You could hear them shouting all over the house. Mostly my mother when I came to think of it. She was crying and begging him to stay. Stupid cow, she ought to have known by now, they never stayed, not with Ham around.

[More:]

The bedroom door slammed and Derek was on the stairs, a suitcase bumping behind him. He looked past me to the kitchen where Ham sat shoveling cornflakes into his mouth with a serving spoon. They were mostly missing and going over the table and floor and sticking to his chin on dribbles of milk. Derek didn’t even try to keep the disgust off his face.
He turned and saw me watching. I thought he might smile, but he just muttered some thing about being sorry and pushed through the front door.
I was sorry too, he’d always been good to me and he did try, but he never really had a chance, not with Ham like he is and mum pretending everything’s O.K. when anyone could see it never could be O.K.
I looked back at Ham still spitting cornflakes. He wasn’t even trying to eat them now. He began to rock and I knew that any minute he’d start thumping his spoon handle into the table.
Outside thunder grumbled over the roof tops. My stomach tightened. Storms wound Ham up something chronic. He could pick up on them miles away same as he could rows even though you didn’t think he was taking any notice. That rocking was scary, when he did it you just knew it was bad news for somebody.
Mum came down the stairs and took a bottle from the cupboard in the living room. No glass, just a bottle and went back up the stairs. For once she didn’t take any notice of Ham nor me either, but Ham noticed her all right. His fist curled around the spoon and went white at the knuckles. It was a big fist now, coming to be a man’s and I felt my stomach knot a bit more. Why didn’t she notice? Wasn’t she scared sick? Didn’t she know how those hands could squeeze and pinch and punch?
The fist began to drive towards the table.
“Bad Ham day?” I said, trying to distract him. He looked up, his eyes dark and muddied like they always were when he got in a temper. I wished mum would come and fuss and pet him like she usually did when he got upset, but she was in need of comfort as much as him just now, the only difference being Ham couldn’t find it in a bottle.
I just couldn’t think what to do. I was that scared what with the storm boiling around us and Ham staring at me with those clouded eyes. It seemed like it was forever that I watched his hand gripping the spoon with violently white knuckles before he gave a little shudder and let it clatter to the table.
“Bad Ham day,” he repeated and a tear slid down his face. I breathed out slowly, shivering myself as my body relaxed. Ham often cried, sometimes through rage, sometimes through sorrow and sometimes for no reason at all, except maybe that somewhere in the dark corners of his shattered mind he glimpsed some inkling of what he was and what he could have been.
“Come for a walk Ham?” I said as steady as I could and holding out my hand. It was all I could think of. I just prayed the storm wouldn’t break.
He hesitated for a second or two then his face cleared and broke into a smile. It was always a shock when Ham smiled. Dazzling and chillingly innocent, it was the first thing that told you that he was a slice short of a loaf.
“Other place?” He asked eagerly and grabbed at my hand.
“All right,” I said, “Other place.”
It was only a ruin that everyone round here knew about. An old priory they said that had been slowly slipping out of the world for three hundred years or more. You can get to it by the road, but Ham and me took the footpath and came to it the back way that led through long tunnels of trees that curled crippled arms over our heads and made you think of the lost worlds and hidden kingdoms, from our long ago story books.
It took longer than the road and if it was wet you got muddy and in summer the midges ate you alive, but we always went that way, it was the secret way where no-one could see you with a boy who was half way to a man, who held your hand like a little child and had a cornflake wagging from his chin.
The threatening storm rumbled slowly away in the distance but for once Ham didn’t seem too bothered. Maybe he knew it was passing over without harm and though big purple clouds still lurked across the evening sky, great spears of sunlight pierced the darkness and spilled bars of green and gold light over the choked, wayside tracks. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly. It was so good to get away from the fizzling atmosphere at home.
We crawled under the fence and like always, pretended that we did not see the sign that said “Danger, Keep Out, unsafe buildings.” In the middle, before the ruined remains of an arched window and surrounded by chest high thistles and stinging nettles and the stuff they call Ragged Robin, we sat down and I gave Ham a can. He guzzled it noisily and I watched thin rivers of Coke make brown tracks either side of his chin.
I thought about Derek and how disgusted he’d been over the cornflakes. It wasn’t just the cornflakes though, that had been the last straw. When Ham had a bad day everything about him could be disgusting one way or another so you couldn’t blame Derek for wanting out, I mean there was only so much you could take. The trouble was Derek, like all the others, including dad, never did get it right about Ham. To make it not matter about the cornflakes you just had to look at him in the right light. You had to close your eyes and shut out the big lumbering teenager and then you’d see him for what he really was, a willful child, not much more than a toddler really. That’s what mum said anyway and that’s how she saw him and so did I most of the time, until lately that is, but the men, they didn’t seem to be able to shut their eyes at all.
Ham shook the can and up ended it to tip out the last drops.
“Good,” he said, “good Coke, good Other World.”
He threw the tin onto the floor and stamped it flat. He hadn’t used to do things like that, not when he was little, but he did now. It was like he was discovering some power in himself that gave him control over things. It made me shudder and my stomach did a little skip. Sometimes my eyes didn’t seem to be able to shut either these days.
I watched him slip back through the fence we’d just crawled under and play in the meadow where the cows grazed. The field was full of humps and hollows and I watched him jumping from one to another. A big, strapping boy of fourteen frolicking like some noisy toddler. Jesus it was embarrassing some times. Thank God no one from school ever came here. I just couldn’t have stood it for them to have seen me with Ham.
I took a look at my watch and thought of the girls I knew hanging around at the Leisure Centre or maybe the Town Hall disco. They were too young to get in, even if they did tart themselves up and lie about their ages, but who cared? They’d have a laugh, and giggle at the boys as they passed by and afterwards buy chips and eat them at the stop until the bus came to take them home.
I wondered for a minute if I’d ever get the chance to hang around outside the Town Hall disco but didn’t think it likely. For a start I’d have to have friends and that meant going round each other's houses and sleeping over. I thought about Ham and the cornflakes and shuddered. The girls I knew just wouldn’t be able to see through my eyes. They’d see him the same way as Derek saw him and in the end, like him they’d have to go. They just wouldn’t be able to help themselves.
I looked back at Ham. Some of the humps were too far apart for him to make the leaps, but others he jumped easily. They told us at school those mounds were all that was left of the fish ponds that supplied the priory and I didn’t have to wonder what Ham’s reaction would be if I ever told him that. He’d go bananas. You’d never get him within a million miles of them and you couldn’t blame him either when you think about him being in that river all that time. I know he was only four when it happened and they said he’d never remember it even if it hadn’t skewered his brain like it did, but to me, some part of his mind remembered or why else would he be so terrified of water. You could hardly get him to wash most days and as for a bath, well ..., in your dreams.
“Ham,” I called, “I want to tell you something.”
He jumped a few more humps before he came. He never did things straight away these days, even when he wasn’t having a bad Ham day, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Best we didn’t go back too soon anyway, give her time to soak it in and crash out for the night.
“Ham,” I said when he’d thumped down beside me, “Derek’s gone. Not coming back.”
I held my breath, it was no good being subtle with Ham, you had to give it to him straight. He didn’t say anything at first, just lay into that can again and his eyes took on that muddy look that made my stomach crawl. Big tears splashed onto his shoes like the thunder spots slipping out of the storm clouds that had snuck back on us again. They crowded over our heads like nosey neighbours hoping for a fight and the way Ham was behaving they were likely to get one. A shudder trembled down my back and I tried not to think about how big he was.
“My daddy gone to Other place?” His voice had broken a couple of months ago and made the babyish phrase coming from his lips even more ridiculous.
“Yes, gone to Other place,” I said gently and then to myself, just like all the other poor sods mum’s leaned on over the past ten years who couldn’t cope with you, including our real daddy.
“Tell me ‘bout Other Place.” Slowly his eyes regained their empty innocence. I relaxed a little and lit up. Over head, the sky lightened as the clouds drifted away in disappointment. I watched them slinking towards the horizon and thought, “sucks,” and had to stop myself giving them the finger. Stupid really, they weren’t really spying on anything, they were only clouds, but I couldn’t do it to mum or Derek or Ham. I shuddered again, no, definitely not Ham.
I dragged smoke down into my lungs and wished like I always wished I didn’t have to. They were always going on at school about how bad it was for you, what they didn’t tell you was that it was that much worse if you didn’t. I waved my arm at the ruins that surrounded us.
“This is Other Place, Ham,” I said, “like I told you before.”
His brow furrowed into a frown and he began to rock. He knew a put off when he heard one.
“Tell me … tell me…. tell me …” he shouted, punctuating each word with a vicious kick at the flattened can.
“O.K., O.K.” I said hurriedly and stubbed out the fag well before I’d finished it. Once I’d have put my arms around him and held him until he quietened, but not now. He’d grown too big and I dare not think what he’d do if he ever realised I could no longer hold him when he threw a tantrum.
Having got what he wanted, he settled quickly and looked at me with expectant, trusting eyes. I felt a flash of anger at giving in so easily, but I had to keep him calm, you just couldn’t let him lose control, it hurt too much.
“Well, Ham, they may tell you these ruins were once an old priory,” I began, “but they don’t know nothing. This was the palace of the Queen of Summer and the Rainbow King …”
He stuck his thumb into his mouth and cuddled against me like he always did when I told him stories, only he was so big now that I had to brace myself against a rock to stop myself from being pushed over. It reminded me suddenly of the cuckoo chick I’d found spilling out of a wren’s nest, the dead bodies of its rivals scattered around the base and its tiny parents frantically trying to satisfy its enormous appetite.
I’d told mum and she’d said that was the way of cuckoos. They laid their eggs in other birds nests for them to bring up their babies and so demanding was the cuckoo chick that there was no room for the foster parents real babies and they got pushed out of the nest and died.
I looked at Ham and felt suddenly cold. I wondered how long it would be until I ended up like a dead fledgling on the ground.
He unplugged the thumb from his mouth and jabbed it at me.
“More …want more …”
“… the Queen of Summer was beautiful beyond all measure,” I went on, “and only had to smile to make the flowers bloom, and the Rainbow King gave promises of joy and happiness to anyone who asked it of him.
They lived long and happily in the Other World with their beautiful princess daughter and their handsome little boy prince who was called Hampton James”.
I watched closely as his body began to relax and his eyelids fluttered towards sleep. He always slept when he got stressed, but he wasn’t ready to go yet. The thumb came out of his mouth again and he looked at me sharply.
“… tell more.”
“The palace of the Rainbow King was a wonderful place,” I went on, “not a ruin like it is now but with proper buildings with walls and turrets and things and there were ponies for the little boy prince to ride and puppy dogs to play with and nobody ever cried because nobody was ever sad”.
His eyes closed tight and the thumb went back into his mouth. I wondered if he was really asleep and decided not to risk it.
“One day a wicked witch with hair like rusty wool saw how happy the Queen of Summer and the Rainbow King were with their little children and was eaten up with jealousy, so she made a spell that cast them out of the Other World. The beautiful palace fell into ruin, the Queen of Summer could no-longer make the flowers grow, the Rainbow King broke his promises almost as soon as he made them and the little princess and prince learnt how to cry.”
I paused and took another look at Ham. One dark eye shot open and clouded.
“More..!” He commanded.
“… the wicked witch with the rust coloured hair, was happy. She knew how to make a great magic and took the Rainbow King back to the Other World for herself while the Queen of Summer stayed cast out, alone with her little children.
Only the little boy prince that was Hampton James realised what was happening. He saw her take his father the Rainbow King and tried to follow them into the Other World. But before he got there, the evil witch spotted him and turned her magic against him. She made a great mist to come down and sweep over the little boy prince and fill his eyes and mind so that he was neither in one world nor the other but lost somewhere between the two …” I peered again at Ham’s face, he looked dead to the world, “… and that’s how he got to be Ham and that’s how he stayed for ever and ever Amen.” I finished bitterly, sure now that he really was asleep and removing his head from my lap.
I breathed deeply and fished around in my pocket for another smoke. In sleep you couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with Ham. He was a handsome boy like he’d been a handsome baby and like no-doubt he’d be a handsome man. It was no wonder mum could never let him go, but then she’d never been got by the throat and shaken until her teeth rattled.
It’s only happened the once and over such a little thing too. I always saved him my chocolate bar from my lunch, but that day I’d been extra hungry and eaten it myself. Mum wasn’t there when Ham found out. I thought he was going to kill me, he was that mad, perhaps he would have done too if Derek hadn’t got in just then.
Derek gave mum hell over it, said she’d got to do something about Ham, get help or something, but mum wouldn’t have it. She was scared they’d take him away. Instead it’s Derek who's gone. Tears suddenly stung my eyes. They took me by surprise and I got angry. You stupid cow I thought bitterly, as I rubbed them away. You should have listened to him, you should’ve …, should’ve …, should’ve ...
I went to lean on the fence that kept the cows away from the ruins. The big storm clouds that had crowded so threatenly over head had just about made the westering horizon and were splitting before the setting sun. Gold and green sunlight came flooding through the trees and across the fields. It was so heart achingly beautiful that it made you want to cry and I could understand how people thought this place was haunted, though I’d never seen no ghost, not once in all the time I’d been coming here, though I wished I had.
I took another long drag and puffed smoke up into the still air. It curled and coiled wraith-like before it finally disappeared into the thin blue distance and I wondered where it went. Had it gone to some alternative world or dimension like the Other World I’d made up for Ham or had it just ceased to exist? But no, that couldn’t be right, everything existed somewhere, that’s why there were ghosts, souls of dead people trapped in the wrong dimension, a bit like Ham really, his mind trapped in a place where time had ceased to exist from when he was four years old.
I thought a bit about that ghost. They called her the grey lady and said she was the priory’s first Abbess, but nobody really knows, it could have been anyone, if she existed at all that is and deep down, I wanted her to exit. I mean, if I could catch just one glimpse of her I’d know that somewhere out there, lost amongst space and time some other poor sod had been caught out by a clock that ticked away the seconds but didn’t move on the hours, the same as Ham had been caught out and trapped in that dimension where the hands of the clock never moved beyond four years old. Perhaps if I could see her, then maybe the Other World really did exist and one day somebody would fix that faulty hour hand and everything would come right.
I glanced back at Ham. He was still sleeping curved and foetal like amongst the fallen masonry. The sun still spilled through the torn clouds and as I watched a rainbow arched suddenly over our heads. I looked at it for a bit, just drinking in its shimmering beauty. If Ham had been awake he would have closed his fingers together and took aim.
“Bang, bang, bang,” he’d have shouted. “Ham, shot the rainbow! Ham shot the Rainbow King!”
He’d done it so often that it didn’t take no effort at all to picture him yelling and dancing and making bang, bang, noises. It was his way of taking revenge on all those men of mum’s who’d ran out on him over the years. You couldn’t blame him I suppose, but it still made me mad to think of it. You didn’t shoot rainbows, it was just too unlucky. For once I forgot to be afraid and walked over to him where he still slept.
Yeah, Ham, I thought, thinking of the story I’d just told him, you damn well did shoot the rainbow didn’t you? But let me tell you how it is Ham, how it really is. There’s no Other World for a start, only this one that you made such a mess of and there’s no Queen of Summer nor Rainbow King either. Just mum who’s never forgiven herself for looking too long the other way while you were stupid enough to topple into the river and dad, who even more stupidly, dragged you out when you’d been down there too long to ever come back with all your mind in one piece … and as for that wicked witch with rust coloured hair, well she didn’t steal anybody, she was just there when dad couldn’t take any more of you … and while we’re at it Ham, I’ll tell you something else, you scare me witless and I hate you, like I’ve always hated you from the moment you were born, beautiful, golden, precious and loved so much more than me …
… and now Ham, you’re big, and you hurt. You’re hurting all the time and soon now you’ll hurt others, like you’ve started to hurt me. I can see it Ham, mum can’t but I can. Derek was right, you shouldn’t be here Ham, for your own good you shouldn’t be here. You know what you can do, you know how to get your own way …
I threw away the dog end and stared down at him. In sleep, a beautiful, perfect boy, surrounded by the ruins and ghosts of an old priory that should have gone out of the world centuries ago. Exact opposites I thought, one physically wrecked and the other mentally, but both ruins for all that.
I stooped and picked up a chunk of fallen masonry and tossed it from one hand to another. It was jagged and heavy. I wondered how hard I would have to hit to kill him. It would be so easy I thought, now while he was sleeping.
I tilted my head and looked up at the rainbow. He was still there, the Rainbow King with his glorious promises, dancing in the evening airs against a fading back-drop of storm clouds and so agonisingly lovely that I felt a lump form in my throat.
I looked down at Ham and let the tears slide down my cheeks. The anger slipped away. I could never do that to him. Not when I could remember six year old me on a long ago river bank watching the dark waters close over his head, glad that no-one had seen and glad that I’d not cried out.
“It wasn’t your fault Ham,” I whispered, letting the rock slip from my hand, “it was me, it was always me …” I woke him gently and helped him to his feet …“I’m so sorry Ham, we were the children of the rainbow and I went and spoilt it all. It was me that was the cuckoo in the nest and me that shot the rainbow.”
(4,000 words)