A Stolen Childhood

by Casey Watson

  I undid my seat belt and swivelled in my seat. ‘Ah, I see. I get it,’ I said. ‘But, love, what do you mean by “a safe man or a bad man”?’

  She looked as if she was surprised that she even had to explain it. And, of course, she didn’t. But I wanted to hear it described in her own words. She obliged. ‘The bad men are the ones like Mum brought home. They want you to do stuff to them –’ she nodded towards her lap, pulling a face – ‘and it’s disgusting. My dad’s told me all about them now. And how to spot them.’

  ‘Your dad?’ I pricked my ears up. Perhaps he was being more proactive in protecting his young daughter than I thought. A helpful brownie point that would help me to re-position him more favourably in my brain. ‘And what does he say about it?’

  ‘That safe men – like him, and like Mr Dawson,’ she added, ‘they would never, ever make you do things like that for money. It’s just the bad men that do things like that. That’s why if you ask them you can tell. You can tell in their faces when you say it. Like, so easily. Anyway, I don’t have to worry any more, miss,’ she said, pulling together the drawstring on her bag, ready. ‘Because dad’s my only man now, for ever.’

  ‘For ever?’ I asked, smiling at her. ‘I’m not sure about that. One day soon, in a year or two, you’ll see a boy across a crowded room …’

  ‘No chance,’ she said immediately. ‘He is, miss. For ever. He’d never hurt me. He’s gentle. He really loves me. He loves me much more than he ever loved my mum.’

  The poke in the ribs had suddenly become a hefty punch in my gut. He’d never hurt me. He’s gentle. He’s GENTLE. The word – that word particularly – dislodged itself from the others, and settled in the pit of my stomach, with a whump. This couldn’t be happening. What I was suddenly thinking. It couldn’t be right, what I was thinking, could it? Could it?

  ‘Gentle?’ I asked.

  ‘Always,’ she confirmed. I could hardly bear to look at her in case of what I might see in her face. That, oh, so-knowing face. I didn’t. I stared ahead again.

  ‘Kiara,’ I said next, and as lightly as I could – so lightly that my words could almost have been carried out of the car window and away on the breeze. As if I’d never said them. Never had to. And how I wished they would. ‘Do you do some of those things with your dad?’

  Now I did turn. She looked shocked. ‘No, of course not!’ she said, almost indignantly. ‘Don’t be silly, miss. I told you, my dad loves me. When we do it, it’s called making love.’

  Chapter 18

  In years to come, sad to say, I would hear things, and witness things, and deal with the fall-out from things that no child should ever have to endure. In years to come hearing things of the kind Kiara had just said to me would still affect me deeply, but with greater experience under my belt and greater exposure to life’s horrors, I would have registered the enormity of it without gasping or cringing or flinching. I would have merely listened, filed it away in a temporary storage facility in my brain and then, at the earliest opportunity (I never waited), I would open up an official log book and record everything I’d been told, in as much detail as I could remember and, where at all possible, verbatim. I would do this calmly, in a measured way, conscious of the importance of following protocol in the case of a looked-after child making a ‘disclosure’.

  But that was for the future. Right now, it was difficult not to gape at Kiara, mouth Oh, my God!, and feel fearful that I’d be violently sick again.

  It was okay. I knew I wouldn’t actually be sick, because that level of shock had already happened to me. Which was in itself interesting; had I already become slightly desensitised to the sheer gut-churning vileness of the deeds that were being done to her? In any event, I was still nauseous enough to have to take a couple of deep breaths, grateful for the fact that as soon as she’d delivered her bombshell, Kiara had undone her own seatbelt, opened the passenger door and started getting out of the car. And why would she not do that? We were having a little ‘girl-to-girl’ chat and her comment had been throwaway, I felt sure of it. All she’d done was to gently put this misinformed older woman straight on the relationship between love and sex where her loving, gentle dad was concerned.

  I gripped the wheel, appalled and stunned, my brain once again flooded by images that I really didn’t want parking themselves up there.

  ‘Hiyah!’ I heard her calling over the roof of the car. Someone else had obviously arrived now. Best get on, then. Acting on autopilot, I reached into the back for my own backpack, groaning automatically as I hefted it one-handed into the front of the car with me, rueing (in the midst of the grisly peep show in my head) my insistence on packing everything bar the kitchen sink, just in case.

  There was one thing missing, of course, and that was a big stick like Granny Giles had, which was perhaps just as well. Because I think I really could have jumped back into the car, driven round to Kiara’s new and lovely, loving home, and beaten Mr Bentley to a pulp with it – my response to his evil was that visceral.

  I climbed out too. Kiara had been calling out to Chloe, who’d been dropped off by a taxi, presumably as it was so early, and who was now running across the staff car park hell for leather, the better to suffocate Kiara with a hug.

  I tried to think on my feet, since I was now upright, with the blood rushing between my ears. What to do next? What to do now? Now this minute?

  Nothing, came the answer from my brain. Do absolutely nothing. Stick with the programme and the plan, enjoy the day out at the adventure place, do nothing to cause alarm or distress to Kiara, don’t potentially precipitate any sort of scene – rock the rock wall, in other words, but do not rock the boat.

  I took a final deep breath and went across to meet the others.

  It only took a few minutes for me to realise that my Plan A had one enormous flaw. If we went off in the minibus as planned and I did nothing till I was back in school and could sit down with Gary and Mike, that would mean taking Kiara straight back to where I’d collected her from this morning.

  I thought of her looking so trim and pretty in her skinnies and pink T-shirt. And felt newly nauseous. Nope. There was no way I was going to do that in a million years. God, I thought, as I made my way across to the newly arrived minivan, driven round from the back by Kelly: she knew. Kiara’s mum knew – or at least had a bloody good idea. No, I thought, as I waved gaily at Kelly, she knew. She had to know. So why hadn’t she gone as far as actually saying so to me?

  Then I remembered the click that had cut her off mid-rant. Perhaps she’d been even drunker than she’d seemed. Perhaps she hadn’t meant to stop when she had. And just perhaps, hard though it was to think about, she didn’t call back because, in the end, she didn’t care that much. After all, who knew how long it would have been till she progressed Kiara on to those of her clients who were after a greater range of ‘services’? Not very long was my view. And it was in that moment that it struck me that Gary had probably been right. She had called to even the balance sheet, and in reality it probably was born out of sour grapes – he’d turned up again, and had the audacity to snatch away a part of her livelihood – had the audacity to come along and snatch their daughter for himself.

  And nobody, not a single one of us, had had so much as an inkling of what might be – clearly was – going on behind that scuffed wooden front door. To think I’d been worrying about him having a few cannabis plants growing under lamps somewhere. How lightweight a crime that suddenly seemed by comparison! I thought of the ratty mattress I’d glimpsed in what I’d naïvely thought of as Kiara’s room – of course it was a ratty mattress. It didn’t need to be a proper bed because no one slept on it. Well, hadn’t done for a while, I thought grimly; not once her father had coaxed her, oh so gently, into his bed.

  Get your head straight, I told myself sternly. Letting my imagination run away with me served no purpose bar putting my stomach on a spin-cycle. I needed to decide what to do. But my Plan B – to speak to Mike or Gary now – was equall
y unworkable. It was only 6.45, which meant neither would be here for at least an hour. And there was no question of waiting till then because our timings had been precisely worked out. If we didn’t get away now, we’d spend half the morning getting there, embroiled, as we knew we would be, in rush-hour traffic.

  Which left a Plan C of biting the bullet and keeping Kiara back in school with me – which would mean she’d miss the trip – or a Plan D: continue as planned and get hold of either man by phone as soon as we got there. There were bound to be mobile-phone signal problems but I knew they would have a land line in their office, because I’d called it to book the thing myself.

  Plan D, then. There was nothing for it. A and B were unworkable and C was as well, too cruel a blow for the poor child. I’d say nothing to anyone and once we were there I would make the call.

  ‘I am so gonna be first up that climbing wall,’ Tommy declared, as, all present and correct and with Jim now at the wheel, we headed off to the motorway and, as Kelly had coined it, to our date with derring-do.

  ‘You’re so not,’ Chloe told him. ‘Jonathan is.’ (Jonathan having found favour with Chloe the previous afternoon by letting her brush his hair after she’d finished her own.)

  ‘It’s going to be neither of you,’ Kiara corrected them. ‘I’m best at climbing. My dad works on a building site and he’s taken me up his ladders so we could sit at the top of a whole block of flats and see the stars.’

  ‘He never,’ Tommy retorted. ‘He wouldn’t be allowed. And they’d ’ave it locked up and guard dogs patrolling and everything so he’d never get in anyway.’

  ‘Well, for your information, we did,’ Kiara shot back. ‘He knows the secret entrance, and he doesn’t worry about silly things like rules anyway.’

  Quite, I thought wretchedly.

  Luckily, once we got there, and the admin had all been dealt with, it looked like the centre staff who’d been allocated to us would take charge of the first part, which was to do the high-level treetop assault course that we’d glimpsed from the minibus on our final approach and had generally been declared to be well wicked-looking.

  And you obviously didn’t need to be a child to appreciate it. The two young bearded guys responsible for getting everyone kitted out and doing the safety briefing and so on looked like they’d happily do the jobs they did without pay, they were that enthusiastic.

  I wished I could share their uncomplicated good humour, and on another day I would have, but it had been hard enough trying to act all jolly and ‘sing-alongy’ on the minibus. But I was soon to be able to escape – and I was beginning to feel like some sort of chief executioner – because they immediately sent Jim and me off to get cups of coffee, though not Kelly, the taller of them quipping that they’d assumed Kelly was one of the pupils, causing much hilarity all round and some heavily batted lashes; she was on the right side of the divide between wishing you looked older and being profoundly grateful if anyone snipped a couple of years off your age.

  ‘Do the high ropes with them anyway, Kelly,’ I told her. ‘You’ll make a nice even six, then.’

  She looked thrilled at the prospect. ‘Are you sure, Mrs Watson?’

  ‘Yessss!!!’ all the children shouted! Kelly shook her head, looking about as sincere about not wanting to do it as a snake-oil salesman would. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘No, no. I’m here to watch all of you doing it. It’s fine.’

  I pulled rank on her then. Because why shouldn’t she get up there and do it with them? I couldn’t think of a single reason. And it would make the children’s day for them. On balance, a major plus point. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re doing it. And that’s an order.’

  And within ten minutes or so, while Jim and I took charge of their various encumbrances – lunchboxes, jumpers, just-in-case cagoules and so on – they’d all trooped off to get harnessed up, returning in the obligatory safety helmets, and accompanied by much clinking and clanking of carabiners, and with the odd look of naked fear crossing the odd unlikely face.

  ‘Can’t you come up, too, miss?’ Kiara asked me, as they all reassembled.

  I shook my head. ‘Not for this bit. I don’t do heights,’ I told her. ‘As you can see,’ I added, patting the top of my head. ‘I’m not born for them. I get dizzy. This afternoon, though. Perhaps. They’ve got a toddlers’ assault course somewhere here, haven’t they? Much more my kind of thing.’

  Kiara grinned at me. ‘You’re not scared, are you, miss?’ she joked.

  How I hated knowing how soon she would have the smile wiped off that pretty face.

  ‘I thought you seemed preoccupied,’ said Jim as we hurried across to the office building and café with the kids’ bags, after I’d briefly filled him in as we saw them off into the woods. He found a choice word to describe Mr Bentley and used it. Then used it again, as, like me, the icky reality of it began properly sinking in; I didn’t doubt his own experience with Kiara brought it home to him even more.

  There was no point him hanging around with me while I got hold of Gary, so once we’d stashed the bags in a room they’d allocated for school parties, he headed off to catch the children up while I made the call. Once I was done I’d go and join him, not least in my role of official photographer of my little gang. And, once again, I had the grim thought that today’s antics would be a watershed for one of them, marking the point at which Kiara’s life took her on a completely new trajectory. And where the last time had turned out to be something of a trial run, this time, I knew, would be permanent; no going back. It was the end of life as she had known it, and everyone in it would cease to be a part of it from today.

  ‘You’re getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?’ Gary observed when Barbara the secretary put me through to his extension and I blurted out the gist of what Kiara had disclosed. ‘Social services won’t just swoop in and remove her based on what you’ve told me. Kids say all sorts of things, remember – but we can’t automatically just assume that they’re true.’

  ‘WHAT?’ I squeaked. ‘She just sat there and calmly told me they made love!’

  ‘Which is something she could be fantasising about …’ Gary was quick to point out. ‘A girl of her age, with everything she’s been through – like I say, it’s a complicated business.’

  ‘It’s true, Gary. I know it’s true. I’ve never felt so sure of anything.’

  ‘And you might well be right – for what it’s worth, you probably are right, at least to an extent. But what’s to say the boot isn’t on the other foot – that she’s been coming on to him? She’s been sexualised, remember; involved in prostitution at a very young age. The boundaries are all blurred for her around what’s appropriate and what isn’t. And don’t forget that he’s returned to her life only recently; lots of girls have crushes on their dad when they hit puberty – it’s a perfectly natural phenomenon. But if you add in the newness of their relationship, and the heightened emotions she must be feeling, then add in the fact that she’s been so desperate to live with him – let’s just say it might not be quite as black and white as you might think.’

  I hadn’t thought of any of that. Why hadn’t I? I had so much to learn still. Everything Gary said had an uncomfortable credibility about it. And what did I have? My trusty spidey sense. And that was pretty much all.

  But I trusted it. Trusted it totally. Yes, I’d been wrong up to now, in accepting the surface impressions. But on this, knowing Kiara better now, and having met all interested parties, I trusted my instinct completely. ‘But even if Kiara has been the instigator of a sexual relationship between them – and I do get that it’s possible, however unpalatable – it doesn’t make any difference, surely? If he had concerns she was coming onto him sexually, he should share them with the social worker, shouldn’t he?’

  ‘In theory, yes,’ Gary said. ‘But he might be reticent about doing that. I think I would be in his shoes – don’t forget, it would be his word against hers.’

  Another perfectly valid point. ‘So wh
at about her mum? Perhaps you could speak to her, ask her to explain what she meant when she said those things to me. What she meant when she said “out of the frying pan, into the fire”. It’s got to be worth speaking to her, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Well, I think the first thing I’m going to do is put all this in front of the social worker. That’s obviously the way to move on this – and perhaps they will speak to Kiara’s mum and see what they can glean. In the meantime, go and enjoy your day …’

  ‘As if! With this hanging over me!’

  ‘Go and try to enjoy your day. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. You have your mobile, I’m assuming?’

  ‘Yes. Signal’s patchy though. I’m calling from the office here.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll try your mobile. And if no luck, I’ll send you a text. In any event, if you’ve not heard back by, say, early p.m., call me again. Don’t worry, Casey. I’m on it.’

  ‘Well, I hope social services are too. Because I’m the one that’s supposed to be dropping her back to him at the end of the day. And you know I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ Gary said again. So I had to be satisfied with that. I hurried off, pulling the official school camera out of my backpack as I ran, so I could ‘capture the moment’. In a collection of pictures I’d find it difficult to look at again.

  Chapter 19

  It was a text that came from Gary in the end, at around two in the afternoon. We’d not long finished lunch and the kids were off to do the climbing wall and, for those with any remaining energy, the army assault course. I’d said nothing to Kelly by this time, because there wasn’t yet any point, and there was definitely no point in both of us being afflicted by that heavy, leaden feeling you always tended to get when you knew you had to be involved in something that was going to be unpleasant but that there was no prospect of wriggling out of.