Kevin Brooks - Born Scared

Not that it makes any difference, I suppose.

A memory is a memory, wherever it comes from.

I’ve sunk down to the hallway floor now, and I’m just sitting here with my eyes closed and my back against the wall. I’m trying to breathe steadily, trying to calm my thumping heart, trying to empty my mind.

After a while Ellamay comes to me, her silent voice as comforting as ever.

It’s all right, Elliot. It’ll be okay.

‘I’m scared.’

I know. But you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you all the way.

‘I don’t think I can do it.’

Yes, you can.

‘It’s too much.’

You have to do it, Elliot.

‘I know.’

For Mum.

‘I know.’

For us.

We were born prematurely, at twenty-six weeks. I weighed just under a pound, Ella was even smaller. It was a traumatic birth, and at first the doctors weren’t sure if any of us were going to survive. Mum had lost a lot of blood and was in a really bad way, and while she was rushed off for an emergency operation, Ellamay and I were taken to the neonatal intensive care unit where we were put in incubators and hooked up to all kinds of stuff to keep us alive.

It didn’t work for Ellamay.

She only lived for an hour.

I almost went with her.

Our hearts stopped beating at virtually the same time. But although the doctors and nurses somehow managed to save me, they couldn’t do anything to bring Ella back.

Part of me died with her, and part of her lived on with me.

We’re dead and alive together.

The first time I experienced fear in the outside world – as opposed to the inner world of my mother’s womb – was the first time I woke up in the incubator after Ella had died. It’s a moment that’s as much a part of me as all the other things that make me what I am – my heart, my brain, my flesh, my blood.

I was just lying there – on my back, my eyes open – looking up through the clear-plastic dome of the incubator at the white sky of the ceiling above. Muted sounds were drifting all around me – soft beeps, hushed voices, a low humming – and although I didn’t know what these noises were, I wasn’t scared of them. They were the sounds of my world, as normal to me as the sound of my own stuttered breathing.

Then, all at once, everything changed.

The white sky suddenly darkened as three unknown things appeared out of nowhere and loomed down over me. I didn’t know what they were – moving things, menacing things, things that made strange jabbering noises – wah thah . . . pah banah . . . al tah plah . . . tah yah ah lah . . .

Monsters.

Then one of them moved even closer to me, stooping down over the incubator, getting bigger and bigger all the time . . . and that was when the fear erupted inside me. It was uncontrollable, overwhelming, absolute.

Pure terror.

It was all I was.

The three unknown things that day were my mum, her older sister Shirley, and Dr Gibson, and the funny (peculiar) thing about it is that although they were the first people to scare me to death, they’ve since become the only three people who don’t scare me to death.

They are, to me, the only true people in the world.

Everyone else is a monkem.

The two men in the stolen Land Rover were both dressed as Santa Claus. The Santa disguises had been a last-minute decision, and because it was Christmas Eve most of the local shops and fancy-dress hire places had run out of Father Christmas costumes. The only store that hadn’t sold out was the PoundCrusher at the retail park in Catterick, and the only reason they had any left was that their costumes were so cheap and nasty that Scrooge himself wouldn’t have bought one. The red nylon they were made from was so thin it was virtually see-through, and the stringy white trim on the hats and jackets was glued on rather than stitched. Bits of the trim were already falling off, the loose white threads sticking to the static cling of the flimsy red nylon like dandruff. Both of the costumes were XXL – the only size left in the shop – and since neither of the two men were anywhere near ‘extra extra large’ they’d had to make some rough-and-ready adjustments to their outfits. Extra holes had been made in the belts, sleeves and trouser legs were rolled up, and the Santa hats had been made to fit by wearing beanie hats underneath. The costumes didn’t include Santa boots, so both men were wearing trainers.

The worst time for Mum was the first couple of years of my life when all I did was scream and cry almost constantly. People kept telling her not to worry – it’s perfectly normal for babies to cry all the time – but she knew this was different. I wasn’t just crying like a normal baby, I was bawling and howling, trembling all over, cowering away from just about everything.

‘It’s not right, is it?’ Mum said to Dr Gibson. ‘There’s something seriously wrong with him.’

The Doc looked at me – I was cradled in Mum’s arms – then turned back to Mum. ‘I don’t know what it is, Grace. I honestly don’t. The only irregularities that have shown up on his regular hospital check-ups are a faster-than-average heart rate and high blood pressure, but considering the trauma he went through at birth, it’s perfectly understandable for him to have an instinctive fear of the hospital environment.’

‘But his heart rate and blood pressure go up when you’re examining him too,’ Mum pointed out.

‘Not as much as when he’s at the hospital. And again, it’s only natural for him to be scared of me when he knows I’m going to be prodding him about and sticking needles in him.’

‘No,’ Mum said firmly, shaking her head, ‘there’s more to it than that. I could understand it if he only got upset and agitated when he’s being examined, but there are so many other things that bring it on too – unfamiliar people, strange sounds, cars, birds, dogs, rain, wind, darkness . . . he’s terrified of the dark, Owen. I mean, he’s not just frightened of it – I could understand that – he’s absolutely petrified of it. He’s never once slept without a light on.’

The Doc frowned and scratched his head. ‘Well, physically there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him. As I said, the hospital check-ups have all been clear, and you know yourself that I’ve been testing him for everything I can possibly think of – heart, liver, blood, allergies, infections – and I haven’t found anything out of the ordinary.’ He paused, hesitating for a second, glancing at me again. ‘The only thing I can think of at the moment is that the underlying cause of his extreme agitation isn’t directly physical.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The symptoms we’ve been talking about – increased heart rate, high blood pressure – are classic indicators of fear and anxiety, and while I still think it’s fairly normal for Elliot to have an instinctive fear of the hospital, and – to a lesser extent – me, it’s possible that his problems have a psychological basis rather than a specific physical cause.’

Mum’s face visibly paled.

‘It’s not uncommon, Grace,’ the Doc said, putting a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Small babies have all kinds of curious problems, and sometimes we simply don’t know what’s wrong with them, and of course they can’t tell us anything themselves until they start talking. But in my experience, by the time they do start talking, the vast majority of them have left these problems behind.’

‘The vast majority?’ Mum said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Elliot’s going to be okay, Grace,’ the Doc said softly. ‘Trust me, everything’s going to be fine.’