She decided that it would be a surprise. She called it a reward for Ness’s putting in her community service time without major complaints. She told her niece to dress up in her finery because they were going to do a proper “girl thing” together. She herself dressed to the nines and she made no comment about Ness’s plunging neckline and six inches of cleavage, about her micromini skirt and her high-heeled boots. She was determined that the evening would succeed and that the necessary bonding would occur between them.
In planning all this, what she didn’t understand was what ballet represented to her niece. She did not know that watching a score of thin young women en pointe cast Ness back where she least wanted to be. Ballet meant her father. It meant being his princess. It put her at his side walking to the dance studio every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, every Saturday morning. It put her onstage those few times she had actually been onstage, with her dad in the audience—in the first row always—with his face shining bright and no one around him knowing that what he looked like was not who he was. Thin to the point of disease, but no longer diseased. Dissolute of face but no longer a dissolute. Shaking of hand but no longer from need. Having been to the brink, but no longer in danger of tumbling over. Just a dad who liked to vary his routine, which was why he walked on the other side of the street that day, which was why he was anywhere near the off licence, where people said he meant to go inside but he hadn’t, he hadn’t, he had merely been in the wrong place at a terrible time.
When Ness could stand no more of the ballet because of the memories that she could not bear, she got up and fought her way down the row to the aisle. The only thing that mattered was getting out of the place so that she could forget once more.
Kendra followed her. She hissed her name. She burned with both embarrassment and anger. The anger grew out of her despair. It seemed to her that nothing she did, nothing she tried, nothing she offered . . . The girl was simply beyond her.
Ness was outside when Kendra caught up with her. She swung around on her aunt before Kendra could speak.
“Dis is my fuckin reward?” she demanded. “Dis is wha’ I get for puttin up wiv dat fuckin Majidah every day? Don’ do me any more favours, Ken- dra.” That said, she pushed off. Kendra watched her go. What she saw in Ness’s march up the street was not escape but lack of gratitude. She floundered around for a way to bring the girl to her senses once and for all. It seemed to Kendra that a comparison was in order: how things were versus how they could be. Well-intentioned but ill informed, she believed she knew how to bring that comparison about.
DIX DISAGREED WITH her plan, which Kendra found maddening. Her point of view was that Dix was hardly in a position to know how to cope with an adolescent, being little more than an adolescent himself. He didn’t take this declaration well—especially since it seemed like something intended, among other things, to underscore the difference in their ages—and with an irritating and unexpected combination of insight and maturity, he pointed out to Kendra that her flailing around and attempting to form an attachment to her niece looked more like an effort to control the girl than to have a relationship with her. Besides, he said, it seemed to him that Kendra wanted Ness to become attached to her without herself becoming attached to Ness. “Like ‘Love me, girl, but I ain’t intendin to love you back,’” was how he put it.
“Of course I love her,” Kendra said hotly. “I love all three of them. I’m their bloody aunt.”
Dix observed her evenly. “I ain’t sayin it’s bad, Ken, what you feel. Hell, what you feel is jus’ what you feel. Not right, not wrong. Jus’ is, y’unnerstan? How’re you s’posed to feel anyway, wiv three kids jus’ turned over to you when you don’t even know they’re comin, eh? No one ’spects you to love them jus’ cos they’re your blood.”
“I love them. I love them.” She heard herself shrieking, and she hated him for bringing her to that sort of reaction.
“So accept dem,” he said. “Accept everyone, Ken. Might as well. Can’t change dem.”
To Kendra, he was himself the picture of something that she needed to accept and had succeeded in accepting: There he was during this conversation, standing in the bathroom with his body lathered in pink depilatory cream so that the skin he showed to the bodybuilding judges would be smooth and hairless from head to toe, looking like a fool in a dozen ways, and she was making no comment about that, was she because she knew how important to him was his dream of sculpting his way to a crown that meant nothing to most of the world and if that wasn’t acceptance . . .
More than that Kendra couldn’t face, however. She had too many responsibilities. The only way that she could see to handle them was to get them under control, which had been Dix’s point exactly although she couldn’t admit that to herself. Joel was easy, since he was so eager to please that he generally anticipated how he was meant to behave before she informed him of her wishes. Toby was simple since his lava lamp and the television kept him occupied and content, and more than that about Toby she didn’t wish—and could not afford—to consider. But Ness from the first had been a nut impossible to crack. She’d gone her own way, and look what had happened. A change was called for, and with the determination that Kendra had always applied to everything else in her life, she decided that a change would occur.
Ages had passed since the children had last seen Carole Campbell, so the natural excuse for the comparison that Kendra wanted Ness to experience was right at hand. A visit to Carole meant that arrangements had to be made with Fabia Bender to get Ness released from her required appearance at the child drop-in centre for one day, but that did not prove difficult. Once release was accomplished, what remained was informing Ness that the time had arrived for the Campbell children to pay a call on their mother.
Since Kendra knew how unlikely it was that Ness would cooperate in this plan—considering how the girl had responded to the last visit they’d paid to the children’s mother—she altered the arrangement slightly from what she would have preferred it to be. Instead of going with the Campbells to make certain they got themselves into Carole’s presence, she assigned to Ness the responsibility of taking her little brothers from home to the hospital and back. This, she decided, would illustrate her trust in the girl at the same time as it would put Ness in the position of assessing—even subconsciously—what life would be like should she have to live it in the presence of and with the companionship of her poor mother. This would develop a sense of gratitude in the girl. In Kendra’s mind, gratitude was part of the bonding process.
Ness, presented with the alternative of appearing for her regularly scheduled time at the child drop-in centre or travelling to the countryside hospital to see her mother, chose the latter option, as any girl might have done. She carefully pocketed the forty pounds her aunt gave her for the journey and for Carole’s treats, and she steered Joel and Toby onto the number 23 bus to Paddington station like a young adult determined to prove herself. She took the boys to the upper deck of the bus, and she didn’t even seem to mind that Toby had insisted upon bringing his lava lamp with him and that he trailed the flex up the stairs and down the aisle, tripping over it twice as he made his way past the other passengers. This, indeed, was a brand-new Ness, one about whom a person might make positive assumptions.
Which was what Joel did. He felt himself relax. For the first time in a very long while, it seemed to him that the complicated duty of minding Toby, caring for himself, and seeing to the rest of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He even looked out of the window for once, enjoying the spectacle of Londoners out and about in good weather: a peregrinating populace in as few clothes as possible.
The Campbells made it all the way to Paddington station and into the ticket hall before Ness’s plan became apparent. She bought only two returns for the journey and handed over just part of the change to Joel, pocketing the rest.
She said, “Get her an Aero like she likes. Get her summick cheaper ’n Elle or Vogue. Dere ain’t enough for crisps dis time, so you got to do wivout, y’unnerstan.”
Joel said in futile protest, “But, Ness, what’re you—”
“You tell Aunt Ken, and I beat you shitless,” Ness informed him. “I got a day off from dat bitch Majidah and I mean to take it. You got dat, blood?”
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“Like I could fuckin care,” she said. “I meet you back here half past four. I’m not here, you wait. You got dat, Joel? You wait, cos if you go home wivout me, I beat you shitless like I said, y’unnerstan.”
That pronounced so succinctly as to leave no room for questions, she made him find the correct train on the departures board, after which she directed him to WH Smith. When he went inside, with Toby hanging on to his trouser leg, she disappeared, a girl determined not to dance to anyone’s tune, least of all her aunt’s.
Joel watched her from inside the shop until he lost her as she wove through the crowd. Then he bought a magazine and an Aero, and he took his brother to the correct platform. Once they were on the train, he gave Toby the chocolate. Their mother, he decided, would just have to suffer.
A moment after he had the thought, though, he felt nasty for having entertained it. To drive that nastiness away, he observed the graffiti scarred brick walls on either side of the station as the train moved past them, and he tried to read individual tags. Looking at the graffiti and the tags reminded him of Cal Hancock. Cal Hancock reminded him of facing off with the Blade and being sick in the gutter afterwards. That thought took him inevitably to what had followed: his decision to pay a call upon Ivan Weatherall anyway.
Joel had found Ivan at home, and he’d been grateful for this. If Ivan smelled the scent of vomit upon him, he was good enough not to mention the matter. He was in the midst of a delicate part of the operation of clock building when Joel arrived, and he didn’t stop his work when he bade Joel enter the house and help himself from a chipped bowl of grapes that sat on the edge of the table. He did, however, hand Joel a piece of green paper with “Wield Words Not Weapons” printed across the top of it. He said, “Have a look at this, and tell me what you think,” as he gave his attention back to his clock.
“What is it?” Joel asked him.
“Read,” Ivan said.
The paper appeared to be announcing a writing contest. The notice gave page lengths, line lengths, and the terms of critiquing, along with cash prizes and other awards. The big moment seemed to be something called Walk the Word because the largest prize of all—which was fifty pounds—went to that, whatever it was. Wield Words Not Weapons occurred in one of the community centres in the area: a place called the Basement Activities Centre in Oxford Gardens.
“I still don’ get it,” Joel said to Ivan once he’d read the advertisement for Wield Words Not Weapons. “’M I s’posed to do summick wiv dis?”
“Hmm. I hope so. You’re supposed to attend. It’s a poetry . . . well, a poetry event, I dare say would be the best term for it. Have you been to one before? No? Well, I suggest you come and find out about it. You might be surprised to see what it’s like. Walk the Word is a new element, by the way.”
“Poetry? We sit round and talk ’bout poems or summick?” Joel made a face. He pictured a circle of old ladies with sagging stockings, enthusing about the sort of dead white men one heard about at school.
“We write poems,” Ivan said. “It’s a chance for self-expression without censorship, although not without criticism from the audience.”
Joel looked at the paper again, and he homed in on the prize money being offered. He said, “Wha’s dis Walk the Word t’ing?”
“Ah. Interested in prize money, are you?”
Joel didn’t reply although he did think of what he could do with fifty pounds. There was a vast gap between who he was at the present moment, a twelve-year-old reliant upon his aunt for food and for shelter, and who he wanted to be as a man with a real career as a psychiatrist. Along with the sheer determination to succeed, which he did possess, there was the question of money for his education, which he did not. Money was going to be required to make the leap from who he was now to who he wanted to become, and while fifty pounds didn’t amount to much, compared to what Joel had at the moment— nothing—it was also a fortune.
He finally said, “Might be. What d’ I got to do?”
Ivan smiled. “Turn up.”
“’M I s’posed to write summick before I get there?”
“Not for Walk the Word . That’s done on the spot. I give you key words—everyone gets the same words—and you have a specifi c period of time to craft a poem that uses them. The best poem wins, with the best decided upon by a committee from the audience.”
“Oh.” Joel handed the paper back to Ivan. He knew how little chance he stood of winning anything if judges would be involved in making the decision. He said, “I can’t write poems anyways.”
Ivan said, “Tried, have you? Well. Here’s my thinking on the subject if you don’t mind listening. Do you, by the way?”
Joel shook his head.
“That’s a start, isn’t it,” Ivan said. “It’s very good: listening. I’d call it second cousin to trying. And that’s the crucial element of life experience that so many of us avoid, you know. Trying something new, taking that single leap of faith into the utterly and absolutely unknown. Into the different. Those who take that leap are the ones who challenge whatever fate they might otherwise have. They fl y in the face of societal expectations, determining for themselves who and what they will be and not allowing the bonds of birth, class, and bias to make that determination for them.” Ivan folded the advertisement into eighths and tucked the square into Joel’s shirt pocket. “Basement Activities Centre. Oxford Gardens,” he said. “You’ll recognise the building, as it’s one of those monstrosities from the sixties that refer to themselves as architecture. Think concrete, stucco, and painted plywood, and you’ll have it right. I do hope we’ll see you there, Joel. Bring your family if you’d like. The more the merrier. Coffee and cakes afterwards.”
Joel was still carrying that advertisement around, even as he and Toby rode on the train to see their mother. He hadn’t yet shown up at Wield Words Not Weapons but the thought of those fifty pounds continued to burn in his mind. It burned so brightly that the previous idea of being involved in Ivan’s scriptwriting class became a smaller, secondary one. Each time an evening for Wield Words Not Weapons arrived and passed, Joel felt one step closer to having enough courage to try his hand at writing a poem.
As for now, however, there was the hospital visit to cope with. In reception, they were sent not to the upper floor where the dayroom and their mother’s room were located, but instead along a ground-floor corridor to what was called the conservatory, a glassed-in room on the south side of the building.
Joel joyfully took their mother’s presence here as a positive sign. In the conservatory there was nothing really to restrict a patient’s movements: no bars on the windows, specifi cally. So a patient could do some serious damage to herself by breaking one of the enormous panes of glass, and the fact that Carole Campbell was allowed to spend time here suggested to Joel that progress was being made in her recovery. Sadly, this turned out to be an overly sanguine conclusion.
SO KENDRA’S INTENDED effect of a visit to Carole Campbell did indeed occur. It merely occurred to the wrong sibling. Ness went her own way for that day and met Joel and Toby forty-two minutes later than the prescribed time and in a mood so surly that Joel knew her afternoon had been less successful than she’d planned it to be, while Joel was the one whose apprehension about where the Campbells might live in the future was heightened.
Ness’s “How was the bloody cow, den?” didn’t make matters any better, for the question and the manner in which Ness asked it didn’t extend the offer of having a heartfelt conversation. Joel wanted to tell her the truth about his call upon their mother: that Carole hadn’t known Toby, that she had thought their father was still alive, and that she was existing on a plane so ethereal that she was far beyond his ability even to reach her. But none of this could he put into words. So he just said, “You should’ve gone,” to which Ness said, “Fuck you, den,” and sashayed in the direction of the buses.
At home when Kendra asked how the visit had gone, Joel said fine, good, Carole had even been doing some gardening in the conservatory of the hospital. He said, “Mum asked ’bout you, Aunt Ken,” and he couldn’t understand why his aunt didn’t seem pleased to hear this lie. The way Joel thought of it, Kendra was supposed to see Carole’s alleged improvement as an indication that the Campbells would not need a permanent living situation with her. But Kendra didn’t seem pleased at all, which made Joel feel his insides knot up as he sought a way to soften whatever blow he’d accidentally dealt her. But before he had a chance to come up with something, Dix took him to one side. He said, “Ain’t you, bred. It’s Ness. How’d she take your mum, den?,” a question Joel knew better than to answer.
Dix eyed Ness, and Ness eyed him right back. Her posture, her facial expression, and even the way she breathed out with her nostrils flared, all served to challenge him. Wisely, he refused to take up the challenge. Instead, when she was likely to be around the house, he went about his own business: at the gym, meeting with his bodybuilding sponsors, preparing for his next contest with a new determination, shopping for his special foods, cooking his special meals.
For several weeks, life thus lurched in the direction of what a casual observer might have called normal. It was in the Harrow Road where the uneasy peace of the family’s existence was broken. Joel was on his way to fetch Toby from the learning centre, where he still went regularly despite the summer holidays. He had just made the turn from Great Western Road when he saw that a disturbing bit of action was in progress across the street, behind the iron railing that lined the pavement and prevented people from crossing. There, a neighbourhood character commonly called Drunk Bob sat in his wheelchair in what was one of his regular spots, just to the left of the doorway to an off licence and beneath the window on which a special deal for Spanish wine was being advertised. He was clutching a paper bag to his chest, his grip on the top of it curving around the unmistakable neck of a bottle.
He was shouting his usual cry of “Oy! Oy!” but this time instead of bellowing into the traffic, he was directing the exclamation at a group of boys who were harassing him. One boy had grasped the handles of his wheelchair and was spinning him around while the others made lunges at him, attempting to grab the bag he was holding. Drunk Bob weaved from side to side in his chair as the boys spun and jerked him.
Clearly, they wished him to hold on to the arms of the chair and thus loosen his grip on the bag, which, in addition to plaguing him, was their object. But Drunk Bob obviously knew their intention. The bag was his priority. He’d taken the better part of a day to cadge enough money from passersby to purchase his drink, and he wasn’t about to hand it over to a group of boys, no matter how menacing they were.
So the boys spun him, their laughter and taunts nearly drowning out the old man’s cries. No one came out of any of the shops, for in the Harrow Road the course of wisdom had long suggested that one’s business ought to be minded before the business of anyone in the process of being disturbed by neighbourhood thugs. Several people passed by on the pavement as the boys vexed Drunk Bob. But no one said a word save an elderly woman who shook a walking stick at them but who hurried on her way the moment one of the boys made a grab for her bag.
From where he stood, Joel could see that Drunk Bob was sliding down in his seat. In another few moments, the old man would be on the pavement and there was little chance he could defend himself there. Looking right and left for a policeman made no change in matters, for there was never a policeman in the vicinity when one was needed and always a policeman there when no one was doing a thing. Joel had no desire to be a hero, but nonetheless he shouted, “Hey! You breds let dat bloke alone. He’s crippled, innit,” which momentarily made one of the boys look up to see who was daring to spoil the group’s fun.
Joel muttered, “Damn,” when he saw who it was. Neal Wyatt and he met glances, and the expression that crossed Neal’s face was perfectly readable despite his half-frozen features. Over his shoulder, he said something to his crew, and they halted their harassing of Drunk Bob at once.
Joel wasn’t so foolish as to think this cessation of their activity had anything to do with his cry from across the street. Since in the next moment, every one of the boys looked in his direction, he was perfectly aware of what was about to happen. He began to sprint up the Harrow Road, just as Neal and his crew began moving towards the pavement railing. Neal was leading the pack, smiling like someone who’d just had a bag of money dropped in front of him.
Joel knew it was a mistake to run, but he also knew that Neal had things to prove to his crew, not the least of which was his capacity to finish Joel off. For Joel was the little worm he’d been intent upon squashing in Meanwhile Gardens when Ivan Weatherall had intervened. He was also the slug who’d been chosen by Hibah for friendship, regardless of Neal’s own wishes.
Joel heard the shouts of the boys behind him as he dashed in the direction of the learning centre. The road was only the width of two vehicles, and it would take Neal and his crew less than ten seconds to leap the railing, gain the opposite pavement, and hurtle over its railing as well. So Joel pounded furiously along, dodging a young mother with a pushchair, three chador-wearing women with shopping bags over their arms, and a white-haired gentleman who shouted, “Stop! Thief! Help!” in anticipation of whatever was to come as Joel charged by.
A quick glance over his shoulder allowed Joel to see that he’d been momentarily blessed. A bus and two lorries had swerved into view. Neal and his crew were hot to pursue him but not hot to be caught under the wheels of a vehicle, so they had to wait until all three had passed before they crossed the road and took up the chase. By that time and despite his labouring lungs, Joel had gained fifty yards on them. The charity shop was in view, and he flung himself inside, panting like an overheated dog as he slammed the door behind him.
Kendra was in the back, sorting through bags of new donations. She looked up when the door crashed closed, and what was on her tongue was something meant to sort Joel for the way he’d arrived. But when she saw his face, her intention altered. She said, “What’s going on?
Where’s Toby? Aren’t you meant to fetch—”
Joel waved her off, a response so unusual that she was stunned into silence. He peered out of the window and saw Neal on his way, leading his crew like a hound on the scent. Joel glanced back at his aunt, then beyond her to the little room at the back of the shop. There was a door within it and an alley behind it. He made for them both without a word.
Kendra said, “Joel. What’s going on? What’re you doing? Who’s out there?”
He managed, “Blokes,” as he pushed past her. His breath was coming so hard that he was feeling light-headed, and his chest seemed branded with a red-hot iron.
Kendra walked to the window as Joel dived for the back room. Seeing the boys on their way, she said, “Are they vexing you? That lot?
I’ll sort them out.” She reached for the door’s handle.
“No!” Joel shouted. He had no time to say more, certainly no time to tell his aunt she would make things worse if she tried to deal with the other boys. No one sorted anyone in this kind of situation, and sometimes an enemy was just an enemy for reasons no one could actually fathom. Joel was Neal Wyatt’s chosen death partner. That’s just how it was. Joel crashed into the back room, where a dim bulb lit the way to the door.
He shoved it open. It slammed against the rear wall of the building. He threw himself out into the alley, and a moment later he was hurtling up it while Kendra shut the door behind him.
Joel pounded along for another thirty yards before he was too winded to continue. He knew he had to catch his breath, but he also knew he had only moments before Neal Wyatt worked out which shop he had gone into and what he’d done when he got there. He looked for a place that was safe to hide in. He found it in a skip that was sprouting rubbish from a building site just behind a block of flats.
With the last of his breath, he heaved himself inside. He had to toss out several cardboard boxes and carrier bags filled with rubbish, but this was something his pursuers were unlikely to notice, given the condition of the rest of the alley.
He ducked down and waited, breathing as shallowly as his aching lungs could manage. In less than two minutes, he was rewarded. He heard the slapping of feet coming in his direction. And then their voices:
“Fuckin yellow arse got away.”
“Nah. He’s round here, innit.”
“Wants sortin, dat cunt.”
“Neal, you see where?”
“Real shit hole, dis.”
“Perfec’ place for likes of him, den.”
Laughter and then Neal Wyatt’s voice saying, “Le’s go. Dat slag is hidin him. Le’s get her.”
The boys moved off, and Joel stayed where he was. Indecision and fear made his bowels pressure downward, demanding release. He concentrated on not letting anything go. Arms wrapped around himself, knees tucked up to his chest, he closed his eyes and listened harder.
He heard a door slam in the distance. He knew it was the back door to the charity shop, with the boys returning there and intent upon damage. He tried to remember how many of them there were—as if this would somehow help the situation—because he knew that his aunt was more than a match for one or two boys, perhaps even three. But more than that in a confrontation would mean trouble for her.
Joel forced himself past the fear, past the rumbling at the bottom of his gut. He rose and lifted himself to the edge of the skip. He was saved by the sirens, which at that point came screaming down the Harrow Road.
When Joel heard them, he knew what his aunt had done. Anticipating the boys, she’d phoned 999 the moment Joel had ducked into the alley. She’d done Lady Muck for them, and her accent, her language, and the term gang of boys or perhaps even better gang of black louts had got the police moving, quicker than usual, bringing them on the run with lights, sirens, batons, and handcuffs. Neal Wyatt and his crew would soon know the rough justice of the Harrow Road police station if they weren’t quick about clearing out of the charity shop. His aunt had won the day.
Joel dropped to the ground and scurried off. Less than five minutes later he was entering the learning centre, where Toby had his meetings with the specialist who’d been assigned to help him.
In the vestibule, Joel stopped to brush himself off. He’d got fairly dirty inside the skip, mostly from having landed on a bag of kitchen rubbish, largely containing discarded baked beans and coffee grounds. His jeans bore the evidence of this, all along one leg, as did his jacket, where his shoulder and arm had ploughed into the remains of what looked like a mustard sandwich. He cleaned himself off as well as he could, pushed open the inner doors, and entered the centre.
Toby was waiting for him on the cracked vinyl sofa that comprised the furnishings of the reception area. He had his lava lamp on his lap, his hands curved around the bottom of it. He wasn’t looking at anything other than the unplugged lamp, but his bottom lip was trembling and his shoulders were hunched.
Joel said cheerfully, “Hey, Tobe. Wha’s going, blood?”
Toby looked up. A bright smile eased the drawn expression on his face. He scooted off the sofa, all eagerness to leave, and it came to Joel that Toby had been frightened, thinking that no one was going to turn up, claim him, and take him home. Joel’s heart grew fiery for his little brother. Toby, he decided, was not intended to feel so scared. He said to him, “Le’s nick off, mon. You ready, or wha’? I’m sorry I’m late. You wa’n’t worried or nuffink?”
Toby shook his head, everything forgotten. He said, “Nah,” then,
“Hey, c’n we get some chips ’long the road before we go home? I got fifty pee. Dix gave it me. I got dat five pounds from Gran as well.”
“You don’t want to be spendin dat money on chips,” Joel pointed out. “It’s birthday money. You got to spend it on somet’ing to remember your birthday by.”
“But if I want chips, how else I get ’em? An’ the fifty pee wa’n’t birthday money anyways.”
Joel was trying to come up with a reply for this, one that would explain—with kindness—that fifty pence would not be enough to buy the chips, no matter that it wasn’t birthday money, when a tall black woman with close-cropped hair and golden earrings the size of hubcaps appeared from one of the centre’s interior offices. This was Luce Chinaka, one of the learning specialists who worked with Toby. She smiled and said, “I thought I heard someone out here talking to my young man. Could I have a word, please?” This last she said to Joel before she went on to Toby, “Did you forget to tell him I wanted to see him when he came to fetch you, Mr. Campbell?”
Toby ducked his head. He clutched his lava lamp closer to his chest. Luce Chinaka touched him lightly on his sparse hair and said, “It’s all right, luv. You’re allowed to forget things. Wait here, won’t you? We won’t be long.”
Toby looked to Joel for guidance, and Joel could see the panic rise in his brother’s face at the idea of being left alone so soon after being rescued. He said, “Hang here, mate,” and he searched the room until he found a Spider-Man comic for Toby to look at. He handed it over and told him to wait, promising that he wouldn’t be long. Toby took the comic under his arm and clambered back onto the sofa. He placed the lava lamp carefully next to him and laid the comic on his lap. He didn’t look at it, however. Instead, he fastened his eyes on Joel. They were simultaneously trusting eyes and eyes of appeal. Only someone with a stone in his chest in place of his heart would have failed to be moved by their expression.
Joel followed Luce Chinaka to a small office crammed with desk, table, chairs, notice boards, white boards, and bookshelves that spilled notebooks, volumes, board games, and folders everywhere. She had a name plate on her desk—brass, with “Luce Chinaka” engraved upon it—and next to it stood a picture of her with her family: arm in arm with an equally tall dark-skinned husband, three winsome children stairstepped in front of them.
Luce went behind her desk, but she didn’t sit. Instead, she pulled the chair out and drew it around the side. She pointed to another chair for Joel, so that they could sit facing each other. They almost touched knees since space in the room was so limited.
Luce took a folder from the top of her desk, and she glanced inside it as if to verify something. She said to Joel, “We haven’t talked before this. You’re Toby’s brother . . . It’s Joel, isn’t it?”
Joel nodded. The only reason he knew that adults called children into official places like their offices was if there was some sort of trouble. So he assumed Toby had done something he wasn’t meant to do.
He waited for elucidation and steeled himself to its inevitable appearance.
“He’s talked about you quite a bit,” Luce Chinaka went on. “You’re very important to him, but I expect you know that.”
Joel nodded again. He sought something in his head as a response, but he could come up with nothing other than the nod.
Luce picked up a pen. It was gold and slender, and it suited her. Joel saw that a form had been fixed to the cover of the folder she was holding, and there was writing on this, which she read for a moment before she spoke. Then it was to tell Joel what he already knew: that Toby’s primary school had made the recommendation that he enroll in the learning centre, that in fact the school had made it a condition of his acceptance as a pupil. She concluded with, “Do you know this, Joel?”
At his nod, she continued. “Toby’s quite behind where he should be for his age. Do you understand anything about the nature of his problem?” Luce Chinaka’s voice was kind, as were her eyes, which were deep brown although one had flecks of gold in it.
“He i’n’t stupid,” Joel said.
“No. Of course not,” Luce assured him. “But he has a serious learning disability and... well, there do appear to be . . .” She hesitated. Once again, she looked at the file, but this time it seemed to be a way of deciding how best to say what needed saying. “There appear to be other . . . well, other problems as well. Our job here at the centre is to determine exactly what those problems are and how best someone like Toby can be taught. We then teach him in the way that he learns, as an adjunct to his regular schooling. We also offer him alternatives in . . . well, alternatives in social behaviour that he can learn to choose from. Do you understand all this?”
Joel nodded. He was concentrating hard. He had the distinct feeling that Luce Chinaka was leading up to something important and dreadful, so he felt wary.
She continued. “Essentially, Toby has trouble both processing and retrieving information, Joel. He has a language disability complicated by what we call a cognitive dysfunction. But that,” Luce fl uttered her fingers as if to wave the words away and make what she had to say sensible to a twelve-year-old boy for whom every word sounded like another step on the familial trail of tears he and his siblings had been treading for ages, “is just how we label things. The real issue is that a language disability is serious because everything we’re taught in school depends first and foremost upon our capacity for taking it in in the form of language: words and sentences.”
Joel could tell that the woman was making her explanation simple for him to understand because he was Toby’s brother and not Toby’s dad. He wasn’t offended by this. Rather it felt oddly comforting, despite the trepidation he was feeling about the entire discussion. He expected that Luce Chinaka was a very good mother. He pictured her tucking her three children into their beds at night and not leaving the room till she made sure they’d said their prayers and received her kiss.
“Good,” she said. “But now we come to the crux of the matter. You see, there are limits to what we can do for Toby here in the learning centre. When we reach those limits, we have to consider what we’re going to do next.”
Alarms went off in Joel’s head. He said, “You sayin you can’t help Toby or summick? You want him to leave?”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “But I do want to develop a plan for him, which we can’t do without a broader assessment. Call it . . . well, call it a study of him. Now, everyone needs to be involved in this. Toby’s teacher at Middle Row School, the learning centre staff, a doctor, and your parents. I see from the records that your father is deceased, but we’d definitely like the opportunity to have a meeting with your mum. We’ll need to begin by having you give her these documents to read and after that—”
“Can’t.” It was the only word Joel could manage. The thought of having his mother here, in this offi ce, facing this woman, was too much for him, even though he knew it would never happen. She wouldn’t ever be allowed out on her own, and even if Joel could fetch her from the hospital, Carole Campbell would have lasted less than five minutes in the presence of Luce Chinaka before she crumbled to bits. Luce looked up from the paperwork she’d been removing from Toby’s file. She seemed to dwell on the word can’t, and she seemed to compare it to everything she knew about the family so far, which was very little and had been deliberately kept that way by the family itself. She made an interpretation. “Your mum doesn’t read?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I did assume because her name’s on the paperwork . . .” Luce brought it closer to her face and examined what Joel knew had to be his aunt’s hasty scrawl.
He said, “Dat’s . . . That’s Aunt Ken’s writing.”
“Oh, I see. Kendra Osborne is your aunt, then, not your mum? She’s your legal guardian?”
Joel nodded although he had no knowledge of what made someone legal or not.
“Is your mum deceased as well, then, Joel?” Luce Chinaka asked. “Is that what you meant when you said she couldn’t read this?”
He shook his head. But he couldn’t and wouldn’t tell her about his mother. The truth was that Carole Campbell could read as well as any person alive. The additional truth was that it didn’t make any difference if she could read or not. He reached for the papers that Luce Chinaka held, and he said the only words that he could manage, which were the only words that told the truth of the matter as Joel saw it. “I c’n read it,” he told her. “I c’n take care of Toby.”
“But this isn’t about . . .” Luce sought another way to explain. “Oh, my dear, there needs to be a study done and only a responsible adult can give approval for it. You see, we must have quite a . . . well, let’s call it quite a thorough examination of Toby, and it must be done by—”
“I said I c’n do it!” Joel cried. He grabbed the papers and crumpled them to his chest.
“But, Joel—”
“I can!”
He left her watching him in a mixture of confusion and wonder as he went to fetch his little brother. He also left her reaching for the phone.