Little Big Man Page 3

  ‘Well, perhaps we need to help Zac,’ says Miss Kendall gently. Everything about her is gentle: her voice, her face, her fluffy blonde hair; she looks like a nymph, an angel. ‘By making sure he doesn’t have access to money to spend on the way to school or on those kinds of foods.’

  Those kinds of foods? I start to feel resentful, like they’re telling me what I can and can’t feed my kid.

  ‘If I can just butt in,’ adds Brenda, ‘having seen Zac now for half a term, I think we’ve got to know one another pretty well and I see a child for whom things feel out of control at the moment.’ He feels out of control? I’m failing miserably to stem my tears with a tissue. ‘Everything’s related for him, and it’s a vicious cycle: the overeating, the weight gain and consequently the bullying, which then leads to struggling generally at school and on and on it—’

  ‘Hang on a minute, bullying?’ My stomach drops as if beginning the plunge from the highest slope of a roller-coaster. ‘What kind of bullying? I know Zac’s big for his age but I can tell you now, he’s the gentlest boy in the world. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  Brenda reaches over and lightly touches my hand. ‘Oh no, we know that. Zac is a lovely boy. No, what we’re concerned about is him being a victim of bullying, and one of the reasons for getting you here today is because we want you to know we have a zero-tolerance bullying policy at this school and that these incidents have not escaped our attention – especially what happened at swimming last Thursday.’

  Swimming? Thursday?

  ‘I’m presuming you noticed he came home in a different shirt and jumper?’

  I think back.

  ‘Well, no, to be honest, because I sometimes work late on a Thursday, so Zac lets himself in. By the time I get back, it’s gone ten and he’s asleep …’ Those looks again; I feel so judged. ‘I have no choice. I work in a sandwich shop but we do catering events – you know, birthdays, business meetings, work parties – and I have to work shifts. That includes evenings.’

  It transpires that on Thursday, after Zac’s swimming lesson, some little shit stole his school shirt and jumper. Nobody would confess and time was running out before the next lesson, so he was forced to wear clothes from the lost property box, none of which fitted him. And there’s worse: a fortnight or so ago, all the Year 6s had to be weighed – some government policy or something; I know because I stupidly signed the consent form – and Zac apparently freaked.

  ‘He just did not – would not – take off his school jumper,’ says Brenda. ‘And he got himself into a bit of a state.’

  ‘What sort of a state?’

  ‘Well, tears. Lots of tears,’ she says. ‘And protesting, locking himself in the cupboard. I did manage to calm him down in the end, but he was very upset.’

  ‘But why?’ I ask, a sob escaping. I can’t stand to think of my usually calm and happy Zac so upset that he locks himself in a room; that doesn’t sound like him at all. But then I’m beginning to wonder if I know him as well as I think I do.

  ‘I suspect his size really bothers him,’ says Mrs Bond. ‘In fact, I think it’s really getting him down.’

  Or is he just desperately unhappy and I haven’t noticed because I’m far too eaten up with my own issues? The thought sinks to the pit of my stomach, like a stone to the bottom of the sea.

  ‘I know he’s a bit on the chubby side but he’s not, you know …’ The room seems to be getting smaller. ‘I do not feed him rubbish.’

  Mrs Bond looks at Brenda and then at me. It’s momentary – but it’s there all right. The one-second once-over that says, Well, you’re clearly doing something wrong.

  ‘Actually, Zac is one of the children who was found to be medically above a normal weight for his age,’ says Mrs Bond. ‘You should have received a letter by now.’

  ‘What letter? I haven’t got any letter.’ The tears have all but stopped. I’m just starting to feel angry. ‘And what do you mean, above a normal weight? Who decides what’s normal anyway?’

  Obese, they said.

  ‘Obese?’ I repeated, dumbfounded. ‘He’s ten. I know he’s on the chunky side but it’s puppy fat. It’ll go when he shoots up.’

  Also, what am I meant to do about him eating doughnuts when I’m not there? I can’t watch him every minute of every day, I told them; I work. What did they want me to do? Tell shops not to serve him? Put locks on the cupboard doors? Deny him anything nice? Life is hard enough for Zac, what with his shithead absent father.

  There’s also his love of cooking. He’s a foodie! And how many telly chefs could they think of who are skin and bone? I said. Jamie Oliver is chubby … And James Martin who used to present Saturday Kitchen isn’t exactly svelte.

  ‘I mean, he just loves cooking and baking. He takes after my brother, you see, although unfortunately my brother’s not with us anymore. And he loves mashed potato; mashed potato is his absolute favourite. He’d have mash for breakfast, dinner and tea if you let him. He likes to experiment with all sorts of mashed potato. What do you want me to do? Stop buying potatoes?!’

  Like I say, hangovers always make me emotional.

  Costcutter is opposite the bus stop in the middle of the little parade of shops on our estate, and after I get off the bus – where I spent the entire journey sobbing like someone had died – I go in there to get a few bits. The hangover and whole apocalyptic feel of the world now the snow’s melted to sludge isn’t doing anything to lift my mood, but I feel helpless and so angry. Angry towards whichever little shit stole my boy’s clothes, angry towards the school for having the audacity to call my son fat in the first place and somehow suggesting (in my mind, at any rate) that this makes him a valid target, and angry at Zac for not telling me about any of this. But most of all I’m angry at myself, because I feel this is my fault – that, fundamentally, none of this would be happening if I was a better person, a better mother; if he didn’t have to make do with just me. And then I’m back in that spiral of thought: Liam left Grimsby and us, and, yes, perhaps he felt he had no option at the time. But that was ten years ago, and I wonder what I hate him for more these days – what he did that night, or the fact he’s never come back. Does he not want our forgiveness? Does he never miss Zac and me? What does it say about me that he never, ever fought for us? That he basically left one life and started another, without so much as a backwards glance?

  Often I wonder what he’s doing and where he is, but when I try to picture it, my mind is completely blank as if, after that night, he walked out of our lives and out of this world; as if he just jumped off its curve into fathomless black. I try, but I can’t conceive of him existing without us.

  There’s a hot counter in Costcutter where they do sausage rolls and pasties, and the hot pastry smell hits you from about a mile away. I knew resistance was futile as soon as I stepped off the bus and anyway, I deserve one. I deserve a week’s supply of pasties after the twenty-four hours I’ve had. So I go over there, get the sausage roll and put it in one of the takeaway white bags with the silver lining (every cloud and all that). And then I get a few other bits, bread and some toilet roll, and I hit the aisle where all the biscuits and cereals are, with every intention of going straight to the till. Who am I kidding? I’ve decided already. I probably decided before I even set foot in the shop, no doubt back when Mrs Bond was delivering the news that my baby was being terrorized, and once the seed is planted in my mind and the adrenaline is rushing through my veins in anticipation, that’s it, game over – and before I know it, my hand has stretched out, taken something and slipped it into my bag. It’s so easy I do it again. I don’t even know what I’ve taken; I just know that something glints gold at the bottom of my bag and it’s giving me a thrill. That I feel like I’ve got one up, not on Mr Singh the shop owner – I feel eternally guilty about Mr Singh – but on the universe. Because otherwise I feel like it will swallow me whole.

  I walk across the estate to our block, the wintry sun low in the sky. There’s a bunch of girls smoking on th
e corner and Eunice cruising across to Costcutter on her mobility scooter as she does every single day at this time.

  I wave at her.

  ‘Snow’s all gone!’ she says. ‘Be spring before you know it.’

  ‘Can’t wait, I’ve had enough of this grey sludge!’ I call back, but inside I feel a tiny pang of dread. Nearly spring means June is just around the corner with the anniversary of Jamie’s death; the anniversary of Liam leaving. It never seems to get any easier.

  I walk the half-flight of stairs to our front door and let myself in. I don’t relish coming home to an empty flat, never have. You’d think I’d be used to it after ten years, wouldn’t you? But I can’t seem to let go of the feeling it wasn’t meant to be like this. I put the shopping on the table, take the sausage roll out of its silver lining and open the cupboard above me to get out a plate. It’s as I’m doing this that I spot the brown envelope on the doormat, in between the Evening Telegraph and a pizza delivery leaflet. It has North East Lincolnshire Health Authority stamped on it and even from here I can see the words Parent or Guardian of Zachary Hutchinson through the little plastic window. I stare at it for a moment, frozen, like it’s a mouse I’ve just spotted. I feel as resentful, as invaded, as if it were. I imagine some jobsworth civil servant typing it out – probably twenty stone themselves – condemning my child to being fat and lazy. What gives anyone the right?

  I’m about to pick it up and chuck it in the bin, but something stops me; something to do with a vision of my boy, standing in the middle of the swimming pool changing rooms with no top on, feeling ashamed and scared. I know how that feels, and I’m all grown-up. I feel like I owe it to him to at least open the stupid letter. I lean down and pick it up before I change my mind.

  Chapter Three

  Zac

  Fact: Doctors in medieval times used to treat the plague with cow dung, because they thought the bad smell drove out disease.

  After what happened at swimming, Brenda called me and Aidan into her office. Brenda asked him how he’d feel if I pinched his clothes and he said sad. We shook hands. We’re not friends now but we’re not enemies either and this week he and his disciples have mainly left me alone.

  Anyway, after what Mum told me about my dad, I felt like I could deal with anything. I felt like my happiness could equal out any badness, like, if someone nicked my clothes in swimming now, I’d be, like, ‘Take ’em! I don’t care!’ Like, I might even do a lap of the swimming pool in the nuddy. (OK, maybe not that, but I wouldn’t care as much, no way.) I’ve thought about what Mum said all week. I even wrote it down so I didn’t forget it. I only ever loved Liam. That was what she said. I don’t think I even want a boyfriend if it’s not him. I came to the conclusion that the thing I need to know now is: if my parents did love each other and my dad wasn’t a loser after all, then why did he run away? Did he not want to be my dad that much? I could ask my mum, I suppose, but detectives don’t work like that. They don’t go for the obvious; they work out what they think first and then they try and prove it. And I wanted to do this properly. I decided I was going to start by asking Nan and Grandad when I went there next.

  I go to Nan and Grandad’s after school on Tuesdays (after I’ve been to after-school club that is) and on Wednesdays when we always go to see Uncle Jamie’s grave. Uncle Jamie was my mum’s brother, but he died soon after I was born. His grave is in the bit with all the little children’s and the babies’ graves, even though he didn’t die until he was eighteen so he was lucky in a way. The babies’ graves are the saddest. You can’t believe that a baby could die but it’s true. You can tell how much people loved the people who died by what their grave looks like. My uncle Jamie’s is smooth and white like a white chocolate Magnum and it’s made of marble with gold letters on. Some of the other graves are scruffy with moss all over them so you can’t even read their names. Even if they died a hundred years ago from the plague, there’s no excuse because they’re our ancestors, and the people down the family tree who are alive now should still keep on making the grave look nice. We’ve been doing family trees at school in history, which has been good. (History is my favourite subject because there are loads of good facts.) Except, my one’s lopsided – it’s got half the tree missing where my dad’s side of the family should be. But Miss Kendall said it’s OK, because families come in all shapes and sizes, and anyway, after what Mum told me, I feel like I know my dad a bit. I feel like I could put him on my family tree now and it wouldn’t even be a lie.

  My nan goes every day but Saturday to Uncle Jamie’s grave. I always go on Wednesdays with both her and Grandad because it’s one of my days when I’m at their house anyway. I love going to Nan and Grandad’s. We always do the same thing, which is to go up to the grave then get fish and chips. Sometimes I do baking with my nan after that or watch telly with Grandad. We watch football (me and my grandad are both Manchester United fans, but I’m not just a fan because he is, I loved them from the start), or nature programmes with David Attenborough. You can learn loads of facts by watching telly.

  You should never come empty-handed to the cemetery, my nan says, and every Wednesday we bring Uncle Jamie something. Today we brought some snowdrops with foil wrapped around them and I’d written down the recipe for Marmite pasta. My uncle Jamie was a really good chef and everyone says I’m going to take after him. Nan says if he was still alive, he’d be really proud of me and how I’m into my cooking, so sometimes, if I’ve come up with a new recipe, I write it down, then bring it to the grave so he can read it from heaven.

  Marmite pasta is dead easy: you just cook some normal spaghetti, put loads of butter in so it goes all shiny, then put a big spoonful of Marmite in and sprinkle cheese on top. Trust me, it’s an epic tea.

  Nan and Grandad were arguing over the flowers. This always happens because the flower holder doesn’t work.

  Nan (snapping like a dog): ‘Mick’ – that’s my grandad’s name – ‘for Christ’s sake. You don’t put the flowers in like that, they’re just going to topple over.’

  Grandad (giving me the ‘look’): ‘All right, Lynda’ – and that’s my nan’s – ‘calm down. It’s not the end of the world.’ Once, my nan burst out crying when he said that and shouted, ‘Actually, it is!’

  It’s my job to look around the graveyard for some stones to help weigh the flowerpot down. I like sneaking a look at the gravestones when I go past. I’ve seen one Zachary – that was one of the poor dead babies – but I’ve never seen a Teagan. If she died, she’d be the first Teagan in this whole graveyard, probably the first Teagan ever to die in Grimsby. I went back with the stones, being careful not to tread on the graves because if you do that, you could make the dead person angry and their spirit could go bad and start haunting you. Grandad put the stones in the bottom of the flowerpot. It worked and the snowdrops stood up.

  ‘Thank you, Zac,’ said Nan. ‘At least someone here has got some sense.’

  Then I slipped my Marmite pasta recipe under the flowerpot where it wouldn’t blow away. Even if it did, it wouldn’t matter, because it would just float straight up to heaven.

  The words on my uncle Jamie’s gravestone read: James Hutchinson. Beloved son, brother and uncle. Taken from us aged 18 on 12th June 2005. Gone but never forgotten.

  I’m glad it says ‘uncle’ because it proves I had one. I was only two and a half weeks old when he died, so I don’t remember ever meeting him, even though he bought me a little suit with tiger ears. There’s a massive picture of him holding me in it in Nan and Grandad’s lounge.

  After we’ve made Uncle Jamie’s grave look nice, we sit on the bench for a bit and be peaceful. Sometimes Nan and Grandad tell me stories about Uncle Jamie. Sometimes me and Grandad go and look at the old graves and imagine what lives the people lived. Grandad knows some of them because they were fishermen like him and they died at sea. My grandad was a fisherman for twenty-five years, just like his dad before that, and his dad before that. It used to take three days just to get to
Iceland and my grandad would be gone for three whole weeks. It’s why my nan’s so good at baking: because all the wives had to keep themselves busy.

  Fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world for dying – it’s why there’s even a special church in Grimsby, just for the dead fishermen. You can get tangled up in the nets and wires or go overboard, and that’s it, you’re a goner. Sometimes they don’t even find the bodies.

  One of our favourite things to talk about on the bench is what Uncle Jamie might be doing up in heaven.

  ‘Nan, what do you think he’s doing today?’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Nan. ‘I don’t know, love.’

  ‘Watching the match and having a pint,’ said Grandad, looking up to the sky.

  ‘Give over,’ said Nan. ‘He is not. I think he’s on a beautiful walk in one of the many gardens of heaven or cooking a fantastic dinner for all his new friends up there. What do you think, Zac?’

  ‘I think he’s playing football for Man U – the match of his life!’ (I stood up to demonstrate.) ‘He passes to Carrick, who passes to Rooney, who nutmegs the centre half, volleys it up, then slots it into the top corner and oh! What a goal! Absolutely beautiful!’

  It always makes Nan and Grandad laugh when I do the commentary.

  Me and Teagan have got this theory that heaven is one big corridor, with loads of different doors for every day of your life. Written on the door on a golden plaque is what happened every day – like a diary but in door form – and if you want to relive that day, you can just knock on the door and you’ll get let in. If you’d rather never see that day again, say if it was really bad like the day Aidan Turner nicked my clothes, you can just walk past. We’ve already picked the day we want to live over and over again when we’re in heaven. Teagan’s is the day we found a ten-pound note in the lift and spent it all on pick-a-mix and mine’s the day me and Grandad caught a trout.