The Uninvited (21 page)

Quickly, she wishes me luck with Freddy, and hangs up.

I am planning to wait until the morning to talk to the boy, but when I go upstairs to check on him he’s still awake, pink-cheeked and feverish-looking, listening to a story on headphones. A small night light illuminates his jumble of stuff: the big Lego crane lifting a basket of dinosaurs; his crude, lively paintings of animals and battle scenes; the bulbous shapes in dirty plasticine and cracked clay and a few of the origami models I folded for him: a lobster, a flamingo, a turtle, some big water-bombs and Satoshi Kamiya’s fiendishly complex dragon. I turn off the CD, remove the headphones, get him to sit up.

He grins. Three gaps. Upper right incisor, upper lateral incisor and lower cuspid.

Human teeth develop in the womb, at embryo stage, long before they push through the baby’s gums. All twenty milk teeth are lined up inside, long before birth.

What else has been biding its time?

‘Mum’s still unconscious,’ I tell him. ‘The fall caused some bleeding inside her skull. We don’t know when she’ll wake up again. Or if.’

The smile disappears and his eyes open wide. His mouth struggles with words that won’t come. When they do, he’s clearly confused.

‘But – but Hesketh. But. I mean, Mum. What did you say about . . .’

He stops, then blinks and takes a deep shuddering breath. His body gives a brief spasm before settling. Then he sits up very straight.

‘Hello Hesketh.’

Hello?
‘Freddy K? Did you hear what I said about Mum being in hospital?’

‘Yeah. Cool.’
Cool?
It can’t have sunk in properly. I wait some more. But nothing comes.

‘Freddy K?’His head gives a small involuntary jerk.

‘Yep?’

‘It was an accident. Not your fault.’ Telling a lie turns out to be easier than I imagined. Mental preparation helps.

‘Why would it be?’ He seems genuinely puzzled.

‘Well Freddy K. You were there at the top of the stairs. You were the only one there with her when it happened.’ Without saying it more clearly, I can’t say it more clearly. ‘Do you remember that?’ He shakes his head. ‘So you really don’t know why she fell?’ He shakes his head again. On an engagement scale of one to ten, if one were not engaged at all, and ten were extremely engaged, he would score a zero. Professor Whybray would expect notes. But I don’t even have a pen. ‘Do you remember seeing her fall? Or –
making
her fall, by pushing her? Accidentally?’

He wipes his nose on his pyjama sleeve. ‘Nope.’

‘A skull trauma is a serious injury.’ He grunts and shifts his pillow, bashing it into a new shape. In case he hasn’t understood, I translate: ‘I mean it’s bad.’

‘Was it before I had spaghetti? Or after?’

‘Before. Look, Stephanie and I don’t want you to worry about her.’

He yawns and reaches for his headphones. ‘I’m not worrying. Can you put the CD back on again?’

I’m about to get up to leave when something in the corner by the door catches my eye.

‘That looks precarious,’ I say, pointing. Freddy is a collector, and tins are always useful to a child with plenty of small items to store. So there’s nothing unusual in the fact that he has piled them high. What’s strange is that he hasn’t processed them in his usual meticulous way. Normally he’d soak the emptied tins in hot water, peeling off the paper labels and running the tin-opener around the edges twice, to make sure none is jagged. But these are clearly unopened. I see baked beans, rice pudding, pineapple chunks and various soups. I think:
an embryonic stockpile
.

‘It’s the Leaning Tower of Pizza,’ he says. He mentioned it earlier. In connection with de Vries. He said he had it in his bedroom. ‘It’s not finished yet. I need more. It’s going to reach the ceiling.’

‘Then you need to build the base thicker. You need to work mathematically. There’s a rule. I’ll show you tomorrow.’ I go and ruffle his hair, the way I used to.

‘Goodnight, Freddy K.’

‘
Goodnooght,
’ says the archaeopteryx. ‘
Sloop toight, Hoskoth
.’

I lie awake. It’s not a good sofa for sleeping on. I dislike physical upheaval. Staying anywhere other than my own surroundings requires inner resources I’m unable to muster tonight. I kick about on the sofa, then give up and shift to floor level, battling with cushions, shuffling my wide-awake legs. What if Kaitlin dies and Freddy is left motherless, as well as fatherless? He’ll be an orphan. Who will put the eleven raisins on his yoghurt? Who will answer his questions about the world? Somewhere out there, Freddy has a biological father. Does the man even know he has a son? If Kaitlin doesn’t recover, Stephanie is unlikely to want to take her place, after what he did to his mother. In the absence of a birth father, might a de facto stepfather become the boy’s guardian?

It has taken me a long time to understand what I want.

Freddy needs a father. And I need to be that man.

The cry of the black guillemot wakes me. I have installed it as the ringtone on my mobile. It’s 7.18 on Thursday 27th September. Stephanie and I were supposed to meet Naomi Benjamin and Professor Whybray at nine. That won’t be happening.

‘Can you get on Skype, Hesketh?’ It’s Ashok’s PA, Belinda. ‘Sorry to call so early.’

‘I don’t know if I have a connection. Give me five minutes and I’ll get right back to you if I can.’

I go and check on Freddy, who is still asleep, then put on coffee and start up my laptop. The net is working again. Forecast: thundery showers and temperatures varying between eighteen and eight degrees. Onscreen, Belinda’s face is pale and lacks definition. I adjust the contrast, but it doesn’t help. Finally, I realise that the issue is not technical. The presence or absence of make-up can change a woman’s face dramatically.

Belinda says, ‘Hesketh. Look, can you come in and hold the fort? Ashok’s going to be away for a few days. He’s dealing with a family crisis.’

‘No. Not today. I have a crisis of my own.’ I tell her what Freddy did to Kaitlin.

As she expresses her sympathy, her voice falters. ‘OK. I’ll ring around some more. I was starting with the staff who don’t have families. I’ll try Stephanie.’

‘Don’t bother. She’s at the hospital with Kaitlin.’ I don’t explain why. ‘What’s up with Ashok?’

My question triggers tears. While Belinda sobs and apologises, I take a sip of coffee and wait. Thirty-four seconds pass.

‘He’s looking after his sister.’ I recall the family photo on Ashok’s shelf, next to my paper
ozuru
pecking at hole-puncher confetti. The women and girls in traditional dress, the men and boys in suits.

‘Last night, the two younger kids killed their dad with a kitchen knife.’

‘Ashok’s sister is called Manju,’ I remember. ‘It means sweet or snow or dewdrops.’ I’d asked him to explain the origins of all their names.

‘Hesketh, did you hear me? I said last night—’

‘The sons are Birbal – that means Brave Heart – and Jeevan, which means Life. And Deepak. Lamp or Light. The daughter is Asha. Which translates as Hope or Aspiration. Her husband is Amit, which means limitless or endless.’

‘Well it’s Amit who’s dead. Her youngest two killed him.’

So Amit is not endless. He has been murdered by Lamp or Light and Hope or Aspiration. She’s looking at me questioningly.

‘Dead. I see.’ There’s a silence. ‘I’m sorry. I’m slow. It’s taking me a while to—’ I stop. More silence.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Belinda gently. ‘I can’t believe it either.’ She gulps. ‘I rang the official helpline. All the kids’ attacks have to be reported. There’s a Families at Risk register. If you take Freddy to a Care Unit they’ll take charge of him during the day. That’s what Ashok’s doing with Deepak and Asha. They can’t guarantee more than twelve hours because they don’t have enough staff or beds yet.’ I am trying to muster a coherent reaction when Belinda’s eye line shifts. ‘Anyway, Hesketh. Perhaps we should say goodbye.’ I turn round: Freddy has entered the room, his hair ruffled, yawning. Belinda flashes her teeth in an unlikely smile and uses a new voice, louder than before, to say, ‘So, Hesketh. Ashok may call you later. He’s working from home today.’ With another sidelong glance at Freddy she adds, ‘Good luck with everything on the home front,’ before switching herself off.

On ‘the home front’ the boy is tired and grumpy. I ask him if he wants to go back to bed for a couple more hours. No, he wants to eat, he says. He wants porridge. He also wants eggs. Scrambled. While I make the porridge – the habitual movements of pouring and stirring are soothing – I try to make sense of what Belinda told me about Ashok’s brother-in-law. But I can’t. All I can picture is colours. A Desert Sand carpet in Ashok’s sister’s home, stained Heliotrope with blood. Freddy eats his porridge ravenously and then, when I present him with the scrambled eggs, pronounces: ‘That’s not enough. I want more.’

‘Eat them and then decide.’

The eggs are gone in seconds.

‘I told you,’ he says. I switch to observation mode. He still hasn’t mentioned his mother. He jumps down from his chair, swings open the door of the food cupboard, and pulls out a can of tuna. ‘Pass me the tin-opener,’ he commands. A moment later he has expertly opened the tin and is reaching for the salt-grinder: a huge, heavy cast-iron thing that Kaitlin bought in a junk sale. She is a magpie that way. He can barely lift the thing, but he persists, grinding far too much on to his plate of tuna. He devours it fast and messily. ‘
Oi woont more. Oi woont more.
’ The deep throaty archaeopteryx voice again. He makes short work of a plateful of mashed potato which I find in the fridge and reheat in the microwave. This he salts heavily. He chews with concentrated haste. I don’t stop him. I just watch and take mental notes. I wonder if this counts as fieldwork.

‘Freddy K. Did you know that lots of salt can be bad for you?’

He laughs. ‘That’s like saying lots of
air
can be bad for you!’

‘No. Air and salt are different.’

He looks at me, head cocked to one side. ‘I’m not the weirdo! You are!’

‘How?’

‘Do you want to have the wrong kind of blood?’

This is interesting. ‘What’s the wrong kind of blood?’

He gives me another sideways look, but doesn’t answer. When I repeat the question he asks, ‘Why are you talking about blood? You’re a freakman, Hesketh.’

I say, ‘You mentioned it first. Not me. You said, did I want to have the wrong kind of blood.’

‘Is this a game or something?’

‘No.’

‘Then you
are
a freakman. Can I watch TV before school?’

‘Freddy K, you won’t be going to school today.’

‘Cool. Why not?’

‘Because we’re waiting to hear about how Mum’s doing in hospital.’

He stops and blinks. There is a three-second pause. Then he says, ‘OK. Can I watch TV?’

In normal life, Freddy would become hysterical at the thought of his mother being in hospital.

‘No.’ I don’t want to risk him seeing the news. ‘Choose a DVD.’

He scuttles out and to my surprise comes back with a nature series about desert life called
The Dry World.

I call Battersea. It’s permanently engaged. The net connection has disappeared again. I text Professor Whybray –
My stepson Freddy attacked his mother last night. I plan to observe him until we meet –
and join Freddy in the living-room, where he’s already engrossed in scorpions, snakes, cacti and scuttling rodents. He settles on the sofa and I throw a rug over him, and he says ‘Foonk-you-fonk-you-fank-you’. For a brief moment I begin to think normality has returned. But when I fetch him a glass of milk and put it on the coffee table in front of him he reacts with a cry of alarm.

‘Hey! What are you doing? I don’t want that white stuff!’

‘Freddy K, Freddy K. Calm down. It’s just milk. You usually drink it. What’s wrong with it suddenly?’

He’s looking at it with fear and disgust. ‘It might be poisonous!’ His alarm seems quite genuine.

‘It isn’t. Look.’ I take a sip to show him, but he won’t be swayed. This too is odd.

‘It isn’t poisonous to you because you’re from the Old World. But we have a different kind of blood. We need Coke or Sprite or Dr Pepper,’ he insists.

Again, I think of Jonas’ hoard. Coca-Cola, Annika said.
We.

‘What do you mean, we?’

‘Kids like me.’

‘What kids like you?’

‘I want something from a can.’

‘Mum doesn’t buy them, you know that,’ I tell him. ‘So it’s milk or nothing.’

‘If you eat something poisonous you go blind!’ he calls after me as I leave. Curious, that he should make a connection between poisoning and blindness. Jonas also mentioned blindness, when he was raving in the hospital. He had good reason to: his eyes were alarmingly infected.