Читать книгу At Risk: An innocent boy. A sinister secret. Is there no one to save him from danger? - Casey Watson, Casey Watson - Страница 7

Chapter 2

Saturday

I woke early, because of birdsong rather than the tyranny of the alarm clock, and for a moment I forgot that I had a houseguest across the landing; I was too preoccupied with the unusual business of no Mike snoring beside me in the bed.

Then it hit me, and I wondered about the little lad I’d taken on. How had he slept? Had he slept, even? It must all seem so strange. We took in all sorts of children from all sorts of backgrounds and, usually, the urgent need for those children to be rescued – and more often than not, rehabilitated – was both the guiding light and the driving force. But Adam was different. He wanted nothing more than to be reunited with his loving mother, and when my phone call to the hospital the previous evening established that he couldn’t (his mum wasn’t apparently well enough to see him, being still so groggy from the anaesthetic) he was understandably anxious and upset.

So I turned to my trusty games box for support, and, to my surprise, as we rummaged through the various board games and puzzles, Adam professed a great keenness to play chess – a game that mostly sat unloved and gathering dust, mostly down to my inability to play it with anything remotely approaching competence.

Which I quickly pointed out. ‘Then I’ll teach you, miss,’ Adam told me, sounding altogether brighter as he carried the battered box to the dining room table.

‘It’s Casey,’ I reminded him – for about the fifth time since we’d got home. ‘And, believe me,’ I added, in my Winston Churchill voice, ‘many have tried, and few have succeeded.’

This pronouncement managed to elicit a giggle from Adam, which pleased me greatly, even if it did reinforce the feeling that Adam saw himself as having been billeted with a funny little mad lady for the duration.

Well, so be it, I thought, as I watched him place all the pieces. Bookish, I decided. Shy yet self-possessed. Not one for a great deal of socialising. And a boy, I decided, who would take any game he was playing very seriously.

I mentally smiled. He’d have no trouble beating me at this one. The intricacies of the game had always baffled me since back in childhood, and I had never really quite got the hang of it. I suspected I knew why, as well. A psychologist might correctly diagnose that I was mostly prevented from learning how to play such games by my inability to want to beat an opponent. Much as I loved the strategy of figuring out moves – and could even see how I could make counter-moves to avoid defeat – I simply couldn’t find it in me to muster the required ruthlessness; it was so much my nature to allow the underdog to win, at all costs.

Happily, in this case, it was me who was the underdog and Adam proved deft in destroying me. Despite his many moments of explaining exactly how he was winning, he had me checkmated in no time at all. ‘I know,’ I said, after he’d beaten me a second time (and I reflected that this was unlike any fostering situation I’d ever known), ‘how about I get my craft box out instead?’

Dressing-gowned-up now, and satisfied that Adam was sleeping soundly, I padded down to the kitchen and picked up the resultant work of art, which we’d left on the kitchen table to dry out. It stuck me anew that it was a bit of an odd choice.

Adam had decided to paint a picture of what I assumed was his mum, laid out in a hospital bed with various wires and tubes attached, and with some kind of machine at her side. He’d even attached a drip to her arm, complete with bag and stand.

It was actually rather good. There was no denying his talent. And in terms of technical details, it was spot on. But still an odd choice, given my suggestion that he paint something specifically to take to his mother – I’d assumed he’d do some flowers, or a landscape, or self-portrait, with the usual accompanying ‘get well soon’ message.

Still, I thought, as I put it down and went to fill the kettle, who was I to suggest what he should or shouldn’t draw? Perhaps he had a future as a technical artist, or perhaps as a designer of some miraculous new scanner. He was certainly a bright enough boy.

Not to mention a hungry one. On that front he’d really surprised me, and while I had no idea what he most liked for breakfast, the evidence of the previous night’s tea seemed to suggest that the answer was probably ‘anything and everything’. He’d sat down to eat – tiny, underweight thing that he was – and proceeded to act like a small human vacuum cleaner, sucking up whatever appeared in front of him. Fish and chips, in this case, with lashings of curry sauce, along with several slices of bread and butter, then biscuits and milk, then some toast and a bar of chocolate while he painted his creation, then a drinking chocolate and yet another biscuit before bed. His family must have some seriously good genes, I remembered thinking, for him to have an appetite like that and still stay so thin. If that was his diet, then I wanted to be on it!

But, being Saturday, it was too early to think about breakfast anyway so, coffee made, I headed out into our sunny conservatory to give Mike and Tyler a quick call. According to the handout I’d been left with, which detailed their itinerary, they should by now have arrived in the resort. Plus they were an hour ahead, so I was keen to fill Mike in on my news before they headed off up the slopes.

‘You’ve what?’ Mike asked after I got through to his mobile and told him that I’d taken in a child only hours after he had left.

The anxiety in his voice was perfectly reasonable. The sorts of children we normally specialised in fostering weren’t the kind of kids you contemplated lightly. ‘He’s a sweetheart,’ I reassured him, ‘and it’s only for a few days while his mum’s in hospital.’ I then went on to reassure him that, no, Adam didn’t put her there, and that all being well he’d be gone before they were home again. ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘it’ll keep me occupied, won’t it? While you and Ty are having your alpine adventure.’

‘Adventure?’ Mike groaned. ‘The only adventure I’ve had so far is in trying to unbend myself out of that flipping coach seat. I’m as stiff as a board and – sod’s law – no sooner do I finally get comfortable enough to nod off than we pull up outside the blinking lodge! Gawd knows where I’m going to find the energy to ski, even after the measly hours’ kip we’ve been granted.’

Tyler, predictably, was bouncing off the ceiling. No, I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it in his voice. Though once he’d told me about the coach journey, the Channel Tunnel, the mountains and the snow, he did express regret that I had another child in and he wasn’t around to join in.

Which both tickled and moved me. You’d expect – well, I think I would – that a child with Tyler’s background would suffer pangs of, if not full-blown jealousy, at least of insecurity whenever a new child came into our lives. And we had always been braced for it, too. Yet it never happened. I don’t know why, and I’d certainly not claim any credit, but there was something about Tyler and how secure he obviously felt with us that let him welcome any new child wholeheartedly.

I wasn’t sure why, but my hunch was that it made him feel even more one of us. Part of the fostering ‘team’. He was certainly anxious to know all about Adam, and quick to suggest things I might do with him after I’d taken him to see his mum, from the climbing wall at our local leisure centre to a turn on the dry ski slope he’d been on with school.

‘Or swimming,’ he suggested. ‘That’s on the way to the hospital.’ Which seemed the perfect idea. So I ran with it. Except the next call, to the hospital, brought the dispiriting news that Adam’s mum still wasn’t able to see him.

‘It’s the medication we had to give her,’ the ward sister explained. ‘It’s an opiate – she’s had a lot of pain overnight unfortunately – and it’s making her too drowsy to be intelligible.’

‘She’s all right, though, is she?’ I asked, anxious that there might have been some sort of complication.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ the nurse was quick to reassure me. ‘Her vital signs are all fine. She’s just in a lot of pain, and we’re dealing with it. She’ll be right as rain by tomorrow, you’ll see. And in a much better place in terms of seeing her little boy. And, truth be told, he’ll be much more reassured when he does see her than he would be today.’

Which was a fair point. No child likes to see their parent as vulnerable, and if Adam’s mum was all over the place (as, with experience of strong painkillers, I knew she probably would be) it made no sense to alarm him unduly. So that was that. When Adam walked sleepily into the kitchen half an hour later it was to hear that yet again he wouldn’t be seeing his beloved mother.

He looked distraught, and I could see he was trying to stop himself from crying. ‘Mum will be so upset if she doesn’t see me soon,’ he said, as I hurried to put an arm around him. ‘I don’t know how she’ll cope, I really don’t.’

That struck me as a strange thing to say. He reached out as I hugged him and grabbed his painting off the kitchen table, tracing a finger along the arm of the figure on the bed. ‘She’s going to worry about me,’ he added.

‘Of course she is, sweetie,’ I agreed. ‘But she knows you’re being looked after …’

‘But does she know I’m okay? You know. Not ill or anything?’

‘Of course she does,’ I lied. There’d been no such conversation. But, then again, why ever would there have been? ‘She knows you’re fine, that you beat me at chess – two whole times! – and that you’re eating me out of house and home. On which note, what d’you fancy for breakfast?’

Quite a lot, as it turned out, once Adam had been reassured. Eggs and bacon, some toast and a bowl of cereal. And it struck me that perhaps Adam was a teeny pint-sized athlete, and though I certainly wouldn’t be climbing any indoor walls, or falling down any ski slopes, he might relish doing all of the activities Tyler had suggested.

Swimming, however, seemed to win the day.

‘I love swimming,’ he told me. ‘We’re going with school next term, too. So I need to practise for my 600 metres.’

‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Swimming it shall be, then.’

Adam frowned. ‘But what am I going to do about swimming shorts? The social lady didn’t pack any for me.’

‘Not a problem,’ I reassured him. ‘I have quite a selection. We had a boy stay with us for a while a few years back. His name was Spencer. And he was a bit of a water baby too.’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Though which football team do you support? Can’t have you swimming with the enemy.’

It was the work of moments to establish that Adam had not the least interest in football. Never played it – except sometimes, at school, when he was made to – and had no allegiance to any team. He seemed more interested in Spencer and the whys and wherefores of his stay with us.

‘Do you have lots of boys come to stay here?’ he asked, once I’d sketched a few details for him.

‘I do,’ I said, ‘and girls. Some for short stays, like you, and some, like my Tyler, who stay with us for a long time.’

‘Why?’ he asked. Which seemed a reasonable enough question.

‘Because not everyone is lucky enough to have a mum who loves them like yours does,’ I told him. ‘And sometimes, because some mums and dads, for all sorts of reasons, can’t look after their children themselves.’

‘So is this in care? Me being here?’ He looked suddenly anxious.

‘Yes, officially, I suppose,’ I said. ‘But not the way you might have heard of it. I’m simply taking care of you till your mum’s better and she can look after you again herself.’

‘Does she know about you?’ he asked me, as we climbed the stairs to go rummage in my clothes cupboard. ‘You know – that you’re a proper carer person and I’m safe and that?’

‘Of course.’

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘She won’t worry so much about me then, will she?’

By then the all-important business of choosing swim shorts was underway, or perhaps I would have pondered that a little more fully.

We spent a lovely morning swimming, and despite my earlier assumption, Adam turned out not to be the athlete I had suspected. In fact, he struggled in the water. It was clear he loved it, however, and was keen to improve, not to mention revelling in the opportunity to go a little wild and splash and scream down the water slides – the ones at the shallow end, normally enjoyed by kids half his age.