The Fifth Child Part 8

"Oh my G.o.d," said Harriet violently. "What is the point!"

The two women eyed each other. Harriet sighed, letting her violence subside; the doctor was angry, but not showing it.

"Tell me," said Harriet, "are you saying that Ben is a perfectly normal child in every way? There's nothing strange about him?"

"He is within the range of normality. He is not very good at school, I am told, but often slow children catch up later."

"I can't believe it," said Harriet. "Look, just do something-oh all right, humour me! Ask the nurse to bring Ben in here."

Dr. Gilly considered this, then spoke into her machine.

They heard Ben shouting "No, no!" and the nurse's persuasive voice.

The door opened. Ben appeared: he had been pushed into the room by the nurse. The door shut behind him, and he backed against it, glaring at the doctor.

He stood with his shoulders hunched forward and his knees bent, as if about to spring off somewhere. He was a squat, burly little figure, with a big head, the yellow stubble of his coa.r.s.e hair growing from the double crown of his head into the point low on his heavy narrow forehead. He had a flattish flaring nose that turned up. His mouth was fleshy and curly. His eyes were like lumps of dull stone. For the first time Harriet thought, But he doesn't look like a six-year-old, but much older. You could almost take him for a little man, not a child at all.

The doctor looked at Ben. Harriet watched them both. The doctor then said, "All right, Ben, go out again. Your mother will be with you in a minute."

Ben stood petrified. Again Dr. Gilly spoke into her machine, the door opened, and Ben was hauled backwards out of sight, snarling.

"Tell me, Dr. Gilly, what did you see?"

Dr. Gilly's pose was wary, offended; she was calculating the time left to the end of the interview. She did not answer.

Harriet said, knowing it was no use, but because she wanted it said, heard: "He's not human, is he?"

Dr. Gilly suddenly, unexpectedly, allowed what she was thinking to express itself. She sat up, sighed heavily, put her hands to her face and drew them down, until she sat with her eyes shut, her fingers on her lips. She was a handsome middle-aged woman, in full command of her life, but for the flash of a moment an unlicensed and illegitimate distress showed itself, and she looked beside herself, even tipsy.

Then she decided to repudiate what Harriet knew was a moment of truth. She let her hands fall, smiled, and said jokingly, "From another planet? Outer s.p.a.ce?"

"No. Well, you saw him, didn't you? How do we know what kinds of people-races, I mean-creatures different from us, have lived on this planet? In the past, you know? We don't really know, do we? How do we know that dwarves or goblins or hobgoblins, that kind of thing, didn't really live here? And that's why we tell stories about them? They really existed, once.... Well, how do we know they didn't?"

"You think Ben is a throwback?" enquired Dr. Gilly gravely. She sounded as if quite prepared to entertain the idea.

"It seems to me obvious," said Harriet.

Another silence, and Dr. Gilly examined her well-kept hands. She sighed. Then she looked up and met Harriet's eyes with "If that is so, then what do you expect me to do about it?"

Harriet insisted, "I want it said. I want it recognised. I just can't stand it never being said."

"Can't you see that it is simply outside my competence? If it is true, that is? Do you want me to give you a letter to the zoo, *Put this child in a cage'? Or hand him over to science?"

"Oh G.o.d," said Harriet. "No, of course not."

Silence.

"Thank you, Dr. Gilly," said Harriet, ending the interview in the regular way. She stood up. "Would you be prepared to give me a prescription for a really strong sedative? There are times when I can't control Ben, and I have to have something to help me."

The doctor wrote. Harriet took the bit of paper. She thanked Dr. Gilly. She said goodbye. She went to the door, and glanced back. On the doctor's face she saw what she expected: a dark fixed stare that reflected what the woman was feeling, which was horror at the alien, rejection by the normal for what was outside the human limit. Horror of Harriet, who had given birth to Ben.

She found Ben alone in the little room, backed into a corner, glaring, unblinking, at the door she came in by. He was trembling. People in white uniforms, white coats, in rooms that smelled of chemicals ... Harriet realised that without meaning it, she had reinforced her threats: If you behave badly, then ...

He was subdued. He kept close to her; no, not like a child with its mother, but like a frightened dog.

Every morning now, she gave Ben a dose of the sedative, which, however, did not have much effect on him. But she hoped it would keep him damped down until school ended and he could roar off with John on the motorbike.

Then it was the end of Ben's first year at school. This meant that they could all go on, pretending that not much was wrong, he was just a "difficult" child. He wasn't learning anything, but then plenty of children did not: they put in time at school, and that was all.

That Christmas, Luke wrote to say he wanted to go to his grandparents, who were somewhere off the coast of southern Spain; and Helen went to Grandmother Molly's house in Oxford.

Dorothy came for Christmas, just three days. She took Jane back with her: Jane adored the little mongol child Amy.

Ben spent all his time with John. Harriet and David-when he was there, but he worked more and more-were with Paul through the Christmas holidays. Paul was even more difficult than Ben. But he was a normal "disturbed" child, not an alien.

Paul spent hours watching television. He escaped into it, watching restlessly, moving about as he watched, and ate, and ate-but never put on weight. Inside him seemed to be an unappeasable mouth that said, Feed me, feed me. He craved, every bit of him-for what? His mother's arms did not satisfy him, he was too restless to stay in them. He liked being with David, but never for long. It was the television that quieted him. Wars and riots; killings and hijackings; murders and thefts and kidnappings ... the eighties, the barbarous eighties were getting into their stride and Paul lay sprawled in front of the set, or wandered about the room, eating and watching-being nourished. So it seemed.

The patterns for the family had been set: and so the future would be.

Luke always went for his school holidays to Grandfather James, with whom he "got on" so well. He liked his Grandmother Jessica, who was great fun, he said. His Aunt Deborah was fun, too: her attempts and failures at matrimony were a long-running serial story, presented comically. Luke was living with the rich, and thriving; and sometimes James brought him home to visit his parents, for the kindly man was unhappy at what went on in that misfortuned house, and knew that Harriet and David yearned for their eldest. They did visit him at his school for Sports Days; and Luke sometimes came home for half-terms.

Helen was happy at Molly's house. She lived in the room her father had once made his real home. She was old Frederick's favourite. She, too, sometimes came for a half-term.

Jane had prevailed on Dorothy to come and reason with Harriet and David, for she wanted to live with Dorothy and Aunt Sarah and the three healthy cousins and poor Amy. And so she did. Dorothy brought Jane home sometimes, and the parents could see that Dorothy had "talked" to Jane to make her kind to them, and never, not ever, criticise Ben.

Paul remained at home: he was there much more than Ben.

David said to Harriet, "What are we going to do with Paul?"

"What can we do?"

"He needs treatment of some kind. A psychiatrist ..."

"What good is that going to do!"

"He's not learning anything, he's a real mess. He's worse than Ben! At least Ben is what he is, whatever that may be, and I don't think I want to know. But Paul ..."

"And how are we going to pay for it?"

"I will."

David now added a part-time job teaching at a polytechnic to his already heavy load of work, and was hardly ever at home. If he did come home during the week, it was late at night, and he fell into bed and slept, exhausted.

Paul was sent to "talk to someone," as the phrase goes.

He went nearly every afternoon after school. This was a success. The psychiatrist was a man of forty, with a family and a pleasant house. Paul stayed there for supper, and even went over to play with the children when he did not actually have an appointment to talk with the doctor.

Sometimes Harriet was alone in that great house all day, until Paul came home at about seven to watch the television-and Ben, too, though his television-watching was different. His attention was held by the screen unpredictably, and according to no pattern Harriet could see, usually only for a minute or two.

The two boys hated each other.

Once, Harriet found Paul in a corner of the kitchen, stretched up on tiptoes, trying to evade Ben's hands, which were reaching up to his throat. Short powerful Ben; tall spidery Paul-if Ben wanted to, he could kill Paul. Harriet thought that Ben was trying to frighten Paul, but Paul was hysterical. Ben grinned vindictively, full of triumph.

"Ben," said Harriet. "Ben-down." As if to a dog, warning it. "Down, Ben, down."

He turned sharply, saw her, dropped his hands. She put into her eyes the threat she had already used, her power over him: his memories of the past.

He bared his teeth and snarled.

Paul screamed, his terror bursting out of him. He raced up the stairs, slipping and falling, to get away from the horror that was Ben.

"If you ever do that again ..." threatened Harriet. Ben went slowly to the big table and sat down. He was thinking, so she believed. "If you ever do that again, Ben ..." He raised his eyes and looked at her. He was calculating, she could see. But what? Those cold, inhuman eyes ... What did he see? People a.s.sumed he saw what they did, that he saw a human world. But perhaps his senses accommodated quite different facts, data. How could anyone know? What was he thinking? How did he see himself?

"Poor Ben," he would sometimes still say.

Harriet did not tell David about this incident. She knew he was at the edge of what he could stand. And what was she going to say? "Ben tried to kill Paul today!" This was a long way beyond what they had set for themselves, outside the permissible. Besides, she did not believe Ben was trying to kill Paul: he was demonstrating what he could do if he wanted to.

She told Paul that Ben was absolutely not trying to hurt him, only to frighten him. She thought Paul believed her.

Two years before Ben was due to leave the school where he learned nothing, but at least had not harmed anyone, John came to say he was departing from their lives. He had been granted a place in a job-training scheme in Manchester. He, and three of his mates.

Ben was there, listening. He had been told by John already, in Betty's Caff. But he had not taken it in. John had come up on purpose to say this to Harriet, with Ben present, so that Ben could accept it.

"Why can't I come, too?" demanded Ben.

"Because you can't, mate. But when I come and visit my mother and father, I'll come and see you."

Ben insisted, "But why can't I come with you?"

"Because I'll be at school, too. Not here. I'll be far away. Far, far away."

Ben stiffened. He a.s.sumed his rigid crouching pose, fists held out. He ground his teeth together, his eyes malevolent.

"Ben," said Harriet, using her special voice. "Ben, stop it."

"Come on now, Hobbit," said John, uneasy but kind. "I can't help it. I've got to get away from home some time, haven't I?"

"Is Barry going? Is Rowland going? Is Henry?"

"Yes, all four of us."

Suddenly, Ben rushed out into the garden, where he began kicking at a tree trunk, letting out squeals of rage.

"Better the tree than me," said John.

"Or me," said Harriet.

"I'm sorry," said John. "But there it is."

"I cannot imagine what we would have done without you," said Harriet.

He nodded, knowing it was true. And so John left their lives, for good. Ben had been with him almost every day of his life since he was rescued from the Inst.i.tution.

Ben took it hard. At first, he did not believe it. When Harriet arrived to fetch him and, sometimes, Paul from school, he would be at the school gates, staring down the road where John had appeared gloriously on his motorbike. Reluctantly he went home with her, sitting in the corner of the back seat opposite from Paul, if Paul was not at the psychiatrist's, and his eyes searched the streets for signs of his lost friends. More than once, when he was not anywhere in the house, Harriet found him in Betty's Caff, sitting isolated at a table, his eyes on the door, where they might appear. In the street one morning, a minor member of John's gang was standing outside a shop-window, and Ben, crowing with pleasure, rushed to him: but the youth said casually, "Hi, it's Dumbo. h.e.l.lo, Dopey," and turned away. Ben stood transfixed with disbelief, his mouth open, as if he had received a blow across it. It took him a long time to understand. As soon as he got home with Harriet and Paul, he would be off again, running into the centre of the town. She did not follow him. He would come back! He had nowhere else; and she was always pleased to have Paul alone with her-if Paul was there.

Once, Ben came thumping into the house, with his heavy run, and dived under the big table. A policewoman appeared and said to Harriet, "Where's that child? Is he all right?"

"He's under the table," said Harriet.

"Under the ... but what for? I only wanted to make sure he wasn't lost. How old is he?"

"Older than he looks," said Harriet. "Come out, Ben, it's all right."

He would not come out: he was on all fours, facing where the policewoman stood, watching her neat s.h.i.+ny black shoes. He was remembering how once someone in a car had captured him and taken him away: uniforms, the aroma of officialdom.

"Well," said the policewoman. "Anyone'd think I was a childs.n.a.t.c.her! I shouldn't let him go running around like that. He might get himself kidnapped."

"No such luck," said Harriet, every inch the jolly coping mum. "More likely he'd kidnap them."

"It's like that, is it?"

And the policewoman departed, laughing.

David and Harriet lay side by side in their connubial bed, lights out, the house still. Two rooms down, Ben slept-they hoped. Four rooms down, at the end of the pa.s.sage, Paul slept behind a self-locked door. It was late, and Harriet knew David would be asleep in a minute or two. They lay with a s.p.a.ce between them. But it was no longer a s.p.a.ce full of anger. Harriet knew that he was too permanently exhausted to be angry. Anyway, he had decided not to be angry: it was killing him. She always knew what he was thinking: he often answered, aloud, to her thoughts.

They sometimes made love, but she felt, and knew he did, that the ghosts of young Harriet and young David entwined and kissed.

It was as if the strain of her life had stripped off her a layer of flesh-not real flesh, but perhaps metaphysical substance, and invisible, unsuspected, until it had gone. And David, working as he did, had lost the self that was the family man. His efforts had made him successful in his firm, then gained him a much better job in another. But that now was where his centre was: events have their own logic. He was now the sort of man he had once decided never to be. James no longer supported this family; he only paid for Luke. The candour, the openness that had come from David's stubborn trust in himself had been overlaid by his new self-confidence. Harriet knew that if she were to meet David now, for the first time, she would think him hard. But he was not hard. The rock she felt there in him was endurance. He knew how to stick things out. They were still alike.

Tomorrow, which was a Sat.u.r.day, David was going to a cricket match at Luke's school. Harriet was visiting Helen at her school: Helen was in a play. Dorothy was coming in the morning to let the two escape for the weekend. Jane would not be with her, but at a party at a school friend's house she did not want to miss.

Paul was going with his father to visit his brother.

Ben would be alone with Dorothy, who had not seen him for a year.

Harriet was not surprised when David said, "Do you think Dorothy understands how much older Ben is than he looks?" "Should we warn her?"

"But she understands everything, after about five minutes."

A silence. Harriet knew David was nearly asleep. He roused himself to say, "Harriet, has it occurred to you that in a couple of years' time Ben will be adolescent? He'll be a s.e.xual being?"

"Yes, it has. But he's not on the same clock as we are."

"Presumably those people of his had something like an adolescence?"

"How do we know? Perhaps they weren't as s.e.xual as we are. Someone said we're overs.e.xed-who? Yes, it was Bernard Shaw."

"All the same, the thought of Ben s.e.xual scares me."