by Casey Watson
So it was a wake-up call – to be sure to keep counting our own blessings. To remember that, if you looked, you could find sad stories everywhere.
But what I didn’t know, because I couldn’t know, was that it wasn’t just sad. It would turn out to be oh so much more.
Chapter 18
It wasn’t usual practice for a social worker to work with the children on their books at the weekends. Not that social work was ever just a nine-to-five job, because there were always occasions when the unexpected happened. But unless a social worker was on call, weekends were free time – well, in theory. They, like us, were always dogged by endless paperwork. It was also Easter weekend, and though we weren’t planning to make any sort of fuss (this year, Riley was going to be away with her in-laws, so it wouldn’t be much more than a quick Easter egg hunt for Dee Dee, at Kieron’s), others did, I knew. So I was extremely grateful when Colin Sampson agreed to help us out with Sam the following Saturday, so that Mike and me could go to Mrs Gallagher’s and talk about the potential upcoming respite.
We decided not to tell Sam where we were going, though. Just that Colin was coming over with an Easter egg, and wanted to spend time with him. It made sense – if either we or Mrs Gallagher changed our minds about Sam staying over with her, ignorance would be bliss; we wouldn’t find ourselves in the position of having built up Sam’s hopes only to dash them again.
Not that we needed to. Sam was as oblivious to the business of Colin having weekends off from work as he was to the notion that what I did was ‘work’. He was on a high about Colin coming and the ‘big Easter adventure’ they were going on, and if it even crossed his mind that there was a reason for us going off for a few hours he was too busy thinking about his own day to ask me.
‘We’re going on a very long journey,’ he told me as he paced the carpet by the front window. He was speaking to me, but as much to himself. He looked deep in thought, head down, hands linked together behind his back – a bit like a little old man ruminating on life. ‘It’s a very long journey,’ he added. ‘And I think that’s a clue. I think it’s a puzzle Sampson wants me to solve.’
‘I just think Colin means you’ll be out and about for a while, love,’ I suggested, anxious that Sam might have got the wrong end of the stick and was setting himself up for disappointment. I’d heard them talking on the phone – they fell so easily into deep conversation – and though it was clear Colin had a knack of understanding Sam’s level, it also meant that I frequently lost track of what either of them were on about. Perhaps this was simply one of those occasions and Colin had indeed made plans I didn’t know about. ‘Anyway, he’ll be here soon, so I’m sure all will be clear. In the meantime, if you don’t stop all that pacing up and down, you are going to end up wearing out my carpet.’
‘Too late,’ Mike chipped in from his favourite chair, where he was reading. ‘He’s flattened all the pile. Uh-oh. We’re going to need a new carpet.’
Sam stopped and looked down, then he frowned. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. But it’s okay, Mike. Don’t worry. Me and Sampson will go to the shops and buy a new one.’
I rolled my eyes. Sam took everything so literally, and Mike knew it. ‘Stop teasing, you!’ I said, flicking him with a tea towel as I walked past. ‘Oh, and you can stop pacing now, Sam – looks like your superhero has arrived.’
‘Yes!’ he said, punching the air and hurrying out into the hall. ‘We are going to have the best, best day ever!’
‘Sure you will, kiddo,’ said Mike. ‘And make sure you leave some chocolate for me.’ He winked at him. ‘In lieu of payment.’
A light rain had begun falling by the time we arrived at Mrs Gallagher’s, which lent an even gloomier atmosphere to the tired estate we’d driven through, and, because it was much on my mind anyway, to the life she might have lived here with her profoundly disabled child.
And her husband? She’d said he’d been the ‘spit of his dad’. But there’d been no mention of Dad, and no hint as to where he was. Was he dead? Were they divorced? What had happened to him? I remembered the sadness in her voice, so one or the other, presumably. Perhaps we would find out today.
‘What’s she like, then?’ Mike asked, as he eyed the neat front garden. And, while trying to describe her, I realised my instinctive first impressions had already changed to more nuanced second ones. In my mind she was no longer the same outspoken, down-to-earth, strong, no-nonsense, Irish woman – who made no secret of her disdain for and disapproval of her former neighbour – but a tragic figure I had mostly fashioned from my imagination.
So, having softened her, I was a little surprised, ten minutes later, to find her everything she’d first appeared, and more.
Though I made new first impressions as she showed us in – this time to the kitchen – where, once again, there was a pot, ready for tea, and a plate of homemade cakes, including chocolates nests, made out of cornflakes, in which speckled eggs nestled. Part of a batch made for Sam’s brother and sister, perhaps? Possibly. My eyes were then drawn immediately to the fridge-freezer – like a magnet – where an assortment of magnets held a variety of pictures, all executed in crayon, by children’s hands.
As Mike sat down, and Mrs Gallagher stood and waited for the kettle, I touched one of the pictures automatically, imagining the little ones whose lives had also been so changed – at least very much from the idealised image I was looking at, of a typical child’s house, with smoke coiling from a chimney, clumps of grass below, a big yellow sun overhead and the sky a strip of scribbled blue above it. There was another, too, of a boat. A collection of triangles – a hull and two sails – it was bobbing along atop a deep wavy sea, with six-pointed stars daubed above it.
‘I had no idea you’d been looking after Sam’s siblings,’ I told Mrs Gallagher. ‘Not till my link worker told me, anyway. It must be such a comfort for them to be able to spend time with you. Bit of welcome continuity in their lives, I expect.’
Mrs Gallagher nodded. ‘And for me,’ she said. ‘They’re a pair of little poppets.’ Then, following my eye, ‘Oh, sorry. I see what you’re saying. Those there, they’re not done by the little ones. They’re Sean’s works of art, those. His masterpieces. My own boy,’ she added, glancing across at Mike now. ‘He does love doing his pictures. He’d have a crayon in his hand all day long, given half a chance. Can’t let him near paint, of course, bless him. He’d probably try to drink it! Away with the fairies, he is, half the time, big lump though he is. He always brings his best with him when he visits.’
I felt my face redden. ‘Oh, of course,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have thought …’
She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, don’t be getting all embarrassed, now. It’s an easy mistake to make.’
Mike grinned. ‘You’ll have to excuse my wife, Mrs Gallagher,’ he said. ‘Bigger feet than Sasquatch when it comes to putting them in her mouth. Anyway, it goes without saying that we’re both extremely grateful that you’ve agreed to look after Sam for us so we can go to this family wedding. Far better that he’s billeted with someone he knows and trusts than being packed off to a stranger’s for the night. That’s if you’re sure you don’t mind, of course. It’s a lot to ask, I know.’
‘Heavens, no,’ she said as she filled the enormous teapot. ‘What those kiddies need more than anything is a bit of normality. I’d have kicked off to high heaven if they’d not let me – at least now and again. It’s all they’ve known, bless their hearts, and it’s the least I can do. I said as much to those policemen who came yesterday.’
‘So you’ve had another visit?’ I asked. They were obviously working quicker than I’d dared to hope. Which was all to the good. The sooner they made progress, the sooner they’d talk to Sam again, and, fingers crossed, the sooner the powers that be would be happy to start his assessment.
Mrs Gallagher nodded. ‘So who’s for tea?’ she asked. But the question was clea
rly rhetorical. After spending some seconds vigorously mashing the leaves in the pot, she proceeded to pour out three cups. Coffee clearly still wasn’t on the agenda.
But she did have her own one. ‘The cheek of the woman! I told them that too. I call a spade a spade, Mr Watson,’ she told Mike. ‘So I made sure to put them straight about that hussy calling me a liar. It’s her who’s the fecking liar – there were always men round there. I’m no racist, not in a million years’ – she gave me a sideways glance now – ‘but the woman had no preference – she had black men, and white men, and every colour in between. No bloody men indeed. Cheek of her!’
I coughed to hide my splutter. ‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘And what did they say? D’you think they took it seriously?’
She looked astonished. ‘Of course they did! Because round here it’s common knowledge. Ask anyone. Drug dealers and the like beating on her front door at all hours. And I’m not stupid,’ she added, narrowing her eyes as she proffered the cakes. ‘There’s her all cosy in some mental home, having them all on that she’s ill. And at the expense of us law-abiding tax payers!’
I caught Mike’s expression. I knew he was as surprised at Mrs Gallagher’s candour as I had been when I’d first met her. And by her anger, which was a simmering presence in the room. Which was understandable, and my eyes strayed back to the pictures. I felt sorry for her. It was odds-on that she’d struggled all her life with her own son, and had no doubt needed to fight for every little bit of help she could get. No wonder there was so much bitterness in her voice. So thank goodness he was now being taken care of. If he was a child in a man’s body – and, from what I’d learned, I imagined he must be – there was no way a lady of Mrs Gallagher’s age and stature would be able to look after him on a full-time basis. I knew from experience just how physical a job it could be – had probably been a struggle from the time he’d hit puberty – with, presumably, the usual pubescent dramas. Of course she’d be angry that someone like Sam’s mum appeared to get away with whatever she wanted, and though I disagreed with her assessment of her neighbour’s ‘mental home’ as being ‘cosy’, I certainly understood where she was coming from.
I’d also had a rethink on the empathy front. She might not empathise with Mrs Gough, but with the troubles she’d had, it was evidence of a very kind heart that she cared so much for the little victims of it all. And as she’d been a constant in their short lives, and wanted to continue to be so, I didn’t doubt she’d be a positive in Sam’s life as well. And if anyone needed positives in his life, little Sam did. Perhaps even more than his brother and sister. Who at least had each other, after all.
We chatted on, about nothing much, Mike admiring her back garden, and, by extension, he got the same tour upstairs as me and Colin had, where, in the drizzle, next door’s ‘garden’ couldn’t have provided more of a contrast, the rotting dog enclosure filling more than a third of the space. I wondered, given the situation with Sam’s mother, how soon it would become a home again, instead of an eyesore. It couldn’t have been nice to live next door to.
Mrs Gallagher pressed us to take a few cakes home. ‘Whoever else will eat them?’ And though we promised to, because her lemon buns were apparently Sam’s favourites, we knew we wouldn’t pass them on to Sam himself. So Mike tucked in almost the minute we drove away.
‘So, Cinderella,’ he said, through a mouthful of cake crumbs, ‘looks like you will be going to the ball after all – and without the worry of having to be home by midnight either. And you never know, if it all goes well then the mini-break world is our oyster!’
‘Stop being silly,’ I said, tutting, and brushing crumbs from the centre console. ‘We can’t take advantage of the poor woman. And we don’t know how it’s going to go, so we shouldn’t get our hopes up. This is Sam, and he might just hate the idea of going back there, however fond he is of her. And Mrs Gallagher, for all her kindness, might find it all too much. Let’s just think one day at a time, at least for now.’
‘Oh, my dear wife,’ Mike said, ‘for all the many sayings your lovely mother taught you, she really didn’t teach you the best ones, did she? I mean, what about never looking a gift horse in the mouth?’
I couldn’t help but smile. ‘Okay, fair enough. But what about not counting your chickens before they’re hatched?’
‘Okay, touché!’ he said. ‘But, Case, you have to admit it – I think we’ve found ourselves a real gem in that woman, don’t you?’
I could only agree, even as I didn’t want to count chickens. As blunt as she was, Maureen Gallagher was a diamond in the rough, and I was thankful she was now in our lives. A good day, I thought. A productive one, too. Because when we returned it was also to hear all about Sam’s ‘brilliant’ adventure, which had included dog walking, exploring, the bestest burger ever, an egg hunt – he had the loot to show for it too – and being taken to a place that was so special and secret, only the best superheroes knew where it was. Or, in Colin’s terms, ‘some old country park ruin’.
And that was another plus – that there was such a good connection, right there. Sam might have been the expert in demolishing Lego but the little building blocks were being put in place that would give him some foundations. Stronger ones, hopefully, than those he’d had before.
There was much building to do yet, and perhaps the early blueprints hadn’t been perfect, but, brick by brick, we were at least heading upwards. And though I’m not that superstitious, when I went to bed that night, I touched the bedside table before I drifted off to sleep.
So far so good. And – touch wood – that would continue.
Chapter 19
We’d agreed to hold off till the Thursday before the wedding to tell Sam that he was to have a night away from us. I had little choice anyway, because I’d had a last-minute wardrobe panic and, after a slightly frantic bout of intense internet shopping, I had ordered three dresses that were due to arrive that day. So it was that, when the delivery man arrived on the doorstep, I deemed it the right time to put Sam in the picture.
‘What’s in there?’ he wanted to know, once I’d signed for my delivery.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Well, they’re dresses. Because I’m going to a wedding. I’ve got to try them on so I can choose one.’
‘A wedding? What wedding?’ he asked as he followed me upstairs to my bedroom.
‘My niece’s wedding,’ I explained. ‘Which is something we need to talk about. It’s this coming Saturday, and because it’s a long way away, we’ve arranged for you to go on a special sleepover.’
‘A sleepover?’ he asked. ‘Where? Am I not coming with you?’
‘No, love,’ I said, as I lay the parcel on my bed. ‘Like I said, it’s a long way away – a very long way away. So it’s not really fair on you to take you along. It’s –’
‘Why is it not fair?’ He looked crestfallen. ‘Haven’t I been a good boy?’
‘Sweetheart, it’s not about you being a good boy. Which you have been, no question. But it’s not really something I think you’d enjoy. All those people, all strangers. And in a place you don’t know –’
‘I don’t mind. I like strangers.’
This wasn’t going well. ‘I know, Sam, I know, but we’ve decided to arrange for you to have your own adventure. They’re very boring things, weddings, and I’m sure you’d be fed up. So we’ve arranged an adventure for you. Guess where?’
I’d chosen the right word (‘adventure’ being one of his favourites) because now, finally, he at least seemed intrigued. ‘Is it Kieron’s? With Luna?’
I shook my head. ‘No, not Kieron’s. Kieron will be at the wedding with us. It’s –’
‘But why can’t I just come with you? I’ll be a good boy, I promise. Oh –’ Something had obviously occurred to him, because he smiled now. ‘Is it Sampson’s? Am I going on an adventure with Sampson again?’
I slit the seal on the package and t
he dresses slithered out. I mentally crossed fingers that one of them would fit. There was precious time now to get anything else. But trying them on would have to wait. This was a far more pressing problem.
‘No, love, not with Sampson,’ I said, going over to the wardrobe for hangers. ‘He’s not allowed to have you over. He’s not allowed to have any kids sleep over,’ I added, ‘because of his very important job. Have another guess. Have a think. Where else would you like to stay over? Who haven’t you seen for a long time?’
He was puzzled now, and I could tell he was desperately trying to think. ‘I can’t guess,’ he said eventually, frowning from the effort. ‘Well, there’s Will and Courtney, but they’re not allowed to see me anymore, are they? And I don’t know anyone else, do I? Who is it?’
I wondered who had told him that. Kelly, perhaps? Possibly. Or perhaps someone had said something in the drama of the removal, and he had simply put two and two together and worked it out for himself. I hung the dresses one by one on the back of the wardrobe door, reflecting sadly that, in all probability, he didn’t know anyone else, either. Not in any meaningful sense. One truism about children who came into the care system was that they weren’t usually brimming with caring friends and relatives, after all. ‘Ah, but you do,’ I said, trying to keep the mood light. ‘How about, let me see … Mrs Gallagher, your next-door neighbour?’
‘Auntie Maureen?’ he said, and more confusion crossed his features. ‘You mean I’m going to her house?’
He immediately shook his head.
Now it was me with the confused expression. ‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ I said. ‘Your auntie Maureen certainly is. In fact, she’s really excited to be looking after you. She can’t wait to see you. Sam, why the long face? What’s wrong?’
