Читать книгу The Silent Witness - Casey Watson, Casey Watson - Страница 10

As far as I knew, Bella slept soundly through the night. Perhaps she was just as physically exhausted as she was emotionally, but on both occasions I checked on her – I couldn’t sleep a wink, of course – I was actually surprised to find her dead to the world, star-fished on her back, snoring, one arm cradling a large and surprisingly ugly-looking soft toy – not one of ours – that looked a bit like a gremlin. Each to their own, I thought.

And both times I tiptoed in there it occurred to me that for the majority of kids, and the majority of the Western world, this was supposed to be a night of an excess of excitement, and of waking disgruntled parents long before dawn. Not so Bella. Not for many other hidden-from-view, desperate children. No happy family Christmas for them come the morning. I wondered where her mother was. What she was feeling. What a mess.

It was a far from normal Christmas morning in our house as well. Despite the lack of sleep, I’d left my alarm set for six thirty, knowing the hours ahead were going to be fraught, unknown territory. I was therefore anxious to steal a march on the day. And when it roused me – from one of those deep sleeps the sleepless always seem to fall into just before waking-up time – it was down to a cold, silent kitchen that I tiptoed, so I could get ahead with all the tasks I invariably had to do, before anyone else was awake.

Not that I expected Tyler to be that far behind me. He might be fifteen now and in theory too old to get over-excited about such childish pleasures, but, of course, many of his Christmas childhoods had been exercises in pure misery, as his father capitulated and let his stepmother bully him, while lavishing love and gifts on his younger half-brother. No, I didn’t think he’d ever outgrow such a simple, precious pleasure. And, if I had any say in it, nor would he.

For now, though, I worked silently, with only the radio on low for company; doing all the jobs I’d generally be doing with the radio blaring (singing along, sometimes dancing, a small sherry at my elbow) knowing that across the hallway, in the living room, whatever collection of kids, foster kids and grandkids we had with us, there would be happy, wrapping-paper-strewn mayhem.

I could have almost become maudlin, thinking about the girl who had parachuted into our lives so unexpectedly, so it was a blessing that Mike and Tyler joined me a scant half hour later, both whispering about the new house guest and what might be going through her head, and wondering if she’d come down or if I should go and wake her.

Eventually – and after promising they’d help with any outstanding preparations – they bullied me into going up and bringing her downstairs. Which made sense. She was going to be a huge part of our lives over the coming days, and for who knew how much longer? So the sooner we settled her in with us, and she became familiar with all our little ways – and us hers – the better those few days would be for everyone.

Bella’s bedroom door was shut when I got up to the landing, so I assumed she must have woken and perhaps used the bathroom, but when I knocked there wasn’t any reply. I waited a moment or two, wondering if she might be in the middle of dressing, but when an ear to the door produced only silence, I knocked again, and this time I opened the door slightly as well.

‘You awake, sweetie?’ I asked her, popping my head around the jamb.

Evidently. Because she wasn’t even in bed. In fact, it had already been neatly made, the weird soft toy I’d seen the night before sitting propped in front of the pillows.

‘So who’s this?’ I went on brightly, the answer to my first question now being evident. ‘Should we be formally introduced?’

Bella’s only response was to give me a tight, if polite, smile. She was sitting at the dressing table, in the pink pyjamas and dressing gown she had presumably taken from her backpack, brushing her hair with a pink polka-dotted hairbrush (tick to me, regarding the pink, then). The hair itself was thick and blonde. And much longer than I’d realised. The sort of hair that in the future would be the envy of her friends. Friends. I made a mental note to ask Bella about them. Friends who could provide support and continuity. Some much-needed sense of normality. But perhaps not just yet. Though it occurred to me to find her some paper and pens, just in case. She might like to write to friends, at least. Not to mention her parents – and grandparents? I made a mental note to ask John about that.

‘Anyway!’ I said. ‘Merry Christmas. Shall we go down so you can open your presents? Tyler’s already down there,’ I added, smiling relentlessly in the face of her scared, wary expression. ‘Come on, poppet. Let’s head downstairs, shall we? He’s dying to meet you.’

Bella reddened slightly, whether in response to the mention of Tyler or just because she felt scrutinised I didn’t know. She hadn’t responded, much less moved – well, apart from the repetitive hair-brushing – so I went into the bedroom properly, then squatted down on my haunches beside the dressing table so I was on her level. Even below it, slightly – I’m not the tallest of people, and I was now almost looking up at her. And was also close enough to see the grey smudges of tiredness bruising the skin beneath her pale, frightened eyes.

‘I know this is all very strange for you,’ I said gently. ‘And you must be feeling wretched, sweetheart. And scared, too. How could you be feeling anything else? But one thing I can tell you is that you have nothing to be frightened of here, okay? No one will make you do anything you don’t want to, I promise. So, then. How about it? Shall we head down? Go downstairs and just see how it goes for a bit?’ Silence. Just her face looking ahead, fixed firmly on her reflection, accompanied by the rhythmic strokes of the hairbrush. ‘And, if it’s all too much,’ I went on, ‘you can come back up for a bit, I promise.’ I stood up again, and held my hand out, as I’d done the night before. ‘What do you reckon, Bella? Is that a plan?’

Again that endless wait, but again, finally, it worked. She stood up, went across to the bed and grabbed the gremlin, then slipped, to my delight, her small, hot hand into mine. I squeezed it reassuringly, then led her straight down into the living room, and immediately across to the twinkling tree, where the presents we’d got her were all wrapped and had her name on – though, given how on edge (not to mention the edge) she probably was currently, I felt it probably prudent to let her make the running where it came to the gifts retrieved from her own home, and which were still in the corner, in the carrier bag they’d arrived in. I suspected that she might well prefer to open those ones in the privacy of her bedroom. Or, indeed, not open them at all.

‘Go on,’ I urged, as she once again gazed as if transfixed by the sight of the enormous twinkling tree, and the mound of gifts beneath it. ‘Why don’t you sit down on the rug and have a rootle round for the presents we’ve got for you while I go and get you some toast and hot chocolate. You like hot chocolate?’ I added. And was rewarded by a minor miracle. She actually nodded. Yes.

I was just turning round to leave when Mike and Tyler appeared in the doorway. I saw Bella stiffen at the sight of them – or, perhaps, instinct told me, it was just Mike that made her stiffen, given his size, his maleness and the violence she’d so recently witnessed, so I signalled for him to do an about-turn and return to help me in the kitchen. ‘Ah, here you are, Ty,’ I said. ‘This is Bella. Just about to start attacking her presents. You want to get stuck in with her as well? Go on, dig in. Make as much mess as you like.’

I had to smile then, as Tyler sank down onto his knees on the rug and grinned at her. ‘Lols,’ he said, smiling back at me, knowing full well I’d hear him. ‘Hi, Bella. Now let’s make Mum – make Casey – wish she’d never said that. First thing you need to know here. She absolutely hates mess.’

I grinned at him as I left them to it, but Tyler was wrong about that. At least on this particular occasion. On any other day of the year, yes, I’d be the first to admit that mess-management was a major factor in my life. Not an issue, exactly; we hosted all manner of mess-making activities, just like anyone else. It was just that I was a tiny bit obsessive about cleaning before anyone arrived and equally obsessive about tidying up after them once they’d gone, even if the ‘going’ bit took place at three in the morning. No biggie. That was just my little foible.

But Christmas was different. To my mind there were few things more sad and poignant than the sight of a Christmas living room devoid of kids unwrapping presents and throwing paper and packaging all around the place. Call me sentimental but it always seemed to me, at least for the precious couple of hours before they came up for air again, that while they were swimming joyfully in a sea of discarded wrappings I was bobbing on a little sea of happiness.

And Tyler made a good fist of making that happen. By the time Mike and I returned with drinks and toast to keep us going till the inevitably late Christmas dinner we were going to be having, given Riley’s breakfast club, he’d wellied into most of the presents we’d allowed him to open without us with great excitement and gay abandon – we’d been able to hear his whoops of joy from the kitchen.

But that was all we heard. Though she was sitting passively and politely on the rug, having by now systematically piled her presents at her side, Bella seemed wedded to the idea of children being seen and not heard; at best she nodded in response to Tyler, offering no more communication than the odd ghost of a smile.

Tyler, for his part, carried gamely on. He seemed to have decided that he’d just fill the conversational gaps with yet more words and, in the absence of any other strategy, we took his lead, treating Bella almost – though without any lack of respect – like an amiable family dog, from whom we didn’t actually expect any response.

We decided the best thing would be if I, and I alone, popped round to Riley’s for an hour, on the basis that it was David’s mum and I who’d be the most closely involved in the wedding preparations, discussion of which was the main reason for going round. It would also give me a chance to prepare the ground before they all descended on us – and Bella – at dinner-time, so that they understood that it would, of necessity, be a different kind of Christmas Day. It would also give me a chance to fill in Kieron and Lauren – also scheduled to come to us for Christmas dinner later.

I’d wavered a bit – another reason for my largely sleepless night – reasoning that one alternative would be to cancel the day altogether, for fear it might make Bella’s emotional state even worse. It wasn’t the first time we’d had a child in over Christmas and I doubted it would be the last, because Christmases are times of great stress and a key time for family breakdowns, but every situation was different, as was every child. Had things been less on a knife-edge – you didn’t get more knife-edge than Dad in ITU and Mum in jail for trying to kill him, I reckoned – it would have been less difficult a decision, and had Bella been younger (say five or six) it would have been a completely different story; younger children, in my experience, were better able to distract themselves from the enormity of the life-change they were experiencing, as they were more able to ‘park’ it and make believe they were just off on some sort of holiday.

But would cancelling Christmas really help Bella anyway? Yes, she was clearly old enough to feel terrified about how her future was unravelling, but perhaps that meant she needed distraction even more.

There was also my own family to consider. And to cancel things would be to create a logistical nightmare, not least because I was the one with the turkey and all the trimmings, and to try and rejig and/or relocate the whole shebang would cause even more upheaval, not least because of the many comings and goings that it would require.

No, on balance, we agreed, we should probably press on with the day – envelope our frightened visitor in festive love and laughter, but with the safe haven of her bedroom, should she need it. She didn’t strike me as a child who wanted to be the centre of attention, which the alternative scenario meant she would be.

And it was Bella herself who finally ticked the mental box. In the fact that, the presents opened (bar her own from her family, as yet) and the toast and hot chocolate dispatched, she seemed happy enough to curl up at one end of the sofa and settle down to watch a Harry Potter film with Tyler – and with her cherished soft toy – not a gremlin, but a ‘Dobby the house-elf’, according to Tyler – and the rabbit we’d got for her, which pleased me greatly. Indeed, I had much to thank J. K. Rowling for that morning, because it was a shared devotion to the young wizard that forged their first, tentative bond, and, in response to his ‘Wicked! The Deathly Hallows is on. You want to watch it?’ elicited her first proper words since she’d come to us, which were ‘Yes, please.’

But which also caused me to wonder, as I drove the short distance to Riley’s house, what kind of mutism we were actually dealing with here. My experience wasn’t extensive – I’d only worked closely with one child who displayed similar systems, truth be told – but in doing so, I’d read up on different forms of mutism, and instinct told me this was more a conscious choice on Bella’s part than anything else. This certainly didn’t seem to fit the profile of other forms I’d come across, where the child struggled to overcome what was often a physiological as well as a psychological barrier, often unconscious. No, it was more that Bella had made a very conscious decision not to engage.

All very intriguing, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that it was almost certainly because Bella had witnessed that attempted murder by her mother and was shutting down to avoid incriminating her further, during the endless questions she’d have doubtless already been asked in its aftermath.

Even so, there was a difference between refusing to discuss that, and making a blanket decision not to speak to anyone at all.

Riley, now a respite foster carer herself, agreed. ‘Though let me be the first to suggest one minor change in tonight’s entertainment,’ she commanded. ‘That the karaoke machine remains unplugged.’ Which suggestion was naturally passed unanimously.

‘Seriously,’ she added, ‘I think you’re right to stick with the plan, Mum, and I’m not just saying that because I don’t want to give up my Christmas dinner.’ (‘Oh, yes, you are,’ came the rousing chorus from around the table.) ‘I reckon she can distract herself better in a big crowd of kids than if she’s got everyone’s attention on her in a silent empty house. Didn’t you just say that was why things weren’t working out in the last foster place she was at? I know that’s how I’d feel, anyway. Specially given that every adult she’s had anything to do with up till now has probably been trying to get her to talk about what happened. I wonder what did happen …’ she mused. ‘Do you reckon her mother was trying to kill him?’

It was obviously impossible to answer that question till one of two things happened – either Bella’s father recovered sufficiently to recount the facts as he remembered (as best he could, given that one fact we did know was that he was extremely drunk when admitted to A&E), or Bella herself decided to. As things stood, her mum was pleading hitting him in self-defence, and until her partner’s situation resolved itself – either he recovered or he died – there was nothing to be done. I wondered if Bella herself was almost in a state of mental breath-holding. I wondered how she felt about her dad’s possible death. How she felt about her dad.

I didn’t stay long at Riley’s – really only long enough to talk wedding to-do lists with David’s mum. And, once I was back home, knowing the entire family were going to be with us in a scant three or four hours – not to mention our first foster child, Justin, now a strapping adult, with an appetite to match – I took advantage of Bella’s apparent desire to stay on the sofa in her pyjamas to properly attack all the food preparation. Every time I checked on her, she was either watching TV with Tyler, or had her nose in a Harry Potter book; it seemed he’d brought down the entire collection from his bedroom, and that though she’d told him she’d read them all – some of them twice (positively chatty now, at least with Ty!) – she’d be more than happy to read them all again.

But if that had been Bella’s escape plan (and a book was always an excellent escape plan) the combined onslaught of attention from my quartet of noisy grandchildren proved too powerful a force to avoid. Very soon, though still largely silent and wary around the adults, she was immersed in their world of make-believe and dolls and Lego, and though she still didn’t speak much she was at least fully engaged – well, again, as far as I could tell.

I sat her next to Levi for our Christmas dinner, since, my eldest grandchild being ten now, they were closest in age, but it was soon clear that the closest bond she was likely to forge was with Marley Mae. From the outset, Bella had been my granddaughter’s main topic of interest, and was fast becoming her little shadow.

‘I think it’s because she can’t ask her anything she doesn’t want to answer,’ I told Lauren, my Kieron’s other half, while we stacked and put away the dishes the men had washed up. ‘That’s my take on it, anyway.’ Lauren and Kieron’s Dee Dee was also monopolising this young stranger, though she was currently spark out, having her nap on Kieron’s chest. At only two, she still needed to take such power naps when in the company of her boisterous older cousins. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, I know the older children don’t know what’s happened, but they’ll be curious, won’t they? And, in Levi’s case, particularly, doing the whole twenty questions thing. Give him a fair wind, and he’d have everything out of her, from what her favourite colour is to which character she’d be in Minecraft.’

Lauren nodded. ‘I think you’re right. Whereas Marley Mae is more like an adoring puppy. Correction – more accurately, adoring limpet mine.’

And it wasn’t just that, truth be known. With her admirable sleuthing skills, Marley Mae had sniffed out the bag of unopened presents in the corner almost as soon as she’d finished opening hers. And, working on the basis that an unopened present on Christmas night was a crime against all humanity, had badgered and badgered till Tyler had told her they were Bella’s and none of her business.

Which, of course, meant it became Marley Mae’s urgent business to harangue Bella mercilessly till she could prise out a promise that when she did open them Marley Mae could help her.

And it seemed that time was now. When Lauren and I returned to the living room, now inhabited mostly by quietly playing kids and noisier slumbering men (Mike’s snores alone could wake the dead), it was to meet Bella and Marley Mae coming out.

‘We’re going upstairs to open the presents,’ Marley Mae informed us both before I even had a chance to ask. She was looking very pleased with herself.

‘Oh, I see,’ I said, clocking the way she had Bella’s hand clamped in her own as if she were a prisoner who might abscond if left untethered. I looked at Bella. ‘You doing okay, love?’ I asked her.

She nodded, albeit wanly.

‘She might have an iPodge!’ Marley Mae added breathlessly, with the sort of awe a child of her age could feel for such wonders. ‘Or even a tablet!’ She was clearly very excited.

I wondered if I should gently prise her away and let Bella have some down time on her own. But when I suggested Bella might like five minutes’ peace, it was Bella herself who responded. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said, and I could tell she meant it. Upon which, they both trotted off up the stairs.

‘Don’t you sometimes wonder,’ Lauren reflected, as they disappeared out of sight across the landing, ‘how little ones have no idea how much of a part they play in all this? Just think of all the foster children Marley Mae has befriended since she was born. Do you sometimes wonder if they ever think about her? You know, have memories of her, still? It’s a nice thing to think that, don’t you think? How, in all those children, there’s a little permanent space in their brains where she lives? I love that as a concept, don’t you?’

It was something I’d never thought about before, and I said so. ‘Oh, but I love that,’ I said. Because I really did.

They were up there a good while, and I resisted the urge to check on them, as did Riley. Even though both of us were ever conscious that the children who came to us began as strangers, we were of a mind, as was Lauren, that Bella posed no threat to anyone. Except, perhaps, to herself. Besides, the door had been left ajar and both Tyler and Mike had been upstairs since they’d gone up – and both had reported hearing Marley Mae giggling.

Still, once bitten, ever vigilant – and we’d certainly had our scares down the years. None of us would ever forget the day when Flip, a young girl we’d had with foetal alcohol syndrome, had taken it upon herself to give us a post-lunch break and take Marley Mae off for a walk in the local woods. So when over an hour had passed and neither had reappeared, Riley and I exchanged a ‘Let’s one of us just go and check what they’re up to’ expression. I was just rising from my chair – being the closest to the door – when my granddaughter marched in and made a beeline for the tree, below which her own sack of presents still sat.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said, glancing behind her to see no sign of Bella. ‘So, what was the outcome? What did Bella get?’

I was rewarded by Marley Mae putting a finger to her lips and emitting the sort of self-defeating high-decibel ‘Shhhh!’ that was her trademark. ‘She’s going to sleep,’ she whispered, falling to her chubby little knees to dig around among her haul.

‘And she’s sad about her mummy,’ she added, turning around, having produced a cuddly toy; the cuddly snowman, from the film Frozen, that she’d been hoping for so much. ‘So I’m going to let her borrow Olaf.’

Riley and I rose as one to go up with her, both first agreeing to the ‘You must be quiet!’ order she issued before agreeing to lead the way.

We trooped up, a little battalion, led by our diminutive general, and followed Marely Mae into Bella’s bedroom through the now wide-open door.

And it was to find a room totally transformed. Everywhere – all over the carpet, the bed, and on any and every horizontal surface – was what looked like confetti, but made out of wrapping paper. Which I immediately recognised as the paper Bella’s presents had been wrapped in. Only it had now been transformed into a million tiny pieces.

Bella herself appeared to be asleep. She was curled in an S shape, a tiny form on the bed, with both the rabbit we’d bought for her and her Dobby close beside her, while further down the bed was the ‘iPodge’ Marley Mae had been alluding to, together with other presents: some sort of nature annual, what looked like a folded hoodie, a pair of jeans and a jewellery-making kit.

‘We torded it,’ Bella whispered proudly, before tip-toeing theatrically across the carpet and gently placing her precious Olaf close by Bella’s blonde curls. A holy trinity of stuffed animals to chase the nightmares away. ‘There,’ she mouthed silently, with admirable restraint, before turning back to us, placing a finger to her lips again and shooing us outside.

I pulled the door to, while Riley picked Marley Mae up, and as she now announced that she needed a wee we all trooped into the bathroom.

‘You made all that confetti yourselves, did you?’ I asked her, as Riley helped her with her pants.

‘It’s not confetti,’ she told us. ‘It’s snowflakes. Bella liked making snow and she let me help her. I was good at it.’ Then she frowned. ‘But then she was sad,’ she said. ‘She cry-ded a lot when we were doing it. I tolded her you wouldn’t be cross about the snow, Nanny, but she still cry-ded.’

‘But I bet it looked pretty when you threw it everywhere,’ Riley observed. ‘And, oh, the joy of Hoovers,’ she added to me drily.

I pictured the scene. Bella’s distress. The emotional meltdown of seeing it laid bare. Of seeing it laid bare with an over-excited Marley Mae, who’d known no such devastation in her happy young life. Seeing the presents from parents who weren’t with her – or each other – opened the gaping hole where the spirit of Christmas should be.

‘Whose idea was it to make the snow?’ I asked Marley Mae. ‘Was it yours?’

She shook her head. ‘Bella liked it.’ She mimed a ripping motion. ‘She likes making snow. And then she throwed it, like this –’ She thrust her arms up and outwards. ‘But she’s sad now. She said. So I said I’d get Olaf for her to cuddle.’ All done, she held her arms up for Riley to scoop her up again. ‘You shouldn’t cry on Christmas Day, should you, Mummy?’

I glanced in, as we passed, to our poor, anguished visitor, lost in dreams – good ones hopefully, please let them not be nightmares – beneath her blanket of multicoloured snow.

No, I thought sadly, you shouldn’t.