hobbies. I used to play five-a-side football every week and go out for a curry every Tuesday with three mates. I used to read books, visit the cinema, go on holiday, sleep, eat out, take more than ten minutes to eat at home, shower and shave every day, have sex and never drink in the mornings.

I cannot blame all this solely on Jonah; any new parent makes sacrifices – most, gladly – swapping perceived freedom for real or imagined parental pride, because that’s the expectation. And however hard it is to begin with, there is also the certain knowledge that it will get easier. The full night’s sleep will return, the smiles and interaction will arrive, being called ‘Dada’ is inevitable. The comparison between ages – at first crawling, first steps, first dry night. These are all immutable facts to new parents, as certain as the sun will rise and set each day.