Tony places his hand over the note, blocking her view. ‘We talked about this. Remember? About Mason trying to avoid facing up to his responsibilities. We both know how manipulative he can be.’
‘He’s not manipulative!’ Mum shifts away from him so sharply his hand flops onto the sofa. ‘My son might be a lot of things but he’s not that.’
‘He’s a liar, Jane. And a thief. Or have you already forgotten that he stole from you.’
‘Tony!’ Mum glares at him. ‘Not in front of Drew. Please.’
It’s not like I don’t know all this already. They sent me upstairs when we got home from school but I didn’t go into my room. I sat cross-legged on the landing instead and listened to Mum lay into Mason about nicking twenty quid from her bag. She told him how disappointed she was. How Tony was at the end of his tether. How they knew Mason had been smoking weed out of his bedroom window. ‘And now you’re stealing!’ she cried. ‘From your own mother. What did I do to deserve that, Mason? What did I do wrong?’ She started crying then. I heard Mason try to comfort her but she wasn’t having any of it. She told him that he’d pushed her to the edge and she had no choice but to agree with Tony and send him to the Residential Reform Academy.
Mason wasn’t the only one who gasped. I did too. When Tony had first mentioned sending Mason away (another conversation I’d eavesdropped) Mum was really against the idea. I wasn’t. Mason might be my brother but he can also be a prize dick. He wasn’t always a dick. He was pretty cool when we were kids but he changed after Dad disappeared. He stopped watching TV in the living room with me and Mum and holed himself away in his room instead. And if he wasn’t in his room he was out with his mates on their bikes or skateboarding in the park. He started finding fault in everything – in me, in Mum, at school. He talked back to his teachers, he started fights and he smashed stuff up if he lost his temper. After he was excluded, I barely saw him. When I did he’d make snidey comments about me being the favourite and accuse me of sucking up to Tony.
‘You’ve got no personality,’ he’d shout at me. ‘That’s why Tony likes you.’
He really bloody hated Tony. He made no secret of that.
‘Drew,’ Tony says now. ‘If this woman told you her name you need to tell us what it is.’
‘I know but …’ I pause. Tony’s the National Head of Academies which means he knows the people who run the RRA. If he contacts them, Mason will get into trouble. He’s not supposed to have any contact with the outside world while he’s away. He wasn’t even allowed to take his phone or iPad with him. I shouldn’t have said anything about this in front of Tony but I was so freaked out by what had happened it all came spilling out before I knew what I was doing.
‘But what?’ He sits forward so he’s perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘Just tell us her name, Drew.’
‘I’m going to ring Norton House,’ Mum says, before I can reply. She reaches into her handbag for her phone and swipes at the screen.
‘Jane.’ Tony touches her arm. ‘Let me deal with this. If you get in touch, Mason will be getting exactly the reaction he was hoping for when he smuggled the note out. He –’
‘Yes, hello.’ Mum twists away from Tony. ‘I’m calling to enquire about my son, Mason Finch.’
‘Mum!’ I jump out of my seat. ‘Mum, please! Don’t tell them about –’
She waves me away.
‘Yes, that’s right. I just wanted to check that he’s OK.’ She covers the mouthpiece with her hand and gestures for me to sit back down. ‘They’re just going to find out how he’s doing.’
‘Honestly, Jane …’ Tony gets up from the sofa. He walks over the window and stares out into the street with his arms crossed over his chest. A bead of sweat trickles out of his hairline and runs down the side of his face. He swipes it away sharply, as though brushing away an annoying fly. The toe of his right shoe tap, tap, taps on the carpet as Mum continues to hold. I’ve never seen him look this unsettled before.
‘OK,’ Mum says into the phone. ‘Right, OK. I understand. No, there’s nothing else. Thank you for your time.’ She removes the phone from her ear and ends the call. ‘He’s in pre-treatment and can’t be disturbed, but they’re going to WhatsApp me some video footage so I can see that he’s OK.’
Tony doesn’t react. He continues to stare out into the street. A new bead of sweat runs down the side of his face. He doesn’t swipe it away.
‘Mum,’ I say, but I’m interrupted by the sound of her phone pinging.
‘Here we go. They’ve sent the video.’ She taps the empty seat next to her, gesturing for me to join her on the sofa. Tony doesn’t move a muscle as I cross the living room.
Mum touches the screen as I sit down next to her. An image of Mason, sitting in a beanbag chair with a PS4 controller in his hands, jumps to life. There are two boys sitting either side of my brother, both on beanbags, both holding controllers. All three boys are laughing their heads off. They look like mates, kicking back in one of their bedrooms rather than three kids who’ve been sent away to overcome their ‘behavioural problems’.
‘Can I look at that for a second?’
Mum doesn’t resist as I take the phone from her hand and click on the video details.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
‘Checking the date the video was taken. They might have sent you footage of when he first arrived.’
‘And?’
I stare at it in disbelief. ‘It was taken today.’
‘There you go, then.’ Tony swivels around so he’s facing us. ‘And you still claim your son wasn’t trying to manipulate you, Jane?’
Mum sighs heavily and looks at me. ‘What do you think, Drew? He looks fine, in the video, doesn’t he?’
There’s desperation in her eyes. She wants me to tell her there’s nothing to worry about.
‘No one’s being brainwashed,’ Tony says. He’s not sweating any more and his foot has stopped pounding the carpet. If anything he looks ever so slightly smug. ‘All the kids get a couple of weeks to settle in followed by an intensive course of therapeutic treatment to help them overcome their behavioural issues. If Mason passed a note to someone – and I’m of the belief it was written before he left – it was done because he’s still resistant to the idea that he needs to make some positive changes in his life.’
Waffle, waffle, waffle. Tony might be convincing Mum with his pseudo psycho-babble but I’m not so sure.
‘What kind of therapeutic treatment?’ I ask.
‘Um.’ Tony runs a hand over his thinning hair. ‘It’s … er … cognitive behavioural therapy, modelled especially for adolescence.’
He’s right. Cognitive behavioural therapy isn’t brainwashing. It helps you change the way you think and behave. But if it’s all so innocent why has he started sweating again?
