Sweet Child Of Mine

Sweet Child of Mine

He was little more than a boy, puppy fat loosing the battle to the strong muscle that bulged proudly on belly and calf. He had the first tentative shadow of bristle that had been hacked at rather than shaved. A chin of corned beef shamelessly adorned with corners of pink toilet paper. A man-child yelling out in exultation ‘Hey, look, I shaved today.’

He was little more than a boy sitting by his mother's bed.

For three days he’d been at her side, leaving only to attend to his hygiene and food needs. He hid his tears from the young nurses who fought each other to be the one to attend the sick lady, and bat her eyelashes at the good-looking lad. He slept in the hard-backed chair with his head resting on his forearms. His hand closed protectively over his mother's. He slept little and looked weary.

While awake he could hardly bear to look at her swollen face. He’d found her. Three days earlier he’d come home from college. She didn't answer his shout of, ‘Mum I'm home, what's for tea?’ He said he knew something was wrong. His mother was always there to welcome him home. He found her on the floor in the kitchen. Her purse lay with its entrails bared on the carpet beside her. He hadn't been able to tell the police how much money they’d got away with, but he knew that his mother's meagre wage went into the bank on a Friday. By Thursday night her purse would hold little more than a few pounds and a handful of shrapnel.

She didn’t have credit cards. She had no gold and as far as anyone knew, she hadn’t come into possession of the crown jewels. She’d been beaten to a pulp for less than most young lads spend on a night out. As he told the police, for all he knew, it might even have been less than the price of a packet of cigarettes.

The first twenty-four hours that Joyce lay in the coma were critical. Carl was told to prepare himself for the possibility that she wouldn't see morning. He was bereft, never ate, never slept and never left her side. After the red light period passed, Joyce was in a lighter state of unconsciousness. Waking for a moment here and there, groaning in pain and confusion before drifting back into healing oblivion.

Her morphine was upped and she was moved to a sideward behind the nurse's station on Ward 6, still in the high dependency unit, but no longer attached to twenty three wires and tubes. Very poorly, but stable, was the stock phrase used for patients in that particular bed. A policeman stood guard for the first two days, waiting for the moment that she was lucid enough to make a statement. But as it dawned that she was neither going to expire nor wake up and sing like a blackbird, the constant police presence gave way to intermittent guarding. By the third day their urgency had diluted to a, ‘Call us when she can talk.’

The third time Joyce woke up, she moaned out her son's name. He reached over for her hand and held it gently.

‘Shush, it's all right, Mum, I'm here.

Everything's going to be okay. You're in hospital and they say you're going to be just fine. You were burgled and beaten up, probably by youngsters, the police say. Do you remember anything about it, Mum?’

Joyce screwed up her eyes and winced, trying to bring into focus what had happened. She rested her grey eyes on her son's face and squeezed his hand with what little strength she could muster. He couldn't return her smile and his eyes filled with tears. ‘I'm so sorry Mum. I'm so sorry I wasn't there when this happened.’

The nurse taking his mother’s pulse smiled. Joyce’s eyes clouded over with pain and she ran back to the nothingness of the unconscious.

The fourth day was an ordeal for Carl. The nursing staff had held the press back. A statement had been given by one of the big-wig hospital suits as to the seriousness of the attack and the state of Mrs White’s health. The press had camped in every B&B within a five mile radius of the hospital. The attack on a defenceless lady, alone in her house had been big enough news, even in these violent times, to warrant national coverage. It was a savage and brutal attack. Every tabloid wanted to get the enraged son’s interview or better yet, the waking interview scoop with Mrs White. Black eyes made good print.

Partly due to the constant hounding by the press and partly to the fact that the police hadn't uncovered any leads in the case and were getting breathed on from above, something had to be seen to be done. It was decided that Carl would go on live television to appeal for information.

For two hours he was taken away from his mother's side and coached in what he should say. The interview was to go out live to the four major national networks. It would be shown on every news bulletin throughout the day. He was washed and blown dry, covered in make-up and made to feel ridiculous. Why couldn't he just get it over with and get back to his mum, for chrissake. Yes, he knew what he was going to say. No, he didn't need to go through it one more time, and No, thank-you, if he drank one more glass of bloody water he would have more to worry about than a moist upper lip.

The interview wasn’t a success and frantic police officers made 'cutting' motions to the cameras. Everything began okay. ‘If anyone, anywhere, has any information at all about what happened to my mum, I would be very grateful if you will come forward. Any information passed to us will be treated with the strictest conf….’ He leaped up overturning the interview table in fury. ‘I'm going to get the bastards who did this to my mum. And I'm warning you, you scum, when I do, you’re going to be so sorry you were ever fucking born you sons of bit….’

It wasn’t the image they wanted to portray. The kid was distraught, fair enough, but they were aiming for the sympathy vote, not some raving loony on a vigilante crusade. Carl was escorted from the room while the TV Crews loved every second of coverage they were getting. The interview would be cut from the later broadcasts but this one went out live to the lunchtime nation. It’d be all over Utube by coffee break.

It took a long time to calm him down. Even after he’d returned to his mother's room he was still ranting at her friend. Joyce woke up twice that afternoon and both times he yelled at her, ‘Mum who did this to you? What did they look like? Can you tell me anything, anything at all that will help me find them? I'm going to kill them for what they did to you.’ The nurses had to tell him that he wasn’t doing his mum any good.

That night Joyce had a nightmare. She was lying on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, hands raised in a feeble attempt to cover her head. The leg clad in black jeans just kept on kicking her. Kicking, kicking, kicking. In her sleep she curled and moaned. The man was still booting her in the face, in the soft yielding flesh of her belly. The nightmare attacker yelled the same word over and over again. ‘No. No. No. No, No.’

And the dream abruptly changed, she was dishing out cottage pie for Carl. He’d just come in from college and everything was nice. Bright yellow lighting, bright yellow wallpaper, her nice bright yellow life. Carl was telling her about the night out he had planned with his mates. Joyce woke up screaming at the top of her voice, ‘Don’t tell me, no!’

Carl was at her side in an instant, calming, soothing, such a good boy, such a comfort. She'd had him late in life. He never blamed her for that, nor for not being able to give him everything he wanted. Some of his friends drove cars already, but that was way beyond Joyce's budget. He said that once he’d finished his apprenticeship and college he’d be able to afford a decent car. All his hard work would pay off and he'd look after her for a change and see that she got some of the nicer things in life. Carl knew it’d been tough bringing him up on her own. Life hadn’t been easy for them, but they had each other and that had seen them through the difficult times.

Carl was seventeen now. He’d grown into a son to be proud of.

Joyce turned her face into the pillow to hide her tears of shame. She saw Carl's face again. Then she saw it, as it had been last Thursday when she'd asked him not to go out that night. A beautiful face contorted with ugly rage. ‘Don't tell me no, you old bitch.’ Joyce closed her eyes to blot out the memory of his size ten boot crashing down towards her face.