Читать книгу: «A Boy Without Hope: Part 2 of 3»

Chapter 8

So. Casey nil. Miller – what must it be now? Around twelve? Because over the next dozen or so days, I had failed to make progress – either on getting him to sleep through the night, on any night, or in getting him out of the house.

Most frustratingly however, the rot was setting in, because, despite throwing everything at the problem, and pretty forcefully, I’d made little inroad in addressing the number-one issue: Miller’s obsession with staying in his room, playing computer games all the time. It would have been easy to regret having got him the PlayStation in the first place, but, in truth, without it, I don’t know how things would have panned out. Without it – and we rationed it regularly and frequently – he would simply get into bed and roll himself up in his duvet, and no form of inducement or threat of sanctions would winkle him out. We tried offering incentives, such as the purchase of a new game a few days hence, to reward good behaviour, but he seemed incapable of understanding the ‘jam tomorrow’ concept. Miller was only interested in the here and now. And if we tried sanctions – no getting the controller back until he spent an hour downstairs with us, say, watching TV together, getting to know each other – he would simply assert that he didn’t care if he never got it back; he was not ‘hanging out’ with us, and that was that.

In fact, the only time he seemed able to amuse himself differently was in the small hours of the night, when he’d while away his time playing with the assortment of distractions in his suitcase.

It was obvious that Miller had an addiction to playing computer games – and in that, he was far from alone. But I also had to factor in the control aspect of his make-up; with no one to control, because the household was asleep (well, in my case, more often than not, tactically feigning sleep), there was no incentive to exert his considerable will, because it would achieve nothing, manipulate no one.

It was also impossible, without him having a daily spell in formal education, to get him started on our strict behaviour modification programme, as so much of its effectiveness relied on the daily routines around education: getting up at a set time, getting washed, dressed and fed, then, in the evenings, doing any homework he’d been given without making a fuss, and going to bed at a time that had been agreed.

Without these simple daily rhythms – part and parcel of any childhood – we were in limbo, and had been for way too long a time now. It was only half-jokingly that I’d quipped to Mike one night that I half-wished he would bloody abscond.

Not that I’d been stuck in every day, all day. The day after Kieron’s visit, he’d been on a late shift, and had, to my immense gratitude, come over for the morning so I could have a couple of hours to myself. I’d like to have been able to report to Libby that this had proved a help to Miller, but, on my return it had been to hear that the nearest Kieron and Miller had got to ‘bonding’ was Miller’s grudging acceptance of Kieron sitting in his bedroom, and being ‘permitted’ to sit and watch him play his game.

‘Mum, he’s weird,’ had been Kieron’s considered view after spending a little time with him, echoing Tyler’s thoughts. ‘His face when he’s killing things is plain creepy.’

And it was an impression that hadn’t changed for Tyler either. He seemed happiest skirting around Miller wherever possible, and as he was knee-deep in revision for his coming exams, I wasn’t about to try and coax him to do more. Not least because I could feel the tension crackle between them whenever they were in the room together; I had this strong sense that Ty, though he’d never actually said so, would much rather his home hadn’t been invaded by Miller – our Ty, who, because of his own difficult background, had a huge amount of sympathy for difficult kids as his default. And I really didn’t want him to have to deal with any stress; not with his exams coming up.

Ditto Mike, despite him similarly being happy to do his bit. We were supposed to be a team, after all. But of all the kids I’d ever fostered – and this struck me as weird myself – Miller felt very much my responsibility. My personal cross to bear.

And my self-inflicted personal bête noire as well? It was becoming to seem so. ‘Love, just make him go out with you,’ Mike had said, more than once. But no tool in my toolbox seemed up to the job. Short of lassoing him and dragging him bodily to the car, kicking and screaming, I had no means of doing so, did I? Not with a child who knew exactly the way things worked; that physically dragging him anywhere could so easily be ‘spun’ into an official allegation of assault.

And that was the confounding crux of it all. Most kids, in my experience, at least have some fear of consequences. The bar might be set high with damaged, vulnerable children, but there would usually be some point, even if way beyond normal boundaries, when they’d pull back, frightened about what might happen to them if they tried to go further. Miller, however, displayed no fear at all. Indeed, it often felt as though he pushed us because he welcomed the consequences, because they fitted with his world view. Certainly, when he got them – almost exclusively to lose the right to play computer games – he would smile, almost knowingly, as if his hunch had been right: that adults couldn’t be trusted; that all they wanted was to make his life difficult.

Still, today was Saturday, which at least meant I had a little company.

Though right now, not of the pleasant kind, it seemed.

I was just easing into another day, sitting sipping my second coffee in the kitchen, when I heard a furious yelling coming from the top of the stairs. Not Miller, but Tyler, who was decidedly unhappy.

‘Mum! What the hell is going on with this internet?’

I pushed my chair back and pulled my dressing-gown cord a little tighter, then went out into the hall to see what was going on. Though things ‘going on’ when it came to anything internet-related were about as far from my area of expertise as it was possible to be. I was still at the same ‘bash the telly to see if the picture improves’ stage I’d been at since about 1973.

He was standing at the top of the stairs, fuming. ‘What’s up, love?’ I asked. ‘Has it gone off again?’

Tyler’s face was a picture of barely contained anger. ‘Yes it has. And if I’ve lost my assignment I’m going to go so mad,’ he said. ‘It’s the third time this morning and it’s driving me nuts. I was halfway through some coursework, which I haven’t even saved yet, and all the bits of research I had opened have gone!’

‘Well you can still save the work you’ve done, love,’ I said, trying to be helpful. ‘And Dad’ll be home from work before too long, won’t he? I’m sure he’ll know what to do. But if he doesn’t, we’ll get on to the internet company and find out what’s happening, okay?’

Tyler sighed theatrically, and slapped his hands against his sides. Then glared pointedly towards Miller’s closed bedroom door, before stomping off into his own room. I saw his point. It had gone off suddenly a couple of times one night in the week, and we’d already visited the idea that it might been something to do with Miller. But Mike had interrogated, investigated, and run all kinds of checks, and declared it to have been ‘just one of those things’, reassuring me that while Miller could control lots of things, our entire domestic internet wasn’t one of them. Not without us realising, anyway.

Even so, it now occurred to me that if the internet was off again, then Miller couldn’t be playing on the PlayStation, could he? So why wasn’t he kicking off as well? He had ants in his pants if he had to wait five minutes to eat a sandwich, if it meant losing some precious game time.

So what was he up to instead? I headed upstairs to find out.

I was surprised to see him sitting quietly on his bed, writing something on a large unlined notepad. It wasn’t one I recognised. Perhaps something from his case? I wondered if the little train I’d read about was somewhere in there too. Though now obviously wasn’t the time to ask him.

The TV screen was also blank. ‘First time I’ve see that thing off,’ I remarked mildly. ‘You not playing on your game this morning?’

Miller didn’t look up from his writing. He simply shrugged. ‘I was. I can’t play it right now, though. It’s off.’

Again, a completely uncharacteristic lack of concern.

‘Because of the internet going off again?’ I asked. ‘I’m going to try unplugging it and reconnecting it. See if that works. It often does.’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Miller said. ‘It’ll be back on again in ten minutes.’

It would be wrong to say alarm bells rang in my head. They didn’t need to.

‘And how exactly would you know that?’ I asked him, perching on the bed.

Silence. ‘Miller, answer me, please. How do you know that?’

The pen left his hand and whistled across the bedroom. ‘Oh my God,’ he said, as it clattered against the opposite wall and fell to the floor. ‘You moan when I’m on my game and now you’re moaning when I’m not! It’s fine. Everything is fine. We’ve just been hacked, that’s all.’ Hacked? ‘But it’s only for half an hour and then he’ll put us back on. So there’s no need to go off on one. It’s fine.’