Robert
By: Tracie Podger
Copyright
Robert
Copyright 2014 © Tracie Podger
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and incidents, either, are products of the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously. Any reference to actual locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, to include, but not exclusive to audio or visual recordings of any description without permission from the copyright owner.
About the Author
Tracie Podger currently lives in Kent, UK with her husband and a rather obnoxious cat called George. She’s a Padi Scuba Diving Instructor with a passion for writing. Tracie has been fortunate to have dived some of the wonderful oceans of the world where she can indulge in another hobby, underwater photography. She likes getting up close and personal with sharks.
Tracie wishes to thank you for giving your time to read her books and hopes you enjoy them as much as she loves writing them. If you would like to know more, please feel free to contact her, she would love to hear from you.
Publicist, Paula Radell, can be contacted via [email protected]
Twitter: @Tracie Podger
Facebook: Tracie Podger, Author
www.TraciePodger.com
Available in ebook and paperback....
Fallen Angel, Part I
Fallen Angel, Part II
Evelyn - A novella to accompany the Fallen Angel Series
Robert - A prequel to Fallen Angel, Part I
Coming soon....
Fallen Angel, Part III
Fallen Angel, Part IV
A Virtual Affair
The Passion Series
Acknowledgements
I could never have written the Fallen Angel series without the support of my family. My husband has been my rock, without him, I wouldn’t be here.
My heartfelt thanks to the best readers and proofreaders a girl could want, Romy Lazzari, Janet Hughes and Paula Radell. Your input is invaluable.
Thank you to Margreet Asslebergs of Rebel Edit & Design for the wonderful cover.
And last but certainly not least, a big hug to my publicist and friend, Paula Radell. She is one of the kindest people I’ve come across on this journey called self publishing. Paula is responsible for getting my books out there and I am overwhelmed by her support and belief in The Fallen Angel Series.
Paula Radell - Passionate Promotions
So how did this all start? It’s been a long journey but my love of writing came about after I was encouraged to do so as part of my recovery from depression. I have always loved to read and lose myself in books, words soothe me.
One day, after a series of dreams, I sat with my laptop and the words flowed from my fingertips - pages and pages of them. I forgot my troubles and lost myself in the characters I have created. I hope you can too.
No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world - Robin Williams
Chapter One
The house was empty when I arrived home from school. I fished out the key attached by a piece of string to the inside of my blazer pocket. I wasn’t surprised to find myself alone, it was quite normal. I shrugged off my blazer and unclipped the red striped tie we were made to wear, hanging them neatly on the banister. I made my way to the kitchen, dropped my bag on the floor and opened the fridge. There was a piece of cheese as hard as a brick, a half empty tin of beans and a carton of milk. I sniffed the milk. I had learnt over the years that if it had a certain smell it wouldn’t taste nice. It seemed fine so I poured it over some slightly soft cereal in a bowl. I switched on the TV and waited. They never came home.
I must have fallen asleep on the sofa and it was dark outside when I was awoken by a knock at the front door. The room was illuminated only by the flickering screen of the TV. I waited until there was a second knock before I made my way to the hall. I wasn’t normally allowed to open the door, but maybe it was them. Maybe they had forgotten their door key.
I looked through the letter box, someone outside bent down so their eyes were level with mine.
“Hello son, can you open the door for us?” he asked.
He looked like a policeman, I had seen them before. They came to my school sometimes and of course I had seen them on the TV.
“My mum says I’m not allowed to open the door, to anyone,” I said.
“Is there an adult with you? Can they open the door?” he asked.
“No,” I replied, quietly.
I watched the man stand up, speak to someone behind him before crouching back down again.
“It’s okay son, we just need to come in and make sure you’re all right,” he said.
“I had my tea,” I replied. “I made it myself.”
“Well, that’s good, what did you have?”
“Cornflakes,” I said. “I like cornflakes.”
“I like cornflakes too,” he replied. “Did you have lots of milk?”
That was silly, of course I had lots of milk, everyone has lots of milk with cornflakes, don’t they? He stood again and then I saw Nora from next door, she placed her hand on the letterbox, her old creaky legs bent down so she could see through.
“Robert, can you open the door, love,” she said.
I liked Nora, she gave me sweets sometimes. She would be in the garden pegging out her washing and she would see me peering over the fence at her. Smiling, she would raise her fingers to her lips, creep back into her house and come out with a packet of boiled sweets. Sometimes they were so sticky I couldn’t get the wrapper off. I wasn’t allowed sweets normally, bad for your teeth and full of animal stuff, my mum used to tell me.
I opened the door and outside, standing under the little porch light was Nora and the policeman, there was another coming up the path, a police lady. I stood, blocking the way.
“Can we come in son?” the man asked.
At school my teacher had told me that we should always listen and be polite to the police so I let them pass and followed into the lounge. Nora crouched down to my level.
“Robert, is there anyone here with you?” she asked.
“No, I’m waiting for my mum and dad. They’re normally home by now,” I said, shaking a little.
Something was wrong, I could sense it. I had seen the look that passed between the police and Nora just before she ushered me to the sofa and sat next to me. She took my hand in hers and it felt odd. I don’t think anyone had held my hand before. My mum pulled me across the road sometimes by it, if I wasn’t quick enough. I looked at my hand in hers. She had funny, bent fingers and long, yellowing nails. It looked like she had been gardening again, she had dirty fingertips.
“Robert, have you got any aunties, someone who lives nearby?” she asked.
I shook my head, I didn’t think so. My mum would talk on the phone to people but no one ever visited us. Unless my dad was around, she never really left the house either.
“What about nanny, where does she live?” she asked.
I thought for a minute. “I don’t think I have one of them.”
“Son, how old are you?” the man asked.
“Six, I will be seven in two months and twenty-eight days,” I replied, proudly. I was good at math.
“Your mum didn’t leave anyone here to look after you?” he asked.
“No, I come home from school and sometimes they’re out so I make my own tea. I have reading to do, I can read well now.”
I picked up my school book to show
them. It was one I had selected from the bookshelf in my class about football, but they didn’t seem interested. Nora stood, they huddled together whispering and I watched them, trying real hard to hear what was being said.
“Where’s my mum?” I asked, hating that my voice quivered a little.
I was trying to be strong, that’s what my mum would have wanted. She hated it if I cried, she would want me to be strong. “Be a man,” she would say. I tried to be a man.
“I have some terrible news, Robert,” Nora said to me as she sat back down. “Your mum and dad, well, there’s been an accident, in the car.”
“Are they in the hospital?” I asked.
“Well, yes they are, but...”
“Can I go and see them?” I interrupted.
“Robert, the thing is, no you can’t see them. Oh love, they..., they’ve gone to heaven,” Nora blurted out, her face screwed up in sadness.
“Heaven,” the voice in my head said. “I doubt that very much.”
I didn’t have voices in my head all the time, not like mad people got. Just every now and again a voice would warn me of something, like to look further up the road and when I did there would be a bike coming that I hadn’t noticed before. My mum said I have good instinct. I didn’t know what that meant, but right then I hoped it was a good thing.
The policeman and Nora were chatting, the police lady came and sat on the other side of me, she seemed friendly and she smiled at me.
“Do you have any friends, Robert, maybe someone you stayed overnight with?” she asked.
I shook my head, my mum didn’t really like me to have friends. I was never allowed to bring anyone home and I hadn’t been invited to stay overnight with anyone.
“No aunties, uncles?”
“My dad used to speak to someone, she lives in a different country. I think it was his sister,” I volunteered. “I answered the phone once, she said Happy Easter to me.”
“Do you know her name or maybe she had an accent, did she sound funny?” she asked.
“Yes, my teacher has the same voice,” I replied, excited. “He comes from America. I saw America on a map once, shall I show it to you?”
I had a map book in my bedroom. My dad used to sit on my bed and talk about all the different countries. He would make up a story about a little boy who would travel the world. I knew it was made up because he called the little boy Robert and I hadn’t been anywhere. Running up the stairs, I pulled down the book from the shelf above my bed.
I showed the policeman the book, smiling because I found America straight away. He patted me on the head before he made his way to the front door speaking on the black thing he had attached to his jacket.
****
That night I stayed with Nora, she had a little back bedroom, same as mine and she tucked me into bed. Sitting on the edge, she watched me and stroked my black hair away from my forehead.
“So, if they have gone to heaven, does that mean they’re not coming back?” I asked.
“Oh love, no, they’re not coming back,” she said.
“Where am I going to live?”
“Let’s worry about that tomorrow, shall we?” she replied.
She sat with me for a while. She didn’t have to I thought, but it was nice to have someone stroke my hair. As I lay in the dark I thought about my mum and dad and what Nora had told me. Maybe I should be crying but however much I screwed my eyes shut, the tears wouldn’t come. I pinched myself on the arm, hard enough to bruise, but that didn’t make me cry either. I felt something strange in my belly though, like a pain but not a pain. It was like my belly was empty. Maybe I just needed something to eat.
Downstairs Nora met with the police again and this time someone new, I could hear them chatting. I heard the word Social Services but I didn’t know what that meant. I crept to the top of the stairs and listened. They were saying that I would stay with Nora until emergency foster parents could be found in the morning. I would have liked to have stayed at home, I was okay on my own. I knew how to make my tea, I did it all the time and I didn’t want to miss school. I liked school.
The following morning a new lady came, she said her name was Sarah and she was going to take me to her house to stay for a while. She told me about the toys she had there, that I could play with. She was an older woman but she had kind eyes. I liked people’s eyes, it told me a lot about them. I could always tell if someone was friendly or not by their eyes. My mum asked me about it once. She wanted to know how I knew what people were like just by looking at them. I couldn’t answer the question though, I thought everybody could see what I saw. I got told off a lot for staring though.
“Are you ready?” Sarah asked as we stood in the sitting room.
“I think so. Can I get my teddy?” I asked.
She looked at Nora. “Do you have a key?” she asked.
“I don’t, maybe the police do,” Nora answered.
Sarah bent down to my level, she looked straight at me with a smile.
“How about I get in touch with someone later and we can ask,” she said.
She took me in a car; I sat in the back and we drove, not very far, until we pulled into her driveway. She had a small house in a little lane with fields either side and a dog. It came bounding to the door when she opened it. It was only little but licked my face when I bent down to stroke its rough brown fur. I liked her dog, she told me he was called Benny. Benny and me became friends, we played in the garden and I stayed at Sarah’s house for a few weeks.
****
I liked the house, it was bigger than mine and there were lots of windows. At home my mum used to pull the curtains closed all the time, making the rooms dark, but at Sarah’s it was always light. I had a bedroom to myself, there were no other children but some must have lived there before because there were so many boxes of toys and not just for boys either. I found a box of dolls which I put straight back under the bed.
“Sarah, there are dolls under the bed,” I told her.
“I know, I don’t suppose you want to play with them. Would you like me to put them somewhere else?” she replied.
“No, it’s okay, I just wanted you to know.”
“Your tea will be ready soon, do you want to go and wash your hands?” she said.
One of the best things was that Sarah cooked proper food. I found it strange to sit at a dining table and eat with a knife and fork, I had forgotten how to use them. At school I had sandwiches for lunch and at home we usually ate something in a bowl with a spoon. It was at tea time that Sarah and me talked. We would talk about all sorts of things, school, my mum and dad and sometimes she asked me how I felt but I didn’t know the words, so I said nothing about that. At night she would tuck me in bed and sit with me, either to read or just to put her arm around my shoulders. My mum wasn’t a huggy person so it was good to snuggle up to Sarah sometimes, not always, but just sometimes when I was scared. She always smelled lovely and I liked to bury my head in her shoulder and listen to her voice as she read to me. She read me a book about another little boy who had lost his mum and dad. But this little boy used to cry and I wondered why I didn’t. Then I would remember, I was being a man and men don’t cry - I know that because my mum told me, men don’t cry.
I did go back to school after a couple of days and people were different to me. The teachers were a bit kinder. Not that they were horrible in the first place but the kids were strange around me, as if they didn’t want to be friends anymore. It was not like I had many friends at school. I was more interested in learning new things than chatting, but at playtime I might be invited to play football or climb on the frame. They didn’t ask me anymore, but I saw them whisper about me, behind their hands, their eyes looking my way. I wanted to ask them what they were talking about but I never did, I just sat on my own until playtime was over.
****
One day I was taken to the Head Masters office, there was a man there that I didn’t know and I hoped I was not in trouble. I was asked to sit
down as the man wanted to have a chat to me.
“Hello, Robert, my name is David, I’m a doctor,” he said.
“Hello,” I replied. I wasn’t sick, well, I didn’t think I was.
“I thought it might be good to have a chat, maybe about your mum and dad.”
“Oh, okay,” I replied.
“Do you want to talk about them?” he asked.
Did I? Sarah asked me many questions about them and I didn’t mind talking to her but I didn’t know this man and my mum told me not to talk to strangers.
“Not really,” I said.
He asked me if I felt sad about them dying. What a dumb question, of course I was sad. They were dead. I didn’t answer so he asked me if I liked being at Sarah’s house.
“I like Benny,” I said. “Sarah is nice, she cooks real food you know. She made me, oh what was it called, spaghetti something last night. I’ve never had that before, I think it comes from abroad. We got real messy when we ate, it was fun.”
“Did your mum ever cook?” he asked.
I shook my head. No, my mum rarely cooked, we lived on whatever could be opened and eaten straight away. Sometimes there was no real food in the house so we just had toast or cereal. I had heard my dad shout at her once, about making sure I had a proper meal each night but it never happened. I had my main meal at school, at lunchtimes. It was usually a little packed lunch that came in a bag, a sandwich and a piece of fruit. If the dinner lady was feeling really kind, she would give me a bar of chocolate.
“What about your dad?” he asked. “Do you want to talk about him?”
“My dad didn’t live with us all the time,” I said.
Sometimes he would, he would stay for a few days but then got the calling, as my mum would put it. He wanted to be an artist, he used to draw pictures of me and I had them pinned to the wall in my bedroom. Sometimes he had to go, sort his head out, I was told. I guessed everyone’s dad did that. I missed him when he was gone. My mum was always sad then. Sometimes she would shout and scream about his other family, I didn’t know what she meant. She would point to me and tell me I had made him go away and that he didn’t love us enough to stay.
Robert (Fallen Angel Series Book 1) Page 1
