The Boy No One Loved (12 page)

‘Should I go and have another sterner word with him, d’you think?’ I asked Mike. I had already gently chastised him on a number of occasions, but had been reticent about the idea of getting more heated or imposing sanctions because this was not an ordinary situation and this was not an ordinary child. His behaviour – more like that of an overbearing pre-schooler – was like it was for a reason. But it was becoming hard; inside my head I could feel the weight of disapproval of all the other adults, all waiting for me to call a halt to his behaviour and feeling aggrieved that I’d not sufficiently put my foot down.

But Mike shook his head. ‘I think leave it,’ he said, after considering for a moment. ‘Why don’t we do the cake, and calm everything down for a bit? Tarika’s parents will be coming to collect her in twenty minutes anyway, and after she’s gone we can start to wind things down. In the meantime –’ he turned to my brother and grinned – ‘another beer’s the best way, I think …’

I didn’t tackle Justin about his suitcase until the day after the party. The following evening, in fact, when I knew we could have an undisturbed half an hour alone together.

I was out in the conservatory, having a cigarette, while Justin kicked a ball around the garden. He was getting puffed and I could see he was breaking out in a sweat, so I suggested he come and sit with me for a rest.

‘You’ve lost a bit of weight lately,’ I commented, as he flopped down beside me. ‘All this football must be doing you good. Tell you what,’ I added, stubbing out my cigarette and turning to face him, ‘it won’t be long before you’re off going to matches with our Kieron.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, grinning, ‘but I am getting thinner, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, you are, love,’ I agreed. I paused for a second. ‘But you know, you’ll also have to cut back on all the sweets and stuff too. If you want to get seriously fit, you will, anyway.’

‘I know,’ he said, groaning. ‘But it’s so
hard
. You always have such nice stuff in your cupboards! You’ll have to starve me, prob’ly.’ He laughed, then. ‘Only joking about that, C!’

This, I decided, was a very good moment. He was clearly relaxed and in a jolly sort of mood.
And
we were on the subject of food. Perfect. ‘Listen, love,’ I said to him then. ‘Can I ask you about something? I’m not annoyed –’ I put a hand on his arm to reassure him – ‘I’m just puzzled. When I was cleaning your room yesterday, I came upon your suitcase, and it was so heavy I couldn’t move it … and, well, I saw all your food …’

‘I didn’t steal it!’ he said straight away, immediately defensive.

‘I wasn’t suggesting you did,’ I told him gently. ‘I just wondered where –’

‘I bought it. I bought
all
of it,’ he said. ‘I get it from the supermarket by the school, with my pocket money. It’s my money, isn’t it? I can buy what I like with it.’

‘I
know
that,’ I said soothingly, looking again into his eyes. He was feeling cornered, I could see that, but he wasn’t raging, and wasn’t about to. Like this, he wasn’t a force to be reckoned with at all. He was exactly what he was. A small, upset, bewildered child. It seemed clear to me that even he wasn’t sure what had driven him to collect it.

‘An’ why do you think it’s any of your business, anyway?’ he persisted, though not at all aggressively.

I shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s not,’ I said. ‘As you say, it’s your money. But I just wondered – what were you planning on doing with it?’

This seemed to fox him. He looked genuinely confused by the question. And as he thought about it – it was obvious he was trying to find an answer – he also seemed increasingly upset. He shrugged his shoulders, hung his head, then did something completely unexpected. He burst into tears. So I immediately gathered him into my arms.

‘Shh …’ I said quietly, smoothing his hair, still slightly damp from the football. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. I just think that maybe if you could explain to me why you have it … if we could talk about it, then …’

‘I don’t
know
why,’ he said, sobbing. ‘I just … sometimes just have to eat. I just have to have it there, so I’ve got it …’

‘Just in case.’

I felt him nod. ‘It’s just like … it’s like I’ve got this big hole in my stomach. An’ it makes me feel sick, and it hurts, and it’s there all the time, so I eat to try and make it go away.’

‘And does it?’

He shook his head now. ‘It
never
goes away. No matter how much I eat, it’s, like, it just keeps on happening. It doesn’t work. I can never fill it up.’

‘Like you’re empty all the time.’

‘Yes, empty. It’s like a hole, you know.’ He moved his arm to show me. ‘Right here. And I just want it to go away. And it never does.’

‘But it can,’ I said gently. ‘But not by eating. You know that. Because it doesn’t come from your stomach – not really.’ I gently placed my hand back on his head, desperately searching for a suitable analogy, ‘It comes from up
here
, Justin. It’s because of all the bad things that have happened to you, and all the bad things you remember. But because it’s so difficult for your mind to try to think about them, you get that tummy ache – that hole in your stomach you describe. So what we need to do is find a way we can start to make things better. You know what I do?’

He turned to look at me. ‘You get those feelings?’

‘Of course I do, sweetheart.
Everyone
does, sometimes. And what I do is I try to think of my mind like a big wardrobe, and that all the mixed-up thoughts in my mind are like a pile of messy clothes. A bit like your real messy clothes, when you throw them around your bedroom. And what you need to do with messy clothes is to tidy them all away. So with your thoughts – your messy clothes – you do exactly the same thing. You pick up each one – each horrible thought you have, one by one – then you give it a good shake. Straighten it out, see it in daylight, make sure you’ve shaken out the creases, and once it’s straight enough to be folded, you can fold it and put it back. Tuck it away back in the wardrobe, nice and tidy.’

Justin nodded. ‘That seems a funny thing to do,’ he said, sniffing.

‘Funny, but also good. It works for me every time. I know it’s hard to think hard about thoughts you don’t like – just like I don’t like having to pick up your smelly socks – and sometimes your mind just wants to forget all about them, but then you end up with that horrible feeling inside. So worth a try, d’you think?’

‘Maybe. Yes, okay. I’ll try it.’

We made a deal then, sitting side by side in the conservatory. That Justin would keep his stash where it was, for the time being, but that sometimes he’d bring some of the treats downstairs, and we’d share them, the two of us, while we sat and watched the soaps.

Which felt like progress. So, so heartbreaking, but definitely progress. I really hoped we could continue like this.

‘Aw, Mum. Pleeeeaaase!!!’

It was another hot, sunny afternoon on a Wednesday in early June and, listening to my son, you could be forgiven for thinking that he was not a 19-year-old grown man, but a little boy. He really was that plaintive. ‘Look at him, Mum,’ he was entreating. ‘Just
look
at him. How can we
not
keep him? He just looked so sad and so lonely that I couldn’t help myself. I really couldn’t. Go on, Mum. Say yes. Let me keep him.
Pleeaassee
?’

It could be argued that since I was on something of a mission to rescue waifs and strays myself, I had no business putting up any sort of fight here, but, still – it seemed Kieron had set his sights on the ‘strays’ a bit rather more literally than I had. For what I saw in front of me, quivering in mild terror in Kieron’s arms, was the scruffiest little mongrel I’d seen in a long time.

Not that this unexpected animal visitor should have surprised me; both the kids had been animal mad all their lives and, as a consequence, I’d become a regular Doctor Doolittle. Our house had always been home to a fair few of them at any one time. Most memorable had been a one-eared ‘house’ rabbit, called Flopsy – so called because she flat-out just refused to be outside, not to mention refusing to use a litter tray either, and insisted on always sleeping with Riley. That relationship, however, was, of necessity, short lived – after a few months, my vacuum cleaner staged a revolt, having become sick of being clogged up by rabbit droppings.

Naturally, to ‘ease the pain’ of having to let Flopsy go, I was somehow talked into buying a pair of chipmunks, Alvin and Theodore, complete with a seven-foot square cage – erected in the back garden – which housed what looked like a chipmunk-sized assault course. We also had numerous hamsters over the years, who, being hamsters, all died within a couple of years, causing tears and recriminations all round, and even once, when the kids were teenagers, a hamster funeral. Add in a couple of cats, too many goldfish to mention and the odd budgie –
that
was just how animal sick we all were.

But the last straw, two years back, had been our lovely dog Candy. She was a gorgeous Lhasa Apso, and she was stolen from our garden.

Lhasa Apsos are beautiful dogs, very rare and very coveted. And at around £800 for a dog with a good pedigree, it’s not surprising that they are coveted by thieves. But we didn’t care about her pedigree, and didn’t even really know about it when we got her. She was just a part of our family, and we loved her.

As seemed to be the case now, we’d come upon Candy quite by chance. Kieron had been desperate for us to get a dog – nothing different there, then – so we had agreed to visit our local rescue centre and take a look. We went almost daily for about three weeks in our quest, and pretty soon the staff there knew us all by name, and Kieron used to walk the dogs for them and help feed them. Naturally, he fell in love with each and every one of them, and insisted that any one of these dogs would be the ‘perfect’ pet. One of the animal carers, however, a young man called Stuart, told Kieron that he would know exactly when he had found the right one because, ultimately, the right dog would choose
him
.

One morning, the rescue centre phoned us to tell us that a new dog was due in. Her owner had been taken ill and was going into a long-term nursing home, and they wondered if we could take Kieron up to meet her. So we did and the two of them became a match made in heaven, Kieron realising, when this lovely sandy little dog immediately leapt up and licked him, that Stuart had been right – she had chosen him. Within a couple of days, she moved in and immediately beguiled all of us completely, so when we lost her, it really broke our hearts. Since then I had sworn I would never have another pet. It was just too painful an idea to contemplate.

But perhaps all that was about to change because it seemed my still animal-mad son had now taken it upon himself to visit the local kennels, and had come home with this equally daft-looking little mongrel.

‘Honestly,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe you sometimes! I suppose it’ll have to stay with us now, won’t it? Be pretty mean to pack him off back there now he’s here.’

Kieron had, strategically, I thought, let the dog get down now, and it immediately tried to squeeze itself in between my feet for cover. I bent down and gently stroked his wiry thatch of fur. ‘But you should have run it by me,’ I pointed out, ‘
before
going off on your rescue mission.’

‘I know, but –’

‘And I’m warning you from the outset, I don’t do dog poo. Hmm. Or dog walking, for that matter. So it’s got to be down to you, okay?’

‘I swear, Mum. I promise. You won’t have to do a thing. His name’s Bob, by the way.’

‘Bob? What kind of a name is that for a dog? And I mean it, by the way, about looking after him. I recall “not having to do a thing” for all your previous pets. Very well indeed.’

‘I absolutely promise, Mum. I’m older now, aren’t I? I’ll do everything, I really will. So will Lauren, won’t you? She’s said she’ll take him out for walks when I’m at college.’

Lauren, who had arrived with Kieron but up till now had perhaps wisely kept her counsel (I imagine she thought the sweet-talking was best left to the expert), was another new member of the clan – she was Kieron’s new girlfriend. He’d introduced her to us two weeks back, but had in fact been seeing her for about a month before that, after they’d met at a college drama production. Kieron had volunteered to help out with the music and sound effects for the end-of-year show and Lauren, who was a dancer, had spent a lot of time with him.

She seemed to sense that Kieron was different in some way and apparently told him every day who everyone else on the production was and what they did. This was great for him because, Kieron being Kieron, if she hadn’t, he’d have simply got on with his job, blissfully unaware of his surroundings, and probably not spoken to anyone else. It can be like that with Aspergers; the way the brain’s wired means that boys like Kieron often go into their own little world, seemingly oblivious to what’s going on around them. This time, however, thanks to Lauren’s emotional intelligence and interest, things were different; he’d made new friends and – really the icing on the cake – had also found himself a lovely girlfriend.

Mike and I were thrilled, as this was the first girl he had ever brought home, and I’d asked him why he’d been so slow to introduce us. Kieron had looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘Well,
obviously
, mum,’ he’d explained patiently, grinning. ‘I wanted to be sure she found me totally irresistible first, so there’d be no backing down when she met the rest of the crew.’

I suppose you really couldn’t fault his logic.

Bob, too, became ‘one of the crew’ very easily, and, true to his word, Kieron did all that I’d asked of him. He and Lauren, from day one, spoilt him as if he were their baby. He slept on a special fleece blanket that Lauren had bought, on the floor in Kieron’s room, and they’d buy him treats and toys on what seemed like a daily basis. If they had any money spare, it went on Bob. So no nagging was required – none at all. Another bonus was that Justin took to Bob in a big way, too, always fussing over him, and very quickly it became the norm that wherever Bob was, you’d find Justin, especially when Kieron was in college.

He was a likeable dog, with a really lovely temperament, and, at three years old, didn’t come with all the usual puppy hassles of having your house chewed half to death. He was also very obliging, which he needed to be, because Justin never gave him more than five minutes’ peace; if he wasn’t insisting that Bob sit on his lap, so he could make a fuss of him, he was endlessly feeding him treats or trying to teach him tricks.

There was one big negative aspect to all this, however, which slowly but surely became apparent. It was clear that while Justin was very taken with Bob, he couldn’t bear that the rest of us were too. He made it very obvious that he really didn’t like it when Bob showed anyone else any affection. If this happened, he would invariably become truculent and irritable, and start saying all sorts of unpleasant things about the dog – often complaining that he’d scratched him, or bitten him. There were definitely shades, I thought, of his history with his mother’s dog coming back to haunt him. He just couldn’t seem to deal with it if the dog had eyes for anyone but him.

Kieron found this very upsetting. He simply couldn’t understand how Justin could say nasty things about an innocent, and also charming, little animal. I tried to reassure him without giving anything away. I knew Kieron would never be able to understand what Justin had done when he was five, however much we might try to explain the extreme nature of the circumstances. With Kieron it was simple: if he had known these sorts of things about Justin’s past, he’d find it impossible to be friends with him today. So instead I tried to justify the situation by explaining to Kieron that Justin’s mother had had a dog too, and Justin believed that, to her, the dog was more important than her children. Kieron seemed to understand the logic of this so I just suggested he deal with the matter practically – try to keep Bob out of Justin’s way a little more, spend time with the dog himself alone, or take him out with Lauren to the park – just the two of them – so that Justin began to learn he couldn’t and shouldn’t try to monopolise him all the time.

So, yes, I was aware, and, yes, I understood the reasons, but I was still unprepared for what happened next.

It was a Saturday, and Bob had been playing in the garden, while Justin sat in the conservatory, watching him. Kieron and I were in the kitchen with the door open, and from where we were chatting we could see both the garden and the part of the conservatory where Justin was. He had been trying to entice Bob to come to him by bouncing a ball, but the dog was too concerned with chasing birds. And when he did come in – we’d both glanced up when we heard him scampering and skittering across the conservatory floor – it was to see something completely unexpected and so shocking: Justin was punching him in the head.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Kieron shouted at him. ‘You spiteful little git! What’s he ever done to you?’ He went straight up to Justin then, towering over him. ‘How would you like it if I punched
you
in the face?!’ he barked at him. ‘Because that’s what you deserve!’

I could see this might get ugly, so I rushed to intervene. Kieron looked like he might explode, and I could see Justin – who’d been oblivious to our presence up till now – was really scared of him.

‘Love, I’ll deal with this,’ I told Kieron. ‘You just take Bob, okay? Now, Justin,’ I began, turning to admonish him. ‘That was a very mean thing you did, wasn’t it? Poor Bob will be terrified. I want you to go to your room and think about it. You’ll be losing points for this, obviously, and –’

But I didn’t get a chance to say anything further, because Justin pushed past me and thundered up the stairs to his bedroom, shouting ‘Fucking scabby mutt! It bit me! It fucking bit me! But nobody ever listens to me! Oh, no …’

It wasn’t true. We both knew that, because we’d both seen what happened, and Kieron, who was still standing there, holding Bob in his arms, was singularly unimpressed with my scolding. ‘You’ll be losing points!’ he mimicked, with a note of exasperation in his voice. ‘Mum, that’s not
good
enough! I can’t believe that you just said it! How does that
in any way
make up for what he just did?’

In my head I was saying,
you’re absolutely right! The punishment really doesn’t fit the crime at all!
But what else, I thought miserably, could I do? What would Kieron have me do? Punch him right back in retribution? No, of course not. Unthinkable.

‘I know, love,’ I said. ‘And I’m really, really sorry. Believe me, I’m not going to make this easy for him. He’s got to learn, and I’ll make sure that he does. I know that won’t take away how you feel about it; how could it. But –’

‘Too right!’ he said, with feeling. His face was a picture of disgust. ‘I hate him, Mum. I mean it. Why can’t we just send him back?’

I was shocked. I’d never once heard Kieron speak like this. He’d had his moments with Justin, and I was all too aware of those tensions. I’d been so proud of how patient and understanding he’d been. But for Kieron to say he hated Justin was something quite astonishing. My Kieron? My boy who didn’t have a bad bone in his body? I’d never heard Kieron say he hated someone, ever. I really felt for him at that moment. I felt awful.

Was this what had happened, I wondered, with all Justin’s previous carers? That he’d pushed them to the limit? That, like us, they’d had kids and those kids had demanded that they be released from the constant pressure of having to put up with behaviour,
in their own homes
, which everybody else would find completely unacceptable? Had all those other carers eventually caved in – decided that, ultimately, they had to give their own kids their lives back?

And that limit would be tested further only a week or so later, when Kieron and I walked into the living room to find Justin, with his back to us, holding Bob in the air by his front legs. To our horror, he was pulling them as wide apart as he could, while the poor dog could do nothing but yelp in agony. It was as shocking a sight as I’d seen in a long time, and I ran towards Justin to stop him. But just as I reached him, he turned and, realising we’d caught him, threw poor Bob, with some force, across the room.

This time it was really too much for Kieron. His eyes full of tears, he picked up his dog and stormed from the room, unable to even look at, much less remonstrate with, Justin. It was horrible, his silence saying so much more than words could; he knew I knew exactly how he felt.

I was sickened and felt desperately sorry for my son, even more so when he announced that same afternoon that Bob was going to go and live at Lauren’s for a while. She was going to look after him at her place till such time as he felt it safe for his pet to return. I didn’t know what to say to him, much less what to do. I was at a loss to understand Justin’s breathtaking cruelty – both to the animal and also to Kieron, who’d done nothing but show him love and understanding from day one. Kieron had already questioned our decision to foster. Now I was seriously questioning it myself.