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Waffle

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

30 March 2011

Dear Mr Jewell

Re: Jonah Jewell D.O.B. 11 May 2000 – Care Package

It was a pleasure to meet Jonah recently.

Having reviewed your case I am now in a position to offer you the following care package:

• A care assistant between 7–8.30 a.m. three days per week to help ready Jonah for school.

As well as the existing:

• Every Sunday – attendance for Jonah at the borough’s centre for disabled children 9.30–3.30, including transport. Details to arrive under separate cover.

• After-school club at above site, two nights per week (including travel school to club and home).

• Two nights’ babysitting per month.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Regards
Mary Carey
Senior Social Worker

At least there’s no more mention of fostering this time, but ‘comprehensive’? They try to dig away at you, inch by inch they take a spade to the foundations of the edifice you build up against them. Bit by bit they undermine your confidence in your own case. None of this was forthcoming before we threatened and started making a fuss about a tribunal. I’m bright enough to understand the concept of limited resources, but fuck, it unnerves me – maybe this is the Gold Standard of Care Packages? And maybe they’ve got little bits of care to add until the balance just tips against our appeal. They’re obviously more practised at this than me. I need to boost my resolve with some serious hatred and anger.

I clear a space on the sofa, attack
his
cherry brandy and swear at the panel on
Question Time
. The rising self-pity is reacting with the brandy, creating a warm glow of indignant rage. I want out of this situation; this is not what I had planned for the onset of middle age. This is bollocks. This is fucking ridiculous.

I pull my mobile from my pocket and scroll back and forth through my contacts, each time pausing at ‘Emma’. Why hasn’t she called back? How long do I give her before I call her again? I’ve accused her of lying, I’ve sworn at her. No wonder.

I tell myself I’ll call her at 11 p.m., then at 11.05, 11.10, 11.30. By midnight the cherry brandy is drained, I burp a fruity sweetness and press mute on the remote. Her face flashes up on the screen, smiling. Beautiful and distant and strange, and then the line connects and my finger hovers over the ‘End Call’ symbol as it rings.

When I worked at Centennial Communications, before Jonah was born, my marketing director was a brute of a man who took pleasure in controlling his staff with verbal abuse. He gave everyone a mobile phone and it was expected to be on twenty-four hours a day. One day I had the bright idea of assigning him a specific ring tone so I would always know it was him and prepare myself before answering. I assigned him the ‘Funeral March’ and at first it was hilarious, everyone thought so. But after a couple of days it began to haunt me, it began to inspire a direct physical response. Every time I heard that droning ‘Da-da-dada, da-da-dada, da-da, dada-da-dada-dada-dada’ I felt my bowels begin to fail. And that’s how I feel now. Waiting for Emma to answer, half hoping she won’t, giving it one more ring before hanging—

‘What do you want, Ben?’

Her voice is croaky with sleep.

I pause, think of hanging up. ‘Nothing. Did you get my message?’

‘Ben? How do you expect me to respond?’

‘Look. I can’t take it any more, I’ve had enough, I want our life back. Please, let’s stop this. I’ve hired the best barrister, lawyer, and the experts are in the pipeline. According to her, we don’t need to carry on with this.’ I hear her sigh.

‘Ben, Ben …’

‘This is bollocks and you know it. Stop pretending. Did you not think I’d find out? Here I am living with my father. Remember him? Trotsky’s ghost? I have Jonah with me day and night. It’s too much. And you’ve just let it happen, pushed us away and taken no responsibility whatsoever. Thank you so much, Emma.’

The silence kicks in and along with it the sickness and dissonant violins.

‘Emma. Em?’

She blows her nose; she is a snotty crier.

‘Emma?’

‘I’m sorry, Ben.’

Again, the drug. ‘Don’t be sorry, I can carry the burden. Jonah’s the important one here …’

‘I’m not sorry for that, Ben.’

‘You’re not? Then what are you sorry for?’

‘I’m sorry because you’re not coming back.’

‘That’s fine, I can cope until the tribunal, okay, but—’

‘No, you’re not listening, you never do. You’re not coming back.’

‘But there’s no need to stay away now …’

‘Please, Ben, don’t make it any harder than it need be.’

‘For who? Me or you?’

‘Both of us.’

‘And Jonah? He’s your son, Emma.’

‘It torments me …’

‘No, it doesn’t, clearly.’

‘Ben, please, I’ll take all the blame, but …’

I rewind the tape, searching for clues, distraught that I may have missed something crucial, a misused word that could have warned me of this apocalypse.

‘And where did all the money go really, Emma?’

‘Ben …’

‘Tell me.’

I light a cigarette during the silence.

‘Emma?’

‘I needed the money, Ben.’

‘For what? What’s more important than Jonah?’

‘Ben, not now.’

‘Not now? So when, Emma? What the fuck is going on? Emma!’

I can feel her across the line, composing herself, rehearsing. ‘Emma,’ I say, softly. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

‘Jonah happened.’

I turn off my phone and bury it down the side of the sofa.

I feel like my pilot light has gone out. The knowledge of my own naivety is crushing me into this piss-stained sofa. People make sacrifices for loved ones, don’t they? For each other, for their children? Especially for their children. That should be your primary motivation, but is it mine?

For whom am I performing this selfless charade? For Jonah, of course. But am I? The advocaat tastes too sweet so I cut it with some schnapps. As Emma’s truth sinks in, my internal voice screeches:
But I want to run away. Where did she earn the right? Now she’s gone, I can’t.

I run to the toilet to throw up. It looks like rhubarb and custard.

Upstairs, I hear their syncopated snoring again. Jonah is lying on his tummy in just a nappy, so I kneel by the side of the bed and gently stroke his back with the palm of my right hand. His skin is still baby soft and warm to the touch. It’s golden brown. If he sees the sun, it tans and never burns – he looks like he’s just come back from two weeks in the Caribbean. I rub the back of his neck and push my fingers into his hair then carefully put him in his pyjamas without waking him.

‘I love you, Jonah, but sometimes I wish you’d never been born.’ I instantly want to take it back, but it can’t get past the plug of bile in my throat and then his eyes pop open as if he’s heard and understood. He follows me down the stairs in his pyjamas, grabs his shoes and stands by the door. I haven’t the strength to argue, just put on his shoes and close the door silently behind us.

My thighs cramp up like a dancing Cossack as I shuffle on my haunches by the BMW parked in
my
spot – if I wasn’t dehydrated I’d piss on its personalised number plate. Moonlight flashes off the pliers in my left hand as the shiny black M5 tyre valve comes free and sends me sprawling backwards into a rosebush.

‘How did you get out of the car? Get. Back. In. The. Car. Don’t laugh at me, you sod, we’re not going in.’ Of course he wants to go in, it’s still home to him. ‘Let’s go. Jesus, Jonah – stop it.’ He is plucking off the rose buds and examining their scent beneath his nostrils.

The third-floor windows begin to blink and then a face – silhouetted against the room’s halogens. It’s Emma.

The block’s security lights have thrown enough illumination on the car park to reveal my current bedding in all its rosy glory. Dragging him away now would be like dousing two shagging dogs with a bucket of ice water – thank God for the pen knife, the Swiss Army and their obsession with attachments. I usher both boy and bush into the car’s back seat.

‘Ben, is that you?’ She is maybe ten feet away, playing Zorro with a stainless-steel fish slice. ‘Ben, what are you doing here?’ There is no surprise in her voice, just the tiresome version of disappointment that manages to be dismissive and pitying all at once.

‘Ben? Do you have Jonah with you?’

‘He couldn’t sleep.’

‘What are you trying to achieve?’

Now that’s a question I’ve been asking myself for twenty years or more. ‘Complete humiliation?’

‘Take him home. He can’t come in now, it’ll totally confuse him.’

‘Is
he
in there?’

‘Ben.’

‘Mr PP32.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘So he is in there.’

‘Ben, I swear to God!’ She flops to the wall. ‘It’s three thirty in the morning, please just take him home.’

‘He is home.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘He’s in my space, Emma, my space.’

‘Ben, the car in your parking space belongs to Tricia from next door’s brother. She asked if he could use it for a couple of days and I said yes.’

‘I’m not talking about the parking.’

‘You’re not talking any sense. Go back to your dad’s, please.’

I hear the car door open and Jonah skips past me and grabs Emma by the hand. She pulls him close and cries into his hair. Everything, at this moment, feels wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me to see two moons in the sky, or to see Jonah open his mouth and shout ‘fuck off’ to both of us.

Instead it starts to rain and he pulls away from Emma and bounces around laughing. Her tears do not stop as she watches our son perform his rain dance and it hurts me like nothing before to see the rain mix with tears on her cheeks as she watches us drive away.

Tasmanian Devil

I’ve woken up with scratches and bruises before, but usually have no memory of how or where they were inflicted. Not this morning. The rose thorn scratches are stinging and itching. I’ve only had a few hours’ sleep and the smuggled whisky bottle lies empty beside me, but still I take the cap off and stick my tongue in – desperate to catch any remaining drops. I just manage to push the bottle under the sheets as Dad’s head fills my vision.

‘Where did you take him so late?’ he asks.

I pull the pillow over my head. ‘Close the curtains, please.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘Stringfellows.’

‘Don’t be clever.’

‘He wasn’t asleep, we went for a drive.’

‘At three in the morning? How’s he going to learn to sleep if you drag him out in the middle of the night?’

‘Dad, will you leave me alone? I’ll get up soon.’

‘It’s midday, you’ll get up now. I’ve got a bowls match in half an hour. Here.’

The tea is sour – the colour of peat – and tea leaves stick themselves to the roof of my mouth like dead flies. ‘I drink coffee, how many times?’ I say, but he’s already left the room.

I slump across the breakfast bar and light a cigarette. My eyes still refuse to open.

‘Going in today?’ he asks.

‘Later. There’s only washing-up to do, Valentine can handle it.’

‘So who’ll answer the phone?’

I wave my mobile at him. ‘Diverted.’

‘Well maybe you should turn it on? You want them to go to a competitor? And yes, in case you were wondering, JJ went to school okay.’

I point the phone at him and hold the power button until it sings. ‘All right? Don’t forget your balls.’

‘Bowls.’

‘Whatever.’

Back in bed I scroll through the missed calls – all numbers, no names. I turn it off, toss it on to the clothes mountain, have a cursory wank and roll on to my stomach and doze. Wednesday’s already half done and I feel no compulsion to get up.

There are books arranged around me on the bed, none opened further than page twenty. A bottle neck peeks out from beneath
War and Peace
. I introduce myself to it, turn on the radio and drift off again.

I am in an airport and the metal detector just keeps going off, even when I’m down to my underwear it keeps going off. Hundreds of travellers queuing behind are laughing and wolf-whistling at me, but it just won’t stop ringing …

The doorbell. I haul myself from the bed and almost fall down the stairs.

‘Coming, coming,’ I shout. Jonah’s face is pressed up to the frosted panel, so I kneel down and stare through the glass. ‘Afternoon, mate,’ I say. When I open the door he passes me without a glance. ‘Did he have a good day?’

Minibus Marge, Jonah’s regular bus companion and one of Emma’s favourite people, looks me up and down. My boxer shorts are creased and rolled and my pecker is peeping out the bottom.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter, pulling them down.

‘Here,’ she says, handing me a knotted plastic bag of clothes. Drops of piss and condensation are running down its insides. ‘Is his grandfather home?’

‘Soon. See you in the morning,’ I say to her back and close the door. ‘Jonah?’ I call, following the trail of clothes down the hall into the kitchen. The cupboards are open, the fridge is breathing arctic air and grapes decorate the floor. ‘Bloody hell, Jonah.’ On my hands and knees I sweep up the grapes like marbles before being nearly scalped by a family-size jar of Marmite.

‘Toast?’

I search the kitchen cupboards, but there’s no bread. I check the fridge. Nothing. As I close the fridge door, beneath the hammer and sickle magnet is a note in Dad’s classical hand:
Ben, please buy bread
.

Jonah is at me again, banging me on the forearm with the Marmite. He’s so desperate he even runs to his PECS book, plucks the correct card and slaps it into my palm.

‘I know, but we need to get some, Jonah.’

He’s not having it, or not getting it, or both. He objects, his exclamations getting gruffer, and he starts to jump. It’s not a happy jump, it’s frustration.

‘We’ve
got
no bread, Jonah. Look, we’ve got
no
bread. How about some crisps?’

This communication system is fine when you have the item he wants. He can request, but can’t comprehend the lack of cause and effect.

He bats the crisps out of my hand and they fly across the kitchen. He forces his hand into his mouth and bites down hard until the scar tissue begins to bleed.

‘No, please stop, Jonah, please, we’ve got no fucking bread.’

He releases the jar of Marmite at the top of a jump with some force and it smashes on the floor; brown glass and yeasty brown glue cover the lino by his bare feet. I grab at him and try to pull him away, but he’s too heavy. I summon every ounce and just manage to swing him around away from the glass, gashing my own foot in the process.

He’s off now. Left hand at my neck, right hand clawing my scalp – uncut nails doing damage. He’s a Great White, twisting and pulling. I lose my balance and his weight falls on to me, pins me to the floor. A bloody footprint marks the lino. I feel the unmistakable metallic sweetness of my own blood trickle into my mouth yet I know that if I hit him hard enough – really belt him – I may bring him out of it long enough to extricate myself, but I cannot. I want him to hurt me because I deserve it. I can’t even remember to buy a loaf of bread.

I feel his teeth grip on to my nose and I still don’t care. I want all his anger, deserve the scars of this. I know the cuts on my face and head are deep and bloody and yet I lie here motionless; like a drowning man facing the inevitable and slipping beneath the surface with relief.

Then he stops dead and starts to cry. Proper tears, fat and salty. A release. His release is also mine and I sit up and pull him to me in an embrace and he doesn’t object.

‘I’m sorry, Jonah. I’m so sorry.’

I feel his breathing calm against my chest, although it still catches – and his voice has softened to a sweet incomprehensible babble. If he had a speaking voice it would be like a mesmeric peal of church bells.

‘I got bread just in …’ My father stands and stares. ‘I’ll get my clippers and do JJ’s nails,’ he says.

‘Make him some toast first, please,’ I say. ‘There’s an unopened jar hidden above the fridge.’

And Jonah laughs. His face changes, he laughs, he giggles, he runs back and forth from the kitchen to the lounge – a Marmite toast relay. He settles in front of the TV, twiddles his hair, goes back for more toast, takes an apple from the fridge, eats his dinner with his fingers and just forgets. Forgets that less than an hour before he was at war with me, that he’s injured me or that my lack of care made him hurt me. He’s forgotten it all, no grudge, no remorse, no resentment. Lucky bastard.

He yawns.

‘You want me to run his bath?’

‘No, I’ll do that, Dad. I’ll do that. I’ll go and run it now. You stay here and watch TV with Jonah.’

Jonah climbs on to the sofa next to Dad as I mount the stairs, and I hear him start to chatter. More family history, I suppose? More information that I can’t be trusted with.

I start down the stairs on tiptoe, then halt. I want to know what he feels unable to share with me, but I want to confront him, not eavesdrop. It may be, I ponder, that this is not about me, but about my father. He can talk to Jonah, because Jonah neither judges nor gossips and, as painful as the information is, Jonah is immune. Whereas I? What could be so bad that he feels I can’t be trusted with it? Maybe if I am witness to his catharsis he’ll feel powerless. Knowing how that feels, I have some empathy with him. The inquisition will have to wait.

Bath time is my favourite ritual. Firstly, I put a clean sheet on his bed, change the duvet cover and pillow cases and turn the duvet down. Then I make sure the aqueous cream is on his bedside table and close the curtain. Next, I switch on his toy fish tank and check that the brightly coloured plastic tropical fish are revolving freely and, finally, switch on his CD player – always the same CD, Mr Tumble singing children’s favourites (number two on the volume dial).

In the bathroom, I use the shower attachment to clean the bath, put the plug in and switch to taps, testing that the water is hot, but not too hot. Then I squeeze hypoallergenic bubbles into the running stream of water for three seconds and watch the bath fill up with a foamy mass. I locate his two bottles of medication that he takes first and last thing – apparently they moderate his mood.

This all takes approximately ten minutes. Finally, I call him up and wait. Sometimes I have to call twice, but usually I hear the ‘thump, thump, thump’ of his ungainly progress up the stairs and then he bounces into the bathroom, grinning. He is, I think, anticipating an end to the stress and trauma of his own personal groundhog day.

I help him undress, remove his nappy and clean him up with wipes before he climbs in. The nappy and wipes get tied in a plastic bag. The first drug I administer with an oral syringe; the second by spoon. He takes both without fuss.

I kneel by the side of the bath and watch him play, rub the bubbles all over his body before he eats them, and when I wash him we catch each other’s eyes and laugh – a father–son connection, hilarious, fleeting and precious.

I let him play for as long as he wants, or until the water is too cold, and then I open his bath towel wide and he climbs from the bath and free-falls into my arms so that I have to brace myself to catch him, and for the thirty seconds that I squeeze him tight and dry him he is a baby again, with his head on my shoulder and his smell all innocent and clean.

When I release him, he runs to his room and bounces on his bed in time with Mr Tumble, and while he does so I dry the bits I couldn’t reach before. Then he lies on his tummy – my baby boy with his cellulite bum and spare tyre, fat thighs and soft spotless back, pink from the heat of the bath.

‘Turn over, dude,’ I say, and he shuffles himself over and raises the small of his back so that I can fit a nappy on him for the night and, as he does so, he is no longer a baby – not quite an adolescent – and he will never, I understand again, as my wounds begin to sting once more, be a man.

I pull his pyjama bottoms on and he sits so I can do likewise with his top, and then he flops to the pillow, face up close to his fish tank as I kiss him, tell him I love him, turn the light off, close the door and leave. Downstairs, I throw myself on to the sofa and bury my head in a cushion.

‘Try not to get blood on my furniture.’