Saturday morning. Quarter to 12. Sit-down fish and chips at the Silver Grill: me, Oscar and Oscar’s cousin Atticus. Atticus lives with Oscar because his life is arranged by social workers and the courts. He is a year younger than Oscar, which is to say seven, and they share a bedroom with another, older boy. This is Atticus’s first weekend with Oscar’s grandfather (me) acting as host and entertainments officer, and it could be termed an experiment. The relationship between Atticus’s little bottom and the seat of his chair suggests opposing magnetic fields.
‘And what to drink?’ said the waiter. ‘Tango or Fruit Shoot?’ Atticus chose Tango. Oscar peached that fizzy sugary drinks send Atticus off his rocker. Atticus agreed. ‘Sometimes, if I have too much sugar, I behave unacceptably,’ he confessed. ‘So ifI ask for sweets or a fizzy drink, and I’m not allowed any, then I accept that.’ The waiter and I frankly goggled at this seven-year-old state-run child’s dispassionate analysis, and the faintly Orwellian language in which it was couched. Oscar, however, was merely amused by how Atticus was continually forced to make the best of a very weak hand. ‘Two Fruit Shoots and a mug of tea, then,’ said the waiter briskly, in deference to a sensible choice.
‘How’s your mum these days?’ I said to Atticus, while we waited for our meals. ‘Well, I try to keep it all inside my head,’ he said, trying to be as frank as possible about a difficult subject. ‘But when people ask me questions, it grows too big for my head and then it tries to come out, and I get upset and I cry.’ Right on cue, his mouth twisted grotesquely against a powerful emotion that welled up and almost upset the apple cart.
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