Crying for Help (8 page)

I patted the seat beside me. She sat down. ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I thought your consultant said your medication levels were stable.’

She shook her head. ‘Not if I get stressed. Or if I do a lot of extra exercise.’

‘But surely you know not to do that? I know I read somewhere that if you’re doing more than normal exercise, then you need to take some extra steroid before you do it, don’t you?’

She nodded. ‘But I didn’t
know
I was going to be doing that, did I?’ She frowned. ‘But you can’t
not
, can you? Not when everyone’s got a game on, and you’re the new girl … I don’t want to look like I’m some stuck-up cow who won’t join in, do I?’

I couldn’t argue with that, and I felt sorry for her. It must be tough.

I clasped her hand and squeezed it. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. Now how about that sleep, eh?’

I was pleased about our chat, and, actually, it didn’t really matter. If she had made herself ill accidently, or did it on purpose, it didn’t make any odds. What mattered was that we kept on communicating. I’d have a word with the school in the morning, just to keep them in the loop, and make a point of reading up some more on her taking extra medication. This, I decided, was all completely sortable. I just needed to know exactly
how
to sort it.

I was in a much better frame of mind as I set about making our dinner – steak and chips with all the trimmings, plus my own home-made peppercorn sauce. And by the time Mike and Kieron got home, Sophia and I agreed that we were both absolutely starving, and that if they didn’t come to the table pronto we’d eat theirs as well.

It set the tone for a nice relaxed family dinner. We weren’t the Waltons, but sometimes it made me so happy just to sit round the table as a family, chatting about nothing. But it seemed the ‘nothing’ part was going to be short-lived.

‘How’d your first day go?’ Mike asked Sophia as he began tucking in.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I made a new friend called Lucy. She seems nice.’

‘One of many, no doubt,’ Kieron chipped in with. I was pleased. He seemed to be making a real effort to get along with her.

‘Oh, no,’ Sophia said, before delivering the news that the rest of the girls already hated her.

‘But why?’ I asked.

‘Because all the boys fancy me, of course,’ she answered. I opened my mouth to comment and then I closed it again. She was twelve. Twelve-year-olds were inclined to make pronouncements like that. Particularly pretty ones like Sophia.

‘Oh, you’ll make more,’ Kieron persisted, shrugging it off. ‘Don’t you worry.’

‘Oh, I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to have friends really, anyway.’

‘Why ever not?’ Mike asked.

‘Because you can’t trust them.’ Her face darkened. ‘My last best friend, Chloe, tried to turn me into a lesbian. And –’

‘Sophia, love,’ I interrupted. ‘Shall we talk about this later? Not a topic of conversation for teatime really, is it?’

‘But she did!’ Sophia persisted, now fired up, eyes flashing. ‘And my caring mother didn’t give a damn!
Oh, Sophia, stop complaining, she’s just being friendly, stop moaning
… Yeah, right, Mum. Like she ever gave a damn!’

‘Sophia,’ I said, shocked. ‘Please, just
leave
it. We can discuss all this later. Now calm down and let’s all just finish our tea, eh?’

She put her head down and continued eating, as the conversation juddered back to life.

‘Lovely steak, love,’ said Mike.

‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ I answered.

‘Uurgh! Pass the sick bucket,’ Kieron whined. ‘
Please
.’

Sophia smiled too, and the tense moment seemed to have passed. And as I’d promised her, we would definitely talk about it later. It was clearly something she badly needed to get off her chest.

That and a whole heap more, besides.

It’s a special place, my conservatory, especially in the evenings. It’s nice any time – my haven, my place of solitude overlooking the garden – but at night time it really came into its own. With the soft lighting, you couldn’t see the jumble of garden furniture stacked in the corner; all you really noticed were the two sofas, both covered with fleecy throws, and accessorised with piles of colourful cushions. It was cosy, too, the heating having been on all day, the perfect place to sit and relax.

The washing up done and the boys off watching football, I carried through my coffee and Sophia’s glass of milk and placed them on the little pine table that sat between the sofas. Then I sat down myself and patted the space beside me.

‘There,’ I said. ‘Peace at last. Come on, sit down and rest your legs, love.’

She duly sat next to me and leaned back. ‘It is true,’ she said. She had obviously been dying to tell me about it. ‘She did make me a lesbian, Casey. I know she did.’

‘It’s not up to her,’ I said. ‘It’s up to you. Do
you
think you’re a lesbian? What I mean is, do you like girls the way you like boys?’

This wouldn’t have been a conversation you’d have with many 12-year-olds, I thought. But she was very well developed, and aware of it, too. And I’d come across that many children now whose stories would make some people’s hair curl. Out of the mouths of babes and all that, sadly.

She glanced across at me. ‘Casey, I
do
know what a lesbian is. And no, of course I don’t. It was just that one time I, well, you know,
did
it with Chloe.’

I had to think carefully before speaking. ‘And it really doesn’t mean anything. You know, lots of girls experiment with kids of their own sex when they’re your age. It doesn’t mean they’ve committed to being gay. It’s just – well, like I say – experimenting.’

‘But Chloe said it made me one, because I let her.’ She pulled her legs up underneath her, so she was half-turned towards me. ‘And when I asked my mum – I was worried, I really was – she was, like, “Oh, stop going on.” She didn’t even want to know.’

I wondered then at Sophia’s overt flirting around men. Was she trying to prove a point? And to herself? ‘I think maybe your mum was trying to explain it, like I am, that it doesn’t mean anything, so you shouldn’t worry about it. After all, you have years ahead to work out who and what you are. I think you should just put it out of your mind.’

Instinctively then, seeing her anxious face – which now seemed very childlike – I reached an arm around her shoulder and drew her in towards me. She responded by throwing her own arms around me and hugging me so tight she nearly squeezed all the breath out of me.

‘Oh, Casey,’ she said, letting me breathe again finally. ‘Thanks. Thanks so much for listening. My mum never listened to me,
ever
.’

I could have said ‘I’m sure she did’, but I didn’t know that to be true, and I didn’t want to trot out platitudes. It wasn’t as if there was a relationship that could be rebuilt here. That was the tragedy. And it was also important that she work through all the issues she had around her mother. I had no idea what sort of a mother she had been, after all. So instead I just speculated. ‘Perhaps it just seemed that way, because she was trying to make light of it. Like I said –’

‘I don’t mean just about that. I mean
everything
. Like when her boyfriends would touch me up. She
never
listened. She
wouldn’t
listen. Des. He was the first. Used to come up – just like that – and squeeze my boobs. And when I told Mum she just laughed. I
hated
him.’

I felt an all too familiar sense of dismay. ‘Did you tell anyone else?’

‘Not at first. Later, yes, lots. With the next one, I did. But not at first. Not with Des.’

The next one? Oh, God … ‘But that’s serious, Sophia. Are you sure? I mean, are you sure he was doing it deliberately?’ I felt a fool for even asking. But this was a potentially serious matter. And I had Mike’s words of caution now fixed in my mind.

‘Of course I’m sure. How can you do something like that by accident?’

‘And your mum didn’t do anything?’

‘I told you. She just said I was being silly. So I just decided in the end that I would make his life hell instead.’ Her expression hardened. ‘I thought if she wasn’t going to get rid of him, I would. I just moaned about him all the time, saying how mean he was to me, and I’d refuse to eat when he was there till in the end he stopped eating with us. And they’d argue about me all the time, and he’d get mad, and in the end she threw him out. Good riddance!’

‘But afterwards,’ I said. ‘Did you tell her the truth afterwards?’

Her features changed radically, even as I watched. ‘Oh no, I didn’t need to. It was lovely again without Des. Just me and Mum, together. Girls together. We used to stay up late, watching chick flicks and eating popcorn … Or reading girly mags together, no men to bother us. It was
so
lovely …’

She seemed almost lost in her own little world now, and I wondered if all these revelations had been triggered by the prospect of seeing her mother again. I couldn’t begin to imagine how hard that must be for a child. Your only parent effectively dead, and yet you had to keep going back … seeing her lying there … just awful. The poor, poor kid. She’d started to cry now, I noticed.

And then her voice changed again, her lip curling. ‘Didn’t fucking last, though, did it?’ I could feel her body stiffening now beside me. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t enough for her, was I? Never enough. She was man mad, my lovely mother.’ She looked sharply at me now. ‘D’you know, she’d only been seeing Steve a week when she moved him in!’

‘So he came to live with you after Des, then?’

She nodded. ‘After a week, that was all!’

‘This was the “next one” you were talking about then?’

Her sudden laugh made me jump. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, still looking at me but now through me. ‘And the last. You know what that bastard did?’

I didn’t need to answer. She seemed on autopilot now, the tears streaming down her face unchecked. I took hold of her hand as she spoke. ‘He tried to rape me. He waited till my dear mother had gone out to a parents’ evening – a parents’ evening, can you believe it? I was just sitting in my room, doing my homework, listening to music, when in he came. And he was like, “All right, babe? What you up to?” Then he came over to look at my homework, and …’

She had to stop then, because she was really crying now. Huge gulping sobs. She was finding it difficult to catch her breath. And from behind her I caught sight of Kieron, just about to open the door from the kitchen, so I pulled her close to me again and waved at him not to. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ I soothed. ‘Take as much time as you need. You need to get all this outside of you, don’t you?’

She pulled back slightly and sniffed. ‘It’s okay … It’s okay.’ She sniffed again, ran the back of her wrist across her face. ‘He pushed me on the bed then,’ she continued, gathering a little more composure. ‘And yanked my pyjama bottoms down. And I was going mental at him. Kicking him and thumping him and screaming. He tried to hold his hand over my mouth but I was biting it, really hard.’ She looked disgusted, remembering. ‘And then he undid his jeans and then pulled them down and got his dick out and then he tried to have sex with me. I was scared to death, but I never stopped fighting him – and I’m strong …’ Thank the lord for that, I thought. ‘And I think he got scared then, about all the racket I was making, because he stopped then and he slapped me round the face. Called me a prick teaser, then, he did. Said he’d kill me if I ever opened my mouth.’

‘Oh, dear God, love, that makes me so angry! Please tell me you told your mum
this
time.’

She sniffed again, and wiped her eyes. ‘Oh yes,’ she laughed then, almost hysterically. ‘Oh, yes, as soon as she got home and he’d stomped off to the pub. I told her everything. All of it.’

‘Good, love. That’s good. And what did she say this time?’

‘She said …’ Her lower lip began quivering. ‘She said … She was like, you lying little
cow
! She said I’d destroyed one relationship and now I was trying to do it again!’ Agitated now, Sophia kicked her legs out from beneath her and, moving to the edge of the little sofa, twisted towards me. ‘You know what she said, Casey?’ I shook my head. ‘She said I really thought I was something, didn’t I? She said, and what made me think
her
men would prefer
me
? She called me a jealous bitch. Yeah, that’s exactly what she called me.’ Her anger had overtaken her pain now. ‘Yeah, and lots of other lovely mummy things like that.’

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it!’

‘Nor could I – she was just so
horrible
to me – but it’s true. And
that’s
when I realised just what a shitty mum she really was. I warned her. I did. I told her straight. Either him or me, I said. Because I wouldn’t be sticking around if she
chose
him.’ She let out a heavy sigh. ‘But she did. She did anyway.’

I was stunned. Despite all the years I’d been dealing with dysfunctional families, I still found it shocking when a mother wouldn’t put her own child – her very flesh and blood – first in that kind of situation. Yes, there were mothers like Justin’s, who, addled by drug addiction, had their kids do all sorts in order to get their next fix. But to simply call your child a liar and, worse, a jealous bitch – that was quite something. And how old must Sophia have been – eleven? Ten, even? It beggared belief. And thinking of Justin made me think of something else. I knew I had to explain to her that the nature of what she’d told me meant I would have to both record it and also share it with the rest of her care team.

I took a deep breath. ‘I’m so glad you’ve managed to get all this out,’ I said, cuddling her. ‘I’m sure you’ll feel much better for having talked about it, hmm?’ She smiled wanly. Finishing her story seemed to have knocked the stuffing out of her. ‘And you know,’ I went on, ‘what has to happen now is that I’ve got to put it in my log book. Because this is serious and these men should have to pay for what they’ve done, shouldn’t they?’

But, to my astonishment, she suddenly burst out laughing. ‘What’s the fucking point of that?’ she asked incredulously, pulling back and gaping at me. ‘I mean, go ahead and tell who you want, but what difference is that going to make to anything? And how would anyone find them anyway? I barely knew the names of any of the blokes she had round. I only knew those last two because I used to have to listen to her shouting it when they were
doing
it,’ she spat. ‘Go on, if you want to, Casey. Tell anyone you want to. But you’ll be wasting your time, I promise. Don’t forget, she’s my only witness and she’s a fucking cabbage!’

I stared back at her, momentarily speechless, my brain whirring. The fact that she used the word ‘witness’ seemed telling. ‘Have you already told anyone about this, Sophia? I mean, anyone other than your mother?’

She shrugged. ‘What’s the point? Who’s ever going to do anything about it? Who
can
do anything about it?’ She stood up then. ‘Honestly, Casey, stop looking at me like that. It’s done. It’s finished. And I need to go to bed now.’

She walked to the kitchen door then and turned back towards me as she opened it. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ she said again. ‘I’m okay now. I’m a big girl now. Really I am. Night.’

I stayed in the conservatory for another half an hour, just to try and get my head around the things she’d told me. If her allegations were true – and they certainly seemed to fit, instinct told me – then no wonder she had so many issues. There had obviously been massive unfinished business between her and her mother, and, since tragedy had struck, it would never now
be
finished; a scarily big load of psychological distress to sit on the shoulders of such a young girl. And then there was the issue of the attempted rape by her mother’s boyfriend, and Sophia’s assertion that her mother had refused to believe it. I’d seen and read about plenty of cases where mothers, fearing the loss of a boyfriend or spouse, would shut their eyes to what was being done to their kids, almost before their eyes, and that was shocking enough in itself. But to actually accuse your barely pubescent daughter of not only lying, but trying to compete with you for them – that was something else again. I would need to ask John to do some more digging, I decided. It might not be seemly to speak ill of the dead (or in a vegetative state, for that matter) but if Sophia had any hope of making a good life for herself she needed someone to step up to the plate and get the truth out there about her mother.

It was with this very much in mind that I went up to bed. Mike was still awake, reading, so once I’d undressed and snuggled up to warm my toes I told him, in hushed tones, everything Sophia had told me. He’s a gentle soul mostly, but he was angry. A lot angrier than I’d seen him in a while, in fact.

‘Fucking animals!’ he hissed.

‘Shhh, Mike. And mind your language!’

‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said, ‘but it makes my blood boil. And I’m telling you, something had better get done about this. No wonder these kids come to people like us with such messed-up heads! How come none of this is on her bloody file?’

‘Shh!’ I said again. ‘Sophia’s going to hear you!’

‘Well, good, frankly. Perhaps she
should
hear me! She should certainly know someone’s on her side. Fucking animals!’

I had never heard Mike quite so riled up before. Never heard him swear like that, either – not if there was a chance one of the children might hear him. He’d always been a stickler for things like that. ‘I know, love. I feel the same,’ I said, stroking his arm, trying to calm him down. ‘But she’s got us on her side now, hasn’t she? You and me, love.
We’ll stick by her
. And that’s a promise.’