Crying for Help (18 page)

‘But we can’t, Mike. I don’t think I could have that on my conscience. What kind of damage might we do if we shipped out on her as well?’

‘Love, this is way beyond our job description, it really is. Just think about it, is all I’m saying. Think about all of us in this.’

And I did. I thought of all of us, and how much of a toll this was taking. I worried about Mike and I worried about Kieron, especially. Was it fair of me to put this complicated child’s needs before theirs?

I was still wrestling with my responsibilities as I went to bed that evening. Little did I know that, within less than a week, the problems we’d had so far would fade into insignificance.

‘Sophia, love. Come on! It’s time to get up!’

It was Friday morning, the last day of school before Easter, and I was down in the kitchen putting eggs on for breakfast. All was suspiciously quiet upstairs. I tried again, this time heading up the stairs as I called to her. ‘Sophia! Come on! You’ll be late if you don’t move it!’

Once again, though, no answer was forthcoming.

Typical, I thought, as I trudged the rest of the way up to the landing. We’d already had words about school the night before, Sophia plaintively whining about having to go at all. ‘It’s the last day,’ she kept repeating. ‘No one bothers going in on the last day. There’s no point. We don’t actually
do
anything.’

But I’d been adamant, just as I’d always been with my own two. ‘I don’t care what everyone else does,’ I told her firmly. ‘You are going to school and that’s that.’

I’d had no hint that she’d do anything but accept that when I’d woken, my alarm going off at 7 a.m. as usual, and hers at her regular time of 7.15. That was generally my cue to get up. While she went and showered I’d go down and start breakfast, and while she dressed and got ready I’d invariably nip out into the conservatory for a quick cup of coffee and a cigarette. Today, it being so mild, I’d taken both into the garden, relishing the peace and solitude – only Bob kept me company – and enjoying five uninterrupted minutes to myself. It was a beautiful spring morning and the sun was already shining, sending dappled shade through the pink bower of my blossom tree.

But this morning, when I’d come back into the kitchen, she hadn’t appeared. I reached her bedroom door now. ‘Sophia,’ I said, knocking. ‘You awake, love?’

Not getting an answer, and feeling the first tinge of worry about her Addison’s, I turned the handle and opened the door. She was lying in bed, the duvet pulled right up under her chin, but she wasn’t asleep – far from it. She looked very much awake. Awake and looking stonily right through me.

‘Sophia!’ I said, shocked. ‘What on earth are you playing at! Have you seen the time? Come on, love. Up!’

‘I told you last night,’ she replied, her tone sullen. ‘I won’t be getting up, because I’m
not
going to school.’

I almost laughed out loud at her insolence, her complete conviction in the matter. ‘And I told
you
, young lady, that you
are
going to school,’ I said. ‘Now stop playing silly beggars and go and jump in that shower. Come on, or you’re going to be late.’

She sat up in bed then, and flicked her blonde hair behind her. Then raised her arm and jabbed a finger in my direction.

‘
You
don’t tell me what to do,’ she said. ‘I thought I made that clear last night. Now get out of here,
little
woman, and next time you want to come in here, kindly wait to be invited, okay?’

I don’t know if it was that ‘little’ or just the jaw-dropping cheek of her, but I felt as furious as I’d felt in a long time. A 13-year-old, barking orders, in
my
house?

I don’t think so! I thought, as I raised my own finger. All the outbursts, her instability, our fears for her sanity notwithstanding, this statement sounded like nothing more complicated than the petulant, bare-faced defiance of a spoilt adolescent. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that!’ I rounded on her. ‘Who the
hell
do you think you are? Get out of that bed, right now, before I really lose my temper. Two minutes!’ I marched out and slammed the door.

I needed to calm down, I realised, as I headed back downstairs again. Slamming doors was a teenager’s department, not mine. But Jesus! This girl would try the patience of a saint!

Almost as if on cue, then, I heard the door slam again, and turned to see her coming down the stairs behind me, her face contorted, her eyes wild, her whole demeanour scary.

‘You fucking bitch!’ she screamed at me. ‘You ugly fucking bitch! I’m going to fucking kill you when I get my hands on you!’

I was shocked to the core now, but some instinct seemed to kick in and instead of continuing to the bottom I turned and, facing her now, spoke clearly and calmly. ‘I suggest that you stop right there, Sophia,’ I told her. ‘Think about your next move and what its consequences might be.’ I licked dry lips. ‘I think you know I’m not joking now.’

I stood my ground, but I knew I was out of my depth here. I had never encountered such a venomous outburst. I’d come across violence and threats many times from kids over the years – Justin, early on, had even threatened me with a kitchen knife. But there was something about Sophia that felt in a different league. I knew I had to tread carefully here, for my own protection as much as her sanity.

I was immensely relieved, then, to watch her turn and walk slowly back up the stairs. Perhaps, I thought gratefully, this would be the end of it.

It wasn’t. ‘I’m still not going to school,’ she said, back now on the landing. ‘You sad cow. Why don’t you just go and fuck yourself?’

Oh my God
, I thought, as I mentally regrouped to respond to this. I knew I could walk away now, and that might be the best course, but I also knew that if I did, this scenario could get really ugly – I felt Sophia was capable of anything right now, and I knew she was certainly not ready to concede. And if I let that happen, the monster inside her would have won. Which would simply confirm to her that she was indeed a monster. No, the hard course was the only course; I must assert my authority. Take control. She had nothing to attack me with here, after all.

I walked back up the stairs again, never taking my eyes from her. And it was then that it occurred to me that my position was quite precarious. Three steps lower than her, Sophia literally towered over me. ‘Sophia, love,’ I said quietly. ‘Let’s just calm down and stop this silliness, shall we? You know full well it’s wrong to speak to adults like that, don’t you? Come on, love. What’s brought this on?’

She looked down at me and laughed. It went through me. ‘Do you know what a silly little woman you are?’ she spat at me. ‘You don’t get it, do you? If I don’t want to do something, what the hell do you think
you
can do about it?’

I felt the anger surge again in me and fought to press it down. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ve had just about enough of this now. You’re the child, I’m the grown-up.’ I paused so she could digest this. ‘Now bloody well get dressed before I dress you myself. Do not underestimate me, Sophia!’

What happened next was all a blur but will remain with me for ever. Because, sudden though it was, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. One minute I was preparing to take a step and march her back to her bedroom, and the next I saw her grin – and it was a grin of pure malevolence – as she raised her hand and shoved me in the chest.

I was falling now, and instinctively tried to grab something. Flailing wildly, I was able to wrap my hand around the banister, but such was the force of her hand slamming into me that in doing so I was violently twisted around, which arrested my fall to the bottom of the staircase, but wrenched my arm and slammed me hard against the wall.

From there I could only look on in shocked horror as her hand flew to her mouth and she let out a shriek. ‘Oh my
God
!’ she started screaming at me. ‘Oh, my God, Casey, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! What have I done? Oh my God!’

She ran back into her room then, still shouting apologies, and I could hear her huge convulsive sobs even as I stumbled back downstairs.

Right away, listening to her, I was in my own turmoil. What had I done wrong? What could I have done differently to defuse things? What other course of action should I have considered in all this that might have had a less damning outcome? I was all too aware of what
could
have happened. Had my fingers not managed to get a grip on that banister, I could be lying on the hall floor right now, badly hurt.

Or worse … I thought of Grace and swallowed. I realised I was shaking, so I reached for my cigarettes and cold coffee, and, almost on autopilot, went back into the garden. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Didn’t have a clue, in fact. My head was empty. All I could think of was my own uselessness, my own complete lack of foresight in going back up those stairs, my lack of memory about the demons that must haunt Sophia about what happened to her own mother, how her losing control – and its subsequent consequences – would surely colour everything now. God, I thought. This was
terrible
. Why was I failing so badly with this girl?

I started crying then, crying at the contrast of my warm sunny garden with what had happened,
in my own home
, just minutes before. I pinched my cheeks in an effort to stop myself weeping, trying to re-channel my emotions down a less self-pitying route. But I felt wretched. What kind of a foster carer was I if I couldn’t control a girl who’d just turned 13?

I didn’t hear Sophia when she came through the conservatory, but as I rubbed at my cheeks angrily and puffed furiously on my cigarette, there she was, suddenly, all dressed for school.

‘Right, I’m off now,’ she said, her expression still hard-faced and angry. I wasn’t sure if she was spoiling for further conflict. I wasn’t.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘
Go
. We will speak about this later.’

She turned on her heel then and stalked back inside, slamming each door she went through, one by one. First the glass conservatory door, which rattled in its frame alarmingly, then the kitchen door – bang – then the front door, a loud thud. It was only when I heard that, that I left my safe haven. I needed more coffee – a very big mug of coffee. I felt like I’d gone five rounds with Mike Tyson.

It was still early – much too early to hope to get hold of John Fulshaw – but I needed to speak to someone, two someones, in fact. I first called Riley, who I knew would be up and about with Levi, and then Mike, who’d had an early start, and might by now be on a break at work. Both were understandably concerned and also furious, and both wanted to come straight home and check I was okay.

I held them off, though, grateful as I was for my family. There was no point in either of them rushing home to me. The storm had passed now. Its perpetrator had gone to school, and the house was now empty. I’d just needed to vent my feelings, that was all.

It was John I needed really, so I could log this latest incident, and once it was past nine I dialled his number. I must be his favourite caller, I mused ironically, as I listened to the ring tone. Always calling him with bad news, these days. Never good. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling a surge of irritation at getting his answerphone. Had he known it was me? I also hated talking to the wretched things at the best of times, and this was definitely not the best of times. I left what probably sounded like a very garbled message, finishing with a heartfelt request that he ring me back.

Right
, I thought, that done,
now you have to cheer up, Case
. So I flicked the switch on the kettle – at times like this, you couldn’t ever have too much coffee – and ramped the volume on the radio up to max. Then I turned it down just a little, so I could still hear the phone, and forced myself to sing along to the Three Degrees.

And after around fifteen minutes the phone did indeed ring. Assuming it would be John, I ran to get it.

But it wasn’t john. It was Edith Thomas, the school nurse.

‘Mrs Watson?’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, but we need you to come to school as soon as you can.’

I listened, dumbstruck.
What now?
Silly question. ‘We’ve called an ambulance,’ she was saying. ‘But if you could come as soon as possible, we’d appreciate it. We think Sophia has had some sort of collapse. She’s unconscious …’

‘Oh, Christ,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. You do have the emergency kit in school, though, so …’

‘Yes, we know,’ she said patiently. ‘But there’s no one here who can administer it. It must be either you or a paramedic.’

Why?
I thought. Why? Suppose I’d been unavailable? Would they have just sat there and done nothing? God! Where were the protocols for this? Surely they could give it! I mentally re-focused. This wasn’t the time to row with her. Hopefully the ambulance would beat me anyway. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Ten minutes, okay?’

As I raced upstairs to dress – I was still in my pyjamas – I couldn’t shift the nagging doubt that had lodged in my mind. She’d caved in so easily, in the end, after all. Still angry, yes, but at least she’d gone to school. Was this development just a tactic, of the kind Kieron had mentioned, to draw attention from what she’d already done?

I was dreading the thought of injecting her. I’d got away with it the last time, but would I strike lucky again? I just had this sense that my luck had run out. I wasn’t a nurse or a doctor, and I was terrible with needles, but I just knew I would have to do it, that the buck stopped right here. With all this in my mind I was beginning to feel completely frazzled. And even more so when I pulled into the school car park to find no reassuring ambulance was already parked.
Please just get here
, I thought, as I ran down the school corridor to the medical room and Sophia.
Please, please just get here
.