The following is an extract from a novel in progress.
He’s yelling for her still. Looking back from where we come. Wailing Naaaa Neeeeee.
I had thought the cart would please him. The horse, and the speed of it. But he’s clinging to the side with his hand all bloody. Too dark to see his face.
Round the corner, sour light fills the sky. Trees already black.
Barnabas, I say.
He’s jolted now by the shifting cart. May be that his hands are too sore to hold fast.
Need a hand there, lad? I reach for him, but fast he wriggles off.
Then – quick! – looks set to leap.
Grab his shift – he’s so thin inside it – and pull him, sharp, afore he jump, pull him back to me. But wild, he is. Too wild to hold fast for long.
Stop! I cry. Stop the cart, there, Joe!
Teeth bared, like a dog, the boy is growling. A low sound issuing from deep inside. Is he afear’d then? Whites of his eyes gleaming like a startled horse.
What grieves you, Barnabas? I say softly, holding him fast.
He will not look at me, but thrashes to left and right, trying to free hisself. Do not fret there, I say. Do not fret, lad. T’will not be long.
He screeches, now. A piercing wail, like a creature trapped. Then bats me off, hard, smacks my arm onto the wood.
Joe, seeing this, shakes his head. Worry on his face. Judgement in his look.
Take my eye off him a moment, and the boy’s slipped down. No! Too far a leap for such a child. He’s scrabbling in the mud. Now comes to his feet and is off. Little white scrap making haste down the lane.
Barnabas!
He don’t even turn. Keeps running toward the gloom, not the way we’ve come but down the hill toward the river. Whatever does he seek there?
Walk on, Joe, I say. Let’s not lose the sight of him.
Ahead there’s the ford. Shallow water glowing pale, catching the last of the light. He’s running hard for a little scrap. He durst not cross it, sure. We have him here.
Joe halts the horse and turns to me, Clock’s already struck three-quarters, he says. Mistress Dodd may’nt wait.
I swing down, petticoats catching, tug em free.
The boy is wading into the water.
Barnabas! I cry, hastening to him. Stop, lad!
He stands knee-deep. Looking up at me. Baring his teeth – just a glint of them in this gloaming dark. It is a furious little face, his, though he be but a tiny wain.
But this noise he makes – this crackling hiss – he wants me to be afear’d of him.
Stand strong, then. Face him, though a queasing disquiet is rising up in me. For I cannot fail Mistress Dodd. She must not know I am weak like this.
So, then. Turn away from him, walk alongside the river. Hum a tune, the first little ditty that comes. O’er the hills and o’er the main… Flanders Portugal and Spain…
He needs must be watching me. Wondering what I am about.
If with me you’ll fondly stay, I sing… Over the hills and far away.
Bending to the water – I dare not glance back – I pick the first stone my hand finds and send it skeetering across the silver surface into the dark bank yonder, knowing he’ll watch.
Another stone here, a fitter one for skimming, send that, too.
A quiet sluicing of water close by me. Do not look, Hannah. Do not look.
I feel him near.
Very slow, I pick another stone – not caring if it be the skimming kind or no – and whirling round I throw my arms wide and seize him. This time I will not quit my hold.
But his body goes limp like rags, no fight. The slightness, the lightness of him. Poor little scrap, I say. Poor little scrap you are.
Now up comes the horse’s hooves and Barnabas screams. He’s squirming, yelling shouting profanities, Hell with you! Hell with you! Clouts my shoulders, thrashes my head. Punches me this way and that.
Afear’d, he is, alright.
Woah! I hear Joe jump down too. There lad, there, he says, steady and calm. And between us we carry the boy to the cart. I climb up quick, and Joe hands him up to me, then jumps up hisself, and slaps the reins.
Down we go to the shining river, the boy screaming in my ear, and the water shattering around our wheels, and the carriage tips back as we go up on the other side, and Barnabas turns to me, wild eyed now, and YAH! Sinks his teeth into my arm.
Fury flares in me and I grab him tighter. Not caring for his hands. I will not fail the Mistress.
Joe’s horse picks up his pace and tears smart at my eyes for the pain in my arm. But the boy is still. Turns and bares his teeth one more time. Hrrrrrrchchchcch. His hissing growl.
A war between us has been declared. I know not how.
It is proper gloaming now, as the cart passes twixt the gate posts, and into the park. The trees, dark orbs, cast their blackness as we pass beneath. The boy sits up, alert, looking this way and that. Swallowfield Place stretches out, pale and tall as a cliff.
Joe stops at the front portico.
Not the back, Joe? Sure?
I climb down first and hold out my hands out to the boy. He comes, but stiff as wood in my arms. We stand before the door and I pull the bell. Against the light, the boy in silhouette is tiny, hunched. But head up, defiant, squaring up to whatever is to come. He is a determined little scrap.
I put my hand on his shoulder. So fragile his frame, it stirs my heart.
Mistress Dodd is entertaining, says the servant who comes, affronted at our interruption.
Mistress Dodd told me to present myself, I say. With this found… this boy. This… my son.
She warned me, the mistress, not to speak the word foundling to the village.
Aye. At three, she told you. It is now near five of the clock, says the girl.
How is that? I say, sounding stupid. Detained us longer than I knew, that struggle.
Pray tell her, then, that Hannah Groves is come with the boy Barnabas and we don’t have no cloaths. The nurse Jerviss left us nothing.
The servant has a good nose at him. Then sharply shuts the door again, leaving me and him, my hands on his shoulders, joined for an instant, facing the shut door.
He must have clothes, must he not? And medicine for his hands? How’s the boy to heal without the apothecary to tend him? And what’s he to wear? I’m of a mind to take these filthy rags off and bathe him, but then what?
It’s drizzling now. Joe has pulled his hat down over his face. He would rather be in that warm kitchen, having a blether, not out here, driving us home. I want to say this, tell him I’m sorry for the trouble. But he looks away, out over the park. The trees, planted irregular, looming darker now. One has flat blades of leathery blue, long arms reaching out. The rain’s setting in. This night is dismal.
Now the door opens again and Mistress Dodd stands over us. Snappish, she says, Was it not three o’clock we agreed?
The boy, I say, Barnabas here – he ran away, ma’am, he would not come.
Barnabas shrugs my hands off his shoulders.
She looks down at him and does not smile.
His hands, ma’am, is all bleeding.
She nods. So I see.
It surges in me now that I must care for this boy, for he’s but a little babe, I want to tell her, treated like an animal by that woman.
I will have the Doctor attend you tomorrow, Hannah, she says, a whit more soft.
Please ma’am, I say, could I take some cloths for him? For Mistress Jerviss give me none.
None? Juliana looks down at Barnabas and a change washes over her face, seeing his bloody hands; the dirty shift he’s in.
I will send some with the Doctor tomorrow. You may come to collect two shillings next Tuesday.
And the door is shut.
Mounted in the cart again, me and him sit separate now, moving off through the park and under the trees, the mizzle plastering our faces.
She thinks less of me, Mistress Dodd, that much is clear. I was her mantua maker. I was sitting in her parlour. I stood so close I could feel her breathe. Now I’m but a nurse. Another kind of servant. Two shilling a week.
Oh, what’ll Will say? Two shilling a week.
I was to get twenty for her mantua. Over a month that’s five shilling a week. Two shilling, he’ll say. Are ye mad, Hannah? That’s but a farmhand’s wage.
I will finish her mantua in a fortnight. Then Will can say nothing. That’s twenty shillings and two more for this wain.
Dark now. Damp seeping through my cloak. Poor scrap has only his shift. I’d give him my cloak, but he won’t take it. That much I know.
He’s staring blankly ahead, the boy. I daren’t touch him again.
How can he sleep in a wet shift? Might I find him a ragged one of Will’s? Make a shift from scraps, perhaps. But what remains? I used all I had to make a pillow for his cot. And a little cloth rabbit, hid there to comfort him.
Pray God Will will not be at home a while yet. Give me time to feed the boy his pap. Lull him to sleep, maybe. He’ll see the warm fire and be soothed. Pap with oats and milk. He’ll sleep, then. Tomorrow will be better.
‘Tis only for a week, I’ll say to Will. Or two. Til his hands heal.
Ah but there’s a light in the window. Will’s home.
What now?
Wait, Joe, wait til I am down, then hand him me.
Hold him fast. Don’t let him run off again.
But he’s wriggling and – mud on the path, for it has rained hard here – slipping, I – hard to keep him – he’s strong. Writhing like a mad thing. Screeching like a stuck pig. Screaming over and over Nanneee. Nanneee.
Shh, child. Shhh.
Get him to the house. Legs kicking fit to break the door down –
But here’s the door’s open and that’s Will he’s kicking.
What in hell, Hannah! Will’s face like thunder.
Get him inside. Shut the door afore he run. Shut the DOOR Will!
Boy screeches. Will’s back against the door. Boy escapes my grasp. Runs through the kitchen. Scarpers into the gloom.
Cold in here, Will.
He’s got but one candle lit.
Light the fire, Will?
What in God’s name’s this, Hannah? A babe, you said. A foundling babe. This is no babe.
He’s hurt, Will. His hands, look.
Where is he?
Clattering up the stairs, is where. His feet running on the boards above our heads.
Stay here, Will. I’ll fetch him. Light the fire.
Up the stair quietly. Don’t fright him. He’ll be hiding in our bed, I bet.
Lift the covers. Nothing.
Under the bed, my long arm reaching for him into the dark. He’s small, mind. I’ve seen him squeeze in tight spaces.
Nothing.
Then – No! – behind me he dashes – fleet of foot – down the stairs again.
Will, I’m shouting, Will!
But looking down on them from the top of the stairs, the scene is still.
Will is crouching before the grate, sparking kindling, and the boy Barnabas stands stock still behind him, staring. He is a curious lad, then? Not a fool.
Or cold. He wants warming, poor boy. Course he does. That wet shift and no shoes.
But Will’s turning to him with the poker in his hand.
Don’t, Will! No, not the poker –
The boy’s screaming. Nan. Jaarno! Nanneee! Hellwivvya Hellwivvya!
Running around the table. Bashing the chairs. Squealing like a pig. More animal than child. Round he comes again. Striking out, knocking over the settle. Not minding his hands. Running on.
Will, shouting, Catch him, then, Hannah! Hannah! Stop him doing harm!
Harm to the chairs, he means. Not harm to himself.
Shut the parlour door! yells Will and I do it, smart.
Barnabas still courses around the room, without heed or reckoning. Banging his head, his arms.
Does he not see? cries Will. Blind as well as mad, is he?
Barnabas! Come here lad. Barnaby. Barnabee. Please lad.
Flames shoot up in the grate now, lighting the boy’s face, and his eyes – like at the river – are filled with hate.
Alright Barnabas.
Like soothing a scared horse. He wants a soft voice.
Alright Barnabee. Don’t be afeared. It’s alright now.
Under the table he ducks. Sitting there. Caged in by chair legs. Still.
We both standing, me and Will, heaving breaths, staring at him.
You cannot imagine, Will, I whisper. That place. She burned his hands with a poker. Had him caged up, like an animal.
I’m not surprised, Will says. I’ll cage him up an all. Bastard child he is! Look at him. That’s plain to see, is it not, Hannah? What did I tell you? Bastard born like that, best thing for him is the grave. You mind me. No good’ll come of it.
He’s a babe, I say. A mere child.
He’s not a babe, though, is he? You tricked me, Hannah. Let me think it’d be a weakly thing. A small babe in need of our care. Not this, this –
Will rattles the back of the chair. The boy yells out a long single note, hands clamped over his ears, a long loud wail. Pierces you, that wail. Right into you.
No Hannah. Leave him! Will says. Leave him be.
Stamping upstairs to let me know his wrath.
Boy doesn’t move.
Creep very slow. So’s not to fright him. So he sees it’s not like the other place, like Jerviss.
Warm a bit of milk in a copper on the fire. Don’t turn to see if he’s watching. Moving soft, touching everything quiet, like.
Measure oats in a bowl. A bit of apple in it, for sweetness. The warmth’ll be a comfort to him. Mash the warm milk in. So it’s easy to swallow. That’s it. That’s a good pap, that.
Peer under the table. The boy is knotted tight, arms around knees. Will not look at me.
Barnabee? Hungry? Eat some food?
Blank, he looks at me. Afear’d to trust.
Eat?
Show him. Like this: bunch my fingers toward my mouth. Tis good.
But he’s turned away. Not crying. Though – look – there’s blood on his legs. From his hands, no doubt.
Smell this, child. Smell good, don’t it? Eat it?
I offer him the spoon, but now I see. He could not grasp it with his hands so raw. Oh lord. Bloodied, they are. Poor wain.
Put a little pap on the spoon for him, then. Balance it careful, carry the sweet oats under the table, over the chair seat, towards his mouth – and PAFF.
He smacks it away. Spoon skeeters across the floor. Hot pap on his leg. Screams again. Kicks out. Upsets the bowl over me and wriggles away, yelling.
Maybe I should let him be.
Will’s lit a lamp upstairs. He’s in his nightshirt.
Come and eat your supper, love.
Wasted! says Will. All that good milk and oats. Is that what they pay you for?
Never seen his face like this. A bitter turn to his mouth.
I must sit with him a bit, Will.
Light another candle, I suppose? They’re paying for that an’all, are they?
Just this first night, Will, I say. Please.
Teach him bad ways, that will. Mind me, Hannah, he should learn from the start. Leave him.
Just until he sleep? I say. ‘Tis strange for him here. Strange house. He’s but a little creature.
Will turns his face to me, harsh in the lamplight – a warning.
Should I stay up here with Will?
It is true there is stillness below us now. If I let the boy be, he will sleep, will he not? Fury spent by now.
Lie down a while.
But soon it comes. A soft moan. No words he speaks, but sounds.
Creep softly down the stairs, so as not to fright him.
*
Nan? Nanneeeeeeee.
Nanny!
Nanneeeeeeee!
Nanny.
What’sat?
What’sat noise?
Hellwivvya. Hellwivvya boy.
Eet her say. Eet.
Wood, her say. Wood.
What wood?
No. Not eet.
Eet, her say. Eet it.
No.
No. Want dark.
Want Nanny.
Say Ca’I go?
Ca’I go?
Ca’I go Nanny now?
Her say no.
Nanny. Where nanny?
Eet. Wood.
No.
Ca’I go now?
No, her say. Home now.
Nanny. Want Nanny.
No.
I killya. Hellwivya. KillyaIwill.
NANNY. NANNY!
Go Nanny. Nanny. Nannyhouse.
*
Thank god that’s over. A fucking unbelievable day. Unbelievable scenes, scenes we could never have imagined ourselves performing. Operatic scenes of ludicrous urgency, filled with our anguished voices, the desperate looks we gave one another, utterly unable to cope, pretending to cope, pretending this was normal, acting bright and cheerful to one another, to the child. As if he were cognisant of what was going on around him. He’s not.
This is the third day. Two days at her stinking house and now a day and a night at ours. Introductions normally take eight days, they say. Quicker if he transitions well. But how will they tell? And then the review meeting – if we get that far.
His glassy eyes, radiating incomprehension.
Hungry? we say.
Nothing.
Are you hungry, little one?
Makes one want to shout. I said, ARE YOU HUNGRY, NED?
Nothing.
He can hear us, can he? Jake muttered from the front as we were driving him home.
Cow! Look!
Tree!
Truck! Pylon! Farm! Desperate to break the silence, I started naming things, to see if anything would stick. See if he registered any interest.
He just looked out of the window, blank.
It was hot, all colour drained. Already the day felt unreal. We’d left at five-thirty to be in Yarmouth for seven, to learn his morning routine – since, as the social worker said. ‘You’ll be doing it yourselves tomorrow!’ with her smug little smile, as if ‘Oh they all find it difficult the first day!’ You try, lady, said Jake, on the way. But on the way back, we could say nothing to one another. We had an audience now, a silent, observing audience. And each of us, I saw, cast ourselves in a new role, and the other then became an encumbrance to the performance.
I tried to read Ned the diggers book, but he just smacked his hand on the board pages and pushed the book away. I looked at him then. Was this really malice? Or clumsiness?
Wily, very fast, he grabbed his dummy from my hand, stuffed it in his mouth and turned away. A cold rebuttal. His face utterly blank.
Duly corrected, I sat silent after that. Jake caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. Night. Mare.
Is he asleep now, the boy? Hard to tell with a corridor and two doors between us. I might get up in a bit, just to check.
Maybe best to leave him. Probably best.
I keep thinking of the weird words issuing from our mouths, in response to new dangers and shocks. NED DARLING DON’T! we yelled, our faces distended in horror as Ned put a muddy stone in his mouth and clamped his teeth on it. NO, NED, NO! Jake screamed, running down the garden to stop him before the pond. No way could he scale that fence, we’d said, when we had it put in. It took him less than a second and there he was, knee deep in duck weed, the shock of the cold forcing a wail from his mouth. I went to help him, but he turned away, and scrambled, in panic, up the far bank. NETTLES, NED, NETTLES! we shouted, but the boy walked straight into them. It must have hurt, but he didn’t cry, not even when Jake ran and scooped him up. I was too exhausted to run by that point. We were as powerless as in a dream.
Jake had made a Niçoise salad – the easiest thing for a child to eat. He’d separated all the elements in different bowls and put out the little digger spoon and fork we’d bought. But it took half an hour to get Ned dry and into clean trousers (I timed it) because he kicked and struggled and his nappy flew off at one point because I didn’t see how the tabs worked and then once I’d shouted at him for being naughty and took the wretched dummy from his mouth as punishment he lay limp, his skinny little legs like jelly, so that it was impossible to insert them into the drainpipe jeans the foster carer had provided. I was almost crying at that point, hating this situation, that he could block me, make it impossible to move on to the next moment, simply by slackening his body. He’s clearly defiant. Will of iron.
Time, too, was altered today. It took ages – literally twenty minutes – to get him to come out of the sandpit and wash his hands for lunch. But then I turned my back for half a second to hang up the towel and he vanished – noiselessly – into the garden. Running after him, I was grabbing him from behind to pull his trousers up in case he tripped, but flipped him over instead so his head smacked hard on the colander. How was I to know he’d be top-heavy? He screamed then, and Jake was yelling at me Who left a fucking colander out here in the first place? I said I thought he’d like picking up apples! Yeah well what will the social worker say about that bruise? Jake dropped the act, then.
How did we even think he’d like picking apples? We didn’t think.
At lunch we tried to engage him on his level. Playing our new parts. Driving the fork over his plate VVVVVVVVVVVV. Our voices sounding ridiculous, insincere. Ooh look! The digger is bringing you some egg! – and Ned yanking his head to one side at the last minute – sending egg flying.
Look at that lovely red tomato! said Jake. What colour is that, Ned?
Ned’s glassy gaze.
Look! That delicious spinach is green. Green!
I don’t think he even knows his colours, Jake muttered.
He put a yellow duplo block on the table. Y E L L O W. Jake unaware that his voice sounded ludicrous. Then a blue one. Blue, Ned. B L U E!
Or he doesn’t know the words for colours, Jake, I whispered.
He can’t tell the difference, Jake sniped.
How can we know that?
We both stared at him as Ned’s face suddenly buckled. Would he vomit? It struck me he was playing us, too. Slowly he put his fingers in his mouth and carefully produced an entire tomato, then slid down out of the high chair and ran.
Ned, darling! I started, but I caught Jake’s eye. Don’t bother.
Threads have slowly bound us to this knot, tied it tight and here we sit. It’s inescapable.
Little Katy smeared her faeces all over the walls because, it transpired, she needed to be seen. That was my book on attachment disorder which Jake refused to read. The notes said Ned had ‘an excellent attachment to his foster carer’. Yet when he was with her – his ‘Nanny’ as he calls her – he never once looked her in the eye. He was always ducking out of her way, dodging out of her grasp, a wisp of a thing whipping around under her feet, while she, plodding about, heaving her old hip, looked in vain to see where he’d gone. ‘He’s a little escape artist,’ she said. ‘A proper little robber. Always nicking my keys and hiding them.’
Yet those are the only words he’s spoken all day. ‘Nanny house.’
I suppose he’s asleep now, because there’s not a peep from his room. If he cried, surely we’d hear?
We need to switch off, anyway. Think about something else, Jake says, watching the news on my laptop. Just as well or I might be tempted to google AHD or whatever it’s called. Though neither of us is watching, really. We are listening.
I’m writing it all down. Evidence for the social workers in case the placement collapses. We have a child here who can’t play, who can’t see colours, who has no intention of doing what we ask of him, who can’t even look us in the eye, and whatever we say just looks blank. What hope is there?
That’s a wail. No doubt. A child’s wail.
Neither of us moves.