Jigsaw Island - Lynne McVernon

Buy Here

ONE

ANNIE – Harkin Croft, Kilachlan, Scotland

‘You broke his nose, Jude.’

‘I know.’

He gives me such a wicked look of triumph I nearly let go. But I conjure myself a whiff of mindfulness and go on.

‘OK, I’m struggling to know how I can help you. Give me a heads up.’

‘Get off my case, Mum.’

‘Come on, you know the rules. One, talk about your issues honestly. Two, give other people the respect you expect yourself.’

‘Yeah, right. How about three?’

‘What’s three?’ I’m sensing an adolescent 180° slew. ‘Get off my fu –’

He’s slewed too far. My cue to be a traditional parent.

‘Hold it right there, buster. I’ll tell you what three is. Three is what you’d say if Maggie was in the room.’

His face twists, his voice is low. ‘That’s no’ fair. Using Maggie.’

Just turned thirteen, he’s learnt boys don’t cry, especially not mixed-race boys in small Scottish coastal towns. Even to their mothers. He’s also right. I am out of order. Two years on, both of us still feel the pain of losing Maggie. Just thinking her name makes my insides contract, like I’m staring into the bottomless hole she’s left in our lives. In the life of anyone who knew her. She was such a blissful human being, the friend who took Jude and me in, loved us and let us love her. Now, she watches over us from a canvas photo print on the wall opposite, Jack – or is it Tatty?– on her lap, the other Westie on the back of her armchair, snuffling into her neck. Eight-year-old Jude is on the floor, arm resting over her knee, dead cool, like he owns her. Dimitte diem, she was saying, let the day go.

‘Fair game, Jude, I’m sorry. We all miss her.’

I wait while he absorbs my apology. The room is quiet and white, the furniture old and beloved. Maggie is the room, still comforting, still reassuring.
Summer breathes flowers, grass, and new leaves through the open window, bringing me back. Time for me to shift focus, use his language.

‘Problem for me, pal, is they’re on my case. Schools don’t like dudes going around punching other dudes and they blame the –’

‘Mum – he called me “the half-blood arsepiece”.’

‘Could you not just have called him something back?

‘I did, I said, “Shut yer puss, fannybaws”. But it didn’t feel like enough, so I thumped him.’

He’s caught me off guard. We both honk with laughter. He throws himself on the lumpy old sofa and slings his endless legs across my lap. I am pinioned by a young giraffe. One with his hair shaved in a straight line across his forehead and nearly scalped down the sides in a ‘taper fade’. A young giraffe called Bolshy.

It’s getting to be quite a menagerie in here because there’s also an elephant called ‘Exclusion’ in the room, and it has elephant relatives called ‘Petty Theft’, ‘Provoking the Teacher’, ‘Occasional Truanting’, and ‘Smoking’, amongst others. Quite a herd. Jude’s eye contact says we’re solid, though.

‘He was being racist, Mum, and that’s not acceptable. You said.’

‘No, it’s not, pet, but smashing people’s faces isn’t acceptable either. We have to work out how to move forward.’

Jude sets his mouth. ‘OK. But no more psycho-speak, deal?’ That’s a dig at me and my Degree and MSc in Psychology. ‘Deal. No more psycho-speak.’

Not from me, anyway.