The Go-cart by Jessma Carter

FOR Joyce it was the last straw. The precious phone call from the desert had been cut off after a few words. She could almost see his eyes as he spoke, feel the soft pads of his fingers as he held her face.

Jack came in from outside.

“Mum, there must be nails about somewhere. D’you know where?”

He should be here. He’d know where the nails were, where the screws and the hammers and the toolbox were.

Why was she left with it all when she was shaking all over, and had just heard that communications were halted?

“So sorry, we know how important this is to you.”

The military. Didn’t they realise what horror there was in the silence of an abruptly ended phone call?

“I’m looking, Jack. Hang on.” Joyce hitched Josie up on her hip and followed Jack into the garage.

She set Josie on the floor where she sat gazing around, unfazed by the quick change of scene. Joyce searched along the shelves, Jack following behind her.

“For goodness’ sake, Jack. What’s the point of us both looking in the same place?” She pointed to the other side of the garage. “What do you want nails for, anyway? Is it for this project of yours at the boys club?”

Jack nodded, staring solemnly at her, the way he did when he wasn’t sure if he had done the right thing.

She hugged his head close to her chest.

“Sorry, pet. I was busy, that’s all.”

“Is Dad all right?”

“A big man like your dad? Of course!” Joyce fumbled along the shelves, picking up a tin of bright purple paint.

“Remember this, Jack? That’s what you chose when we first came here, for your bedroom, remember? It was just before Josie was born.”

Jack turned to give Josie a wave.

“See, Mum? She knows her name.”

“Tell her what you’re making. She likes it when you talk to her.”

Jack squatted down on the garage floor, holding the box of screws that they had found. He rattled the box and Josie laughed.

“We’re making a go-cart and we’re going to have a race.”

Josie babbled, reached for the box.

“No. Too dangerous.” Jack lifted the box out of her reach while Josie’s eyes followed it back to the shelf.

Joyce desperately needed something to do. It was Saturday morning and the bleak weekend in front was shapeless.

The phone call should have been the focus, but now the day was splintered.

She moved boxes and tins on the garage shelves, unable to still her hands.

She had no compass, no fixed points, no promises to keep. Jack, Josie and Joyce could choose, if they liked, to stay all day in the garage.

She gripped a handful of paint brushes and swept them along and back, along and back across the shelves. He was there, the smell of him, bending, almost fluid as he leaned for the paint, winking at her as Jack painted a corner of the wall.

Then both of them were smiling as little Jack tried out a new word – emulsion, turpentine, interior – pointing at the words on the side of the tin, asking what they said and feeling the shape of them in his mouth.

“He’s like you, Joyce. He’s got a love of words.”

****

“I tell you what, you two, let’s go for a walk. All the way down to the town and then right along the river to see what we can see.” Joyce took a deep breath.

“Then I think we should visit your new friend’s mum. They live down by the river, don’t they?”

Joyce had been curious about the boy Jack called his “bona fide” friend.

“Who is he, then – this boy you are paired with on the go-cart project?”

And why was it always Jack who had to fetch and carry bits of wood, go round the joiners and do a bit of begging?

“He’s Alex. He’s come from Inverness and I’m his best buddy.”

“Is his father around?” “He works in the supermarket.”

Joyce frowned. If Jack’s father were around, he’d be here building go-carts by the dozen. Already she didn’t like Alex’s dad – or his mum, come to that.

She felt the wet of tears on her cheek.

It’s made me unkind, she thought. This deathly separation is making me hard.

“I suppose Alex doesn’t know his way around yet and that’s why he lets you do all the running about?”

“He’s nice, Mum. He’s bona fide.”

Again that expression. “You mean you can count on him. He does what he says he’ll do?”

“I guess.”

Joyce answered Jack’s questions as they walked.

“Yes, pet. Probably tomorrow. Dad had an exercise on today. I just forgot.

“Let’s go down through the woods. Josie likes being on my back, don’t you, Josie?”

How many lies have mothers told throughout the years? Fresh air on her face might lift the wet from her cheeks.

The plans for it were all drawn up, and Jack and Alex were looking forward to the race!

The weight of Josie on her back as they trudged over the moss floor might deflect the pain. And tomorrow, surely, his warm voice would wrap around her . . .

“You weren’t worried, were you, love?” he’d say. “It was just a hitch in communications. I’m fine. Missing you, though.”

She would be singing inside, and the children would know the news was good.

Jack would pull at her arm to let him speak to his father and Josie would clap her hands when she heard the word “Daddy”.

Another week ended; another week nearer the ending.

****

The walk through the woods brought sun. Leaves rustled and whispered at their feet, dry and papery.

Jack ran on ahead, leading the way to the river, to a path that he knew where you had to shout hard above the surge of the water.

At the edge of the river was a quiet pool where stones lay, grey and brown, white, pink and black, sheltering small fish.

“Show me the house where Alex lives, will you?” Jack pointed.

“His mum will be in. She nearly always is. She says she’d like to meet you.”

“You never told me that, Jack.” Joyce was dismayed. “I would have asked her up for a coffee if I’d known. She’ll be strange here.

“Maybe she needs some company till she gets used to things. Has Alex any brothers or sisters?”

“A big brother, but he’s away working somewhere.”

The mum, Martha, looked a wholesome woman – a good ten years older than Joyce, no glamour about her, but a shine of brown eyes was what you noticed.

She had graceful busy hands that set about making a pot of tea the instant she had welcomed them in, nudged Jack off to the back room where she said Alex was working, and opened her arms to Josie, who happily clung to her neck as Joyce wriggled out of her harness.

Joyce was safe with this woman. All she had said, when she had patted Joyce’s hand as she passed over a mug of tea, was, “It must be hard.”

And that was all; simple and short . . . and enough.

“Your boy Jack has been a Godsend to Alex, you know. I’ve never seen him so excited.

“He’s been at the Legomaking model every spare minute, drawing up plans.”

“What brought you here from Inverness?”

“Quite simple – the hospital. Alex is to get an operation on his ankles. Apparently the experts are here and we were happy to move. Alex will have to have many visits to hospital.”

Joyce sipped her tea, wondering where she went from here. Did she ask outright? Why hadn’t Jack told her something was wrong with Alex?

“Will it take long before he’s better?”

“He’ll never be better, Joyce. Did Jack not say he’s got spina bifida?”

Martha smiled, a real warm, happy smile.

“But his brain’s first rate. He’ll be fine. Once he gets through these operations, he might be able to walk with just callipers.”

The door opened and the boys came into the kitchen. Jack was pushing Alex’s wheelchair, manipulating it round for him so that he could sit at the table.

The two of them laid a bundle of papers on the table.

Joyce could see the neat pencil drawings, six planks of wood with measurements on, two small wheels, two larger wheels, coils of rope and bundles of nails.

Even upside down it was obviously a plan for a go-cart.

“I’ve been telling Jack that when Mr Sanderson has finished making this, Jack’ll have to go carefully on the bends.

“You have to turn your steering wheel well before the bend.”

Jack was listening solemnly to Alex.

“See, Mum? Alex knows. It’ll be quite like his wheelchair to steer.”

“So you’re Alex.” Joyce held out her hand. “Jack’s new friend.”

The boys looked at one another.

“We’re partners in design,” Alex said, “and friends.”

“Bona fide friends. Sounds better than bifida.”

“It was you who made up the name.” Alex pointed at Jack.

“I never did. It was you!” Accusing fingers waggled as they laughed.

“Who’s Mr Sanderson? I’ve never heard of him,” Joyce asked.

“He’s just the man that’s helping us with the project. He’s a joiner or something.”

Joyce and Martha glanced at one another. Poor Mr Sanderson, reduced to a “just”.

“And he’s going to follow your design?”

The boys nodded, busy choosing biscuits.

Alex cleared his throat. “We plan that Jack will be the one to go on it and I’ll be the one standing at the end of the track working the stop watch.”

“The plan is,” Jack was keen to clarify, “that I will be on wheels and Alex will be standing. After his operation, of course.”

“Sounds good,” Joyce said.

“Very good,” Martha agreed.

“Will I be able to tell Dad about the go-cart when he phones tomorrow?”

Of course. Tomorrow. The future was bright now, bright with boys laughing and bona fide friends and wheels and plans and clever surgeons and a teasing voice peppered with sand.

Soon. Tomorrow. n