A Stolen Childhood (20 page)

I did. I knew what Gary was essentially saying was that it was important she wasn’t overwhelmed by a surfeit of anxious, hovering adults; it was overwhelming for a child to have to revisit a painful past at the best of times, so to feel that the world and its brother were all wanting to be in the know could be difficult to handle, if not unbearable.

‘At least she’s now back with her dad,’ I said. ‘Thank goodness for small mercies. I’m really pleased for her – thank God he’s come back into her life and shaped up at least. He could be key to her getting her head straight, couldn’t he?’

Gary told me they all felt equally positive. That social services had spelled out the steps he’d have to take and, with their support, and a bit of necessary financial input, he’d started to take them; which might seem like questionable use of ‘taxpayers’ money’ but, given that the alternative would be full-time foster care, was in fact the cheaper option and, in terms of Kiara’s emotional health, assuming her father could sustain his current efforts, overwhelmingly the best long-term option too.

So he’d been provided with a proper bed for her bedroom and a number of other essential items, as well as being directed towards the kinds of things he needed to be aware of when caring for a child on a full-time basis. Things like providing her with a decent diet, adhering to bedtime and behaviour rules and, most of all, keeping her safe. They had also assured him that they would be on hand 24/7, for as long as he needed them to offer any other help he might require, and for as long as they felt it was necessary. He had also got himself some temporary work as a labourer on a building site, the promise being that, if he stuck at it, it might lead to a more permanent position.

All in all, though it was early days, it sounded very promising, and I couldn’t be happier for Kiara, who I knew would start to heal so much better, and perhaps quicker, with her dad. I also couldn’t wait to tell the others that she would be joining us again, particularly poor Chloe. Which reminded me of another issue I had to tackle.

‘Gary, before I go, I just wanted to run something by you,’ I said. ‘Chloe Jones.’

‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘She’s doing really well, isn’t she?’

‘On the surface, yes,’ I agreed, ‘in terms of her social skills and learning, but I’m concerned about a deterioration in her emotional state, and I was wondering if you knew someone externally who might be able to help out over the coming weeks. Once she’s away from her support network here, I worry she’s going to badly regress.’

‘I get your point, but that’s not really our job, Casey,’ Gary said. ‘Not once school breaks up. We can’t “send the boys round” to sort her out, to put it bluntly. Or, indeed, drag her mother to AA meetings by her hair. Once we’re done for the summer, it’s all outside of our official jurisdiction.’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘and I wasn’t saying that we should go and stick our noses in and get into trouble – just that you might know some charitable agency or something that could help over the summer holidays. Someone with a drugs and alcohol background or even, I don’t know, somewhere she could get some parenting classes maybe. Just anything we could offer really to help out. Chloe is really starting to notice now she’s getting older that her mum has very poor standards when it comes to child raising, and I think she’s at real risk of depression.’

Gary seemed to ponder for a few moments. ‘Leave it with me, Casey. I might have one or two ideas,’ he said finally. ‘If I can pull something together for the school holidays, that might help some, yes?’

I grinned. I knew Gary would know someone. Some friend of a friend that could pull some strings. ‘That would be more than helpful, Gary, thank you so much,’ I told him.

‘Payment preferred in biscuits, remember,’ he said as I left.

I had been expecting Kiara to be in some way fundamentally changed when she returned; to show some clear evidence of the vile abuse she’d suffered, and to appear even more fragile and young and vulnerable than she had previously. But, of course, that was probably stupid of me. All of it had been going on, all the time, since before I’d even become aware of her, and even if not exactly under our noses, certainly enough to be responsible for that episode of self-harming the previous year.

No, it was me that had changed – me that was looking at her differently, me that was hyper-aware that she might develop some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD was very much the term of the moment then, and as with any new ‘discovery’ about the human condition, professionals were bandying it about a lot and quick to use it as a label. There was nothing wrong with that – it was probably a factor in the mental malaise of tens of thousands of men returning from the trenches of the First World War, truth be told – but I still felt a little silly researching what signs I might look out for; what would suggest that, now the abuse was over, Kiara was beginning to process it – to tear down the mental wall she’d built while she was experiencing it, to protect herself, and let the distress come rushing out.

But it seemed I was barking up completely the wrong tree, because, as I observed her during the first few days of her return to the Unit, the changes I saw in her were nothing short of delightful. She rejoined us and settled back in as though she’d never been away, the only difference being the glow she had about her.

Needless to say, Chloe proved to be as fickle as the weather and, on seeing Kiara, dried her eyes and completely forgot the beloved ‘gypsy’ girl who’d stolen her heart and then disappeared. (Morgan, having taken her final exam, had now left us, and would only return – if allowed – for our end-of-term outing.)

I started to think that perhaps this term would end on an amazing high. Thrown together, Tommy and Jonathan had forged a friendship which had impacted positively on both of them, and Gary, bless him, had been as good as his word and been in touch with Chloe’s mum. And had spoken to her quite robustly, by all accounts. Apparently he’d threatened her with an aggressive onslaught of social workers and various other teams if she didn’t agree to a drugs and alcohol abuse officer going in twice a week throughout the summer holidays, to help counsel her. He’d also arranged for one of our school mentors to visit once per week especially for Chloe’s benefit. She would take her on outings and picnics and give Mrs Jones the opportunity to take a breather from her various ‘child care’ duties, which I knew would make all the difference to both mother and child, because those six weeks could test the patience of
any
mother.

Before that, however (and to some extent we were all counting the days now), there were my final reviews to be done, on each of the children who’d spent time with us this term. This was where I would wrap up everything, summarise any achievements or any remaining weaknesses and make my recommendations about what should happen the following term. This was normally to suggest that they were ready to go back to mainstream classes or, rarely, that a child should stay with me for another half-term.

As far as my current brood went, I thought they were all pretty much ready. Chloe might well have her place confirmed at a special school before we broke up in any case, and I’d already decided that I’d recommend that Tommy be relocated to the same class as Jonathan next year. Yes, it would mean holding him back a year, but as he’d missed so much schooling, perhaps that was the right decision in any case. It would certainly benefit both boys to remain ‘partners in crime’, I felt, as they could support each other so well during the transition. And, as for Kiara, I could see no reason why she couldn’t move back to mainstream classes too – in fact, now she was no longer in her unhappy, desperate situation, perhaps keeping her in the Unit would only be a hindrance; she was now in a position, hopefully, to begin re-forging friendships, and the sooner she did so, the better for her emotional well-being. Yes, a return to normality was very much to be desired.

In fact, I was just in the middle of recounting all that to her, when all my carefully laid plans for the summer holidays and autumn term came shuddering to a halt and slammed hard against the buffers, in the shape of a wild-eyed woman I’d never seen before.

Chapter 16

Kiara, her view half restricted by the bookcases, followed my astonished gaze, as the classroom door, which had been opened with unexpected violence, banged hard against the nearest desk.

‘What on
earth
–’ I began, taking in the slim forty-something woman who was paying me not the slightest amount of attention, and appeared to be on something of a mission. She looked fraught – not to mention hot; there was a damp sheeny glow about her. Unsurprisingly, as even in the June heat she was wearing a coat.

She made a beeline for the boys’ table and, when she reached it, grabbed the shoulder of a startled Tommy’s shirt. ‘Tommy, come on,’ she commanded. ‘We gotta go, and we gotta go
now
. The bastard’s found us. Come on –
now
! He’s fucking found us!’

I emerged from where Kiara and I had been sitting, just behind the bookcases, wincing automatically at her choice of expletives in front of the children. No wonder Tommy’s colourful vocabulary was so unrestrained. More importantly, I needed to regain control over the situation. ‘Mrs Robinson?’ I asked. Tommy’s slight nod confirmed it. ‘Mrs Robinson,
please
! I can see you’re upset, but please don’t come flying in here swearing and shouting and upsetting the children. Can we step out into the corridor, please?’

There must have been something in my tone that brought her sharply to attention. Which was gratifying. I was obviously getting the hang of this ‘quiet authority’ lark. She let go of Tommy’s shirt. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said, starting to try and nudge him out of his seat instead. ‘Only we really do. We really
have
got to go.’

I rounded the nearest tables, walked to the door and looked out into the corridor. It being halfway through second period and, my room being where it was, you could have heard a pin drop. ‘Jonathan,’ I said, ‘Can you shut and lock the French doors, please? And Mrs Robinson, perhaps we could have a word outside the classroom? There’s nothing to worry about. There is absolutely no one around.’

‘Not
here
, perhaps,’ she pointed out, once she’d grudgingly come and joined me outside the classroom and introduced herself as Cathy. ‘But I’ve left my girls round the neighbour’s and we need to get moving. Honest, love,
every
second matters. I need to take Tommy out of school and I need to do it
now
.’ Then, without any warning, her face seemed to fall in on itself and, with a huge gulping sigh, she burst into tears.

I put my arm around her shoulder. There was nothing of her. It was like grasping a bag of shaking sticks. The avenging Boudicca of my imaginings she wasn’t, not at this moment, anyway. The door opened then, and Tommy appeared from behind it. Seeing his mum crying he threw himself at her as well. Which now made three of us, as if in a pre-match motivational huddle, Tommy and I taking it in turns to pat and say ‘there, there’ to the poor woman, who, now she’d started crying, couldn’t seem to stop.

‘Mum, shush,’ he kept saying to her. ‘Don’t cry – we’ll think of something. Where is he? How did he find us? D’you know where he is now?’

This seemed to galvanise her slightly. ‘I don’t bloody
know
, Tommy! That’s exactly it – I don’t
know
! The girls are all round Mrs Taylor’s, and that’s a worry in itself. What if he starts knocking on doors?’ She wrung her bony hands together and I wondered if she got enough to eat. Probably not. Probably gave it to her kids. ‘She’s been a brick,’ she said, ‘but she’s, like,
eighty
, and I can’t have him – can’t even
think
about him getting in there. Tommy, love,’ she said, turning back to her son, ‘I know you hate this, but what choice have we got, eh? We need to grab what we can and go.
Now
.’

‘Mum, I’m sick of it!’ Tommy answered, the pitch of his voice rising, as what was happening was beginning to sink in. ‘Why can’t you just get the cops on him like Mrs Taylor says? I
like
it here! I’m sick of running away! An’ I’m not doing it no more! Get the police on him, Mum,
please
!’

‘Oh, if only it was that easy!’ she responded. ‘Like they can just magic him away! Son, you have no idea …’

‘Look, Mrs Robinson,’ I said, ‘I think Tommy could be right. There’s a man here –’

‘What would
you
know about it?’ she snapped back. ‘You don’t know what he’s like! Oh, it’s all fine and dandy when they’re round, promising this and that. All “Oh yes, Mrs Robinson, we’ll put a restraining order on him, don’t worry, and then
this
!” She scraped a hank of damp hair back from her temple, then, seeing Tommy’s anguished face, quickly lowered it again. But not before I glimpsed the pearly squiggle of a scar there.

‘Look,’ I said again, ‘at least let me take you down to Mr Clark’s office. He’s our Child Protection Officer –’

‘I know who he is, and how is he going to help? I told you. He’ll
find
us. We have to leave. Get away from here …’

‘Mum, please!’ Tommy pleaded. ‘He might be able to do something. Please just
speak
to him, will you?’

‘Please,’ I echoed. ‘Because Tommy could be right. That’s his job, after all, and I now he knows people who can make sure you’ll
all
be safe.
Honestly
. Why don’t we go along for a chat – all of us, right now – and if you still feel that you have to go, then you won’t have lost anything, will you?’

Tommy’s mum looked as though all the fight had suddenly left her. ‘Okay,’ she said finally, ‘but I can’t see what he can do. That bastard is sneaky. He knows every loop-hole there is. And the fact that he found us proves that, doesn’t it?’

‘Nah, Mum,’ Tommy said with what I felt showed great insight. ‘It just proves that someone you trusted has a big fucking mouth! Sorry, miss,’ he added.