All the tea in China

It’s five in the morning and I’ve been awake since three. I decided to get up, make a cup of tea, and write down what is going around in my head, hoping that will help. I’m drinking too much tea. I’m not great with caffeine, but love both strong tea and coffee and the more I try to deny myself, the more I drink! When things are in turmoil I turn to things which comfort me. I know why - tea is a link to my mother, who died when I was twelve. Add a chocolate digestive biscuit (has to be McVitie’s) and I’m even closer to her.

We used to drink gallons of tea back then, she used loose PG Tips in a  silver teapot which lent a metallic taste to the stuff, but after two spoonfuls of sugar it didn’t matter. Wonder what she’d make of our situation at home with the grandson she never met? Need someone with a magic wand to get here fast. My youngest son, Alex, has bought me DVDs of the 1960s series ‘Bewitched’ for Christmas, and we’ve been watching them together. He says they are uplifting, and that it’s impossible not to feel happy when you watch them. Another link with my mum, too, before she got ill. I am about eight, and not long home from school. She’s in the kitchen making our tea, (what they call supper in the south of England). I am lying on the carpet in the lounge watching ‘Bewitched’ (never realised the whole thing was in colour on tv sets in America). A safe time before she disappeared out of my life and nothing was the same again. Could do with a mother like Samantha’s now to work a spell to ‘fix’ my son. Or my own mum would do, just simply to make me a cup of tea and tell me I’m doing fine. ‘It doesn’t take much to make you happy’, she used to say to me. Wish I could say the same for William. Talking about this web-site to a friend over a cup of tea (another one!), she said how curious it was that I was trying to help other people when I couldn’t fix my own situation at home.  No, I can’t. I’ve tried but no can do.

William has only been back in the house a week, and I can hardly bear to look at him I’m so angry with him. I got upset on Sunday afternoon when I went into his room, which smelt strongly of tobacco, to find him lying, unwashed, in an unmade bed watching television in the clothes he’d been wearing for three days and nights. I’ve asking him not to go to bed in the clothes he’s been wearing all day since he was 11. I’ve also been trying to get him to make his bed for the same number of years. There is ash on his night-stand. He knows the house is a smoke-free zone, so what the hell is going on?

There is rubbish on the floor and food stains on the new carpet which we had to replace this year, due to cigarette burns and the rest. Feeling an upsurge of anger when he refuses to make his bed (‘No, I won’t, so just go away!’, he shouts),  I reply by spitting out the words that I can’t see things working out here if he’s going to be like this.

‘You’ll just have to find somewhere else to live, if you can’t follow the basic rules of the house that we’ve been talking to you about for years!’ I yell, knowing I’m over-reacting but years of the same exchange with him gets to you in the end.

‘Is this your idea of 110 per cent effort?’ I continue, going into spiteful- mother mode.

I flounce out, telling him to obey the rules or leave. Guy and I have a meeting with him. I’m wound up and just want William out of my life. Guy becomes the referee, and calmly takes over. We both say we want things to work out here, how we love him but will not put up with rudeness and flouting of basic rules of the house.

‘You do understand we both want this to work out this time, don’t you?’ Guy says, kindly.

William replied that he believed his father did want that, but I didn’t. What? Oh, this is new, and I silently celebrate that at least that’s something, because these two have hardly spoken for months – make that years. Maybe I needed to get angry for that small bridge to appear between them out of nowhere. I smile inwardly. Hmm.  I look over at Guy and can see a softening, as he takes in what his son has said.  I decide to let him do the talking, whilst I try to subjugate my feelings of wanting to kill someone (guess who?!).

He begins talking to William about how getting his A levels this year would be such a boost to him, how from there he can decide what to do. William is having a third attempt at A levels, by doing three in one year at a crammer in Kensington. It must be one of the most expensive schools in the country – just under £6,000 a term. Guy’s mother is financing it; it was her idea, actually.  After he’d been in rehab in the summer, and expressed an interest in going back to school, she said she’d pay if he wanted to go to a private place.  It’s an immense amount of work though, and William is obviously struggling between wanting to drop out and smoke weed for the rest of his life, and his realisation that this is his last chance. It is a miracle that he is still there.

Guy later tells me I mustn’t immediately talk about Will having to leave because it isn’t helpful. If he forges cheques again, or steals, then of course that’s different, but not for smaller things. I know he’s right, but start whining saying that this is my life too, what about me? I calm down later and go and hug William asking him if we’re cool. As he hugs me back, uneasy feelings surface because I don’t remember a time when he’s come to me to apologise, unless it’s been to then ask me for money. It’s always this way round. He’s never even apologised for the big things he’s done – like pawning my jewellery or forging my cheques, or even for landing me in A & E. We’ve always insisted he say sorry, but it’s never felt genuine.

I’m scarred by what we’ve been through, but he doesn’t seem to care, as if his conscience was taken away by cannabis. We know he’s still smoking: he told us that by bringing an empty baggy in. My husband termed it a ‘two fingers up’ to us, but William did his usual trick of saying it was months old. More lies.

His behaviour at college has been similar to the last two attempts at going back to school. Suspended twice last term, he is now on a suspended expulsion from college, for repeatedly lying to tutors and bunking off. He has to attend every class for the first two weeks of term, and only a doctor’s note will suffice as an excuse, or he will be expelled. We know that as long as he is smoking weed, he won’t be able to cope with this sort of a course. I have told the college enough about William’s past difficulties for them to be able to deal with him appropriately, but not in such detail that they throw their hands up and ask him to leave.

His personal tutor lurches between compassion and frustration, I know that seesaw well. His end of term report included phrases from teachers such as ‘deceitful’, ‘elaborate lies’, ‘coming to class worse for wear’, and ‘no work ethic’.  We talk to William about making a good start to the term. ‘I’m not stupid, you know. I know I need to get my A levels’, he says, looking down, tears in his eyes.

Of course, he knows. So, it’s over to him. We can’t live his life for him.

Term began the next day for William and also for Jack, who is two years younger and now in the lower sixth at a local comprehensive.  But, what’s this – it’s 7.30 am on Day One and William is saying that he’s not going in? I smile, trying to calm myself, and say I’ll drive him to the station, (Get your things together, of course you need to go in!). He says he’s ill, and has been up all night. Guy goes into his room and tells him to get up, reminding him that he was watching tv until the early hours so he will be tired but he needs to go. Guy and I look at each other. I can’t believe this, the first day back.

Getting in the car with me, William is moaning, saying how ill he is - no one ever takes him seriously, not like we do with the other boys. I say that he can blame us for everything, but it’s still his future he’s mucking up. Arriving at the station, I watch as William places a finger on the door lock , pressing it down, refusing to get out.  Dizzy with rage, I then remember that he needs a doctor’s note for any absences and drive him to our local surgery. William is shouting at me all the way, I remark that for someone who is ill he shouts loudly enough. I hate these spiteful comments I come out with, but I don’t know what to say or do anymore. He’s still shouting as he gets out at the surgery, and slams the car door. Oh, God let this not be happening.

He spent the day in bed watching tv, and sleeping. I rang the college and told his personal tutor that I thought he was faking, but that if he could convince a doctor he would present a note when he next went in. He was ready for college the next day.

‘The doctor diagnosed it, I’ve got stomach problems. I mustn’t eat carbohydrates after six. I got a doctor’s note so it’s all good’ he tells me, without looking at me.

He’s cutting bread and cheese to make sandwiches for himself. I glance over at the pile of washing up. His dishes along with everyone else’s. Off all yesterday and not even a cup washed up by him. I ask him if the doctor also recommended he eat an entire packet of chocolate biscuits? (I had bought McVities, couldn’t find them and asked Jack, who disappeared into William’s room coming out with an empty packet, apart from two left at the bottom which I immediately ate before they went again. My biscuits!).

 ‘I didn’t eat all of them’ William replied.

‘Oh, that’s right, you left two’ I said. ‘Did she also recommend you eat Chicken Tikka at 11 o’clock at night?’. I’m getting nasty again.

‘Well, I had to eat something’.

William had refused dinner with us last night, choosing to come down later when we were going to bed.

I tell him that I don’t believe he was ill. He called me a bitch, then, saying I’d done nothing to make him feel welcome since he came back to the house, and then slammed out.

We didn’t see him for two days after that. He is back now, presumably he’s run out of cash. I can’t even look at him, he hasn’t apologised for being rude, which will be because he thinks I was rude to him for not believing he was ill. I don’t know where we go from here. I can’t do this for much longer. I have butterflies in my stomach almost permanently, as my body gears up for the next thing, I suppose. Neither Guy nor I sleep properly anymore, nor have we for years. Jack’s response was ‘I can’t have all this shouting when I’m trying to do my A levels – it’s not fair’. Alex just retreats to his room, or becomes extra nice to us both, he also over-eats. I don’t know – I wish I could fix things, but I can’t.  I’ll have another cup of tea instead.

© Debra Bell 2007