“I saw him, you know, in the police station,” she said. “I sat in when they questioned him. They didn’t want me to – I’d been questioned, too, see, but I insisted. I was responsible for him. I was all he had. Apart from you.” She picked at the side of her yellow thumbnail with her index finger. The skin was very red, near to bleeding. “He said you two were heading to Weston. Gave me a start, that did. Didn’t know he remembered. I took him there, you see, when he was little. A sort of holiday. I’m glad he remembered…”
She trailed off into silence, and we sat there, while in a chair in the corner another patient rocked backward and forward, backward and forward.
“I’ve been thinking, Jem. When you’re a bit better, we could take him there, to Weston. Say good-bye properly. Only when you’re better. No hurry, love.”
I didn’t notice anything getting any better. One day was much like the last to me: flat, empty, crushed under a huge weight. After a few weeks, though, everyone ’round me started saying they were pleased with my progress. I was able to string words together now, when I felt like it, and was managing to eat a few mouthfuls at each mealtime. I’d still wake up in the night, tormented by nightmares, too scared to scream or cry out, and would lie there for hours, unable to close my eyes again. During the day, the nurses encouraged me to draw, to start to let the feelings out. I didn’t mind that, sitting at the table with some paper and colored markers – I could do it for hours.
Karen was a regular visitor, too. Fair play to her, no matter how often I kicked her, she still came back for more. One day she said, “Jem, the doctor says you’re ready for a change. Come home, love. Come home with me. Let me look after you for a bit.”
She’d kept my old room free. “I’ll decorate it for you. We can start again. What color do you want?”
And so I went back to Sherwood Road, to walls painted “Crème Caramel,” warm and honey-colored, the color of Bath stone. I stayed in my room and listened to music and stared at the walls, until one day I heard Karen going out to take the twins to school, and I started drawing. The first one was by my bed, an angel watching over me, keeping me safe; and I worked outward from there until they were everywhere, walls and ceiling: creatures with wings, climbing up and falling down. Some of them had their faces missing, or an arm or a leg. One of them had ridiculously long limbs and springy Afro hair – I put him at the top, spreading his wings and flying across the ceiling. I did a little bald one right down by the skirting board, sort of hunched up, wrapping her wings around herself.
When Karen brought my dinner in, she dropped the tray. Spaghetti Bolognese splattered on the walls.
I grabbed a tissue and started wiping it off. “Look what you’ve done, you’re ruining my pictures, you silly bitch.”
I was back in the hospital after that, and when I came “home” again it had all been painted over-“Bluebell Haze” this time, more calming, apparently. Except that you could still see some of my angels faintly under the paint, and I found that comforting. I didn’t have so many nightmares, knowing that they were there.
It must have been five or six months later that we found ourselves at the end of the pier at Weston-Super-Mare.
We stood there awkwardly for a bit, then Val said, “Well, then.” She unscrewed the lid of the pot. “Do you want to do it, Jem?”
“Um, I dunno. What do you do?”
“Just tip it out. Hold it at arm’s length over the sea and tip it.”
Tears were stabbing the back of my eyes. I’d kept them away for a long time, but they were there now, like little knives. “I can’t. I can’t do it. You do it, Val.”
She pressed her lips together tightly, trying to keep herself together, and stepped forward. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Which way’s the wind blowing? We don’t want him…well, we don’t want it going all over us.”
Karen licked her finger and held it up. “It’s coming from over there. Hold it over this side, it’ll be OK.”
“Right.” Val took a deep breath. She had her body right up against the railing and held the pot out as far as she could.
“Good-bye, Terry, love. Good-bye, my precious boy.”
Her voice caught on her last words, and she gave a little sob as she tipped the urn over. Gray ash streaked out. Most of it fell onto and into the water, but a rogue gust of wind took some of it and blew it straight back at us. It went in our hair and on our clothes.
“Bloody hell, I’ve got some in me eye! Can you see it, Karen?” Val stumbled back from the railing, empty pot in one hand, the other rubbing at her left eye.
“Come here, Val. Let’s have a look.” While Val blinked and gasped, and Karen peered at her face and dabbed her with a hankie, I watched a film of ash bob slowly away from us. That was all that was left of him.
I looked down at my coat, swelling out over my stomach, and ran my hand down the cloth. Inside me I felt that fluttering feeling again. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a pretty good idea it was a boy. He was always moving about, always restless. Just like his father.
A little line of gray ash built up on the edge of my fingers as I smoothed down my coat. I scraped it off with the other hand and put it in my palm.
Spider.
How could we have done that? Just thrown him away? I needed him with me, near me.
“Come back! “ I shouted to the sea. “Come back, don’t leave me!”
Karen and Val looked around and were instantly by my side.
“It’s alright, love,” said Karen. “You let it out.”
“But you don’t understand, I wasn’t ready. I’m not ready yet, to say good-bye.”
Val put her arm around me. “You never will be. There’s never a good time for it.”
I was really crying now, and so were they. We all put our arms around each other, a sad triangle, coats flapping in the breeze. I rested my arm on Val’s waist, but my fist was closed. I kept the last remaining particles of Spider safe in my hand.
Safe.
FIVE YEARS LATER
I don’t hang around the places where kids go skiving off anymore. I guess you could say I’ve moved on. These days, you’ll find me in playgrounds, on the beach, down at the community center, or waiting outside school. It’s all part of the normal pattern of things, isn’t it? Kids like me turn into parents like me. And our kids will turn into teenagers, and then into parents themselves. And on and on.
I’m not so different anymore. That whole time with Spider, it changed me, and not in just the obvious ways – growing up, falling in love, having sex, and that. It showed me what I was missing, what I hadn’t had for fifteen years: having real friends, someone to have a laugh with, learning to trust people, open up a bit. It changed my whole outlook on life – I’d been so hung up on the numbers that I’d let them paralyze me, I can see that now. The numbers had stopped me from living. But Spider, and all those other people – Britney, Karen, Anne, Val – they changed that for me, made me realize I was wasting what time I did have.
I wish I could tell you I’d done something great with my life – become a brain surgeon or a teacher or something – but you wouldn’t believe me, anyway, would you? I suppose, looking back, I’ve done two things so far. For a start, I stayed with Karen and looked after her after she had her stroke. I’d known she only had three years to go, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise, really.
I was trying to sort out getting my own place; in fact, I was over at the flat Social Services were offering me, when I got a phone call from the hospital. Karen had collapsed in the street. It was a massive stroke, left her partially paralyzed down one side. Her speech went, too – she still had all her marbles, just couldn’t get the words out without a struggle. It was just accepted that I’d look after her. She lost the twins – Social Services found them another home – broke her heart, that did. But everyone assumed that I’d stay with her and care for her.