Rocks in the Belly (2 page)

‘Hello,' I say again, shrivelling. ‘It's me.'

Her mouth opens, trying to form words but there are only sounds in the back of her throat and then a closing of the offending article and a shaking of her head. I've been warned about this.

She leads me down to the kitchen and the old familiar smells, her face turning back to me occasionally with the urge to say those perfunctory, greeting things — the cupboard in her head empty but still she goes back to it.

Then we're both in the kitchen, the overgrown back garden looking in at me through the windows, my suitcase at the door like a dog that wants to be let out.

‘How's work?' she says, surprised at having got some words airborne. Then her back's to me as she second guesses herself about something as simple as making the tea.

Seven short years have turned her into one of the uncertain, the old. Now she has that way old people have of crossing the road or telling a story, all the time waiting to get it wrong. Saying Hong Kong instead of King Kong, or the other way round.

‘Good. It's good, Mum — as work goes.'

She gives me a smile that's a frown again before she's turned fully away, and I'm gazing at the back of her head but remembering the way her brain looked on the light box a few weeks ago during that flying visit I made. When she was all propped up and unconscious, hospital tubes running through her. A clinician pointing his biro at her CT scans as if gesturing to a weather forecast. The single tone with which he spoke about my mother's life, up there in lights. The way he had of dealing out reality, like prison food. Her mind lit up
except for that dark walnut growing in her brain. Right inside of who she is.

I wonder what part of her it's elbowing its way through now, while she waits for the kettle.

But I remember looking at that dark walnut on the CT scan and thinking it's me. That's me in there eating its way through her. If that growing darkness is a specific part of Mum, it's the me part. The son part. The disappointment. The one who did that thing all those years ago.

I'm the black walnut.

The government says that children under 13 can't sit in the front seat and anybody who sits in the front has to wear a seatbelt. Clunk-click. I don't have to wear one in the back which is sort of a consolation prize for not being in the front, but really I always want to be up in the business end.

Dad calls it that when he lets me ride shotgun. Usually only once we get round the corner from Mum and up the road a bit. I have to sit on the first aid kit cos the seat's too low.

Every time I'm climbing over he's always getting me to say when my birthday is and my answer is supposed to be today's date but thirteen years ago, as if it's my thirteenth birthday. And I'm supposed to look smug when I say it to the police officer if they catch us, then tell them we're off to celebrate at McDonald's.

Dad says it doesn't matter what you say as long as you have some facts in there with your lies. So if we get pulled over all I need to do under pressure is know today's date and I always know that because I have a calendar on my wall and a thermometer stuck on the outside of the window and I mark off the overnight lowest temperature every morning and check the water measurer on my window ledge for rain.

I like the weather and when I grow up I want to be a weatherman cos they're famous and get to tell the future and people will tune in and wear different things based on what I tell them. Plus by the time I'm a weatherman technology will be so amazing that weathermen will be able to ask the weather computer, which is called Nimbus, to predict when there's going to be a bomb or a war or a car crash.

We've got a new foster boy staying with us. Dad calls him Robert McCloud because he loves clouds. He's been here 4 days so far and is all sulky and soft and quiet, boring. He just sits outside in the garden a lot and looks at the clouds or reads in his room and doesn't do anything mysterious or suspicious so that I get really bored of spying on him, really fast.

‘Come on, folks,' Mum says, leaning out the back door to the garden while I'm in the kitchen. ‘I've got to pick some stuff up but I'll take you for a nice dinner after.' She has her foster kid voice on rather than her mum or wife voice.

Robert is 12 and so it might not be many days of the year until he's 13. Plus he could lie about his birthday and have had his real one recently with his bad parents and then get another birthday out of us good people who are helping him out of the kindness of our hearts. Mum says good people should have children but she has only had one, me.

We're running to the car like Hunchbacks of Notre Dame cos it's raining again. This is the first time Robert has ridden in our car, except the time we went to the video shop and Mum and Dad sat up front and tried to act normal.

‘You have to go in the back too, Robert,' I say as we're running. Mum is covering her hair with a hand and running round the car. ‘No, he doesn't,' she says. ‘Jump in the front, Robert.'

I stop on the lawn and watch them. I'm keeping very still and instead of thinking about what Mum just said I'm wondering why everybody makes such a fuss about rain. It's only water. Robert
looks back at me and frowns as he opens the door to the front. He gets in without needing the first aid kit and slams the door.

Mum starts the car but then she's standing half out of it again with smoke coming from the back and Robert's pink face is in the warm, water running down the car window so that he looks sadder.

Mum is getting very angry and is in a rush cos of the rainwater. I wonder how many millimetres have fallen in my collector.

Every raindrop has a small grain of dirt in it. Which might be what the fuss is about. God put dirt in rainwater because the clouds need to turn into rain but they need something to turn into rain on. Like the steam in the bathroom has to turn into raindrops on the mirror or the walls or the windows. Clouds use dirt in the air to make rain, which is why mums don't like it when their washing gets rained on.

‘YOU GET IN THE CAR THIS INSTANT OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT, YOUNG MAN.'

‘YOU HAVE TO BE THIRTEEN TO RIDE UP FRONT.'

I feel all little here in the middle of the lawn.

‘1!'

‘It's not FAIR.'

I'm feeling sheepish, like Dad says. So I'm on the lawn but suddenly I've got little hairy legs and my hair is curly wool.

Only I'd be lambish cos I'm not 13. Once you get to 13 your life properly starts and you can probably be sheepish then. I'd be lambish now.

‘2!'

‘IT'S AGAINST THE LAW!'

Rain makes people speak loudly. Must be the dirt.

Mum is marching towards me with her scary lip. She gets it when she's angry. Her mouth sort of goes down at one side and her teeth come out and chew at a bit of it. Like my friend Ralph's grandma after she had her stroke.

I run for the car but she's got me by my wrist, the rain making noise on the car roof and I can't hear what she's saying but she SAYS, IT, HARDER at the same time as her hand hits my bottom and legs.

I make a lot of screaming in pain noise so she doesn't hit me as many times as she might if I'm quiet.

The front car door opens and Robert is all dry and warm and pale. He shuts it very quietly behind him so as not to put my mum off her stroke. Then he gets in the back and shuts the door just as quietly. Mum is pulling me up by my wrist now and saying things right into my face and there's saliva on her lip and her hair is wet. She looks like a crazy woman and up this close I can see the black dots in her nose.

‘You didn't get to 3,' I say but I'm trying my hardest not to cry. She shoves me into the car and slams the door almost before my legs are out the way. I'm practically on top of Robert. He moves over.

Now there is that horrible waiting moment when Robert and me are in the car on our own and Mum is marching round the back bumper and there's a raindrop on my nose and it has a single invisible grain of dirt in it.

Mum is talking half to me half to herself through the car roof and huffing round to her door and I've got the beetroots from Robert looking at me which might be why I leap forward and lock her door. Then I lock Robert's door before he can do anything. Then I lock all the other doors and sit back and I'm in the biggest kennel ever.

Mum goes quiet. There's just the rain and my breathing, the engine. I can't see her face, only her blouse and waterproof coat which is a bit open.

She doesn't do anything for a sizzly moment. Then she pulls on the door handle a lot and screams.

I think I giggle even though my heart is going like the crappers.

I smile at Robert but he doesn't think it's funny. I stop smiling and look at the car keys wobbling in the ignition from where Mum
pulled on the door handle. The engine is running very quiet, sort of purring. The car really is going like a dream. I'm tinkering, Dad says when he has his head under the bonnet. Usually when Mum is vacuuming. I hand him his tools and we pretend we're operating on the car.

‘Screwdriver.'

Surgeons don't have to say please or thank you.

Robert is fidgeting in the car with me and I'm worried he can hear my heart, or my spanked bottom cos it's like when a bell is still dinging just a tiny bit ages after it has been struck and you wouldn't know unless you got very close or touched the bell but then you kill the little tiny ringing. I like that.

I look at her tummy in the window and try not to cry. Then she says in a very different voice that I should open the door immediately.

‘You should unlock it,' Robert says but doesn't look at me. He doesn't look at anyone much, he must have a bad secret.

‘You have to be thirteen,' I say to him. ‘HE HAS TO BE THIRTEEN.' Then I cross my arms in case they do as they're told. Robert leans up and puts his hand on the lock.

‘No, Robert,' Mum says, peeking in. ‘I want YOU to open the door.'

I slouch down and look at my shoes with their little bits of wet grass sticking to them. There's another raindrop on my nose or it might be a tear which means it will have salt in it not dirt. Like your body needs salt to make sadness.

Or maybe there's dirt in tears too along with the salt and that's why we cry, to get the dirt out. Which is why you normally feel better after you cry. Even if it is in front of Robert.

Mum's voice is all careful now like I'm a wild horse in a meadow and she's holding a head collar. I like hearing her use that voice, even though I'm scared. If I was a hero I'd drive the car away and never come back. Plus driving away isn't a bad idea because otherwise I'm
going to be hungry in my bedroom for a very long time.

She says my full name cos I'm in trouble and people are always formal when there's trouble. Then she says the shortening like when I'm a good boy. I want to lock them both out in the rain, and Robert is trying to tell me something but I stick my fingers in my ears ‘LA LA LA CUCUMBER SAUSAGE CUCUMBER SAUSAGE!'

His lips stop moving and I take my fingers out and Mum is saying ‘Try to be quiet, Robert. I can handle this. Thank you for trying, you're a good boy.' She has that wobble in her voice like she gets when she talks about Grandma. I think I'm probably dead too once she gets hold of me.

‘You won't be in trouble,' she says. Yeah right. ‘Open the door and you won't be in trouble, you've already had a good spanking today.' She uses a mixture of her voices saying that. ‘I'm sorry I lost my temper but it's really raining and — OH, HE WON'T RIDE IN THE FRONT TILL HE'S THIRTEEN,
OK
!'

‘When's your birthday?'

‘May the 14th,' Robert says then looks at me like he's wondering if that's an ok birthday by me.

‘Taurus,' I say, thinking. ‘Taurus people are strong and stubborn.'

Soon as I can think straight I'm going to work out exactly how far away it is until May 14th but it isn't that far off because this is February which means it won't be long before I'm going to have to be stuck all the way in the back while Robert gets to be up in the business end with my mum.

I take my salty tears away and climb over the back seat, curl up in the boot next to the first aid kit. I'm crying and it's raining and I'm balled up tight.

I hear the thunk of the lock and my tummy vanishes and leaves a hole behind.

The door opens and the engine stops and Robert is so quiet it's like he's in the kennel instead of me, which is what Dad calls it when
I'm in the doghouse. Sometimes my dad is in the kennel and he tuts at me and smiles. ‘Your dad's in the kennel again.'

I'm not sure Mum has ever been in the kennel. She'd have to vacuum it first.

The boot opens and she tugs me by the same wrist she hurt earlier, dragging me along with my legs sort of running in the air and sort of on the ground. She hits me a few more times and her rings hurt my ear. I'm crying for a hundred squillion reasons, and I'm crying because I'm crying. Crying makes me sad like throwing up makes me want to throw up.

Meanwhile Mum's trying to get the house keys out and talking too fast to make sense and I hate everything and how unfair not being a grown-up is and that Robert is watching. I hate him most of all. And even more than that I hate his parents for being bad because if they were good like my mum then I wouldn't have to share her.

Mum always says I don't like the foster kids cos I'm an only child but I think it would be amazing to have real brothers and sisters. Sometimes I pretend I do. I think I'd like a brother until I'm 13 then I'd like him to turn into a girl so she can bring her friends home, and I'll like girls by then and have them as a harlem.

Dad says he wants a harlem. If he had one he might tinker with it when Mum is vacuuming.

Now I'm in my room and not allowed out until she says so and she tells me not to hold my breath.