by Casey Watson
So I was surprised to see her expression as we walked up the front path. We’d had a fabulous couple of hours, stuffing our faces with tortillas and enchiladas and, in the birthday boy’s case, a steak the size of a breadboard. But the jolly air was obviously about to be overturned. She was looking out of the living room window, clearly relieved to see us back. Not like my sister at all.
‘I didn’t call,’ she whispered, letting us in before Mike could even pull his key out, ‘because I didn’t want to spoil your evening. But, well –’ she nodded, gesturing behind her, towards the living room. ‘We’ve had a right carry-on with this one tonight.’
We glanced in, to where Jenson was curled up on the sofa, asleep but fully dressed, and puffy eyed.
‘Been in a right state,’ Donna explained, once we were out of earshot in the kitchen, and having established that Georgie was fast asleep in bed. ‘Started not long after you left. I could hear some noise upstairs – nothing worrying, or anything; I just assumed they were playing – but I obviously went up to check on them. Anyway, Georgie was in Jenson’s bedroom, lining up those pebbles you mentioned – you know, the ones from his tin – sitting in the doorway, not doing anything much of anything, really, but Jenson clearly didn’t want him there and started kicking off.’
‘Oh, sis, I’m so sorry –’ I began. But Donna shook her head.
‘No, not like that. Not at Georgie or anything. He was just upset. Just in a proper state about where you’d gone and when you’d be home. And he’s not really stopped since. Well, not till he flaked out – couldn’t keep his eyes open. He was just in a right state about when you’d be home.’
Mike and I exchanged looks. Now this was weird. If there was one 9-year-old you wouldn’t expect to worry about being home alone, it was Jenson. I said as much to Donna. It just didn’t add up.
‘What about Georgie?’ asked Mike. ‘Did he start kicking off as well?’
Donna shook her head. ‘Not at all. Seemed in his own little world, he did. Once I went in to try and calm Jenson down, he just took himself and his stones off to bed. It was Jenson that was the problem; when I told him for the umpteenth time that I wasn’t going to call you and cut short your evening, he got himself all dressed, coat on and everything, and when I tried to lock the door he even tried to make a run for it with the house phone so he could call your mobile – though where he thought he’d get the number from, I don’t know!’
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ I said. ‘Sounds like you’ve had a bit of a nightmare of an evening.’
Donna shook her head. ‘I’ve had worse. Besides, had to do it for my lovely bro-in-law, didn’t I? And we got there in the end – I brought him round with chocolate biscuits. He’s been through a packet and a half, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, I don’t think we’ll worry about that,’ I said. Recalling our recent trip to A&E, I was just relieved it hadn’t been any worse.
‘Hey, but on a more serious note, I did allow him half an hour on the laptop. Did you know about his obsession for NHS Direct?’
‘What?’ Mike said.
‘He does seem to have something of a thing for weird websites. That one, as I say. And one about heart massage, of all things. St John’s Ambulance. Certainly different. Perhaps he wants to be a paramedic when he grows up!’
After Donna had gone, Mike carried a still dozy Jenson upstairs, while I followed behind, carrying my strappy sandals. Between us we got Jenson into his pyjamas and into bed. Donna had been right. He’d done something of a ‘rock star in a five-star hotel room’ job on his bedroom. Though with no television to throw out of the window, it had escaped major damage; nothing that couldn’t be sorted in the morning.
We left Jenson’s door ajar and went to get into our own night things – it was quite late now – but just as I crossed the landing to go down and make a hot drink for the pair of us I heard him whisper to me from his room, in a small voice.
‘Hey, sweetie,’ I said, pushing the door open and looking in. ‘We’re home now. Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning.’
‘You’re not going out again?’
At midnight? As if, I thought. But then who knew what kinds of times Jenson’s mother came and went? ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re going to sleep. Which is what you should be doing.’
‘I can’t,’ he said plaintively. ‘My brain won’t go to sleep now.’
I went in and sat on the bed. Jenson immediately sat up. ‘Hey,’ I said, putting my arms out. He immediately threw his own around me, surprising me. Since Georgie’s arrival he’d backed off in that regard. I hugged him, feeling guilty. ‘What is it, love?’ I asked him softly. ‘What was this evening all about then?’
‘You left me,’ he said immediately, clutching me tighter. ‘You went out and left me.’
‘Only for a meal, love,’ I said. ‘And Donna was here, wasn’t she?’
‘But you don’t normally leave me,’ he persisted.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Because we don’t get out much. And don’t want to,’ I added. ‘Just now and again, for special occasions.’ I hugged him tighter, remembering his web search for first-aid scenarios. It felt peculiar, but perhaps he really was fearful of being left. ‘But if I’d known you were going to be so scared, love …’ I started.
‘I wasn’t scared!’ came the immediate retort, with a fair degree of feeling. ‘But you shouldn’a left me in charge of Georgie. It’s not fair! What if the social found out? What if the social come and saw it?’
I pulled back a little to look at him. ‘Why on earth would they do that, love? You had a babysitter. She was here to look after you and Georgie –’
‘An’ then they’d take me away again,’ he said, obviously not listening to my answer. ‘An’ I’d have to go an’ live somewhere else again, cos they’d say it was my fault!’
‘But love …’
‘You shouldn’a left me to take care of him.’
‘But we didn’t, Jenson. We’d never do that. That wouldn’t be responsible. That wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Don’ matter,’ he said. ‘If owt had happened I’d get the blame for it.’
‘Of course you wouldn’t, love. It’s –’
‘Yeah, I would,’ he said doggedly. ‘Just like I did about our Sammy.’
I looked at him. I was obviously onto something here. Sammy? ‘Jenson,’ I said. ‘Who’s Sammy?’
He looked back at me, and I saw panic cross his features. So I said it again. ‘Jenson, who’s Sammy?’
It was dark in Jenson’s room, but there was light enough to see the fear. ‘No one,’ he said, pulling away. ‘No one!’
Chapter 17
If someone says someone is ‘no one’, particularly if that someone is a child, then it’s odds on that the someone is someone quite important – and in this case I’d have bet my last farthing on the fact.
I woke up, bleary-eyed, to see the clock display in front of me. It read 09:51. Almost ten! But it wasn’t surprising. When you spend half the night wide awake, engaged in thinking about such tongue-twisting conundrums, it’s no wonder you oversleep the next morning.
I rolled over. Mike’s side of the bed was empty, as expected. It being a Saturday, he’d have already been down to the warehouse for an hour, and if my nostrils didn’t deceive me – I sniffed, no they didn’t – well under way with preparing breakfast.
Time to get up, then. I swung my legs out of bed and pushed my feet into my slippers. It already looked like being a beautiful sunny day. And who knew? Perhaps one without any crises or dramas. Miracles did sometimes happen, after all.
And when I got downstairs, things certainly looked hopeful in that department. The dining-room table had already been laid, complete with morning paper and my favourite brown sauce, while Mike himself, assisted by both Jenson and Georgie, was busy dishing up plates of bacon and scrambled eggs. I noticed Jenson looked a little puffy-eyed. Perhaps he’d had a wakeful night as well. He glanced across at me and gave me a wan smile.
‘That’s what I like to see,’ I said, smiling back as I took my place at the table. ‘Men at work! God, that smells delicious.’
‘Georgie is going to football today,’ Georgie told me, taking his place beside me and carefully putting down his plate of scrambled eggs with barely toasted toast.
I glanced across at Mike as Jenson came to the table with his own breakfast. This was a first.
Mike nodded. ‘We’re all going to go and watch Kieron, aren’t we, kiddo? That’s if you didn’t have any other plans for these two,’ he said to me. ‘He’s only playing just up the road, so I thought we could all stroll up there together. Lovely day for it, after all. Anyway, tuck in.’
I loved that Mike was being so proactive with them both, though I did have plans, as it happened. Well, one plan, at any rate. To find a way to get Jenson to open up about who this ‘Sammy’ was. It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to come up with the possibility that the name Sammy and the neighbour’s comment about ‘all that business with the little one’ might be connected in some way. But in what way, exactly? That was the question.
‘That sounds like a lovely idea,’ I agreed, squeezing a big dollop of sauce on to my plate. ‘And best of all, it’ll give me a chance to top up my tan. Except …’ I added, thinking on my slippered feet, like a pro. ‘Before you do that, I have to nip into town and pick up a couple of bits and bobs for Riley, and I was hoping you might come with me, Jenson.’ I turned to face him. ‘I promised Levi we’d get some of that new pirate-ship Lego, and I thought you might like to help me choose it. And there was that DS game you fancied, wasn’t there? The one about …’
‘The penguins!’ Jenson said, his eyes lighting up on cue. ‘Could I get that?’
I nodded, pleased at the simplicity of a young boy’s mental wiring. ‘I don’t see why not. And something for Georgie, as well. Since you both helped make us such a lovely breakfast. And once we’re done, I could drop you off at the playing fields to join Mike and Georgie to watch the match, couldn’t I?’ I turned to Mike. ‘Would that be a plan, love?’ I asked him.
He winked. He had clearly worked out mine.
In my experience, car journeys always seem to be good environments in which to have discussions. Particularly discussions about difficult subjects. And particularly discussions involving children. I don’t know why it is, but it always seems to be so. Perhaps it’s the calming environment. Perhaps it’s because you don’t need to make eye contact. Or perhaps it’s just because neither party has the opportunity to walk away if things get too sensitive or too heated. It always worked with my own kids – and particularly when they were stroppy teenagers. Yes, we’d always end with them slamming the door and stomping off in a huff, but not before absorbing whatever homily about homework or housework or acceptable coming-home times was on the mum-agenda that day.
Jenson wasn’t a teenager, stroppy or otherwise, but based on his reaction to my probing the night before I didn’t imagine he would open up that readily about what the significance of this ‘Sammy’ person was. I also had a hunch – again, not rocket science, really – that it was something that troubled him deeply. What had happened? What kind of ‘bad business’ had gone on? Had he hurt another kid? Or been involved in some kind of childish crime? Was this ‘Sammy’ an accomplice? It could be so many things. But one thing was a definite. It was a burden.
I decided I would broach it on the way back from shopping, rather than on the way there. Thrilled with his new game (which he was; he was sitting in the back seat, reading the back of it) he might feel more disposed to open up to me. Low tactics – I was in full-on Lieutenant Columbo mode by this time – but, hopefully, a valid means to an end. I really wanted to know what ailed this complicated child, because something did. And my hunch was that it was more than just erratic parenting.
‘Jenson,’ I asked him lightly, as we left the multi-storey car park. ‘You know when we were talking last night?’
He glanced up from his reading, looking wary.
‘Well, you know, sweetheart, it’s been on my mind ever since. I can’t help wondering. What happened? Who is Sammy?’
I could see his face in the rear-view mirror, and how it changed. ‘No one. I told you,’ he said, staring fixedly at the game box.
‘Sweetheart, everyone is someone,’ I said. ‘No one can be no one. Is he a friend of yours? Someone you know? Someone you knew?’
‘I told you,’ he said again. ‘No one!’
He stared at my reflection in the mirror now, as if to will me to leave it by the power of a glare alone. Which made me all the more determined that leaving it was what I shouldn’t do. ‘Why won’t you tell me, love?’ I asked him mildly. ‘Is it something you find difficult to –’
‘I can’t!’ he said, looking exasperated now. ‘I mustn’t!’
‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Sweetheart, whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll feel better if you get it off your chest.’
‘But it’s a secret!’ His tone was now becoming pleading. ‘Please, Casey. I should never of said it. I should never of said her name!’
Despite my desire to get to the bottom of this, I knew I had to be careful. Much as I knew that getting to the truth was one of the best ways you could help heal a troubled child, I was also part of a social-service system which had clearly defined protocols and boundaries. Which was a good thing – following procedure protected us from both criticism and lawsuits – but it could also be frustrating, particularly when it stopped me from doing what I always wanted to; having a full and open relationship with the children in my care. And it had only recently got me into trouble as well. Our last foster child’s mother had harboured a big secret, and when I found out about it and confronted her, it didn’t matter a jot that it changed everything for the better – I still got my knuckles rapped for not following protocol. Even though I felt I’d done the right thing – and still did – by the book I still shouldn’t have done it. I should have taken my concerns to her social worker and left her to deal with it, rather than trying to sort it out myself.
So this was delicate ground. Where there were secrets, there were generally lies. Whatever this secret was, it wasn’t likely to be a nice one.
‘A secret?’ I asked lightly, noting that Sammy was female. ‘Whose secret, sweetheart?’
This seemed to faze him.
‘I mean, who told you to keep it secret, love? Was it Sammy? Because if she’s done something to upset you and asked you to keep it a secret, then that’s not right, love, is it?’
We’d stopped at traffic lights by now, so I twisted round to look at him directly. And in doing so, I noticed that his eyes had filled with tears. This was beginning to feel too much like an interrogation. Which was the last thing I wanted. If he felt he really couldn’t talk, then it would be wrong to push it. But that was the most frustrating thing. If it really was that upsetting, then it was a big thing. A huge thing he was carrying around all by himself.
But just as I’d decided to leave it – perhaps I would just speak to Marie about it, after all – Jenson spoke again. ‘It weren’t Sammy,’ he answered, crying now. ‘How could it be Sammy? She were only little.’ He took a gulp of air. ‘She din’t do nothing! An’ she’s dead! An’ you shouldn’a asked me, Casey. Mum’ll go apeshit! An’ it’ll all be your fault!’
Finding a place to pull over took a good five minutes. And all the while, Jenson sat and wept in the back seat, arms crossed across his chest, the penguin DS game clamped between them, his face wrestling with itself as he tried to stem the flow.
Finally I managed to park, and swivelled right round in the front seat. Then, deciding that this wouldn’t do, I climbed out of the car and got back into the back seat, beside him.
‘Sweetheart,’ I said softly, as he sat rigidly beside me. ‘I hate seeing you so upset. It’s just that –’
‘I’m not upset!’ came the immediate retort. ‘I’m just cross! You’d shouldn’ keep on at me. Getting me in trouble.
I’m not allowed to tell!’
‘Tell what?’
‘About my sister!’
‘Carley?’
‘No, Sammy!’
‘Sammy’s your sister?’ I backtracked. No. Wrong. Was his sister. ‘Sammy was your sister? Your little sister? And she died?’
Jenson nodded miserably. ‘Casey, please don’t tell on me. My mum will go mad. She will. She’ll go apeshit if she knows I said owt to anyone. Promise you won’t? Cross your heart?’
My brain was now in overdrive. No wonder this was a big thing for him – whatever this ‘thing’ actually was. But I reined myself in. There was nothing to be gained right now by trying to dig up any more. Right now he clearly needed reassurance that he wasn’t in trouble.
‘Sweetheart, of course I won’t say anything to your mum. I wouldn’t dream of it. And of course you’re not in trouble. Why on earth would you be in trouble? I won’t say a word to her, I promise. Not a word.’
‘Promise?’
‘Cross my heart,’ I said, making the gesture twice, for good measure.
It didn’t take long then for Jenson to stop crying and wipe his face. And it struck me how this wasn’t so much about the pain of loss, but about fear. He was mostly just terrified of me telling on him and getting him into trouble with his mother. Which naturally begged the question – why?
I tried to unscramble my memories of what he’d said the previous evening. Blame. He’d said something about being always blamed for everything. And unjustly. It had always been something of a theme with him. But, once again, why? What was the big secret around his little sister’s death? Why had he been ordered by his mum to keep it quiet?
While Jenson returned to looking at his game, my mind was full of questions. Questions like a bunch of Lego bricks, all in a muddle, and which needed piecing together to make a coherent whole. But what would it look like? Odds on, pretty ugly.
With coffee, half an hour later, came clarity. By the time we’d arrived at the football field Jenson had seemed much happier. Happy just to get out of my car, was my guess. Happy to run to Mike and Georgie. Happy to watch Kieron play football. Happy not to be interrogated by me any further, mainly. Which was something of a relief, because the last thing I wanted was to cause him any further distress.
