Remy is the only kid here I don’t get. ‘Get’ being an Americanism for understand, of course. Not that unusual, you might say, for one human being to not understand another. After all none of us are mind readers, we probably don’t even understand the people we think we know like the back of our hands. The back of our hands. I’ve always found that a strange expression. As though we look at them the very most of any other body part. Perhaps we do. What else do we look at? The back of our eyelids. Oh, don’t worry about Jimmy getting home – he knows the route like the back of his eyelid. I digress... Remy. I don’t get him. The only child I don’t understand, which really is saying something. Saying something. Of course it’s saying something; I just said it for Christ sakes. Saying something significant, I mean. Curse all of these benign expressions that have crept into the language and curled up and died there like worms in apples.
I work with special children (another awful expression); mostly between the ages of 8 and 14, mostly on the autistic spectrum, though that in itself doesn’t tell you much. But having worked with them for a certain amount of time, I have grown to understand them. Not entirely, but I know what upsets them, what makes them feel safe, the specifics of their condition so to speak. Take Andrea. Andrea is 9. She hates loud noises, which is why she is afraid of balloons and cries when lots of people are talking at once and won’t respond to shouting. She likes being alone, because it’s quiet. She likes to walk around at night time, because it’s quiet. She puts things inside her ears, blu tack, wads of tissue, mushy peas. Her behaviour, to many, seems bizarre and irrational, but to me, it’s entirely rational. Rational above all else. I recommended that she be taken to the library. I tell her about silent films and British Sign Language and subtitles and ear muffs; quiet things, silent things, are what she revels in. I can understand her. I ‘get’ her.
Remy is new to the school, which is a semi residential respite centre for children with special needs. 10 years old. Small for his age. Very quiet, which is normal. Changing schools is upsetting for any child. But he showed no signs of upset. He just quietly got on with it. Went along with the routine, ate his lunch without any fuss (very unusual. Benjamin, for instance, throws his plate across the room like a Frisbee if he has an odd number of peas.) Little else stood out about him, except for the fact that he insisted on wearing latex gloves at all times. He brought a box of them with him - the disposable kind used by cleaners, nurses, catering staff. They were much too large for him and hung off his fingers as though he had a second skin, grotesquely shedding in whole sheaths. He fumbled a little with pens and pencils and cutlery. Germ phobic, I noted down in his file. Later on one of the care workers tried to make him laugh by blowing into one and putting it on his head like the comb of some pallid, puffy rooster. I watched in horror, expecting him to freeze up, to scream, to rock back and forth. The germs! Imagine them all floating around inside his beautiful sanitary gloves! Remy said nothing. He barely even blinked. The next day I asked him why he wore the gloves. Wasn’t it because he was frightened of germs? No. Why then? I wouldn’t understand, he said. Try me. ‘You won’t understand,’ he said.
I decided to keep an eye on him. ‘Keep an eye’ meaning to observe closely, of course, although in a subtle manner. Over the next week or so, he wore gloves at all times, except for several distinct occasions. The first time I saw him take them off was at breakfast. He peeled a banana, and then, tentatively, ran a bare fingertip down its length, eyes closed. Next he lopped the top off his boiled egg with a spoon and stuck his finger inside it. Interesting, I thought. He seemed to be exercising sexual exploration in a non-sexual environment; perhaps he had a fear of touching himself or others and yet needed an outlet for expression of repressed desire. Freud would have something to say on the matter, I imagined. I felt rather smug. I understood his behaviour. I ‘got’ him.
Another week passed and Remy’s behaviour remained the same. He would keep his gloves on at all times, and I didn’t discourage him. Sometimes he would cut fruit in half and run a gloveless fingertip over the raw new surface, the glassy green of a kiwi, the snowy whiteness of an apple. I put his behaviour down to repressed erotic desires and directed my focus towards other children.
A month must have passed before Remy drew himself to my attention again. With children who periodically smear their own faeces on walls to consider, those like Remy whose behaviour is more placid are easily overlooked. But that day, we had some men in to cut down a large tree in the back garden which the council deem unsafe. All the children were scared by the noise (Andrea had a panic attack) and hid in their rooms. Except Remy. He stood at the window watching intently, the concentration evident in his furrowed little brow. He stood there for hours while they worked, while they carted away the boughs, now in pieces, and swept up the sawdust. When they left, it was nearly dark. As soon as they were gone Remy ran outside and knelt down by the tree stump. I followed, slowly. Delicately he removed his gloves and laid them down gently at his side. He placed both hands flat on the tree stump and closed his eyes. I didn’t want to disturb him but I couldn’t hold myself back. I had to know what he was doing. This certainly didn’t fit in with my theories of sexualised behaviour.
‘What are you doing, Remy?’ I knelt down beside him. The grass was covered in sawdust; the smell was intoxicating. ‘Why have you taken your gloves off to touch the tree?’ He looked at me, not startled, not uncomfortable. Just calmly, matter-of-factly. I felt strangely embarrassed to have disturbed this little ritual of his. ‘You can touch, too,’ he said. Not a whisper, but a voice so quiet it seemed to come from inside my head. Holding his stare, I placed one hand on the stump. I could feel the ridges. ‘One ring for every year of the tree’s life,’ I said, chuckling a little to put him at ease. To put myself at ease. ‘You,’ he said. ‘You are the second human being in the whole of history, ever to touch this.’ ‘And you are the first,’ I smiled. He smiled back, just a little, a movement so slight I only noticed it in his eyes. ‘I only touch things no one else has.’ He said. ‘I only touch things no human hand has ever touched.’ And I didn’t ask why. I don’t think I needed to. ‘I understand,’ I said. I get it.
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