Daniel Isn't Talking (10 page)

One mistake was making all of Stephen's friends my friends. I cosied up to the wives and girlfriends of his chums from school, from university, and now that he has walked out, I am set loose from their circles. They don't know quite what to say to me.

‘I'm sure this is only temporary,' is one set piece I hear. But if it is only temporary, and Stephen will return home any minute, why do they avoid me? If, surely, it will all come right, as they suggest?

They turn out to be his friends and not mine at all. Never were.

‘We're terribly sorry,' they say. But they do not invite me to see them. Do not want to come here either. Their diaries are full. Their children have nasty colds; their jobs have implacable demands.

‘You won't believe what happened yesterday!' says the wife of Stephen's university friend, a couple we've gone on holiday with, who we've exchanged Christmas presents with, who I thought actually liked me. ‘I have been asked to do work in Bristol for every weekend until August!'

‘Have you?' I say. And no, I don't believe her.

And it seems to me I've burned through all my own friends, the mothers I met at childbirth classes, for example. They have normal children and average problems. Husbands that work late, not enough money, or perhaps a child with grommets in his ears. That's about the extent of their problems. So hard to stay on course around them, asking them important questions about which holiday worked well for them, why they prefer one catchment area over another, how they like the new nanny agency, or the new nanny, or the new job, or the newborn. And they, too, grow weary with my situation. I am living proof that there are no guarantees with our children, that bad things can happen. They see nothing appealing about my child and I see their own children as geniuses simply because they do the amazing, expected, miraculous and completely average feat of developing like normal children.

‘It's so cute the way Theo says Mickey Mouse,' says this one here who I know from a postnatal group and who sends her daughter to the same pre-school as I send Emily. Theo is the little brother just a baby. ‘Say it for Melanie, sweetie. Say Mickey Mouse.'

‘Icky Owse,' says Theo, then a big smile.

‘It's the cutest thing, don't you think?' says Theo's mother. She's supposed to be a friend. Or at least friend-like. Her name is Becca and I've had her over for tea before.

‘Adorable,' I say, nodding, forcing a smile. Daniel is asleep in the pushchair, so at least I don't have to listen to his iron silence in contast to Theo's giggling and new, beautiful words.

‘He's only sixteen months, you know,' says Becca, who
I might like to kill right now except her baby can talk and he'd probably report me.

‘It wasn't the MMR, was it?' asks another of the mothers who wait at the gate, as I do, each afternoon at twelve thirty. It's one of my least favourite moments of the day – not that I can't wait to see Emily – but it is all I can do to stand among the crowd of nannies telling children Daniel's same age to shut up, stop making so much noise, while I try desperately to get Daniel to imitate me as I make faces, or point at a red bus, or laugh when I blow raspberries on his tummy.

‘I don't know,' I say honestly.

‘They say the doctor who claimed it was the MMR is a fraud, you know,' says another. She's only here because she's waiting with her friend. Her children are older, both at St Paul's Girls' School – the sort of place that makes me shiver.

Now I realise the MMR is a good, solid medical precaution that has nothing to do with autism. That's true and right. I have heard the radio shows, the TV reports, all of which assure me that my feeling the MMR is to blame for Daniel's autism is something I've completely made up. But you know, there is this part of me that understands with absolute certainty that I didn't make it up. I could have been hallucinating and still I wouldn't have missed the signs that after that shot my baby changed.

‘I don't think that doctor is a fraud,' I say.

‘Oh
please
,' says the St Paul's mother. ‘He lied. He joined the parents who just want someone to blame.' She is dressed in blue and white linen and has a beautiful heart-shaped face. She is a woman whose hands have never cleaned her child's excrement from walls, never waited
through hour-long temper tantrums, never hurt for anything, I imagine. But she wants to hurt me. Of that, I'm positive.

‘My son has autism and he has problems with his bowels,' I say to this lady, who doesn't give a damn.

‘Well, it has nothing to do with vaccinations,' she sniffs. ‘Vaccinations save children's lives!'

She turns away from me, shoulder to shoulder with the other mother, looking into the distance at the school, preparing for the moment it releases dozens of pre-schoolers to this waiting crowd.

Iris has never heard of Andy O'Connor, but she's heard of ABA and is sceptical.

‘It's probably just another scam,' she says, her voice full of caution.

‘A scam?' I say. My heart sinks. I have come almost to rely upon the idea that ABA is the answer for Daniel.

Iris says, ‘Not to mention expensive. But then my information is a little old. I'll make some calls.'

And with that, another door shuts.

But a few hours later I hear from Iris again. She has spent the morning on the telephone, seeking information about Andy O'Connor. Her voice bubbles over the line, filling me with hope even before she gets the words out.

‘Andy O'Connor is
gold dust
,' she says. ‘The few mothers I've spoke to say he's just amazing! Apparently, all the kids love him.'

‘And he can help me? Help Daniel, I mean?'

‘Just get him,' says Iris. Her voice is calm but certain, delivering the phone number to me as though it is a secret code. ‘Make sure he agrees to see you.'

‘I will,' I tell her.

‘Don't give up,' she says. When her son was Daniel's age there was no treatment of the sort that Andy O'Connor can provide. Not in England anyway. If I were her, I'd be bitter about this, but Iris only wants to help me, to help my son.

‘What can I do for
you
?' I ask her genuinely.

‘Make that call,' she says. Then she has to ring off. Her son wants to go on the Internet – again – and they only have one phone line.

I call Andy O'Connor a dozen times and all I get is his voicemail.

‘Hello, you've reached Andy O'Connor. I'm not able to take on any new clients at the moment, but if you would like to leave your name …' He has an Irish accent, a quick and friendly voice. But does he call me back? No.

I've left polite messages, curt messages, messages in which I apologise for leaving so many messages. I've left messages adding to and correcting other messages. In my most urgent voice I've asked him to please telephone me right away. In my most pleading voice I've insisted he call me. I even pretended to be a reporter from the
Daily
Telegraph
interested in doing an article on him, but I think he might have recognised my voice by then from all those other times I called. Still nothing.

I guess it is the ‘not able to take on any new clients' part of his voicemail that is the reason for him not calling back.

This last message is my final one. ‘Hello, Andy. What do you say to a girl with an undergraduate degree in English from Tufts and a postgraduate degree from Oxford? Give up? You say, “I'll have that burger with fries, please.”'

It's an old joke, but the next morning he rings.

‘I'll have that burger with fries, please,' he laughs.

While Emily is at pre-school, I go through exercises that I've learned from a book about Applied Behaviour Analysis, this stuff Andy O'Connor does and which the speech therapist claims is deceitful, a waste of time. Andy can't see us for several weeks. ‘Too many children right now,' he tells me on the phone. ‘These mothers are running me ragged! I barely get to sleep at night!'

‘Well, why should
you
sleep when all the rest of us aren't allowed to sleep?' I tease.

‘Why, indeed!' he says. He sounds a good-natured man, gentle, optimistic. He knows how hard it is to live with a non-verbal child. He will come as soon as he can.

‘You're American?' he says. ‘I like Americans. Well, the girls.'

And I like Andy. Can't help it. He's the only one holding any useful cards right now, and I really don't care how much I have to pay him. Stephen is convinced we have to get Daniel into some sort of programme right away. He believes that special school is the answer. He calls me from the office to tell me so. My answer to him is that we haven't even tried yet. If he would just come home and read some of these books with me, he'd see autistic kids have more scope than he realises.

‘I can't come right now,' he says.

‘What on earth prevents you!' I ask.

‘Your temper for one thing. That prevents me.'

‘Oh, right.' I can't take him seriously, behaving like this. ‘Big scary me!' I say.

‘There are schools –'

‘If he goes into one of those schools we'll never get him
out,' I say. ‘Anyway, we can always put him in a special school if we don't succeed at this other thing. You're throwing in the towel before the fight even begins!'

‘I'm tired of fighting with you,' he says.

‘So what is the story? You won't come home unless I agree to put Daniel in special school?'

‘No, that's not it,' he begins.

‘Then
why
won't you come home!' I say this quite loudly. OK, maybe I'm yelling.

But it doesn't matter. He's already off the line, having taken another call.

‘Where's Daddy?' Emily asks. She asks every day after school, like clockwork.

‘At the office, of course,' I tell her, trying to sound cheerful. She holds a picture of a caterpillar and a butterfly. The caterpillar has been drawn by making a rectangle and then adding eyes. The butterfly is a number 8 that has been turned on its side, then coloured. If the school had let her do it in her own way they'd have been more successful, but even so the colouring is good. ‘Hey, that's a really good picture!' I tell Emily.

Emily slaps the picture onto my stomach. Then she says, ‘When is Daddy coming home?'

‘He's coming to take you to the park,' I tell her. She doesn't look satisfied with this answer, which isn't really an answer at all, as she well knows. ‘Come on, let's skip!' I say. She holds my hand while I balance Daniel's pushchair with the other. In this manner we manage to skip along the sidewalk – well, mostly skip. It's a miracle we don't all fall down.

‘Which
day
is he coming home?' Emily says. She concentrates on skipping, her hand clasping mine. ‘Today?'

‘Soon,' I tell her. ‘That's good skipping.'

‘But
when
?'

‘Let's hop!' I say. ‘Ready now? One foot!' I say, hopping. But Emily stops suddenly, nearly pulling Daniel and me over. She is not going to hop or skip. She is going to cry.

‘He's coming on Saturday,' I tell her, scooping her up in my arms. ‘And maybe even earlier if we're lucky.'

The book I have on this bizarre therapy for autistic children emphasises the need to get kids talking as soon as possible. So, Daniel must learn to talk. He has to learn the names of objects, which means he has to listen as I tell him the name of an object. The only way I can get him to pay any attention to me at all is by stealing his Thomas the Tank Engine and holding it above my head. When finally he stops screaming and lunging for Thomas, I put a car on the little plastic table in front of us, and say, ‘Car,' and put his hand on it. Then I let his hand go and I give him the train as a reward.

The first time I tried this he threw himself on the floor, banging his head against the cupboard door and flailing his arms and legs for about four minutes as I stood above him, waiting. I found it very difficult not to immediately scoop him into my arms and give him back the train. Every instinct said do something – anything – to make him stop crying like this. But I had to get his attention somehow, and confiscating his train – though difficult and painful – seemed to be the only thing that worked. He soon stopped whacking his head but was determined not to have anything to do with me, the table, the car – none of it. Eventually I managed to catch hold of his hand, placing it on the car. I said, ‘Car!' and then handed over Thomas.

The second time he did not throw himself on the ground but just screamed. I put his hand on the cat, said the word ‘car' and then let him have his train.

The third time he put his hand on the car himself.

‘Car!' I said, and for a moment he let his hand linger.

That was worth a dance around the kitchen, he and Thomas and I. It was Prince on the radio, a song I hadn't heard in too long …
I just want your extra time and
your … kiss
.

Stephen has been living at Cath's now for just over two weeks, seeing the children on weekends. This is totally insane, but I cannot convince him that it is totally insane. He visits his own house to play with his own children, takes them to the park, kicks a ball around with Emily. Everything just as he used to do, except then he leaves to sleep at his sister's house. Two weeks of this and I've really had enough.

‘Right, fine, you've made your point, Stephen,' I say. ‘But please –'

For my benefit he always arrives at the house in horrible clothes, his grey tracksuit bottoms and an ugly sweatshirt, his hair dirty, needing a shave. He's trying to look ugly, but he must know that men like him only look sexy when they do this. If he wanted to look ugly he'd have to slap on some black leather trousers three sizes too small, push his neck into one of those long, clinging turtlenecks that ride around the jawbone, grow a bushy beard that hangs like moss off his chin, and shave his head. If he did that, maybe I could relax. But not if he's going to saunter into the house looking like he just crawled out of bed. That will not work.