AFTER my pizza rebellion Dad lifted his game. He went to some agency and got us this live-in nanny. Her name was Yoke-Lin and she was from Malaysia. She was twenty-three years old and not much taller than I was. She had about twenty pairs of shoes and laughed all the time. It was like her way of saying “What’s that?” or “I don’t understand,” or “It doesn’t matter”. It got really annoying after a while. It must have seemed like a great idea to Dad, hooking in Ms Joke-Grin, filling the house with laughter. But then I reckon most of Dad’s “great ideas” from that period of our lives were actually not that great.
I don’t know what it is about me but sometimes I find myself doing things that are not the best. A bit psycho sometimes. I reckon it must be my famous criminal grandparents (long dead) bubbling to the surface, just like those evil spirits in a horror movie.
It started like this. One weekend I had hoped that Dad was going to take me to Eden Park to watch the footy. He had mentioned it earlier in the week and I guess I was dumb enough to think it was going to happen. On Saturday I got up early to watch the cartoons on Sky. It was my weekend routine in those days. I would wrap myself in the duvet and hobble through to the lounge and curl up on the couch. At about eleven o’clock the ’toons get stupid, all the baby ones come on, so I wandered through the house looking for Dad.
I knew he had been up for a while because I had heard him drive out in the morning. Everything was very quiet. I thought Yoke-Lin would be around at least, but there was no sign. As I headed up to Dad’s bedroom I got this sinking feeling and dropped back. I heard them talking. I couldn’t make out what they were saying because the door was closed, but it was the tone … Dad had a sort of buzz in his voice that I didn’t like. I knew that something had happened.
After this I shot back to my room and dug out my favourite Asterix book, anything to stop my brain from working. Maybe half an hour later Dad stuck his head in the door to my room and said, “What about this footy then?”
“Nah, don’t feel like it.”
“Okay,” he said, as if it were no big deal, and then added, “Yoke-Lin and I are going to the supermarket to do the big shop.”
And that was it.
That was when the real rot set in.
It was soon after this that I started to do bad things to this Yoke-Lin.
I think I was hoping to drive her mad.
At first it was just small stuff really, like hiding things that I knew she would need. Her keys, or her wallet or maybe the TV remote. I would sit somewhere near at hand so I could watch her getting flustered, sometimes I would even help her to look. Once I even shifted it a couple of times while the search was on. That was fun. It wasn’t long before she twigged to it because now it was Yoke-Lin who started to hide things.
Her own things mostly.
From me.
If she had hoped that this was the end of it then I guess she must have underestimated my determination. Like father, like son.
After a while hiding things wasn’t enough any more so I had to go further. I began to take money from her wallet, not that I needed it. I just wanted to take it from her. She liked money, I knew that. I did a few boy-like pranks too. Put slugs in her shoes. I would go into the garden to hunt out the biggest, hairiest spiders and free them in her clothes-drawers. If I got the chance I would throw her mail away.
I must say she coped quite well, never cried, never got angry with me. I would climb out my bedroom window at night and make noises near her room. Try to frighten her a bit. Nothing seemed to work and I was about to give up when one day she was gone. No note, nothing.
She can’t have said anything but Dad was suspicious, I can tell you. He never spoke to me about it but for a few days he would stalk past me giving me the evils. Actually, it was after this that he got his revenge. This time he got a scary woman from the agency. Actually I reckon it was a different agency. Instead of asianhoneys.com it was Rent-a-witch.
Her name was Ada, but I used to call her adder because I reckon she must have had a poisonous bite. This Ada must have had a background as a prison guard or a dog catcher. Something like that. There was no way I was going to mess with her. She was big, she was wide and she wore men’s shoes which squeaked. She had no eyebrows, just pencil lines where they had been drawn on and she wore the sort of glasses that magnified her eyes. They were big and round, like a squid’s eyes. Who needed nightmares when Ada was loose in your house?
She had me sussed from the minute she arrived. She always knew what I was going to do before I did it and she never left personal stuff lying around. She was unbeatable. When she said, “Get up, Sandy,” I was out of bed like I had been launched by a giant spring. My clothes were laid out ready, breakfast was ready, school lunch was ready then Ashraf was ready, and I was gone. The homeward beat would be much the same. I’d always get this feeling of dread as Ashraf pulled up in the driveway. He’d turn around and look at me. “We’re here,” he’d say. I would sort of shrink into the seat and slowly slide out.
Then the morning routine happened in reverse: bag emptied, school uniform off for inspection and possible washing, homework out on desk with glass of milk and regulation two Krispies. After three days I knew exactly what the expression “stir crazy” meant.
The only good thing about the new arrangement was that she was strictly eight ’til five. Out the door the moment the big hand reached twelve. She wouldn’t wait for anything. What a relief.
Dad, being Dad, couldn’t follow such a strict time schedule. For a few days he was there at the changing of the guard but then he came in at half past whatever. Adder had usually left some little witchy meal bubbling on the stove but we hardly ever ate it. Dad had snatched a pie or three from Oscar’s and I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. Luckily I was getting pretty handy at fixing things from the freezer by this stage. There is an old saying where I come from and that’s “a microwave is a boy’s best friend”.
I wasn’t the only one who turned a bit feral at this stage. Dad developed a few habits that were a worry. He began to drink more and go out more. Sometimes he would drink at home, but other times he would be at clubs with Rufus O’Malley until the wee small hours, when suddenly on an impulse he would ring me up. It was like he suddenly remembered he had a son. He would get all sentimental, say the sort of things he would never say normally. Stopping every now and then to sip his drink before he rambled on.
“That you, Sandy?”
“Yes, Dad.” (Like who else would it be?)
“I’m going to be a bit late home.”
“I figured.”
“What?”
“It’s already after ten so I guessed it.”
“Is that the time? My God I thought it was about seven. You must be starving.”
“No I’m okay, I nuked a couple of burritos.”
“What about Ada’s dinner?”
“What about it?”
“Why didn’t you eat that?”
“Too risky.”
Then there would be a pause while he drank or lit up a smoke or spoke to someone he was with.
“So you’re okay?”
“Never better.”
“That’s great.”
It was a bit like being trapped in one of those cheesy Walt Disney movies. Smiling Mum and Dad, lovable Junior with his fluffy dog Scruffy. It wasn’t him and it wasn’t me, and I didn’t even have a dog.
“Hold up, Dad, there’s a call coming in on line two…”
“Whaa …”
Then I would drop the phone on the couch and carry on watching TV.
Just when you think that you are stuck in something and it’s never going to change, it does, in some unexpected way. Dad had the home base covered with Ada. He was well on the way to becoming his new self – “The Party Dude” – when the whole thing blew up in his face. I got suspended from school.
It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everyone else. I quite liked school, it kept me from thinking too much, you know, brooding on stuff. It was this brooding that used to ruin my weekends. They kept us busy at school and the work was easy. The teachers, what can you say? They were just your standard issue teachers, boring but harmless.
Anyway, that particular day, I was sitting on a bench outside my form room with a couple of other boys at lunchtime, it was a day like any other, no lightning strikes or freaky visitations. We were just yakking on about stuff when this guy Liam came over and said something to me that made me explode. You know those bombs on the cartoons? The sort of ball-thing with a wick. That was me, but the wick was about one millimetre long. We were discussing the parents’ evening which we had all just been told about and Liam said something about my mother.
I’m not going to repeat it now, it probably wouldn’t sound like much anyway, but it was enough. I turned instantly into a “raging engine of death and destruction”. (I wrote that in a report for the counsellor, pretty good description I reckon, even though I say so myself.)
Anyway, to get back to Liam, all I can remember was this puzzled look on his face while I was punching it, again and again. A look that seemed to say, “What did I say? What did I do?”
After this there was a whole bunch of stuff that happened pretty much one thing after the other. I was hauled around by sets of hands, first big kids, then, when they weren’t strong enough, adults. I was talked to by one face after another. Mr Tyndall the DP, then, after he had run out of things to say, Mr Redbone the principal. I didn’t get involved this time, let them do all the talking. I thought it best to sit back and not say much. It was only going to make things worse.
After a while the counsellor and community police officer talked to me. They talked to me about causes and consequences. Mrs Larkin the counsellor sat next to me on the couch. She smiled sweetly at me and then said in this soft purry voice, “Why do we do silly things?” I said nothing so she began a long talk about my mum and dad, and love and tolerance, and how we were all part of a big family at school. I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes, I could tell that sleep was near, but it was not to be. The door opened and it was the familiar shape of Constable Keith, our bulky Community Constable. He had spoken to us the previous year about shoplifting. I imagined him like a cartoon character who ran around whacking people on the head with a stick. His mission was to explain to me “the pathways” I would take if I ever repeated this behaviour in the community. I was lucky that this happened in a school because if it happened in the community (he used that expression a lot) there were no prizes for guessing where that would lead to.
Yep, it was a pathway that led straight to the slammer.
I remembered thinking that I was getting some good practice for that anyway, with Ada looking after me.
Then Dad was called in. It seemed funny having him in the school, he looked out of place, like seeing a giraffe in your toilet. He’d never been there before. Hated schools he said. Looked really uncomfortable, kept trying to loosen his tie, like he was choking. But it was no good. All the talk came to nothing. Our final positions on the matter were these.
They called it “unprovoked assault”.
I called it “takin’ out the trash”.
Which version’s correct? Who cares? The month’s suspension brought Dad to his senses though. It took this to make him sit up and take notice.
He thought he would leave me at home with Ada. Just sort of wait the period out and then send me back, but I made it clear that I was not going to stay in the house with that woman, and that was that. If he tried that one I would be gone. You wouldn’t see me for dust. I guess I must have looked pretty determined because he didn’t do it.
For a day or two he took me into work with him. I would read my book or play on the computer while he did his deals. Then we would get into the car and visit some guy and it was more of the same. I didn’t mind this but it was starting to cramp Dad’s style. I could tell it wasn’t going to last.
Then one night after tea, there he was, on the phone, desperate now, begging his younger brother to take me on.
“I’ve tried everything … the kid’s in a bad way … I’m at my wit’s end … ever since … ever since it’s been just the two of us nothing has worked out for him … aggressive, violent, untrustworthy … there’s a gun at my head … space, time to reflect, fresh air, animals, family life … they’re scared of him, scared of what he might do… That would be great … that would be amazing … just a short spell … Yeah, I owe you big time … regards to Lorna … yeah … yeah … I know … okay … yeah … promise … a couple of days, see ya …”
That’s where Uncle Frank comes into the picture.