CHAPTER 33
I looked at him, the puzzlement plain on his face. Every minute I spent with James was a surprise. At times, he came across as mentally damaged, in the sense of speaking like a small child or someone of profoundly limited intelligence. Other times it took the appearance of OCD, especially in his persistent need to number things, or to say everybody’s name as a greeting. And then…and then there would be a break in his walls, usually when his sense of threat had faded, and there would be a bright, clever boy who very simply couldn’t get past his own mouth. Those were the times when I could see why his current Mum loved him.
What a hell of a life, in this wonderful world, where terms like geek are applied to ordinary, sane people by those who have no idea of what the word really, originally meant. And I was sure that James got far, far worse, and could only hope that when he did he was in one of his less aware phases. This was not one of those.
“Sometimes people call their friends by different names, son, like when you give new ones to the birds”
“No. That isn’t right. You are Rob and you are Jill, and one is a man and one is a girl. A man can’t be a girl and a girl can’t be a man”
“That’s right, James”
He carried on talking, as if I hadn’t spoken, his hands together in front of his chin, looking past me into the green of the reedbed.
“But a girl can be man camouflaged. Two skins. Can’t take skin off. It hurts. I took some skin off once. That hurt a lot. But if you have more skin underneath does it hurt? How many skins make Jill?”
I couldn’t decide how lucid he was, but everything he was coming out with made perfect sense.
“James, how do you know this?”
He looked at me, then, and the bright boy was there, shining an instant of life at me.
“Jill. It is Jill, isn’t it? Hiding in Robskin…will it hurt when you take it off and just be Jill?”
I felt tears start, and realised that the others had been as caught up in his words as I was. Larinda put her arms around me from behind, and Rachel and Karen took a hand each, as Terry laid his own arm across his son’s shoulders.
“James, it is already hurting her. I know you remember everything I say to you, so please remember not to hurt Jill by telling everyone, yeah?”
“I don’t hurt Rob, I don’t hurt Jill. How do we help her?”
Terry hugged his son to him. “By being there when we are needed and not when she needs space, James. That’s how you help anyone”
“Is she going to take off her skin?”
Terry looked at me, just then. “She’s already loosening it up ready, son”
Karen squeezed my hand. “Shall we walk on? What’s left to see, Gillian?”
James was nodding. “Rob is Jill is Gillian. That’s like the Cetti’s warbler. Two names, one of them to keep quiet from other people who aren’t us”
Terry looked at James as he fitted pieces together. “Can you do that, son?”
Once more a bright flash. “I ‘m odd, Dad, not stupid. Three names. Rob has three names”
There an instant, and gone. I realised how lucky I truly was, just then, right there. I had my problems, but I could talk them through with people as long as I was lucky enough to choose an audience as loving as the one I had. With James the communication wasn’t an option. I didn’t know a lot about the details of his ‘oddness’, but I wondered: was he in there, screaming to get out, as his mouth made the lists and his hands joined before his face? Or was the scar deeper, cutting right through his self? I remembered a girl I had worked with years before, a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and she had spoken to me about it, about how she watched her hands line everything up on her desk, how a missing object brought panic even as she KNEW it was a delusion.
I had it so, so easy. James looked at me, his hands together again.
“Rob’s my friend. Is Jill my friend? Gillian?”
Karen smiled at him, then looked at me.
“Of course, love. Jill is Rob, and Rob is your friend”
“No. Rob wasn’t my friend because Rob wasn’t real and Jill is. Jill is my real friend. I have one friend”
I turned my head at a soft whisper of sound, and realised that Rachel was crying.
“No, James, you have three friends here, and they are all girls. James has three girlfriends”
Larinda had tissues, of course. We moved on through the wild part of the reserve, as the wind soughed through the reeds and James recited a bird list, and I realised that all my careful planning had been wasted. All the time spent working out how to leave the world that had hurt me so badly had been time lost from my life. How could I begin to compare my problems with someone so broken, so fundamentally ruined from birth? Larinda took my arm.
“That the look of someone realising they aren’t so shittily off after all?”
I sighed. “Guilty. At least I can now see myself doing something about it, like. Hope, sort of. Normally…normally, when I get that sort of delusion it’s just before the big crash, aye? False dawn? And don’t you dare say owt about darkest before the dawn, because that’s bollocks. You OK, Rach?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I will be, just thinking about how much pain this world seems to donate free and for gratis. Terry…”
She waved him back from his family. “Terry, how many actual friends has he got?”
He shook his head, sadly. “His mother used to leave him in his room most of the time. Easier to deal with the hard stuff by not doing any dealing at all. When we were together, he got invited to a few kids’ parties, but I realised…”
He drew a long breath. “I went to pick him up from one, and it was abundantly clear that the only reason he had been invited was as the entertainment. He’s not been to anything like that since. It’s taken a long time to get him to where he is now; little nudges, patience…so much patience. I went off the rails a little when he was in hospital once or twice…”
Rachel pressed the point. “Hospital?”
“Accidents. He broke a cheekbone walking into a tree once, and it was years before we could trust him with a hot drink. He’s HFA most of the time, but he drifts a little”
“HFA?”
“High-functioning autism, Rachel. Means he can sort of get by in society, but always will be odd, as he put it. Sometimes, though, when he’s tired, or frightened, he just shuts down. Meeting people does that”
“What did you mean by off the rails, Terry?”
He actually had the grace to look ashamed. “Screwed around a lot. I’m what the gay folk call ‘greedy’, and…Jill, you hated me, didn’t you?”
Bastard, catching me right in the soft bits. “You want the truth?”
“Oh, I know the truth. You knew what I’d been doing, and you wanted Karen spared from that, and you fancied her yourself. Look, sorry, you mind, you know, with these two around?”
“Clear the air, aye?”
“Aye. Yes. You never, ever made a move on her, and I stood there and watched as she dropped hint after hint, and thought, bugger it, if he’s not going to take the bait…shit. You didn’t want to hurt her, did you? What? Being, you know, or taking your exit?”
Nail firmly struck. “Aye, Terry, I saw what you’d done, and I thought, I love this girl, but…Look, she chose you, she married you”
He was nodding. “And because you are such a soft, loving girl you took me along in your caring, yeah? You even came to our wedding”
“I don’t take friendships lightly, Terry”
He looked over at Larinda. “Do not let this one escape. I know very few humans with that level of honesty, of loving-kindness, to quote the god-botherers. She hates me, and yet, well, here she is”
I looked him in the eye, trying to keep my expression neutral. “But I don’t hate you, do I?”
He let a little smile creep in. “No, not any more. I do grow on people. Took Kaz a while, but she got there”
I gave him a smile, but before I could answer Rachel butted in. “Crap, Terry. It’s not your charm, it’s James. How could anyone not love him? Anyone who doesn’t must be some sort of fuckwit. Look, Jill, Tel, yeah? Do I take this as being some sort of truce?”
His smile was broader now. “No, I don’t think so. I think this is better than that”
Suddenly, he stepped forward, and I had a man’s arms around me, and for a second I froze, only slowly letting my own arms come up to return the hug. His voice was soft, but clear.
“Thank you for being so very, very loyal to my wife. Thank you for being such a wonderful inspiration to my son. Thank you for allowing me such opportunities to show you that I am doing all I can to become worthy of Karen”
And then he kissed my cheek. We stood for a few seconds, till it suddenly became awkward, and then, wrapped up by my two women again we caught up with Karen and James, who was staring at a peacock butterfly as it sunned itself on the path.
“Jill…can I use a name that has already been used?”
“What name is that, son?”
“This is an eye-eye-fly. That’s my name. But there is an aye-aye that’s a lemur and they are primates in Madagascar and this is a butterfly which is not a primate but an insect”
I looked at him, and smiled. Rachel was right: how could anybody not love him? The butterfly started away in a swirl of black underwings and brilliant topcoat, as a shadow fell on it, and there stood MAC.
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Comments
words fail me here
I'm out-and-out weeping here, this is just so .... good.
Dorothycolleen
Ack! Cliffhanger to
Ack! Cliffhanger to cliffhanger. I doubt the MAC situation will be as affirming as the bittern situation, buy you've surprised me in the past.
The best yet
Exquisite in so many ways. Sometimes life gets shit, the shields go up and it gets hard to feel, but you had me crying with this one. "No, I think it's better than that" indeed. Some people are so good at stealth kindness that they are often overlooked. It's hard to convey just how it feels to have your effort and sacrifice recognised, but you nailed it here.
I shouldn't focus on just one part of the chapter when there were so many other good points, but it was this bit that grabbed me - hook, line, sinker, float and most of the rod too.
Thanks again.
Thank you all
I spent a while on this little offering. I wanted to fit a lot of plot threads in, and debated with myself the best way to do it, and then remembered a scene from a Pagnol film. What better way to tell a story's crucial points than with dialogue?
No better way.
It's usually called 'showing' (in this case via dialogue) rather than 'telling' and is one of the secrets of good story writing.
Excellent chapter and I can see why it took you some time to work it out.
Robi
The
The eye-eye-fly
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kzqtuzm7gF1qbp2sjo1_500.jpg
The reedwalker
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lpvnzTloN_g/TM8f05f6daI/AAAAAAAAJl...
Shrimp cocktail
http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/WrenWinter04.jpg
Bluewater
http://archiesinfo.bjorsq.net/files/2010/05/Kingfisher.jpg
And the FFF. There is an audio on the link. They are far louder than you can imagine.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/c/cettiswarbl...
At least it's for a worthy cause????
“No. Rob wasn’t my friend because Rob wasn’t real and Jill is. Jill is my real friend. I have one friendâ€
I turned my head at a soft whisper of sound, and realised that Rachel was crying.
She wasn't the only one crying at that point. James is a pure joy to know; I can only hope that folks 'take a page' from his book. Once again you write what is; not just what we'd like or enjoy or feel great about, but what is...real and raw and just wonderful. Thank you!
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Thank you Drea
James is a friend of mine. Girls love him, for a while, because they do not threaten him. Adults.....
Oh wow...
…will it hurt when you take it off and just be Jill?â€
How do you say to him "More than anything ever except for not taking that skin off..."?
Great writing. Thank you.
And it does take time.
Yes it takes time a wholelifetime in fact and the hardest part is not the realising that there is no cure. No, the hardest part is making the commitment to carry on 'being there'as long as their is useful breath in our bodies,mobility in our bones and capacity in our loving.
Excellent chapter Steph for it dwells upon the real issues, the inner issues. The issues others can ignore or more often just fail to see ... sometimes until it's too late.
Thanks.
XZXX.
Bev.
Growing Old Disgracefully
MAC
MAC keeps turning up ,is he stalking Jill and her friends ,he must be so lonely now that he is retired,
and has no real connection people any more.
ROO
ROO
Man's a...
...man with problems. No secret there.
Wonderfully Descriptive
How perceptive an autistic mind can be, because it doesn't filter things through the normal prejudices that "people-like-us" automatically do. So James could see to the very core of Jill and recognise her as his friend, without any kind of condemnation or questioning and also recognise that stripping off the outer skin to reveal the person inside might be extremely painful.
Beautifully written dialogue here....as usual.
Perhaps MAC suffers from a different variant of autism, the clue being that he's a "twitcher"?
Joanne
P.S. Great bird pictures.
Just caught up
If I came here each day and only read one thing if t'were there it would be your latest bit. Gentle dissection I think fits. I know a few 'challenged' people though few well. Used to see a moderately autistic young girl at a park I took my pup to. She was initially terrified and her mother just a bit anxious but once I knelt and promised she ran her hands through the fur, got a lick on the cheek and suddenly was not an expressionless shadow. She opened up over months and would run laughing to hug the puppy like a missing teddy bear. Magic.
Then the hug. Hah, I recall getting a hug like that from an older gay guy that suddenly knew who I was and I flinched and froze... and then relaxed, apologised and we laughed and yes I damn near cried. Almost. Sniff
Beautiful.... and last, a shadow. Key tense music and roll credits till next time.
k
Thank you
As I have said, that one took some work. Autism is an odd and private world, and there is a lot of evidence for a genetic link. I have a friend who has always been, shall we say, a little (well, rather a lot) trainspotterish, and while his social skills are somewaht 'different', he has the most amazing ear for vocal details. Any accent in the world, he can slip it on like a T-shirt. He has a child with Asperger, borderline HFA, and there are the odd obsessions and the very limited social skills. He will not eat ice cream, but adores the dry cornets (cones for the USAnians).
Another adult friend is very much HFA, and will not speak to me each time we meet. I have to wait for him to process my presence, until about twenty minutes later he comes up with his hands clenched in front of himself, saying "You're Steph!". That man is a truly brilliant engineer, with his own website.
Finally, there is the real "James", whom I have watched grow from a child into a young man. He is so sweet now, especially around girls, because they are not a threat. The hard thing for strangers to realise is that while there can be mental impairment with ASD, it is not automatically so. All four of the people I have mentioned are astonishingly bright, and by that I mean considered in the same way as 'normal' folk. I tried hard, in my "Viewpoints", to get across that separation from the world in a first-person narrative, and it was hard work.
Recently, I dealt with a Nan, Mam, Daughter group at work. The girl was around eighteen, with physical problems as well as what I saw as MFA, and all she did was talk over everyone else except me and her mother, which surprised the latter.
"How did you know how to?"
"She wants to tell me things, so I let her do so. Experience helps"
To an extent, I feel that GID can mirror aspects of ASD, in that we feel we are experiencing the world through an act and a filter. There is that extra skin around us that stops us touching the world directly.