Lamb

‘Stiff elbows,’ he said and the boy held his arms bent and stiff against his sides. Michael hoisted him above the heads.

‘Can you see?’

‘Yes,’ shouted the boy. Michael felt him quiver with excitement.

‘Time?’

‘Two fifty-six.’

‘This is useless here. Let’s get down the front,’ said Michael.

They threaded and elbowed and pushed their way through the crowd until they came to a crush barrier not far from the front. Owen followed in the passage that Michael created, holding tightly on to the back of his anorak. Michael, acting a bit simple, indicated the boy and got himself a place at the crush barrier. He lifted Owen on to the bar so that he could see, and held him there with his arms round him.

He was stunned by the new season green of the pitch, its flatness and the precision with which it was marked in white lines. At home he had played on fields tilted to the side of a mountain or with a hillock in the middle hiding the goal at the far end, the whole area measled with pats of cow dung. He had forgotten that at this level of the game everything could be so perfect.

The teams came out and Owen cheered himself hoarse when he saw the red and white strip of Arsenal. He recognized the players from their photographs and pointed them out, screaming and laughing at the top of his voice to Michael. In pale blue, the colour of a blackbird’s egg, Manchester City were kicking into the goal nearest them. They were knocking about what looked like five brand new footballs. Owen looked over his shoulder and shouted,

‘It’s smashin’.’

‘It hasn’t even started yet,’ roared Michael. The crowd chanted and sang incessantly and deafeningly, holding up red and white scarves and banners.

It was then that Michael noticed the crowd to his right. They were in their late teens. Most of them had their heads shaved so closely that their hair was only a shadow. They wore blue denim waistcoats with no shirts so that their arms and chests were bare. They were shouting at the field as if in intense and uncontrolled anger. Oathing and making obscene gestures. One of them openly pissed into a beer can, splashing those around him, and hurled it into the crowd. They all had their scarves tied to their wrists. Owen watched them.

‘I’d like to see Brother Ben belt some of those bastards.’

‘He’d have a job,’ agreed Michael.

The group was pushing and shoving to clear a space for themselves and those around them were standing back, pretending not to notice them. Michael watched them out of the corner of his eye as the game started. He knew that Owen was doing the same, the way he was twisting on the bar. Then the boy turned and said,

‘I think we could see better from down there.’

Michael agreed with him and they moved away from the group, down nearer the field.

‘A bit to the left in case that gang throws anything more,’ said Michael. This time it was Owen who led, squirming his way into the wall. He got a place and Michael stood behind him, his hands on his shoulders.

Then suddenly the boy went stiff. Michael felt the change in him beneath his hands, the rigidity. He leaned down to be on a level with his face. He shouted into his face.

‘Are you all right?’

The boy was staring forward, his eyes wide, his jaw dropping slowly open.

‘Oh Jesus, Owen, not here.’

The boy’s body began to jerk and his head flicked back as if his neck was broken. His arms threshed and trembled, but the press of the crowd held him up. A young lad next to him elbowed him shouting,

‘’Ere, whatcha doin’, mate?’

Still the boy was jerking and threshing, his eyes rolled back up into his head so that only the whites showed. Michael pinioned his arms and as best he could crushed the boy up against the wall to stop him kicking.

‘Help me, will you? He’s having a fit,’ screamed Michael. Above the noise of the crowd Michael could hear the sickening noise in Owen’s throat. His fear was that he would swallow his tongue or bite it off.

‘Get a doctor,’ yelled Michael.

‘No chance, mate.’ The young lad had become concerned, seeing the colour of Owen’s face, like blue wax. ‘Get’m on to the park.’ The lad helped Michael heave Owen into the air. Other hands came to steady the boy’s twitching body. He fell on the other side of the parapet wall and, for a terrible instant, looked to Michael like a fish as he arched and flapped on the track.

‘Oh Jesus,’ he cried into himself. ‘Help him. Help him.’

The lad made joined hands for Michael to step up and climb the wall. Owen’s fish-gawping mouth was open and there was foam and spit around it. Michael sat on his legs and searched his pockets for something to put between his gnashing teeth. He found a pencil but could not get the teeth open. He was afraid of being bitten, of losing his fingers. The boy snapped again and he got the pencil in. He was making a high-pitched whine now. The pencil shattered between his teeth. Michael got most of it out, lead and painted wood, snatching at it. A lollipop stick lay by Owen’s head, and fumbling and praying and cursing, Michael wrapped his handkerchief around it and inserted it between the boy’s teeth. The arms were still quivering and waving. It was as if thousands of volts were being passed through his body. A line of faces on a level with the track watched, stunned. The crowd swayed and roared and chanted at the game.

To Michael it seemed like hours before anyone came to help him. An ambulance man came running, clutching his bag to his side, and knelt down beside them. He quickly bound the boy’s ankles together and his arms to his sides. Another ambulance man followed with a stretcher.

‘I’m his father,’ shouted Michael into the ambulance man’s ear. He walked with them round the pitch to the tunnel, his eyes fixed on the blue-white face of the boy bobbing on the stretcher. His hand was poised over the stretcher, keeping him from falling off when his back arched and he squirmed from side to side.

As he walked he frantically tried to remember the name he had used in the hotel. There would be doctors, statements, maybe even hospital. There would be policemen. At the first hotel he had used Abraham, but over the second name he had a mental block. He must remember it. Would they phone the hotel to check? Once the police heard his accent, would it spark something off about a man and a missing boy?

Then from nowhere the name came. O’Leary. That was it. He felt calmer. In the sick room beneath the main stand Michael and the ambulance men sat and watched the fit subside. Gradually the boy quietened, the intensity went out of his movements until eventually he lay still. Above them they could hear the crowd, muted like the rising and falling of the sea. The boy opened his eyes and he looked around, confused as to why he should be lying in this place.

‘It’s O.K. Lie still. You’ve had an attack,’ said Michael. He began untying the bandages at his sides. The ambulance men received another call. They were left alone in the room together.

‘How do you feel?’ Michael asked.

‘O.K.,’ said Owen.

‘Do you think you could walk?’

The boy nodded and tried to get to his feet. Michael steadied him with his hand.

‘I think we’d better get out of here before they start asking a lot of questions. Can you walk?’

‘Yeah. Can we go back up to the game?’

‘We’re going straight back to the hotel and you’re going to your bed. Don’t be so stupid, Owney.’

In the corridor on the way out there was a small riot. Two policemen were dragging a youth who was shouting and struggling. One of the policemen had a hatchet in his hand and the youth’s face was covered in blood. He was screaming like a woman. Michael and Owen pressed themselves up against the wall to let them pass.

‘How the hell do we get out of here?’ asked Michael. Two more policemen stood outside a room, their arms folded. Michael went up to one of them.

‘The boy here has been very sick,’ he said. He put his arm round his shoulders. ‘How can we get out of here?’

The policeman was sympathetic and led them through corridors to the exit.

‘It’s like a maze,’ said Michael. He thanked the policeman and they found a taxi easily because the game was still only in its first half.

In the Home there had been a medical orderly who had looked after Owen when he had had a fit, but now Michael had the sole responsibility. He needed to find out more about the disease, but he could not risk going to a doctor. He remembered a bookshop several streets away and decided to go along and see if he could find anything.

Being Saturday afternoon, the street was crowded. He looked at the faces as they jostled past him. He found himself in the strange position of wanting to see someone he knew. For days the fear had been with him of bumping into an acquaintance from home, but now it no longer existed. He searched the faces knowing he would see no one – millions of them, bespectacled, balding, sullen, worn, all of them faintly resembling people he had once met, so that he was always on the verge of a greeting or a nod. If he had seen someone, he had no doubt that he would have ducked away, but he could not rid himself of the longing. He wondered if this was homesickness.

In the bookshop Michael did not know where to begin to look. He had never been a great reader. He found a small medical section but could see nothing on epilepsy. In another section he saw an encyclopaedia and looked it up under E. The book was heavy and he laid it on a bench and read the article through, but it didn’t tell him much that he didn’t already know, describing epilepsy in terms of an electrical brainstorm. One thing that he hadn’t known made him smile because it was such a coincidence. He read, ‘A typical symptom associated with epilepsy is the fugue. The sufferer may leave home, travel for several days or weeks without seeming to have full realization of what he is doing. Although not fully conscious, he is able to abide by the rules of society, e.g. respecting traffic regulations.’ He closed the book and muttered, ‘The fugue, how are you?’