‘It’s not just the anger issues that we’re here to deal with,’ I say. ‘Obviously Ellie’s situation is slightly different from children who have been removed from their parents’ care. It’s my personal opinion from speaking to her teachers and Ellie herself that she didn’t receive adequate grief counselling after the death of her family. That’s not your fault,’ I add quickly at the crestfallen look on Sarah’s face. ‘She should have been receiving the extra counselling way before she even came to you. I’ve checked her files and she seems just to have slipped through the net somehow.’
I don’t add that it happens more than anyone could imagine. With the NHS stretched so thin there are more holes than ever before, it is easy for a quiet young girl with no history of abuse or behavioural issues to fall through one of them.
‘My first recommendation will be that Ellie gets some more one-on-one counselling from a qualified grief counsellor.’
‘Can’t you give her that?’
‘Well technically I’m qualified to offer counselling; however, it’s not in my current job description. I used to work as a private child psychologist,’ I add, cringing at how important it is to me that this woman knows my full credentials. Notice that you didn’t tell her why you’re not doing that any more. ‘I’m just here to make recommendations and referrals.’ It sounds pathetic even to my ears. It is sickening to realise how much I want to be able to help this family. I don’t want to write Ellie’s name on a list for further counselling only to have it continually passed over in favour of other children who are deemed to have been through worse, or are posing a threat. ‘I’ll make sure she gets the help she needs,’ I add weakly. ‘I promise.’
‘But Ellie told us she’d already spoken to you, that you promised to speak to her again. I think she liked you, although she doesn’t give much away.’ For someone who believes that Ellie is no danger, for someone who has seen much worse, Sarah Jefferson sounds awfully keen that the girl receives immediate help. My heart sinks as I remember how I promised I would speak to Ellie again. I’m so used to taking cases on a long-term basis rather than my new conveyor-belt-style role that I barely registered myself making the promise.
You knew exactly what you were doing, a sly little voice in my head tells me. There is something about that girl that made you want to help her, and you made that promise on purpose.
‘Well I can certainly have another chat to her if you’d like,’ I find myself saying now. ‘As part of my current job, I mean.’ I’ve already got enough information to give the referral she needs; there’s no reason for me to speak to Ellie again. But I also know that no one at the office will raise an eyebrow if I put another meeting in the diary with her case reference on it – no one keeps watch over how many sessions it takes to close a case, or asks for minutes or even notes on these sessions. ‘But I can’t take her case on the way I would have done in my old job.’ Which I fucked up beyond all recognition, I remind myself. In truth I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stand seeing this side of life, these nice normal people who need the extra help more than anyone and will probably never receive it because their bank balance is a few zeros short of being able to pay for it and their case file a few arsons short of being a priority. On the other hand, we can’t afford to move away and rent again; that’s the reason we’re here. I have to make this work.
‘That would be great.’ Sarah’s voice pulls me back to the kitchen table. ‘If you wouldn’t mind? Between you and me,’ she looks around as though she is checking for some kind of recording device, ‘I feel as though I’ve failed her a bit. I had such high hopes when we heard we were getting another little girl, a sister for Mary. It’s what we always wanted – well, it’s what we had, actually.’
She reaches over to the fridge behind her and pulls off a photograph, passes it to me. The picture is of a baby, just a few days old by the looks of it, swaddled in a pink blanket.
‘That’s Mia,’ she says, pointing unnecessarily at the picture. ‘She was our second baby. She was born when Mary was three. We lost her a few days after that photograph was taken. She got an infection that her little body couldn’t fight.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ I hand the photo back as quickly as I can without looking rude or uncaring. Another family that has lost what I’m considering throwing away. Say it how it is. Aborting. My hand goes automatically to my stomach, and when I realise, I snatch it away, hoping she hasn’t noticed.
‘She would have been about the same age as Ellie now,’ Sarah says, a wistful tone creeping into her voice. ‘So maybe you can see why I was hoping that Ellie would begin to feel like another daughter to me. But right from the start she was so cold, so aloof.’
‘She has been through an awful lot,’ I murmur.
‘Of course. It’s not like I expected it to happen right away,’ Sarah acquiesces. ‘I just thought that eventually . . .’ She sighs, lifts her mug to drink the dregs of her tea. ‘She’s just nothing like I ever imagined Mia would be. She’s so quiet, so strange at times. I’ll find myself wishing I could hear what she’s thinking, and then the look on her face will change and I’ll be glad I can’t.’
‘How do you mean?’
Sarah leans forward. ‘I mean that she scares me. Sometimes,’ she qualifies quickly. ‘Only sometimes. We’ve had a lot of children here,’ she repeats, ‘and some of them have been damaged, in here, you know?’ She taps her head. ‘And some of them have been violent, and like Billy, some of them can be a bit sly. It’s the way they’ve been raised, or haven’t been raised with most of ’em. Left to fend for themselves, rely on themselves or older siblings for food or to get them to school. They come here and they’re not sure what to do in a normal house with normal parents. But Ellie, she’s different. It’s as though she knows exactly how to be on the outside, but on the inside, there’s nothing. Like she’s hollow. And the things she comes out with – she sounds older than me sometimes.’
I nod encouragingly, but to my horror, I feel my mouth water and nausea rise in my throat. Oh God, please don’t let me be sick here.
‘And she has the most horrific nightmares,’ Sarah continues, oblivious to my discomfort. ‘She screams and screams, and even when we wake her up, she’s still screaming, as though she can still see whatever she was seeing in her nightmares. And then after those nightmares, that’s when it happens.’
‘What happens?’ I swallow, desperately trying to keep back the overwhelming feeling that I’m going to throw up. This was what I came to hear after all; not the party line that I’m sure was trotted out to my predecessor, but the crux of what is actually going on in this house, at the school.
‘Just bad things. It’s something different every time: a dead bird in the back porch, something electrical blows up. My hairdryer, the blender . . .’ She gestures at the blender on the counter. ‘Last week Billy went to the cupboard to get me a saucepan, and when he pulled it out, it was full of earthworms. Worms!’ She lowers her voice and leans closer to me. ‘I mean, how the hell does a saucepan get full of worms, for God’s sake? They don’t just crawl into the house and make themselves at home in your cupboards, do they?’
‘What makes you think Ellie was involved? I mean, if it was Billy who found the . . . them . . .’ I try not to picture a pan full of slimy, pulsating worms wrapping themselves around one another. ‘Sorry, I’m . . . I . . . Do you think I could use the bathroom, please?’
‘Top of the stairs.’ Sarah looks surprised at this sudden interruption, but I don’t have a chance to explain as I push my chair backwards and flee from the room.
32
Imogen
I sit back on my heels and wipe my mouth on my sleeve. Pushing my fringe from my eyes, I squeeze them shut to stop the tears from forming. This is a nightmare. Not only have I always hated being sick, but now it’s making me look unprofessional, and probably damaging my chances of ever finding out more about what’s going on with Ellie. It took Sarah long enough to start blaming every little thing
that went wrong in the house on the eleven-year-old girl – longer than it took Hannah Gilbert, who was very forthcoming with her wild theories – but eventually off she went. I can see quite clearly what the problem is, and it isn’t Ellie Atkinson.
Standing up and checking myself in the mirror, I try to work out my next move as quickly as possible. I have to keep this woman on side if I’m going to be allowed further access to Ellie, which means humouring her a bit, trying not to look incredulous when she suggests that Ellie’s bad dreams are making her blender blow up. I smile at the thought of it, but it’s not funny, not really. It’s little things like this – people putting two and two together and making five – that lead to long-term harm, sometimes even abuse. They’ve obviously decided to blame Ellie for everything that’s gone wrong in the house, overlooking the fact that two other children live here, both of them equally capable of blowing up blenders with their minds – although I’d put money on Billy for the earthworm stunt; kids usually want to be around to see the fruits of their hard work.
Pushing open the bathroom door, I glance into the room next to it, hoping to see Ellie. Instead I see the girl who answered the door – Mary – sitting at a desk covered in funky stationery, writing on some cute apple-shaped sticky notes.
‘Hi,’ I say, glancing down the stairs to check that Sarah isn’t coming to find me. ‘Mind if I come in?’
Mary looks up, shakes her head. ‘Are you here because of Ellie?’
I nod. ‘Yeah, your teachers think she’s struggling a bit to adjust. You seem to know her pretty well, what do you think?’
Mary looks momentarily shocked that someone has bothered to ask her opinion, then scowls. ‘I think that if they would give her a break and stop blaming her for everything that goes wrong in the world, maybe she’d actually talk to them a bit more.’
I’m saddened, but not surprised, that the most mature insight into the situation has come from a fifteen-year-old.
‘So you don’t think Ellie is to blame for the things that have happened? The spiders in her teacher’s desk? The blender blowing up? The worms?’
Mary snorts. ‘If Ellie wanted to get back at Gilbert for ragging on her project, do you think she would have been stupid enough to choose the very thing her project was about? She’s only young, but she’s smarter than that. And we all know it was Billy who did the worms, but me and Ellie are too nice to tell on him. We saw him covered in mud the day before he “found” them in the pan.’
‘And the blender?’
Mary looks at me pityingly. ‘Don’t tell me you think Ellie has the power to blow up electrical equipment with her mind too? Okay, so we’ve had a few fuses go, but believe me, it is not because my foster sister had a bad dream. It’s a bit pathetic really, all the whispering and the frightened looks people give her in the street round here. They’re supposed to be grown-ups. And now I see my mum’s joined in – telling you every single problem we’ve had with the electrics in the last year. She should be on the phone to the council, not the social workers.’
I smile and touch her on the arm. ‘Thank you for your time. You’re a very good friend to Ellie, I can see that. She’s lucky to have someone like you on her side.’
I turn to walk out of the room and Mary speaks again. ‘And you?’ she asks in a small voice. ‘Are you on her side? You won’t just abandon her, will you?’
I turn back and look at her. Her eyes are silently pleading – here is a girl who has seen far too many social workers, far too many government officials come and go, leave without a backwards glance.
‘No,’ I say, already hoping I won’t live to regret my words. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
33
Ellie
Ellie runs as fast as she can down the corridor, arms pumping and her school bag slapping uncomfortably against her side. She can still hear them. The laughter and the taunts . . . and then the screams.
She still isn’t entirely sure what happened. One minute Tom Harris was teasing her about her scuffed shoes and her second-hand bag; the next, he was on the floor, writhing in agony. The huge canvas mural was propped up in the corridor ready to be put back up on the freshly painted wall; then, as her anger sizzled and bubbled, scorching her insides, it fell on top of him. Can it have been her? She can still hear his voice now, teasing, goading. And when he asked her if she’d been a gyppo before her mum and dad died, that was when she really lost it. She started screaming and screaming, the wailing noise like a siren echoing off every wall in the corridor, and then she realised it wasn’t the echoes of her screams she could hear – everyone else was screaming too.
When she opened her eyes and saw what she had done, she bolted from the corridor and just kept running. Now she slams into the glass doors at the end of the corridor and out into the fresh air, leans over with her hands on her knees and gulps in big deep breaths. This is it, now she’s done for.
She has no idea how long she’s been sitting huddled on the cold, wet grass underneath the tree. Once she stopped running and calmed down, she realised with sickening clarity that she had nowhere to go and ended up in the patch of land reserved for the infants’ school to collect bugs and do tree rubbings. The area is overgrown and unruly – it is the only place in the school Ellie feels calm, even though they aren’t strictly allowed in there. She assumes that is the least of her worries today.
It is Miss Maxwell who finally finds her, freezing cold and shivering, silent tears cutting like ice down her cheeks. She can’t have been gone long, but it feels like an eternity on her own. The head teacher kneels down beside her in the wet grass, puts a hand on her shoulder and says gently, ‘It’s time to come back to school, Ellie.’
She shakes her head furiously. She isn’t going back there. Not ever. ‘They hate me,’ she says. ‘Everyone hates me.’ And I want to hurt them all.
Miss Maxwell shakes her head. ‘No one hates you, Ellie.’ She is speaking slowly, quietly, as though to a very small child. ‘We just want to help you.’
‘I didn’t hurt Tom,’ Ellie says, realising as she says it that she doesn’t know that this is strictly true. ‘At least I don’t think I did. I didn’t mean to if I did.’ She knows she is making herself sound even guiltier. What kind of nutcase doesn’t know if they have pushed a wooden-framed canvas on top of someone? ‘Is he okay?’
‘Let’s talk about this inside,’ Miss Maxwell urges. ‘Come on, Ellie, please; it’s cold out here. You won’t have to see anyone, I promise, we will go straight to my office and talk in there.’
Ellie shakes her head again, more firmly this time. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to any of you. I know what you all think of me. I want to talk to Imogen.’
Miss Maxwell looks almost relieved. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll call her right away, if you just come inside. You’ve only got a T-shirt on and you’ll freeze to death out here.’
A frozen child to go with her burned parents, Ellie thinks. Ice and fire. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe her heart is frozen permanently now and she’s supposed to lie here on the grass until her dead parents come to get her.
But then the school bell rings and Miss Maxwell stands up.
‘Come on, Ellie, time to go inside. We’ll go through the back of the staff room – you don’t want the other children to see you out here on the grass, do you?’
Ellie’s heart plummets and she gets to her feet. Not today, Mum. I know I’ll be with you soon, but not today.
34
Imogen
‘It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid.’ Florence Maxwell paces up and down her study, biting the inside of her cheek and every now and then shaking her head. She looks paler than the last time I saw her, and if possible, more harassed. ‘Tom Harris’s parents have gone straight to A and E just to be sure, and Ellie’s foster carer is on her way here. I really appreciate you getting here so quickly. She only wants to talk to you.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I reply, wondering
whether it really is nothing. When Florence called the office, I barely took the time to lock my computer before grabbing my handbag and rushing out. I’m almost certain that Edward would be fine with me leaving the place unattended to come here – Florence made it sound like an emergency, after all. ‘What happened?’
‘It’s hard to tell; the children are in shock and none of them seem to agree. All we have established is that Tom was teasing Ellie; he was being pretty mean by the sounds of things, although no one has told me exactly what he was saying. Then Ellie got mad and the mural fell on Tom. You know what kids are like; some are swearing blind she pushed it, others are saying it fell by itself. They can’t even agree on where she was standing. Even the ones who are convinced she pushed it remember her being on the other side of the corridor. Either way it’s a nightmare for the school – that mural should never have been left propped against the wall where it had the potential to fall on a child.’
‘Can’t be a dream for the boy, either,’ I mutter, and Florence has the good grace to look embarrassed.
‘No, of course.’
A thought occurs to me. ‘I hope you didn’t call me here to try and get a confession out of Ellie. You know that’s not my job.’
Florence looks as though it has crossed her mind but she has already resigned herself to me having that exact reaction. ‘Yes, I understand that. With a complete lack of any evidence that this is malicious, I’ve decided to treat it as an accident – provided that speaking to Tom and his parents doesn’t provide any enlightenment.’ She sighs. ‘Really I just want to make sure Ellie is okay – although right now, I’m unsure as to whether I should be more worried about her or about everyone around her.’
The Foster Child Page 11
