by Casey Watson
We’d had a meeting to discuss progress generally, once the whole Imogen situation had been addressed, and preparations had been made for Gavin, Henry and Shona to return to mainstream classes in the New Year. All were ready, but all were still nervous about the prospect, and I felt for them. I worried about Gavin in particular, as he had more than once threatened (well, at least confided in me that he had threatened) to stop taking his medication to make himself ‘bad’ again, so that he could stay with me.
On top of all this, it seemed, I was getting a new child in my unit. A 14-year-old girl.
‘Though it’s just a case of containment really,’ Julia Styles, the school SENCO, had assured me when she popped down to let me know there was a new pupil imminent. ‘There aren’t any problems that we know of other than that the girl – her name is Gemma, by the way – is partially sighted. She doesn’t use a cane, but she does need a hand getting around the place until she feels confident enough to do it herself.’
‘And there’s really no one else to help?’ I asked.
It wasn’t that I was opposed to the idea, but I just didn’t see how much help I could be, particularly due to the fact that it transpired that she was also above average intelligence. ‘If she’s with us in the Unit, she’ll miss out on a chunk of her education, won’t she? I mean, she’s welcome, of course, but it will be almost impossible to set special lessons just for her, not at this late stage in the term.’
‘I know – it’s not ideal, is it?’ Julia agreed. ‘But, unfortunately, we don’t really have a choice. And if she misses out on anything vital, I’m sure we can catch her up in the New Year, can’t we? It’s just that we’ve secured funding for a special TA to come in full time for her, and she’s on top of the specialist equipment required – some kind of speaking computer system – but unfortunately, she can’t start until mid-January.’
So that was that. I was going to lose three and gain one, which would make the place feel very quiet. Only I wasn’t losing the three just yet, and Gemma was set to join us the following day. Which I thought was a pretty silly time of year to be starting in a new school, until I read the notes Julia left me and I realised that Gemma and her family had just moved to the area – literally that week – to start a new life for themselves, after fighting for years to keep their daughter in a mainstream school.
So, for a bit, at least, it was going to be even busier. So I spent the rest of the morning looking at the schedule to see if I could carve out some special time for her, while the children were happily (always a bonus with my volatile little crew) making cards and decorations.
I was so engrossed that it was almost lunchtime before I knew it, and was only made aware of the time by Shona appearing at my desk. I also noticed a sudden hush had fallen and that she was obviously the spokesperson for them all. ‘Here, Miss,’ she said, placing a card on my desk, which smelt of pine and was still gluey in places. ‘Me and the others have made this for you to take home,’ she said, colouring slightly. ‘It’s just to say thanks for looking after us, and because I’m gonna miss you next term.’
‘I will too, Miss!’ Gavin called across, waving from the boys’ table.
In fact, it wasn’t only Gavin. All the children were watching me. Then Henry also called out, ‘I’ll miss you too, Miss!’
I looked at what Shona had laid on the desk and I had to gulp hard to swallow the lump forming in my throat. While I had thought they were making paper chains and decorations to hang in the classroom, they had obviously spent much of their time creating what was in front of me now. It was a big gold heart, made from card, and all around the edges, neatly glued, were carefully drawn, painted and cut-out sprigs of holly and berries. Then, inside the heart, like the openings on an advent calendar, were little windows, behind which was an individual message from each of the children. It was a lost cause, trying not to cry in such a situation, so I didn’t. ‘Look at me,’ I sniffed. ‘I can hardly see to read your messages!’ Though I could see enough to make out I’ll miss you lots, like jelly tots, from Shona, and Your my favrit teacher, from little Ben, but the one that struck me as most poignant was from Imogen, which really got me going, because it simply said Thank you for helping me find my voice.
‘Oh, you guys! Look at me!’ I said, reaching for my bag so I could stanch the flow with tissues. ‘You’ve got me in a right mess! Oh this is so lovely. Thank you all so much. And, you know what? What with everything being so busy, I haven’t even thought about putting up my tree yet, but now you’ve made me feel all Christmassy, so I’m going to get everything out as soon as I get home tonight, and this,’ I added, picking up my card, ‘is going to have pride of place, right in the middle of my mantelpiece.’
I then got up from my desk and went round and gave each of them a hug, before stashing my card safely between two stout pieces of card, to go in my satchel, and, once the bell went, fairly skipping to the staffroom. Where, equally pleasingly, there were warm mince pies up for grabs.
Kelly was already wellying into her second. ‘You know what you should do?’ she said, when I told her about the new girl who’d be joining the following morning. ‘You should delegate, that’s what you should do.’
I took a mince pie as well. ‘I was planning on doing that anyway, once I’d wrestled your timetable off you.’
‘No, not to me,’ she said. ‘Though, obviously, that’s taken as read anyway. No, I was thinking you should delegate responsibility for helping this new girl to one of the other kids.’
‘One of the others?’
‘Yes. You know, you really ought to take a leaf out of your Kieron’s book,’ Kelly responded, with a cheeky wink. ‘You know how you say he always sees the simplest solution?’ I nodded. ‘Well, it is simple. This new TA is starting in the middle of January, right? And you have Shona returning to classes at the beginning of January, and in the meantime you designate Shona as official looker-after, you know; taking her where she needs to be, being her eyes as and where necessary, and even better – “Now that’s why this is a great idea, Kelly.” “Thanks, Casey! Don’t mention it” – you should put Shona in charge and make Imogen her assistant, promoting Imogen to main looker-after once we come back after Christmas, and thereby killing two birds with one stone. Ta da! What do you think? Brilliant, eh?’
‘You little genius!’ I said, clapping Kelly on the back, causing her to spit out a little dust-storm of pastry crumbs. ‘You’re absolutely right. That is bloody brilliant, and it completely solves the problem of Imogen feeling bereft once Shona’s gone.’
‘Um, hello? Of course I’m right. I invariably am. Though thanks for that,’ she said, coughing delicately and brushing crumbs from her trousers. ‘I was enjoying that mince pie.’
‘I was just thinking of your hips, love,’ I said with a wink. ‘Let me see – was that your second or your third?’
As days went, that particular one couldn’t have got a lot better, though there was less festive cheer when the family all got home to find themselves press-ganged into all-hands-on-deck-decorating-assistant mode, and expected to take orders from me.
‘Mother! I do have a life you know,’ Riley complained as she checked her watch for the umpteenth time. I had put her in charge of assembling one of the four artificial trees we’d amassed over the years – not to mention the real one I’d already sent Mike to buy and which he was now busy stabilising in its bucket. ‘I promised David faithfully that I wouldn’t be late for his parents’ drinks and canapés evening – and don’t give me that look. You already knew this!’
‘It’s not a look. It’s an “Ooh, get you and your canapés!” All sounds very posh.’ I threw her a box. ‘Just one more set of lights around this window and you are officially dismissed. Gawd, though. They’re coming on Boxing Day, aren’t they? I hope we’re not going to have to put on airs and graces or, indeed, canapés, when they visit …’
‘Yes, mother, I know: “They’ll have to take us as they find us.” You’ve told me that
five times already!’
She knew I was only teasing because she was so easy to wind up, but perhaps I’d gone overboard with the all hands on deck thing, because it was getting late, and now she’d missed her bus.
‘Don’t worry, love!’ Mike chirruped. ‘I’ll take you, no problem!’ simultaneously flinging down the string of lights he’d been trying to untangle, the relief in his face telling me he’d rather do anything than help turn the house into Santa’s grotto.
‘Oh well, that’s just great!’ I scolded, and then turned to Kieron, who was busy keeping his head down and attaching baubles to one of the trees. ‘And I suppose you have something super-urgent you need to be doing too?’ I asked him.
Kieron picked up a Santa hat and placed it on his head. ‘Have no fear, Mum,’ he said, ‘because your Christmas elf is here. And you know what?’ he added, sotto voce. ‘We’ll get it done a lot quicker and with a great deal less stress. Riley just moans on’ – he duly ducked – ‘and Dad is – sorry, Dad – basically rubbish.’
He was right, too. And, surprise, surprise, they didn’t need telling twice. They were out of there before you could say ho, ho, ho.
Chapter 20
The new girl turned out to be a sweetheart. And something of a role model as well. She definitely found something of a one-boy fan-club in Gavin, who was so intrigued by all the whats and whys and wherefores of her sight problems that he followed her round like an enthusiastic puppy, wanting a running commentary on what she could see and couldn’t see, and to know whether she’d developed some sort of laser-sonar thing.
She also took to Shona straight away – well, who wouldn’t? – and once we put her in the picture she was gentle and patient with Imogen, who was so impressed by the way she seemed to deal with her disability that I thought – though didn’t say, because it wasn’t even necessary – that it was even making her reflect on the communication challenges she’d faced, and giving her a much-needed injection of positivity about it all.
‘She’s coming on in leaps and bounds, in fact,’ I told Mr Swift at our next meeting just a week before we broke up. ‘She’s speaking in all the sorts of situations you’d expect her to when she’s in the Unit – and she’s taken really well to having a clearly defined role, where she has to use her voice, too.’ I explained about the new girl, Gemma, and how she was helping out with her, and how much this had given her confidence a boost.
‘That’s extremely good to hear,’ Mr Swift said. ‘And we’re confident she’ll be able to move back with her father in the New Year – well, on a part-time basis, anyway. With him being on his own, and with the kind of work he does, it’s not going to be feasible for her to live with him full time at the moment. But his parents are happy to continue to look after her when their son is out of the country, or working away elsewhere, so, all being well, we’ll be able to be out of their hair early in the New Year.’
I smiled at this. I had yet to even meet Imogen’s father – which was ironic, given everything – but social services were clearly all over him like a rash. That was the thing with social services – once they were involved, they had no choice but to be in a family’s hair. And until such time as they were happy that the child or children in question were having their needs met, of course. That was what they were there for; not as child-catchers, but as child-advocates. Yes, it was great to know Imogen was going to be able to live with her dad again, as she’d clearly never wanted to be parted from him, but for all his apparent guilt and remorse about it afterwards, the truth still remained that he’d left her in the care of a woman who not only didn’t care for her, but actively mistreated her. And would no doubt have continued to do so, by the sound of it – she was having a bit of a free ride, after all – had Imogen herself not responded with perhaps the most unlikely cry for help: a selective shut-down in actually crying for help at all.
So it was all positive, but as I left the meeting to return to the Unit it didn’t escape my notice that there was still a big hole in Imogen’s life, and one which she had so far refused to open up about at all: her real mother. Where exactly did she fit into all this? And had Imogen ever really been spoken to about her disappearance? I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to give Mrs Hinchcliffe another ring, both to update her on how things had been going in school – yes, Imogen was doing well, but it was important to keep up the momentum – and to see if she would open up about the other Mrs Hinchcliffe, at all.
And, to my delight, she sounded positively enthused.
‘Yes, of course, dear,’ she said, when I phoned her during the lunch break to see if I could perhaps pop round with a progress report.
‘He’s not been the best of choosers, has he?’ Mrs Hinchcliffe told me, pouring tea from her striped teapot two afternoons later. The kitchen felt so much warmer now – for me, perhaps a little too warm – but it wasn’t just about the temperature; the whole house seemed to have a different feel to it. Not being as manic as I was, the Hinchcliffes had yet to put up any Christmas decorations, but the place definitely had a more relaxed and happy air about it. I also noticed that the fridge had been adorned with evidence of Imogen’s various activities; there was a calendar on it, in which dates had been circled and things scribbled, as well as an invitation to a birthday party which I could see was addressed to her. There was also a photo – of Imogen and her dad, somewhere in the countryside, both wearing beany hats and pulling goofy faces, and a self-portrait, carefully drawn, and showing quite a degree of artistic talent, that I recognised as being part of a project we’d done in school.
Fridges, I thought – you could probably do some really useful science using fridges. Well, if not science, exactly, at least do some amateur psychology – because I’d seen lots of fridges in my time, and had owned a few, too – and they seemed to me to be a fairly reliable indicator of a family’s emotional health. And with this family, you could see that Imogen lived here, now – lived here properly. Was no longer a challenging temporary visitor for a pair of well-intentioned but frazzled grandparents. No, she was a part of the fabric of the house now. You could feel her presence here. Feel an acceptance, a kind of calm and bedding-in.
I smiled to myself while Mrs Hinchcliffe opened the fridge and plucked a bottle of milk from inside the door. Well, calm for the moment, at least. The next stage, assuming she continued to split her time between her dad’s home and her grandparents’, would be the maelstrom that might ensue once those teenage hormones started kicking in. That said, they’d already had a dose of door slamming and ranting, hadn’t they? So at least they wouldn’t be going into it completely cold.
I accepted my cup of tea and stirred it while Mrs Hinchcliffe sat down in the other chair. ‘No,’ she said again, ‘poor Graham’s not got much savvy when it comes to women. Though, fair play, we were taken in by that terrible woman, too, but I’m afraid our Graham never did have much skill when it came to girlfriends.’
‘Third time lucky?’ I quipped.
‘Third time over my flipping dead body!’ she said with surprising forcefulness. Then she smiled. ‘Oh, it’s his life,’ she said, ‘and that’s fine, and of course we want to see him happy, but all the while he’s got Fanny Adams to think about, I’ll be taking a dim view if he thinks he’s bringing anyone else home. And so will his father,’ she added. ‘And he knows it.’ She chuckled.
‘I’m sure he’ll think twice,’ I said. ‘He’s been through a hard time as well, hasn’t he? It must have been a heck of a shock for him when it all came to light.’
She nodded. ‘I know I’m his mother, and I’m biased, but he deserves so much better. But he’s too soft. That’s his problem. That’s why Mick’s always despaired of him. Lets women walk all over him. Far too much the romantic.’
‘Was that what his first wife did?’ I ventured.
‘Her?’ she almost spat the word out. ‘Walked on him with knobs on, did that one, then trampled on him again for good measure.’
‘What happened?’
‘Same thing that always happens,’ said Mrs Hinchcliffe with a sniff. ‘Had an affair, didn’t she? Cat’s away and all that – and he was away all the time, of course. Trying to earn a bob or two to support them all. And that’s how she repaid him. Just upped and went to France, with some divorced man from her office. Just disappeared. No note. No explanation. No nothing.’
‘To France?’
‘Yes, he was half-French, this fancy man she took up with. First we knew of it – and remember, little Imogen was only just 11 then – was when she phoned him a couple of weeks later to say she wasn’t coming back.’
‘But what about Imogen?’
‘Exactly! Can you imagine any mother ever doing that?’
I shook my head even though, from what I’d seen over the past couple of years – not to mention the past couple of months – sadly I could.
‘Exactly,’ she said again. ‘But she did. Decided she was too young – which she was; still had a lot of growing up to do, that one – and of course she blamed him for getting her pregnant, like they always do.’ She sniffed again. ‘Then decided that since she couldn’t afford to visit, it would be better to have a so-called “clean” break. Clean break? I ask you, since when did any little one want a clean break from their own mother? Heartbreaking, it was. Criminal. And if you want my opinion there was a bit more to it that that. I reckon – and Mick agrees – that it was more a case of that man of hers laying the law down. You come on your own or you don’t come at all, sort of thing. Still, she made her choice and that’s for her to have to live with, isn’t it? Our Imogen’s managing okay without her.’
And, on balance, for the moment at least, she was probably right about that. Perhaps she’d come and find her daughter one day and perhaps they’d build some bridges, but, right now, Imogen had close relatives who loved her dearly and wanted only the best for her – something several of the kids who passed through my Unit had never had, and sadly might never have.
