Listen to thisSimon lay back in the deep armchair and drew contentedly on his cigar. Smoke billowed, surrounding his vast head like a Victorian pea soup fog. He smiled and smoothed back his hair with a quick, nervous movement of his hands. It was an habitual gesture but somehow it did not seem out of place with his general air of contentment. We just accepted it as part of him, almost as a symbol of his strength and self control.
"Feeling good?” I asked.
He nodded.
"Feeling fine. Your wife cooks a damn good chilli. Best this side of Mexico City.”
"Don’t patronize me,” smiled Elaine and poured three glasses of brandy.
Like us she was relaxed and at ease. It had been a pleasant evening. full of wine, music and good conversation. We had put the world to rights and now, at this late evening hour, there was an incredible feeling of peace and pure contentment. I made coffee, a distant church bell pealing 200am as I did so.
Presently Simon gathered himself together.
"I think it’s about time I went home. I’m on early shift and we've got that new lad coming in tomorrow. Today!”
I frowned.
"New lad?”
“Our absconder. Remember? That kid who was due last week. The one who jumped out of his social worker’s car at the traffic lights down the lane. Apparently he’s been picked up. They’re bringing him in this morning.”
I walked with Simon to the front door. It was a cold night, the sky clear and the stars very bright.
“That’s beautiful,” I said, motioning with my arm at the night sky. “Perfect.”
Simon shrugged and dug his large hands into his coat pockets.
"As long as you can appreciate it.”
"Meaning?”
"Meaning not everyone sees what you and I see – not everybody knows it for what it really is. Endless, huge beyond all belief. Makes us seem pretty small, fragile, I suppose."
We stood in silence for several long moments, both of us caught and held by the sheer immensity of it all. The vast intransigence of mankind had never seemed so clear as at that moment.
“Time to go,” said Simon, at last. “See you later.”
I leaned against the door frame, watching his tall figure ease away down the garden path. Elaine was already at the kitchen sink when I went back to the house.
“What have you been doing?”
I explained, full of glib sentiment.
"Poet to the end,” she sighed. “Well, I’ve got something that’s guaranteed to bring you back to earth – the washing up. Write a sonnet about that, if you can.”
“Bitch!” I smiled and ducked hurriedly as the dish cloth flew above my head.
* * *
The new boy came early. Tall and arrogant, he seemed to flaunt his close cropped hair and tattooed fists as a challenge or a threat. He was flanked by a burly policeman on one side and by his social worker on the other. We sat in my office, hostility like a wall between us.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
"Mind your own bloody business!”
“Charming.”
I grinned at his social worker and reached for the file.
"Dean Bowen,” I read. “Fifteen years old and ..." I paused and grinned deliberately at him. “Still growing!” I continued. “Seems you've got yourself quite a record. Breaking and entering, TDA, non school attendance. Parents frightened to have you back in the house. It doesn’t sound too good like that, does it? Harsh, sad facts in the cold light of day. Want to tell me your side?”
Dean looked up into my eyes and snarled.
“What for? I won’t tell you sod all! I didn’t ask to come here and I’m not staying. I don’t give a damn about you or this place. You don’t frighten me.”
I gazed into his face, making a deliberate and conscious effort to keep my voice easy.
“So why’d you run away? Sounds to me like you were scared. Shit scared!”
There was silence. I knew he was measuring me, gauging my strength – mental as well as physical. For thirty long seconds nobody spoke. The silence was heavy and oppressive. Then he smiled.
"It’s just different. Something new – don’t like new things.”
"Nor me. I hate them. But that’s all part of life’s rich pattern, sunshine. Something we all have to face. Like school or getting on with your parents.”
He lowered his head and did not speak.
“O.K.” I said to his social worker.”Leave him with us. We’ll see what we can do.”
After the social worker left I walked with Dean to the residential unit where he would live during his stay. He was nervous, cagey and alert like a wild animal at bay. I knew it would not take much for him to run. It needed only the wrong word or phrase, the wrong thing to happen.
“What did they tell you about this place?” I asked.
He shook his head.
"Nothing. It’s like Borstal or D.C., aint it?”
I laughed.
"You’re joking. Nothing like it. Bracken House is an assessment centre. we’re going to work with you and your family for the next few weeks. We’ll have meetings and watch how you behave. You"ll do all sorts of things – rock climbing, car mechanics, wind surfing. You name it, chances are you"ll do it while you’re here.”
"Like going to school?”
“Oh, yes. Like it or not, you'll go to school.”
He paused, considering what I had said.
“What happens at the end?”
“We hold a case conference – that’s a meeting with you, your social worker, anybody who can help in any way. Then we decide – all of us – if you should go home or move on somewhere else.”
We walked in through the doors of the residential unit, the sound of laughter echoing down the stairs. From the kitchen along the corridor came the crash and clatter of breakfast washing up in progress. Two boys hurtled suddenly through the large swing doors which led to the common room. They were fighting playfully, happily knocking blue blazes out of each other. I separated them and held them apart by their shirt collars.
“O.K. “girls," time out. Tell Simon I’m here, will you?”
We watched them go, laughing and slapping out at each other. Dean looked solemn.
"All right,” he said. “I'll give it a go.”
Simon came out into the entrance ball, his silhouette framed darkly in the doorway. He seemed somehow huge, faintly ethereal, and I could almost sense the boy alongside me shrink back into his shell. For a few moments we stood there unspeaking, transfixed in the entrance. Then Simon beckoned us to follow him.
Once in the office be introduced himself to Dean. Carefully they weighed each other up. It was obvious they disliked each other – instantly, without either rhyme or reason. Simon was a large man, strong and powerful, and Dean seemed immediately threatened by his presence.
"Got his paper work?” Simon asked. “Best find out exactly what he’s done.”
Dean glared at him as I passed across the file. If looks could kill, Simon would be stretched out right now, I thought.
"Nasty little bugger, aren’t you?” commented Simon, flicking quickly through the pages. “Been belting your mother, I see. Like to try it with me, son?”
I knew it was the wrong approach and had a sudden image of disaster looming up ahead. Part of me was screaming out a warning but, in the end, I said nothing.
I stayed for a few minutes, trying to reassure the boy by my presence as much as anything else. Then I left them to it. They would have to work it out together for the next couple of weeks–best sort out their differences now. Dean would stay or go, that was up to him. I could do little about it.
* * *
The pub was crowded, thronged with late night drinkers. I came in through the door, walking into a sea of tobacco smoke. Waves of noise crashed in a never ending cacophony over everyone and, for a while, I stood, disorientated, trying desperately to pick out the party of staff. Finally, I saw a hand wave and moved across to where they sat.
“What're you drinking?” asked Jock.
I gave my order and sat down as he lurched to the bar. Like the rest of them he’d been drinking quite heavily in the half hour since the end of their shift. He came back with my drink and we sat, listening to the discussion. Simon was holding forth, dominating the conversation in his usual, forthright manner.
"It doesn’t matter!” he was saying, forefinger waving in the air as be made his points. “These kids are incapable of self discipline. So we've got to provide it for them.”
I nudged Jock and gestured towards Simon.
“What’s all this about?”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows.
“What do you think? Shop. Same as ever at these end of shift booze ups. You always end up talking about the bloody kids.”
“Social workers' disease,” I said.
“Simon's been on his hobby horse – care and control; how you need to be on top of the kids all the time.”
I had heard it all before, many times, and quickly lost interest. The bar was less crowded now, only the last few drinkers hanging hopefully around. Should be just enough time for one last pint, I decided.
“What do you think, Phil?”
I looked up, startled. Simon was staring at me while the rest of the group waited expectantly.
“Sorry?”
"About discipline? Do we always need to be in control, all the time?”
I shrugged and looked towards the bar.
“Sometimes. It always feels safer for us, doesn’t it? But then, it’s good to let the kids know you’re not infallible. External controls are only valid if you eventually ease them off and let internal ones grow in their place.”
Simon snorted and grinned, contemptuously.
“There speaks the true voice of social work. Bracken House’s answer to Nick Stacey."
"You asked!” I snarled. “No-one’s forcing you to listen.”
He had annoyed me. His dogmatic, almost rigid approach always did. He ruled his unit and his boys with a rod of iron. He was the hard man, the macho example all his charges should admire, adopt or ape. Break them down, he used to say, then build them up again in your own image. We were friends but that didn’t make me blinkered. His approach was a strength but it could also be a weakness.
Ten minutes later the landlord called time. We wandered out into the car park and drove back to Bracken House.
“Coming in?” asked Simon as we pulled up in front of his unit.
He was off duty but I’d guessed he would be unable to stay away. That was Simon, simply the way he was.
"A cup of coffee before you go home?” he continued.
I was on call, the trouble shooter who would sort out all the problems, should the need arise. I had to check each of the units before I turned in for the night and Simon's was as good a one as any to begin with. I was still angry with him but I knew it would not last.
"If you like. Won’t do any harm to have a quick look around.”
We moved to the door of the unit.
“By the way,” I asked. “How’s the new lad getting on? Young Dean?”
Simon snarled and turned towards me.
"Little bastard! A right bloody stirrer, he is. How long’s he been here – a week? And already he’s at the bottom of any trouble that’s going. Guaranteed. Now he’s a classic case of your undisciplined kid, if ever there was one. People have been too soft with him. Needs a bloody good crack on the ear.”
I sighed and smiled to myself. Simon would never change. We walked into the unit and almost immediately sensed trouble. It hung in the air, dangerous and real. From the bedrooms upstairs we could hear a low rumble of noise.
"Now what’s up?” Simon sighed.
We went up the stairs two at a time. At the top we came face to face with Chris, the sleeper in. Grouped behind him, obviously very high and excited, were four adolescent boys. The moment they saw us, Simon and myself, they disappeared quickly to their rooms – all except Dean. He stood there, defiant and unrepentant.
“What’s up?” I asked.
"Four lads,” said Chris. “Playing about, refusing to go back to bed. Making a bloody nuisance of themselves more than anything. They've gone now: just this one left.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards Dean. He still stood there behind Chris, his gaudy blue pyjamas strangely incongruous, out of place with the battered face and closely shaven skull. And Dean stared not at Chris or me but at the heavily breathing figure of Simon.
"I might have known,” hissed Simon. “I might have bloody known.”
He was glaring at the boy, his eyes terribly hard and cold. Both fists clenched and he took a purposeful step forward.
"Right,” he said. “Get!'
Simon never finished. Dean's blow caught him flush on the point of his chin and he fell as if pole-axed. As he struggled to regain his feet the boy attacked once more. His legs flashed and the hard sole of his right foot crashed into Simon's face. Simon clawed at the boy’s legs as blood spouted in a huge red fountain from his nose and together they crashed to the floor. Simon was on top of the boy now, raining blows onto his defenceless head.
Chris and I had been transfixed, totally unable to move. It was almost as if the little tableau was happening in another room. But the blood on the walls and floor seemed to break the spell. I realized we had to act.
"Quick!” I yelled. “Before Simon damn well kills him.”
We dived into the melee and pulled the struggling boy away. He kicked and fought like a man demented and it took both Chris and I to hold him.
Slowly, however, he began to calm down and at last we were able to release him. Leaving him with Chris I went to find Simon.
He was in the toilet, trying desperately to staunch the flow of blood.
"You O.K.?”
He nodded. I stood alongside him and watched. With a strange, morbid fascination I noted he was shaking violently, his face chalk white like a circus clown. After a while the blood stopped flowing and he was able to stand away from the sink.
"I’m all right,” he said, at last. “Where’s Dean?”
I didn’t know. I went to search for the boy and found him in his bedroom with Chris. He was crying, sobbing uncontrollably, clearly shocked by what he had done. The violence and anger within him had taken all of us by surprise but Dean more than anyone.
"I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I never meant to do that.”
"It’s a bit late to be sorry, son. It’s happened now.”
He shuddered and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjamas.
"Is Simon all right?”
"No. Not really. Did you expect him to be?”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
I hadn’t even thought at that stage. Something needed to be done but we had to consider it objectively. Now was not the time.
"I think the best thing you can do,” I said, “is get into bed. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
* * *
Physically, Simon recovered quickly. The damage was superficial and by the next morning no-one need ever have known what had happened. And yet, despite that, we knew, all of us. The message, like a dark, forbidden secret, spread around the whole of Bracken House. Boys and staff alike knew and understood that Simon's invulnerability had gone. His aura had been violated or abused and he was open, exposed. Nobody said a word, nobody had to.
For a few days Simon was quiet and subdued. He turned in for duty as normally as ever but he was strangely distant and withdrawn. He spent most of his time in the office, away from boys and staff, away from the coal face of the work where he belonged. And, naturally enough, the boys began to respond, quick to take any advantage they could.
“Where the hell is he?” I asked, storming into his unit one day.
Boys were running wildly around the common room, high as kites and twice as dangerous. Already, one of the weaker ones was sobbing hysterically in the corner, blood oozing from a split and swollen lip. The staff, young, inexperienced, were trying desperately to retain the situation but it was no use. They needed Simon, a strong, powerful lead to show them the way.
"He’s in the office,” said Chris. “Filling in bloody forms!”
I screamed at the kids and got them quietened down into some type of order. When they were finally calm enough I went in search of Simon. As Chris had said, he was in the office, totally unaware of the chaos which had been going on outside.
“Simon, for God's sake,” I said, my nerves and voice on edge. “Can’t you hear what’s going on out there? They need you – staff, kids, everyone. Get out and help them, eh?”
He rose to his feet and nodded.
“O.K. I was just finishing my reports.”
Slowly, unwillingly, he moved towards the door. As his fingers touched the handle he paused, stood there, gazing out through the observation window.
"Are you all right?”
He smiled, distant and far away.
"I’m fine.”
He sounded far from convincing but with some sort of effort he pushed open the door and went out into the common room.
For the next few weeks events at Bracken House went on very much as normal. Boys came and went and we stumbled from one mini-crisis to the next. All the time the knowledge of what had happened to Simon hung over the place. It was weird. There was no reason or rationale to any of it, but that single factor hung like a tombstone around our necks. It influenced our judgement and our deeds almost as if the knowledge he was human after all was a mark, a proof of our own inadequacies and our fears.
On the Saturday Simon was due to come to my house for dinner. He was a single man and we often had him across for a meal or drinks. By 9.00pm he still hadn’t turned up.
“Where is he?” asked Elaine. “My casserole’s going to be ruined.”
"I'll go and see,” I said.
I made my way over to the main house and up to his bedsit room on the top floor. I knocked but there was no answer. The door was ajar and, eventually, I pushed it open. Simon was on the bed, gazing vacantly at the far wall. He looked up as I came into the room.
"Hello, Phil. What can I do for you?”
"Dinner? 8 o'clock?”
He frowned but made no move. “Sorry. I forgot. Been a bit busy.”
Still he did not move, simply sat there staring. It was a strange, bizarre performance. He seemed almost in a different world. Finally, he spoke.
"Look, Phil, I don’t really feel up to it. Will Elaine mind if I don’t come?”
I was annoyed, despite myself, infuriated by his apparent lack of interest.
"I shouldn’t think so,” I said. “You suit yourself.”
Angrily I slammed the door and stormed back to my house.
* * *
A week later I was stretched out on my living room settee, half heartedly watching the evening news on television. Elaine came slowly into the room, her face set into a mask of puzzled concern.
“What’s up with Simon?” she asked.
I frowned and raised my eyebrows.
“Why? What do you mean?”
"He’s down by the river. Sitting there, staring into space. I tried to talk to him but he just wouldn’t answer.”
I walked across the football pitch to where a small river twisted and cut its way down the eastern boundary of our grounds. Before I was half way across the field I picked out Simon's burly figure in the soft September sunlight.
“Simon?”
There was no reply. As Elaine had said he simply sat there, silent, a million light years away. Somehow his huge body seemed smaller, shrunken almost. I squatted beside him on the river bank and did not speak. For ten minutes we sat there and then, at last, he moved. His left arm snaked out and picked up a small stone. With a low, almost inaudible grunt, he tossed it into the slow moving water. The ripples burst and spread in ever widening circles.
"Like us?” he said, suddenly.
I was puzzled and made no answer.
“That stone in the river. A quick splash, a few ripples, then nothing. Sod all! Gone for ever. Might just as well never have been.”
"I suppose you’re right,” I said. “But then, as long as we know it. As long as we don’t start thinking we’re going to change the world?”
He smiled, distantly, hand smoothing back his hair in the familiar gesture I knew so well.
"I’m frightened,” he said. “Scared bloody stiff of facing those kids.”
I was astounded. It was like being thumped, suddenly, on the jaw. Everyone became frightened at some time – Chris, Jock, me – but not Simon. His simple statement was like having the ground wiped from under your feet.
“But why? Because of Dean the other night? Simon, you’d have killed him if we hadn’t dragged him away.”
He nodded and huge tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. “I know but that’s not the point, is it? He hit me – coldly, deliberately. It’s not that he did it, but that he dared to do it! That’s never happened to me before. Never. I hadn’t even considered it possible. Other people get thumped, other people can’t cope. But not me, Phil, not me. Christ, you know how I work; control the kids, keep them in step, me in charge. But now? I don’t know if I can go on. I can’t even bear to see them any more.
He was sobbing by now, his body wracked by huge spasms. I put out my hand to press his shoulder in a gesture of support and friendship. At the last moment I took it away again. Enough of the old Simon remained to stop that type of contact. I didn’t want or need a rejection.
I sat there in the silence, thinking desperately about what I should do. Perhaps Simon had a point – the unthinkable had happened. He was an old fashioned disciplinarian, always had been. But to achieve what? Eventually, his control became an end in itself. When it was threatened, questioned or knocked down, he had nothing else with which to come back. Ultimately, I don’t think he had the ability to see beyond the immediate, the day to day routine and practice.
In the end I left him and went home. Elaine was in the living room.
"Did you see him?”
"Yes, I saw him. At least, part of him.”
She looked at me, puzzled.
"I mean he’s not the guy you know. He’s pretty near the bottom, I should say. This kid who thumped him the other night, it’s really shaken him up. He just keeps talking about being frightened to face the boys. Saying how he can’t do the job any more.”
"A cry for help?”
I shook my head.
"I don’t know. Simon's never needed anybody’s help and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Would you? It’s just a reaction. His dignity’s been hurt.”
Elaine frowned.
"I think you ought to be careful. He seems pretty upset.”
"He’s just overwrought. Everybody goes through a low period now and then. He’ll make out, you see.”
I switched on the television and threw myself down in front of the set. In ten minutes I had virtually forgotten him.
* * *
As it happened I was wrong. The very next day Simon failed to turn up for work. We gave him a couple of hours, then decided to check his room. I followed the Principal up the stairs and stood, heart pounding, as he fitted the key into the lock.
The room was empty. Simon had gone, all his books, possessions and belongings spirited away like so much sand before the wind. I was stunned. I knew I had failed him, had shown only anger and hopelessness when I could have supported or helped him so much more. And yet, insidious, compelling, there was relief as well. Not just in me but the rest of the staff, too. It was as if a huge and crippling weight had been lifted from our shoulders.
"Everything’s gone,” I said at lunchtime. “The whole place empty and deserted.”
"I wonder where he went?” mused Jock.
Chris shrugged his shoulders.
"You tell me. If you ask my opinion it’s a bloody good job he’s gone.”
The others nodded, a general murmur of agreement running around the room. The sense of relief and freedom was almost tangible.
"Yea, never did agree with the way he ran that unit. Too strict by half.”
“True,” added Jock. “He was never the same after Dean thumped him, either. Moping round the place, a bloody great albatross round our necks.”
And that was how we remembered him; an albatross. In reality Simon's strength was his ultimate, fatal weakness. He could not change and he could not bend. Now he was gone as surely as the items from his room. All that was left, if we cared to admit it, were memories and guilt. Just guilt and a lifetime of recriminations.
This feature: Carradice, Phil (1985) Upon a painted ocean. The hour of the wolf and other short stories, pp. 53-63
