A Stolen Childhood (13 page)

Speaking of which, I thought, as I closed the salon and put the still-warm tongs out of harm’s way, I wondered what mysteries would accompany our newest pupil when she came. I’d be glad to have her. It was a good time to bring in a new student, as the four I had were all now at ease with each other; possibly too comfortable in their small, safe, familiar environment, when what they needed to be was robust enough to cope when they returned to the bustle and conflict of a normal classroom setting. And speaking of which, we were still a person short. Where was our other enigma, Kiara? Might she be ill? If so, perhaps her mum had phoned in.

At break time, I was just on my way to reception to find out when I bumped into Gary Clark in the corridor. ‘I have news,’ he said. ‘Looks like you will be getting that new girl. D’you want to pop into my office and I’ll fill you in?’

I said yes, and turned around, Kiara’s absence temporarily on the back burner, and took a seat beside Gary’s Big Boss desk.

‘Morgan Giles,’ he said, flipping open a manila folder. ‘15 years old. But no form of regular education whatsoever. She’s a gypsy girl,’ he added. ‘Though I think we refer to them as a traveller these days, don’t we?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. I might have had gypsy in my soul but mine was strictly of the ‘painted caravan pulled by a trusty shire-horse’ variety, so beloved of children’s authors and illustrators. ‘15?’ I said. ‘Wow. So she’ll be going into year 11. No formal education at
all
?’

‘Not as provided by the state,’ he said. ‘But she’s certainly not uneducated. Mike says she’s very bright, in fact. And confident with it. Though she won’t be able to go into any formal year group. In fact, the family – as in Mr Giles, and her grandmother, who goes by the name of Granny Giles and also lives with her – don’t really want her in school at all. It’s Morgan who’s insisting on it apparently. They’ve recently moved onto the council caravan site just off the Groves estate. Do you know it?’

I shook my head, though I knew ‘of’ it all too well. I’ve never actually been there, but you couldn’t help but hear lots about it; as with pretty much any town or city anywhere there was a seemingly endless battle between the councillors, the local residents and the travellers themselves about who had which rights and which won over all the others, with plenty of factions and fights along the way. I’d also heard that it was a dirty place, a dangerous place, and that parents warned their children to keep away from it; that it was next to the landfill site, full of mangy horses and vicious dogs and, perhaps predictably, that lots of bad things happened there. It was just your everyday kind of idle gossip – possibly all of it unfounded – but even so, I’d never felt inclined to go and check myself.

‘Well, that’s where they live,’ Gary went on, ‘having moved back there from Newcastle because Morgan has announced that she wants to sit some GCSEs. Maths, English and possibly Geography, apparently. However, Mr Giles is strongly opposed to the idea. He hates our schools – no bones about it – and has always had some kind of tutor for his daughter. Who, I might add, he is adamant is “more than adequate for her needs, being a girl”.’

He’d put the last bit in finger quote marks and I pulled a disapproving face.

‘Well, exactly,’ Gary said. ‘And I’m paraphrasing, obviously. His use of the English language is apparently much more colourful than that.’

‘But there’s a positive right there,’ I said.

‘There is?’

‘Course there is. She’s a girl but she’s going to get her way on this. Good for her.’

‘Well, sort of. She can’t at this stage just turn up and join the year 11s; she’d be all at sea. So we’ve been in touch with the examining boards and it seems she’s fine to sit the exams here, and in the run-up, to help her, we thought you could have her.’

‘But what about the syllabus? How can she get through all that in three months?’

‘Oh, she’s already onto that – with that tutor I mentioned. Like I said, she’s bright. Very able. And highly motivated, too. It’ll be more exam preparation at this stage than anything, going over old papers and so on. We’re showing willing, in essence. It’s obviously important that we’re seen to do that. Always got to keep OFSTED in mind, eh? Anyway, we can provide her with plenty of past papers, which she can practise on while she’s with you.’

‘As opposed to going into
any
regular classes?’

‘Mr Giles is keen that she doesn’t – doesn’t want her mixing too much with boys, especially ones that aren’t travellers – so this seems like the most workable option. Mike says she seems a nice girl. Outgoing. Friendly. Sounds like she could even be an asset to you with the younger ones. Anyway, Mr Giles is rather keen that you meet up with him to discuss things beforehand, so he can explain to you how he wants it all to work.’

I smiled at this role reversal. This would be nothing if not a novelty. ‘I can understand that,’ I said. ‘It’ll be useful for me as well. Tell him I’ll see him any time it’s convenient for him during the school day. Or just after, if that’s easier. Granny too, if she likes.’

‘Ah,’ Gary said. ‘Did I forget to mention that he doesn’t do phones, and he doesn’t do school visits?’

‘But –’

‘This morning excepted. Exceptional circumstances, apparently. I get the feeling there’s been some jockeying for positon vis-à-vis his daughter. What he’d really like is for you to visit him on his site one day this week.’

‘
Really
?’ So, in effect, a summons. Now this
was
novel.

‘Yes, any day as long as it’s after four o’clock, apparently. The large blue and white caravan – you can’t miss it apparently – second right. Two gilt lions at the bottom of the steps. I
think
that’s right. Or was it
right
?’

Right, left, up, down – he was clearly finding this funny. ‘Oh, Gary!’ I said. ‘
Really
? Me go on a school visit to the traveller site?’

‘I could come with you, if you like,’ Gary said. ‘In fact, thinking about it, perhaps I should.’

I didn’t need to think about it at all. I could imagine Mike’s face – as in my own Mike, as opposed to the headteacher. Me go there? All five foot of me? Solo? ‘Yes, please,’ I said. ‘I think I’d feel more relaxed if I had a minder. Not that I
need
one. Just that, well, you know …’

‘Deal. Now how about a Bourbon?’ Gary suggested, proffering a half pack of biscuits. ‘Sort of by way of apology.’

‘Bourbon, period, might be better,’ I said, taking one anyway. ‘Why does the phrase “The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast” spring so immediately to mind?’

‘I have absolutely no idea at all,’ Gary said. He pushed the pack under my nose again. ‘But go ahead. Feel free to have two.’

Chapter 10

There’s a phrase I rather like called ‘dynamic equilibrium’. Goodness knows where I picked it up, because a scientist I am not, but it’s a phrase Mr Hunt and his science department colleagues would know all about because it was normally used in chemistry to describe a state of balance that’s achieved when all the things pulling in different directions were pulling at roughly the same rate.

It was a bit like that in the Unit at times, and thank goodness for that. If one child was acting up, it was usually the case that it was manageable because another was being uncharacteristically good. Or we’d get a new particularly challenging child come and join the Unit just as the last particularly challenging child left. It had been thankfully rare (well, so far, anyway) to have multiple crises, and though there seemed no rational explanation why this should be so, Kelly and I were both glad that it was.

It was a little like that now, in fact, with the summer term well under way; some children beginning to thrive, while others not so much. Jonathan, I was beginning to realise, was a very deeply unhappy boy. I knew his foster family were working hard to change things for him – he would tell me every day about how life was at home – but rather than make him realise that life should and
could
be better, it seemed only to make him resent his new family for being able to give him things his own family couldn’t.

Poor, poor Jonathan. Instinct told me that was because he felt guilty; as though he was being disloyal to his flesh and blood family if he allowed himself to settle into his new life, and to enjoy aspects of it, which of course, impacted on his mood, and on his behaviour at school. It was as if he was determined to be naughty so that people wouldn’t like him and was extremely upsetting to watch, when it played out. I could only hope that sometime soon he would let his new family in – let them give him the love he so desperately needed.

Tommy was a more straightforward character; one with a deep-seated dislike of and anger towards his stepfather – all of it justified – and a fierce, fierce loyalty towards his mother. It was part of what made him such a likeable little character, and also what made him emotionally robust, but he’d seen too much, done too much, suffered way too much trauma (both emotional and physical), and the way it played out for
him
– via that temper, that lashing out – meant we still had a bit of a way to go.

Chloe, on the other hand, was coming along in leaps and bounds. I had taken to sorting out her hair for her every morning, before the day got under way, and this small thing seemed to give her the protective shield she needed, and she was beginning to understand that her fellow pupils needed their personal space. And though I wondered how she’d fare once she was no longer in education, nothing had changed in my feeling that in the right environment – a specialist school, geared to meet her needs – there was no reason why she shouldn’t reach her potential. I did wonder though what would happen when she was no longer with me.

Then there was Kiara, who continued to confound me. That first Monday when she’d been absent had turned out not to be a one-off. She’d been absent the following Monday, too.

‘So you were ill again, love?’ I’d asked her when she’d reappeared on the Tuesday morning, her father having called in the previous day – just as it had turned out he’d done the first week – to say she wouldn’t be in as she’d been suffering from a stomach bug again.

‘Bad tummy,’ she confirmed. ‘I think I ate too much rubbish over the weekend, miss. My dad’s not a very good cook.’

I wondered if she’d simply latched onto a handy excuse. Our own head was currently off – which was unheard of – with a bad stomach. Did she think that would be the
excuse du jour
; that we might assume she had whatever he seemed to?

But what I mostly latched onto was her admission of where she’d been. ‘You were staying at your dad’s then?’ I asked her. ‘Staying over?’

This surprised me. The impression I’d been given was that a sleep-over with dad would be a no-no; that Kiara’s mother wouldn’t trust her ex to look after a hamster.

She nodded. ‘Yeah, she lets me now,’ she said, ‘because she works so much at weekends. Silly me being at home on my own when he’s just round the corner, isn’t it? Saves her having to worry about what I’m up to,’ she added. ‘And being bored. When I’m with dad we have fun.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ I said, wondering at this change in arrangements. ‘Though perhaps he could do with some cooking lessons?’

‘Oh, he doesn’t cook. He hasn’t really got anything to cook with. We usually get take-aways delivered,’ she added chattily. ‘He reckons I must have had a dodgy kebab.’

But for all her poorly tummy, her eyes shone with happiness.

‘I think I should pay him a visit,’ I told Gary Clark the third Tuesday lunchtime, after another Monday when Kiara had failed to appear, even though our cast-iron head had been back for a fortnight. There’d been a voicemail left again, and, once again, he’d simply said she’d been feeling poorly. ‘Don’t you?’ I said. ‘I mean, that’s three out of three Mondays she’s missed now, isn’t it?’

Gary nodded. ‘Though the fact that he always calls reflects well on him, at least. And it might well be that she’s swinging the lead with him, mightn’t it? So she can stay longer with him, rather than go home to her mum. Have you tackled her about it?’

‘I did this morning,’ I confirmed, Gary’s thoughts echoing my own. She wouldn’t have been the first child in the universe keen to extend the weekend by feigning some sort of illness, and, given the circumstances, her dad might well be something of a soft touch. I was beginning to feel a little sorry for Mr Bentley, as I was sure Kiara could wind anyone round her little finger if she had a mind to. ‘She said the same as she did last week – that she must have eaten something funny.’

‘And you don’t believe her.’

I shook my head. ‘No. No, not for a minute. I think you’re right. I think it’s either that she’s pulling the wool over his eyes because she likes staying with him, or that he’s complicit – given his background, he might not have much inclination to lay down the law and insist that she goes to school. Or doesn’t have an alarm clock. There’s always that.’

Gary nodded. ‘Or he likes having her around running errands for him. It’s been known. From the little we do know, a sense of responsibility doesn’t seem to be his strong point.’

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘Not that I want to pre-judge him. There’s no doubt Kiara’s happier as a result of spending time with him. And perhaps – well, if he’s going to play a bigger part in her life, anyway – he just needs a bit of guidance.’ I smiled. ‘At the very least so he’s clear that sending Kiara to school isn’t a lifestyle choice but a legal requirement.’

‘And you want to be the one to put him straight on that, I’m guessing. I’ll get hold of a phone number for you, and if no luck, we’ll send a note home. D’you want me to go with you?’

‘D’you want to check if he has a dog first this time?’ I quipped.

Though I really didn’t mean to laugh quite so loud.

We’d yet to have Morgan, the girl from the travelling family, physically join us – she was due to start with me straight after half-term – but, as per her father’s directive a couple of weeks previously, I’d already been to see her the previous week. And it had been something of an eye opener, too – in more ways than one.