OUR SECRET

I like the windows at Granny’s. They get all cloudy when it’s cold and I draw aeroplanes on them and bomb Gramps’ old metal soldiers that are on the window sill. Gramps plays too, sometimes, but Granny says we mess up her windows and give her more work to do. Gramps says that she’s never happier than when she’s grumbling. Some soldiers have got heads and arms missing, but that’s good, cos we pretend the bombs got them. They’re the Germans.
He says the game we play on the window is called a ‘dog-fight’. That’s silly though, cos dogs can’t fly, but Gramps says that’s what they called it in the war, so it must be true.

I’m living with Granny and Gramps cos my mum’s in the hospital. She got sick when my dad died. I heard Auntie Jackie say that she’s got suicide and she’s broken down, so I don’t think she can get better cos suicide can make you die. I don’t want her to die too. I want her to stay with me.
I can see the train track from the bedroom window. The trains shake the house when they go by and everyone stops talking, cos you can’t hear anything. It’s like being in a wobbly jelly house. Gramps says it’s good if Granny’s grumbling then, cos he can’t hear her, but he’s just joking me. He’s always creeping up behind her in the kitchen, telling her how cuddly she is and then stealing a toffee for us, out of her apron pocket. Granny grumbles that he’s getting in the way, but she’s just joking too. He says she once was so tiny he could get his hands round her waist. Now he has to use both his arms!

Mums old teddy, Rugless, sleeps in my bed and I bought Eenuff elephant with me. I take him everywhere. Well, not to school, cos he’s not allowed there. When I was a baby I kept sucking one of the ears and it got all messy, so Granny made him new ones out of Gramps’ old shirt, so now he’s got blue and grey stripy ears. Oh, and button eyes, cos the felt ones fell off as well. He can have button eyes now I am big, but they would be dangerous for babies. Dad used to make him fly round the room and then he would tickle me on my belly with him. My dad is the best. I think God made a mistake when he come and got him, and I will tell him too, when I go to Heaven. Bad people should go first, but not to Heaven. They have to go to Hell.
‘Shoot the lot of ‘em, bloody IRA. Let ‘em rot in ‘ell’ That’s what Dad and Gramps says.
My dad weren’t bad; he got squashed by a lorry at work.

I went to see Mum yesterday. Me, Granny and Gramps went in the car. I sat in the front and Granny sat in the back. It was brill. Eenuff sat next to Granny. Mum has been in the hospital for three Saturdays now. I heard Gramps telling Granny that I was not old enough to go there, but Granny said
‘Look George, The boy needs to see his mum and we are taking him tomorrow.’ You always know Granny is going to get her own way when she says ‘Look George.’ Mum laughs when she says it, cos she says the argument is already won. She don’t laugh at the moment though, she cries a lot and forgets things. That’s why I’m living with Granny and Gramps. I had to make cornflakes for my dinner all by myself, and we had no milk cos Mum forgot we had none. And I didn’t have my favorite pyjamas for four Saturdays cos they was in the wash basket. One day I couldn’t wake Mum up, so I asked Jenny next door to wake her up for me cos I was hungry. She called Granny and the ambulance came and took Mum to the hospital and Granny took me back to her house.

The hospital is really, really old, like before God was born. No-one had coloured in the bricks like they do now. Gramps says that soldiers what got shot in the war came here. When I asked him what for, he said ‘They had jumbled brains worse than your toy box, lad.’ Gramps’ cheeks always go red and his eyes go all watery when he talks about the war. His dad died like mine did, only not by a lorry, but in a big mud field when he was fighting the Germans, and no-one ever, ever found him. Granny says Gramps never saw his dad. Not never.

We walked down this really long hall. The walls were the same colour as the yellow stuff Gramps has on his ham sandwiches. It’s really yuk. Our feet sounded like we all had big work boots on like Uncle Steve’s. I counted past five doors, but then a lady was sitting on a chair by the next one, and I forgot to count after that. She had white trainers on with undone black laces and grey socks like Gramps wears, but one was pulled up and one had fell down. She had a red woolly scarf tied round the middle of her yellow and orange dress, and hair what looked like white candyfloss! She was rocking on the chair like it was a rocking horse, and she kept banging her head on the wall when she went backwards. I don’t know who she was talking to, but she kept saying
‘Top’s n tails, count ‘em all I said. Don’t fall I said. Count ‘em all.’ and then she said it again and then again, but no-one was there.

Round the corner we went in a big room. It had giant windows all down the wall that looked like big staring eyes, with massive white monster teeth under them. They weren’t monster teeth really, they was radiators what looked like scary monster teeth. Auntie Jackie had some littler ones like that at her old house, but Uncle Steve took them out and put new ones in. He put one on the wrong wall and Auntie Jackie still moans at him for messing it up. The ceiling was higher than the sky. A giant could easy walk in there and not bang his head. There were different chairs everywhere and some had people sleeping in them.

Mum was sitting on a green chair at the other end of the room. She was looking out one of the windows, but it was dark so she couldn’t see anything.
Me, Granny and Gramps walked down the room.
‘Hi darling, look who’s come to see you,’ said Granny to my mum, but she just kept looking out the window. She looked like she was sleeping with her eyes open. Gramps walked round besides her chair, kissed her cheek and stroked her long black hair. It was all messy and crinkly like Amy’s old Sindy dolls. Amy’s my cousin. She’s nine and bosses me about cos she’s bigger than me, but she lets me play with her Lego when we go to her house. I like playing with Mums’ hair when we watch telly. It’s usually all soft and straight and shiny like liquorice laces.
‘Hi sweetheart, look at this fine young man who has come to visit you’ he said. I loved it when he called me that; it made me feel all fizzy. Then the old man in the chair across the room started shouting rude words, ones Dad says I must never ever say, so I don’t. Dad does sometimes, well he did, but I don’t think he says them in heaven. I don’t think God lets you say rude words in heaven. Then the man got up and started taking his trousers off. I like doing that, walking around in my pants, not at Granny’s though, cos it’s colder at her house. But I don’t think the man should have done that, cos the nurse told him off and then he shouted more rude words at her and started taking his pants off too. But the nurse pulled his trousers back up and took him out of the room. I think he got sent to bed.
‘Poor bastard.’ said Gramps and Granny said ‘George!’ I giggled, but Mum just stared out of the window.
‘The doctor said you seemed a little better this week darling. You look a bit brighter.’ said Granny. ‘Billy has painted you a picture, haven’t you Billy? Go on, show your mum.’
I put the picture in front of her face but I don’t think she could see it cos she didn’t say anyhing, so I put it on the table in front of her.
‘There’s me and Eenuff in the bedroom window and there’s you putting the washing out,’ I tell her, pointing at the house in the picture. She always puts the washing outside to dry. Well, before she got really sad she did.
‘My favourite bed time.’ she always says. ‘Fresh clean sheets dried outside in the wind, a nice bath and my two handsome men snuggled under the covers with me.’
There will just be me now though. But we could pretend … if she ever comes back home.

A lady came over and sat down in the chair by us. She had loads of beads on, like the ones Amy makes with her the jewellery kit we got her for her birthday. But this lady had a hundred necklaces, pink, orange, purple, red, blue, yellow and sparkly ones too. And she had loads of rings on all her fingers; like the ones you get out of crackers and bubble gum machines. I’m not allowed bubble gum. She had big slides in her hair with feathers and flowers stuck on them and red lipstick on her lips, bigger than her mouth, and more on her face, so she looked like a big raggy doll. She smelled of smoking. You’re not supposed to smoke cos it’s bad for you, and it makes you die. Granny made Gramps stop when she said ‘Look George’ and then told him to stop.
‘Good evening. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Princess Grace of Monaco’ she said ‘It’s a long way from here, but I’m going back as soon as they have finished building my new palace.’ she continued, looking across to Granny and Gramps.
She didn’t look like a princess, she looked like she had got dressed out of a dressing up box; one like Amy’s got. S’pose grown ups can do dressing up. My teacher wore Andy Pandy pyjamas to school when we had ‘back to front’ day last term, and everyone went to school in pyjamas. It was good fun, but Mum wouldn’t let me wear my new blue jumper to bed, so it wasn’t really fair.

Then … Mum looked up and said
‘This is my Billy.’ It was just like magic.
I looked at Gramps and his cheeks were all red again and Granny was squeezing his hand.
‘He drew me this picture. That’s me in the garden and there’s Billy and his elephant up at the bedroom window.’ Mum said.
I got that fizzy feeling in my tummy again.
Then, a nurse lady came over then and said
‘Grace, come on now. You know you are not to intrude when people have visitors. Come and play a game of cards with Jack and me.’
‘Princess Grace to you deary, and I am not intruding. I am gracing these good people with the presence of royalty.’ said the lady
‘And I am asking you to join us in a game of cards. Come on now. Let Maggie have some time with her family.’ said the nurse, and waited until she got up and went with her. I don’t think the nurse believed she was a princess either. She wasn’t wearing a crown and she didn’t have any servants, so I just think she was pretending.
‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Gramps ‘She’s a bit gone in the head, that one. Poor cow. Not her fault, but good grief, I got worn out just looking at her. Thought we were going to have to spend the whole time with Princess what’s her name there.’
Mum looked up.
‘I saw a doctor again this morning,’ she said. ‘I keep telling them that I just needed a sleep, but you just get labelled.’ She looked at Granny.
‘I just want to come home, Mum. I shouldn’t be here. I’m not like them. I just needed to sleep. I just needed some rest so I could take care of Billy.’
Then Mum looked at me, and her eyes were working again. They were sort of broke when we got here, but now they were working again, so I thought she could come home with us. But she didn’t.

On the way home in the car I went in the back so I could go to sleep. Granny asked Gramps what they were going to do.
‘We can’t lose her, George. We just can’t. She looks so fragile and she’s so thin.’
‘Now listen here duck,’ he said. ‘She’s a strong’un, our Maggie. And you was right about taking young Billy today too. Her eyes lit right up for the first time in weeks. She’ll be just fine, just needs a bit of time, that’s all.’

She will be home soon … I know. Cos, when we left she twiddled my ear and stole my nose with her fingers. And she hadn’t done that for nine Saturdays.

TRAPPED - EXPLICIT CONTENT

He says he’s not ready to go yet, but I am so tired. I didn’t think he would come back here tonight. I thought he would drop me at the bus stop as he usually does.
I can hear creek of the second step on the stairs. He’s coming …

‘There now, no need to be shy, come over here, let me look at you in the light’
I don’t move, he comes to me and strokes my cheek with his rough fingers. Now my jaw is cupped in his firm hand and the pressure from his thumb is forcing my face to look at him. His eyes are glazed and cold.

‘Fair’s fair eh, one good turn deserves another. A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss here. Don’t stiffen your body like that. Relax! Anyone would think this is unnatural. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Now, let’s get this jumper off you eh, I want to see your tits. Come on, over your head, there’s a girl, and the bra too. Nice bit of lace but, there that’s better isn’t it.’
He is squeezing my breast, tight, it hurts. I call out ‘Don’t, please don’t. You’re hurting me.’

He is holding his hand over my mouth and whispering me to hush. The pressure of his body forces me to twist sharply onto the floor and I feel my head bang against the side of the coffee table. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed, my cheeks merge with my forehead and his hand pulls them back, denying my eyes a chance of escape.

‘Look at me, bitch’ he demands. I refuse and feel the rough skin of his fingers slice into my cheek at the force of his slap.
I open my eyes, but can only see a bald circle below my face. He is biting my nipple, I want to scream but his face is back up on mine and he is biting my ear, my nose, pushing his tongue into my mouth. I gag. I can’t breathe.
His uncontrolled hand pushes me sideways and I hear the zip of my jeans rip apart as he tugs them down over my thighs. I feel a sticky trickle on my cheek and taste blood dripping into my mouth from the cut on my head.
‘Don’t just lay there, have a suck on daddys lollipop, sweetie. Tastes good, come on, open. I said open up. Jesus woman, you are making hard work of this. What’s the matter, fucking frigid are you. Well we’ll soon sort that out.’

He slides down my body and tears off my pants. I stare at the light bulb above my head, my mind dives into the white sea and swims away from me.
I will have to come back, my children are sleeping upstairs.

BILLY EXPLAINS

Every day my mum and me play a game called 'Say what you’re thinking'. When we say that you have to say and tell the truth or the game doesn't work. Sometimes I ask her when she's doing dinner or watching telly. Its silly cos she thinks about not what she's doing. I asked her when she was washing my hair and she said she was thinking that the bathroom ceiling was a funny shape!

But she won't play today, she just says 'Not now Billy'. She hasn't played since my dad went to heaven last week. Heaven is up in the sky, farther away than the moon and the stars; God takes you there cos you can't get a rocket there yet. You have to fall asleep forever first and then when you do, God comes and gets you out of your body and takes you in his invisible flying bus to heaven. It's a bigger bus than the one we go to town in and it's always full up so you have to wait. I want to go there now so dad can take me to football but Granny says you have to be old to go there, but that’s not true cos my friend Tom's baby sister went there before she was even one.

Rainbows come from heaven. My dad told me that and my dad knows everything. He told me that rainbows are smiles from Granddad. He sends smiles like that so we can see them cos rainbows come from the sun in the universe and heaven is in the universe. Rainbow smiles is how God lets everyone in the universe know they're all still together.
Granddad sent a rainbow smile today; it was on the table in the front room by Granny's glass bowl. I called Mum to come and see but she just said 'Not now Billy'. I asked her what she was thinking, I wanted to play our special game, but she didn't answer. She just started crying again and Granny took her upstairs.

Auntie Kate closed the curtain over a bit and Granddad’s rainbow smile disappeared. I wanted to really punch her like I punched Sammy Jacobs on Monday in the playground. He said I would have to go to a foster home cos my dad's dead. I told him my dad had gone to heaven to see my granddad and Sammy laughed at me so I punched him. I wish God would have took Sammy on the bus instead of my dad.

I don't have to go to a foster home cos I'm going to look after my mum and granny. Granny said I am the man of the house now. I don't have to lock the back door before we go to bed though, cos you don't have to remember to do that until you are ten.
Auntie Kate has just gone up to see my mum and granny so I've got to go now cos I want to move the bowl over on the table so my dad can send me a rainbow smile. See ya.

GROUP THERAPY

‘Why don’t you make ‘er say somethin’ for a change. Stuck up cow. We’re all ‘ere for the same reason yer know. Our 'eads are fucked.’
Maggie raised her empty brown eyes towards the voice that had callously returned her to the group. Her long hazel hair screened her freckled face from those sat each side of her. She tried to switch her mind back to ‘standby’ but it was too late, Jessie had pressed the ‘on’ button.
‘Yeh, you, miss too good to be ‘ere, bet you think yer …’
‘Jessie, perhaps you would like to tell us why Maggie’s silence is so difficult for you’ interrupted Sue.
‘And perhaps I wouldn’t too. I just don’t see why she can be ‘ere and say nothin’ when you said we all have to try and voice our feelin’s. Well, I’m voicin’ mine, she’s fuckin’ me off.’
Squeezing her hands between clenched thighs, Maggie desperately tried to control the urge to rock her body back and forth, a security comfort she had used since childhood. Concentrating on rocking had helped her distance herself from her fears, given her a minute sense of control. But now, in this circle of strangers, it would reveal her insecurities more than give her comfort.
‘She’s only been here a couple of weeks Jessie, give her a break’ whispered Janey cautiously.
‘Just don’t, eh. We all sit round here like fuckin’ numbers on a clock waitin’ for the hand to touch us, waitin’ for each other to spew out our sordid little pasts, so Sue ‘ere can feel a great sense of satisfaction because she got one of us to ‘open up’. Well, you all know I’m a fuckin cokehead, that my dad had more sex with me than my fuckin mum and we all know that sweet little Janey here conveniently forgot to feed her kid so they took it away from her. So come on then, out with it, what’s so special about ‘er fuckin problem that she thinks it’s worth keeping secret.’ replied Jessie.

Maggie pinched hard through her light denim jeans into the flesh of her skinny thighs. But this physical scream was not loud enough to drown the conversation taking place around her. How could she tell these people that she was here because she had no guts. She couldn’t even let go of the bridge railings. The memory of her mother in law’s recent words hammered around Maggie’s head, beating them securely into every corner of her brain ‘She will drag you down Rob, you deserve so much more.’ On Rob’s last visit he had bought her a Gucci silver bracelet watch. Another guilt gift for the collection. But he had not touched her apart from a slight brushed kiss on her cheek when he arrived and left.

‘Well, this is a cosy little group today aint it. Shall we all ‘ave a guess at what ‘er problem is, pass the time a bit, we’ve only got ‘alf an ‘our left. Come on then Janey, what d’ya reckon, is she a murderer, did she do her ‘usband in or cut all the neighbours cats tails off.’
‘As you seem to have a lot to say this morning Jessie, and as I suggested earlier, why don’t we explore the reasons you find these quiet moments uncomfortable.’ said Sue quickly glancing around the group capturing everyone’s body language, before settling her eyes on Jessie.
The walls of the room seemed to advance forward, closing in on the circle of troubled lives, increasing the tension by condensing the mood close around the three people who had dominated the morning’s discussion.
‘Look, I aint ‘ere for the love of it. The fuckin’ judge said it was this or prison, and your “I go to church on Sundays, aren’t I a good person” act don’t fool me, so don’t fuckin’ bother with miracle working in ere, right.’ retorted Jessie as she lifted her feet up onto the edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around them. Her tall slender frame folded as if prepared to be the next surprise out of a Jack in a Box. ‘I don’t need you lot or anyone else. I’m just doin’ me days and then getting the fuck out of ‘ere.’ she continued.

‘Swearing is bad Jessie. You shouldn’t do it. You are always saying that word, all the time. It’s not right. People shouldn’t say that word, it’s a bad word.’ said Julie who was sat safely opposite Jessie and next to Sue, which was probably what gave her the courage to speak. She pushed her arms up the opposite sleeves of her baggy cream hand knitted jumper as if placing herself in a makeshift straight jacket before anyone else did.
The second hand of the cheap blue plastic wall clock ticked it’s way round the face taking five seconds to reach each number. Reliable. Constant.
‘If only people stayed the same, as trustworthy as a ticking clock.’ thought Maggie. She concentrated on the repetitive sound and watched the second hand make tiny jumps from one number to the next. ‘Clocks stay the same, move at the same pace, don’t step out of line or behave unexpectedly, don’t suddenly become louder or frighten you, or have impossible expectations of you; unless they are over wound, then they flip. Rob’s like that.’ thought Maggie ‘and I am the key.’ She had been unaware of her body language while she had been thinking and now realised that she too had lifted her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her ankles and as this realisation hit her, she saw Jessie, staring at her …


to be continued...

THE APPOINTMENT

Somewhere in the distance of my mind I hear my name being called and find myself heading towards the dark oak door at the end of the corridor. I feel as if I am walking deeper and deeper into the darkness and each step requires more effort than the last. The sounds from the ancient pipework along the walls seems to laugh at my struggle.
He is waiting for me and I shiver at the sight of his pin-striped suit clashing with his bold shirt. Entering the room I become a prisoner as the door closes behind me. He waits for me to sit down on the chair in front of the heavy leather topped desk and then sits opposite me, leaning back in an old hide upholstered chair. Lowering his bifocals to the edge of his nose, he peers over the lens towards me, making a mental note of what he thinks my body language is revealing.
My eyes wander round the room resting anywhere but on his face, my fingers fiddle with the crocheted edge of my cardigan. He was expecting me to say something, I know that, but I can't. My toes rub hard against the insoles of my shoes as if trying to make an escape route for me, and looking to the floor to avoid his stare, I notice he is wearing a different pair of shoes this week.
I desperately want to be heard, I want to say something to make him understand, but have no way of describing the vast blackness that engulfs me.

With my head down, I glance up to my notes on the desk and wonder what sort of person has been filed away in there. How accurate are the comments he has scribbled about me each week as we sit in the silence? What is the point of it all … I feel no different. I don't ‘feel’ at all. Feelings can be described, identified, recognised.

My heart beats as it tries to escape my body and be set free from the confines of my ribcage. An expert in creating external pain to curb internal torment I pinch hard into my skin, but this does nothing to distract me. Releasing my fingertips, the pain abandons me, I am alone …
As my eyes search the room for something, anything, to focus on, I catch a glimpse of his face and realise he is speaking, but his words are lost to me. There is no room left inside me. If I let in a single letter from his words, I will explode, but if I let go of anything, anything at all, the barrier will be broken. A wave of nausea passes through my body.
He closes my file indicating the ‘therapeutic’ hour is now over for him, but for me … nothing had changed.










May 2008

ON THE ROAD

‘Come on Harry, we haven’t got all day.’
Why is it Mum expects me to walk as fast as her when her legs are taller than me? She said I just fell over cos I wasn’t looking where I was going, but I couldn’t see nothing but bags and legs and now me knee’s bleeding too.
She wants to try being a kid sometimes.

I remember this road, we came here for the carnival and when I grow up I’m going to live in that house there with the big windows upstairs, were you can see everything.
I decided it carnival day cos nothing good ever happens in our road, well nothing happens on our road, actually! Unless you count the day the bin men dropped our rubbish and left it, and Mr Baldy Beerguts next door had a go at my dad about the smell. Then there was a fight on our road! My dad went nuts that the ‘lazy good for nothin’ had the cheek to come and knock on our door complaining, then Dad completely lost it and old baldy beerguts ended up shoved off our path onto the road. I thought it was brilliant, but Mum said they were behaving like kids. Dad told her to mind her mouth, at least he had a job and paid his taxes and didn’t sponge off the state like the likes of him next door.
When we came to see the carnival down this road we were late, so Mum pushed me forwards so I could see and I got squashed into a man at the side of me ‘Watch yourself boy!’ he said. Well, my dad heard him, didn’t he! ‘Watch who you’re fucking talking to mate, you don’t own the fucking pavement’ he shouted. The man stuck his finger up at my dad, so my dad grabbed him and pushed him on the road, knocked him to the ground smacking his head on the pavement.
My tummy started worrying cos there was a policeman by us now trying to pull Dad off the man and get them out of the road. I knew the carnival had started cos I could hear the band and the lorries beeping their horns. Next thing two more policemen arrived and took my dad round the corner to a police car.
Mum said we’d have to see the carnival another day because we were going home now.

He always does that, my dad, goes on about what is wrong with the people of this country and then starts a fight. Mum says he’s frustrated, whatever that means, I think he’s just like old baldy beerguts but with hair.

‘For goodness sake Harry, keep up. Your dad will be waiting and you know what will happen if we are late.’
I know … he’ll go off on one again. But I want her to see that house over there, the one I saw the day of the carnival, because it says ‘For Sale’ on the lollipop board in the garden and that means if you’re rich you can buy it.
I wish I was a grown up today …

TWELVE CARDS

From a drawer in the oak dresser that she had inherited from her grandmother, Martha took out the cards, walked through the dining room into the conservatory, and sat on the edge of the white metal Victorian day-bed she had patiently restored after finding it in a house clearance sale. She laid the cards beside her and stared out of the window. It was still raining.
‘Is it a sign?’ she wondered as she watched the raindrops racing down the window pane.
A whole lifetime had passed since Martha had sat by her bedroom window as a child and played ‘Rain Races’. She had spent hours watching the raindrops racing down the window, willing her chosen rain-runner to win. Recalling those days from her distant memory reminded her of when, in the quiet of her room, she had found comfort in knowing that the window had been crying with her, and had eased her loneliness by hugging her rag doll as she dreamed of one day having a baby of her own. She had made a promise to herself that her children would never feel like she did, useless … and stupid. They would always know that they were loved, no matter what they did. Being locked in their room as a punishment would never happen to them.
A clap of thunder interrupted her thoughts and she lifted the cards out of the folded letter wrapped around them, and laid each one on the hand stitched patchwork quilt folded beside her. She shivered as she recalled the day she had bought them several weeks before. While browsing around an old book shop, tucked away in a narrow cobbled street in Hastings, Martha had literally stumbled across the cards as she had tripped down a small step near the back of the shop. Each picture on the front was a clip from a famous film, its infamous phrase written on the back. After reading them all, Martha had carefully chosen twelve.
Lifting her legs onto the day-bed and curling her body into the soft down-filled pillows around her, she picked up the first card, a picture of Robert de Nero boxing in the film Raging Bull, and read the words on the back:
‘Hey Ray, I never went down man! You never got me down, Ray! You hear me, you never got me down.’ (Nero, Raging Bull, 1981.)
Martha sighed heavily. These last few years had not been part of her dream as a child. She had planned to be a good mother, ‘to do things right’ … and if she had achieved that, the cards would never have been bought.
Closing her eyes, she pictured the twelve days she had spent in hospital after her son had been born over twenty years ago. She had refused to have his crib at the end of her bed as the nurses had instructed, because she couldn’t see him there. Instead, she had moved him beside her, where she could stare in wonderment at the miracle that had spent nine months growing inside her belly, knowing that she would give her life for that baby … her son.
Placing the card to one side, she picked up another and read the back:
‘It’s not as if mother were a maniac, a raving thing. She goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?’ (Hitchcock, Psycho, 1960.)
Martha had never seen the film Psycho; it was the words on the back of the card that had spoken to her, that had confirmed to her that she was responsible for her son’s behaviour, for causing him to be so angry at the world. It was not meant to be like this. She had made a promise to him even before he was born that he would always feel safe, secure and loved. But if she had succeeded in that, he would not have needed to fight his way through life, using his fists to express his feelings and finding refuge in alcoholic oblivion. Martha had never been drunk nor wished to be, she had seen the consequences of drink in her father, but now her son was walking the same path as his grandfather, and yet, they had never met.
The rain had stopped but the sky was still angry, already preparing for the next downfall. The letter that had been wrapped around the cards had fallen onto the plate on the floor where a slice of toast and marmalade, this morning’s breakfast, remained uneaten. Her stomach had dictated to her that it had no requirements for food today. Martha picked up the letter and absentmindedly wiped off the sticky marmalade onto the quilt, then reread the words she had written over three months ago. She wondered whether the judge had agreed to read the letter she had sent to the court, and her hands now trembled as she held the copy in her hand.
She had wanted him to know that Henry was loved, was part of a family who cared about him, supported him and loved him. She had wanted to say that she would give her life for him, that she would not be there in person on the day, but his father Jack, his sister Mary and his grandma would all be there. She wanted him to understand that it was she who had made so many mistakes in her life, and that they had such a damaging effect on her children’s lives as well as her own … that it was her fault, and it should be her standing before him begging for leniency.
Now, Henry could be sent to prison for getting involved in a fight, for not walking away, for not thinking. It was after the solicitor had advised them of the expected twelve month sentence that Martha had bought the cards, to send one each month to keep her son in touch with his family. The pictures … she had chosen them to soften the starkness of his room – she could not bring herself to use the word ‘cell’– to be a calendar towards going home, ‘get out of jail’ cards. Martha had chosen the words because she had been able to relate to them, to identify family traits in them, and she knew that Henry would do the same.
The conservatory became dark and unfriendly as the rain returned. On the window ledge, beside a many times repaired antique Wedgwood fruit bowl, an old mahogany mantle clock chimed twice indicating a half-hour had just passed. Martha glanced towards it, half past two; they would know soon … and someone would call her. Conflict fought within her, the needing to know crashing against the need not to know … both unbearable.
But she would know, life did not stop at the difficult parts, it carried on, and experience had taught her that there was no choice but to move with it, jumping and still falling at each hurdle, then getting up and trudging on towards the next. Uncurling herself from the security of the pillows around her, she gathered the cards together, rewrapped the letter around them, and replaced them in dresser drawer.
Leaning heavily on the banister, she climbed the stairs and on entering Henry’s bedroom, stepped over a pile of magazines with dirty socks sandwiched between them, and a pair of work jeans folded concertina-style as he had hurriedly stepped out of them the night before. As she tidied his bedding she felt his old well-hugged grey bear snuck beneath his pillow. Henry had sheepishly packed it away in the loft soon after his first girlfriend had teased him about still having a teddy bear sitting on his bed. But he’d recently been in the loft helping his dad, and must have sneaked it back down. Martha held the bear close to her face and could still smell her son’s childhood on the threadbare fur. Her thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the phone ringing and still clutching the bear, she rushed downstairs to take the call she had been dreading, her heart following a few steps behind her.
‘Mum, it’s me … it was your letter Mum; he read your letter …’
‘Henry …’ the silence was broken by the tearful whisper of her son asking his father to speak.
‘Hi, it’s me. It’s OK Martha … he’s coming home …’
‘Oh Jack …’
‘Henry’s right here, with Mary and your mum.’ reassured Jack. ‘The judge said that he is a very fortunate young man to have a mother like you and such strong family support. He told Henry to go home and thank his mother, because Martha, it was your letter that influenced the judge that prison was not the place to send Henry … but back home to his family. He has to do some community service and … hey there you, no tears eh, it’s all going to be alright, we are on our way home … together.’
As she replaced the receiver, Martha gently rocked Henry’s bear close to her chest as if she were soothing a new born baby. Walking into the dining room she opened the dresser drawer … then closed it again. One day she would tell Henry about the cards … and about Robert de Nero. One day.

STICKS

I only opened the gate to let Grandma in. Granddad says the ice cream man would not have seen anything, but I hate the ice cream man, his silly pink and yellow van and its stupid music. If he didn’t play that stupid music every time he came round my street my Mum wouldn’t shout at me every day and say ‘No you can’t have one, How - Many - More - Times, just go and play’ It’s always No, No, No, No, No. Everything fun is No.’
Granddad bought me Sticks when I got a broken bone in my back when I fell down the bank at Tizzy’s dad’s farm. Well, his name is Alan really but we all call him Tizzy, he’s ten and got the best Meccano set ever, he said he would hold the rope with the tyre on the end and slide me down the bank at the bottom of the garden by the steps down to the chickens but he let go. He told me not to tell I hurt my back, but I could only crawl on my bum and it really really hurt, then he said I was a cry baby and not to tell about the rope.
Granddad took me to get Sticks from the pet shop. He said I had been very brave but Dad said I was grounded for not doing as I was told and staying away from the bank. I didn’t mind being grounded, I couldn’t walk anyway! Granddad said a puppy would be company. I picked Sticks because he had a white leg and a brown leg and two black legs and his feet were different colours and his ears were bigger than his head. He looked like he had been stuck together. Granddad said Sticks was a good name. Mum said Puddles would be better cos he kept wetting on the floor. He cried at night and Dad said he would have to ‘go’ unless he stopped.
The weekend Granddad looked after me Sticks slept on my bed and didn’t wet or cry, so Mum let him sleep there all the time. He sits under the table and eats crusts off my toast. Sometimes I hide bits of my dinner in my hankie and stuff it up my sleeve when no-one is looking but now Sticks eats it instead.
Well, not now cos the ice cream man killed him. I hate the ice cream man and his stupid music. I never want ice cream again, I just want Sticks. I miss his licks on my face and playing tug with him. I don’t want another dog and I don’t want to sleep in my bed. Mum washed my quilt and now I can hardly smell him, but he still smells on my blankie and I can see him when I put blankie by my nose. Mum doesn’t wash that cos I cry at night cos it doesn’t smell the same, so Sticks is still on my blankie.