by Ellen Datlow
It was only when her leg jerked and jolted her back to full consciousness that she realised she’d been dozing. Tom spun in her arms and grasped her jumper, scrambling up her chest to stare into her eyes, nose squashed painfully to nose. She pushed him away roughly, forcing him back so that he tumbled off the cushions and landed on the floor. Her heart was a mallet thudding through her body. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” she said.
He twisted his hands together in his lap and then raised them both to cover his mouth. “You’re not allowed to fall asleep,” he said through the bind of his fingers. “You promised you’d never do that.”
“It’s okay, Boo, honestly.” Rosy reached for him but he slithered away and backed up to the television, shuffling across the floorboards on his bottom. The cartoons leapt and fizzed across the screen behind him, lighting up strands of his hair. He shook his head and gnawed at his fingers.
She stood up and the room slid from the edges of her vision, tilting as though she were on a swing and there was no point of focus. Sweat sprung chilly to her face. “It’s okay, darling,” she said, lurching over to her son, desperate to comfort them both. On her knees beside him she held her arms out. “Come here and give me a hug.”
He sobbed once, a dry choked heave, and crawled onto her lap, burying his face in her armpit. “You promised me,” he whispered. They sat and rocked for a few moments, Rosy stroking her fingers through the tufts of hair curling at the nape of his neck. It needs a cut, she thought. I must do that soon. But I can’t remember where I put the kitchen scissors. She took his shoulders and held him away from her so that she could look directly at him.
“I don’t feel too good, Boo,” she said. “I need to go to bed and stay there for a really long time. Would you mind taking one of your tablets?”
He pulled a disgruntled face and hunched away from her. “But it’s still day time and I’ve got cartoons.”
“Come on buddy, help me out here. I’ll let you watch every single one of your cartoons all in one go when I feel better, if you do this for me. Does that sound like a deal?”
He considered the bribe then nodded and held out his hand. “Deal.”
“Thank you.” Rosy stood and pulled him up beside her. Her skin was goose-bumped with cold, sensitive as a lover’s a second before it’s touched. Her head spun and fumbled for enough clarity to get them both upstairs as quickly and smoothly as possible. Her palm slipped clammy against her son’s and he grimaced and pulled away, wiping his hand on his trousers. “Urgh, you’re all wet,” he said, leading the way to the kitchen.
He poured himself a glass of milk as she shook a tablet out of the bottle tucked beside her handbag on the top shelf and laid it on the table. Her legs had started trembling and she leant against the edge of the sink to keep herself steady. “Hurry up, Boo,” she said as he rolled the tablet between his fingers before opening his mouth wide and inserting it. He gulped milk and then stuck his tongue out and waggled it at her. “Gone.”
“Good boy. Thank you. Now, bed.” She shooed him ahead of her up the stairs and into his room. He undressed and pulled his pyjamas on as she closed the curtains and fetched him a glass of water from the bathroom. He’d be thirsty when he woke.
Scared to settle with him on the bed in case she felt too ill to get up again, Rosy hovered at his side, crouched uncomfortably low so that she could watch for the moment his eyes closed. This wouldn’t take long, he hadn’t had any dinner so his stomach was empty. She hummed low nonsense tunes, holding his hand as he stared at the ceiling with resigned serenity, and they both waited. She imagined the tablet crumbling inside his stomach, swirling grittily through his bloodstream and flowing upwards to coat his brain with chemicals, switching it off. She always tried to stay with him for a couple of hours when he took one of his tablets, monitoring his breathing, terrified that he’d have some kind of fit or simply not wake up, but this time she was impatient, yearning for her bed and hoping she had enough strength to make it across the landing. Hoping she would stay focussed enough to remember to lock herself into her room once she was there.
Tom turned onto his side and brought his knees up so that his body was a question mark curled under the blankets. His breathing began to draw itself out, slow and heavy. He smacked his lips a couple of times and Rosy dipped her fingers in his glass of water and painted his mouth wet. “I love you, Boo,” she told him. He nodded and closed his eyes, tucked his hands under his chin like a pious child at prayer, then sank heavily back onto the mattress. His head rolled slightly on his neck, his eyeballs twisting around under the lids. He’d be a dead weight now, if she tried to lift him. But not dead, he wasn’t dead. At the door, Rosy looked back and waited until his breathing began to squeeze itself out between his clenched teeth in whimpering snuffles, then she turned away and walked unsteadily to her bedroom.
She woke once, briefly, when it was full dark, and then again, for longer, when the room was bright and sunlit. Her dreams had been spiked through with delirium and panic. Dead kittens and hasty back garden burials. Her brother sobbing over the limp body of a dog. Waking beneath the fierce grip of her small son. Screaming into his wide open mouth. Throwing him across the floor and hearing his arm snap as he pinwheeled away from her. His face a slack, blind fury above his trailing, broken limb.
The house rested silent around her as she unpeeled herself from her sleeping bag and tottered to the bathroom. Tom’s door was still closed. She checked her watch: gone ten. She’d been asleep for well over twelve hours. The lumps lacing her throat were still raw and swollen but she was feeling less feverish, her headache manageable.
A brief pause outside Tom’s room on her way back from the bathroom to listen for a moment. She debated whether to crack the door open an inch and look in on him but decided against it. Better to get as much sleep banked as she could, give herself a chance to feel better as quickly as possible. He was usually unconscious for a full day when she gave him a whole pill; there was nothing to worry about. He was fine.
When she woke again it was late afternoon and for the first time in months she felt rested. Her back didn’t ache and her mind felt empty. Uncluttered. She lay for a while blinking at the ceiling, reluctant to move from the warm nest of her bed and re-enter her life. Imagine a world where I could sleep without locking my door, she thought. Imagine a world where I could let my son out of my sight without fear of what might happen. Imagine a world without him.
This time, on her way to the bathroom, Rosy opened Tom’s door and peeked in. He was no more than a bump under the blankets, only the very top of his head showing. She edged into the room and stood for a while, looking at the small, prone lump of him. “Boo?” she whispered. “Are you awake, Boo?” He didn’t stir.
For just a second as she stood there, before panic and fear pushed her across the carpet to his side, she considered walking away, not just from the room but from the house. From him and all the future years of her life she would spend with him. She could be dressed and in the car in a few minutes, she needn’t even bother packing. But I wouldn’t really do it, she thought as she tugged the blankets back and uncovered her son. I’m under the weather at the moment, that’s all. I’m not thinking straight and I love him. “I love you,” she said as she slipped her hands under Tom’s shoulders to raise him from the mattress and shake him. “I love you, Boo. Wake up now.”
His hair was gritty and gleaming with sweat, his pyjamas soaked through with urine. His lips, where he’d licked them over and over to summon moisture during his deep sleep, were cracked and white with dried saliva. He rolled back in her arms, the crown of his head resting on the bed and his neck stretched taut. She could see the pulse beating through his arched throat, slow and steady, and lowered her face to kiss it. “I’m right here, darling. Come on, wake up now.” She blew softly into his neck.
When he moaned and twisted weakly away to bury his face in the pillow she dragged him up and propped him against the headboard, rubbing his hands until he was rouse
d enough to try and pull them from her. “Time to get up,” she said. “Chips for dinner and ice cream for after. You’ve got five minutes, lazy bones, and then I’m changing my mind and it’ll be broccoli for dinner with carrots for after.”
She opened the curtains and left him while she dressed and ran him a bath. He’d be embarrassed about wetting the bed, she should have remembered to put the plastic sheet on. Never mind, she’d turn the mattress and he could use a sleeping bag while she washed the bedding. Did they even have potatoes? Or ice cream? Maybe he hadn’t heard her and she’d be able to get away with soup and toast and a biscuit for after.
Tom let her lead him to the bathroom and lift him into the bath. He was floppy and still half asleep, sliding down so that his jaw dipped below the water line when she let go of him to reach for the soap. His eyes opened briefly a few times and he held each arm up obediently when she told him to. She always worried about his brain after he’d taken one of his tablets, worried that the depth and length of his unconsciousness would somehow damage it. She let the water flow out of the bath before wrapping him in a towel in the empty tub and running through her checklist of questions. How many fingers am I holding up? What’s your full name? How old are you? What’s the last thing you ate?
There was no point dressing him, they weren’t going any where and it was almost evening again. Besides, he couldn’t keep his eyes open, he’d probably just doze on the sofa until bedtime. “Let’s get you into your clean pyjamas, Boo,” Rosy told him, steering him back to his room, half-carrying him when his legs buckled under the effort to stand. He muttered something and covered his face when the stench of urine rose rich and sickly sweet from his bedding.
“Don’t worry about that, sweetheart. I’ll deal with it while you go downstairs. I want you to drink a big glass of water and then you can put the television on. Shuffle down on your bottom and hold onto the rail please, I don’t want you falling.”
She watched as he bumped his slow way down the stairs and crawled on his hands and knees into the living room, out of sight. Her headache had returned and she wondered how many painkillers she could take in a day without doing herself harm. The hunger she’d felt when she first woke had receded; there was a danger that she wouldn’t eat at all if she didn’t make herself. When I was young I used to dream of a day when I’d be this thin, she thought as she bundled Tom’s bedding into the bath tub and heaved his mattress over. Now, that’s a classic example of be careful what you wish for.
Her son was curled on the sofa, staring blankly at the dark television set, when she went downstairs. He didn’t react when she bustled over to switch it on. “What do you want to watch, buddy?” His mouth was hanging open, saliva dribbling from the corners and collecting on the smooth ball of his chin. Rosy wiped it away and held a glass of water to his lips. “Drink this up for me please, Boo. Every last drop. Then I’ll get us some dinner.”
He managed half of the water before pushing it away and she drank the rest. Later, as they slumped silently on the sofa together and picked at their meals, the television jangling cheerfully in the corner of the room, Rosy wondered how many of the tablets it would take for him to sleep for two full days, how many it would take for him to sleep for three.
It rained without cease for the next week. After the third day they couldn’t even remember when it had started, couldn’t imagine a world where the sun shone and the sound of water drumming on the roof, streaming against the windows, didn’t follow them from room to room. Tom, bored of his cartoons after several marathon sessions, sulked and whined for distraction. He wanted to play in the garden with his football and he didn’t care if he got wet. He wanted to go into town and buy more comics. He wanted to go to school. Why wouldn’t she let him go to school like all the other boys?
Rosy, plagued now by an earache that screeched and throbbed through her with every turn of her head, eyed her son over the buns she’d persuaded him to help bake and wondered if just being close to him on a daily basis, asleep or not, was making her ill. “They need to rest just a few minutes more,” she told him as he reached to pick out a chocolate chip. “Please stop kicking the bloody chair, Boo, the noise is going straight through me.”
He muttered sullenly but was still. “Can we phone Uncle Ross today?” he asked, reaching again for the buns. Rosy sighed and let him take one.
“Not today, no. We phoned him a couple of days ago. Shall we drive out to the supermarket later, though, and get something nice for dinner?”
“We didn’t phone him, you phoned him and then he was too busy again to speak to me. Next time I should speak to him first then he’ll be too busy for you, see how you like it.”
Pity warred with exasperation but pity won. “I’m sorry about that, darling,” Rosy said gently. “He really is very busy. Maybe we can visit him in a month or two. I’ll ask him if we can go over for Christmas.” The thought of seeing her brother again, having proper conversation and being hugged by an adult, actually being held in someone’s arms, seemed surreal and impossible. She looked around at the grubby kitchen, at the mould bruising the walls, creeping like blackened ivy around the sill, and then back at Tom. “Shall I ask him?”
He didn’t want to be cheered up so he made a face and shrugged to show her how little it mattered to him. She was starting to hate that shrug, the way his right shoulder jerked higher than his left and stayed up around his earlobe after the left had begun its descent, as though the longer he could hold the pose the less he cared. But the prospect of Christmas thrilled through her and she was determined to hold onto that, so she smiled at her son and nodded towards the plate of buns. “Take another one. They’re ready now.”
She’d write to Ross and ask him. A proper, old-fashioned, pen to paper letter. That would be this afternoon’s activity. She’d get Tom to draw him a picture and send it all tomorrow morning, first class.
She ripped the letter up as soon as she’d written it. What the hell was she thinking, forcing the issue when her brother had made it clear that he wouldn’t ever see Tom again? Tearing through her carefully-written lines of cheerful news, her borderline pleading, she thrust the letter into the bin and covered it with vegetable peelings, washed her hands at the sink and stood for a while, staring out of the window at the brown blur of field and carefully thinking about nothing. Her ear rang and pulsed with pain.
Tom raced into the room, startling her. “Here you are,” he said, laying a drawing on the table. He stood proudly in front of her with his hands splayed on his hips, pleased with himself. There was chocolate smeared all over his mouth. Rosy frowned down at the piece of paper with its thick crayon squiggles, then at Tom. “Is this supposed to be funny?”
His smile faltered. “I drew Uncle Ross a picture, like you asked, so we can go and spend Christmas with him,” he said.
“A picture of a dog, Tom. You drew him a picture of a dog. How do you think that’s going to make him feel after what you did to Moppy?”
She took the paper between her fingertips and ripped it down the middle, dropping the pieces on the floor. Tom yelled his outrage and hit out at her, his fist catching her on the thigh. “It’s not a dog, it’s a lion. Are you stupid?” He knelt to retrieve his drawing, wailing. They were never supposed to talk about Uncle Ross’s dog. That was the rule. He looked up at Rosy, towering above him with her hands pressed to her ears, her cheeks scarlet, and she didn’t look like his mother any more. “It was a lion,” he yelled, waving the paper at her. “I drew him a lion.”
Rosy turned away from the sight of him. Something popped and tugged deep inside her ear, a gluey sensation of things pulling apart and drifting loose inside her head. She reeled as she went to the fridge and opened it. “Just go back into the living room,” she said, thumping a bottle of wine on the counter. “We’re going to stay here for Christmas, I’ve decided.”
Tom flung himself across her feet, kicking and sobbing. “You can’t do that, you promised we could go. You promised.” He rolled ont
o his back and pummelled her ankles so that she had to grab for the table to stay upright. “I hate you,” he shouted. “Fucking fuck.”
I want to be mean. I want to be really cruel, Rosy realised, looking down at her child as he contorted in the throes of his devastation. I want to punish him for being him. I want to make him cry so hard he’s sick.
“Mothers are supposed to be hated, Boo,” she said lightly. “That’s our job. Along with looking after our thankless children and keeping them fed and cleaning up after them and not ever having any kind of life.” She tried to step over him but he wrapped his arms around her legs and tried to bite her through the cloth of her jeans. “That’s enough, Tom,” she said, more sharply. “Or you can stay in your bedroom for the rest of the week.”
He threw himself away from her and lay sprawled across the pocked vinyl floor. His eyes were squeezed into crumpled slits, his mouth a thin bloodless line of effort. He’s trying to get to that place inside his head, Rosy thought. He’s trying to will himself there and become that other Tom. What if he can start to control it and then he finds out he can do it when people are awake, just for wanting to, just for not getting his own way? She slapped his cheek hard. “Don’t you dare do that bad thing. Do you hear me? It’s not your fault, when it happens. Don’t you dare make it your fault.”
