I nodded eagerly. ‘Me too.’ And then, ‘What’s a bitch?’
‘A female dog,’ he said, and laughed, and then he tickled me and I laughed too.
‘She said that I was a prisoner like her. Is that true, Dad?’
‘Of course not, you’re so precious to me. I want to keep you safe.’
‘Do you want to keep her safe?’
‘Ah now, Peter, you saw what she was like. Would you want her walking around the house with us?’
‘No way!’
‘Exactly. Now forget all about her. I’m sorry you had to suffer that. It won’t happen again.’ I went to my room and I wrote down the date on the wall behind my bed with a crayon. September 15th 1974. I don’t know why I did that, but it’s a date I never forgot.
Over the following weeks, I tried to forget about the bitch and the baby. Sometimes, at night, when everything else was silent, I could hear the baby crying from the room next door. I could hear my dad visiting to give them food and stuff.
I had lots more questions for Dad about why I didn’t go to school, and why I couldn’t have friends, and why I wasn’t allowed down to the front gate, but he got sad when I asked those questions. He said it was hurtful to him, and that he was doing his best.
Months later, I raised it again. ‘I’d like to go to school and meet other children. On television, children are always playing together. At the zoo that time, there were loads of children and families, like on television.’
This time, he shook his head and bid me to come and sit beside him. ‘I didn’t want to tell you this until you were older, Peter, but you have a disease.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s called necrotic hominoid contagion. If you touched another person, you would get sick and you could die, a painful death. Remember when we went to the zoo? I never let go of your hand. It’s too dangerous for you. You must never mix with other people. It’s the only way I can save your life. That’s why I had to leave you with her the time I went away for work. You cannot get the disease from your parents. There is nobody else I can leave you with. They might kill you.’
‘But what about when I grow up?’
‘I don’t know. I’m hoping some treatment might be available, but there isn’t a lot of research on the condition at the moment.’
‘What would happen if I touched somebody else?’
‘You would gradually turn to stone, like in the story of Medusa. Remember? The woman with snakes for hair? It’s an agonizing death. Whoever she gazed upon would turn to stone. You see, women and girls are particularly dangerous, but touching anyone at all would put you at considerable risk.’
This explained why Dad was so sad when I asked all those questions.
‘So will I stay here for the rest of my life?’
‘My poor boy, we will have Special Days Out on your birthday, but we must exercise extreme caution. You are happy here, aren’t you?’
‘I get lonely sometimes.’
‘And that’s why you have specially chosen books in your room. You can have extravagant adventures with Homer, or scale mountains with Sir Edmund Hillary, or fly a plane like Biggles.’
‘My favourite books are the ones about children who are friends with each other.’
He ruffled my hair fondly. ‘Your reading is advanced for your age. Alas, your taste is not.’
‘So … I’ll stay here for the rest of my life, with you?’
‘Let’s take it a day at a time. You never know when there might be a cure.’
‘What about my baby sister?’
He took his hands away from my hands. ‘What about her?’
‘Would I die if I touched her? Couldn’t she live with us?’
