The Girl Who Couldn't Smile (13 page)

Tush wrung out the mop. ‘But why? Isn’t being loved a good thing?’

I thought about that. ‘Want some coffee?’

‘Please.’

I put on the kettle and spooned some grounds into the cafetière. ‘When people love you, particularly if you love them back, they can hurt you – you make yourself vulnerable.
If you think everybody hates you, well, it’s no big deal when they let you down. For a kid who really fears rejection, being hated might be a lot easier.’

Tush looked glumly at the kettle as it started to steam. ‘She’s so young to be thinking in that way.’

‘I don’t reckon any of it’s conscious. But I think that is one very confused and unhappy little girl.’

Tush sighed deeply. ‘So what do we do about it?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘when she wakes up, we take her home and have a very long and frank discussion with her parents.’

‘Oh, good,’ Tush said. ‘I love confrontation.’

When the coffee was made I rang Milandra’s home, and spoke to her grandmother, explaining as briefly as I could what had happened and that we would be dropping the child home as soon as she was fit to travel.

It was another two hours before we were all in Tush’s Volkswagen Golf. Milandra had woken up and asked for a drink of water, then meekly said she would like to go home, please. She sat in the back seat, gazing out of the window, treating Tush and me as if we were not there.

Tush knew the way to Milandra’s – which was just as well, because I had only a vague recollection, and was too tired to think deeply about it. We were there within forty minutes. The child looked so drained when we parked outside the detached bungalow, one of ten on a tree-lined street, that I asked her if she’d like me to carry her. To my great surprise, she nodded. I scooped her up in my arms and took her to the front door.

Our ring was answered by a very beautiful blond woman dressed in a crisp white shirt and designer jeans. I would have put her at around my own age – thirty-five years old. She had concern writ large across her sculpted face. ‘I’m Felicity,
Landra’s mother,’ she said, holding out her arms for the little girl. ‘Please come in.’

We followed her into a tastefully decorated hallway and through to the living room.

‘She’s had quite an afternoon, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘Gave us something of a scare.’

Milandra wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck, her head resting on her shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Felicity said. ‘She’s always been very highly strung.’

‘My concern is that she could have hurt Mitzi badly,’ I said. ‘Does she fly into these blind rages at home?’

‘Almost every day,’ Felicity said, laughing nervously. ‘Sometimes she scares me, too. I don’t know what gets into her.’

‘She’s a very clever girl,’ Tush said. ‘She can read well above the standard for her age, and her levels of numeracy are excellent. She should be at school. It’s her behaviour that’s stopping her.’

‘What should I do?’ Felicity said. ‘My mother says we over-indulge her. That we should spank her.’

‘I’m not suggesting that for a second,’ I said, ‘but maybe you do need to set some clear boundaries and stick with them. Milandra must see that violence and aggression are unacceptable ways of expressing herself.’

As I said this, a door opened behind me and a tall, extremely handsome man came out, wearing what looked to be an expensive suit, his top button open and his silk tie hanging loose.

‘Tony, these are the workers from Landra’s crèche,’ Felicity said.

The man walked straight up to me and came very close. We would have been nose to nose had I been taller, but I
found myself peering at his ample chest. I had to raise my head to look him in the eye.

‘You have trouble handling my daughter, Mr Dunphy?’

‘No,’ I said, hardly believing what I was hearing. ‘I think I handled her quite well actually.’

‘I heard she broke things, attacked other children,’ Tony continued. He pronounced every word very precisely. ‘You cannot keep your charges under control.’

‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for two of the adults in your daughter’s life to be having a conversation like this while she’s upset,’ I said.

‘Because I’m coming close to the truth,’ Tony said. ‘This makes you uncomfortable.’

‘You’re making me feel uncomfortable, all right,’ I said. ‘Come on, Tush.’

‘Your job is not an honourable one for a man to do,’ Tony said, as I walked towards the door. ‘In my country, only one kind of man works with children.’

I spun around, trying to keep anger in check. I had heard this opinion countless times in my career, but I was tired, sore – and utterly pissed off by this man’s antagonistic attitude.

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘what kind of man works with children in your country.’

‘We call him
ôkùnrin ábökùnrinlò
,’ Tony said, smiling like a crocodile might smile at a tapir that has wandered too close to the wrong watering-hole.

‘Tony, stop right now,’ Felicity said. ‘These people are our guests.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ I said. ‘And what does that mean?’

‘I’m sure you are a resourceful man,’ my host said. ‘Why don’t you find out?’

Tush took my arm. ‘Come on, Shane. I think we should go.’

‘Yes, your lady would like to leave, now,’ Tony said.

He took Milandra from Felicity’s arms and kissed her. ‘You have been a naughty girl, have you, precious?’

Milandra nodded and cuddled into her father.

‘You are a fierce warrior, are you not?’ he said.

Sickened, I let Tush lead me out.

Tush said nothing when we got into the car, but she drove like a woman possessed down the narrow country roads, not slowing down until we were two villages away.

‘That fucking horrible,
horrible
man!’ she said, tears starting to stream down her cheeks as she finally let the frustration and unfairness of the experience come to the fore.

‘He’s a keeper all right,’ I said.

She looked at me in disbelief, then burst out laughing. ‘I thought he was going to kill you,’ she said.

‘He’s a bit scary,’ I agreed. ‘Easy to see where Milandra gets it from.’

‘What did he call you?’

‘I can’t remember, to be honest, but I know what it means.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’d be Yoruba for “eunuch” or “homosexual” or “
lady-boy
” or something of that nature.’

‘Because you work with kids.’

‘Yup. I’ve heard it a million times before, and in several languages, actually.’

‘Do you know what’s kind of a pity?’ Tush asked.

‘What?’

‘That Lonnie wasn’t there. I’d have loved to see what Tony and Lonnie would have made of one another.’

It was my turn to laugh. Indeed, Lonnie’s reaction to Tony’s absurd machismo would have been priceless.

‘You like him a lot, don’t you?’ I asked Tush.

‘He’s great, yeah.’

‘Don’t you start acting tough on me!’ I said. ‘It’s not a bad thing to have feelings for someone.’

She glanced at me from the corner of her eye, tapping the steering wheel with her fingers as if it were a bongo drum. ‘Yeah. I do like him. He’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. He’s funny and cute and brainy, and he’s great with the kids.’

‘So,’ I said, ‘are you going to tell him?’

‘I don’t know how,’ she said. ‘He’s a bit older than me and he has so much experience, and I just feel so … so young and stupid when I’m around him.’

‘Jesus, you’re a right fucking pair,’ I said.

I could have told her that she was, in all likelihood, twice as worldly wise as Lonnie, that their age was irrelevant and that he was just as mad about her as she was about him, but I kept my mouth shut. Nature would, I hoped, take its course. In the meantime, all I wanted was a glass of whiskey, something to eat and a good night’s sleep. The rest of the world’s problems would just have to wait.

I woke up the next day feeling as if I hadn’t slept a wink, although I had actually turned in for the night at just before nine. I made some scrambled eggs and poured a glass of juice and took it out to the garden. It was already shaping up to be a lovely day, and the birdsong was a welcome alternative to the bad news that dominated on the radio.

I wanted to spend time doing something light and pleasant. The wretchedness of the previous day had left me with no appetite for difficulty or drama. What could we do in Little Scamps that would help take our minds off the troubles that so often hung over the little group like storm clouds? I watched a mistle thrush, perched on one of my gate posts, singing its heart out, and the answer came to me.

‘“Whistle while you work,”’ I said to the bird, toasting it with my glass. ‘Hum a merry tune.’

‘Is that a toy?’ Gilbert asked.

He was looking at my ukulele, which, for the uninitiated, looks like a tiny toy guitar with four strings. If you study the history of the instrument you will find that Gilbert was far from the first person to question if such a frivolous-seeming
item could be a legitimate part of the musical pantheon – back in the 1920s the Musicians Union of America had debated whether or not uke players should be permitted membership. A formidable lady called May Breen persuaded it that they certainly should, and in one fell swoop cemented the instrument’s place in folk and jazz history.

I had decided that the ukulele was the ideal accompaniment for a music session: it has a light, deft tone, and seems somehow less serious than other instruments – it’s difficult to play a mournful song on a uke.

‘No,’ I told Gilbert and everyone else. ‘This is not a toy. Listen.’

I played a D-seventh chord in tremolo, and the group clapped loudly. Milandra had not come in, which, sad to say, had lightened the general mood: everyone was a little relieved.

‘Now, I know you’re all really good singers because I’ve heard you sing lots of times,’ I said. ‘Today I want to teach you a new song. It’s very easy to learn, and it’s all about animals.’

‘Like bunny rabbits?’ Rufus asked.

‘Well, I’m not sure there are any rabbits in
this
song,’ I said, ‘but there are lots of other animals of all kinds.’

‘Moo cows?’ Jeffrey said.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘I’m going to sing it. I want you to join in and help me out because, d’you know, I might not be able to remember all the words. It’s been a very long time since I sang this one. Will you give me a hand?’

The children said they would help, as did Susan (still pale and refusing to talk about Birthdaygate), Tush and Lonnie.

I played a short introduction, a simple finger pick between the G and D-seventh chords, then began to sing.

The first verse is all about how wonderful elephants are, and illustrates this point by commenting on how they love to
eat bananas and swing from tree to tree. Of course, by the time I was halfway through the line, half the children in the group had shouted me down. I pretended to be surprised at the interruption. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘That’s not elephants!’ Rufus said. ‘That’s a monkey.’

‘Oh,’ I said, scratching my head. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah,’ Ross said. ‘Dat should def’n’y be monkeys dere.’

‘Okay, then,’ I said. ‘Here we go again.’

I began the next verse by singing about how I liked monkeys, particularly how they loved to swim in the ocean. I barely got the first word of that line out.

‘No! That’s fish you’re thinkin’ of,’ Gus said.

‘Fish?’ I said. ‘Well, I told you I hadn’t sung this song for a long time.’

The fish in the next verse scratched at fleas and barked at the postman. The kids were laughing now. They’d realized it was a game, and jumped right in before I had a chance to move on.

‘Tha’s a dog!’ Jeffrey said.

We had dogs who curled up on the windowsill, purred and chased mice, cats who said ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’, roosters that lived in the forest and stole honey from beehives, bears that sat on lilypads and ate flies, frogs that lived in holes in the wall and ate cheese … We had great fun with the song (written by a hugely talented children’s entertainer called Eric Herman), and when we finally got to the end (it’s easy to string it out to nearly ten minutes) the children called for it again. I got a great kick out of watching them waiting for me to make the mistakes. I made different ones this time, mixing it up so they would have to identify each creature as I attributed its characteristics to a totally different hairy, feathered or scaled beast.

When I had completed my encore, I invited the children
to sing something for me. They were not backward about coming forward. Jeffrey sang a rather unusual version (in that it had no discernible melody) of ‘Molly Malone’ and we all joined in with gusto. Ross sang the chorus of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ about ten times (Lonnie finally stopped him by clapping loudly). Arga sang something in Polish, which Lonnie explained was an old folk song.

But it was Mitzi who surprised us all. When Arga had finished her song Mitzi slid off her chair so she was actually standing (a rare occurrence in itself) and began to sing in a soft, unbelievably sweet voice. It was a song from that bastion of 1970s television,
The Muppet Show
, called
The
Rainbow Connection
, usually performed by Kermit the Frog, accompanying himself on a five-string banjo. The song is about hope, loss and belief in the inherent decency of people. I wondered where she could have heard it, and assumed her parents must have taught her – they were hippie types, after all, and the beautiful mysticism of the lyric has been adopted by all sorts of groups and wrapped around many different interpretations since it first became popular thirty-odd years ago.

When Mitzi finished her rendition she gave an awkward, shy curtsy and tried to get back on to her chair – unsuccessfully. Tush had to go over and help.

‘That was amazing, Mitzi,’ Lonnie said, when the applause died down.

‘I never heard you singin’ afore, Mitzi,’ Ross said. ‘How come?’

‘A girl likes to have her secrets, children,’ Mitzi said, twiddling her thumbs and smiling to herself.

‘Well, I, for one, would like to hear more from you,’ I said. ‘You’re a very talented lady.’

‘I have the voice of an angel, yes, I do,’ Mitzi agreed.

‘I’ll be calling on you again, angel,’ I said. ‘So you’d better do some practising.’

At lunch I sat outside with Susan.

‘How you doing?’ I asked.

‘Not so good,’ she admitted. ‘I can’t believe I misread Milandra so badly. I thought I knew her. She’s been with us since she was three years old. How could I have been so wrong?’

‘I don’t think you were.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘You heard her wish – you gave her exactly what she wanted. It was like you’d read her mind, for Chrissakes. But you’ve heard the saying “Be careful what you wish for.” I think she got what she wanted, and it scared the bejesus out of her.’

Susan was sitting on the wooden rim of the sand container, a mug of tea cupped between her hands. ‘Explain.’

‘I worked with a kid in residential care once, a long time ago. He was my key-child – I had special responsibility for him – and I thought he was a great young fella, a real sweetheart. But life had dealt him a rough hand. He’d been orphaned when he was a baby, and shoved around from pillar to post between a lot of different care settings. So he was angry a lot of the time. Not like Milandra – he didn’t smash things or hit people. He was just … sad, I suppose.’

‘Poor kid.’

‘Yeah. My first Christmas with him he told me the one thing he wanted was a bike. And not just any bike. He had gone down to the local bicycle shop and picked out a beautiful red Chopper.’

‘Is that a cool bike?’

‘Yeah. Pretty damn cool.’

‘So you got it for him?’

‘Ah, if only it were that simple. You see, for my little boy, this bike became so much more than just a Christmas present. He talked about it day and night. “When I get my bike on Christmas morning, I’m going to do this or that.” Like “When I have my bike, I’ll be the fastest kid on the street. When my bike comes, everyone is going to want a ride on it.” This bicycle was going to be the best thing ever to happen in his life.’

‘The cure for all his ills.’

‘Exactly. Except there was a problem. I had a budget to purchase gifts for him, and I can tell you, this bike was way, way beyond that amount. I went to my boss and I begged and pleaded, but he
couldn’t
budge. So I went over his head, to the care manager. He agreed, after no small amount of weeping and wailing on my behalf, to stump up the extra few quid. And I got the bike.’

‘Was your boy happy?’

I laughed sadly. ‘For about an hour. Now remember, he wasn’t like Milandra – he didn’t throw it off a bridge or set fire to it. He started to find fault. Why didn’t I tell him the bell sounded like that? Why weren’t the handlebars wider? Surely it was a brighter red in the shop – had I even got the right one? By five o’clock Christmas night, he was up in his room crying his eyes out, shouting that I had ruined Christmas.’

‘And in a way you had,’ Susan said.

‘That’s right. By giving him exactly what he wanted.’

‘Because it
wasn’t
what he wanted at all.’

I put my own cup down and yawned in the sunlight. I was tired, but happy with how the day had gone so far. ‘No, it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted his parents back, and not to be in care any more, and never to wake up with that hole full of sadness inside him. Somehow, in his confusion and pain, he got to believing a new red Chopper would give him all those things.’

‘But it didn’t,’ Susan said.

‘No. It was just a bike. A cool bike, but just a bike for all that.’

Susan nodded and looked wistfully at our ragamuffin bunch of children, playing a game of tag among the play equipment, with Lonnie as It.

‘So what does Milandra really want, then? She has two parents who seem to love her, a nice house, she’s pretty and smart … I don’t get it.’

I shrugged. ‘Damned if I know. From what I could see, her dad seems to encourage her aggression.’

‘Yeah, I heard he was a bit of a prick, all right,’ Susan said.

‘We’re just going to have to watch this space, and see what emerges,’ I said. ‘But, more pressingly, what did you make of Mitzi?’

We both looked over at her, sitting in a corner of the yard on her own, eating a peanut-butter sandwich.

‘She’s a dark horse, isn’t she?’ Susan said.

‘She is,’ I said, ‘but she let her guard down.’

‘How?’

‘The kid has a lot of raw talent,’ I said, ‘but she must have practised some, too. She loves to sing. Other than eating and being a bit evil, have we ever known anything else Mitzi likes to do?’

Susan grinned. ‘No, we haven’t.’

‘The question,’ I said slowly, ‘is how we can use this new information to make Mitzi a happier, healthier little girl.’

It was a problem that had both of us stumped.