Did he? I find that almost unbearable. Who makes false promises to someone so little? I serve him his pizza, which he eats methodically, chewing carefully. I make myself swallow two slices.
‘Tommy?’ I speak pretend-casually, not wanting to spook him. ‘What did you set on fire in Mrs O’Malley’s house?’
‘Nothing, Yaya!’
‘And in Clare’s?’
‘Only Mr Candle and Ms Matches.’
‘And did you try to set the house on fire?’
He looks at me as if I’ve truly lost my mind, left it somewhere else, as if only someone spectacularly stupid could ask such a thing.
‘But did you want to?’ I can’t help myself.
He ignores me, bends down to pat Herbie.
‘Just going to the loo, Tommy,’ I say.
He doesn’t answer.
I close the bathroom door behind me and look in the mirror, see a blur looking back at me, which is not unusual. What is unusual is a bar of carbolic soap still in its wrapping. I’d never buy that shit. Wash your mouth and your thoughts out, Sonya. A disembodied voice.
‘Yaya?’ Tommy shouts from outside the door. Was I talking out loud again?
‘It’s ok, Mr T. Just doing a poops,’ I say, hoping to make him laugh, but then I remember our previous open-door policy. Jesus, the booze really lowered the boundaries.
‘All done!’ I say as I come back out.
‘Stinkystink, Yaya!’ He waves his hand in front of his nose.
I pinch mine. ‘Poopy-poop-pooppoop.’
A quiet laugh builds inside him. I can see the effort it’s taking him to push it down. I tickle him under the arms. He explodes, tears running down his face. I’m not sure if he’s laughing or crying; probably both.
‘Tommy, would you like to tell me something about your time with Clare? Anything?’
‘Poopy-pooppooppooop!’
‘Did Clare teach you to light a match?’
‘Stinkystinkstinkstinkstink!’
‘How about school? Are you happy to go back?’
‘The colour of seagulls,’ he says.
‘Are you talking about the clouds, or the building?’
‘Grey white grey.’
‘No wonder you’re so good at drawing! Will we get our colour book out, my little artist?’
He almost bounces on his heels with excitement. ‘Yes, Yaya.’
‘You know how it’s your birthday in ten days, Tommy? Will we have a party?’
He goes to the art drawer at the bottom of the bockety Ikea chest of drawers, which I didn’t bother to assemble properly, and takes out crayons, glitter, glue and a scrapbook.
‘Who come to the party, Yaya?’
Clare, Maureen, Father, Lara, David? Not much of a crew for a five-year-old.
‘What about your pals from school, Tommy?’
He shrugs. ‘Miss Maeve,’ he says.
‘Your teacher? Do you like her?’
‘She gave me gold stars.’
He’s engrossed in rubbing Pritt Stick glue on a blank page and shaking the tube of glitter in uneven triangular shapes.
‘Tommy, that is truly beautiful!’
He looks at me, delighted. I clear my throat, speak low: Come into my orbit. ‘Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night.’
Tommy looks thrilled. I climb on to the couch, smooth down my dress, engage my full, sonorous voice: ‘Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die… Go on, Tommy… What’s next?’
He stands and sprinkles glitter on the paper from a height. ‘Take him and cut him out in little stars…’
‘Yes? What’s next, you twinkly, brilliant boy?’
‘Fowget, Yaya.’
‘And he will make the face of heaven so fine…’ I prompt him.
‘That all the world will love Mr Sunshiny and fowget Mr Night!’
‘Magnificent paraphrasing, Tommy, you really are my little genius!’
‘Bow-wow-wow, Yaya!’
I curtsy and a cloud of glitter falls on my head. Tommy is throwing fistfuls like confetti. A twisting sensation in my guts. I need it to stop.
‘Ok, that’s enough, now. Are you going to hoover all that up?’
Again, that inherited gift for puncturing any happiness. Selfish, selfish, selfish.
‘I’m sorry, Tommy, I didn’t mean…’
Tommy ignores me and doesn’t try to make it all alright, like he normally would.
I continue, ‘How about we make your very first party invitations and you can take them to school tomorrow?’
He sticks the end of a red crayon stick in his mouth.