Retard (6 page)

Extract from interview between Dr. Graham Burns and Amber Griffith, conducted 7
^th
July.

Amber Griffith proved to be a pleasant woman in her early fifties with a kindly face and unashamed greying hair reaching halfway down her back. Despite the years, it was easy to picture the teacher young and just starting out, her enthusiasm for children still shining through.

GB: There have always been students with special educational and social needs. In my particular line of work I’m often brought into schools to assess and facilitate troubled children. When you first started teaching, what kind of support network was in place to assist with such matters?

AG: (Laughs) Are you kidding? At the time our schools were going through an identity crisis. Corporal punishment had been put to bed yet teachers from that era still remained. Suddenly these educators were faced with the same old
problem
children and had no contingency plan in terms of discipline.

Then came the new brigade, those with strategies in class control, behavioural management, fundamentals that are part of any basic training course nowadays, but we didn’t have the support, the funding. Some kids were trapped in the middle of the two approaches, out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

GB: Such as?

AG: Things such as…I don’t know. Strategies like, and I hate to say it,
the retard table.
That’s what they called it back then. Oh, the threats of being put on the retard table, or the naughty table, or the thick table. That wasn’t just what the kids called it either; the staff were just as bad. Johnny won’t sit still again? Stick him on the retard table for the rest of the week. That’ll pull his head in.

GB: Very few people know Christine Stephenson. What can you remember about her?

AG: I don’t want to talk about Christine Stephenson.

GB: I’m aware of the circumstances, Mrs. Griffith, but I’ve had access to school reports, Wesley’s education plans and notes from parent-teacher meetings. I’m just trying to get a feel for who she was at that time, what ultimately motivated her actions.

AG: I swore I’d never speak of that woman again. Even when the press were knocking at my door day in, day out. (Sighs)

My older brother died of lung cancer a few years ago. A strange topic to bring up, yes? He fell sick but still refused to see the doctor, blaming his symptoms on a chest infection caught over winter. Every time my husband or I…we’d suggest it might be something more serious but my brother would remain on the defensive, and all the time had this tumour growing inside him. That’s what I picture when I think of Christine Stephenson.

GB: How so?

AG: She was a young woman who believed the world was against her. You would have thought that Wesley had been an angel, the way she carried on. Everything was someone else’s fault. All the time this deep resentment was slowly building up. She certainly came across as paranoid in some ways. All this talk of the educational and welfare systems, child abuse management. It was
her
that needed the support, not Wesley. That’s all I will say on the matter.

GB: You say he was no angel, for example, the day Wesley was found with Kelsey Bremner? Can you tell me a little more about that?

AG: This is monstrous. What’s wrong with you?

GB: I just want the truth revealed.

AG: If you have access to all those old reports as you
claim
, then you know as much as I do. I was not the member of staff that found them together, thank God. I will not discuss what happened with Kelsey. It’s taken so long to put all this behind me. Almost thirty years. Don’t drudge up all the old skeletons now.

GB: Okay. One last question. If you could go back in time and change what happened, what would you do?

AG: What would I do? I have three children of my own, all mostly grown up, and I still do a little teaching work. When I’ve looked at all those young faces, like all
good
parents, I worry about what might lie in store for them, what cruel turn of events might be lurking just around the corner. I see poor little Wesley. If I could change one thing, I’d go back to the last day Wesley attended school, wrap my arms around him and never, ever let him go back home. Ever.

7.

Graham clicked off the Dictaphone, swallowed and rubbed his eyes, wondering if this had been the right decision. A reserved man, he’d never spoken for so long as his dry, itchy throat testified. Reading the tiny, type-written ink, scratches of handwriting, and scanned documents on his monitor also took a toll.

Below, the Christmas party showed no sign of abatement. While he preferred his books and classic action movies, the office girls kept him reluctantly up to date on the developments of the modern world. Downstairs, in the large foyer that had been converted to party central with a DJ booth, Christmas decorations, tables, a bar and mistletoe hanging over the reception desk, the latest number one blasted away. A cover of Silent Night…complete with rap. This year’s Simon Coop’s popstar gameshow winner.

“I’d rather be up here,” he croaked to the other, vacant desks and night lights of London. “Stuck in the eighties.”

Graham stood, stretched to work the kinks from his spine and grabbed a machine Cappuccino from the refreshment centre in the corner. Back at his desk, he yawned and picked up the Dictaphone.

“This entry is solely based on witness accounts and statements, recent interviews and any reports that were filed at the time. Thankfully Amber Griffith had fully documented the incident with this Kelsey Bremner and the following meeting with Christine Stephenson. Sadly, that is where her positive interference in the matter concludes. I feel we have to appreciate Amber’s attempts to address Wesley’s issues with his mother. Teachers then did not have access to the welfare resources they do now. For example, while the debate on smacking children rages on, this was not so much of an issue in eighty-seven. I firmly believe, and from my professional experience, that should the case have occurred today, the same outcome would not follow. A mother and child, living alone, with the mother using physical means to discipline her child, would at least be heavily investigated and monitored today. Back then, it was par for the course, the situation attracting only gossip and disapproval, but of course everyone was too busy to intervene.”

He took a sip of coffee.

“Sally Fielding had a pretty good idea what was transpiring in the home, as discussed in her interview. Sally has now been married for almost thirty years and recently became a grandmother for the first time. She was initially reluctant to discuss the Stephenson Case with me when contacted, claiming to not even know a Christine Stephenson.”

Graham paused the machine and placed it on the pile of papers on his desk, thinking back to the phone call. In a country wrought with violence, be it terrorist threat or gang-related, the news every night contained a grisly death and murder at the hands of another. The populace had become desensitised to the slaughter…unless the unfortunate victim should happen to be a celebrity…or a child. Child abuse still held the stigma of the ultimate taboo, be it violent or sexual in nature. Child abuse cases never failed to make the headlines and shock the nation, and those involved, even the innocent bystanders and the witnesses, tended to want nothing to do with it. These cases proved to be curses, often ruining the lives of all who had even the most passing contact with the victim.

“In my critical essays that follow my summary of the Stephenson Case, I’ll discuss the similarities with the Bulger and Climbie tragedies, the latter specifically. Certain aspects I see arising often in violent cases, especially when the abuse takes place over a prolonged period.

“But back to the point regarding Sally Fielding, and how witnesses wish to forget the stain that will never wash out, I believe the guilt of the incident is something these people will carry with them all their lives, as evident with Amber Griffith. In each of these cases, the signs were there. You may hear witnesses say after the event
I always knew there was something wrong with her
. In the Stephenson Case, Fielding had sighted the bruises on Wesley and voiced her concern, and Griffith had reported Wesley’s errant sexual behaviour and recorded it. The signs were there indeed, yet nothing was pursued, and misfortune was inevitable.”

Graham had another taste of his Cappuccino, taking a long, slow gulp.

8.

Wesley licked his lips, which had started to flake. The back of his throat proved to be the worst, dry and itchy, like his tonsils had shrivelled up.

Lying at the centre of his untidy bedroom carpet, he stared up at the hanging light bulb over his face. The December light shone through the window, pathetic, even for midday. His last drink had been Sunday morning: a glass of orange juice with his bowl of cereal, just before Aunt Sally had arrived.

Now this was…what? Monday afternoon.

He’d lain crumpled against the wall, listening to his mother next door in the bathroom, cleaning up his mess. That seemed like an eon ago. Night had descended, and with it snatches of sleep as he lay curled up in bed. He sat up every time he heard footsteps coming up the stairs, hoping for an ice cold glass of milk, or at least water. His mother would go to the toilet and head back down to the lounge room. He wondered if she knew he was listening and did it just to build his hopes up before smashing them out from under him.

His stomach growled, sounding cavernous in the silent bedroom.

Wesley licked his lips again. He’d willingly go without food for another day just for a single sip of water.

Sunday evening, dying to go to the toilet, he’d crawled under his bed to seek out his stored summer toys. He had an inflatable ring, a diving mask and snorkel, and importantly, a bucket and spade.  Not that he ever got to use them. He’d set the bucket down in the corner and peed inside, careful not splash any on the carpet. Despite the cold, his bedroom had started to stink. He’d tried placing a book over the top of the bucket yet the stench somehow found its way out.

“Look!” said Commander Yorin, standing by the window and pointing through the glass. “A drainpipe! We can simply smash our way from this cell and climb down to our freedom.”

“It wouldn’t work,” said Wesley, closing his eyes. “I don’t have anything to smash the window with, and I can’t even climb the rope at school. Pete can but I can’t. I won’t be able to climb down a drainpipe.”

Sasha had balanced herself on one foot, standing on a bed post, practising her sword stokes, a bit like The Karate Kid at the beach.

In the corner, sitting on Wesley’s toy box, sharpening one of his arrow heads, EagleEye looked up, eyes bright within the darkness of his hood. “Globin, can’t you just magic us out? One quick spell, and we’re on the other side of the door yonder. Two quick shots to take out the guards is all thy need. Down to the courtyard and away!”

It won’t work, it won’t work, he thought. I’m not a wizard. You aren’t here. This is just the episode where The Fabled Four are trapped in Dragonclaw’s tower.

In the show, The Four had befriended the young girl that brought them their food and water, who had risked her life to steal the key to their cell from a sleeping Dragonclaw. Anyone can be a hero.

Wesley knew that he had no saviour other than time. His mother would calm down, she always did eventually.

The sound of the front door slamming did little to reassure.

He slowly climbed from the floor and stood amidst the toys strewn about the carpet, regretting his inactivity. What a sight, to have his mum finally open the door and see a nice tidy room, her son sitting on the bed having patiently served his time. Instead she had a gasping boy in a pig sty with a bucket of piss in the corner.

Familiar sounds drifted from below: door keys hitting the kitchen counter, the thump of her handbag following, the rattle of the belt buckle on her coat.

Any moment now, he told himself, she’ll come in. Door wide open. Hugs. A drink.

Her steps coming up the stairs were posts being shot into the ground.

She can’t still be mad.

It’s been too long.

Too long!

The approaching storm paused outside his door. Wesley held his breath and silently sat on the edge of his bed.

The first sign of freedom came as the slight rattle of the door and handle, followed by the scrape of the chair legs against the thin landing carpet. With the chair aside, his mother grabbed the handle and swung open the door.

Wesley sat and waited. After a day and a half without food or water, he could wait a few more seconds.

She entered his bedroom, cautious, the way one might enter an animal’s cage. She wore slim jeans, boots, and a baggy top, a mosaic of dark blues and violet. Her hands were planted firmly on her hips.

“Wesley.”

He could smell the outside on her, the crisp, cool air clinging.

“Wesley!”

He stood from the bed, fighting the sway.

“The bitch from the school says you were messing around with some girl.”

The bell sounded, hard and grating, a short blast that jarred the teeth in the skull.

Around him other children all burst into flight, running for the single door that led back into the school, the duty teacher circling her arm. Come in swimmers, your time is up.

Wesley had stood aside from the boys chasing each other, playing tick or kicking around a football. The girls too had their groups, staying huddled, watching the lads play. From his den of twisted vine and poisoned thorns, just like The Haunted Forest from The Fabled Four, he watched them all from the shadows.

Kelsey was upset. Her eyes glistened crystal tears. Lucy too was invited to David’s party, and she said she was going to dance with Pete…but Kelsey liked Pete. It was a social nightmare, a sick game, one that poor Kelsey had apparently lost. While her friends joined the masses and fled inside at the sound of the bell, Kelsey remained.