SARAH

Danny was wrapped around the dog within thirty seconds of entering the kitchen. He is a little more animal-friendly these days although I still like to keep an eye on him. When he was little he used to half smother any animal unfortunate enough to venture within reach of his arms. Animals being animals this led to a few near misses that could have resulted in serious injury for either party. Sandy is a spaniel, and an enthusiastic one at that and, luckily, enjoys all of the attention. Danny is besotted,

'Look Mum. We found Sandy. Keeping warm by the fire.'

'Yes darling. He's sensible isn't he?'

'Yeh.'

Paul's Mum came in with a tray of drinks and biscuits at that point and sat down next to me on their old battered sofa. I have no idea whose idea it was to put a sofa in the kitchen. I haven't seen it done anywhere else but, somehow, it works for them. The sofa itself is a particularly nasty shade of pink - 'old lady pink' Paul calls it and the upholstery is stained and ripped in several places. A stray sofa that has been given shelter as so many other helpless items, both alive and inanimate, have been given shelter in this kitchen. Paul's Mum settled herself into the corner, feet tucked up underneath her and leaned forward to pass the tray around,

'We didn't have any fruit juice I'm afraid so I brought some squash in for Danny. Will that be ok?'

'Yes that'll be fine thanks Pam. We give him squash a lot at home so he's perfectly happy to drink it.'

'No I'm not!' a voice appeared from the depths of the dog's coat, ' I like juice.'

'Well no-one was asking you what you'd like were they? You'll have to have squash because that's what Grandma and Grandad have got. Anyway, you like squash.'

For once there was no more argument, Danny had evidently decided that the dog was more deserving of his attention than we were. So we tucked into ginger biscuits and hot sweet tea and sat in companionable silence for a while. Over on the other side of the kitchen, Johnnie and Gordon were leaning on the windowsill, looking out into the garden and discussing vegetables. I could see Johnnie picking absent-mindedly at the paint peeling from the corner of the sill, he has the same unconscious need to fiddle that I do.

They get on very well, the pair of them, always have too, ever since Johnnie was old enough to enough to wield a spade and help out in the vegetable patch. When he was younger Gordon used to allocate Johnnie a corner of the vegetable patch which was to be his responsibility although I think Gordon did a fair bit of maintenance when Johnnie wasn't around. Johnnie took the project very seriously indeed and we ate many of the results. The practice dropped off as Johnnie slid into the awkward teenage years where gardening with your grandfather was seriously uncool, but the two remained firm friends.

I was aware that Pam was also watching them as they bickered comfortably over the advantages of various potato species and I wondered if she knew that I was spending as much time watching her as I was listening to the blokes. I love to watch people's nervous habits, the ones that they are barely aware of themselves despite regularly indulging them. You can always tell when Pam is about to speak, she goes through the same ritual every time: scrapes her hair back behind her head with her right hand, scratches the tip of her nose with the index finger of her left and flexes her shoulder blades,

'How's Danny getting on at school then?'

Now that's a question that you can't answer in a soundbite,

'I don't know really. It's hard to tell. He doesn't seem to learn a lot. Well, that's not entirely true but there are areas he doesn't seem to be making a lot of progress in. He seems to enjoy school though, seems to be happy and have a nice group of friends which I guess is at least half the point.'

More nose scratching ensued.

'Well as long as he's happy I guess you can't complain. Don't want to rock the boat.'

I didn't point out the fact that actually I felt more than entitled to complain about some things. That Danny's maths has hardly improved after over four years of special needs education for a start. In fact if we hadn't made the effort to work with him at home he would have hardly progressed academically at all. Not that I expect them to work miracles, we have always accepted the fact that conventional qualifications are far beyond Danny's reach. Functional numeracy and literacy are, however, another matter. If he is going to have any kind of independent life he'll need some of these skills. I decided not to dive into that particular quagmire just yet and settled for the noncommittal,

'It's difficult to know what to make a fuss about.'

It was at that point that Pam, never the most observant woman, noticed my bandaged arm,

'What have you done to yourself woman? Looks nasty.'

'Yeh, it's a bit painful. I burnt myself in the kitchen yesterday.'

You want to be more careful. Take better care of yourself.'

We lapsed into silence then which suited me just fine, I had no desire to field any more injury-related questions. Danny had been quieter than is usual, throwing in a few asides but mostly absorbed in playing with the dog. He took advantage of the lull in conversation,

'We going outside again? With Sandy.'

'No, it's a bit cold outside.'

Cue melodramatic sigh number 75 for today and a whole load of under-the-breath abuse that I did not enquire about. Sometimes it's just better not to know what he's trying to say and run with distraction tactics instead.

'I brought one of your jigsaws with me. You could do that instead.'

'Which one?'

'The big 500 piece one with the horses on. It's one of your favourites isn't it?'

'No. I don't want to do a jigsaw.'

'You always say that and you always enjoy doing it. Come on, I'll help you separate the edges and the middle bits if you like.'

He agreed eventually, after a whole lot of groaning and whinging, so I helped him lay out the pieces. We had bought one of those jigsaw mats the week before - it's come in useful so many times since. Danny loves doing jigsaws and it's one of the few things that keeps him quiet for a while when we're out - it gives him something to do on those occasions when he can't join in with the conversation. The momentary silence gave Pam the chance to dive back into the point she had been trying to make earlier,

'How much longer does Danny have to stay in school for?'

'Well that depends rather. I imagine we'll keep him where he is until he's 18, he's settled there and he seems happy enough. After that it gets trickier. We've been starting to look at residential college placements for him.'

'College? Would he get into a college?'

Pam can take a while to get the point sometimes.

'Well they are colleges for kids with special needs.'

'Do they have colleges like that? What on earth for? They can hardly get any proper qualifications.'

I was taken aback by that. When I think back to how hard we had to fight to get Danny statemented, to get him a special school place, access to speech therapy and occupational therapy assessments, you name it, we've fought for it. I never thought I was going to have to justify Danny to family.

'Surely that depends on what you mean by proper qualifications. Of course Danny isn't going to take A Levels or anything like that but that's not the point. They teach them life skills - how to be independent, manage their own money, shopping, cooking, cleaning and they can get qualifications as well. In retail, gardening, that kind of thing. Use your imagination goddammit. What did you think they'd be teaching them? It would be a bloody expensive babysitting service.'

'Well isn't that what it all comes down to? You're going to have to have Danny living with you for the rest of your lives you know, whether you like it or not.'

The sheer cheek of the woman. As if we hadn't already spent months, years even, agonising over Danny's future.

'Do you not think he should have the chance to be as independent as he can be?'

'Well of course. But let's face it, we have enough trouble understanding his speech, how is he going to cope in the real world? He doesn't even brush his own teeth, does he?'

I could have slapped her. She has this knack for getting under my skin. The trouble is, those are the things I think when I wake up at three in the morning. I wonder why we bother, wonder whether Danny will ever develop enough skills to have any sort of independent life, wonder what will happen to him when Paul and I die. I hate myself for thinking those things and I hated Pam for bringing them up in the daylight. I can cope with the worries and the uncertainty during the night but I have to hold it together during the day and that means pushing it all as far back in my mind as it will go.

'Look, if you really feel that way then there's no point in us having this conversation. Danny deserves the opportunity to be as independent as he can be and we can at least give him that. If you can't understand that, if you don't believe in him or in us then kindly keep those thoughts to yourself.'

I was glad that Paul showed up at that point before I said or did something I really would have regretted (but probably enjoyed).