Shtum (2 page)

‘That could be months. You’re being absurd. How would you cope with Jonah and work by yourself? And where would you move to in this charade? Next door? Wouldn’t it look a little suspicious?’

‘I agree, it would. But single fathers are one of the commonalities I mentioned. Ben, for this to work, Jonah needs to be with you.’

‘Just hold on a second, I don’t remember agreeing to the first part, the splitting up, let alone the idea that I could cope with him by myself. Emma, the two of us can barely cope together. To be frank, I’m not interested in either suggestion.’

She groans. ‘But it would help our case.’

‘Jonah’s case, you mean? Get the lawyers and judge to live with him, he’ll convince them inside an hour.’

As if to hammer home the point, Jonah has rejoined us,

‘Go back to bed, Jonah,’ I say. But my tone must have given away my irritation and he’s jumping so hard that the floor is shaking. Emma approaches him, calling his name softly, but as she closes in, he forces one hand into his mouth and smacks his head with the other, violently.

‘Emma, keep away,’ I say as he swipes an empty wine glass off the table. It thuds on to the carpet and he kicks it. I throw my arms around him, but he slips my grasp and buries his teeth into my shoulder with force. I have to slap him on the head to get him to release me and it forces the tears from him. Emma moves in to console him and lead him back to bed. She kneels on the floor before him and grazes his chin with the gentlest of kisses. Jonah falls forward until their foreheads touch. I leave them like that and go in search of antiseptic cream.

It’s half an hour before Emma returns, pale and yawning. She falls heavily on to the sofa beside me. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, just another souvenir. You’d better take a picture, I suppose.’

She goes to our bedroom to grab the camera and takes half a dozen snaps of my red and punctured shoulder. One more for the album of cuts and bruises, smashed glasses, plates and picture frames – the supporting evidence of Jonah’s aggression and unpredictability, saved for a hoped-for tribunal – his antimatter CV. She hands me a glass of wine.

‘I’m not doing it, Emma.’

‘There is another solution,’ she says.

‘What, a straightjacket?’

‘To you living here by yourself with Jonah.’

‘I’ve already told you, Emma, that’s not going to happen.’

‘Ben, do you think you can survive this for another year, two, three, ten? I don’t think I can. Not to mention poor Jonah. He needs more than we can give him, more than is on offer at Maureen Mitchell. He needs and deserves better than this. He needs to be given the chance at a little dignity. He needs a residential placement, Ben, he needs the consistency, it may be his only chance.’

I drain my glass.

‘Ben,’ she continues, ‘we have to do whatever it takes, however painful it is in the short term. We have to do it for Jonah.’

‘So what’s this other solution?’ I ask. Already feeling my need to please her overwhelming my sense of self-preservation.

Carousel

Jewell
14 Oakfield Avenue
London N10 4RG

23 January 2011

Dear Ms Latchford

Re: Jonah Jewell – change in domestic circumstances

Unfortunately, Jonah’s mother and I have separated and Jonah’s care is now solely my responsibility. It has been decided that Mrs Jewell will remain in the family home, while Jonah and I will move in with my elderly father at the above address.

As you will no doubt understand, this is a less than ideal situation – especially for Jonah – and I would be grateful if I could meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss any help that may be available.

Yours sincerely
Ben Jewell

‘So. I’m honoured.’

Jonah pushes past his grandfather and, like a guided missile, heads directly for the kitchen.

‘Coming in?’

‘Just a couple of months,’ I say, ‘like I told you on the phone.’

‘So.’ He opens the door wide and invites me in with a sweep of his arm. ‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Let her go without a fight then?’

He turns and glides down the dim hallway. His wiry frame may have receded from its five-feet-eleven-inch zenith, but it remains erect and there is threat in the way he holds himself.

‘JJ? Are you in my cupboards, already?’

There is rustling and the crack of MDF against wood – Jonah is scavenging.

‘What have you found? So! You like bagels, eh?’

Jonah sprints past me into the lounge as I reach the kitchen and he claims the brown chenille sofa like an invading colonial power, a bagel lodged between his jaws.

‘JJ, you can’t eat it plain. Let me put some salmon in it …’

‘He doesn’t eat salmon.’

‘This he’s told you?’

The same old carousel. ‘I’ve tried, he spits it out.’

‘This salmon? It’s from a delicatessen, or from a supermarket?’

‘Neither, Alaska.’

‘Always so clever. I’ll make him a salmon bagel.’

His accent is no longer strong, but has a noticeable, lilting rise at the end of questions that has always hit me as disdain. It’s time to retreat.

‘I can’t stay, I’ve got a load of things still to pack and bring from the flat. Can you look after Jonah, just for a bit?’

He shrugs. ‘You’ll be back when?’

I check my watch. ‘Two-ish?’

‘It’s already midday. Get back by four. We’ll go walking, maybe see Maurice.’

‘You sure?’

He holds his hands to his chest – palms up. ‘What can happen?’

I’m about to list the possible outcomes but he’s gone. I hear him humming from the kitchen. He’s enjoying this. I’m crying inside and desperate for a drink and my father is in his element. I check my watch: every minute I lose to his bagel-making is robbing me of some much-needed solitude. Finally, the perfect salmon bagel is ready and is being delivered to the lounge. Jonah is halfway through his first and flicks it nonchalantly behind the sofa as the second arrives. From the safety of the hallway I watch as his tongue makes contact with the smoked salmon. And now he’s eating it. Little bastard.

‘Florsheim’s Deli, Temple Fortune. There, something else for your menu, eh, JJ?’

Jonah doesn’t flinch as his cheek is pinched. I’d swear he is staring right at me. But I know better.

‘His bag’s by the door,’ I call. ‘Dad?’

‘Four. Not before, we won’t be here.’

Three hours and twenty-two minutes at home. I’ll pack up in an hour, but I must sit down first. I want a drink, something to eat, but a disarming thought floats into my head: maybe I could stay the night? It could be a date – we could try proper sex and sleep through the night without the threat of interruption. But no, Emma will worry about Jonah, she’ll worry about my dad. Still, the idea of a secret liaison seems to flick my libido switch.

I turn the TV on and the sofa devours me. I’m panicked by the notion of not seeing her for weeks, of being ignored, and – despite all evidence to the contrary – the efficiency with which this status quo has been engineered. I want to cry. Instead, I drink and pass out. In my stupor I hear chickens, cows, the triple-whistle of a shepherd. Some Wordsworth gives way to a chanting football crowd, the rising pitch of celebration, a gunshot, the clack, clack, clack of manual typewriter keys, more gunfire, the rousing, sweet scream of a boy soprano.

My right arm is dead beneath my chin and glistens with saliva illuminated by the cathode glare of the TV. The walls repaint themselves green, then red, then blue and back to green. The sound is muffled by darkness. Darkness. I begin to make loose connections, but they’re transitory, almost imperceptible – like Jonah’s presence. Darkness. Dribbling. Dead limbs. Daylight. No daylight. Shit.

I jump to my feet and invite the vertigo. Fall to my knees and scrabble for my watch on the floor. Hold its face to the light of the TV screen. Eighteen-fifteen. Shit, shit, shit. Should I phone? I stumble like a drunkard to the front door. Double back to the kitchen to slug from last night’s wine. Light a cigarette. Slug again. Glug. Drain the bottle. Shuffle the deck and deal my thoughts to the left, to the right. Pull them together. Shuffle again. Spread the pack. Demon thoughts are alcohol soluble. Additional vodka clears the remaining dregs. I grab my car keys from the table.

The front door is open. Does he think it’s the 1950s? The single bare bulb burns circles into my vision, so I feel my way inside the house. The Van Gogh ‘Sunflowers’ block-print swings like a pendulum as I make contact with it and dust flies off like a Saharan sandstorm. The wrought-iron and glass telephone table eats a chunk of my shin as I try to blink away the floating white spots from my cornea. Who else but my father would swaddle an Edwardian terrace in brown and orange? The last remaining vestige of seventies minimalism in Muswell Hill.

‘Hello. Dad? Jonah?’ The kitchen light is off. The lounge glows halogen from the peeping-tom streetlight. From the Bakelite radio the clipped tones of Radio 4 caress the ancient oak-hewn furniture. The ugly, obese dresser and dining suite, dark as ebony – its Marmite-varnished surface saved from scarring by crocheted doilies – dominates so completely that in the gloom it embodies some ancient gargoyle, a Golem carved by a wizened shtetl mystic bent on vengeance and vigilantism. I turn the light on and the radio off.

‘Hello.’

‘Up here.’

‘Where?’

‘Here. Bathroom.’

He sits on a plastic garden chair next to the bath, massaging Jonah’s head with a green sliver of soap.

‘So when did he get hair down there?’

‘You didn’t have to bath him.’

‘We had an accident.’

‘Wasn’t he wearing a nappy? I left you the bag.’

‘We were in the garden, so why should he always have to suffer the discomfort?’

‘And I suppose crapping in his pants is comfortable?’

‘He was just wet. I rinsed his trousers and put them on the radiator. They should almost be dry – it’s been three hours.’

‘Look, I’m sorry I’m so late …’

‘Did I say anything?’

‘Not in so many words, no.’

‘Not in any words …’

Jonah starts laughing and stuffs his mouth with foam.

‘You have bubble bath?’

‘Washing-up liquid.’

‘Jesus, Dad. He can’t eat that.’ I move sharply to scoop the bubbles from Jonah’s mouth. ‘It’s full of detergent and other shit, he’ll be ill.’

Jonah reacts by sliding back and forth – the laughter stops. Waves of brackish water break over the bath and seek gaps between the lino and the skirting. I put my hand on his shoulder but he swipes it off and bites down hard on his own hand. My scalp is prickling. Singing calms him down – singing and dancing.

‘Bu-de-bu-de-bum, bu-de-bu-de-bum, boo-di-boo-di-boo.’ Dad’s hands are raised above his head screwing in two imaginary light bulbs. Jonah is still splashing, but his face has relaxed, reverted to angelic. He makes rhythmic, guttural noises in time with his splashing and his eyes – shining – seem to be locked on to my father’s.

‘Going to make myself a coffee,’ I say, leaving.

The ancient kettle dances a jig on the hob as the water becomes steam and billows towards the whistling spout. The coffee, when I finally locate it in an unmarked earthenware container, looks archaeological and tastes as though it accompanied Dad from Budapest. I hear them pad down the stairs, Dad chatting to Jonah and answering for him as well. I stand in the kitchen sipping my coffee and hear Jonah chuckle. I am flooded with jealousy, not towards my father but towards Jonah. I enter the lounge like an intruder.

Do they look alike? It’s hard to tell with Jonah’s heavy-metal hair. Do
we
look alike? I study them as they sit close on the sofa, examining the refracting light from Dad’s prize crystal paperweight.

‘JJ, let us look at this closely. Now, what happens is this: the light that we think is white is actually made up of lots of different colours. How many? Well, I don’t know exactly but if we look really carefully, we can see them coming out of the crystal. Look, here.’

Dad holds the crystal in front of Jonah’s face and twists it gently from side to side. At certain angles, a rainbow forms on his cheek. He reaches toward the crystal with his thumb and forefinger so, so slowly, like he’s pulling a thread through the eye of a needle, and gently plucks it from Dad’s hand. He doesn’t blink. Not just now – as he examines the miracle of splitting wavelengths – but ever. At least, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him blink. Even when I’ve tried to catch him – by clapping close to his face or clicking my fingers – he stares straight through. No reflex action, or just no fear? It comforts me to imagine the latter.

‘Have I ever told you about this magic crystal before, JJ? No? Well, it’s been in the family for over a hundred years. It is made of Bohemia Glass, very famous and beautiful glass.’

I carefully place my coffee mug on a doily. I’ve never heard the paperweight’s history before, just assumed – as with the rest of the tat in this musty house – it was bought on a whim and for too much money in some East London ‘antique’ shop.

‘Dad, it’s well past his bedtime.’

‘He’s happy, leave him be.’

‘You want to deal with the fallout?’ The oversleeping, over-f nappy and shit-smeared walls.

‘He doesn’t look tired, Benjamin. Anyway, you are not my lodgers, you are my family, so I will put him to bed.’

‘He needs his medication …’

‘Then maybe you should have arrived at four as I asked instead of spending the afternoon in the pub. He wants to hear the rest of the story.’

‘He doesn’t give a shit about the story, Dad. He just wants to twiddle the crystal.’

‘And how would you know?’

‘How would you?’

I sit in the lounge flicking channels, trying to time the changes to one a second. I check my phone for the umpteenth time, then attack his ancient whisky, stealthily, placing it back in the cabinet, silently, with the label pointing out. Old habits die hard. I amble around the room. Nothing of me has invaded this space – except in the ancient carpet stains and cigarette burns. To be fair, it is completely unadorned. With the exception of Jonah’s last school photo sitting on top of the television and the crystal paperweight keeping it company, it is barren. If we were Catholic, it would host an open casket perfectly, although the wake would have to be elsewhere. My dad has read thousands of books but refuses to keep a single volume; his music comes from the radio, his food from containers. Everything seems set up for a quick getaway, but he hasn’t been anywhere in years.

I used to believe that this austerity was a guilt hangover from the rabid socialism of his younger self, but the colour scheme is more fascist tyrant than Trotsky. If you look ‘through the keyhole’ here, all you are likely to discover is the pain of being poked in the eye with a pencil. Through my musings, I’ve missed Dad standing at the door.

‘He’s asleep. Now, have you eaten? You haven’t, have you?’

‘I’m fine, just sort yourself out.’

‘Not hungry? What, did you have one of those doner kebobs?’

‘Kebabs.’

‘Tsch. It’s all shit. You’ll have a piece of fish.’

‘Don’t want a piece of fish.’

‘You’ll have it.’

I’m too tired to argue and thankful for the food, to be honest. He flits around the kitchen like a nectar-guided bee, opening foil here, plastic pots there, until a chipped dinner plate arrives – a scale exhibit of a Chelsea Flower Show garden.

‘Florsheim’s. Eat,’ he announces, poking his fork in my direction, losing two cubes of beetroot on to his grey-stubbled chin.

We eat, silently. We always ate silently, mealtimes could not have resembled a traditional Jewish family meal any less – and I’m surprisingly intrigued.

‘Dad, why did we never talk during mealtimes?’

‘Shush. I’m eating.’

We do the washing-up his way, in a single sink-f of dirtying water. I get to dry with a formerly white tea towel and stack the dishes in wallpaper-lined cupboards.

‘How’s Maurice?’ I try.

‘Maurice is Maurice. He doesn’t change.’

I haven’t seen Maurice for a couple of years. Apparently he is the first person Dad met on his journey alone from Hungary. Stopping in Maurice’s native Holland to recover, they stayed ten years before coming to London. Now Dad’s eyelids rise like theatre curtains and out comes the reminiscence. I’ve heard it all before, how Maurice ran errands for the working girls of Amsterdam before they arrived in England, how he helped Maurice start his
shmutter
business.

‘You know, at least I had shoes when we left. Maurice? All he had were a couple of red tulips and a dose of the clap. Those tulips he gave to your Auntie Lilly, the girl he eventually married.’

‘And the clap. Who did he give that to? Apart from Auntie Lilly.’

My dad is the only person I know who smiles with a downturned mouth – he’d look more human standing on his head.