Free Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh Page B

my father wasn’t testing me, or training me, he was punishing me for failing
him. I wasn’t the son he dreamed of, and he was never going to forgive me for that.
    By the time I was six years old I wasn’t even allowed to be seen in his presence or mutter a word, unless he addressed me first. I was a silent ghost of a child, terrified of provoking his rage, just by existing.
     
    When I was six and a half, our mother fell ill and was taken to hospital. Granny Bettie was sent to look after us until she came home, reassuring us that she would be fine and that she was bringing back a surprise, and a week or so later, she did; a new baby brother for us. We had no idea where babies came from, and it was not for us to ask, unless we wanted a clip around the ear. We could only assume that they had bought baby Henry-Joe from the hospital, the same way Frankie would buy one from (the late) Aunt Sadly’s shop.
    Even as a newborn, it was apparent that Henry-Joe shared our mother’s looks. He was white-skinned and red-haired with a head the shape of a perfect little apple. Nothing like my father’s breed at all.
    ‘He’s one of us, Frank, you can’t deny it’, croaked my granny Bettie on his arrival.
    And he couldn’t. My mother’s grief for her own father was transformed into love for a child she was determined my father and his awful family would stay away from. And Henry-Joe’s appearance, attributes and constant surveillance from my mother’s side saved him. My father accepted he was still without an heir.
    As for Frankie and I, we regarded the new arrival with a mixture of awe, affection and horror. We had never heard
a baby cry so much. He didn’t stop, especially at night, when one of our parents would have to get into the car and drive him around, just to get him back off to sleep.
    I found Henry-Joe fascinating and was unable to take my eyes off him when our mother held him on her lap. Frankie, feeling a little jealous, chose to resurrect old Jesus from under her bed. His ageing vibrations and squawks sounded more and more like a cement mixer, but he caused Frankie a lot less grief than Henry-Joe did our parents. Frankie and I would stuff our ears with socks before we went to sleep, just to avoid his midnight screams.
    Late one night, a few weeks after Henry-Joe’s birth, our father’s bellow vibrated down the hallway. ‘Come on, wake up! We’re going to London to see the lights.’ We rarely ever left our house, but every now and then our father did things like this – taking us all off at midnight, on a whim.
    I jumped out of bed and scuttled into the lounge. My mother was wrestling with a wailing Henry-Joe and a nappy, while applying a slick of eyeliner at the same time.
    ‘Quickly, grab your clothes and put on something warm.’
    I ran into Frankie’s room; she was pulling a pair of her leggings onto Jesus. ‘I’m gonna take him to see Big Ben,’ she said, and in a squeaky baby voice to Jesus, ‘Yes I is, baby, I’m taking you to see the Queen.’
    I tore back to my room, nearly running head-on into the doorframe with excitement. I reached into my drawer and put on my favourite Darth Vader costume pyjamas and grabbed Skeletor from his house.
    ‘Hurry up then,’ shouted our mother, as Henry-Joe wriggled and wailed in her arms. We bounded down the
hall, clutching our treasured possessions. ‘And bring a quilt each to keep you warm.’
    I ran back, grabbing my quilt and wrapping it around my shoulders like a mammoth ermine. Through the window I could hear my father revving the engine of the car.
    The night was cold and crisp as Frankie and I jumped into the car, grinning at each other from across the back seats, shaking and kicking our legs with delight. A couple of miles from home Henry-Joe’s cries became whimpers and he went off to sleep. Frankie and I sat barefoot in the back, miming with our toys to my mother’s Barbra Streisand tape.
    With Frankie as puppeteer, Jesus could do a mean Barbra