Damon
I’m measuring my life in time stamps. Twenty-one days since I last spoke to Melissa, the morning after she drowned me and brought me back to life. Over five hundred hours of looking over my shoulder, waiting for my attacker to strike again. Almost three months since I first saw Callum Baird. And as I sit in a quiet corner of the stockroom at work, it’s been more than two weeks of waiting for the white sealed envelope in my hand to arrive.
I take a hit of nicotine from the vape in my other hand before I tear it open, but that sparks a coughing fit. They’re becoming more frequent, a hangover from filling my lungs with water too often. A lump of phlegm the size of a marble reaches my mouth and I spit it out into a nearby bin. It’s a crimson and black colour; I turn my head, not caring to dwell on what that might mean. My heart palpitations are also becoming a more common occurrence but, like the coughing, I haven’t had them checked out medically. I wonder how else I might have damaged myself.
Inside this envelope is a wedge of white A4 pages, and a covering letter with a logo at the top.
Dear Mr Lister,
Please find enclosed copies of historical records held by Lambeth London Borough Council Social Services as requested under your subject access request. Please be aware that redactions (blacked-out words) have been used. This may be due to third-party information being recorded where consent to share the information has not been sought or given. If you have any queries regarding your subject access request, please contact me using the address above.
I ready myself before I turn the page. When I do, the first thing I am struck by is how much has been redacted. Not the occasional word or sentence, but whole paragraphs and chunks of text.
Damon is a polite but quiet, withdrawn boy who is struggling to come to terms with the loss of his mother. A police investigation into her death has closed following¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦.
Having undergone counselling sessions with¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦our immediate concern for Damon is that because of¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦he is unsuitable for placement with a foster family.
I glare at the page. Why wasn’t I suitable for fostering? I turn it over and the rest of the report follows the same pattern. Black line after black line.
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦has spent¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦with Damon and believes he is¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦. Although there are signs of improvement, there is a¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦severe depression, anxiety, and may have a Dependent Personality Disorder. Such behaviour manifests itself in his fear of being alone and that he goes to great lengths to avoid separation.
Some of that makes sense, I suppose. But a Dependent Personality Disorder? Surely all I exhibited was normal behaviour from a child who had recently lost his mum in such a gut-wrenching way. The rest contains minutes of case conferences about me, social workers’ reports, their titles included but their names removed. It’s as if they want to prevent me from identifying anyone involved in making decisions about me. So much is missing, so much unsaid. It continues like this for six more pages. I attempt to guess the missing words but it’s like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle when someone has stolen some of the pieces.
For reasons stated earlier, his father, Ralf Lister, is unable to look after Damon.
Well, that goes without saying – he was dead by then. An accident at work, I was told. Again, something I have shied away from looking into. It’s not that I don’t think about him. Sometimes I used to imagine what my life might be like if he was in it. Even now I sometimes imagine picking up the phone and hearing him ask if I’d like to go out for a pint. But you can miss what you never had.
After a further page of text that has been almost completely redacted are two lines that confuse me:
However, it has been requested Damon is not returned to care in the local Lambeth area for¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦safety.¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦could be considered a danger.
Danger? Whose? Mine? Or other people’s? Did they think I was dangerous? Why? The idea of this sends a shiver skittering down my back. I read on.
We are in agreement¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦it is in Damon’s best interests to relocate him to a different area. For his long-term benefit, the move to Northamptonshire should be approved immediately.
And that’s where it ends. This report was supposed to have explained so much to me: fill in the chunks of my life before Mum’s death I can’t remember, perhaps even my relationship to the two dead boys. Instead, I’m no clearer. In fact, I’m more confused than ever.
I consider leaving work right now and catching a train to London to talk to Helena about it. Perhaps something has come back to her since my last visit. Or maybe this could jog her memory? But I decide against it. This is my problem, not hers. If the authorities aren’t willing to help me, then I’ll need to find a way to discover the truth by myself. I stuff the report into my jacket pocket and make my way back through the warehouse.
Only now do I realise my fists are clenched as tightly as my jaw. Anger isn’t an emotion I display very often, but I find myself picking up a broom and smacking the hell out of a pallet of shrink-wrapped toilet rolls.
I stop suddenly when I smell smoke. Looking up, I find my mum standing close to a forklift truck, watching me, holding Callum’s hand, the little boy perched on her hip. Her face is redder than I remember it being last time. Black, patchy soot-like markspepper her hands and forearms. Slowly her mouth opens and she sounds out that word, the one Callum keeps saying:
‘Oodis.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask. ‘I don’t understand.’
To my horror, Mum erupts into a ball of flames. Her piercing screams echo through the air as her body and face become engulfed in a swirling maelstrom of heat and fire. My face sears as the intensity of the blaze grows and spreads to the two boys. Now all three are flapping their arms wildly, their suffering unbearable.
I am jolted back to life and start yelling for help as I sprint towards an alarm attached to the warehouse wall. I slap the button and bells ring and a siren wails while a recorded voice instructs shoppers and staff to evacuate the building immediately. I spot an extinguisher and grab it. ‘Fire!’ I yell as I pull out the pin. ‘Help me!’
I hear footsteps approaching when I turn to point the extinguisher towards Mum and the boys. But they are no longer there. There are, of course, no flames, no intense heat, no burning bodies. Only me, in an intense state of distress.
‘What’s happening?’ shouts a colleague over the deafening siren. I turn to her, where she stands with two others.
‘I . . . I . . . thought I saw . . .’
My voice trails off as a chasm continues to yawn between reality and the nightmare I’ve hallucinated.
