Room Wanted Ch. 01

"Dad sent me to come and get you," she said, "once we've finished your coffee of course."

They drank their coffee and chatted about University. Carolyn was fourteen months into an art and design degree specialising in fashion. Naomi suggested she should look at her wardrobe and give her some advice before they padded downstairs giggling, the smell of baking getting stronger and stronger.

"I'll do that Nomes," said Carolyn, "I'll bring my drawings."

"I'll bring the wine," said Naomi; after all Carolyn was almost twenty.

In the large kitchen diner the whole family was back around the table chatting good-naturedly and tucking into large slabs of the solid pudding rich in mixed spice and various fruits.

"Aah Nomes!" said Rob obviously in a good mood and 'at home', and cutting off a large piece and placing it on a paper serviette.

She bit into it, moist, fruity, sweet and spicy -- even better than the stuff Mum made.

"Mmmmmmm," she cooed, "this is fantastic!"

"Better than your Mums?" said Carolyn.

"Ooh you can't ask those kinds of questions Carolyn," said Rob, "it's not fair."

"No problem on that score Rob," said Naomi, "It's head and shoulders over hers." Rob smiled and bowed slightly.

"Old family recipe," he said, "all I did was double the sugar, double the mixed spice, double the fruit and add Amaretto and cherries."

"You make your own pies, bread pudding, excellent coffee..."

"You should try his Sunday Roasts No'mee," said Carla excitedly, "Daddy's a fantastic chef; he worked in a real kitchen, in a proper hotel."

"Really?" Naomi said, impressed.

"Worked my way through college as a Sous-chef and Commis-chef, and old habits die hard. He poured her more coffee, "you must come to lunch tomorrow," he said.

"Yay!" shouted Lizzie and Carla together making Paul put fingers in his ears. Naomi noticed; the teaching assistant in her watched and smiled at him. Rob noticed too, and raised his cup to her, one professional to another -- a thought that had struck her their first meeting, he had special needs as well as his wheelchair bound brother, not tiny Carla.

"Well whatever you did to that pudding, it worked brilliantly," said Naomi and she was just about to wax lyrical about how good it was when there was a single shout from Carla and the kitchen emptied, leaving just her and Rob behind as the gentle whir of Matt's electric wheelchair carried him into the living room and the TV.

"Second half of X factor, BGT, or Strictly, or some other crap like that," he said, taking himself a further skinny slice of the pudding.

"They're a fantastic bunch," said Naomi watching after them fondly.

"Best thing I've ever done." He said looking wistfully and strolling to the work top and pouring more coffee.

"Not all yours though?" She handed across her mug for a refill.

"Not as such," he said with a lift in his voice, "Lizzie is mine, Matt is my nephew and the others are all waifs and strays I've picked up over the years somehow."

"Fostering or adoption?" she asked finishing the last of her pudding and watching his fine bottom as he turned to the sink.

"Both," he said, "Matt's Dad was my brother, we lost him about six years ago to a brain tumour. Terrible thing to watch, he made me promise that I'd look after Mattie once he'd gone," Rob's face lost some of his constant smile, "saddest thing I've ever watched."

Tom's wife Anna had lost interest in both her husband and her son once Matt's cerebral palsy was diagnosed. She'd wept herself into misery, had tried to blame everyone for something that was just misfortune and the arguments started. She left citing irreconcilable differences, saying that Tom could keep the house and by implication Matt. She would have Matt one weekend in four to give Tom a rest, and argued that one evening a week wouldn't be convenient as she wanted to start her life over.

Things were going well and Anna had even started to house sit every third Wednesday so Tom could go to the pictures. His employer allowed him to run his part of the international accountancy firm from home, and Tom put the headaches down to his strange new working hours.

Tom fought his brain tumour with all of his might; the even more aloof Anna said she couldn't take Matt more than she did already. After the tumour stopped responding to the treatment, Tom was given months to live. Anna was in tears, not for the loss of her ex-husband but the thought that she'd be left responsible for her son. Again, Rob watched as his former sister-in-law tried to hold her husband responsible for the latest problem to befall her life. Recently divorced Rob and his parents were looking after Matthew most of the time and Anna seemed terrified that the care might come to her now. She asked why Rob and his parents couldn't look after Matthew seeing as... as...

Rob's Mum, added the last words, "Because you can't be bothered, because that Darling boy is too much trouble for such an important fucking woman like you..."

Anna's mouth flapped like a landed fish, and faced with the outright animosity of her former mother-in-law, she stormed out of the hospital never to be seen again. She had already sold the lease on her flat some weeks before and had moved, leaving no forwarding address, cancelling her email address and changing her mobile phone number. Rob could almost hear her complaining about having to tell her friends her new number while banning anyone but social services from having it. Social services had it on the understanding that the Data Protection Act banned them from telling the number to Tom or his family. They seemed singularly unable or unwilling to make her take any kind of responsibility for her son.

Tom's last bed was in a hospice side room, and he had dubbed it 'the dying room' from the first moment he went to there for some respite for his mother and Rob.

"That's the room Robbo," he'd said to his brother, "I've seen three friends go in there and not come out. When they wheel me in there, you know it's time to dig out the coffin catalogues and book the hearse."

Tom had been to the hospice for several weeks at a time. The doctor and hospice staff had tried to help him towards 'closure' for him and his family suggesting that he should go home for his final days.

"Fuck that," he'd said, "No way do I want my family forever associating any room in my house with me dying in it. No, you whizz me in there, put Lord of the Rings on the DVD player, turn down the lights and let me get on with it."

And that was what they'd done. Matt had been wheeled in for what was to be his final visit, and had wept big tears, along with everyone else in the room, pained at the bravery of both father and son.

Rob was with Matt in the small waiting area and was about to take him along to the small creche.

"Mr Stanley?" said the nurse, "Tom has asked for you. I'll see to Matt."

Tom's tumour had increased to a size that the pressure on his brain was almost unbearable. He was heavily sedated and brought round once or twice a day when he had visitors, he was able to stay conscious for shorter and shorter periods until the pain had him crying out.

Rob knew that Tom was at that stage already.

"Rob," gasped Tom, "promise... me..." he panted against the agony in his head, "promise... me... Matt..." he gasped, "My boy," he suppressed some great emotion, "my baby boy," fat tears started to run down his brother's cheeks and Rob knew for once that they weren't about the pain. Tom reached out and grasped Rob's hand, "Please... look after my boy... don't let them... send him to a home... they'll leave him in... a corner..." Tom gasped, "covered in his own dribble... in nappies... seen it..." he screwed up his eyes against the image, "don't let them... send him... don't... let... her..." his voice turned to a faint growl, "bitch...Anna..." then a desperate gasp, "please!"

"It's OK mate, it's OK," said Rob, his eyes brimming as his dying brother held his hand in a vice-like grip, "he's coming with me."

"I've... left it... all to you Rob," Tom was fighting the agony and the desire for the drugs that would end it, "Please, take my boy... take him... home."

"OK mate," said Rob now holding his brother by the shoulders, "he's already got his own room Tom, he'll live with me and Lizzie and Carolyn, I swear I'll raise him like you would have done, he'll be fine, trust me, you don't have to worry, not ever, I've got your back mate," Rob whispered barely in control, "You can be on your way Tommo," he hissed using his boyhood nickname, "I'll always be there for him, and he'll always remember you." The red-eyed nurse in the background was blinking through tears and preparing a syringe of clear liquid, and looking at Rob.

"Thanks... Rob," Tom's face was red, his eyes closed, his face had just the faintest hint of a smile and his shoulders eased into the bed again.

"Drugs," said Rob turning his tear stained face to the nurse, "for Christ's sake give him his drugs."

Rob held Tom's hand until he started to slip into unconsciousness.

"Night... Rob..." whispered Tom as the opening titles to 'The Return of the King' began to play.

Tom passed during the night, as he'd wanted; peacefully, without fuss, in his sleep, on his own, with Frodo bravely marching towards Mordor. His son Matt had slept in his own bedroom at his Uncle Rob's house, carried upstairs until a stair lift could be fitted.

The hospice rang Rob the following morning as instructed. Tom had arranged his own funeral and with some final signatures from Rob, the funeral took place.

True to his word, Tom had left everything to his brother Rob, including his large house on the outskirts of a small village, the mortgage already paid by the insurance. Rob sold his house, moved his family into the big house, and that was that.

A year later, being a legal expert Rob was able to legally adopt Matt because of his mother's outright refusal to contact anyone outside of the social services department, contact Rob, care for Matt or make any kind of decision that might mean she was responsible.

He was even able to raise a writ for costs against his missing ex-sister-in-law that he left with the social worker, as his Mum put it, "just in case that spineless bitch puts her snotty nose out of the mire for more than twenty minutes."

The social worker knew better than even thinking of saying anything in Anna's defence.

"So this was Tom's house and we moved in. That's him there," said Rob pointing up to the photo of Matt and a good looking man the image of Rob.

"So you had Carolyn before Matt?" said Naomi.

"Carolyn was the start of the whole thing; she was being fostered by my neighbours, and was all over my Lizzie and after a few months they were like sisters. Carolyn spent as much time in my house as she did in my neighbours; sleep-overs, lunch, tea, supper, everything." He took a deep breath, "What I didn't know was my wife was spending a lot of time at her house, having an affair with my neighbour's husband as it turned out, and left me for him. After the divorce I got custody of Lizzie and the house, and one evening Lizzie and Carolyn both came in from the garden in tears and asked if Carolyn could be in our family because her foster family was breaking up and she had to go to a new one. I had to say yes didn't I..."

So that's what had happened to Mrs Stanley; silly bitch. Love is blind they say, well the other bloke must have been fucking wonderful to walk out on Rob.

There was a shout from the front room, high pitched and passionate about whatever had been on the TV.

"Carla came to me via Matt's social worker a few years after we moved here. She was a proper grubby Dickensian street urchin complete with nits, lice and malnutrition; I think that's why she's a bit little for her age." Rob sipped from his coffee, "her Mum was a drug addicted alcoholic occasional prostitute that left Carla to run wild." He dropped his voice, "died in her sleep locked in her bedroom, choked on her own vomit or an overdose by all accounts, still had the needle in her arm.

Because of the area they lived in no one found Mum for a month. Carla had to feed and fend for herself, and she would wander into food shops and sweet shops and just take stuff off of the shelves and eat it in the middle of the shop. For the first week people said 'Aw how sweet, look at the tiny kid taking stuff off of the shelf, how funny'. After a while the shopkeepers didn't think it was funny and recognised her as being the addict whore's kid and the bitch should look after her better and kicked the poor little sod out.

After a while she was starting to smell rather and was pushed out of all the shops and there was no where she could eat. This was followed by reports of the ghost kid trotting around the flats whining for food at all hours but because her Mum was such a scary cow no one would take her in or want to do more than pass her a sandwich. The bloke most people took to be her Dad was the big crack dealer on the estate and again, no one wanted to suggest he couldn't look after his own kid.

The lock on the front door was wrecked so Carla came and went as she wanted, sleeping on the couch as the flat was a one bed and Mum was locked in there, dead of course. She'd had a bit of a record with the social workers and they kind of left her alone because of it. Add to that, there was a suggestion on the estate that the Mother had done a runner because of unpaid drug bills.

Finally it got to the point when the local police would catch a fleeting glimpse of Carla, and the school was getting reports from all the classes of this phantom kid walking around the estate trying to get stuff to eat from the other kids, stealing it from open windows when she had to. Got so that even the social workers couldn't just keep putting it on the waiting list.

They set several traps for her but she was too small and too quick and had too many escape routes, which culminated in the duty social worker actually deciding to go and visit; with the local Bobby she went up to the door and knocked, it swung open and both were knocked off of their feet by the smell of the decomposing mother.

We reckon that with the blue lights of the police and the ambulance and all the people around the front door, she just ran. Of course to make it worse, the council housing department insisted they clean the flat so they could re-let it. Not just the druggie's house but the two either side and one above that no one would live in because of the visitors. So some mindless jobsworth ordered the door repaired on a Friday and then locked it, ignoring the police and social worker request that it should be left open on a latch that was high up so she couldn't unlock it.

When social services finally caught up with her she was so far over the wrong side of the tracks she was in the engine shed, probably nicking Thomas the tank engine's coal. No one seems to have heard of her Dad since."

Naomi sipped her coffee, suddenly her life didn't seem so bad after all. "How did they catch her?"

He smiled and sipped at his, "Poor little sod snuck on a bus, it was pissing down apparently, and fell asleep because it was so warm and cosy. She must have hidden under seats or something because she was found at four in the morning by a lady cleaner, sound asleep on one of the long seats.

They picked her up, and carried her, still asleep, into the crew room and called the police who contacted social services, she went to hospital where she was a bit of a star. A malnourished one, but a star none the less. The nurses would take it in turns to hold her at night so she would sleep."

"Oh how awful for her, the poor kid," Naomi sighed, "I guess that Carolyn and Lizzie put her straight."

"Yep," he grinned proudly and finished his coffee, swirling the cup, "and then some. Carolyn had been in care and just knew what she was going through and what she needed. Carla came to us as a four year old, virtually feral. She hardly spoke, trusted no one, couldn't use a knife and fork, ate really quickly with her hands then looked at everyone else's plate to see what they had left. The social worker had told me so of course so I worked out just what she needed then added some because the poor little bugger never knew what it was to be full up and would have eaten until the was sick.

So I showed her the cupboard where the crisps and biscuits were; don't worry I introduced her to the concept of fruit," she chuckled, "yeah I know. I put a glass of milk by HER bed, left the night light and the radio on in HER room, and left the door open for her. An hour later I went up to find that she'd gone; I found her asleep in Carolyn's bed. Carolyn was fifteen at the time and I don't think she let go of her hand for the first three months."

"Wow," said Naomi trying not to look shocked.

"While I was trying to get her just to use the loo and not the garden, Carolyn and Lizzie got her to use the bath and shower; my two girlies see? They both knew what it was to be a littler girlie and they just played games with her, she had never learned to play you see, poor little sod. One of the games they played was splashing with water. They moved that from the garden into the bath and the shower, they all love that bloody bathroom!" He grinned. "They still spend loads of time in there together, I must have spent hundreds of pounds on bubble bath.

They started to brush each other's hair, make plats, tease out the knots, comb in the conditioner and comb out the remaining head lice. Again, they still play with each other's hair; they're all good at hairdressing!"

He looked proudly towards the front room and the sound of them agreeing or disagreeing with what one of the judges had said, "By the end of the second week she was saying please and thank you and washing her hands after going to the bathroom, she never used the bathroom before.

Here we are four years on, she's top of the class in English and maths, speaks like she's been to Roedean and never shuts up, and the school think I should put her down for the local grammar because she'd piss the scholarship just on exam results. Carla is a tribute to Carolyn and Lizzie, nothing to do with me."

"Yeah, well who raised Carolyn and Lizzie, the tooth fairy?"

"OK," he grinned, "I'll give you that. Aaah, here's my boy!" Paul appeared at the kitchen door peering through his glasses."

"Now then Daddy," said the boy in the most words Naomi had ever heard from him.

"What you after buddy?" said Rob.

"Carolyn has sent me out for snacks while the adverts are on," Paul gave a slight twitch and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Take the biscuit tin," said Rob and Paul carefully opened the cupboard and removed a tin, "and tell your sister to come and get them herself next time!"

Paul put his head around the corner, "She's helping Mattie in the bathroom," he said, "with... with... with Lizzie." He walked away very business-like.

"OK mate," said Rob, now picking at the crumbs and currants left on the plate on the table. "Paul now," he said nodding towards the boy.

"He's on the spectrum isn't he," said Naomi. Rob raised his mug in appreciation of her abilities and spotting that Paul was on the autistic spectrum.

"I guessed that you'd spotted it," he grinned again, "He has an IQ in the one-fifties... and Asperger's Syndrome. He can talk higher maths, introductory particle physics, at fourteen he has fourteen GCSE's, half way through four A' levels targeted to get 'A-star' for all of them but I have to buy him shoes with Velcro because he can't figure out laces. If I put one of my or Matt's T-shirts in his room by mistake he has to take everything out of every drawer in his room just to check that nothing else is in there."

"I'll be careful with my laundry," said Naomi.