Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [77]
‘You found something to eat, then?’
Zaki looked up to find his father looking in from the corridor.
‘Mm – yes – thanks,’ he mumbled with his mouth full.
‘Good.’ His father continued on to the kitchen.
The wasp eggs hatched and the wasp larvae grew and swelled in the caterpillar’s body.
Zaki heard his brother’s bedroom door slam shut and the sound of his footsteps on the stairs.
‘Michael,’ his father called from the kitchen, ‘where are you going?’
There was no reply but Zaki heard the rattle of the front-door latch. His father hurried past the open living-room door.
‘Michael! I asked you a question! Michael!’
The garden gate opened and closed and, after a long pause, the front door clicked shut and his father returned, more slowly, to the kitchen.
The pizza seemed to stick in Zaki’s throat. He picked up the remote and turned off the television. He sat staring at the dead screen. This was awful. Someone needed to do something. He got to his feet and carried his plate into the kitchen, where he found his father, hands deep in his overall pockets, standing in the middle of the room doing nothing. He waited for his father to move. To say something. To look at him or smile. But his father remained as he had found him.
‘Don’t you think you ought to talk to Mum?’
Now his father did turn – slowly until their eyes met. His father shrugged and looked away. Zaki gripped his empty plate more tightly. He had a sudden urge to smash it on the kitchen floor but he resisted and placed it carefully on the kitchen table.
‘I just thought . . . she might know what to do.’
‘Maybe.’ His father picked up the plate without looking at him and put it in the dishwasher.
Zaki felt his stomach tighten with anger. Why was his father behaving like this? He wanted to hit him! Instead, he left the kitchen and went to his room.
He sat on his bed. Inside him, something was growing, hidden from the outside world.
He lay back on his bed. No! He mustn’t go to sleep. He got up and went to his brother’s room. Of course it was empty. He couldn’t talk to his father. He couldn’t talk to Michael.
He returned to his room and sat on the bed.
Then he remembered the slip of paper in his drawer with his mother’s number in Switzerland written on it. He retrieved it. He returned to the bed and sat staring at the number. Why shouldn’t he call her? Something made him hesitate. What was the problem? The problem was that he believed what Michael had said – that she wasn’t coming home. But he didn’t want to hear her say that that was true.
He forced himself to his feet. Somebody had to face what was happening to his family. He went out on to the landing, where there was a telephone extension. Was his father still in the kitchen? He listened. The television was on again in the living room. He picked up the telephone and dialled the number. As soon as he heard his mother pick up the telephone at the other end of the line he said, ‘Mum?’
‘Zaki?’
‘Mum,’ he said, keeping his voice down so that his father wouldn’t overhear.
‘What is it?’
‘Mum, we need you.’
‘Zaki . . . it’s a bit difficult.’
‘No. We need you.’
‘Zaki . . .’
‘We need you here.’
He put down the telephone before she could say anything else. Would she call back? Ask to speak to his father? He waited by the telephone. Nothing happened. He went back to his room and closed the door.
There was the mask on the wall. It was just a mask. Something carved out of wood and painted. Something someone had made. How could it help him? He took the bracelet out of his pocket and put it on the table beside the bed. It didn’t look very special. Yes, but what about all that weird stuff he could do? Make birds appear and disappear.