Breaking the Silence (17 page)

But Georgie could hear nothing. That much was obvious. All he could do was rock and, once again, seeing Riley, flinch and cower. Which made no sense to me at all. Where had this all
come
from?

But there was someone in the room with us who’d clearly seen something I hadn’t. Jenson, who I had almost forgotten was even standing there, now stepped past me and sat down on the bed beside Georgie. Not too close – not so close that it might traumatise Georgie further – but certainly close enough to get his attention.

‘Georgie, mate,’ he said, pointing to my, by now, almost crying daughter. ‘You are
so
clever, mate. You really are. Good boy,’ he added. ‘Georgie’s done
good
here. Good boy for protecting Riley’s baby.’

I couldn’t quite make sense of what I was hearing, and I could see Riley hadn’t either. Where was this coming from? But Jenson was too busy to even notice my confused expression. All his attention was focused on Georgie, as well as his gaze, which was encouraging and direct. ‘Good boy,’ he said again, and now he did glance in my direction. ‘Good boy, because you’re spot on. It
could
have been a stranger. Except it’s not.’ He risked a light touch on Georgie’s arm. He didn’t flinch from it. ‘It
could
have been a stranger, but actually it
is
Riley. She’s just got some weird-coloured paint stuff in her hair. Which makes it red. But it’s still Riley,
honest
it is, mate. But you were good, ’cos if it
were
a stranger you would have saved the baby. That’s right, isn’t it, Casey? He would have saved Jackson, wouldn’t he?’

I nodded firmly, still too stunned to speak.

‘So now we need the key, okay?’ he finished. He gestured to Georgie’s tin. ‘You got it in there?’

I was gobsmacked. Which, with the things I’ve seen, is not something that happens to me that often. Our little hero! Where on earth had he developed the insight to work that out so cleverly?

‘Have you, Georgie?’ I asked him. ‘Is it in there? Is it in your tin?’

Georgie didn’t respond directly, but he did move his hands across the tin lid for a few seconds. Then, finally, at Jenson’s gentle prompting, he removed it. He then pulled out the heavy antique key, complete with tassel, and, after staring at her hard, he passed Riley the key.

‘Clever boy, Georgie,’ she said, cottoning on, and taking possession of it, upon which one very fractious toddler was finally released. ‘Oh, you clever boy, Jenson!’ Riley said, as she scooped Jackson up from the pile of old bedding he’d been sitting on. ‘If my hands weren’t already full, there’d be no escape from my clutches, believe me. I’d be giving you
such
an enormous bear hug right now.’

And though Jenson’s expression was suitably 9-year-old-boy horrified at that prospect, we could both see just how much he glowed with pride.

‘Blimey. You live and learn, don’t you?’ said Mike, once he returned from work, half an hour later, and Riley and I had filled him in on the latest drama. Georgie, completely fine now, was back in the living room, watching an episode of
Countdown
, while he waited to be taken to football, while a beaming Jenson took centre stage at the kitchen table. ‘How on earth did you work it out, lad?’ Mike asked him. ‘That’s some clever thinking!’

‘I was just remembering what I’d heard Casey saying about how Georgie understood meanings,’ he told him. ‘An’ about his pictures. How he looked at things to know what they were. An’ the hair. I remembered when me mum had her hair bleached once. And when I come home from school, and she was standing in the garden with our Carley – an’ how I didn’t recognize her – I really thought she were someone else.’ He shrugged modestly. ‘I just thought of all that, really.’

‘Well, you thought brilliantly,’ Riley said. ‘
Brilliantly
. So you should give yourself a medal – even if you
did
call it weird-coloured paint stuff – because I would never have thought of that in a million trillion years.’

And she was right. And I was so pleased for him. So pleased to see him feeling so loved and valued. But it was bittersweet, because it also served to remind me of his reality. In his world, his own family – the world he would soon be going back to – that was so obviously, so painfully, not the case.

The day of Riley’s red hair (or, rather, as it would always be known, her ‘weird-coloured paint stuff’) turned out to be something of a red-letter day for all of us, because it marked a turning point – one that we only really noticed as such in hindsight – after which everything seemed to be so different.

And different in a good way. The last couple of weeks of term seemed to fly by, certainly. There were no bust-ups, no arguments, no incidents – either in school or out of it – and like the days, which were uniformly warm, dry and sunny, life trundled on entirely without drama. There was still the business of not knowing when Jenson might be returning home, of course, but with his twice-weekly phone calls from his mum to keep him going, even Jenson stopped asking when he might be heading back to her, and in one particularly fanciful moment I wondered if perhaps he felt more settled with his lot, to the extent that he was actually quite happy. He was missing his mum and sister, of course – something would have been badly amiss if he wasn’t – but kids in boarding schools coped with prolonged absence from family, didn’t they? And in America kids Jenson’s age were packed off to summer camp for weeks on end. So was Jenson seeing it like that, perhaps? Like some sort of extended holiday?

He certainly seemed to be feeling at home now. Which was just as well, I supposed, because just a week into the start of the summer holidays I had a call from Marie to let me know that the latest child-protection conference about Karen had been cancelled. This would have been the one in which a final decision was made about both the kids returning home, but Karen herself had cancelled it at the last minute. Perhaps fearing she might not get them back, or perhaps because she was genuinely uncertain, she had told social services that she was in two minds about Gary continuing to live with them, as she wasn’t 100 per cent sure she would eventually be marrying him. This naturally changed her circumstances radically – and for the better. But until she decided one way or another – including telling him to leave, if that was her decision – no decision could be made about the kids.

Although this all sounded very noble, assuming her motivation was genuine, which was what I wanted to believe, I still couldn’t shift my doubts about her. What if she was just stalling because she was enjoying a bit of freedom from the burdens of motherhood? It felt cynical to think it but I couldn’t get past the knowledge that the kids were now being burdened – as if they hadn’t been burdened enough already – with the knowledge that she wasn’t exactly fighting to get them back with her.

And Jenson did feel it, I was sure of it. ‘What if someone tried to take me away from you and Mike, Casey?’ he asked me one evening, after tea. ‘You’d fight like a ninja to keep hold of me, wouldn’t you?’

‘Too right,’ I said, joking that I’d do my extra-special karate kick on anyone who dared try it. But it wasn’t a joke, was it? He badly needed to know that he was worth fighting
for
.

And then there was good news, the following Thursday. Not news about Karen, but certainly news that would take Jenson’s mind off it. Mike came home from work that night clutching a bottle of red wine, and brought it into the living room after dinner, with a couple of glasses.

‘So what’s the occasion?’ I asked him, bemused. We weren’t really big on the drinking at home thing, and only on special days would we crack open the vino. Plus this was a Thursday. Which would be followed by a busy Friday.

‘I have a bit of a nice surprise,’ he said, pouring. ‘Well, I’m hoping you’ll think it’s a nice surprise, anyway. Remember when we borrowed my boss’s caravan for that holiday?’

Of course I did. It had been an unforgettable holiday. We’d taken Ashton and Olivia, kids we’d had who’d had the most heartbreaking start to their young lives imaginable. That they had never seen the sea, never felt sand between their toes, never built sandcastles or gone rock pooling could only hint at the sort of barren lives they’d endured. It was also memorable because it had been there that Ashton had finally disclosed to me the extent of the horrible abuse he’d suffered.

‘We-ell,’ Mike continued. ‘How d’you fancy heading back there? He’s given me the keys, and –’

‘Given you the keys? For when?’

‘For next week. Because I have the
whole of next week off
!’

‘What?’ I said, wide eyed. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’

‘Because there’s a big job coming up in September and I promised I’d do lots of overtime, and because the forecast is brilliant, and because I told him I know where the bodies are buried and … well, because he just thinks I’m wonderful, I suppose.’ He chuckled. ‘But mostly because we were chatting about the kids and he said it was free next week, and it’s fairly quiet at work, and I have a lot of holiday to use up before the year end …’

I put the glass down that he’d passed me while he’d been telling me all this and threw my arms around him. ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I think I’ll have to marry you.’

So that was that. And I was thrilled, because I hadn’t been expecting a holiday. We couldn’t plan anything while we had everything so up in the air, and I’d contented myself with a few days in the sun once we had a couple of weeks without any kids in; as was mostly the case, going abroad with foster kids was often a no-no, simply because these kids rarely had passports.

But with things as they were, who knew when that might happen anyway? So this was a gift. An absolute gift. Though we couldn’t simply pack our bags and head off on the Saturday morning. I had to figure Georgie into my thinking, and how he’d cope. I even panicked a little, once I thought about it. Could we even, in fact, go? Would he be able to cope with going away on holiday? Our Kieron had grown less and less enamoured of holidays as he’d got older, and once he was an older teenager he’d elect to have my mum and dad come and house-sit alongside him – he just hated being parted from all his routines and his things.

But speaking to Sylvia from his old children’s home provided reassurance on that point.

‘Oh, no, that’s fine,’ she reassured me, when I called her on the Friday morning. ‘He’s been on lots of holidays. Somewhere among his things are all his photo albums – I remember packing them. You’ll find them in one of the cardboard boxes.’

Which wouldn’t be difficult. There were just the two of them, Georgie not much doing possessions, bar whatever his current obsession was – in this case stones.

‘Get them out and go through them with him,’ she counselled. ‘There are all sorts of pictures of him: on the beach, at the funfair, eating ice cream. Just go through them and explain that you’ll be doing similar things.’

And it worked a treat. I sat him down with the pictures and explained we were going on holiday, and I was amazed at how quickly he got the idea. ‘Georgie and Jenson and Casey and Mike going on holiday. Not Sylvia, not Franklyn, not Jenny and not Alistair. Georgie and Jenson and Casey and Mike.’ He kept chanting it to himself all day.

Jenson, on the other hand, had never been on holiday. He’d been on days out at the beach and visited a holiday park a friend was staying at, but had never in his life stayed even overnight at anywhere seasidey, and I felt a real pang of anger, thinking of his mum swanning around the Med with her boyfriend and leaving her kids home alone.

But as usual Jenson’s grin drove the bad thoughts from my head. He was beside himself. He really was beyond excited.

‘Will Simon Cowell be there?’ he wanted to know. ‘’Cos if he is I’ll show him my moonwalk. Oh my God. I could be on
Britain’s Got Talent
!’

Which had me bursting out laughing, as well as being confused. ‘Why on earth would Simon Cowell be there?’ I spluttered, as he pirouetted round the kitchen, practising his routine. ‘What in heaven makes you think he’d turn up there?’

Logic, it seemed. Well, an illogical kind of logic. He’d seen
The X Factor
, and seen the bit where the acts went to the judges’ houses, and for some reason he had got it into his head that Simon Cowell’s beach house was part of a holiday park.

‘An it’s in Wales,’ he said, with the confidence of a boy who had his facts straight.

‘Barbados,’ I corrected. ‘I think his beach house is in Barbados.’

‘I
know
it is,’ he said, tutting. ‘Which is in
Wales
.’

But there was scant time to get out the atlas and give Jenson a geography lesson, as, the boys primed and the washing done, it was a case of get packing, and after an early start – and a backtrack to return home for some all-important stone that had been forgotten – we arrived at the holiday park just after lunchtime that Saturday.

And as we explored the park and its facilities, a hunch I’d harboured turned out to be true. Just as I’d thought I’d remembered from our last visit there, it seemed Jenson might have his chance to show off his moonwalk after all, if not to the man himself, at least to his fellow holidaymakers.

‘Look,’ Mike explained, as we showed the boys the club house, ‘this is where we’ll probably come most evenings. They have a mini disco every night for the youngsters and a different entertainer every evening.’ I was already liking the sound of it myself. A whole week away from routine and telly and the same old same old, plus sun, sea and sand, and entertainment on tap. Bliss.

‘Oh, and look at this, Jenson,’ Mike then said, pointing to a poster.

Can you sing like Rihanna?
it asked.
Can you dance like Michael Jackson? If so, we want to see you at the Hippo’s Den, on Thursday at 5 p.m. Junior talent-show rehearsal – acts to perform Friday at 6 p.m. Guest judges and great prizes to be won!

‘You see?’ said Jenson, punching the air. ‘It
might
be Simon Cowell coming!’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I replied, laughing. ‘But they must have known
you
were coming. Who’d have thought they’d be looking for Michael Jackson impersonators?’

‘Love,’ said Mike, ‘have you ever been to a holiday camp, here or in fact anywhere, where they
haven’t
had a Michael Jackson something going on?’

‘But I’ll need some music and a hat!’ Jenson said, realising his key props were non-negotiable.

‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Mike reassured him. ‘I’m sure they’ll be able to provide a backing track. And when we pop into Swansea to pick up some bits and bobs later, I promise we’ll track you down a trilby.’

Which, after a couple of days of relaxing, going to the beach and eating ice cream, was exactly what we did. The campsite was much busier than we remembered it, but that was probably to be expected. We were in the thick of the school holidays and everyone seemed of the same mind as we – wanted to enjoy the best of the weather before the summer was over and done with and it was time to start buying pencil cases and school uniforms.

And I was pleased to see that Georgie, too, seemed to be having a good time. Though it was obvious from the outset that Jenson would be in his element, the sheer number of people and the massive amount of noise and activity all around us could, I knew, pose a major problem.

But it seemed it was sound that had the most potential for causing distress to him, as I realised when I found him one day, sitting, rocking, with his hands clamped tightly over his ears, on a garden chair that he’d parked round the back of the caravan.

I was about to ask him what was wrong when I checked myself. Perhaps I should try and imagine what it might be myself. And as I watched and listened, it slowly became apparent. I could hear what sounded like a young Elvis impersonator practising coming from the open door of the club house, I could hear shrieks coming from the swimming pool, and regular loud splashes, I could hear shouts form the adventure playground and bursts of unrestrained laughter – all the noises you’d expect to hear when children were having fun. All perfectly normal, of course, but also such an assault to Georgie’s senses. It was then that I remembered something I’d read about children with autism, and how sound – certain sounds – could be extremely painful for them.

Feeling once again guilty for not having remembered it earlier, I gently encouraged Georgie to go back inside the caravan, shut the doors and windows and switched on the fan. He immediately relaxed then, and reached for a box of dominoes to play with, preferring, as ever, to do something solitary.

Mike at this time had taken Jenson swimming. In fact, it was the third time this week. It was obviously too noisy for Georgie and far too busy, but when Jenson had explained to us that he’d never been taught to swim it became Mike’s major mission for the week to rectify that situation, and have him managing a width by the end of the week.

And it had turned out to be an illuminating business. After the second lesson, Mike had explained to me the previous night, once the boys were in bed, Jenson had got himself into a right state. Embarrassed at being the only 9-year-old with armbands, he’d kept insisting that he could swim without them, and, frustrated to keep failing, had stomped off and said he didn’t want to learn any more.

Calming him down with the offer of a glass of pop and a pizza, Mike had sat him down and explained that, just as you couldn’t run before you could walk, you had to learn in stages, which took time. At this, Jenson had promptly burst into tears, and though he obviously found it hard to articulate exactly why it made him feel as he did, he was finding it hard because it made him think of how his little sister died, and though he wasn’t exactly afraid of the water – that much was obvious – it was as if somehow he was going against his mum by even learning, because she told him he must never go swimming.

‘God,’ Mike had said to me, ‘it’s so complicated, isn’t it? And he must have thought we were trying to make him face his fears or something. Poor lad. It had never even occurred to me.’

We’d both agreed, though, that it was still something he should pursue. As long as Jenson was willing to stick at it, they should keep pushing on, because in doing so he was facing his fears, which was no bad thing, as well as strengthening the bond he and Mike had developed. What with the football and now the swimming they had really grown close, and making attachments (this attachment, and any positive attachment, for that matter) could only be a good thing for a latchkey kid like Jenson. These were things that would stand him in good psychological stead longer after he was no longer with us.