John Verry, Page 3

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  Do you believe the theory? That you can tell everything about a person by looking at their childhood? The scientist’s predestination? That a person is no more than a product of genetics funnelled through environment? But what if I had just told you what I thought you wanted to hear? What if he was very different when he was young?

  When John was seven, he decided to run away. Once he had seen a runner on TV. The runner had broken the cheers of his supporters with a rhythmic thump, thump, thump that grew faster and faster, till the point the runner had become his own drumroll. Then, just for a second, John thought he saw him fly.

  John had been practising in secret, stretching his scuffed school shoes out as far as they would go. He started with just walking. School bag on back, he would clomp his way down the street. Clomp, clomp, clomp, splash. Splash, splash, splash. The large puddles that formed after the rain delighted him. The cool, squishy feel of water soaking up his socks. Jumping high to see how far up his legs the splashes would go. Once he felt one on his face.

  Now when he lifted his feet high and stretched them out long, a shimmer of drops would fly out from the end of his shoe, and hang, just for a breath, glinting gold against the light blue horizon, before they dropped back down to earth to splash grey on the footpath. He was a magician with magical powers, and he would say his magic word and splay his fingers, then kick high.

  ‘Attaché’, flick.

  ‘Attaché’, kick.

  ‘Attaché’, splash.

  He had been sitting with father, when he heard his magic word on the news. He loved the taste of it as it rolled off his tongue. ‘Attaché, attaché, attaché’. He would say it until it was not speech any more but pure sound. And so he walked to school every day until he ran away. ‘Attache’, clomp, splash, flick. But never a thump.

  His grandmother’s house used to smell of cheese. Damp mouldy cheese that made John go dry in the throat and gag. She would make him take his muddy shoes off and walk around in his moist socks. He hated the feel of the dust pasting the bottom of his socks. He would imagine that the mess came from the fairies that put fluff between his toes. He would stomp and squash them all, then clap very fast to bring them back to life. Stomp, clap, clap, clap.

  John would spend all afternoon walking around his grandmother’s house, dragging his feet and clapping his hands. He would dance patterns in the dust. Circles and swirls.

  1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. He would waltz.

  1, 2, 3 everything’s fine.

  Um-pa-pa, um-pa-pa, that’s how it goes.

  In the quiet front room of his grandmother’s large house, he would lose himself. It would start with a stamp of his foot. Then his hands would swing forward, his fingers out straight.

  ‘If only Gene Kelly could see me now!’

  The grin spread across his face as he hitched up his pants, and started his feet tapping. It would build and he would incorporate the chairs, couches, walls. Anything and everything that he could move on, bounce off. His arms would swing wildly as he did circle in the air, hearing the beats of jazz, swing, tribal, musicals.

  ‘Why did you break Granny’s vase?’

  How could he explain, how could he tell such people that he had been caught up in the primal beat of the music and at times like that the fate of a vase doesn’t matter, dammit woman!

  His father had once said that. Dammit woman. Mummy had been very nice to father after that. She wasn’t nice to John. She sent him to the spare bedroom to ‘think about his actions.’ He had screamed at first, gripping onto door frames and chairs as they tried to drag him. Finally they managed to get him up the stairs, and shoved him into the spare bedroom quickly. They locked the door behind him just as his little body slammed into it.

  ‘Let me out. Please, I promise I will be good. Please, please, please…’

  Tears flowed down his cheeks uncontrollable as he felt the walls push in around him.

  ‘Buffy, please help me! I can’t breathe. Please Buffy, you have to get me out!’

  I can’t John, I’m sorry.

  He frantically searched the room. He looked for any crack, any cranny that he could crawl out of. The thick heavy curtains and the low roof slowly sucked the song and magic out of him. Finally he collapsed on the bed and sobbing wrecked his body. The red quilt smelt of mothballs and lined the inside of his mouth so that he couldn’t breathe. He heard the voices float up from downstairs. Disembodied voices. ‘He’s not normally like that, we think something might be wrong with him. We don’t know, we just don’t understand.’

  John very slowly felt his heart break in two. It started with a rippling effect, which caused him to momentarily conclude that he was having a stroke like granddad did. But it continued. Then the ripples started to collide, till finally his heart just cracked in half. It let loose a greater flood of tears that watermarked the horrid red bedspread. His face heated up and his throat became hoarse and sore.

  He didn’t hear his mother come in, she just appeared sitting on the bed next to him, like she had done when he had come down with the measles. Her hands were cool on his heated forehead and smelled of moisturiser and just the slight tang of the bleach she used in the bathroom. She just held him, his head nestled into her lap, and murmured soft meaningless words into his ear. The wool of her skirt scratched at his oversensitive cheek but he didn’t care. He lay there and started to explain to her the problem with this life. She would occasionally nod and murmur in agreement. His heart slowed and the heat receded from his face leaving it pale.

  The sounds of footsteps on the stairs drew him back. He clutched at his mother’s skirts, finding the red bedspread between his fingers. He sat up. There was no sight of her at all. A dark red patched showed where his tears had fallen onto nothing but the bed. The door opened. Another version of his mother walked in. She was small and slightly hunched, with wisps of her hair escaping making her look wild and out of control. John noticed one of granddad’s belts hanging from her hand.

  Eleanor Verry had never understood her son. He was too like his father. The vase had been the last straw. She had sat down at her mother’s kitchen table and cried. Mrs. Thomas’ advice had been simple. The boy needed whipping. Eleanor had never done anything like this before and wasn’t quite certain that this was what John needed. Mrs. Thomas remained firm. It had done her brothers good, and it would do John good. ‘He’s such a flighty boy.’ After many more minutes of coaxing and bullying, Eleanor Verry found herself with a belt in hand. She practiced a flick or two nervously in front of her mother, it flopped around like a dead fish. Oh well, she would learn. She walked up the stairs and opened the door. In the dark she could just make out his little form curled up on the bed. Large eyes glowed out of the black. She dropped her shoulders, and the belt. She would never be able to do it. As she reached forward to hold him, he suddenly jumped up and bolted for the door. Pushing past her he ran down the stairs and out the door. He didn’t stop. Not then. He raced down the street, tears forming in his eyes then dropping a metre behind him by the time they reached the ground. If John had been able to hear himself, as a casual passer-by did, he might have heard a rhythmic thump, thump, thump. But John never noticed.

  John Verry, aged 7, was found, three days later. He was found three suburbs over, curled up under a newspaper, shivering with severe dehydration and in the later stages of shock. He was kept at the hospital for a week, before being released to his mother. They never found out what had happened, and he never spoke of it again.