Mummy's Little Helper

by Casey Watson

  Donna followed my gaze. ‘So what’s going to happen to her now, then? She’ll be fostered permanently? Poor thing. What a rubbish hand to have been dealt, eh?’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ I agreed. ‘But I don’t think there’s any other option.’

  ‘But at least there are some good people out there – that’s what you need to remember. And let’s not forget, compared with some of the kids you’ve had, things aren’t so bad for her. Look at Justin, for one. At least she’s got a mum who loves her. And fingers crossed, that’s not going to change. And, as I always say, you have love, you have almost all you need in life. And there endeth the homily. Another coffee?’

  I smiled. Trust my sister to put a positive spin on things. We were two peas in a pod, too. ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ I asked her. She gestured to Kieron to rustle up two more.

  ‘Oh, and by the way,’ she said, ‘your boy there tells me Abby’s asked if she can come and help again next time he’s in. I said I’d have to check with you, because I don’t know what the rules are with your foster kids. I mean, not to work, obviously, but if she wants to, and you think she’d get something out of it, I’ve no objections if she wants to come down for an hour or two with him here and there. She can write my price tickets for me, decorate the menus or whatever. She just loved getting her hands on my blackboard and my liquid-chalk marker pens. Of course, she might just want to gaze adoringly at young Adonis there … ah! Here you are, Kieron. Best barista in the western world, bar none!’

  I sipped my second coffee and felt my own pleasing glow of positivity. Assuming you weren’t God, then you obviously couldn’t perform miracles, but while Abby was with us we could at least do our best for her. And how lovely it would be for her to broaden her horizons that little bit. A couple of hours here and there probably meant nothing to the average person, but to a child held virtual prisoner by the need to care for her sick mother a couple of hours of doing anything that took her out of home and drudgery were definitely a couple of hours well spent.

  And Kieron was police checked, so there was no problem if he was with her. Bless my sister. ‘Thank you. I’m sure she’d love that,’ I told her.

  Chapter 15

  Heading back to the hospital on the following morning, Abby was full of her exploits of the previous day. She’d clearly got a lot out of it and, though I was still playing hawk eye as far as her hand-washing and switch-flicking and hair-pulling were concerned, I felt the same sense of optimism as I had the previous afternoon. Maybe Donna had put something in my coffee.

  My spirits dampened just a little when we arrived at the hospital. Not a lot, but there’s something I’ve never quite liked about hospitals on a weekend. I think it’s the lack of activity. There’s no outpatient clinics, no hustle and bustle, no operations going on, no ward rounds or physiotherapists to fill the wards and corridors – just the stark reality of sick people in beds.

  Not that I intended spending too much time by Sarah’s bed. After last week’s little outburst and Bridget’s subsequent pointed comments, I’d decided to keep well away from any conversations about Abby. If Sarah asked me anything then I would of course answer her. But my main priority was simply to deliver Abby to her bedside, then bugger off to a seat by the vending machines. I might even explore further – there’d be a restaurant somewhere, wouldn’t there? Perhaps I’d go and find it, and read my stash of mags there – not forgetting to once again call Mike with the instructions about the roast. But not yet – he’d already been picked up by Riley’s David before we’d left, as he was going to help him erect a garden shed.

  And it was no bother, slinking away, because Sarah, still with her drip attached, didn’t seem interested in talking to me either. Abby was so full of her cake-decorating skills – we’d saved a little box of cupcakes for Sarah and the nurses – that I was superfluous from the off. Which was just fine by me.

  Indeed, the only words we exchanged were when I returned to collect Abby.

  ‘Sounds like Abby’s having a wonderful weekend,’ Sarah commented, while Abby repacked her backpack. She’d also taken along some photos of the charity event to show her mum. Kieron had uploaded them on Facebook so we could print some off to show her. ‘And popping back on Tuesday, I hear –’

  ‘I told you, Mum. I’m going to be Kieron’s official helper,’ Abby corrected her. ‘And Donna said I can be in charge of doing the blackboard again as well.’

  ‘She’s a very talented calligrapher,’ I chipped in. ‘Seriously. Really good.’

  ‘She is indeed,’ Sarah said, nodding, ‘and it’s very kind of your son – and your sister – to take an interest in Abby. I appreciate it.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ I said. ‘She’s no trouble at all. Quite the opposite, in fact –’

  ‘I’ve been indips-indis-pensable,’ Abby said. ‘Donna said so. She said I was the best little grafter she ever saw.’

  Which made me smile. It was obviously a matter of great pride to Abby. Being indispensable had been a burden she had carried for so long that needing to be so was probably now in her DNA. Which was fine, just as long as it was channelled in a good way so that, though she felt it, she didn’t need to actually be it. And I had a hunch Sarah knew that, as well.

  As planned, Kieron came round to pick Abby up the following Tuesday afternoon, and took her off to Truly Scrumptious for a couple of hours before tea. And, once again, on their return I sensed a new lightness in Abby. And though I worried that perhaps it was all just feeding into her compulsions (all that necessary hand washing, and cleaning, and donning of her precious pinny) I reminded myself that it wasn’t really for me to tackle things. I was still disrupting her rituals as much as possible while I was around her at home, but something told me anyway that she was all the better for a change of scenery and focus. It was a distraction and I felt sure it was doing her good.

  And Donna was spot on – Abby had definitely developed something of a crush on Kieron, and I thought again of the father figure she’d evidently never had. It was sweet to see, and, again, I felt it was another positive. Kieron naturally chose to do things that worked well with her psyche, and as they told me how they’d redesigned the back wall behind the counter I could see the same zeal for order in both their eyes, imagining the pair of them pinning up price lists with a set square and lining up everything to the nearest millimetre.

  ‘Oh, and we’re coming to tea Thursday,’ Kieron said before he left. ‘Me and Lauren. I’ve promised Abs here that we’ll take her down to the woods before tea. There should be frogspawn there now, hopefully, so I said we could collect some for her school project in a couple of weeks. That’s okay, isn’t it?’

  ‘You mean the tea?’ I said, privately touched by this gesture. I didn’t even know about the school project. ‘Or the filling my house with tadpoles?’ I continued. ‘Just so I’m clear …’ I said, grinning at the pair of them. ‘Of course, love. That’s fine. Maybe Levi could join you. He’d love that –’

  I watched Abby’s face cloud over and her shoulders tense up. I could read her thoughts too: But it’s dangerous in the woods. He might get hurt. And I won’t be able to relax … It was probably half-subconscious, but it was as clear as the stream water. ‘Actually, there’s a thought. I think Riley has something on with the kids. No matter.’ And, as if pushed, Abby’s shoulders went back down again. So easy to forget, I thought, how much this kid needed one simple thing – to not feel responsible for anyone but herself – indips-indisp-ensable or otherwise.

  ‘We’d better dig that old tank out, then, hadn’t we?’ I said.

  But the week wasn’t done with surprising either me or the frogspawn. With Wednesday came unexpected news from my sister. News that was to unleash a great deal more chaos in my little pond than any amount of tadpoles could ever do.

  ‘You got five minutes,’ Donna asked me, ‘for a quick chinwag, by any chance?’ It was ten in the morning, and with Abby safely in school for the day, I was just finishing
up my chores before heading off to Riley’s. Once again the party was back on the agenda, and I was keen to make it a good one, for Abby’s sake as much as Jackson’s. I was determined that her tenth birthday was not going to go unremarked.

  ‘Sure, ‘I said. ‘How’s things? How did things go with Abby? Did you give her free rein with your chalk pens again?’

  ‘It’s Abby I’m calling about, as it happens,’ said Donna. ‘And what we were talking about over the weekend.’

  I sat down on the stairs – my usual station when on the phone. ‘As in?’

  ‘As in what you were saying about there being no family around.’

  Had Abby said something to Donna? Or maybe to Kieron, perhaps? ‘And?’

  ‘And there might be,’ Donna said. ‘Well, in theory, at any rate. You know when she was in here yesterday? Well, she was behind the counter, putting back all the menus into their holders – did a great job, by the way. We are now seriously floralled up down here … Anyway, I’ve got this regular, Mrs Shelley. Sweetheart, she is. Little old lady. Comes in at least twice a week. And she starts chatting to Abby, and I’m kind of earwigging, as you do. And it turns out they know each other. They used to be neighbours.’

  ‘Really?’ I felt my ears pricking up now.

  ‘Indeed. So she’s asking Abby how she is, and how “poor Mum” is – I picked up on that one straight away – and Abby’s explaining that her mum’s in hospital and that Abby herself is currently staying in a “care home” – thought that might make you smile, sis! – so I get Mrs Shelley her tea and cake and take it over to her table, and then I scoot back to Abby and she tells me that they used to live on the same street, and how nice Mrs Shelley was and how she’d felt so sad when they’d had to move.’

  ‘And there’s more, right?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I obviously didn’t say any more to Abby, but when she and Kieron had gone – Mrs Shelley had come in just before they were going, handily – I decided, in light of what you’d said about the circumstances, to see if Mrs Shelley could tell me any more. And indeed she could …’

  I waited. And I waited. ‘Go on, then!’

  ‘Shh … I’m just building the suspense! Anyway, Mrs Shelley was most enlightening. I obviously didn’t say too much to her – only corroborated what Abby had already told her, and confirmed that her mum was pretty ill and so on. And that right now it was looking unlikely that she’d be able to go home with Abby, as now Pandora was out of the box, so to speak, in terms of how they’d been living, it wasn’t a situation they could return to. And Mrs Shelley was like “Oh, I know. I so felt for that little girl!” She’d see her in the post office every week, apparently, paying the rent, and getting tokens for their gas and electricity meters, and she’d see her struggling to put the bins out – this was from quite an early age, apparently – and how she’d never accept any help from her or anything.

  ‘In fact she told me that she’d been seriously close to calling social services, and it was only for fear of Abby being taken into care that she hadn’t – mainly because she liked Sarah and that, while she knew she had health issues, she just kept hoping it would turn around, and she’d get better. And because of Abby, too, she said. Because how could there be anything so wrong, when she was always such a nice, polite little girl? And that’s pretty much it. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘Ah, but then came the main thing. She suddenly goes to me, “But what about Sarah’s sister? Couldn’t someone get in touch with her, perhaps?”’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘And that’s pretty much all I know. Oh, and that she thinks her name might have been Vicky. And that she was around quite a lot until Abby was two or three. And then she didn’t see her again. I suppose it’s possible she might have died, of course.’

  ‘But Sarah would have said so. If she was dead, Sarah would have said so, surely. But I’ve never even heard of the existence of a sister. Which is interesting.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Anyway, I thought you’d like to know. She’ll be back in again – Mrs Shelley, that is – so do you want me to get her number? I’m sure she’d talk to you. She said she’d be happy to do anything she could.’

  ‘No, no. No, don’t bother her,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a think.’ And run this past John, I decided. See what he says. Well, well, well, I thought. Well, well, well.

  I called John the very minute I put the phone down on Donna. There was no way I was going to mention it to Bridget. Not without running it by John first. I felt sure she’d just use it as another stick to beat me with, cite some reason why my coming by this information was against some important protocol. Not that it was necessarily going to be helpful anyway. And if this sister existed, why hadn’t those distant cousins mentioned it? Or if they had, why hadn’t anyone picked up on it?

  Or perhaps they had, and it had already proved to be a cul-de-sac. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Sarah had been so irritable when I’d seen her. But it didn’t figure. If there’d been a sister, and she’d been ruled out, surely I’d have known that? Bridget would have said, ‘The cousins are out of the picture, and so is the sister.’ Nope, as far as social services went, this sister clearly didn’t even exist. Of that I was sure. But the question was, why?

  John’s office phone rang for so long that I nearly disconnected and called his mobile. But I was glad I didn’t because when the answerphone finally kicked in it informed me of something I knew but had forgotten – that John was off having a much-needed two weeks of doing nothing, with his wife, for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and wouldn’t be back for a fortnight.

  I put the phone down again. There was no way I was going to call him on holiday. He had enough on his plate already, running the agency. No, I’d let him have his holiday. This was hardly life and death. But still I rejected the idea of calling Bridget. I’d wait for Mike to get home and see what he thought about it. And in the meantime get to Riley’s and put it right out of my mind.

  ‘And that’s where it should stay. At least till John gets back from holiday.’ Mike was in no doubt about it. I’d filled him in, once again, as soon as he got home, following him around the house as he changed out of his work clothes.

  ‘Do nothing?’

  ‘Do nothing. There’ll be a reason this woman’s not been mentioned. She could be a monster. Who knows? Or an old lag. Or a prostitute. There are a million families with skeletons – and a million black sheep out there. You and I, of all people, should know that. Besides, you know how mad you are about Bridget citing protocol; it’s not your place to be digging up worms about this woman, is it?’

  ‘You mean opening a can of them –’

  Mike tutted. ‘Okay, Mrs Clever-clogs. Whatever. But you get my point. It’s not your business, and it might make things worse.’

  ‘Can they get any worse? For Abby? Come on … Not to mention Sarah.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mike, signalling that this really was the end of it. ‘There’s a reason why people are told to count their blessings. There’s always scope for things to get worse.’

  Chapter 16

  But in the end, events overtook me. Well, not overtook me, exactly, just sidled up alongside me, causing my firm resolution – which was to leave things, at least till after John’s second honeymoon – to veer so spectacularly off the road.

  The rest of the week had been uneventful. Abby didn’t mention Mrs Shelley in the café – why would she? She was ten and this was just an old neighbour from her past. She was much more fixated on the here and now of her life, which was falling into a routine which seemed to be at least manageable. I was keeping a particularly close eye on her scalp, of course. I would draw attention to it every time her hand went to her temple, and though she would deal with that by having to perform some other ritual – say, tapping the door frame, or patting the closest light switch – those felt the lesser of two evils and that was good enough for now. There was the constant s
tress, of course, about having to be near a hot tap and a supply of liquid soap – but with these now being something I expected (and understanding the reasons) I wasn’t fretting about them as much as before. Bridget had also emailed to say they’d set a date for the LAC review, and promised to follow up on a GP visit, so I knew some support would now be forthcoming for Abby. Which was one less thing to feel anxious about too.

  Thursday, too, came and went without incident – though also without tadpoles. Kieron had got himself an unexpected gig, which meant some money, and though he told me he’d turn it down, both Lauren and I were adamant he didn’t; it was a kind gesture, and of course Abby would be disappointed, but he had to be practical about things. Lauren was happy to take Abby to the woods, as was I, but when it came to it the rain was hammering down that day anyway, and Abby didn’t seem in the least concerned about forgoing it. ‘I mean, I’ll go if Lauren really, really wants to,’ she’d confided to me when she got in from school. ‘But it’ll be awfully muddy, won’t it?’ She’d wrinkled her nose up delicately. ‘And we might slip over and that wouldn’t be very nice …’

  Suppressing a smile at her wonderful talent for understatement, I assured her that Lauren wouldn’t mind. I had half a hunch that it wasn’t just about germs in this case, either. She wanted Kieron there. Which was absolutely fine.

  And now it was Sunday again, and we were back at the hospital, and, once again, the mysterious sister was back on my mind. Not that I had any intention of mentioning her. As before my only plan was to deliver Abby safely, let them have forty-five minutes, then take her back home. It was Abby who pulled the lid open on Pandora’s Box this time.