They Do the Same Things Different There (12 page)

He got up to clear the table as normal, but Mummy said, “No, don’t do that!” And Daddy said, “Not on your birthday.” So he stayed sitting where he was, and they both smiled at him expectantly.

“You’re not too worried about this evening, champ?” said Daddy.

“How about a sneak preview?” said Mummy.

David smiled, shook his head.

“Come on,” said Mummy. “Just a few sentences. What are you going to talk about?”

“He probably wants to keep it as a surprise,” Daddy suggested.

“I don’t want a surprise.”

“He probably wants to practise on his own.”

“No, he can practise in front of us.” Mummy took hold of David’s hand. “You don’t need to be shy with me. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

David took a deep breath, opened his mouth. Closed it again. Nodded.

Mummy let go of his hand. She got up from the table, walked to the sink, slammed her hand against the draining board. “
Christ
,” she said.

“It’ll be all right,” said Daddy. “You’ll see. She’ll see, won’t she, champ?”

“It
won’t
be all right. It’ll be just the same as last year. David standing up there on stage. Opening his mouth, closing it, opening, closing. Like some bloody goldfish! Not coming out with a bloody word.”

“I know,” said Daddy gently.

“Not even a bloody syllable! I nearly died. Do you hear me, David? I’m not exaggerating. I actually nearly died of shame.”

“He knows, we both know. . . .”

“My heart nearly bloody stopped.”

“Don’t, love,” said Daddy. “You’re frightening him.”

“Am I? Well. Well then. Maybe that’s what he needs.” And in a moment she was away from the sink, she was back at the table, back grasping on to David’s hand, only this time it was much too tight, and she was hissing straight into his face.

“Listen to me,” she said. “We can’t keep doing this forever. This’ll be the last time. This will be the most important thing you ever have to do.”

“Love, please. . . .”

“So don’t fuck it up.” At that she let go of him. “What Helen and Nigel make of you, I don’t know.” Helen was David’s younger sister. She’d got to keep her tongue when she was ten, and now she worked at a bank. Nigel was a prodigy, everyone had agreed. He’d won his tongue the very first time, and he’d been only
six
, and that was two years before kids were even supposed to try. But the school had recommended he give it a go and he’d dazzled the audience and been given a standing ovation. Nigel was a barrister now, somewhere in the city, one of the big cities far away; David never saw his little brother much, only at Christmas.

“I know you think I’m being unkind,” Mummy said, and her voice was softer now, and David looked up at her, and hoped that the worst was over. He felt dead inside, and his eyes were starting to water, and even his tongue felt limp and ashamed. “I only want what’s best for you. I want you to be happy. I want you to go out into the world and be the best that you can be. I don’t want you to end up as one of those muteoid cretins. Cleaning streets and stacking supermarket shelves. I want you to have a
life
.”

She smiled at him, big and wide, and her tongue touched lightly upon her top lip. She looked at Daddy for support, and Daddy smiled too.

“What do you say?” she asked.

David forced out a word. “Sorry.”

Mummy snorted. “You’re going to have to do better than that.” And she left the kitchen.

Daddy smiled at his son, wider now that Mummy had left, but the smile was embarrassed and sad.

“She shouldn’t,” he said. “She shouldn’t use her tongue to say such things. She used to be nicer. Do you remember? Of course you remember.”

David said nothing. Daddy sighed. Daddy seemed to struggle for words, David could see him forcing a deep breath, trying to visualize the words in his head, trying to concentrate.

“The thing is,” he said. “She doesn’t love me anymore. That’s the truth of it. She’s met someone else. She’s told me she wants out. But she can’t leave. Not with you here. Not whilst you’re still a child. She can abandon me. She can’t abandon her child. Do you see?”

And he smiled. “I think you see.”

David nodded.

“So you’ll try your best tonight, won’t you, champ? For her sake. Because I want her to be happy.”

“Yes,” said David. It took him some effort, but he got there. “Yes.” He repeated it, for good measure. Daddy beamed at him, and stood up, and ruffled David’s hair.

“I used to,” said Daddy. He stopped, had to start again. But this time it wasn’t his tongue that was playing up, it was the eyes. “I used to be able to say such great things to her. I used to make her laugh. I don’t know how to do it anymore. I can’t find the right words.”

David didn’t know what to do. He looked away. He looked right down at the table, and didn’t look up again until after his father had left.

Now David. All on his own. Except for the tongue.

Stalactite, he mouthed stalactite. His teeth hanging down like stalactites, and the tongue rising to the teeth, glancing over the back row for the first syllable, flicking lightly against the soft palate for the “l,” rolling into a ball and hissing loud for the grand finale. “St,” is what he said. “St. St. St. St. Stop.
Stop
.”

And out came the tongue, as far as it could stretch, rigid and firm and forming a right angle to his upper lip.

David went to the bathroom to see in the mirror. The very end of the tongue seemed to wiggle at him, a little cheekily.

He tried to remember all the exercises he had been taught to bring the tongue to heel. They didn’t work. He tried to roll it up by hand, grabbing it wetly between his fingers. He might as well have been trying to fold an iron bar.

If he could just get it back inside his mouth. That would be a start. Don’t worry about it having to speak. Or it having to taste anything. But if it could just stop sticking out like that, it was so rude.
Please
, he thought.

And the tongue screeched.

He stared at it in horror. And yet it screeched—it let out all its frustration and loss and pain. And somewhere, distantly, he could feel it too—the tongue was a part of him now, he could feel how it had been ripped from its home and from its family, and it was now angry and confused and so very, very frightened.

He couldn’t see at first where the screech could be coming from. The sound wasn’t using David’s mouth, or David’s breath. And then as the tongue flared, trying to stand as tall as the huge parent out of which it had been sliced, rearing up on its hind tendons like a panicked horse, David could see the underside of it—those blue veins looked thick and were straining now, the white specks seemed to bulge out like rivets, and there was a hole—there was a hole—there was a mouth—and inside it, he could see were little teeth, and there behind the little teeth the tongue had a tongue of its own.

David tried to yell for help, but he couldn’t. Tried to clamp his mouth shut but there was no give. Jammed his fingers in his ears so he wouldn’t hear the noise but the noise was all in his head now and it wouldn’t st st st st stop.

And then the tongue fell limp. It had given up. It had screamed out its misery to the world, and the world didn’t care, no one had come to rescue it, no one could do anything. David tentatively opened his mouth wide to let it back in. It pulled inside, almost guiltily.

He closed his mouth. He wasn’t sure he’d dare open it again for a while. He wanted that tongue locked away.

And he felt the mouth fill with water, so much water he had to open up anyway to spit it out, and David knew it was just saliva, but somehow he believed that the tongue was crying.

They had him put on his very best suit now, they gave him a better tie. Daddy looked smart. Mummy looked beautiful, and she seemed quite calm, as if there had been no upset before. She wore dark shadow around her eyes.

The town hall was packed. There must have been over a hundred children there, each of them full of birthday cake, and speeches to recite, and new tongues with which to recite them. And with the children came two parents each, always two parents, and the smell of musk, perfume and aftershave hung in the air like a cloud.

The stage was small, but surely still bigger than it needed to be, it was only children who would be performing tonight. Downstage centre there stood a little lectern, with a microphone in front. At the side of the stage there sat a jury of six. David thought he recognized the scientist. And wasn’t that the woman who’d taken them to the tongue, it was hard to tell, she wasn’t wearing glasses and her dress was pink and she no longer looked like an owl.

David sat between his parents. His father took his hand, smiled at him. With the other David reached for his mother’s hand. She accepted it.

The chairman got to his feet. He addressed them all, and spoke with a tongue that was masterfully assured. “Greetings to you,” he said. “And especial greetings to our children, and happy birthday. These children are the voices of our future. All our hopes and dreams lie in what they may achieve. And tonight, for some, that journey will begin. Tonight they will be given an opportunity to speak. And, if they are ready, they will go from here, as adults, to fulfil their destinies. So. Let us hear what the future has to tell us! Speech is a privilege. And to be allowed that privilege, we only ask that our children tonight speak with clarity, and with the same forthright confidence of their parents. That they say something worth listening to. That they are interesting, and original.”

“Interesting and original,” Daddy whispered to David. “Mummy and me, we were interesting and original once! Can you believe it?”

Since its outburst in the bathroom the tongue had been as good as gold. It was as if it had only wanted one moment of protest, and now it had had its say. It had been a little listless, and David had had to use the straightener on it to improve his diction. But he had managed to practise his speech no less than five times, and each one had been better than the last. It was a speech that expressed a love for speleology he did not feel, but which pronounced “stalactite” and “stalagmite” most impressively.

“We shall begin,” said the chairman. “Best of luck to you all. Speak well, and speak wisely!”

The children were called to the stage at random. It had always been done this way.

The first child got up behind the lectern and spoke coherently for three and a half minutes about his love for his country. It was met with a round of applause, and he shone with pride, and he was now a man.

The second child spoke about her love for her country, and good family values.

The third child focused mainly upon family values.

“Do you mention the family at any stage during yours, champ?” asked Daddy. David didn’t; he was wondering whether there was a way to crowbar it in.

And for the first hour each child passed. It was easy. David saw that the jury
wanted
them to pass; they wanted more adults in the world. The odd stutter or mumble, that didn’t matter; who cared if the speech was boring? If you got rid of all the boring adults, where would the world be? One child got up and spoke for barely two minutes about the battle of Waterloo and his analysis was frustratingly simplistic, and only once did he use a word of more than two syllables, and that was “Waterloo.” Still, he was applauded, and was passed.

I’m going to be all right, David told himself. This year, at last, I won’t let anyone down.

Then, the first failure.

The little girl was just too young. Anyone could see that. The audience was on her side right from the start, she looked so pretty with all her ribbons and bows, and everyone loves an underdog. The chairman too was positively smitten. He helped her up on to the lectern, and he’d not done that for anyone else. “All right, dear,” he said to her kindly, as he adjusted the microphone toward her babyish face, “we’re all rooting for you.” And she stood there, and she stared out at the crowd, and tears began to roll down her face. “I want my Mummy,” she said. “I want to go home.” She said it quite clearly, to be fair.

The jury looked so sympathetic. “Never mind, sweetheart,” said the chairman. “Next year for sure!” And they took the little girl, and held her down fast, and the red-hot tongs were in her mouth before she even had a chance to scream. The microphone picked up the wet hiss, and there was lots of smoke, and then—yes!—the tongue was yanked right out of her head. It wriggled there on the tongs for a moment, high for all the world to see, and then it was cast down upon the stage, and one of the jury stamped on it. And the little girl was crying still, crying for all she was worth, but David thought it was in relief; she didn’t have to be a grown-up yet after all. She could go back home with her Mummy and Daddy and play with her dolls and be tucked into bed at night and be a baby for another whole year. Or maybe she was crying with the pain; they always said the tongs didn’t hurt, but they really did.

There were some more rejections after that. Maybe the jury had realized they’d been too lenient, and had let too many children pass already. One boy got up and gave an account of his passion for stamp collecting; the chairman said, “All very pleasant, I’m sure, but so what?” He tried to run, but they caught him, they ripped the voice right out of him. And as the rejections began to outnumber the passes, and the stage was strewn with a whole carpet of spent tongues, David thought he might have missed his chance. He should have been picked first. Then he’d have been safe.