“Is anything known about the cause of the condition?”
A laugh came from deep in Ettlinger’s throat “The cause, 70 you say? Nobody knows. No known cause and no cure. There are theories. More theories than I have time to list, my friend. Personally, I am inclined to believe that the problem is organic, rather than emotional. It has nothing to do with the way the children are reared, as was once suspected. It goes back, in my opinion, to pre-, peri-or postnatal injury or illness affecting the brain. And don’t ask me what can be done. Every week, practically, I read of some Svengali claiming spectacular success. Cures, even. You can hug these children, reward them, punish them, isolate them, put them on diets. They can be trained to some extent. I don’t deny it. But so can chimpanzees. Personally I would rather train a chimpanzee. They’re capable of affection, you know. Autistic children give none. They are tyrants.”
Diamond had heard all this with mounting distaste. “That’s hardly a scientific word, is it? Tyrants?”
The little doctor glared. “Think of a better one. Spend as long as you like observing Naomi and think of a better one-if you can.” He turned his back on Diamond and went over to talk to someone else.
CHAPTER TEN
This morning Diamond was equipped with a pad of drawing paper and a marker. If this intractable little girl wouldn’t respond to sounds, he’d decided, maybe it was a problem of language. He was going to see whether symbols would do the trick. He moved his chair next to hers and placed the pad on a low table in front of them. Then he drew a large circle and added a smaller one on top. A body and a head, evoking childish memories of beetle drives on wet afternoons in English holiday camps. Except mat this was meant to represent his body and his head. He added stick legs and arms, followed by the facial features, with a scribble of hair above each ear to establish the margins of his bald dome. He held it up for Naomi, beamed encouragingly and said, “Diamond.” He pointed to his chest
Possibly, he persuaded himself, her eyes gave his artwork the credit of a glance. They certainly didn’t linger on it. And she remained silent.
He touched the drawing and then tapped himself on the head.
“See? Diamond.”
Not a muscle twitched.
Refusing to be discouraged, he folded the picture over and drew a smaller figure on the next sheet, with the suggestion of a skirt and a passable attempt at fringed hair.
“Naomi.”
He pointed to her. Indicated her hair. Then added a flourish to the drawing, a small bow poised on top of the head. “Like it?~ He chuckled a little, and was conscious how forced it sounded. “It’s you.”
Not only was she unamused, she hadn’t even looked.
Determined not to be thwarted, he turned back to the first drawing, tore it from the pad and set it on the table beside the second one, to make clear the contrast in size. “Big Diamond. And little Naomi. Diamond. Naomi. Me and you.”
She seemed frozen.
Several more attempts to establish the significance of the drawings came to nothing.
“Would you like to draw?” He slid the pad across the table in front of her. Once on television he’d seen a boy suffering from autism who could do remarkable drawings of buildings from memory, precise in detail and perfect in perspective. After a visit to London the boy had made sketches of St. Paul’s and other buildings equally ornate. Two books of his drawings had been published.
Diamond wasn’t expecting fine art from Naomi. He was willing to settle for a mark on the paper, of any sort. He took hold of her left hand and carefully inserted the marker between her fingers. He’d noticed that she used the left when she held a paper cup. Plenty of thought was going into this.
Naomi declined to grip the marker and let it flop out of her hand.
“I think you could do this,” he said, more for his own morale than the child’s. “I really think you could.” He replaced her fingers around the marker and guided her hand to produce a shaky circle on the drawing pad. “There!”
The accomplishment was lost on Naomi.
“Suit yourself, miss.” More disappointed than he cared to show, he turned his back on the child and stepped over to the table where the coffee things were. He might as well switch the kettle on now so that the teachers didn’t have to wait when they came in at lunchtime. That would be the sum of his achievements for this lesson. He checked the water level, pressed the switch and stared out of the window, listening to the kettle begin the moaning note that was sometimes mistaken for a child crying.
Then he was conscious of a light touch on his right hand. Unbidden, Naomi had got up from her chair and reached up to place her palm against his.
He stared down, amazed. Elated. Did he dare feel elated? She didn’t return his glance, but what she had done was enough. It was the first positive gesture she had made towards him, or towards anyone in the school, so far as he knew. He let his fingers gently enclose the small hand. He and Naomi stood together in front of the window in silence, in some sort of harmony, the irresistible force and the immovable object.
The kettle was coming to the boil and it had some fault in the mechanism that stopped it from switching off. He let it steam for a time and then leaned forward and with his left hand switched off the wall socket Naomi took it as the signal to remove her hand from his and go back to her chair. He turned, smiling to let her see that it wasn’t meant as a rejection. She didn’t respond.
His eyes were misting. For pity’s sake, he thought, I’m not going soft, am I? Peter Diamond, ex-CID?
At lunchtime, he told Julia Musgrave about the drawing session. They sat together on a bench under a sycamore tree in the school garden eating sandwiches. By then he was able to be more objective, admitting that it might be a mistake to place too much significance on the incident.
“No, we need all the encouragement that’s going in this work,” she said. “Some kids never make a spontaneous gesture of friendship like that to another person. Never. It’s terrific news, Peter. Let’s face it, no one else has made any progress with her. I think the woman from the embassy has despaired of ever getting through. She didn’t come at all this week. She phoned instead. They’re talking about sending Naomi to a school in Boston that specializes in autism. It’s run by Japanese teachers.”
“Boston?” Diamond said, aghast “Send her to America? That’s going to confuse the kid even more.”
“They’re getting remarkable results. Several children from mis country have been taken there. It may be the best solution for her. We’re making no progress here-well, not until mis morning.” She paused, looking at him earnestly. “They call it the Boston Hagashi School. Apparently hagashi means ‘hope’ in Japanese. Don’t you think that’s a beautiful idea?”
If it was, he wasn’t receptive to it “Look, I know you mean to do right by Naomi, but suppose she isn’t autistic?”
“It’s not really my decision, Peter. She’s in the care of the local authority.”
“Who’d be very relieved to have her taken off their hands, no doubt.”
“Now you’re being cynical.”
‘Tell me something, then. What precisely is being done to find her parents?”
She sighed. “The police are making inquiries. No one has given any worthwhile information, so far as I can gather. No one has reported her missing. Where are the parents? Somebody definitely looked after her up to the time she was found. She was clean and decently dressed. She’s been abandoned, Peter, and I don’t think the parents are going to change their minds. Young mothers sometimes come forward to reclaim newborn babies left on doorsteps, but this is something else.”
“Agreed.”
“I often meet parents who feel they can’t cope any longer with disturbed children-only they don’t just leave them in Harrods and walk away.”
“What is it, six weeks now?” Diamond asked, making a point rather than seeking the answer, which he knew.
“Almost.”
“In the first week, her picture w
as in the papers.”
“And on television. Nothing came of it.”
He said thoughtfully, “The picture was only a still, and it was only on the regional news. I’d like to get her onto a national TV program, like ‘Crimewatch.’”
Julia Musgrave frowned. “We don’t know that a crime is involved.”
“Abandoning a child her age?”
She shook her head. “It’s not the best way to reach her parents. Somewhere out there is a very distressed mother.”
“All right, let’s see if we can get Naomi on a chat show.”
“A chat show?”
“You’d do the chatting, but she’d be seen by millions.”
“Peter, I’m not sure that it’s right to put a disturbed little girl in front of television cameras.”
He understood her reluctance without supporting it. “I’d agree with you if she was a gibbering idiot, or scared of people, like Clive. But you and I know how she’ll conduct herself on television. She’ll stay as calm as ever. Self-possessed. She’s in control. You can’t deny that. And if she appears live, it’s going to make a far bigger impact than a still picture. There’s a very good chance that someone will recognize her.”
“I’m not at all happy about this.”
“And I’m far from happy about the kid being whisked off to America when her parents may still be here in England. Let me make some inquiries. This is just the kind of story they like to take up on TV. She’s a very appealing child.”
“Exactly,” she said with passion. “I don’t want her used. We don’t have the moral right to turn her into an object for people to goggle at If she’s on television, you can bet the papers will take it up. We’ll have all sorts of well-meaning folk offering to adopt her, sending her toys-”
“Does she have any toys?”
“She isn’t interested, Peter. We have a whole menagerie of stuffed animals.”
“How about toys with wheels?” he asked suddenly, recalling Dr. Ettlinger’s observation.
“She isn’t a spinner, rest assured. Look, television is an entertainment medium. Naomi isn’t entertainment, she’s a vulnerable child with a serious impairment.”
“Julia, people aren’t going to laugh at her, for God’s sake.”
She regarded him steadily. “If this had been Clive or Rajinder whose people we couldn’t find, would you take them on television?”
“Probably not on a talk show,” he conceded.
“And why not?”
“Their behavior wouldn’t do them credit-but they’re different. You and I know that Naomi would acquit herself impeccably.” “Oh, yes?” A glint came to her eye. “How do you know she wouldn’t bite the cameraman?”
He had to smile at the prospect.
Julia’s attention switched abruptly to Mrs. Straw, who was bearing down on them from the direction of the house. From the manner of her approach, the carriage of her shoulders and the swing of her thighs, she had something awesome to announce, and she was going to make sure that it received its proper attention.
“What is it, Mrs. Straw?” Julia asked.
“I think you should look in the staffroom, Miss Musgrave. Somebody stupidly left a marker pen lying about. The Japanese girl found it, and she’s scribbled all over the walls, and they were only papered three months ago. You never saw anything like it!”
The vandalism in the staffroom provided Diamond with his first opportunity of detective work since leaving Bath. The perpetrator of the graffiti had done an effective job, for the walls were copiously covered in aimless scribble. Nor had the furniture escaped. The thick, black lines had turned the lower half of the room into what one of the teachers described as a Jackson Pollock. The reference went over Diamond’s head, although it sounded apt.
Nobody, he learned by questioning Mrs. Straw, had actually seen Naomi at work with the marker. The child had been found with it later in the dining room. She had refused to give it up. “I had to pry her fingers off one by one,” Mrs. Straw asserted. “She was all set to do it all over the school.”
This, it turned out, was a false accusation. Doubtful that Naomi was the culprit, Diamond was able to demonstrate her innocence. When he examined the staffroom walls, he found that the scribbles ran higher man she was capable of reaching. Thus it was that the real culprit was apprehended in his usual hiding place behind the grass seed in the garden shed. Not only was Clive’s reach four inches higher than that of any other child in the school, his hands and clothes were stained with black marks. It transpired that he’d wandered into the staffroom at a time when nobody was about and had done the deed, afterwards throwing the marker away in the garden. Later, Naomi had picked it up.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Straw is a vengeful woman,” Julia Musgrave confided to Diamond. “She does work hard for the school, though. I don’t think we’d manage without her.”
“She was right about one thing,” he admitted. “I was daft to leave the marker out.” In this confessional vein, he went on rashly to promise to redecorate the staffroom-a severe penance indeed. This little crisis had sidetracked them from the more vital issue of whether it was right to put Naomi on television; not for long, he was resolved.
As he was leaving, calculating how many cans of emulsion he’d need, Julia called his name and came after him into the corridor.
He stopped, uncertain what to expect.
“You can have your marker back,” she told him. “Believe it or not, the ink isn’t all used up yet.”
He pocketed it, slightly puzzled. The marker belonged to the school anyway. She must have known.
She said,“You don’t really have to go to all that trouble-over the staffroom, I mean.”
“It’s no sweat for me,” he lied.
“I appreciate the offer, only I wouldn’t want you to think it will change anything.”
“Except the color of the staffroom,” he said, grinning.
When he turned, he almost fell over Naomi. She must have been standing extremely close behind him, apparently waiting, because she stretched up her hand towards him. Twice in a day, he thought. This is too amazing to be true.
He extended his hand towards hers, but immediately she pulled it away. She didn’t, after all, wish to renew the contact.
“Have it your way,” he said, wryly reflecting that even at that tender age, women played fast and loose with decent men’s affections.
Sure enough, she proffered me hand a second time, only now her palm was outstretched as if she were asking for money.
“What is it, Naomi?” he asked, bending lower. “What are you trying to say?”
Her eyes had lost that habitual glazed look. She was focusing on him intently, her forehead creased in concern. She began jabbing her hand at him repeatedly like a beggar in a Cairo bazaar.
He asked, “Are you hungry?”
Whatever the problem was, she was really trying to communicate-a huge advance after six passive weeks-and the least he could do in return was discover what she wanted.
“It can’t be money.”
As he bent even closer to her upturned face, she reached for his jacket, pulled it open and dipped her free hand into the inner pocket
“Young lady,” he said, “you’re sharper than anyone suspected.”
Only it wasn’t his wallet she was after. It was the marker that he’d stowed away in there after seeing Julia. Naomi whipped it out and clutched it to her chest with both hands, as if she wanted nothing so much in the world.
“God help us!” he said to her. “What do I do now?”
It was quite a dilemma. If he let her keep the thing, someone-Mrs. Straw, knowing his luck-was certain to see it and inform the rest of the school that they had a fifth columnist in their midst. Julia Musgrave would feel betrayed. If, on the other hand, he insisted on taking the marker back, the first shoots of affection he’d cultivated would be trampled upon, destroyed forever. He remembered Mrs. Straw’s saying how she’d needed to pry Naomi’s fingers away one by o
ne. Clearly, that pen was a treasure to the child.
He decided to let her keep it, and run the risk that Clive might snatch it away and go on a graffiti spree again. He was pretty confident Naomi wouldn’t lightly give up her prize.
Gently, he put a hand on her shoulder and steered her in the direction of the staffroom. She was as compliant as ever now that he’d made it plain that he wasn’t going to take back the marker. Coming into the staffroom without thinking about Clive’s handiwork, he was freshly shocked at the extent of the scribbling. No one was sitting in there, and he could understand why. He escorted Naomi to the wall where the scrawl was thickest.
“You see what happened?” he said, hoping she would share his outrage, even if the words meant nothing to her. “Clive did it. You wouldn’t, would you?” He swept the air with his hands to reinforce the message.
She stood solemnly facing the vandalized wall. Troubled that he might have been too heavy-handed, he reached out impulsively to stroke her hair, then decided he shouldn’t. An action like that could be misinterpreted, by others, if not the child. But his hand was already on her head, so he ruffled the dark hair instead-and still felt it was a liberty he shouldn’t have taken.
The drawing pad he’d used earlier remained on the table, open at the picture he’d done of Naomi. He folded the pad and handed it to her. “This is for drawing. You can have it It’s yours. Yours. All right?”
She appeared to understand. Her eyes briefly met his and she tucked the pad under her arm.
“Now let’s find where you should be at this hour of the day.”
He found the class in a lesson that was down on the timetable as music, and consisted of indiscriminate tambourine-banging while the teacher, a cool young girl wearing a black fedora, strummed something on the guitar. Naomi settled cross-legged on the floor away from the others, continuing to hold the drawing pad and marker. She declined to take the tambourine Diamond found for her. He nodded to the teacher and left.
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