Читать книгу The Boy No One Loved and Crying for Help 2-in-1 Collection - Casey Watson, Casey Watson - Страница 19

April had arrived and with it some slightly warmer weather at long last and, like another ray of sunshine, Riley was on the phone. ‘Mum, it’s me,’ she said, and I could tell right away that she was brighter than she had been of late. Which was good to hear, as I’d been a little worried about her. It wasn’t like Riley to be ill – she was almost invariably like a Duracell bunny. But she’d been feeling off-colour more than once in the last couple of weeks. I’d been just about to call her myself.

‘Hiyah, lovey,’ I answered. ‘You feeling better? You certainly sound it.’

‘Brilliant, thanks,’ she said brightly. ‘Just wanted to check you were in.’

‘Yes, I am. No plans to be going anywhere, either. Why, are you going to pop round?’

‘I was, yes. Mum, what time’s Dad likely to be home?’

Strange thing to ask, I thought. ‘Usual time,’ I answered anyway. ‘Around five-ish or so. He didn’t say any different when he left this morning. Why?’ Mike was a warehouse manager for a big office-furniture supply company. He worked long hours, but, thankfully, also regular ones.

‘Good,’ she said firmly, but not answering my question. ‘I’m just going to wait for David to get back from work, then we’ll be over. Can we have tea at yours?’

All these strange questions! But what a daft one this was. ‘Of course it’s okay, stupid! It’ll be lovely to see you both. I was just going to do pizza for Justin and Kieron, but I’m sure I can come up with something more elegant for us four. Hey, but listen, you sound like there’s some particular reason for all this. I mean, it’s lovely to see you any time, but –’

Riley laughed. ‘That’s because there is a reason, mum. See you about five-thirty, okay? Byeee!’

But there was no time to dwell on what the reason might be because almost as soon as I’d put down the phone, I heard the front door bang and a spirited ‘Hi, Casey!’ being bellowed from the hallway, closely followed by the sound of a herd of wildebeest thundering up the stairs. It was Justin, home from school and, as had become his routine now, dashing upstairs to get out of his school uniform.

I let go my breath and simultaneously realised that Justin wasn’t the only one who’d got into a routine. Holding my breath on his arrival was mine – at least till I was sure of the mood he was in; sure he wasn’t going to kick off and spoil everyone’s day. It was ridiculous, and I mentally chastised myself for it. He was an eleven-year-old child, not a monster.

But glancing at the clock I realised there was no time to dwell on that either; if Riley and David were coming to eat with us I needed to think about what it was we would eat, and that meant a thorough rummage in the fridge and freezer. I also needed to press on and get Kieron and Justin fed. Whatever impromptu arrangements I fixed up with my daughter, my son wanted feeding when he got in from college and it was also important I stuck to Justin’s meal chart; both the timing and the menu were non-negotiable.

Justin himself joined me in the kitchen just as I was taking the pizza out of the oven. It was almost as if he had some sort of sixth sense for knowing exactly when food was going to arrive.

‘Just in time!’ I quipped. ‘Hey, that’s what we should call you, shouldn’t we? Justin Time!’ I was in a buoyant mood knowing Riley and David would soon be over. Justin, too, it seemed. He found this hilarious.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Kieron, arriving in the doorway. ‘Ah, pizza!’ he said, seeing it and emitting a small cheer. ‘That’s good. So I won’t die of starvation after all.’

They went through to the dining room with their tea and I could hear them laughing and chatting. This was shaping up to be a good day all round, I decided. I then grabbed a coffee and cleared the desks and set about round two – preparing a nice tea for the rest of us. As it was so summery, I’d settled on cold roast chicken and salad. Mike would probably moan – he was more of a pie and chips man – but oh, well. Didn’t matter. It was all food.

Five-thirty arrived and, with it, David and Riley. ‘Thank God for that,’ Mike said, letting them in and mock-frowning. ‘It’s bad enough that I’m forced to eat rabbit food after a hard day at work, but even worse to have to wait half an hour for the pleasure!’

‘No, no – we can’t eat yet!’ Riley said, seeing me emerge from the kitchen with the salad bowl. ‘You need to get everyone gathered together first, so we can tell you our news. Where’s Kieron? And Justin. Dad, can you get them?’

‘They’re back upstairs,’ I said. ‘Playing on the computer in Kieron’s bedroom. But –’

‘Mum, Dad!’ Riley chided, while David stood there grinning goofily. ‘Stop staring and go get them, will you!’

I took the salad bowl and plonked it back on the kitchen table, while Mike bellowed to the boys to come down. ‘Quick, you two!’ he added – probably for the benefit of his stomach, while I, meanwhile, had a sudden bolt of inspiration. I looked at Riley, then at David – the pair of them like a couple of grinning idiots. It couldn’t be, could it? Or maybe it could be …

The boys both thundered down then, Kieron volubly complaining. ‘This had better be good, Riley. We were in the middle of an important game!’

But his big sister was having none of it. ‘Shut up and sit down, you two,’ she ordered, and it was only once they’d done so and she had all our full attention that she deigned to impart their ‘big news’. Which was big. At least, would before too long become so. ‘Everyone,’ she announced. ‘David and me want you to be the first to know. I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby!’

Now my heart really did leap. So my hunch had been right. This was a shock, but such a great one. Such a fabulous thing. Mike and me were going to become grandparents!

I glanced at Mike to see him looking stunned, his eyes filling up with tears. Then he leapt up from the sofa and the room all but exploded – into a big noisy round of hugs and congratulations, with everyone kissing everyone else, just like it was New Year. But then, minutes later, I noticed Justin, in the corner.

It was his face; it had taken on that strange inhuman quality. He looked like thunder. I could see he was seething.

‘You okay, babes?’ I asked him quietly, but he seemed unable to answer. In fact, I could see he was struggling hard to try and maintain control. He was shaking, and he looked like he wanted to punch something. Luckily, it didn’t seem as if anyone else had noticed, and with me now standing between him and everyone else, hopefully they wouldn’t notice, either. I really didn’t want this wonderful occasion spoiling.

I discreetly manoeuvred him – and thankfully he didn’t try to resist – out into the hallway, and then looked right into his eyes, maintaining contact as I spoke to him. ‘Look,’ I said gently, but also quite firmly. ‘I know something about all this has upset you, Justin, but we don’t want to hurt Riley’s feelings, do we? You’re obviously too angry to talk to me about it right now, I can see that, so why don’t you go on back upstairs for a bit, eh? Kieron will be up in a minute and you can get back to your game. Okay, love?’

For a moment he looked like he was about to speak, but then changed his mind and clamped his mouth shut again. Then he turned and plodded off back up to his bedroom and as I watched him go up, I slowly exhaled. Once again, I’d been holding my breath.

We didn’t see Justin downstairs again until Riley and David had finally left for home, and when he did come down, he had Kieron close behind him. And for a reason; when I asked him about it, sensing he was calmer, and would want to talk about it, right away, Kieron, who was standing behind him, was busy making a face at me and shaking his head.

Taking my cue, I dropped it, and instead just ruffled Justin’s hair. ‘I know it’s a lot of fuss, kiddo,’ I said lightly. ‘But don’t worry. It’ll calm down soon enough.’

It was only once he’d gone to bed that Kieron told me what had happened. He’d been aware from the off what had happened to Justin, bless him – had actually seen him metamorphose into that other, scary Justin, and though I hadn’t been aware of it, specifically popped upstairs to check all was okay.

Once up there, he’d asked Justin if he was okay and, getting little back, then observed, ‘Bloody women, eh! Getting all over-excited about babies! So. Back to our game, then? Prepare yourself, mind. Welcome to defeat, little brother!’

Justin had apparently laughed out loud at this, his parting comment on the subject being an equally spirited, ‘Hah! She won’t be so happy when she’s round and fat like my mum!’

I could have kissed Kieron for that. I really could. Trust him to have the wisdom to say exactly the thing Justin needed to hear. I really felt proud of him that day.

‘It’s not really surprising he’s found it difficult to swallow,’ said Mike, once we were tucked up in bed, him with his book and reading glasses and me with my magazine and coffee, like the grandparents-in-waiting we couldn’t believe we now were. ‘Hard for him to separate it from what’s happened with his mum, is it? You know, another woman having a baby, all the fuss and attention and everything. Must remind him of how wretched his own family life is.’ Mike put the word ‘family’ in quote marks with his fingers, and he was right to – what sort of family life was Justin ever going to have? His mother was about as reliable as the British summer. What were the chances of her every really wanting to reconcile with Justin once her ‘princess’, her precious baby daughter, came along? My guess was that she wouldn’t want him within a mile of her.

But all we could do for Justin was what we were doing already – trying to give him stability and boundaries and affection and, as far as possible, help him to deal with the scars he already had. And I couldn’t dwell on it all – not that night – as I was way too excited. ‘Grandparents’. It made me giggle just to say it out loud. In my head I was way, way too young to be a ‘nanna’, and I laughed when I realised I was actually rehearsing in my head how I was going to break the news to my parents. How mad was that?

But there was a serious aspect to this incredible new situation; the effect this would have on our fostering. Way in the future, though we’d yet to have so much of an inkling of it, our fostering would turn out to be such a great positive that it would end up having a direct effect on Riley’s own choice of career, but for the moment, as Mike commented, we must proceed with caution. We must make sure we had a much fuller background on future children, especially older ones, to be sure they didn’t have a history of hurting little ones.

In the meantime, I agreed, thinking about Justin’s reaction earlier, we must take care. If he was still with us when the baby was born – it was due in November – we mustn’t be blind to how that might affect him.

The days passed, and I never really did get Justin to articulate his difficulty about Riley and her pregnancy. Even though, intuitively, it was so obvious why it affected him, it still would have been so helpful for him to be able to talk his feelings through with me, yet as a subject for discussion, no matter how hard I tried to set things up for him to attempt it, it seemed it was a definite no-go area. I heard second-hand from Kieron that his only other comment to him on the matter was that all girls were ‘slags’ and that he knew ‘all the stuff they do to get pregnant’. He also warned Kieron that he should never get a girlfriend, because they were ‘trouble’.