doesn’t he smile? Do you want a biscuit, Ben? Do you want to play a game?
He found he enjoyed being wooed in this way. To be four years old is to wield great power over women of a certain age. He soon learnt how to exploit this power: how even a half-hearted whimper could cause those ladies real concern, how a smile could earn him biscuits and treats. Each lady had her speciality: Mrs Chemical Blue gave him chocolate biscuits (but made him eat them over the sink); Mrs Electric Blue offered him coconut rings; Mrs French Blue, langues de chat . But his favourite was Mrs Baby Blue, whose real name was Catherine White, and who always bought the big red tins of Family Circle biscuits, with their jam sandwiches, chocolate digestives, iced rings, pink wafers – which always seemed especially decadent, somehow, by virtue of their flimsiness, like the flounces on her four-poster bed and her collection of dolls, with their blank and somehow ominous faces staring out from nests of chintz and lace.
His brothers hardly ever came. On the rare occasions that they did, at weekends or holidays, they never showed to advantage. Nigel, at nine, was already a thug: sullen and prone to violence. Brendan, still on the cusp of cute, had also once been privileged, but was now beginning to lose his infant appeal. Besides which he was a clumsy child, always knocking things over, including, on one occasion, a garden ornament – a sundial – belonging to Mrs White, which smashed on to the flagstones and had to be paid for by Ma, of course. For which both he and Nigel were punished – Bren for doing the actual damage, Nigel for not preventing him – after which neither of them came round again, and Benjamin was left with the spoils.
What did Ma make of all this attention? Well, perhaps she thought that someone, somewhere, might fall in love; that in one of those big houses might be found a benefactor for her son. Ben’s ma had ambitions, you see; ambitions she barely understood. Perhaps she’d had them all along; or perhaps they were born from those long days polishing other people’s silverware, or looking at pictures of their sons in graduation gowns and hoods. And he understood almost from the start that his visits to those big houses were meant to teach him something more than how to beat the dust from a rug or wax a parquet floor. His mother made it clear from the start that he was special; that he was unique; that he was destined for greater things than either of his brothers.
He never questioned it, of course. Neither did she. But he sensed her expectations like a halter round his young neck. All three of them knew how hard she worked; how her back ached from bending and standing all day long; how often she suffered from migraines; how the palms of her hands cracked and bled. From the earliest age, they went shopping with her, and long before they got to school they could add up a grocery list in their heads and know just how little of that day’s earnings was left for all their other expenses –
She never voiced it openly. But even unvoiced, they always felt that weight on their backs: the weight of their ma’s expectations; her terrifying certainty that they would make her sacrifice worthwhile. It was the price they had to pay, never spoken aloud, but implied; a debt that could never be paid in full.
But Ben was always the favoured one. Everything he did strengthened her hopes. Unlike Bren, he was good at sports, which made him suitably competitive. Unlike Nigel, he liked to read, which fostered her belief that he was gifted. He was good at drawing, too, much to the delight of Mrs White, who had no expectations, who’d always wanted a child of her own, and who fussed over him and gave him sweets; who was pretty and blonde and bohemian, who called him sweetheart , who liked to dance; and who laughed and cried for no reason sometimes and who all three boys secretly wished could have been their Ma –
And the White house was
He found he enjoyed being wooed in this way. To be four years old is to wield great power over women of a certain age. He soon learnt how to exploit this power: how even a half-hearted whimper could cause those ladies real concern, how a smile could earn him biscuits and treats. Each lady had her speciality: Mrs Chemical Blue gave him chocolate biscuits (but made him eat them over the sink); Mrs Electric Blue offered him coconut rings; Mrs French Blue, langues de chat . But his favourite was Mrs Baby Blue, whose real name was Catherine White, and who always bought the big red tins of Family Circle biscuits, with their jam sandwiches, chocolate digestives, iced rings, pink wafers – which always seemed especially decadent, somehow, by virtue of their flimsiness, like the flounces on her four-poster bed and her collection of dolls, with their blank and somehow ominous faces staring out from nests of chintz and lace.
His brothers hardly ever came. On the rare occasions that they did, at weekends or holidays, they never showed to advantage. Nigel, at nine, was already a thug: sullen and prone to violence. Brendan, still on the cusp of cute, had also once been privileged, but was now beginning to lose his infant appeal. Besides which he was a clumsy child, always knocking things over, including, on one occasion, a garden ornament – a sundial – belonging to Mrs White, which smashed on to the flagstones and had to be paid for by Ma, of course. For which both he and Nigel were punished – Bren for doing the actual damage, Nigel for not preventing him – after which neither of them came round again, and Benjamin was left with the spoils.
What did Ma make of all this attention? Well, perhaps she thought that someone, somewhere, might fall in love; that in one of those big houses might be found a benefactor for her son. Ben’s ma had ambitions, you see; ambitions she barely understood. Perhaps she’d had them all along; or perhaps they were born from those long days polishing other people’s silverware, or looking at pictures of their sons in graduation gowns and hoods. And he understood almost from the start that his visits to those big houses were meant to teach him something more than how to beat the dust from a rug or wax a parquet floor. His mother made it clear from the start that he was special; that he was unique; that he was destined for greater things than either of his brothers.
He never questioned it, of course. Neither did she. But he sensed her expectations like a halter round his young neck. All three of them knew how hard she worked; how her back ached from bending and standing all day long; how often she suffered from migraines; how the palms of her hands cracked and bled. From the earliest age, they went shopping with her, and long before they got to school they could add up a grocery list in their heads and know just how little of that day’s earnings was left for all their other expenses –
She never voiced it openly. But even unvoiced, they always felt that weight on their backs: the weight of their ma’s expectations; her terrifying certainty that they would make her sacrifice worthwhile. It was the price they had to pay, never spoken aloud, but implied; a debt that could never be paid in full.
But Ben was always the favoured one. Everything he did strengthened her hopes. Unlike Bren, he was good at sports, which made him suitably competitive. Unlike Nigel, he liked to read, which fostered her belief that he was gifted. He was good at drawing, too, much to the delight of Mrs White, who had no expectations, who’d always wanted a child of her own, and who fussed over him and gave him sweets; who was pretty and blonde and bohemian, who called him sweetheart , who liked to dance; and who laughed and cried for no reason sometimes and who all three boys secretly wished could have been their Ma –
And the White house was
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