BILLY WANTED IT TO BE like the story where someone says ‘Open Sesame’: his crying outburst to Trisha and Jenna should have been the thing that rolled the stone away from the cave. Now that he’d said it all, couldn’t Mum and Dad get better, too?
He described the stone and the cave idea to Dr Jenna, when he was frustrated that they all had to keep visiting, and things seemed stuck. She said she supposed the trouble was, when that stone was rolled away, you still had to go inside the cave. Phhffft, Billy sighed, but all he could do was wait, while the adults talked it out.
On the first family session after he made the bird mask, Trisha and Jenna encouraged him to tell his parents about the day Jason died. When he did, even Mum and Dad said, ‘It wasn’t your fault, Billy.’ Jenna said, ‘Did your cousin always listen to you?’
‘Nahp.’
‘So if you had said stop, would he have stopped showing off to Thalia?’
He thought for a while. ‘Most likely he’d have called me dog’s breath or numbnuts and carried on.’
The doctor tucked her peeping tooth inside her mouth, as if a smile had escaped accidentally. His mum gave a strangled noise, but his dad just rubbed the knees of his jeans, like he was itchy.
‘You know, Jason was supposed to be sticking with you, too. Maybe another way of looking at it is that he should have followed you once he saw you weren’t hanging around. But nobody blames him for what happened, do they? He was a child and it was a mistake. What’s happened is terrible, but, Billy, nobody was to blame.’
No blame, Billy. No blame. He let the words soak in, waiting to see if they felt true, but then, then, Iris crumpled, saying, ‘I still can’t help thinking if only I’d gone to get them that day—’
Liam cut her off. ‘We’ve been over this, Iris. You were at your hospital check.’
Billy wondered if this was just what dads were meant to be like. Then he wondered if he’d be like that when he was a man. Did he have to be? What if you didn’t want to be like your mum or your dad? Was there some third person he could be? Where’d he heard that before? Oh, that’s right. Miss Hopper said stories could be told by the third person. Could life be lived by the third person, too?
‘And what was Jason doing for Thalia?’ Dr Jenna asked. ‘Trying to cheer her up, you said: trying to make her laugh. What a lovely kid. What a warm, caring boy he still was, despite everything he’d been through. You must have been so proud of what a good job you’d been doing with him.’
Iris’s eyes filled silvery-green. It was the look of all the times she’d hovered around the classroom too long, or that time she came to pick him up for the dentist when there was no appointment, the I’m-so-lucky-I’ve-still-got-you look. It made the whole world seem on the point of falling over the edge of itself into space. Billy tried to hold it back, but there it was: the skittering, downy sensation that spilled out of his head and spread. ‘Kaaa! Kaaaa!’ He whirled up from his chair, battered around the room, spun on the balls of his feet. Liam said, ‘Christ, here we go again.’ And Iris said, ‘But Billy, it’s all been getting so much better!’
Dr Jenna asked, ‘Billy, you want to fly away now?’
‘Kaaa!’
‘Billy!’ his father remonstrated. But Dr Jenna dropped her clipboard and pen, grinning.
‘What a gorgeous bird! How high he can go!’ She sprung onto her tiptoes, unwinding a scarf from around her throat. She held it at two corners, let it billow out behind her, a blue sail, as she skimmed and twirled around the room. She cried out, ‘I’m playing, too, Billy! Fly, with me!’
Liam slumped down, his hand covering his eyes. ‘Jesus spare me.’
Iris watched Billy, her hands so tightly clenched they looked sewn together.
Billy zoomed and leapt; jumped onto a chair, arced and dove down. ‘What sort of bird is your mother, Heaven-bird?’ Dr Jenna called. Billy stilled. He perched on a chair, hid his head under a wing, and peeped a high, weeping note. ‘What sort of bird is your father?’ Billy stalked around, the bully seagull in a pack, rubbery neck craning and bending again as he ululated at everyone he eyeballed, before he strutted off to stand in a corner, his head preternaturally swivelled around so that he glared one-eyed at whoever dared move.
After a few beats, Dr Jenna said, ‘Okay,’ let her scarf fill with air, then drift down. She knotted it back around her throat and returned to her chair. Billy’s seagull pose ebbed, too, and he stood staring midair. ‘Can you come and sit down again?’ Dr Jenna asked him. He shuffled back.
Liam jiggled one foot so the floor started to shake. Iris pinned a hand to his knee.
‘Can you tell us what the Heaven-bird would want to say, Billy, if it could talk?’
He exhaled. ‘This has turned stupid.’
Liam tilted his metal-framed chair backwards, then promptly let it fall forward again. ‘He flick-flacks like this,’ he said. ‘How the hell can you tell what’s going on in his head? And how exactly is prancing around like a circus act going to help?’
Dr Jenna concentrated on Billy. ‘Your mum and dad have agreed to listen to you today, Billy.’ Ignoring Liam’s exasperated whistle, she said, ‘Is there something you want to say to them?’
‘Well. Yeah.’ Billy yanked at his sleeve-cuffs. ‘Is it always going to be like — is it always going to be, and they all lived saddestly ever after?’
His parents looked at the floor.
‘And I know saddestly isn’t a word, Dad, so you don’t have to nut off at me again.’
‘I wasn’t nutting off, I—’
Switch-flip. Billy kicked at the leg of his dad’s chair. ‘Yes you were! You’re always angry with me for who-knows-why. Not for doing anything wrong. Maybe you just don’t like your kid.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Billy. I—’
‘I didn’t mean for Jason to die. I loved him and I hated him, and sometimes he was just there. Like — the walls. Sometimes I didn’t even think about him, but everybody acts like —’ Billy shoved his hands deep into his hoody’s front pockets, and stretched it too far. He’d run out of steam. He pulled his cap down over his head, crossed his arms, and slumped low in his chair. ‘Oh, whatever. Fricken fricken.’ He made a face. ‘Whatever fricken is.’
All the adults looked at each other.
‘Do either of you want to respond?’ asked Jenna.
Iris’s voice sounded as if it had a crack in it. ‘Everybody acts like what?’
Billy didn’t move.
‘We both love you, Billy. Because you’re Billy. We —’ Her eyes changed from sad to something else. ‘Liam?’
Billy mumbled into his chest.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He lifted his head, looked Liam straight in the eye. ‘Why are you so angry with me all the time?’
Liam blinked, colour draining from his face. Everyone watched him. Then he looked like a different father. It was horrible, like something alien was pulling at the skin and they couldn’t see what. And he still didn’t say anything.
Iris clasped her own upper arm, as if she’d been punched. ‘He’s right, Liam. I feel as if you’re annoyed with me all the time, too. Angry and distant.’
He started to shake his head, but then sat there, blank.
Iris couldn’t wait: like poking at a cat with a stick. ‘It’s not just what you say, there are other things —’
‘It’s not you,’ Liam blurted to Billy. ‘It’s not.’
‘Do you know what it is?’ Jenna asked.
He looked at the ceiling, as if he’d put in eye-drops. His fists were clenched.
‘I don’t, I don’t think I’ve been — I’ve just been —’ The fists balled on his knees tightened, knuckles white through the skin. ‘I’ve been keeping it together, that’s all. Holding it all together for everyone, you know? Just — holding it.’
‘Looks angry,’ said Billy. At the same time Dr Jenna said, ‘What do you think would happen if you stopped?’
His fists sprung open. ‘Shitstorm.’ He shot Billy a glance. ‘Someone’s got to keep it all running. Someone’s got to work.’
‘But I’ve started working again,’ said Iris. Liam’s voice wheeled on over that.
‘Someone’s had to keep a grip. Keep control. Otherwise — we’d all be lost. Everything would be lost.’
Face wary, Iris said, ‘But you’re allowed to feel, too, Liam. Going cold on us doesn’t help.’
He looked at the wall, jaw working hard.
‘It’s not weak to mourn someone,’ said Iris.
‘Billy started flipping out with this crazy bird caper; you’d been winding up tight as a top — what am I supposed to do? Head the same way Pete went? If I weep and wail and do what I want to do, where does that leave you?’
Iris sat with her mouth open, as if an answer were glued in her throat. Then she nodded.
Jenna spoke up. ‘I don’t think that being honest will hurt Billy,’ she said. ‘It might make him less confused. Kids might seem to be able to bounce off events as if they haven’t noticed them, but they’re often highly attuned to undercurrents. And Billy’s particularly sensitive. I think he’s found his own way of translating the subsonic stuff into his own language.’
‘Subsonic stuff. Is that your professional, technical opinion?’ said Liam.
Jenna straightened in her chair. ‘I’m avoiding professional jargon, actually,’ she said, in a voice Billy’s cousin would have called pissy. ‘Look, this has been a long session. I have another family to see soon. Next time we could start to talk about the changes you’d each like to see. In the way—’
‘Oh, change the fucking world,’ said Liam. ‘Change the fucking universe.’
‘Dad! You said the soap word!’
Liam’s expression gave its strange alien twists again. ‘Sorry, but none of this will bring Pete and Jason back.’
There was a densely packed silence.
‘Well, duh.’
‘Billy,’ warned Iris. Liam stood up.
Jenna said, ‘Liam, I’d like to have a private session just with you. We’ll book it at reception.’
Liam was already making for the corridor, as if he hadn’t heard.