by Casey Watson
‘Here you go,’ he said, handing me the morning paper as well. ‘Compliments of Dad for the Queen of Sheba. Go on, knock yourself out.’
‘Okay, spill,’ I said, sitting up. ‘Because it’s definitely not my birthday. So which is it? Have the pair of you broken something or burnt down half the house?’
His expression became pained. ‘Harsh, Mother. Harsh. Dad just thought he’d leave you to it while he goes through his paperwork. He’s got that course thingy to do this morning, hasn’t he?’
Of course. Now I remembered – another responsibility of senior management. Mike had to deliver a Health and Safety presentation to some new employees at the factory – something to do with forklift manoeuvring, as I remembered, and what to do with hazardous waste. Which, despite him knowing a lot about both, really wasn’t his sort of thing at all. Not least because it involved two of his least favourite things – speaking to an audience and getting togged up in a suit.
‘Ah, of course,’ I said. ‘Bless him. And what’s Sam up to?’
‘He’s fine. He’s with me.’ Tyler nodded back towards his own room. ‘We’re playing on the PlayStation. On which note, I’d better get back before he finishes his level. Enjoy, Ma’am,’ he added, with a sweep of the arm and a bow.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said, stretching luxuriously. ‘I intend to. Oh,’ I added as he turned to go, ‘and you can bring me my second cup in, say, fifteen minutes?’
Fortunately there was no cushion to hand for him to throw at me.
Though it was Mike himself who came in, not fifteen but twenty minutes later, bearing the expression of a man for whom the word ‘hazardous’ had taken on an entirely different meaning. He looked like a man with too much on his mind.
‘God, I hate this sort of thing,’ he muttered as he started assembling his new temporary persona, rummaging in the bottom of the wardrobe for his only pair of ‘good’ shoes, and in the chest of drawers for a pair of black socks. ‘Why can’t they just email everyone the flipping guidelines? Why do I have to stand there doing a bloody PowerPoint presentation?’
‘Love, you’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘You’re not exactly giving a speech to the United Nations. It’s just going through some protocols with a handful of blokes.’
‘Oh, I know,’ he said. ‘It’s just the whole “being on show” thing I hate. It’s just so not me.’
‘I know, love. But I’m sure you’ll be fine once –’
‘What the hell?’ he interrupted.
‘What the hell what?’ I asked, as he held a shirt aloft on its hanger – one he’d just plucked from the rail in the wardrobe.
‘This,’ he said, bringing it over to me. ‘Where the hell are all the buttons?’
‘Buttons?’ I inspected it. And he was right: there were none.
‘Well, there were definitely buttons on it when I ironed it,’ I said. But he’d already thrown it on the bed and returned to the wardrobe. Where out came a second shirt, then a third, then another, then, lastly, in desperation, even his dress shirt. (Mike was not a man with much need for formal shirts.) ‘Every one of them,’ he said, and I could sense his rising panic. ‘Not a single button between them – not even on the cuffs!’
I’d scrambled out from under the duvet to take a proper look myself now. ‘Well, that’s just mad …’ I said, checking them for myself. Then I glanced across the landing, immediately thinking ‘Sam’. Because what else was there to think? Because unless some new genetically modified strain of them had fluttered across the English Channel, I was fairly sure clothes moths didn’t much care for shirt buttons. ‘I wonder if –’
‘Case, this is a crisis. What the hell am I going to wear? Because I’m obviously not going to fit into any of Tyler’s, am I?’ He started rummaging in the wardrobe again, pushing hangers back and forth. ‘Or your blouses for that matter. Case, what am I going to do?’
I was on my feet now and, happily, thinking on them too. ‘I know!’ I said, having had a eureka moment. ‘There’s that charity bag in the airing cupboard after my loft sort-out last month. I’m almost certain there are a couple of Kieron’s old shirts in there. Hang on, let me go and check. Ty!’ I added, raising my voice as I headed for the landing. ‘Can you do me a massive, massive favour?’
His head appeared from his bedroom door. ‘Woo, Mother,’ he said, looking at my frazzled expression. ‘Where’s the fire?’
‘No fire, just having to do a bit of emergency firefighting. Can you run down and pop the ironing board up and put the iron on for me, sweetie? We have an emergency shirt-ironing situation. Well, at least if I can find one,’ I added as I flung open the airing-cupboard door, and got my hand on the half-filled charity bag in question.
Sam himself, who I could see was still engrossed in the game in Tyler’s bedroom, seemed oblivious to the panic playing out on the landing. Truly engrossed, or just faking it? Either way, for Mike, the got-to-be-on-time-at-work clock was ticking. I’d have to deal with him later.
‘Case, I can’t wear that!’ Mike exclaimed minutes later, when he appeared in the conservatory, togged up in only trousers, socks and shoes, and with his tie and suit jacket over his arm. ‘And that was Kieron’s?’ he asked, pointing to the shirt I’d just finished ironing. ‘He actually went out in public wearing that?’ He shook his head. ‘Because if he did, I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered. Because I would have told him he looked like a bloody girl! Look at it! It’s got flowers all over it!’
He was right, of course. It had. But at least they were small, discreet, monochrome flowers. Though I naturally didn’t add that, as far as I knew, Kieron had never worn it either – it being a present from his partner Laura, back in the days when she thought she could ‘snazz up’ his wardrobe. Which hadn’t worked, despite her best efforts. Though, for the record, I was with Laura on the style front; I rather liked it. What on earth was wrong with men wearing flowers, anyway? It wasn’t like he’d be wearing them behind his ear.
‘Dad, it’s fine,’ Tyler said, clearly seeing the need for some encouragement. ‘Loads of lads wear flowery shirts these days. No, really, Dad. Honest. I reckon it’ll make you look cool more than anything.’
‘Son, cool is not something I aspire to looking any day, let alone one when I’m supposed to look like the flipping boss.’
‘Er, hello?’ Tyler said. ‘What about Richard Branson?’
Mike glared at him. ‘What’s Richard Branson got to do with it?’
‘He wears horrible hairy jumpers and he’s a zillionaire, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I interjected, ‘just put the bloody thing on, will you? Far better to be in a flowery shirt than be late.’
‘Which I’ll never live down,’ he grumbled, as he shrugged himself into it.
‘Dad, you’ll look sick,’ Tyler added, working hard to stop his mouth twitching.
‘Plus it’s Sunday,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s fine to dress down a little on a Sunday.’ I handed him his jacket before he could protest further. ‘Here, put this on. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you see yourself, actually.’
‘Case, trust me, the last thing – the very last thing – I intend to do is look in a mirror. If I get so much as a glimpse I won’t even be able to leave the house.’
‘Dad, seriously,’ Tyler said. ‘You look fine. You look sick.’
Mike scowled as he picked up his car key and papers. ‘Not as sick,’ he said wretchedly, ‘as I feel.’
‘So what’s all that about?’ Tyler asked, once we’d waved off our reluctant ‘new man’. (Who, for what it was worth, I too thought looked rather ‘sick’.) ‘Where have all Dad’s shirt buttons gone anyway? You think it was Sam?’ He glanced towards upstairs. ‘You think he took them?’
‘I’m not sure what to think, love,’ I said. ‘But I can’t see who else could have cut them off, can you? Still, there’s only o
ne way to find out …’ We both headed up the stairs.
I was used to things going missing, of course. A sizeable proportion of the children we’d taken care of down the years had stolen things from us. Some big and serious, others small and insignificant. One child several years back had even extended his operations to encompass climbing out of his bedroom window, and into other bedroom windows, so he could pilfer things from our neighbours, as well. It was, as they say, all par for the course. Some of those kids came from backgrounds where stealing was commonplace, others from situations – and emotional conditions – that meant they stole without even really realising what they were doing, or to satisfy some deep psychological need. Our first foster child, Justin, had been so neglected when he’d come to us that he had a habit of stockpiling small items of food. He really was that anxious about where his next meal might come from that when food was placed in front of him he would gorge himself like a starving animal, and if he saw food he could stuff in his pockets for later, he couldn’t stop himself from doing so and hiding it away. I’d discovered it all hidden away under his bed, in his suitcase, months later. So much stuff that it was as if he was preparing for an apocalypse.
But why on earth would Sam steal all Mike’s shirt buttons? And when had he done it? How could he have done it? Did we have yet another night-time ninja under our roof?
We got upstairs to find Sam was no longer in Tyler’s bedroom. He’d not followed us down during the short kerfuffle, but clearly hadn’t stayed playing the game either – evidence, even if circumstantial, of his guilt?
‘I’ll get this, love,’ I told Tyler, who was soon to go out and meet his friends. ‘You go off and get yourself ready.’
He nodded. ‘Will do,’ he whispered. ‘Good luck with button-gate!’
I had to admit there was a comedic element to it all – not least the idea that our little guest had been creeping around in search of shirt buttons, like an industrious elf out of a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. But there was a serious element too; it was such an odd thing to do, and as if I needed further proof of the complexity of Sam’s psyche, here it undoubtedly was. I found him back in his own bedroom, and I could tell by his expression that he knew the game was up, too. But what was the game?
He’d been sitting cross-legged on his bed but he immediately jumped off. ‘D’you need me to wash the dishes or something?’ he asked. He was trying for innocence in his tone, but it wasn’t really working – the pink spots on his cheeks gave him away.
‘No, Sam, but I do need to know why you’ve cut the buttons off all Mike’s shirts. Why would you do that?’
‘I never,’ he said immediately.
‘Sam, remember what I’ve told you about always telling the truth?’
‘I never,’ he said again, a little more shrilly. A stance slightly undermined by the way his gaze kept darting to the left of me, to where the chest of drawers stood.
‘Really, Sam?’
‘I never!’ he said a third time, his gaze still going back and forth – as if he was a felon calculating angles so he could plan a swift escape. Or, more likely, to stop me from looking in a particular place.
‘Well, if that’s so,’ I said, ‘then you won’t mind me taking a quick look in your chest of drawers then, will you?’
This galvanised him. ‘There’s nothing in there! Just clothes and stuff! That’s all.’
On the present showing he definitely wouldn’t be making it as a criminal any time soon. And, as I stepped forward to do what I’d told him I was going to, he incriminated himself further by leaping in front of the chest and flinging his arms out to either side of him.
‘There’s nothing in here!’ he went on, his voice rising in pitch now. ‘Go away! Get off my stuff or I’ll duff you, you hear me! Go away! There’s just clothes, and they’re mine!’
‘Sam, I think we both know that isn’t true,’ I said, mentally crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t be subjected to another physical assault. ‘Come on, let me see …’
He kicked a foot out, which clipped my shin. ‘Go away, or you’re for it!’
I took a step back again, anxious to diffuse the situation. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Then how about you show me what’s in there? If it’s just your clothes, fine. But, Sam, I think we both know why you’re guarding it the way you are. Look, love,’ I added softly, ‘I just want to understand why you’ve done what you did.’
I thought he might lash out at me again and make a grab for my hair. His pinched expression suggested he was thinking about it, certainly. But he obviously (and this was progress in itself) debated his options and thought better of it. Instead, to my surprise, he threw himself down on the rug and swiftly rolled himself under his bed again. And, once he was tucked away, I heard the usual incantation; him beginning the count to one hundred.
Having dodged that particular bullet, I decided to leave him to it, and began pulling the drawers open one by one. And struck gold, finally, in the bottom-most. And there was gold – at least, pretend gold – and much else besides, because at the back of the drawer were half a dozen little ‘nests’. Made from rolled-up socks and pants, each one contained its own kind of treasure; one held shirt buttons (so many shirt buttons – were some missing also from my blouses?), another sequins – that gold – which I recognised from an evening dress, a third held diamantes (so he’d been raiding my jewellery box as well?) and the remaining three held Lego bricks, sorted by colour – one of blue, one of red, one of white.
And, as Sam continued to quietly chant numbers from beneath the bed, I knew that if I chose one at random and counted the contents they would almost certainly amount to one hundred.
I sat back on my heels, considered my options for a moment, then lay down on the floor so I could be eye-to-eye with him.
‘Sam,’ I said, ‘listen. Did you take all those things in your chest to count with?’
He carried on counting, only pausing to yell ‘Go away!’ at me before starting up where he left off. He jerked his nearest leg towards me for good measure.
I ignored both. ‘Why are you counting, Sam?’ I said calmly. ‘Can you try and explain to me?’
There was an angry ‘huff’ of irritation between numbers. Then another. Then, unexpectedly, and loudly, ‘Because I’m scared! Scared in my head!’
He spat the words out, then carried on counting.
‘There is no reason to be scared, love,’ I said. ‘You’re not going to be in trouble. You know you did wrong taking those things, but I’m more interested in why you took them.’ And when and, for that matter, how, I thought.
It was a thought that led to another thought, which made me stand up again. I made another search and found a pair of nail scissors buried in his bedside cabinet, which he’d obviously purloined from the bathroom. Then, since he was still busy counting and showing no signs of stopping, I further inspected the diamantes he’d managed to gather, dismayed to see a couple that I recognised from a necklace I was very fond of, and a few I also knew came from a pair of cherished boots.
‘I see he’s speaking in tongues again,’ Tyler whispered, popping his head around the bedroom door. He’d just had a shower and smelled of coconut shower gel. His gaze followed my pointing finger. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘so that’s it. So he’s like that other kid, isn’t he? The one you told me about. The one with the tin of pebbles. Maybe you should go down and fetch him some,’ he called back, as he headed into his own bedroom to dress.
Maybe I should, I thought, as I gathered up the diamantes and shirt buttons. The rest he could keep, including the sequins; I’d grown bored with the evening dress anyway, so it would be an excuse to buy a new one – well, if an occasion for one came up anytime soon. Which I had to concede was unlikely.
But Ty was clearly right. It was just like when we’d fostered Jensen and Georgie – the latter’s collection of stones was his most cherished possessi
on. And something that clearly had great emotional significance for him. He used them as a kind of charm, almost a form of protection, laying them across his bedroom doorway to deter people from going in his room, sometimes even creating a circle with them and sitting cross-legged in the centre, or putting some other treasured object in the middle, to keep it safe.
This was not that, quite. But it was further evidence of a self-soothing ritual. A device to make Sam’s safe space feel even safer.
I got down on the bedroom floor again, and finally got his attention. ‘Sam, you can’t keep the gems,’ I said. ‘Or the shirt buttons, I’m afraid, because Mike obviously needs them. But I’m happy for you to keep the rest, okay? And perhaps, together, we can find some more things for you to count? Some pebbles from the garden, perhaps? Maybe some buttons from my button box? I have loads of buttons, so you could even make two sets, in different colours, if you like. What d’you say? How about we go on a “things-to-count” hunt? Like going on a treasure hunt, but without any pirates.’
He carried on counting, and those huge eyes peered out at me from the darkness. I could see the tears in them; a filmy sheen that glinted along his lash line.
‘One hundred,’ he said, finally. Then, just as I thought he’d start up again with ‘one’, out he rolled.
‘But it’ll be funner if we’re pirates,’ he observed, grinning as he tugged down his pyjama top.
As if absolutely nothing had happened.
Chapter 9
One of the many things I struggled to figure out about Sam was his ability to bounce back from his meltdowns. I mean, really bounce back, no matter what had happened. He could have a full-on violent episode, screaming like a banshee, and an hour later could be the sweetest kid ever. It happened every single time, which was obviously a plus, but could make it extremely difficult to explain to someone who hadn’t witnessed it just how bad things could get. ‘Think Jekyll and Hyde’ didn’t really cover it.
I knew, because I’d been on the other end of this. I’d thought the exact same thing myself when I’d first met Sam, hadn’t I? I’d looked at the sweet kid who’d turned up on my doorstep, and had immediately thought (and against my better instincts, I’ll admit) that Kelly might have been just a tad melodramatic. When he wasn’t kicking off, Sam really was that endearing.
