Damaged (18 page)

‘Good riddance,’ said Jodie, and slammed the door behind her.

I didn’t disagree.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Fox and the Owl

I
t was mid-January. After a brief lull, the weather had turned bitterly cold, and we had three full days of snow. Jodie relished the excitement, and on the few occasions when I couldn’t immediately take her out into the snow, she would gaze out of the window, transfixed.

The children’s moods had lifted too. Now that they were back at school they seemed to have found a new burst of empathy for Jodie. Paula, in particular, appeared to have benefited from venting her frustrations before Christmas. We hadn’t actually arranged the sleepover yet, but she had had a number of friends round, and had made a point of encouraging Jodie to join in as part of the group, bless her.

One such afternoon Paula’s friend Olivia came for lunch, and they decided to go for a walk in the snow. My street is on the rim of a large valley, and the views are quite spectacular. Jodie pouted when she realized they were leaving, so Paula asked if Jodie and I would like to join them. Jodie was thrilled, so the four of us wrapped ourselves in coats, scarves and boots, and headed out.

As we walked up towards the high street, Paula and I each took one of Jodie’s hands, as the pavement was icy. However, despite our best efforts Jodie kept slipping over, each time falling on her bottom. The third time it happened, she remained sitting on the pavement. She crossed her arms, rolled her eyes, and sighed theatrically, ‘Here we go again!’

Paula and I grinned at each other in delight. Jodie’s usual response to this kind of adversity would have been a bitter tirade: ‘Who put that bloody ice there? Why are they doing that to me? It’s your fault! Hate you!’ and so on. Instead, she’d seen the funny side, and actively made an effort to try to make us laugh. It might not sound like much, but for us it felt like progress, and we joined in gratefully.

Jodie’s first day of school was approaching, so I took her shopping for her new school uniform. We bought two navy skirts, two jumpers with the school logo printed on them, and three white short-sleeved shirts. Jodie had behaved well in the shop, enjoying the attention, but she became angry when I opted for knee-length socks rather than tights. She wanted to have tights like Lucy and Paula wore, but I knew she’d have difficulty putting them on again after P. E. In the end, I came up with a sensible compromise, and bought Jodie a pair of white, lacy tights that she could wear at weekends.

As we arrived home, Jill phoned and told me apologetically that the couple she had been considering for respite wouldn’t be able to do it. Reason left unstated.

‘Great,’ I said tetchily. ‘I’m promised regular breaks because of the high level of Jodie’s needs, but because of that high level of needs it’s impossible to find a carer.’

‘I’m sorry, Cathy. I’ll keep looking.’

‘Yes, please do. Outside the agency if necessary.’ What I meant by this was that Jill should approach a different fostering agency for a carer. This wasn’t ideal, as standards varied, and the carers could be some distance away, but it was only one weekend and I needed a break.

On the Friday of that week we had arranged a visit to Jodie’s new school. The visit wasn’t till the afternoon, but Jodie was up early, as usual, and she immediately got dressed in her new uniform. I didn’t think this was a good idea, but I was anxious to avoid any unnecessary confrontation, so I let her keep it on, and tucked an apron round her while she ate. Despite my efforts, by the time she’d had her breakfast and lunch her uniform contained a good helping of both. I sponged off the stains as best I could, and we arrived at the school gates looking reasonably smart for the afternoon session.

Abbey Green hadn’t been my first choice, but as we arrived I was immediately impressed. The small, carpeted reception area was bright and welcoming, and the smiling receptionist greeted us warmly.

‘Hello there, Jodie. It’s very nice to meet you,’ she said, and then phoned through to the Head, who appeared with courteous promptness.

‘Adam West,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Hi, Jodie. Very pleased you can join us.’

He could only have been in his mid-thirties, but his friendly, informal manner quickly put me at ease. ‘I thought we’d start with a tour of the school, then you can spend some time with Jodie’s class, if that sounds all right?’

‘Fine,’ I said, then turned to Jodie. ‘That sounds good, doesn’t it?’ She hid behind me, clinging to my skirt, all her bravado evaporated.

He led the way through the double doors and along a short corridor. ‘There are six classrooms leading off the main hall,’ he explained, ‘which doubles as a canteen and gym.’ As we went in, I could smell the residue of boiled greens and gravy, one constant factor shared by thousands of schools all over the country. The walls of the hall, like those of the corridors, were lined with examples of the children’s work, and Mr West proudly described the various projects that had inspired this work. There were paintings, drawings, essays, poems and computer printouts, all based on a handful of themes, such as faraway lands, water, animals and designing a house. He was so enthusiastic and child-centred in his approach that I thought to myself: if this school can’t cater for Jodie’s needs, then no one can.

We arrived at Jodie’s classroom, and the Head knocked before we went in. A sea of faces looked up curiously, before returning to their work.

‘Caroline Smith,’ he said, leading us to the class teacher. ‘This is Cathy Glass, and this is Jodie.’ We shook hands. ‘The lady over there is Mrs Rice, the classroom assistant. She’ll be helping Jodie.’

I glanced over to the table and smiled. Mrs Rice was a homely woman in her early fifties, wearing a floral patterned dress. She gave us a little wave. Jodie’s confidence had increased during the tour, and she started wandering between the tables, peering over the children’s shoulders. One boy shifted uncomfortably.

‘Jodie, come here,’ I called. But she ignored me.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mrs Smith. ‘They’re just finishing a piece of creative writing from our literacy hour. She can look.’

Mr West took his leave. ‘If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office at the end of the day.’

I thanked him, then spent some minutes with Mrs Smith, as she explained how the tables were grouped. She suggested I have a look around, so I did, feeling intrusively conspicuous. I felt like a giant as I walked among the miniature tables and chairs. The blue group was obviously the brightest; their writing was neat and detailed, with few grammatical mistakes. Mrs Rice’s table, the orange group, was a different matter. These children were struggling to produce a handful of legible lines, and their work was full of corrections. Nonetheless, even the weakest of these was well above Jodie’s standard. Jodie could barely write her own name.

‘Would you like to join your table now?’ Mrs Smith called to Jodie, from across the room. ‘The spare chair beside Mrs Rice is your place.’ Her request was gentle but firm. Jodie, who apparently wasn’t quite ready, sized her up. I could see Jodie had one of her take-me-on-if-you-dare expressions, and my heart was in my mouth. Not now, Jodie, I thought, please let’s not have a refusal and a tantrum on your first visit.

Now the other children were looking too; presumably they were used to responding immediately to any request from their teacher. Jodie stared at Mrs Smith, but then, to my relief, she lowered her gaze and plodded heavily over, flopping in her chair with a dramatic sigh.

Mrs Rice gave Jodie a pencil and paper. I crept round the edge of the room and perched myself on a stool by the window. The classroom overlooked the playground, and an older class was in the middle of a P.E. lesson. The room was quiet save for the occasional scraping of a chair and the hushed voice of Mrs Rice giving assistance to her group. I noticed that there were more boys than girls, and wondered whether, with their friendships already established, the girls would allow Jodie in. The poor girl needed to make friends just as much as she needed the education, and children can be very forgiving if they feel it’s justified.

The children finished their essays, and Mrs Smith asked who would like to read one out. Half a dozen hands shot up, including Jodie’s. A boy called James was chosen first, and he’d written about the night-time adventures of a fox called Lance. The story had a clear structure, and used lots of adjectives, and when he was finished the other pupils gave him a big round of applause. Next came Susie, whose story cleverly centred around the observations of a wise owl, from his vantage point high up in the trees. I gathered, from the content of the essays, that they’d been told to write about nocturnal animals. Susie was given her round of applause, and the teacher said they had time for one more. Jodie’s hand flew up again, waving for all she was worth.

Mrs Smith exchanged a glance with Mrs Rice. ‘Come on then, Jodie. Let’s hear yours.’

I cringed with embarrassment; I could see she’d only produced a handful of scribbles. ‘Class, this is Jodie,’ said the teacher. ‘She’ll be joining us from Monday.’

Jodie stood up, and proudly held the paper at eye level, as she’d seen the others do. She pretended to read loudly and confidently, but her story was simply a string of unrelated words, punctuated by the occasional ‘owl’ and ‘fox’, with nothing intelligible in between.

’I saw the fox, to see, and I say don’t, and the fox was him, and he … No. And then the owl. Where he was … He got far, and Mr Owl. Watch it. I told you, over there. So the fox went and in the night, you see, I said! Then they went. Then the fox was at night and the owl, but he was not, and I said. So I go to fox, and the owl …’

Fortunately Jodie was oblivious to the nonsense she was producing. I looked at the blank stares of the other children, and prayed they wouldn’t laugh. After a couple of minutes, with no end in sight, the teacher thanked Jodie and told her to sit down. There was no applause, but neither was there any sniggering, and for that I was truly grateful. Jodie didn’t appear to notice anything amiss at all – in fact, she was full of high spirits and rather triumphant.

The last hour was given over to self-chosen activities, during which the children worked on any aspect they liked of the topics covered during the week. I walked round the classroom once more. Some of the children were on the computers, adeptly cutting and pasting, while others were devising crosswords, stories, or producing pictures to complement their writing. Jodie was drawing a series of large boxes, and colouring them orange, blue, green, red and yellow. She explained to me that these were the class’s different groups. I praised her, impressed that she’d picked up this much, then I wrote the names of the colours beneath them for her. Five minutes before the bell, the children packed away their things, and sat on the carpet in front of the teacher. They chanted, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Smith!’ and the teacher wished them a happy weekend. As they collected their bags and coats and filed out, the teacher asked Jodie how she’d enjoyed her first afternoon.

‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘I want to come every day. For ever and ever!’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Granddad

O
ne of the remarkable things about Jodie that I had noticed right from the start was that she had absolutely no conception of time. She would discuss events from years ago as if they were happening right now. Equally, if we had something planned for a few weeks’ time, she would expect it to happen immediately. The day after the school visit she wanted to go again, and no matter how many times I explained to her that schools didn’t open on Saturdays, she couldn’t understand. Instead, she was convinced it was my fault.

‘It’s Saturday,’ I explained, for the fifth time. ‘No one goes to school on Saturdays. Be a good girl and take off your uniform, and we’ll hang it up ready for Monday.’

‘No! Don’t want to! Shut up! It’s mine and I’m going!’ She sat cross-legged on the floor, with her arms folded, angry and defiant.

I crouched down. ‘I know it’s yours, sweet, and so are all these other lovely clothes. How about you wear your new lacy tights, as we’re going to see Grandma and Granddad later.’ I took the tights out of the drawer, and placed them with a skirt and jumper on the bed. ‘It’s up to you, but they’ll look very smart with your denim skirt.’

I left the room, came downstairs and made breakfast. Half an hour later Jodie appeared in the clothes I’d laid out.

‘Well done, Jodie. That’s a wise choice.’

Every situation had to be handled with infinite care, if there was to be any chance of cooperation. I couldn’t simply say, ‘Put on your shoes, it’s time to go.’ Jodie would have to believe that it was her decision, and that she was in control. I knew where this had come from. When Jodie was being abused she had had no control over anything, so now she needed to be constantly in charge, just to feel safe. Unfortunately for me, the result of this was that even the simplest request would be met with a stubborn refusal, unless she could be persuaded that she herself had made the decision. I had to use diplomacy and coercion if I wanted anything done, and it could be very draining.

A visit to Grandma and Granddad’s was just what we all needed, to smooth away some of the tensions within the family, and boost our morale. Jodie thought the world of my parents, as did Adrian, Lucy, Paula and all the other children we had looked after. Mum and Dad were in their early seventies, and they were the archetypal grandparents, with endless patience, and all the time in the world to indulge their grandchildren.

As we arrived, Jodie was on good form, and greeted my parents warmly. We all went into the living room, when Jodie caught sight of my parents’ dog, Cosmo, a rather sad, passive, old rescue greyhound. Jodie suddenly screamed, then rushed across the room and started whacking him with her fists. The poor dog yelped, but Jodie was on top of him and he couldn’t move. Dad and I rushed over and pulled her off, and I asked her what on earth she was doing.

‘It looked at me!’ she shouted, still glaring at the frightened dog. She had never shown any fondness for animals but she had a particular aversion to dogs. Perhaps it was because of her father’s dog, or that, in the pecking order she was used to, the dog was the one she could kick and hurt without any fear of reprisal. She certainly never had any empathy for anything more vulnerable than she was.

‘But it didn’t mean any harm,’ I said firmly, as my dad stroked the poor animal, then let him out into the garden. ‘Now behave yourself. We said we were going to have a good day, didn’t we?’

Jodie nodded sullenly.

‘I tell you what,’ my father said. ‘Why don’t you help me feed the fish? They haven’t been fed yet, because they were waiting for you to arrive. We can all do it together, if you like. How does that sound?’

Jodie liked that idea, so she took Paula’s hand, and the two of them followed my father into the garden while Cosmo watched from a safe distance. Adrian and Lucy, who considered themselves too mature for this kind of entertainment, sat in the living room, listening to their mp3 players, which had so far kept them mute since Christmas.

I joined Mum in the kitchen, and helped her prepare lunch, as we caught up on the latest news. As usual, I was soon doing most of the talking, and it was mainly about Jodie. I found it very cathartic to discuss abnormal behaviour in the context of my mother’s very normal existence, and it helped that my mother was a good listener.

‘Anyway,’ I said at last, ‘hopefully we’ll turn a corner soon. So tell me, what have you two been up to?’

She recounted the various hobbies and interests which filled their very active retirement. Eventually the girls and my father streamed in through the kitchen door, while Jodie loudly enthused about the Golden Orbs which had come to the surface to feed. Mum and I served lunch, and I seated Jodie between the two of us. Her plate was piled high with chicken, roast potatoes, three vegetables and gravy.

‘I wish I lived here,’ she said, gazing adoringly at Grandma. Mum believes everyone needs ‘feeding up’, even when it’s obvious they really ought to be on a diet.

As the meal progressed, I noticed Jodie taking more than a passing interest in my father, who was seated opposite her. She watched him intently, as he peered down through his spectacles at his plate, then over them to retrieve his drink or to talk to one of us. I assumed she was wondering about the way he used his spectacles, which were only for close focusing. Mum offered us second helpings, and I limited Jodie’s. She sulked at this, resenting the fact that my father had filled his plate, but he needed it: age had thinned him down, rather than piling on the pounds.

‘Granddad?’ she asked suddenly, setting down her cutlery.

He looked up over his glasses. ‘Yes, dear?’

‘Are you Cathy’s daddy?’

‘That’s right. She’s my daughter.’

She thought for a moment, clearly trying to work something out. ‘So, you’re their granddaddy?’ She pointed at Adrian and Paula. I smiled at Lucy, hoping she wouldn’t be offended at Jodie’s faux pas.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Dad replied. ‘Well done.’

She glowed at the praise, and I was impressed that she’d finally made the connection, which she’d struggled with since she first met my parents. ‘So if you’re their granddad,’ she said, still watching him, ‘did you do naughty things with your willy to them when they was little, like my granddaddy did to me?’

Everyone fell silent. My father stopped eating and looked at me.

‘Jodie! Of course not!’ I said sharply. ‘I’ve told you before, normal families don’t do those things. Granddad is a good man. Now finish your dinner, we’ll talk about this later.’

Jodie, blissfully ignorant of the shocking impact of what she’d said, picked up her knife and fork, and carried on eating contentedly.

My parents were shocked; I could see it on their faces. Jodie had asked her question with such ease, as if it were a perfectly natural assumption. We quickly changed the subject, and talked loudly of other things, but meanwhile I was thinking about what she’d said. Her grandfather? I wasn’t even aware she had grandparents; there was no reference to them in the records. I wondered if she was confusing Dad and Granddad, or if there really was a grandfather involved? Did this mean there was yet another abuser present in Jodie’s life? Was there anyone who hadn’t had a part in destroying her? I glanced at my father, who was still subdued after Jodie’s bombshell, and wondered again at the great divide between healthy and abusive families. Could her perception ever be changed? Perhaps one day she’d be able to accept that what happened to her was abnormal and wrong, and that most families functioned very differently. But at times it seemed a forlorn hope.

I kept a close eye on Jodie for the rest of the afternoon, and Mum helped her with some colouring and cutting out. We were never able to leave my parents without a final cup of tea and slice of homemade cake, and we didn’t say our goodbyes until just after six. There was an accident on the motorway, so it was well past Jodie’s bedtime by the time we finally arrived home. I decided to leave asking her about her granddad until the following day, but as I tucked her into bed and dimmed the lights she suddenly asked, ‘Why didn’t Granddaddy do naughty things to Adrian and Paula? Doesn’t he love them?’

I looked at her in the half-light. She was snuggled deep beneath her duvet, with only her blonde hair visible, falling in strands across the pillow. How could I begin to unravel the confusion between normal affection and the warped gratification that she had known?

‘It’s a different kind of love, Jodie. Completely different from the one between two grown-ups. And what was done to you wasn’t love of any kind. It was cruel, and very, very wrong. You’ll understand more when you’re older.’

I wanted to leave it at that, to go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, then maybe sit in the lounge and read the paper. But if I didn’t follow this up now, Jodie might have forgotten it in the morning, sucking the awful memory back into the black abyss of denial.

With a now familiar surge of anxiety at what I was about to hear, I turned up the light a little, and sat on the chair beside her bed. Her eyes peered over the duvet, and I stroked her forehead.

‘Jodie, pet, did your granddad hurt you in the same way your daddy and uncle did?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Cathy. They was nicer.’

‘They? How many granddads did you have?’

‘Granddad Wilson and Granddad Price.’

‘So there were two then. And how were they nicer, Jodie?’

She thought for a moment, as the lines on her forehead creased, and I hoped she was about to tell me that they’d taken her to the zoo, or bought her an Easter egg, the kind of things normal grandparents do.

‘They lay on top of me, but they didn’t hurt. They just peed in the bed. It was because they loved me, Cathy.’ She said it so matter-of-factly, she might as well have been recounting a trip to the zoo.

‘No it wasn’t. It was wrong, Jodie. Adults don’t show love like that. What they did was cruel. It’s got nothing to do with love.’ But I could see how ejaculation without penetration might have seemed kinder to her, when compared with the other abuse.

‘Were Mummy and Daddy in the room when this happened?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘And Uncle Mike, and someone I didn’t know.’

I held her hand and stroked her forehead. ‘Is there anything else? Can you remember any more?’

She shook her head. ‘Can I have a story now, Cathy?
Topsy and
Tim’s
New Shoes
?’

She wasn’t upset, and I found that I wasn’t either. I was becoming as desensitized as her. I read her the Topsy and Tim story, then said goodnight and went downstairs. I made a note of the conversation in my log, then stepped outside for a cigarette. As I stood there in the freezing night air, I wondered if there was a course I could take in basic psychotherapy. I decided not. If I made an amateur attempt to help Jodie, it would probably do more harm than good. All I could do was continue along the same lines as I had been, using a common-sense approach which restated normality, but did little or nothing for the profound psychological damage that had already been done. Not for the first time since Jodie’s arrival, I felt completely inadequate.

On Sunday morning Jodie was buzzing with energy, and I had to deal with a barrage of questions about school. Would she have homework? Was there playtime? Did the teacher have a husband? A daddy? Would it rain? Adopting my usual policy of trying to burn off some of her nervous energy, I took her out on her bike.

‘It’s so cold,’ I remarked, pulling up my collar. ‘I think it could snow again.’

‘What’s snow?’ she asked, as we climbed the hill. I tried to remind her as best I could, telling how much she had loved it earlier in the month when it had snowed over three days, but Jodie suddenly decided that she wanted snow immediately, and became angry when I couldn’t or, according to her, wouldn’t produce it. A full-scale tantrum ensued, and she lay prostrate on the pavement, banging her fists and demanding snow for a good fifteen minutes. It would have been comical if I hadn’t been so cold. When we got back to the house, I sat her in front of a video until dinner was ready. She was just as hyperactive after dinner, and had another tantrum when I wouldn’t go out to buy her some ice cream. I managed to persuade her to take a bath, and this calmed her down enough for bed at seven. Tomorrow would be her first day at school for more than a year, and I was praying that it would be a good one.