The Girl Who Couldn't Smile (21 page)

The four staff from Little Scamps sat opposite Tony and Felicity, Milandra’s parents. We had asked Dale and Kylie, Tammy’s mother and father, to come to the meeting as well but they hadn’t arrived. I didn’t think it was likely they would at this stage, so we began.

It was clear within three minutes that this was not going to be an easy process. Rather than being delighted at his daughter’s progress and excited about her making the transition into primary school, Tony was furious. Felicity sat beside him, pale and teary eyed, saying little.

‘I do not know how you could do this without my permission,’ he said, his voice raised and his eyes wide.

‘Well, I did ask your wife,’ I said. ‘And it’s not as if we were putting Milandra forward for invasive surgery – the tests she undertook were quite normal for a child in her circumstances.’

‘Really? And what, precisely, are her
circumstances
?’

‘She is a child in a special facility for children with physical, intellectual and behavioural problems, mostly within the mild range,’ Lonnie said, intoning the definition deadpan, as if he was reading it from a textbook.

‘Is that why you’re here, little man?’ Tony asked, leering at Lonnie.

I saw Tush twitch at the insult.

‘No,’ Lonnie said. ‘I’m here because of my charm and good looks.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I know you’ve been posted the report from the educational psychologist. You’ve seen the results of the psychometric testing. I cannot understand why you’re so upset. This is
good
news, for God’s sake.’

‘I do not need you, or anyone else, to tell me how clever my daughter is,’ Tony said.

‘So you don’t believe us?’ Susan said. ‘Is that it? Would you like to have her tested yourselves? I can assure you that the results will be exactly the same.’

‘You have destroyed her,’ Tony spat.

‘What?’ the four of us said, almost in chorus.

‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘She has no fire any more. No fierceness. How is she supposed to survive?’

‘Good Lord,’ I said. ‘That’s what this is all about? She’s not mad enough for you any more?’

Tony stormed out, leaving Felicity where she was, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘You’re going to have to help us understand what we’ve done wrong,’ Susan said to her, ‘because I’m at a loss.’

Felicity nodded and took a tissue out of her handbag, which looked as if it had cost more than the building we were sitting in. ‘It’s hard to explain,’ she said, wiping her eyes.

‘Try,’ Susan said. ‘You might be surprised at how smart we are.’

And Felicity talked. She talked for more than an hour. And when she was finished, we did understand – sort of. Our understanding was pretty unimportant, though, because the
only really important thing was that, without Tony’s say-so, Milandra would be unable to go anywhere.

Tony didn’t come back – I don’t know where he went, but when we walked his wife out to the car, she drove off alone.

The salt marsh looked a bitter, lonely place in the winter’s night. The moon was only occasionally visible when the clouds broke, and a vicious, cutting wind was blowing in from the sea. I could hear waves crashing against the coast, and there was the smell of salt spray in the air. Through the thin wooden door I could hear a television, but nothing else. I knocked, and was surprised when the door was answered.

‘Hey, Kylie,’ I said. ‘Sorry to call so late, but I’d like to talk to you about Tammy.’

I couldn’t smell any alcohol off the woman, but she still appeared to be a bit out of it.

‘Yeah,’ she said, scrunching her eyes up as if she was concentrating hard. ‘Tammy. Yeah, okay. You’d best come in, then.’

‘Thank you.’

The living room was lit by the television screen. Dale was sitting in front of it – nearly on top of it, actually. Tammy was sitting on the floor, a magazine open in front of her.

‘Hi, Dale,’ I said. ‘How are you, Tammy?’

Dale nodded, but didn’t look pleased to see me. Neither did Tammy, for that matter. Kylie sat on the couch opposite, the arm of which I settled my behind on.

‘Did you receive a letter from the Health Board about those tests we ran on Tammy?’ I asked.

It was as if I was speaking to three non-verbal individuals. The only sound that met my question came from the television.

‘It’s kind of important that you read it,’ I said, keeping my
voice level and my tone friendly. ‘It tells us a lot of things we didn’t know – or at least weren’t sure of – about Tammy.’

Dale swore explosively and aggressively, then muted the television using an ancient remote control that had been taped up to stop it falling apart. ‘Would you make your fucking point, buddy?’ he barked. ‘I’m tryin’ to watch this, and you are gettin’ on me nerves, right?’

Tammy was sitting very still and blinked at the outburst, but otherwise seemed unmoved by it.

‘Did you know your daughter could read?’ I asked.

‘Don’t be fuckin’ stupid,’ Dale said scornfully. ‘She’s only a baby.’

‘She reads very well, at a level far above what would usually be expected for her age,’ I said. ‘She also has an excellent grasp of numbers and can understand abstract concepts kids far older than her would struggle with. She’s not just bright, Dale, she’s gifted.’

Dale looked at his daughter, who was staring at us with an unreadable expression, then back at me. ‘I think you’re pullin’ my leg,’ he said. ‘That young one’s a dope. Anyone could tell you that. She’s been strange since she was a baby. She’s never done nothin’ kids’re meant to. Shit, she don’t even talk. Now you’re comin’ in here all high and fuckin’ mighty and tellin’ me she’s some sort of genius? Get the fuck outta here, man. Not my kid.’

‘Why does it scare you to have a gifted child?’ I asked. ‘You should be proud.’

‘Maybe we should listen to him,’ Kylie said. ‘I always thought Tamarra was smart.’

‘Shut up, you,’ Dale snapped. ‘You’re stoned out of your tree. You don’t even know what he’s talkin’ about.’

‘I always thought you were brainy, Tamster,’ Kylie said. ‘I knew you were special.’

‘She’s special all right,’ Dale said. ‘Special in the head.’

‘Don’t insult her, please,’ I said. I’d about had enough. I had delivered good news to two sets of parents, and received nothing in return but grief. I knew childcare could be a thankless task, but this was ridiculous. And I was not going to sit there while he made fun of Tammy.

‘It’s none o’ your business what I do with me own,’ Dale said.

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.’

Dale considered that one. He didn’t know whether or not I was making fun of him. He decided it didn’t matter. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘You’re only a babysitter anyway. Paid to wipe kids’ arses and keep ’em out o’ trouble. And you can’t even do that!’

‘I am proud of what I do,’ I said. ‘Your daughter is an amazing little girl. It just sickens me that you don’t see it. You spend so much of your time getting wasted you haven’t even taken the time to get to know her.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do, you uppity fucker,’ Dale snarled. ‘You aren’t a social worker. You have no power over me or my kid.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not today.’

I stood. This was going nowhere. It was possibly even making things worse in the long run. ‘Would you at least think about this?’ I said, trying one last time. ‘Tammy is going to have to leave Little Scamps eventually. When she does, she is going to need a placement that will nurture her abilities. Lonnie, Su, Tush or I can work with you on finding somewhere suitable, and we can help you to raise the money – most schools that cater for gifted children have a scholarship programme. What do you think, Tam?’

I suddenly realized she was gone. Turning, I saw that the front door was ajar. ‘I think she’s run off,’ I said.

‘She’ll be back,’ Dale drawled.

‘Where would she have gone?’ I asked. ‘It’s freezing out.’

‘She has hidin’ places out on the marsh,’ Kylie said. ‘You’ll never find her.’

‘She wouldn’t go out there at this time of night, would she?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it’s miserable.’

Both parents shrugged.

‘I’m going to bring her back,’ I said.

I went to the door, pulling my collar up and wrapping my scarf closer about me. I was more than a little angry with Kylie and Dale.
No
, I thought.
I am not a social worker – but I know plenty, and a visit could so easily be arranged
. I put such thoughts out of my mind and trotted across the road to the low wall that divided the estate from the adjoining scrubland. The darkness had that muddy, murky quality it can acquire when the air is heavy with rain or mist. I decided I had better be sensible and jogged back to the car, where I took a small torch from the glove compartment – I keep it there in case of a puncture on a dark night – then climbed into the wilderness. I was about to set off when I heard a call.

‘Hey – wait up there.’

It was Dale, dressed in a ludicrously flimsy jacket.

‘Not havin’ you sayin’ I don’t look after me own.’

‘Glad to have you along,’ I said truthfully. I took a step.

‘Better warn you – watch your step. This place is full of sink holes.’

‘Full of what?’

‘The ground gets soft all sudden like. You’re walkin’ along grand and then you’re up to your neck in muck – just like that. It’s like … um … quicksand.’

‘And you let Tammy play here?’

‘
Let
ain’t got nothin’ t’ do with it,’ Dale said, and set off into the swamp.

I switched on the torch and concentrated its beam ahead of us. Out on the flats the wind was so high that talking was futile. Seeing wasn’t easy, either. With every strong gust of wind we were slapped with a ferocious squall of rain and hail. Within moments Dale was soaked to the skin and shivering. My coat held out a little better, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I was in the same condition.

I was deeply concerned about navigation. I thought I could hear the sea to my right, but the environment through which we were gingerly trudging was so monotonous it was impossible to make out any distinct landmarks. The only things rising above the spongy ground were desolate whin bushes and twisted, gnarled trees. If Tammy had found a place to shelter, I couldn’t for the life of me see it.

Since moving to the country, I had taken to wearing walking boots as my usual footwear. They are ideal for trekking across mountains and heaths, but the marsh highlighted their major flaw: while they are waterproof, they are no good at all if you step in a puddle deeper than your ankle – the water just flows in over the top of the boot and floods it. Within five minutes I might as well have been sloshing along with my feet in two buckets of ice water.

We’d been walking for around a quarter of an hour and I could no longer see the lights of the houses in the little estate. I tugged at Dale’s sleeve. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ I shouted over the gale.

‘There!’ he said, pointing at what looked like a smudge of grey on the horizon.

It was some kind of subterranean storage shed, built low to the ground with the actual room dug into the earth.

‘She hides out in there, sometimes,’ Dale said.

I got down on my knees, feeling the damp seeping through the legs of my jeans, and shone the torch into the cellar,
illuminating a wide space lined with moss-speckled breeze blocks. I was just in time to see two little legs disappear through a space in the opposite wall.

‘She’s gone out the other side,’ I shouted, and we both took off after the child, whose shape I could just pick up in the torchlight as she headed even deeper into the marsh, desperate in her attempt to get away from us.

It was like being trapped in some kind of waking nightmare from which there was no escape. The ground was rough and unstable – on one occasion I went up to my knee in a hole and Dale had to haul me out. I tried to keep Tammy in our sights, but she seemed to know the area far better than we did, and hopped from tussock to tussock with amazing agility. I seemed to lose her for long minutes at a time, then catch sight of her again.

‘Where the hell is she leading us?’ I shouted.

‘Fucked if I know,’ he said. ‘Never been this far in.’

‘Tammy,’ I called. ‘Come on back, baby. Your dad and I are friends now!’

I glimpsed her blond tresses and then she was gone again. I ran onwards.

This time we couldn’t find her again. It felt as if we were very near the coast. I was certain I could hear the regular smash of waves, like a heartbeat, and the taste of salt on my tongue was very strong. I was running across sand, now, and I could see shells among the detritus and reeds.

‘Tammy!’ I called again.

‘Tammy!’ Dale called, too. There was panic in his voice, and I knew it was real.

In her terror, the child had led us far, far from home, and this was not a safe place.

We were standing on the edge of an inlet now. The water washed in in freezing sheets, rimmed with yellow foam. I ran
the beam of the torch around the edge, and thought I saw a patch of something a different shade from the rest. I flicked the light back and, lo and behold, there was Tammy. She was holding on to some reeds on the shore for dear life – the rest of her was stuck in the mud – only her chest and shoulders could be seen above it.

‘Hold still, Tam,’ I shouted. ‘We’re coming!’

Tammy saw us and waved one hand. ‘Help me!’ she called. ‘Help me!’

Her voice was hoarse from lack of use – and fear.

‘Did she just talk?’ Dale panted.

‘She did,’ I said.

Then we were beside her, and she was on safe, solid ground and we were all sobbing, lying in the dirt on a stormy night, far from anywhere.

‘I don’ wanna leave L’il Scamps,’ Tammy sobbed. ‘Don’ make me go, Shane.’

‘Honey, you’re too little to go anywhere,’ I said, laughing and crying all at the same time. ‘You have a lot of time ahead of you in Little Scamps, and you’ll be more than ready before you have to leave us. You got all confused.’

‘I don’t have to go?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You don’t.’