that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you won’t. One way or another, looking after Roger is more or less a full-time responsibility. And you won’t be able to take it on, because you’ll have a full-time job yourself. With luck you’ll have a wife who, heaven help her, will have enough bloody trouble looking after you, let alone your half-helpless brother.”
If it was clear that I had not thought it through, it was every bit as clear that they had.
“I understand all that, but I don’t agree that looking after Roger is a full-time job. Sure he’s got problems, but it’s not as though he’s going to fall out of a window or set fire to the house, is it?”
The simple fact was that I had always been reluctant to accept that Roger was as far from normal as everyone else seemed to think he was. And obviously I now felt a strong sense of guilt that Roger had to spend his time with people in similar circumstances at all. Where was I, his only brother, when he needed me?
“What are you planning to do with these holidays?” I’m not sure even now if there was any irony intended in the juxtaposition of this question with what had just passed. If so, at the time it was lost on me.
“Oh, take some time off, do some college work, and I guess I had better get a job of some sort.” I think probably I had a brief moment of clarity, because I added, “and obviously take time to do some stuff with Roger.”
“You’ll be lucky.” Even at the time, I thought that was an odd thing to say. Though I loved Roger every bit as much as any kid would love his brother, there was no escaping the fact that spending time with him was not much like spending time with any normal person. It wasn’t that I regarded doing so as an act of charity, but the idea that I’d be lucky to be able to do so was certainly an unfamiliar one to me.
“Why so?”
“Because you’ll do well to tear him away from that bloody insect farm of his. He spends every spare minute he’s got in the shed doing one thing or another with it.”
The insect farm. I had scarcely given a thought to the insect farm since he had shown it to Harriet many months earlier.
“Why do you say ‘bloody’? I’d have thought it was a perfect way for him to spend his time without having to trouble the pair of you.”
“We thought so too,” said my dad, “but the doctor at his day school says that he is spending too much time with it, and is becoming obsessed to the exclusion of the other things he needs to do. They say that someone like Roger needs a variety of other types of stimulation if he’s to develop at all. It wouldn’t matter if he spent a few hours a week with the thing, but he spends every possible moment in the shed, and when he does it’s like he’s in a trance. After he comes out, he sort of goes blank for a few hours, and then he just heads off to bed.”
It was easy to see the logic. Roger had always responded well to new things happening in his life. For example, he would get tremendously excited whenever Dad was about to buy a new car. From the moment it was first mentioned he would become preoccupied with what kind it would be, what would be the colour, what would be the features. Sometimes when we were younger he would prevail upon my mother to send off to the manufacturer for as much informationas possible. For weeks on end glossy brochures would drop through the letter box, and would become the object of complete absorption, until Roger could recite by heart every detail of the horsepower, the type and configuration of brakes, and any and all modifications to the gearbox versus the earlier model. When the new car would eventually arrive he was like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, unable to know where to put himself for his excitement. He would want to sit in the driver’s seat, and then the passenger seat, and then in the rear seats. Once, memorably, he was desperately keen to remain in the boot when the lid closed,
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you won’t. One way or another, looking after Roger is more or less a full-time responsibility. And you won’t be able to take it on, because you’ll have a full-time job yourself. With luck you’ll have a wife who, heaven help her, will have enough bloody trouble looking after you, let alone your half-helpless brother.”
If it was clear that I had not thought it through, it was every bit as clear that they had.
“I understand all that, but I don’t agree that looking after Roger is a full-time job. Sure he’s got problems, but it’s not as though he’s going to fall out of a window or set fire to the house, is it?”
The simple fact was that I had always been reluctant to accept that Roger was as far from normal as everyone else seemed to think he was. And obviously I now felt a strong sense of guilt that Roger had to spend his time with people in similar circumstances at all. Where was I, his only brother, when he needed me?
“What are you planning to do with these holidays?” I’m not sure even now if there was any irony intended in the juxtaposition of this question with what had just passed. If so, at the time it was lost on me.
“Oh, take some time off, do some college work, and I guess I had better get a job of some sort.” I think probably I had a brief moment of clarity, because I added, “and obviously take time to do some stuff with Roger.”
“You’ll be lucky.” Even at the time, I thought that was an odd thing to say. Though I loved Roger every bit as much as any kid would love his brother, there was no escaping the fact that spending time with him was not much like spending time with any normal person. It wasn’t that I regarded doing so as an act of charity, but the idea that I’d be lucky to be able to do so was certainly an unfamiliar one to me.
“Why so?”
“Because you’ll do well to tear him away from that bloody insect farm of his. He spends every spare minute he’s got in the shed doing one thing or another with it.”
The insect farm. I had scarcely given a thought to the insect farm since he had shown it to Harriet many months earlier.
“Why do you say ‘bloody’? I’d have thought it was a perfect way for him to spend his time without having to trouble the pair of you.”
“We thought so too,” said my dad, “but the doctor at his day school says that he is spending too much time with it, and is becoming obsessed to the exclusion of the other things he needs to do. They say that someone like Roger needs a variety of other types of stimulation if he’s to develop at all. It wouldn’t matter if he spent a few hours a week with the thing, but he spends every possible moment in the shed, and when he does it’s like he’s in a trance. After he comes out, he sort of goes blank for a few hours, and then he just heads off to bed.”
It was easy to see the logic. Roger had always responded well to new things happening in his life. For example, he would get tremendously excited whenever Dad was about to buy a new car. From the moment it was first mentioned he would become preoccupied with what kind it would be, what would be the colour, what would be the features. Sometimes when we were younger he would prevail upon my mother to send off to the manufacturer for as much informationas possible. For weeks on end glossy brochures would drop through the letter box, and would become the object of complete absorption, until Roger could recite by heart every detail of the horsepower, the type and configuration of brakes, and any and all modifications to the gearbox versus the earlier model. When the new car would eventually arrive he was like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, unable to know where to put himself for his excitement. He would want to sit in the driver’s seat, and then the passenger seat, and then in the rear seats. Once, memorably, he was desperately keen to remain in the boot when the lid closed,
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