The Cornflake House (14 page)

The incident, a frightening combination of hurt, shock and discovery, disturbed Merry deeply. Apart from the pain of his injury, the experience gave him his first encounter with a father. When Mr Bamford was leaving us, having turned down Mum's offer to share a pot of tea, Merry clung to his short legs and howled. It took three of us to pull him off and then to stop him from splitting his chin open again by rolling around on the floor. Mr Bamford made a quick getaway.

‘I want … a … dad, get … me a dad,' Merry cried, much as if dads were to be found growing on trees or sitting, complete with pipes and slippers, on the counters of Woolworth's. Within minutes we were all at it, blubbing and muttering, swaying with loss. I think Mum must have capitulated, allowing if not actually encouraging us to begin the second chant of the day, because we seemed compelled to cry out, ‘I want a dad,' repeatedly, in unison. She herself joined in, not with words, but with a deep, harmonic moan, a base to our descant.

Afterwards, exhausted and with a sore throat, I felt refreshed somehow. The unspeakable had been mentioned, more than mentioned, dragged out of the cupboard, examined and exorcised. There was the relief of discovering that all my siblings felt as I did, that they too missed their unknown fathers, plus the joy of having been able to share this emotion with Mum; and there was a warm, companionable sensation of being one of a tribe who knew, instinctively, how to emote. We were still dressed for war, but we'd performed a ritual that left us peaceful, contented, united.

‘Today,' Mum whispered as she tucked me up in bed, ‘was The Day of Deep Sadness, but it was worth it, missing your dads will never be as lonely or as painful again.' Because I liked the day's name, I nodded, although all sadness had been banished as far as I could see.

When I came back from my reverie, Merry was still looking at me as if I might provide answers to all life's problems. Then he must have noticed my bruises. He blew his cheeks out, hamster style, trying to look as ghastly as I did, and I laughed. I'd forgotten how Merry, who has strong men weeping with exhaustion, can make me smile and laugh in dire situations. He took my face in his hands, hurting my sore jaw, and came very close. We were eyeball to eyeball, a favourite position of Merry's. Then I felt myself being turned, like a screw inside a rawlplug. Jim was fast, but not quite quick enough. My neck clicked, a fierce reminder of recent tortures, while Jim's hands joined Merry's and pulled in the opposite direction.

‘Sorry,' Jim said, ‘I thought he was giving you a cuddle.'

‘Probably was, to start with,' my voice sounded as if it was coming through a funnel.

Merry, having been prised from me, was spinning by himself. He can do this for hours, without getting dizzy. Some party piece. Trouble is he toots as he spins, and the warder didn't take kindly to that. Jim shrugged apologetically as they were escorted out. It was several minutes before Merry's demented steam-train noises died away.

At least Merry has a home, with an assortment of friends and carers. I felt more sorry for myself than for him.

He must sound like a walking disaster, my big little brother. You should know Merry as he was before meeting him as he is. Not that there's a great difference between the boy and the man. Merry has stayed childlike, he's grown, but not grown up. He was a smashing kid, infuriating, mind-bogglingly tiring but funny as any circus clown. His pratfalls never failed to have us in stitches. Of course Mum knew when she was carrying him how he would be. The name was no coincidence. His good humour is his saving grace. Merry often harms people, holds them too tight, twists them, treads on them, but never with malicious intent. The problem now is that he's so big. Features which were endearing when he was a little boy, his large, staring eyes, his squashed nose, have spread to grotesque proportions. Hours of exercise, spinning, jumping, running riot, have given him muscles weaklings would kill for. I couldn't help noticing that Jim, who has been caring for Merry for about a year, was looking pretty fit too. The purple ship on his left bicep was riding the crest of an impressive wave.

When I was little and couldn't sleep, I used to imagine how it felt to be Merry. I'd open my eyes so wide they would ache, then I'd stare at something with manic intensity. Fisher's Close was lit by dainty mock-Victorian street lights. A lemon glow filled the bedrooms of The Cornflake House and through this I'd glare at the end of my bed or the wardrobe mirror. I never actually jumped about but I'd bounce on my bottom and turn my head from side to side until I was dizzy. Being Merry for two or three minutes sent me practically into a coma. How he copes with himself day in day out is one of life's unfathomable mysteries. Glands are to blame, I guess, juices flowing through him like electricity. If only they saturated his brain as they do his muscles, he'd be a genius. Imagine that energy and good humour put to use. He might have been capable of anything, politics, business, environmental miracles. I mean if Bing, for example, had Merry's glands, road planners would throw up their hands in defeat. I think this combination has occurred to my son, I've seen him gazing wistfully at his hyperactive uncle.

Complaints from the inhabitants of Fisher's Close centred on Merry. He was the one they remembered, the body they knew best amongst the muddle of Cornflake House children. Mostly they were right, Merry did cause damage. He had no idea of property, or possession. Fences, which sprang up between gardens not long after we moved in, were climbing frames to him. Mr Turner, who had retired to Fisher's Close after long years spent hounding those who didn't pay their taxes, was often to be seen moving at a good speed, considering his advanced years, in pursuit of Merry. Behind Mr Turner lay a flower bed in tatters, in front he brandished his garden fork. It was all a game to Merry, sometimes he turned tail and did the chasing so as to be ‘it' for a change.

To be honest, the rest of us often hid our misdoings behind our non-stop brother. He had no problem with taking the blame. He had no problems, full stop. Life for Merry was one long round of activity. Moving, doing, was all. Words meant very little to him. On his first day at school, before it entered my mother's head that this child needed special care, he had to be caught like a wild animal. If the staff had been allowed to use tranquillizer guns, I'm sure they'd have aimed these, without a qualm, at Merry's backside. He liked school, there was so much to do there. He treated the place like one great leisure centre, splashing through the goldfish pond, skimming up the poles that supported the entrance canopy and swinging doors backwards and forwards with his feet.

Perdita had the task of taking Merry and settling him in. She was starting her final year at primary school, nearly eleven and already bitterly ashamed of her siblings. She arrived home that afternoon in tears, with Merry tied to her by a length of stout rope.

‘He might skip,' Perdita had told the teacher whose job it was to get Merry into a classroom.

‘Skip?'

‘To class. He might think it's a game.'

It worked. Teacher, mortified sister and problem new boy skipped down the corridors to the intake class. Perdita scurried off, leaving Merry to his fate. The real difficulties were about to begin. Merry simply couldn't sit still. For a while he bounced on the spot, or jumped from side to side which was distracting for the others but not too terrible. It was when he struggled up on to his desk that the teacher knew things weren't going to improve. Perdita was called. She arrived to find her brother playing hopscotch from desk to desk while several tiny, bawling children nursed their crushed fingers. They wouldn't tie a child to a chair today, would they? Even in the most impossible circumstances they'd find another solution. But on Merry's first, and last, day at an ordinary school, it seemed the safest, sanest answer. When school was over, the rope was transferred from chair to sister and Merry led Perdita home at breakneck speed.

Perhaps you're thinking that my mother was mad or cruel to send Merry there at all. Remember, she saw only the positive side of her children. To her Merry was a happy, non-aggressive little boy. He wouldn't fight or bully any of his school friends. He'd take part in anything physical with unbounded enthusiasm and he could be relied on to eat every scrap of those soggy school dinners. When Perdita wailed out her story, Mum was genuinely amazed that the day had been a disaster. Long before Perdita got to the part about Merry having been tied to a chair, my mother was blaming the school.

‘I'm so disappointed,' she told us, ‘I thought they'd be able to cope. It's their job. Besides, they manage with Django.'

At this Perdita let out a snort of disgust and announced that she refused to go to any school that might have to ‘manage' both Merry and Django.

‘I've suffered enough,' she said through tears of self-pity. ‘If you knew what they say about him,' and a trembling finger pointed at Django, ‘you'd never dare show your face outside this house.'

Maybe she was right. Mum was rather cushioned by domesticity. Washing for eight, cooking vast meals, cleaning out hutches and birdcages, kept her fairly housebound. Besides, she had the ability to turn a deaf ear, perhaps to actually block out sounds. Snide comments, made whenever we passed through our respectable neighbourhood, bounced from Mum's radar system. She wasn't a vindictive person anyway, not keen on retribution considering how easy it would have been for her. I only recall her once using her power to tick somebody off. She was mean to the Morrisons.

The Morrisons, who lived in the end house, where Fisher's Close meets the outside world, were especially vicious to us. In every other respect the Morrisons were good people, they gave generously to charities, went to church, belonged to the RSPCA. They have been removed now, like Taff, to Homes, their mock-Tudor house taken over and converted into an imitation hacienda by an ambitious builder – from the sublime to the ridiculous – but if I found them and confronted them with their cruelty I imagine they'd be horrified. I put their treatment of us down to a kind of blind spot. They used to hiss at us, snakes in the manicured grass behind their precious privet. They called us ‘trampsss' or ‘tinkersss', when there was no need. Because they lived a fair distance from us, we gave them little grief. Even Merry was usually caught and dragged away before he reached their gate. Yet they behaved as if our very existence had ruined theirs. I suppose we did lower house prices in Fisher's Close, rather considerably. Anyway, one day, as I hobbled by with Mum on our way to the bus stop, they hissed the word ‘Ssslut' at me. I was wearing the white plastic boots and a miniskirt and I crumpled at their taunt. The air lightened, I sensed a breath of something special. My mother waved her arms, not against anything, it was a beckoning motion. Then there were little cries as the dreaded couple began to fight off a swarm of midges who were intent on trying to fly down the throats of the hissing Morrissssonssss.

I tried this trick myself once, on a man who was shuffling his behind closer and closer to mine in a railway waiting room. I closed my eyes, waved my arms and thought ‘swarm', picturing wasps by the hundreds. A single gnat materialized before my face.

‘Not me, you fool, him,' I said crossly. Then I saw the funny side and laughed out loud. The gnat stayed with me, but the man shot away. When you need to get rid of two-legged pests, talking to yourself works just like magic.

Thinking of two-legged pests, what have I said about Django? I forget. Have you some idea about him? Strange is not the word to describe him, singular comes closer but it hardly does him justice. When Mum was forced to admit Merry needed special care and education, the school found us a social worker, a wholesome young woman called Janet who appeared, to me at any rate, to have stepped straight out of an Enid Blyton book. Janet had a ruddy glow, surely the result of eating simply stacks of thickly cut brown bread and wedges of cheese? Her legs were straight and stocking-less, their tan accentuated by white ankle socks curled around brown sandals. She tended to go for tweeds, not the heavy variety, but light checks or flecks. Her only frivolity was a chiffon scarf she wore wrapped tightly round her neck.

‘Do you wear that to hide your wrinkles?' Django asked.

‘No, to hide my blushes, which begin there and work their way upwards,' Janet answered, blushing on cue. From that moment Mum loved Janet.

‘Can you do something about him while you're at it?' Mum wondered, indicating Django who had stopped staring at Janet, having got a satisfactory answer, and was re-examining the parts of an Electrolux ‘Portable Cleaning Unit' he had found at a jumble sale. I remember the name because every time one of us tripped over the damn thing, we'd shout, ‘Django, put that bloody Hoover away.'

And he'd correct us, ‘It's not a Hoover, it's an Electrolux Portable Cleaning Unit.' He had the original box to prove his point, although this had been left in the sunny window of a shed and now read ‘rolu able ning nit', a description the rest of us found appropriate.

‘Obsessive?' Janet guessed. She attempted to whisper but her voice wasn't designed for quiet. Mum nodded. Janet promised to do her best and before long Merry and Django were sharing outings to a child psychiatrist in London. (A while back, Zulema and I confessed to each other that for a short time after hearing of the child psychiatrist, we both pictured an under-age doctor struggling with our brothers.)

Because the first trip was so fraught – Merry wanted to get into the luggage rack on the train and Django refused to travel without half a Hoover under his arm – Mum decided to take Fabian, then a surly boy of thirteen, to help and support her through the second visit. The child psychiatrist was, to Mum's consternation, much more interested in Fabian than in the two younger boys. He positively shone with enthusiasm the moment he saw Fabe. Apparently the shrink was midway through a paper on teenagers of mixed racial origins. What especially delighted him was Fabe's refusal to cooperate: