My boy and I were standing together outside the front door of his partner’s house while he smoked a cigarette. Since my boy’s first (and his partner’s fourth) child was born, they haven’t smoked inside the house. Fine drizzle was swirling in the orange glow of the streetlight. In comfortable silence we stood and contemplated the view of the council estate where he lives.
A tradition has grown up for dumping ‘problem’ families here from across the county, so this particular slough of despond is notorious for drugs, petty vandalism and domestic violence. The most pathetic of last week’s crop of court cases reported in the local paper was that of a 19-year-old man charged with possession of 0.05 of a gram of a class-A drug, breaching a restraining order by sending a text message to his former girlfriend, assaulting a police officer and causing criminal damage to a door, lock and doorframe.
My boy pulled discreetly on his fag. Immediately in front of us was a six-foot square of what was once grass but was now churned mud with ground-in toys — an intergalactic astronaut’s handgun; a one-legged doll; an orange felt-tipped pen. The wheeled rubbish bin lay on its side. A black rubbish bag shredded by seagulls’ beaks showed a disposable nappy wreathed with potato peelings. In the road, two kids’ bikes and a scooter lay abandoned. Across the road was the ugly rear of a terraced row of council houses, built, I guessed, in that golden era of social-housing design, the 1970s.
My boy and his partner have been fortunate, however. Their council house is only two years old and has been designed with a surprising amount of thought and respect, as though someone had omitted to tell the architect to cut out the fancy stuff.
A car started and pulled away from a row of cars parked to our right. We watched it cruise up the slope, steam billowing from the exhaust. A Ford Ka. ‘Brand new,’ said my boy, bitterly.
Things aren’t going well for my boy at the moment. He was made redundant at Christmas and hasn’t yet found another job. And, misfortune on misfortune, the fuel pump on his car has packed up, and getting hold of a second-hand fuel pump for that particular model hasn’t been easy.
The man driving that car wouldn’t dream of looking for a job, said my boy, and lately he has managed to get himself registered as disabled, which is the socio-economic equivalent around here of a seat in the House of Lords. He is classified as disabled, said my boy, because his two badly behaved young sons have been classified as suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And on the strength of this he receives from the state the car we’ve just seen — with the tax, insurance, servicing and repairs paid for as well. ‘All he has to pay for is petrol,’ said my boy, dragging resentfully on his fag.
I said nothing. I was wondering on what grounds I might apply for disability status. Ennui, perhaps. La fatigue du Nord. I would ask for a Renault Twingo 1.2 Extreme, I decided — if possible a mauve one.
My boy’s phone rang. He pressed the answer button, said, ‘OK,’ and rang off. His partner’s three kids needed picking up from town, he explained. That was their father. They’ve spent the day with him in his tiny bedsitting-room in a hostel for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. He’s both. If he stays clean for a year, however, and it has to be said he has been making a magnificent effort, the social services have promised him a one-bedroom flat.
I offered my boy the use of my car, which he gladly accepted. His partner appeared. She’s pregnant again and showing it. She said she’d like to go with him as she needed to get a few bits from the Co-op. Would I mind popping upstairs and looking after my grandson for 20 minutes while they were gone?
I hadn’t been left alone with my grandson before. If he screamed the place down, she said, I could call them and they’d forget the shopping and come straight back.
I went upstairs and gathered Oscar in my arms. He’s 14 months old. Every time I see him these days, he’s got more teeth. He heard the door slam, but betrayed no anxiety. We read two pages of The Tale of Pigling Bland, then I sang the ‘Raggle Taggle Gypsies O!’ to him, twice. And then, suddenly anxious about his future, about my future, about all of our futures, I held him to me so tightly that he struggled free and looked up at me in surprise and alarm.
Comments