I waited until just before the end of the hour, when we have a few minutes to share what we’ve done with the group, but I knew Patricia wouldn’t, because even though she wears those clothes, she’s actually very shy.
‘I’ll clean the brushes,’ I offered.
‘Is it that time already?’ asked Jeanette.
I want to tell a different story, a story belonging to someone else. It will not be the same as mine, and though it might be sad in some ways, it will also be happy because in the end there are beautiful crayon patterns and a lady with long blonde hair who stays twenty years old forever.
I moved around the table collecting paintbrushes, and glanced over her shoulder. What we can know about Patricia’s story, is that she’s
She ran the tip of her finger over the small dark mole beside my nipple, and I felt my face grow hot.
‘It doesn’t itch?’
‘No.’
‘Has it grown or changed colour?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘We usually see Dr Marlow,’ Mum offered for the third time.
I pulled my top on and shrank into the chair, self-conscious of my changing body, of how it had started to stretch and stink and grow wisps of hair, so that with each passing day I knew myself a little less.
‘How old are you, Matthew?’
‘He’s ten,’ my mum answered.
‘I’m nearly eleven,’ I said.
She turned back to the computer screen, scanning appointment after appointment. I stared absently at the two framed photographs of Dr Marlow’s daughters – the younger one riding her horse, and her sister in graduation robes, grinning, with eyes half closed – and I wondered if this new doctor would get her own office, and have pictures of her own family for me to stare at every couple of weeks, until I felt I’d met them.
‘How are you getting on at school?’
‘What?’
She was looking right at me, not buried in a prescription sheet or tapping on her keyboard, but looking right at me, leaning forwards.
Mum coughed, and said she thought my mole had grown, but maybe it hadn’t.
‘You must be starting secondary school after the holidays?’
I wanted to turn to Mum for reassurance, but there was something about how the doctor was leaning forwards that held me. I don’t mean I felt trapped. I mean I felt held.
‘I don’t go to school.’
‘No?’
‘We home tutor,’ Mum said. Then, ‘I used to be a teacher.’
The doctor kept looking at me. She had placed her chair near to mine, and now I found myself leaning forward as well. It’s difficult to explain, but in that moment I felt safe, as though I could say anything I wanted.
I didn’t say anything though.
The doctor nodded.
‘I don’t think there’s anything to worry about with the mole, Matthew. Do you?’
I shook my head.
Mum was on her feet, already saying thank you, already ushering me to the door, then the doctor said, ‘I wonder if perhaps we might be able to talk in private for a moment?’
I felt Mum’s grip tighten on my arm, her eyes darting between us. ‘But. I’m his mother.’
‘Sorry, no. I wasn’t clear Susan. I wonder if you and I might talk in private for a moment?’ She then turned to me and said, ‘It’s really nothing to worry about, Matthew.’
The receptionist was telling a woman with a pushchair how Dr Marlow was on holiday until the end of the month, but a young lady doctor was covering and she was very nice, and they even hoped she might stay on. I sat on the rubber mat in the corner, where they keep toys for children. I guess I was too old really, and after a while of glaring at me and sighing heavily, the woman asked whether I’d mind making room for her child to play.
‘Can I play with him?’
‘Oh.’
Her little boy reached out a hand, and I gave him a Stickle Brick, which he dropped to the floor and laughed like it was the funniest thing to ever happen. I picked it up and we did it again, this time his mum laughed too and said, ‘He’s bonkers, I tell you, absolutely bonkers.’
‘I’ve got a brother.’
‘Oh, right?’
‘Yeah. He was older than me. We were good mates. But he’s dead and stuff now.’
‘Oh. I see. I’m sorry—’
The bell chimed and a name scrolled across the sign by reception. ‘That’s us I’m afraid. Come on mister.’ She picked up her little boy and he immediately began to whimper, stretching his arms back towards me.
‘Someone’s made a new friend,’ she said, before rushing him down the corridor.
‘I’ve got a brother,’ I said again to no one in particular. ‘But I don’t think about him so much any more.’
I put the Stickle Bricks away.
Mum appeared, pressing a prescription sheet into her handbag.
‘Is everything okay, Mum?’
‘Let’s get ice creams.’
I don’t suppose it was the best weather for the park – it was pretty cold and cloudy. But we went anyway. Mum bought us ice creams from the van, and we perched on the swings next to each other. ‘I’ve not been a very good Mummy, have I?’
‘Is that what the doctor said?’
‘I worry, Matthew. I worry all the time.’
‘Do you need medicine?’
‘I might.’
‘Are you and Dad going to get divorced?’
‘Sweetheart, why would you even think that?’
‘I don’t know. Are you?’
‘Of course not.’ She finished her ice cream, stepped off the swing, and started to push mine.
‘I’m not a baby, Mum.’
‘I know, sorry. I know. Sometimes I think you’re more grown up than me.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘I do. And you’re definitely too clever for me now. You do those exercise books quicker than I can mark them.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You do, sweetheart. I think if you went back to school, the teachers wouldn’t know what hit them.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘I’m allowed?’
‘Is it what you want?’
This might