The Last of Us. Rob Ewing

a bit like the sea, disappears with the wind, comes back when the air is still. Just now it reminds me of a puddle with petrol spilt on it.

      Elizabeth is still in bed. She’s looking towards me with her eyes open. I give her a wave but she looks like right through, like she’s thinking about the way things were before, which she usually is.

      I hear a yowling noise from out on the street: one of the cats, or their kittens. They still roam around, for all days mainly, only now the bigger group is broken up into just a few stragglers who feed on rubbish like the gulls.

      Saw two of the kittens taken by an eagle. The MacNeil brothers saw the rest go. Saw a crumple of fur and bones on the shore-walk next to the sculpture of the seal. The cats stayed in their house for a while after that, but I guess they got their courage working again.

      Elizabeth gets up and begins to ribbon my hair without saying anything. Alex sits forward, rubs sleep from his eyes. His trousers are damp. Elizabeth gets him to stand and strips his sheets, tumbling them into a ball to be put in the garden.

      Alex washes himself with a flannel then says, ‘You get up?’ His voice is dry and croaky; Elizabeth recognises the warning signs so plonks a bowl of cereal in his lap and orders him to eat. She pours ten toty cartons of cream in a glass, adds yellow sterilised water, pours the lot on top and hey presto – he’s got a normal breakfast.

      Our clothes are already in three piles. Elizabeth puts on a CD – Winnie the Pooh, which we listen to while getting dressed. Then she takes the balled-up sheets and puts them in the garden beside all the others.

      Alex: ‘It’s only sweat. I just sweat the bed.’

      Me: ‘Don’t worry about it.’

      Alex: ‘I just have a weakness for sweating …’

      Me: ‘OK, I believe you.’

      He’s scared of going to the toilet alone, so I take his hand and go with. The flies on the ceiling do their mad angry dance when the door opens and closes. The porch door’s stiff, not broken like the one to the kitchen.

      Outside, there’s the smell of dewy grass and moss in the sun. I jump over the screeching fence, do my daily business. Alex is about to go by the door when I warn him to come away a good bit: ‘Stop being too close,’ I hiss. ‘You’re always too close. Come over by the fence.’

      He comes in by the fence, pees. He looks around – to the street, to the bay, to the road going west and to Beinn Tangabhal, our big hill at the far end of town.

      Alex: ‘Is it smoke?’

      He’s pointing at the hill. It’s only cloud. I tell him.

      ‘Cloud isn’t smoke then?’

      I think about it, then decide I don’t know the answer. I’m pretty sure I used to know the answer. Or maybe he’s half asleep, and it’s a kid’s question.

      He’s less bleary when we get back in. By now Elizabeth is doing her routine. She turns the two radios on. One has a dial which she circles all the way, going through the stations. The other has buttons. She takes her time, slowing on the dial at the places we marked with gold stars. Then she gives Alex his injection. He already has his jumper up ready, so it’s done quick.

      She holds up his pen and looks in carefully at the glass window on the inside of it.

      ‘Just half of this one left,’ she says.

      After this Elizabeth writes our shopping list: Sheets – for 1 week. Breakfast. Batteries. Bags. Tins. Hearing a noise, she turns down the CD. We all listen. But it’s only coming from the street, a lot of yowling and screeching – it’s from the House of Cats. She turns the CD up again.

      We’ve finished the funny milk that doesn’t need a fridge, so I have cartons too, and they’re not bad. There’s apricot jam after this. We dip pink wafer biscuits in, rather than using our spoons and having to wash up. Then there’s digestive biscuits, toasted over the gas-burner flame, then hint-of-mint hot chocolate.

      I comb Alex’s hair. He doesn’t like wiping his face, plus he always forgets to wash his hair, so I take him to the mirror to show him how it looks and the damage it does to his appearance.

      I get the toothbrushes out, brush mine. ‘Dreamt I had a wobbly tooth last night,’ I say, remembering.

      Elizabeth is cleaning our cups in the bowl. ‘You missing any new ones? Or old ones, mean to say?’

      I put a finger in to test: ‘All just the same.’

      ‘Why do we brush our teeth again? Can anybody remember?’

      ‘Oh not this again …’

      Alex wrinkles his face at our talk of teeth. He doesn’t like having his brushed. He had a sore tooth when it was still dark and stormy, and his face went big for a week. After that he lost four of his baby teeth, all at once. He cried a lot, and it took him ages to get better. Now he has a big gap in his top teeth, with no adult ones in yet.

      Me: ‘Remember all the good reasons?’

      Alex: ‘Elizabeth says gum disease means sickness going in the blood. Plus, if you swallow a tooth then you don’t get a coin.’ He sighs and looks around for his clothes, which I know is just a delaying tactic.

      I push down his chin, which doesn’t usually work but does today.

      Me: ‘Firstly: chewing surfaces.’

      The saying of this makes us stop. We both look at each other. Then we ignore ourselves.

      It’s only a short walk to school. The skinny cats follow us, so we scare them off. It rained last night, but it’s sunny now, which makes the road shine.

      If I almost close my eyes this brightness joins up with the shine coming from the sea. When I tell Elizabeth about this, that it’s one way of making everything look back to normal, she nods and does her distant look.

      We sit down in our usual classroom seats and unpack our bags. Alex is very fussy about how he sets out his pens: he has to get the colours right before it’s good. Elizabeth sits beside Alex, then we wait for the MacNeil brothers.

      I wait until the clock shows 9:02 before starting. We do reading first – this is Alex alone. Elizabeth leaves it to me, so I give him plenty of praise and tell him he’s a Good Communicator. I put a star in his reading book, then get him to read it again in his head. Then we do writing – I draw two lines in Alex’s book, ask him to do his best vowels. After this we do words, then sentences.

      While he’s doing a story I take myself aside. In my head I think: All right Rona. Read this page to this page. Then do a story where you use plenty of Wow Words, and especially these – Frog, Dainty, Wolf, Tiredly.

      Elizabeth is about to start her lesson when Calum Ian comes in, with Duncan following after him.

      Duncan is wearing his hood up high today, the way he does when he wants to be invisible.

      They take a seat as far from us as possible. Calum Ian takes out his pencil and sharpener. He starts to sharpen his pencil onto the floor in one long unsnapped strand.

      ‘Martin far,’ says Elizabeth.

      I know she can’t help it, but she never gets it right. She says madainn mhath like there’s a Martin who’s far. The first time she said it I nearly went – ‘All right, where?’ I’ve tried to correct her, but there’s no chance she’ll come wise.

      ‘Pòg mo thòin,’ Calum Ian replies.

      This is very rude and should never be said, not even to your worst enemy.

      Elizabeth: ‘I know what Poke Ma Hone means.’ She gets the sound of that right at least.

      Calum Ian looks like he knew she knew already.