Pat Barker - Another World

‘I’ve left my bag,’ she tells Gareth, dumping all the carrier bags in front of the bumper. ‘You stay here with Jasper.’ She’s already running, stiff-legged and clumsy, across the car-park, calling over her shoulder as she goes, ‘Don’t move.’

Gareth sits down with his back against the bumper. Jasper stares at Fran’s back, runs a few steps after her, but she’s going too fast and soon the glass doors swallow her. He starts to whimper. ‘Want Mummy.’

‘Well, you can’t have her, so shurrup.’ Gareth reaches for the bag that contains his school shoes, and lifts the lid. They nestle in white tissue paper, big, black, shiny, like bombs. And they make school real. He’s been pretending it won’t happen, but it will. He closes his eyes and Darryl’s face floats on the inside of his lids, all the faces, the ring of faces crowding in, looking down at him on the floor, jeering, and the iron taste of the blood in his mouth.

A car’s horn beeps. Gareth opens his eyes, and Jasper’s standing in front of a car, it’s had to stop for him and the driver’s leaning out. ‘Come on,’ Gareth says, picking him up and carrying him, awkwardly, because Jasper’s a lot heavier than he looks. He keeps kicking, and screaming, ‘Want Mummy.’ ‘Shurrup, man,’ Gareth says, and then suddenly he’s fed up. Screeching little brat, he never has to do anything he doesn’t want to do, if he falls over it’s oh never mind Mummy kiss it better, and the driver’s yelling at him . Gareth waits till he’s sure he’s not being observed, then drops Jasper on to the ground. ‘There, you’ve bloody well got something to cry about now, haven’t you?’ There’s a graze on Jasper’s forehead with three dark beads of blood. ‘Chicken,’ Gareth jeers, watching him scream. And then he kicks him.

A minute later Fran comes running back, smiling all over her face, so she must have got the handbag. ‘Oh, never mind, baby,’ she says, bending down. ‘Did naughty Mummy go and leave you?’ She sees the graze.

‘He fell over,’ Gareth says.

‘Weren’t you watching him?’

‘He ran after you.’

There’s something here Fran doesn’t like, but she knows she won’t get to the bottom of it, you never do, and anyway it’s her fault, as always. She shouldn’t have left them. ‘All right. Get in the car.’

When Jasper’s finally in bed and asleep Fran kneels and watches him for a while. There’s a little catch in his breath now and again, the ghost of the hiccupy sobs that eventually, on the drive back, made him vomit. She’d had to stop in a lay-by to clean him up.

Gareth ran upstairs as soon as they got back, more sobs, this time behind closed doors, and then the familiar flit of laser guns.

She could do with a drink, but she won’t have one, of course. She hasn’t had a drink since the second blue line came up on the pregnancy test. Instead she changes into a loose nightdress and lies down on the bed with all the windows open.

Gareth. Is it abnormal for an eleven-year-old to have temper tantrums in a shopping mall? Probably. No, not probably — it is. If she tells Nick he’ll only say what he always says, that they should take Gareth back to see Ms Rowe. Ms Rowe of the snake hips and tits pointing at the ceiling. Who might just possibly pop out one designer baby when she’s thirty-eight and it’s least likely to bugger up her brilliant career. Ms Rowe is Fran’s enemy. Fran doesn’t trust her, because she says Gareth has a marked tendency to bully younger children, and that’s always going to make him difficult to contain in a mainstream school. Fran pointed out that he was going to secondary school in September, and there wouldn’t be any younger children. That took the wind out of her sails a bit. Had there been problems at home? Ms Rowe asked. No, Fran said very loudly. I expect that’s because he’s expressing it all at school, Ms Rowe said. You can’t win with these people.

Meanwhile she’d better get up and get the tea ready. Gareth must have crept downstairs, because by the time she’s made ham sandwiches he’s in the living room watching Terminator 2 again. She puts his sandwich and a bag of crisps beside him, and joins him on the sofa. Sarah Connor’s watching her son teach the Terminator to do high fives, while she reflects, voice over, that of all the would-be fathers who’d come and gone over the years, this machine was the only one that measured up. In an insane world, it was the only sane choice.

Gareth’s father was a stain on the sheets. The first three prospective stepfathers weren’t much use either. Not that Gareth gave any of them a chance. He hasn’t had so much as a birthday card from his father in all these years, and yet he rejects all substitutes. What is it he’s being loyal to? Ultimately, it must be to his own DNA, to the part of his genetic make-up that doesn’t derive from her. There’s nothing else, it really is as impersonal as that. He won’t have Nick at any price.

She thinks how unhappy he looks with his skinny arms and legs and the bloody awful number 2 cut he insists on. He’s got a hand in front of his face and might just possibly be sucking his thumb.

He catches her watching him. ‘What’s the best bit, do you think?’ she asks.

He takes his hand away and the thumb is wet. ‘The bit where he says, “Hasta la vista, baby” and blows the guy away.’ A companionable silence. ‘Which do you think’s the best?’

Fran selects at random. ‘Oh, the bit where the baddie Terminator melts down and you think he’s gone and then all the little bits come together again.’

‘Yeah, that’s good too.’

They watch to the end. As soon as it’s over he jumps up and presses buttons, then comes back and sits closer. She runs her fingers through the stubbly hair and he doesn’t pull away. If only he was like this all the time, he does have a good side, he sometimes sees she’s tired and makes her a cup of tea. He just doesn’t seem able to cope with other children.

She puts her arm round his shoulder and they sit in silence, listening to the whirr of the rewinding tape.

‘Poor little scrap,’ Nick says, bending over Jasper’s cot. ‘You have been in the wars.’ Already, beneath the superficial graze, there’s an area of darkened skin. ‘It’s going to be a nasty bruise.’

Fran comes across to look. ‘Do you think I should call the doctor?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He’s been all right since, hasn’t he?’

‘Fine. I’ll take him into the surgery tomorrow.’

They go downstairs to the kitchen, where Nick pours himself a whisky and Fran a Perrier. ‘How was shopping?’

‘Horrendous.’

‘But you got the shoes?’

‘We got the shoes. Which leaves the shirts, the trousers, the tie, the gym kit and the blazer.’

‘You know, I think he might be right about the blazer. You don’t see many kids wearing them.’

‘That’s what it says on the list.’

‘No, but you remember university, first day you buy the college scarf, second day you chuck it in the bin — might be a bit like that.’

No, Fran thinks, I don’t remember university. I don’t remember how it feels to have a waist or a decent night’s sleep or a pee without somebody yelling and banging on the door. I don’t remember life .

Then she thinks, snap out of it, you frigging miserable cow. A gin would help. Nick offers her one; she has a second Perrier with ice and lemon instead. ‘How was Geordie?’

‘Not good. In fact, I’ve said I’ll go back tonight. He’s very restless.’

‘Can’t they give him sleeping pills?’

‘They have, he won’t take them.’

Silence.

‘I know it’s a lot to ask.’