Earth to Daniel

by Gwyneth Rees

  Martha waited until we got to the entrance to the security area before she started blubbing. She kissed Dad goodbye nicely enough and then, when he tried to walk away from us, she clung on. Mum had to prise her off as she wailed, ‘Don’t go, Daddy!’

  I was the only one who managed not to cry.

  Martha was still sobbing as she walked between Mum and me back to the short-stay car park. ‘Martha, listen …’ I said, putting on my most grown-up voice. ‘If Dad was going to die soon, you’d want to go and see him again, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Is Daddy going to die?’ Martha gasped.

  ‘For God’s sake, Daniel!’ Mum snapped. She turned to Martha. ‘Of course not, darling. Nobody’s going to die.’

  ‘Except Grandma,’ I reminded them gravely.

  Mum glared at me again.

  On the way home, Mum tried to cheer Martha up by offering to stop and get her an ice cream. When that didn’t work, she suggested we go to the pet shop right now to buy the goldfish Dad had promised Martha for when he got back.

  Martha stopped crying pretty quickly and began to choose names for her goldfish.

  I started to feel worse, though. Now that Dad was gone, there didn’t seem much point in being brave any more, since I’d mainly been doing it for his sake. I waited for Mum to come up with an ice-cream-and-goldfish equivalent to cheer me up, but she didn’t. I guess she thought I was too old to need it.

  A few days later I had my first close encounter with Mum in school. So far I had seen her only in assembly. The Year Eights had assembly twice a week. Sometimes Mum took it and sometimes it was the deputy head. I had cringed in my seat the first time Mum had taken it, but she hadn’t said much apart from introducing herself and reading out some announcements. A few of the kids in my class had looked at me when she started speaking and I was glad I’d persuaded her to wear her soft green woollen suit instead of the horrible brown one which makes her look frumpy. I had reminded myself to tell her that she didn’t look fat at all in that green suit, except for maybe just a little bit round the hips.

  The day started off badly when Mrs Lyle gave us back the essays we’d handed in at the start of term – the ones we were supposed to have done over the summer. I had spent twenty minutes on mine the night before it was meant to be handed in – I’d just never been able to take it seriously right from the start – and I should have known I’d live to regret it.

  ‘Daniel MacKenzie!’ Mrs Lyle paused as she sailed up and down the aisles dropping our marked homework on to our desks with a flick of her big bony wrist. ‘This is not what I would term – or indeed what most teachers in this school would term – an essay.’

  The way she said ‘most’ made me wonder if she was having a dig at Mum – insinuating that Mum must have let my essay pass as an essay in order for me to have given it in like that.

  ‘I would call it a paragraph,’ Mrs Lyle continued, as some of the other kids started to snigger. ‘And a fairly short paragraph at that. Would you care to read it out to us, Daniel?’

  I froze. My mouth had gone dry. I felt like my throat had turned into a huge lump of concrete and I didn’t see how I could squeeze any words through it even if my life depended on it.

  ‘Well?’ From the look Mrs Lyle was giving me I was starting to think that my life did depend on it. After what seemed like an eternity, she said, ‘All right then. Perhaps it might be a good idea if you redid it and this time wrote something that you wouldn’t be too ashamed to read out to the rest of the class.’

  I nodded, grateful when she went to pick on someone else.

  At my old school we’d once had to write essays imagining we were loaves of bread and my teacher had joked that my imaginary encounter with a bread slicer was the most spine-chilling of the lot and that maybe I should become a writer of horror fiction when I grew up. After that she’d always written little encouraging comments at the bottom of my essays like, ‘Well done! Another surprise ending!’ or ‘Great story but I could hardly read some of it – watch the handwriting!’

  I felt like I had turned into a different person here – someone who wasn’t popular with the teachers at all and who couldn’t write anything.

  ‘Right, all of you,’ Mrs Lyle said loudly. ‘I have to leave the classroom for about twenty minutes and while I’m gone I want you to read quietly. No talking. Those of you who haven’t got books can choose one from the reading box at the back of the room. Our new head teacher, Mrs MacKenzie, is in the room next door, filling in for Miss Barnes, who’s off sick today. I’ve asked her to listen out for any noise. So make sure there isn’t any!’

  I felt like my stomach had been yanked upwards and rammed against the lump of concrete in my throat. Mum was next door. Mum was going to come in and tell us off if there was any noise. The thought of it made me want to throw up. Especially as she was wearing her horrible brown suit today – the one that made her look really strait-laced and schoolmarmish. And I couldn’t remember if she was wearing some decent shoes or the clumpy ones she sometimes wears when she thinks she’s going to be on her feet all day.

  As soon as Mrs Lyle had gone, lots of people in the class started to whisper. Some pulled out books to read. I started flicking my rubber about my desk. Calum – who had turned out to be the class trouble-maker – came and stood directly behind me. I froze, feeling my lips go dry as I waited to hear what he was going to say now. But he wasn’t there to speak to me. He was after Abby.

  ‘Hey, Abigail … What did you write for your essay? “On the first day of my summer holidays my mum said, ‘I know, let’s go to the pub. You can have a can of Coke while I knock back a bottle or two of whisky …’ ”?’

  ‘Shut it, Calum,’ Abby snapped, jumping up and heading for the back of the room to join the people who were congregating round a large cardboard box full of books.

  I got up quietly and followed her. I know it was pretty cowardly of me, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit relieved that Calum was picking on Abby instead of me.

  ‘Hey, I had that first!’ Abby protested as Calum slipped up behind her and snatched away the book she was holding.

  ‘So?’ Calum teased. ‘You should’ve held on to it tighter, shouldn’t you? The way your mum holds on to her whisky bottle!’

  Some of the others sniggered and Abby’s face went bright red. ‘GIVE!’ she snarled, trying to grab the book back.

  ‘MAKE ME!’ Calum was laughing. A few other people started to laugh too. I secretly prayed for them to be quiet. The last thing I wanted was for Mum to hear us. Why had Mum promised Mrs Lyle that she’d listen out for us when she knew this was my class? It wasn’t fair! She’d promised she wouldn’t embarrass me! How did she think I’d feel if she marched in and started yelling at us?

  ‘Hey, Daniel, get out the way!’ Calum was shoving me to one side to get back to his seat, still holding Abby’s book. Something about the way Abby was standing there looking so completely humiliated sent a bit of a pang through me.

  ‘That book is really boring anyway, Abby,’ I told her. ‘I read it at my last school.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Calum whirled round to glare at me. ‘What’s it to you anyhow? Are you her boyfriend or something?’

  I blushed. ‘No … it’s just –’

  ‘Hey? Is your mum a boozer too? Is that why you’re palling up with Abby?’ He grinned. ‘Oh no – your mummy is the headmistress, isn’t she? All prim and proper but a bit fat, I reckon.’ He looked round for support. ‘What do you lot think? Could our new head teacher do with losing a bit, do you reckon?’

  I blushed even more. I was about to say something back in Mum’s defence when I suddenly noticed that the rest of the class had gone silent.

  Mum was standing at the front of the room, staring straight at me and Calum. ‘IS THERE A PROBLEM BACK THERE BOYS?’

  I froze. I found my eyes focusing on her tummy, which is the bit of her that sticks out the most.

  Everyone was hurrying back to their seats. I headed for my desk
too. Mum shifted her gaze to encompass the whole class as she began to lecture us about the noise. Her tone of voice was just like the one she uses at home when she’s telling me off about something. It felt weird. I don’t know why, but somehow I hadn’t expected her to seem like the same person in school.

  ‘… so if anyone here can read and talk at the same time, I’d be more than happy to see a demonstration!’ she concluded brusquely. ‘Well? Any takers?’

  Nobody made a sound.

  ‘Right then! I want to see all noses in books! Next door we’re in the middle of reading a very romantic scene from Romeo and Juliet, and I won’t be in such a good mood if I have to interrupt it to come in here and tell you again!’

  At least she didn’t seem to have a problem controlling the class. She was being pretty cool as a matter of fact. Much cooler than I’d expected. Even if her tummy was enormous.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was the following day when Mum woke up with a rash and said she thought it could be a side effect of the lithium.

  ‘Maybe it’s measles or something,’ I said when she told me at breakfast time. I was swinging on my chair again, which Mum usually hates, but this morning she was too distracted to notice.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Daniel. This is an allergic rash. I’ve been thinking I should cut down my lithium anyway. If you ask me, this is a sign that I was right.’

  ‘Let’s Skype Dad – you can show him,’ I suggested, banging my chair down and looking at my watch. It would be eight in the evening in New Zealand.

  ‘He won’t be able to get a proper look at the rash through the screen, will he?’ Mum snapped.

  Unfortunately that was true. Our connection wasn’t that great, for some reason. ‘Hey, maybe while Dad’s there he could –’

  ‘No, Daniel. Your dad’s got enough to worry about,’ Mum said firmly. ‘I’m not going to bother him with this. I’ll just stop the tablets for a few days and see if it goes away.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you ask your doctor before you do that?’ I asked anxiously. ‘Maybe it’s not the tablets. Maybe you’re allergic to something else. Mark’s dad came out in a rash once after he’d eaten lobster.’

  ‘I haven’t eaten any lobster.’

  ‘No, but you might have eaten something.’

  Mum sighed. ‘I suppose I could phone Dr White and see if he could fit me in.’

  I nodded encouragingly.

  She came off the phone looking a bit fed up. Dr White had told her she should not on any account stop her lithium and that he’d take a look at the rash himself if she could just pop up to the hospital where he was going to be spending all day doing a ward round.

  ‘It must be a really big ward if it takes him all day,’ I said.

  ‘Psychiatrists take all day to do everything,’ Mum said, sounding irritated. ‘And they don’t go round the ward seeing everyone. They summon you into a room and ask you loads of questions and everyone else in their team is there gawping at you and reporting on every movement you’ve made in the last twenty-four hours. Even during the night they don’t leave you alone. When I was in hospital they had a thing they called a sleep chart. Very sophisticated it was. The nurses came and stood at the end of your bed every hour to see if your eyes were open. If they were closed they’d tick you off as being asleep. Isn’t that pathetic? I used to lie awake all night sometimes, with my eyes closed.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell them you hadn’t really slept?’ I asked, listening with interest. Mum had never talked much about the times she’d been a psychiatric patient. It was sort of a taboo subject in our house. Dad always got really stony faced if I brought up the subject, and he’d told me a number of times that it was adult business which I didn’t need to know any more about than what he’d told me already. Which wasn’t much.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Mum replied. ‘Sometimes it suited me not to tell them anything.’

  I suddenly registered something. ‘Mum, you’re not sleeping very well now.’ Ever since we’d moved here, she had been complaining on and off about having trouble getting to sleep.

  ‘Oh, don’t you start, Daniel!’ Mum walked away from me huffily.

  Since it was a school day Mum had to phone to say she would be late in. She also told her secretary to tell my registration teacher that I would be late too. ‘I want you to come with me, Daniel,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind, do you? We can drop Martha off at school on the way.’

  ‘You usually go to outpatients on your own,’ I replied, surprised. Normally, Mum doesn’t like me taking time off school for anything.

  ‘I know, but this isn’t the outpatient clinic, Daniel, remember? The only way Dr White can see me today is if I go to the main hospital and I don’t want to do that on my own.’

  After we’d dropped Martha off at school, Mum drove us to the hospital. The psychiatric in-patient unit turned out to be a large modern building on the same site as the outpatient clinic but separated by the car park and a short driveway.

  ‘At least it’s not one of those old bins,’ Mum said as we parked the car.

  I asked her what she meant.

  ‘Bins – like rubbish bins. They were these huge old Victorian places where they put mentally ill people in the old days. Do you know, Daniel, years ago some people used to live their whole lives in those places and never be let out?’ She shuddered.

  ‘Yes, but they let people out now, don’t they?’

  ‘Of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?’ She laughed, but in a hollow sort of way as if she was only joking to cover up some other feelings that she had inside.

  I wished Dad was here.

  We left the car and I followed Mum up to the main doors. Three young women were standing outside smoking.

  Inside Mum walked straight up to a man who was sitting at the reception desk behind a glass window. ‘I’m here to see Dr White,’ she said. ‘Isobel MacKenzie.’

  ‘I’ll tell him you’re here. If you’d just like to take a seat over there …’

  We went and sat down and while we were sitting there the three women walked back inside, waving to the man behind the desk. I wondered if they were patients. ‘They look pretty normal,’ I whispered to Mum.

  Mum scowled. ‘What, did you expect everyone in here to have two heads?’

  I saw that there were little beads of sweat above her top lip, even though it wasn’t hot.

  ‘I just meant they don’t look sick.’ But I could tell she wasn’t listening as she kept glancing back to the man at reception.

  I can never sit still in waiting rooms for very long, so I stood up and went to look at the pictures on the opposite wall. They had been painted by patients. They weren’t very good.

  ‘Mrs MacKenzie.’ The receptionist called her over. ‘Dr White will see you now, if you’d like to go up to his office. You go up those stairs to the first floor, turn right and follow the signs to Elizabeth Ward. His office is just through the swing doors.’

  Mum nodded. She came back over to me. ‘I think you should stay here, Daniel. I won’t be long.’ She leaned in closer and whispered to me, ‘Did he say turn right after the swing doors?’

  ‘Up the stairs, then turn right, then go through the swing doors,’ I told her. ‘I’ll come with you if you want.’

  She didn’t need much persuasion to let me take her, which was just as well, because when we got to the first floor, she couldn’t remember which floor the receptionist had said. I reckoned she must have forgotten because she was nervous.

  There were two seats outside Dr White’s office, so I sat down while Mum knocked on his door. I heard him say, ‘Come in!’ and Mum disappeared inside.

  I started to look round. The corridor where I was sitting led to the ward. I knew that the patients here didn’t lie in their beds all day like they do in other hospitals. Their bodies were OK. It was their minds that were sick.

  I sat staring at the sign on the wall opposite. It said Hospital Chapel, with an arrow pointing down the corridor away
from the ward. I remembered Mum saying once that even though she wasn’t very religious, churches always made her feel safe. I wished I could feel safer than I did right now. I knew it was silly, but I kept having to fight the urge to look right and left all the time in case some mad person came running up to attack me. I know not all psychiatric patients are mad and scary like that bomber guy on TV but I reckoned there must be some in this hospital who were, which must be kind of alarming for all the others, if you come to think about it. I could hardly believe that Mum had once been a patient in a psychiatric hospital. I’d never been allowed to see her when she was really ill. Dad hadn’t wanted me to see her like that, apparently. Dad had only taken me to visit her in hospital when she was nearly better and I couldn’t remember much about it.

  The doors of the ward swung open suddenly and a crackly voice called out, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  I jumped. A thin elderly woman was approaching me. She had long grey hair and she was wearing her cardigan inside out. Most of her top teeth were missing. She was clutching a plastic bag as if it contained something extremely valuable.

  ‘Who sent you here?’ she demanded.

  ‘No one. I’m just waiting for my mum,’ I mumbled.

  ‘You ever killed a cat?’

  ‘Umm … no.’

  ‘They were living in my loft, you know.’

  I gulped. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘People. Killing cats in my loft. Had to wear earplugs at night so I couldn’t hear them.’

  She sat down on the spare seat beside me. She smelt a bit what Dad would call ‘ripe’. Suddenly she leaned in towards me and peered at my face. ‘Are you one of them?’

  I stood up abruptly and headed speedily down the corridor away from her. I pushed through one set of swing doors, then another set, and found myself in a large day room where a television was blaring away in the background. A few of the people in the room turned to stare at me. One of the women had long dark hair and from the back she looked a bit like Mum. There was a dishevelled looking young man wearing headphones who started shouting and waving at me to come in as soon as he spotted me.