Pedigree Crush (with a twist of passion) chapter one (rewrite)

Chapter One

28th May, 1973

He shuffled down the corridor. Clutching his Scooby-Doo lunchbox protectively in his left hand, he looked confused. He always looked confused.
‘Late. Late. Late.’ He had an empty rucksack on his back. It was his and because it belonged to him it was important. He rarely had anything to put in it but he took it with him always, as a child carries a favourite blanket. The rucksack was all he had. It was his, something that grounded him into who he was, just in case he ever forgot.
He didn’t have much. None of them did. Even their clothes got mixed up in the laundry process. Very often he got Andy Dixon’s Y-fronts, and towels were a free for all. Simon very rarely went into the linen cupboard for a towel because he didn’t like to wash much. He didn’t like soap—he hated the feel of it, but on the occasions when he was forced to use it, even that had somebody else’s scud on the top.
His cardigan was fastened wrong. An extra hole hung alone at the waistband and, to compensate, a lone button stood out like an on-off switch near his neck. Mrs Quigley had made him his favourite for breakfast – soft boiled eggs – and his shirt bore testament to the fact. His trainers were on the wrong feet, the laces undone and trailing. Every few steps he stumbled over them.
Gloria shook her head and tutted. ‘Simon, look at the state of you.’ Simon tried hard to look but his chin stopped him seeing much of his top half and his tummy hid everything from the waist down. As for his face, he couldn’t see that at all. ‘How many times have I told you to stay in your room until someone comes to check you over?’
Simon didn’t answer for some seconds, his long brow furrowing as he mulled the question over. Finally he gave a triumphant grin. ‘A millionty three,’ he said as Gloria herded him back in the direction of his room.
He waited there, sitting on the end of his bed and counting to twenty. He got confused and jumped from thirteen to twentitty-one, missing out his goal of twenty completely. He wanted to hurry up and get to twentitty-one because it was a funny number and made him giggle. It was like when teacher said, ‘Blue tits,’ that was funny, too. He wasn’t quite sure what came after twentitty-one and was aware that he’d probably got it wrong somewhere. He tried to work it out and when he got even more confused, he decided to go back to one and start again. But before he began the second scale, he forgot about numbers and started to think about days instead.
He knew it wasn’t Monday because they went swimming on a Monday and he hadn’t been swimming. He forgot to allow for the fact that it wasn’t yet nine o’clock so he wouldn’t have been swimming yet, anyway. And if it was Tuesday he would have been swimming yesterday and his hair would smell of chlorine because he didn’t like having a shower after he’d been swimming. The water in the pool’s showers was too cold and Jimmy always splashed him and called him Jelly Belly. He liked smelling his hair on a Tuesday. He would remember being in the pool and how much fun he’d had. Swimming, he decided, not for the first time, was one of his favouritest things, but it wasn’t as good as eating cream cakes or ice cream. If he could go swimming and eat cream cake and ice cream all at the same time it would be his favouritest day ever. He wished that there were twentitty-one days in a week because then surely one of them would have swimming and eating cream cakes and ice cream at the same time.
Nobody had come to check him yet. He wondered if he should go and find somebody. Because nobody’s comed to get me and someone might be giving away good eats out there.
Helen always came at quarter to nine. He felt that it must be later than that now. Simon was an optimist. He saw the good in every situation, and if there wasn’t any he’d add the possible element of ice cream, or something else nice, and his trademark grin would attach itself to his face. When Simon smiled, nobody could be angry with him for very long. Well, except Mummy, but she was always angry about something. Gloria said he was a sunbeam. Simon liked being a sunbeam. Gloria didn’t tell anybody else they were a sunbeam. Gloria might be missing me by now; it’s been such a longer time. I’d better go and find her and tell her nobody’s comed yet.
And so he shuffled off down the corridor again, tripping over his laces, smiling his smile and trying his best to see if he could smell ice cream or even sausages. Sausages were easier to smell than ice cream. Ice cream was a real hard smell to smell and you had to almost have your nose in it before you could smell it proper. Sausages were good, too, and he’d forgotten that he’d just had his breakfast.
Gloria was still clearing away the breakfast things when Simon reappeared. It was only three minutes since she’d taken him back to his room. She understood that three minutes was a long time to Simon. Gloria understood most things when it came to her kids. She patiently took him back to his room and promised him that she would get somebody to come right away and sort him out. She suggested that he might like to draw a picture until Helen came.
Simon thought that was a smashing idea. It was not something he would ever have thought of for himself. He had to be told what to do all the time. He didn’t just do something. That was one of the things Mummy got annoyed about. Gloria didn’t like Mummy much. Simon wouldn’t ever think of drawing a picture by himself, but he was clever enough to know that Gloria didn’t like Mummy.
Gloria led him over to the desk in the corner of his room. All the children had a desk in their room with coloured pencils and paper. It wasn’t his, though, like his rucksack. His thick tongue stuck out of his mouth and he drew a big brown flower with two red leaves at the bottom and a snail climbing up the stalk.
As much as he struggled to work out what his routine should be from one moment to the next, Simon functioned on order. He didn’t always know what was right, but he instinctively knew if something was changed or different or just plain wrong. He didn’t like anything to be different, it upset him. Because you don’t have chips on a Thursday, do you? No, it’s mashed potato on a Thursday. He thought that something bad might happen if you had chips on a Thursday when it should be mashed potato. Thursday was mashed potato day.
This morning wasn’t right. Two things had happened that upset Simon.
The first was that Helen didn’t come into his room to check him over before the bus came to pick him up. Helen always came at quarter to nine because the bus would arrive at five to. Simon couldn’t tell the time and he always got anxious that she’d be late and he always went looking for her, but that was all part of it being right. That’s the way it was.
That morning somebody new came into his room. She said hello and put out her hand for him to shake. Simon knew how to shake hands. He liked shaking hands. Sometimes he shook hands with Helen or Gloria and it made him giggle, but not when they were trying to fold sheets. The new Helen said she was called Anna. Anna was pretty and smiled big but he wouldn’t shake hands with her. He wanted to wait for Helen to come. But if he waited for Helen to come he’d be late for the bus now because it must be after quarter to nine. It was bad. He began to move from one foot to the other and wouldn’t look at Anna or shake hands with her.
Anna told him that Helen couldn’t come just now. She said that Helen was sad about not coming to see him off but she’d had a bit of a problem with James. Everybody had a bit of a problem with James. He got mad. He got mad a lot more than Simon did and sometimes he hit people, too. Simon was scared of James.
Anna said, ‘I’m sure Helen will be all right but she’s had a nasty knock to the head and has gone to the hospital just to be on the safe side.’ All the while she was talking she was also undoing Simon’s buttons. He found that distressing. He was distressed that Helen was hurt too also. It wasn’t nice that Helen was hurt too also. If Anna had a little more experience, or had known Simon and his ways better, she might have said something different to explain Helen’s absence. With every word she said, he became more agitated. He moved from one foot to the other and made a deep moaning noise in his throat. Anna kept talking to him softly, trying to ease his discomfort. She didn’t know that he didn’t like to be touched. Simon’s foot changing became more insistent and the moaning was getting louder.
Gloria rushed into the room without knocking. That was very bad. Simon knew it was very bad because at Great Gables people always knocked on other people’s doors. That was called good manners. Gloria said so herself and here she was coming in without knocking. It was bad for sure. It was a very bad day.
‘It’s all right now, Anna. I’ll take over here. Thank you for stepping in like that.’ They talked in low voices. ‘Yes, yes, she’ll be all right, I think, but best not to take chances with these things. Head wounds can be funny.’
Simon didn’t think head wounds were funny at all. He thought that they probably hurt a lot and that was nothing to laugh about. What was funny about having a sore head? Gloria coming in like that without knocking was distressing, but not as distressing as a new helper sending him off or Helen getting hurt. It was still one more thing to get upset about and Simon moaned louder. Without warning, he brought his left hand up and hit himself hard on the side of the head. Gloria caught his arm as it raised a second time. ‘No you don’t. Come on, my bonny lad, let’s get you sorted. It’s all right, now. I know that was a bit scary but everything’s back to normal now.’
‘Not back normal now,’ said Simon. ‘Late bus now.’
‘It’s okay, Simon. The bus will wait for you. It doesn’t matter, don’t worry. We’re only a couple of minutes behind.’
‘Not five to nine.’
‘No Simon, it’s not five to nine, it’s three minutes to. What’s two minutes between friends, eh? It’s no biggie. Tom’s holding up the bus for everyone.’
‘Bad, bad,’ said Simon, in his thick voice. ‘Not five to nine. Late to bus. Big bad. Big bad. Bad for sure.’
Gloria could see that he was getting increasingly worked up. She gave up on trying to fasten his shoes, intending instead to distract him from his tantrum by walking him to the bus, hair uncombed and laces trailing. Better to have that this morning than having another one throwing his fists around. Simon was only thirteen but he was a big lad with plenty of bulk to fling his weight behind. Gloria thought he was probably the gentlest soul on earth but, like many Downs Syndrome sufferers, he could fly off the handle if he was angry, frustrated or frightened.
It was during the first lesson after lunch that it suddenly dawned on him what day it was. They had PE that day. It took almost half of the lesson to get all the pupils into their blue shorts and white vests, and then almost the other half to get them back into their normal clothes. In reality the actual lesson only lasted about ten minutes. Simon knew that Mummy came on the day they had PE and that distressed him.
Simon loved his Mother. He loved her because she told him that he loved her, so it must be true. She was always there waiting for him in his room when he got off the school bus but she still distressed him. He started to get agitated, as he always did during the PE lesson. His mood would gradually worsen throughout the afternoon and would only subside into a quiet stillness when the visit was over and his mother had left. He worried a lot on PE day. PE day was bad for worry.
After PE they had an activity lesson before home time and Simon tried every week to learn to be really clever really fast, so that his mummy would like him. He tried so hard to do well in the lesson, but only seemed to succeed in covering himself in glue or paint or flour which made his mummy even more cross.
He made her a clay pot that he baked in the oven and painted. She said it was lop-sided. He made her a flower out of tissue paper and glitter. She said it was ugly. He made her a love heart and decorated it with real daisies. She forgot to take it home with her and Simon found it on the floor. The daisies had wilted and he felt sorry for picking them and making them die.
That day they made biscuits in class. It was a lot of fun and they smelled really good when they were baking. It made all the children hungry and Miss Brown said that if they were very good and made a great job of decorating them with icing and Smarties, they could each have one to take home. Simon really, really wanted to eat his biscuit with the other kids on the way back to Great Gables. There were only enough for them to have one each. Simon wanted to eat it a lot, but he saved it for his mummy.
She was waiting in his room when he got back. She was always waiting in his room for him. She didn’t like it in the lounge or along the corridors where she might see the other children. She said they made her feel sick. Simon sometimes wondered if he made her feel sick too. Simon had felt sick once and it wasn’t very nice. He shuffled down the corridor a little faster than usual. His big moon face had a huge grin and his tongue protruded from his smiling mouth.
He walked into his room. ‘Mummy biscuit,’ he announced proudly, shuffling towards her and holding the present out before him.
She pulled a funny face and put it straight in the wastepaper basket. Simon was sad. He would like to have eaten it himself.
‘Really, Simon, you can’t expect me to actually eat that. Where have your hands been?’
Simon thought about that seriously. He thought about all questions seriously but sometimes couldn’t work out an answer. He looked at his hands – they were on the ends of his arms, the same as they always were. He wondered if Mummy meant to ask, ‘What have you been doing with your hands?’ which was a different question altogether. He remembered that he had put one of his hands down his trousers quite a lot that afternoon because he had an itch, but he couldn’t remember which one it was that he’d scratched his private parts with. None of this seemed to have anything to do with his biscuit that was now in the wastepaper basket. He was still pondering his hands and his biscuit, looking sad and confused, when his mummy slapped him on the arm. It wasn’t a hard slap but it made him jump. Maybe she slapped him because his hands had wandered off on their own for a little bit when he wasn’t looking and that’s what she meant by her question.
‘Will you pay attention? I’m talking to you, Simon.’
He looked up slowly. His tongue bulged over his lower lip and his big almond shaped eyes looked empty. That was the expression that his mother said she hated most of all. She told him that she couldn’t bear to look at him and she focused instead on her watch.
Only another hour and fifty minutes and she would escape her son and his smell of maternal neglect.