Darkmans (16 page)

What the…?!

Isidore hung up.

‘There are many ways in which Fleet is much,
much
more advanced than all of the other children in his class,’ Mrs Santa explained, encouragingly, ‘his hand–eye coordination – for one thing – is really quite astonishing. And I mean
really
quite astonishing…’

She glanced over towards the play area in the corner of the classroom where Fleet was currently sitting and boredly constructing a small, neat structure –

A fort, was it?

– out of plastic bricks.

Elen detected a kind of anxiety in the glance. She felt a spontaneous knuckle of rage forming in her stomach (how
dare
she look at him like that? He was her
son.
She
loved
him), and then a balancing knuckle of sympathy (Oh
God
, he made her feel that way herself, sometimes).

These two contradictory knuckles were Elen’s constant companions; and her gut was the boxing ring in which they staged their spats. ‘Motherhood,’ she told herself, bleakly: ‘the pride, the humility.’

She tried to take a deep breath –

Breathe

Breathe from the stomach

(just like Dory said)

Kinking the back

Diaphragm flat, out, up
…

They were sitting on two tiny chairs at a tiny table, like a couple of lady Gullivers amongst the Lilliputians. Elen couldn’t actually remember entering the classroom, or how she’d actually got there. It was all just a blank, a fug. She stared over at the teacher, frowning.

‘But then he might go and do something like…like
that
for example…’

The teacher indicated (perhaps slightly irritably) at the methodical way in which – before he finally positioned each and every individual brick – Fleet would run the nail of his thumb along the smooth plastic edge, then push the indented side, firmly, into his lower lip.

‘He’ll do that for whole hours at a time. And I mean whole
hours
, literally. That same, odd little ritual…’

This time her glance extended over towards the door.

Elen’s own eyes followed, hard upon –

Oh my God

The Head Teacher –

Standing guard…

‘He has a phenomenal memory…’ Mrs Santa returned, somewhat doggedly, to her positive sales pitch, ‘although he’s highly selective about the kinds of things that interest him. Very…
uh
…particular…’

Elen wasn’t paying attention. She was still thinking about the Head Teacher and why he was out there –

Back-up?

Is something wrong?

Does she hate me?

She put a self-conscious hand to her cheek –

Is it the mark?

‘But on the down-side…’ Mrs Santa paused, stuck out her chin, gave a small, Jewish shrug –

Is she Jewish?

Elen stared at her. She was tiny, plump, wore her dark hair – pushed back today with a navy-blue alice-band – in a neat, sharp bob –

Is she?

‘…his language skills are lagging way behind most of the other
children’s in his class. And his social skills are still very shaky – even after our previous initiative with the Bradleys’ youngest…’

Elen blinked, snapping out of her reverie –

Oh my, yes
 –

The Bradley boy…

That ended badly

‘He’ll fall asleep at the drop of a hat – sitting at the table, or when I’m reading a story. Or he’ll just curl up in a corner,’ Mrs Santa twisted the engagement ring on her finger, smiling, almost fondly, ‘like the dopey little dormouse in
Alice in Wonderland.
’ She cleared her throat and then waited for a response. None came.

‘It’s not that he’s bored – at least I certainly hope it’s not that…’ she drew a quick breath, as if anticipating some kind of heartfelt affirmation of her teaching skills from Elen (she waited in vain), ‘but he’s definitely
tired.
And yet when he is awake, when he’s on the ball…’ she adjusted a gold link on the bracelet of her watch, ‘he goes straight to the opposite extreme. He focuses too much…’ she paused, speculatively. ‘I’m sure you’ll be aware of this yourself. He can try too hard. He can get too involved in certain projects – certain situations – and then get incredibly frustrated if things don’t work out properly…’

‘Is Fleet causing trouble in class?’ Elen butted in, almost hopefully (there was something so reassuringly
normal
about the thought of a naughty, disruptive little boy).

Mrs Santa looked shocked. ‘No. Absolutely not. In fact quite the opposite. If anything he’s actually…’ she winced, putting up a small hand to adjust the tiny, faux-Hermès-style silk scarf around her neck ‘…too well behaved. And too hard on himself.
Extremely
hard…’ Elen frowned. This was definitely not good.

‘So you called me in today,’ she spoke calmly and evenly (purposefully misinterpreting what the teacher was telling her –

This is a game, Elen
 –

Come on, girl,

Play
)

– ‘because he’s
too
well-behaved?’

‘Yes.’ Mrs Santa nodded.

‘And you really think that’s a problem?’

Mrs Santa smiled. ‘Problem seems rather a
harsh
way of putting it…’

‘Right.
Fine.
’

Elen could feel herself growing defensive. She sensed a degree of soft-soaping. And, worse still, bobbing around, perniciously, beneath all those suds and lather: a hidden agenda. She glanced over towards the door again. The Head Teacher had ducked out of view, but she was certain he was still there.

‘Some children find it difficult to concentrate,’ Mrs Santa tip-toed onward, ‘and some children are just…’ she struggled to find the correct word, then gave up ‘…
too
concentrated. Fleet finds himself in this second category. He’s very grown up for a boy of his age. In fact we’ve all noticed – myself, the classroom assistants, some of the mothers who like to help out sometimes – how much better he seems at interacting with adults than with other children of his own age…’

‘Yes,’ Elen was perfectly willing to take this on board –

Unreasonable?

Me?

‘…Fleet’s an only child,’ she murmured, ‘I suppose that must impact on him at some level…’

‘We all think he’s experiencing a certain amount of…of
stress
,’ Mrs Santa rushed on (emboldened by Elen’s apparent compliance), ‘and that he’s expressing it through particular…’ she paused, as if searching for the least damning formulation ‘…behaviours. Tasks. Symptoms.
Habits.
’

‘I see.’

Elen’s voice was clear as a glass of spring water.

‘He never seems quite able to switch
off
…’

Elen was quiet.

The teacher cleared her throat, nervously. ‘We wondered whether there might be anything…anything
unusual
going on at home at the moment which could offer some kind of…of…?’

She gazed over at Elen, appealingly.

‘…Perhaps a recent family bereavement? The loss of a job…?’

Elen said nothing. Mrs Santa filled the awkward silence by commencing a detailed inspection of the heel of her black court shoe.

‘We have a hole in the roof,’ Elen eventually volunteered, ‘the roof’s leaking.’

‘Really?’

Mrs Santa seemed relieved by Elen’s input, and yet somewhat nonplussed. Elen had a sudden sense of how it might feel to be a student who wasn’t excelling in Mrs Santa’s class (that atmosphere of ‘tolerant’ disappointment; of ‘accepting’ disquiet). She didn’t like it. The angry knuckle tensed itself up inside her stomach again –

Cow

– then the second, gentler knuckle – the pacifier –

She’s his teacher
 –

She just wants to help…

– predictably balanced it out.

‘I know it mightn’t sound like much,’ Elen explained, patiently, ‘but it’s leaking directly above Fleet’s bedroom. We’ve had to move all his…his
toys
down into the living-area. Everything’s a little chaotic.’

‘Ah.’

Mrs Santa tried to appear as if she’d been enlightened in some way by this explanation. She failed. She glanced down at her hands, then back over towards Fleet again. Fleet did a tiny, involuntary jump, for no apparent reason.

‘Did you just see that?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘That little jump? That “tick”. He does it fairly regularly.’

‘Does he? Yes. Well that’s…’ Elen bit her lip ‘…that’s something he…he
does
, occasionally.’

She smoothed down the fabric of her skirt and folded her hands across her lap. She knew she wasn’t helping matters. She felt frustrated – impotent. There was so much she could contribute –

So much

– but she just…

Just
…

No.

Can’t.

Her eyes shifted over towards the classroom windows. It was a new building (everything was new here – for Isidore, something being ‘new enough’ was always a primary concern). She idly noticed how one of the smaller, higher windows had been left open. She gazed up at it, ruminatively. Her eyes moved to the square of putty surrounding the pane of glass. She could see – even from where she was sitting – that the putty had been interfered with. It was puckered; sliced; gouged out in some places.

She shuddered.

‘We all want what’s best for Fleet, after all…’ Mrs Santa continued. ‘Of course,’ Elen was still distracted, still looking up at the window. ‘So we wondered,’ Mrs Santa grasped her moment, ‘if it might not be an idea to book him in for a brief session with the child psychologist.’

‘No.’

Elen immediately snapped back to attention. ‘Absolutely not.’

Mrs Santa seemed shocked; less by the refusal itself, than by the casual manner in which it was delivered. ‘But it’s a perfectly
normal
procedure,’ she emphasised, ‘a significant percentage of our children end up seeing the psychologist at some time or other during their school career.’

Elen pushed her hair firmly behind her ears. ‘What percentage would that
be
, exactly?’

Mrs Santa floundered, ‘I don’t know. Two…three…’

‘That’s not a significant percentage,’ Elen was very calm, ‘that’s a
tiny
percentage.’

Fleet had completed his task in the play area. He yawned. He rubbed his eyes and then stood up. Elen reached out her hand towards him, almost as if appealing for his support.

‘If you’re concerned that there might be some kind of…of
stigma
…’ Mrs Santa continued, staunchly.

‘Yes I am worried,’ Elen nodded, ‘very worried. Because there would be.’

‘The point is that we’re extremely concerned about Fleet, and we simply feel…’

‘The fact is,’ Elen interrupted, ‘that I’m not really the problem here. It’s Dory, Fleet’s father. He’s German. He’s very old-fashioned. He simply wouldn’t tolerate the idea.’

‘Fleet’s father doesn’t necessarily have to be involved,’ Mrs Santa proclaimed boldly (glancing towards the child with a bright smile), ‘it could simply be something that the school has instigated, something which just “spontaneously happens”, so to speak.’

Elen seemed genuinely alarmed by this suggestion. Fleet was standing at her side, now. She slipped her arm around his waist and pulled him closer.

‘I don’t like the sound of that
at all
, Mrs Santa.’

Her gentle voice contained a strong warning.

Mrs Santa looked uncomfortable, as if a breach had been established and she – for one – was going to experience some difficulty in recovering from it. ‘Well just think it over, at least. We’re only trying to do our best for the boy,’ she leaned forward and chucked Fleet, playfully, under his chin (he stiffened). ‘We want him to be happy. We want him to excel.’

‘Of course.’

There was a sudden, loud creaking sound directly above them. Elen glanced up. One of the classroom’s suspended strip-lights had slowly begun to rock.

Mrs Santa glanced up, too.

‘It’s the breeze,’ she said, ‘it often does that.’

She clambered to her feet, walked over to the line of windows, picked up a specially adapted pole and pushed its metal tip through the high, open window’s latch. She briskly pulled it shut.

The light continued to swing. Fleet stretched up his arm towards it, pointing his index finger. He paused for a second, then jumped again – a tiny, apparently involuntary jolt – before smiling and carefully touching that same index finger to his right shoulder (as if in some kind of convoluted boy scout salute).

Elen quickly stood up as Mrs Santa walked back over. She grabbed her bag to try and signal an end to their discussion.

‘There, that’s better,’ Mrs Santa murmured. They all looked up towards the light again, their heads tipping, in unison, their chins lifting; like three, simple flower petals unfurling from the bud in a time-lapse-photography nature documentary.

At night he did his real work. You couldn’t call it ‘play’, exactly. It was far too serious – too painstaking – for that. He’d been re-creating, in perfect miniature, the Cathedral of Sainte-Cecile (the world’s largest ever brick-built structure) which was located (and this meant nothing to Fleet, he was six years old, and geography, to him, was just a clumsy four-syllable word) in the beautiful, French medieval town of Albi.

Fleet’s tools: a trusty pair of children’s paper-cutting scissors (the blades of which he’d secretly stropped on a stone until they were razor-sharp), some general-purpose adhesive (the white kind which came in a blue tub and smelled of marzipan), and matchsticks (in abundance; pristine –
never
spent – with the brightly tinted sulphured end cleanly lopped off).

He had a small black and white picture of the cathedral (a partial view – it was a monumental, many-faceted construction, 200 years in the making) which he’d discovered, by chance (at least, that’s how he remembered it), aged four, in a French holiday brochure. He liked to keep it hidden (he didn’t know why: instinct, perhaps) inside a folded strip of cardboard hoarded from a cereal packet, shoved under the dishcloths in the back of a kitchen drawer.