What I Did (24 page)

— What are you apologizing for?

— I don't know. I'm not.

She puts her hand round my shoulder and strokes my cheek as we walk downstairs. — You've done nothing wrong.

— That's what Dad keeps saying.

— And you know what he means?

— Yes.

— Promise?

— Yes. What's for tea?

Luckily Mum seems keen to move on to the tea stage very cheerfully. She nearly nods her head off, and down we go, and I'm allowed to choose exactly what I like. Excellent! Sausages of course and smashed potatoes, and just to test whether she actually means it I ask for some peanut butter instead of gravy. Mum and Grandma Lynne have a who-can-grin-the-hardest competition when I say that, and Mum fetches the jar so quickly I nearly see whether they'll give me chocolate sprinkles on top of my carrots as well, but just as I'm about to ask, I don't, because chocolate-sprinkled carrots would actually be disgusting.

Did you know that there are rules about eating?

Well there are. Lots. And here are some examples. You have to eat with your bum on a chair pushed up to the table, saying please before things you want and thank you after them, doing your best all the time not to spill things all over your uniform because washing it costs money. If you don't like something you have to try it anyway without making a huge fuss. Spicy food sorts out the men from the boys, Son: I like it and so will you if you try hard enough. Whatever you do, when your mouth gets pins and needles have a sip of water instead of spitting everything out like a baby. There are no alternatives in this house: if you don't like what's on your plate it's tough because there are hungry children in Africa so you mustn't put your elbows on the table, but do ask for help if you're having trouble cutting up your food. Fingers on the buttons. We're not pirates. Yes, peas are tricky customers, but you'll manage if you scoop them up carefully. If you have to, use some smashed potato cement to keep them from jumping all over the place. Spinach makes you strong and carrots give you curly hair and chocolate makes you fat and too much ketchup rots your teeth but everything is okay if you eat it in modern nation.

Normally the rules are like toasters: I don't actually want to stick my fork in them anyway; but something funny about Mum makes it hard not to prod about a bit today. It's as if her wide smile is saying Go on, try stretching me, I won't snap! My legs slip-slide off the chair and I hold my knife like a stabbing dagger and say, — I don't want these carrots today after all; what's for pudding?

Mum pushes her thumb and finger into her eyes, but asks, — What would you like?

— Ice cream with . . . something in it.

— What sort of something?

— I don't know. Chocolates sliced up. And jam. Mum's smile flickers so I quickly explain, — You asked so I said. It's not fair! But I don't think I needed to say that anyway because she's already shaking her head and fetching the ingredients.

The funny feeling carries on: Mum gives me my pudding and it
is
ice cream with a some jam and a chocolate square, very tiny, on top, and I say, — It's not big enough, while eating it up quite fast without bothering to lean forward over the bowl, and nobody says anything at all about the small mess I make; Mum and Grandma Lynne just sit either side of me watching like I'm a really lovely experiment until the door goes click and there's Dad behind us rumpling his cornstalk hair, staring down.

— That looks nice, he says, a little too loudly.

— It is.

— Good! Great!

— Jim. I'll make you some coffee.

— Coffee. Dad drags the spare chair out from under the table as if it has done something wrong, and sits down on it heavily. — That'd be lovely. Make us all a cup. Lynne would like one, too, I'm sure, seeing as she's here. Of course she would. Lovely.

We sit quite quietly for a moment while Mum fiddles with the coffee thing which always needs emptying before you fill it. Hurry up, Mum! My pudding is less good now, but I finish it, leaning right over to catch any spills which I don't make anyway. When I look up Mum has her head cranked over her shoulder, face headlamp bright, ready to say, — Good boy, Billy! Now, upstairs and get yourself ready for the bath.

— But Mum . . .

The headlamp blinks shut when I say that and the funny feeling shrinks away immediately. No buts. Dad grabs me as I slip down from the table, gives me a rough but lovely three-beer-cuddle, then says, — Scoot.

— I'm scooting.

— I'll be up in a bit. We have things to discuss. Okay?

— Fine.

 

Undressing is easier than getting dressed but watch out for done-up buttons: they make it vertically impossible to take off your shirt by pulling it over your head. I tug quite hard but the neck just bites my face even when I turn my head upside down. Some dogs wear funnels that look quite similar. When I was small I thought the funnels were to help the dogs catch balls but they're not. They're to stop dogs biting themselves. Dogs are less well developed than me: I wouldn't bite myself. But actually, I am wrong, because here I am using my done-up shirt button to bite myself! As soon as I realize this I pull my shirt back down and undo the button using my opposable thumbs. Ha! Take that, dogs.

And since I am doing nicely without asking for help I decide to do another grown-up thing as well: run the bath. If you're an idiot you forget to put the plug in. I'm not and I don't. The little grille thing is quite like a Lancaster bomber's turret, until you cover it with the plug, which reminds me of a miniature dustbin lid instead. Done. I slosh some bubble bath down the bath's white side and turn on the tap full steam ahead! Scooping up my clothes I run out on to the landing to put them in the washing basket. Ali Baba lives in it with forty sleeves. I'm pushing some of the arms and legs back under the lid when I hear a strange clattering noise in my bedroom. What could it be? Suddenly, I remember: the baby monitor! The voices downstairs make no sense but they're louder when I'm through my bedroom door, with Mum saying, — Please! and more washing-up crockery noises and a long spell of hissy-water silence leading to nothing.

Then Dad starts laughing.

It's a long low rumbling nothing-funny-here four-beer laugh: ha bloody ha bloody ha bloody ha! And it grows louder. Once a nasty man in a hat — because he's a jumped-up little bastard, Son — gave Dad a parking ticket when we were just on our way back from the doctor's: the laugh he did when he tore the ticket off the window and got it stuck to his fingers as he tried to throw it at the man's shiny shoes was quite similar but less bad.

Ha bloody ha bloody ha bloody ha!

I dive at the bed legs, pull the monitor plug out of the wall, and push the whole thing with its dead dragon eyes out of sight.

But as soon as I'm back up on my knees I hear a door bang open and footsteps on the stairs. Quick! If you were a red squirrel and you'd just buried a walnut you wouldn't sit there staring at the place where you'd just buried it while a more dominant gray squirrel stood over you telling you that you were supposed to be in the bath, would you? No and neither would I, so with explosive acceleration I leap up from the foothills and sprint across the landing and bang through the steam-pouring door and do a two-footed jump-slide straight splash into the bath.

It's hot.

Hot.

It's hotter than hot: it's almost immediately incredibly burning: so shockingly malting-larvae hot that I jump-slide straight up the bath side again, screaming. But sadly baths are wet and so am I and everything has gone viciously slippery. I crash back into the water on the side of my leg, the steaming-hot water everywhere, screaming.

Dad's there.

He's above me yelling, — Christ! and yanking me by the leg and arm clear of the fire water.

I'm screaming.

He rips the shower from the wall and turns it full-cold straight at me there on the carpet where I'm rolling to get away from myself.

Screaming.

And Mum's here, too, yelling, — What?

The cold shower water is full of needles. They jab me. My red legs. Red side. Red hand, like Dad's. And Dad is covered in water as well because he's holding me. It's up the wall and squelching beneath me in the gaps between screaming.

— Empty the bath! shouts Dad. My face is pressed into his soaked shirt shoulder. He has the shower head held high above us. Mum yanks out the bath plug. I shut my eyes and see fiery bullets called tracers streaming from Lancaster bomber turrets. There's a picture in a book. The bullets are tearing holes in my skin. Somehow or other somebody yanked the shower curtain down: the see-through starfish covering it are rumpled over Dad's legs. He lies with me on the plastic sheet aiming the water across us both, going, — Shhhh! while the bath drains out and fills up again.

I stop screaming and sob instead.

And then he's lifting me back into the bath, but the cold water makes my hot bits sting so I scream again. Dad looks like he's trying to twist his hairs out of his head when that happens, so I try to stop, and manage to go back to just sobbing again.

The bath looks funny with no shower curtain above it. Up by the tap there's a plastic submarine. It used to be clockwork but something went rusty inside it and now the winder is stuck.

And Dad is still holding my shoulders, half leaning into the bath with Mum above him, and Grandma Lynne bobs in and out of the doorway so fast her helmet hair shakes. I shut my eyes. It sounds odd when you cry through chattering teeth. I bite the inside of my mouth until I can't feel the twisty flame bits of my leg. I open my eyes again. The submarine is made of two plastic halves. The crack between them has gone black: I hadn't noticed that before.

Dad's face is still just above mine, very worrying: he looks like he's lost something brilliant down a drain, and he's shivering, too, saying, — What do we do? What do we do?

— What we're doing, says Mum. — We cool him down. Which bits hurt, Billy?

The moaning noise rattles out of me again. I don't actually know the answer anyway because my body has gone blurry. The black crack along the submarine looks like a smile. It's no use: I can't smile back at it.

— We need to get him to hospital, says Dad.

— Wait.

— Get us some dry clothes. What should we put him in?

— Just wait.

— He can't lie in a cold bath indefinitely. He needs looking at.

— Is the hurt going away, Billy?

I say, — A bit, yes, but roll toward her as I say it, and when I move my leg the twisty flame gets me again, so I yelp, — No! as well.

— Clothes. Car keys, says Dad.

— Please, Jim. Give it a few moments. We have to be sure!

— I am sure. It was bloody hot water.

— Yes, but—

— He doesn't cry like that unless he's hurt.

— I know.

— Should I wrap him in that, then?

— I don't know . . . look. He's probably shocked. We cool him down. We all calm down. And then, then we decide what to do. If we take him to A&E . . . we can't just take him in . . . not today . . . Christ, they'll . . .

—
They?

— You know what I mean.

— You're worried about how this
looks
?

— Think about it.

— I'm not thinking about anybody other than him!

— Neither am I! I'm just looking beyond—

— I'm sorry, I say.

— Oh, Billy.

— Will I die?

— No, no, no, whispers Dad. — Don't be daft.

— Will my leg skin fall off like a snake's?

— No.

— It hurts.

— I know, Son. I know. Tessa, fetch me some clothes.

— You can't drive. You've been drinking.

— You drive then, for fuck's sake!

Once, I picked the submarine up and black water dribbled out of it, which was interesting; at school I had a nosebleed, too: drip, drip, drip. Miss Hart gave me a new worksheet. Dad is still rocking me a little bit, saying, — Shh, even though I'm not saying anything myself. Have you ever been for a walk in windy cold rain? Did your chin go tingly-numb? That's what everything is like. I try to sit up and Dad says, — Shhh! to me again, and — Don't just stand there, to Mum.

Mum's eyes are full of light. She brushes some of it away with her thumb heels. But as she turns to go she's stopped by Grandma Lynne, who says, very quietly, — I've called an ambulance.

Mum takes a deep breath and sinks back against the wall.

Dad stares over at Grandma Lynne. Slowly, he nods. — Thank you, Lynne. Thank you.

 

You can't see the flashing lights when you're inside the ambulance, or hear the siren even, particularly when they don't turn it on. I'm disappointed. Still, the lady with the green coat is friendly, but her teeth overlap strangely. Dad sits with me stroking my head. A lot: careful you don't stroke a hole in it, Dad! In ambulances they have lots of things clipped to other things. Sometimes there are straps. One of the strapped things is a mask for your face attached to a fire extinguisher with laughing medicine in it.

— Are we both allowed some? Dad asks the lady.

— For a fee, she says.

It tastes funny but feels funnier, like the moment just after the tickling stops, combined with when you realize everything's actually a dream.

— What's that you've got there? the woman asks.

I hold my dolphin up for her to see but the words that come out don't make sense. — My smiling nosebleed.

 

The doctor in the hospital asks about it, too, when he's tapping his syringe, which he tells me to look away from, so I immediately can't, but at least I tell him the truth.

— It's my submarine.

— Marvelous, he says, pricking the needle in.

My arm hurts so I say, — My arm hurts.