‘And he asked me if it was him in the bath, and I said, “Yes, it’s you now.” And then he looked at the next picture and I think he was a
bit
frightened but he was trying not to show me that he was, even though he was covering up his
penis
.’
I thought of Bryce hiding his penis from the little boy from next door; the little boy who knew Bryce had
done
his mother; the little boy who was standing there proudly in his t-shirt and his mother’s brown leather gloves, the iron on the floor beside him.
‘And he was looking backwards and forwards between the two pictures like I wanted him to do.’ Max was speaking very softly now. ‘And then he said, “Is that also me?” and I could hear that he was trying to sound all calm and grown-up but really he wasn’t.’
When did Bryce first see the iron?
When did he know?
‘And I said, “Yes, it’s you, soon.” And he said, “What do you mean, soon?” and I said, “About seven seconds.” And he asked me what I meant again and he didn’t sound calm any more and he started trying to get out of the bath but he slipped. And I did feel a bit sorry then, but I thought about how he did Mum and I picked up the iron even though it was really hot and I threw it into the bath.’
Millicent looked utterly stricken.
‘Then the neighbour started to kick, and his face went all red, and he dropped my book into the bath, which is how it got wet. And I think he was dead then.’
The brokenness of Bryce’s body. The redness of those lips. The agony of the scene. An eleven-year-old boy’s idea of justice. I looked at Millicent. Millicent looked blankly back at me.
What do we do?
‘Do you think he was dead, Dad?’
‘I don’t know, Max.’
‘But do you think he probably was? Like straight away?’ There was a pleading note in his voice now.
‘Max, I’m sorry, I really don’t know.’
‘I went out of the room for a while just in case he wasn’t, and then I counted to three hundred slowly, like one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus, and then I went downstairs and took the tape off the switch. Because they wait five minutes in America. Like if it’s an execution, or something. Although probably they’re already dead.’
‘Max,’ said Millicent. ‘Max, can’t you see?’
‘What, Mum?’
Millicent wrapped her arms very tightly around herself. She sat rocking backwards and forwards in her chair.
‘But I didn’t know there would be a boner. And anyway I checked afterwards on the internet and it’s normal. Like when they kill murderers in America. Murderers get boners, even though they’re dead.’
‘Jesus, Max,’ said Millicent. ‘What the fuck?’
‘You shouldn’t swear at me, Mum,’ said Max. ‘You
asked
me how my notebook got wet. I just told you what you asked me to tell you.’
‘Alex,’ said Millicent. ‘I’m going to need you to engage.’
‘Max killed the neighbour. He threw the iron into the bath. He clearly doesn’t understand the implications of what he did.’
‘Alex,’ said Millicent, ‘let him tell us himself. Don’t pre-empt.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Why, Max?’
‘Why what?’
‘Max, I think you understand what I’m asking you.’
‘Can I have a cigarette, Dad?’ he said. I shook my head. Max turned to Millicent. ‘Can I, Mum?’
‘Honey,’ said Millicent, ‘we need for you to answer the question. Why would you do this?’
‘Can I have a cigarette then?’
I shook my head again.
Insolent fury, immediate and raw. ‘I want a cigarette.’
‘You don’t smoke, Max,’ I said. ‘And there aren’t any.’ My voice sounded weak, defensive.
Max took a Marlboro ten-pack from his trouser pocket. An old one of ours. Red, black and white. He knocked it experimentally on the table, then opened it, and offered it to me. The cigarettes inside had been gently curved, the packet edges frayed, from the inside of Max’s pocket. The tobacco smelled stale.
Max flicked the bottom of the packet with a finger. A cigarette loosed itself from the others. He held the packet closer to me, full of challenge and bravado. But the tremor in his hand told a different story: a child, knocking at the door of the adult world.
‘Put those down, Max,’ I said, as gently as I could.
‘Don’t you want to know why I killed the neighbour?’
I swallowed the urge to shout at him. My blood was up: the cigarette in my face, the call of the old Marlboro packet, the extended arm, the floppy hair and the bright blue eye.
Do not rise to this.
‘I did it for you, Dad,’ he said. He took a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth. ‘Can I have a light please, Dad?’ His body was poised, now, cocksure: had he practised this move before? I could taste the exhilaration on him, the dangerous thrill as he dared us to make him stop. But behind his eyes was something altogether less certain.
‘Take the cigarette out of your mouth, Max.’
‘I know you want one.’ Max’s eyes did not leave mine. ‘Why do you always think you have to pretend?’ But he took the cigarette from his mouth and put it behind his ear. Then he turned to Millicent.
‘Even though Dad’s angry and he swears a lot, he wouldn’t kill someone. He never would. But I know he wishes he’d done what I’ve done, because he hated the neighbour when he found out about how he did you and everything, and now he’s glad he’s dead.’
‘Max,’ I said. ‘Max, stop. That’s not true.’
‘You’re only saying that because you found out he was doing Mum
after
he was dead.’ He turned back towards Millicent. ‘But even though he hates the neighbour he would just have forgiven
you
, because he thinks those are the rules or something. You shouldn’t just forgive her, Dad.
Please, Dad.
You shouldn’t make it so easy for her.’
Millicent’s eyes locked on to mine.
‘Max,’ I said, ‘listen to me. I would have wanted your mother back anyway.’
‘But Dad, she didn’t
want
to come back. Why won’t you listen to me?’ He was exasperated now. ‘Didn’t you read any of her letters?’
‘No, Max, I didn’t.’
‘She wasn’t
going
to come back. She always just runs away and never goes back.’
I didn’t look at Millicent but I felt her put a hand on my forearm. I put my hand over hers. I didn’t dare look at her for fear that what Max was saying was true.
‘Max,’ I said, trying to slow my breathing, ‘I really, genuinely don’t know what would have happened. Maybe your mum would have left me. But this is a terrible, terrible thing. You don’t take away people’s choices because you think they’re going to make the wrong choices.’ Millicent’s hand tensed on my arm.
Max sniffed hard. His voice was tremulous. ‘You just say what you think you have to say,’ said Max. ‘It’s like, you’re just politically correct, or something. If you could say what you really thought, you would thank me.’
‘
Thank
you?’
‘I just wanted us all to be together. Like you did.’
‘You took a man’s life, Max.’ I had shouted these last words.
‘But Dad,’ said Max, his voice tiny, ‘why is killing worse than fucking?’
‘It just is.’
Control your voice.
‘It’s worse. You’ve taken a life, and ruined the lives of all the people who loved Bryce.’
‘But
why
is it worse?
Why
is what
I
did worse than what
he
did?’
‘People sleep with the wrong people all the time. I slept with Arla.’
‘You wanted to get back at Mum for what she did to you.’
‘No, Max,’ I said, ‘I don’t know why I did it.’
Max hesitated, thrown off balance. He looked first at me, then at Millicent.
‘How can you not know why, Dad?’
‘Max, I genuinely don’t know why I slept with Arla.’
‘But you told Mum you weren’t sorry.’
‘How do you even know that?’ I said. Max blinked at me. ‘Anyway, Max, I don’t know why I did it. People sleep with the wrong people for all sorts of complicated reasons. Like your mum did. Like I did. And for what it’s worth, I am sorry for sleeping with Arla. I shouldn’t have done it.’
Millicent stared at me, appraising.
‘I’m truly sorry, Millicent,’ I said. ‘It’s the worst thing I have ever done, and I will be sorry for doing it for as long as I live.’ She nodded then, and turned her attention back to Max.
‘No,’ said Max, desperation in his voice now. ‘You’re telling lies. It was because you thought she was sexy and pretty and you wanted to get back at Mum.’ He was almost shouting, but I could feel the panic in him. The ground beneath him was leaching away.
‘Max,’ I said. ‘You’re eleven.’
‘I know about sex.’
‘You’re clever, but you’re a literalist.’
That stopped him. ‘What?’
‘Literalist means you don’t – you can’t – understand how untidy and imprecise the adult world is. You can’t hope to, because you haven’t felt these things yourself yet.’
‘I did know what it meant,’ he said softly. ‘And I’ve done something you’ve never done.’
A spike of cold rage, and I was on my feet.
‘You’re right, Max,’ I said. ‘You’re absolutely right.’ I looked at Millicent.
Are we going to let this pass?
Millicent gave the tiniest of frowns.
The stricken look had left her now. There was something harder and more determined about her demeanour. She nodded. Her eyes flicked to Max, and back to me. Allies.
‘Your mother would never do what you’ve done either, would you, Millicent?’
‘No,’ said Millicent, ‘I never would.’
‘You’re a child, Max,’ I said. ‘You are nothing but a child. You don’t understand what you’ve taken from that man.’
Max stood up, pushed back his chair.
‘Sit down, Max,’ said Millicent.
‘You two can’t tell me what to do any more,’ he said, his voice tremulous.
‘Or what?’ I said. ‘Sit down.’
‘No,’ he said. He straightened his tiny frame, forced himself to look me directly in the eye. ‘You know what I did.’
Again, the certainty of his words, undercut by something that sounded very like fear.
‘Are you threatening me, Max?’ I said. ‘Sit down.’
‘You know what I did.’
I leaned forwards in my chair and brought my face very close to his. ‘You really don’t want to do this.’
‘I killed a man.’
‘And you’re full of murderous rage, Max. I get it. Doesn’t
make
you a man. Sit down.’
Max looked up at me, fists tight, eyes vibrating in resentful fury.
‘Alex,’ said Millicent. ‘I think that’s enough. You’re frightening him now.’
‘Not enough, clearly,’ I said and stood up. ‘Do you have any idea how little you are to me right now, Max?’
Max leaned backwards for a moment, then threw himself at me. The first blow was harder than I expected. The tiny fist struck my chin with a force that astonished me, throwing me off balance.
Control.
I looked down at him and laughed.
‘You can’t hit me back, Dad,’ he said.
‘That’s OK, Max,’ I said. ‘That’s fine.’
He struck me twice more, but I was ready for him now. The blows glanced uselessly off my left shoulder, off my right arm.
‘Is that really the best you’ve got?’ I said.
‘Alex, don’t,’ said Millicent.
‘Hit me again, Max,’ I said, but I saw that the fight had gone from him. Tears were welling in the edges of his eyes.
‘I thought you’d be proud of me, Dad. And you’re not.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘And I always will be. Just not of this terrible, terrible thing you’ve done.’
Max stood there, gulping air. Heavy tears drew paths down the side of his nose, skirted the edge of his mouth, pooled at the tip of his chin, then dropped through dark space. I put a hand on his shoulder. He tried to shake me off, but I drew him gently to me and held him as he sobbed.
We stood for perhaps twenty minutes, my arms wrapped tightly around my son’s fragile frame. Then I sat quietly down and guided him on to my lap. Millicent reached for his hand, and Max let her take it.
No one spoke for more than an hour. I saw the minutes tick over on the clock on the stove. My thoughts were disordered, fleeting and half-formed.
We would leave.
We would fight this.
We would unburden ourselves and face the consequences.
We would deny everything.
Mostly I simply saw Max in extreme close-up: the tear-soaked tips of the lashes of his left eye, where the long London summer had bleached them white; the tension in his left hand, where the nail of his forefinger was cutting into the quick of his thumb.
We
did this, I kept thinking. Your mother’s infidelity and your father’s rage. Millicent and I had brought this upon the world, had caused our son to take a life. He had done, he thought, what I would have done if only I could, if I had known what he had known. We made him what he is, I thought.
We
did this to our son.
A sharp crack. The cat at the feeding bowl, eating dry food. Max looked up, but said nothing. The cat ate her fill, then jumped up on to the work surface, licked the open end of the tap, wanting water. No one moved.
It was Max who spoke first. ‘Tarek doesn’t want to be my friend any more. He said I’ve been acting like I’m spectrum.’
‘Does Tarek know, Max?’ I said.
Max bit the edge of his mouth. ‘I never said anything. I swear.’
‘Who else knows?’
‘Just you and me and Mum. I never told Arla.’
‘Not Dr Å?’
‘Dr Å says you have to be
grandiose
if you think you can decide if someone should live or die. I didn’t want her to stop liking me.’
‘OK, Max,’ said Millicent, ‘here’s what we’re going to do. From now on this isn’t your problem. It’s our problem.’
‘But they’ll take me away from you,’ said Max.
‘No, Max,’ she said. ‘They aren’t going to take you away from us, honey. I promise you. But you have to let your dad and me steer this, and you have to do what we say. Everything we say.’
‘It hasn’t gone the way I thought it would, anyway.’ He looked completely and utterly undone.
‘No, honey,’ she said. ‘Of course it didn’t go the way you planned it. You can’t solve this. We can.’