probably never met my granddad, but if you have then you will know that he is a keen gardener. Only he doesn’t have a garden. That’s kind of funny if you think about it. But it isn’t that funny because he rents a small allotment a short drive from their flat, where he is able to grow vegetables and a few herbs like rosemary and some others that I always forget.
That week we spent ages there. Sometimes I would help with the weeding, or sometimes I would sit at the edge of his patch of allotment and play Donkey Kong on my Game Boy Color, so long as I kept the volume turned down. Mostly though, I would just wander about lifting stones to look at insects. I liked ants the best. Simon and I always used to look for ants’ nests in our own garden. He thought they were brilliant, and he pleaded with our mum to let him have an Ant Farm in his room. He usually got his way. But not that time.
Granddad helped me lift the bigger paving slabs so I could see the nests. The moment a slab was lifted the ants would go mental, scurrying around passing secret messages to each other and carrying their tiny white and yellow eggs underground to safety.
Within a couple of minutes the surface would be completely deserted, except for maybe a few woodlice wandering clumsily through to see what all the fuss was about. Occasionally I’d poke a twig down one of the little holes, and in an instant a dozen soldier ants would be back out on the offensive, prepared to give their lives for the colony. Not that I ever hurt them. I only wanted to watch.
After Granddad had finished weeding or pulling up vegetables or planting new ones, we’d carefully place back the slab and head home for our tea. I don’t remember us ever talking. I know we must have done. But what words we shared have escaped from my memory completely, like ants down a hole.
Nanny Noo made nice food. She is one of those people who tries to feed you the moment you walk through the door, and doesn’t stop trying to feed you until the moment you leave. She might even make you a quick ham sandwich for your journey.
It is a nice way to be. I think people who are generous with food have a goodness about them. But that week or so that I stayed with them was very difficult because I had no appetite. I felt sick a lot of the time, and once or twice I actually was sick. This was difficult for Nanny Noo too, because if she couldn’t solve a problem through the stomach – like with a bowl of soup or a roasted chicken or a slice of Battenberg – she felt out of her depth. One time I spied her standing in the kitchen, hunched over the untouched dishes and sobbing.
Bedtimes were hardest. I was staying in the spare room, which never gets properly dark because there is a street lamp outside the window and the curtains are thin. I would lie awake each night for ages and ages, staring through the gloom, wishing that I could just go home, and wondering if I ever would.
‘Can I sleep in here tonight, Nanny?’
She didn’t stir, so I walked in slowly and lifted the corner of her quilt. Nanny Noo has one of those electric blankets on account of her cold bones. It was a warm night though, so it wasn’t plugged in, and next thing I knew I was letting out a quiet yelp as my bare foot pressed down onto the upturned plug.
‘Sweetheart?’
‘Are you awake, Nanny?’
‘Shhh, you’ll wake up Granddad.’
She lifted the quilt and I climbed in beside her, ‘I stood on the plug,’ I said. ‘I hurt my foot a bit.’
I could feel the warmth of Nanny’s breath against my ear. I could hear Granddad’s rhythmic snoring.
‘I can’t remember anything,’ I said at last. ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what I did.’
At least I wanted to say that. It was all I could think about, and I desperately wanted to say it, but that isn’t the same thing. I could feel Nanny’s breath against my ear. ‘You stood on the plug, my poor angel. You hurt your foot.’
When I went home it was just Mum and Dad and me. On our first evening together the three of us sank onto the big green couch, which is how it always was because Simon preferred to sit cross-legged on the carpet – his face right up close to the television.
That was sort of our family portrait. It’s not the kind of thing you think you would miss. Maybe you don’t even notice it all those thousands of times, sitting between your mum and dad on the big green couch with your big brother on the carpet getting in the way of the telly. Maybe you don’t even notice that.
But you notice it when he isn’t there any more. You notice so many of the places where he isn’t, and you hear so many of the things he doesn’t say.
I do.
I hear them all the time.
Mum switched on the television for the start of EastEnders. This was like a ritual. We even videoed it if we weren’t going to be home. It was funny because Simon had a huge crush on Bianca. We all used to tease him about it and tell him that Ricky would beat him up. It was only for fun. He used to laugh out loud, rolling about on the carpet. He had the sort of laugh people call infectious. Whenever he laughed it made everything that bit better.
I don’t know if you watch EastEnders, or even if you do, I don’t suppose you’ll remember an episode from so long ago. But this one stayed with me. I remember sitting on the couch and watching as all the lies and deceit about Bianca sleeping with her mum’s boyfriend and a whole load of other stuff finally came to its bitter conclusion. This was the episode when Bianca left Walford.
We didn’t speak for a long time after that. We didn’t even move. Other programmes started and ended well into the night. This was our new family portrait – the three of us, sitting side by side, staring at the space where Simon used to be.
PLEASE STOP READING
OVER MY SHOULDER
She keeps reading over my shoulder. It is hard enough to concentrate in this place without people reading over your shoulder.
I had to put that in big letters to drive the message home. It worked, but now I feel bad about it. It was the student social worker who was looking over my shoulder, the young one with the minty breath and big gold earrings. She’s really nice.
Anyway, now she’s skipped away down the corridor, acting bright and breezy. But I know that I’ve embarrassed her because people only skip like that, and act all bright and breezy, when they’re embarrassed. We don’t need to skip when we’re not embarrassed – we can just walk.
It’s good to be able to use this computer though. I had a teaching session on it with the occupational therapist. His name’s Steve, and I don’t suppose I’ll mention him again. But he was satisfied I knew not to try to eat the keyboard, or whatever it is they worry about. So he said it’s okay for me to use it for my writing. Except he still didn’t give me a password, so I have to ask each time, and we only get forty minutes. It’s like that here, forty minutes for this, and ten minutes for that. But I am sorry about embarrassing that student social worker. I really am. I hate stuff like that.
I had no right to attend my brother’s funeral. But I did attend. I wore a white polyester shirt that itched like mad around the collar, and a black clip-on tie. The church echoed whenever anyone coughed. And afterwards there were scones with cream and jam. And that is all I can remember.
But now I should slow down a bit. I tend to rush when I’m nervous. I do it when I’m speaking too, which is weird because you tend to think it’s just those small tightly wound men who speak quickly. I’m about six feet tall and might even still be growing. I’m nineteen, so maybe not. I’m definitely growing outwards though. I’m way fatter than I should be. We can blame the medication for that – it’s a common side effect.
Anyway, I speak too quickly. I rush through words I find uncomfortable, and I’m doing that now.
I