Daniel Isn't Talking (20 page)

‘It's ahead of you,' he says. ‘Just keep walking.'

Clarks does not do buckle shoes for boys. Velcro or laces, that's it. You cannot get buckles at Start-Rite either, except the girls' shoes, of course. The flimsy-seeming summer shoes, what we used to call party shoes when I was young,
they
have buckles. But not the heavy shoes. Not the boys' shoes.

Daniel is meant to have shoes that support his ankles. That is what the orthopaedic surgeon told me. He was a tall man, completely bald, who reminded me of a pelican with his big smile, his middle-aged paunch, his long, slender legs in their suit trousers. My hundred and twenty pounds bought me a diagnosis of hypotonia, and joint hypermobility. In other words, Daniel is a rubber boy; he bends too easily. Children like Daniel are prone to accidents, falling as they walk ballerina-style on their toes, unable to jump without stumbling as their loose joints are weak, easily injured. Like a tube of toothpaste, they can take only light pressure.

‘Will it improve? Is there anything I can do?'

Yes and no. I can buy shoes that support his ankles. I can wait and see if the joints stiffen as he grows.

‘Was he a floppy baby?' the orthopaedic surgeon wanted to know. Did I notice anything unusual about how he felt in my arms?

Daniel was a perfect baby. He walked at eleven months, gliding easily through the house in his new shoes. He chased Emily around, giggling. He certainly did not walk on his toes – I would have noticed that. What bothers me with this notion of autism as a genetic condition – other than the fact there is no autism on either side of Daniel's family – is that accompanying symptoms such as hypotonia were not present in babyhood. Hypotonia and hyper-flexive joints ought to have presented themselves right
from the start. But Daniel was a perfect baby, passing his eighteen-month check, looking overall very much like other babies. Something happened between the time Daniel was born and the time he was two and starting to look abnormal. Some change to his brain, some insult to his system. The government insists it is not the vaccines, so what was it? To remember your child as normal, to watch him falter as though attacked by some invisible, menacing force, will change you. In the presence of doctors and their unhelpful diagnoses, I am fidgety, unnerved. In the orthopaedic surgeon's office, I have shaking hands, eyes that wander, a voice that catches. When finally I speak it is as though I cannot stop talking. I gush streams of sentences, then am silent again, searching the clean walls of the doctor's surgery, unable to rest my gaze. I stare down – at my hands, my legs, at my son. It is only the sight of Daniel that calms me. He is here, he is getting better. Nobody can deny that, not even doctors.

‘You seem very agitated,' the doctor said to me. My hair was still damp. I'd ducked my head in the sink to wash it before leaving the house, balanced Daniel on my shoulders and walked from the Tube as I couldn't afford the cab fare. ‘Are you sure you're OK?'

‘I've been on the front line for a good while,' I told him. ‘You've just told me that you cannot help me, which I understand and accept. It is what I hear all the time. But don't expect me to remain totally calm.'

That was in June. Months have passed before and since; I've spent thousands of pounds on every doctor and alternative practitioner available in the whole of Greater London. Now I think, according to their track record and the fact that my bank account shows no sign of life, that I am on my own.

Here at the shoe shop, I search for buckle shoes because Daniel has asked me so beseechingly for them. Every day he says, ‘Please, shoes with buckles,' and claps his hands together, making a little movement as though bowing to a queen. I promised him the shoes and he believed me. His eyes danced. So why don't these shops have any shoes for him, my boy who now regularly puts together four-and five-word sentences?

‘Only for girls,' says the lady at Clarks. She has an awfully lovely accent for a shoe clerk, elegantly dressed in a linen suit, her bifocals hanging on a decorated chain round her neck, her own shoes a better brand than Clarks. She says, ‘I told you that when you came in earlier.'

‘I know,' I say to the lady. ‘But he really wants buckle shoes.'

‘Velcro is very nice,' she says. ‘Convenient.'

‘Buckles Ahh! Buckles AHAHAHA!' Daniel is jumping on his toes as though suddenly caught in an electric current. ‘I want buckle shoes! Please, buckle shoes!' he cries, his voice rattling.

That is seven words. Andy told me that one day I would stop counting. Does that mean he will be normal some day? I asked. Andy is honest. He always tells me the truth. He said no. It did not mean Daniel will be normal. There is more to it. I know this, of course, but I find I am always bargaining my way out of Daniel's diagnosis, pleading for someone to announce he has a mild case of Asperger's syndrome as opposed to full-blown autism, that he has a language disorder, but not autism. Anything but autism. Such bargaining will only win you wasted time, Andy told me. Andy, who sees autism as a treatable condition, but only if you face it head on.

‘I'm afraid we only have girls' shoes with buckles,' says the woman. Along the wall of the shop is a pretty display of pink shelves, interspersed with Barbie logos and pictures of blonde dolls. In this decorated world of carnation pink lie the shoes that Daniel wants. He sees this. He understands what the woman is reporting. Language is no longer lost on his ears. And so he goes to the dinosaur display on the boys' side of the shop and removes some of the shoes there, those big greenish-black shoes with heavy treads and prehistoric monsters in holographs on the straps, and takes them to the girls' side. He swaps the dinosaur shoes for the pretty patent leather pumps with the buckles, the ones he so desperately wants.

‘Excuse me, could you
do
something?' says the sales lady pointedly.

But I am fascinated by what I see before me. How Daniel knows what the trouble is, how he has been separated from his desired object by means of his gender. It seems to him a simple thing to switch the decorations. To make the shoes with the heavy tread and Velcro part of the world of girls and Barbie, and embed the sacred buckled pumps into the masculine surround of dinosaurs and jungle grass.

‘Young man, if you would
please
put those shoes down,' says the sales lady, moving toward Daniel. Uh-oh, big mistake. She's made a grab for his shoes, the ones with the buckles, the ones he's waited so long for. Daniel squirms, makes a noise. She steps over him to snag the shoes and he sinks his teeth into her hand.

‘AAAHH!' she screams, and turns to me with fury. The bite is nothing, not even any blood. It was a warning bite, really. If he meant anything by it he'd still have the meat
of her hand between his teeth. ‘Madam, I insist you remove your child!' the sales lady says, holding her damaged hand, looking at me with a mixture of resentment and withering disdain.

‘I'm terribly sorry,' I tell her, and that is true. I am. I ought to have intervened faster, explained that Daniel is autistic, that he cannot quite abide by the rules of the world the way we can – we, who have more ordinary neurology, less intrusive thoughts, more facile communication.

‘Madam, you must understand,' continues the sales lady, ‘that in this country only
girls
wear patent leather And only
girls
wear pumps. I'm sorry, but that is a fact of our nation.'

A fact of our nation. Like PG Tips and bank holiday Mondays. Like driving on the left side of the road.

It is clear the woman thinks that being American, I will dress my son in high heels and pantyhose, any old thing. For Americans are sexual perverts, even she can see that.

‘I know you don't want to do this,' I say slowly – there is no point in explaining – as I get out my credit card. ‘But as much as it might kill you, I want you to put those shoes in a box.'

All the way home Daniel is racing forward and back on the pavement, looking at his new shoes, admiring his buckles. It doesn't matter to me that he has particularly wide feet, and that his chubby legs in the feminine shape of the patent leather shoes place him directly into the cross-dresser category. What matters to me is that my boy is happy. While he normally would complain and whine, collapsing on the pavement in a sweaty heap and refusing to budge, demanding to be held the entire journey to the tube, he is too busy for such nonsense today. Admiring
his fancy feet, he fairly skips along. Sure, there are a few looks from those on the Tube who notice a boy wearing what must be his sister's shoes, but they are not people I need ever to see again.

‘New shoes,' I smile to the woman opposite me on the tube, who is glaring over her John Lewis shopping bag at Daniel's new, shining, delicate party shoes.

‘I see,' she states.

We've done her a favour, Daniel and I. Given her something to tell her husband about later.

I come through the door singing a hello to Veena and Emily, who when I left with Daniel for the shoe shop were busy painting the scenery for a play Emily means to put on for us this evening, an enactment of
Beauty and the
Beast
, performed mostly by Mickey Mouse. She's dropped Dumbo for now, possibly for ever. Her painted elephants line the window sill, the home-made Dumbo in front, and they haven't moved in weeks. The last time I read her that story I found myself regarding Dumbo's mother with new, almost profound sympathy. They locked her away for defending her baby, tacked a sign saying ‘Mad Elephant!' to the bars of her cage.

‘Why did they do that, Mummy?' Emily asked me, looking into the book, at the face of the elephant with her trunk raised in trumpet, her desperate and sad eyes.

‘Ignorance,' I said.

‘What is ignorance?' asked Emily, my clever girl, almost five.

‘It means not knowing,' I told her. ‘But also, it can mean not wanting to know.'

There's a note on the counter from Veena. They've gone to a park. And a message on the machine from Stephen asking that I call him right away. When I ring
him on his mobile, he answers as though underwater. His voice is slow, remote. It seems that his father's depression has taken a toll on his heart. He died this morning unexpectedly, while on the way to hospital.

I've attended almost as many funerals as I have weddings. That is an unusual statement for a woman yet in her twenties. I know to expect a quiet welcome, to take without fuss the offered order of service, to sit in silence, await the solemn hymns, the mild reassurances from the vicar, the formal movement of the prayers. Because this is England, I have worn a hat. But as I come through the door I see I have made a terrible mistake in not tying back my hair Hanging loosely at my shoulders it is an affront, too blonde in this sea of dark jackets and sombre ties.

I have left the children with Andy, who volunteered himself, ‘I know how to play with them,' he insisted. ‘I understand Daniel's diet. I understand Daniel, and I understand you.' He gave me his mobile phone and touched my cheek and I thought, yes, he is right. He understands me. He understands that I will call half a dozen times during the journey to the service, half a dozen times the minute the service is ended, and will insist on talking to Emily all the way home on the train.

It's who I am. Why fight it?

As I went out the door Emily was sitting on his lap reading
Go, Dog, Go
. Daniel had been set a task of finding things you can write with, a kind of language exercise which would be boring with anybody other than Andy. Andy will end up insisting you can write with chocolate pudding in addition to all the chalk and crayons, pens and pencils that Daniel will fetch from all over the house. He will make it fun, painting the windows in chocolate pudding, making faces that show happiness, sadness, confusion, surprise, as Daniel learns to read these emotions from the glass. He draws now, Daniel. He makes Teletubbies and children. His girls all have curly blonde hair like his sister. The boys have round tummies with big dark belly buttons.

Bernard's funeral takes place in a brick-and-flint chapel set into a sunlit close off the high street. In the church now, alone in a pew, I admire the vaulted ceiling above me, decorated at the edges with mythical figures carved in stone. The heavy pillars reach up past the balcony like ancient and imposing trees, the doors, shaped as arches, are of fat, dark wood with iron hardware fashioned a century or more ago. Stained-glass windows shield us from the busy high street outside, the imposing summer sun. When I entered the church I noticed the stone steps were dished and worn, trodden on by centuries of worshippers and others, not worshippers, but who, like me, have come because they are meant to, and cannot find a trace of God inside this beautiful building with its ornate detail and carved wooden stalls.

Now an organ begins. I panic inside myself a little, feeling the weight of my children's absence, the emptiness at my sides where they should be. I know – of course – that they would not want to sit through such a service.
Daniel, for example, cannot remain still for more than about five minutes, unless it is on a train. He will moan and twist out of his seat, refusing to be amused by the toys I bring, the biscuits and raisins I stash in my bag. Unless the funeral had taken place on an overnight service to Scotland, there was no way for Daniel to come. As for Emily, I gave her the choice, but she opted for an afternoon with Andy. I can't say I blame her. I'm in for a bad time myself. About ten metres ahead of me, in a pew on the left, Daphne and Penelope speak quietly to one another. Penelope's skin is so pale, almost translucent, shining in the light of a ceiling lamp. Daphne, in a velvet hat, sits quietly next to her, like an old friend. When Penelope turns slightly, searching behind her for somebody – Stephen? – I see that she has lost none of her allure. Still the hook nose, still the wide eyes, but beneath the brim of her dark navy hat is also the appealing sexiness of her long eyes, her brilliantly white, only slightly crooked teeth. She sees me. She whispers to Daphne. And now they both turn, staring my direction. I try to smile, to raise a finger to wave. I feel sorry for Daphne. I cannot imagine what it is to lose a partner of forty years. As for Penelope, I can't help feeling a little like I've sold her a slightly unworkable second-hand car, which sooner or later she will discover cannot make long journeys.

I notice him as he comes in with his brother, as he stands for the hymns. As he sits, as he kneels. In his dark suit, his thin, nondescript tie, and hair tamed for the occasion, I notice him. When he sees me, he looks away.

The sermon is given by a retired clergyman who was a good friend of Bernard's. He goes through the usual assurances of life beyond, and then, his expression changing to one of fond remembrance, he tells us he always found
Bernard to be a most lovely and amusing fellow. I have to admit that ‘amusing' is not a word I would attribute to Bernard, He was honest, hard-working, and quite popular as you can tell by the number of people who have turned out for his funeral. But when I arrived the first Christmas to the Marshes' house, carrying bags of garishly wrapped presents I'd bought from Harrods, he announced unsmilingly that this is what all Americans do, shop at Harrods; they think that is what is correct. So ‘amusing' is not the word I personally would use, even if this retired vicar, with his kind, ripened face, would.

‘I remember how Bernard couldn't stand to use a different pen to complete a letter,' the vicar begins. ‘He had this idea you could distinguish easily between two shades of pen ink, so if he started with one blue pen, he was not going to switch to another blue pen later. He'd rather rewrite the entire correspondence. This proved to be a terrible nuisance in his life, so Bernard developed what he called the “timed cartridge” approach. He tallied up the number of lines a single blue-ink cartridge could accommodate, and kept track as one might of the petrol in a tank as he set his thoughts on paper …'

All around me people are smiling, remembering this timed cartridge idea of which I never knew. It sounds vaguely like obsessive compulsive disorder to me, as does the next point the vicar makes, which concerns a habit Bernard had of keeping every receipt, for every item he ever purchased, for a minimum of seven years.

‘But as you all know, Bernard was a great lover of
people
. And a man very easy to befriend. For all of you except
one
, that is. For Bernard was many things but not what one could call a ladies' man. And so, poor Daphne found herself being courted by a fellow whose technique
to attract a woman was to allow the hand of God to intervene and do nothing
whatsoever
otherwise to garner her attention. I can remember very well the day he told me he'd met this lovely young lady named Daphne Took. They met during the intermission of a carol concert and he wowed her by standing as far away from her as possible as she ate a mince pie. “How, then, did you meet her?” I asked him, when he came in bursting with his news. “Oh,” said Bernard, “because when she looked up to check the time I made sure I was standing just in front of the clock. Hence she saw me!” I thought about this. “Are you quite sure she
knows
she saw you?” I asked. He replied, “Of course I'm sure. I was standing directly in the way!” Well, he must have had it right, because not many weeks later they were seen at the same Twelfth Night celebration. Not together, mind, but as part of a group. So Bernard had made great progress, no longer having to block timepieces for attention. However, despite this portentous beginning it took him four months to ask if she would like to accompany him to a concert, two years to consider themselves a couple, and a total of four years to find themselves finally wed. So it is a great wonder and really a triumph of Bernard's persistence, as well as Daphne's patience, that there are so many young people sitting here today bearing Bernard's surname!'

We are all laughing now, certainly I am. Until I notice the vicar looking down at the row of young Marshes seated in the first row. Is it only me, or does the vicar seem rather puzzled? Perhaps he didn't understand that there has been a change of cast, that my pencilled-in name has finally been erased, and that however persistent Bernard may have been, his son is the opposite. A quitter. And certainly a ladies' man.

At the reception, which takes place at a local hotel due to there being no suitable church hall, I tell Daphne I am so sorry. I've brought her a photograph of the children framed in sterling. She thanks me for the picture, says they look beautiful, that she would love to see them, and thanks me for attending the service. Then she moves on. Raymond sees me and I go to him. He takes my elbow, moving close to me because his voice is weak; it doesn't carry well in crowds. ‘I apologise, dear Melanie,' he says into my ear. ‘I promised I'd come to see you.'

‘Raymond –' I hug him, I realise all at once how much I've missed him.

‘You look marvellous,' he tells me.

‘Oh, I don't know,' I'm thinking once again how everything I'm wearing seems wrong and that, despite how much I try to fit in, I always stand out.

‘You're a breath of sunshine in this dire place,' he says.

I am puzzled, delighted, unsure what to say. Raymond sighs and I look at his face which is beautiful, like an ancient image, ornamental with lines and folds. His eyes are waxy with age but full of love, compassion. He holds my elbow and I touch his hand. I kiss his cheek. I invite him to spend a day with us. But then Daphne arrives back to take Raymond off to see someone else, so that I cannot finish what I want to say to him, which is that we love him, the children and I.

If there is anything more awkward than going to a funeral, it is going to a funeral for a man who never liked you as the ex of a man who wants nothing more than to divorce you. It's really not terribly pleasant. Still, as freakish as I might feel, scores of those around us have no idea I don't belong.

‘So nice to see you, Melanie, how are the children?'

‘Oh, Melanie, I haven't seen you in ages!'

‘You look absolutely lovely, my dear. What a beautiful hat!'

Stephen's uncles and aunts and cousins, not to mention Bernard's ancient assortment of friends with short-term memory loss, have no idea I am anything but Stephen's faithful wife, and he my doting husband. Although it must seem a tad odd to see Penelope there, standing with Stephen. That might throw them if the fact I stand alone does not.

‘I think you're bloody brave,' says Cath, bringing me a glass of wine.

Cath wears an unflattering black skirt that ends mid-calf, a jacket with long sleeves even in this hot weather, and a nondescript blouse which is hidden in all the black of her jacket. Her hat is plain, her bobbed hair crunched beneath it. She wears no make-up. I always marvel at Cath's seemingly purposeful efforts at sabotaging her own good looks. Perhaps it is something you learn to do at boarding school, where the emphasis is on uniformity, fitting in, being correct. I am none of these things. I thought the English always wore long skirts to such occasions, but I see now that there is only one other woman in the room in such a thing and she is a member of the clergy. Mid-calf would have been correct, and also my blouse is too bright and my jacket has short sleeves – very wrong – plus, I should have realised, no lipstick.

‘I came for you,' I say to Cath now. She says nothing. ‘OΚ, and for him.'

‘And because you are just nice,' says Cath. ‘You were always nice. It's not a trait that gets you anywhere in life, but the rest of us appreciate it.'

I smile. ‘I'm sorry about your dad. Anyway, it wouldn't be right if I just failed to show up.'

Across the room from me, near where the food is set out buffet-style, Penelope sips her glass of wine and nods at one of Stephen's cousins, a man named Andrew who teaches at Cambridge and whose specialty is kinship among tribal groups in Borneo. I never know what to say to Andrew, who comes across as slightly lewd in his continual referral to the rites and rituals surrounding the role of mothers' brothers. But Penelope seems quite at ease. She knows all of the cousins well, having many times during university holidays accompanied Stephen and his family to a farmhouse in the Peak District, where they spent their time watching village cricket and fishing in the rain. It is really only right and fitting that she is with Stephen now. She suits him. Standing beside Stephen's anthropologist cousin, she can both marvel at the exotic, quaint habits of tribal people and enjoy the cultural exactitudes of her own, precise and metred class. Whenever I've tried to talk to Stephen's cousins they seemed to keep noticing my accent as though its sound released a mildly displeasing scent into the air. Actually, that is a bit of an exaggeration. They are used to me now. And anyway, they are nicer than that, but not Andrew.

‘I think I will say hello,' I say now, heading for Penelope.

Penelope is not a stupid woman. She knows exactly where I am in the hotel reception room, her radar no less accurate than my own. As I step toward her she turns to me, her face open and welcoming, placing her wine glass in her left hand and holding out her right. She unzips a smile, beaming at me with big, horsey teeth. She says my name as though it is good news. ‘Melanie,' she says, pausing, taking me in. ‘I've wanted so much to speak to you!'

Bending her face toward mine, smiling as though I am a great friend, she is gracious and attractive. I can hardly stand it. She is taller than me, even though she has opted for shorter heels. She turns now to Andrew, brushing his cheek with her lips, ‘We'll chat later,' she murmurs quietly.

Stephen is suddenly nowhere to be found. He caught a glimpse of me earlier at the church and again as I came into the hotel, so he knows I am here. When he rang to tell me about his father's death, I assumed he wanted me at the funeral, but now I am not so sure. Perhaps he wanted the children here, which would make no sense. If Daniel were in the room right now, they'd have had their circular doilies and napkin rings confiscated for their roundness. He'd likely have run beneath the buffet table and tugged at the tablecloth until it brought down all the food. Certainly nobody would keep him from the trays of cheese and crackers, as he will do anything to eat gluten. He's like an addict, desiring more and more bread. My gluten-free alternatives are shoddy approximations of the real thing. The boy craves cake.