What I Did (12 page)

— Thank you.

— Watches have very delicate insides, he explains. — But the watchmakers are very clever; they protect the workings with strong casings and toughened glass. Now. Was anyone with you when you got these nasty bruises?

— Yes.

— Can you tell me who?

— Yes.

— Who, then?

— Dad.

— Okay, Dad. And what was he doing when it happened?

— Shouting.

— What about?

— Me.

— And why was that? Why was he shouting about you, then?

— He was cross.

— I see. Why was that?

— Because.

— Because of what?

— Just because.

— Okay. Is he often cross with you?

I put the watch down on the side and say nothing. How often is often?

— Don't worry. Nobody's cross now. Tell you what. Do you know what this is? It's a ruler, for measuring how big things are. I'm just going to measure these bruises. And see this, this picture of a person-shape, well this person-shape is like a little version of you, and I'm going to draw the bruises on it. Here. Here. And here. This is your back, and this is your front.

— Where's my face?

— Good point. I'll draw you one.

The doctor's thin quick fingers draw a picture of a face on one of the person-shapes, but it's a stupid smiley face, not very realistic, which is a shame because that's what I have to tell him when he asks.

— How's that, then? Better?

— No.

He laughs and says, — A critic, eh. But he carries on measuring bits of me with his ruler thing and jotting down things on the people-shapes, and although he's a friendly man with a watch something about the way he's doing everything makes me cross. He thinks I'm ever so slightly an idiot. I'm not. And I even know some jokes. Would you like to hear them? Okay: What goes ha, ha, bonk? Easy: a man laughing his head off. And what do you call a blind deer? Easy again: no idea. Do you get it? I do. And I know some more, too, including this one: What do you call a man with a seagull on his head? Very easy: cliff. Do you understand? It's because seagulls live on cliffs. And what do you call a man with a spade in his head? That's simple, too: Doug.

Dad told me another one after he told me that.

— Try this one, he said. — What do you call a man
without
a spade in his head?

— I don't know, I said. — What do you call a man
without
a spade in his head?

— Easy, said Dad. — Douglas.

I still don't get that one.

And another thing I don't like about the doctor is that he keeps asking me what I did to make Dad cross.

— What was it, then? What happened?

— Nothing.

— Come on now. You've already said he was angry. Clever boy like you: I'm sure you can remember why.

—
Nothing
.

And this is the truth because it's what Dad said afterward, and even if Dad keeps telling people about it I won't because he said that it was all in the past, Son, that we could forget it.
So I have
.

— But something must have happened. This must have hurt.

— I've forgotten.

— Really. You've forgotten? How's that then?

— Because.

— Because of what?

— Dad.

— You've forgotten why he was cross because of something he said since?

— Yes.

— What did he say?

— Forget it.

— Well, it must have hurt. I'm sure he wanted you to feel better quickly. That must be what he meant. I'm sure you're allowed to remember how it happened, and tell me. What hurt you here? It's all right. You can tell me.

— A brick.

The doctor pushes his papers to one side and turns his turning chair, which looks excellent because it's got almost no friction, and swivels right round to face me properly. —
A brick?

— Yes. A wall brick.

— What happened with this brick?

— It hurt me.

— How?

— It wasn't my fault.

— No, no. I'm sure it wasn't. But whose—

— Dad's—

— fault was it, Billy?

— Dad's.

— What did he do with the brick?

— Nothing.

— Did he hit you with it?

— No.

— Or throw it?

— No

— Okay. So it
wasn't
your Dad's fault, then.

— Yes it was!

— How, though?

— It just was!

The doctor's thin fingers do a long heavy wipe of his face, and when they've finished he takes a big breath and lets it out through his quite wide nostrils which have hairs inside, very ticklish. Being brief is reasonably hard and the doctor isn't giving up. He's like the ivy on our garden wall: we're always pulling it off but it keeps growing back again.

— Okay. Let's go slowly. You say your dad was to blame.

— Yes.

— Well, tell me simply. What did he do?

— Got cross.

— I understand that. And you don't want to tell me why. He was just cross about something. But what did he do?

— Hurt me.

— How?

— He just did.

— But he didn't hit you.

— Yes he did!

— He did hit you? What with?

— Nothing. He didn't.

— Nothing. He did, or he didn't. This is . . . The doctor digs his fingers into his tarmacs now, and he's trying not to show it, but failing: he's even perhaps almost nearly being frustrating. — So, you weren't running away, and he didn't catch up with you, and he didn't smack you for running into the road?

I think:
He knows. He knows. He knows.

It comes out as: — No, no, no!

— He didn't smack you? He didn't—

— No!

— So the brick you mentioned . . .

— It was a whole wall. Not just a brick.

— But he didn't hurt you?

— Yes he did!

— But not with the brick?

— Yes.

— He hurt you with the brick?

— He did! It was his fault! The brick bit me first. Because of him! Then his hand hit me, too. That hurt as well. Afterward!

As I say this I realize the doctor isn't just winning because he's won, and something inside of me changes color, from glowing yellow to flat purple, and a wavy feeling rolls up through my chest into my face. It feels hot and heavy and miserable. I look down at my legs. They are still bare. And the next thing that happens is very shameful, sorry Dad, babyish: I start to cry.

— It's all right, says the doctor, very softly. — Here. He slides a big box of tissues across at me, but it's tricky to pull one out because loads of others come with it, and I get in a muddle, which the doctor eventually helps with; he holds an open tissue out to me, then wipes my face for me with it, saying, — There we go. Don't worry.

— Dad said use small words, I say.

— What's that?

— He said be brief.

— Really.

— Yes.

— Why do you think he said that?

— I'm not supposed to tell you.

— I see.

— We're supposed to forget everything and put it behind us.

— I see.

— I'm not allowed . . .

The doctor shakes his head and blinks at me kindly. How hot does it have to be to melt tarmac do you think? You could manage it if you had a heat wave like last summer. Mum has a hot thing she uses for her hair, but I don't think she would like the black stuff sticking to it. Do your fingers have eyes? Neither do mine and in the winter it gets cold which is all right apart from the gloves because gloves are a pain unless they're mittens. Shall I tell you why? I already have. It's because I don't have eyes on the ends of my fingers and sadly without eyes they are rubbish at looking for finger holes. The doctor reaches his hand out to mine. I'm not sure what to do at first but then I pick up his watch from the table and give it back to him.

— Not supposed—

— It's okay, it's okay.

— To say much.

The doctor clicks his watch back up onto his wrist and slides his chair away.

— You've said enough, he says.

 

I am good at swimming because it's important. Otherwise if you fall into a canal you'll drown. Once I did fall into a canal in fact because of some swans who I was feeding for the Queen, because she's the only person allowed to eat them. Swans have incredibly thick necks and powerful beating wings, so I gave them some stale bread. There were some other people doing it, too, but I wanted the swans to like me best so I stood nearest to them, right at the edge where even the grass leaned out a bit, and I fell in. I would have started swimming very quickly if I'd had the chance but before I got going it was already too late: Dad was in the water with me trying to get us both out. It didn't work to begin with. Both of us went right under instead because canals have steep sides. Then it did work and I was on the edge with the other kids again, only they were dry and I was wet. Dad climbed out after me and he was wet, too: when he stood up water spouted out of his laces-holes. We borrowed some bin bags from a pub to sit on in the car and we went home with the heater on. Mum was quite cross with Dad for letting it happen. Dad normally gets angry about accidents like that, too, to teach me a valuable lesson, Son, but do you know what? No, because you weren't there. But I was and I can tell you that when he pulled himself out onto the bank after me he didn't shout at all because he was too busy just lying there laughing.

 

Back in the waiting bit there's Dad sitting opposite Butterfly but they're not chatting, no, because it looks like he's trying to work out what his fingerprints mean instead. Superman can blow things up with his eyes. Watch out, fingers! Butterfly is pretending to read something boring, just blinking at it, and moles can barely see but don't worry, they feel their way very effectively. She leaps up and steps toward me saying, — Great, well done, Billy, I'm sure you were a good boy for Dr. Adebayo. But Dad is already up with a hand on my shoulder.

— Okay? he says.

— I'm fine.

Dad glances at Butterfly and growls as he walks us past her, — You've finished with us. We can go now, yes?

— I'll be in touch, she says.

 

We catch a bus back through town. It's raining. I watch the drops on the window for a while. Hardly any of them are going anywhere. I put my thumb on one, hold my breath, count to ten, let it out, and look: the drop hasn't moved.

— Dad, I say.

— Yes.

— Can I ask you something?

— Of course.

— Because I need to ask you something.

He turns me round to face him and nods: — Fire away.

— Is it mongooses or mongeese? I say.

 

And then it's absolutely brilliant because shall I tell you what happens next? Okay, I will. It's this. We don't go home. No. That's what he said we were doing but he changed his mind instead and . . . instead we go . . . we go . . . we go . . . to the cinema . . . instead! The cinema! Dad just sees it rolling backward out of the bus window and hits the bell button on the yellow plastic rail thing. The bus slows. We get off at the next stop. The puddles are jumping like someone's throwing handfuls of gravel into them. Take that, puddle, all full of spitting holes, take that!

And it's not a birthday or even a weekend!

But in we go all the same, into the lovely glowing front part and there's the ticket machine and a man behind his glass thing and that woman who weighs the sweets which, pound for pound, must be more expensive than truffles, Son. But look, he's buying us some anyway. Great scoopfuls! In they go and I don't even know what film we're going to see, and neither does he really, I think, because when I ask he checks the ticket before telling me.

— It's supposed to be good, he says. — Tall alien people. Econonsense. And a fellow in a wheelchair. Look at this; we even get these uncomfortable glasses. It's 3-D.

3-D means not 2-D. 2-D is 1-D less. 1-D doesn't actually exist because it's only a dot. Imagine if a picture in a book got up and walked off the page into the room saying hello there, have a look at the other side of me, all round me in fact, I've got no thin edges, because I'm a right round thing: that's 3-D.

Dad and I sit down the front in the middle, hunched in the dark in our seats, which Dad sort of turns into a sofa by lifting up the rest thing between us so that his arm goes round my shoulder and my head goes just there under his chin.

It's brilliantly under-the-duvet-dark, and in among the sweets there's even some cola bottles, and it just keeps getting better and better because look, look, look: he's pulled it out of his pocket, his phone, and he's switching it . . .

Off.

And it's adverts.

And then for a second it's quiet.

Before . . .

The screen is quickly there, enormous and incredibly loud and that's it, we're going, it's started, and we're right inside it, with things flying past us and a soldier guy in a wheelchair in a box on a planet with gigantic trees that twist for miles above the ground that lights up when you tread on it or run off a waterfall because he's lost his gun to find the girl one to help you escape the dog things with six legs that leap into the sharpened stick which jabs straight out of the screen as they're bark-biting and making me duck because they're really quite frightening me this bit with the moving ears and amazing snarling scaring him and Dad's chest is warm in the quiet bit that comes afterward lub-dub-lub-dub until they run up a tree and slash what's that bullets horrible man armored suit thing noise and big doing hitting again too with the man in the box coming back out for his wheelchair as the tall blue one flops asleep before it wakes up again and runs off into the mountains with the others in search of the dragons which will kill you unless you plug your tail in quickly and fly them down to attack the vicious helicopter planes and the massive wedge ship thing which throws bombs at the huge brilliant tree because apart from her and him they're horrible humans who want it to fall over while they drink coffee watching with a scar on his head until the man in the wheelchair goes back in his glass box to do something about it but really it's the brilliant blue things that fire the best arrows which sometimes can go through the cockpit glass but mostly can't depending upon whether your dragon is red massive or blue medium size before the mating bit which leads up to the biggest fight which makes the funny pipe music turn off for the crashing wallops to make the seats vibrate but it's okay because Dad's arm is still there even when the totally evil scarred guy jumps out of the thing using his armor suit to whack and wallop and have oxygen so he can try to grab the wheelchair guy who is still asleep wake up for God's sake until the blue one plugs his tail into the roots and makes the okay music swell up swell up swell up so they can live there for as long as they want after the film ends.