Watching You: A Novel

Freddie’s dad got back from work really late that night.

Freddie watched the time on his bedside, watched it drip slowly through the minutes. He was too scared to go downstairs. He’d spent all night in his room waiting to hear the soft footsteps of his mum coming up to make her peace, to apologise for calling him a little shit, maybe to bring him up some supper. But she hadn’t. The house had stayed silent. His stomach growled and he thought of steaming bowls of Maggi chicken noodles and towers of thick buttered toast. He remembered the big box of chocolates his dad had brought home a couple of nights ago, a gift from a grateful parent. There was an espresso martini truffle in there that he would love to eat right now. And a soft hazelnut mousse.

He didn’t know why he was too scared to go downstairs. It was stupid. But it felt as though there was a hungry lion in the house, something dark and unpredictable locked away behind his parents’ bedroom door.

Jenna had messaged him a couple of hours ago. Her friend wasn’t pregnant and she wasn’t having an affair with his dad. Freddie had felt a terrible rush of guilt remembering the things he’d thought, the terrible things he’d said to his mum about his dad. He wanted to make everything right. He wanted to fix his mess.

At the sound of his dad’s car door locking on the street outside, Freddie jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs. He heard the front door open and saw the light go on in the kitchen.

‘Dad,’ he whispered into the gloom.

His dad turned and said, ‘Freddie! You’re up late.’

He edged into the kitchen and leaned against the wall. ‘I was hungry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had any supper.’

‘Why not?’

‘I had a row with Mum. I thought she might bring me something up as a peace offering. She didn’t.’

‘You had a row? What about?’

‘About you. About not telling me that I have Asperger’s. And some other things.’

His dad opened a cupboard and pulled out a loaf of bread. ‘Toast?’ he said, waving it in his direction.

‘Yes,’ said Freddie. ‘Three slices please.’

‘Well, we can only get four at a time in the toaster, so how about we start with two each?’

‘OK.’

His dad stood over the toaster for a while, staring down into it. The back of his shirt was all creased from where he’d been squashed against a chair all day. Freddie held his breath through the silence, not wanting to break it with even the smallest noise.

Finally his dad turned and looked at him. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s all this about Asperger’s?’

‘Someone asked me, today, if I had it. And I remembered that teacher in Manchester who said I did. And you and Mum taking me out for tea and telling me that I shouldn’t have a label. And I’ve been googling it and a lot of it sounds like me. Like the fact that my voice is so high-pitched, for example. And that I find it hard to look people in the eye sometimes. The fact that I am so good at languages and accents, because some people with Asperger’s like collecting things and I like to collect languages and accents. And sometimes people with Asperger’s are really good at chess, not that I really care about chess any more. But overall, I tick a lot of Asperger’s boxes. And I actually think it would be quite great to have a label, if it was a label that made me understand myself better. And I’m cross, really, that I haven’t had that.’

The toast popped up then and his dad turned back to take it out and butter it for them. It was Dad’s favourite bread – of course – with a thick jacket of seeds and nuts. Usually Freddie would reject it on the grounds of the seeds and the nuts, not to mention the unfairness of them never having plain white bread. But tonight he was too hungry to care.

His dad cut the toast together in a pile and then passed Freddie his two slices. Freddie pulled the crusts carefully away from the soft centres and then rammed a piece into his mouth. His dad sat down and stared at Freddie with his tired green eyes and said, ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

Freddie hadn’t expected his dad to say sorry. He wasn’t sure how to react.

‘You know, it was such a long time ago and you were so little and it seemed far too early to be calling you things. I just wanted to wait and see. See how it went. And every time we took you to a new school I’d be waiting to see if anyone would say anything, if we’d be called in for another little meeting. But nobody ever did. Not really.’

‘Not really?’ said Freddie.

‘Well, there was one teacher, in Mold, Miss Camilleri. Remember her?’

‘Yes. She was Maltese. She taught me how to sing “Happy Birthday To You” in Maltese.’

‘Yes. That’s right. She did say something once, at a parent–teacher meeting. She asked if you’d ever had a diagnosis. And we said yes. But then we left Mold three weeks later and never followed it up. But that was the only time, in seven, eight years. And you’ve been doing so well. I just thought … I thought I was doing the right thing.’

‘I find it surprising, as a professional educationalist, that you would choose to ignore a diagnosis like that.’

‘I didn’t ignore it, Freddie. I just wanted to wait and see. I’ve been watching you. All along. Watching everything you do, waiting to see if you needed us to step in and give you extra support. But you never did. Because, Freddie, you are just totally brilliant. And I am so proud of you.’

Freddie smiled, just a flicker of a smile, as much as he could muster. ‘I am clever,’ he said. ‘But I am also quite shy and find making friends very difficult, and I think I make some really bad mistakes with people, and I misunderstand them, and it might be useful for me now, maybe, to have some extra support. I’d like my label please.’

‘Here?’ asked his dad, pointing at the kitchen table. ‘Or out in the world?’

‘Out in the world. At school. Yes.’

His dad nodded and ate some toast. ‘I’ll make an appointment at your school,’ he said. ‘For next week. We’ll get it all sorted. And Freddie?’

‘Yes?’

‘I am really sorry. I thought I was doing it for the best.’

‘That’s OK, Dad.’

‘So, what else did you and your mum argue about?’

Freddie looked at his dad. He was now at the opposite end of the spectrum to the angry bear that lived inside him. He looked soft and kind. A teddy bear. A nice dad. Not a bad man. Not a man who made teenagers pregnant and made them kill themselves and strangled his wife in bed at night and had affairs with blondes in red suede boots.

‘Nothing,’ Freddie said. ‘That was it really. And she got really, really cross and pushed me over and called me a fucking little shit.’

His dad sighed. ‘Your mum’s in a strange mood at the moment. A very strange mood. I’m sorry you were on the receiving end of it.’

Freddie shrugged and picked up the last half-slice of toast. ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind.’

His dad smiled at him and Freddie smiled back. But inside all he could think was: Dad, what really happened to Genevieve Hart?