I Hear You Calling Read online

  ‘So, I believe that you have given him a three day exclusion?’

  ‘I had little choice,’ her tone was clipped again, as if she felt I was challenging her decision. ‘We have only been back at school a day and he is doing it again. I have had a year six girl in absolute hysterics, her cousin passed away just before Christmas and Richard starting doing “his thing” while she was having her morning break.

  ‘You are really in a difficult situation, I can see that,’ I sympathised.

  ‘I really cannot decide if the boy has mental health issues or if he is just attention seeking. That father of his is certainly part of his problem and one of the things I will be considering in the next 3 days is if I should be making a “child at risk” referral to Social Care.’

  If the parents wouldn’t accept help, or even consider that there might be a problem with Richard’s behaviour, there really wasn’t a lot I could do to prevent a permanent exclusion happening. I couldn’t help agreeing with Carol’s feeling that Mr Banks was the real problem here; he seemed so hung up on his son’s “human rights” that he was failing to see that permanent exclusion would cause Richard far more trauma than being told to stop talking about certain things in school would ever do!

  ***

  Janet Banks rang the Education office the next morning, Chris had decided he would meet with me again, in view of recent events. I cancelled my other appointment and drove straight there.

  As I rang the Banks’ doorbell I heard a young voice call out from upstairs, ‘Mum, someone at the door.’

  Janet Banks opened the door and, although she was smiling, her face was paler than when we had met previously. Her blonde hair was hanging limply onto her shoulders rather than being styled into the outdated but cared for “Farrah Fawcett Majors” style she had worn before. Rightly or wrongly, I took this as a sign that things had been far from easy in this household lately.

  Ushering me into the sitting room Janet’s voice sounded slightly nervy as she offered the option of tea or coffee

  ‘Black coffee would be lovely’ I said, settling myself into the armchair near the bay window. When Janet disappeared into the kitchen to make drinks, I looked again around the room.

  There were photographs of Richard in matching pine wood frames on almost every possible surface. There he was as a tiny baby with a little red screwed up face and a very proud but exhausted looking Mum holding him as if he was made of glass. There were lots of toddler photos, Richard taking his first, obviously wobbly, steps grinning a toothless happiness at the camera. Richard on the beach with sand all over his mouth as if he had been eating it rather than digging in it. Richard learning to ride his tricycle. Then a whole chronology of school photographs.

  As his were the only pictures I could see I presumed that Richard was an only child, which might help to explain why the Banks’ lives revolved a little too much around the boy. 20 years of working in education had made me realise that too much parental devotion can be as debilitating to a child as not receiving enough.

  Janet and Chris entered the room together, Janet carrying my coffee in a plain white china mug, Chris with a rolled up newspaper under his armpit.

  ‘Miss Simpson, thank you for coming back,’ Chris said.

  He looked slightly abashed and I took this as his version of an apology for his outbursts during my last visit. Determined to sort this thing out this time I smiled and said, ‘No problem Mr Banks, hopefully we can help to get things back to normal here as soon as possible.’

  He sat down on the large sofa opposite me, put the newspaper down onto the coffee table and concentrated on the business of crossing his long legs. Eventually he raised his head and his eyes looked troubled as he finally spoke.

  ‘The thing is Miss Simpson, whose definition of normal are we using here?’

  I had a sinking feeling deep in my chest. “Oh no, not again,” I thought – he was obviously still feeling victimised. I had been hoping that the shock of the fixed term exclusion might just have brought him to his senses and made him ready to talk sensibly.

  ‘Richard’s not a naughty boy Miss Simpson,’ Janet said. ‘I have never had a complaint about him not doing his work or, until now, of him being rude to his teacher or fighting or any of those things you hear of children doing in schools these days.’

  I couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for the woman; if what we suspected was true she was caught up in the power games of her husband, and God knows I was the last person to be able to judge her for that.

  ‘Janet, I can imagine that it must be hurtful to think your son has been excluded for something that you don’t see as being particularly naughty,’ I told her. ‘But the thing is, as I said before, the other children have been upset by things Richard has been saying and doing and that is causing disruption to the teaching and learning. I don’t think Richard is a naughty boy, I think we just need to work out how we can make it so that he can go back to school and things can be good again.’

  Chris had been sitting watching and listening, but then he stared at me intently for a moment and I had a full sense of him trying hard to choose his words carefully before he spoke again.

  ‘Do you have a faith, Rae?’ he asked, his Scottish accent detectable once more. I noticed his use of my first name and my little bit of psychology training told me that he was trying to win me over, make me feel like a friend of his.

  ‘Well, I don’t belong to any religious body if that’s what you mean.’ I told him.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he answered quietly.

  For some reason I didn’t understand I felt as if I had just been judged and found wanting.

  ‘I would defend anyone’s right to believe what feels right to them,’ I said. ‘However, not if it interferes with the lives and safety of others. And this what we are talking about here with Richard.’

  Again Chris nodded like a wise old sage. ‘And tell me Rae, if Richard had been going around school quoting from the bible or the Koran would he have been excluded for that?’

  ‘I think you are slightly missing the point here Chris, if you don’t mind me saying. Richard was not excluded for quoting philosophy from any religion, he was excluded for supposedly talking to the dead and frightening his classmates and disrupting their education.’

  Chris stood up then and moved over to stand in front of the fireplace before turning round to face me again.

  ‘Your use of the word “supposedly” offends me greatly. However, moving on from that one, if he were a Muslim and needed to say his prayers to Allah five times a day would he be allowed to take his prayer mat to school and carry out his religious activities?’

  I got the feeling then that he was actually enjoying this but I was certainly not and

  I was determined not to continue with this pointless tirade of what appeared to be becoming racially founded prejudices so I decided to ignore the question and, hoping to tap into Janet’s maternal instinct of protection, I turned to her again.

  ‘Janet, if Richard was coming home from school each day upset and frightened by something another child was telling him, wouldn’t you want it stopped?’

  ‘Actually, Rae, I wouldn’t. I would be talking with Richard to find out why what was being said was so upsetting to him and then helping him to learn how to deal with it himself, so that he didn’t get upset about it anymore. We can’t stop our children from hearing things that might be scary or upsetting, we can only help them to learn how to cope with things when they do happen.’

  She took the wind out of my sails for a moment with that. Not only was it the most I had heard her speak but also this simple philosophy suddenly hit a great resonance in some deep level of my being.

  The impact of these thoughts must have shown on my face and Chris, seizing the opportunity of having the ball in their court, said quietly, ‘You see Rae, we practice personal responsibi
lity; it is a huge component of our religious philosophy.’

  Mentally shaking myself back into a professional persona I once more took control of the conversation.

  ‘But Chris we are not really here to debate philosophy are we? What we have here is more of a legalistic argument I’m afraid. The law says that your son has to have an education and his behaviour is stopping that from happening. So we have to stay practical, rather than philosophical, in our solutions. Richard is due back in school on Wednesday morning and I need to be able to say that things will be different from then on. One thing I have learned from my talks with you is that you both love your son greatly and obviously want him to be happy. It would a great help to Richard if you, his parents, were working with me and the school to sort this out.’

  I could hear for myself how starchy and formal this sounded but I felt the need to get an end to this as quickly as possible. I took a sip of my almost cold coffee before looking back at Janet and Chris to gauge their reaction.

  ‘And what do you suggest that “sorting out” would be?’ Janet asked.

  Chris scowled at his wife.

  ‘If you could just tell Richard he is not allowed to say the things he is saying in school it would be a great start. Obviously what he does out of school is entirely left with you. It might also be helpful to agree to the Head’s request to have the Educational Psychologist meet with Richard, just to show that you are doing your best to support the attempts of the school to carry out their job.’

  Janet was looking down at the carpet, clearly refusing to meet my eyes, but Chris was up on his feet and staring at me full force.

  ‘My boy is not psychologically damaged. He is the most balanced child in that school. In the old days Spiritualists were often accused of being mental, but I thought the world had moved on. It’s persecution, that’s what it is.’

  ‘I am not trying to insinuate that there is anything wrong with Richard’s mental health. I am just pointing out that the all clear from the Ed Psych would confirm that for the school and at least take that issue out of any future conversations.’

  ‘Have you met my son?’ Chris asked sharply.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I haven’t, but that isn’t the point.’

  ‘Not the point? If he is not the point then what the bloody hell are we talking about here? Of course he is the point.’

  He turned towards his wife, ‘Janet, ask Richard to come down.’

  Janet left the room and Chris and I stayed silent, both locked within our own thoughts as we waited. I was having to admit to myself that I was uncomfortable with the way things were going, in fact “going” was just what it wasn’t doing. Our conversations seemed to be just circling round and getting nowhere. I felt an inclination that was very rare for me – I felt inclined to just let the Banks’ go their own sweet way and wait for the permanent exclusion that would surely follow.

  My first impression of Richard Banks was that he was a gangly nine year old with a shock of ginger hair and long stick like legs. He had inherited his father’s amazing blue eyes which he turned upon me before quickly lowering them again.

  ‘Miss Simpson would just like to talk to you for five minutes,’ his mother encouraged.

  ‘Sorry to drag you away from what you were doing Richard,’ I told him. And I was, really sorry. I had no idea what these parents were expecting me to do in the next five minutes. Carry out a full psychological assessment?

  ‘I bet you were on the PlayStation?’ I smiled to show him that this was not meant as an accusation.

  ‘No, I was reading,’ his voice was as thin as his legs and he spoke down towards the patterned carpet.

  ‘Oh, what were you reading?’

  ‘Harry Potter.’

  ‘Oh I love those stories. So, Professor Snape, a goody or a baddy?’

  ‘Probably a baddy,’ he met my eyes for the first time. ‘I don’t like him much.’

  ‘Are you missing being at school today?’

  Richard nodded and his shoulders reached out towards his ears, it looked like a kind of self-hug. ‘Yeah. I can’t go back till Wednesday.’

  ‘Do you understand why you have to stay home?’

  Like any other child I ever dealt with, Richard looked uncomfortable at this question.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. “Because they say I do some things that scare them.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘I don’t always remember doing it, but I s’pose they can’t all be telling lies.’

  The poignancy of this statement struck me sharply and I looked across at Chris at this point; surely even he would be concerned that the child could not recall the events? Chris was just nodding and smiling at his son however.

  ‘Would you like to be back in school and for everything to be good again?’ I asked the boy.

  Richard nodded and once more I looked at his father to check his reaction to this. There wasn’t one that I could identify.

  ‘Well, if you will let me, I would like to help you make that happen.’ I told Richard.

  Mutely he nodded and I sensed that the conversation was over. The child looked exhausted by it all, even more so than I was. His face had gone pale and he looked slightly bilious.

  ‘Can we start talking about it tomorrow?’ I asked.

  Again the boy nodded.

  ‘Great stuff. I’ll come back tomorrow then and we can come up with a plan.’

  All three of them stood in the open doorway and watched me walk down the pathway to the car. As I opened the driver’s door I turned back to say a final goodbye.

  Catching my eye Richard flashed a very warm smile and said loudly,

  ‘Bye for now, my little Rae of sunshine.’

  Jen

  ‘Bye for now, my little Rae of sunshine’ was what my Dad always said to my sister when they were parting. When Rae told me that Richard had said this to her as she was leaving I had a cold shiver pass all over me.

  Rae, of course, was feeling very differently about it. She was angry.

  ‘It’s not really difficult to make the association with my name and that phrase Jen. It’s a pretty good gamble to assume that someone in my life has said it to me.’

  ‘But you said the child didn’t know your first name. His parents introduced you as Miss Simpson.’

  ‘True, but his parents know my name and his mother was upstairs with him alone for a while wasn’t she?’

  ‘You think they would set him up to do that?’

  ‘They have a battle to fight here and, do you know, sad as it is, I don’t think they’re above using their son as a weapon.’

  She could have been right, after all she had met the people, and I hadn’t. But I couldn’t help feeling that it was all getting very spooky

  Richard

  So, Rae comes to our house and I can hear Dad’s voice and I know he is not happy. And then Mum comes and tells me that I have to meet her too.

  She is a bit older than I thought she might be, probably at least as old as my Mum, and she’s not much taller than me.

  I don’t think she really knows what to say to me at first ‘cos she talks all sort of nonsense about play stations and things, like she wants me to know that she knows about kids. Then she says she is going to come back and “work with me” and I really don’t know what that means.

  . I know that Dad doesn’t want Rae coming back to the house and I don’t really want to meet with her again either – what can she do to help? I can tell that Dad doesn’t think she can do anything and I don’t think Mum does really although she is smiling and nodding her head.

  But then I feel it – the hamsters are on the wheel. Please go Rae, I am thinking, so I say yes to meeting her again just to get rid of her before it all starts up.

  It’s just as she is leaving that I start to get the feeling and I know someone is t
here, it isn’t Solly, it’s a spirit I don’t recognise. I don’t say anything out loud but inside my head I keep saying “No, not while she is here.”

  I think it will be ok after all because she is leaving but then, just as she is getting into her car, he speaks to her. She stands still by her car door and looks at me as if I have a gun or something. She doesn’t say anything but I can tell she is not happy. Then she gets into her car really quickly and drives off without looking back at us at all.

  As we go in and Dad closes the front door he bursts out laughing.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he says. ‘Did you see the way her face changed? She knows who that was doesn’t she?’

  Mum’s lips are sort of stuck together and she nods her head. She doesn’t look happy either.

  ‘I’m sorry Mum, I couldn’t stop it happening.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I did try but it was too strong.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Can I go back to my bedroom?

  I can still hear Dad laughing to himself in the kitchen as I climb the stairs.

  I lie on top of my Superman duvet and cross my arms across my shoulders, like I am giving myself a big hug. What will happen now? That woman Rae pretended to be nice but she didn’t like us much, I can tell.

  Have I just got us all into big trouble?

  Rae

  Sleep wouldn’t come; my head was spinning with questions. Why would a man be so outraged about something that he would use his nine year old son as his weapon? Would any decent mother, and Janet seemed like a very decent mother, allow that to happen? What on earth should my next move be? And, how did they manage to pull that stunt with my Dad?

  The next morning I made a phone call to Carol at Springfield. As I had expected the Head was adamant that she would be tolerating no more displays of “mediumship” and emphasised that the governors were well behind her on this decision.