The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (22 page)

And he said, "No."

And then I was happy because I could live with Mother.

And the policeman said, "If your husband turns up and causes any trouble, just give us a ring. Otherwise, you're going to have to sort this out between yourselves."

And then the policeman went away and I had my tomato soup and Mr. Shears stacked up some boxes in the spare room so he could put a blowup mattress on the floor for me to sleep on, and I went to sleep.

And then I woke up because there were people shouting in the flat and it was 2:31 a.m. And one of the people was Father and I was frightened. But there wasn't a lock on the door of the spare room.

And Father shouted, "I'm talking to her whether you like it or not. And I am not going to be told what to do by you of all people."

And Mother shouted, "Roger. Don't. Just —"

And Mr. Shears shouted, "I'm not being spoken to like that in my own home."

And Father shouted, "I'll talk to you how I damn well like."

And Mother shouted, "You have no right to be here."

And Father shouted, "No right? No right? He's my fucking son, in case you've forgotten."

And Mother shouted, "What in God's name did you think you were playing at, saying those things to him?"

And Father shouted, "What was I playing at? You were the one that bloody left."

And Mother shouted, "So you decided to just wipe me out of his life altogether?"

And Mr. Shears shouted, "Now let's us all just calm down here, shall we?"

And Father shouted, "Well, isn't that what you wanted?"

And Mother shouted, "I wrote to him every week. Every week."

And Father shouted, "Wrote to him? What the fuck use is writing to him?"

And Mr. Shears shouted, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

And Father shouted, "I cooked his meals. I cleaned his clothes. I looked after him every weekend. I looked after him when he was ill. I took him to the doctor. I worried myself sick every time he wandered off somewhere at night. I went to school every time he got into a fight. And you? What? You wrote him some fucking letters."

And Mother shouted, "So you thought it was OK to tell him his mother was dead?"

And Mr. Shears shouted, "Now is not the time."

And Father shouted, "You, butt out or I'll —"

And Mother shouted, "Ed, for God's sake —"

And Father said, "I'm going to see him. And if you try to stop me —"

And then Father came into my room. But I was holding my Swiss Army knife with the saw blade out in case he grabbed me. And Mother came into the room as well, and she said, "It's OK, Christopher. I won't let him do anything. You're all right."

And Father bent down on his knees near the bed and he said, "Christopher?"

But I didn't say anything.

And he said, "Christopher, I'm really, really sorry. About everything. About Wellington. About the letters. About making you run away. I never meant. . . I promise I will never do anything like that again. Hey. Come on, kiddo."

And then he held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan so that I could touch his fingers, but I didn't because I was frightened.

And Father said, "Shit. Christopher, please."

And there were tears dripping off his face.

And no one said anything for a while.

And then Mother said, "I think you should go now," but she was talking to Father, not me.

And then the policeman came back because Mr. Shears had rung the police station and he told Father to calm down and he took him out of the flat.

And Mother said, "You go back to sleep now. Everything is going to be all right. I promise."

And then I went back to sleep.

229. And when I was asleep I had one of my favorite dreams. Sometimes I have it during the day, but then it's a daydream. But I often have it at night as well.

And in the dream nearly everyone on the earth is dead, because they have caught a virus. But it's not like a normal virus. It's like a computer virus. And people catch it because of the meaning of something an infected person says and the meaning of what they do with their faces when they say it, which means that people can also get it from watching an infected person on television, which means that it spreads around the world really quickly.

And when people get the virus they just sit on the sofa and do nothing and they don't eat or drink and so they die. But sometimes I have different versions of the dream, like when you can see two versions of a film, the ordinary one and the director's cut, like Blade Runner. And in some versions of the dream the virus makes them crash their cars or walk into the sea and drown, or jump into rivers, and I think that this version is better because then there aren't bodies of dead people everywhere.

And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean

and these people are all special people like me. And they like being on their own and I hardly ever see them because they are like okapi in the jungle in the Congo, which are a kind of antelope and very shy and rare.

And I can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub a £1 coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn't have to go to France.

And I go out of Father's house and I walk down the street, and it is very quiet even though it is the middle of the day and I can't hear any noise except birds singing and wind and sometimes buildings falling down in the distance, and if I stand very close to traffic lights I can hear a little click as the colors change.

And I go into other people's houses and play at being a detective and I can break the windows to get in because the people are dead and it doesn't matter. And I go into shops and take things I want, like pink biscuits or PJ's Raspberry and Mango Smoothie or computer games or books or videos.

And I take a ladder from Father's van and I climb up onto the roof, and when I get to the edge of the roof I put the ladder across the gap and I climb to the next roof, because in a dream you are allowed to do anything.

And then I find someone's car keys and I get into their car and I drive, and it doesn't matter if I bump into things and I drive to the sea, and I park the car and I get out and there is rain pouring down. And I take an ice cream from a shop and eat it. And then I walk down to the beach. And the beach is covered in sand and big rocks and there is a lighthouse on a point but the light is not on because the lighthouse keeper is dead.

And I stand in the surf and it comes up and over my shoes. And I don't go swimming in case there are sharks. And I stand and look at the horizon and I take out my long metal ruler and I hold it up against the line between the sea and the sky and I demonstrate that the line is a curve and the earth is round. And the way the surf comes up and over my shoes and then goes down again is in a rhythm, like music or drumming.

And then I get some dry clothes from the house of a family who are dead. And I go home to Father's house, except it's not Father's house anymore, it's mine. And I make myself some Gobi Aloo Sag with red food coloring in it and some strawberry milk shake for a drink, and then I watch a video about the solar system and I play some computer games and I go to bed.

And then the dream is finished and I am happy.

233. The next morning I had fried tomatoes for breakfast and a tin of green beans which Mother heated up in a saucepan.

In the middle of breakfast, Mr. Shears said, "OK. He can stay for a few days."

And Mother said, "He can stay as long as he needs to stay."

And Mr. Shears said, "This flat is hardly big enough for two people, let alone three."

And Mother said, "He can understand what you're saying, you know."

And Mr. Shears said, "What's he going to do? There's no school for him to go to. We've both got jobs. It's bloody ridiculous."

And Mother said, "Roger. That's enough."

Then she made me some Red Zinger herbal tea with sugar in it but I didn't like it, and she said, "You can stay for as long as you want to stay."

And after Mr. Shears had gone to work she made a telephone call to the office and took what is called Compassionate Leave, which is when someone in your family dies or is ill.

Then she said we had to go and buy some clothes for me to wear and some pajamas and a toothbrush and a flannel. So we went out of the flat and we walked to the main road, which was Hill Lane, which was the A4088, and it was really crowded and we caught a number 266 bus to Brent Cross Shopping Centre. Except there were too many people in John Lewis and I was frightened and I lay down on the floor next to the wristwatches and I screamed and Mother had to take me home in a taxi.

Then she had to go back to the shopping center to buy me some clothes and some pajamas and a toothbrush and a flannel, so I stayed in the spare room while she was gone because I didn't want to be in the same room as Mr. Shears because I was frightened of him.

And when Mother got home she brought me a glass of strawberry milk shake and showed me my new pajamas, and the pattern on them was 5-pointed blue stars on a purple background like this

• •*••■

*****

And I said, "I have to go back to Swindon."

And Mother said, "Christopher, you've only just got here."

And I said, "I have to go back because I have to sit my maths A level."

And Mother said, "You're doing maths A level?"

And I said, "Yes. I'm taking it on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday next week."

And Mother said, "God."

And I said, "The Reverend Peters is going to be the invigilator."

And Mother said, "I mean, that's really good."

And I said, "I'm going to get an A grade. And that's why I have to go back to Swindon. Except I don't want to see Father. So I have to go to Swindon with you."

Then Mother put her hands over her face and breathed out hard, and she said, "I don't know whether that's going to be possible."

And I said, "But I have to go."

And Mother said, "Let's talk about this some other time, OK?"

And I said, "OK. But I have to go to Swindon."

And she said, "Christopher, please."

And I drank some of my milk shake.

And later on, at 10:51 p.m. I went out onto the balcony to find out whether I could see any stars, but there weren't any because of all the clouds and what is called light pollution, which is light from streetlights and car headlights and floodlights and lights in buildings reflecting off tiny particles in the atmosphere and getting in the way of light from the stars. So I went back inside.

But I couldn't sleep. And I got out of bed at 2:07 a.m. and I felt scared of Mr. Shears so I went downstairs and out of the front door into Chapter Road. And there was no one in the street and it was quieter than it was during the day, even though you could hear traffic in the distance and sirens, so it made me feel calmer. And I walked down Chapter Road and looked at all the cars and the patterns the phone wires made against the orange clouds and the things that people had in their front gardens, like a gnome and a cooker and a tiny pond and a teddy bear.

Then I heard two people coming along the road, so I crouched down between the end of a skip and a Ford Transit van, and they were talking in a language that wasn't English, but they didn't see me. And there were two tiny brass cogs in the dirty water in the gutter by my feet, like cogs from a windup watch.

And I liked it between the skip and the Ford Transit van so I stayed there for a long time. And I looked out at the street. And the only colors you could see were orange and black and mixtures of orange and black. And you couldn't tell what colors the cars would be during the day.

And I wondered whether you could tessellate crosses, and I worked out that you could by imagining this picture in my head

And then I heard Mother's voice and she was shouting, "Christopher. . . ? Christopher. . . ?" and she was running down the road, so I came out from between the skip and the Ford Transit van and she ran up to me and said, "Jesus Christ," and she stood in front of me and pointed her finger at my face and said, "If you ever do that again, I swear to God, Christopher, I love you, but. . . I don't know what I'll do."