Nicola Barker - Heading Inland

The teacher nodded. ‘They were a while ago but lately Wesley has become rather withdrawn.’

Wesley’s mother scratched her forehead. ‘You know, a few weeks back I bought Wesley a new basketball jacket and then he came home from school a couple of days later and it was muddy and ripped and torn. Do you think it’s possible that Simon might have been bullying him?’

The teacher sighed. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

‘But it’s possible?’

The teacher shrugged. ‘Possible, but unlikely. About Wesley’s father. .’

‘He’s away at sea most of the time.’

‘Maybe Wesley misses him. .?’

‘It’s not that.’ Wesley’s mother’s face seemed to glisten under the classroom’s fluorescent light. ‘It’s not his father he’s missing.’ She paused. ‘It’s his brother.’

The teacher put her head to one side but said nothing.

‘His brother died four years ago when Wesley was five. He got shut in an old discarded refrigerator and suffocated. Wesley was out playing with him when it happened.’

‘I see.’

‘But he’s all right now. He’s a perfectly normal little boy and he knows that I’m always here for him and that I love him. .’

‘It’s only five days,’ Wesley told Joy, ‘until the school holidays, and then we can play together all the time.’

Joy was very full of herself lately, but it seemed like the more success she had with her high-handed techniques and her bullying, the less content she felt about things.

‘Wesley,’ she said, picking at the blister on her ankle until white plasma squirted out of it and slid into her sock. ‘You are my special friend, aren’t you? You will look after me, won’t you?’

‘I will, I will,’ Wesley said, passionately, his eyes filling.

His mother had picked him up in the car because it was the last day of school and he had some books and some drawings to take home with him.

‘So, Wesley,’ his mum said, ‘what shall we do in the holidays? Shall we go to the cinema? Shall we go to Whipsnade Zoo?’ She stopped off at their local Wimpy Bar on the way home and bought him a burger and a milkshake.

They were almost home and then Wesley became tense and distracted.

‘Mum,’ he said, ‘we must go back.’

‘Where?’

‘School.’

‘Why?’

‘Joy. I left her in the classroom.’

‘What?’

‘I left Joy in the classroom. That was the last time I saw her and now she’s gone.’

Wesley’s mother pulled the car over to the side of the road. ‘Wesley,’ she said softly, ‘I’m sure Joy can easily find you if she wants to.’

Wesley’s eyes were wide and frightened. ‘But she’s in the classroom! We must get her! If she stays in the classroom she’ll starve over the summer and she’ll die!’

His mother smiled. ‘Maybe a cleaner will go in there later and she’ll get out then. Or maybe the teacher left a window open. She’ll find her own way home.’

Wesley started sobbing. He was inconsolable.

Wesley’s teacher met Wesley’s mother in the school car park. It was eight o’clock and Wesley had been crying for four and a half hours. He was sitting in the car, still crying.

‘You must think I’m a fool,’ Wesley’s mother said, ‘but I can’t stand seeing him so distressed. He’s just got it into his head that his little friend is locked in the classroom and nothing I can say. .’

The teacher looked over towards the car. Wesley’s face was puce with sobbing. ‘When his brother died,’ she said gently, ‘how did he react?’

Wesley’s mother shook her head. ‘Just quiet and frightened. Not a tear.’

The teacher sighed. ‘This is his way of grieving for his brother,’ she said. If we unlock the classroom, it’ll be almost like we’re pretending that we can bring his brother back. Do you know what I mean?’

Wesley’s mother was scowling but she sort of understood. She said, ‘Wesley makes up little games and little rules for himself all the time. .’

‘And why,’ his teacher added, ‘would he have decided to lock this invisible friend of his in the classroom if he hadn’t wanted, in his heart of hearts, to finally be rid of her?’

The car door slammed. Wesley was out of the car and racing towards the school buildings, in the dark, towards his classroom. His mother, his teacher, called out and then followed him.

They found Wesley with his face pushed up against the window of the schoolroom. He was looking for Joy but he couldn’t see her in the darkness. ‘Open it!’ he screamed. ‘Let her out! Open it! Open it!’

And when they wouldn’t open it he started slapping his face on his bad cheek. His teacher tried to hold him and his mother tried to hug him. But they wouldn’t open it. His teacher kept saying, ‘She’s not in there. You don’t need her. You lost her because you wanted to.’

And his mother kept saying, ‘It’s not Christopher. Christopher is dead now, Wesley. Christopher is dead now.’

Wesley broke free. He ran from them, screaming, his arms windmilling, so angry that they’d mentioned Christopher, so angry that Joy was stuck in the classroom and they wouldn’t let him have her back. And he’d never been angry before, not really. Joy was the angry one. Joy was the cross one who made him do bad things but now Joy was gone and he was angry. They had taken her. They had taken her. And now she would starve during the summer holidays. Oh, his throat — oh, his chest — oh, his heart .

Joy sat at a desk. Now what? She was bored. It was dark in here. There was nothing to do. She found some chalk and scribbled on the blackboard. She drew a big white rectangle. She stared at it for a while. ‘Christopher,’ she whispered, ‘come and play with me. Christopher, Christopher, come and play.’

Nothing happened. She scratched at the blisters on her ankles. She closed her eyes. And then she moved herself, in an electric current, in a bolt of static, in an electrical pulse, out of that classroom and into Wesley’s brain.

Wesley was still running and shouting and screaming. He was making so much noise that he didn’t even know Joy had come back to him. She moved herself, her braces and her blisters and her bruises, into the darkest corner of Wesley’s mind, that place where Christopher was. And they played together then, Joy and Christopher, the two of them, quietly, silently. Bitter, ugly, cruel little games which nobody knew about.

Even Wesley stopped remembering who they really were.

The first time Iris met Mr Lippy he was in Hunstanton, sitting on the ocean wall, watching the tide from the Wash as it lapped away at the concrete just below his feet. His right fist was wrapped up in a thick, white gauze. Iris guessed straight away that he must have sustained this injury in a fight. She should have avoided him. Naturally. If only she’d known what was good for her. Perhaps she didn’t know. Or if she did, she didn’t care.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘I don’t talk to girls,’ he responded.

‘You from the West Country?’ she asked, brutally, registering some kind of rural burr in his voice.

He said nothing.

‘How’d you hurt your hand, then?’

He ignored her.

‘Live around here?’

She sat down next to him and swung her legs. She was eighteen and liked a challenge. She wore sandals and a halter-neck top even though it was late October.

His bottom lip stuck out while she spoke to him. He pouted without thinking, like he was sulking about something, only he didn’t know what, didn’t know, even, that he was sulking.

‘What’s a good-looking man like you got to sulk about?’ she said.

‘Pardon?’ He turned and looked at her.