Читать книгу Sadie - Jane Elliott - Страница 11

The next day dawned bright and clear, but Jamie Brown had been awake long before the sun rose.

It was his birthday the following day, and last night he had gone to sleep cosseted by pleasant fantasies of a birthday present, and even a chocolate cake with candles. He had never had either, of course, but that didn’t stop him from hoping each time his birthday came around. Maybe Mum would have had a change of heart this year; maybe there would be a bit of spare money; just maybe he would have a happy day.

But the maybes had dissolved from his mind a little before dawn when he awoke with the familiar feeling of horror. The thin mattress which lay on the floor of the tiny box room he called his own was wet, and so was the stained sheet that covered him. He didn’t dare move for fear of waking his mother up; all he could do was hope that it dried before morning. But morning had come, and the bedding was still damp. The little boy shivered, not just because he was cold.

Perhaps he could hide what had happened. Perhaps if he got up now and pulled the frayed blanket over his sheet, she wouldn’t notice. He quietly slipped out of bed, removed his damp pyjamas and put them under the pillow; then he put on the underwear he had been wearing for the past week. He crept out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. It was filthy, as it always was. The taps to the bath were broken, and he wasn’t allowed to use the shower unless Mum said so; instead, he took his flannel, which had fallen down beside the toilet and become encrusted hard, and soaked it under cold running water. He squeezed it and rubbed it over his skin, taking care not to press too hard where the bruises were. When he had finished his ineffectual wash, he moistened his toothbrush under the running water. The bristles were worn and flattened, and the handle stained with lime scale; there was, of course, no toothpaste, but he brushed nevertheless, pressing so hard that his gums started to hurt. He placed the toothbrush back on the side of the sink, and then turned round and left the room.

His heart jumped.

Standing in the doorway of his room was his mum. She had a cigarette in one hand and his damp pyjamas in the other.

Jamie cowered, shrinking against the wall under the withering heat of her gaze.

‘What the fuck is this?’ she asked, her voice deathly quiet.

Jamie was too terrified to speak.

‘Don’t fucking ignore me, Jamie. What the fuck is this?’

‘I’m s-s-sorry, Mum,’ Jamie stammered. ‘I think I wet myself.’

His mum hurled the wet pyjamas at his head. ‘I can fucking see that!’ she screamed.

Jamie struggled to remove the clothes from around his eyes. As he did so he saw his mum bearing down on him. Instantly he crumpled to the floor, rolling up in a little ball like the hedgehog he had seen in a book at school. ‘Please don’t hit me, Mum,’ he whimpered, but it was too late. As he spoke he felt her bare foot against his abdomen. The thought flashed through his head that at least she wasn’t wearing shoes; but he still felt a shriek of pain as she kicked him on the bruises from his last beating. He found himself gasping as his mother shouted at him again.

‘It’s no fuckin’ wonder everyone hates you. I fucking hate you, and I’m your mum, more fool me.’ She stomped back into her bedroom, but the shouting continued. ‘Now fuck off to school. I’m sick of the fucking sight of you …’

The blue sky made yesterday’s rain seem like a weird dream; indeed, to Sadie, everything about the previous evening had a nightmare quality about it, almost as though none of it had happened. As she walked sleepily to the bathroom, however, she was reminded of it all: the bath water was still there, as she had been in too much of a hurry to get to her bedroom to pull the plug out. It seemed that nobody had been into the bathroom since; or if they had, they wanted to make a point. She removed the plug, and as the water drained out of the bath she cleaned her teeth and washed her face. Then she returned to her bedroom to get dressed.

It was quiet in the house, for which Sadie was extremely thankful. If she crept downstairs, maybe she could get her cereal and leave the house without anyone waking up. She tiptoed down, avoiding those parts of the staircase that she knew were creaky, and made her way into the kitchen, where she poured herself a bowl of cornflakes. There was only a drop of milk left, so she doused the cereal with what there was before turning to sit at the kitchen table.

She stopped in her tracks.

Allen was sitting at the head of the table, with his chair turned ninety degrees so that he could face her. He had been so quiet, so immobile, that she hadn’t seen him until now. His face was blank, but he looked tired, and he was wearing the same clothes that he had been wearing the previous night.

‘Good morning,’ he said.

Sadie walked brusquely to the other end of the table, where she sat down and started to eat with big mouthfuls; but the faster she tried to eat, the more the cereal stuck in her throat.

‘Aren’t you talking to me, Sadie?’ Allen asked.

Sadie swallowed her mouthful. ‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked.

‘Don’t worry about your mam,’ Allen told her. ‘She’s still in bed. Tired. She needs her sleep, now she’s working and all.’

‘I want to say goodbye before I leave for school.’

‘I told you, she’s tired.’ He stood up, and walked over to where Sadie was sitting. The girl put her hands on her lap and looked down at the now empty cereal bowl. He was standing too close now, invading her personal space. He lifted his hand and made as if to put it on her shoulder, but Sadie shrank from him and instead he picked up the bowl. ‘Off you go, then,’ Allen said. ‘I’ll wash this up for you.’

Sadie watched as he took the bowl to the sink and stood there, running the water, resolutely not looking back. As quickly as she could, she got her things together and left.

‘Miss Venables, you are not this school’s child protection officer. I can assure you that we are fully aware of the concerns about Jamie Brown, and they’re being dealt with through the proper channels.’

‘But Mr Martin,’ Stacy said, her frustration with the headmaster taking the edge off her politeness, ‘social services aren’t doing a thing.’

‘They’re monitoring the situation,’ the headmaster said emphatically, as though speaking to a child. ‘They can’t just storm in and remove the child from his mother – there’s no evidence of maltreatment, there’s been no disclosure from the child.’

‘But you only have to look at him …’

‘Enough!’ Mr Martin said forcefully, and she was stunned into silence by the sudden raising of his voice. The headmaster collapsed heavily into his chair and pinched his forehead momentarily before speaking again. ‘We’re keeping a close eye on Jamie Brown,’ he said more quietly. ‘It’s really not your concern.’ He looked her up and down. ‘I see you’ve chosen to ignore our last conversation about what constitutes a suitable dress code for teachers in this school.’

Stacy smoothed her white T-shirt. ‘Will that be all, Mr Martin?’ she asked coldly.

‘Yes, Miss Venables,’ the headmaster said wearily. ‘That will be all.’

Stacy’s footsteps echoed off the hard floor of the corridor as she stomped, seething, to her next lesson. Her cheeks were flushed with the embarrassment of her dressing down and also her frustration. She knew instinctively that all was not right with that kid. Why could nobody else see what was so obvious to her?

It was a long lesson. The children were distracted – it was always the way when the weather was sunny – and Miss Venables spent more time calming them down than teaching them English. There were the usual troublemakers: Anna and Carly felt the sharp end of her tongue, as well as a few of the boys. Curiously, though, Sadie Burrows was not sitting with the girls but had installed herself at the front of the class and was working quietly. It wasn’t like her to be by herself.

As the bell rang, the familiar sound of chair-scraping filled the room. ‘Don’t forget you have homework to do tonight,’ she called above the noise, but few people paid her any attention, and in any case her mind was on something else.

‘Sadie,’ she called to the girl sitting at the front. ‘Could you stay behind, please?’

Sadie looked up suspiciously at her teacher. ‘I’ll be late for my next lesson,’ she said without much enthusiasm.

Miss Venables approached her desk. ‘It won’t take long,’ she told her. ‘Just a couple of minutes.’ She looked around at the few children who were dragging their heels, clearly hanging around to see what she wanted with Sadie. ‘Was there anything?’ she asked them with a raised eyebrow. As one they shook their heads, muttered and left the room.

When it was just the two of them, Miss Venables’ face softened. ‘Is everything all right, Sadie?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘You seem quiet, that’s all.’

‘I’m fine, miss.’

Miss Venables furrowed her brow slightly and nodded. ‘I was going to ask you if you could do me a favour, Sadie.’

She watched Sadie’s face twitch slightly and knew that she felt uncomfortable being asked this by a teacher. But give children a bit of responsibility, she always said, and it’s amazing how often they rise to the challenge. Besides, she really did need her help.

‘You know Jamie Brown?’

Sadie nodded cautiously.

‘Does he talk to you?’

‘Sometimes, miss.’

‘That’s what I thought. I’ve seen the two of you in the playground. Has he ever told you anything about what happens at home?’

Sadie looked straight into Miss Venables’ eyes, and the teacher found it impossible to read what she was thinking. She did notice, however, that the girl took a little bit too long to answer. ‘No, miss. We don’t talk about things like that.’

The teacher’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘No, of course not.’ She turned and walked back to her desk at the front of the class. ‘So what do you talk about?’ she asked lightly.

Sadie shrugged. ‘Just stuff, miss,’ she said.

Miss Venables nodded. ‘The thing is, Sadie, I’m a bit worried about him.’ She smiled at the girl. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why that is. He seems very down today. You’re a sensible girl. I’m sure you’d tell me if you thought there was anything I should know, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, miss.’ Miss Venables noted that Sadie avoided her eyes as she spoke. She thought of quizzing her a bit further, but at the last moment decided against it.

‘Well, you always know where to find me if you need to. Go on, then. You’d better get to your next lesson.’

Sadie nodded her head, slung her satchel over her neck and left the classroom.

Anna and Carly were waiting for her a little way up the corridor. ‘What she want?’ Anna asked immediately as Sadie approached. ‘What you done wrong? You in trouble?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Oh, c’mon, Sadie,’ Carly needled her. ‘What she say?’

‘It’s nothing, OK?’ Sadie snapped. Her two friends looked at each other in surprise, and then back at her. ‘Just leave me alone,’ Sadie muttered, and she stormed off without them.

As a result of her outburst, Sadie found herself alone again in the playground at lunchtime. Carly and Anna were pretending to have a good time, but she could tell by the sidelong glances that were coming her way whenever she was near them that they felt as uncomfortable as she did. Somehow, though, she couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm to go and make her peace with them. They would only ask her yet again what was the matter, and she didn’t want to talk about that. She hadn’t told them about Allen moving in, or any of the other stuff: for some reason she was embarrassed about it, and she wanted to keep it to herself.

Sadie had been surprised by Miss Venables’ questions – teachers weren’t supposed to talk like that. Maybe there was something really wrong with Jamie. Maybe she should find out: even if she didn’t tell anyone, perhaps she could do something to help. And it would take her mind off other things. Looking around, she saw the little boy walking along one of the walls of the playground, his finger tracing the shape of the mortar between the bricks. He looked just the same as usual. She crossed the playground to talk to him.

‘Hi,’ she said, as she fell in beside him.

‘Leave us alone.’

Sadie blinked at him. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Just leave us alone,’ Jamie replied. There were tears in his eyes, and to hide them he took a couple of quick steps forward. Sadie stood still, watching him go and feeling a hot creeping embarrassment rising up her neck. In her little fantasy she had thought she could make everything all right for Jamie Brown, but she couldn’t.

How could she, when she couldn’t even make things all right for herself?

Carly and Anna continued to avoid her, even after school. She wanted to make up with them, but she was embarrassed by her outburst and didn’t know how to; besides, now that she no longer had her own key, something told her that if she was late back home she’d get a grilling from Allen. The thought of seeing him was repugnant to her, but not as bad as the memory of his fury the previous night. So as soon as school finished, she walked home by herself.

It felt strange having to ring the bell, as though this was not even her home any more. In the event she had to ring it twice before Allen deigned to answer. When he did so, Sadie looked aghast at him. He was wearing no shirt, and the pungent odour of his aftershave was worse than ever. Sadie’s distaste must have been obvious from her face, because a shadow instantly fell over Allen’s expression.

‘What?’ he asked.

Sadie looked away. ‘Nothing.’ She pushed past him and ran straight upstairs to her bedroom.

Closing the door behind her, Sadie sat down on her bed and pulled a book out of her satchel. Homework for Miss Venables was to read a chapter. While Sadie would never normally have rushed to do schoolwork at home, it was a more attractive option than being downstairs with Allen, and if he came up to nag her, at least she had an excuse for staying in her room. She opened the book and started to read. For the next twenty minutes, though, she must have read the opening paragraph a hundred times, and still she had no idea what it said. Her mind was too distracted, and her ears were waiting to hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs that she knew could not be far away.

Eventually they came, followed by the predictable three knocks and the opening of the door. His shirt was still off.

‘What you doing?’ Allen managed to look almost revolted at the book in Sadie’s hands.

‘Homework,’ she replied curtly, furrowing her eyebrows and pretending to continue to read.

‘Never mind that now,’ he told her. ‘Come downstairs and talk to me. Nobody likes sulky kids.’

‘I can’t.’ Sadie tried to sound apologetic, but in fact she just sounded panicky. ‘It’s homework. I – ’

All of a sudden Allen was striding towards her. Sadie flinched as he grabbed the book from her hands and scrunched a handful of pages in his fist. ‘What’s the fucking matter with you?’ he fumed. ‘Think you’re brainier than everyone else, do you?’ He stared furiously at her before throwing the damaged book on the floor. ‘You see what you’ve made me do?’ he asked, his voice quieter now but no less dangerous. ‘You’d better stop being so fucking arrogant – otherwise I’ll tell your teachers it was you did that. Are you coming downstairs or what?’

Sadie bit her lip and nodded her head.

‘Well, go on, then,’ Allen urged. She pushed herself off the bed and then walked downstairs, never looking back but feeling him close behind her nonetheless. When she got to the kitchen, she simply stood there, not knowing what to do. Allen made his way into the sitting room, and he heard his voice drift out, calmer now: ‘Make yourself useful, then, and make us a brew.’ He switched the television on.

Sadie found herself filling the kettle full to the brim so that it would take longer to boil and she could stay out of the sitting room for a few extra precious seconds. But there was only so much time she could take making a cup of tea until she provoked his anger again, and before she knew it she was carrying a mugful into the sitting room and handing it to him.

‘Ta, Shakespeare,’ he said with a forced smile, apparently trying to be pleasant, before placing the mug on the arm of the settee. He then tapped the seat next to him. ‘Sit down next to me,’ he ordered, his eyes fixed on the television screen.

Sadie did as she was told.

They sat there in silence for a long while, Allen sipping his tea and watching the television, Sadie increasingly feeling the urge to shrink from him. But although she was repelled by the very presence of the man sitting next to her, she found that she couldn’t help looking occasionally at his bare skin. It was white and slightly podgy, with a wispy dusting of brown hair. What had caught her attention was a patch on one side of his belly that was even paler than the rest of his skin, where no hair grew. Sadie found herself wondering what it was, but pulled her eyes away when she realized Allen was watching her.

‘You looking at my scar?’ he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

Sadie shook her head.

‘Yes you were. I saw you. It’s all right, pet. You’re allowed to look.’

‘I wasn’t looking.’

‘I suppose you’re wondering where I got it.’

Sadie remained tight-lipped.

‘It’s a knife wound,’ Allen said. ‘I got it in Manchester. There were a couple of scallies attacking an old lady for her handbag, so I stepped in. They went for me instead. Three weeks in hospital it cost me.’ He took another slurp of his tea, and then placed the mug back down on the armrest. ‘It still hurts sometimes, but rather me than an old granny, eh?’

Suddenly Sadie felt his hand on her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he just gripped harder. ‘You’re hurting me!’ she squealed, but that only made him squeeze tighter. He pulled her arm towards him and placed her clenched fist against the scar; then he moved it up and down, forcing her to caress it against her will. The scar tissue felt smooth compared to the rest of his downy skin, but the sensation made Sadie shudder with revulsion and she continued to struggle, despite the increasing fierceness of his grip. ‘Let me go,’ she said, feeling tears starting to stream down her cheek. ‘Please let me go.’

But he didn’t let her go. Instead, he was whispering in her ear, his lips brushing against her lobes. ‘You don’t want a scar like that on your pretty little body, do you, pet?’

‘No,’ she whimpered.

‘No,’ Allen confirmed. ‘So you’d better do as you’re told. Understand?’

Blinded now by her tears, Sadie nodded. Her wrist was burning, and if she had wanted to speak, she knew the words would choke in her throat.

As quickly as he had grabbed her, he let go. ‘Go on, then,’ he spat. ‘Fuck off back to your bedroom. Go and pretend to read your book.’

Sadie fled.

For the second time in as many days, she found herself trembling in her room, her ears straining to hear the sounds Allen was making downstairs. She deduced that he had turned the television off – or muted it, as he sometimes did, leaving the picture silently playing – because she could hear him walking around. His movements seemed more chaotic than usual, as though he was stomping around angrily. Sadie tiptoed to her door, opened it a little and put her ear to the gap: she jumped as she heard the smashing of a glass and then ran back to her bed, where she automatically grabbed her teddy bear and squeezed it with all her might.

Yesterday, she had been given some warning of Allen’s arrival in her room: his footsteps had stopped halfway up the stairs before he finally decided to intrude on her. Today there was no such hesitation. Out of the blue, Sadie heard a rush of clattering footsteps as Allen ran flat-footedly up the stairs and burst in. His shirt was back on now, but it was not his state of undress or otherwise that made Sadie freeze, statue still.

It was the look on his face.

There was a wildness in his eyes, an anger and a loathing that Sadie had never even dreamed of in her worst nightmares. One eye seemed to be open slightly wider than the other; his lips were fixed in a snarl that suggested the deepest contempt; and his whole head seemed to twitch intermittently. He took deep, shuddering breaths, as though he was trying to bring himself under control; but everything about his demeanour suggested that he was not being successful.

Sadie’s skin prickled with fear as he stood there and looked at her.

Finally he spoke. His voice was not loud, as the fury in his face would have predicted: he spoke in a forced whisper that was all the more sinister for its quietness. ‘You’re a fucking tease,’ he breathed.

Sadie shook her head, not trusting herself to reply, nor quite knowing how to.

‘Don’t look at me like that, you little bitch.’ His voice was dangerously soft now. ‘I’ve met your type before. You think you can do anything. You think you can prance around wearing next to fuck all. You think you can sit on the settee and touch me and then fuck off back to your bedroom.’ He took a step nearer. ‘You’re a worthless little slag.’ He licked his lips, almost nervously. ‘I suppose you’ve got a string of boyfriends at that school of yours.’

‘No,’ Sadie said in a small voice.

That seemed to mollify Allen a little, but he still spoke viciously quietly. ‘You should count your fucking blessings I don’t tell your mam what your game is and have you taken into care.’

Sadie allowed a sob to escape from her throat, and all of a sudden Allen smiled – a vicious, humourless smile that was even worse than the snarl.

‘Touched a nerve, have we?’ He walked right up to the bed and bent over so that his face was only inches from Sadie’s and his breath was hot on her skin. ‘It’ll happen, you know,’ he whispered. ‘Put one step wrong, and it’ll happen. You know I can make it happen, don’t you?’

Sadie nodded, her eyes brimming.

Allen smiled again. ‘Good,’ he said. His voice was calmer now, and as he stood up and stepped backwards towards the door, the beast in him seemed to have been tamed somewhat. When he spoke again, he had lost the whisper and managed to sound almost matter-of-fact. ‘I wouldn’t bother telling anyone about our little chat, Sadie. You’ll just show everyone what a lying little slag you are. And I’d hate to have to tell anyone all the things I know about you.’

He gave her an oily grin, and left.

Sadie sat perfectly still on her bed. She felt tears dribbling down her face, but could not summon the will to wipe them away; instead she simply stared into the middle distance. Allen’s words had cut through her like barbed wire in her veins, exposing her very worst fears. ‘I’ll have you taken into care.’ ‘I’ll tell all the things I know about you.’ She didn’t doubt that he would.

How long she sat there she couldn’t tell, but after a while a massive, body-shaking sob arose in her chest and she crumbled, prostrate on her bedclothes and weeping into her hands until they were quite as wet as they had been when she was caught in the rain yesterday. She felt as wretched as she had when her dad had died: Allen’s poisonous words made her miss him more than ever.

She didn’t risk going into the bathroom that night, and she certainly didn’t want to go down and make herself any dinner. Even before it was dark, she was underneath her duvet, sometimes crying, sometimes shivering, sometimes just lying there in shocked exhaustion, listening for footsteps up the stairs. But they did not come.

The evening passed with excruciating slowness. Sleep would be impossible until her mum got back, of that she was sure. When she finally heard the door opening it was with a surge of relief and yet she felt a slight lurch in her stomach when she realized in an instant that it didn’t really change things. All she wanted to do, though, was to see her mum, to have her put her arms around her and kiss her goodnight. A hug – it wasn’t much to ask. She slipped out of bed and, remembering Allen’s words about walking around in next to nothing, pulled on a jumper and her dressing gown before creeping downstairs.

It was not until she was in the kitchen that she was able to distinguish the murmur of the grown-ups’ voices from the babble of the television. She held her breath and stood with her back against the wall next to the door – unseen and unheard – so that she could determine if it was a good moment to walk in. Her mum was speaking, and Sadie immediately recognized a slur in her voice that told her she had been drinking. The little girl strained her ears to hear what she was saying.

Jackie was rambling. ‘It was only a couple of voddies. Ray from up the road – you know Ray, him with the white beard and the Rottie on a lead – was in, bought us a drink. They’re good like that down there, always someone to stand you a drink. I know most of them, course, from before.’ Jackie sounded carefree, as though she had been enjoying herself. ‘Don’t worry,’ – her voice was suddenly heavy with mock exaggeration – ‘they won’t dock my pay or nothing.’

‘I don’t give a fuck about the money,’ Allen replied quietly. ‘I told you I didn’t want you drinking any more. You stink of it.’

‘Oh, c’mon, it was only a couple of voddies,’ Jackie repeated. There was the rustle of movement on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry about last night, love. I didn’t mean to make you so cross. Why don’t you let us make it up to you?’ Her voice had suddenly turned almost kittenish, wheedling, as if she was trying to talk him into something. Sadie was not so naïve that she didn’t understand what was going on, and the sound of her mum making advances of that type to Allen made her feel nauseous. She didn’t want to hear any more, yet somehow she couldn’t drag herself away.

‘Your breath stinks of tabs,’ was the only reply Allen gave her.

‘Never mind that, eh?’ her mum breathed. ‘You ain’t hardly touched me since you moved in. You don’t have to be shy, you know. I won’t bite.’ Her voice was husky now, but there was something about the way her words drunkenly ran into each other that made her sound faintly pitiful.

‘Get away from me,’ Allen snapped. ‘I’m not fucking interested. Can’t you get that into your thick, ugly head?’

Before Jackie could cajole him any further, Sadie heard the unmistakable sound of someone getting up from the sofa and approaching the door. She panicked, spinning around to look towards the stairs and work out if she could get there before she was caught eavesdropping, but it was too late. Before she could move, Allen was there, standing above her.

‘You little…’ he whispered as his eyes narrowed. Then he smiled unpleasantly and raised his voice. ‘Hey, Jackie, look at this.’ Her mum appeared at the door. ‘Not quite the fucking angel you think she is, eh? Listening in on us – listening in on you making a fucking fool of yourself.’ He shot Sadie a warning glance, as if to say ‘I told you so’, and then disappeared upstairs.

Sadie didn’t watch him go. She turned to her mum with outstretched arms and teary eyes, hoping to receive the hug that she had been aching for all night. But before she knew it, her mum was bending down, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her like a rag doll. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Sadie?’ she shrieked, all restraint dissolved by the alcohol in her system. ‘Why the hell are you listening in on us?’

Sadie tried to speak, but all that came out was a breathless whimper.

‘You’re just a kid, Sadie.’ Her mum was raving mad now. ‘You shouldn’t be listening in to grown-ups’ stuff that you don’t understand.’

Jackie had stopped shaking her daughter now, but she was still bending down. Sadie looked directly into her mum’s face. Jackie was embarrassed; of that her daughter was sure. Ashamed of what Sadie had heard her say. Then, through her tears, Sadie looked closer and for the first time was shocked to see a bruise to the side of her left eye. She wanted to ask her where it had come from, but now Jackie was shouting at her again, breathing the smell of booze over her as she did so. ‘You can be so selfish sometimes, Sadie. A naughty little girl. Get to your room now, and I don’t want to catch you doing this again.’

At first Sadie didn’t move, but then her mum started screaming even louder, and she found herself running quickly up the stairs, slamming the door to her bedroom and retreating once more under the duvet.

Two minutes later, she heard Jackie stumbling drunkenly upstairs, and then the house fell silent.

Silent, apart from the sound of a small girl crying all the tears that were in her, feeling more desperate, more filled with self-doubt and more alone than she had ever done before.