The Marriage Act(48)
*
Anthony stared at his son Matthew across the kitchen table. The boy’s leg was twitching and he had been unable to focus his attention on any one thing for more than a few minutes at a time.
‘What’s this, Daddy?’ Matthew asked. He was holding a small, fabric-covered speaker he’d unearthed in a cupboard.
‘It’s an Echo,’ he replied. ‘Like an early version of the Audite. They stopped making them a long time ago.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘Playing music, mostly, or reading books, weather forecasts, turning on light bulbs.’
Matthew laughed. ‘Is that it?’
‘Pretty much, yes.’
‘Was it yours?’
‘No, it belonged to my mum.’
‘Why’ve you kept it?’
‘I don’t know, I just have.’
It was the only object he possessed that contained recordings of his mother’s voice. Sometimes, when he was alone, he plugged it in to listen to her reciting a shopping list into its memos or leaving him a message to play when he arrived home from school and she was elsewhere. And each morning it reminded her to divide their medication, a Ritalin for him and two anti-psychotics for herself.
The table shook as his son’s leg and foot picked up the pace, moving back and forth. Anthony’s often did the same when he struggled to centre himself. And, like Matthew, that morning, Anthony was also finding it increasingly difficult to tether himself to a stationary frame of mind.
‘Can you put the Echo down while you’re eating breakfast please?’ he asked.
‘But I want to play with it.’ Matthew threw it up in the air and caught it.
‘Put it down please, Matthew,’ Anthony repeated.
His son threw it up in the air once again, but this time, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor.
‘Matthew!’ he yelled. ‘For fuck’s sake!’
His cursing halted his son’s behaviour, just as Jada entered the room. As she dried her damp hair with a towel, she glowered at her husband then guided Matthew out of the room.
Anthony closed his eyes and cursed again, this time under his breath. The burden of knowledge was a heavy weight to carry and he was struggling. At his last London meeting, he’d not only been made privy to plans for children like his son, but he had also been tasked with implementing them. He knew that, in the not-so-distant future, Matthew’s ADHD was going to bring the whole family added complications.
‘Did you have to swear at him?’ asked Jada on her return.
‘He wasn’t listening to me,’ Anthony replied. Her folded arms warned him it was a poor excuse. ‘I’m sorry,’ he conceded. ‘Where is he? I’ll apologize.’
‘Leave him; he’s in his room. Couldn’t you have made a little time to show him how the Echo worked? You know he’s got a curious mind.’
‘I think we should try medication,’ Anthony offered without warning.
Jada frowned. ‘What?’
‘Take him back to the specialist and find a treatment that works for him.’
Jada eyed him suspiciously. ‘Why the one-eighty?’
‘Because you were right. If his school is telling us that he’s being disruptive then we need to do something about it while we still have time.’
‘He’s only seven. His behaviour now isn’t going to determine the rest of his life.’
Anthony shifted awkwardly and Jada caught it. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Anthony shrugged.
‘What are you not telling me?’
‘I’m not not telling you anything.’
Jada sucked in her cheeks. ‘After two years of opposing meds, you’re expecting me to believe you’ve suddenly had a change of heart with no prompting?’
Anthony hesitated before he nodded. He couldn’t tell her the truth about what he knew.
‘There it is again!’ she persisted. ‘You’re hiding something.’
Anthony looked towards the Audite. ‘You are lying,’ Jada mouthed silently instead.
‘Then that’s wonderful,’ she continued in a tone that didn’t match her expression. ‘I’ll make an appointment with the specialist later in the week.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll probably have work to do. We’ll be okay on our own. We always are.’
Jada left him alone knowing he had no riposte.
37
Roxi
Adrenaline was coursing through Roxi’s body even before she opened the front door and spotted the dozen new, unopened boxes stacked up against the wall. All were addressed to her. As someone who’d grown up in the care system, she could only watch with envy as children in TV shows had opened heaps of brightly wrapped boxes on a Christmas morning. Now every day was like the Christmas Day she’d longed for. And she wondered if the novelty of receiving gifts as an adult would ever wear off.
Two hours had passed since her appearance on ITV’s early evening magazine show. Millions had watched her argue that people living in Old Towns should require visitor’s passports to go to New Towns. She had put across her point concisely and with passion, and, if she continued to perform like this, she was convinced it would once again boost her social media following. The road to Instafame was littered with the deactivated profiles of Influencers whose stars burned too brightly too quickly. Roxi would not be like them. She had worked too hard to shine to simply fizzle out.