To the mother with a pushchair whose heavy sigh seems directed at Abby for letting Callum get in her way, Abby longs to retort, think about him, why don’t you? I guess you’re here with your perfectly ‘normal’ child, but imagine if while you were going round the aisles the chatter of customers, the clatter of trolleys and the beeping of tills actively hurt your ears. That’s what it’s like for my son: his brain can’t properly filter what to you are just background noises. It’s why he’s wearing those things I expect you think are headphones – they’re actually ear defenders, like people digging up the road use. Without them he’s in pain. Yes, pain.
A young couple give Abby and Callum a wide berth as they stroll along the pavement. Abby yearns to make them understand that her son’s world is so visually overwhelming he often jerks his head from side to side so as to block too much stimulation at any one time. He’s not some freak show. The lit-up signage on the storefront is so bright for my boy it’s blinding.
But there is no chance to say any of this because she’s too preoccupied trying to stop Callum hurting himself. Instead she must put up with the unspoken condemnation of her mothering abilities, whilst ensuring Callum stops blocking access to a public thoroughfare as soon as possible. She’s still struggling to soothe him, keeping her voice low and placatory whilst holding his wrists, when there is a cough behind her.
‘Excuse me. Can I help?’
She turns her head to see a woman of roughly her own age with spiked hair and wearing a parka. The woman is pregnant, yet in spite of her large belly crouches down beside them, not so close as to be threatening.
‘Looks like you could do with a hand.’
Abby would love a hand, but how can she explain to someone who’s never met Callum how to manage him?
The woman says, ‘Or maybe it would be better if I got your shopping – if that’s why you’re here – and you stay with him, until he settles down? Does he have ASD, or some such?’ Abby’s eyes widen. So she knows the term Autism Spectrum Disorder – this woman seems to have some experience.
Abby nods.
‘It won’t be any trouble,’ the woman urges, as if she can read Abby’s mind. ‘I’ve got to nip in anyway, get a few bits for myself.’
Normally Abby would never give money to a stranger, but there’s something about this woman that radiates kindness and sympathy, and the idea that a heavily pregnant lady would run off with her cash seems most unlikely. ‘Are you sure . . . ?’
‘Quite sure. It’s my day off, so I’m in no rush.’
‘Then yes please,’ says Abby, still kneeling with Callum, who, thank goodness, is quieting a little, ‘it would be brilliant if you could get me a few things.’ She adjusts her position so she can safeguard him with her legs, then pulls her purse from her pocket and fumbles for a ten-pound note.
‘Could you get me some—’ She stops. Buying food for her son is a challenge. He has bland tastes, yet his digestion seems to be affected by wheat and milk so she tries to avoid them. ‘Er . . . rice and some sort of sauce – I don’t mind what, one of the fresh ones for pasta, just make sure it hasn’t got cheese in it – and teabags and a pint of soy milk?’ It’ll hardly be an exciting meal, but it’ll have to do. It’s a complicated list already.
She watches the woman head through the doors and into the store, and soon Callum calms enough for her to lift him from the flagstones and set him upright.
‘That nice lady is helping us. We can stay here. Stay here,’ she repeats, pointing. ‘With Mummy.’
Callum moans. Maybe he’s aware he isn’t going to have to go inside; perhaps he’s just exhausted. In either case, he is no longer resistant.
‘Give me your hand,’ says Abby, and holds out her palm. Astonishingly, Callum places his fingers in hers, and they stand side by side at the shop door. For a blissful few minutes they remain there, patiently waiting.
A while later the woman returns. ‘Success,’ she smiles, and passes over a bag. ‘Hope I got everything OK.’
‘I’m sure it’s fine.’ Abby can’t look inside the carrier without letting go of Callum.
‘And here’s your change.’
‘Fantastic, thank you. You couldn’t slip it in my jacket pocket, could you?’ The woman does as she’s asked. ‘This is terribly kind of you.’
‘Honestly, it was no bother.’
‘Well, it’s made all the difference to us.’
The woman checks the oncoming traffic. ‘Here comes a number 7, best be off.’ She seems embarrassed to be thanked so profusely. ‘Hope the rest of your day is good.’ And she hurries away to the bus stop.
* * *
Even though Michael marks the prices of the bouquets so low he won’t cover his costs, no one shows any interest in the arrangements he made for Hotel sur Plage all afternoon. They’re too formal for most homes, he thinks, and this is a time for clearing out, not accumulating. As if to prove the point, a car drives past with a Christmas tree wedged in the boot, doubtless heading for the nearby recycling centre.
At five o’clock he cuts the stems of the amaryllis right down and rearranges the flowers into small, round posies in the hope that he’ll broaden their appeal, though it galls him to do so. He even stays late in case he can lure someone to make a purchase en route home, but the crowds appear thinner than usual; maybe people are still on holiday.
It was the very customers I now depend on who scuppered my trade, he thinks. Down-from-Londoners.
In the late nineties, pushed out of the capital by escalating house prices, commuters started buying homes near the station in droves. It didn’t take landlords long to spot an opportunity, and increase retail rents way beyond what Michael could comfortably afford. The arrival of a more affluent clientele sealed his fate; they seemed more interested in twee gift shops and trendy wine bars than shops that sold anything useful.
They call this ‘gentrification’? thinks Michael. Pah! I bet Joe Strummer would have something to say about that.
First hit was his butcher; turned out new age-y types didn’t eat red meat, or if they did, the last thing they wanted was to see pigs hanging from their back legs and trays of offal; they wanted it pre-sliced and packed up in polystyrene trays so they didn’t have to confront where it came from. Next to flounder was his DIY store, and finally his green-grocer. The greengrocer sold the shop to Ali because he feared – rightly, as it transpired – it would get coshed by competition.
Leaving me with Bloomin’ Hove, thinks Michael as he pulls across the metal shutters with venom, a name that captures my sentiments exactly.
‘Would you like one of these for Mrs A.?’ he asks Ali en route to the car, offering him one of the posies.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. And thanks for earlier.’
‘Mrs A. will love them, so beautiful and bright.’ Ali grins – ‘You never know, it might mean I get an extra-special thank you!’ – then winks.
Michael laughs, aware his friend wants to cheer him up, and he is pleased the amaryllis will give someone pleasure. Nonetheless, his dismay after all that has happened is acute – he feels humiliated, broken, as if he’s been pummelled against the ropes in a boxing match by a much stronger contender.
‘Where have you been?’ asks Chrissie when he gets home. ‘I was worried.’ She gives him a peck on the cheek and returns to the kitchen where she’s making supper, a gin and tonic by her side.
‘Only at work.’ He’s poised to tell her about his encounter with Tim and has a sudden urge to say, ‘We’re up against it now, sweetheart, what would really help is if you got a job,’ but he bites his tongue. In the run-up to Christmas he suggested she try in one of the shops or pubs nearby. ‘Just something temporary, mind, while they’re busy.’ She’d brushed it away with a ‘Not now, Mickey, the kids are only home for a short time.’ Which is typical: although Chrissie’s responses vary – ‘I’ll talk to them next week’; ‘I’m not sure what use they’d make of my skills, love, they’re so outdated’ ?
?? his chivvying invariably comes to nothing.
Occasionally Michael feels his wife like a weight around his neck and wants to yell: I’ve been doing this for thirty years, surely you can bloody well do something! But instead he says, ‘Come on, Chrissie, you’re a beautiful woman, you’d be great behind a bar,’ or whatever is appropriate, and she shrugs her shoulders and tells him he’s biased.
‘You are too soft on your lady wife,’ Ali had said to him once. Mrs A. works alongside him in the grocery shop for several hours every day, and does the bookkeeping too.
Michael knows Ali has a point, but for all his punk heritage and gruff exterior, he doesn’t want to push Chrissie into something that he senses terrifies her. ‘I reckon she’s lost confidence over the years,’ he’d replied. ‘It’s been so long since she’s worked for anyone but me.’
Anyway, he argues silently with Ali as he goes to the fridge and cracks open a beer, I wouldn’t be keen on Chrissie working nights in a pub, not long term. He pads into the lounge, pulls the pouffe up to his favourite armchair and eases into the seat. Then he raises his voice to say, ‘Mm, love, smells good, anything I can do in the kitchen?’ knowing his wife will tell him she’s perfectly able to cook supper on her own.
So it’s not one-way, he reasons. She takes care of me too. Ali has even invented his own terms of endearment for Chrissie’s repertoire of packed lunches.
‘What’s she put in your Tupperware box today, my friend? Salmon and cucumbria? Cheese and Piccadilly?’
It’s a similar jibe every time, but it always makes the two men chuckle.
6
When Abby wakes the following Saturday, something feels different. It’s early, but that’s not unusual. She almost never sleeps beyond six as Callum is invariably up by then, though since she bought a light with a rotating sun and moon to help him understand there are set hours for waking and slumber, he’s grasped he needs to stay in bed a while longer. So if it’s not Callum, what is it? The orange glow of the streetlight outside seems brighter, but it’s not yet dawn, and there’s a ghostly hush in the air, as if the volume button to the whole city has been turned down. She goes to the bay window, pulls back the curtains.
Snow!
It’s still falling, large flakes of children’s-book white. It’s settled over the roofs of the pastel-coloured houses running up to the South Downs, where it blankets the fields in a virginal hue. Close by it weighs down branches and coats garden walls and dustbin lids. Even the streets are bleached and brilliant, as yet unsullied by tyres, and there’s not a single human footprint as far as Abby can see – only the twig-like imprints of a bird on their front lawn immediately below.
She claps her hands in excitement. This is quite a rarity on the south coast, a treat.
‘Why don’t you take Callum to the park, build a snowman?’ she suggests to her husband after she’s attempted to give Callum breakfast. ‘He’d love that.’ Saturday morning is supposed to be her time out, and tempted as she is to go with them, she needs a break more.
Glenn frowns, then says, ‘No.’
It hurts to have the balloon of her enthusiasm pricked so swiftly. ‘Come on, Glenn, give it a go.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve had a shit week. I don’t want to put myself through it.’
And mine’s been a real blast, thinks Abby. She’s glad Callum is out of earshot; she can hear him fast-forwarding and rewinding the VCR in the lounge. Other families have DVDs and downloads but her little boy is obsessed with specific songs and noises – video cassettes are more robust.
‘He’ll be fine.’ Abby pictures Glenn and Callum together, gloved hands patting the snow to compact it.
‘You know he’s not good around other kids.’
‘You could find a quiet space somewhere.’
‘Can you imagine Preston Park today? Everyone screaming and throwing snowballs, tobogganing . . .’
But it could be fun, thinks Abby. ‘It won’t be that noisy everywhere. Anyway, snow dampens sound.’
Glenn’s expression is rigid. ‘Callum’s not used to snow. He’s bad at spontaneity.’
‘So are you,’ Abby mutters. Luckily Glenn doesn’t hear or chooses to ignore her. It’s a familiar pattern and her cheeks flush with irritation. I take risks every single day with our son – why can’t you do it for once? she wants to spit. How’s he ever going to enjoy playing in the elements if that’s your attitude? ‘Does it matter so much if other people think he’s a bit of an oddball?’ she says.
‘He’s not a “bit of an oddball”, he’s a social liability. He’ll go up to some other kids’ snowman and start eating it or laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. Or he’ll overreact to a flying snowball or a sledge swooshing by or something – and before I know it, he’ll be having a complete paddy.’ Her husband escapes from the room.
There’s truth in Glenn’s observations, Abby is aware. But what a glass-half-empty view of the morning ahead! She is so upset her hands are trembling, so she wipes the table vigorously in a bid to calm herself down.
Maybe if Callum had not been our firstborn it would have been easier, she thinks, scooping crumbs into her palm. If we’d had a sibling to gauge him against, I would have known it wasn’t normal for a kid to be so terrified of revving motorbikes and echoing swimming pools, and not to be able to travel in lifts or on escalators because they’d induce the most God-awful tantrums. I wouldn’t have allowed my mother-in-law to say it was because I wasn’t disciplining him enough, or Glenn to tell me Callum was just particularly boisterous. And if we’d known sooner, then maybe Glenn’s distress would have been less profound. He’d have had less time believing Callum was perfect, less time to romanticize his blue-eyed boy, less time to make him the vessel of his hopes and dreams.
As it was, Callum was two and a half when they’d got diagnosis; soon after he started nursery, denial proved no longer possible. Until then Abby hadn’t been sure if he was simply slow to learn, but his first fortnight wasn’t even over before the teacher had taken her on one side. ‘He plays in a corner by himself an awful lot,’ she’d said, voice full of concern. ‘He avoids eye contact with me – in fact with everyone. And if I point at something – a bird or a dog – he has no interest in it.’
So Abby had returned to the doctor – who had been one of those reasoning that Callum was fine – and insisted on being referred to a consultant paediatrician, and at last, after a barrage of tests and hours of being observed by developmental specialists, they’d gained clarification: autism.
For Abby, diagnosis was vindication. Right from the start, when she’d had difficulty breastfeeding, she’d felt it was something she’d been doing wrong. So his changing from a relatively calm and placid baby to a child who was resistant to being touched wasn’t because I repulse him, she’d realized. And when I tried to socialize with the NCT group and Callum had found being with so many other kids overwhelming and thrown toy bricks which had hit a little girl, that wasn’t my fault, either. No – these were all symptoms of autism, she discovered, and she could forgive herself, to some degree at least. But for Glenn it was different – diagnosis shattered his vision of fatherhood, his future.
A few days after they’d got the news, the two of them sat down to talk it through. Glenn, a computer technician by profession, had spent many hours trawling the Internet, yet instead of tracking down support groups or websites offering insights, he seemed to find nothing useful anywhere.
‘Looks like there will be loads of places we won’t be able to take him – social settings he won’t be able to handle and people he won’t relate to,’ he’d said.
Unlike her husband, Abby was relieved and grateful. ‘But it means we can get help; we’ve a path we can follow.’
Yet Glenn had continued on his gloomy trajectory. ‘Sounds as if he won’t form relationships. He’ll never get married or hold down a job.’
‘How do you know? He’s only two, for goodness sake.’
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‘I think it’s best we’re realistic.’
With hindsight Abby has more understanding of what Glenn was doing then; he was removing his rose-tinted spectacles so he could see the future with realism. But at the time it felt like he was determined to squash her optimism.
‘So what if all of the fast-track immediate-gratification culture of the twenty-first century isn’t open to him? Is that really such a loss? And maybe he won’t get married; he might not understand how bank accounts work either, or buses, or shops. I agree it’s a shame, but it’s the hand he drew, and at least we know what the reason is. I think what we choose to believe about his options will make a big difference. If we make him feel he’s not good enough the way he is, then it might well compound his behaviour.’
‘Well, he’s shown no signs of learning to speak so far. And even if he does, apparently he won’t begin to understand the subtleties of language. How are you going to feel about that?’
Of course I want to be able to communicate with my child, Abby had thought. What mother doesn’t? How cruel to hone in on that. She’d gulped and declared, ‘I’ll work round it.’
And she had: gradually Abby had come to understand that the simplest metaphors and slang were beyond Callum’s understanding, and likely to remain so. She’d learned to think carefully before she spoke; she wouldn’t tell Callum her ‘sides were splitting with laughter’ or that he was ‘making her heart burst with pride’, nor would she be vague about what she wanted him to do. Instead of asking him to ‘hang it up over there’ she’d say, ‘Callum: coat on hook,’ and she encouraged his carers to follow her lead.
‘We’ll never fix him,’ she’d said over a year later, when Glenn still seemed stuck in anger and grief. ‘We need to get our heads around that.’ But her husband never appeared to, and the two of them had polarized.
It’s as if our way of waging war was at odds, thinks Abby. Glenn retrenched, hunkered down; I went out on the attack, guns blazing. And that’s what happened to us; that we reacted so differently is the reason we’ve stopped working as a couple. That’s the true tragedy – not that Callum has autism.