Gabriel is nine years old and he has been in this place for two weeks. They call it a children’s home. They will not tell him where Mum is. They will not tell him what has happened to Harry.
Every day Gabriel asks, and every day he is told the same thing. Nothing.
No one says they’ll try to find out, no one says don’t worry Gabriel, your mum was a bit sick, but soon she’ll get better and then she’ll come and get you. But that doesn’t stop Gabriel asking, every day. Where’s Harry? When’s Mum coming to get me? Because that’s what mums are supposed to do. They’re supposed to look after their kids and keep them safe, and deliver them from all evil, just like it says in the Our Father, the prayer they all say before they go to sleep, because then Our Heavenly Father will keep us safe. That’s what the night warden says before he walks up and down between the two rows of beds, before he turns out the light and leaves them to whisper in the dark.
When it’s dark, that’s when Gabriel tries to remember everything he can about home and Mum and Harry. He tries to remember Dad too, his happy face and happy laugh and words of wisdom.
He tries to remember the smell of Mum’s hair and the smell of Harry’s skin, the special baby smell Mum says can only be found just there, Gaby-Baby, at the back of her head where her curls meet her neck.
Gabriel lies in his bed in the children’s home and wills himself to remember everything about before. Before they went to live with the old man, before the jolly man came and took away all their furniture.
Before Mum ran to the window and saw the men leaping down the path and into their cars. Before the bam! bam! on the door when the men came looking for Dad.
He doesn’t remember Mum saying, Not again Joe, what are we going to do now? but she must have, because that’s what she says AFTER when she’s sitting in the corner of their empty sitting room and says, I asked your father, Gabriel, I asked him over and over, but he couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. And now where are we? What are we going to do now, Joe?
Gabriel tries not to remember that day when he sat right next to Mum in the empty house in the dark because the electricity had been cut off and Harry was crying and he was saying I’ll change her Mum, don’t worry, and Mum saying Thank you, Gaby-Baby. And then, Well Joe, there’s nothing for it. I’m going to have to ask him for help.
Gabriel tries not to remember how she gathered herself up as if she was pulling all the pieces of herself together, bit by heavy bit, leaning against the wall, until she was on her feet and then they were all moving to the door, Mum and Gabriel and Harry heavy in Gabriel’s arms. We need to pack, Mum said, and then she was laughing and crying and crying some more, saying, pack what? What are we supposed to pack?
Gabriel lies still in his bed, but his eyes are wide open.
The sheet is stiff, scratchy. Everything here scratches. Gabriel’s shirt, the trousers at his waist, his underpants. Not like the clothes Mum used to wash and iron every week.
Hey, Felix? That’s Gabriel’s surname, and it’s the first time his name has been spoken in the dark. It’s Arendse, the boy in the bed across from him.
Yes? Gabriel’s voice reaches cautiously into the dark.
You know she’s not coming, don’t you?
What? Who?
Your mother. She’s never going to come for you.
Arendse is one of the boys who gets visitors from outside. A mother who says she loves him, who’s coming to get him, he says, as soon as she can, as soon as she’s got a proper job, as soon as they have a proper home. She comes to see him and she brings news from the outside. News of trouble and strife, of crime, stories about boys who set houses on fire and mothers who have been committed to institutions for long-term care.
She’s going to be locked away, Felix. In the nuthouse. My ma says she’s off her rocker.
Gabriel wants to push the words back across the cold polished floor, back to the iron-framed bed and the thin mattress and the scratchy blanket, to where Arendse’s shaved head rests on a lumpy pillow.
That’s not true, he wants to say. She is coming for me, and Harriet, and then we’ll all go home together. But then, from further along, comes another voice, kinder this time, not filled with spite like Arendse’s. Gabriel doesn’t recognise it. He still doesn’t know all the boys who share the room with him, who straggle onto the bus to go to the local school.
Felix?
Gabriel doesn’t want to answer. This is not a night for good news.
Give up on your sister too. The babies always go.
Go? What do you mean?
What do you think he means, dummy?
Another voice and then another.
They always come for the babies.
All the moms and dads who want babies of their own, but they never want us.
We’re too old for them.
We’ve been stuck here too long.
We’ve got too many bad habits.
We’re just bad boys.
Gabriel pulls the blanket to his chin, burrows his head under his pillow to drown out the voices filled with knowing. Boys who have been here much, much longer than he has. Boys who know how the system works. Boys whose voices fade into darkness as the night warden patrols the dormitory, shining his torch into eyes closed tight against the light, boys pretending to be asleep.