The Boy No One Loved (11 page)

I put my pen down. ‘Really? What for?’

‘My mum’s boyfriend beat me up,’ he said, almost casually. ‘He was drunk and he beat me up and I was bleeding an’ that, and it was pretty bad, and in the end Mum said I had to go to hospital. But I had to tell them different. I had to tell the doctors and nurses that I’d been riding my bike and I’d, like, crashed into a wall, and I’d gone over the handlebars and that’s how I got all the bruises. I had to tell them that I landed in a ditch, and that the ditch was full of stones. Rocks, actually. Yeah, it was rocks they said I had to say.’

I could feel myself blanching at this chilling recall. The little details he’d obviously been carefully schooled to include. Could this be ‘fanciful’? As if. I didn’t think so for a single instant. Once again, given that this would have been recorded somewhere, I found myself doubly shocked that, periodically, he was allowed to go back and live at home. Surely there was a point when enough was enough? When going ‘home’ was making everything much worse? I commented on all this to-ing and fro-ing and Justin seemed genuinely shocked I didn’t know.

‘I went home lots,’ he said. ‘You know, when she was okay. When she had a boyfriend. But it never worked out. She never kept me. I ran away one time –’

‘Did you?’

‘Yeah. When she was with that bloke who beat me up. I ran away and I didn’t know where to go or nothing, so I ended up sleeping in a skip for two nights.’

‘In a skip?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah. An’ it was horrible. You know, really scary and that. And I kept thinking someone would be out looking for me, you know – police cars. Social services.
Someone
. But no-one came and in the end I went home again.’ He scratched his head. I mentally noted that his mop of curls really needed cutting. ‘And you know what? When I came home, an’ that, you know what she did?’

‘No I don’t,’ I said.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. She just looked up from the TV and she said, “Oh, there you are”. And that was it. Then she just said, “Go and see to your brothers”, like I never went missing at all.’

I kept my voice and expression light, to match Justin’s – he was so matter of fact – as he went on to describe how he used to scavenge in dustbins, to find food for his brothers, and how one time he had to get up very early in the morning so he could go to the woods with one of his mum’s boyfriends to help him pick magic mushrooms for all the grown-ups.

Listening to him recount this grim collection of childhood memories, I couldn’t help but wonder at how a child could ever hope to come to terms with so much. But when he told me, almost proudly, how he’d been taught how to build a special kind of pipe, for smoking drugs through, describing how you could use a glass milk bottle and a length of hose, it was a real effort of will to stop a red mist from clouding everything.

But I managed. We finished the crumpets and he seemed so happy that we’d chatted. Instead I noted everything down in my journal that evening. My journal that had become something of a friend to me. It had started pristine and empty, a sea of inviting blank pages, but now it was really filling up. It had been supplied to Mike and I by our fostering agency, and had proved to be a really important piece of kit. Leather bound, with our initials and surname embossed in gold in the bottom corner, it looked far too sophisticated for my scrawly notes. But scrawl I did. Even more so on that night. In fact, the longer Justin was with us, the more detailed and elongated my entries had become.

And, very soon, there’d be more.

Sunshine, I thought happily, as I yanked open the bedroom curtains. I loved sunshine. I loved sunshine almost as much as I loved snow. You could keep all the dull drizzly stuff in between, but give me sun or give me snow, and I’m in overdrive. Which was something I definitely needed to be today. ‘Mike! It’s sunny!’ I said out loud. ‘Thank God for that!’

‘Yes, thanks for the weather report, Case,’ he grunted, squinting. ‘I think I can tell that for myself.’

Yes, I needed sun today like I’d never needed it before – so much so that I’d even considered doing whatever the opposite of a rain dance is because in our part of the country, sun – even in early May – wasn’t something you could ever rely on. And I needed sun today, particularly, because it was the day of Justin’s party. He would be twelve and we were all of us united in the cause of making it a birthday he would never forget.

‘Pleeease get up Mike,’ I begged. ‘Stop snuggling back under that duvet, you old grump – it’s party day!’

Mike conceded with a groan and threw back the duvet. ‘Okay,’ he said, yawning. ‘I give in. I know I won’t get any peace trying to have a lie in, will I?’

‘Absolutely not!’ I replied, tutting, as I practically skipped out of the bedroom. Honestly, I thought, men have no idea!

In my case, this was no kind of hardship. As with Christmas, my affection for parties was a constant in my life, and my own children’s lives had been punctuated annually with the sort of over-the-top festivities I loved to put on. For Riley, I’d peaked with my ‘
Grease
’ extravaganza, building a ‘shake shack’ in the garden, making everyone dress in 50s clothes, and having a Frankie Valli lookalike open the party by singing ‘Beauty School Dropout’ just as Riley walked in.

Kieron, too, had some spectacular birthday bashes over the years, in his case, almost invariably, since he loved comic-book superheroes, involving a giant blow-up Superman or Spiderman scaling the house walls. And now it was Justin’s turn to get the full Casey treatment. I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into this one.

The preparations for Justin’s party had been going on in secret for a couple of weeks now, and I’d taken great care to ensure that he didn’t twig. All he knew was that we were going to have a ‘little family tea party’, with just my niece and nephew coming round to play. It was sobering to see just how excited he was about the low-key event we’d pretended we were putting on for him – clearly the celebration of his own special day had never been a part of his young life. So I couldn’t wait to surprise him with the real one I’d dreamed up – in reality, my plans were
way
bigger. I’d invited a couple of my close friends, plus various members of my extended family including my niece and nephew, of course, as they were both around Justin’s age. I’d also been in cahoots with Justin’s new teaching assistant, Cathy. Because it was to be a surprise, I couldn’t ask Justin to invite school friends, so instead, she’d helpfully done some research and identified half a dozen children who Justin seemed to be on good terms with. She did comment that finding more than that would be a pretty tall order, as, given the extent of his emotional problems, he found it difficult to make and keep friends. Still, I thought, with the numbers swelled by the Watson contingent (always enthusiastic party goers, us lot!), I was sure that would be plenty to create a buzz.

I was already buzzing with ideas for it, for sure. We all were. Since
The Little Mermaid
was one of Justin’s favourite Disney films, we’d decided to theme his party around that; our plan was to completely transform the back garden as a sort of ‘undersea kingdom’, complete with beach, swimming pool and lots of themed decorations. Both Kieron and Riley had been a great help in all this, spending hours with me making all the things that we needed. I was so proud of them both – they had leapt upon the project with genuine enthusiasm, and seemed as keen as I was that we’d make the day as special as we could.

Riley had made all sorts of
papier-mâché
sea creatures – starfish and crabs and lots of different kinds of fish – while Kieron had been equally busy with paint and glue and scissors, painting and cutting out lots of giant underwater plant life for us to stick up along the length of the garden fence. He’d also come with me to get a few enormous bags of play sand, so we could make a proper beach, and then there was the
pièce de résistance
, of course. It had been something of a major extravagance, I knew, but the centrepiece of the whole party was a small rigid swimming pool I’d hired for the day. It was eight feet in diameter and an impressive three feet deep, and the company were coming to erect it and fill it later in the morning.

Having thrown open the curtains and treated Mike to a couple of bars of ‘Who can Buy This Wonderful Morning’ as an extra inducement not to lie and fester, I harried Mike from the bedroom (though he might have called it ‘escaping’) and asked him nicely to put the kettle on while I showered. I still had a whole load of preparations to get finished, and he needed to get on with things as well. He was supposed to be taking Justin swimming this morning, the trip to the pool and a chance to play on the water slides being what we’d told Justin his main birthday treat was. I hummed to myself as I turned on the shower. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he returned and saw what his
real
birthday treat was.

The day had started well, and I was glad. Mike and I had given Justin new trainers for his main present, together with a PlayStation game he wanted and a selection of DVDs. He’d already had a card from his ‘team’ with a gift voucher in it, another card with a £10 voucher from his social worker, Harrison, and when the morning post arrived – and about which I’d been fretting very much – another card had come, which he immediately recognised.

‘It’s from Mum!’ he cried, his face alight with joy as he saw it. ‘I know it is! I recognise the writing!’ He ripped it open while I tried to feel the same sense of enthusiasm. Couldn’t she at least have managed a parcel? A surprise? Something for him to open? But no, it was just a card with a tenner in.

‘Look, Casey!’ Justin shouted excitedly, even so. ‘Ten pounds! She has hardly any money and she sent this! And look – my little brothers have both signed it by themselves!’ His pleasure was almost palpable; he was just so damned happy!

I’d tried to feel happy for him, too. I
was
happy for him. A child’s love for their parent is completely unconditional, and I could see how much this small effort she’d made truly meant to him. But it was hard, because it stuck in my throat. She was his mother – she should want to give her all to her child.

It wasn’t the fact that she had only sent money, because I knew that ten pounds had probably stretched her financially. But surely she could have put some thought into spending that money on a small gift, something she knew that Justin could keep and treasure, even put into his memory box? It was so tragic how little real, consistent effort she’d made for her son. And unprompted? The cynical me wondered about that too. Had social services given her a nudge?

Stop it
, I’d said to myself.
Just be happy he’s so happy.
And very soon – a few hours later – he would be even happier. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself letting on.

An hour later, and having finally seen Mike and Justin off, I thought I’d pop up and have a quick clear of Justin’s room. If he was having school friends over – a first – then I wanted him to be able to make a good impression, so I thought I’d have a tidy up, make the bed, have a quick flick round with the duster; just make it look more inviting and free up some floor space.

I had no thought in my head that wasn’t party related – why would I? – as I gathered up DVDs and stray toys. He had a box, a plastic crate, in which he kept all his soldiers, and I thought it would be a good idea to put it out of the way, under the bed, along with a couple of other boxes which were taking up floor space. It was while doing so that I came upon the suitcase.

Well, not came upon, exactly, because it had been there from day one. It was the case he’d arrived with, which had held his pitifully few possessions, and it had been stored under his bed from the off. I’d thought it was empty – when I’d discovered all the scissors and blades, it certainly had been – but as I went to move it (I wanted to shove it along a bit, to fit the crate in) it was clear that it wasn’t empty now. It was so weighty, in fact, that I was unable to slide it along one handed, so instead I grabbed the handle and pulled it half out. Intrigued now about what could be the cause of its great weight, and with a sudden slight anxiety about what I might find, I pulled it fully out and undid the zip.

The sight that greeted me was an astonishing one. I’m not sure I’d had any idea what to expect, but not in a million years would I have imagined what I did see. The case was full of food. There were literally hundreds of small food items in there, all neatly stacked and sorted in order of shape and size. There were packets of sweets, different chocolate bars, crisps and instant pudding mixes, packets of dried soup; all manner of different kinds of non-perishable foods. None were opened, and there was also a hand-written note sitting on top of them, in which Justin had painstakingly catalogued every item in his big scrawly handwriting. He’d taken care, I noted, even as I sat there, bewildered, to spell carefully and write on the lines.

Apart from that, though, I don’t think I had a coherent thought in my head. I simply gawped at it all, unable to believe my eyes. But one thing was clear. They hadn’t come from my cupboards. They were budget-range items, own-brand supermarket products, and didn’t even come from the supermarket I used. So where had they come from? Had he stolen them from somewhere? And what were they all there for, anyway? This wasn’t just a stash of goodies for an impromptu midnight feast. This was strange, and unsettling, this perfectly aligned collection; something like you’d expect to come across in a piece of futuristic fiction – a collection gathered together in anticipation of a nuclear strike; the kind of thing the government might have suggested during the Cold War, along with the advice to stockpile water and to hide under the kitchen table. I looked again at the neatly compiled list that lived with them. What on earth had gone through his mind when he sat and wrote it out? I didn’t have the slightest idea.

And I wasn’t about to find out. Not right now. I zipped the case back up and replaced it exactly where I’d found it, then went back downstairs to make a start on the party food instead. Today was definitely not the day to confront Justin with what I’d found.

I’d told everyone to get to ours at around one-thirty, if possible, as Mike and Justin were due back around two. By now, in the nick of time, the swimming pool was up and filled, the sunlight glinting prettily off its spangly surface. The beach was in position too, all having been carefully raked over, and Riley and Kieron and I had finished accessorising the garden which, we all agreed, looked pretty amazing. My sister and brother and their families and all our friends had arrived, and everyone was now pitching in and helping out with getting the last preparations finished, as well as keeping an eye on my niece and nephew, to make sure they didn’t sneak off and clamber into the pool.

But only one of Justin’s friends had come, so far, to my great disappointment. On top of what I’d seen in Justin’s bedroom this morning, it was really upsetting, and I’d fretted about it. Then Tarika, the deaf girl who Cathy, the teaching assistant, looked after as well as Justin, told me that the two of them seemed to get on well, and sat and ate lunch together most days.

Tarika, who was a pretty blonde girl with enormous blue eyes, had been dropped off by her parents at 1.30, as agreed, but seemed shy, and stuck to me like glue. I spent the last twenty minutes with one ear tuned to the front doorbell, just in case some more came, but they didn’t. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter – one friend was better than no friends, after all – and that as Justin wasn’t expecting any, he wouldn’t be disappointed, would he?

And as it turned out, perhaps predictably, he was anything but.

‘Wow!’ he said, eyes wide, as he surveyed his birthday kingdom. ‘Wow, Casey! This is just amazing!’ He was jumping up and down, clapping his hands, and swivelling his head to take it all in. ‘Wow! A barbecue! Oh my God, a
pool
! Oh, this is mint! Mike, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!’ Mike grinned at Justin’s reaction and gave him a quick squeeze around his shoulders. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he confessed, ‘but I was under strict orders.’

I tousled Justin’s still damp curls. He was like the cat with the cream. ‘All part of the service,’ I told him. ‘It’s your special day, so you enjoy it, and that’s an order!’

And, yes, he did. To my great relief, he didn’t even seem to really register that there was only one friend from school there – one who’d now transferred her allegiance to him and followed him around like an adoring puppy – as he was just so excited to see all the things we’d done for him, genuinely thrilled to have been made such a fuss of.

Except at the same time, paradoxically, the atmosphere was just terrible.

‘I think I’m going to be mighty glad when this is all over,’ Mike commented, when coming into the kitchen to get himself a beer a couple of hours or so into the afternoon.

‘Too right, mate,’ my brother agreed. And with good reason. We’d only been half an hour into the festivities when it became clear that Justin just had no idea how to behave on such an occasion – his social skills, clearly tested to the limit at the sort of unstructured event that a party for a child this age was, were clearly pretty hopeless. He seemed unable to enjoy his party without spoiling it for the other children, snatching toys, throwing sand, splashing the younger ones way beyond fun. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d just been over-excited and unable to see it, but it was obvious to everyone that he
could
see he was upsetting them, which only seemed to serve to make him worse. It was now around four and we were all becoming weary – the other children were trying really hard to be patient with Justin, but I could tell it was wearing thin. And once again my little niece was in tears.