“Please have a seat. Miss Rogers will be with you in a minute.”
The reception area was too small for a school that size, and in the space of five minutes, four or five pupils came and went and a few parents entered and waited beside us. It was really busy. Teachers also showed up from time to time to receive the parents who were there for a scheduled meeting like us. It was a small room riddled with sofas, some of which looked very old and poorly maintained. The one I was sitting on was split and dirty on the armrest, but the stain seemed dry and almost certainly impossible to clean anymore. The light was dim and pale, and one of the bulbs made a funny noise. It was sad to see the condition a once modern and sophisticated school was in.
Miss Rogers came and greeted us. It wasn’t the first time we saw her, and it wouldn’t be the last. She was a tall young woman with piercing eyes, ready to lecture everybody about what we can or cannot expect from a kid or what is right or wrong or what we parents should do about our children’s education. She spoke too much, always looking over her glasses as if we needed help to see her cold brown eyes, asking questions even though she already knew the answers, trying to educate both parents and pupils.
“Good morning, Mrs and Mr Johnson,” she said. “Mrs and Mr Kerry are already in the meeting room. They came earlier so I could brief them on the situation. I would like to speak to the two of you alone before we all meet, if that is okay.”
“Of course it is,” I said, attempting a nice smile.
She led the way to an empty room. Her steps were firm and smooth, stroking the floor at every movement, sending a clear message to the people following: I’m nice, but I’m in control. And the message got to me the very moment I met her. I knew she was a good teacher and she looked after our kids and provided them with a good education, but she made me sick, and she knew it.
“Did Jaime tell you about what happened?”
“He didn’t tell us anything,” Mark said.
“Okay, so I’ll fill you in.”
“Please,” I said, tilting my head.
“It all started at the end of last week. Jaime’s classmates were gossiping and pointing at him on the playground. As you know, Jaime is a lonely child and doesn’t seem to enjoy other children’s company.”
“A teacher intervened, I suppose?” I interrupted her.
“Yes, Mrs Johnson. My colleague, Mr Spencer, approached the other kids to learn what was going on and prevent them from singling out your son.”
“Good,” I said.
“The other pupils stopped paying attention to him for the rest of the break, and Mr Spencer found out what he thinks is the reason for such a behaviour. As you know, we have a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying, but apart from pointing at him, nobody was being mean to your son, and as I told you, they were put down very quickly. Apparently, the reason they are reacting this way is related to an injury a girl suffered last Thursday while playing basketball. She had had an argument with Jaime in the classroom because she would not let him borrow a pencil in their maths lesson, and he was staring at her when the accident happened. She broke her left knee and will spend the rest of the year - if not longer - in a wheelchair.”
“Oh, dear!” Mark said. “That’s horrible!”
“But that’s so unfair!” I shouted. “They can’t blame Jaime for that!”
“Mrs Johnson, please calm down,” she said without changing the volume in her voice or the severe expression of her face. “We know Jaime had not done anything wrong, and we made sure those pupils who were blaming him understood they weren’t being nice to him.”
“But,” I said, afraid of what was coming next.
“But they could not help staring at Jaime and whispering behind his back. They are kids, after all, and we cannot control their emotions, particularly their fears.”
“So, you let them bully him,” I said.
“No, we did not let them bully him,” she said. “I need you to understand the gravity of this, Mrs Johnson. Jaime almost broke a boy’s nose at lunchtime. The boy was just talking to a friend, we do not know if your son was the subject of the conversation, but all the same, Jaime stood up, approached him and punched him in the face without speaking a word. We will not accept that kind of aggressive behaviour in our school, as I am sure you will understand.”
I was going to give that lady a piece of my mind, but Mark put a hand on my shoulder to stop me, so I counted to ten and let him speak.
“We understand, Miss Rogers. We will make sure Jaime is fully aware of the situation, and we will, of course, apologise to the other boy’s parents.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Rogers. “Now, if you would please follow me.”
I knew she was suppressing a smile, a satisfied smile, as if she had won a battle she knew from the very beginning she couldn’t lose.
In the corridor, next to the room where Tom Kerry and his parents waited, Jaime was standing with his head down and his hands fiddling in front of him. Poor thing. He looked as abandoned and forsaken as the first time I saw him, too embarrassed to look at us, too scared to speak his mind or run to us or hug his mum. I noticed a bloodstain on his shirt, a white shirt, the kind that boys wear as part of the uniform, so the contrast made it very obvious, even though there wasn’t much blood.
I tried not to panic. This wasn’t good. It was very wrong, all was wrong, the blood, his face, the shadow in his eyes, the red dried blood, the teacher waiting for us to enter the other room, the smile on her face, the long, long corridor with all those lights spinning and spinning around, Happy, that day in Cusco, the people shouting at us, so much blood, the blood in my hands while holding a knife staring at his lifeless body. I nearly passed out, but Mark held me by my right arm and I felt how the warmth filled my body again, and I heard the song he used to play when we started dating, and the clouds passing by in a hot summer day at the seashore, and the smell of the barbeque in our everlasting evenings at the rear garden of his small terraced house in London.
I gathered all the strength I could, and we entered the room together. It was bigger than the other one. It had a large table in the centre and many chairs all around. At one side of it, Mr and Mrs Kerry and Tom were sitting and waiting for us to join the meeting. They looked at us. Mrs Kerry held her husband’s hand firmly, and he looked at her and caressed her shoulder.
Mr Kerry was wearing a blue overall with several white stains. He was probably a painter who had to leave his task for a moment to attend the meeting. As for Mrs Kerry, very professionally dressed, she struck me as a lawyer, but it was just a thought. They frowned and clenched their teeth, the two of them, fixing my son with their eyes, red with hatred, the kind of look Jaime was sadly so used to. I knew that in the animal world, their body language would be interpreted as a threat, and I imagined myself as a furious chimp jumping over them and tearing them to pieces.
Tom, their boy, had a tiny thread of blood still running down his nose filled with cotton, and he seemed very scared when he saw Jaime entering the room. Miss Rogers, the unlikely moderator, sat in the middle, both hands resting on her legs. She looked at everyone at the same time, judging every glance, every wink, every breath, like an Orwellian video camera filming everything and eager to give an account of any trespasses.
At the other side of the table, three empty chairs waited for us. Jaime sat between us. He wouldn’t let my hand loose. His eyes shone with regret, and even shame, and I wanted to hug him because I couldn’t do it earlier due to my panic attack, and he was still shaking when Miss Rogers started the conversation.
“Well, I think we all know the facts already, but I would like Jaime to tell us what happened and how he was feeling when it happened.”
“Jaime,” I smiled at him, “come on, sweetie, tell them what happened.”
“I hate this school.”
“Jaime,” Mark said.
“Why is that, Jaime?” Miss Rogers asked.
“Everybody is mean to me. They look at me and point at me
and say things. I can’t hear them. They say bad things. I don’t like them.”
“What happened this morning, Jaime?” Miss Rogers asked.
“They were mean.” A couple of tears sprout from Jaime’s eyes. I thought it cruel to let him continue with that meeting, but I wanted to settle this soon, so I didn’t try to stop his teacher from asking more questions.
“Okay, Jaime, I understand,” she said, “you were upset about the way they treated you.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“And what did you do about it?”
“I made them stop, Miss.”
“How?”
“I punched him in the face,” he said, pointing at Tom, who quivered.
“Tom, do you have anything to add to this?”
He took a few seconds to think, but he couldn’t help staring at Jaime. “No, Miss,” he said.
There was a silence. We were all nervous, disappointed and upset. I was feeling bad because I was failing my son, and I knew Mark felt the same way, but what were Mrs and Mr Kerry thinking about? Their boy had suffered a terrible aggression, and they weren’t there to defend him. No one was there to defend him, and that cute, smartass teacher couldn’t even guarantee them this wasn’t going to happen again.
“I will not lie, Miss Rogers, we are very disappointed,” Mr Kerry said. “We chose this school because we thought this was a safe environment where bullying was proactively tackled, but it doesn’t look to me that all the necessary measures were taken to avoid this incident.”
“I understand your concerns, Mr Kerry. Your boy has suffered an awful aggression, and this cannot and will not happen again. I assure you that we always take all the necessary measures to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but as I am sure you will understand, we cannot be stuck to every child at every moment.”
“I do not think I made myself clear.” Miss Rogers’s explanation wasn’t good enough for them, and for the first time, we saw her losing control of the conversation. “I do not feel confident with you blaming the child for your negligence. Kids are kids, and your work as teachers and carers in this school is to make sure they are safe at all times. I will not accept this attitude of yours, and I will see you taking full responsibility for what happened here.”
Miss Rogers didn’t look so self-righteous now. Her hands moved more and more: from her nose to her knees, from her knees to her elbows, back on the table again. Mr Kerry had a point. The school was supposed to keep everybody safe. An apology wouldn’t suffice. Neither from us nor from the school. And our suspicions were confirmed when we received a call a couple of days later saying that Jaime had been expelled.
Chapter 6
The incident
It was a dark and rather cold afternoon of April 2014. I left work at 4 pm. I was a waitress in a café near home back then, a very cosy local establishment where some neighbours and a few visitors popped in. It was a small place, only four tables with four chairs each in the centre and a small bar next to the window with five more stools. The light came in pale and weak in the morning, creating a calm and sweet atmosphere, and just a few sunbeams broke into the hall before sunset. Sometimes, when there were more customers than we were used to, the whole coffee shop looked crowded, even though I’ve never seen more than thirty people there at the same time, and those who paid enough attention could notice me and my colleagues buried in sighs of desperation. But it was a quiet place most of the time, frequented by quiet customers in a quiet East London district.
Undemanding as the job was, I couldn’t see any future for me there, but it was near home. I had been toying with the idea of working part-time for a while, and when I saw they were looking for a barista, I didn’t think twice. I needed time. Plenty of time. I needed to look after Jaime and myself, and I couldn’t do it with an 8-to-5 job. Even though Mark worked as much as I did at home, it wasn’t enough to take care of a problematic child like Jaime.
“You don’t need to work,” Mark had said. “My salary is good enough to provide for the whole family.”
“I know it is,” I said, “but I want to work. Even if what I earn is meaningless.”
“Okay, I understand,” he said.
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do. You want to feel independent. I respect that.”
I thought of it as a temporary thing, just a few months until I found something more interesting in the area, but it was just too convenient, as I could adapt my shifts to Jaime and collect him from school every day. Not that day, though. Mark was on holidays and went to pick him up.
“I’m leaving!” I said, already in my home clothes and waving at Monika.
“Did you empty the dishwasher?” my boss asked.
“Don’t worry,” Monika said before I could answer, “I’ll do it.”
“You’re an angel, thank you very much. It had completely slipped my mind.”
Monika was lovely. I had met her not long ago, but she was one of those people you can’t help loving. Her voice was always warm, her face illuminated by a wide smile, and the way she talked to me and everybody was pure kindness. I tried to return all her favours the best I could, but she always had something nice to say, and she was always the first one to offer help when somebody needed it.
“Don’t even mention it!” she said. “Have a lovely evening, and enjoy your time with your family.”
When I walked past the door of the café, a cold stream pierced throughout my back, making me accidentally drop my purse.
“Are you all right?” Monika asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. It must be the weather. It’s really cold today!”
But it wasn’t only the weather. I felt my face lost its colour, and my arms clenched like stiff pieces of cold metal. I put on my coat, but I couldn’t get rid of that dark, cloudy shadow obscuring my mind. Something wasn’t right. The streets looked hostile as I walked them. Too noisy. Too grey. Cars passing close to the pavement, hating other cars and hating pedestrians and polluting everything with their dirty stench. Countless women and men rushing to go nowhere, to save just one lonely minute they would waste later on. Children waiting for the bus after school, too sad to play or laugh or live. A hopeless city fearing for a tragedy to happen, only to ignore it minutes after.
My heartbeat was speeding up as I approached the front door of our house. A strange and powerful force was pulling me back as if the world didn’t want me to enter. I took the keys from my purse and opened the door. At the moment, I could only hear the sound of my heart pumping the whole mass of my blood through my body. A drop of sweat fell off the tip of my nose and crashed on the carpet. I moved through a bubble of thick silence. It scared me. Mark and Jaime were supposed to be home already, but I couldn’t hear the slightest sound.
I moved down the hallway and checked the kitchen. There was a box of shortbread open on the table and a half-filled glass of water next to it, but nobody there. I turned my head to look at the sofa. Nothing. They had to be upstairs. Pale, sweating and with all the power of my heart oppressing my chest and keeping me from breathing properly, I went up to the first floor.
When I was reaching the top, I noticed someone was there. I saw his left foot first, then his arm and then the back of his head, just to realise it was Jaime standing in the corridor. He was quiet and still and staring at something. Or somebody. I moved a few steps forwards and froze, paralyzed by the sight I had before me. Mark was lying on the floor, his eyes closed, his body stiff and motionless. My scream scared Jaime and woke Mark up. I knelt next to him, crying and holding his hand.
“What happened?” he said, looking at me.
He looked confused and disoriented, so I hugged him right away.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m with you now. It’s okay.”
I was so shocked and nervous that I hadn’t realised Jaime had run to his bedroom. I thought he was scared, just like me. But I couldn’t pay attention to him. I had to make sure Mark was all right. He didn’t have a
ny wounds or bruises. He had probably fainted and collapsed. He recovered little by little, and I helped him sit up. His eyes wandered across the corridor, trying to sort out where he was. It looked like he saw through my face as if he couldn’t recognise me.
“What happened?” he said once again.
“I don’t know, honey. I just got home and found you like this.”
“I can’t remember very well,” he said, lost in some place between confusion and disbelief.
“That’s okay. Don’t worry. You probably fainted.”
“No!” he yelled, and the look in his eyes changed at once.
“Mark!” I said. “Take it easy. I’m here now.”
“I didn’t faint,” he said, a little more calmed. “I just don’t understand.”
“You’ll remember. It doesn’t matter now. You just need to stand up and go to bed and wait for me to bring you dinner. I don’t want you going downstairs tonight.”
I recovered my breath, and my heart rate went back to normal little by little. I helped Mark enter our bedroom and get in bed. He was weak and delusional. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand and sometimes uttered incoherent words and phrases that didn’t make any sense to me.
It saddened me to see his body under the duvet, his eyes still open and looking around the room as if searching for something. I considered taking him to the hospital, but he appeared to be recovering quickly, so I decided to wait and see how he felt. Nevertheless, we would need a visit to the doctor to check why this had happened. I kissed his forehead, and when I turned around, I jumped to see Jaime standing at the door, very quiet and staring at me.
“Jaime!” I said. “You frightened me!”
“I’m sorry, Mum,” he said, lowering his eyes in guilt, “you haven’t kissed me.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. You’re absolutely right,” I said while hugging him and kissing his cheek. “I was taking care of Dad. He’s just fine, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
The Outcast Son Page 3
