A Boy Called Hope

by Lara Williamson

  The beefy boy is called Jeremy.

  How can anyone be called Jeremy?

  How can Dad be dead?

  Jeremy?

  Dad?

  Dead?

  The woman turns and faces another camera while saying, “That’s it for tonight. We’ll be back again tomorrow at six o’clock. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  With one catastrophic blow, the little Dad tree growing inside my soul is axed.

  I feel as though I’m about to jump off a huge diving board and into an endless ocean. I don’t know how I’m going to land. I don’t even know if I will survive the fall or if I’ll drown when I get there.

  I am weak; my legs boneless. “Dad, you can’t go. Don’t leave me yet. We’re still going to meet. I am going to play ‘Over the Rainbow’ to you and you’re going to be so proud of me.”

  A huge tidal wave of sorrow builds inside me: swelling, falling, rising once more and galloping in front of me like frightened foam horses. I stand on the board, my toes gripping the edge. Behind me is my old life. Sixty seconds ago I was a different person with two parents. I had hope that my dad would come back to me and scoop me up in his arms and beg for my forgiveness. And I’d give it, because I love him with all my heart. In front of me is an ocean. It means swimming for ever without Dad by my side. I don’t want to jump into it, I don’t. I want to go back down the ladder and stay where I am. But the ladder has crumbled and I have no choice but to dive forward into the future. And I want Dad to hold my hand through this but I know he can’t.

  I jump into the unknown, screaming.

  The cushions are ripped and I watch, bleary-eyed, as fistfuls of white cloud stuffing fall through my fingers. I kick the coffee table and tear pages from the magazines and throw them high into the air. They flutter down on me like broken butterflies. And I howl, my heart heavy, and the sound of it is worse than any werewolf in any horror film. It comes from the darkness inside me and is so raw that Faith and Hope join with me in screaming. As Mum and Big Dave run into the living room to see what’s going on, I force my way past them.

  “Dad is dead,” I holler.

  I hear Mum gasp and she tries to hold me but I’m out of her grip and down the road before I hear her utter a single word. Ducking in and out of the traffic, I weave through the estate and across the wasteground. Cars honk their horns. They can hit me for all I care. A train passes under the railway bridge and the force of it blows the skin on my face back. My feet carry me over the bridge and up Skateboarding Hill and, as I reach the top, the sun drops low in the sky. Birds scatter as I enter the twilight woods.

  Dad has gone.

  Thin sunlight seeps through the trees and shows dust in the air, like tiny Sea-Monkeys, bobbing around my trainers. Not far from where I’m slumped under a tree is Dad’s house. Was Dad’s house. Huge heaving sobs come from deep within and I bury my nose in my hands in an attempt to catch the tears, but they still manage to spill through my fingers and splatter onto my top.

  How could Dad leave me like this?

  The question hula-hoops round inside my head. I needed Dad to want me so much, I believed it could happen. I let the dream grow into a big tree. I don’t even think I could see past it. I wipe my nose with my sleeve and run my finger along the trunk behind me. There was just one problem. My Dad tree didn’t have roots. Without them, I’m left with nothing.

  I lie broken, a cracked snail shell, underneath twisted branches and brambly bushes. Beyond the wood, the sun drops further in the sky, throwing long dark shadows over me like an uneasy blanket. I curl my body tighter and move my knees up so they are close enough to kiss. “What did I do wrong?” I whisper into the earth. “What did I do to make you ignore me? You’ve cheated me out of a dad. The one thing I wanted more than anything in the world. It was the last thing left on my Saint Gabriel list. Now I’ve got to score it off. It’s your fault, Dad. Get back here and be my dad. Get back here and love me.”

  I need my dad.

  After that there is nothing, only peace. Occasionally, a train steams through the town and I hear it sucking the air, but nothing more. Then I scream, “Help me understand!” and it’s so loud that I can’t believe it’s come from inside me. Birds wheel into the sky, cawing and trying to escape the lunatic animal hiding in their woods.

  Only when my lungs can’t take any more pressure does the panic ease. I am quiet, deflated. I gather myself back up and ease my head against the tree.

  “Dan!” I hear my name being called. Footsteps grow closer and I can hear huffing and puffing as someone heaves their large body up Skateboarding Hill.

  “I’m here,” I whisper, drained of energy. “I’m here.” The words die on my lips.

  “Thank goodness.” Big Dave crouches down beside me and pulls me into a hug, which I don’t pull out of. “We were so worried about you. I was worried about you. I thought you’d run away.”

  “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Even if there was, your place is with us.” Big Dave lets me go from his embrace but maintains eye contact. “I’m sorry about your dad and I know nothing will make it better, but if you want to feel sad come and do it with us, rather than on your own. We’re here for you, Dan. We’re always here for you.”

  “I wanted a dad and now I’ve lost him and I can’t ever get him back.” My eye springs an unexpected leak and I have to quickly lick the tear away with my tongue and pretend it didn’t happen. But I can’t pretend, because another tear follows the first. And then another, until my face is streaked with rivers.

  “I can’t replace your dad,” replies Big Dave, using his thumb to wipe away my tears. “But you can have me, son, if you want me.”

  Son.

  Big Dave called me son.

  Soft winds whisper through the trees, making green leaves fall and dust the tops of our heads. As Big Dave stands up and reaches out his hand, a sliver of low sunlight catches the hairs on his arm. I stretch my fingers towards his. We connect and his touch pulls me in. When I couldn’t see the face in my dream, I always assumed the hand belonged to Dad…but it didn’t. Big Dave turns his face to me and smiles.

  Mum is waiting at the front door with Faith in one arm and Hope in the other. I pull free from Big Dave and run towards her, throwing myself into a four-way hug. She stoops down and tells me she’s sorry about Dad. If I want to talk, Mum says she’ll always be here to listen.

  “It was a shock. I wanted Dad to speak to me so much and now he never will.”

  “I understand.” Mum ushers me into the house and pops Faith and Hope into their baskets. “I’ve told you before that he loved you and I still stand by that. Perhaps he didn’t love you in the way you wanted him to, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t love there. I watched him hold you and I saw the love in his eyes.”

  “Can you switch off love?” I search Mum’s face for the truth.

  “I don’t believe you can. Not truly. Not completely.”

  Big Dave slopes away but I tell him to stop. “Don’t go. You’re part of the family too.” Big Dave halts and comes over and sits down. “Mum,” I say, turning back to face her, “once upon a time, when I was sitting on the stairs, Dad whispered goodbye to me. But I didn’t get to say goodbye to Dad and I want to, so badly.”

  “I’m not sure we can go to the funeral. I think it might be awkward with his new family there. Perhaps we can think of another way to say goodbye. We could plant something to remember him.”

  I bite my lip. “No, I think I’ve had enough of Dad trees.”

  “If you don’t want to plant something then we could go to a beach and write his name in the sand or you could name a star after him.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t want to remember Dad as a star either.”

  Big Dave eases himself out of the chair and disappears upstairs. I can hear him rummaging about in my bedroom and Charles Scallybones’s barks as something falls. A bedroom door slams and Big Dave’s feet thunder back down the stairs.

  “Thi
s”, says Big Dave, “is the perfect way to say goodbye.” He hands me the box and I nod.

  I know exactly what he’s saying.

  Dear Dad,

  Can I still call you Dad? It feels a little bit strange to say it, but it would feel even weirder to call you Malcolm. So Dad it is. Mum says you’ll always be my dad and that’s all that matters. We’re linked by blood, Mum says. Nothing can change this fact. I can’t get rid of my blood, unless I get a visit from a vampire. Not even death, which you know more about than me, can stop us being father and son. Mum is right. She usually is, but I don’t tell her.

  I also know you have another son called Jeremy. Mum told me that he is Busty Babs’s son from a previous marriage. I’m not jealous that he was your son too. I envied him once. But now I realize that I was lucky because I had you for seven years. He only got you for four and I think that’s sad.

  I still have the teddy bear you bought me when we got separated. Mum had to restuff him a few years ago because I’d squeezed him so hard his tummy exploded. His paws are blotchy where my tears have dripped onto them. This is all I’ve got left of you. I will treasure him. I just wanted to let you know this because it is important.

  Another thing that is important to me is trying to understand what went wrong. I have a question and I’m just going to fire it out there into the universe in the hope that you can hear me. Did you love me right up to the end? Mum says you did. I want to believe her but I can’t be certain. How will I ever be certain?

  For now, I’ve decided to believe that you wrote me a birthday card every year of my life but you couldn’t post them because you felt guilty. Somewhere in the world there is a small pile of birthday cards with my name on them. Maybe in, like, fifty years, someone will find them and post them and a whole load of envelopes will drop onto my mat. Did you know that happens sometimes? I’ve read about postcards turning up at their destination fifty years after they were written. And even if I’m ancient and bald, they’ll mean the world to me.

  I feel sad so I’ve tried to turn this tear splash into a monster. I think it’s quite a good drawing. I got a gold star in art recently.

  Dad, I don’t think you’re a bad person. You can’t be. Saying you’re bad would be like saying I’m bad too. I’m part of you, after all. I’m going to make a list now, because it’s not easy writing on ricepaper and my wrist hurts. I wish I had typed this but then that wouldn’t have worked. Ignore me. Here is the list:

  THE BIG LIST OF SAD THINGS

  You didn’t tell me you were dying. I wish you had. I wanted to say goodbye. This is the thing that hurts the most. When I pretend to die, I call everyone into the bedroom and do that raspy voice thing and then I take my opportunity to tell them how much I like or dislike them according to how much they’ve annoyed me at my chosen time of death.

  Saying you love someone is very important. You should have told me, at least once. I’m always going to tell everyone I love them, except Grace. She knows I like her anyway because I take care of her. I told her about the time, months ago, when I saw Stan in the alleyway at The Frying Squad with his tongue in a strange girl’s throat. It took me a while to realize it was him but in the end it was the fluff on his upper lip that gave him away. Grace was very happy with me for telling her and said having a brother to keep a lookout for her wasn’t such a bad thing after all. And she gave me two pounds for my trouble, which I spent on bottom cream for Faith and Hope (more of them later). It was the only thing I could afford in the shop and I reckoned it was the gift that keeps giving. So, you see, I’m all about saying I love people in my own way.

  You made a new life with new people and that’s okay, but you can’t forget the old people. Not that we’re old people, but you know what I’m saying. We were still here, Dad. We were waiting for you to return. At least, I was. This makes me sad.

  THE BIGGER LIST OF HAPPY THINGS

  Mum is happy. Mum has Big Dave. They’re going to get married in the autumn. I think you’d like him. I like him. He runs Kwik Kars and he can strip an engine in minutes, even if he can’t spell Quick Cars properly. Big Dave used to be married to a woman called Catriona. I thought her name was Caroline, but that’s a long story. I won’t bore you with it now because I’m sure you’re busy up there. Can you see the planets from heaven? Big Dave bought me a planet mobile once but Charles Scallybones ate it.

  The guitar: that’s one of my happy things. I’m awesome at the guitar. My best piece is “Over the Rainbow”. I wanted to play it for you at our Project Eco Everywhere show but you left before you heard me. If you close your eyes now you can imagine me playing. Mum bought me a present recently. She said it was a gift from you. I didn’t understand her at first. Turned out it was this silver guitar pick and she’d had it engraved. DAD IS “OVER THE RAINBOW” it said. Every time I play my guitar I let the music travel on the breeze and perhaps it will travel to you. And every time I see a rainbow I will know you’re just behind it, like an indigo-coloured zombie. Just out of my reach. I’ve started learning a new tune now. It’s called “Caroline”. I think you’d like that one too. Big Dave bought me the music. I’ve also joined a boy band. Mainly it’s me and Christopher (more about him later too), and we’re going to call ourselves The Papercuts, because I got one when I was writing down lots of ideas for band names. Who knew that paper was lethal?

  Ninja Grace has taken up kickboxing. But that’s okay, because I’m going to tae kwon do now. She dumped Stan for cheating on her and has a new boyfriend called Todd, Love God. Those are her words, not mine. Todd is okay and does not have a hairy upper lip or another girl attached to it. (Note: I tried to call her Princess Grace, like you used to, but then she nearly broke my arm because my dog ate her best ballet pumps and I thought this wasn’t princessy behaviour.)

  Christopher is my new stepbrother. Yes, me with a brother. I know it’s bonkers but there you go. He’s Big Dave’s son and he’s the same age as me. We’re even in the same class at school. We have history and fell out over a girl but it’s all settled down now and we’re best mates. Christopher was the person who introduced me to tae kwon do and I really love it. Christopher also plays guitar like me, only he’s not as awesome. Grace says it doesn’t matter that he’s not such a great guitar player because he’s much better-looking and that’s what counts in a band. Ninja Grace must’ve been kicked in the head at kickboxing, because she makes no sense.

  I have twin sisters. They’re called Faith and Hope. They’re living, breathing poo machines. I don’t know what Mum is feeding them, other than milk, but what is coming out in their nappies smells like the foulest rubbish dump. Think rotten eggs on cabbage leaves on stilton cheese on cauliflower and you’re halfway there. However, they’re also a bit cute, for girls.

  School is going well and I’ve got a good bunch of mates. I’m still friends with Jo Bister, by the way. She is completely obsessed with religious stuff now. A while back she gave me this medal of Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows and told me to write a list of ten things I wanted more than anything in the world. Jo told me that, with the help of Saint Gabriel, one dream would come true. One dream would heal me and lift me from my sorrow. I kept the medal for months and one by one the things I thought I wanted fell from the list until I was left with this final thing. Number ten. At first, I thought I’d lost this dream but then I realized I hadn’t. Recently I gave the medal back to Jo and she accepted it. To be honest, I’m not sure if Saint Gabriel healed me or I healed myself. All I know is that I spent a long time thinking my family wasn’t perfect and then I discovered that it didn’t matter, because it was perfect for me.

  I’m happy.

  That is all.

  Your loving son,

  Dan. X

  We walk in silence, me lost in thought and Big Dave staring into an ocean of sky. Moonlight bathes us in silver water and the night air has a bite to it. Although my fingers are frozen, I try not to disturb what is in my hands. I carry it as though it’s priceless: a tissue tre
asure cupped inside my fingers. The words bleed across the ricepaper and they blur as I try to hold back my tears. In my pocket are the matches Big Dave took from the kitchen cupboard and a photograph of Dad that I cut from the newspaper.

  Big Dave comes to a stop and lays his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. He promises he’ll be waiting for me when I’m ready to return. I nod and then carry on alone. Above me the sky is studded with diamond chips. The wind gently whips up and ruffles my hair and I know. I just know. I stop. It is time.

  This is the moment I’m going to let go.

  I’ve built myself up. Prepared myself for what I know I’ve got to do. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, because the bubble mountains rising inside my stomach tell me otherwise. I pull Dad’s photograph from my pocket. A final kiss is delivered. The paper smells inky but I imagine the scent of Dad’s spiced apple aftershave as I close my eyes. When I open them again, it’s just me and Dad in a universe surrounded by a million stars.

  “This is goodbye,” I whisper, placing his photograph inside the sky lantern. “This is where I set you free and in turn you set me free.”

  My fingers shake as I light the candle and I hold the sky lantern in my hands for the longest time, afraid of letting Dad go. The candle burns so low I have to take it out and replace it with another. Again, I light the candle and the sky lantern tugs in my hands. It’s as though Dad is desperate to be released and as the lantern pulls and twists I let it go.

  Let Dad go.

  The sky lantern rises softly into the night sky, starting out on its journey. I watch it, blinking back tears, and it’s all I can do to say, “Goodbye, Dad. I love you,” because my throat has closed over. A golden dot now, it bobs on the currents of air, higher and higher; far from my touch. And then it’s carried high into the clouds beyond the Paradise estate. I don’t see the light go out; it simply floats away over the horizon.