Face (16 page)

Martin walked home as slowly as he could and went to bed.

The next morning Martin woke up to the sound of his mother knocking on his door and calling him. ‘Martin, get up. You'll be late for school.'

Martin put his head under the bedclothes and said nothing. ‘Martin, can you hear me? Are you OK?' When she got no response she announced, ‘I'm coming in.'

She looked around the room, which was unusually untidy. Martin's clothes, magazines and music cassettes looked as if they had just been thrown on the floor. His wardrobe door was open and his new trainers were lying at opposite ends of the room. She looked at the bed, seeing only the shape of Martin's curled up body under the quilt.

‘Martin, it's time for school. What's the matter? Why didn't you eat your dinner yesterday?'

She stepped over the mess on the floor and sat at the end of the bed. ‘Come on, Martin, you got to go to school. You're late. Your dad's gone to work. Your
breakfast is on the table and you've probably missed assembly already.'

There was a muffled response from Martin. ‘Leave me alone, Mom. I'm not going to school.'

‘But you have to go, son. What's the problem?'

‘I'm not going,' Martin said.

His mother stood up and walked to the door. ‘I don't understand, Martin. You were beginning to like school so much. Why don't you tell me what's the matter? Maybe I can help.'

Martin didn't reply; he lay silent and still.

She closed the door and went downstairs, not at all sure what steps to take next.

Martin lay in bed all morning. His mother had decided to do nothing. She sat quietly downstairs listening for a sign of movement. At around eleven thirty she heard him go to the bathroom.

As soon as she heard him, she ran to the bottom of the stairs and called up, ‘Martin, are you all right?'

‘Yeah,' Martin replied in what was more like a grunt than a spoken word.

She then went to the kitchen and prepared him an egg on toast and freshly squeezed orange juice. She had hoped that he was starting to get up but as she entered the room carrying the food on a tray, she found Martin still curled up in bed.

‘Martin,' she said despondently, ‘here's your favourite, some egg on toast. I'll leave it on your
dressing table.' She made room on the dressing table and left the food for him.

When she returned an hour later, the tray was still there. She could see that two bites had been taken out of one piece of toast and a small amount of orange juice had been drunk. She took the tray out of the room and returned downstairs.

It was a day of nothingness. She spent the day waiting for Martin to come to life and Martin spent the day waiting for the day to go away.

Martin's father arrived home at six o'clock to find his mother crying in the kitchen. She tearfully told him about Martin's refusal to go to school or get out of bed. He was convinced that something had happened to Martin at the club but Martin's mother wasn't so sure. She reminded him that on Sunday morning he had told them what a great time he had had.

‘That gymnastics team, his music and going to the club have made him the happiest I've ever seen him, before or after the accident,' she said.

Martin's father ran upstairs with his mother following and burst into Martin's room. ‘Right, son, I'm your father. You can talk to me. What's wrong, son?' he demanded.

Martin lay motionless under the quilt. His father paced up and down the room and his mother tried desperately to pick up Martin's clothes, magazines and
tapes from the floor.

‘Martin, it's your father here. If anyone has hurt you, you tell me. If it's something that you want, tell me what it is. We haven't got much money but you know we'd try our best for you. It don't matter what it is, we can sort it out.'

Martin mumbled from under the quilt, ‘All I want is to be left alone. What's wrong with that?'

‘You can't just lie in bed all day, lad. You have to do something. You have to eat. Life's hard but you gotta be a man about it.'

There was more silence.

‘OK, son, you come down when you're ready. We ain't going nowhere.'

Martin stayed in bed, under the quilt, for the rest of the night, only getting up once to go to the bathroom. When his mother brought more food into his room, he didn't touch it. The next day was pretty much the same. He had very little breakfast and stayed in bed, missing school again. But he did choose to sit up in bed. It was as if he was in hospital again. He spoke slightly more but still very little. His father went to work as normal leaving his mother to do her best. At times when she was managing to get sentences out of him, she tried to ask him about this sudden downturn but Martin just shut up again. His father came home that evening and tried a softer approach, as advised by a work colleague, but that
didn't get him anywhere either.

On Wednesday when his father had left for work, Martin put on his headphones and his pyjamas and began to pad around the house. His mother tried to persuade him to go to school but to no avail. She tried to get him to go for a walk but he wouldn't entertain the idea. Martin simply did not want to come into contact with anyone at all. He did not want to talk about Sunday afternoon to anyone and he did not feel the need for fresh air. He wanted to do nothing but hide away. At lunch time the phone rang as he was sitting on his bed doing nothing. When his mother answered the phone, he could tell that the call was about him. He went to the door, opened it very slightly and listened to his mother's side of the conversation.

‘Hello … yes … this is Mrs Turner … oh yes, I was thinking of getting in touch with the school. You see he hasn't been well over the last few days … No, no he's not in hospital, he's here. He's just not well … Yes, he has talked a lot about the gymnastics team … Yes, I know he's the captain … Yes, I know it's this Saturday … Yes … Yes … '

There was a long silence as his mother listened. Like many other things, Martin had not given the gymnastics competition any consideration. Now he wanted to know what was being said.

She spoke again. ‘Well, Mr Hewitt, if you hold the
line I'll just go and have a quick word with him.'

As she came upstairs, Martin ran into his room and sat on the bed. ‘Martin, that's Mr Hewitt on the phone, he's a bit desperate. He said the competition's on Saturday and he needs to get the team together beforehand to do some last minute work. Will you speak to him?'

‘No.'

‘Oh Martin, you can't let the team down. And guess what, a photographer from the paper wants a photograph of you all together.'

Martin lost his temper and shouted angrily, ‘No one's going to photograph me. Tell them all to piss off. Who the hell wants my face in the paper? I'm ugly. I'm a bogey man. I'm a bloody dog face,' and Martin burst into tears.

His mother was stunned by his outburst. She walked back down to the telephone not sure of what to say. ‘Hello … Mr Hewitt … I don't think Martin will be there on Saturday … I don't know what to say to you. He just doesn't want to do anything anymore … No, I haven't spoken to anyone … I really don't know, it may have something to do with his operation, or the crash. He may be being bullied, I just don't know … Yes Mr Hewitt … OK … Thank you … Goodbye.'

His mother went into the living room. She was scared. She didn't know what to do. She thought that
trying to talk to Martin might upset him more. But she worried that if she didn't go and talk to him he might accuse her of not caring. Ten minutes later the phone rang again. Martin went back to his door and listened again.

‘Hello, Mr Green … Yes that's right … I don't know. He's been fine, school and everything was going great, then he just changed. He went for a walk on Sunday afternoon and he hasn't been the same since. He hardly eats, he hardly talks, he doesn't do anything … Yes, that's right, it's this Saturday. He was really looking forward to it … '

There was a long silence, then …

‘Well, I'll try, Mr Green. I can't promise anything and to be honest, I don't think he will – but I'll try … OK … About 11 o'clock. If not, we'll see you here at twelve … Thank you … Goodbye now.'

Martin began to try and work out what had been arranged between Alan Green and his mother. He could sense desperation in his mother's voice and although he was feeling depressed and downhearted, he didn't want to drag his mother down with him.

When his father came home that evening, he went straight into the living room. Martin tried hard to listen to the conversation his parents were having but the doors between them made it impossible for him to hear. He crept halfway down the stairs but he still couldn't hear anything, so he went back to his room,
got into bed and put on his headphones.

Ten minutes later his father and mother entered the room. Martin turned off his personal stereo and his father went and stood at the end of his bed. His mother sat close to him on his bed.

‘After I spoke to Mr Hewitt today Alan Green rang, the man from the hospital, the one you said you liked. He asked me to ask you to do something. Tomorrow he wants you to come in and see him. He said it need only be for a short time.'

‘And what if I don't?' Martin replied as he dismantled his headphones between his fingers.

‘He said he'll come here, but you don't have to see him at all if you don't want to. No one can force you, but you know that you can't go on like this. Just go and see what he has to say. He's had a lot of experience.'

‘OK, OK, I'll go.' Martin sounded reluctant.

The next day Martin's father didn't go to work. His mother made Martin his favourite breakfast, which he didn't eat. He spent most of the morning tidying up his room and reconstructing his headphones. At ten thirty a taxi arrived to take them to the hospital. It was the first time Martin had been outside since Sunday.

When they arrived at the hospital, Martin's mind went back to his days as a patient. Smelling the antiseptic air and seeing those ceilings with their fluorescent lights was like meeting old friends. On
reaching Alan Green's office, Martin's mother knocked on the door. Alan Green came out into the corridor and greeted them all.

‘Hello, Mr Turner, Mrs Turner and Martin. I'm glad you could make it.'

The only major difference with Alan was that his ponytail had got longer. He still smiled a lot and he still looked like he borrowed his clothes from a rock star. Today it was black leather trousers, topped with a brown collarless shirt and a black leather waistcoat.

‘If you don't mind,' he said looking towards Martin's parents, ‘I'd like to see Martin alone first.'

Martin and Alan went into the office alone.

In the office Alan pulled two seats together so they were facing each other and they sat down. Alan flopped back into his seat as if he was at home relaxing and immediately began to speak.

‘I'm really glad you were able to make it. I hope we trust each other well enough to allow me to get straight to the point.'

‘Yes,' Martin nodded.

‘Now, I know that you've been doing well. You decided to go straight back to school. Everyone says that you were getting on great. The whole school is talking about your gymnastics, then over the weekend you lost it. What happened, mate?'

Martin played with his fingers and stayed silent.

‘I have to tell you, Martin my friend, whatever it is,
you can get over it. Life is going to do this to you, it will put hurdles in your way but you can get over them.' Alan paused ‘Let me ask you a question. How do you feel about yourself?'

‘I don't know. I used to feel OK,' he said, looking at his fingers.

‘So what's changed?'

‘I think people were just trying to be nice to me because they felt sorry for me but really small kids, they don't lie. They just tell the truth and now I know how people really see me and I don't like it and I don't like me.'

‘OK,' Alan said as he began to make connections. ‘What happened on Sunday?'

Slowly Martin began to tell him the story. He started from the good times on Saturday night and then he went on to describe what had happened in the park.

He ended by saying, ‘I don't care about anything now, I don't care about gymnastics, school or anything. The only thing that's keeping me alive is my music.'

Alan had listened without interrupting. When Martin finished, he said, ‘Look, Martin, we know that when adults or even teenagers react badly to you it has more to do with their problems and hang-ups. Children of that age are different. Some of their reactions come from their parents telling them that
anyone with a face that is different from theirs is a horrible person. Some children on the other hand think that someone who looks different is someone to laugh at and insult. Some children even run from Father Christmas.'

‘So what am I supposed to do in that situation?' Martin asked.

‘I'm afraid there is no textbook way of dealing with kids of that age, they are too unpredictable. Sometimes saying anything just makes it worse. You must realise that this type of thing is likely to happen again. Don't be paranoid, just be aware. All you can do is learn how to cope with it. You done well.'

‘There's something else I need to tell you. Something that's been getting me really down,' Martin said, thinking about Natalie and her actor friend.

‘What is it?' Alan thought he had flushed Martin's problems out of him but it seemed there was more to come. But then Martin hesitated, considering the reality.
Friends will come and go, talking to Alan is not going to bring her back,
he thought.

Martin was stuck for something to say now that he had changed his mind. ‘Sometimes I just feel angry.'