CHAPTER 50
John looked a little nervous at that, and I realised that he too had been shocked by the boy’s directness. He took a couple of deep breaths, and a glance at me, before replying.

“Jill is a friend and I will not hurt…her if I can, James”

James just nodded and went back to trying to separate the layers of his lasagne so that he could eat the parts separately, and John pulled over a chair.

“You seem to have formed quite a regular group. I am going to assume…no, I am going to ask, is this a real thing? No, I know it is real, I mean, I am observing it, but…please explain. This is no recreational activity, is it?”

Karen answered before I could. “No, John, no recreation, no hobby. My son said it exactly as it is. All the same person, one who needs to emerge now. Chrysalis, butterfly, yes?”

I caught just the slightest flicker of a smile from Terry at the phrase she used for James, and I saw again how wrong I had been to doubt him. There was love there, deep and abiding, and they were clearly right for each other, despite his history. Chalk another one down to the stupidity and pig-headedness of Rob. Perhaps Jill would be a better person, I thought, before reminding myself that I was one, not two, and always had been. Chrysalis, butterfly, or rather some large and ugly moth, but Karen had caught the process exactly. I looked up at our odd…friend.

“John, this is me. This is the real me. This is who I have always been and who I should have been born if the world ran with any justice or mercy, aye?”

He looked at me steadily, and I realised that he was doing his observation thing, checking me for salient points, field marks as birdwatchers call them. Did I pass? Was I fowl or its homophone? It was like watching some sort of machine produce an object: I could see the gears turning, see something emerging, but not what it was.

“Jill, then. Jill. This is not something I am familiar with; I prefer a little more order in my life”

That was surely an understatement, and Rachel snorted in amusement. John wasn’t finished, though.

“Jill, I know I am rather difficult at times, but I will say one thing, so please let me finish. I have said that I prefer order, and that has always been my way. As you know, I have been speaking to somebody more professional than yourselves, and she is leading me into a better understanding of the reasons for that. I am not right in my own head is the answer, but that does not mean that I am wrong there, just differently aligned. It has taken me a very long time to see that, and it has resulted in some historical dislocation…I mean, in the past, I have not managed to deal with other people in a fully productive way”

Rachel was covering her mouth at that point, and I wondered if she was actually enjoying his discomfort. So much water under the bridge. John looked at her, and sighed, then flicked his eyes towards James, and Terry caught the glance.

“How much tea have you had, son?”

“I have drunk six cups, Dad”

“Do you want to go to the toilet before we carry on, then?”

As the boy left, Terry turned to John. “You want to say something about my son, don’t you? But you have the manners to do it while he’s out of the way, so you are capable of learning”

That struck me. In a way, his comment was a direct insult to John, and it was clear the older man himself realised it, but his only physical reaction was a nod.

“Yes, that is what I am. Your son is autistic, clearly, but you help and support him, you care for him and you have more patience than I have ever known, both of you, Jill, the other girls too”

‘Other girls’. Oh my. He spoke on.

“James is autistic, I am autistic. Or, rather, I am on the same scale of illness, disorder, unconventional manner of thinking, call it what you will. The more I talk to Sally, the more I see what I do to others. She leads me through role plays, and then we analyse what it is I do wrong. She says…she has told me that if I can learn to recognise what she has called invisible differences in flying rats, I am capable of learning alternative means of dealing with people”

I gave him my best smile. “That sounds good, John”

“Yes, but it is learned and conscious behaviour, rather than instinct and empathy. I know now not only that I am different, but that I always will be. That is not a good thing”

Karen put her hand on his forearm. “No, John, it isn’t. What it is, in truth, is a better thing than it was. Look at Jill, there. Jill, what’s it like being a man?”

Bingo. “I have no idea. I have never been one”

“So how did you learn to behave like one?”

“Learned and conscious, Kaz. That and necessity”

She turned back to John. “See what I mean, John? She had to learn how to pretend, play a part all her life, and none of that came by instinct. Look around her, John. How much love is there here? Love for her? Love that came to her even as she played that untrue role?”

He had dropped his eyes at that, but looked up again. “You think, if I practise, I could do better?”

Rachel was laughing aloud now. “John, MATE, think of how you were in the Tower just now, yeah? Not only did you make James’ day, but you saw clearly enough to realise when he was getting out of his depth. The original you, I am sure, would have kept trying to show him off as your new toy, but no, you saw the thing he does with his hands, and you took away his stress. That was human, John, that was loving, yes?”

He started at that word, but she had him. “Look, just think, about this girl here. Everything she has ever had to do in public has been an act, up till now. She cares for others, and many people think that is a girl thing, yeah, but it isn’t, it’s a people thing, a human thing”

Terry had reached out to take his wife’s hand as she continued her little lecture. “Look at James, and the way he reacted when he saw you, the love that he brought out even though his ways of expressing it are lost. Why should you be different? Why should you be the only one to lack that humanity? You don’t, you know, you show it all the time. We just need to help it come out. Sod it, I want cake. No, John, no”

He had risen immediately, and I guessed it was to go and buy the cake she had asked for.

“That is not how it works, my friend. We say what we would like, and then we ask about, and then we decide. Slow down, think, and be a friend among friends, yeah?”

My lovely woman, the one my own blindness had let walk away from me; I could see why Terry loved her, but I had always seen that. What I saw now was why I loved her myself, and I felt my eyes go a little moist as I realised how amazing my luck had been, letting one wonderful woman walk out of my arms only for me to fall straight into the arms of another. Terry saw, and gave me a wink, one that said something like ‘Ah, that’s my girl!’

John held his silence for a moment. “Well, we are all friends here, then. Shall I get a round of teas in while someone else sorts some cake out? Ah, here is James again. Do you want tea and cake, my boy?”

“Are you a friend now John?”

The older man just smiled. “Yes, I believe I am, now”

“Then I shall have another cake, please, and that will be two cakes for me and nine cups of tea today”

“Shall we see how many types of cake there are?”

“This morning there were seven, and I would like chocolate fudge cake please Mum”

Karen jerked at that. “Where did that come from, James?”

“People are not just names. They are like the birds, they each do things and you are Karen and you do Mumming. I see Jill and she girls. Can I have coke and not tea please?”

And so we had teas, and cakes, and as John had finished with his voluntary duties we walked out into the chill, a group of friends on a cold day with lives to build and share.