Rocks in the Belly (6 page)

I like the fish and chip shop except being here today with all the hot surfaces makes me scared my hand will get burnt again. I'm always getting these really big daydreams about bad things happening and they're so real they make me jump.

When the food is all wrapped and paid for Dad takes it off the counter and it always leaves a mark and I stay behind to watch the hot mark fade because if I don't Mum and Dad will die.

Then I run to catch Dad up and he's pretending I've caught him with his face guzzling the package of food.

We eat the fish and chips in the car by the park. I eat slower than usual cos I can only use one hand. When Dad's finished his dinner he starts on mine and even holds my good hand so I can't stop him. I love it when we get the giggles.

From where we're parked I can see the chemical plant chimney lights winking through the steamed up car windows. You can always see birds flying around in the light at night, ‘getting high on the chimney fumes,' Dad says. I'm scared of the fumes but Mum says it's just steam.

He lets me change gear in the front all the way home and I only crunch once but that's because he says Robert might be with us for quite a while and ‘maybe you'd like to start trying to get used to that.'

He hits my hand off the gearstick because I try to put it in
reverse instead of third and probably take a few teeth off the gearbox. Maybe it'll need braces now too. He shouts at me. I climb out the business end and lie in the back. I'm full of food but empty, my fingers up close over my face and they smell of salt and vinegar or bedwetting.

By the time we get home Dad has already forgiven me. He always forgives me really quickly and says that when it comes to me he's like a forgetful goldfish.

We get in the front door and there's the smell of food in the oven and the table laid nicely and Dad hides the scrunched up fish and chip paper behind his back and she's ‘gone to all this trouble for nothing.'

Her and Dad go out and sit in the car and Mum's behind the wheel and Robert and me spy from the upstairs window and watch their mouths moving really fast like they're in a silent film.

It's already Tuesday and Mum's turn to take me to see Jaws. Her and Dad haven't spoken since last time I went. Dad says it's another Cold War.

Mum's late and has to quickly stop off and do a hundred things on the way. I wait in the car and my tummy is snakier than last week.

We're running later now and she gets us lost and expects me to find it from going last week but I'd been singing and changing gear plus Dad knows his way round town from the days when he was a boy and helped out the milkman in return for milk.

Whenever we go round town he can tell me what some of the buildings used to be or what was there before that building was there even. Or he'll pretend to look dreamy and say, ‘I remember when all this was just fields.'

He especially likes saying that when we're way out of town and there are just fields.

Mum is from a big city up north but Dad's always lived here and says he always will. Mum makes a face when he's sentimental about where we live. She calls our town Snoresville.

It's raining and I'm sitting in the back and Mum won't look at me in the mirror but her face is stiffer. People always look more serious or sad when they think nobody's looking, but tougher when they think they're being looked at but are pretending they don't know. A spy knows these things.

Mum is talking and I'm watching the raindrops going horizontal on my window. The faster the car goes the faster and more backwards the raindrops go, except sometimes the wind blows and they sort of go flat and wriggle against the glass and don't move.

I'm sniffing the plastic cover over my bandaged scarred for life hand and Mum asks me why I think we're going to the psychologist. I used to have a plastic cover over my mattress too when I was young and bedwetted.

I shrug.

‘Did Dad have a chat to you on the way to Mr Gale last week?'

‘Not really.'

She goes quiet for a minute.

‘He didn't say anything about me and Robert?'

‘No.'

More quietness. Then she's going on about how Mr Gale is a special man who can help me because I upset them when I burnt myself like that, and that they can't have a son who hurts himself, not with all the pain already in the world. ‘What would the world come to if little boys went round hurting themselves all the time?'

‘Why doesn't Robert and his parents see a special man instead?'

She takes a deep breath. ‘Robert isn't the one who burnt his
hand,' then before I can say it she says ‘I know, I know, it was an accident. But Robert needs our help, full stop. And that doesn't mean your dad and I don't love you to bits.' She changes gear quite hard and not very well. ‘I'm looking forward to you finally getting used to foster boys being here. You happen to be in a good family which makes a difference to the world, rather than being a normal family that only thinks about itself. We aren't a normal family, Sonny Jim. Count yourself lucky you were born where you were.'

I don't like it when she calls me Sonny Jim. It's Dad's line. It sounds different in his mouth.

‘Right?'

I nod. ‘Right.' I hold my robot and look at the rain bouncing up off the road like really hot oil in the frying pan.

There are a lot of people running around the streets and I pretend I'm in a big truck and going through the puddles on purpose, sending enormous waves coming up and washing them all away and knocking the buildings down into rubble and the electricity in them sparking and catching fire and black smoke everywhere.

I wonder how much is in my rain collector.

There are lots of people out there and some of them have their coats sort of off but up over their heads to cover them from the rain, like when criminals leave court on TV and they don't want to be recognised.

We get to Mr Gale's place and I run ahead while Mum locks the car, a plastic bag over her hair from the rain. I push Mr Gale's door buzzer and there's just the sound of it buzzing, a bit like when the old men who play cards near the supermarket clear snot out of their noses. Mum always gags when they do that. She's scared of throwing up. I can make her freak out just by putting my fingers in and tickling the button in my throat. It's my secret weapon. Even if I only pretend to feel sick she starts being nicer to me.

We wait and Mum does her hair and I can feel the snake big and
thick and hissy in me. Then the door clicks and Mum quickly says ‘I love you' just before Jaws opens it and smiles with his metal and shakes my hand while he looks at Mum. His hand isn't warm and is quite small for a man hand. I don't like men with small hands.

‘How's your burn?' he says. ‘Healing nicely?'

He can probably read my mind like God and Grandma. I nod and try not to think anything he wouldn't like.

He asks me to wait in the waiting room and I can't stop looking at his braces when he talks. Sometimes my lips move when people speak to me, like our mouths are connected. I know that cos Dad gets the giggles at me and messes up my hair.

Jaws takes her away with an arm on the middle of her back and I sit with my robot in my lap. I shut my eyes and pretend I'm at home. Then I get to thinking Jaws is ripping into Mum with his metal teeth, tugging at her like she's one of those chewy bars that get all stringy and won't let go. Meanwhile she's sort of stroking his hair and loving being eaten.

I sit still and try not to think, like my robot. I need the toilet.

When they come back Mum is ok and there's no blood in Mr Gale's teeth but I still feel like I'm going to pee myself. Plus Mum has this face on and Mr Gale is watching behind her like he knows exactly what she's going to say and what is going to happen and I feel like that big social worker is next door ready to take me away. Mr Gale is eating me with his eyes.

‘Where are you going, Mum?'

I'm sitting here feeling like Alice when she got shrunked. I get off my seat and fall for an hour before my feet hit the ground. I hang on tight to Mum.

She looks at Mr Gale and he nods. They have a secret about me. She holds me away a bit saying what I can and can't touch like last week but I'm just leaning into her and pushing my robot up against my bladder and I want her to take me to the toilet so we can get
away from Jaws, just for a minute, so I can talk to her and have a hug. Just for a minute.

‘I'll only be next door,' she says and her eyes are a bit wet because she's saying goodbye. I'm never going to see her again. I'm too bad, and now my hand is scarred for life she doesn't want me anymore. She wants Robert.

I hold on to her but she pushes me into the room and closes the door.

‘Just for a few minutes,' she says from through the big tall wood with her voice wobbling. I try the handle but it's locked.

‘Mum, my robot! MUM!' I let go of helping my doodle with all its wee so I can bang on the door. My robot is all alone out there and I'm in here with the python. It's getting thicker in me, like it's working out its body. Tensing it. Ready to come up out of my tummy and swallow me from inside. I turn and look at the toys up at this nice colourful end, then at all the stiff things in the posh working end.

I don't know how long it is before Mum and Jaws come rushing in shouting. I stop what I'm doing and run away into the wendy house. They can't get me in here. I shut my eyes so it's dark like the lion's den. I'm panting from doing those things and my trousers are all warm and smell like the fish and chip shop counter. Plus my scarred for life hand hurts from being used. I'm all curled up small in the wendy house and Mum's shouting. They're definitely going to send me away.

Now I'm in a towel from Jaws's bathroom. A big towel. Mum is out in the waiting room, steam coming out of her ears probably. She has my wet clothes but the wee is still on his desk, and all the torn pages and broken books. I love that. It's like with the spot of blood on the loop the loop at home. I love that too. Some things that maybe shouldn't be nice are nice. And some things that should be, aren't. I blame the snake.

Mr Gale has his hands like a newsreader but he's not at his desk. He seems to be thinking very hard like he needs a poo. His lips have disappeared.

‘What d'you think we should do about the damage you've done to my office today?' he says.

‘Are you going to send me to live with another family?'

His eyebrows go up which makes the skin on his forehead look like the sand after the sea has gone out. I wriggle in my seat.

He opens his mouth to speak and his braces have a tiny bit of lunch in them. ‘Why do you think that would happen? What makes you think something like that?'

I shrug and look at his shoes. ‘You have shiny shoes.'

‘Yes,' he says, looking down at them as if he forgot all about his feet. ‘One of my favourite jobs actually, I—'

‘Maybe you could do that job instead of this one then?'

‘What, shine shoes?' He laughs a bit then stops quickly like he wasn't really laughing in the first place. ‘I don't think the pay would be as good. But I do feel very calm when I'm shining them. Is there anything that makes you feel calm?'

I shrug. Three Lips Macavoy would put the moves on him. ‘My lion's den.'

‘Where's your lion's den?'

‘You get to it through my sleeping bag.'

He smiles. ‘Tell me, how d'you think your dad is feeling at the moment, about having Robert stay?'

I can see the ceiling fan going round and round in his shiny shoes. He switched it on to get rid of the vinegar smell but pretended it was just because he was hot.

‘I dunno. Dad likes it probably. But not as much as Mum.'

‘Oh?'

I look at him.

‘Your mum likes having Robert to stay, then?'

‘Loves it.'

‘How much out of ten?' he says, and his mouth stays open like my answer is a biscuit.

‘More than nine.'

‘More than nine?'

‘Can I have my robot?'

‘In a minute, you'll be going home soon. But why not ten, if it's more than nine, why not ten? What's missing from it being ten for your mum, having Robert staying with you?'

I sigh and look at the fan. If you make your eyes follow it you can actually sometimes see the blade instead of the blurry whirring. I like that.

‘She loves it 9 point 9999567 out of ten.'

‘That's very precise.' He licks his lips and fidgets, leans in closer. ‘So what's that little bit missing? Is that the part of her that maybe suffers a bit too? Like you are?'

‘Can I go now, please?' I'm thinking of things to do while I'm shut in my room for the next 300 years.

‘Just a couple more minutes. This is important. You know you're here because Mum and Dad are worried about you? You're going through an awkward time. That's why you burnt your hand and did all this to my office. But you don't need to be struggling. It's not fair on a little boy to be struggling.'

I shrug.

‘So why not ten out of ten? What's missing for your mum.'

I show him my bandage.

‘You think that's the bit missing, that you hurt yourself? You
do?
Ok. Anything else?'

He's leaning in really, really close now with his mouth open again and some yellowy fur goo on his tongue and one of his eyes has something sort of clear yellow growing on the white bit, and there's still food in his braces. People look better from a distance.

‘Nothing else? You don't think she finds it hard to foster boys
and
have a son
and
a husband, and do all of those things all at once?'

‘It's Michael's fault.'

‘Who's Michael?'

‘I want to go now please, Mr Gale. I'm sorry about your office.'

He sighs and I can smell the tongue fur. He writes something on a pad of paper. ‘I know you do. Thank you for apologising. It's ok. They're just things. But are you telling me you think the bit missing that makes it nine point, lots of numbers, not ten for your mum, d'you think deep down you might think that missing bit is you? That it's your fault? It isn't your fault, mind you. But I wonder if maybe you've decided it is your fault.'