Plant Attack

Will rang me yesterday. I hadn’t heard from him for over a week. I’m getting stronger at dealing with his calls, not as jumpy, but I want this whole saga to end now. I’m tired of it all, and I want my son back. The campaign is going well, the web-site and the Diaries have helped a lot of people, so you can stop now, William, you can come home and be part of our family again, you can be you again.  I don’t understand why all of this is taking so long, come home and stop being an idiot. What happened here? Why was our family torn apart? Oh, that’s right someone decided that cannabis was a soft drug, and that it was okay for children to take it. Who are these people? I guess it’s society wot dunnit – and society is made up of people, us.  So, it’s up to us to put it right, and recognise that an elephant has indeed walked into the room; it’s time we all noticed. Meanwhile…

William tells me this week that he is now living with friends. Homeless in other words. Oh, god.

‘What happened to the flat that you had lined up?’, I say.

‘Oh, nothing. The guy wasn’t there and I’ve been looking all day for places and they are all horrible’, he says ‘I’ve been living with friends partly and partly at the Lucas’.

The Lucas is a local hotel. He had rung me on the day he was due to move out of the house he’s been living in since early summer. He had been told on the day he’d moved in there that it was a short-let only, that the house was being sold and that he would have to move out by the second week of September. Which was now. Three months notice is enough, surely. Especially when he spent most of that time doing, well, nothing. He had rung on moving day to say that he had found a new place, (‘really nice, it’s all new, with wireless broadband and everything, the guy says I can have it’) but that he couldn’t move in for a few days so what should he do?

He had recently been given a substantial sum of money from a bond that had matured, invested for him by his grandparents. I recommended he find a hotel and stay there until he could move, which he said was in a couple of days. It seems that’s what he had done.

‘I’ve got a cheque for you though, and I’ve bought you a necklace to replace the other one – cost more than £250, so I’ll need to give it to you. I’m carrying all this around with me, with my bags and everything.’

Will was referring to what I had asked for at our last meeting, last weekend when we had met for a pizza: Guy, Jack and myself. Guy had a lot of work to do for the next day’s case, and was looking stressed even before we left the house. We had talked beforehand about how we should behave towards Will – it had been over a month since we had seen him. Should we just listen to him, and not question him about his life? - for example - what had happened subsequent to his arrest. It’s hard to know what to do when past experience informs us that most of the things he tells us are lies. We want to believe what he says, and then it turns out to be a not-very-carefully-constructed fiction. How can you have a relationship with anyone based on lies? We ask each other this, most days, and the question hangs there looking for an answer but not one that we can provide.

Our weekly meetings had ended some weeks ago, in the summer, we had decided to have a break from seeing him, after the last time when he stormed out. I hadn’t been behaving well, either, deciding to confront him about what he was telling us.

Two days after we had been phoned in the early hours by Charing Cross Police to say they had Will in custody, he rang me. I had been trying to ring him the day after it happened, but his phone was switched off. I had rung my sister then, and told her what had happened. I was in Greenwich Park, with our puppy, Lily, playing around me, my phone looking up at me temptingly from the basket where I carry Lily’s toys, lead and treats. I have become an organised puppy-mum. This puppy has almost saved my life, maybe. When I look at her, I smile, and we all start the day like that: smiling and talking about the naughty things that Lily does, sometimes one of us having to chase her into the garden as she disappears through the dog-flap with a soft leather shoe, not before she’s made sure that we have seen her, of course.  Jack was right when he said that she has given us all something to talk about (besides Will, I think he meant).

Sitting on a mound surrounded by trees I didn’t know the name of, I dialled my sister’s number, and began talking, a little manically, about what had happened to Will. She listened and then said:

‘Well, you seem to be taking it very calmly. I mean – how do you do it? On and on the whole thing goes, what the hell is wrong with him, why can’t he get his life together. Oh, Debbie, I am sorry.’

I look up towards the autumn sun and a surprisingly blue sky, and then down again to smile at Lily as she brings back the ball I’ve thrown for her. These are words I need to hear. We are close now, but my relationship with my older sister was difficult when we were kids. She was bad-tempered and angry most of the time, bullying towards me often, and yet she had also tried to take the place of our mother, to a certain extent, once she had died when we were sixteen and twelve. I understand now where that anger came from. If I’d known then what I know now.

Our dad had gone out one day when my sister was six, and I two, put on his hat in front of the mirror, kissed us all and headed off to the local railway embankment. Climbing down it he had lain with this head on the track, to wait for death. Neither of us were told about the death, but we were informed by our mother, some months later, that we had a new daddy and that we were to forget about the other one, and call this one ‘Daddy’ now. I promptly did as I was told; I adored my mother and would have done anything she asked. So, emptying my mind of any memory of any other father, I accepted the stranger as my daddy. My sister agreed too, but the buried memories acted like rocket fuel, exploding and burning their way up and out of her mouth whenever she was vexed, which was often.  I found out in my twenties that I had had another father, and what had happened to him, but it was only in my thirties that I began to do some more detailed research, and then the healing could begin between my sister and me.  

I understood much of her pain, because it was the same pain I was carrying – I just had not been aware of where it had come from. A double wound too, for both of us, because our mother died almost ten years to the day, leaving us with the stranger,  before she could tell us the truth about our early lives and who we really were. We both said recently that we think about her every day. But for me it’s now pain mixed with joy, because I’ve learnt to recall, without flinching, the happy times we had together and be glad that such a loving, sunny woman had once been my mum.

When Will finally rang me, he sounded genuinely contrite.

‘I’m so sorry the police had to ring you. They needed to verify my address – and I gave them my flatmate’s number but he wasn’t picking up. I was with Jake, who was arrested for having fake ID, even though he is 18 now. Yeah, I got really cross with the police for taking him away and threw my bottle of water at the van, so they put the cuffs on me too. They let me go, though, a few hours later, so there’s no harm done. I can’t believe it’s happened to me again, thought last time would be the last time, really.’

So, a reasonable explanation I suppose. Guy didn’t think it added up to much of a story, and thought it unlikely that the police would bother arresting someone for such a thing. I was chatting to a friend later that week and she said that sniffer-dogs were being used at the London stations these days, and that her son had been arrested in the summer for possession of two ecstasy tablets. This was probably more like the truth. Will’s friend, Jake, is a habitual cannabis smoker – he used to go to the same crammer as Will and each time that we had met him, he had looked and acted very stoned.

Will went on to say that he was still working, as a charity name-finder in the West End, and I believed him. He sounded upbeat and happy, if not tired. He told me he was working the next day – and for five days after that – that was his shift that week. However, as I was driving through the village the next day, I saw him cross the road, teeth sinking deep into a Gregg’s meat pie, with another one of his cannabis friends from his ex-college. I beeped the horn to let him know I’d seen him. ‘Gotcha’ I thought, and then, aware that my heart rate had suddenly gone up, realised how angry I was to have been lied to (again). Did the job ever exist?

I know he wants me to think well of him, he told me that recently on the phone – no matter what happens everyone wants the approval of their mum. Right, but a funny way of going about it.

Our meeting with him last week, in the pizzeria, was strained. Jana, our counsellor, had advised us that instead of getting angry about the lies he was telling, to look on his ‘stories’ as if we were observing a film. Detachment without getting drawn in. His reality versus our reality. Easy!  I think even the Dalai Lama would find Will a challenge.

Guy sat there saying little, looking very uncomfortable, arms crossed. Jack had come with us and the boys chatted together happily about music and films. Will said he was working and hoping to move into his new flat soon. When the bill came, I looked at Will and asked if he wanted to treat us now he had money. He had no money on him he said. Of course not. I asked then if he was going to replace the necklace that he had stolen from me and sold last year. Oh, and what about reimbursement of the money you’ve stolen from us in the form of cheques and cash?

‘I do think about what I’ve done you know, I have got a conscience. I’d forgotten about the necklace…’

‘Yes, well I haven’t’ I said.’ Daddy bought me that, a unique piece that cost over £200 and you got 20 quid for it after it was melted down. I’d like a replacement or the money please. I can’t believe you come out without any money, you’ve got more money than I’ve got now. I can’t remember when you’ve ever bought me as much as a cup of coffee ever!’

I looked over at Jack and Guy. Both were silent, sitting back in their chairs. I smiled at Jack and he shrugged and looked away. Guy said nothing, which I don’t think I’d ever seen before. What was going on? I’m suddenly on my own here. Oh, god, I’ve ruined the evening for Jack, and he so rarely sees his brother, I began thinking.  But as we walked out of the restaurant, I thought differently. No, Will needs telling. He’s living in a hotel, we’ve been through so much, why shouldn’t he pay some of it back.

‘You can start putting things right now, William, now you have some money’ I say, as we stand outside ready to part. ‘People forget very quickly you know, most people don’t hold grudges for long, you’ll see.’

‘Okay, well a grand should cover it shouldn’t it? I’ll send you a cheque’.

He turned and walked away. Jack began telling his father that he wouldn’t be coming out with us and Will again.

‘I’ll meet him on my own. I hate it when Mum has a go at him, it’s not fair on the rest of us, she didn’t have to do that, it was awful.’

A week later, and William appears to be homeless. It’s pointless us getting involved in trying to find him somewhere to live. We’ve done that and it always ends badly. He has to do this on his own, and he can do it. He rang again yesterday to say he was bringing over the cheque and necklace and that he’d decided to go away for a while.

‘It’s just an idea. I’m ringing to let you know I’m going away. A mate of mine’s dad is opening a bar in Spain so I may go over there with him. Just to let you know. I can’t stand another autumn here, on my own again for my birthday and Christmas in some grotty room. I can’t do this anymore, my life’s going nowhere, I’ve got to do something.’

I say it’s a good idea to get away, and where in Spain? He didn’t know.

‘Nothing’s concrete yet’.

He still rings, and always wants to talk to me. I love him so much and want him back, but as a credible human being not as someone I can’t trust.

A few weeks ago I was sitting with a cup of tea in front of a bookcase in our kitchen. On top of it are family photos from my childhood, and ones of Guy and all three boys too. When I was doing my bereavement work with Jana she recommended I get out photos of my parents, light a candle there and just sit and think about them, letting the feelings come. The idea was to bring my parents back into my life before I could start to say goodbye to them.  As I sat there now, years on, I began to look at a photo of William that I placed there recently. He is in school uniform, at the same kitchen table I’m sitting close to now, blowing out candles on his birthday – I count seven of them. He looks wonderful and I smile. At the bottom of the bookcase, my eye is caught by an old book I don’t think anyone has ever read. It’s a slim children’s picture book – ‘Plant Attack’ is the title. I can’t remember where it came from. Picking it up, I turn it over and on the back read that this book is about a plant that seems harmless, but is in fact highly dangerous and tries to kill two young brothers.

As I turn to the middle of the book, there is a drawing of a child who looks so like William in the photo I have just been looking at, same haircut, same age. He has the huge plant tendrils around his neck and is losing consciousness, falling to the ground in a coma-like state. The blurb on the back of the book explains it all. ‘It looks quite harmless at first, but this is no ordinary plant. It seems to move on its own and Adam has this eerie feeling that the plant is trying to strangle him. That night he and his  brother awake to find it hanging from the ceiling. Then the plant starts to grow, its tendrils creeping nearer, wrapping around his arms, touching his hair. Before they know it, they are trapped.’

I had been crying recently, huge racking sobs. I hadn’t cried like that for years, but it had hit me that William was lost to us, and the pain was intense. Alex was downstairs watching tv, everyone else was out. I was sitting in the corridor outside Will’s old room, under a framed sampler that had been sewn for him when he was born, my legs under my chin, and my head in my hands. Alex heard me and came running up the stairs. He sat down beside me, and putting his arms around me began telling me that the William we all remember has gone, he was no longer in that body, almost as though William had been replaced by some huge weed, he said. I listened and it helped me, because if I could stop thinking of the person I now knew as not my beautiful son, but as something which had taken him over, then maybe I could cope better.

Now, sitting here in the kitchen a month or so later, I seem to be being shown the same thing that Alex told me. A plant that is more dangerous than first thought of. I’m sure the seven-year old Will would have never predicted that he would be attacked by such a thing, he would have laughed and said that was impossible. Weed, it got a hold of him and he has lain in a coma since.

© Debra Bell 2007