Chapter 10 #3
‘I’m okay, thanks.’
‘You don’t seem okay, Con. You seem agitated, upset, and that is understandable, of course. Today was a huge day. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can only help if you tell me what’s on your mind.’
She stood in silence for a second or two, giving him a chance to change his mind and speak. He didn’t.
‘I changed the room around.’ She stated the obvious for want of something to say. ‘It’s better, isn’t it? More space, and a little bit of privacy.’
He briefly caught her eye as if to acknowledge her efforts.
‘I’ll make you a nice supper in a little while.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Please talk to me, Con!’ she implored, sitting on the edge of his bed. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
He looked at her. Nina smiled at how she had won him over with the reasoning that the sooner he spoke, the sooner she would leave.
‘It wasn’t great,’ he mumbled.
‘What wasn’t great?’ She was grateful for the insight and grabbed it like a hook.
‘All of it,’ he fired back.
‘Connor, put your laptop away and talk to me properly, please. Tell me how it went and how you are feeling.’
He gave a short laugh and sucked his teeth. ‘What is it you want to know?’ He closed his laptop as instructed, and rubbed his eyes.
‘Everything!’ She held out her hands.
Connor sat up in the bed and rested his back against the shallow headboard.
‘They follow a different order for sciences so I am about a year behind, but they are confident I can catch up, which is easy for them to say, it’s not them that’s going to have to do the extra work.
Everyone, literally everyone, either told me I was posh or took the piss out of my accent.
No one told me that they don’t stand up when a tutor comes into the room, and so in the first lesson the master came in and I jumped up with my arms by my sides and waited to be told to sit, and the whole class doubled up laughing.
The teacher shouted at me, asking if I thought I was being funny.
’ He shook his head. ‘I felt like such an idiot.’
Nina silently berated herself. This hadn’t occurred to her. Her son continued.
‘I am used to a system where pupils are only allowed to walk in twos along the right-hand corridor wall, which means everything flows, but at this school’ – he shook his head – ‘it’s like a free-for-all, crowds getting bottlenecked and everyone yelling, all of the time.
It’s chaos, so noisy. I have a headache.
And apparently I am only allowed to take one language, so I have to drop German or French because “That’s how the timetable works if I want to do three sciences”.
’ He drew invisible speech marks in the air.
‘Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? And the very best thing?’ His words dripped with sarcasm.
‘I already have a nickname – can you believe it? One day in, and my new name is Snow.’ He looked up and bit his lip.
‘Why Snow?’ She struggled to figure it out.
‘Oh, don’t try and guess, you never could,’ he spat. ‘There was already a guy called Connor in my class whose dad keeps horses in the New Forest. He is known as Connor Ponies, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’ She nodded.
‘So this kid, Brandon I think his name is, started calling me “Connor’s Got No Ponies”, shortened to “’S’no Ponies”, and by the end of the day they had dropped the pony idea all together and I am now “Snow”, apparently.’
‘Maybe it’s a term of endearment?’
He looked at her with daggers in his eyes. ‘They’re dickheads! All of them, especially Brandon, who I hate! Snow? I mean is that the best they could come up with? Jesus, it’s not even clever! They are pathetic. And they had never heard of Kings Norton.’
‘Well, why would they have? It’s a long way from here.’
Her son’s comments were just another reminder of how he felt the whole wide world revolved around his school. She thought again of little Joe Marsh-Evans, who had had to leave school, and her pulse raced. It tore at her heart to think of her lovely boys being similarly forgotten so quickly.
Connor looked desperate. ‘I’m telling you now, Mum, if they don’t let me play rugby, I won’t stay there – how can I?’ His eyes brimmed with tears.
‘Did they say you couldn’t play rugby?’
‘No, but they made it clear that they have a stable team and there is only about five months for me to get a place and make my mark. It’s all I want to do, and if I can’t train and can’t go to a professional club later and say that I played throughout my school, it’ll be pointless!’
She watched the anxious rise and fall of his chest, knowing just how much this would mean to him.
‘I am confident that as soon as they see you play you will get a spot on the team. Don’t forget you won your place in the A team at Kings Norton, it wasn’t gifted to you.
There were several boys after your spot, but you fought hard and the coach picked you.
You got it on talent, and that talent is still there, waiting to be seen.
You can dazzle them when you get the opportunity. ’
‘You don’t know anything, Mum! How can you be confident about anything?
You just don’t get it! The rugby training has started at Kings Norton and it was all I could think about, picturing the boys on the field, wearing the kit that I was so proud to put on.
And I was stuck in that horrible place, with everyone asking me to repeat words and laughing at my voice, wearing this .
. .’ He pulled roughly at the logo on the sweatshirt.
‘And I didn’t ask for any of it! And I don’t understand what’s happened to my life! ’
She felt a wave of anxiety at the thought that not only was her son deeply unhappy, but that it was her fault. Finn’s fault.
‘I understand, Connor, and you have every right to be angry, but I meant what I said to you this morning. You are an amazing boy, and you have the strength and resilience to come through this. I don’t think it will always be easy, not at all, but I do have faith that things will get better.
’ She hoped her words might act as a balm in some way, or if nothing else as a distraction.
She smoothed his hair and laid her hand on his arm. ‘I know everything feels tough right now, but you need to give it a chance. You are only one day in, and who knows what will happen tomorrow?’
‘I think I can have a good guess at what will happen tomorrow.’ He ground his teeth. ‘More of the same. I hate it here. I hate it. I want to go home.’
Nina pictured the padlocked gate of The Tynings and the empty shell of the house. It broke her heart that her boy had been forced to take this onto his shoulders, to face these challenges at his tender years.
‘I know. And I miss it too. I miss everything. This couldn’t be more different, could it?
But this is home for now. No matter how grim, or cold, or’ – she borrowed his word – ‘shitty. I can’t make promises, Connor, I can only tell you what I believe: the Kings Norton motto – determination, courage and faith – and those attributes will get you through. ’
He looked up. ‘George and Charlie FaceTimed me today during my break – they were hanging out on the pitch.’ The expression on Connor’s face was enough to make her weep.
‘That must have been tough to see.’
‘It was.’ He nodded. ‘I felt like running away.’
‘Don’t do that. I shall only run after you, and my running isn’t what it used to be. I have my gran’s dodgy knees, sadly.’ She tried out a smile, which he failed to return. ‘They can always come here to see you, or you can go back and see them, if you want to,’ she suggested softly.
Connor shook his head. ‘I don’t want them to come here and I definitely don’t want to go to Bath and have to hear all about who got my place on the team.’ He gulped and pushed his hair from his forehead.
‘I get that. And it probably feels like little reward now, but at least when you go through bad times, like this, you really appreciate the good. I pray for you that they are just around the corner.’
His distress flared again. ‘Well, you keep praying, because I can’t wait, Mum. Feeling like this sucks. It really does!’
It was going to take a bit more than a few changes to the bedroom and a well-placed side table to make everything feel better. She felt her bubble of joy from earlier well and truly lanced.
Connor kicked off the duvet and jumped up, standing in the gap by the side of his bed; he narrowly avoided tripping over her feet. His breathing got faster and shallower. He looked perilously close to tears and she hated how quickly his sadness turned to anger.
‘If I have to live here, I need to study. Where am I supposed to do that? Sitting on my bed? Or on the crappy sofa?’ He blinked quickly.
‘We can pick up a little desk, eventually, and put it where you are standing,’ she answered quietly, trying to keep her calm.
‘Yes that will make it perfect!’ he sneered.
‘And talking of studying, I got the piss taken out of me for calling it “prep” because they say “homework”, and I have some crappy assignment to do that needs to be in tomorrow.’ He jumped over her legs with an athletic leap and made his way into the sitting room.
She got the feeling he wanted to be anywhere she wasn’t.
Sitting on her son’s bed for a second or two, she closed her eyes and tried to picture her mum’s hand on her shoulder. Times like this, all she wanted was to feel her mother’s arms around her and to hear her words of advice.
‘Mum!’ Declan yelled from the other room.
She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, love?’ she managed.
‘Are there any more biscuits?’
She walked into the sitting room and stared at the crumb-filled plate on her boy’s lap.
‘Connor said he didn’t want any,’ Declan offered in his defence.
‘Not like I had any choice! You’d eaten them all!’ Connor spat. ‘Pretty much sums up my life.’
‘Oh, sweet Jesus, Con!’ She rubbed her temples. ‘Do you know what, love? You need to cut it out!’