it (were uncooperative, wouldn’t face facts), which automatically rendered them a part of the problem. To care too much was a weakness all parents could quite reasonably be found guilty of, but to actively obstruct? To smother? To deny? Not only was it unhealthy, but in the voluminous wardrobe of parental misdemeanours, this was that fine-seeming, well-laundered garment hanging neatly alongside the foul and mouldering suit of abuse (contamination was always a real possibility when two items were hung so close).
Fleet wasn’t a lost cause. Absolutely not. Because when all was finally said and done – with a modicum of support, a few one-to-one sessions, some firm guidance – they might actually be able to straighten the poor boy out (although he’d never be…not quite what you might call…well…vertical, exactly).
It was nothing insurmountable, in other words. But it was something (a blip, a phase – rather hard to put your finger on, really, without the benefit of professional input).
One thing was for certain: the boy was much smarter than he might initially appear. He was no Will o’ the Wisp. No charming, harmless Puck. He was evasive, sly, elusive. And –
Why not let’s just call a spade a spade, eh?
– you didn’t have to hunt very far to find out who he might’ve learned that particular mode of behaviour from.
The mothers sat in Elen’s brand-new kitchen (pale ash units, double-sink, waste disposal, grey marble counter) and enjoyed a pot of tea together. Fleet’s father – the German, terribly handsome – Dory? Isidore? – had popped in to say ‘Hi’ (shook Mrs Bradley’s hand, very formally, before heading upstairs for a quick nap. He’d been out on a job, he informed her – with an apologetic yawn – since eleven o’clock the night before).
Fleet (who didn’t initially seem entirely delighted by their arrival) took Steven up to his bedroom and guided him, nervously (the boy was just an accident waiting to happen) around his model of Albi (which currently took up a significant proportion of the floor-space in there).
Steven (extremely polite, but essentially unmoved by the tour) listened, blankly, waited until it was all over (offering no comment), then perched himself on the edge of Fleet’s bed, took out his computer and instituted his own kind of play (his head at an angle, his mouth falling slack, his fingers convulsing).
Okay
Fleet squatted down, picked up a boxful of matches and shook them, meditatively. He appraised his work. He mused. He calculated.
This arrangement suited them both perfectly (no pressures here, no expectations, no demands). Fleet worked away diligently on The Dragon Tower, leaving Steven entirely to his own devices.
Everything was proceeding in the best possible manner, and then…
Eh…?
Fleet scowled. He suddenly found himself distracted by the computer’s tiny voice. A tune. So simple. So repetitive. It hung in the air around him like a busy hover-fly. It buzzed. It troubled his ear. It reminded him of something. A folk memory. He cocked his head quizzically and focussed in on it, fully –
Zzzzzzzzzeeeee
Click –
Ah…
He closed his eyes, briefly.
Steven pressed pause and glanced up. ‘What?’
Fleet looked straight back at him (his fingers slightly glue-ey). ‘Huh?’ Steven frowned, then looked down, released pause, and continued to play. He tried to concentrate, but something was interfering. He pressed pause for a second time.
‘Stop that,’ he demanded.
‘What?’
Fleet didn’t even turn around, he just continued to build, methodically.
Steven cocked his head to one side. Couldn’t he hear it? The humming? Didn’t it…? Wasn’t he…?
It filled the air around them.
‘That!’ Steven exclaimed, pointing at nothing (his tongue twisting awkwardly).
Fleet slowly shrugged his shoulders and then continued on – doggedly – with what he was doing.
Steven sat in silence, frowning. He studied Fleet’s breathing patterns from the back, to see if they might give him away.
‘It’s not song…not even same,’ he eventually stammered.
‘It is the same,’ Fleet’s voice was deadly calm, ‘only it came from before.’
He continued to build.
‘No,’ Steven stammered. ‘Not.’
Fleet merely shrugged.
‘Not!’
Steven looked down at his Gameboy. His hand was shaking slightly. He wanted to play – he needed to – but he was suddenly overwhelmed by an extraordinary sense of dislocation. He blinked, then he gasped. A gulf was opening up around him (was being scribbled – in thick, dark crayon – over the gleaming surface of his everyday world).
He sat on the edge of the bed, like a frightened nestling on the lip of a precipice, remaining perfectly still, hardly even breathing, until his mother had finished her tea and was standing at the bottom of the stairs, calling him –
‘Steven? Steven!’
Then, and only then, could he blink back the darkness and run.
For the next two days, he didn’t feel even the remotest inclination to turn his Gameboy on again.
The second time she literally had to drag him there. He kept telling her that he didn’t like Fleet, that Fleet was mean, that he really didn’t want to go and visit him any more. But the school had recommended it, and Mrs Bradley thought Elen was incredibly charming (quite the loveliest person. It took a little while to get to grips with her – sure – what with that severe, home-spun look; the dark, sober clothes, the long hair, the thinness, the birthmark – but once you did, there was something so…so friendly, so informal, so calm, so intelligent…).
And the house was so nice. And the area. Everything so new. Everything so…Shhhhhh! (Can’t you hear that? The silence? No traffic, no dogs barking, no stereos blaring…)
Although on this occasion – it soon transpired – the marvellous quiet was to be interrupted (and quite notably), by a series of strange noises emanating from above.
Elen was cutting into a small, home-made fruitcake when the pandemonium first began. The mothers’ eyes had met – in mutual alarm – across the table-top.
‘Are
