Читать книгу Mummy’s Little Girl: A heart-rending story of abuse, innocence and the desperate race to save a lost child - Jane Elliott - Страница 10

Chapter Four

Morning came all too quickly.

When Kaz and Vicki had returned to the room the previous night, Dani had pretended to be asleep. From the nasty comments they made, it was clear they didn’t believe her, but it was easier to lie there with her eyes shut than to have to face them, to talk to them. A few minutes later, one of them had fetched the duvet and slung it on top of Dani; and soon the lights were turned out.

‘We know you’re awake,’ Kaz said after a couple of minutes.

Dani said nothing.

‘We’re not idiots,’ Vicki added.

Still nothing. Dani lay there, unnaturally still, her muscles tense, praying for them to fall asleep.

In the darkness it was impossible for her to tell how long it was until she was sure, from the sound of their heavy, regular breathing, that the two girls were truly asleep. An hour, maybe. It was only when she was sure that she silently moved her duvet from where it had been slung over her and sat up. She quietly took off her shoes, and then the rest of her clothes, folding them neatly and putting them in her drawer before removing a pair of pyjamas, making her bed and then climbing back into it. She pulled the duvet over her head and took refuge in her little cocoon of darkness.

More than anything, Dani wanted to stay awake. Nighttime, she knew, passed slowly. She liked that. It put off the coming of the dawn. Darkness was like a refuge, protecting her from having to face a new day. But she was tired, and it wasn’t long before she felt her eyelids become heavy. She did her best to keep them open, but the events of the day were catching up with her and she soon fell into a deep, troubled sleep.

Dani was woken the following morning by the sound of voices. As she tried to shake off the blanket of sleep, she felt momentarily confused. Where was she? What was this strange room, this strange place? Then it all came flooding back, and she felt as though she had received the terrible blow all over again.

By the time she had sat up, her room-mates were already dressed. Kaz was standing in front of the mirror, brushing her hair, while Vicki applied some lipstick. Dani had never used make-up; she tried not to stare as Vicki did it with such ease, but she couldn’t help watching.

‘What you looking at?’ Vicki demanded when she realised Dani’s eyes were on her.

Dani looked away quickly and blushed. ‘Nothing,’ she replied.

‘Yeah, right.’ She went back to her make-up.

Dani climbed out of bed and retrieved some clothes from her drawer. But as she stood there in her pyjamas, she was suddenly overcome with embarrassment. At home she was able to dress and undress in privacy; now, if she wanted to put her clothes on, she had to take her pyjamas off in front of these two girls. Timidly, she turned round and shuffled to the end of the bed, where she would be slightly out of their view. She tried to get changed quickly, but it only meant that she got herself tangled up.

‘Don’t worry,’ Kaz said. ‘We’re not eyeing you up.’

The two girls laughed and left the room.

Dani wished she could go back to bed and stay under the duvet for the rest of the day; but she was hungry, and she knew that if she didn’t go down to breakfast she would only have someone come and get her, so she mustered all the courage she could. As she left the room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The bruising had gone down – just a little bit, but enough to give her a tiny amount more confidence than she had had yesterday.

She needed to find the bathroom first, but no one had told her where it was, so it was up to her to wander up and down the corridor until she found a door with a little stick picture of a woman. Like everywhere else in this place, the girls’ bathroom was lit by a flickering striplight. There were square white tiles on the floor and walls, which were splattered with puddles from that morning’s use. There was a row of four sinks, and behind a partition there were three baths, lined up next to each other without any privacy. On the other side of the room were three cubicles. Dani splashed water on her face, and then steeled herself to go downstairs.

She avoided her room-mates at breakfast, choosing instead to sit next to an unfamiliar face – a sturdy boy with broad shoulders, strawberry blond hair and freckles. He seemed a bit older than Dani, and for some reason sitting next to him made her feel happier. The moment she took her seat, however, she regretted it.

‘Looks like you pulled, Dingo,’ a voice called from somewhere further along the table, and the boy turned to look at her with an unpleasant leer. There was giggling all around, and Dani felt as though all eyes were suddenly on her. A hot blush rose to the surface of her skin as she pretended not to notice what was going on.

Dani wolfed down her breakfast, and was just about to leave the room when she sensed someone walking up to her.

‘Dani, Dingo,’ Christian’s voice said brightly. ‘I’m glad you two have met. I’m sure you’ll be very good friends. Dingo, you’ll look after Dani, won’t you? See to it that she’s all right. Make her feel at home.’

Dingo sucked his lips in, as though he was trying not to smile; Dani could tell that Christian wasn’t even vaguely aware of it. He shrugged archly. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Course.’

Christian nodded with satisfaction. ‘Good lad,’ he said. ‘Good lad.’ And with that he walked back to the staff table.

Dingo glanced at Dani, and then snorted contemptuously before turning back to his breakfast and ignoring her as studiously as possible. She stood up and prepared to take her tray with her; but as she did so she heard her name being called.

‘Dani!’

It was Christian again. His voice rose above the hubbub, and for a brief moment the noise in the dining room quietened. ‘Just pop over here for a minute, would you, my love?’

Dani cringed, knowing that the other children would be looking at her and smirking at Christian’s term of endearment. She did as she was told, though, and walked to where all the grown-ups were sitting.

‘And how did we sleep?’ Christian asked her.

Dani shrugged. ‘All right,’ she muttered.

‘Excellent,’ Christian replied. ‘Now then, everyone else will be going to school today, but not you. We have to sort you out with a place somewhere, but there are things we need to arrange before then. So that means you’ve got the run of the place. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’ He smiled at her, a broad, well-meaning smile that lit up his eyes. She did her best to smile back, and although she knew it must have looked forced, it seemed to please Christian, who reached out and gave her another of his trademark squeezes on the shoulder. ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and find you later.’

Over the course of the next ten minutes, all the children in the home disappeared, running out of the front door with shouts and schoolbags. Dani couldn’t quite face going back to her room yet, so she spent some time exploring.

The day room, which Christian had mentioned the night before, was on the opposite side of the hall to the dining room. It was a large space, with a snooker table and table-tennis table. Checking over her shoulders to ensure noone was looking, Dani rolled one of the red snooker balls against a cushion. A snooker cue was propped up against one of the walls, and she would have liked to have had a go with it; but she was too timid for that, so she made do with an idle couple of minutes of rolling the ball back and forth with her hand. There were a few armchairs dotted around, and several tables which had childish graffiti scrawled on them in pencil – though not as much as the ones she was used to using at her school. On one of the tables was a little pile of newspapers, but they didn’t look as if they had been opened. At one end of the room were some wide windows that looked out on to a fairly large back garden. There were some swings and slides, and a couple of football posts; but it was grey and drizzling outside, so she didn’t venture any further.

Dani wandered around the room for a further few minutes before she felt she had exhausted the possibilities of the day room. She wandered out, back into the hallway, just in time to see Kate, the social worker, coming in through the front door. She was wearing smart clothes and looked hurried and harassed. At first she didn’t see Dani, standing quietly at the other end of the hallway; when she did, she seemed surprised, but she soon regained her composure.

‘Dani,’ she said brightly. ‘How was last night?’

Dani shrugged.

‘Did you meet anyone? Make any friends?’

Dani ignored her question. ‘When can I go home?’ she asked.

Kate’s eyes looked away. ‘Why don’t we go to your room?’ she suggested, her voice suddenly a little more subdued. ‘We can talk about it there.’

Dani could tell from the way she spoke that she had bad news, and she led the way up to her room nervously. Once inside, they sat together on Dani’s bed, and the girl was glad that her vandalised teddy was hidden under the duvet. Kate looked her straight in the eye.

‘I want you to know exactly what’s happening, Dani. I don’t want there to be any secrets, OK?’

‘OK,’ Dani replied quietly.

‘We’ve been granted something called an Emergency Protection Order. That’s something we ask for if we want to take a child away from their home when we think they’re in danger.’

‘But I’m not in danger,’ Dani complained. ‘Mum was just cross, that’s all. I was being naughty.’

‘No, Dani,’ Kate told her firmly. ‘Grown-ups should never do that to you. Never. The Emergency Protection Order only lasts a few days, so in the meantime we are going to apply for a Care Order. That means that the people here, at Linden Lodge, will take on the responsibility of looking after you instead of your mum. Does that make sense?’

Dani shook her head. Nothing made sense – nothing at all. ‘I just want to go home.’

Kate took Dani’s hands in hers. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. But that may not be possible for a while. Your mum has told us that she’s had difficulty coping, and for the moment she’s asked that …’ Her voice trailed off and she looked at Dani with sympathetic eyes.

Dani’s face fell. ‘She doesn’t want me back, does she?’

‘She might change her mind, Dani,’ Kate said hopefully. ‘People do change their minds. It just might take a little while, that’s all.’

Dani was breathing heavily now. ‘The girls here,’ she said, ‘the ones I’m sharing with – they said everyone gets told they’re going home soon, but they never do.’

‘Don’t listen to them, Dani. Everyone’s going to do their best for you, and you’ll be looked after properly here.’

Dani suddenly felt cold. She removed her hand from Kate’s grip and wrapped her arms around her own body. She wished Kate would go, just leave her room – leave her life and never come back. Every time she saw her, she acted as though she was there to make things better for her; and yet every time she made things a little bit worse. Dani was not prone to hatred, yet in that moment she felt she hated the social worker, sitting there and pretending she was performing acts of kindness.

‘I think I’d like to be left on my own now,’ Dani said.

Kate nodded. ‘All right, Dani. I’ll come and see you again soon. I’ll go and explain to Christian everything that’s going on.’ She stood and looked as if she was about to say something else; but at the last moment she appeared to think better of it, and left the room.

Dani didn’t know how long it was that she sat there, hugging herself, staring into space and feeling as though her heart would break, but it was a long time and she barely moved. Wild thoughts went through her head – thoughts that she had never entertained before. Perhaps she could run away, run back home. If her mum saw her on the doorstep, perhaps she would have a change of heart. Deep down, though, she knew that probably wasn’t the case, and the sting of that rejection pierced her to the core.

She just wanted something to hold on to. Something familiar. Comfortable. Gently she pulled back the duvet to see the tattered remains of her teddy bear – the one thing she had with her that reminded her of home. And now that too was spoiled.

Just then there was a knock on the door; it was opened without Dani giving a reply, and Christian was there. Quickly Dani threw the duvet back over the bed.

‘Ah, Dani,’ Christian announced. ‘There you are. How is everything, my love? Settling in?’

Dani looked down at the floor, but didn’t answer. Christian seemed to consider that for a moment before he spoke again. ‘I’ve never met a girl,’ he said with a smile, ‘who doesn’t like hot chocolate. Do you like hot chocolate, my love?’

Dani nodded.

‘Come on, then,’ Christian smiled. ‘Come to my room and we’ll see what we can find.’

Christian’s quarters were scrupulously neat, if a little shabby. The walls were covered with books, and there was a modern stereo player and a TV in the corner, as well as a sofa and a couple of other comfy chairs. Her eyes were immediately caught by a pile of comics at about her height on one of the bookshelves.

Christian noted her interest. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, but Dani immediately looked away.

At one end of the room there was a door, which Dani presumed led to his bedroom, but it was firmly shut. He indicated a place on the sofa. ‘Sit down, my love,’ he said as he switched on a kettle that was sitting on a low table. He spooned some brown powder into a mug, poured on the boiling water and handed the mug to Dani. Then he sat down next to her.

Neither of them spoke for a little while. Christian just watched her intently as she sipped the steaming hot drink. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

‘Thank you,’ she said diffidently after a couple of minutes, more to break the silence than anything else.

‘That’s all right, my love,’ Christian replied. ‘You can come here any time, day or night. I mean that, my love. Any time.’

Dani nodded and went back to sipping her hot chocolate.

‘If you feel like a cuddle,’ he persisted, his voice much quieter now. ‘Or anything else.’ He carried on staring at her.

As Dani took another sip of her hot chocolate, she felt his fingers brush lightly against her bruised face. They were fat and sausage-like, the skin strangely dry. Instinctively, Dani moved her head away, and she became immediately aware that the atmosphere had turned awkward.

Christian stood up. ‘I wondered if it still hurt,’ he said by way of explanation as he walked back to the kettle and screwed the lid of the hot chocolate powder back on. He looked over at Dani. ‘Nearly finished?’ he asked.

Dani hadn’t, but she understood the tone of his voice and quickly put the cup down on a coffee table and stood up.

‘Lunch at one o’clock,’ he told her. ‘I’ll see you there.’

Dani nodded, and quickly left.

At lunch it was only her and the grown-ups. She was invited to sit at their table, but she didn’t speak to them, and Christian barely even looked in her direction. For Dani, it couldn’t end quickly enough, and she was grateful to be able to go back to her room and sit on the bed, where she listened to the persistent rain falling outside. She willed the afternoon to pass slowly, but time flew and soon she heard the sound of the other children coming back from school. She was still sitting on the bed when Kaz and Vicki burst in.

They were shouting at someone down the corridor, and as they fell into the room, they laughed boisterously. At first they seemed not even to notice Dani, but when they realised that she was sitting there watching them, their smiles fell from their faces.

‘Still here?’ Vicki asked spitefully. ‘Not gone home to Mummy yet?’

‘Surprise surprise,’ Kaz added.

‘I wish you hadn’t ruined my bear,’ Dani said.

The two girls looked at each other. ‘Who said it was us?’

Dani shrugged.

Vicki stepped up to her. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you go telling anyone things like that, and we’ll give you a bruise on the other side of your face. So you’d better shut it.’

Dani clamped her lips tightly shut. As she did so, Vicki tapped her three times on the bruised side of her face with the flat of her hand. Dani winced, but that just made Vicki and Kaz giggle. They continued giggling as they left the room.

The evening passed slowly. Dani remained in her room, apart from at dinnertime, when, as before, nobody spoke to her. Even Christian refrained from coming up and offering her a cheerful word, though he cast the occasional glance in her direction while they were eating. After dinner, part of Dani longed to go into the day room and watch the others playing snooker and table tennis, to try to chat to someone or maybe even just look at a magazine; but no one asked her, and she was too unsure of herself to brave being with the others of her own accord. So she went back to her bedroom. Her little prison. It seemed to her that she would spend the rest of her life sitting on that bed.

She brushed her teeth and washed her face before anyone else started getting ready for bed – that way, she would be able to avoid any encounters in the bathroom. She would have liked a bath, but the lack of privacy prevented her. Maybe tomorrow, when everyone else was at school, she’d be able to; but just now the idea of taking her clothes off in front of the other girls sent a shiver down her spine. Once she had washed, she got into her pyjamas, climbed into bed and waited for the inevitable onslaught from her two room-mates as soon as they arrived.

It was gone eight o’clock when Kaz and Vicki sauntered into the room. For once they were silent, and although they cast the occasional scornful look over at Dani as she lay beneath her duvet, they didn’t make any of the comments that she was expecting. They just got ready for bed, turned the lights out and fell silent.

As soon as the lights went out, Dani pulled her covers over her head and retreated once more into her little cave of darkness, and for the first time that day, she felt a moment of comfort.

It didn’t last long.

It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes before they charged into the room. In the darkness, Dani couldn’t tell how many of them there were – five, maybe six. Someone ripped off her duvet. She was already in a foetus-like position, but she clamped up even closer when she realised what was happening.

There was laughter as they pushed her and poked her. They called her names that she didn’t even understand. Dani cried out – in little more than a pathetic whisper.

‘Shut up,’ a voice hissed, and she recognised it at once. It was Dingo, the boy she had met at breakfast: the boy who was supposed to be looking after her.

She whimpered again; someone punched her and hissed once more. Then she lost control. A scream, loud and desperate, escaped from her lips; and once she started, she couldn’t stop. Startled by the sound, by the vehemence of it, everyone around her instantly melted away, disappearing from the room as quickly as they had appeared. But Dani still didn’t stop screaming. She just couldn’t.

Kaz and Vicki said nothing as Dani lay there, still scrunched up, her duvet on the floor. Tears seemed to take over her whole body. She was shaking with them. And still the screams came.