The Boy Who Fell to Earth (33 page)

Merlin stared at his feet dejectedly. He looked like a bewildered nocturnal creature caught unexpectedly in the daylight.

Fury welled up in me. ‘Merlin’s not a “bad hand”. He’s inventive and original and unique.’

‘Of course he is! And that’s what we want the world to know!’ Jeremy rocked back on his heels and smiled, a smug smile – the smile of a man who was sure that he knew exactly what was going to happen next. But one thing he hadn’t predicted was Merlin’s unpredictability.

‘Well, Polar Bear, it will soon all be okay, because your next cub will be normal,’ Merlin said in an anaemic murmur.

Jeremy’s head jerked back like a snake surprised by a mirror.

Merlin looked up at his father and said in a quiet, tentative voice, ‘The last time I was staying over at your polar-bear lair I overheard you and Grandma conversing. You told Grandma that your girlfriend is “knocked up”, which Archie says means that she’s having a baby … But I heard you tell my grandma that you’re not going to marry Audrey until you ascertain whether or not the foetus is normal.’

Something in my stomach churned and twisted. Was it possible to be completely astonished and yet not remotely surprised at the same time? ‘Is this true?’ I said, through lips that didn’t feel like my own.

‘Of course not!’ Jeremy spluttered. ‘You know how Merlin misconstrues things.’

I also knew how good he was at eavesdropping, feline-footed, then parroting whole conversations, verbatim.

‘Whatever you thought you heard, Merlin, you definitely got the wrong end of the conversational stick, dear boy. Now come along everyone. Drink up! I’m speaking in ten or so
minutes
… Lucy, darling, it’s all a big misunderstanding.’ There was a slight sheen on Jeremy’s face, the only giveaway that there was any crack in his composure. ‘We’ll sort it all out later.’

I felt as mystified as the first day I ever saw algebra. I told myself that there had obviously been a misunderstanding, even though Jeremy’s replies sounded as straight as Elton John in a tutu … Yet why was I so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt? Was it because I just simply couldn’t bear to hear the wheel of fortune hiss as it deflated? The faces around me became indistinct, as if we were all underwater. Which is why it took me a moment to summon cognition when the crowd unclotted to reveal Phoebe clutching Tawdry Hepburn. I blinked myopically. My mind rejected what my eyes so plainly saw. Audrey. At least four months pregnant.

‘I drove everywhere looking for Merlin,’ Phoebe gushed. ‘Your place, Mum’s place – finally, Jeremy’s flat. And look who answered the door! Fresh in from Paris, having quit her job, apparently. Then I got your voicemail that Merlin was okay and coming to the party. Well, Audrey seemed very intrigued to know that Jeremy was hosting a soirée without her.’

Jeremy had the look of a poker player who has overplayed his hand. Dark crescents bloomed in the armpits of his shirt. Mother and son exchanged a panicked look.

‘Don’t all jump for joy at once to see me,’ Audrey drawled, her mouth lipsticked bright red with bravado. ‘I can’t believe you’re having a party and didn’t invite us, Jerry,’ she reprimanded him, patting her big belly. ‘Luckily, the security guys recognized me, so I could blag my way in. You told me you were working late.’

We all stood there facing her, silent as geometry.

Veronica was the first to find her vocal chords. ‘Well, yes. As you can see’ – she spoke in a monotonous bark, as if addressing an audience of deaf Eskimos – ‘apparently, Audrey has fallen pregnant.’

‘Fallen! Ha! I was pushed!’ Audrey flared her eyebrows indignantly. ‘Jerry only left me because I didn’t want a family.’ She made her trademark move to fluff up her breasts but then realized that pregnancy had made them so huge there was now no need so batted her eyelashes instead. ‘So sorry, sweetie,’ she said to me, ‘but he just used you as bait to get me back. And hey, look!’ She patted her abdomen again. ‘I’m hooked!’

I shuddered and shrank from her words as though they were blows. Jeremy had come back to me vowing undying love in September. It was now February. You didn’t have to be Stephen Hawking to do the maths. The man I thought I loved was affecting an air of insouciance, but I’m sure if he opened his mouth wide enough for me to see his teeth they would have been ground down to stumps. ‘And you … you’re the f–father?’ I stammered.

‘There’ll be a DNA test, of course.’ My ex-mother-in-law’s tone was one of pained geniality. ‘And we’re yet to see the results of the amnio. But, you know, the heir and the spare. One must be practical about these things.’

‘The self-satisfaction,’ my mother muttered, recoiling. ‘The condescending largesse …’ It had become clear to us all that Veronica was Head Honcho of the International House of Manipulative Mothers.

‘What a brilliant double act,’ Phoebe marvelled, attempting to shake Veronica’s hand. ‘It’s so entertaining the way your puppet Jeremy addresses the audience while you drink a glass of water.’

‘Yes,’ my mother deduced. ‘Derek was a little wet really,
wasn’t
he? Didn’t make it to the top. But, with Jeremy, you could go all the way to Number 10.’

I was opening and closing my mouth in pantomime astonishment. My head throbbed like a twanged tuning fork as the aftershock of the revelation reverberated through me. The pain was acute. I felt sure that if I looked at this spectacle for much longer my retinas would detach. Too dumbfounded to cry, I hung my head and just hugged myself round the waist. I felt I was in some vile reality-TV show, only there was no way of voting myself out. The slow, thick drip of betrayal sank into the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure my legs could support me. I must have been swaying, because Jeremy took hold of my arm.

‘Lucy, my love,’ he purred softly, out of Audrey’s earshot, ‘it was only a momentary lapse. The child may not even be mine. I’ll explain it all …’

‘The PM’s here!’ Veronica suddenly hissed.

Jeremy immediately shook me off as though I were a moth. And then the truth clung to me like a chill. He had only been using us. I couldn’t believe that I’d allowed him to wound me once more with a heart-shaped bullet. He was like the knife in the kitchen sink, slick with soap, that you don’t see until it’s too late.

‘BBC.’ A journalist insinuated her way into our tightly knit group, shoving her mike into my face. ‘So what do you think of your ex-husband’s meteoric rise within the coalition?’ I could almost taste the microphone it was so close to my teeth. ‘Some are predicting he’s future prime minister material.’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t want to hear what I think. According to my husband, the only intelligent thing to come out of a woman’s mouth is Einstein’s cock.’

If Veronica had been a nuclear reactor, she’d have gone into
meltdown.
Her weekends at Chequers, the PM’s country retreat, were suddenly in danger of slipping out of her reach. Jeremy’s eyes bore into mine, his smile as sharp as a razor.

‘Lucy!’ He spoke harshly, like a foreigner, before composing himself. ‘You’ve obviously had too much to drink, dear.’ Jeremy laughed lightly then beamed at the journo, platitudes pouring out of him like sweat.

I interrupted his spiel. ‘My ex-husband possesses a streak of charisma and charm so disarming that you can easily mistake it for sanity,’ I went on. ‘Isn’t that right, Jeremy? Or maybe you should ask Mr “Family Matters” why he walked out on his three-year-old child when he found out he had autism.’ I shoved the brochure at her. ‘And why he’s now waiting to see if his girlfriend’s baby is normal before he’ll marry her.’

‘What!?’ Audrey rounded on Jeremy, her famously beautiful face suddenly distorted into a red gargoyle mask. ‘You said that?!’ I got the feeling Audrey was about to experience her first pregnancy craving – and it was for testicle carpaccio. ‘You duplicitous fucking wanker!’

Jeremy was making the noise of a sink backing up.

‘What have ya got to say for yourself now, you little shit-weasel?’ Archie scoffed.

When Jeremy didn’t reply, Archie punched him in the face. Officials scattered like broken glass. What Jeremy lacked in articulation he made up for by bleeding. Blood spurted all over his immaculate suit, just as he was summoned by microphone to the stage to greet the prime minister.

And then, once and for all, I finally pulled the sheet up over my marriage and declared time of death.

25

The Idiot and the Savant

WHEN FATE OPENS
one door, he invariably jams your fingers in another. This is what I thought as I raced after Archie through the Houses of Parliament. The heavy wooden door hinges winced as Archie banged outside into a cobbled courtyard. I was only a few steps behind him.

‘I’m not a stupid person, Archie. I’m not. I can hotwire a car, decrypt a sonnet and read
Beowulf
in archaic English. But I let Jeremy dupe me.’ A light bulb or ten went off in my head. ‘Oh God, that bastard really did plant those drugs and porn in your bag, didn’t he?!’

At that moment, two things became clear to me: 1) I was depriving some poor village somewhere of its idiot and 2) It was unlikely I would ever get a job as an investigative journalist. ‘And I believed him. How could I have been so gullible? I’m so, so sorry, Archie.’

‘It’s too late for sorrys now, mate.’

I was surprised by Archie’s cold abruptness. ‘Don’t you have any feelings for me any more?’ I asked tentatively. ‘It doesn’t
look
like you do.’

‘Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. My heart was designed by the China Nanchang Aircraft Manufacturin’ Corporation. It’s a stealth heart. But what does it matter? You’re so deeply in love with your love for Merlin you don’t leave any room in your heart for anyone else.’

‘What do you mean?’ I demanded defensively.

‘You need a twelve-step programme to break your Merlin habit. You don’t want Merlin to grow into a man because havin’ a handicapped child gives you diplomatic immunity from every normal human activity, like makin’ friends, plannin’ for the future … and fallin’ in love.’

‘That’s not true! I want Merlin to be independent.’ Wind gusted around the corners of the courtyard, rattling the stained-glass windows.

‘Bullshit, Lou. You don’t want to feel that little jab of dispensability, do you?’ His sudden, fierce anger pinned me against the stone wall. ‘Be honest. You get a certain grim enjoyment from bein’ the victim, admit it … J’know what I think? I reckon you need him more than he needs you.’

He was pumping out the words like bullets from a submachine gun.

‘You don’t want him to fly the nest ’cause he’s your life, your identity. You’re the one holdin’ him back. It’s not Merlin who’s handicapped. He’s a crutch for
you
.’

Cue the sound of heart-strings being twanged. My insides felt like a grand piano falling down a staircase. This whole melodramatic evening had been like dot-to-dot cliché. But it wasn’t a cliché, because it was my life. Archie was now pounding down the worn stone steps towards the police barricades of Parliament Square. I bolted after him and caught his arm.

‘I’m the gravity which holds Merlin in place. Otherwise he could fly off into space.’

Archie wheeled round to face me. ‘That’s because you just won’t accept him the way he is. Why do you feel you have to bloody well change everyone?’

Archie’s fleshy mouth had grown taut. His tone was as harsh as the outback terrain of his homeland. ‘The kid doesn’t have Asperger’s or autism. He just has Merlin Syndrome. You’re the one who needs to change, by acceptin’ him for who he is. Merlin might be a savant but
you’re
the idiot.’

Archie looked at me long and hard, as though memorizing my features. And then he stomped away through the police barricades and out into the square towards Westminster Abbey. If there’d been a sunset, he would have walked into it, but instead he was enveloped by a group of Morris dancers who were doing some impromptu hanky manoeuvres on the street corner.

Merlin materialized behind me, the
tss, tss, tss
of his earphones barring all conversation. I took his hand and we walked across the flagstones through security and then into the gullet of Westminster tube. Commuters were coughing and blowing their noses in a contagious way. I held my son close, trying to keep him out of the way of infection.

When my mobile phone reconnected on the walk home, I had three requests from journalists wanting to speak to me and ten texts from Jeremy, all of which begged to know how he could make it up to me.

‘Just ask yourself what would Hitler do?’ I texted back.

Phoebe was the first to my door. ‘How bad is it?’

‘The pain is bad, but no worse than your average un-anaesthetized leg amputation,’ I told her, already retreating into my familiar defence mode of glibness and sarcasm.

My mother arrived by taxi. In the next half an hour she only delivered about 362,000 versions of the ‘I Told You So’ lecture. A domestic storm erupted, with my mother blaming Phoebe for encouraging my rapprochement with Jeremy and my sister blaming my mother for leaving us so destitute that Jeremy was even an option.

‘The trouble with you, Phoebe, is that you’ve never met another person you couldn’t blame,’ my mother protested.

‘So, we live in a blame culture, whose fault is that?’ my sister retaliated. It was not a conversation you’d want to put into a time capsule.

I felt exposed, like an open wound. I was also overcome with a sense of what felt like homesickness, which was odd, as I was at home. When Merlin tumbled downstairs and loped into this electrically charged atmosphere, I knew what I had to do. My vision was miraculously clear. Even though I was boiling inside, there were no tears, no ache in the chest, no all-consuming rage. I simply told them both to go. I held the door open and looked out at the sticky neon street lights reflected in the rain-slicked street. ‘Now.’ The shock I unleashed was hugely satisfying.

When they’d finally departed, under protest, I held Merlin to me and kissed his melted lemon drops-coloured hair. ‘From now on there’ll just be me and you, Merlin,’ I reassured him.

But my son shoved me away. ‘I’m not a mummy’s boy! I don’t like having to talk to you every day. It’s babyish. I’m not a baby.’ His eyes scalded me. ‘I’m not going to be a robot and follow society and do what everyone expects me to do. You just want me to stay here to toughen me up and turn me into a top house resident,’ he said with sudden savagery.