Sam and Chester

by Jo Bailey

  I didn’t have the courage to say what I was also thinking: no one is going to want to take on my autistic son.

  Leslie threw her arms around me and gave me a squeeze. ‘What rubbish, that’s not going to happen.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked, tears streaming down my cheeks by now. I felt like a little child asking her mum for all the answers.

  ‘A beautiful woman like you will be snapped up soon!’ She gave me another squeeze.

  But in my heart of hearts it wasn’t my single status that was really getting me down. It was the fear of being a single mum to Sam, and the knowledge of how challenging Sam’s autism could become, that was terrifying me now. I couldn’t see how anyone would want to take us on as a package and I was worried that I wouldn’t be strong enough to cope on my own; that I wouldn’t be enough for Sam.

  Leslie’s encouragement, like that of my family, was hugely appreciated, but it didn’t stop me from becoming an emotional wreck. The slightest thing would set me off and start the tears welling in my eyes, such as Will putting a flannel down the toilet. It was just another thing to deal with and when things like that happened, I would physically feel the stress grip my body. I would have to stop what I was doing and remember to breathe – it was almost like having a panic attack. It’s silly, really, because there are loads of mums out there with difficult children, but I wasn’t coping very well at all.

  In truth, Will was probably behaving so mischievously because he had lost his playmate. He would entertain himself now, as if Sam didn’t exist. Will would even crawl over Sam, like he was just another bit of the furniture. And that’s exactly what Sam had become as he spent hours lying lifelessly on the sofa. Only one thing seemed to give him any spark of life: drawing. One day he picked up a blue felt-tip pen and drew a huge smiley sun with eyes and ears on it. He had never drawn anything before and the huge smile on the sun’s face gave me a faint glimmer of hope; a rare highlight in those dark days (I still have that drawing in a frame today). From that moment on, Sam’s drawing became more and more a part of his life, but he didn’t draw that often. He spent most of his time zoned out, not interacting with the world – not with me, not with my mum, and definitely not with his brother, who had seemed to cut all ties and dismissed Sam entirely as he charged about the house. It was all too evident that one of my sons was blossoming while the other was wilting.

  I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I turned to wine to numb the pain. Towards the end of the day, I was so exhausted and so down that I would have a glass or two to calm my nerves. I’d relax and then I’d have another one, and then another one . . . and the next thing I knew I’d had a whole bottle. Never more than that, and I never drank spirits – always a rosé wine called Peñascal. Life in Spain was very much about drinking in the sunshine, so when you are used to socialising with wine, it’s easy to turn to it when things go wrong. I wouldn’t be the first frazzled mum to hit the bottle, but my own mum was quick to pull me back from the brink.

  It was a Saturday afternoon when she realised how very low I’d become; we’d all just been to the supermarket in Torremolinos. Sam had been quiet and withdrawn throughout the trip to the shops, while Will had been as inquisitive as ever, wanting to pick all the fruit and vegetables out of the buckets and touch everything and anything. We were all worn out by the end.

  ‘Let’s go get a coffee,’ Mum said, pointing to the cafe across the street.

  It was a very traditional-looking place with brightly coloured ceramic tiles. There were jugs mounted on the walls, chorizo hanging above the counter and Spanish music playing. The waitress was just a little curt as she told me that Will’s pushchair was in the way . . .

  I burst into tears. Mum looked at me the same way she had looked at Sam two years ago, out of the corner of her eye, shaking her head with worry and concern.

  ‘Oh, Jo, we’ve got to get you sorted out.’ She cupped her hand over mine.

  ‘I just don’t know what to do,’ I cried. ‘Sam can’t cope with being in school, the school won’t help him, I have no real idea if what I’m doing is making him better or worse, and I’m scared. I’m so scared.’

  My mum could see that I was close to breaking point. Rather than telling me simply to get a grip, however, she helped me through the worst of it by looking after me. And she wasted not a minute before sending in the troops.

  The first thing my mum did was to get her cleaner to blitz my house from top to bottom – and just having my house spruced up gave me a massive lift. Mum appeared at my house with bags full of groceries. She also sent me over to her best friend, Fran, for a pick-me-up.

  Fran lived in the UK most of the time, but she had a gorgeous penthouse holiday home on the beach. She loved the sun-and-sangria lifestyle of the Mediterranean. Like my mum, Fran, who was in her sixties, always looked immaculate. She was mad about fashion and loved make-up and clothes. Her outfits were always ironed, her hair was always perfectly coiffed and her nails always manicured. She put me to shame! Fran also has the most magnetic personality – really vivacious, full of laughter – and is the sort of woman who brightens a room when she walks into it. When she talks to you, she is so interested and asks loads of questions – she really knows how to make you feel special.

  I took the boys with me to see her and we all sat out on the terrace. Fran had put on a lovely spread with champagne and salmon bites. She could tell I was really down, especially when I shared my fears about the future. ‘This is it for me,’ I mumbled glumly into my champagne flute.

  ‘Right!’ She suddenly stood up, her highlighted chestnut hair bouncing with her. Fran wasn’t the sort of woman who cried into her pillow at night and she was determined to ensure that I wouldn’t be either.

  ‘We are going to get you a new wardrobe,’ she declared, and directed me towards her bedroom. Fran started pulling out dresses, tops, bikinis, and throwing them across her perfectly ironed bedsheets. She told me that I could keep anything I liked: here was my brand-new wardrobe. It was so generous of her.

  And not only did she do that for me, but when I emerged from her bedroom after trying on all her clothes, she had a hamper waiting by the door, full of wine, cheese, biscuits – even nappies. She probably knew I was struggling, so it was incredibly kind and thoughtful of her.

  Being around her gave me the lift I needed – and the confidence to say ‘yes’ when one of my other neighbours, Barbara, asked me if I’d go on a blind date with a man she knew. By then it was July 2007 and Jaime had been gone for nine long months – and in fact, our relationship towards the end had been so distant that I felt I’d been on my own for twice that time – so I was more than ready for this next step. The man was called Darren, he was British and he worked on the oil rigs. That’s all I knew about him when Mum dropped me off to meet him in the square in Benalmádena Pueblo.

  ‘I’m so nervous,’ I said, buttoning up my white cardigan. I was wearing one of Fran’s dresses – a purple Grecian-style sundress – and was suddenly worried it was a bit revealing for a first date.

  ‘You’ve got a beautiful figure, go and show it off,’ Mum said as she batted my hands away from my chest. I took a deep breath and opened the car door. Given it was the height of summer, I was grateful for the sea breeze that swept through the village.

  I’d seen a picture of Darren, so I knew who to look out for as I approached the tables and chairs scattered outside Fidel’s, a beautiful little seafood and meat restaurant where we’d arranged to meet. My heart was beating hard as the usual first-date questions filled my head: will Darren like me? Have I worn the wrong dress? Should I have worn more make-up? My critical thoughts were interrupted as a tall, athletic man rose up from behind a table.

  ‘You must be Darren,’ I said with a shy smile, recognising him from his photograph.

  ‘That’s me.’ He grinned back, his soft Yorkshire accent coming through even in those two short words.

  I was so nervous that I must have been babbling at a hundred miles
an hour, as well as playing with my hair and pulling at my cardigan. But I didn’t think I was alone in my nerves as Darren also looked worried. Indeed, he suddenly blurted out: ‘You’re really disappointed, aren’t you?’

  ‘No!’ I was taken aback. He was a really good-looking man, tall, muscly – a silver fox. It was something of a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling insecure, though; perhaps we were more alike than I knew.

  One of the great things about where I lived in Spain was being able to spend so much time outdoors: it meant you were forever exposed to a wonderful array of scents. As Darren and I dined, the smells of mimosa, jasmine and the sea wafted over us, helping to calm our nerves and relax us into our conversation.

  Over a plateful of tapas, Darren told me how he worked half the year on the oil rigs as a safety officer and spent the other half at his house in Valencia. He was a year older than me, he had a teenage daughter with his ex-wife, and he would soon be returning to South Korea, where he was building a ship for the next oil excavation. With unforgiving work rotas, he explained that it was hard for him to meet someone. I was fascinated by his stories of life on the rigs, dicing with death, but Darren was much more interested in finding out about me.

  Having a man offer to listen to me was a new experience, and I found myself opening up to Darren. I broke every rule in the dating book and told him my life story. I described what had happened with Jaime, and revealed I had a son who had autism. If I’m honest, I thought that as soon as I told Darren I had a child with special needs, he would run for the hills, so I wanted to get it out in the open straight away.

  But Darren didn’t seem the least bit fazed. He was so calm and rational and, above all, kind and decent. It was a pleasure to be spending the evening with him.

  We had a laugh, too; so much so that I didn’t even notice we were the last people sitting on the terrace at Fidel’s. I found I was glad of the solitude, though, when Darren leaned over to kiss me. I kissed him back, but I didn’t let my emotions run away with me. For as much as I liked him, I wasn’t ready for a full-on new relationship just yet. My focus had to be on Sam.

  As we said goodnight, Darren mentioned that he couldn’t wait to set up another date for when he was back from Korea.

  ‘Just give me time,’ I said, a little hesitantly, reluctant to set a date so far in the future – Darren would be away for months – but equally worried that he would be put off by my desire to take things slowly.

  ‘Take as much time as you need,’ he said, understandingly.

  As I hailed a taxi, I experienced something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Hope.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Back in the Ring

  ‘YOUR SON HAS been reported to the headmaster.’

  ‘What for?’ I stared at my friend, the dinner lady, in disbelief.

  She told me that Sam had attacked the boy sitting next to him in the dinner hall, scratching his face, before ripping a framed painting from the wall and hurling it at the staff who had rushed to separate the children. I clasped my hand over my mouth, struggling to believe what I was hearing: firstly, because it was so completely out of character for Sam – he was usually very placid – and secondly because only the previous day I had pleaded with his teacher to keep him out of the dining hall. I had said before that the noise of three hundred children was too much for him to cope with; it must have sounded like thunderclaps to his sensitive little ears, those really loud ones which come out of nowhere and are right above you and make you jump out of your skin with shock. The sensory overload was causing him to lash out, much like a frightened animal does when it’s cornered. I was starting to realise that he couldn’t cope with being pushed to these limits.

  ‘Is the other boy OK?’ I checked.

  ‘The other boy is fine, but his father has made a complaint to the headmaster.’ She raised her eyebrow.

  I felt like the talk of the playground as all the other mums came to collect their children. One mum steered her child away from Sam as she whispered something under her breath. I just wanted to get Sam out of there as quickly as possible. I felt awful for him, my poor boy. But Sam didn’t notice the stares. He was staring at the ground, lost in his own little world as usual – it was hard to believe what had just happened.

  I found myself becoming increasingly angry as I drove back down the mountain. I smacked the steering wheel in annoyance and, as I glanced in the rear-view mirror, the sight of my boys brought with it the now-familiar sensation of tears pricking at my eyes. Yet they weren’t tears of upset, but of frustration. Sam’s teachers just didn’t seem to be listening to my advice about how to help him. Sam needed to have his visual aids to guide him through the day. He needed to be somewhere quiet – he should never have been in that dining hall in the first place. It sometimes felt like I was hitting my head against a brick wall trying to show the school what he needed. And I felt guilty too. What Sam must be going through, I thought, to make him do something like that, to lash out at the world when normally he ignored it . . . I was his mum, I wanted to protect him from any kind of hurt or upset. But I couldn’t help but feel that no matter what I did, I was failing.

  By the time we got home, I had worked myself into a real state and immediately ran to the phone.

  This time, the first person I called was not my mum, but Darren.

  We’d been emailing every day for the past month, ever since he’d left for Korea, and he’d become a constant in my life. No problem seemed too great for him; he was always ready to offer kindness and support – as a friend, with no expectation of anything more.

  ‘Hello?’ He sounded half asleep and his voice was gravelly.

  I was so overwhelmed with what had just happened, I’d completely forgotten the time difference – it was 11 p.m. in South Korea.

  ‘Oh my goodness, Darren, I’m so sorry,’ I said apologetically.

  ‘It’s no bother,’ Darren replied as he cleared his throat.

  As I had been so many times in the past month, I was touched by his understanding. We barely knew each other yet he was prepared to get up for me, and my problems, really late at night. I wouldn’t have bothered him if I hadn’t felt so utterly helpless, though. I just didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I felt trapped.

  ‘There’s only one thing you can do,’ he said, having listened to the drama of Sam lashing out in the dining hall and my concerns about the sensory overload he was enduring every single lunchtime. ‘You’ll have to change your work hours and take him home for lunch.’

  Just like that – he solved it.

  It must have seemed like the most obvious solution to an outsider but I was so caught up in all the turmoil that I couldn’t think clearly. I needed a problem-solver like Darren to show me the way.

  My boss, my sister’s ex-husband, was incredibly understanding and agreed to me having the afternoons off work. And as soon as Sam started coming home for lunch, he improved. He was calm and content as he ate his sandwiches at the kitchen table. Sam still had the noise and disorder of the classroom to contend with, but at least he didn’t have to deal with the mayhem of the dining hall at lunchtime any more.

  I’d overcome a small hurdle, and it was thanks to Darren.

  Every day we chatted on Messenger. We’d usually be in contact around lunchtime in Spain because of the seven-hour time difference and then Darren and I would put the world to rights. There were many moments when I felt down but Darren was always there to cheer me up. He even listened to me cry when Jaime filed for divorce that same summer. I wasn’t shedding tears because I wanted my husband back, but more because of the finality of it all. Nine years together, but now it was over.

  Darren made sense of my muddled thoughts. He would reassure me that things would look different after I’d had a chance to sleep on them and that a new day always brought a fresh start. It was comforting, and for the first time in my life I felt like I could really put my trust in a man.

  Darren gave me
the strength and conviction to decide what I had to do next. It wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to call on all of my courage for it was a decision that would take my boys away from everything they had known up until now.

  But I had no alternative: I needed to bring my sons back to England where I could find the medical and educational provisions to help Sam.

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy breaking the news to my mum and sister. We had all made our lives in Spain, and now I was breaking up the party. We were all sat around the dining-room table at my sister’s house when the time came to tell them. I nursed a cup of tea between my hands as I struggled to find the words. In the end, I just came out with it.

  ‘I’m moving back to England. Spain can’t give Sam the help he desperately needs,’ I blurted in one breath.

  My mum seemed OK; maybe she had been half expecting the news. My sister, on the other hand, didn’t hold back.

  ‘No, you can’t!’ she cried out.

  I explained that it wasn’t an easy decision because I didn’t want to leave my family behind. I didn’t want to separate the boys from their cousins because they were like brothers, but what choice did I have?

  Sarah turned to look at Will, Sam, Tom and Dan. ‘You have to remember that the boys love each other – Sam will be fine because they all love him,’ she announced confidently.

  It was a convincing argument, but once I’d left my sister’s house I knew that my head had to rule my heart. Family simply wasn’t enough. After all, I loved Sam desperately, but all the love in the world couldn’t protect him and make things right for him. I knew that the best thing for Sam was to be in England.

  Darren was 100 per cent in favour of the move. He told me he wanted to carry on our blossoming relationship wherever in the world I was. Perhaps because he was so used to travelling long distances, an extra few thousand miles between us didn’t really make much difference. The strength and support I got from Darren was all very new to me – and it felt wonderful.