by Neil Cross
He pecked her on the cheek and half-jogged through the gates, through the car park and through the heavy doors. Inside, it was warmer. He blew into his hands, then rested his weight on the ancient, cast-iron radiator. Molly looked on like an indulgent, secretly resentful Buddha. Slow heat spread through his arse and up his spine and down his legs and to his feet.
He wondered who would choose to be outside in such weather. He pictured Jamie, sitting alone on a car-park wall, huddled in his parka against the weather. Then coming through the door at 4 p.m., dumping his bag and coat in the hallway, his shoes in the living room, making himself a round or two of toast and jam, and lying about his day with every action and every breath.
Sam got home before 7 p.m. Jamie was watching TV. Sam sat heavily in the armchair. He still wore his overcoat and scarf. His face was ruddy with cold.
‘What’re you watching?’
Jamie clucked impatiently.
‘Simpsons.’
‘You eaten?’
‘Toast.’
‘What do you want for tonight?’
Jamie shrugged.
‘Whatever.’
‘I’m knackered. Do you fancy a curry?’
‘Whatever.’
‘Have you done your homework?’
‘Haven’t got any.’
‘You hardly seem to get any. In my day, we had half an hour per night. Minimum.’
‘In Jurassic Park, yeah.’
‘So. If I phoned your form tutor—what’s his name?’
‘Ash Bandit.’
‘No, it is not.’
‘Mr Ashford.’
‘If I phoned Mr Ashford, he’d tell me you had no homework tonight. Is that right?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’
Sam unbuttoned his overcoat.
‘Come on, mate,’ he said. ‘Give me a break.’
‘Phone him then, if you don’t believe me.’
The effort of unbuttoning the coat was too much. Sam sank further into the chair. The coat was wet, cold where it touched his cheek. He spoke to his chest.
The Simpsons began. He watched the opening sequence for what felt like the millionth time.
He said, ‘So, have you decided what you want?’
Jamie looked at him.
‘Do you want curry?’ said Sam wearily.
‘All right. Keep your hair on. Lamb Pasanda.’
Sam watched Jamie’s profile for a long time.
Then he said, ‘Chuck me the phone.’
Jamie dug the cordless phone from deep between the sofa cushions, where it was usually to be found, lurking in secret, malevolent fraternity with the remote controls, and threw it to Sam.
Sam went to the kitchen to make the call in peace. It was dark outside. When he switched on the light, he could see only his reflection, bounced back at him in the window. His eyes were dark hollows. He ordered the food, then he stooped, heel-to-haunch, and opened the freezer door. He dropped three ice cubes into a tumbler and poured himself a large whisky.
On Monday morning, he phoned Jamie’s form tutor. After a moment’s hesitation (he seemed to be consulting something), Ashford agreed to see him that afternoon.
Sam was ten minutes late for their appointment. (Sam was ten minutes late for everything.) Hurrying through the school gates, he felt himself hexed by déjà vu. Churchill Comprehensive was a large school with a broad catchment area. More than twenty-five years before, he’d been one of over two thousand pupils. That number had since been exceeded.
The main building was an interlocking series of steel and concrete blocks, like a sculpture of an engine component. It loomed before his long approach like a lowered brow. The huts—prefabricated classrooms—were to his right, blocking his view of the school fields. Through the windows, he could see pupils in white shirts, bent over desks, teetering on chairs, talking, staring into space. They might have been ghosts.
He entered through the main doors with a sense of transgression; they were not for the use of pupils—students, as they were now called. Sam had never passed through them. The doors swung closed and he was engulfed by the familiar scents of dust and floorwax and bodies.
He stood in the same foyer, on the same chevroned parquet floor. The assembly hall was directly before him. The Head Teacher’s office stood at the end of a corridor that ran off to his right. From this corridor there emerged a slight, balding man in rolled shirtsleeves and floral tie, loose at the throat. He offered his hand.
‘Mr Greene?’
‘I’m sorry I’m late. The buses.’
‘Gerry Ashford. Don’t worry. I was held up too.’
There was an air of depletion about him, but he shook Sam’s hand briskly enough. Sam followed him down the Head Teacher’s corridor to the door of a room that abutted the School Secretary’s office. Inside, it was like a doctor’s waiting room: generic office carpeting, functional tables and chairs. Some effort had been made to decorate the walls with unframed watercolours—by students, he presumed. Some of them seemed quite good. Others did not. On a corner table there were basic tea-making facilities: two flasks, assorted novelty mugs.
Ashford asked him which he preferred, tea or coffee. Sam told him tea. He longed for a cigarette.
They sat facing each other. Ashford opened a blue folder. He knuckled a bloodshot eye. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and seemed to gather his thoughts. His index finger was yellow as parchment.
He took a deep, shuddering breath then immediately brightened, like somebody walking on stage.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You want to discuss Jamie.’
‘Yes.’
Ashford smiled.
‘What exactly would you say we’re here to discuss?’
Sam looked at him askance. He thought it too defensive an opening gambit.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s come to my attention that Jamie’s attendance isn’t what it might be.’
Ashford sat back, perhaps with relief.
‘That’s true enough,’ he said.
Sam shifted in his chair. He made a pained face.
‘How true, exactly?’
Ashford glanced at his notes. With his thumbs, he exerted pressure on his upper eyelids.
‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘there’s no getting around it: Jamie’s giving us cause for concern. We were just about to write to you, in fact.’
A shudder of unease passed through Sam. In trouble with the teachers. Ashford pressed his eyes again. Sam dug a knuckle into each temple. Two headaches in one room.
Ashford said, ‘Can I ask how Jamie’s been? At home?’
‘In what sense?’
‘Has he changed at all? Has he become moody and withdrawn? How does his current behaviour compare with that at his previous school?’
Sam spread his arms, helplessly.
‘Where do I begin?’
Ashford scratched his scalp. A little tuft of hair stood erect on his crown.
Sam shifted in his seat.
‘He’s had a difficult year,’ he said. ‘His mother passed away.’
Ashford nodded but didn’t comment. The officious way he scribbled a note seemed mannered and self-conscious.
‘She used to be a teacher,’ said Sam. ‘Funnily enough.’
‘I didn’t know about Jamie’s mother. Has he seen a counsellor?’
‘No.’
‘It might help.’
Sam smiled indulgently. He spread his hands again, this time in benediction.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I work in the mental health field. Believe me, Jamie’s fine. Of course he’s been upset—who wouldn’t be? It’s been a shock to us all. But he’s coped well.’
‘Except that he’s not attending school.’
‘That’s it, you see,’ said Sam. ‘I think it�
��s too easy to attribute his truancy to problems at home. Jamie’s very happy at home. I’m not convinced the attendance issue is related to the upheavals in his life. I believe there’s something else.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, obviously I’m not sure.’
Ashford looked up from the notes. He was watery-eyed.
He said, ‘Jamie seems like a nice lad—when he’s here. He’s polite, he’s quiet. He can be quite funny, when he puts his mind to it. But he hasn’t given us much of a chance, has he?’
Sam took a sip of colourless tea.
‘I don’t think he’s got many friends,’ he said.
‘It’s early days. It’ll take a while to settle in.’
‘So you think that’s all it is? There’s no particular problem?’
Ashford picked up his biro, twisted it through his fingers, then put it down again.
He said, ‘The best thing we can do for Jamie is to make sure he walks through those gates every morning. Once we’ve got him into the habit, he’ll settle down. I’ve seen it a hundred times. In its own way, it’s perfectly normal behaviour.’
Sam looked at the pen. Its plastic end was chewed jagged.
‘I’m sure you’re right. Perhaps I should speak to him.’
‘You haven’t done that?’
‘I wanted to speak to you first.’
Ashford nodded and made another note.
‘I see,’ he said.
He looked up and smiled, as if to ask was there anything more he could do.
The meeting seemed to have ended. Sam stood, gathered his coat and his bag, and once again shook Ashford’s hand. He said, ‘Thank you,’ although he did not feel grateful.
Ashford escorted him to the main doors.
Sam listened to the sound of his adult heels impacting on that identical parquet flooring. When last he’d heard this sound, it was amplified by hundreds, thousands of rushing young feet, surging like a dam overflow through the corridors. He’d been lost, swamped by the numbers, a bobbing head, while certain children—men they had seemed—kept their hands in their pockets and walked slowly, the crowd parting for them. They had seemed kings of this place.
Later, a slamming door alerted him to Jamie’s arrival. Without stopping to say hello, Jamie dumped his parka and bag in the hallway and stamped upstairs. Sam called after him.
An hour later, Jamie had still not appeared. Sam decided to wait in the kitchen until hunger drew him out. He made himself a mug of coffee and spread the Guardian on the breakfast bar.
Reading front to back, he’d reached page five when Jamie strode wordlessly into the kitchen. He opened the breadbin with some prejudice, removed two slices of white bread, dropped them on the worktop and began to spread on them a thick smear of peanut butter.
Without looking up, Sam said, ‘If you’re hungry, eat something decent.’
There was no response. Jamie folded each slice of bread crudely in half. He stuffed one of these rudimentary sandwiches into his mouth and chewed on it as he spread Sun-Pat on a third slice. Sam closed the newspaper and folded it, a sure sign that he wanted to talk. But Jamie ignored the signal.
Sam said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well, obviously something is.’
Jamie made a mouth of his hand and yabbered it at shoulder height.
Sam said, ‘You seem pretty pissed off about something.’
Jamie spat moist shrapnel at him.
‘What did you think you were doing?’
Sam was surprised by his sudden ferocity.
He said, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I saw you. I had Chemistry. I saw you through the lab window.’
Suddenly, with a triumphant paradiddle, Sam’s headache was back. He felt very tired.
‘I didn’t have much choice. They wrote to me.’
Jamie paused. Then he resumed slamming dollops of peanut butter on to the bread. It was ripped and stretched with the violence of his buttering.
‘Wrote to you about what?’
‘About what do you think? About your not going to school.’
Jamie stopped buttering and glared down at the worktop. He wiped his hands on his jeans and went back to the fridge. He took a series of drowning gulps from a carton of orange juice, left the sweating carton next to the destroyed slice of bread. He closed the fridge door, then marched out of the kitchen.
Sam half-stood, as if to follow. Then he changed his mind. He sagged and slumped on his stool. The headache had become so bad, it was difficult to move. He went to the drawer, found some Nurofen and dry-swallowed five of them.
He shuffled to the sitting room and switched on the TV. He turned over to BBC2, the snooker, and lay on the sofa. He pressed a cushion over his eyes and listened to the soft drone of the commentary until it became meaningless and soporific. He meant to go upstairs and talk to Jamie, once the headache had calmed a little. But instead, he fell asleep and woke, confused, in the early hours. The house was dark, flickering with the cold blue fire of the television. He sat up and tried to get to bed before waking irrecoverably. But by the time he climbed between the cold cotton, sleep had deserted him. He lay on his back and stared at the bedroom ceiling. In his mind there played a muttered, imaginary snooker commentary.
He woke in the morning, with no idea how long he’d slept.
He could hear Jamie in the kitchen. He pulled on a pair of tracksuit trousers and went downstairs. Barefoot and cold, he put the kettle on to boil.
Jamie was watching TV, shovelling milky cornflakes into his mouth. He’d used the last drop of milk.
Sam said, ‘So, are you going to school today?’
Jamie rolled his eyes, as if this were the most stupid question he’d ever heard.
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ said Sam. He made a cup of instant coffee, strong, black, and lit a cigarette. Jamie wafted away the smoke with a regal hand. Sam smoked and looked down at his pale, veiny, hairy feet.
He said, ‘Look, I know it can’t be easy. It’s a big place. You don’t know anybody.’
Jamie turned up the television. Sam ground out the cigarette, then marched over and turned it off.
He said, ‘Jesus, Jamie. I can’t hear myself think.’
‘When will you stop going on at me?’
‘I’m not going on at you. Jesus Christ, they wrote me a letter! I can’t just let you not go to school.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s the law! They’ll take you away or something. They’ll put you in care.’
He regretted it, the moment he said it. He heard the hectoring ghost of his mother.
Jamie looked at him with blank accusation.
‘Is that what you want?’
Sam started to speak. Then he stopped, trying to calm himself. But his voice still went high with frustration.
‘Of course it’s not what I want. That’s why we’re talking about it.’
Jamie stood and carried the bowl of cornflakes, half-eaten, to the kitchen.
‘You have to go to school,’ said Sam. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
He followed him through the kitchen and then down the hall. He watched as Jamie pulled on his parka, then gathered his things.
Sam said, ‘It’s not even eight o’clock. Where are you going?’
Jamie stopped. His arms hung at his sides as if the whole business of conversation was simply too tiring.
‘To Stuart’s.’
‘Right,’ said Sam. ‘And then on to school.’
‘Change the record,’ muttered Jamie, who probably had never seen one. He took some care not to slam the door behind him, as if the morning had been a contest of dignity.
Sam stood at the window and watched him stamp along the garden path, then down the
pavement. He was followed by a broken trail of condensed breath. It was cold outside. Christmas was coming.
He thought about calling Stuart’s house, then realized that he didn’t have the number or even know the address. Instead, he called Jamie’s mobile from his own, scrolling first through a list of redundant names. (Justine’s mobile number was there, and her work number. He scrolled through the names of shared friends who’d deserted him, one by one, with such stealth he’d barely noticed until they were all gone.)
He thumbed the CALL button and reached Jamie’s answering service. He re-dialled and got it again. Frustrated, he dumped the phone on the sofa. The headache had not entirely gone. There was a slow pulsing in one side of his head. He ran the shower too hot and too long and emerged from it red and gasping. He looked at his watch, propped on the cistern, and saw he was late for work. By the time he remembered where he’d left the mobile phone, for which he had little use anyway, he was even later. He dialled the local minicab firm. The car, a canary yellow Ford Capri, showed up ten minutes later than promised. It found Sam waiting at the front gate.
He sat in the rear passenger seat, his tatty briefcase clasped on his lap. He lacked the heart to be brusque to the driver, whose apology and general cheeriness seemed entirely genuine. But when they arrived at the hospital, Sam’s neck was in spasm. He could barely move his head.
From the cab’s steamy window, he looked at the hospital, squat and forbidding against a monochromatic sky. The dim, thundery light rendered the minicab pale mustard. Sam paid the fare and trudged through the gates, across the car park and through the doors into the psychiatric ward. Pinpoints of light danced in the periphery of his right eye. When Molly smiled hello, he smiled back and the world rushed away and he stumbled. Correcting his balance, he accidentally barged a passing cleaner. The cleaner helped Sam to steady himself. The right side of his head had closed like a clam. He imagined the lobes there shrinking like a salted slug, leaving behind only a vestigial, throbbing knot, a dry broccoli head.
He said, ‘Molly, I’ve got a migraine.’
His voice was distant and muffled, but the exertion of speaking caused the tender flesh of his eye to shriek. Molly left the desk (he had never seen her except from the waist up: she had a tweed skirt and chubby, old-woman’s ankles) and came over to help him sit down. He took one of the chairs in reception and sat with his spine rigid, breathing in measured, timed mouthfuls to counteract the nausea. Within a few minutes, two colleagues, Jo and Steve, had arrived. They led him through to the staffroom, taking his elbows. Jo rushed ahead and pulled the curtains against the fierce light. Sam curled foetally on the floor in the farthest corner, a hand clutched across his eyes. Steve covered him with a thin grey blanket. He and Jo left, quietly. A few minutes later, Steve returned: he passed Sam two large tablets and a plastic cup of water.
