Anakana Schofield: Martin John

Rain will fall.

Check my card.

I never tasted bread like the bread in Beirut.

I don’t read the fucken Daily Telegraph.

Martin John has not been to Beirut.

He has only been to London and to visit his Aunty Noanie.

The dentist’s waiting room shaped Martin John’s life. A simple room, nothing to suggest it contained the almighty power it did.

It could have been any 5 or 15 minutes in any youth’s lifetime.

He remembered the strange fluorescent light, the organized nature of the room and how odd (it was) for a country dental practice to be so well planned inside a house: treatment room + waiting room. The physical space, so carefully executed, had made him comfortable and sleepy.

Surely to God they’d come. They’d come for him.

She continued to give him the line.

In the hope he might take it.

That he had gone to help that girl.

There were rumours.

Other rumours.

Other girls.

Other moments.

Same boy.

Martin John is living in England now.

In London.

South London.

Off Tower Bridge Road in an enclave of tiny houses, on a slit of a street, at number 7 Cluny Place.

Once, early on, in London, Martin John was vague about the time he went to sleep. Mam told him straight: Get a job at night.

Get a job at night or else I’ll come for ya.

I don’t know, he said.

To every question he said he did not know.

Still they came, the questions came.

I don’t know did not put a stop to them.

He has to know, she said.

He had to know because he was in the room.

If you are in the room Martin John then you know.

Unless you weren’t in the room?

Were you not in the room, she suggests.

Had you gone to the toilet?

Were you (maybe) in the toilet?

I was in the room, he said.

I was in the room and I still don’t know, he said.

Remember for me, she said another time not long after it. Remember would you? It will help us if you remember. We can help you if you remember. The guard had told her to use the word we . If you could get to him with we then we can all help him, he had said. He was a nice enough guard. Had a bit of a red rash on his neck, high blood pressure, but pushing through. That kind of man. The kind of man who pushed through. She imagined pushing through, pushing on, pushing these problems away. Did he have a son? He did. What would he do in her situation? I’ll tell you what I’d do, the guard said. I’d keep at him. He has to remember and we’ll wait until he does.

Those were the early days. The early-on days when there was patience for him, when there was patience for a man who was really only a boy then. Not anymore. All patience expired.

Tell me again what you remember of the chair and the girl? Tell it to me slowly. Remember how you moved over to help her, to let her know her skirt was hitched. Did you pull it down? You did. Did you maybe pull it down now? To afford her decency? You were trying to help her, weren’t you?

I don’t know mama, I don’t know.

Why are you calling me that? She snaps.

Still he maintained he didn’t know.

Was he lying?

Or does he simply not know?

When is she going to tell us what he knows?

How long will we wait only to find out like the last time that she doesn’t know either what he doesn’t know?

Are you feeling cheated? Frustrated?

Imagine the people that had to interview him.

Oh they eventually interview them. Eventually they trip up and there’s no avoiding an arrest or an interview.

He went a long time without an interview though.

Much longer than he should have.

Watch her. She’s telling us things.

She has started. Begun early. Is it going to be like the last time?

Will he do it again?

Will she do it to us again? We’re hopeful.

Is she going to disappoint us?

Mam was wrong about Cluny Place. She read the map poorly. It’s only a bicycle ride from Waterloo Station. Very central. He doesn’t have to sit in tunnels. He can take the bus, strange routes past the cricket ground at Kennington. He can head South to Brixton where he eats spicy patties when his mind is at him. If his mouth is hot, his mind is distracted. He likes his mouth burning hot.

There’s two cafes on Tower Bridge Road. At one, he can get a fry. At the other a pork pie.

This is what Martin John eats.

The newsagent across the road is for his papers. That’s all he needs. Pork and papers are what he needs.

He has the bike.

She doesn’t want him on public transport.

Don’t go near the buses, they might see you on the buses and don’t go down on the Tube for you could go into a tunnel and never come out.

D’ya hear me Martin John?

Did he have a role in it?

Did she have a role in it?

Do you have a role in it?

Should they?

Do you think?

Mam repeatedly asks whether or not he can hear her— d’ya hear me Martin John? Because we can assume she doesn’t feel heard. She doesn’t want to hear what it is he would say, if he were to speak the truth. She saw a man on telly once. She has seen plenty men on telly, but this one frightened her. She has seen many men on telly who frighten her. But he frightened her in a particular way. He frightened her the way she feels frightened when she sees someone lash out at a dog. In actual fact, she’s not a woman easily frighted. The dark, insects, vermin, death, moths in the flour — none bother her.

But a glance, a moment, in which there’s an indication of what might be the truth of a person sits longer at her. A rat would run under the cupboard sooner than look at you. A man or woman who lets a boot fly at a dog or throws an item at a chicken in their way has a raw and sealed-in-something that she’s convinced can never be dislodged. That man on the television made her afraid because she recognized something of her son in him. There were many who talked of their crimes in that programme. They talked like they were uncomfortable ingredients in a recipe. Something hard to shop for like chopped walnuts, ground lemon rind or tamarind. They used the names of the crime, I murdered, I raped, I killed, I punched. Not him. The details are gone. He talked above and around his crime. He remained oblivious or chose oblivion. He was unsure why he was in here. He did not say he hadn’t done it. He did not say it was a mistake. He merely said nothing either way. They showed this man beside a man with a long ponytail, who said he had opted for chemical castration and then physical castration. He was the only one in that prison program who had availed of it. She thought of a small boy, being born, riding a trike, building a fort and then flash-forward all these years. She wondered if that boy building an’ deploying could ever image-forward to the man they might grow up to be. Was it that she thought criminals should suffer unto perpetuity? She thought maybe it was.