Crash, page 5
I couldn’t do any of this. Rage thumped against the back of my eyeballs and my throat tightened. I searched in my pockets for a tissue. Mr Harris noticed this small movement and stood up.
‘This is difficult for you. I’ll see if Sheila can make us some coffee.’ I blew my nose and watched him waddle out of the room, arms and hips swaying, before I turned on Tom.
Questions tumbled out, spattered with anger. ‘What on earth is going on? Why did you say your father and I were separated? You’ve lied to get yourself out of this mess. How much did you take from Carl’s study?’ Tom shrugged and studied the carpet between his shoes, his head bent forward, hands dangling between his knees.
I heard him whisper, ‘You lied to him too. You lie all the time.’
‘What on earth do you mean? I’ll take you away from here,’ I hissed, ‘even if they agree to have you back. Is that what you want?’ Tom shrugged again, his cheeks burning. He turned his body away to face the wall.
The routine of coffee served, sugar passed, biscuits refused, allowed us both to regain our composure as Mr Harris’s eyes held mine, as if he was expecting… waiting… for something from me.
‘Tom has behaved very badly and his father and I deeply regret the harm caused,’ I said. ‘Is there any way we could put things right, so that Tom can stay here?’
Paul Harris nodded. ‘The governors will consider all options, Mrs Williams. I’m afraid I can’t make any promises but if you were to let me know what you might be considering…’
‘I can’t make any promises either,’ I said, draining my coffee cup and reaching under the table for my handbag. I flicked my eyes at Tom, to let him know we were leaving. ‘I will discuss the matter with my husband’s business partner. Given the circumstances, is there any way Tom can return to school, until the governors’ meeting?’
‘Of course, of course, we’ll do everything we can to help. Other pupils in such a situation… not many I might add… have remained in school under a sanction we call Headmaster’s Detention. That means they work in isolation and don’t mix with the other students. But they are in school every day.’
Tom stormed out of the office without looking back. I wanted to do the same but politeness forced me to shake Mr Harris’s hand and even thank his secretary for the coffee, as I passed by her desk.
In the car, Tom’s face burned with resentment. ‘That detention is only for kids whose parents can’t be arsed to find anyone to look after them,’ he argued, breaking into the silence of our miserable drive home.
‘Well, that sums us up very nicely,’ I said, trying to make a joke, but my attempt sounding more like sarcasm. This was the moment to tell him everything; the truth about the life we faced, my illness, the inevitable conclusion of his father’s addiction, but I wasn’t brave enough.
‘Tom, I can’t find anyone to look after you. Fran will be gone tomorrow. I know you’re fifteen, but Carl is too unwell right now to act like a parent. I can’t leave you alone with him. I will be home sometimes, of course I will, but I need to work.’
‘Dad says you don’t really have a job. You just pretend to work so you don’t have to stay in the house with him.’
‘That’s not fair and it’s not true,’ I argued.
‘You don’t earn any money. If he’s so ill, why don’t you stay at home to look after him. Then I could be there too.’
We arrived home without another word spoken. I burned with indignation at Tom’s disclosure, this evidence of father and son chats happening behind my back, rehearsing the row I would have with Carl as soon as he was able to listen. He was undermining me, as he always had, but now he was belittling me to my son. How dare he poison Tom against his mother, break the pact we had made. We had agreed… I would hide his addiction from the children, pretending all was well between us, as long as he stayed out of their way whenever he was using, which in the last few years was all the time.
I already saw the smile play on Carl’s crooked lips as he explained to me, with his habitual patience, that he understood my deception about my work. In truth I was unemployable, we both knew this but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to Tom about my so-called ‘job’ at the university.
Tom thundered upstairs to his room, and I followed behind, taking the stairs to the second floor to check on Carl. The medical team had left him clean and warm in his bedroom, with fresh water. He opened his eyes but didn’t see me. Soon, he would surface.
Together, Fran and I cooked supper, and I asked her if the medics had left a message. She shrugged and said, ‘I just let them in and showed them out.’
I called Tom down to eat and watched the struggle between the furious teenager and hungry boy as he stared down at his plate. Hunger won, and he bent over his food, forking pasta into his mouth. I let him eat, talking with Fran about things of little importance or interest, bargaining that good food might ease his sense of injustice. As soon as he had finished Tom stood up, his chair scaping against the kitchen tiles, but I put my hand on his arm.
‘Please sit down, Tom.’
Tom looked everywhere except at me, but he did sit down. ‘I want to go back to my room,’ he said.
‘How often have you used cannabis?’
‘Dunno… twenty, maybe thirty times.’
‘But where do you get it from? Is it always from Dad’s room?’
‘Yes, of course it is. He doesn’t mind. You heard him.’
‘I don’t want you going into Dad’s study. It’s not allowed. You know that.’
Tom stared at me, his eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah so, I do go into his room. I go in and talk to him.’
‘What else have you done in there… I mean what have you seen?’
‘Just some weird stuff on the computers. Dad’s shown me his CDs. He says I can borrow them.’ Tom leaned back in his chair, confident that this particular battle was won.
The world shifted under me and I grasped the table as if I could push back a sucking tide.
‘Tell him, Mum,’ Fran whispered. ‘You have to tell him now.’
I had forgotten she was there, frozen in her chair. Unrehearsed and unplanned words tumbled at random from my mouth.
‘Tom, listen to me. Please don’t go into Dad’s room. It’s fine to talk to him but let him find you, because he… there have been times, lots of them, when you would have been frightened to be around him. He doesn’t mean it, he’s…’
Tom stared at me, struggling to hold back tears and his hands twisted around each other.
‘It’s your fault. You keep him away from us. He told me.’
‘No, he’s ill. He started using something a bit like cannabis when he wasn’t much older than you. Please don’t do the same.’
Now Tom was crying and his voice cracked as his pitch rose.
‘It is your fault. It’s all you… you keep me away from my dad. Cannabis is okay. You heard what he said.’
‘Tom, listen to Mum,’ Fran shouted. ‘Carl is an addict. He’s chosen to kill himself with fucking crystal meth. Why should we care about him?’
I glared at her. ‘Okay, Fran, leave it alone. Tom, we might be able to find you another school but for now, you have to go back to The Mount, until the governors’ meeting. You have no choice.’
Tom jumped up, knocking his chair to the floor. Startled, Honey climbed out of her basket and sat between Fran and me, panting with fear, but determined to keep her women safe.
‘You’re a bitch, a fucking bitch,’ Tom screamed, his voice now fully that of a ten-year-old. ‘No wonder he stays in his room. He has to keep away from you, both of you. And I’m not going to that shite school tomorrow. I’ll stay here. You can… you can just fuck off.’
Tom lifted his chair. I thought he would throw it, but Honey barked a warning, and he placed it back upright on the tiles, shaking his head with the effort to hold back more tears. Because he stayed, I knew it wasn’t over. I was trembling, shocked at the hatred he’d hurled at me, but I would take charge of my son before it was too late.
‘I’m sorry but there’s no alternative, you will go to school tomorrow.’
‘You can’t make me.’
‘Tom, you have to go to school, it’s the law.’
‘Stop protecting him,’ Fran shouted. ‘Tell him everything.’
‘Tell me what?’ Tom’s breath shuddered, his eyes searching my face.
‘Dad has been very ill before, many times, but I’ve kept it hidden from you. His care team visit while you’re at school. I’ve lied to you, I’ve said he was away on business but he was in his rooms all the time. That’s why it was such a shock to find out you’ve been going into his study on your own. Goodness knows what you might have found… might have seen. It’s awful when he’s having a collapse. I don’t want you around him.’
I looked at them both; Fran’s eyes ringed with shadows, Tom’s face mottled with red blotches. Since we were telling the truth, I ploughed on.
‘I’ll find out next week, on Monday in fact, whether I’m ill too. I might have cancer. I’m going to be okay… of course I’ll be okay… but this house is going to seem like a hospital for a while. You really need to be at school.’
Tom slumped in his chair and swept his fringe back from his forehead. ‘When did all this happen?’
I swallowed, struggling to control the tremor in my voice. ‘I had some tests yesterday but nothing’s certain.’
It was Fran’s turn to stand up, her eyes blazing. ‘You’ve known about this for ages, haven’t you? Thanks for telling me, Mum.’
Her voice sounded different, not vulnerable but hard. ‘I don’t want to stay here either,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll go back to London tonight. Don’t bother with the car, I’ll call a taxi.’
SEVEN
FRIDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER
Tom stabbed at the buttons that controlled the audio system, folded his arms, and turned away from me to look out of the window. We drove in silence, my questions about how he had passed his first day in isolation, ignored with a shrug. The radio presenter’s accent was hard to place. She spoke like most of David’s students, an emphasis on the vowels, a bit of London, a bit of Australian, yet a hint of posh too. I changed the station to Radio 4 and finding yet another analysis of the state of the world since the attack on the Twin Towers seven years ago, I switched it off.
Without a focus, my mind drifted through years of picking up Tom and the girls from school. How Carl would follow me into the hall and hold my wrist, just before I left the house. ‘Don’t talk to anyone,’ he always said, tightening his grip. Always. Those years are gone now but like a wound that will not heal, the feelings still fester. At first I complied, afraid of the consequences, then as each child grew, I allowed myself small acts of rebellion. Once I was taking Tom to school, I persuaded myself that winning meant rolling my eyes at Carl as he snatched my arm and chatting freely with other parents at the gate. But that wasn’t winning at all. I was still playing his game.
In the hall, Tom threw his bag onto the bottom step and turned to me as if speaking to hired staff.
‘I’ll eat in my room,’ he announced.
The slam of Tom’s bedroom door startled Honey, making her whine, so I stayed in the kitchen, lifting the fur on her ears and rubbing the hard mound of skull between them. The silence, save for the hum of the refrigerator, felt like a vacuum. I checked my mobile. Nothing from Dan. No missed call from Ella.
Dan’s family crowded him. I understood it was hard for him to text but couldn’t he sneak away from them, just for a few minutes, to be with me? I stared at the tiny screen. The signal climbed and fell, climbed and fell. Nothing.
Last night, Fran slammed out of the front door and her absence, the echo of her leaving, hurt even more than her livid presence. I’d got it wrong with Fran… again, and Tom hated me. No wonder I kept secrets. But cancer had blown away the smoke and smashed all the mirrors I used to hide from the truth. My daughters kept their distance, my son was out of control. Having a lover was not enough compensation for the emptiness I shared with Carl.
To create some sound, I switched on the small television in the kitchen, the six o’clock news dominated by the election in America and something about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who sounded like disobedient twins. I screwed open the top of a bottle of red wine, enjoying the fluid sound of filling a glass, and carried it through to the library, holding on to Honey’s collar to help her follow. Standing at the window with the lights off, the shapes of the garden crept back into focus. A blackbird protested over an invisible intruder, probably a fox.
I inhaled the fruity scent from my wine and swallowed a deep gulp. When Tom was born, Carl still seemed normal to outsiders, or what passed for normal, a man fully in control of himself. What he hid, with my collusion, was that he had already withdrawn from the world, working from home in his study, a forbidden place at the top of the house. The children had accepted this without question, as they had accepted so much in our abnormal reality. It was my decision to have another child but Carl took the news well; after all, there was plenty of money. His business was making an impact in the new world of communications and the children were only part of his life when he chose.
In our earliest days together, Carl used drugs to give him enough confidence to have sex and we had shared many loving times, where I gently encouraged him to take risks with his body and mine. His later choice of substances gave him a fake energy and strength which drove our physical relationship more than love or desire. In the years before Tom was born, sex became rarely consensual and often, close to violent. It wasn’t hard to conceive.
Ella and Fran weren’t happy when I told them about the pregnancy. Ella was seven, forging her own life beyond the family. She was clever, bold, popular, and always out with friends. She couldn’t invite them back, but it didn’t seem to matter. I had prepared the ground, making it clear to other parents that Carl worked from home and couldn’t be disturbed.
Whenever she was at home, Ella lay in her bedroom with Sugar, Honey’s predecessor, and read boarding school stories, pushing a chair against her bedroom door so that Fran couldn’t come in. Fran would lean on the other side and whine. When Ella learned I was having another baby she glared at Fran and said, ‘Not another one.’ I smiled, remembering her saying this, but it wasn’t funny.
I gripped the stem of my wine glass, and pushed on the window ledge for balance, my knee resting on the window seat, peering outside as the security lights suddenly lit up a circle of the garden. Something rustled outside, startled by the light. After Carl’s fall, Fran lost me. She tried Ella, but Ella had other ideas. Poor Fran didn’t want to share me, she was still searching for a mother. At the time, I probably laughed at her but right now, I felt only shame.
Once Tom was born, things changed. It was as if the girls knew the role they had to play; to join me in hiding the secret that ruled the heart of our household.
In my memory, I can hear Fran’s small voice above me, on the landing. ‘Mum. Come up here.’
She wasn’t looking at me but at something else, something I couldn’t see. I was next to her in three long strides. Carl was at the end of the corridor, standing where the stairs led up to his attic. He was agitated, pacing and muttering, wiping at something on his arms. I could hear the words, ‘Ants, ants, bloody ants,’ as he swiped at an imaginary army of insects swarming over his body. Ella had followed me and grasping the situation in a single glance, stepped in to protect Tom. She twisted her athletic, twelve-year-old body into a parody of menace, circling Tom and chasing him back downstairs. She allowed him to weave around her in the hall, even taunt her, then she reared up to capture him, Tom screaming with delight as she tried to pin him down, but always failing, always allowing him to escape, but only just.
Carl was in no danger, except within his crazy delusion but Fran was standing alone, seeing but not understanding. I helped Carl back to his study, but I should have abandoned him to his fantasies. It was Fran who needed me.
I sighed and tipped back my head to drain my glass. Did I speak to the girls about what they had seen that night, after Carl had again been taken away by paramedics and Tom was in bed? If only I had held them close, explained to Fran that there were no insects and thanked Ella, but I’m sure that didn’t happen. We pretended it was nothing and we conspired to allow Tom to believe his father was the best parent in the world. Methamphetamine gave Carl a complete sense of invulnerability and power. For Tom, he’d been more than a father; he was a superhero.
I rested my empty wine glass on the sill and sat down, turning away from my image mirrored in the dark window, tucking my bare feet under my bottom. That night was the first time Carl was admitted to a specialist drug unit. He didn’t recognise me for two days but when he came home from hospital he had changed. The medics said he had become delusional, not only about insects crawling over his skin but he believed I was conspiring with others to kill him. When she told me this, the nurse had rolled her eyes and laughed. But Carl was only wrong about the conspiracy. In that moment on the landing, I despised what he had become and wanted him gone. He must have seen my disgust, felt my rejection, understood there was nothing left between us, at the very point he was losing his control over me.
Honey lifted her head and whined, sensing rather than hearing Tom’s pounding descent of the stairs. I heard him open the fridge door and slam it closed, then a scraping sound as he searched the kitchen freezer. The microwave whirred, then pinged.
‘What are you doing in here, boozing in secret?’ Tom stood silhouetted in the open door, chewing on a drooping slice of pizza.
