by Penny Parkes
Not, in fact, her dad.
Or even her mum.
Just a nice lady with tightly curled grey hair and dog hair on her navy-blue trousers. Sure, she seemed nice, but then what did it really matter? Wherever she went – and even at nine Anna was shrewd enough to know this – it would only be for a little while. Nobody could adopt her; she already had a mum and dad. They just didn’t want to be with her.
‘Hello,’ said Anna politely.
‘Hello yourself,’ said the lady, her smiling eyes taking in everything about the tiny scrappy bundle that was Anna Wilson, aged nine and three quarters. ‘Jackie tells me you like dogs? Is that right?’
Anna nodded warily.
‘I have three dogs – Benji, Jasper and Nitwit – would you like to see some pictures?’ the lady said, holding out a small bundle of smooth, glossy photographs.
Was she just bragging, Anna wondered. She herself, obviously, had no dogs, and here was this lady with no name who had three!
‘I’m Anna,’ Anna said, and the lady gave a tinkly laugh that sounded like a windchime.
‘Of course you are. And I’ve forgotten my manners in all the excitement. I’m Marjorie. And, if you’d like to, Jackie has arranged for you to come and live at my house. With me.’ She laughed again, a little more nervously this time. ‘And the dogs obviously. I suspect that’s the bigger incentive.’
Anna had no idea what an incentive was, but she understood what this meeting was about. Girls at the home had meetings like this all the time; some of them she never saw again – off to enjoy their happy ever after – but some of them came back, tired, quiet and tearful.
‘Would you like to see a picture of my house?’ Marjorie said, looking questioningly at Jackie, possibly unnerved by Anna’s lack of reaction. She flicked through the photographs and the three funny-looking dogs disappeared to be replaced by a small, fat bungalow that was painted a funny dull green colour so it looked like a bogey.
Anna looked up at Jackie, trying to work out what they wanted her to say.
‘Aren’t you a lucky girl?’ Jackie said, prompting her. ‘Fancy getting to have your very own bedroom and three dogs to play with?’
‘Thank you,’ said Anna dutifully, realising this was the bit where she was supposed to be grateful.
‘Do you like gardening?’ Marjorie asked hopefully. ‘There’s a little vegetable patch round the back where we can grow our own food. Won’t that be fun for us to do together?’
Anna nodded. ‘That sounds lovely,’ she said, trying not to let her words sound as hollow as she felt.
‘What do you enjoy doing, Anna?’ Marjorie asked, not taken in for an instant.
‘I like books,’ blurted Anna. ‘Stories mainly.’
‘Then you and I are going to be just fine,’ Marjorie said, visibly relaxing.
Jackie stood up, looking at her watch, all business. ‘Well then, no time like the present to get you settled in, Anna. Grab your stuff, darlin’, and we’ll drive over to Marjorie’s house.’
‘Just like that?’ Anna asked, looking from Jackie to Marjorie, thrown off balance. ‘I’m not going back to the home?’
Jackie shook her head, a smile tightening the skin across her cheekbones. ‘You’ve got a new home now, Anna. So you’ll want to meet Bernard and Jerry—’
‘Benji and Jasper, you mean?’ Anna said, confused. ‘And Nitwit?’
Jackie’s smile tightened perceptibly more. ‘Of course.’
* * *
Jackie drove like she talked, sharp punctuated bursts that made Anna feel queasy. She was past hungry now and simply nauseated. She clutched her bin-liner beside her on the back seat, hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything back on her bed at the home, listening to Marjorie and Jackie’s conversation, awkward, and probably with all the interesting bits missed out, she guessed, for her benefit.
The sooner people realised that nine was just a number and that Anna saw and heard so much more than they realised, she thought, then the easier life would be. Maybe one day, they might even let her say what she wanted?
It wasn’t that grown-ups made bad choices – not all grown-ups anyway – they just weren’t her choices. And she hated that.
If she was going to be on her own in the world, and she had almost resigned herself to the fact that she was, then at least she, like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, would get to make her own choices. It wasn’t a hug, or a bedtime story, but at least it was something.
They pulled up outside Marjorie’s house; even in the street lights it was just as squat and bogey-like as in the picture.
‘Aren’t you a lucky girl?’ said Jackie again with added pep.
As Anna was ushered from the back seat and in through the front door, she ran those words like a mantra through her head; anything to offset the disillusionment that was sticking in her throat and making her want to cry.
The bungalow smelled funny and the carpet was swirly and brown. Even the barking cacophony of greeting from behind the kitchen door felt new and dangerous. She liked dogs. At least she thought she did.
She looked up at Jackie and forced herself to smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
Chapter 9
Redditch, 1998
‘You understand, though, that this home placement is just temporary,’ Jackie said, biting into a slice of Genoa cake and spraying crumbs everywhere. ‘For now, at least.’
Anna sat beside her, strangely hypnotised by her rhythmic chewing – disgusted, but fascinated. Somehow, Jackie had never seemed like the kind of person who actually ate anything; she was all pointy corners and fake smiles.
Anna sighed, missing Mandy.
Mandy would have noticed the tear tracks on Anna’s face from the drive over, would have noticed the way Anna was twisting her paper napkin into tighter and tighter corkscrews in her lap. In short, Mandy would have noticed that something wasn’t quite right.
Temporary or not – and weren’t her placements always temporary? – Anna felt that horrible pressure in her chest building again, as though the tears were just waiting for the right moment to flow. She wasn’t sad though; she was angry.
But she would not cry in front of Jackie.
No way.
She looked around Marjorie’s sitting room, at the bookshelves and the photographs, trying to imagine living here, her attention caught by some weird and wonderful masks hanging along one wall. Not to mention a carving of a monkey sitting squarely in one corner, at least half as tall as Anna herself, and so lifelike that she almost forgot how determined she was to be cross and waved at him.
‘That’s Myrtle,’ said Marjorie, leaning in, ‘and I traded her in Zimbabwe for three football shirts and some notebooks.’ She said it as though it was the kind of thing a person did every day and, just for a moment, Anna was side-tracked from her furious indignation at being brought here, without even being asked if she wanted to be.
‘She’s carved from a wood called ebony, so that’s why she’s such a lovely dark colour,’ Marjorie continued, deliberately ignoring Jackie’s sigh at the detour in her planned conversation. ‘There’s a beautiful picture book here somewhere about all the animals I met in Africa—’
‘Yes, well, that’s lovely,’ Jackie said. ‘But I’ll need to be off in minute and I want to make sure that you’re settled. Both of you.’ She gave Marjorie one of her stern looks but, much to Anna’s growing delight, it seemed to have little or no effect.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Marjorie said instead, ‘why don’t you take a look at these and then maybe I can persuade you to eat a little something?’
She opened a huge, heavy photograph album onto the table beside Anna and opened it up to show photographs of lions and elephants and zebras. Except in some of the photographs you could see Marjorie as well. Like she was actually there! Anna could almost feel her eyes widening and she looked at the lady in front of her, in her boring navy trousers and knitted top, in a whole new light.
She jumped as the book slammed closed,
barely missing her fingers.
‘Plenty of time for that later, Anna. Maybe something nice for the two of you to do together when I leave? Aren’t you a lucky girl?’ She smiled, but, as always with Jackie, it was a mouth smile, not a smile that sparkled into your eyes, like Mandy’s had.
‘I’m going to get you some nice cold milk and some Cheddars, Anna,’ Marjorie said firmly, ‘because not everybody likes Genoa cake.’
Anna had never actually tried Genoa cake, but after watching Jackie eat some, she knew it was very likely that she never would now. That fat sultana hanging on to the front of Jackie’s jumper alone made her shudder.
There was a brief scuffle in the kitchen before Marjorie emerged again, carrying a strange plastic jug with a button on the top and a plate of tiny round biscuits that smelled delicious. Anna’s tummy let out a traitorous rumble: there was no point saying she wasn’t hungry; she was always hungry.
But she was also equal parts grumpy and intrigued.
She was angry with Jackie. She was always angry with Jackie. However many times Anna had asked to see her mum, talk to her mum, even just on the phone, Jackie always said no. Always said that Anna would thank her one day, whatever that meant. Thank yous were big in Jackie’s world and Anna was always left feeling rude and ungrateful.
She hadn’t chosen to be here. Temporary or not. And she just wished that people would talk to her properly. Did temporary mean a week, a month?
A month with Marjorie.
She watched as Marjorie pressed the button on the orange jug and tilted it, filling a glass with fresh, cold milk.
‘Try them together,’ nodded Marjorie, sliding the cheesy biscuits across the table towards her.
Marjorie’s smile was a twinkly smile, Anna noticed, as she tentatively took a bite and then a sip. ‘Thank you,’ she said, trying hard not to wolf the whole plateful down and not to dribble milk on her chin. It was nice, she decided, to say thank you for something she actually wanted.
* * *
It seemed to Anna as though both she and Marjorie breathed a little easier once Jackie had left the building, the forced cheerfulness and her bossy insistence on Anna’s good fortune making them both stand a little straighter and mind their Ps and Qs.
‘You know,’ said Marjorie as they waved at the headlights receding into the darkness, ‘I’m not sure that Jackie is always quite right.’
Anna turned and blinked at her in surprise, realising that, without her tall shoes, Marjorie was barely a foot taller than she was. That was nice too, she decided.
‘I mean,’ said Marjorie as they still continued to look out at the driveway, street lights illuminating the quiet cul-de-sac, ‘I rather think that I might be the lucky one.’ She tentatively rested a hand on Anna’s shoulder, pulling away before Anna could even respond or react.
Marjorie reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out three small biscuits in the shape of tiny cartoon dog bones. She held them out to Anna, warm to the touch and slightly crumbly from being carried around all day. ‘Now, do you want to meet the boys?’
Anna hesitated; the barking when she arrived had made all the tiny hairs prickle on the back of her neck. She didn’t think she was afraid, but she was certainly nervous. Holding the biscuits in her palm, she simply nodded, breathing out slowly. It was all too obvious from the look on Marjorie’s face that ‘the boys’ were her pride and joy.
‘Good girl,’ said Marjorie. ‘Now remember, you’re the boss, okay?’
The biscuits grew damp and Anna had to resist the overwhelming urge to stand behind Marjorie as she opened the kitchen door.
‘Nitwit – come!’ said Marjorie in a firm voice that made Anna want to laugh for some reason, especially when she saw the ridiculous tufty little dog that wiggled out through the scarcely open doorway. ‘Sit.’
The sight of his adorable little face, eyes wide with excitement, his fluffy tail wagging so hard that his bottom fidgeted on the spot, was more than Anna could take, and her giggle erupted with such force, it took them all by surprise.
Marjorie laughed too, as much at the astonishment on Anna’s face, it seemed. ‘He is a little funny-looking, isn’t he? And look, he has one blue eye and one brown eye, did you notice? Now gently give him one of the biscuits and you’ll have a friend for life.’
She guided Anna’s hand forward. ‘Gently,’ she said firmly, whether to Nitwit or Anna it wasn’t quite clear. The snuffling of his whiskers against her fingers felt new and strange, but not at all scary. Nitwit took the biscuit with such softness that Anna couldn’t help but laugh again.
Moments later Nitwit was nuzzling against her, looking up at her with his crazy, happy eyes, and Anna knew that Marjorie had been right: they were friends now.
‘I think,’ Anna said seriously, ‘that I like dogs.’
‘Me too,’ said Marjorie, smiling. ‘They’re awfully good at listening you know. And they never think you’re silly for worrying or getting cross,’ she paused, ‘or dancing round the kitchen when your favourite song comes on the radio.’
Anna nodded sagely, her forehead wrinkling in concern. ‘I don’t think I have a favourite song.’
‘Well that’s easy enough to fix – and we can have some fun finding out. While we get to know each other, I’m betting we find out a few things about ourselves as well.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t have a favourite movie, or a favourite meal, or even a favourite cheese—’
Anna frowned. ‘That’s silly – nobody has a favourite cheese.’
‘How do you know?’ countered Marjorie with another friendly smile. ‘Now, are you ready to meet Jasper? He’s big, but he’s a bit slow. Jasper! Come!’
Anna shook her head in disbelief; she’d never met a grown-up who talked like Marjorie. Scratch that, she’d never met a person who talked like Marjorie, as though life was an adventure there for the taking, a quest to discover new favourites.
Jasper, on the other hand, looked as though his idea of an adventure was a long nap in the sunshine; his fur was golden yellow and smooth and he ambled towards Anna with cool indifference. It was as though he expected more from her than just another biscuit. Feeling bold, Anna reached out and stroked his head. ‘Good boy,’ she said before holding out his biscuit.
His tail gave one satisfied thump against her leg, but then he leaned gently against her, his loyalty now clear.
‘Benji! Come!’
The skittering of claws on the lino floor made Anna catch her breath. Jasper was wise, Nitwit was bonkers, but Benji it seemed had the energy of all three – he looped around the sitting room, cornering without grace or style, giving excited yips as he wound himself up into a frenzy.
‘Benji,’ Marjorie said warningly.
Benji dropped to the floor, edging towards Anna on his belly, before rolling over and presenting her with his tummy. ‘What’s he doing?’ Anna said, pulling back in confusion.
Marjorie hitched up her trousers and sat down on the floor. ‘He just wants you to scratch his tummy. He’s just a baby really. See?’ As she put her hand on his tummy, Benji’s tail thwacked back and forth happily.
‘Doesn’t he want his biscuit?’ Anna asked, the last one now clammy in her hand.
‘Let’s see shall we? Benji? Shake hands.’
To Anna’s speechless delight, Benji wriggled around until he was sitting in front of her, nearly eye to eye, and then solemnly offered his paw to her in greeting. After tentatively shaking hands, Anna offered him the biscuit, surprised when he looked to Marjorie for her approval.
‘Good boy, Benji,’ Marjorie said.
Benji took the biscuit from her hand, snuffling slightly for crumbs and tickling her palm, and in that moment Anna fell in love a little. Nitwit was still searching for more treats around her feet, Jasper was leaning against her and Benji just looked at her with his soulful brown eyes.
In that moment, Anna felt like a part of something in a way she hadn’t for years.
They were just dogs, she reminded herself,
but somehow that didn’t matter. With them beside her, she didn’t feel quite so alone anymore.
She pressed her hand over her mouth, embarrassed to be crying when Marjorie had been so kind to her. ‘I’m not sad,’ she managed, laughing a little as Benji leaned in to lick her cheek, with a rough yet gentle thoroughness.
‘It’s been a big day,’ said Marjorie gently, ‘and these daft boys have been so excited to meet you.’ She reached up from her position on the floor beside the dogs and squeezed Anna’s hand. ‘I’ve been so excited to meet you. And if we have a few tears and a few wobbles along the way, well, that’s what being part of a family is like. It won’t all be sunshine and flowers, Anna, but at the end of the day, for as long as we can, we’ll have each other—’
‘—and the boys,’ Anna finished for her, sliding down onto the floor, where Nitwit immediately climbed onto her lap, watching her every move.
‘And the boys,’ Marjorie agreed. ‘You know, Anna, I’ve lived all over the whole wide world and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this: you can live in a lovely house anywhere, but having a dog makes it a home.’
Anna nodded, her fingers already seeking out Nitwit’s soft ginger fur for comfort.
‘Thank you. For inviting me,’ Anna said quietly, and this time the words came straight from her heart. And, as the dogs settled around her, their breath warm, their eyes never leaving her, Anna decided she would remember this moment for ever.
Chapter 10
Redditch, 1999
A month with Marjorie quickly became six and Jackie’s visits became less frequent, the dark cloud of unease she seemed to carry along with her clipboard nevertheless lingering for a while, even after the sickly scent of Shalimar had long since been aired from every room.
Marjorie liked to air things – bed linen thrown back, windows flung wide, thoughts and feelings scattered like punctuation throughout their days.