Where the Moon Isn't (10 page)

‘Who does?’

‘I do. And your mum, and your father. But they might worry less if you saw them more often.’ She squeezed my fingers, and I thought about how her hand is a lot like my mum’s; cold, with papery flesh.

‘How’s Granddad?’ I asked

‘Getting old, Matthew. We’re both getting old.’

I hope she never dies.

So we ate pasta bake. I sat on the wooden chair and she sat on the armchair with the busy floral pattern and the soft cushions. She ran her fingernails over the blistered part on the arm where I sometimes put out cigarettes, and she started to form a thought about how I needed to be more careful. Then she looked at what’s left of my Special Project – the remaining jars and tubes that I can’t ever seem to bring myself to throw away, even after so long. She started to form a thought about that too, but then what she actually said was, ‘It’s nice to see you, Matthew.’

‘Thanks. I’ll clean up next time.’

She smiled and rubbed her hands together, saying, ‘Do you want your present then?’

‘You got me something?’

I’d left the plastic case in the hall so went to get it, and placed it on the carpet in front of Nanny Noo. ‘Open it up then,’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘Well, open it and see. You push those clips at the side.’

I suppose it’s an unusual gift to buy someone these days, but Nanny saw it in a charity shop and she thought of me. ‘For your writing,’ she said.

It was probably the Special Brew, but I felt so happy I could have cried.

‘Well, it isn’t a computer,’ she said. ‘I know that. But these are what we used to type on when I was your age, and they were good enough. There’s a bit of a knack to it. If you tap more than one key at a time those arms tend to get jammed, and there isn’t a delete, but, well, I thought it might be useful for writing your stories.’

It’s hard to know what to say sometimes, when someone does something so nice. It’s hard to know where to look.

We took our dishes through to the kitchen and I started the washing up, and Nanny Noo took her secret pack of menthol cigarettes out of the drawer. I’m the only person in the family who knows that she smokes, and she only smokes with me. I’m not saying that to show off because it’s a stupid thing to show off about. But it does make me feel important, somehow. I can’t explain it.

She blew smoke out of the window and said, ‘Horrid day, isn’t it?’

‘No. It’s a good day,’ I answered, washing a smudge of ink from my thumb. ‘It’s a really good day.’

She didn’t stay much longer. We walked down the stairwell, with her arm through mine. Then before she climbed into her car she kissed me twice; once on the forehead, once on the cheek. I smoked another cigarette by the big yellow bins, and watched one of my neighbours kick his dog.

Anyway, I just thought I should say where I live. It isn’t perfect, but it’s home, and now that I have a typewriter, I’m not leaving any time soon.

Matthew Homes

Flat 607

Terrence House

Kingsdown

Bristol

Friday 5th Feb ’10

Dear Matthew,

I popped by to check if everything is okay. You disappeared from Hope Road very suddenly on Wednesday, and we didn’t see you today either? I’ll be on duty until 5 p.m, but will keep my work mobile with me this evening too, so when you get this give me a call if you can on 07700 900934 (I’ve put 50p in the envelope because I know you don’t always have change for the phone).

All the best,

Denise Lovell

Care Co-ordinator

Brunel CMHT – Bristol

SHE DIDN’T MENTION THE NEEDLE. You’ll notice she didn’t mention that. Popping by to check if everything is okay? Yeah, right. And if I did answer the door it would be, Oh whilst I’m here Matt we might as well give you your injection too.

No thanks.

Not today Denise Lovell. I’m busy telling my story, thank you.

She stayed at the door for ages too. Standing there, knocking, standing there, knock knock knock. It must have been ten minutes at least, with me being careful not to make a sound, before she finally gave up and pushed the note through the letter box.

I need to be careful though. I am a mentally unwell man, and things have gone wrong for me before.

RELAPSE INDICATORS

1. Voice: No.

2. Atoms: No.

3. Not engaging with support team: Oops.

Two out of three ain’t bad.

It was Jacob Greening’s idea that we should leave home after Year 11, and rent a place together. Our own flat, he said. It’ll be wicked. I thought so too. It was so easy to imagine the two of us together, forever.

Am I rushing?

The first thing we had to do was get jobs, which wasn’t difficult because we didn’t mind what we did. He found his at a 24-Hour Kebab House. Then I had my interview for care assistant work at a home for the elderly. The manager asked if I had any experience of care work, and I said that I did because I helped to look after a disabled person, so I knew about bedsores and Sudocrem and hoists and mouth care and bed baths and commodes and catheters and slide sheets and Fortisips and that kind of thing, and that I enjoyed it.

The manager smiled, and asked if I was happy to work night shifts.

Yes.

It’s enough to drive you crazy, Mum said. It’s like talking to a brick wall, she said. She went on and on about A Levels, about college. About how well I did in my GCSEs even though I didn’t try, even though I refused to quit smoking that BLOODY STUFF.

She talked about my potential.

I’ve never understood what is so special about achieving potential. In the care home I got to learn about the different residents. I knew more about them than they did. Each resident had a folder that was kept in a locked drawer beside their bed. In the front, stuck with Sellotape to the inside cover was a short note, written by the resident. Except it wasn’t really written by them because half of them were too demented to know what a pen was. It was just made to look as if they had written it, to make it more personal.

It might say,

HELLO, my name is Sylvia Stevens. I prefer to be called Mrs Stevens please. I used to work as a secretary and I am very proud of my five beautiful grandchildren. I need to have my food cut up for me but I prefer to eat it by myself so please be patient if this takes me a while. At night-time I like to listen to Radio 4. This helps me sleep.

Or it might say,

HELLO, my name is Terry Archibald. You can call me Terry. I was a merchant seaman and historian. I even wrote a history book which you can find in the manager’s office. Please be careful with it because there are not many copies left. I get confused sometimes, and can hit out if I feel threatened so please keep talking to me to keep me calm when you are doing my personal care. My wife visits on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Or it might say,

HELLO, my name is William Roberts. Most people call me Bill. I have committed several horrendous sex crimes against young girls, including both of my daughters, for which I have never been brought to justice. Please liquidize my food and feed it to me. I am allowed a small beaker of Stout near bedtime.

Or,

HELLO, my name is your potential. But you can call me impossible. I am the missed opportunities. I am the expectations you will never fulfil. I am always taunting you, regardless of how hard you try, regardless of how much you hope. Please put talcum powder on my arse when you wash me, and take note of how our shit smells exactly the same.

Ignore me. I’m just pissed off today. Who does Denise Lovell think she is, coming to my home, trying to catch me out? Why can’t they just leave me alone?

Ignore me.

YOU’RE AN ASSET TO THE TEAM, the manager would say.

I was always first to volunteer covering shifts when staff went off sick. And I’d never complain when he put my name down for extra night duty. I don’t know how we coped without you, he would say.

I’d get an hour’s break at three o’clock in the morning, to have some sleep before getting breakfast ready for the residents. I didn’t go to sleep. I used to get on my bike and ride through the silent streets to the park, to our bench beside the tree. Sometimes Jacob would be there first, waiting for me, or sometimes I would get there first and watch him come speeding through the top entrance, across the path and onto the grass, cycling so fast that his bike juddered and rattled, until he was right beside the bench where he’d slam on his brake and kick the back wheel out in a skid, churning up the damp earth.

He would bring us cheeseburgers and chips from the Kebab House, and we would spend our break together, looking at the night, eating junk, talking about our plan to rent a flat as soon as we had enough cash saved up. This flat, our flat, our life. It was all so easy.

BUT WE CAN HELP, Mum offered, hovering nervously in the driveway.

She hadn’t slept all night. I had heard her rummaging in the attic for old sets of crockery and cutlery and the kettle and toaster that they’d been bought as wedding presents, kept in dusty boxes. She was sort of whimpering as she did it. Eventually I’d heard my dad say, ‘That’s enough, love. Come to bed. It’s really late.’

Now we were surrounded by the first chapter of my life, neatly packed away.

‘Your dad will be home in a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘We can take a few car loads. Please, let us help.’

‘I’m okay. We’ve got it sorted.’

Jacob had made friends with this guy from the Kebab House. Hamed, I think his name was. He was the owner’s son or something. He was a couple of years older than us and drove his own van, which had lowered suspension and stick-on blacked-out windows, and half the space in the back was taken up with a sound system that made the whole ground vibrate as he pulled up beside us.

He threw a cigarette butt into the gutter and reached to shake Mum’s hand through the open window. ‘So your big boy is flying the nest, is it?’

Mum glared at him.

Hamed rubbed the back of his neck and squinted at the sky. ‘Good day for it, innit.’

If I think about it now, there was a lot of stuff that Jacob never bothered to pack. Things like his posters, things like his winter clothes.

Mrs Greening had been encouraging from the start. ‘You need your own life Jakey,’ she’d said. ‘I’m so proud of you two boys.’ Her voice was all trembly though, it was obvious she was frightened. Care in the Community had been stepping up their support, but Jacob still did so much.

She had this plastic gripper that she would clip onto pens and pencils to make them fatter and easier for her to hold. It must have taken her ages to make the card. It had this picture of a house, the way a child might draw a house, with smoke coming out of the chimney, fluffy clouds in the sky, the sun coloured in yellow, with this big wonky smile on its face. She was embarrassed by the picture because she knew I was good at art. That’s what she said as she gave it to us. And she said she was sorry it didn’t have an envelope, and that we obviously didn’t have to put it on display.

‘It’s brilliant,’ I said.

I meant it too. It reminded me of something. I couldn’t place it at the time, but it made me feel happy and sad all at once.

At the flat Jacob would stick it onto the fridge with his bottle opener fridge magnet. CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW HOME. But for now it was propped on the dashboard of the van, and he was staring at it and not saying a word. It wasn’t only his mum who was frightened. He was too.

I reckon my mum had to fight the urge to climb into a cardboard box, hoping I’d pack her neatly away at the other end.

‘There’s no shame in coming home if it doesn’t work out.’

She didn’t say that quietly. She made sure it was loud enough for Jacob to hear too, even over the music.

‘It will work out,’ I snapped, glaring at her.

I blew her a Goodbye and Good Fucking Riddance kiss. It was cruel of me, but she couldn’t read the small print. She did that thing where you pretend to catch it and press it against your heart.

These are the moments that make the dot-to-dot pictures of our past; everything else is simply filling in the gaps.

We blasted at the horn, swerving wildly.

The little boy appeared from nowhere, running into the road, cutting through traffic.

He wore a big orange coat, and I didn’t make out his face because his hood was pulled right up. But I think, I think, in that moment, he was me. I had tried to run away, but Mum caught me by the school. She carried me to the doctor’s, and I could hear her heartbeat through my stupid hood.

Looking in the wing mirror, I expected to see her chasing.

Baby, wait. Please.

No.

She hadn’t moved. She stood perfectly still, with my kiss held against her. She would stay that way until my dad arrived home from work, when he would take her inside, and fetch her a tablet.

Goodbye, and

Good Fucking Riddance.

THE FIRST EVENING, neither of us had to work.

We didn’t have proper furniture, so we placed our single mattresses side by side on the bedroom floor, and sat on them. We took the light bulb from the hall because it was the only one the previous tenants had left behind. And I plugged my old desk lamp in the kitchen, so we could see to cook.

We ate oven chips with baked beans and lots of tomato ketchup, and shared a 3-litre bottle of cider.

I’ve made it sound shit. It wasn’t. It was perfect.

The second evening, we both had to work.

So at three o’clock in the morning we rode our bikes to our bench beside the tree and watched night turn to twilight.

Jacob talked about crepuscular animals. It was a new word he’d learnt, and he was showing off. He said that him and me were crepuscular because we mostly lived in dusk and dawn. He gets excited by the unlikeliest things. It can make people feel uncomfortable. Jacob is one of those people who other people share whispered comments about. They say things like, ‘He struggles in his own skin, doesn’t he?’ And the other people shake their heads thoughtfully, and say, ‘There is something, isn’t there?’