The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (31 page)

Unfortunately, this means that I will have no lunch and will have to survive on a bowl of cornflakes all day, assuming that Margueretta has not used up all the milk for a cup of Camp coffee.

Another way to save money is by walking to school and back. Mum gives us the bus fare every morning, and I have been saving the money—but I will not add it to the jumper, window, and tile budget because that would be mean to my mum. She needs new knickers because hers are all worn out,
and she is now wearing my dad’s old underpants, which I had completely forgotten we had kept. And since we have not seen my dad for more than four years, it is possible that he now has no need for them, and I am glad my mum had the forethought to keep them. So I have given her all the money I have been saving on bus fares, and she now has the money to buy new knickers. For some reason, this made her cry.

Unfortunately, walking to school and back in what is left of my school uniform, marks me out as a target for the kids who go to the secondary modern school and think I am an upper-class snob for going to a grammar school. It would be completely pointless trying to explain that I am not really welcome at the grammar school because I am council estate riff-raff. I get free school lunches, and we do not have wall-to-wall carpet in our lounge. In fact, we have bare, black floors with a scattering of dried-up cat turds. We do not have a washing machine, fridge, bedroom heaters, enough milk, Sunday dinner, or a shilling for the electric meter. And my mum is wearing my dad’s underpants. So I am not an upper-class snob. But they still want to thump me.

I found that walking down by the stream next to the woods usually throws them off the scent. But earlier this week, they were waiting for me in the bushes, and they jumped me and took my school tie for a trophy and threw my homework books into the stream. They also held my arms behind my back so that the smallest boy could punch me in the face a few times, and he landed a really good punch on my mouth that split my lip.

Now I also have to find a way to immediately pay for a new school tie and copies of Huckleberry Finn, Basic Algebra, and French Verb Conjugation (Regular and Irregular). But that is not why I am so worried and why Mum has not stopped crying.

Today, there was a terrible, terrible accident.

84

O
ur front door was open. There’s nothing particularly strange about that because Margueretta still doesn’t have a job, and she sits around all day listening to Radio One on her transistor. But Emily knew the same as I did that something was wrong because Joan Housecoat was there, blocking our way in.

“Ooo-er! You kids just home from school?”

I nodded.

“Best stay out here. I know it’s chilly. Stay out here and play…”

It is chilly. The winter is creeping in now, and the big oak trees in front of our house look tired and dark—like they don’t want to keep going. So I didn’t want to stay outside and play in the cold, and I pushed past her housecoat and wondered why she gasped and reached for my collar. But I was too quick for her.

The front room was empty, so I dashed down the passageway to the kitchen. And there was Old Man Dumby with a mop and bucket. He glanced at me and mouthed words, the way deaf people do, and held up a hand to say stop at the door. Don’t come in this place.

Never come in here.

For the love of God, never come in here.

There isn’t much color in our house. Just the orange fiberglass curtains in the front room. They’re fireproof but don’t go trying to prove it. And I haven’t started on the floor tiles yet, so the floors are still black. But today the kitchen floor wasn’t just black. It was red and black. And Old Man Dumby was pushing the red around with two cat turds and some potato peelings.

Swirling, swirling, swirling.

“Don’t look in there!”

It was Joan with Emily. She was too late, of course.

By the leg of the kitchen table, I could see a bottle. I focused my eyes on the label. Crabbie’s Green Ginger Wine. It was empty—lying there on its side. Mum will be angry after all that effort for the summer fête with Akanni as the Heinz Chocolate Pudding. Now it’s empty on the kitchen floor when she could have had a fruit basket.

Old Man Dumby started mopping faster. It didn’t matter. I could see the blood on the kitchen table and the wallpaper and the ceiling and the sideboard and the floor and the sink and the cooker and the cat’s bowl. There was blood on the mop, and red water in the bucket. Blood on the pile of rotting food scraps by the sink.

Purple-red like the halo around the dead man’s head. Purple-red everywhere on the black floor.

If it was milk, it would just look like a bit of a mess. But even a tiny spot of blood looks like more than it is. And a huge amount of blood makes your stomach shrink and heave like it’s trying to come out through your mouth. And your mouth is hanging open waiting for it to escape.

There was a pool of blood under the kitchen table, but it didn’t look like a halo around a dead man’s head. It looked like a clown’s face. Yes, a clown’s face, grinning up at me in purple-red and brown. And over by the sink there was a woman’s high-heeled shoe. But the heel was broken off and lying close by.

Blood turns brown when it dries. Brown, like the red roses on the wallpaper after the man sprayed for the lice.

“You shouldn’t be in here. No one should. Your mum will be home soon. I’ll put the kettle on and make you some nice hot tea. Do you know where Mum keeps the milk?”

“It’s in a bucket under the sink. Mum won’t be home soon. She’s going to Local History classes tonight. She goes straight from work,” I replied.

“Not today. She’ll be home soon, and everything will be alright. These are nice dishes.”

“They’re unbreakable. Look.”

I dropped a cup on the floor to prove it. It landed by the purple-red clown’s face so we left it there.

“Ooo-er! Whatever will they think of next! Let’s go into the front room now. Do you know where your mum keeps her shillings for the meter? It’s getting dark.”

“We don’t have any.”

“Ooo-er! That’s not right. You come next door with me, and I’ll fry you up some delicious bacon and eggs and a slice of fried bread for each of you.”

“No, thank you.”

I hadn’t eaten all day, but I wasn’t hungry. Besides, I didn’t want to shame my mum by going next door with Joan and eating her delicious bacon and eggs and a slice in her cozy, warm kitchen with the steam on the windows and the cobwebs that Fred painted over. And maybe a chocolate biscuit afterwards. I didn’t want to shame anyone with my disgusting gluttony.

So we just waited for Mum. And I stared at the purple-red colors on the walls and ceiling, turning slowly into brown.

85

I
recognized Dr. Browning in the hospital ward. He thought I couldn’t hear when he was talking to my mum. But I heard everything. Emily didn’t hear because she was by the bed, sitting in the visitor’s chair. I never sit beside the hospital bed. So I stood by the end of the bed even though the other chair was empty.

“Can I have a quiet word?” asked Dr. Browning.

Mum and the doctor stood away from the bed and talked softly.

“This is really very serious. She’s a very sick young lady. We’re going to have to try a different approach.”

“Why would she do this?” Mum replied.

“If she hadn’t been found…”

“Oh, she wanted to be found. This is how she gets attention. If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Mum interrupted.

“Look. We have a lot to talk about. I know this has been a terrible shock. But once she gets over this, we need to do something more.”

“What?” Mum asked.

“Something different.”

“What?”

“I’m thinking about ECT.”

“ECT?”

“Electroconvulsive therapy. It works with depression. It may help Margueretta. We should consider it. I’m going to give you some information about it, and I want you to think it over.”

“I’ve heard about it. Isn’t that a bit drastic?”

“It’s more common than you think. It’s a simple procedure. We anesthetize her, and then we put an electrode on each temple. It’s called bilateral electrode placement. Then we pass an electric current, and that induces a seizure.”

“A seizure? That sounds awfully serious.”

“She may get some frontal lobe issues later in life. Here,” he said and pointed to his head, “but for most people their cognitive functions and memory loss return. Perhaps as quickly as an hour after treatment. You can get some memory loss that’s permanent. But that’s very rare.”

“I don’t know,” Mum said.

“It’s explained in this leaflet. We’ll talk about it some more. It’s not a decision for now. I just wanted you to start to think about it. There have been too many incidents, and this was the worst. Very serious. She’s lucky someone found her. Another twenty minutes—and she would have died from the loss of blood.”

“And how am I going to cope?”

“Cope…with what?”

“Her. Margueretta! Will I be able to cope with her after the treatment? Because I can’t cope with her now. I don’t want her back home. Not after this.”

“She’s your daughter. You have no choice. She can’t stay in hospital forever. I’m moving her to St. James’s after this for a while. But then she will have to go back home. You’ll just have to cope. She nearly died.”

“But she’s an adult now. She knows what she’s doing.”

“Fifteen is
not
an adult. And she does
not
know what she is doing. She has no control over this.”

“You’ll have to leave now!” the nurse announced.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Margueretta whispered.

Her eyes were full of tears, and her face was as white as the pillow. White like the dead man’s face on the black tarmac road.

“What happened?” Emily asked her.

Margueretta pulled her hands from under the blankets and held out her arms. There were thick white bandages around both her wrists.

“So she fell on her high-heeled shoes and cut her wrists?” I asked Mum for the fifth time when we got home.

The cat was sitting by its bowl, which was empty and clean. And all the food scraps and cat turds were gone from the floor. It was the cleanest the kitchen had ever been but no one spoke about the brown stains up the wallpaper and on the ceiling. Blood always turns brown when it dries, no matter where it is.

“Did she fall?” I asked again.

Mum sighed.

“No. You will have to know sooner or later,” she replied.

“What was it?” Emily asked.

“She just cut her wrists,” Mum replied and dragged deeply on her Kensitas.

“So how did her shoe get broken?” I asked.

“I don’t know anything about a shoe.”

“But how did she cut her wrists?” Emily asked.

“With a razor blade. Several times on each wrist.”

“I don’t understand. But why did she cut her own wrists?” Emily asked.

“To kill herself. To kill herself. She wanted to bloody kill herself. Your sister tried to kill herself. And she nearly damn well succeeded!”

A neighbor found Margueretta at the back door, bleeding from both wrists. And she went to get Joan Housecoat, who went for Old Man Dumby, as he knows about these things because he was in the war. He applied tourniquets and stopped the blood and that saved her life. Margueretta drank the Crabbie’s Green Ginger Wine to numb the pain of slashing her wrists. It must really hurt to slice a razor blade across your wrists again and again. I wouldn’t want to do that, even if I had someone inside my head telling me to do it.

“Why were the doctors and nurses so rude to us? Is it because we live in a council house?” I asked.

“A council house? No. Of course not. They were rude because Margueretta was wasting their time. They’re busy with tonsils and broken legs, and they don’t need some lunatic slashing her wrists and trying to kill herself. It wastes everybody’s time.”

“Will she be alright?” Emily asked.

“Oh, yes. Don’t worry about her. It’s me you should worry about. I’m the one who’s losing my mind in this madhouse. Yes, I’m the one who’s losing my mind and no mistake.”

I don’t have much time. I need to cover the black floors before it’s too late. I will start tomorrow.

86

T
wo vehicles pulled up outside our house today. One was a British Leyland ambulance, and the other was a pale blue Ford Anglia 105E—the same one with the rockets and flying saucers. We are going to have a family reunion.

Mum thought it might save her sanity if she fostered Akanni again in the refuge-for-troubled-children. The Methodist Church has started a day nursery and he can stay there during the day. I will pick him up on my way home from school. The Social Services said it was a very unlikely case because there should be a responsible adult at home at all times when there is a child in the house. So they did an audit and asked me if I was a happy child, and I told them about magnetism and the solar system with a particular emphasis on Saturn. I think that impressed them. They said we had a very calm and happy home, and Mum was clearly very devoted to saving troubled children.

Luckily, they did the audit while Margueretta was away in the lunatic asylum recovering from electroconvulsive therapy and trying to kill herself by slashing her wrists with a razor blade.

And Mum’s Japanese hydrangea bush has died because no one watered it, so our house will not be visited by calm and tranquility. However, I have begun the laying of the tiles over the black floors and started with a creative, though not quite geometric, pattern of blue and green in the kitchen. Unfortunately, when I ran out of tiles and went back to Woolworth’s for more, they only had white tiles remaining in the sale. So it will be a decorative and yet durable design in blue, green,
and white
.

Mollie Midget came over with Robert and Folami for the reunion. Joan Housecoat was here too, but she wouldn’t stay if there was any screaming because her nerves are shot to pieces, don’t you know, and she is now on the maximum dose of Valium. Dr. Wilmot said it was no surprise, living next door to a total, blooming madhouse.