Read Online Forgetting Foster by Dianne Touchell - Free Book Online Page B

to . . . and you know what she said to me?’
    ‘I think Linda’s upset,’ Dad said to Mum. ‘Why are you upset, Linda?’
    ‘She’s not upset,’ Mum said.
    ‘Yes, I am,’ Aunty said quietly. Then louder, ‘And why can’t I be upset? Why are we all walking on eggshells around Malcolm? Why can’t I be angry? He won’t remember I’ve been angry anyway!’
    ‘Mum, can I put the window down, please?’ Foster tapped the window release energetically: frantic Morse, no result.
    ‘I didn’t even want to go,’ Mum said. ‘You’re the one who insisted.’
    ‘You can’t just hide him away, for Christ’s sake. He needs to get out,’ Aunty replied.
    ‘Can I have the window down, Aunty?’
    ‘Why is Linda upset?’ Dad asked again.
    ‘Besides, he had a good time. Malcolm, you had a good time, didn’t you?’ Aunty flicked her eyes to the rear-view mirror, before adding, ‘Jesus, he’s sitting on a towel, isn’t he?’
    ‘It smells bad in here,’ Dad said. Aunty released the window lock and opened two windows halfway.
    Foster used to be allowed in the bathroom with Dad. Now Mum said he needed privacy. Which wasstrange because he’d just peed in a church. Dad used to tell some of his best stories while bathing. Foster would sit on the bathroom floor with his soldiers made cavalry by way of horses fashioned from toilet rolls and toothpicks. He would wage wars on the cold tiles, his horses carrying the injured back to the safety of a talcum powder beach. Dad had once told Foster that in terrible battles people sometimes lost their arms or legs but would feel as if the missing pieces were still there.
    ‘Can a man with no legs have itchy feet then?’ Foster had asked.
    ‘Oh yes,’ Dad had said. ‘It’s called a phantom feeling. This is how remarkable your brain is, Fossie. It can recreate the feeling of something it knows should be there, but isn’t. Your brain can fill in all sorts of holes. Make you experience things you thought were gone forever. Like telling a story.’
    Foster hugged his knees, back against the closed bathroom door, and listened to his parents’ voices on the other side. He imagined Dad’s profile, half a face that looked a bit empty lately, and felt a stab of ghost feeling. A funny ache that told him the stories were still inside Dad somewhere, like an amputated foot that still itches.
    ‘Fossie?’ Aunty stood in front of him in the hallway. She held out her hand and said, ‘Well, we didn’t get to stay for cake, did we?’
    ‘Was there cake?’
    ‘There’s always cake.’ Aunty pulled Foster to his feet and gripped his chin between thumb and forefinger. Her hand smelled sharp and robust, like the cleaner Mum used on the kitchen sink. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘want to go get some cake?’
    ‘Why did Dad pee in church?’ He hadn’t been sure he was going to say it until it was said. He had a feeling that it wasn’t something that he was supposed to ask at all. Nobody had mentioned it. Foster thought someone should at least mention it. He felt speaking it out loud had halved the thing already, and placed the blame squarely where it belonged. He could still feel the old lady’s talons.
    ‘He just got confused,’ Aunty said.
    ‘Did he think he was on the loo?’
    ‘Sort of. It’s nothing for you to worry about.’
    Mum had said that a lot lately too. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Foster found this response unsatisfying. It was the way a grown-up said they didn’t want to talk about it. At least, they didn’t want to talk about it with him. He knew they talked aboutit later, away from him, in places he used to be invited and now was not. Like the bathroom.
    ‘So,’ Aunty said. ‘Do you want to come with me for cake?’
    Foster wanted cake very much, but he eased his face out of Aunty’s fingers and said, ‘No.’
    When he got to his room he slammed the door.
    There was cake later. Aunty went and got it and when she came back the three of them, Mum,