What I Did (6 page)

— I need the loo.

— Why is he shouting at you?

Her hair is sticking out at one side like the feathers on the broken wing of a scarlet macaw I saw once at the Zoo, and she's wearing her bathrobe with the hole by the collar. I ripped it by hanging on after a cuddle but I didn't mean to so never mind. She rubs her forehead.

— I need the loo, I repeat.

— Really? she says. — Well put the staircase back together before you go.

I turn to do as she says but the banister decides to be a slippery customer just then and it falls through the gap onto the cabinet thing below. Very clattering. It means I don't hear the next thing Dad shout-says at Butterfly lady, only the bit after it, which goes: —
myself to sodding anyone!

— Who's he talking to?

— Sheila with a butterfly from the cow sill.

— What?

She steps round me pulling her bathrobe together at the throat. Careful, Mum! It rips very easily because it's not at all durable. Our cat Richard has a bare bit on the back of his neck, too, from his collar which he lost, so now there's just the bare bit. It's quite lucky Dad didn't see me drop the banister on the cabinet because it may look like an old thing you put your shoes in and that's exactly what it is, but it isn't just that because it's also one of his air looms. Ancestors pass all sorts of air looms down and this is what we got from ours. Here you go, you keep it, and give it to someone else when you die! Not ancient ancestors like the dinosaurs. They didn't have things to give away. Just meat and instincts. You there: would you like some of my latest dead thing? No thanks I'm all right. In which case, sorry, you'll just have to make do with some of these prime-ape instincts. Thank you very much, that's marvelous.

Mum goes into the kitchen. I follow behind her bathrobe wings. Hello again, bin.

— Now we've woken my wife, says Dad.

— I hadn't yet managed to sleep. What's going on?

— Billy, he says. I told you to . . . He trails off.

— My name is Sheila Hudson, Butterfly woman tells Mum. She takes a clipboard thing out of her bag. It is made out of the same stuff as jeans so don't drag it along the pavement or you'll get holes in its knees. Now she opens the folder and takes out a little card and gives it to Mum. We have a similar plastic card thing at school which we put in the right box. Here I am, our cards say, completely at school and ready for my packed lunches. Mum takes Sheila Hudson's card and looks at it.

— Tessa Wright, says Mum, glancing at Dad. — How can we help?

— Ms. Hudson was just on her way out, Dad says.

— This is a delicate matter, Butterfly woman tells her jeans-pad thing. — I'm here because—

— Some busybody has been spreading malicious rumors, interrupts Dad. His voice has balloons in it, now. Watch they don't pop! He goes on: — I've told Ms. Hudson there's been a mistake, and she's going
.

—
Rumors, Mum says. — What do you mean?

— I'll explain in a minute.

Mum's face has gone very still. It's the same face she had when someone crashed into our car in the supermarket park. Let's just drive slowly along here following the arrows shall we? But what's this? Only a car jumping backward straight into our way. Crunch!

— Are you all right? Mum asked me.

— Yes thank you. We crashed!

— Yes. Carefully she took a pen from the glove box. Then out she got, but not in a rush, the opposite in fact, more like a Slow Loris eating an orange: I'll peel this thing, and then I'll eat it, all in good time, just you wait and see. — Can I have your insurance details please?

She blinks at the lady from the cow sill now and says, — Would you mind telling me exactly what is going on?

The knitted butterfly tries to flap free again as the woman takes another breath but it's pointless. — Of course, she says. Then she glances from me to Mum and Dad, moving her head too much as she does it, like the rubbish puppet at Jacob's birthday. All the puppet could do was nod and clap and when it walked it looked like it was going in reverse. Watch out behind there. Crash. Herbivores generally have eyes on the side of their head which would make them very accurate in car parks. Nobody says anything for an odd long second but Dad folds his arms and this makes Sheila Butterfly take another flightless breath. There are loads of birds in Madagascar which can't fly at all because of the useless predators.

— I think it would be best if we three had a discussion in private, the woman suggests.

Dad stares at her. Then he walks over to the bin and says, — Snack time, Son. What do you fancy?

— Orange juice without bits in, I say very quickly. — And a chocolate chip biscuit.

— Coming up.

He opens the cupboard and takes out a glass. I stand on one leg because suddenly this is brilliant. But Dad is going underwater-slow. I can swim a width without breathing, nearly. Orca is another name for killer whale. Like peas, they come in pods. Come on, Dad, we're all waiting here with baited hooks. But something isn't right at all. Have you ever seen two strange cats on a wall? Well Mum and Butterfly remind me of that. They're both standing way too still, watching each other, and waiting, waiting, waiting, while Dad makes a slow-motion snack. David Attenborough has a camera that he uses to catch the droplets polar bears shake off their top-predator necks. And Mum is chewing her lip. Don't eat it, Mum, we have biscuits. But waiting for them to arrive is so boring I decide to stand on the other leg.

No, no, no! How can a highly intelligent human being do something so slowly and still get it wrong? That's orange squash, not juice, and a very incorrect digestive biscuit. I open my mouth to say hold on hold on hold on that's a mistake you've made there, Dad, but I don't, because my instincts tell me that anything I say right now will be bad for the whole species.

Mum and Butterfly watch as Dad pours out the wrong drink and sits the wrong biscuit on a plate. Anyone would think he was doing fascinating experiments. It's not even for them! At last he puts the snack down carefully on the kitchen table and pulls back a chair and gives me an odd smile. — There you go, he says with the balloon still in his voice. — There you go.

I take a bite of digestive. Chameleons aren't just camouflage experts: they have killer tongues. And it's not only the biscuit which tastes odd right now. Everything does.

— What's going on, Jim? Mum asks again.

— Perhaps we could talk next door? says Butterfly.

Dad growls: — This is Billy's house. You can say what you have to say in front of him.

I take a little sip of squash. It's all right. I would have preferred proper juice though, even if it did have to have bits in.

But hold on, what's this? Butterfly puts her jeans file down on the side quite firmly and stands a little bit straighter up and says, — No, that would not be appropriate.

And something about the way that she says it sends a cat message to Mum, because she jumps off the wall and sort of swoops down on me with a headlamp smile and picks up the plate and glass and swishes me past Dad — too slow, Dad! —through the door into the front room. — Tell you what, she says, — you can finish your snack in front of the TV.

How about that! Yes, yes, yes, truly excellent news.

I say, —
Life of Mammals
, please.

— Which one?

—
Meat Eaters
.

— Again?

— Yes please.

She sighs but I can tell she's not going to argue and she immediately proves me right by saying, — Okay, coming up, and launching into highly effective mode. She whips the DVD out of its box and slots it into the little tray, thank you tray, red light, in you go, blue light, and zip zap yes, yes, yes, that's the right episode. Swelly music. Zebra's eye. Yes!

 

Do you like David Attenborough? Of course, because everyone does, and so do I. I like all of him. But if I had to pick the bit I like best it would be relatively easy: I like his voice more than his other bits. God does not exist. But if there was a God, which there isn't, because of the evidence, which there isn't enough of, Son, he would sound exactly like David Attenborough, and Dad agrees with that. He might even have noticed it first. I've watched the DVD of
Meat Eaters
so many times I know nearly all the words.

But even though I do the thing of saying what David Attenborough says exactly when he says it the voices from the kitchen interrupt me just after the first kill. Not all of the words make sense, especially mixed in with
Meat Eaters
, but some do.

— Calm down, Jim. Please.

Truly explosive pace
.

— Something, something, child protection, something, duty.

The fastest of all land animals.

— Explain myself to a fucking stranger.

Keep its head still even at such speeds.

— Please calm down.

But the impala is no slouch
.

— Assessment team, something, work closely, something, police.

Cubs look on.

— Something, silly something, ahead and call them.

Long tail acts as a counterbalance.

— Jim, please . . . Cup of tea . . . He's not serious.

They go quiet for a while then and I get to watch the excellent sequence including the bit Dad calls the money-shot in peace and quiet, right up to the distended belly. It means fat.

But just after that, no, no, no, at the part with the cub with the bloody head from sticking it into the zebra's insides, no, no, no, the DVD starts jumping. Not this again. The screen goes all flickery like Great-Grandma's bad eye. Old people always go wrong in the end and in that way Dad says they are just like everything else. That's the thing about everything, Son: it all falls apart in the end.

I wait.

The cheetah cub jabbers his face in and out of the stripy stomach a thousand tiny times.

Come on come on come on you can do it.

But no.

After a bit the cub stops trying to get to the next scene altogether.

 

When I was vertically a baby I posted some crackers into the video slot and ever since then I am sadly not allowed to touch either it or the DVD machine.

So I slide off the sofa arm and go for help which is called summering reinforcements.

The kitchen door is shut.

They are still talking behind it.

Mum says, — Of course I believe you, Jim. That's why I see no harm in letting Miss Hudson talk to him.

— What's the point? hisses Dad. — He ran away . . . straight into a fucking road.

Imagine the stillest thing you can imagine. A swing with nobody on it perhaps, or a hammer that's fallen down the back of a sofa. That's how still I go when I hear him telling.
It's in the past
. That's what he said. He said what I did was
forgotten
.

— And if that's the case, Mum begins.

— What do you mean
if
that's the case? Are
you
doubting me now, too?

Another thing that stays very still is a bear when it is asleep and I'm glad I'm not a bear because they hibernate in caves from the autumn right through the winter and all the way to the spring and sleeping is very boring. You just lie there with your eyes shut waiting until the morning. But hold on, maybe I am not right about bears because in fact they only have to go to bed once for the whole winter and then they are asleep and it isn't the bit when you are asleep that is bad, it is the bit when you have to go to bed and when you are lying there waiting, waiting, waiting, staring at the shadows on the floor and down one side of the picture, which aren't moving. I have to do that every day.

— Of course not, says Mum. — But if this is the situation we find ourselves in we don't have a choice. We've nothing to hide, for God's sake.

Butterfly woman starts planting more daffodil bulbs after that and I don't hear all of it, only the bit at the end where she says, — Consent of just one parent is sufficient. I can't hear what other horrible thing Dad says about me in reply to that because he's using very evil muttering, which is not nice, because that's what Miss Hart says: It's not nice to mutter.

I back away from the door and up the stairs to my step. But I'm so angry that he told on me, instead of keeping it forgotten like he
promised
, that I don't walk normally, no, no, no: again my feet by instinct go stamp, stamp,
stamp
.

Rabbits signal warnings of distress in much the same way.

But before I've even sat down next to the banister he's out through the kitchen door and after me and I immediately feel two things at once. Shall I tell you what they are? Okay then, I will. First, I am cross with my feet for doing stupid babyish stamping again, because I know it drives him to destruction, and I don't want him to be angry with me again, because I suddenly remember the hot chocolate. And the second thing is the opposite, and it's this. He made my feet stamp by lying and I don't care about having hot chocolate near the carpet, or even the snack and juice which he got wrong anyway, idiot.

Sadly it's the second thing I feel the most and to prove it I look straight up at him as he comes across the hall and I lift my feet and do one big vicious thump with both of them at once. Take that, stairs.

Dad stops.

He is three or four steps below me and our heads are on roughly the same level which is called staring your enemy eye to eye.

I am so angry that my anger clips his because among other things my hair feels like a billion tiny spikes sticking into my head.

Dad leans forward.

He is feeling something huge, too. It has made his eyes all narrow and watery as they look at me very hard.

He knows me.