by Julia Jones
“Donald! Oh, all right, Donny then, Donny Walker. I can see you perfectly well and you’re to come here at once. Or it’s detention on Monday. And a letter home.”
“Ai’m afraid that doesn’t hold quaite the terrors that it ought,” cooed a sugar-substitute voice that bought shame on little white pills. “Literacy isn’t a strong feature of John’s family background, is it, de-ah?”
Denise ‘Toxic’ Tune, the person Donny hated most in the entire world (except for her colleague, the fat policeman, Inspector Jake Flint) was grinning with her tombstone teeth and dripping pink gums. She never missed a chance to have a go at his family, usually at his mother, Skye.
Donny’s mum was deaf. Her mum had had rubella when she was just a few weeks pregnant and the baby had suffered brain damage. The birth had been bad too. Skye couldn’t read printed books or speak with her mouth like most people. Instead she spoke with her hands. Donny thought she was poetic but other people didn’t see it.
“Severe Learning Difficulties on the mother’s saide and the Capacity Challenges of Extreme old Age,” Toxic smiled at Ms Spinks. “Ai’ve been Monitoring, of course, in my Professional capacity. Assessing, but there’s no co-operation. No Recognition of the Need for Change.”
So she was getting at Gold Dragon too. Donny’s Great Aunt Ellen was over eighty and had a hook instead of one hand but no-one who’d ever seen her at the helm of her beloved Strong Winds would dare to speak about Capacity Challenges...
“Donny’s bi-lingual at home. He speaks BSL as well as English. Aren’t we meant to be celebrating that sort of thing? Donny’s tutor says it’s all part of diversity. I think it’s brilliant.”
Anna Livesey had elbowed her way out of the crowd. When Donny had first met Anna, she’d spent most of her time merging into it, risking nothing that might get her noticed. That had all changed now her mum was back.
“And who is this tutor, de-ah?” asked Toxic.
“Mr McMullen. He’s one of the senior teachers – the ones people really listen to,” said Anna, dimpling innocently at Ms Spinks.
Donny didn’t know whether to chuckle or puke. He knew Anna totally despised the deputy head. Not only because she was a slippery liar but because Anna had once heard her say that she didn’t think dates were all that important to the study of history!
“It was during citizenship week. We were being helped to rethink the concept of disability. Wasn’t it something to do with the Government?”
Ms Spinks was looking uncertain but Toxic’s expensively reconstructed smile glared on.
“Mr Mac ... whatsit,” she said, as if she’d got mouthwash under her tongue. “So you expect he’ll be missed when he’s gone? How quaint! Adolescent Insecurity, of course. Ai’m always remainding mai team to Be Aware.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
Apart from Anna and his Allies – Maggi and Xanthe Ribiero – Mr McMullen was the mainstay of Donny’s life at Gallister High.
“Oh de-ah! You didn’t know? Well, if your tutor hasn’t bothered to mention it, Ai mustn’t say another word! Now, if you’ll excuse us, Seraphina, Ai need some S & M with this young man.”
Toxic shoved Donny into a nearby classroom, smirked at Ms Spinks and blanked Anna. He was doomed.
“Support and Monitoring, Friday April 13th 2007, Denise Tune, Statutory Services, Chief Welfare Executive, Entire Area, with John Walker, age 12, no fixed abode.”
Toxic had got her digital recorder out. He knew she could edit whatever he said.
“I’m fourteen, not twelve, and I live on Strong Winds.” he said it anyway.
“But Auntie’s boat isn’t a fixed abode is it, de-ah? Which remainds me ... time to give the old junk a Health and Safety check. Tell Auntie Ai’ll be sending some of mai team round tomorrow. They’ll arrive whenever it’s convenient. To them. Ai don’t suppose Auntie’s going anywhere.”
“She often does. She and Mum go sailing in Vexilla. You can’t stop them. Anyway, I thought you were meant to contact Edward, her lawyer, if you wanted permission to come on board.”
Toxic was perched on the edge of a table. Her skirt was hitched up and one leg was sort of waving out in front of her.
She hadn’t asked Donny to sit down. He was standing between her and the door with this leg in its shiny flesh-coloured stocking poking towards him like a proboscis.
She gazed at her own ankle, admiringly. Tipped her head on one side. Twiddled her pointed foot and smirked. Her shoe was bizarre. He supposed that meant it was expensive.
“Such a shaime – Auntie’s lawyer-friend’s away. Fishing. Always does, this taime of ye-ah. Baltic, somewhere. Northern paike. Impossible to contact and no-one else in his office wants to bother. Ai’ll remaind mai team to fumigate. The old junk’s sure to be mouldy.”
Donny began counting to ten. Couldn’t get past two. Had to keep his temper somehow. Tried breathing deeply but got a nose-full of her perfume.
“Now,” said Toxic, pulling out a clipboard and ticking boxes. “How about you? Saime as usual, Ai expect. Unstable background. Lack of Boundaries. No age-appropriate sociogendered networking – you haven’t made friends with any of the boys here, have you? No, Ai thought not.”
Donny planned to go camping with Anna’s young brothers this weekend. He wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Laife-taime absence of male role model.” She completed her form, signed it and made Donny sign too. He’d do anything to get away.
“Oh, good news – er, John.” her long fingers were busy smoothing the creases from her skin-tight outfit as she teetered to her feet. “Inspector Flint’s offering a New Initiative for the Fatherless. It’s a boxing club. Ai’m sending some of mai special lads along. Ai’ll tell him you’ve saigned up.”
“But I haven’t,” said Donny. He knew her ‘special lads’. They’d cornered him in school often enough. He wouldn’t mind learning some basic self-defence but he wasn’t going to set himself up as fat Flint’s punch-bag every week.
“You just did!” smirked the Welfare office. She pushed the signed paper and digi-corder into her alligator-skin briefcase and shut it with a happy snap. “Our Initiative starts Monday. Your attendance is compulsory. Ai’ve made it an additional part of your Care Plan – which you’ve saigned. Unless you’ve some suitable alternative? No, I thought not. Research agrees: young boys need father figures and mai colleague’s delaighted to be on your case!”
Then she was gone, leaving her sick smell behind.
Anna would have left by now. She still caught the school bus to Erewhon Parva vicarage, though she wouldn’t for much longer. As soon as she’d inherited all that money from her grandmother, she’d announced that she was going to take some scary scholarship exam to a top girls’ boarding school. She’d be moving house as well. All her family were going to live in Bawdsey Manor. It looked well posh. And Xanthe was taking her GCSEs and wasn’t sure about sixth form. Said she might change schools to do the IB. So there’d only be him and Maggi left.
He didn’t have the heart to call in at the DT block to ask Mr Mac if it was true that he was leaving. Toxic had been so sure and Spinksy hadn’t denied it. He supposed it wasn’t any of his business. Mr Mac had made him feel that he mattered. Obviously he didn’t.
Donny crammed his bike into the slot behind the Water Board hut at the top of Gallister Creek. He couldn’t go to Flint’s Boxing for the Fatherless. He just couldn’t. And Edward was going to be away for three weeks! They must have known that. Three weeks of abuse by the fat policeman and his goons. Starting on Monday. Only three days away. Would Luke and Liam have to go? Their dad was in gaol. Did he still count?
No water in the creek yet.
Donny didn’t usually find it too much of a hardship to wait for the tide. There was a big old curlew who stalked the mud getting irritable and a pair of oystercatchers who didn’t even bother flying up when the Mirror dinghy Lively Lady grounded near their marshy nest. They were domestic and devoted and funny. Donny plonked
himself on a hump of salting. He wondered whether to chuck a stone at them.
Everyone had to have a Father Figure, did they? Well, where was his? He knew as much about his dad as if he’d been fertilised by a fish. One final underwater spasm in the sun-warmed shallows and there was his dad, swimming away. A bit flushed around the gills, probably.
Donny tugged on his mud-shoes and began shoving Lively Lady an unnecessarily long way back towards the river, getting grubbier and crosser as he went. It was time his mother answered some questions. She was good at telling him stories but now he wanted facts.
Contact details would be better.
Then he’d put in some practice at Flint’s club, go find his dad ... and punch him.
CHAPTER TWO
A New Year’s Luck
Rural Fujian, China, February 2007
In the last days of the old year Min’s grandmother cleaned the house more thoroughly than ever before. It didn’t matter that neither of them would be living there more than a few weeks longer; she was determined that every last mite of bad luck was going to be chased out of the small rooms where they had once been a family. She opened the front door and all the windows and mopped and swept and shook the cloths again and again as invisible traces of misfortune lifted away on the breeze.
“If I don’t do it now,” she said, “who knows what might cling to the shoes that you will wear to make your journey. You should have new shoes, new clothes – everything fresh for the year of the Pig.”
“We can’t afford new clothes. My shoes are fine. You’ve washed everything.”
“If the Lion Dance comes through our house, the evil spirits will certainly leave.”
“We’d have to pay the dancers ...”
“When all the families are home, someone will help us. Your cousin, Chen Kai, is coming from Xiamen. He will know what to do.”
Then she hurried off to fuss over her New Year cake.
Min wondered whether he should use this time to study. The village would soon be overflowing as the workers came home from the cities. It didn’t matter that he and his grandmother had no-one special anymore. People would drop in. They might stay even though the house was small and old and hadn’t got a television. There would be long games of Mah Jong. He would probably have to share his bed with people whose houses were full.
Some of his friends would be back. The ones who’d left school already and gone to work in the factories. They’d be showing off their mobile phones and new clothes, telling him that there was no point staying any longer. He should come with them after the holiday and they’d find him work. The village was home but it was boring. The cities were where the future was.
He wouldn’t tell them what he was planning to do.
He hadn’t told the school that he was leaving. When he didn’t come back they’d think it was because of the fees. It was, of course, but not the way they thought. If education wasn’t so expensive, if it didn’t matter so much, his mother wouldn’t have gone away. And he wouldn’t have to leave to go and find her.
It was an ordinary rural middle school. Students were always dropping out because they had to go to work. Their families needed the money. He was one of the best students, mainly because he tried so hard. His grandmother kept all the certificates he had won. She had been planning to show them to his mother when she came home.
It felt odd to have free time and not be studying.
“We should have fresh red paint around the doorway.” She’d hurried in again. “And some poems for decoration. All our favourites. Perhaps Xiao Ling will surprise us with a phone call and you can tell her which ones you chose.”
She had always been like this. Always busy and full of hope. Always assuming that he was still the trusting child he’d been when his mother went away.
Min’s grandmother gave two red envelopes this year: one to him and the other to his cousin, Chen Kai. Both of them were full of money, all in crisp new notes. He didn’t think she’d kept anything for herself. She packed tea-marinated eggs and rice balls for their journey – just as she had done for his mother – and gave them both a big bag of mandarin oranges and the last slices of the niangao, her special New Year cake.
On the evening of the last night he went to fetch some more coal but there wasn’t any left. Just a few chippings and the dust. She said it didn’t matter as she would be moving to her cousin soon. “Please ask Xaio Ling to call me when you have arrived. I am not afraid of the money-lender. I have nothing more to lose. You are a good boy and I know you are going to have a good life in your new country. This New Year’s luck will travel with you.”
“The village will always be my home, Grandmother.”
“And I will always be here. With your father and your grandfather. Always.”
They had climbed the mountain together on the eve of the New Year. Carried offerings to the family graves in a small clearing surrounded by trees and bushes. Min knew what she meant.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure to find my mother soon. I can help her pay off anything that is left and then we’ll come back. Perhaps we’ll bring you a big coat to keep you warm next winter.”
“I have had good fortune in my life,” she told him. “I have never made long journeys.”
CHAPTER THREE
Muddy Trousers
River Stour, Suffolk, Friday 13 April 2007
Skye was weaving. Donny had made her a wooden frame for Christmas and she always had some piece of work under construction. Her latest project was shredding his outgrown clothes and ravelling them up again into an extra bed cover.
“Doh,” she said with a glowing smile. Then she signed to ask him how his trousers had got so wet?
Great Aunt Ellen was there too, not at all pleased at the dirt he was bringing in.
“To the scuppers with you, Sinbad. At the double. Tea’ll be ready when you’re sluiced down.”
She stood up as she spoke. She wasn’t a tall woman. Donny backed away and went up on deck to begin cleaning himself. Whatever your state of emotional meltdown you didn’t argue with Gold Dragon when you’d tramped mud down her companionway.
Skye followed him. She brought a clean pair of jeans and a bucket. There was a thin rope tied to the bucket’s handle. She swung it confidently over the junk’s high side then let it trail in the river until it filled with saltwater. She could get the worst of the dirt off that way before she or her aunt sailed the week’s washing down to the marina laundrette.
“Doh?”
“I have to draw my father for Art homework,” he signed, grumpily. “So I need to know who he is. And don’t tell me he’s Kwasind, the North Wind, or anyone like that because my drawing skills aren’t up to it. I’m old enough now. I want facts, not stories.”
The lanyard dropped from her hand and Donny had to grab a boat hook to retrieve the bucket before it filled completely and sunk.
“Father?” she signed.
He had to put the bucket down and disengage the boat hook before he could sign back. It wasn’t like he’d been a virgin birth for god’s sake. Maybe she’d been drunk.
“My other half. The fifty percent of me that I don’t have a name for. The person I possibly even resemble? Because – love you, Mum – but nobody would guess that I was your child from looking at us, would they?”
She had dark hair and a coppery skin: he was sandy-haired, grey-eyed, pale. She was big-built: he was wiry.
How could he have said that? He hadn’t even known that it was what he thought. He didn’t think it. Couldn’t. His anger was completely gone, replaced by tears that hurt him to cry. He was in Skye’s arms, clinging to her.
“Mum,” he wanted to say, “I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry.”
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t use his hands to sign because he was holding his mother’s solid, utterly familiar and beloved body as if he were a drowning person.
Skye hugged him back. Then, very carefully, still holding him close, she sat them both down on t
he cabin roof. She pulled her head back, breathed deeply.
“Er-mann,” she articulated, as if from way down buried and dark. “Er-mann.”
A man? Her man?
That was the one bit he could probably have figured out for himself! Poor Mum. She hadn’t been to normal school. Maybe she’d never had Sex Ed? Maybe Granny Edith hadn’t got round to telling her the facts ... and someone had like ... well ... forced her? He wished again that he hadn’t asked.
His mum existed every day like a flightless eagle on a ledge. Poised above chasms of panic and darkness. She was different. She was an artist. She loved him. He loved her. He couldn’t bear to think ...
“ ’S okay, mum. We’re okay. Who needs dads? I’ll find someone else for homework.”
He wouldn’t tell her about Flint’s Initiative for the Fatherless. That was Monday: this was Friday evening.
Skye had stopped embracing him; stopped trying to speak words. Instead she was signing directly into his muddy hand – in the complicated private way that they’d developed when he was very small.
“His name was Hermann. But I lost him. Old Nokomis never saw ... she didn’t know. And then it was too late.”
“Huh?”
He pulled back so he could stare as well as sign. This wasn’t one of her stories.
“Hermann?” he repeated. “My father’s name is Hermann. A real name. Hermann who? Where did you meet him? Why didn’t he stay?”
Facts, questions, real names.
“I lost him,” she repeated. “Then it was too late.”
There was desolation in the shape of her brown hands, every bit as eloquent as the quiver of a speaking voice.
“We travelled home with you inside. Smallest of the sprouting seeds. I didn’t know. But then we loved you, Doh. How we loved you! And Hermann ... would have loved you.”
“Except he didn’t the chance because he didn’t know I’d been conceived.”
So, that was it. He was an unplanned souvenir from a holiday romance. But the way she lingered over his father’s name sounded ... as if she’d really liked him.
