Forgetting Foster Read online

  Being watched by Miss Watson was far worse for Foster than it was for Dad. Dad would forget. Dad lived in his right-now moment, every moment. Foster often imagined it would be lovely to step into the next moment without the shadow of the previous moment following. He knew that feeling when he played with his soldiers or got lost in one of Dad’s stories. But lately Foster found himself carrying both his own distresses as well as the ones his dad had forgotten. So when Miss Watson eased herself into the lounge chair, book in hand, while Mum did her puffy-sigh last-minute reconnaissance of the house, Foster felt desperate. He grabbed Mum’s arm as she grabbed her purse.

  ‘Miss Watson isn’t nice,’ he whispered.

  ‘Fossie, not now, please. Just do as she asks,’ Mum said, but Foster saw the creasing of her good eye where her mascara was smudged. Mum never used to go anywhere with smudged make-up. ‘We’ll talk about it when I get home. I’m late.’ Mum leaned down and kissed Foster hard on the top of his head.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Watson,’ she said, leaning over Dad and touching his face. ‘Malcolm, I’m off to work for a few hours. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Okay,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll wait here, then. Have a good day.’

  Then Mum was gone. Just for a few hours.

  bullying and broken things

  Miss Watson opened her book and began to read. It was the same book she had brought last time. It wasn’t a big book. Foster wondered if their lounge room was the only place she read. Dad was watching television, his fingers stroking the fraying threads of the armrest as if he were reading Braille. Foster watched Dad’s fingers. There was grace in them. Foster was about to go to his room and get out the General when Miss Watson said, ‘Turn off the TV. Go play in your room.’

  She didn’t look up from her book. She waited just long enough to be sure Foster had not moved before casting her eyes over her spectacles and saying, ‘Foster, I said turn off the TV and go and play in your room.’

  ‘Dad likes the TV,’ Foster said.

  ‘And I’m trying to read,’ Miss Watson replied, leaning forward and seizing the remote. She pressed a couple of buttons before landing on the right one in an irritated way. Then she tossed the remote onto the couch beside her. It took Dad a few seconds to register the loss of picture and sound. He turned to Miss Watson and said, ‘Is it broken?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s broken.’

  Foster stood, appalled and strangely frightened by this exchange. He wanted to go for the remote but instead stayed stock-still, powerless to do anything other than breathe a little faster and flick his eyes from Dad to Miss Watson and back to Dad.

  ‘Now go to your room,’ Miss Watson said again.

  ‘I’ll play here,’ Foster said, but he didn’t move and he had nothing to play with.

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told or I’ll tell your mum you’ve been disobedient.’

  ‘Can we get someone to fix the TV?’ Dad said, staring at his reflection in the shiny black screen, his fingers rubbing the arm of the chair more firmly now.

  ‘I’ll get the soldiers, Dad,’ Foster said, resting his hand lightly on his dad’s restless fingers. He was about to go to his room for the soldiers and peg basket when Dad stood up saying, ‘And I’ll fix the TV.’

  Dad started towards the hallway first then stopped and changed direction, heading for the kitchen instead. Miss Watson watched him disappear around the corner then went back to her book. Foster contemplated following Dad but felt it would be safer to keep an eye on Miss Watson instead. He couldn’t explain the feeling. It was like making a choice between jumping off the starter’s block at the swimming pool, or lowering yourself slowly down the stairs instead. The depth of the water was the same and if you didn’t want to get wet, both choices were terrifying. Foster hated swimming.

  The noise startled them both. Some banging and then something breaking. Foster got to the kitchen first and found Dad standing among thick shards of shattered china, opening and closing all the kitchen cupboards. He rattled plates about, got something out, then closed the cupboard door again, looking all gritty and sad, every movement staccato with imprecision. Hand extended, pulled back, knees bent, straightened, like a strange hokey-pokey. Then he opened another cupboard and put whatever he had taken out back in. Always in the wrong place. Foster shadowed his dad, listening hard to the conversation Dad was having with himself. He seemed to be looking for something. He had just put some cans of dog food in the oven when Miss Watson appeared in the doorway looking formidable.

  ‘What’s all the noise?’ she said, looking directly at Foster.

  ‘Dad’s looking for something.’

  ‘Mr Sumner!’ She said it so loudly that Dad startled and let the oven door go. It sprang shut with enough force to rattle the shelves inside. ‘Sit down!’ Dad did sit then, eyes scanning the cupboards as if the answer to the question that would change everything was still inside one of them. Miss Watson sat at the table opposite him, splaying her book facedown in front of her before leaning forward and saying, ‘Get up again and I’ll tie you to that chair.’

  ‘He wants to fix the TV!’ Foster didn’t know he was going to shout it until he had shouted it. Miss Watson went slightly cross-eyed with shock at the shriek. As she refocused Dad said, ‘Is the TV broken?’ and attempted to rise. Miss Watson rose too, leaned across and smacked the back of his hand, a blow which landed Dad straight back into the seat of the chair. His face registered the sharp, stinging slap as if Miss Watson had taken a shard of that broken dish on the floor and ground it into his palm. Foster was stunned. It was the first time he had ever seen anyone slap a grown-up.

  ‘Stop all this at once!’ she said, breathlessly, and for the first time looking out of control. Foster noticed her short breaths. She was a little bit afraid she had gone a little bit too far. Foster felt it and it gave him a little bit of courage.

  ‘You stop it!’ Foster shouted. ‘You told him the TV was broken and then he wanted to fix it and then he started to look for things to fix it but he forgot what he was looking for when nothing needed to be fixed at all because you’re just a horrible lady!’ Foster’s throat hurt. The kitchen seemed a different colour. They didn’t shout in their house. Everything looked swimmy. Dad was rocking slightly back and forward, humming something.

  ‘How dare you speak to me in such a way!’ Miss Watson said.

  ‘I’m calling my mum!’ Foster wanted to stride to the phone with what little dignity he could still muster, but he found himself running instead. Miss Watson was scary but she wasn’t fast. She made a grab for him as he swung past her, but Foster outmanoeuvred her by flailing one arm beyond her reach and changing direction unexpectedly. As he did so a sharp triangle of sturdy china gripped the bottom of his shoe and sent his legs skidding out from under him. Foster landed hard on his bottom. Shocked, he sat there on the floor, trying to pull a mouthful of air.

  ‘Fossie! You hurt?’ Dad said, suddenly and inexplicably back from wherever it was he went lately. Miss Watson’s fat-knuckled hand pinched Foster under one arm and pulled at him angrily.

  ‘Your fault,’ she said to Dad. ‘Glass all over the floor.’ But there was something beaten about the way she said it, as if Foster’s hard landing had winded them both.

  ‘Let’s go watch some TV,’ Dad said, his hand resting on the top of Foster’s head, then sliding down to cup his cheek. Miss Watson stayed in the kitchen. As Foster turned the television back on he could hear her sweeping up the broken dish.

  cold-shouldered courage

  When Mum got home Miss Watson apologised for the broken platter, explaining that her attention had been stressfully divided between Dad and Foster after Foster became belligerent. Foster didn’t know what belligerent meant so he waited for a visual cue via Mum’s facial expression. Mum looked at Foster in a cross, disappointed way, although she looked at most people that way lately. Even Miss Watson.

  ‘The dish doesn’t matter,’ Mum said. Miss Watson was still talking but Mum�
�s attention had been drawn to Dad, who appeared particularly fidgety and confused. He got up and walked into the kitchen, then walked back and sat down again, all the while turning his head this way and that as if to work out the direction of some unfamiliar sound only he could hear.

  ‘Just trying to fix them both something nice to eat,’ Miss Watson continued. ‘It’s just impossible to take your eyes off either of them!’

  ‘I said it doesn’t matter, Miss Watson.’

  ‘It matters to me. This is very stressful for me!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Watson. I won’t ask you again.’

  ‘No, no,’ Miss Watson said quickly, the same hand that had slapped Dad gently resting on Mum’s forearm. ‘I am happy to help any time you need me. This must be very difficult for you, Mrs Sumner.’

  Miss Watson was heading towards the door as she said this and it suddenly occurred to Foster that she liked coming over to watch him and Dad. Foster had thought that all her meanness and short-breathed snappy talk meant she didn’t want to be here but that wasn’t true at all. She liked being here because she liked being mean. She was just a big bully. Foster felt both satisfied at having worked this out and horrified that she’d be back, in equal measure. He didn’t care about himself because he would always be able to outrun her, but he knew in that instant he had to protect the General.

  He said it fast, sure that if he thought about it for even a second his courage would fail him altogether. ‘She hit Dad and I fell over!’

  The effect of this statement, delivered in a hurried outside voice, was immediate and a bit funny to Foster. Both Mum and Miss Watson said, at exactly the same time, ‘What?’

  They looked at him with the same expression too. Disbelief and shock. It was on now. Dad used to say that when battle lines were drawn between rivals of equal strength. Someone had to make a move. Foster knew it all rested on who looked at who first. Mum slowly lifted her gaze to look at Miss Watson. Miss Watson’s eyes flickered in Mum’s direction but she continued staring at Foster just long enough for him to know he had won.

  ‘Miss Watson?’

  ‘You can’t possibly believe the boy,’ Miss Watson said. ‘He doesn’t like you being away so he’s making things up. You need to get control of this one. Not an ounce of discipline in him.’

  ‘Miss Watson, did you strike my husband?’

  ‘I had to get a little firm with him, that’s all.’ Miss Watson made a slicing motion through the air with her hand, a gesture of finality and moving on, then attempted to land that hand on Mum’s forearm again. Mum jerked herself away with a disgust more shocking to Foster than the slap in question.

  ‘Get out of my house,’ she said.

  Miss Watson opened her mouth to speak but it took a while for something to come out. Foster found himself looking up at her with the same dropped-jaw uncertainty she was looking up at Mum with. Foster hadn’t noticed the bristly hairs on her chin before. ‘I simply will not stand for this sort of talk,’ Miss Watson eventually said, gathering her face into a pinched fist. Foster wanted to see her falter, weaken. He looked for it in the way she reached out for the doorhandle, the way she walked down the front path. But there was nothing. There was no give in her at all.

  After Miss Watson left, Foster assumed Mum would want to put the kettle on and ask Foster exactly what had happened. He waited for it. But Mum sat on the couch opposite Dad and just looked at him. Her hands were shaking. She was squeezing them together so bits of them went white and then pink and then white again.

  ‘Are you mad at me?’ Foster asked.

  ‘No. No.’

  Foster walked over and sat next to her. He wanted to kickstart this somehow but Mum looked frightened. He wanted to tell her that the slap was only little, that Dad had probably already forgotten about it, that falling over wasn’t all that bad. He wanted her to tell him that it was right to tell, that the telling of it hadn’t just made everything worse. When her phone started ringing Foster hoped she wouldn’t answer it but she began rummaging around in her handbag to find it. He heard the ringing get louder and sharper as Mum shoved things out of the way to clear a path to its squawking, and then it was in her hand, pealing over the television that wasn’t broken and over Foster’s next words.

  ‘Are you going to put the kettle on?’

  Mum stood up to answer the phone. She didn’t just get up, she walked in circles in the kitchen and then sat and stood and then walked down the hall and into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She was crying. The last thing Foster heard her say into her phone was, ‘Sometimes I want to hit him myself.’

  earworms and eavesdropping

  Foster stayed on the couch opposite his dad and waited. He wasn’t sure what for. He wasn’t sure he wanted his mum to come out of the bedroom at all. At least not until she had stopped crying. He knew he was responsible. He could feel the hard edges of blame settling down inside him. Like it would never ever leave. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of a story to tell. Nothing came. He thought about asking his dad to tell him a story, but Dad’s stories didn’t go so well lately. That wouldn’t be quite so bad but when the storytelling stopped nothing else moved in to take over. Not even thinking. Dad had always had a thinking face, eyes that crinkled in a happy way as thoughts moved about inside his head. Sometimes it would still appear but the stories that started soon dissolved into half-formed words and frozen hand gestures, leaving him as confused as everybody else about the strange wind that blew through taking every word with it. Mostly his dad just looked empty.

  Foster hadn’t known that sometimes Mum wanted to hit Dad herself. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to hear that. He didn’t know how he knew this. It happened sometimes. He would hear things said by grown-ups, things said in quiet, shushed ways and something about their bitten tone would make Foster feel guilty for having overheard. As if his ears had deliberately wandered the empty spaces between grown-ups, picking up stuff he wasn’t supposed to hear. What was worse was that Foster was pretty sure that these private things said into heavy silences were actually true things, truer than the careful sentences handed out to him. It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Sometimes I want to hit him myself. Foster had a feeling he was being lied to all the time. Being told it was nothing to worry about didn’t make the worry go away.

  Foster knew other true things he kept to himself. He knew Mum was not a princess scarred by magic; she was an ordinary woman wearing her brain injury like a party mask courtesy of a drunk driver. He’d heard Mum say that on the phone to someone once. She’d been crying then too. That’s when Foster realised that truth often comes with crying so when a grown-up is crying you should pay close attention to the stuff they don’t want you to hear. Especially if you’re the one who made them cry.

  Mum came out of the bedroom and went to the bathroom. Dad started humming something Foster recognised. When Mum eventually appeared in the doorway the humming had really taken off. Foster had joined in.

  ‘What is that?’ she said. ‘I know that song.’

  ‘I don’t remember the words,’ Dad said. ‘But I like it. What song is it?’

  Mum wandered to the kitchen, humming herself.

  ‘Now I’ve got an earworm!’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Earworm!’ Dad said.

  ‘Earworm! Earworm!’ Foster said. He was smiling too. He could make things right now. He could distract Mum, just like she distracted Dad when he got confused or cross. Mum was putting the kettle on. Finally. They were all humming, Mum throwing in a few la-las as well. Foster took Dad’s hand and led him to the kitchen table, then stood in front of the kettle. He liked to watch the kettle water roll about. He could see it through the window on the side. That’s when he noticed Mum pour herself a glass of wine in a long-stemmed glass shaped like a closed flower. He was glad. That always distracted Mum too. And made her happier.

  Foster was cross when the doorbell rang. They were all having a nice time a
t the table like they used to. He could imagine a story being not very far away. He imagined Dad beginning just the way he used to, with a ‘Nowwwww’ that was long and full of secrets, followed by an ‘I don’t know if you know this’, which always meant a new thing about to be told. With the three of them sitting around mugs of tea and hot chocolate, just like they used to, the imagining alone of a soon-to-be-told story was enough to satisfy Foster. Then the doorbell. Stupid old-fashioned thing that looked like a bigger version of a bike bell. You had to turn the paddle and a mallet ran around the inside of the bell dome striking pins, sending a shrill metallic rattle to bounce off every person in the house. Mum jumped before saying, ‘Why doesn’t she just knock,’ in an irritated way and Foster knew Mum knew who it was. She set another cup on the kitchen bench before going to open the door.

  ‘I bloody hate that doorbell,’ Aunty said as she strode into the room.

  ‘Why don’t you just knock?’ Foster said.

  ‘Cheeky!’ Mum said.

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Why don’t you go and get ready for bed?’ Mum said.

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ Foster said, gripping the sides of his mug.

  ‘Well, take it with you,’ Mum said. That’s when Foster knew true things were going to be said at that table. He wasn’t allowed to take drinks from the kitchen into other parts of the house unless they had lids on them. Like water bottles that Mum sometimes poured juice into. She was funny about spills lately. Even with Dad.

  Foster slid off his chair and did his best saunter towards the hall, leaving his mug on the table in what he hoped was a statement of his displeasure. Mum didn’t seem to notice.