Read Online Somebody Loves Us All by Damien Wilkins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Damien Wilkins
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shaft, there was the scent of glue, new laces. She imagined it.
Waking on Sunday then, with Saturday lost, and having looked into the bowl, Teresa finished her tea and picked up her fallen shoes, pairing them in her wardrobe. So finally she knew whatshe had. It was a tumour pressing on her brain, and the tumour had a French accent. Bonjour tumeur! The set of circumstances that had resulted in her selling up and moving house to be near her son and the rest of the family could be understood in this light. She wanted to die in their arms, the opposite of animals. This was the human mechanism’s command. She didn’t feel in control.
5
‘Know what?’ said Paddy, pointing out the door of his office. ‘I really like keeping my bike in the hallway.’
The boy made no reply and failed to look where Paddy was pointing.
How could those wheels have supported him? But he’d been on them already, around the block before breakfast, and he’d come home in one piece, quietly exhilarated he had to admit, keen for more. He thought about telling this boring story.
The bike’s spokiness, its dream of escape—had the boy even noticed? Maybe these thin bits of metal, the chain, made Sam Covenay think of his braces? For a moment, Paddy was tempted to put the question. But he didn’t. His tactic was indirection. This was his simplest rule. Don’t ask questions and never address a statement to the patient’s face, client’s face, person’s face, come on. Speak into the air above and around and beyond. This was to create a roomful of speech, to avoid making communication an urgent business between two people, with all the attendant stresses—that could happen later.
The boy had been to a psychologist, two sessions, and then refused to go back. But he kept turning up here, and Paddy kept filling the air.
‘I mean it’s not going to last, that arrangement,’ he said. ‘I’m in a grace period. Soon I’ll have to put the bike in our lock-up. A sad day that will be, but necessary. Goodbye bike.’
Today, even more than in most sessions with Sam, Paddy was struggling. He felt flippant, and a mild bullying instincttook hold. He was even facing the potential erosion of his own precious rules. It had been such hard and unrewarding work. ‘My guess is you don’t ride a bike,’ he said. ‘I see you being driven everywhere by your mother. She does that for you, it’s not taking advantage when she offers. I see you in the back seat, is that right? Even when there’s space up front, you’re in the back, chauffeured, looking out, like a person of importance, like a prince.’
Sam made no response. There was not even the defensive stiffening in his muscles to betray him. Bit by bit he was training himself to be fully absent.
The boy was dressed in black jeans, black school shoes, and a heavy black sweatshirt—always. If the backs of his hands sometimes appeared, they were invariably decorated in elaborate homemade scrollwork. Paddy did not imagine the pen pressing with any force into his skin—the touch and detailing was too fine—and he’d said as much to the Covenays, who naturally were worried this was a precursor to self-harm. More likely self-display, Paddy thought, part of the hide-and-seek of his current condition. Now you see me, now you don’t. You think I’m a dead person, then here are creations of that morbidity. Behold my marks. Yes, there was a small skull sometimes visible. The tongue of a snake. Heavy metal dreams.
‘Communicating with his father?’ asked Angela. She meant the picture-framing business, that the pictures were directed back somehow there. Yet Alan Covenay appeared sympathetic and tender towards his son. No evidence of detachment. There were photos of them together, bent over a painting. ‘I was teaching him gold-leafing,’ the father had explained. It was often the case that one looked in vain for cause. Sam was self-created, his own artwork. The parents, any parents, always nod when
Waking on Sunday then, with Saturday lost, and having looked into the bowl, Teresa finished her tea and picked up her fallen shoes, pairing them in her wardrobe. So finally she knew whatshe had. It was a tumour pressing on her brain, and the tumour had a French accent. Bonjour tumeur! The set of circumstances that had resulted in her selling up and moving house to be near her son and the rest of the family could be understood in this light. She wanted to die in their arms, the opposite of animals. This was the human mechanism’s command. She didn’t feel in control.
5
‘Know what?’ said Paddy, pointing out the door of his office. ‘I really like keeping my bike in the hallway.’
The boy made no reply and failed to look where Paddy was pointing.
How could those wheels have supported him? But he’d been on them already, around the block before breakfast, and he’d come home in one piece, quietly exhilarated he had to admit, keen for more. He thought about telling this boring story.
The bike’s spokiness, its dream of escape—had the boy even noticed? Maybe these thin bits of metal, the chain, made Sam Covenay think of his braces? For a moment, Paddy was tempted to put the question. But he didn’t. His tactic was indirection. This was his simplest rule. Don’t ask questions and never address a statement to the patient’s face, client’s face, person’s face, come on. Speak into the air above and around and beyond. This was to create a roomful of speech, to avoid making communication an urgent business between two people, with all the attendant stresses—that could happen later.
The boy had been to a psychologist, two sessions, and then refused to go back. But he kept turning up here, and Paddy kept filling the air.
‘I mean it’s not going to last, that arrangement,’ he said. ‘I’m in a grace period. Soon I’ll have to put the bike in our lock-up. A sad day that will be, but necessary. Goodbye bike.’
Today, even more than in most sessions with Sam, Paddy was struggling. He felt flippant, and a mild bullying instincttook hold. He was even facing the potential erosion of his own precious rules. It had been such hard and unrewarding work. ‘My guess is you don’t ride a bike,’ he said. ‘I see you being driven everywhere by your mother. She does that for you, it’s not taking advantage when she offers. I see you in the back seat, is that right? Even when there’s space up front, you’re in the back, chauffeured, looking out, like a person of importance, like a prince.’
Sam made no response. There was not even the defensive stiffening in his muscles to betray him. Bit by bit he was training himself to be fully absent.
The boy was dressed in black jeans, black school shoes, and a heavy black sweatshirt—always. If the backs of his hands sometimes appeared, they were invariably decorated in elaborate homemade scrollwork. Paddy did not imagine the pen pressing with any force into his skin—the touch and detailing was too fine—and he’d said as much to the Covenays, who naturally were worried this was a precursor to self-harm. More likely self-display, Paddy thought, part of the hide-and-seek of his current condition. Now you see me, now you don’t. You think I’m a dead person, then here are creations of that morbidity. Behold my marks. Yes, there was a small skull sometimes visible. The tongue of a snake. Heavy metal dreams.
‘Communicating with his father?’ asked Angela. She meant the picture-framing business, that the pictures were directed back somehow there. Yet Alan Covenay appeared sympathetic and tender towards his son. No evidence of detachment. There were photos of them together, bent over a painting. ‘I was teaching him gold-leafing,’ the father had explained. It was often the case that one looked in vain for cause. Sam was self-created, his own artwork. The parents, any parents, always nod when
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