They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

79 Autumn 2011

The Allied bombers had done a fairly thorough job of flattening most of the industrial city of Frankfurt am Main during the Second World War. But the chic district of Sachsenhausen, with its cobbled streets and elegant terraced houses, had miraculously escaped largely unscathed.

I’d read about this on Wikipedia before boarding my flight here, a fortnight after my friendly little chat with the two detectives from States of Jersey Police. I’ve always liked to know the history of anywhere I visit. Roy’s the same. We always used to bone up on places in England or abroad we were going to for the first time, noting down any sights we absolutely should not miss. Other than cathedrals and churches. Neither of us had ever been big licks on those — maybe the Gaudí cathedral in Barcelona being one exception.

To be culturally honest, it was always bars and restaurants at the top of our lists. Museums and art galleries came second. Interesting architecture a long way third. The Department of Developmental Psychology was located in a handsome period building, adjoining a publishing house I had entered first by mistake. The exteriors of both buildings were designed by a famous German architect whose name I had forgotten. The interior of the building looked like it had been designed by a couple of drunk carpenters who’d bought a lot more partition walls than they actually needed, and decided to create a maze out of them rather than send any back.

First the reception area and now Dr Ramsden’s office itself had had all traces of any former elegance removed, replaced by bland white chipboard. On his walls were hung several framed certificates attesting to his multiple qualifications in child psychology, and on his small, bland desk were two framed photographs of two normal-looking children sandwiched, smiling happily, between their two normal-looking parents. The message was clear. We are a normal happy family! I know how to make that happen, trust me!

It seemed slightly odd, here in Frankfurt, to be seeing a doctor who looked so reassuringly establishment British. Dr Borg — Iceborg, I’d privately nicknamed him — told me that Bruno was not on any autism spectrum, but, in his opinion, he presented early signs of sociopathy. I challenged him on that, but he felt sure this was the case. He said the person best placed to assess him was a visiting professor of developmental psychology, attached to the University of Frankfurt am Main, called Graham Ramsden — one of the world’s top child psychologists.

Over the phone, Dr Ramsden’s very stiff assistant informed me that before he would take on any child as a patient, first he needed to see the parents. Which was why I was now here, with Bruno back at the schloss.

It usually took a long time to get an appointment; the professor had only been able to see me this soon thanks to a cancellation.

Middle-aged, dressed in a grey, chalk-striped suit, shirt and tie, if you saw him in the street you might think he held some kind of clerical position in a law practice or a firm of accountants. But the moment he spoke, you’d have realized you were wrong.

His voice had a quiet, commanding authority. His whole demeanour was friendly, and seemingly genuinely caring, but he was clearly fiercely intelligent.

As I was ushered in, he stepped away from behind his desk and shook my hand, greeting me with a warm, ‘Good afternoon, Ms Jones, thank you for coming in to see me.’

He’d grabbed a notebook off his desk, and led me over to two comfortable-looking chairs angled close together, with a coffee table beside them.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ I’d replied.

It was then he’d asked me for the three words that immediately sprang to mind when I thought about Bruno.

He looked up at me. ‘I know you have been talking to Dr Borg, who has asked me to look into some of the more difficult aspects he has observed of your son’s behaviour. Is this OK?’

‘That’s why I’m here. I understood you needed to see me first, in order to decide whether you would take Bruno on as a patient.’

‘That’s correct, Ms Jones. Can I call you Sandra?’

‘Sure.’

‘OK, Sandra, can I start by asking how concerned you are about Bruno right now, on a scale of one to ten, with one being not concerned at all and ten being very concerned?

‘I’d say two, but others might think more like an eight or nine,’ I said, spontaneously. And saw his eyes widen.

‘Nine is pretty high. How long have they had this concern? When did you start to notice things were not going quite right with how he was developing?’

‘It’s difficult to say. I think he’s just an individual, someone in control of his own mind. I feel he gets misunderstood. But various people in the past few months have told me he steals things or isn’t very nice to other children. I just don’t want him heading in the wrong direction as he gets older. And Dr Borg said he showed early signs of sociopathy, which just seems ridiculous, to be quite honest.’

Ramsden looked down at a sheaf of printouts. ‘I notice from the completed questionnaire you sent in last week that he talked very early. Indeed, he seems to have met all his developmental milestones early, which is great, but I’ve not got a real sense of how he got on with other children. How would you say his socializing skills are?’

‘To be honest, pretty crap,’ I replied. ‘He’s rarely shown any interest in other children.’ I hesitated, thinking about the recent incident when Bruno had taken another boy’s wristwatch. ‘Except when they have something he wants. He doesn’t seem to have a grasp of what is right and wrong, however much I try to teach him. He’s always seemed most happy with his own company, playing his computer games or keeping himself busy with his little projects and interests.’

‘Projects and interests?’ Dr Ramsden asked. ‘What kind?’

‘He’s always been curious to see how things work. If I buy him a new toy, instead of playing with it, like I’d expect a child to do, he dismantles it to see how it works. Only once he’s got it in pieces he loses interest in it. He also asks strange questions but that’s just kids, right?’

‘About what?’

I hesitated for a moment, embarrassed. But then I thought, what the hell? ‘One time, when I was cutting up a raw chicken, I saw him just staring in curiosity, like it was the best thing he’d ever seen. He asked me if it was possible to stroke it like you might a dog.’

He made some notes, then looked back at me. ‘You sound like you have a unique and fascinating little boy. If I were to take him on, what would your expectations be of me, Sandra?’

‘If you could figure out what makes him tick, that would be a start.’

Dr Ramsden looked at me solemnly for some moments. ‘That’s a pretty big ask,’ he said. ‘Can you describe yourself in three words?’

I looked back at him. ‘You like your “three words”, don’t you?’

‘They reveal a great amount. Less can sometimes be very much more. So can you describe yourself in just three words?’

That damned pinwheel in my brain was spinning again. I stared at him blankly. Three words. To describe myself?

Then they came to me.

‘On. The. Mend.’