by Adam Baron
There was no answer. I tried again.
‘Mum?’
‘Oh,’ she said from the other side of the door. ‘Hi, Cymbeline. Listen, champ, I’m not feeling very well, okay?’
‘Oh. Can I get you anything?’
‘No, that’s all right, love. A bit of a headache. I put a pizza in the oven. Is it okay if you take it out when the bell goes and have it for supper?’
‘On my own?’
‘Yes, love.’
‘All right,’ I said.
‘You know how to do that, don’t you?’
‘With oven gloves.’
‘And turn the oven off. Then there’s ice cream in the freezer. Remember to push the little door shut tight, won’t you?’
‘Okay.’
‘And then …’
‘Yes, Mum?’
‘Can you tuck yourself up into bed? Clean your teeth first.’
‘All right.’
‘And I’ll come out then and give you a kiss goodnight.’
‘All right,’ I said again. She never did, though. I left the pizza in too long and it was black round the edges. I ate the middle. The ice-cream tub was wedged into the freezer compartment so tightly that I couldn’t pull it out. I had a yoghurt instead. And two chocolate biscuits. And another two chocolate biscuits. And a small packet of Haribos. I cleaned my teeth and had a wee, even though Mum hadn’t reminded me to do that, and then I had just one more chocolate biscuit. And then I cleaned my teeth again and lay in bed waiting for her. She always kisses me goodnight. Always, even if I’ve done something I perhaps, maybe, should not have, and she’s just spent half an hour doing LOUD at me.
But not that night.
I called out for her, and then went out on to the landing and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. Or come out.
I went back to bed, sure that I’d never fall asleep, though I did in the end. I know that because I had a dream, a really horrible one, like what had happened to me that day, though the water wasn’t blue and shiny but brown and dirty and cold, and it went in my throat and eyes and I was turning over and over until I was spat out awake. It was terrible, believe me, though nothing compared to waking up the next morning. That was way worse, because of what I found out then.
My mum wasn’t crying any more.
And she wasn’t shut up in her bedroom.
My mum was gone.
Lance once asked me a question. We were in the hall doing PE, something I’d been looking forward to all week, but which turned out to be terrible. We were starting Year 3 then with Mr Ashe, who I happen to know is a boss footballer. He coaches the Year 6 team and we sometimes interrupt our Year 4 Saturday-morning training to watch their matches. Before every game he does kick-ups and catches the ball on the back of his neck while the Year 6 kids all groan. So I thought PE would be a chance to improve and perhaps even overtake Danny Jones. But it wasn’t. That term, Mr Ashe explained, as we lined up near the wall bars, we would not be doing football. Or rugby. Not even netball, which would at least have involved a ball. Instead we were going to be doing gymnastics, and if you don’t think that’s terrible it means you are probably a girl (though if you’re not, BIG SORRY AND RESPECT). The girls all squealed with delight, and soon I could see why.
Now I have to admit something. I like girls as much as the next boy, and maybe a little bit more, but I’d always thought that when it came to sport girls just weren’t quite as good. That day I found out that I was wrong. Hardly had the words left Mr Ashe’s lips than I was staring in mouth-wide amazement as girl after girl did the most incredible things. Laura Pinter did a cartwheel that was just like a real wheel going round, especially when she kept going and did three in a row. Rachel Jones then did another one but sort of twisted round halfway in the air so that she ended up on two feet, facing the way she’d come, her arms pointing up to the ceiling.
Wow! It looked so easy but when I tried I just got tangled up. The other boys were the same, looking like rejects from a toy factory, the ones that didn’t work right. The girls were smug too, standing up straighter than they normally did and raising their chins as they walked back to start again. In contrast, our own rubbish-ness was sort of humiliating, though there was one moment I did enjoy. Vi Delap did this thing that I simply COULD NOT believe. She stood straight and bent over backwards, reaching up and behind her. In less than a second she’d put her hands on the floor into a bridge, and then flicked her feet over so that she was standing up again. Billy Lee saw her and tried himself. The very loud echo, when his head connected with the wooden floor, is still one of my Top Five Sounds Of All Time.
‘Cymbeline,’ Lance said, sitting down beside me and rubbing his elbow. And his knee. And then his bum. He looked miserable, though I didn’t think it came from the gymnastics. ‘Where did you get your name from?’
‘My name?’
‘Yeah. I mean, I always thought it was normal because it’s what you’re called, isn’t it?’
‘So why don’t you think it’s normal now?’
‘Well, my dad –’
‘Wait, Lance. Is this your dad-dad you mean, or your new-dad?’
‘My new-dad. I told him you were my best friend and he thought you were a girl. When I told him you weren’t, he laughed a bit and told me he’d never heard that name before and it must be because I went to ‘that kind of school’. He didn’t tell me what ‘that kind of school’ was because my mum came in. So where did you get it from?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
‘I suppose,’ Lance said. ‘Though my name’s not as weird as yours. I’ve never met another Cymbeline but there’s another Lance in this school. And another kid called Lance in me and my dad’s cycling club.’
‘Your dad-dad?’
‘My dad-dad.’
‘But still, if you ask me, I can ask you. Why are you called Lance?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s my dad,’ Lance explained.
‘Your dad-dad?’
‘Yeah, my dad-dad. He says I shouldn’t say. Or, if I do say, I have to say that it’s just a random name. I’m definitely not named after Lance Armstrong.’
‘Lance who?’
‘Never mind. But why are you called Cymbeline?’
‘Because of my dad,’ I said.
‘Your dead-dad?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Was he called Cymbeline?’
‘No, his own parents did not inflict that on him. His name was David.’
‘So …?’
‘Mum says he was an actor and that when she met him he was in this play by Shakespeare. Cymbeline. So they called me it.’
‘What’s the play about?’
‘No idea.’
‘You never asked your mum?’
‘Yes, and she told me. She even took me to see it.’
‘Well then.’
‘Have you seen Shakespeare? I’ve still no idea. It was impossible to understand and anyway we didn’t stay to the end.’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s this line in it. “Fear no more the heat of the sun.” It comes when there are people on the ground who are dead but you can still see them breathing. When this king dude said the line my mum just grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the theatre and took me home.’
I didn’t tell Lance that, once again, she’d cried when she’d done that. She cried all the way back. She put me to bed and the tears rolled into my hair as she clung on to me.
‘I hate my name,’ Lance said, as Marcus Breen did a forward roll into the piano.
‘Why?’
‘It’s Lance … who I can’t mention. He was a cycling hero but now he’s this super giant cheater, and I’ve got to wear his name forever.’
‘I know how you feel,’ I’d said, though now, waking up, it wasn’t my name that bothered me. That was a burden I’d always had to carry. Now there was something bigger, heavier, and I couldn’t get away fro
m it. My dad. You’d think being dead would be the best way to leave someone alone, wouldn’t you? But my dad being dead was something even more real than if he’d been alive. It never used to feel like that, but now it did. And my mum felt it too. I could see that. My dad being dead was so big for her, a huge thing. It was so heavy that she couldn’t put it down. And so heavy that she didn’t have the strength to carry me any more, as well as it.
Uncle Bill was sitting on my bed when I woke up the next morning. He was smiling, but only with his mouth. The rest of him wasn’t smiling at all.
I blinked, amazed and delighted to see Bill, as he’s loads of fun, though at first I was worried that he’d see Mr Fluffy. At school I deny the existence of Mr Fluffy, something I have to apologise to him for later. When Lance comes round for sleepovers I hide him underneath my pillow. Lance has got a purple cat that I pretend not to see when he shoves it down his sleeping bag.
Fortunately Mr Fluffy was out of sight somewhere, probably beneath the duvet, though that didn’t make me feel any less worried. Uncle Bill’s expression was weird. And we only ever see him at weekends – so what was he doing here now?
‘Where’s Mum?’ I said.
Uncle Bill scratched his beard. It’s black, with this little clump of white below his mouth, like he’s been eating a cream cake. You keep wanting to wipe it off. It maybe explains why he keeps having different girlfriends and is never able to get one to marry him so that he can have a kid like me.
‘It’s just for a few days.’
‘What is?’ I said.
Uncle Bill sighed. ‘She’s not very well, Cym. Your mum.’
I remembered what she’d said to me yesterday. ‘Has she still got her headache?’
‘Sort of. So she’s gone away,’ Uncle Bill said.
‘What?’
‘She’s gone away, Cym.’
‘Because of a headache?’
‘Sort of. Though …’
‘She’s in a hospital?’
‘Yes. A … hospital.’
‘For people with headaches, or other things too?’
‘Mostly headaches. But it won’t be for long. A few days. Just till she’s better, okay, champ?’
I stared at Uncle Bill and then I jumped out of bed. I ran into Mum’s room, not because I didn’t believe him but because I had to see for myself. That she’d gone. She’s my mum, after all. But he was right. Mum’s room was empty. Not empty empty, as there were lots of things in it, but empty of her. So really, really empty, all of her stuff just standing there, almost looking embarrassed.
Her duvet was creased up and it reminded me of the dream I’d had. Brown water, all choppy and angry, twisting round upon itself. It made me swallow so I turned round and went back out to the landing.
Uncle Bill put his arm over my shoulder and interfered with my hair.
‘Chin up,’ he said.
Now, at this point, I’m wondering what you out there in Reading Land are thinking. Perhaps it is ‘OUCH, the poor kid. It wasn’t like he was overly blessed with parents to begin with and now he’s down to NONE. That’s four–nil to Lance (at least until Cym’s mum gets better).’ But maybe you’re not. ‘Hold on,’ you might be thinking. ‘This Uncle Bill chap is clearly a dude. He bought our Cymbeline a Scalextric set, don’t forget. So maybe Cym is about to get some extra stuff from this Uncle Bill, to make up for the fact that his mum’s gone totally zipwire.’ Well, if you are thinking that, then in a small sense you are right. Uncle Bill led me downstairs and asked what I normally have for breakfast.
‘KitKats.’
‘Really?’
‘On Tuesdays. They’re my Tuesday breakfast.’
I’m not sure he believed me, but he let me have a couple anyway. Something must have happened to them, though, because they didn’t taste very good. I didn’t even finish the second one. Uncle Bill poured me a glass of milk and then looked up at the wall clock.
‘Better get dressed.’
‘What should I wear?’
He frowned. ‘School uniform. Yesterday’s will be fine, though you’ll need to find some pants and socks.’
‘Oh. We’re not going to see her then? In hospital?’
Uncle Bill took a breath. ‘Maybe later. I’m not sure. After school. Perhaps. I have to find out, Cym, okay?’
Okay?! That was the last word I was going to agree with. How could he possibly ask me if anything was okay? I didn’t argue, though. I just shrugged and went to get dressed. When I was done we left the house and Uncle Bill turned to me.
‘How do you normally get to school?’
‘Taxi,’ I said, though this time he wasn’t buying it and he took me off to the bus stop.
It’s weird. Yesterday, the worst, most terrible and embarrassing thing in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD had happened. But, as we got off the bus and walked across the heath to my school, it was nowhere. I wasn’t thinking about it. I’d been pushed into a swimming pool. The entire class had seen me without anything on. And that wasn’t everything. Oh no, it actually got much worse. We hadn’t just gone back to school after the pool. Instead Miss Phillips had called my mum to come and get me. Mum cycled to the pool from Messy Art and went nuclear. Everyone stared in amazement as she screamed at Miss Phillips and the man in the red polo shirt for not looking after me properly. She glared at the kids, demanding to know who had pushed me in. Billy Lee went white as paper. I just stood there, aware that this would be news for weeks, months, even forever, a school legend that would be passed on from year to year until, eventually, my own children would run home from school and tell me all about THE NUDE KID WITH THE CRAZY MUM. But now I didn’t care. There was a huge hollowness deep inside me that made everything else seem trivial. My. Mum. Was. Gone. She’d never gone, not ever. It was her and me, always. I felt empty, sucked out, and when I saw Lance pushing his bike in through the school gates I realised something else. He’d asked me a simple question about swimming and I’d lied to him. I’d said I was really good. Because of that I’d ended up at the bottom of the swimming pool and because of that, my mum had somehow got ill. So ill she’d had to go to the hospital.
So it was all my fault.
Uncle Bill started to say goodbye but I shook my head.
‘I’m not going in. I’m going to see my mum.’
‘Cym …’
‘I’m going to see my mum,’ I said again. ‘And nothing’s going to stop me.’
At that, Uncle Bill sighed and he did this open-mouthed thinking thing. Then he made some calls, said ‘thank you’ a lot, and I knew he was talking to work. Uncle Bill is the head of a charity that looks after vulnareb … vulnorib … vulenerob … people who need help. He’s like super busy doing that but he seemed to have sorted things out as he gave me a thumbs-up, before going into his phone again. This next conversation didn’t go as well. He got a bit cross and, even though he turned away from me, I heard him say things like, ‘We both have to help,’ and, ‘Last time, you didn’t do a thing, did you?’ But eventually he seemed to have sorted out whatever it was and he put his arm round my shoulder.
‘Come on then,’ he said. We walked up the little hill from school and I pretended not to see Veronique Chang getting out of her mum’s Volvo.
‘Cymbeline!’ she called out.
‘Cym?’ Uncle Bill said, when I ignored Veronique. ‘Aren’t you going to …?’
‘Not me,’ I said. ‘Different boy. There’s a Cymbeline in Year Five.’
‘Oh,’ Uncle Bill said, and we walked off to the train station.
It didn’t take long. Four stops from Blackheath to somewhere called Welling. Good name for a place with a hospital, I thought. We got off the train and walked down this long high street past a Cancer Research and a Mencap. Mum would probably have dragged me into both of them. We’re always going in charity shops, for books and coats and stuff. Christmas cards in January, because she likes to be prepared. Last summer she bought this dress from the Oxfam in Blackheath Village. She loved it and
was all smiley when she wore it, though on the heath after school one day Billy Lee’s mum told her that she had one just like it.
‘Well, I used to have,’ she said. And then she did this loud sniggering laugh, and Mum went red. She doesn’t wear it any more.
After going past a Greggs that smelled of sausage rolls we turned into some side streets. Uncle Bill didn’t need a map or anything and that made me frown.
‘Have you been here before?’
Uncle Bill looked annoyed with himself. I don’t think he meant to give that away.
‘You have, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘To see my mum?’ He nodded. ‘Has she been in this hospital before?’ He nodded again and I nodded back. It probably happened in that weird time Mum sometimes speaks about: BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. An odd time that, interesting in a way, though not particularly relevant to anything. ‘Before I was …?’
‘No, Cym. When you were a baby.’
‘And Mum went into hospital? Who looked after me?’
‘I did.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and my insides felt strange. It was shaky to hear that Mum had been in hospital before, but knowing Uncle Bill had looked after me made me feel shy, and warm inside. I put my hand in his and he squeezed it.
‘Did I visit her?’
‘I took you every day.’
‘So was she in there for quite a while? How long’s she going to be in this time?’ I had a terrible thought. ‘She WILL be out for my birthday, won’t she?’
Uncle Bill looked caught out again and, suddenly, very serious. But he answered with nothing more than a shrug, and led me down some more side streets until we were walking towards the gates of a soggy-looking park.
‘Wait,’ I said, before we got there.
There was a greengrocer’s outside the park with fruit all piled up. There were flowers too, in a bucket. I led Uncle Bill towards it and picked some – red ones, Mum’s favourite colour. Uncle Bill handed them to the lady and she put paper round them. Bill gave her a fiver, which I said I’d give him back from my money box, and he gave them to me to hold. We walked into the park and I saw some swings and a duck pond, and an old-looking building over on the far side. When Uncle Bill looked at it I knew that was where we were going and I had a picture of Mum in her bed, with lots of other ladies in a row. She’d have her favourite nightie on and a bandage round her head for the headache. Mum would sit up, beaming, when she saw me. We’d put the flowers in a vase. The first thing she’d say was of course she’d be out by Saturday. I’d get my spellings out and we’d go through them like we always did on Tuesday mornings and Mum would try not to giggle at some of the answers I gave. She’d tell the other ladies I was her little champion. She’d kiss me and I’d say, ‘Get well soon,’ and then I’d be really careful not to hurt her head when I hugged her goodbye. She’d wave at me through the window when we left – her special boy.
