The Shock of the Fall

  ‘What if Daddy dies?’

  I couldn’t see Dad properly. It was hard to hear him too. But you get to know the sort of answer someone might give. What my dad would have done was make his funny face with his eyes all wide, and say something like, ‘Blimey, sunshine. D’you know something your old pa doesn’t?’

  Usually that would be enough to make everything okay, but this time it wasn’t, because Simon said it again. ‘What if you die? What if— What if you both die?’

  If he got himself wound up he’d struggle to get his breath, and that made things worse. Before I was born there was a time when he couldn’t breathe for so long that his skin turned blue. That’s what Mum told me, anyway. And even as she explained how he’d had a small operation, so it should never happen again, even as she told me that, she looked afraid.

  ‘Who would— What would—’

  He was clutching at his chest. I must have looked like a superhero, bursting through the door – my dressing gown billowing like a cape. It was probably the shock that startled him out of it, and I’m not sure he even heard what I said, but what I said was, ‘I’ll look after you Simon. I’ll always look after you.’

  We read the rest of the story as a family. And when it got to Hakuna Matata, we all sang King of the Swingers. I’ve never seen my parents look so proud.

  Dad gulped back the last of his wine, and went to refill his glass. Mum placed her hand over his.

  ‘We’re tired. Let’s go to bed.’

  ‘I’m ashamed of my own son.’

  ‘Please, don’t.’

  ‘Well I am. And not for the first time.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You know exactly what it means, don’t pretend that you weren’t too.’

  ‘Don’t you dare. How— You’re drunk.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes. You are. He’s our little boy for Christ’s sake.’

  Dad slunk to the end of the sofa, and all I could see was his socked foot resting on the coffee table.

  a cloud of smoke

  Jacob fastened the clips on his side, and watched me fasten the clips on mine. ‘It goes in the third notch,’ he said.

  I knew that already.

  He liked to be sure.

  When she was secure I took the remote control and pressed the ↑ button, jerking the mechanical arm into life, lifting her slowly into the air. ‘It’s so kind of you to help,’ Mrs Greening said.

  This was a good day for her, some days she didn’t talk. I think Jacob preferred it when she didn’t talk.

  He emptied her bag of piss into a plastic jug, whilst I put fresh sheets on the bed and fluffed her pillows.

  ‘I think I’ll go in the chair today,’ she said.

  Jacob positioned the electric wheelchair, and supported her neck and head as I pressed the ↓ button. In the kitchen the microwave went ping, and he said, ‘I’ll go.’ Then he disappeared to collect her tea.

  ‘Do you know where your tray is?’

  ‘Over there, on the bedside table.’ She pointed, but even that was difficult for her. She had better days and worse days. On the really bad days, she found it hard to do almost anything.

  I attached the tea-tray into the slot on the front of her chair, and she asked, ‘Are you as good to your mother?’

  ‘What? My mum isn’t—’

  We went quiet then, and time stretched out, endlessly.

  She had a nice long neck but a crooked nose. I couldn’t decide if she was prettier than Mum.

  I don’t suppose it matters.

  ‘I mean—’

  ‘Here you go, Ma.’ Jacob came back through, placing her food onto the tray. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’

  He’d seen me. Of course he’d seen me. Peeking through the window, watching him, looking at his mum, then running away. What difference does it make? Aren’t we all desperate to spill our secrets?

  I was suspended for two weeks. Mum and Dad and me were on one side of the desk, and the Deputy Head was on the other, saying, ‘We cannot accept behaviour of this kind in our school, indeed in our society.’

  My parents nodded.

  I assume.

  I was staring at my hands, too ashamed to look at anyone. Mum said how truly sorry I was, that I’d arrived home as white as a ghost, and the Deputy Head said she didn’t doubt it, how her impression, indeed the impression of her staff, was of a quiet, reflective student.

  I clenched my fists, digging little crescents into my palms with my fingernails. I could feel her staring at me, trying to read my thoughts. Perhaps there was something going on at home they should know about? Anything that might be troubling me?

  My parents shook their heads.

  I assume.

  It doesn’t matter because when I arrived back at school, and took my seat for morning registration, his grinning face appeared next to me. Jacob Greening wasn’t the sort to hold grudges.

  ‘Fuck it. Didn’t hurt, anyway.’

  I think it took a lot of courage for him to invite me round, but that’s what he did. He said, ‘I’ve got Grand Theft Auto if you want to play it?’ So we started hanging out together after school. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on games though, even ones I used to enjoy. It was the same in lessons. One minute I’d be listening, interested, taking everything in, the next my head would be completely empty.

  What I was better at concentrating on, was helping out with Mrs Greening. This didn’t happen straight away. For the first few weeks I’d wait in the kitchen whilst Jacob did whatever needed doing, but after a while I started to help out with the odd little thing, like making her beakers of tea, or helping her tune the radio to a station she wanted, whilst Jacob got on with crushing up her tablets, or whatever.

  After a few months though, I helped with everything, and I suppose it was this that got me thinking. You’re going to laugh, but I thought maybe, when I left school, I could be a doctor.

  I know that’s stupid.

  I can see that now.

  This isn’t about sympathy. I’ve made people feel sorry for me before, mostly psychiatric nurses – either the newly qualified ones who haven’t learnt to get a grip, or the gooey-eyed maternal ones who take one look at me and see what could have happened to their own. A student nurse once told me how my patient notes had nearly made her cry. I told her to go fuck herself. That finished the job off.

  If I look at my hands, right now. If I look at my fingers jabbing at the keyboard, the hard patches of dark brown skin, tobacco-stained knuckles, bitten nails – it’s hard to think I’m the same person. It is hard to believe these are the same hands that helped to turn Mrs Greening in her bed, that gently rubbed cream onto her skin sores, that helped to wash her and brush her hair.

  ‘We’ll be in my room, Ma.’

  ‘Okay darling,’ she said, lifting a spoonful of hot mush into her mouth, spilling gravy. ‘Don’t make too much noise.’

  His bedroom walls were plastered in old flyers from early ’90s raves like Helter Skelter and Fantazia. It was stupid because we were still babies when they were happening, but he used to go on about them, saying how dance music was much better back in the day, and how now it was too commercial. I think he liked to talk about it so he could remind me it was his big brother who had given him all the flyers, before he left to join the army.

  I guess that was it.

  He wasn’t trying to sound clever, he just wanted to be able to talk about his brother – so I would talk about mine. I only just thought that. I only thought it as I wrote it.

  Opening the wardrobe I carefully lifted out the bucket of water, with the sawn-off Coke bottle floating on a layer of ash. This was the other thing me and Jacob Greening did together. He rummaged through a drawer, pulling out what was left of our Ten Bag of skunk, and started loading up a pile onto the tinfoil gauze.

  I don’t know if you have ever smoked a Bucket Bong before, but this was something else his brother had shown him. ‘To get you really fucking stoned.??
?

  ‘Tell me what you did,’ he said, out of nowhere.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘What?’

  He held his lighter over the leaves, and gradually lifted the bottle through the water, filling the chamber with thick white smoke.

  ‘Tell me about what happened, why you left your junior school, everyone talks about it, everyone says—’

  ‘Everyone says what?’

  He looked straight at me, sort of startled. Then said, ‘Fuck it, eh? Fuck it for a bucket. This one’s for you, if you want?’

  I knelt down and took a deep lungful, sucking in the smoke until the water touched my lips, then I held my breath.

  I felt him squeeze my shoulder.

  Did I?

  I held my breath.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ he said again, quieter now. ‘I just mean you can tell me if you want. I tell you—’

  I held my breath, and began to replay the conversation I’d overheard once, when I’d gone into the kitchen and he was talking to his mum, talking about everyday things like what he’d done in school, and how much pain she was in, when she said something else, she said, ‘Your brother called earlier. He finds prison so hard Jakey, he finds prison so hard.’

  The familiar numbness crept behind my ears, slowing my brain. Fuck it for a bucket. I breathed out, filling the room with smoke.

  He wasn’t listening. He didn’t even look up as I said it, so this made me wonder if perhaps I didn’t say anything, if it was just a thought. Except that didn’t make sense because it was loud, it was in the room, so maybe he had said it? I was so stoned, that was the problem. But if he said it, surely his lips would have moved? And now I couldn’t remember what it was even, what had been said, but the voice was familiar, wasn’t it? I was so stoned. I suddenly felt far too stoned.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’ Jacob was holding the flame again, setting up for his turn. ‘Hear what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Was it my mum?’

  ‘No I fucking didn’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did you just say?’

  It was gone again, what did it say? What did it say? I was so stoned.

  ‘What shall we play?’

  Jacob switched on the PlayStation 2, and loaded Resident Evil, and I slumped on the floor, staring at the screen, getting lost in the violence, and thought about being a doctor, about making things better, about curing his mum, about curing mine. And there was something else, something else, hidden in a cloud of smoke.

  is this question useful?

  I wonder if you believe me? People don’t tend to believe me. I’ve been asked a lot of questions. Questions like:

  This voice – his voice – do you hear it inside your head, or does it seem to come from the outside, and what exactly does it say, and does it tell you to do things or just comment on what you’re doing already, and have you done any of the things it says, which things, you said your mum takes tablets, what are they for, is anyone else in your family FUCKING MAD, and do you use illicit drugs, how much alcohol do you drink, every week, every day, and how are you feeling in yourself right now, on a scale of 1–10, and what about on a scale of 1–7,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, and how is your sleep of late, and what of your appetite, and what exactly did happen that night on the cliff edge, in your own words, do you remember, can you remember, do you have any questions? That sort of thing.

  But it doesn’t matter how careful I am to think hard, and tell the truth, people don’t believe a word I say.

  Everything I do is decided for me. There is a plan. I’m not joking. I have a copy of it somewhere. We have meetings, me and some doctors and nurses and anyone else who feels like showing up to take the piss. We have meetings. They’re my meetings, so everybody talks about me.

  Afterwards I’m given a few sheets of paper, stapled together, with my plan written on them.

  It tells me exactly what I have to do with my days, like coming in for therapy groups here at Hope Road Day Centre, and what tablets I should take, and the injections, and who is responsible for what. This is all written down for me. Then there is another plan that comes into play if I don’t stick to the first one. It follows me around, like a shadow. This is my life. I’m nineteen years old, and the only thing I have any control over in my entire world is the way I choose to tell this story. So I’m hardly going to fuck about. It would be nice if you’d try to trust me.

  the magnolia elephant

  In the right light, you can still make out the shadows of Pokémon characters beneath the paint.

  Simon’s bedroom became a guest room.

  It happened over one weekend. ‘We should have done this a long time ago,’ Dad said.

  He was on the stepladder pushing the paint roller. I was working in the corners with a small brush, and Mum was on the landing sorting out piles for Charity Shop and Throw Away. Dad placed the roller down. ‘What I mean is—’

  ‘I know what you mean, Dad.’

  He was right too. If we’d done it straight away it would have absorbed into the bigger sadness, part of the goodbye. But to hesitate – to wait – it’s impossible to know how long to wait. Is a year enough? That becomes two, then three – until half a decade has slipped away, and the elephant in the room is the room itself.

  As it happens, I was the one who made the suggestion. This was the Saturday before my granddad was due his second knee operation. With knees they tend to do them one at a time. He’d had the first six months earlier and it had gone okay, but it was hard on Nanny Noo. He was in a wheelchair, then on crutches, and she had to do a lot of lifting and moving him about. Mum and Dad were talking about this over breakfast, about how stubborn she can be, and how much persuading it had taken for her to agree he could stay with us next time. They started laughing about how relieved Granddad had looked when she finally relented. Then I suddenly came out with it, ‘Do you think we should redecorate the bedroom for him?’

  We shoved heaped spoonfuls of cornflakes into our mouths, and nobody said anything for a bit. We just chewed it over. Mum was the first to swallow. She said, ‘Let’s do it today.’

  In my memory milk squirts out of Dad’s nose. But probably it didn’t. Memory plays tricks over time. He was shocked though. ‘Really, love? I’m sure your dad won’t mind if—’

  ‘Let’s make it nice for him, okay?’

  It’s like pulling off a plaster.

  No.

  It’s not like that. It’s a far bigger deal. It’s only like pulling off a plaster in that once we decided to do it, we did it quickly. I’m not giving lessons in how to grieve. I’m only saying what we did. Dad took measurements of the room with his tape measure, and by early afternoon we were traipsing around B&Q, Allied Carpets, and IKEA.

  ‘Can you bring through more newspaper?’ Dad called from the top of the ladder. Mum didn’t answer.

  ‘Are you okay, Mum?’ She didn’t answer me either.

  She’d been doing well. In B&Q she’d outright flirted with an assistant for a discount on the rollers, even though they were clearly separate from the Big Sale bucket.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Dad mouthed to me. He wiped his hands on a paper towel and climbed down the ladder. I stayed in the bedroom, listening.

  ‘Can we change the colour, Richard?’

  ‘You liked it.’

  ‘I know. And I do. Can we?’

  I could hear them hugging, a kiss planted on a cheek. ‘If we leave now, we’ll get there before it closes.’

  As they pulled out of the driveway Dad wound down his window, waving and holding his thumb in the air. I took a deep breath, smelling the wet paint. Then I smeared a section with my fingertips and let it dry against my skin. I’m hopeless at naming colours, but it was something like terracotta. It was rich and warm, and all at once I understood they would come back with white or magnolia or one of those colour
s you see in waiting rooms and offices, but don’t really notice.

  When we decorate a room, we’re wiping away its old personality and giving it a new one. Mum could lose the Pokémon wallpaper and curtains, the aeroplanes on strings. But she didn’t want a room people commented on; she didn’t want paint with personality. That’s what I think, anyway. And it might sound mad, but my mum is mad. We have more in common than we care to admit.

  We got rid of my brother’s belongings. Even the N64 went to a charity shop, along with three black bin liners full of his clothes. This was Sunday and the shop was closed, so we did what the sign said, and left them in the doorway. That felt strange but we didn’t need a ceremony – it was what it was; stuff no longer needed.

  Of course his keepsake box stayed. That goes without saying. When everything else was finished, Dad placed it carefully inside the new IKEA wardrobe, and we were done.

  I suppose it should have been obvious that after a knee operation my granddad would need a bed downstairs.

  Perhaps it was obvious. He stayed with us until he was out of the wheelchair, and all the while he slept on a fold-out in the lounge. As far as I know he never once made it upstairs. He didn’t even see the new guest bedroom. Or its magnolia walls.

  milestones

  It was the way our shadows were cast. The sun was low in the sky behind us, and as I pedalled, my mum kept pace, running three or four steps behind me, shouting encouragement: You’re doing it, sweetheart. You’re doing it. Looking at the ground, I watched her shadow, watched it slowly recede so that my front wheel was criss-crossing her knees, then torso, then head, and I was pulling away. I really was on my own.

  ‘I’m ready, I can do it.’

  ‘Pardon? I can’t hear you.’ Mum was calling through my bedroom door. ‘Now please. You need to get ready.’

  I pushed my face against my mattress, nudging at a spring with my jaw. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s nearly midday. We need to get going or you’ll miss it.’

  I took a deep breath. My sheets smelled sweaty and stale. ‘I’m not going,’ I said.