‘Can I have a gerbil?’
I think he made some sort of a grunt of affirmation. Or it might have been the bed squeaking. It was hard to tell.
‘Only I’ve been thinking about what Mum said about not being allowed a pet, and I’ve decided it would actually be a really good way for me to have some responsibility. And I noticed that there’s some cash in the top drawer of your cupboard, and gerbils only cost about four pounds, so if you have no objections I’ll just take a twenty and go and get one from the pet shop now. But it’s totally your decision. If you don’t think it’s a good idea, say something.’
He didn’t say anything.
The gerbil I chose was a tiny rat-like creature with a twitching nose and a nervous disposition. I knew when I saw him that he was the one: he was away from his little brothers and sisters in the cage, alone, clawing at the glass. He needed me. I called him Kevin. With the notes I took from Nev’s drawer I also bought a little cage with a wheel. Then, with the money left over, I bought Smash Hits by Jimi Hendrix. It was educational. Nev would have wanted it that way.
Kevin didn’t appreciate his new surroundings. My bedroom was large, and my now semi-permanent Scalextric track looked like a raceway that had fallen on hard times: a grandstand only half painted, racing cars in the pit stop desperately in need of repair, and spectators missing limbs, although the last detail was a punishment from Tom in retaliation for stealing and losing then lying about stealing and losing his Sony Walkman. I had imagined Kevin would feel powerful in this miniature society in decline, but to my disappointment he scrambled under the bed the moment I released him from his cardboard box. Even the exciting sight and sound of cars going around the track wouldn’t entice him out of his shadowy hiding place.
With Kevin unavailable, I made the most of my second purchase of the day. I put the two speakers of my little stack stereo system on the carpet, facing each other, and my head between them. The music was incredible. From the heavy rock of ‘Purple Haze’ to the tenderness of ‘The Wind Cries Mary’, it offered transports into distant lands. I closed my eyes and let the magic carpet ride of Jimi Hendrix take me on a journey.
‘What is this shit?’
Tom was standing over me, the sleeve in his hand. His mouth turned down into a grimace as he held his head back. ‘Good God, not Jimi Hendrix. This is the kind of hippy vomit the idiots at school listen to. I can almost smell the patchouli oil. Crap.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘No. Fact.’
‘By the way, what’s happened to your hair?’
Tom had undergone a radical transformation. Earlier that day, he had a floppy fringe befitting a public school boy who liked to walk around the grounds of Westminster School in his gown, spouting Ovid. Now the back and sides of his head were shaved and he had a big sprout of orange hair puffing out of the top, like a prize mushroom. He was dressed differently too. An oversized black jumper, black drainpipe jeans and brothel creepers had replaced the velvet jacket and bowtie he usually wore.
‘What?’ he said, glowering.
I stared at Tom for a while. I made sure he noticed my eyes going from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Then I put my head back between the speakers and, after a little chuckle, said, ‘Nothing.’
‘What, you little shit?’
‘It’s ‘Hey Joe’. My favourite song.’
Tom attacked me. He knocked the record and the stylus made a horrible scratching sound. ‘You idiot!’ I screamed, in a much higher-pitched tone than I would have liked. ‘If you’ve damaged it you’re buying a new one.’
Tom got off me and turned his head in confusion. ‘What was that?’
‘What?’
‘I just saw some sort of animal run out of the room.’
‘Oh no. Kevin!’
As my terrible luck would have it, he ran into Mum and Dad’s room. At least Nev would be too severely ill to notice him, and perhaps even me catching him, so I crept in. Mum was in there, alongside a man who was taking Nev’s temperature and looking serious.
‘The problem is that it has reached his blood stream,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s rare to get it this badly. Has he been run down recently?’
‘He’s always had to watch his vitamin levels. He’s got a weak constitution.’ Mum crossed her arms and nodded, as if this diagnosis brought some sort of finality to the situation. ‘Everyone else recovered ages ago. He’s been overworked … By the way, this is my son Will. What is it, darling?’
I could see Kevin, twitching his nose underneath a small round table in the corner of the room. All I needed to do was encourage him to run back out again. Then I could grab him and put him in his cage.
As I moved towards the little table, slowly and sideways, like a drugged crab, I said: ‘I … I just had to see Nev. I’ve been worrying about him so much.’
‘Liar,’ came Tom’s voice from the other side of the door.
‘Will, if this is one of your pranks …’
This required extra effort. ‘It’s not,’ I cried, wobbling my voice and wishing for tears, although they never came. ‘I don’t want to lose him.’ I turned my head away. Kevin was no longer under the table. I had no idea where he was. I sat down on the side of the bed and hid my head in my hands while secretly staring at the floor, watching out for a gerbil.
The doctor gave a deep, low sigh. ‘This is a difficult time for your family. But I’d like to emphasize how in most cases like this the patient does pull through. The best course of action is to let your husband get as much rest as he can.’
Kevin was right next to the bed. It should have been achievable to just lean down and grab him, but I didn’t want Mum and the doctor to see so I lay face down on the side of the bed and sobbed while stretching my arm out and inching it ever closer to the gerbil.
‘Will, I know it’s upsetting,’ said Mum, ‘but we really need to leave Nev to get as much peace and quiet as possible.’
Then she screamed.
‘A rat!’ She jumped onto the bed.
Nev groaned. I managed to get hold of Kevin, who bit me. I put him in my shirt and dropped him into his cage. Mum had to wait for the doctor to leave before she had the chance to come in and start yelling.
My twelfth birthday came while Nev was still in bed, woefully thin and exhausted by trips to the bathroom but no longer on the verge of death. He and Mum got me a BMX bike, which I had long dreamed of owning. Tom bought me a record. He hadn’t bothered to wrap it up and it was second-hand; the album sleeve was ripped and over the price sticker in the top right hand corner he had scribbled ‘Happy Birthday Scum’. It was The Byrds’ Greatest Hits.
‘Who are The Byrds?’
‘Presumably you have heard of The Beatles? They’re the American version, ergo, better suited to your limited intellectual capacity.’
Reader, I hit him.
With Nev out of action and Mum working late whenever she got the opportunity, we relied increasingly on a local girl called Judy to look after us. One afternoon when Tom was out, an afternoon Will Lee and I had intended to occupy by building Kevin his very own adventure park out of Mum’s new Salvatore Ferragamo leather boots and a few toilet rolls, Judy turned up with three other teenage girls and a Ouija Board.
‘What’s a Ouija