The Shock of the Fall

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OVER MY SHOULDER

She keeps reading over my shoulder. It is hard enough to concentrate in this place without people reading over your shoulder.

I had to put that in big letters to drive the message home. It worked, but now I feel bad about it. It was the student social worker who was looking over my shoulder, the young one with the minty breath and big gold earrings. She’s really nice.

Anyway, now she’s skipped away down the corridor, acting bright and breezy. But I know that I’ve embarrassed her because people only skip like that, and act all bright and breezy, when they’re embarrassed. We don’t need to skip when we’re not embarrassed – we can just walk.

It’s good to be able to use this computer though. I had a teaching session on it with the occupational therapist. His name’s Steve, and I don’t suppose I’ll mention him again. But he was satisfied I knew not to try to eat the keyboard, or whatever it is they worry about. So he said it’s okay for me to use it for my writing. Except he still didn’t give me a password, so I have to ask each time, and we only get forty minutes. It’s like that here, forty minutes for this, and ten minutes for that. But I am sorry about embarrassing that student social worker. I really am. I hate stuff like that.

kicking and wailing

I had no right to attend my brother’s funeral. But I did attend. I wore a white polyester shirt that itched like mad around the collar, and a black clip-on tie. The church echoed whenever anyone coughed. And afterwards there were scones with cream and jam. And that is all I can remember.

But now I should slow down a bit. I tend to rush when I’m nervous. I do it when I’m speaking too, which is weird because you tend to think it’s just those small tightly wound men who speak quickly. I’m about six feet tall and might even still be growing. I’m nineteen, so maybe not. I’m definitely growing outwards though. I’m way fatter than I should be. We can blame the medication for that – it’s a common side effect.

Anyway, I speak too quickly. I rush through words I find uncomfortable, and I’m doing that now.

I need to slow down because I want to explain how my world slowed down. I also need to talk about how life has a shape and a size, and how it can be made to fit into something small – like a house.

But the first thing I want to say is how quiet everything got. That was the first thing I noticed. It was as though somebody had come along and turned the volume to just above mute, and now everyone felt a need to talk in whispers. Not just Mum and Dad, but people who came to visit us too – like something terrible was asleep in the corner of the room and nobody dared be the one to wake it.

I’m talking about relatives here, people like my aunties and grandparents. My parents were never the sort to have loads of friends. I had a few. But they were at school. That was the other thing that happened. I think I might be rushing again, but I’ll just tell you quickly about how I stopped going to school, because it’s important, and because it is an actual thing that happened. Most of life isn’t anything. Most of life is just the passing of time, and we’re even asleep for a fair chunk of that.

When I’m heavily medicated I sleep for up to eighteen hours a day. During these times I am far more interested in my dreams than in reality, because they take up so much more of my time. If I’m having nice dreams, I consider life to be pretty good. When the medication isn’t working properly – or if I decide not to take it – I spend more time awake. But then my dreams have a way of following me.

It’s like we each have a wall that separates our dreams from reality, but mine has cracks in it. The dreams can wriggle and squeeze their way through, until it’s hard to know the difference.

Sometimes

But now I’m getting distracted.

I’m forever getting distracted. I need to concentrate, because there is a lot I want to write about – like this stuff about my school. Summer was over. September was edging to a close, and I still hadn’t been back to the classroom. So a decision had to be made.

The headmaster phoned and I listened to Mum’s half of the conversation from the watching stair. It wasn’t much of a conversation though. Basically she just said thank you a load of times. Then she called me to the telephone for my turn.

It was weird, because I never really talked to my headmaster at school. I mean, you really only talk to your teachers. I can’t say for sure that I had ever once spoken to my headmaster, and now here he was on the end of the telephone saying, ‘Hello Matthew, it’s Mr Rogers.’

‘Hello sir,’ I managed. My voice sounded very small all of a sudden. I waited for him to say something else, and Mum squeezed my shoulder.

‘I’ve just been speaking with your mum, but I wanted to talk to you too. Is that okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know this is a very difficult and sad time for you. I can only imagine how hard it must be.’

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what there was to say, so there was a really long silence. Then I started to agree that it was hard, but Mr Rogers started talking again at the same time, repeating that it was sad. So then we both stopped to let the other one talk, and neither of us said anything. Mum rubbed at the top of my back. I’ve never been any good on the phone.

‘Matthew, I won’t keep you because I know this is hard. But I wanted to tell you that everyone is thinking of you, that we miss you. And however long this takes, however long you need, you’ll be welcomed back warmly. So you mustn’t be afraid.’

That was a strange thing for him to say because I don’t think I was afraid until then. I felt a lot of things – a lot that I didn’t properly understand – but not afraid. Except when he said that, I suddenly was. So I just said thank you a few times too, and Mum gave me a weak smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Do you want to speak to my mum again?’

‘I think we’re done for now,’ Mr Rogers said. ‘I’d just wanted to say a few words to you. We’ll see you soon, okay?’

I let the phone drop into its cradle with a loud clunk.

He didn’t see me soon. I didn’t go back to school for a long time, and never to that school. I don’t know how these decisions were made. That’s the thing when you are nine years old; you don’t really get told anything. Like if you are taken out of school nobody has to tell you why. People don’t have to tell you anything. I think, though, most of the things we do, are driven by fear. I think my mum was very frightened of losing me. I think that is what it was. But I don’t want to put thoughts in your head.

If you’re a parent you can stop your children going to school, and sit them at the kitchen table with a workbook instead. Just write a letter to the head, and that is it. You don’t even need to be a teacher, although Mum was. Sort of. I should tell you about my mum, because you probably have never met her.

She is thin and pale, with cold hands. She has a broad chin that she is very self-conscious about. She sniffs the milk before she drinks it. She loves me. And she is mad. That will do for now.

I say that she was sort of a teacher because once upon a time she was going to be. This was when she was trying to get pregnant, but there were some complications and the doctors said that she might not be able to conceive. I know this stuff, without any recollection of being told it. I think she decided to become a teacher to give her life a meaning, or to distract her. I don’t suppose there is much difference.

So she enrolled at university and did the course. Then she got pregnant with Simon, and her meaning came kicking and wailing the regular way.

But she got to be my teacher. Each and every weekday, after Dad had set off for work, our school day would begin. First we would clear the breakfast table together, stacking plates and bowls by the sink for Mum to wash whilst I made a start on the pile of Key Stage exercise books. I was a clever child back then. I think that took Mum by surprise.

When Simon was alive he could be a bit of a sponge, soaking up the attention. He didn’t mean to or anything, but that is what special needs do – they demand more of the things around them. I seemed to go unnoticed. But sitting at the kitchen table, Mum did notice me. It might have been easier for her if I had been stupid. I only just thought that now as I wrote it, but it might be true. There were these tests at the end of each chapter of the Key Stage Science, Maths and French workbooks, and whenever I got everything right she would go quiet for ages. But if I only got nearly everything right, she would be encouraging, and gently talk me through my mistakes. That was weird. So I started making mistakes on purpose.

We never went out, and we never talked about anything except school work. That was strange too, because it wasn’t as if Mum acted like a teacher. Sometimes she would kiss me on the forehead or stroke my hair or whatever. But we just didn’t talk about anything except what was in the books. And that is exactly how the days unfolded for a long time, though I couldn’t tell you exactly how long in terms of weeks or months. It merged into one extended moment, with me sitting at the kitchen table doing my tests, and Mum talking me through my deliberate mistakes.

That is what I mean by my world slowing down, but it is hard to explain because it only takes a couple of pages to say how it was day after day. But it is the day-after-day that takes so long.

When my work was done I would watch cartoons or play some Nintendo. Or sometimes I would go upstairs and gently press my ear against Simon’s bedroom door, listening. Sometimes I would kill a bit of time doing that. We never talked about that either. Mum would make tea, and we would wait for my dad to get home. I should tell you about my dad, because you probably have never met him.

He is tall and broad, and stoops a little. He wears a leather jacket because he used to ride a motorbike. He calls me mon ami. And he loves me. That will do for now.

I said my mother is mad. I said that. But you might not see it. I mean, you might not think that anything I’ve told you proves she is mad. But there are different kinds of madness. Some madness doesn’t act mad to begin with, sometimes it will knock politely at the door, and when you let it in, it’ll simply sit in the corner without a fuss – and grow. Then one day, maybe many months after your decision to take your son out of school and isolate him in a house for reasons that got lost in your grief, one day that madness will stir in the chair, and it will say to him, ‘You look pale.’

‘What?’

‘You look pale. You don’t look well at all sweetheart. Are you feeling okay?’

‘I’m fine, I think. I have a bit of a sore throat.’

‘Let me feel you.’ She put the back of her hand against my forehead. ‘Oh, darling. You feel hot. You’re burning up.’

‘Really? I feel okay.’

‘You’ve been looking pale for a few days now. I don’t think you get enough sunshine.’

‘We never go out!’ I said that angrily. I didn’t mean to, but that’s the way it came out. It wasn’t fair of me either because we did go out sometimes. I wasn’t a prisoner or anything.

We didn’t go out much, though. And never without Dad taking us. I suppose that’s what I mean by saying how life can shrink into a house. I suppose I’m just ungrateful. Mum must have thought so, because she suddenly looked at me like I’d spat on her or something. But then she said very sweetly, ‘Shall we go for a walk? We could pop in to see Dr Marlow, he can look at your throat.’

It wasn’t cold, but she took my orange winter coat from the hook, and she zipped it right to the top with the hood pulled up. Then we stepped outside.

To get to the local GP surgery from our house, you had to walk past my school. Or rather, what used to be my school. Mum held my hand as we crossed the main road, and as we rounded the corner I could hear distant shouts and laughter drifting over from the playground. I must have resisted. I don’t remember doing so on purpose, but I must have done because as we got closer Mum’s grip on me tightened, taking hold of my wrist and pulling me along.

‘Let’s go back, Mum.’

We didn’t go back. We walked right up to the school, and along the whole length of the fence so that I was practically being dragged, with my stupid hood right over my eyes.

‘Is that you, Matthew? Hello Mrs Homes. Hello Matthew.’

I can’t think of her name now. Gemma, or something. It doesn’t matter anyway.

‘Hey, it’s Matthew!’

The thing is, I was even popular. The group of children who gathered at the fence did so because they liked me. They were my classmates and would have been shaken up by what had happened, and my sudden exit from their lives. But I didn’t talk to them. I can’t explain it. I looked straight ahead, hiding behind my hood, whilst Mum said, ‘Matthew isn’t very well today. Go back and play.’

Dr Marlow asked me to open wide. He looked inside my mouth, breathing his warm breath into me, smelling of coffee. There was nothing wrong with my throat that a few lozenges and some Lemsip couldn’t fix. He said I should get some rest. So that was that. Only it wasn’t.

It was just the start.

hypotonia n. a state of reduced tension in muscle.

There was the shock of the fall and the blood on my knee, and Simon carried me all the way back to the caravan, all by himself, without any help from anyone, even though it half killed him, but he did it anyway, he did it for me, because he loved me.

I already told you that.

And then I said there is a proper word for weak muscles, that I would look it up if I got the chance. And possibly you forgot all about it. But I didn’t. I didn’t forget.

There is a Nursing Dictionary kept in the office at the top of the back staircase, and I could see it there on the table. I could see it when I went to the office to ask if I could go on the computer for a while to do my writing.

It was really funny though, because the girl I asked (the young one with the minty breath and big gold earrings, who is forever trying to read over my shoulder), she just kind of froze. She was the only person in the office, and she totally froze, as if the Nursing Dictionary contains all these secrets that patients aren’t allowed to know. Seriously, she couldn’t even open her mouth.

Then a really funny thing happened. Do you remember Steve? I only mentioned him that once. He was the one who gave me the teaching session on this computer. I said that I probably wouldn’t mention him again. Well, he came into the office next, and the girl turned to him and asked, really hesitantly, whether or not patients could look in the dictionary? That is how she said it too. She said ‘Um, um, is it appropriate for patients to borrow the dictionary Steven?’

And you’ll never guess what he did. He stepped past her, and in one move he threw the dictionary back through the air like a rugby pass, right into my hands. And at the same time he said, ‘What ya askin’ me for?’ He said it just like that. He said, ‘What ya askin’ me for?’

Then he turned to me and winked. But it wasn’t even a quiet wink, because he made a little clicking noise with his tongue as if to say, you and me kiddo, we’re in this together.

Do you know what I mean? I don’t know if I am explaining it very well. But you can see why it’s funny. It’s funny because the girl didn’t know whether or not I could even look in the dictionary. And then it was doubly funny because Steve made her look really stupid, by being all casual about it.

But the really funny thing. The thing that makes me laugh out loud. The really funny thing is that Steve made that little clicking noise with his tongue, and winked at me, as if to show that he was on my side or something. Except you’re not on my side, are you Steve? Because if you were on my side you just would have handed me the dictionary like a grown-up. Because if you make a big fucking gesture of it Steve, then it becomes a big fucking deal. But that is what these people do – the Steves of this world – they all try and make something out of nothing. And they all do it for themselves.

Simon had hypotonia. He also had microgenia, macroglossia, epicanthic folds, an atrial septal defect, and a beautiful smiling face that looked like the moon. I hate this fucking place.

spoon fed

Mum pulled open the quilt at the entrance and peered inside, ‘I’ve forgotten the password again.’

‘You can’t come in then.’

‘Will you tell me it one more time?’

‘Nope.’ I pulled the quilt back against the radiator, gripping it tightly with my fist.

‘Bully.’

‘I’m not a bully, I’ve told you once already.’

‘Super Mario?’

‘Close.’

‘Hmm. What’s his girlfriend called?’

‘Princess Peach.’

‘Ah, yes. That’s not it either, is it?’

‘Uh-uh. Actually, she isn’t Princess Peach in this game. And you’re getting warmer. Sort of.’

‘Cryptic clues, eh?’

‘What does cryptic mean?’

‘It means if you don’t tell me the password I’ll cry.’

I opened a small gap and watched as she made her pretend sad face, with bottom lip trembling. It was hard not to laugh.

‘Oh, charming. Here I am, pouring my heart out, and my own son and heir is smirking at me.’

‘I’m not smirking.’

‘What’s this then?’ Her arm crept in, through a gap I hadn’t noticed. She did that thing when you make a bird’s beak with your hand, pecking up my arm until she found my face. She propped up the corners of my mouth. ‘Ah-ha. I knew it!’

It’s good being a bit ill when you’re a kid, isn’t it?

It’s better if you go to a proper school, because then when you stay home for the day it’s a treat. If you have your lessons at home anyway, there isn’t anywhere to go. Unless you’re allowed to build your own den.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a clue.’

‘Go on then.’

‘I’m playing it right … now.’

I let the entrance fall open and quickly picked up my Game Boy Color. Mum tilted her head, squinting at the cartridge. ‘Donkey Kong!’

‘You may enter.’

It was really just the space between the back of the couch and the wall, but I stretched a quilt over the top, tucking it behind the radiator. It was nice to hide away in there, playing games or watching TV through the gap beside the curtains.

Mum crouched on all fours and crawled inside. ‘Show me how to play it then.’

‘Really?’

‘What, you don’t think mummies can?’

There wasn’t much room, but that made it better in a way. It was cosy. ‘Hold it like that, with your thumbs on the buttons. See him at the bottom?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘He’s Mario. You need to make him climb to the top, without the barrels hitting you.’

‘What’s at the top?’

‘His girlfriend.’

‘Not the princess?’

‘She’s in other games. It’s started, you need to concentrate—’

When the first barrel hit her, she said it wasn’t fair because she was about to get good.

‘It’s still your go. You have more than one life. Shall I tell you when you need to jump?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Mum, shall I tell you when to jump?’

She kissed me on the cheek.

‘Yes please.’

I’m not a mind-reader. I can’t tell you what my mum was thinking. Sometimes I worry people might be able to place thoughts in my head, or take my thoughts away. But with Mum, there’s nothing.

‘You’re better than Dad.’

‘Really?’

‘He can’t get past Level One.’

My mum is made of angles, and sharp corners of bone. She isn’t great to cuddle. But she put a cushion on her lap for me to rest my head, and that was comfortable.

At lunchtime she made vegetable stew.

Usually we ate at the table, but this time we took our bowls into the den. I was starting to feel floppy and useless.

‘Try and eat up, sweetheart.’

‘It hurts to swallow.’

She looked in my throat and said my tonsils were still swollen, that she’d make a Lemsip after we’d eaten. She picked up my spoon, and fed me a mouthful, scooping a bit of spillage off my chin like you would for a baby. Then she said, ‘Why more than one life?’

‘What?’

‘In computer games. It doesn’t make sense, having lots of lives. It makes no sense at all.’

‘It’s just the way they are.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m being silly, aren’t I? Shall we play Snakes and Ladders next?’

I opened my mouth, and she fed me another spoonful. It wasn’t a plastic spoon or anything. It wasn’t for babies. It was a regular spoon.

mon ami

He used to burst through the door, waiting at the foot of my bed all wide-eyed and unblinking. Some mornings I wasn’t in the mood so sent him away. I regret that now.

But mostly his enthusiasm was catching, so even if I was half asleep I’d get out of bed to load up the N64, and we’d sit on our beanbags playing Mario 64, arguing over whether Luigi could be unlocked as a character. Then at quarter to seven our dad would come through to tell us we should work hard at school today, and that he was off to earn a crust. That is the kind of thing my dad says. He says, earn a crust. I like it.

The other reason Dad used to come into my bedroom was so Simon and me could do this thing we used to do. What we’d do is listen out for him as he walked across the landing towards my bedroom door. He was easy to hear because he wore heavy steel-toe-capped boots, and because he wanted us to hear him. So he would walk deliberately heavy-footed, and usually say something loud and obvious to my mum like, ‘Bye bye then darling. I’m just going to say cheerio to the boys.’

As soon as we heard him say that, Simon and me would quickly hide behind the door, so when he looked in he wouldn’t be able to see us. He’d step inside pretending to be confused, saying something under his breath like, ‘Where have those boys got to?’

It was stupid really, because by this time Simon wouldn’t be able to stop from giggling. That didn’t matter though, because we all knew it was just pretend. And it was fun. The most fun thing was at this point Simon and me would leap out from behind the door, and wrestle Dad to the ground.

That is what we used to do when Simon was alive, but now Simon wasn’t alive, I never got up before my dad. At quarter to seven he would still come into my room to find me lying awake, unsure of how to begin. That must have been hard for him.