Breaking the Silence

by Casey Watson

  He then stood up and having told me ‘Georgie is yawning. Tomorrow’, headed back across the landing to the bathroom. This time he went in and shut the door.

  I decided to wait for him, and after a couple of minutes he emerged, in his pyjamas, holding his neatly folded school uniform under his arm. He’d also washed his face, I could see – the hair around his temples was damp and clinging – and I reflected that, for all the challenges I might have with this little boy, personal hygiene was unlikely to be one of them. Which would be refreshing, in more ways than one.

  This time, however, it was as if he couldn’t see me, because he made no eye contact or acknowledgement as he went back into his bedroom and carefully laid down his school clothes. Then, the job done, he simply walked up to the bedroom door and, once again without acknowledgement, shut the door.

  ‘All settled, then?’ asked Mike, looking up from the TV, when I went back downstairs.

  ‘I presume so,’ I said, shrugging. ‘He’s gone into his room and shut the door, so I assume he wants to sleep.’

  ‘What a baby!’ observed Jenson, with a disparaging look on his face. ‘Who goes to bed at seven o’clock?’

  ‘Erm, you, young man, if you carry on with that attitude,’ said Mike mildly. ‘Georgie’s our guest, just like you are, so we’ll have less of that, okay?’

  Jenson grunted, but I was pleased to see an expression of slight contrition. Mike didn’t need to raise his voice with him, I was beginning to notice. He seemed to have a natural authority with him. His height? Mike was a big man, and I sensed Jenson responded to that. I wondered if he’d ever known his own father.

  I left them to it and went into the kitchen to start on supper. For all that he was wrong to take the mickey, Jenson was right. It did seem early for a 9-year-old. But perhaps that was what worked for him, given that he’d always lived in a children’s home – they could be hectic places, especially at those times, so perhaps it was less stressful for him to go to his room.

  I also remembered that I’d read that children on the autism spectrum were often exhausted, because they expended so much mental energy trying to make sense of an environment that was so alien to them. It was also strange, I thought, how he referred to himself in both the first and the third person.

  I rummaged in the veg rack and pulled out some potatoes, noticing the paint roller still dripping watery beige emulsion into the sink after its unexpected deployment. Still, I thought, at least he settled quickly again after that episode. Perhaps the ‘freak-outs’ wouldn’t be quite as worrying as I’d first thought.

  Though I wouldn’t be counting chickens. Not just yet.

  Mike was already washed and dressed before I was out of bed the next morning. I was awake – well, sort of – but when he came back up and popped his head around the bedroom door I was sneaking a few extra minutes.

  ‘Cup of coffee, love,’ he said. ‘But you might want to get up anyway.’ His voice was low and he was cocking his head slightly as he put the mug down on my bedside table. ‘Young Georgie’s standing on the landing holding his toothbrush,’ he added.

  I abandoned my sneaky five minutes and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. ‘Standing?’

  ‘Just standing there. Toothbrush and uniform in hand. I said good morning, but he seemed too preoccupied to hear me.’

  ‘Preoccupied with what?’

  ‘Preoccupied with staring at the bathroom door, I presume.’

  I threw the duvet off. ‘Go on, love,’ I said. ‘You go down and start your breakfast. I’ll deal with it. Probably just waiting for Jenson to come out or something.’

  Except he wasn’t. Because, once I’d wriggled into my school run top and leggings, I put a head round Jenson’s bedroom door to check.

  I pulled it to again – Jenson could have an extra ten minutes yet – then knelt down to where Georgie was still standing, looking impassively at the centre of the door. I pushed it open, and then knelt down beside him.

  ‘Morning, lovely!’ I said brightly, just about checking my natural urge to make physical contact by ruffling his hair or giving his hand a friendly squeeze. He turned his gaze to mine. It was obviously a better option to be more on his level, I decided. Less threatening, perhaps.

  He looked at me, then back to the door, and then he raised his finger and pointed. ‘No Georgie,’ he said. ‘No Georgie on there. No Jenson.’

  I stood up again, and tried to usher him into the bathroom using gestures. ‘Yes, Georgie,’ I said. ‘It’s Georgie’s bathroom too, now. It’s everyone’s bathroom. Jenson’s, and me and Mike’s. And now Georgie’s as well. We can all use it whenever we like, see?’

  It took him a moment to process this, and then he stepped into the room. He still looked slightly doubtful for a second, then, once again, he turned around and closed the door in my face.

  I smiled to myself, deciding to call the contact from the children’s home, Sylvia something. Perhaps I needed more info on his usual morning rituals.

  I also peeked into his room before heading back downstairs, and was intrigued to see he’d laid out a line of his special stones on the carpet. It was a row of ten, precisely placed about six inches from the door threshold. And precise in choice as well; I knew from having had a chance to see the collection that he had stones in a variety of shapes and colours. But these were all of a similar kind, which presumably held some significance. I stared at them for some seconds. Nope. Not a clue! There was no way, I decided, as I went to join Mike in the kitchen, that I could fathom what went on in this kid’s mind.

  Most cereals, as Harry had told us, were listed on Georgie’s ‘safe’ list, so he and Jenson could both have Rice Krispies today.

  ‘And what about a packed lunch?’ Mike asked, as he poured himself a second coffee.

  I shook my head. ‘No need. He has school dinners, apparently. I don’t know how they manage it, but I’m mighty glad they do. That’s one change that would stress me just as much as it would Georgie.’

  ‘Georgie what?’ asked a voice. We both turned around to see Jenson, ready for school, in the way that meant ‘ready’ in Jenson-land anyway, i.e. tousled and looking like he’d slept in his uniform – a talent he seemed to have in spades.

  ‘Georgie nothing,’ I said, keen to steer the conversation elsewhere. ‘Come on, sit down and have some cereal and then I’ll sort out your hair.’

  Mike, getting up now, gave Jenson’s unruly mop a quick ruffle. ‘Don’t listen to Casey,’ he laughed. ‘Your hair’s just fine, mate. But you be a good boy for her, okay? She’s got two of you to think about now, and I don’t want to be getting home and hearing either of you’ve played her up, okay?’

  Jenson nodded. But then he grimaced, having clearly thought of something. ‘I don’t have to walk into school with him, do I?’

  Mike laughed again. ‘I can’t see that, mate, can you? You’ll be off like a whippet soon as the car door is opened, won’t you? No, of course you don’t have to. That’s fine.’

  I threw Mike a look. So much for nurturing relationships, then! I thought. There was me, trying to encourage bridge-building between them, and here was my husband happily widening the divide!

  ‘What’s wrong with them walking into school together?’ I asked him.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it, love,’ Mike said mildly. ‘I’m just saying that not all kids want to walk into school together, that’s all. Siblings, particularly,’ he added. ‘Even if they get on brilliantly at home.’

  And, of course, in his quiet way, he was making an important point. Because I recalled that Riley and Kieron would probably have walked over broken glass rather than have to walk into school together. And they had their own sets of friends, just as Jenson and Georgie had. No, Mike was right. I shouldn’t push things artificially. ‘You’re right, love,’ I conceded. ‘Jenson, that’s fine. You can run ahead to catch your friends up. I’m going to be taking Georgie into his classroom in any case.’

  At which point, the boy himse
lf appeared, looking, despite the incongruous flowing blond locks, as neat and tidy as Jenson looked dishevelled.

  And Georgie seemed to do everything with the same attention to detail. As Mike headed off – something to which Georgie seemed oblivious – he pulled his chair out carefully, sat down on it without ceremony, and sat silently, hands in lap, while I poured cereal into his bowl.

  ‘Krispies are good,’ he said, finally.

  ‘Yes, they are,’ I agreed, conscious of the need to try and forewarn him of what was happening. ‘And once you’ve eaten them it will almost be time to go to school. And we’re going in my car, do you remember? Like Harry told you?’

  Georgie nodded. ‘My new family. Different car.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jenson interjected. ‘Cos you ain’t got no family, do you?’ But before I could speak, Georgie provided his own retort.

  ‘Liz told the Brigadier that the Doctor was all alone in the world. He had no family on this earth.’

  Which effectively silenced Jenson, but also surprised me. I knew it was just some random line out of Doctor Who, but it seemed so profound, so clearly linked to what Jenson had said to him, that despite my knowing it was probably just a case of certain words triggering certain utterances, it made me feel so sad for him. For both boys. Because it seemed to have struck a chord with Jenson, as well. Looking suddenly sad himself, he scraped his chair back and left the room, while Georgie sat oblivious, happily chomping on his cereal.

  Dropping the boys at school went without incident, but after introducing myself to Rowena, Georgie’s learning-support assistant, I found my contemplative – and inexplicably rather morose – mood was still with me by the time I reached home.

  Perhaps it was just the unusual way in which Georgie interacted with the world that triggered it, but I felt this real sense of sadness that there was a need for people like me and Mike – that there were so many pint-sized lost souls in the world, having to navigate their way through life as best they could.

  I decided to hold off on the housework for a little while, and instead to phone Sylvia, the (presumably now redeployed) manager of Georgie’s children’s home. And she was as brisk and warm and jolly as I’d expected, with the sort of lilt to her voice that cheered you up just by listening. I didn’t know whether it was something she’d cultivated as a result of years of having to patiently manage the lives of children like Georgie, or just a gift, but either way it was like a balm on my grumpy mood.

  ‘Ah, that’ll be because there were no photos,’ she cheerfully explained, after I’d told her about Georgie waiting by the bathroom door and us not having the slightest idea why. Not to mention how to shift him without touching him and upsetting him. ‘So the solution is really easy,’ she went on. ‘He will have been confused about whether it was his bathroom or not. We had four of them at the home, and with so many children it just made life easier if they were all allocated specific ones to use. Hence the pictures. We had photos and names sellotaped on each one, so Georgie would have been looking for a door with his.’

  ‘What a brilliant idea,’ I said. ‘I can easily do that. Any other helpful snippets? I’m obviously anxious to help him settle as soon as possible.’

  And equally predictably, Sylvia had several. ‘Well, images are the main thing, so if you can festoon your home with lots of them, you’ll find day-to-day life with Georgie runs much more smoothly. Pinning pictures of shoes on the front of shoe cupboards, coats on the front of coat cupboards – that sort of thing is really helpful for him. Another thing you might like to do, since you’re at it, is to be a bit creative and draw three big clocks.’

  ‘Clocks? We have several in the house already. You mean as well as this?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So you can make them representative. One for breakfast time, lunchtime and dinnertime. And, again, use pictures. On the breakfast one, for example, you might want to stick on pictures of what he likes to have for breakfast, a plate of toast, say, or a bowl of porridge – you see?’

  I did see. What a simple and brilliant idea!

  ‘And in terms of how much of this sort of thing you do, the sky’s the limit, really,’ Sylvia finished. ‘Really depends how you feel about having your home decked out like a reception class classroom. But all these little things – right down to a picture of a glass of milk on the fridge … anything that aids communication is a bonus. What people tend to underestimate is just how hard a boy like Georgie finds it to do something as simple as get across that he’s thirsty. This way, he can simply point. So much less stressful for him.’

  Sylvia made it all sound so simple and so obvious. I suddenly remembered a couple of children I had worked with at school. Both on the autism spectrum, they had carried around picture boards, and their teachers would change the pictures each day to correspond with whatever lessons they had. If they had Chemistry, for example, there would be a picture of a Bunsen burner, and if they had biology, a picture of the parts of a flower.

  ‘But one warning,’ Sylvia finished, after her ‘can-do’ list of positives. ‘Georgie doesn’t seem to feel pain like other children, so be sure to watch out for him hurting himself.’

  ‘Doesn’t he physically feel it?’ This was difficult to imagine.

  ‘Well, let’s just say that he doesn’t seem to articulate feeling it. He can go off like a bottle of pop if he feels emotionally unsettled, but where physical hurt’s concerned he’s a bit of an enigma. I have no idea about the physiology of such a thing, obviously, but this is not a child who is going to burst into tears if he cuts his knee.’

  She went on to recount that a couple of years back, when Georgie had thrown himself at a wall in his frustration, he had broken his arm. ‘But the only reason we knew,’ she said, ‘was because we got it X-rayed, hours later. And that was only because someone noticed he was holding it slightly strangely. Not a whimper of pain. It was incredible. None at all.’

  It was a sobering piece of information to file away, that, and, as I put the phone down, I reflected that I’d learned more about the specifics of Georgie’s autism in that one twenty-minute phone call than I had in several hours of research. It was a reminder that every child is an individual, with specific needs and tendencies – autistic children included.

  I was also grateful to have Sylvia on tap. What had come across strongly was how much she cared, endorsed further by her instruction to call her any time – day or night – if I had questions or anxieties or a crisis.

  That done, I spent a happy morning, courtesy of the previous season’s Argos catalogue and the internet, cutting and sticking all sorts of images for around the house. And an even happier afternoon, with Riley, having remembered she had a laminator, creating wipeable, splash-resistant cards for almost everything, from the mug cupboard to the bathroom cabinet to the DVD drawer beneath the telly, all of which I’d have the boys help me put up once I’d collected them from school.

  But I should have expected that there might be a fly stuck in my ointment. My mobile rang just as I was climbing into my car to do the pick-up. It was Marie Bateman, with sobering news.

  ‘I know it’s eleventh hour,’ she said, ‘but I’ve literally just come out of the meeting. Jenson’s contact visit tomorrow has been cancelled.’

  ‘Why?’ I spluttered, already imagining the upset this would cause poor Jenson, and – as a consequence – the calm environment of our home.

  ‘The boyfriend, Gary – sorry, fiancé – has moved in with Karen, basically.’

  ‘And?’ I asked, knowing that there would be slightly more to it. You didn’t cancel contact without good reason. Oh, poor Jenson.

  ‘Because there are question marks over him,’ Marie said. ‘Bit of a bad boy. No need to go into details, but he’s had something of a chequered past. Not involving kids, as far as I know, but he still needs to be police-checked. You know how these things work.’

  Indeed I did. ‘But couldn’t Karen see Jenson elsewhere, like they did last time?’

  �
�Yes, in theory. And that was what was planned. Except she’s being so antagonistic there’s a concern that there’s more to this. We think that it’s Gary’s influence, but Karen is actually saying that if her Gary can’t go to the contact then she won’t either. Hence the decision. Which I know is going to upset Jenson dreadfully, but I’m hoping we’ll be able to reschedule it for early next week. Sorry,’ she said again, after a short pause. ‘I’m all too aware that it’s you who’s going to have to deal with the fall-out.’

  And attendant freak-out, no doubt, I thought. Wonderful.

  Chapter 12

  I was dreading breaking the news to Jenson. He was so looking forward to seeing his mum, and I couldn’t help cursing her for being so heartless. Unbelievable that she would rather score points against social services than make her poor child feel loved and wanted. I was also concerned about the implications of what she’d done. She was his mum, for God’s sake – didn’t she want to see him?

  I decided not to break the news straight after school, but after tea. In my experience hungry kids were much more easily wound up than kids with full stomachs.

  ‘Hope you’re both hungry, guys!’ I said brightly, as we pulled out from the school drive. ‘Lovely fish, mashed potatoes and parsley sauce for tea!’

  Parsley sauce, that was, with very, very tiny flecks of parsley. I glanced through the rear-view mirror and noted the small contented smile on Georgie’s face. He was looking down at his cupped hands again, in that intense way he had, as if seeing them for the very first time. I wasn’t even sure if he was listening, but no matter, Jenson was. ‘No mushy peas?’ he said. ‘You got to have mushy peas if it’s fish – it’s the rule.’

  ‘Mushy peas for all the rest of us, love, don’t worry. But not for Georgie. I don’t think he likes them, do you, Georgie?’

  Jenson turned to Georgie. ‘Is it cos they’re all bogie coloured, Georgie? Bogie green. Mmm. Yummy yummy. Lovely and greeeeen.’

  ‘Jenson, knock it off please,’ I said. ‘Stop being silly. You –’