The Shock of the Fall (Special edition) (8 page)

‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’

‘What if Daddy dies?’

I couldn’t see Dad properly. It was hard to hear him too. But you get to know the sort of answer someone might give. What my dad would have done was make his funny face with his eyes all wide, and say something like, ‘Blimey, sunshine. D’you know something your old pa doesn’t?’

Usually that would be enough to make everything okay, but this time it wasn’t, because Simon said it again. ‘What if you die? What if— What if you both die?’

If he got himself wound up he’d struggle to get his breath, and that made things worse. Before I was born there was a time when he couldn’t breathe for so long that his skin turned blue. That’s what Mum told me, anyway. And even as she explained how he’d had a small operation, so it should never happen again, even as she told me that, she looked afraid.

‘Who would— What would—’

He was clutching at his chest. I must have looked like a superhero, bursting through the door – my dressing gown billowing like a cape. It was probably the shock that startled him out of it, and I’m not sure he even heard what I said, but what I said was, ‘I’ll look after you Simon. I’ll always look after you.’

We read the rest of the story as a family. And when it got to Hakuna Matata, we all sang King of the Swingers. I’ve never seen my parents look so proud.

Dad gulped back the last of his wine, and went to refill his glass. Mum placed her hand over his.

‘We’re tired. Let’s go to bed.’

‘I’m ashamed of my own son.’

‘Please, don’t.’

‘Well I am. And not for the first time.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know exactly what it means, don’t pretend that you weren’t too.’

‘Don’t you dare. How— You’re drunk.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. You are. He’s our little boy for Christ’s sake.’

Dad slunk to the end of the sofa, and all I could see was his socked foot resting on the coffee table.

Jacob fastened the clips on his side, and watched me fasten the clips on mine. ‘It goes in the third notch,’ he said.

I knew that already.

He liked to be sure.

When she was secure I took the remote control and pressed the ↑ button, jerking the mechanical arm into life, lifting her slowly into the air. ‘It’s so kind of you to help,’ Mrs Greening said.

This was a good day for her, some days she didn’t talk. I think Jacob preferred it when she didn’t talk.

He emptied her bag of piss into a plastic jug, whilst I put fresh sheets on the bed and fluffed her pillows.

‘I think I’ll go in the chair today,’ she said.

Jacob positioned the electric wheelchair, and supported her neck and head as I pressed the ↓ button. In the kitchen the microwave went
ping
, and he said, ‘I’ll go.’ Then he disappeared to collect her tea.

‘Do you know where your tray is?’

‘Over there, on the bedside table.’ She pointed, but even that was difficult for her. She had better days and worse days. On the really bad days, she found it hard to do almost anything.

I attached the tea-tray into the slot on the front of her chair, and she asked, ‘Are you as good to your mother?’

‘What? My mum isn’t—’

We went quiet then, and time stretched out, endlessly.

She had a nice long neck but a crooked nose. I couldn’t decide if she was prettier than Mum.

I don’t suppose it matters.

‘I mean—’

‘Here you go, Ma.’ Jacob came back through, placing her food onto the tray. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’

He’d seen me. Of course he’d seen me. Peeking through the window, watching him, looking at his mum, then running away. What difference does it make? Aren’t we all desperate to spill our secrets?

I was suspended for two weeks. Mum and Dad and me were on one side of the desk, and the Deputy Head was on the other, saying, ‘We cannot accept behaviour of this kind in our school, indeed in our society.’

My parents nodded.

I assume.

I was staring at my hands, too ashamed to look at anyone. Mum said how truly sorry I was, that I’d arrived home as white as a ghost, and the Deputy Head said she didn’t doubt it, how her impression, indeed the impression of her staff, was of a quiet, reflective student.

I clenched my fists, digging little crescents into my palms with my fingernails. I could feel her staring at me, trying to read my thoughts. Perhaps there was something going on at home they should know about? Anything that might be troubling me?

My parents shook their heads.

I assume.

It doesn’t matter because when I arrived back at school, and took my seat for morning registration, his grinning face appeared next to me. Jacob Greening wasn’t the sort to hold grudges.

‘Fuck it. Didn’t hurt, anyway.’

I think it took a lot of courage for him to invite me round, but that’s what he did. He said, ‘I’ve got Grand Theft Auto if you want to play it?’ So we started hanging out together after school. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on games though, even ones I used to enjoy. It was the same in lessons. One minute I’d be listening, interested, taking everything in, the next my head would be completely empty.

What I was better at concentrating on, was helping out with Mrs Greening. This didn’t happen straight away. For the first few weeks I’d wait in the kitchen whilst Jacob did whatever needed doing, but after a while I started to help out with the odd little thing, like making her beakers of tea, or helping her tune the radio to a station she wanted, whilst Jacob got on with crushing up her tablets, or whatever.

After a few months though, I helped with everything, and I suppose it was this that got me thinking. You’re going to laugh, but I thought maybe, when I left school, I could be a doctor.

I know that’s stupid.

I can see that now.

This isn’t about sympathy. I’ve made people feel sorry for me before, mostly psychiatric nurses – either the newly qualified ones who haven’t learnt to get a grip, or the gooey-eyed maternal ones who take one look at me and see what could have happened to their own. A student nurse once told me how my patient notes had nearly made her cry. I told her to go fuck herself. That finished the job off.

If I look at my hands, right now. If I look at my fingers jabbing at the keyboard, the hard patches of dark brown skin, tobacco-stained knuckles, bitten nails – it’s hard to think I’m the same person. It is hard to believe these are the same hands that helped to turn Mrs Greening in her bed, that gently rubbed cream onto her skin sores, that helped to wash her and brush her hair.

‘We’ll be in my room, Ma.’

‘Okay darling,’ she said, lifting a spoonful of hot mush into her mouth, spilling gravy. ‘Don’t make too much noise.’

His bedroom walls were plastered in old flyers from early ’90s raves like Helter Skelter and Fantazia. It was stupid because we were still babies when they were happening, but he used to go on about them, saying how dance music was much better
back in the day
, and how now it was too commercial. I think he liked to talk about it so he could remind me it was his big brother who had given him all the flyers, before he left to join the army.

I guess that was it.

He wasn’t trying to sound clever, he just wanted to be able to talk about his brother – so I would talk about mine. I only just thought that. I only thought it as I wrote it.

Opening the wardrobe I carefully lifted out the bucket of water, with the sawn-off Coke bottle floating on a layer of ash. This was the other thing me and Jacob Greening did together. He rummaged through a drawer, pulling out what was left of our Ten Bag of skunk, and started loading up a pile onto the tinfoil gauze.

I don’t know if you have ever smoked a Bucket Bong before, but this was something else his brother had shown him. ‘To get you really fucking stoned.’

‘Tell me what you did,’ he said, out of nowhere.

‘What?’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

‘What?’

He held his lighter over the leaves, and gradually lifted the bottle through the water, filling the chamber with thick white smoke.

‘Tell me about what happened, why you left your junior school, everyone talks about it, everyone says—’

‘Everyone says what?’

He looked straight at me, sort of startled. Then said, ‘Fuck it, eh? Fuck it for a bucket. This one’s for you, if you want?’

I knelt down and took a deep lungful, sucking in the smoke until the water touched my lips, then I held my breath.

I felt him squeeze my shoulder.

Did I?

I held my breath.

‘You know what I’m talking about,’ he said again, quieter now. ‘I just mean you can tell me if you want. I tell you—’

I held my breath, and began to replay the conversation I’d overheard once, when I’d gone into the kitchen and he was talking to his mum, talking about everyday things like what he’d done in school, and how much pain she was in, when she said something else, she said, ‘Your brother called earlier. He finds prison so hard Jakey, he finds prison so hard.’

The familiar numbness crept behind my ears, slowing my brain. Fuck it for a bucket. I breathed out, filling the room with smoke.

He wasn’t listening. He didn’t even look up as I said it, so this made me wonder if perhaps I didn’t say anything, if it was just a thought. Except that didn’t make sense because it was loud, it was in the room, so maybe he had said it? I was so stoned, that was the problem. But if he said it, surely his lips would have moved? And now I couldn’t remember what it was even, what had been said, but the voice was familiar, wasn’t it? I was so stoned. I suddenly felt far too stoned.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’ Jacob was holding the flame again, setting up for his turn. ‘Hear what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was it my mum?’

‘No I fucking didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘What did you just say?’

It was gone again, what did it say? What did it say? I was so stoned.

‘What shall we play?’

Jacob switched on the PlayStation 2, and loaded Resident Evil, and I slumped on the floor, staring at the screen, getting lost in the violence, and thought about being a doctor, about making things better, about curing his mum, about curing mine. And there was something else, something else, hidden in a cloud of smoke.

I wonder if you believe me? People don’t tend to believe me. I’ve been asked a lot of questions. Questions like:

This voice – his voice – do you hear it inside your head, or does it seem to come from the outside, and what exactly does it say, and does it tell you to do things or just comment on what you’re doing already, and have you done any of the things it says, which things, you said your mum takes tablets, what are they for, is anyone else in your family FUCKING MAD, and do you use illicit drugs, how much alcohol do you drink, every week, every day, and how are you feeling in yourself right now, on a scale of 1–10, and what about on a scale of 1–7,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, and how is your sleep of late, and what of your appetite, and what exactly did happen that night on the cliff edge, in your own words, do you remember, can you remember, do you have any questions? That sort of thing.

But it doesn’t matter how careful I am to think hard, and tell the truth, people don’t believe a word I say.

Everything I do is decided for me. There is a plan. I’m not joking. I have a copy of it somewhere. We have meetings, me and some doctors and nurses and anyone else who feels like showing up to take the piss. We have meetings. They’re my meetings, so everybody talks about me.

Afterwards I’m given a few sheets of paper, stapled together, with my plan written on them.

It tells me exactly what I have to do with my days, like coming in for therapy groups here at Hope Road Day Centre, and what tablets I should take, and the injections, and who is responsible for what. This is all written down for me. Then there is another plan that comes into play if I don’t stick to the first one. It follows me around, like a shadow. This is my life. I’m nineteen years old, and the only thing I have any control over in my entire world is the way I choose to tell this story. So I’m hardly going to fuck about. It would be nice if you’d try to trust me.