Remember Why You Fear Me (27 page)

“What are
you
going to get Mum?” asked Ben.

“Oh,” said Daddy. “Well. We’ve agreed not to buy each other any presents this year.”

“Oh,” said Ben. “Okay.”

“It’s just easier that way.”

“Okay.”

“We agreed,” chuckled Daddy, “that this way we’d have more money to spend on you, old chap! So you come out of this rather well! It’s all for you!” And then, “Ben, I’m sorry, what is it, what’s wrong?” And Ben said he didn’t want the extra presents, he didn’t want any of this to be his
fault
. And Daddy hugged him right there, he stooped down and hugged him, and assured him that none of this was anything to do with him. It was adult stuff, just silly adult stuff. “The truth is,” he said, “the reason Mummy and Daddy aren’t buying each other presents . . .
is that we just don’t like each other very much at the moment.” And in spite of himself, Ben brightened at that.

Ben bought his Mum a couple of gift baskets of bubble bath from the Body Shop.

On the bottom level of the department store, on the concourse between a Poundstretcher and a British Home Stores, there was a Santa’s Grotto. Surrounding the grotto was a little garden, decorated with fake snow, and tinsel.

“Would you like to see Santa, Ben?” There was quite a long queue, and an unsmiling woman in a booth was selling tickets.

“No.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“I don’t believe in Santa Claus. I didn’t believe in him last year either.” Ben put his head to one side, and considered. “I probably did the year before.”

“What a funny little chap you are.”

“Don’t you remember? You told me. You told me not to tell anyone, in case I spoiled the fun.”

“That’s true,” said Daddy idly, “we mustn’t spoil anyone’s fun. Shall we go home then?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

The snow was falling in thick clumps. Ben laughed at the sight of it. “Come on, Ben,” said Daddy. “Let’s get to the car.”

“No, Daddy,” said Ben. “Look!”

And he tilted his head back. He opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue. And the snow rained on him, it rained all over his face—and some of the flakes too, they landed on his tongue. He turned to Daddy. Eyes gleaming. “You try it!”

Daddy nearly said no, he so nearly did. But he too put back his head, the tongue came out, he pulled a funny face. “Gurr,” he said. Ben giggled.

“What does it taste like?” said Ben.

“I don’t know. Water. It doesn’t taste of anything.”

“No,” said Ben. “You’re not trying hard enough.” He caught a few more flakes, and then smacked his lips appreciatively. “Delicious!”

“Delicious!” said Daddy. “Apple pie!”

“Chocolate cake!”

“Ice cream!”

“Um. Peanuts!”

“Old socks!”

Ben laughed aloud at this one. And they stood there in the car park, as the Christmas shoppers fought their way around them, catching snow on their tongues, and Daddy laughed too. They were both laughing. Ben found Daddy’s hand, just as Daddy was reaching for his.

“It’s going to be a white Christmas, isn’t it?” said Ben.

“Yes,” said Daddy. “Oh God.” He squeezed Ben’s hand a little tighter.

The next day was a Sunday, so that meant Ben got to spend it with his Mum. Some Sundays Richard was there too, some Sundays he wasn’t. This Sunday Richard was there. “Come on,” said Mum. “We’re going Christmas shopping, it’ll be fun!”

Ben had given up asking his mother why she preferred Richard to Daddy. “It’s not as simple as that,” she’d said. “But why, Mummy?” “It’s not something I want to talk about.” “Mummy, why?” And then she’d told him that she didn’t want to be called Mummy anymore, he was too old for Mummy now, surely? He wasn’t a baby. She’d rather be called Mum, from now on, Mum. And that had surprised Ben, and he tried to call her Mum ever afterwards. Even if sometimes he forgot.

Richard had a son, but Ben had never met him. He was a few years older. Richard wasn’t going to spend Christmas Day with his son either.

“I want you to buy something for your Dad,” said Mummy. And she gave Ben some money, and he thought it was at least as much as Daddy had given for her present, and he was pleased.

“What shall I get him?” asked Ben.

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

Ben was dressed in his warm clothes, thick sweater, thick gloves, stripy scarf. Mum wore a faded fake fur coat Daddy had bought her years ago. As they walked in the town centre snow settled on their hair. “You look like abominable snowmen!” joked Richard. Ben said he was the abominable snowman, but Mum was the abominable snowwoman, and Richard loved that, “Good one, sport. Lisa’s an abominable snowwoman, all right!” Ben didn’t like the way Richard called his Mum Lisa, so easy, as if he somehow owned the name. He called Lisa an abominable snowwoman on and off throughout the day, and Lisa always laughed, long after the time it had stopped being funny.

They shopped together for another couple of hours or so. Mum said, “Richard’s got a treat for you, Ben!” And Richard laughed, and said it was only a little thing. He’d bought Ben a ticket for Santa’s Grotto. Would Ben like to go to Santa’s Grotto? He’d queued all this time to buy a ticket from the unsmiling woman at the booth, and now all Ben had to do was join another queue to see Santa. Would Ben like to see Santa? In Santa’s Grotto?

“No, thank you,” said Ben.

“Oh,” said Richard. “I have already bought the ticket, though.”

“Come on,” said Mum. “You’d like to see Santa, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t believe in Santa.”

“Don’t believe in Santa? But he’s in that grotto over there!” Richard joked.

“You’re going to see Santa,” said Mum. “Richard’s spent all that money.”

“It’s only a little thing,” said Richard, “only seven pounds fifty.”

“Seven pounds fifty! And you didn’t even say thank you!”

“I did say thank you,” said Ben.

Mum marched Ben out of Richard’s earshot—but not so far, Ben thought, that Richard couldn’t hear if he really wanted to. “Now, listen, mister,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this. Sulking all day in front of Richard, when he’s trying, can’t you see how hard he’s trying? Okay, you don’t like him. Tough. Because I do like him. In fact, I love him. So you’d better bloody well get used to him. Because he’s not going anywhere, not if I can help it.” And then she marched him back to where Richard was smiling, still smiling. “What do you say, sport?” he said, holding out the ticket. “Want to see Santa after all?”

The queue to see Santa lasted a good forty-five minutes, and Ben suspected his mother regretted making such a fuss he did so because she’d clearly lost patience after waiting only ten. “What is Santa doing to them in there?” she muttered. Richard joked, “Well, they’re certainly getting their seven pounds fifty’s worth!” At last an elf took Ben away; Mum and Richard waved as he went.

Santa Claus was too young, and he wore padded clothes and a stuck-on beard. “Ho ho ho!” he said.

“Hi,” said Ben.

“Want to sit on my knee?”

Ben shrugged, and did. He perched there a little precariously, and Santa wasn’t allowed to hold him fast the way his Daddy could.

“What do you want for Christmas?” asked Santa.

“Nothing.”

“Come on. You must want something. What’s your favourite toy?”

Ben shrugged again.

“Do you want an action figure?”

“No.”

“A computer game?”

“No.”

“An—I don’t know—what do you call them, one of those Lego things? Come on, kid, help me out here.”

Ben couldn’t get what he really wanted, and certainly not from a man in a shopping centre. He’d tried asking Jesus for it, and he hadn’t believed in Jesus for years, but he’d asked him anyway. “If you fix this,” he’d said, “if you can just make them love each other again, I’ll believe in you. I’ll go right on believing in you.” But Jesus hadn’t listened. Not even when he’d offered the deal. “If you make them love each other,” and Ben had hesitated over this, then just—hell with it—gone straight ahead and said it, “they don’t even have to love me. They don’t have to love me. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.” But Jesus hadn’t done a thing, he didn’t exist, and nor did Santa Claus, it was all such rubbish, it was shit.

“A bike?” said Santa Claus. Now a little desperate. “How about a bike?”

And actually, a bike didn’t sound so bad. “Yeah, go on then, a bike.”

“Great,” said Santa. “Merry Christmas!” And gave him a present from his sack, something small and square and in shiny paper that very definitely wasn’t a bike. When Ben came out of the grotto, his Mum and Richard were talking closely, and giggling. “Oh, there you are,” said Mum. “That was quick!”

It was agreed that Ben would spend the night at his Mum’s; now school was finished, he could be simply dropped back to Daddy’s later the next day. Christmas Day with his father, Boxing Day with his mother and Richard, then New Year’s Eve with his mother and Richard, New Year’s Day with his Daddy. That was the plan, it was a good plan, everyone was happy with that. “Let’s get home,” said Mum, meaning
her
home, although her house still didn’t feel like home to Ben, it had the wrong smell, it had the smell of
visiting
all over it. Richard settled down in front of the television, Mum made herself and Richard a cup of tea. “What would you like to do?” she asked Ben.

Ben didn’t know.

“How about writing a letter to Santa? It’s not too late to reach the Pole, not if we get it to the post box quick!”

Ben said he didn’t believe in Santa anymore.

“I used to help you to write letters to Santa. Do you remember? Every Christmas?” He did remember, actually, but he wasn’t going to admit to it. She looked at him, for a moment she looked almost afraid of him—a very adult sort of afraid, the afraid that comes when you simply don’t know what to say anymore. “I love you, Ben. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I love you very much.”

“Yes.”

“All right then.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll fix you some dinner. All right. Something nice and warm. And then we’re going to sit down, just the two of us, and write a letter to Santa.”

“Oh, Mum . . .”

“Just the two of us, no Richard, all right?”

“But, Mum . . .”

“No buts. What would you like Santa to bring you?”

“A bike,” said Ben.

“All right then,” she said. “A bike, that’s what we’ll say.”

They had dinner that evening, all three of them, and Richard made jokes, and then they watched television, like a family. And Ben was pleased his Mum forgot all about the letter to Santa Claus, though he supposed he wouldn’t have minded writing one with her really, not if it made her happy.

And still—the snow fell.

Only a few months after they were married, David and Lisa Noakes bought themselves a small house in South London. It was ideally situated. It was just a street away from an underground station, they could be in the city within half an hour. There were lots of local shops nearby, even a little supermarket on the corner. And in walking distance there was a school. “That might be handy,” said David, “you know, just in case you still want to have any kids.” David was still a little shy of marriage, he still couldn’t quite believe Lisa had agreed to become his wife in the first place. “Of course I still want kids!” laughed Lisa. “Silly!” And she kissed him, and he hugged her, and they put a down payment on the mortgage, and that was that.

It was a few years, however, before David and Lisa got around to having that kid. And by then the house wasn’t as ideally situated as it had been. The little supermarket had closed down, but nothing had come along to replace it. And Lisa didn’t like the other local shops, they were either too expensive, or she got funny looks in there, she said, after one funny look she refused to step inside one particular newsagent’s for years. However convenient the underground station, it was also very noisy, and it seemed to attract drunken youths at weekends, they gathered around it at all times of night shouting and flinging bottles. Lisa wondered whether they shouldn’t move. “At least there’s the school,” said David. Lisa agreed; but it wasn’t an especially
good
school. And David said yes, they really ought to give young Ben the best start in life they could. But they didn’t move.

Or, at least, David and Ben didn’t.

Step outside David and Ben’s semi-detached, and you’d see: cars, all piled up high on the kerbs. The offending newsagent’s. A unisex hairdressing salon. A skip, placed down the road months ago, it now seemed to be a permanent fixture. An off licence. Houses crammed tight together in both directions, as far as the eye could see.

What you wouldn’t normally see would be a forest. Surrounding the house entirely, as if this thing of bricks and glass were some strange alien imposition upon a landscape so wild that all the trees looked animal, somehow: angry and untamed; the branches jutting out at any angles they wanted to, no matter how sharp, no matter how impossible; the very bark bulged. There was no checking these trees, they were the kings here—and yet they seemed to defer to
something
, because they still shied away from a natural path, and flanked it on both sides. A winding path that stretched on into the distance.

Ben, bundled up in his warmest sweater and warmest gloves and stripy scarf, was surprised to see the forest there. But Santa wasn’t surprised, this was clearly what he’d been expecting. And the look on Daddy’s face wasn’t surprise either. He looked tense, a little resigned maybe, but there was nothing there to suggest he hadn’t been expecting this as much as Santa. So Ben decided not to be surprised either.

“Come on, Ben,” said Santa. “Let’s get these stabilizers on your bike. Just until you get your balance!” They clipped right on. “All right, you’re set to go!”

“Are you still sure you want to ride the bike, Ben?” asked Daddy.

“Would you push me, Daddy?”

“. . . Of course I will.”

“You don’t need to push him,” said Santa. “He’s got stabilizers.”

“I’ll push my son’s bike if he wants me to.”

“No, it’s okay, Daddy. I forgot, the stabilizers will take care of it.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”