Breaking the Silence (3 page)

I went back downstairs, clutching both a new toothbrush and one of my hairbrushes. ‘Here you are, love,’ I said, placing both in front of him. ‘Try these for size. As in actually
use
them, okay?’

‘Will I do now, your majesty?’ Jenson asked, with a bow, when he appeared in the doorway minutes later. It looked as though he had simply wet his hands, rather than washed them, and then slicked down each side of his hair. It now formed a ridge across the top of his head like some kind of strange Mohawk. Only very dirty hair could be so precisely arranged.

‘That will do just fine, handsome,’ I said, smiling at him for at least trying. ‘Now come on. After all this hard work, we don’t want to be late, do we? So. School stuff? School bag?’

Jenson produced a ballpoint from his pocket. ‘Don’t need one,’ he announced. ‘Bags are for geeks.’

And clean clothes, clean hair and clean fingernails as well
, I thought, watching with dismay a few minutes later, as Jenson clambered into the back seat of the car, because his knees were almost the same colour as the trousers they poked through. I’d taken grubby children to school before, but this one really took the biscuit. So much so that I was embarrassed to be the person delivering him.
So prepare to become geekified
, I thought as I shut the car door.

Not that I should have worried. Though it felt like a poor reflection on my personal standards, several of the staff knew me well enough, after years of my having kids there (my own as well as foster children), to know these
weren’t
my standards. Besides, there were more important things in such situations than a clean uniform, as I was to find out when I popped in, having deposited Jenson with the right teacher, to have a quick catch-up with Andrea Cappleman, the deputy head teacher, just to touch base, really, so we were both up to speed. I didn’t know her – she’d not been at the school for very long. But long enough, clearly, to know her charges quite well.

‘Don’t be fooled,’ she warned, ushering me to a seat in front of her desk. ‘It’s very easy to be taken in by his sweet little “cheeky chappie” persona. He can turn on the charm when he wants to, I know. But there’s another side to Jenson. I’m afraid he’s something of a bully, and can be extremely disruptive. He also has quite a penchant for taking things that don’t belong to him …’

‘I imagine he lacks discipline in his life,’ I agreed, carefully, not wanting to jump the gun about a boy I’d known for a scant eighteen hours or so. ‘Though, from what I know so far, that doesn’t surprise me.’

I didn’t want to seem as if I was prying, because it wasn’t my place. Not that she had much more to enlighten me with anyway.

‘I don’t know his mother well,’ she said, ‘and neither does his class teacher. She didn’t come to last term’s parents’ evening – which would figure, given the fiasco this week – but, as you say, he’s definitely a boy who lacks any sort of proper parenting. A boy who’d really benefit from some decent discipline. Boundaries. A few practical lessons in actions and their consequences.’

I nodded. ‘Definitely. And that’s the plan,’ I told her. ‘Though I’m afraid we’ll probably only be scratching the surface. I imagine he’ll be home again by the end of next week.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Andrea Cappleman said, and though she said it with a smile it kind of got to me. She probably didn’t mean to – and hers was a hard job, in a big and very mixed-intake city primary school – but I kind of got the feeling Jenson had already been written off as a bit of a pain, which felt sad.

Yes, more’s the pity
, I thought, as I walked back to my car. Because it
was
a pity. A pity that he’d be leaving us pretty much as quickly as he’d come to us, however much he looked forward to being reunited with his sister and his absent and apparently feckless mum.

Except, as often happens with my musings about future happenings, in Jenson’s case it seemed I thought wrong.

Returning home to find nothing on the answerphone for me, I decided I’d call Marie Bateman.

‘What a coincidence you calling now,’ she said after she’d greeted me. ‘I’ve literally just put the phone down on Carley Jarvis’s carer.’

‘And?’ I asked.

‘And nothing terribly much, I’m afraid,’ she told me. ‘Still not tracked their mum down, but apparently Carley has confirmed that she is definitely away for a fortnight.’

‘So that mean’s we’ve definitely got Jenson till the end of next week then?’

‘It would seem so,’ Marie agreed. ‘Unless Mum shows up any time sooner. But I can’t see that happening, can you? And even if she does, she won’t be getting the children back, in all likelihood, till she’s at least been seen and interviewed.’

‘And what about all the children’s stuff – clothes and school uniform and toys and so on? Will anyone be going back to the house to collect some more for them?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Marie said. ‘I don’t think there
was
much more, really. I mean, I could organise someone to go if you want me to, but we did ask Jenson to pack everything he thought he might want to have with him, and from what I saw I’m pretty sure he did.’

So that settled it. Definitely time to break out the plastic. Because I’d made the drive home from school in a very reflective mood. First impressions mattered. Always had, and always would. That was basic human nature. Pride mattered too. As did self-respect. Stuff like that. Perhaps if Jenson could be kitted out to look the part then he’d find it a bit easier to
behave
the part as well. And this wasn’t just whimsical thinking on my part. I’d seen it happen on countless occasions in my last job in the comprehensive school. If you treated children with respect, then they tended to behave respectfully. And if a child could feel self-respect, that was a step on the right road.

Besides, I couldn’t possibly bear to send
any
child to school in such a tatty uniform. I just couldn’t. I said my goodbyes to Marie – her having promised to keep me posted – and left the house again to go and hit the shops.

I shouldn’t have really – not without getting John Fulshaw’s approval for it anyway. That was the usual protocol, particularly with such a short-term child. You weren’t expected to need to run up lots of expenses in such a case. But equally, I could just throw caution to the wind and hope for the best when I put my monthly receipts in.

I decided to opt for the latter, which didn’t take much deciding, because my clean gene prevailed, just as it always did. And I wasn’t gone long, either. Within a couple of hours I was back home with my purchases: a new set of school uniform, some trainers and a couple of plain T-shirts, as well as a pack each of much-needed socks and pants. I’d also been a little bit naughty. Struck by Marie’s words about just how little he seemed to have, I also went and trawled my usual charity and second-hand shops to see what I could pick up for Jenson there.

Like any mother, I well knew the value of money, and these days, as a foster mother, even more so. So many of the kids we looked after came with hardly anything in the way of possessions, and while we couldn’t afford to kit them out with lots of new stuff – we had a budget for such things and we invariably went over it – it was good to be able to give them the sort of clothes and playthings that might have been nothing out of the ordinary for most kids, but was more than these kids had ever dreamed of owning.

And some kids really did come with almost nothing. In one memorable case, a pair of young siblings who’d come from a truly wretched background the previous year had really opened our eyes (eyes that had already been opened) to the extent of the poverty of some children’s lives. Ashton and Olivia – who looked a bit like Victorian orphans – had arrived on our doorstep with nothing in the way of possessions between them bar a ripped bin bag, containing just a few scraps of filthy, smelly clothing, and Olivia’s grime-encrusted, bald and naked dolly. Polly, she was called, and Olivia loved her very much. Every bit as much as if she’d been the finest doll from Harrods toy department, complete with fine clothes and tumbling golden hair. It had been quite an arresting thing to witness, to say the least.

Some kids, of course, had spent time in the care system, and placements with other foster carers usually meant they had a decent amount of clothing and playthings. But Jenson didn’t fall into that category and, given what Marie had said, it seemed clear that he probably didn’t have a great deal to his name.

But now he did. Because as well as the clothes I bought him a new football, a schoolbag and, best of all, I had managed to lay hands on a nearly new smart DS games console as well. I felt a bit guilty – I even cringed at the thought of admitting all this unscheduled expenditure to Mike – but something about the way his school had seemed to write him off had got to me, and though he’d so far kept up a fairly solid carapace of nonchalance, how did he
really
feel about the fact that his mum had just swanned off and left him? Pretty sad, I’d have thought. After all, he was only 9.

I don’t know if his ears had been burning or not, but Mike phoned me just as I was putting the new clothes into Jenson’s chest of drawers. Which meant it was his lunch break. ‘How was this morning, then?’ he asked me.

‘Oh, you know,’ I said brightly. ‘One or two teething problems when he had to get up for school – no surprises there, then … ha ha … but all in all, fine. I did feel bad for him though, love,’ I added, as a crafty pre-emptive strike. ‘You should have
seen
the state of his school uniform! Those rags he was wearing yesterday? Well, that was the only uniform he had! Can you believe that? Nothing else in there at all! Disgusting, it was, too – God only knows when it last saw some washing powder. You can imagine how happy I was sending him to school in
that
state –’

‘So, let me guess,’ Mike said, and I was sure I heard at least a hint of a chuckle. At least I hoped so. ‘You came straight home from school and then went straight back out again. To the shops, to buy him a new set. Am I right?’

That’s the thing with my husband. He knows me too well. And he took it well, too, bless him. And though he wasn’t half so understanding when he heard about the DS console, I decided I might as well confess now as leave it till that evening, on the basis that it would at least get his rant (and it
was
a rant) out of the way. After all, it could have been worse. I’d nearly bought him football boots as well.

And I was rewarded, in any case (even if not completely vindicated, given the short time we’d have him with us), by the expression on Jenson’s face when we got in from school and we opened the bag. He was thrilled enough on seeing the football, but when he saw the DS the sheer awe on his face was something else. He didn’t seem to be able to take it in.

‘What, this is for
me
?’

‘Yup,’ I said.

‘What,
just
for me?’

‘Just for you, love.’

‘What,
only
for me?’ It was as if he really couldn’t believe it.

‘Just for you,’ I reassured him. ‘A present for you, from us – from me and Mike. Do you like it?’

‘Like it?’ he almost spluttered. ‘It’s awesome! It’s
epic
!’

‘There are a couple of games in the bag, too,’ I added. ‘I hope they’re ones you like. If you’ve ever played them before, that is …’

‘Oh,
yessss
,’ he said, pulling the games from the bottom of the bag and inspecting them. ‘An’ I’m
proper
good at this one – our Carley used to have this one …’

‘Oh, she had a DS, did she?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Yeah, she did. Till she stuck it up on eBay to buy stupid girl stuff, anyway. An’ I was never allowed on it. Not ’ficially. I could only play on it when she was out an’ I could sneak up to her bedroom. Oh, Casey, this is awesome! Can I play on it now?’

‘Not quite yet,’ I said, grinning. ‘I have some other stuff for you as well. There’s a new uniform upstairs for you, and a couple of new T-shirts, but before you dash off’ – I pulled a box from the counter – ‘slip those trainers off and try these on for me, will you?’

Once again, Jenson’s face lit up, but then it fell slightly. ‘They’re a bit clean,’ he said doubtfully, as he stamped his way out of his own ratty footwear. He then inspected them, cautiously, as if he were a naturalist coming upon a strange new species of beetle in the rainforest. Approaching carefully, in case they might bite. Then he looked at me with an anxious expression. ‘I mean, it’s really nice of you, and all, but I don’t have to wear them like that for school or owt, do I? I’ll get hell if I do, you know. Only geeks wear clean trainers.’

I put the new ones on the floor in front of him and motioned that he should try them, holding the tongues as he wriggled his feet into them. ‘They fit?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Seem to, I ’spose, but –’

‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘And don’t look so worried, love. By the time we’ve got through the weekend I’m sure they’ll be scuffed up sufficiently for school on Monday …’

‘I hope so,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Or I’ll get picked on like anything.’

Then his lifted his eyes from inspecting his new footwear. ‘But I might be home by then anyway, mightn’t I?’

Perhaps also due to the wonderful diversionary talents of the DS (particularly for boys of a certain age – clever move, Casey!) Jenson seemed to take it well when I explained that it would probably be another week yet before that happened. And even more so when I explained (again) that since the console was a present it was his to do what he liked with – which meant he could definitely take it home with him when he left.

And Mike too seemed to accept that there was some wisdom in my extravagance – and if it wasn’t wisdom, exactly, at least he agreed with the sentiments behind it – that this poor lad obviously wasn’t having the best start in life imaginable, and even if we never clapped eyes on him again after this, what was a smallish thing for us – a few quid we couldn’t quite afford – it was a gift that might mean something to him. It wasn’t that hard to see that, whatever we
didn’t
know about his family, what we
did
know was pretty dispiriting.

After an early tea of pizza and smiley-face potatoes (‘Well, this is …
interesting
,’ Mike commented drily) I asked Jenson if he had any homework to do, and, having been told that they ‘never
ever
’ got homework on a Friday, let him head back upstairs for another half hour of play.

‘After which,’ I told him, ‘I think you should try out your new football. Isn’t that right, Mike?’ I asked as we all cleared the table. ‘It’s a lovely sunny evening, after all.’

They were out in the garden, practising dribbling, when the phone rang.

‘Andrea Cappleman,’ she said, causing me to glance at my watch. It was gone seven; pretty late for the school to call.

‘Oh, this is fairly normal for me on a Friday,’ she said. ‘I work on the principle that the longer I make myself sit here on a Friday evening, the longer I get to lie in on Saturday and Sunday.’

‘That sounds sensible,’ I agreed. ‘But what’s up? Has something happened?’ I had a vision of Jenson’s mum returning from her holiday and, finding her children gone, kicking down the school door. Or perhaps not. I had a hunch she might not be the type.

‘Nothing serious,’ she said. ‘It’s just to keep you informed really. Small incident involving Jenson earlier – got into a bit of a scrap with another boy. I would have called you earlier, but it’s been one of those days in school today. And as I said, nothing to worry about; it’s just that we like to keep parents – well, in this case, carers, of course – informed. And, of course, given our conversation about discipline this morning …’

‘Of course, thank you. I’ll ask him about it. What did he do?’

‘Just a squabble with another boy – and between you and me, the consensus is that the other boy provoked him. But since Jenson, being Jenson, was about to fly off the handle, and given what’s happening at home right now, the teacher thought it best to remove
him
from the lesson, so he wouldn’t get himself into any more trouble.’

‘I see …’

‘Just so you know. Anyway, I’ll leave you in peace, then.’

And that was that. No big thing, but it niggled at me even so. Because though I understood the reasoning – what with his mum being AWOL, and his apparent history of disruption, perhaps that was the best approach to take in such a situation. But
was
it? Surely it should have been the other boy who missed his maths lesson? Surely there was a case for that as well?

And it continued to niggle at me when I put Jenson to bed. I felt I
should
mention it, if not least to hear what he had to say about it. I also wondered about whether the school routinely rang his mother to report his apparent regular transgressions.

‘It weren’t my fault!’ he protested, even before I’d said anything. Before I’d got much beyond ‘Miss Cappleman called’.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘You do? She said that?’

‘Miss Cappleman – we don’t use “she” – said the other boy was teasing you.’

‘He was! I didn’t do nothing! He’s just a knobhead. He needs a pasting.’

‘Which sort of talk is why your teacher thought it was
you
she’d better remove.’

‘But it weren’t my fault.’

‘But you still have to learn how to control your temper, Jenson. Or it’ll always be you that ends up in trouble, whoever it was that started it.’

Jenson looked down into his lap. ‘I always end up in trouble anyway,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s
always
’ – he lifted his hands suddenly, to form quote marks – ‘“Jenson’s fault”.’

Which would have been a pretty unremarkable thing for an average 9-year-old boy to say when he got told off, but for one thing. The flash of something in Jenson’s eyes, which caught mine, and seemed to be saying so much more.

I didn’t know what, but I also knew my radar for such things worked. There was something more here than the usual boyish ‘it-wasn’t-me’ whining. I might not have him with me for long, but I was intrigued about it.
What
?