Pat Barker - Another World

He tips all the old toys out of the carrier bag, and lines them up around his bed, facing the door. Then he realizes some of them should be facing the window, so he has to arrange them all again.

He’s only just finished when Mum comes in. She sits on his bean bag and holds her arm out for him to come and sit beside her. There’s a deep red crease on her cheek where she’s been sleeping in an awkward position. He expects her to be angry, but she’s not. Or not on the surface.

Fran knows she should leave it, for tonight anyway, but she can’t go to bed without knowing. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asks.

‘About what?’

‘What happened on the beach.’

‘Jasper falling over, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about, he just fell over. I told him, Jasper, mind what you’re doing, the rocks are slippy, but he wouldn’t listen ’cos he wanted to sail his lolly sticks, so he went on to the big slippy rocks and he fell.’

‘The trouble is, you see, the cut on his head, it’s not in a place where you could knock yourself very easily, just falling down. It’s, well, it’s right on the top of his head, and if you think of falling down, well, you don’t fall on the top of your head, do you? But if somebody was throwing stones —’

‘Are you asking Miranda all this? You’re not, are you? I get the blame for everything.’

‘Miranda wasn’t there.’

‘Yes she was. She was on the top of the cliffs.’

‘When?’

‘When it happened.’

‘When what happened?’

‘When he fell.’

‘A lot of people throw stones, Gareth. You and Nick play that game, don’t you, when you try to hit a beer can.’

Fran waits, watching the play of expressions on Gareth’s face.

‘I might have chucked some stones in the stream.’

‘Big stones?’

‘No.’

‘Pebbles?’

‘Yeah, pebbles.’

‘But one of them hit him.’

No answer.

‘Didn’t it?’

Gareth starts to cry. ‘I wasn’t aiming at him.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I don’t know. He just sort of ran…’

‘You threw the stone and he ran into its path?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So why didn’t you tell us?’

‘I thought you wouldn’t believe me, I thought you’d think I’d done it on purpose, I always get the blame for everything, I thought you’d think I’d done it deliberately, but I never, honest I never, I was aiming to miss —’ He’s wailing. Suddenly he jumps up and shouts, ‘You’re saying I did it on purpose, and I didn’t.’

‘Gareth —’

Fran tries to get hold of him, but he wrenches himself away, and starts revolving along the wall, clawing pictures and posters off it, till he crashes in the corner and lets himself slide down to the floor, where he lies, kicking his legs and jerking his head from side to side.

Nick appears in the doorway.

‘It’s all right,’ Fran says.

‘What’s —’

‘Please, Nick.’

He goes out again, though not before she’s seen how angry he is. All right, I shouldn’t be doing this tonight, she thinks. But if they’re going to go on living in this house together, they have to try and understand what happened. She still doesn’t believe Gareth. Throwing pebbles in the stream is one story; ‘I was aiming to miss’ is the beginning of another. But she won’t get any further tonight.

‘Come on, now,’ she says, bending over Gareth. ‘It’s not as bad as that.’

Gareth’s whole body is shaking with sobs, though he hasn’t shed a single tear.

‘Calm down, now. Come on, calm down.’

Gradually, as she continues to murmur reassurance, Gareth stops gasping for breath and lies still.

Fran stays with him till she’s sure he’s calm, before going down to the living room, where she finds Nick pouring himself a large whisky. He looks up as she comes into the room. ‘What did you expect to achieve by that?’

‘I wanted to find out what happened.’

‘And did you?’

‘Halfway, I think. He was throwing pebbles into the stream. Aiming to miss.’

‘To miss the stream?’

‘I did say halfway.’

‘And that might be as far as you ever get.’

Fran shakes her head. ‘I’ve got to know what happened. I’m going into hospital in a few weeks’ time. I can’t take Jasper with me. I’m bringing a newborn baby back into the house. How do you think it feels to be told I’ve got to watch Gareth all the time?’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘That’s not what the doctor said.’

‘He doesn’t know Gareth. You plug Gareth into a computer he’s no danger to anybody.’

‘But he can’t live like that.’

‘Why not? He has been.’

They stare at each other.

‘You think if he tells you everything it’ll wipe out the past.’ He puts on a schmaltzy soap-opera voice. ‘ “It’s good to talk.” Not always. It won’t help Gareth to say, “I tried to smash the little bugger’s head in because I hate his guts.” Even if it is true. And it certainly won’t help you to hear it.’

Fran shakes her head. ‘We have to know.’

‘We? I’m part of this, am I?’

‘Of course you are.’

‘Only just now I got the impression I wasn’t.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Can I talk to him?’

She hesitates. ‘Well, not tonight.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘I just thought it would come better from me.’

‘Oh yes.’ Nick flicks his eyes at the ceiling. ‘You were making a grand job of that.’

Silence. Nick clinks the ice cubes in the glass. ‘You know you’ve always said Gareth used to drive your boyfriends away, wouldn’t let them anywhere near him. I don’t think that was Gareth. I think it was you. He’s your test-tube baby, isn’t he, Fran?’

She winces with the brutality of it. ‘No, I don’t think so. I could do with a bit of support.’

‘Well, I’m tired of being the token father. You’ve got to decide whether you want me in Gareth’s life or not.’ Seconds later, Nick’s horrified at himself. For somebody who’s just accused Fran of bad timing he’s putting on a pretty lousy performance. After an awkward pause, he says, ‘Look, why don’t you have a drink?’

‘Your solution to everything, isn’t it, Nick?’

‘No.’ They’re on the brink of a major row, one of those awful gut-churning affairs that starts over nothing and drags in everything. ‘One glass of wine won’t hurt. If it was that bad for the baby the entire French nation would be idiots.’

She smiles slightly. ‘All right, go on, then.’

‘Red or white?’

‘Red.’

In the slight stir of fetching a bottle opener and opening the wine, neither of them hears the front door open and close. They raise their glasses, rather wearily, and toast each other. It’s only much later, when Fran goes upstairs to check on the children, that she finds Gareth’s room empty, and a note taped to the computer screen.

Gareth’s on the river path, legs pumping along. He’s making for the railway station hoping he’s got enough money to get a train to York, where his grandma lives. If he hasn’t, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care where he goes, he only knows he has to get away from Mum before she starts asking any more questions. He could see the disbelief in her eyes. She knows Jasper didn’t fall.

Gareth’s brought hardly anything with him, a fiver and some loose change from Mum’s bedside table and the crawling sniper, who’s in his jeans pocket. Gareth keeps putting a hand in to touch him, because he’s a sort of friend.

Even if he gets to Gran she’ll only ring up and tell them where he is. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s got to do something to show them what he wants. Telling them’s no use, because they never listen.