Forgetting Foster (7 page)

‘You look lovely, Foster,' she said. ‘Very handsome.' Then she pulled her phone from her handbag and left a message for Aunty. She said they might be late.

Foster's thumbnail had just penetrated the apple skin, something he avoided at all costs because he didn't like the sensation and it made Mum cross, when Dad appeared in the doorway. Mum's back was to him so Foster saw him first. Foster started to giggle.

Dad was wearing a pair of novelty Christmas socks he'd been given two years ago by Santa. He only wore
them at Christmas. They had all sorts of shiny bits on them, some of which hadn't fared too well in the washing machine. They weren't pulled up properly either and gathered in loose folds around his ankles. Other than that he was completely naked.

‘Mum,' Foster said, ‘Dad's got his Christmas socks on.'

Mum turned around and immediately dropped her phone into the bowl of cornflakes which had been sitting on the kitchen table since yesterday morning. Mum didn't clean up as much as she used to. The milk had mostly been absorbed, leaving a kind of papier-mâché mulch in the bottom of the bowl. Foster watched Mum's phone sink a little before leaning forward and peeling it out of the curdy cereal.

‘Malcolm!'

‘My clothes were itching me,' Dad said, just as Mum's phone began to ring. It didn't sound right.

Foster picked some wet cornflakes off the screen and answered. ‘Hello?'

Mum stepped across to Dad and gently took his elbow with one hand, awkwardly screening him with the only thing readily to hand, a tea towel.

‘Malcolm, where are your clothes? We have to leave soon.'

‘Mum, it's Aunty. She wants to know how long we'll be.'

‘Where are we going?' Dad asked.

‘To church, Malcolm. The baptism.' Mum began easing Dad out of the kitchen and back towards the bedroom.

‘Dad has taken all his clothes off,' Foster said into the phone.

‘Who's getting baptised?' Dad asked.

‘Well, he's got his Christmas socks on,' Foster said.

‘Pippa had a baby,' Mum said. ‘So you must get dressed.'

‘My clothes were itching me.'

‘Then we'll find you something else to wear. You've been looking forward to this, Malcolm.'

‘Aunty's coming over!' Foster called as Mum scarpered down the hall with Dad.

‘Oh, just tell her we're not going!' Mum called back.

‘We're not going,' Foster said. Then, ‘Sorry, Mum, she's already hung up!'

‘We have to go!' Dad said. ‘Better get that kid in the font lickety-split!'

‘Call her back, Fossie! Tell her we're not going!'

Foster scrolled through the contact screen on the phone. He blew into the little hole on the bottom of
the phone where the charger cord went and it exhaled a tiny mist of moisture. Then he shook the phone and touched the screen to call Aunty.

‘Aunty? Mum says we're not going. Can I come with you?'

Aunty didn't say much. When Foster hung up he called out, ‘Mum? Aunty says Jesus!'

pee and prayer

Everyone was quiet in the car on the way to the church. It was the sort of quiet that felt like it should be filled. Aunty drove and Mum and Dad sat in the back seat. Foster got to sit in the front a lot lately. Sitting in the front used to feel like a treat; now it felt more like a penalty. The back seat used to come with conversation and games. The front seat came with words like ‘get in' and ‘seatbelt'.

When Dad started humming a tune into the tight quiet Foster considered joining in until Mum patted Dad's wrist and gently
shooshed
him. That was another word Foster had heard a lot lately.
Shoosh.
They used to sing in the car, tell stories in the car, but lately Mum's tolerance for voices dropped off the moment they left the house. Foster thought it was unfair to make
everyone shoosh just because Mum was embarrassed to be out with them. She seemed to feel voices in her skin. They made her fidget. There was a lot of shooshing and shuddering which made Foster want to deliberately read road signs out loud. When they rounded the final corner and saw the church up ahead, Aunty began to chuckle quietly under her breath.

‘What?' was all Mum said.

‘He's still got his Christmas socks on,' Aunty said.

‘Don't talk about him as if he's not here,' Mum replied.

‘Hey, Malcolm!' Aunty adjusted the rear-view mirror and tapped it with one finger. ‘Malcolm! I said you've still got your Christmas socks on!'

Foster turned in his seat and could just see a ring of bright red sequins below the cuff of Dad's trousers. He couldn't understand why, but it worried him.

‘I couldn't get him to take them off,' Mum said.

‘Apparently!' Aunty replied.

They were late so everyone had already gone inside. Foster was about to get out of the car when Mum grabbed the back of Aunty's seat and leaned forward. She brought her mouth parallel to Aunty's ear and said, ‘You think this is funny?' There was a strange break in Mum's voice.

Aunty turned her head slowly towards Mum. Foster noticed that their noses were almost touching. He felt a tightness in his chest. He opened his car door and was about to slide out when he realised his seatbelt was still on.

‘Yes,' Aunty said. ‘Yes, I do. And you had better find your sense of humour too.'

‘You two look like you're about to kiss!' Dad said loudly, unbuckling his seatbelt.

Mum was half out of the car when she stopped and said to Aunty, ‘I know what you think of me.'

‘Maybe we should go home,' Foster offered.

‘Fossie, get out of the car,' Mum said as she slammed the door.

The church was cool and dark and full of whispers. Foster could smell the old wood beneath his feet. He had on his good shoes which clacked deliciously into the frigid air. He wanted to follow those little echoes all the way to the front and sit where he could see, but Aunty jostled him into a pew at the back almost immediately. Foster, taken by surprise, gripped the end of the row. It was so shiny with lacquer it made a squeaky noise as his hand skidded along it. He was plonked into place by a hand on his shoulder, Aunty blocking all escape by taking the end position and
dropping her handbag on the kneeler. Foster creased his face up and emptied his lungs like angry bagpipes. Aunty leaned over and said, ‘Come on, Fossie. Don't be a thundercloud.'

His dad leaned across him then and said to Aunty, ‘Why are we sitting way back here?'

‘Foster wants to.'

‘I do not!'

‘No, he doesn't!'

‘
Shoosh!
Both of you!' Mum said.

It had already started but Foster couldn't hear a thing. The people looked small from back here. Not Pillow Top Mountain small, but smaller than usual. Someone was using a microphone which only added skirling decibels to the already distorted voices from the apse.

Foster believed in all sorts of gods and wondered which one was responsible for putting fingers on babies. He'd never seen the finger of God so he knew it was either really, really small or invisible. Given God would have to be pretty big to get around as much as he did Foster assumed the whole hand of God was probably invisible. Like shrink wrap covering the leftover salad. You could only see it when the light hit it a certain way or if you wrinkled it trying to peel
it off. The light in church was thick with colours so Foster looked dizzyingly hard into the dark corners on the off-chance God's finger would be in as much of a hurry as Dad.

‘How
are
you? Nice to
see
you!' A lady sitting two rows ahead had spun around and fired an unforgiving whisper in their direction. It carried like water in a sieve, splashing into the spaces between people and causing some to startle and shift.

‘Ruby!' Dad's voice, at a volume Foster recognised at once as inappropriate, a volume Mum often described as ‘an outside voice' when Foster used it, hit the back of every head in the church like a bullet.

There was a short and distinct swishing sound as everyone spun around and then resettled. Mum placed her hand firmly on Dad's knee.

‘
No, it's me, Caroline!
' the lady replied in a hissy whisper.

‘Who?' The shifting and resettling of guests was unmistakably less tolerant this time. Some of the faces that turned lingered longer, and were thunderclouds.

‘
Shoosh
, Malcolm!' Mum said. Then to the Ruby-Caroline, ‘
Not now,'
with a desperate, pleading smile.

The Ruby-Caroline looked annoyed. As if she
thought Mum was telling her off. Foster knew Mum wasn't meaning to tell her off. Even after the Ruby-Caroline had turned to face the front again she occasionally flicked her head around and rolled her eyes in a harrumphing way.

‘Wait! That's Caroline!' Dad bawled into the ceremony. Then he started to laugh. The sort of greeting-laugh you hear between grown-ups when they suddenly come across people they usually avoid and can't think of a way to get out of it. Then to Mum, equally loudly, ‘I've never liked her.'

Aunty immediately got up and moved to the pew Ruby-Caroline was occupying. She scooched in next to her and started whispering in her ear. Half the room was looking at them all now. Foster was embarrassed. Mum was shoving Dad along the pew with her hip and Dad was getting cross. Foster had to anchor himself to his seat with one hand to avoid being shoved onto the floor. Mum leaned across Dad and hissed,
‘Move, Foster!'
Foster began the humiliating slide to the end of the pew, feeling the way the Ruby-Caroline had looked. Although as she spun in her seat to have a look now, her eyes were snappy with smug curiosity. Foster felt sorry for her then, even though she seemed so pleased with herself. Foster sometimes did that, put
on his pride face when he was really hurt. Sometimes withholding the show of hurt was the only defence left. And here was the Ruby-Caroline being both told off and told she wasn't liked. She leaned over to Aunty and said something then that made Aunty look like she'd been slapped with a wet fish.

Aunty appeared and pulled Foster to his feet with the same force she'd only just deposited him with. She then leaned across and took Dad's hand to ease him to his feet. Dad looked confused and upset. Mum was sliding along the pew herself when she suddenly arced upwards as if she'd sat on a tack, a resounding
Urrrgghh!
flying from her squared mouth as if she were the choir soloist. She had skidded into the puddle Dad had left behind.

Foster was burning inside and out as he watched Mum ease her way over the slick spot. She caught herself mid-skid as her heel lithely slid through the urine that had dripped onto the floor. When she reached Foster her skirt was wet.

‘It's all right, Fossie,' she said, resting her palm on his cheek. He realised then that he wasn't moving. His joints had locked. Aunty had already led Dad away, but Foster couldn't stop staring at the pee on the floor. He could smell it now too.

‘You should know better!' An old lady had appeared from nowhere, like the finger of God, and had a talon-like grip on Foster's shoulder. Then to Mum, ‘Do you need any help, dear? It's all just attention-seeking, you know.'

‘No, thank you, we're fine,' Mum said. She was easing Foster towards the door when it suddenly and sickeningly occurred to him that Mum was letting the old lady believe that he was the one who had peed. He looked up at his mum and felt a shame that rolled his bowels. He got ready to go out by himself, he made his own sandwiches, he picked up his toys. He didn't pee his pants. In that moment he hated her.

itchy feet and isolation

When they got home Mum put Dad in the bath while Aunty put the kettle on. Foster sat on the floor in the hall just outside the bathroom door and listened to the calm talk and low laughter. It had been all quiet fury in the car on the drive home. Aunty had been angry at the Ruby-Caroline, which felt unfair to Foster. She seemed like a nice lady who just wanted to say hello. She didn't know Dad was going to use his outside voice in the most inside of inside places and then pee himself. But Aunty fumed as she drove, occasionally spitting out half sentences in a kind of hiss-whinny Foster knew was the dead-end of cranky.

‘
Stupid
woman! If she'd just
shut
the . . .
Idiotic!
. . . told her
not
to . . . and you know what she
said
to me?'

‘I think Linda's upset,' Dad said to Mum. ‘Why are you upset, Linda?'

‘She's not upset,' Mum said.

‘Yes, I am,' Aunty said quietly. Then louder, ‘And why can't I be upset? Why are we all walking on eggshells around Malcolm? Why can't I be angry? He won't remember I've been angry anyway!'

‘Mum, can I put the window down, please?' Foster tapped the window release energetically: frantic Morse, no result.

‘I didn't even want to go,' Mum said. ‘You're the one who insisted.'

‘You can't just hide him away, for Christ's sake. He needs to get out,' Aunty replied.

‘Can I have the window down, Aunty?'

‘Why is Linda upset?' Dad asked again.

‘Besides, he had a good time. Malcolm, you had a good time, didn't you?' Aunty flicked her eyes to the rear-view mirror, before adding, ‘Jesus, he's sitting on a towel, isn't he?'

‘It smells bad in here,' Dad said. Aunty released the window lock and opened two windows halfway.

Foster used to be allowed in the bathroom with Dad. Now Mum said he needed privacy. Which was
strange because he'd just peed in a church. Dad used to tell some of his best stories while bathing. Foster would sit on the bathroom floor with his soldiers made cavalry by way of horses fashioned from toilet rolls and toothpicks. He would wage wars on the cold tiles, his horses carrying the injured back to the safety of a talcum powder beach. Dad had once told Foster that in terrible battles people sometimes lost their arms or legs but would feel as if the missing pieces were still there.