The Boy No One Loved (13 page)

‘Mrs Watson? It’s Richard Firth, Head of Year Seven at the high school. It’s about Justin. I’m afraid there’s been an incident …’

Picking up the phone on a weekday was becoming something of a hazardous pastime, I thought ruefully. I couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped from my lips, before answering, ‘Yes, it’s me. What’s happened?’

‘An incident, as I say, between Justin and another pupil. Quite a serious one this time, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh no. What happened?’ I asked him again. I was already conscious of a knot forming in my stomach, as if already braced for bad news.

‘It happened during a chemistry lesson earlier,’ he explained, ‘in the science lab,’ which sounded rather worrying in itself. ‘Another pupil accidently knocked over a beaker of water,’ he continued, ‘and some of it splashed onto Justin’s side of the bench. The teacher concerned has told me that Justin’s reaction was completely over the top. He grabbed the girl by the throat, apparently, and pushed her head down against the table, holding a glass beaker over her, screaming for her to apologise –’

‘Oh, no.’

‘– or he would pour the acid solution in the beaker over her face. And the teacher is pretty sure he intended to, as well. Sad to say, Mrs Watson, but he feels that had he not intervened, Justin would indeed have done just that. The poor girl was hysterical, as you can imagine. So I’m sorry to say that we have no alternative but to exclude him.’

I took a deep breath.

‘I understand. So what do you want me to do? Come and get him?’

‘If you would, please,’ said Mr Firth. ‘He’s waiting for you now, in the isolation room. If you come into the main reception, someone will take you straight up there. He’s rather upset, as you can imagine, now he’s calmed down a little. It took two members of staff to remove him from the classroom, I have to tell you. He’s a strong boy, and was apparently in quite a rage.

‘Anyway, like I said, he’s really quite upset now, so if you could come as soon as possible, we’d be grateful.’

‘How long is he excluded for?’ I asked, already fearing the worst.

‘We think it’s best if you keep him home now till the beginning of the autumn term,’ Mr Firth said. ‘He does know this, by the way. And perhaps you could accompany him on his first day back in school? Then perhaps we can all look at strategies that may help him.’

We’d been doing so well, I thought – the incident with Bob notwithstanding – and I’d really felt we were making progress. Indeed, Justin’s remorse over what he’d done had seemed so heartfelt and genuine that Kieron had even agreed that Bob could come home, which had been encouraging in itself. Yet here we were again, seemingly back at square one. An overstatement, perhaps, but that’s how it felt. One step forward, two steps back. Was this normal?

I also felt a little bit irritable. Unprofessional perhaps, given the job I’d signed up for, but the deal – as was the case with any school-age child – was that on weekdays in term time Justin would be
in
school, leaving me with precious time for the rest of my life, just as happened in any other family.

I was also disappointed with Justin. He had seemed to be making such good progress at school, and had he been able to make it until the end of term, this would have been a real milestone. He had never been able to remain fully in school for more than a couple of weeks up to now, and to do so this time would have provided a real boost to his self-esteem.

But it was not to be. All my plans about deep cleaning the house and spending a few days ‘baby shopping’ with Riley, who was now very noticeably pregnant, would have to be put on hold. Justin would now be having an extra week at home, and that was that. I was not in the best of moods, therefore, when I arrived at the school to collect him, and I had to confront him with the very serious nature of his actions.

I’d got most of it out of my system on the way home, pointing out how disappointed I was that he’d lost his rag so completely, and also to reflect on exactly what might have happened had the teacher not immediately intervened. How much worse might it have been? I’d also come down hard – I’d felt the time had come to be so – on what was becoming a litany of a typical twelve-year-old’s excuses: ‘But she said … but he said … but, but, but, but …’

‘And you’re going to lose points, of course,’ I told him, once we’d got home and were continuing the conversation in the kitchen. I tapped the chart on the fridge freezer. ‘So I’m sorry to say you won’t be able to buy your usual privileges …’ His expression, I could see, was now changing. And not, it appeared, for the better. ‘Justin,’ I said, exasperated, on seeing it. ‘You
know
how these things work, for goodness sake! You’ve been told enough times! You have to realise that actions have consequences! And you need to think about those consequences
before
you act, not after. And it wouldn’t hurt for you to reflect on how much you terrified that poor girl. How do you think
you’d
like it to be pinned down and threatened by someone who was so much bigger and stronger than –’

But I didn’t manage to get to the end of my small tirade, because Justin suddenly yanked something out of his jacket, pulling frantically to free it from the edge of the pocket, where it had caught. And I could see from the way he was struggling to pull it out that it was obviously something quite big and hefty. It was only when he lifted it and put it against the side of his head that I realised what it was – it was a staple gun. The sort of staple gun they use in schools to staple posters to walls. A big, heavy staple gun, with a trigger.

‘Justin, where did you get that?’ I snapped at him, horrified.

‘I stole it!’ he came back at me, his voice high with anger. ‘I stole it from school and there’s nothing you can do about it!’

‘Put it down, Justin,’ I said, trying to keep my voice firm and level. I took a step towards him. ‘Come on, hand it over. This is ridiculous. You’ve been told off because you’ve done something wrong, and the first thing you want to do is to –’

‘Shut up!’ he screamed at me. ‘Just shut up, okay? One more word out of you and I’ll shoot it, I swear!’

‘Justin,’ I tried again. ‘Stop being silly, now. That would hurt you,
really
hurt you, if you pulled that trigger, trust me. Come on,’ I said, conscious, even as I did so, that Justin had no fear of hurting himself, did he? So why would that act as any sort of deterrent? Even so, I had to say it. Had to say
something
. ‘Come, on,’ I repeated. ‘Give it to me. Hand it over.’

I took another step towards him and then, unbelievably, before my astonished eyes, he did squeeze the trigger, and shot a staple straight into the side of his head. The noise was sickening.

‘Oh my God, Justin!’ I cried, as two bright blood spots appeared at his temple. ‘Look what you’ve done! Come on, let me take a look at that, you silly b –’

‘Fucking get away!’ he hissed. ‘Just fucking get away from me, okay? You see what your big mouth does? You just can’t keep it shut, can you?’

Then, to my consternation, he calmly pulled the staple from his temple, causing two thick tracks of blood to start oozing down his face.

‘Justin, please …’

He lifted the staple gun again, this time waving it towards me. ‘Just keep away from me,’ he growled. ‘Or I swear I’ll fucking stab you. And you can blab to Mike and Kieron all you like. I don’t care!’

I took a deep breath. I was going to have to disarm him. I had to. I needed – badly needed – for him to know who was boss here. This was what
he
needed. Needed as much as he needed anything. Like an out-of-control toddler, all this child really needed was someone to reel him in, to make him stop.

No child wanted this. No child wanted to wield such frightening power. He was less aggressor than a cornered, injured animal. I knew I had to keep that in mind at all times. And, crucially, to convey that to
him
. ‘Look, Justin,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you
will
put down that staple gun, I mean it. I don’t care how big and strong you think you are. Trust me, if I have to, I
will
take it from you. And I don’t care who you blab to about it, either. Okay?’

I kept my eyes locked on his. He was shocked at what I’d said to him. I could see that. And it made it so obvious that he just wasn’t used to being spoken to in this way. You created a monster out of a child and that was what happened, I thought grimly. They behaved so monstrously that everyone became too scared to tackle them, just making their behaviour – their lack of self-control – even worse, and so just perpetuating the problem you’d created.

He blinked at me, twice, though said absolutely nothing. And it was in that instant, that I knew I’d got through to him. A second later, the staple gun was thrust down onto the kitchen worktop with a clatter, and Justin stormed off to his room.

I picked it up – it was so heavy; thank God he hadn’t taken it upon himself to throw it at me – then took in a long, slow, deep breath, and exhaled it.

Once again, I was standing in the kitchen shaking.

I left Justin to stew for a few hours. I felt we’d reached a watershed in terms of his response to being punished. That, actually, some good would have come from this incident. That perhaps he now knew it should be him worrying about facing
me
, for a change. I felt he was getting too comfortable in the knowledge that whenever he did something unacceptable, it would work in his favour to storm off for a couple of hours, knowing that I would worry and then go up to make things right.

I tried to ring John Fulshaw, but his mobile was off, so rather than ring Harrison Green, who I really didn’t want to speak to, I sent an email to John explaining what had happened and asking if he had any suggestions.

When Justin hadn’t come down at his regular tea time, my earlier resolve was starting to weaken and I knew that, once again, I would have to be the pacifier. Mike had arrived home from work and after I updated him on the day’s events, he too thought that perhaps I should take Justin some food up. ‘But don’t make
too
much of a fuss,’ he counselled. ‘Just give him something to eat and then get straight to the point. He’ll know then that you’re not playing the usual game.’

It was gone seven in the evening when I finally went up to see him. I’d prepared a mug of hot chocolate and brought a couple of biscuits, and hoped that by now he’d be feeling calm enough for us to talk about what had happened. Not the incident with the staple gun – there was nothing to discuss there – but what had happened in school to provoke such a rage, and how best we could find ways to help him deal with his anger. He was clearly carrying so much distress and hurt that it was an unremitting pressure; threatening to spill over into violence at the slightest thing.

As I knocked softly on the door, I was feeling calmer too. The solution was to talk, and to talk, and to talk. He needed to be listened to. Needed to have his voice heard.

There was no answer, and I wondered if he’d already fallen asleep, so I pushed open the door and went in. The sight that greeted me, however, was in some ways more distressing than the ugly scene in the kitchen that afternoon.

Justin was sitting on his bed, in his pyjamas, his knees bent almost to his chin and his feet bare. In his hands was a shard of CD that he’d obviously broken, and his feet, I saw with horror, were a mess of sticky blood.

He looked up at me, quite calmly, and then followed my gaze, which had come to rest on the full extent of the damage he’d done to himself. He’d gouged holes all around his nails, the skin livid, torn and bloody, and had actually managed to pull both of his big toenails clean off.

I couldn’t help it. My eyes filled with tears and as I held out my hand for the jagged bit of plastic, I began crying. He handed it to me passively, without words.

He began climbing into bed then. ‘Justin, stop,’ I said. ‘Wait. I have to clean those …’

He waited. I put the hot chocolate and biscuits on the bedside table, then ran to the bathroom for cotton wool and antiseptic and warm water and plasters, my eyes, all the while, still misted by tears.

When I returned, he sat silently while I attended to his feet, and, feeling far too emotional for words now myself, I was happy for him to be so. We needed to talk, but the time wasn’t now.

‘Into bed now,’ I said, finally, once I was all done. I stood up. ‘I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning.’

It felt ridiculous to even think that, let alone voice it, but what else was there to say but a platitude? Of
course
he wouldn’t feel any better in the morning because he already felt better right
now
. He felt better because he’d subjected himself to physical agony to still the desperate pain of all the stuff that was clamouring inside his head. He felt better because he’d torn his feet to shreds and pulled off two toenails. What an impossibly high mountain we still had to climb. ‘Drink your chocolate,’ I said finally. ‘Before it gets cold.’ Then I stooped and kissed his head, and left the room.

I felt in bits, I realised, as I walked slowly back down stairs. Out of my depth, and in bits.

After the whole issue of the exclusion and Justin’s further bout of self-harming, if you’d asked me what would be the very last thing he needed right now, seeing his mother would have definitely topped the list.

Yet, apparently, that was what was going to happen.

I’d heard nothing from Harrison Green for quite a long time, though I did know John Fulshaw had spoken to him, following my call about the recent school exclusion. And he hadn’t been terribly helpful, John confided. When he’d asked about perhaps getting some more support put in place, Harrison’s response, according to John, had been bordering on the flippant. A sort of ‘Kids, eh? Who’d have ’em!’ kind of attitude. It was an attitude that struck me – even if it had been said in jest – as somewhat unprofessional under the circumstances. And John had agreed.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, I wasn’t too thrilled to be hearing from Harrison now. And it wasn’t just because I had my issues with him personally, either – but because what he was saying to me today completely took my breath away.

‘Yes, it’s good news,’ he announced breezily, having gone through the motions of asking how Justin was doing, yet not appearing at all interested in my answers. ‘Janice has told me she’s willing to see him.’

Willing? How dare she be ‘
willing
’ to see him! ‘
Oh
, is she?’ I answered, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

He seemed not to hear it – or, if he had, he wasn’t playing ball. ‘Yes, she feels she’s ready to have some contact with him again. She’s willing to give him another chance.’

I felt my blood boil. That word again, ‘chance’. I was livid. Like she was doing Justin – doing all of us – such a big favour. Like she didn’t actually have any responsibility for him at all. It was her and not him who should be all out of chances. ‘Oh, is that right?’ I answered shortly. ‘How very gracious of her. And when is this “contact” meant to happen?’

‘This Friday,’ he said brightly. ‘If it’s not too much trouble for you both.’

Stupid man, I thought. Of course it would be trouble. Had he completely forgotten that Mike had a full-time job and that Janice lived several hours’ drive away? Did he really think it was that simple for him to take a day off work? At three days’ notice?

God, how I hated his tone. He seemed so totally focussed on keeping this woman sweet, and to hell with the damage it might do to Justin. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that in almost all cases promoting and keeping contact with a child’s birth family was crucial to their sense of identity. I also knew, and understood, that, again, in most cases, a child could see no wrong in their parents, and craved their love and affection, however paltry the amount they received. But was it just me who saw right through Janice? Was it just me who saw how manipulative she was? How she got everyone around her dancing to her tune? Including Justin. And including Harrison Green.

‘No trouble at all,’ I said sweetly, not wanting to give him any reason to think I was going out of my way to be obstructive. He wanted Friday, he’d bloody get Friday. ‘What is it this time?’ I added, my voice, by itself, growing even more sugary. ‘New bloke on the scene, is it? New boyfriend to try and impress? Or just some more bad news for Justin that she’s anxious to pass on?’ I knew I was being childish; it wasn’t Harrison Green who was the monster here. But I wondered, and not for the first time these past months, if he knew anything like as much about Justin as I now did. Had he bothered to read up on all the new things John Fulshaw had found out for me? I didn’t think so. Not for a minute.

‘I’ve no idea, Casey,’ he answered, sounding just a tiny bit irritable now. ‘She just rang me and asked if she could see him this week. She probably feels bad about what happened last time. Wants to put things right. Try again.’

I nearly choked on the bile that rose in my throat as he said this. Did he
really
believe that? If so, he was even more naive than I’d thought. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘as long as Mike can arrange a day off work, we’ll take him up there for a few hours on Friday. Only this time, I think we’ll stick around.’

Justin himself was as happy as Larry when I told him. He was like the cat with the cream; simply couldn’t stop beaming. It was as if he’d completely forgotten what had happened the last time; not at all that he remembered and was just putting on a brave face. Quite the contrary. It was as if it had never happened at all.

It was now early August – a whole seven months since Justin had last seen his mother. Their only contact in the interim had been via the continuing strained (and now rather sporadic) phone call he was allowed to make to her, still always heartbreaking in its awkwardness and banality.

It was heartbreaking
not
to listen. Justin was allowed to call his mother weekly – and she was encouraged to phone him often, although that barely happened (and only at times when I knew she’d had a recent visit from social services). Of course, whenever I reminded Justin that it was phone time, he would often make excuses not to ring. ‘Oh, she’ll be bathing the kids at this time,’ he’d say. ‘I’ll ring another day. I promise’

Recognising his reluctance – and why wouldn’t he be reluctant, given how toe-curling their ‘conversations’ were to overhear? I’m sure I would be – I never pushed it, but just let him phone her whenever he asked.

Which wasn’t often. Thinking about it, I now realised that I couldn’t actually recall when last they’d spoken. She would now, I also realised, be quite heavily pregnant, if not actually due. I hoped her hormones didn’t add to what would be a stressful encounter, by making her any more volatile that she’d already proved to be.

It was a sultry sort of day, the kind you often see in August, and not the best kind of conditions in which to embark on a long drive. Though the oppressiveness of the atmosphere, as we sped along the motorway, was, at least, a match for my own heavy heart. I’d had a bad feeling about this visit from the off, and it was stubbornly refusing to go away.

We arrived at the house at around eleven in the morning. ‘Lovely day for it,’ observed Mike cheerfully, as Justin gathered up his stuff. He’d brought his portable Nintendo so he could play games on the journey, and his favourite hoodie, which he now shrugged back on. Beneath it he wore a T-shirt with a wrestling image on it. It was one his mum had bought him – a couple of years ago, by the look of it – and was really much too small for him. I’d tried to talk him out of it, joking that his mum would think we hadn’t bought him any clothes, but he was adamant. So I let him have his way.

I looked out of the car window at the run-down estate, taking in the overgrown gardens with chunks of fencing missing, and the stray detritus of broken furniture and abandoned, buckled toys. I felt anything but cheerful, but I kept up a facade of jollity and smiles, for Justin’s sake. I could see just how nervous he was about seeing her – this woman who’d caused him so many years of pain.

They must have been looking out for us, because the front door opened within seconds of us pulling up outside, though the first glimpse I got of Janice was very fleeting. She stood in the doorway, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun as she squinted across the garden to get a look at me. As I got out, to let Justin out, I smiled in her direction, politely raising my hand in a little wave. She smiled back but immediately turned around and walked back inside leaving the front door open ready, but unmanned, for Justin.

Some welcome, I decided, as Justin clambered from the back seat. I’d have at least expected that she would come out and greet us, however briefly. But then, I thought, given all that had happened since we’d had him, perhaps we were the ‘enemy’. There was no logic to that, obviously, but I felt it even so. Could she feel the ripples of my disapproval swirling like a noxious mist down her front path?

‘I’ve got my mobile,’ I whispered, as I gave Justin a quick kiss and hug goodbye. ‘We’ll just be in town, so … well. You know … when you’re ready for us to come back and get you …’

He nodded once, his eyes bright, and trotted meekly down the path. Watching him go, I felt he suddenly looked so young.

We got back into the car just as the front door closed behind him.

‘Ding ding, round two,’ Mike said, softening his words with a grin. ‘So, while they’re at it, love, where shall we go, then?’ I grinned too, but it didn’t matter how much we tried to make light of it; we were both braced, like coiled springs, for the next meltdown.

Shopping. That was the best thing. Take my mind off it all. ‘Driver,’ I said, in my best upper-class voice, ‘to a baby shop, please. And make it snappy!’

The call came from Justin about an hour and a half later. We’d been mooching round the shops, our minds not really on booties and buggies and baby paraphernalia, but on him, and I heard my phone straight away because I’d been walking around with it in my jacket pocket. I’d popped it in there because I never heard it in my handbag – voicemail always beat me to it – and this was one call I didn’t want to miss.

But even so, it was a call no normal caring person would have wanted to take either. Justin was crying, crying hard, really howling down the phone.

‘Come and get me, Casey, please,’ he sobbed, amid all sorts of other noise. It sounded like there was some sort of struggle going on. And I could hear his mother shouting at him as clearly as I could hear him. So she must, I thought, really be giving it some welly. And she was. ‘Yeah, that’s right, grass, you just do what you do best! Fucking little grass, you are – as if I don’t have enough on my fucking plate! Go on then –’ there were more sounds, all too difficult to identify. ‘Go on, hit me if you think you’re fucking hard enough!’

Her voice cut through the other sounds like fingers down a blackboard. I wondered briefly what the two little ones must be thinking about all this. What a thing to witness. It was shocking.

I started shouting too, then, in order to be heard.’ Justin!
Justin
!’ I said. ‘It’s okay, love. Keep calm. We’re just in town, okay. We’ll be there in five or ten minutes, no more. Just try to keep calm. We’re on our way.’

‘Okay,’ I heard him say. ‘But hurry, Casey, please! She’s a psycho! She’s punching me …’

Once again, Janice’s voice cut through his sobbing, even as I kept trying to reassure him. By now, the two of us were jogging back through the shopping mall to the exit. ‘You’re the fucking nut-job!’ she screeched at him. ‘Making all that shit up to the social workers! Spit at me again an’ I swear I’ll knock you out, you little bastard!
No
fucker wants you, you hear? So they’d better fucking hurry …’

I only hung up once we reached the underground car park. My hand was shaking violently. Five or ten minutes. Could we honestly get there in five or ten minutes? And, anyway, what might have happened by then? I filled Mike in on what I’d heard Janice say, fighting to keep my voice level as he pulled out into the beginnings of the early rush-hour traffic and we sped off. His face was white with anger, and he was driving far too fast. ‘Calm down,’ I kept saying. ‘Watch your speed. Watch your speed, Mike!’

‘Why?’ he spat. But I knew he wasn’t talking about his speed. ‘Why do we have to do this, eh, Case? Why are we being made to keep putting this kid
through
this?
Eh
? God, isn’t he already damaged enough?’

When we reached the house I could see Justin peering out of a front window. He disappeared from view almost as soon as I saw him, and reappeared soon after, running out of the front door. He came straight up the path and started tugging at the passenger door even before I’d had a chance to unlock it for him. I clambered out, and immediately saw his dirty, tear-stained face. He was clearly desperate to be gone so I flipped the back of my seat down and helped him into the back, aware, as I looked back, that Janice was once again in her doorway, but now she wasn’t smiling. She was shouting, really loudly.

‘Go on, fuck off!’ she railed at us all, waving her hand in wide arcs. ‘Go on, fuck off the lot of you, you fucking snobs! Poking your fucking noses in my business! How dare you! It’s all your fucking fault, is all this!’

She was pointing straight at me as she said this and I found myself wavering. Between getting back into the car and marching up to her to give her a piece of my mind. She might think she was scary but she didn’t frighten me.

But Mike, I suspect, must have noticed my body language. ‘Casey!’ he snapped. ‘Just get in the car. Now!’

Fuming, I jumped in and clamped my lips tight together. He was right. A ranting tirade from me would help nothing. Would probably make things even worse. It was probably the last thing Justin needed to witness. He’d suffered more than enough adults who preferred to behave like children, and there was no way on earth that I wanted to join their sorry ranks. It was hard though. Hard to leave her there shouting the odds, unchallenged. This was so wrong. It took many, many miles for me to calm down.

Justin was silent, completely silent, all the way home. We didn’t press him. He’d talk when he felt able to talk. Best for now that we didn’t attempt to process what had happened. Best thing would be for him to sleep. Which he did.

It felt like a very long journey back. No-one spoke, Justin because he’d clearly withdrawn into himself, and me because I didn’t dare open my mouth; I was too terrified of what would come out of it. Mike just drove, his eyes resolutely fixed on the road ahead. The time for post-mortems would be later.

Once in the house, Justin went straight up to his bedroom, refusing all offers of something to eat or drink.

‘That’s fine, love,’ I reassured him, plonking my bag down and stretching. I felt stiff and drained, both inside and out. ‘No wonder you’re not hungry,’ I added, squeezing his shoulder. ‘You can have something later. I’ve got crumpets in …’

But he didn’t want to know. He was too locked into his misery to even acknowledge me properly. He was off up the stairs, barely registering my words.