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Birthdays are celebrated, toys are bought and played with, teams are supported, educations are planned, careers plotted, holidays with family and friends attended in Spain, Portugal, America – anywhere with a kids’ club that provides hours of poolside relaxation and escape. Mothers and fathers smile at their children – as tanned as toast – splashing around in the swimming pool; they smile at each other, hire babysitters while they dine at night in peace, or let their kids roam in packs with a pre-agreed meeting place at a certain time that they stick to obediently.

Many, if not most, of these parents try hard for a second child and repeat the process, forewarned of the pitfalls, which they laugh at when they lose their footing again – oh well.

When they get back they email photos to one another, visit each other’s homes, have made new friends – sometimes for life – their kids play together and grow up together, go out with each other, text each other, socialise.

However, every so often, the scribe of procreation decides to write in a new genre – something akin to sci-fi, with a touch of dystopia and plenty of foreshadowing.

And the children in these stories do not make friends, would drown in a swimming pool if left alone, have no sense of danger, no sense of time, can’t read or write, let alone text, many never talk, or learn to use the toilet.

And their parents are never invited on holiday, to parties, out for lunch – and on the odd occasion they are, they say no, because while adults just patronise, other children are cruel and your child may unknowingly destroy a treasured possession without intent and will definitely make a mess which Mum or Dad feel duty bound to clear up. But the major reason, in such situations, is that when you exhibit affection, the room’s eyes just project pity and disbelief.

By the time I get back, dying for a piss and a little worse for wear, there’s a poker game in full flow – Dad’s old football cronies from his days in the Maccabi League, where he was Jewish football’s least elegant but most effective centre half.

I nod at Maurice, whose chewed-up cigar is lighter in colour than the teeth that grip it.

‘You remember Harvey, and this cheat here with the pile of chips is Sammy.’

Sammy raises a liver-spotted hand. ‘So this is little Benjamin? No. It must have been …?’

‘Two years,’ I answer for him.

Harvey looks me up and down. ‘Georg, you sure he’s yours?’

Maurice and Sammy are roaring, my father sits blank-faced.

‘No,’ he says. More laughter.

‘Nice boy you have in there. Doesn’t say much, mind you.’

‘He’s choosy,’ I say, knowing this is good-natured, but feeling like I may end this game with one well-chosen word.

‘They’re just kidding with you, here.’ Maurice pulls out the chair next to him.

‘You want to sit in? We’re playing seven-card stud,’ Dad asks.

‘No, Dad, thanks. Where’s Jonah?’

‘He’s inside watching a video, his programme finished at seven.’

Jonah looks like a teenager lying on the sofa with his hands behind his head. I sit next to him, half expecting him to get up and leave, but he’s engrossed in
Casablanca
.

The beer and the school meeting have wrecked me, so I take a chance and lay my head on his thigh and he lays his hand on my cheek. I tense every muscle in my body, desperate not to spook him. It was his decision, this physical contact, he wanted to do it, but when he leans down and puts his nose to my nose and his eyes to my eyes, I am in heaven, despite the overpowering odours of Old Spice and chopped herring. Not only does he look like my father, now he smells like him too. It’s a stirring smell full of long-suppressed childhood memories and insufferably vague feelings of a trusting love.

‘It’s okay, Ben? The video? Better than
Schindler’s List
? I don’t have much of a collection.’

‘Get back to the boys, Dad. It’s perfect.’

I wake up as Victor and Elsa take off into the fog. My left cheek is bright red and ridged from Jonah’s pyjamas, my right bears a sweaty handprint. He is asleep and – in his armchair – so is Dad. I slide out and gently place Jonah’s hand where my head has been. Then I flick Dad’s ear.

‘Can you help me,’ I growl.

Jonah is a lump, so it takes both of us to get him up the stairs. I go backwards, gripping him under the arms and supporting his head on my chest. Dad takes his feet and gently kisses his toes as we struggle – Hillary and Tensing – and by the landing Dad is sweaty and wheezing horribly, and Jonah is awake again by the time we lay him in his bed, before Dad shuffles to his room.

I’m still flushed by the warmth of Jonah’s apparent earlier affection and – like the calming effect of the first hit of a whisky – I need to keep chasing that elusive feeling. So few moments feel like true connection with him, I almost grieve when each one ebbs away.

‘What is it with you, Jonah? When I was your age I used to pretend to be asleep to avoid listening to my father. I know I don’t have the storytelling gift like Papa Georg, but that’s okay, isn’t it?’

Jonah farts, long and loud, the nappy acting as an amplifier. It makes me belly-laugh and he catches it, like a yawn, and laughs too. I try to lie next to him, but he pushes me away, so I sit across the bed with my back to the wall and he doesn’t object. I squeeze his thigh through the duvet.

‘Take your Papa Georg.’ I feel a pang of guilt. ‘He and I can’t talk – not like you and I. And we don’t hug, whereas I can’t keep my hands off you. Yes, I know sometimes it irritates you, but I need to. I can’t help it. I wouldn’t trade you in – as you are – for anything. I can’t imagine you being any other way or wanting you any other way.

‘So this business with your mum, all this talk of schools you’re going to hear, about going away – you must know that it’s because I love you so much. We’ll be back with Mum soon, Jonah, I promise, and I know these last two weeks have felt like a year, but I have to tell you this whether it registers or not, I want your days to be full of joy and fun and free of anxiety and pain. Other people may think you’re missing out on life. Believe me, Jonah, when I tell you it’s not so great. It’s hard and confusing and disappointing. I want none of that for you. If you spend the rest of your life in blissful ignorance of all the shit going on around you then I will have succeeded.

‘Who else is going to listen to me apart from you? I’m finding it hard to convince myself that my motives are pure, but you won’t judge me, will you? You understand that I’d never abandon you. The problem is, if Papa tells me I’m being selfish, I believe him. If Mummy tells me I’m being selfish, I believe her. Maybe I can’t find the words with them like I do with you? Just know, Jonah, that whatever anyone says, I’m going to find the belief to fight for you, because you being okay is so important to me, I can’t be okay if you’re not.’ Is he taking any of this in? He’s turned on his side away from me, so I rub his back.

‘God, your Higher Power, DNA or whatever, has given you certain wonderful gifts, it’s just that most other “individuals” aren’t programmed to appreciate them. They want you to be like them. Arrogant fuckers. I’m envious of those gifts – your lack of jealousy, self-pity and resentment. Those are emotions, Jonah, that are unattractive and self-harming and if some knob of a doctor came to me and said, I can, among others, allow your son to experience the following emotions, I’d tell him to sling his hook. I know you trust me, because you cling to me in the park when a dog comes near, somehow you know I’ll protect you. When you feel threatened, you reach for my hand.

‘Well, my gorgeous boy, you need to trust me now too. Because a lot of pit bulls are out to spoil the world I’ve planned for you and if I have to use Papa’s gun to get you there, I will.’

I bend down to him and he’s already breathing softly through his nose. So I kiss him gently on the forehead. His eyes remain closed. It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t heard me.

Witch

Wynchgate Social Services
The Civic Centre
Brown Street
London N24 3EA

23 February 2011

Dear Mr Jewell
Re: John Jewell D.O.B. 11 May 2000

Adele Latchford, director of children’s services, has passed on your recent correspondence and has asked me to provide an evaluation of John’s needs. I understand that your circumstances have recently changed and I would like to visit you and John at home at your earliest convenience.

Please ring my office on 020 8555 1000 ext 435 to make an appointment and I look forward to meeting you soon.

Regards
Mary Carey
Senior Social Worker

After a month, we’re settling into a rhythm – my father, Jonah and I – school, food, bath, bed, bollocks and booze. Most nights, when I’m the last awake, I take a spin past the flat – just to check, but the lights remain off. Things are moving slowly and I’ve caught the inertia like a virus.

I feel like I’m wearing a costume, shuffling around in oversized shoes, playing the role of an adult. At most if not all of the countless meetings and phone conversations with officialdom, I have taken a back seat to Emma. I have hundreds of email trails about Jonah, cced to me from my wife – but I’ve read none of them. With the exception of his school, I know none of the significant characters in the unfolding drama of Jonah, but Emma does and that has always been good enough. But with all this going on around me, I wonder what else I’ve missed and how I’m going to cope.

The shot of brandy I’ve added to my coffee has frayed the edges of this blanket of dread but, as I spy a human shape through the opaque front-door glass, the blanket engulfs me. I feel I may be less than prepared for this front-of-house role.

‘Jonah.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘His name’s Jonah, not John.’

I run my finger beneath his name in the letter.

‘I’m sorry, Jonah,’ she says. ‘You know how it is.’ Mary Carey is a picture of robust androgyny, like an East German discus thrower.

‘If I knew how it was, you wouldn’t be here.’

She settles at the dining table, but I want to move her out of the kitchen before she sees Dad’s lethal collection of knives hanging precariously from a rusty magnetic strip.

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She takes her pad out and lays a ballpoint on it. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’d just like to observe Jonah for twenty minutes or so and then we can talk. Would that be okay?’

‘Be my guest. Maybe it would be better if we moved to the lounge,’ I say.

Mary Carey approaches Jonah and he moves away. Then she begins to sign, mouthing along as her bare arms and blinged-up fingers perform t’ai chi for my son. He leaves, through the lounge and out into the garden, and she follows. I feel like giving her my own version of sign language.

It’s a coat, hat and scarf day, but Jonah doesn’t feel the cold and through the lounge window I watch, amused, as he skips circuits around the garden discarding clothing. Mary Carey stumbles after him picking up items as they fall. Then the cold inspires his bladder and the unfortunate social worker – on her haunches with arms full of school uniform – gets a proper hosing.

He laughs, his head thrown back and uncontrolled. She probably thinks her soaking is the joke, but the truth is it’s the least likely explanation. I may think it’s hilarious, but with Jonah it’s as likely to be the way the wind has caught his hair or the pattern of light created by the bare apple tree. I check my watch. It’s 4.30, crapping time, she should count herself lucky.

I grab a nappy and go outside to rescue him. He stands still, twiddling a leaf to the sky as I stretch the sticky straps either side and secure the situation. The soiled social worker hands me Jonah’s clothes and heads to the bathroom.

‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’

She has taken her vest top off and now sits at the dining table in a leather biker’s jacket.

‘So he doesn’t sign.’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘PECS? Makaton?’

‘Not really.’

‘How does he communicate with you then?’

‘He understands simple instructions, otherwise he points, grabs my hand or just grabs whatever he wants for himself.’

Mary Carey is making copious notes when Dad arrives home from his bowls match. The floorboards creak under his loping gait and I can visualise him inspecting Mary Carey’s bike and other paraphernalia while he makes a snap judgement about her right to breathe oxygen.

‘Good afternoon. Georg Jewell, Jonah’s grandfather,’ he says, holding out his hand. He sniffs the air like a fox-crazed beagle and I watch the colour rise from his neck to his eyebrows.

‘Mary Carey, social worker.’

He takes her hand. ‘Can I wash your coat … I mean, take your coat?’

‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Where’s Jonah? Ah, in the garden, naked again, I see.’

She scribbles more. ‘He’s a handful, isn’t he?’

‘He is,’ says Dad proudly.

‘She wasn’t referring to that, Dad. His behaviour …’

‘Oh, yes, challenging, certainly.’

Her cheeks have reddened. ‘So Jonah is currently living here with his father and grandfather. And his mother?’

His mother, my wife. Certainly we won’t be back together until after the tribunal is over.

‘Not living here. That was the basis of sending the letter.’

‘I’m aware of that, Mr Jewell, but is she seeing anything of Jonah?’

‘Not since we separated, three weeks ago.’

‘Do you know if she has any intention of seeing him?’

‘You’d have to ask her that.’

Scribbling.

‘So you and your father are his sole carers at present.’

‘Yes.’

‘And how old is your father?’

‘Seventy-eight.’

‘And you are thirty-seven. In work?’

‘Yes, I run the family business, but of course having Jonah to care for is making that difficult.’ Or rather, easier – he’s just the latest excuse for not going in.

Mary Carey puts her pen down and grips her chin. ‘Could you explain how?’

‘Well, Jonah is doubly incontinent, so mornings are a nightmare even though he wears a nappy at night. He needs to be bathed every morning and for that you need his cooperation, which is not always freely given. I should really be at work by seven a.m. but rarely get in before ten, after seeing him on to the school bus. His sleep is sporadic, which means mine is sporadic too.’

She scribbles again.

‘So how do you see things improving?’

‘Well, while I’d be delighted for some help, it’s just a sticking plaster. Jonah needs consistency. From the moment he gets up until the moment he goes to bed he needs consistency and stimulation. There are so many transitions in his life at the moment that he finds it impossible to transfer any of the skills that the school claims he’s learnt from there to home. He needs a residential setting.’

I hear these phrases slipping off my tongue with ease and watch for her reaction while they do so. I feel caught in the shame of my use of language, certain Mary Carey will identify the words as the euphemisms they so clearly are – waking day, residential setting, consistency, stimulation. My diaphragm is rejecting them, my heart constricted by them. She knows what they mean –
I can’t cope and I want him gone
. As soon as the thought enters my head I mentally bat it away, like fleeting thoughts of slitting my wrists or dining on paracetamol.

‘But if we could put together a comprehensive package that would alleviate many of your problems, that should negate the issues that Jonah is experiencing. It is best that he stays with his family.’

‘Cheapest, you mean.’

‘No, I said best. For him to remain in the community. There are other options.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, there’s fostering …’

‘Excuse me – did you say
fostering
?’

‘Yes, Mr Jewell. When experienced couples – or sometimes singles – and families, take in a child for a variety of reasons for up to three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Often it leads to adoption.’

‘Yes, I kind of knew what fostering meant, Ms Carey. I just cannot for a millisecond understand how a total stranger, albeit one with Health and Safety training, no doubt, could foster Jonah. Do you really think that any couple in the world knows and loves Jonah as I do?’

‘No, but if you’re truly not coping—’

‘Ms Carey, you just chased a naked Jonah around the garden and he pissed on you then laughed. Should we put that on his curriculum vitae and post a crotch shot of him in the local newspaper?’

‘But there are people out there—’

‘Yes, I’m sure there are. Many well-meaning, kind, patient, saintly people who I admire. But Jonah’s not just morose, he’s not a pot-smoking shoplifter with a crack-whore mother. It’s not just his learning difficulties, or autism, no. Do you know what defines Jonah and makes the idea of adoption both ludicrous and offensive to me?’

‘No, Mr Jewell.’

‘He’s my son.’

Mary Carey sighs, regains her composure. ‘Mr Jewell, I object to what you are insinuating about the way Wynchgate Social Services works.’

‘You opened this discussion by saying how important it was for Jonah to remain part of the community and yet your next suggestion went past Go and straight to jail. Would it be fair to say that you and your colleagues bend over backwards to keep children with their parents?’

‘Yes, that’s fair.’

‘Despite the recent coverage surrounding Baby Peter?’

‘That was a different authority and a tragic set of circumstances.’

‘On that we agree. But you do expend an awful lot of energy trying to keep children at home – with the correct supervision.’

‘Correct.’

‘So why such little effort with Jonah? Why straight to the most drastic solution?’

‘No, it’s just one of the options. But if you really feel you can’t cope …’

There they are, the knowing raised eyebrows – this game of tennis is a sham. She’s just fed me a series of dropshots and now she’s smashed away the winner.
We know what this is about really, Mr Jewell, don’t we? And it’s not about Jonah. You want us to make it all better for you, say ‘there, there’ and make the pain go away? Well, I called your bluff, you lazy, childish waste of space. Stop whining and man up.

‘You do not give your children away. Never! This is the best you have to offer?’ Dad’s presence has slipped my mind. ‘We can cope, now go and get your package together and take your muddy bicycle from my hallway.’

‘Mr Jewell, I didn’t intend to upset you.’

I’m lost for words, but for once Dad has found them.

‘You didn’t upset me, missy, you angered me.’

Mary Carey stuffs her sodden vest top into her saddlebag and wheels her bike down the path.

‘I’ll send my care proposal to you as soon as possible.’

Dad slams the door behind her.

‘This is what you have to deal with? These people? Women with spiky purple hair?’

I nod in assent.

‘That naked
boychick
in the garden goes nowhere. Now, get me a cherry brandy.’

We both sit and watch Jonah’s uninhibited wanderings through the window – he sipping his cherry brandy, me trying to sip my Scotch. The sun begins to set and we’re still staring silently. He’s not a drinker, my father, I’ve never seen him drunk – but he’s a giggler. I explain to him in bullet points the events as they arose before his arrival.

‘All over her? A bladder-full? I knew he was a genius.’ Dad chuckles.

‘Should I dress him? Don’t want the neighbours complaining.’

‘What for? Let him enjoy himself, Mrs Colnbach is blind as a bat anyway.’

If he’s anything like me, alcohol loosens his tongue and opens his pockets – so I take a chance.

‘Dad, I need your help with this.’

‘So what’s new?’

I avoid the barb, because it’s true. ‘I’m a bit short. You know how it is?’

Dad sighs. ‘Don’t think I’m not aware of what’s going on at the warehouse.’ He suddenly sobers up. ‘You are a very good taker, Ben. You want me to keep you while you plot to send my grandson away? No, no, no.’

‘It’s not sending him away, Dad. It’s giving him the best chance, the best opportunity to have the best possible life. It’s only a short-term problem.’

He stands up and turns away. ‘Nothing is short term with you, Ben.’ And to himself he adds: ‘He wants me to pay for his booze while he plans to have my JJ locked up.’

‘This is not the nineteenth century.’

‘No? In Hungary in 1944 they said the same. This is not the nineteenth century, it’s the twenty-first and look, look.’

‘Dad, it’s for Jonah.’

‘And not for you?’

That bullet finds its target.

‘What? I shouldn’t benefit too? Would that be an unacceptable by-product of fighting for Jonah’s future? That we should both have a life we’re happy to live? Please, I’ll never ask you for anything else as long as I live, but please …’

He swings round and stands so close that the smell of cherries is the only barrier between us. I look up to see his eyes – they are amber, they are Jonah’s.

‘You prove to me that it’s for Jonah, you prove to me one hundred per cent that his life will be better away from his family, that he needs what you say and they have what he needs, and I will consider it.’

‘I promise you, Dad.’

‘Don’t make promises, show me evidence. Now go and get him in, it’s getting dark. I’m going out tonight.’

I just want Jonah in bed as soon as possible – preferably asleep – so after Dad leaves I call Jonah up and go through the bath routine at double speed, adding a good dose of Medised to his usual drugs to gently knock him out. I kiss him goodnight and stagger down the stairs. I want to flop on the sofa with a large dose of something to numb me while I check my email for the thousandth time today.
Downloading
, my mobile says and up it pops:
I am home, need to see you tomorrow. E
.