The Boy No One Loved (16 page)

I got up off my sun-bed and wriggled my feet into my own, grabbing my sarong and my bag as I did so. Once again we were at the centre of some impromptu light entertainment – I could feel every eye in the place, screened behind the safety of sunglasses, swivelled and fixed in our direction. And the spectators included my niece and nephew, who were still in the pool themselves, and who now transferred their gazes to the general direction of Justin’s exit, their ‘What
now
?’ expressions a picture.

I turned to Riley. ‘Keep an eye on Chloe and Daniel, will you, love?’

She rolled her eyes and nodded. ‘Best of luck …’ Mike and I trotted off in pursuit.

It took us a good hour to find Justin. An hour in which I went through every possible emotion, from wanting to throttle him, to feeling guilty that we’d misjudged his state of progress so badly, cursing him over the blister I could feel forming between my toes, to feeling that gut-churning fear that you get if you mislay a toddler, to wanting to throttle him again. It was a hot afternoon and we were very quickly footsore, as we trudged up and down the promenade, in and out of side-streets, and over broad sweeps of beach, our eyes constantly scanning the face of every curly blond head we could see.

I knew that both the pavements and the sand would he hot, and he was barefoot, so maybe, I suggested, he would have worked his way back now. Perhaps I should call Riley and have her go check our apartments We had two; she was sharing with Chloe and Daniel, and Mike, Justin and I had the other one. Maybe by now, having grown weary of the heat, he’d headed to the latter to cool off. I was just pulling my bag from my shoulder to get my phone out when Mike’s arm suddenly flew out. ‘There he is!’

Justin was nearby on the prom – no more than 200 yards from the hotel – standing at the entrance to an amusement arcade. I was naturally not in the best of moods by now, and rounded on him angrily as soon as we got to him.

‘I’m
so
cross with you, Justin!’ I snapped at him angrily. ‘How
dare
you do that! How dare you –’

But I didn’t get to finish. He span straight around and ran away again.

‘Justin!’ yelled Mike, who was every bit as annoyed as I was. ‘Justin, just you come back this
minute
!’

But it seemed that destiny was listening, even if Justin wasn’t, because just at the point when we’d both broken into a jog – with Justin some forty yards distant from us already, and the gap opening – he decided to turn around and check if we were still in pursuit. And not having eyes in the back of his head, he ran, full pelt, smack into a palm tree.

I gasped in horror because he bounced – he really bounced. Flew backwards and then went down like a skittle. He could have broken his nose easily, cracked his skull open – anything. At the very least, I half-expected to get to him and find he was minus his front teeth.

But by the time we both got to him, he was already scrambling to his feet, and seeing us, he suddenly burst out laughing. As did Mike and I, too – all in a mad rush. We couldn’t help it. And though our own laughter was probably slightly hysterical as much as anything, it was as if, in that instant, the whole tone had been reset, and this slapstick event had really changed Justin’s mood.

We didn’t expect it, didn’t even dare hope for it, as we trudged back, but from that afternoon on there wasn’t another cross word required. The rest of the holiday went brilliantly.

‘Spaghetti bolognaise!’ Justin announced with an excited flourish. ‘I’m gonna make-a the best-a bolognaise-a you ever tasted!’

I grinned at him as he reached for the pen and paper I’d given him. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and we were sitting in the conservatory with a pile of recipe books spread out on the floor in front of us, from which Justin was going to choose a recipe so he could make us a special meal.

Almost as soon as we’d returned from holiday, it had been time for Justin to be moved up to the final level of his points programme. He’d now completed all the components that were part of level two, and had amassed sufficient points to move up. Level three came with a new set of more subtle and challenging targets, as well as a new set of rewards.

He was now expected to demonstrate such complex social skills as showing respect for other people’s feelings, and doing something nice for someone, daily, and without prompting, as well as having more rigorous standards applied to his education; to earn his points, he had to read for an hour daily, for example – something that might challenge even the most biddable of twelve-year-old boys.

His rewards, too, were more complex, and I was thrilled to see how much he was motivated by them. There was still the issue of friendship-based rewards, of course, because since the incident with Gregory he seemed to have made little in the way of further friendships and still struggled to interact positively with his peers. But the rest of the rewards were essentially family-orientated, and he really worked hard to attain them – things like organising a big family DVD night for all the family, with popcorn and fizzy drinks and pizza and so on, and his favourite – pretty obvious, given his main preoccupation – which involved choosing and preparing a special meal for us all.

‘That sounds
bellissimo
,’ I told him now. ‘And we’d better get cracking. It’s almost four already and we still need to get to the shops.’

It had been a tense couple of days, so I was glad we had something so positive to do together. Though he’d been welcomed back into school, it was hardly with open arms. Indeed, on the first day, it had been made clear – by a committee comprising a representative of the board of governors, the head and the special educational needs co-ordinator – that this was definitely going to be the last chance for Justin, before emergency measures were put in place.

He basically had to sign a behavioural contract. For the school’s part, he would be given extra support in lessons and would always be accompanied during transitions from class to class. He would also have the option of spending break times inside the learning-support classroom, and would be allowed to go on the computers in there. For his part, he had to commit to maintaining good behaviour, which he was actually quite happy about, since he loved computers. A carrot rather than stick approach, and the right one.

The two of us made the trip to the supermarket right away, him armed with the shopping list he had now carefully written out himself, having consulted the recipe book he’d chosen it from. He loved Jamie Oliver. In fact the celebrity chef was something of a hero to Justin; he reckoned being a chef was the best job in the world, and often told us that one day he too would be on TV too, whipping up amazing meals while playing the clown, just like Jamie. We’d bought him the book from Tesco as soon as he’d mentioned it to us, and he’d often sit looking at it while I prepared dinner, telling me about all the fabulous meals he was also one day going to invent.

The tension of the upcoming return to school notwithstanding, I’d been in a pretty buoyant mood since we’d returned from the holiday as it seemed to mark a real turning point in so many aspects of Justin’s behaviour. They say a change is as good as rest – even if that wasn’t true for our Kieron – and though no-one would suggest that a week in the sunshine was any sort of panacea for a boy with such troubles, there did seem something so much less uptight about him lately, which made everything at home so much calmer. Of course, it might have been nothing more than a coincidence of timing, but I didn’t much care. I was just so glad we’d turned a corner.

By the time we arrived back at the house, Kieron was already home from college and I knew Mike – always starving after his usual physically punishing days – would not be too far behind him, as well as Riley and David, who were coming to dinner also, to sample Justin’s first made-it-all by-myself meal.

Jamie Oliver might have not yet written his
30 Minute Meals
at this time, but if he had, I’m sure Justin would have managed just fine. He was hilarious, and Kieron and I were almost crying with laughter as he adopted a Cockney accent and proceeded to do the whole thing in role. ‘Lavverly, this’ll be, may-tey!’ he said as he chopped mushrooms. Chopped them with skill and aplomb, too, I noted. His culinary ambitions weren’t a pipe dream, I realised. He had definite passion and a great deal of flair.

‘And now,’ he went on, ‘jast a
leetle
pinch of pepper. An’ look at that! Bluddy marvellous that is! Pukka!’

At that point, I heard the door and Riley and David both appeared. ‘Ah!’ cried Justin, when he saw them, with a theatrical flourish. ‘Two more audience members in! Laaaavverly! At the front please, madam!’ he said, waving an expansive arm towards Riley. ‘Get the lady a seat, sir!’ he then ordered David. By the time Mike walked through the door we really were all in stitches, so much so that he wondered what on earth had been going on.

For most people, I remember thinking, this would be quite unremarkable. Just a family, messing about, having fun, having a laugh. But for Justin, this was
huge
. This was the sort of stuff he’d never had. And at the same time a pertinent reminder to me and Mike that it was this – this constant and reassuring normality – that underpinned everything we did as foster parents.

And it was so wonderful to see Justin coming out of his shell. So good to see him feeling relaxed and secure enough to be the centre of attention, and for the best of reasons rather than the worst. Clearly, underneath the skin of this sad and troubled boy lurked the soul of a true and gifted comic. So as I stood there and laughed I was also crying a bit inside – it just seemed so random and damning a thing that a child could be born into the sort of conditions that so effectively snuffed out every tiny flicker of potential they had. Random and tragic but I hoped still repairable, even if teasing out the true child inside was going to be such a long and daunting task.

And within a couple of weeks, the task would get harder.

One of the new things Justin was currently engaged in was a search to see if he could try and trace his father. This had come about, by chance, as a result of the holiday. Once I’d finally got around to getting the photos printed, I’d had the idea of making a few copies for Justin, so he could put them in his memory box.

We were sitting in his bedroom, going through them – I’d just brought them up to him – and he was laughing at them, one by one, reliving all the happy memories, when he came upon a particularly nice one of him and Mike – the two of them, posing in front of a pool, ready to go scuba diving. Mike had his arm draped around Justin’s shoulders and they were both smiling broadly. He transferred it to the box and then said, without any sort of prompting, ‘If anyone asks me, you know, like, if I leave here, I’ll just tell them that’s me and me dad.’

I felt a lump form in my throat – a real physical pang. Swallowing it (get a grip, woman, I told myself sternly), I then thought about how stable things had been at home just lately, and how this might be a good point to broach the subject of his real dad. It had been something that had only really come up in passing since he’d been with us, and had previously seemed to be something well left. He’d only ever really mentioned a couple of names his mum and nan had told him of, and it had seemed to me that he had quite enough on his plate dealing with the relatives he
did
know about, let alone trying to find another to let him down.

But something told me that now might be the moment to bring it up again. After all, if we were going to piece together his background in any useful way, we needed all the pieces of the jigsaw in place. After all, even if this one was going to prove a dead end, it would be better than remaining a question.

‘Why not?’ I answered brightly, reassuring him that it would be just fine by us. ‘He’s a kind of dad, after all. He’s your foster dad, isn’t he? And I think he’d like that.’ Justin grinned, seemingly pleased with my answer. ‘But you know what?’ I continued. ‘Have you thought about your real dad? You know, there’s nothing to stop us doing some detective work, if you want to. You know, ask Harrison Green to look into things for you.’

This seemed to animate him, and it was clear that this was something he did think about, even if it wasn’t something we’d discussed before.

‘I’d like to know,’ he said, nodding. ‘Because there’s two names that’s come up. I been told loads of lies about it by me mum, and me nan, too, but there’s two names that have kept coming up all the time. One man, me nan says, wouldn’t even know I exist because if it was him, me mum never even told him she was pregnant. It could be one of them, couldn’t it?’

I nodded. ‘I guess it could.’ I turned a little on the bed so that I could look at him directly. ‘Though you have to understand, love, that it might not lead to anything. You know – not get your hopes up too much about it, because even if we find him, it doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to “be” a dad to you.’

‘I know that,’ he said solemnly. ‘An’ that’s fine. Just be nice to know, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Yes, it would.’

I telephoned both Harrison Green and John Fulshaw the next morning, the former to see if he could start to do some digging, and the latter just because I wanted to keep him in the loop. Later on that day, Harrison called back and confirmed that social services did indeed have a couple of names on file. He seemed surprised, saying that Justin had never brought this up with him, so I filled him in on the photos and my prompting, and shared my thoughts on why it seemed important to try and establish as many facts as we could, because I thought it was important for Justin’s emotional wellbeing. I thought of adding – but didn’t say, as I was getting to grips with my role now – that perhaps at some point he could have asked.

But he did make the effort, because he called again two days later, this time to tell me he had news to impart, and suggesting we all go for a burger. There was never a time when Justin would willingly turn down a burger, so we arranged to head to town the following afternoon, straight after school, so that Harrison could fill us in with what he’d learned.

‘You’re certainly right that there’s two possibles,’ he confirmed, matter of factly, once we’d got the essential business of the food out of the way.

I was struck, as I always was, by his slightly detached tone; this feeling of him not giving either Justin or me his full attention. I might have misinterpreted it, but I always had this sense about Harrison that we were very much one of a big pile of files on his desk, and that he always had half his mind on one of the others at the same time. And it looked like he wasn’t about to let me down in that regard.

‘Only got an address for one of them, though,’ he added, ‘which is probably a good thing.’ His brow furrowed slightly. ‘Probably better if it’s not the other one, to be honest – because from what I’ve heard, asking around, he’s a bit of a wrong ’un, Justin. Could possibly be in jail, even, as it happens.’

I was, to put it mildly, astounded by his lack of tact – did he really think it the right thing to say straight out, in front of Justin? Where did that leave him if it turned out the possible jailbird
did
turn out to be his dad? Really helpful, that, I thought. But I bit my tongue and said nothing, because there was no point – the deed was already done.

And Justin himself, it had to be said, was altogether more interested in the other one anyway – the one Harrison had tracked down to an address about twenty miles away, and who he was already getting excited about meeting. I could see his mind whirring, even as he munched on his burger, creating whole father-and-son scenarios out of this small nugget of news. I so hoped he wasn’t going to have his hopes crushed by all this, yet what were the chances of that not being so? This potential dad, I imagined, either had not the least inkling of his existence, as he predicted, or knew full well who he was and had no interest in him at all. And even if it were the former and the man accepted his paternity, what were the chances, given the world Justin’s mother lived in, that he’d say ‘Hurrah! I have a son!’ and welcome him into his life with open arms? About a zillion to one would be my best estimate. If that was going to happen, surely it would have happened several years back? So I, for one, wasn’t holding my breath.

But this wasn’t just about that – wonderful though it might be. It was mostly about putting together all the pieces of his past. Justin’s being able to piece together the details of where he came from was never going to be a bad thing; who doesn’t want to know how they got here, however difficult the circumstances? So I kept positive for his sake and my fingers firmly crossed.

And there was no let-up in Justin’s excitement. He was watching
EastEnders
that evening with Mike and me, and the Mitchell brothers were up to their usual antics.

‘I wonder if he’s going to be big and hard like Phil Mitchell,’ he wondered. ‘I bet he is, Mike, don’t you?’

Mike nodded. ‘He could well be. After all, you’re a big lad, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, he is, love,’ I said to Mike. ‘He definitely is. But don’t forget, Justin, there’s always a chance that this man
isn’t
your dad.’

I hated having to see the look of frustration cross Justin’s face, and also that I had to play devil’s advocate. It was me, after all, that had got this ball rolling. But, at the same time, I didn’t want it rolling out of control. I shot Mike a warning glance, and he seemed to understand. As, I think, did Justin, once he gave it a second’s thought. ‘I know that, Casey, I really do, honest. I’m just saying that if it
is
my dad, he
will
probably be big.’