A Dark Secret

by Casey Watson

  ‘You know,’ I said as I strapped him in (sixty-seven, sixty-eight …), ‘instead of counting all the way to a hundred when you’re stressed or angry, you could try counting to ten or twenty instead. You might find it’s better. It might help you calm down a bit faster.’

  It was as if I’d just burned him. He jolted back into his seat, looking terrified. ‘Where are we really going?’ he demanded.

  ‘To where I said,’ I replied, surprised by the intensity of his sudden fear. ‘Truly Scrumptious. Remember? My sister’s café? For pancakes?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really,’ I said, shutting the door and going round to get in myself. ‘Why ever wouldn’t we, when they do the best pancakes in town?’ I adjusted my rear-view mirror so I could see him. ‘So, you know, you don’t need to count at all, silly sausage. And you know what else? You just did a very good thing. You were upset that you couldn’t finish your programme – I could see that – but you calmed yourself down enough to do the right thing. That was really clever of you. You should be proud. Because I’m very, very proud of you. Anyway,’ I added, smiling at him before re-adjusting the mirror, ‘pancakes here we come, eh? I’m getting a stack of four. How about you?’

  He shrugged, looking gloomy now. Like a condemned man going to the gallows. Something had changed, and there was another hurdle ahead of us. I just knew it. ‘I’m not counting mine,’ he said sullenly. ‘You can count them if you want.’

  And I must count my blessings, I told myself as we drove off. And not count on all being well when we got there. Little steps, just as Colin had pointed out.

  But, as it turned out, Sam had another surprise up his sleeve. He was biddable enough as we entered the café, and polite enough when Donna greeted us, and showed us, with great ceremony, to her ‘special table’ right by the window. He even showed a modicum of interest in his pancakes, which I hoped might ‘jolly’ him out of his current sulky mood, and reveal to my sister the sunny, happy child he’d been earlier.

  But I was wrong. What was about to happen – and it was something I could never have predicted – was that another facet of this many-sided child was showing up.

  There was an elderly lady sitting alone at an adjacent table, and as is the way of elderly ladies everywhere, she leaned across, obviously charmed by Sam’s sweet, winsome looks.

  ‘Someone’s enjoying their lunch,’ she observed, with a smile. ‘I’d put on half a stone if I even looked at something with that much cream on.’

  Sam turned towards her, his spoon hovering midway to his mouth. ‘Stop looking at me,’ he said, smiling. ‘You fucking freak.’

  I was shocked as much by the smile as the words that had come from his mouth.

  ‘Sam!’ I said, cringing at the poor woman’s horrified expression. ‘What on earth did you say that for? Please say sorry to the lady.’

  In answer, he shoved the spoonful of pancake into his mouth and spoke through it. ‘She knows what will happen if she carries on,’ he said. But said it so matter of factly – no threatening tone, no aggression. No sense, as far as I could see, that he’d even said anything wrong.

  I was flabbergasted. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to the woman. ‘I really don’t know what else to say to you. Sam, really. Come on, now. Say sorry, please.’

  ‘But I’m eating,’ he answered levelly. And eat he did, too. Shovelling spoonfuls into his mouth as if his life now depended on it.

  I mouthed another apology, but it was clear that the lady could already see my consternation. And aided by some sort of sign language from my sister (the lady was obviously a regular) that she understood that my charge wasn’t an ‘everyday’ kind of little boy.

  I didn’t doubt that Donna would soon fill her in properly – she’d been round this particular block with me many times before, after all. And in the meantime Sam continued to eat his pancakes, seemingly oblivious. And as I returned to eating my own, I knew two things for certain – one, that I had barely scratched the surface with this child, and two, that I should always heed the truth of my mother’s words.

  Chapter 7

  I didn’t dwell on Sam’s unexpected utterance at my sister’s café. As with toddlers who’ve picked up an unsavoury expression, the rule of thumb was generally to ignore it; paying too much attention to an undesirable behaviour in an attempt to stop it happening could end up having the opposite effect, and reinforcing it.

  Though Sam wasn’t a toddler. And the fact still remained that it wasn’t so much what he’d said but the way he’d come out with it. He’d been entirely without emotion as he’d said those words, which had been odd, to say the least. Because as far as I could tell, there wasn’t an iota of malice behind it, and it wasn’t as if he’d been trying to look ‘hard’, either. He’d simply trotted the words out conversationally, as if he’d learned them by rote. And as he was the oldest child in the family it seemed reasonable to suppose not from his siblings, but perhaps an adult in his life.

  I duly noted it, to add to my growing dossier of ‘behaviours’, and reflected that Monday, and Colin’s visit, really couldn’t come soon enough, as the black hole where a picture of Sam’s background should be was growing deeper by the day. I could only hope that in the intervening days Colin would have done a little digging.

  In the meantime, it was business as usual. And as the general trajectory was up rather than downhill, I decided to take the plunge and expand Sam’s social circle; while all the males in the family were off watching Kieron play football on Saturday, I suggested Riley pop over and meet Sam, along with my granddaughter, Marley Mae. It seemed the safest bet (I was still mindful of the challenges that might be posed by unfamiliar visitors), since Riley, both because of her innate personality and because she was a fellow foster carer now, was fazed by almost nothing. And Marley Mae, being her mother’s daughter and a little girl with two older brothers, was used to being around boisterous older boys.

  And, as I’d expected, she marched in with her usual breezy confidence.

  ‘I’m Marley Mae,’ she announced when we ushered her in to meet Sam. ‘I’m five, nearly thix, and I already got my firth wobbly tooth. Look, ith here!’ she added, opening her mouth to illustrate.

  Sam duly peered in and nodded, as Marley Mae jiggled it with her finger. He then opened his own mouth and grimaced to show his teeth off as well. ‘I’ve got big teeth,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna grow some like these now.’

  Riley and I exchanged smiles. So far, at least, so good. And Marley Mae was clearly impressed. ‘Ooh, they’re big teeth,’ she agreed. Then, in a smooth, if bizarre, segue, added, ‘and are you a good boy or a bad boy? Nanny sometimes has bad boys in, doesn’t she, Mamma?’

  Sam looked up at me, as if for direction on how to answer.

  ‘Oh course Sam’s a good boy,’ Riley said before he or I could. ‘What a question to ask, madam! Now, come on, let’s get your coat off while Nanny sorts out something for you to play with.’

  Sam didn’t seem to mind either way – in fact, he looked enthused by the prospect of a playmate, dashing off to retrieve his encyclopaedia. ‘She can look at my book with me if she wants,’ he said, as he fetched it. ‘There’s lots of pictures and I know lots of the words. I can read to her like they do on the telly if you want.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she does want,’ said Riley. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, princess? Marley’s brothers aren’t very good at reading to her,’ she added to Sam, sotto voce, ‘so you will definitely be in her good books if you do that. And in mine too, for that matter, because I get five minutes’ peace.’

  Sam looked puffed up with pride as he fussed over floor cushions, and within moments they were both sitting poring over the big, colourful pages, creating a tableau as sweet and normal as any you could imagine – Sam seemingly nothing like the child who’d arrived with us two weeks ago. As Riley was quick to point out.

&nbs
p; ‘Well, he seems really sweet,’ she said, as we watched them, while sipping coffee, having retired to the adjacent dining-room area where I could still keep a close eye. ‘Nothing remotely like the picture you’ve been painting,’ she added. ‘I was expecting a little monster, not a little angel.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ I pointed out. ‘There are many sides to Sam, believe me – none of which tend to remain in residence for long. He’s such a puzzle, he really is. Not least because I still know barely anything about him. Or what to expect from him. And that’s literally on a minute-by-minute basis.’

  Though as it turned out, contrary to the five minutes’ peace Riley had been hoping for, Sam obliged us by giving us a whole twenty of them. And it was with impeccable timing that he then kicked off with my granddaughter, because it happened just as Riley was commenting that I’d obviously worked miracles. (That pride thing was working overtime, clearly.)

  ‘Oh,’ he suddenly said, rising to his feet and planting a hand on each hip. ‘So you want to play a different game, do you?’

  ‘Yeth, I do –’ Marley Mae began, adding a pout for good measure. ‘This one’s boring. I want –’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a different game,’ he continued, ‘How about I lock you in the dog cage and leave you in there till you’ve pissed your pants? How d’you think you’d like that?’

  Riley and I rose up as one from the dining table. But Marley Mae, being Marley Mae, already had this verbal assault covered. She scrambled up as well, casting the book aside, and squared up to Sam. He had a couple of inches on her, but no more than that – certainly not enough to make her think twice. She was used to shouting brothers down after all. ‘Oh, you are such a naughty boy, Sam!’ she said, her hands also on her hips now. ‘You just did a bad word, and you’re for it!’

  I stepped in between the two of them at the same time as Riley swooped in and picked Marley Mae up, who wriggled indignantly as she was ushered off to the kitchen.

  ‘He did, Mummy!’ I could hear her protesting, ‘Cross my heart, he did!’

  I leaned down towards the culprit, who seemed as stunned as anyone else. ‘Sam,’ I said, keeping my voice level, ‘we do not use swear words in this house. You know that. And why were you being so mean to Marley Mae? What’s all this about a dog cage? What a mean thing to say to a little girl.’

  I’d grown to expect the unexpected, but as it had been over a week since he’d done it, it was unexpected nevertheless when he shot a hand out, grabbed a hank of my hair, and tugged on it, really hard. ‘I hate you!’ he said. I noticed his eyes were full of tears now. ‘My game was a good game, and she wouldn’t play it! And I hate her as well! She’s just lame.’

  I prised my hair from Sam’s fingers and counted mentally to ten. ‘Enough of all this “hate” stuff,’ I told him firmly. ‘That’s my granddaughter you are talking about, young man, and I will not tolerate you using that kind of language about her. Now go up to your room, please – and you can stay there for thirty minutes to have a good think about what just happened here, okay? Go on. Now!’

  The tone of my voice must have alerted some instinct because, rather than retaliate, Sam – whose tears had now plopped onto his cheeks – simply glared at me and stomped off into the hall. I heard him thundering up the stairs and then the slam of his bedroom door, beyond which I knew he’d be counting away furiously.

  In the meantime my priority was to comfort my granddaughter, whose sobs – in all likelihood of frustration rather than distress, admittedly – were by now loud enough to wake the dead.

  Though she was fine. She was wrapped, koala-style, around Riley’s hip, and when she saw me she smiled immediately and put her arms out for a cuddle. She was a robust child and I knew she’d probably been piqued more than anything; she’d suffered far worse verbal onslaughts from her brothers. (Who I didn’t doubt she’d be telling all to, in great detail, just as soon as they got home from football. Not to mention her own school friends, come Monday. Such was life.)

  But though I was still mindful of what Mike had said about the grandchildren being impacted on, my thoughts were more about what Sam had actually said. As with what he’d said in Donna’s café, it was as if he was reciting something he’d heard – clearly a threat that had been made to him. And made often? Clearly often enough that he’d assimilated it into his own repertoire of rebukes. So had he been locked in that cage often too? It seemed reasonable to assume yes. I couldn’t wait to find out more about where he came from.

  Riley, though, was more interested in the here and now of Sam’s chart, which was glistening with its rows of silver stars. She nodded towards it. ‘So I’m guessing you’ll be docking him some of these today,’ she commented.

  ‘Yesh, Nanna – because he’s bad,’ added Marley Mae, sagely.

  I set her down on the worktop and went across to the store cupboard to fetch her a biscuit. ‘He’s not a bad boy, sweetie,’ I told her. ‘He’s a boy who did a bad thing. Which is different. Now, then, which one d’you fancy? A jammy one? A wafer?’

  She chose a wafer and went across to the table to do some colouring. Riley, however, was still looking at the chart. ‘So he’s properly on the programme, is he? I thought you told me they weren’t funding this thing anymore.’

  ‘They’re not. But I’m doing it anyway. Christine suggested it, actually.’

  ‘I thought you said she didn’t think much of it?’

  ‘Apparently not so. She just didn’t really know anything about it. But she’s canny – I think she knew suggesting I try it might make me more likely to take him.’

  Riley chuckled. ‘And she was right, wasn’t she?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. I’m mean, he’s the ideal child for it, isn’t he? Well, so far.’ I grinned ruefully. ‘Still early days, obviously. And no, he won’t lose any stars. Going to his room is his punishment. You remember how it works, don’t you?’

  ‘Kind of,’ Riley said. ‘Though I’m not sure I really get it. How come he still gets all this stuff? I mean, isn’t that like rewarding a kid for bad behaviour?’

  To be fair, I doubted Riley would remember how it worked in the early stages. She’d come into fostering later, at a time when such ‘new-fangled’ regimes had gone out of fashion (as all new initiatives tend to when money is tight). And though she was now doing respite work pretty regularly, up to now she and David hadn’t taken on the sort of children for whom this sort of behaviour-management programme was indicated. And wouldn’t, either, not while her own were still so young. And, given Kelly and Steve’s experience with Sam, I was grateful for that.

  ‘I know it seems counterintuitive,’ I said, ‘but, at least at this stage, with this sort of child, it’s not a reward/punishment scenario. It’s completely unconnected with what he does wrong. It’s all about the positives – what he achieves. What he succeeds at.’

  ‘Well, as long as he doesn’t succeed in sending you loopy in the process, Mum, like Miller did. Anyway,’ she lowered her voice a little, ‘what was all that stuff about a dog cage? Do you know the background?’

  I lowered my own voice. ‘Only that he was found in the one in the family’s garden. And that it looks like he spent a lot of time locked in there – his siblings were convinced that he thought he was a dog. I told you about the howling thing he does, didn’t I?’

  Riley nodded. ‘And you still think he has autism?’

  ‘Absolutely, yes. Though I think there’s something else going on, too. I just can’t put my finger on what, quite.’

  Riley grinned. ‘Busy sleuthing already, Mother?’

  I smiled back at her. ‘Is the Pope Catholic? But seriously, I do.’

  ‘Perhaps – let me see now – being locked in a dog cage in a garden on a regular basis?’

  ‘Well, that’s obviously one worrying aspect,’ I agreed.

  But was it actually ‘worrying’,
or was I playing dog myself, and busily barking up the wrong tree?

  Because, once again, Sam threw a spanner in my detective work. Once Riley and Marley Mae had left I went straight up to check on him, to find him laid out like a sardine, not in, but underneath his bed. I don’t know how many times he’d counted to one hundred since I’d sent him up there, but he was midway in counting to it now.

  I got down on my knees and peered into the murk. ‘What on earth are you doing under there?’ I asked him.

  He carried on counting, moving his fingers across the flecks in the carpet.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Shh!’

  So I shushed, till he reached the magic hundred. ‘Come on,’ I said, once he was done, ‘wriggle out, so we can have a proper chat.’

  He shook his head. Then turned towards me. ‘Casey,’ he said, his eyes gleaming bright in the darkness, ‘you know the treats list?’

  ‘On your chart?’

  ‘Can we have an extra one on there? For, like, if I’m really, really good?’

  I considered for a moment. ‘I don’t see why not,’ I said.

  ‘I know I can’t have a dog, but I’d really, really love a dog cage.’

  ‘A dog cage?’

  A nod.

  ‘Like the one you had at home?’

  Another nod. A tearful sniff. ‘It’s just I really, really miss it.’

  I sat back on my haunches, and made a mental note to get all this down, ready for Colin’s visit on Monday. He missed it?

  As Alice said, this was getting curiouser and curiouser.

  Chapter 8

  And it carried on getting curiouser and curiouser, because Sunday proved odd in yet another way. It started normally enough. Even better than normally, in fact, first because I got a lie-in, and second because I was woken up by Tyler, bearing a bacon sandwich and a mug of coffee.