Rocks in the Belly

by Jon Bauer

  She asks me a little about myself and I watch Mum hang on my answers.

  ‘I’d better get on,’ Nursey says eventually, ‘I’m running behind, as usual,’ and she bends over to open her case. Big arse. Not just big though, nice and big.

  ‘I’d best leave you two to it then,’ I say, Mum having caught me gawking.

  ‘No, stay. It’ll be better if you know the things to watch for. You don’t mind if he stays, do you, Mary.’

  She unwraps a compact blood-pressure machine then stops midway through rolling up Mum’s sleeve, gives a theatrical sigh. ‘I told you now, didn’t I,’ she says, tugging the rings off Mum’s fingers.

  I hadn’t noticed the rings — only half on, a load of swollen flesh backed up behind them. The nurse struggling to get them off and Mum shaking her head, earnest and sad, wanting to keep them on.

  ‘I know these are important to you, Mary, but the steroids will make you swell up. You want us to have to cut these gorgeous rings off you, do you?’ This stranger patronising what used to be my indomitable, all-powerful mother.

  While the blood-pressure machine whirs, Mum is sat there looking at the ring marks left behind on her fingers, the nurse sneaking glances at me, or doing her hair, pulling at her uniform as if she’s trying to get her body to feel like it fits her.

  She shines a light in Mum’s eyes, makes a note on a chart.

  The sound of the Velcro rip disturbs me from a funk, Mum rubbing her arm and smiling at the nurse even though her head’s down making a note and talking ‘… and if there’s anything Mary hates it’s taking her medication, don’t you, Mare?’

  The nurse ferrets around in her bag and comes back with a bound booklet, a picture of a car engine on the uppermost page. Mum’s irrepressible smile slipping a little. She sits back in her chair, looking down at her hands.

  ‘I know you hate this, Mary,’ she says and stands the booklet up on the tabletop, ‘but say the word for me, if you can.’

  She lets Mum sit staring at it, my chair creaking into the fidgety silence. Alfie snoring on the windowsill next to that chunk of mica rock glistening now in the sunshine. Mum looking at the picture, her brow knitted, mouth open.

  ‘Let her try the next one,’ I say and Nursey looks at me, flips the page to the next image — a corkscrew. Mum blank of words, her body burning with the wanting to say it. Knowing it maybe. Her mouth like a fish out of water.

  Whereas the nurse is in her element. She spends her days in the awkward quiet of illness, the way waiters and waitresses spend their day in that pause in conversation while they work the tables. Every job has its own brand of silence. Like the one just after shutdown at my work, as every inmate takes stock of another day of their incarcerated life.

  Like the silence between deflated lovers.

  ‘It’s ok, Mary. Try this one.’ And with every turn of the page the images become easier and easier until we’re down now to the simplest cartoon shapes. This one of a cat and Mum shrieks excitedly, pointing at Alfie, then puts her hand over her mouth to stop the demeaning release.

  ‘Alfie,’ I say brightly, trying to encourage her.

  ‘Oh, it’s Alfie is it?’ the nurse says. ‘I wondered what he was called. I asked you that, didn’t I, Mary. Didn’t I ask you that.’

  It seems that all questions to my mother are rhetorical now.

  ‘He’s a she,’ I say, through my teeth.

  ‘I thought so,’ she says, unruffled. ‘I said he looked like a she didn’t I, Mary. I said that.’

  ‘She’s not an idiot.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Maybe you could stop talking to her in that voice.’

  Again the nurse-face stays nailed on, the only leak being a slightly prolonged blink.

  ‘Your mum and I have been going just fine here in the time it took you to show up.’

  My chair groans as I push it quickly back and head outside, pacing the garden and thinking about cigarettes. I haven’t smoked one in three years, haven’t craved one this sincerely in months.

  When the nurse finally comes out I wander right up to her at the gate, all smiles. ‘Sorry but I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘Vicky.’

  ‘Vicky. Right. Sorry about that, in there. It’s just a bit of a shock, Mum being ill and everything.’ I tilt my head over and smile, watching what my proximity does to her.

  ‘Of course. You’re in unfamiliar territory. I understand. I haven’t done this job without developing a thick skin. It’s ok.’ She wants to go but I’m in front of the gate and she doesn’t seem so comfortable suddenly. She can’t hide behind her nurse status now. Out here she’s just a woman.

  I take a loose hold of her arm and her face turns down and away a little, starting to blush.

  ‘Vicky, I really appreciate what you’re doing for my mum.’ I’m close enough to smell her sweat. ‘Maybe you should make us your last appointment of the day next time? That way you and I might spend some time afterwards, if you’d like?’ And I give her that look.

  ‘Well, I …’ She laughs a little laugh. I release her and she grabs for the gate. ‘That’s awfully …’ She’s frowning at the latch now. ‘But I’ve got a full …’

  I lean in even closer in the process of lifting the gate and opening it barely enough for her to slide through. ‘Goodbye, Vicky!’ I’m grinning for the first time in days, watching the unflappable nurse flapping away.

  If I’m going to be stuck here, I’m going to need some entertainment.

  I give my shoes a thorough wipe on the doormat, whistling a tune. Mum isn’t in the house so I head through the kitchen and out into the back garden, the plum tree looking despondent as if nobody wants its fruit.

  Over near the shed is one of her shoes, lying on its side. That errant, repeatedly shoeless left foot of hers a reminder that your right brain is responsible for the left side of your body — the tumour eating its way through the right side of her brain.

  There she is, her right shoe on, a bruise spreading from a focal point on her left ankle. I shut my eyes to the idea of her stumbling out here confused and alone, the ankle rolling over and her hobbling away from the pain. That shoe left there on the lawn like a relic of who she used to be.

  She’s gazing up at the clouds, the light fading quickly around us. I watch her, half like she’s an alien, half like she’s a celebrity. It’s still so strange to see her again after all this time. Except she’s so diminutive now, standing there smiling up at the sky, looking for shapes in the clouds.

  The simplest, cleanest truths are uncertainties to her now. Her identity slipping from her like she’s locked in a ship’s cabin on high seas, her past sliding along polished tables and falling into pieces on the floor. Everything’s moving for her and she’s staggering about in there trying to hold on — straightening the memories hanging on one wall as they fall from another and smash. Almost familiar faces looking back at her from under broken glass.

  I join her in exposing my throat to the house and looking up at the sky, and it’s the sky off The Simpsons, with fleets of perfect-sized clouds making their way eastwards, where the weather goes. One of them looks like a pig with a quiff, leaping slowly over us. This was the family game after it was Robert’s game.

  I look to Mum to show her the pig but her face stops me. ‘What is it?’ I say, and she looks at me without recognition for a second then sniffs, wiping her eyes, glancing from me to the sky and then back again. ‘Is it Robert?’ I ask, and she breaks fully into tears.

  I traipse the distance and hold her, looking over her shoulders as they rock up and down, the smell of her hair reminding me of spying between the balustrades, and of hot baths and tea.

  ‘But you’ve forgotten so much.’

  Not him though.

  My eyes gaze out from the hug, staring at this familiar garden. This familiar heaviness. Familial. All of it reminding me of that part of myself I’ve worked so hard at leaving behind.

  And it’s frightening, because
if it pushed that eight-year-old as far as it did, what am I capable of at twenty-eight.

  6

  I don’t tell anyone at school and nobody knows except Mum and Dad, and Robert, but now I have to go to a psychologist. Dad says it’s like a check-up and most boys and girls have one and really it’s just like when the doctor holds your balls and tells you to cough, only it’s your brain.

  This is my first visit and Dad’s taking me. Next week Mum will, so they both get a turn at mending me.

  Robert says they might electrocute my head. I ask Mum and it ends up being the first time Robert’s got in trouble. I like that.

  I’m dressed up ready and my hair done and I’ve got my robot with me to stop me feeling anything. I go to Robert’s room where he is without any food and he calls me a snitch and says I’m crazy.

  ‘People with bad parents shouldn’t throw stones, Robert.’

  ‘Look at your bandaged hand, crazy boy. You look like a mad mummy.’

  ‘WELL, YOU … YOUR MUMMY’S MAD.’

  Dad’s waiting in the car and Mum doesn’t stop Robert and me fighting, just screams until he gets off me. I kick him and run out to Dad, my hand hurting and Mum coming after me with her scary lip.

  She starts shouting at Dad who’s just sitting in the car with the radio talking. From here it sounds like farting in the bath.

  ‘We’re living in a MADhouse.’

  Dad comes over to talk to her but she just kisses me hard on the forehead and says ‘Be good’ then slams the door so we’re both left on the step like Jehoover’s Witnesses.

  We reverse out of the drive with Dad’s gearbox whining like it always does. It doesn’t like going backwards. Robert has his head at my bedroom window to watch me leave. He isn’t allowed in my room! I squish my face at him as we pull away and he sort of crosses his eyes and pretends he’s getting electrocuted or having a fit.

  Sarah Loe from school had a fit in assembly once and suddenly there was a mess and she was writhing about in her own puddle and Mr Jones held her head and moved everyone away. Mrs Halmer didn’t notice and carried on playing the piano for ages. Mrs Hammer we call her. She’s bad at piano but she’s all we’ve got.

  Dad stops around the corner and I’m already holding the first aid kit and grinning so hard my ears moved.

  ‘Come on then, Sonny Jim.’ Which isn’t my name but I like the way his voice sounds when he says it. I clamber in and get to change gears and we sing along to the radio together and even though it’s up too loud for me to hear the engine I can still change gear on time by watching Dad’s knee on the clutch. I’m good. Lucky I didn’t burn my gear changing hand.

  Sometimes he pretends to push his knee as if he wants me to gear change but it’s just a red herring trick, and even though we’re on our way to the psychologist I still get the giggles every time.

  My tongue pokes out when I’m concentrating. Dad calls me Three Lips Macavoy when that happens. I imagine Three Lips Macavoy can concentrate very hard and is a private detective. And plays a mean saxophone.

  We park in the car park and I get the squishing snake in my stomach but Mr Gale the psychologist turns out to seem quite nice and not scary.

  Dad calls him Jaws afterwards, like the baddie out of The Spy Who Loved Me by James Bond.

  Dad calls Mr Gale Jaws because he has braces on his teeth even though he’s quite old. Dad says he must be vain, or maybe just a late developer and might still do a paper round too.

  Dad goes in to talk to Jaws first and leaves me in the waiting room. I can hear them talking but not what they’re saying.

  When they come out Mr Gale says hello again and asks about my burnt hand. It has a big bandage on it and a plastic protective cover.

  Jaws watches while Dad takes me into this big room with a desk and posh work stuff at one end and toys and things up the other. There’s a white line stuck to the carpet to divide the room up into two halves, the toy end and the posh office end. Plus there’s a big window of glass on one wall but you can’t see through it to anywhere and it isn’t a mirror properly either.

  Jaws watches while Dad explains to me only to play with certain toys and not to cross the taped line on the floor between the play bit and the work office bit. Then they leave me all alone but I’m not to worry cos they’re just next door.

  I get scared on my own but pretend I’m a robot. Mostly I play with my monster robot and don’t touch any of the psychologist toys because of all the crazy boys who must have touched them and Robert has been saying ‘Stay away from me or I’ll catch your crazy germs.’ I’m not crazy I don’t think but I don’t want to catch crazy germs off the other boys who come.

  It’s hard playing with only one hand but I like how Mum has to sit with me every day and change the dressing plus she’s a bit softer now as if the heat from my burn melted her.

  They say I’ll be scarred for life. Mum says she will too.

  Eventually Dad comes in and plays with me but he’s a bit funny and keeps looking at himself in the half mirror window.

  Afterwards we get to go and he takes me for fish and chips and I’m all happy I didn’t get my brain fried.

  The chip shop is always steamed up inside and the counter smells of vinegar. Plus we normally get to pinch a chip just after the man has salt and vinegared them but before he wraps them up. And they’re always so hot we chew them like a dog chews a marshmallow.

  I like the fish and chip shop except being here today with all the hot surfaces makes me scared my hand will get burnt again. I’m always getting these really big daydreams about bad things happening and they’re so real they make me jump.

  When the food is all wrapped and paid for Dad takes it off the counter and it always leaves a mark and I stay behind to watch the hot mark fade because if I don’t Mum and Dad will die.

  Then I run to catch Dad up and he’s pretending I’ve caught him with his face guzzling the package of food.

  We eat the fish and chips in the car by the park. I eat slower than usual cos I can only use one hand. When Dad’s finished his dinner he starts on mine and even holds my good hand so I can’t stop him. I love it when we get the giggles.

  From where we’re parked I can see the chemical plant chimney lights winking through the steamed up car windows. You can always see birds flying around in the light at night, ‘getting high on the chimney fumes,’ Dad says. I’m scared of the fumes but Mum says it’s just steam.

  He lets me change gear in the front all the way home and I only crunch once but that’s because he says Robert might be with us for quite a while and ‘maybe you’d like to start trying to get used to that.’

  He hits my hand off the gearstick because I try to put it in reverse instead of third and probably take a few teeth off the gearbox. Maybe it’ll need braces now too. He shouts at me. I climb out the business end and lie in the back. I’m full of food but empty, my fingers up close over my face and they smell of salt and vinegar or bedwetting.

  By the time we get home Dad has already forgiven me. He always forgives me really quickly and says that when it comes to me he’s like a forgetful goldfish.

  We get in the front door and there’s the smell of food in the oven and the table laid nicely and Dad hides the scrunched up fish and chip paper behind his back and she’s ‘gone to all this trouble for nothing.’

  Her and Dad go out and sit in the car and Mum’s behind the wheel and Robert and me spy from the upstairs window and watch their mouths moving really fast like they’re in a silent film.

  It’s already Tuesday and Mum’s turn to take me to see Jaws. Her and Dad haven’t spoken since last time I went. Dad says it’s another Cold War.

  Mum’s late and has to quickly stop off and do a hundred things on the way. I wait in the car and my tummy is snakier than last week.

  We’re running later now and she gets us lost and expects me to find it from going last week but I’d been singing and changing gear plus Dad knows his way round town from the days when he was a b
oy and helped out the milkman in return for milk.

  Whenever we go round town he can tell me what some of the buildings used to be or what was there before that building was there even. Or he’ll pretend to look dreamy and say, ‘I remember when all this was just fields.’

  He especially likes saying that when we’re way out of town and there are just fields.

  Mum is from a big city up north but Dad’s always lived here and says he always will. Mum makes a face when he’s sentimental about where we live. She calls our town Snoresville.

  It’s raining and I’m sitting in the back and Mum won’t look at me in the mirror but her face is stiffer. People always look more serious or sad when they think nobody’s looking, but tougher when they think they’re being looked at but are pretending they don’t know. A spy knows these things.

  Mum is talking and I’m watching the raindrops going horizontal on my window. The faster the car goes the faster and more backwards the raindrops go, except sometimes the wind blows and they sort of go flat and wriggle against the glass and don’t move.

  I’m sniffing the plastic cover over my bandaged scarred for life hand and Mum asks me why I think we’re going to the psychologist. I used to have a plastic cover over my mattress too when I was young and bedwetted.

  I shrug.

  ‘Did Dad have a chat to you on the way to Mr Gale last week?’

  ‘Not really.’

  She goes quiet for a minute.

  ‘He didn’t say anything about me and Robert?’

  ‘No.’

  More quietness. Then she’s going on about how Mr Gale is a special man who can help me because I upset them when I burnt myself like that, and that they can’t have a son who hurts himself, not with all the pain already in the world. ‘What would the world come to if little boys went round hurting themselves all the time?’

  ‘Why doesn’t Robert and his parents see a special man instead?’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘Robert isn’t the one who burnt his hand,’ then before I can say it she says ‘I know, I know, it was an accident. But Robert needs our help, full stop. And that doesn’t mean your dad and I don’t love you to bits.’ She changes gear quite hard and not very well. ‘I’m looking forward to you finally getting used to foster boys being here. You happen to be in a good family which makes a difference to the world, rather than being a normal family that only thinks about itself. We aren’t a normal family, Sonny Jim. Count yourself lucky you were born where you were.’