The Enumerations Page 3

Noah’s right hand flies to his face. His mother looks at him pleadingly. But he can’t help it. His lips, 5 taps, and then both hands are there, holding back the words. His feet have started tapping, 5 times to the left, 5 times to the right.

  There’s nothing you can say, Noah. Nothing can make this better. The moment the barking started, that was it.

  8.

  Audrey and Dave Parfitt are the Groomes’ next-door neighbours. They were there when Dominic and Kate moved in, but their interactions have barely moved beyond quiet ‘Good mornings’ from David and strings of polite complaints from Audrey – if she manages to buttonhole Kate at the fence that separates their properties. Both Audrey and Dave have now retired; Audrey from her job as a pa to a local attorney, Dave from the town planning department. But it still took Kate entirely by surprise when Audrey announced one day that they were going to get a dog. ‘Now that we’re both going to be at home all day, we can finally have a pet,’ she said.

  And so, Dave gave Audrey a puppy for Christmas. ‘Only he can’t join us immediately, my dear,’ Audrey called out to Kate on Boxing Day. ‘They don’t like to take them away from their mothers too early, you know. They need the best possible start in life. We’re picking him up on the ninth of January and we’re calling him Tigger! Oh, Kate, I’m so excited, I can hardly contain myself.’

  Kate nodded and smiled, edging her way back towards the house.

  ‘Maybe the puppy will be good for her,’ Maddie said. ‘Maybe she’ll keep her nose out of our business.’

  The Groomes are all agreed that they can do without Audrey’s never-ending phone calls, her ‘Yoo-hoo Kate, Kate, could I have a quick word with you?’ Always about trivial matters: the noise the children make when they’re playing outside; the way their trees shed leaves all over Audrey’s lawn; how their automatic garage door clangs when it closes; why Kate never brings their bins in immediately after the rubbish has been collected. The complaints are endless.

  Each time, Kate cuts her short with another, ‘I’m so sorry, Audrey.’

  But no apology was issued from Audrey when Tigger finally arrived, with one of those shrill, incessant barks that punctured Noah’s head like an arrow.

  Every morning, usually around 2 a.m., Noah was woken by Tigger as he bounced from one end of the fence to the other, raff-raff-raffing his way up and down, yelping at imagined shapes, chasing his tail with wild excitement. Every morning, Noah tried to block out the noise, but he couldn’t.

  By the time Tigger had been in residence for 8 nights, Noah had had to adjust his timetable considerably.

  When Tigger started his yapping, Noah had to get out of bed and watch the dog tear up and down, up and down. 4 times in 1 minute. It usually took 12 or 13 minutes (2×5+2/3) for the puppy to do his thing. Fine for Tigger, but not for Noah. Falling asleep had always been stressful, ages spent watching the clock, calculating how many valuable minutes he was losing every night, and now he was losing minutes more.

  For the first few nights, Spit and Spot had woken up too. They’d ambled down to the fence, greeted the little dog with a sniff, then returned to the comfort of their baskets. From then on, it was only Noah who woke up, and stayed awake.

  ‘She’s besotted with that dog’. That’s what Noah’s mom said, and it was more than obvious. Mrs Parfitt would stand at the front door, her voice as shrill and yappy as her new pet’s.

  ‘Tiggie’, she’d yip from just inside her front door in the early hours. ‘Here, Tiggie-Tig!’

  Tigger would pause, prick up his ears, cock a leg and mark his territory.

  Noah dreams of running, balancing, measuring. If he wakes up during the night, he cannot go back to bed until he’s completed all his chores, done them perfectly. Sleep is Noah’s enemy. He can’t manage without it, but he hates the way it steals his hours, cuts them out of his day.

  And now, with Tigger, it’s even more of a problem.

  Don’t think you can drift off again. Find a way to earn more hours.

  So Noah watched carefully through the window as Tigger yapped along the fence. He kept a record of the times the noise started, when it stopped, and how long it took Mrs Parfitt’s voice to pierce the night calm (2 minutes on average). He noted how many times Tigger ran up and down and whether the dog lifted his leg against the fence (✓), or squatted next to it (✓✓).

  Every morning, on the way to school, there was Mrs Parfitt, at the fence, pooper-scooper in her gloved hand, cleaning up after her precious pup, with Tigger jumping around her.

  ‘Full of beans and full of bounce, he is,’ Mrs Parfitt would say fondly as Noah trudged to the car behind his sister.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ Kate said on the morning of the thirteenth day. ‘What are we going to do about it? You have to speak to her, she’ll listen to you, Dom. I’ve had enough and Noah’s exhausted.’

  She had, in fact, already tried the week before. ‘Audrey,’ she’d said gently, ‘could I talk to you about Tigger? About his barking?’

  Mrs Parfitt was washing Tigger’s ‘spot’ on the fence. She looked at Kate incredulously. ‘His barking? What on earth do you mean, Kate?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that he’s waking Noah,’ Kate said. ‘Every night, with his barking. When you let him out, perhaps you could try—’

  ‘But Kate, dear, we have to train him. Every night, dear, every night.’ Audrey scooped Tigger up, held him close. Two pairs of brown eyes bored into Kate’s.

  Her voice wavered, but she carried on: ‘Yes, but you see, Noah—’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you expect, dear. He’s a dog. You can’t expect him not to bark. There is absolutely nothing I can do about that.’

  Before Kate had a chance to reply, Audrey turned on her heel and trotted into her house, closing the door firmly behind her.

  ‘He’s a rat of a dog,’ Noah’s mother said. ‘I can’t do it again, Dom, I just can’t. You have to talk to her.’

  So on that 13th morning, his father walked up to the fence to talk to their neighbour about Tigger. Noah watched her soften as he approached.

  ‘Audrey,’ he said. ‘Audrey, we seem to have a bit of a problem here with Tigger’s night-time barking.’

  She was holding Tigger, but her arms loosened and her puppy slid to the ground with a yowl. Noah’s father looked down at the small creature.

  ‘I’m sure we can come up with a reasonable solution? Especially now that the little fellow’s a bit older?’

  ‘Well, yes, yes,’ she gushed.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Noah’s father, ‘you could let him out into the back garden instead of the front?’

  ‘The back garden? Of course. Now why didn’t I think of that?’ Audrey was fiddling with her hair, smiling. ‘What a good idea, Dominic.’

  He left her blushing at the fence and walked over to the car. ‘So much fuss over one little dog,’ he muttered. What he meant, really, was so much fuss over Noah.

  ‘I tried to suggest that to her a week ago,’ Noah’s mother said. ‘Silly cow.’

  ‘Anyway, let’s see if the back garden works. She’s promised to try it the next time she lets him out at night.’

  But there wasn’t a next time. That morning, after 13 sleepless nights, Noah broke Kyle Blake’s arm and everything changed.

  9.

  8 February 2013 / 10:35

  ‘It was just to stop him hitting me. I didn’t mean to hurt him.’

  ‘He was clearly provoked,’ says Dr Lovelock, the psychiatrist Miss Moloi ‘strongly recommended’. A tall, gaunt man with narrow shoulders, he looks as if he’s been folded into his chair.

  Kyle Blake’s parents refuse to consider that Kyle is in any way to blame. They want to see Noah in a proper facility. If he stays with a programme, gets the treatment he needs, they will drop all charges.

  ‘Well, Mrs Groome.’ The psychiatrist passes a sheaf of brochures to Kate. ‘Let’s have a look at these.’

  Noah’s fingers slide across his pebbles as Dr Lovelock talks and his
mother listens and nods her head. Dr Lovelock looks over the top of his spectacles. Does he even need them, Noah wonders. He peers over them at Noah and his mother and examines the paperwork on his desk.

  The words ‘residential’ and ‘programme’ snap Noah back into the present, back into the gloomy room where Dr Lovelock tells them what has to be done.

  ‘According to the terms of this agreement, you have to choose a suitable residential programme, and I will have to approve it.’

  Noah’s fingers move faster and faster as his mother nods, his pebbles clicking quietly. He tries not to look at the brochures, tries not to count the number of glossy options. His mother’s studying them now, her face intent and unhappy. He should speak up; maybe it’s not too late to set things right. His breathing speeds up, puffs out in short bursts, more than 6 inhalations and exhalations per minute; that’s not good.

  Slow and controlled, Noah. You know how to do it.

  His mother’s on her feet now, looking earnestly at the psychiatrist, thanking him and saying, ‘We’ll try it, Dr Lovelock, anything that helps Noah.’

  We? Noah wants to yell, Who’s your ‘we’? But the words won’t come.

  ‘I’d recommend Greenhills,’ Dr Lovelock says, his voice treacly as he guides her out of his rooms.

  The words on the tip of Noah’s tongue pour down his throat, along with their commas and question marks and apostrophes. They taste terrible, yet are strangely easy to swallow. He’s eating words, chewing punctuation, but it doesn’t help. Noah’s world is tilting and he’s losing control.

  It’s 5 steps to the door, and then another 5, and the psychiatrist’s at Noah’s side, and he’s saying, ‘Trust me, Noah, this is for the best. You’ll see.’

  His mother nods again when Dr Lovelock reminds her about Greenhills. ‘They offer a three-month residential stay. I can get in touch with Ellen Turner, if you wish. She’s an excellent therapist. If you like the place, she’ll see all of you before he checks in. Given Noah’s situation at school and his high levels of anxiety, this isn’t the worst thing. It will be a blessing in the long run.’

  Dr Lovelock’s ready with a prescription too. ‘Better up his meds for now, too. Just temporarily.’

  His mother’s holding up a glossy pamphlet – all pristine white buildings with red tiled roofs, tall chimneys and neat lawns.

  ‘It all looks very nice—’

  ‘It is,’ says Dr Lovelock. ‘Just right for Noah. And it will definitely satisfy the conditions stipulated, provided he’s willing to work with the programme.’

  Noah stares at the floor. He’s busy slicing words into sets of 5, seeing them hang – perfect in the air – before they slowly melt away.

  Finally, it’s time to leave. 5 steps to the middle of the waiting room, 5 to the door, 5 to the lift.

  Greenhills.

  Green-hills.

  It should be two separate words. Green and Hills – 5 letters for Green. 5 letters for Hills.

  That’s something at least.

  His thoughts are looping, he can’t make them stop. He should try – now would be an excellent time to start working on the problems that landed him here – but he’s scared. It’s too big a risk to take. He can’t expose his family to danger.

  Everything lucid and rational tells him that his precautions and safety measures do nothing, mean nothing, but the moment Noah allows himself that thought, a heavy shadow descends, woken by him.

  Green has 5 letters; hills has 5 letters.

  Noah’s hanging on.

  3×5 steps from the lift to the door that swings into the street, 6×5 more and there’s the car. He’s tapping his forehead now and then his nose, cheeks, mouth.

  His mother watches him, but this time she doesn’t tell him to try not to count, try to think of something else.

  The shadow is growing, dark and menacing, but it’s okay because Noah’s at the car: 5 taps on the handle, 5 pats on the seat and Noah’s left foot is 5ing and his right is too.

  5 fingers pressed against his thigh on one side, 5 on the other.

  They want to take him away from his parents and Maddie, but if he’s not there, who’s going to keep them safe?

  10.

  At the age of twenty-one, Kate found herself engaged to a man fifteen years her senior. His name was Dominic Groome and he was the most fascinating man she had ever met. Handsome – incredibly handsome, her friends said, clustering around her, exclaiming at the ring on her finger, a large solitaire diamond.

  They made a striking couple. He was tall, green-eyed, dark-haired, she almost as tall with blonde hair and deep brown eyes. But it wasn’t his looks alone that had initially attracted Kate – had first made her want to cross the room and stand near him, get a better look.

  What drew her to Dominic was the serious look on his face, as if he was standing alone in the room, that the dozen or so women who were all looking at him, gorging themselves on his beauty, didn’t exist, and neither did their husbands in their dark suits and quiet ties with their over-loud talk of mergers and markets.

  When one of the women said something to him, he looked at her and smiled, a courteous smile that softened the sharp planes of his cheeks and lit up his green eyes. The woman said something else, touched his arm lightly, and Kate felt jealousy surge hot and strong.

  ‘Who are all these people?’ she asked her date, a young man whose hopes included impressing his bosses with his beautiful companion and then plying her with enough alcohol to get her into bed later that evening.

  ‘Let me introduce you,’ he said, and started her on a round of the room, taking her further and further away from the tall, quiet man. She met husbands and wives: Jeremy, Leonie, Bart, Isolde, Buddy, Delia, Monica. No names she wanted to remember, certainly no one she wanted to talk to. Kate remembers the women sizing her up and one man holding her fingers too long in a hot hand.

  And then her date was propelling her towards the centre of the room. ‘This is one of the big guys,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘And the youngest partner in the company.’ He couldn’t have sounded more awe-struck if he’d tried.

  ‘Dominic Groome,’ her date said, ‘I’d like you to meet Kate Cilliers.’

  Kate offered him her hand, hoping he’d hold on to it forever.

  A brief smile was all she got, a light handshake and a polite greeting. Soon after that, the evening was over for Kate, and for her date too. He was drunk and angered by her insistence on calling a taxi. He was equally insistent that he was fine to drive; his place was just around the corner.

  ‘It’s only five minutes away.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, Kate. It’s really close.’

  ‘No.’ She turned away and came face to face with a man in a white shirt and navy tie.

  Dominic’s voice was quiet as he removed the keys from her date’s hand. ‘I’ll ask security to park your car,’ he said. ‘You can collect your keys from them in the morning.’

  The drunk young man, abashed now, mumbled a thank you and began to weave his way home.

  ‘I hope he’ll be all right,’ Kate said, although she really couldn’t care less.

  ‘He’ll be fine.’ Dominic said. ‘Now, my car’s right here. Can I give you a lift?’

  This is the part of their story that Kate will always remember clearly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, please.’ Gone was the cautionary voice telling her she didn’t even know him, because she did, of course she did. She’d known him all her life. All he’d needed was to appear, and there he was – her boyfriend to be, her fiancé, her husband and the father of her two children, Noah and Maddie. Her family.

  11.

  According to the brochure Dr Lovelock gave her mother, the Tranquillity Trust administers several private facilities, or ‘Houses’, as it prefers to call them. Each one offers a ‘specific type of treatment’ and has a gentle name.

  Greenhills.

  NoH-where, Maddie thinks.

  That’s her name for Greenhills. She watches
her mother fill in the admissions form. Name of Home it says on the first line and there-after NoH.

  When her brother walks into the adolescent unit at Greenhills, which according to the brochure supports young people with a range of issues using appropriate techniques in a safe and caring environment, that’s where he’ll be. In a NoH-where place filled with NoH-bodies.

  The only thing she can do right now is to make things as smooth as possible for him. Take him through the Greenhills brochure, suggest what he might like to take with him to make his room more ‘homelike’. That’s what the Greenhills information booklet says: A few small personal items. She gives her mother a shopping list of bits and pieces she thinks Noah might need. His own teaspoons, a plate for his biscuits, a ream of paper for creating new timetables. He won’t have his laptop, or a printer, like he has at home, so an extra stash of pencils, a couple of erasers, and some coloured pens.

  Ever-practical, Maddie has found a cardboard cylinder for the charts that cover his walls, those that detail the minutiae of his daily routine, his homework schedule, his exercise regime, not to mention the ever-expanding Family Tree diagram filled with name after name from their mother’s side of the family, all the way back to when the first Cilliers wrote in their Family Bible – the book that Noah pores over whenever they visit Ouma and Oupa.

  Their dad’s side is completely blank – no matter how often Noah asks, his father stonewalls him with the same exasperated reply: ‘There’s nothing to tell, Noah. How many more times do I have to tell you?’

  ‘C’mon. Let’s roll them up,’ Maddie says, but Noah doesn’t reply. Her brother’s reached the point where he can hardly talk, despite Dr Lovelock’s adjustments to his medication. Maddie’s seen him anxious before, but never like this. He’s sitting at his desk, both hands drumming out fives. She carries a stool over to the wall near the window, to the first printout. Small boxes, annotated by Noah’s neat hand. She pulls carefully at the bottom right-hand corner. The Prestik parts from the wall. Nothing tears.

  ‘I’ll do the bottom corners, Noe,’ Maddie says, ‘but you’ll have to help me with the top ones. I’m too short. Right?’