Just a Boy

by Casey Watson

  She then made a move, as if she was about to ruffle his hair, but even before she could lift up her hand to do so, Justin had slammed himself against his chair back and given her a really stony stare.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ she said, shocked. ‘I was just being friendly’, but Justin ignored her, leaned forwards again and helped himself to a large portion of the pasta. I made a mental note that in future perhaps I’d need to serve the portions myself, in the kitchen.

  We ate in an uncomfortable silence for some minutes, and I watched my daughter’s face begin to redden. She was clearly so embarrassed and my heart really went out to her, and Mike, noticing too, tried to lighten the atmosphere by engaging the boys in conversation about football.

  Justin wasn’t interested, though, and continued to eat in silence, a silence becoming more noisy and intrusive by the minute as we all digested what had happened.

  ‘Is David coming round?’ I asked Riley eventually.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Not till tomorrow. He’s working today …’ She tailed off because Justin was staring at her once again. ‘David’s my boyfriend,’ she explained to him. ‘We live just round the corner. He’s looking forward to meeting you, too, Justin.’

  But once again it seemed Riley was the devil incarnate. ‘What time is tea, Casey?’ he asked me, ignoring her. ‘And what are we having to eat?’

  I could feel Mike begin to bristle beside me. ‘Justin, Riley was speaking to you, mate,’ he said quietly. ‘And we don’t know about tea yet. We’re only just having dinner.’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ Riley said. ‘It’s fine. It really is. I’m always quiet around people I don’t know too.’

  Justin scowled at her and once again turned to face me. ‘Is it okay if I take my stuff to my room now?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Mike. ‘I’ll come up and check on you in a bit.’

  ‘Oh, my God! How rude is that kid?’ Kieron observed, once we’d heard Justin’s tread on the stairs. My lovely Kieron, who finds it impossible to see bad in anybody. He looked at his elder sister. ‘He sure doesn’t seem to like you, Riley!’

  Riley frowned. ‘It’s probably just because of my black hair.’

  ‘Your black hair? Why?’

  She glanced in my direction. ‘Mum told me. He’s got this thing, apparently. Has this thing about hating women with black hair.’

  Kieron glanced at me too, looking shocked. The word ‘hate’ didn’t really exist for him. ‘I know,’ I said, having completely forgotten all about that. Of course! ‘But we’ve also got to remember this is probably a bit too much for him. We have to be patient and give him a chance to settle in.’

  Mike got up and began clearing the plates. He was shaking his head as he went out to the kitchen.

  While Mike manfully tackled the washing up, I went outside with Riley for a cigarette. I’d been trying to cut down, in preparation for giving up, but right now I really needed a quick nicotine boost. I reassured my daughter that things could only improve; that it would take time, but that once we got to know Justin a little better it would all become easier and less stressful for us all.

  She didn’t look convinced – Riley was someone who liked to be liked and I could see that, even though she understood about the black-hair thing, she was still shocked and confused by Justin’s very obvious rejection of her – so I just hoped what I was saying would turn out to be true.

  I could still hear plenty of banging and clattering in the kitchen, so I accepted a sneaky second cigarette, feeling the strain of the morning start to ebb away. Justin’s food issues, at least, were something we could definitely address, and as for his thing about black hair – well, I was sure once he got to know us as real people, that would lessen too.

  I was just stubbing out the cigarette when Kieron came to the back door to find me.

  ‘Mum!’ he said, looking shocked. ‘You have to come!’

  I started. ‘Come where? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Dad’s just been up to check on Justin and …’ He seemed completely stuck for words. ‘And his room is … well …’ He frowned at me, looking anxious. ‘Come on. Just come up and see for yourself.’

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  Prologue

  8.15am, Wednesday 15 October

  Transcript of a call to emergency services, [location given] Response Centre

  999 OPERATOR – ‘Police emergency. Can I help you?’

  YOUNG GIRL – ‘It’s my mum. I think she’s dead.’

  OPERATOR – ‘Can I have your name and address, lovey?’

  YOUNG GIRL – ‘Yes, I’m Sophia, I live at [address given].’

  OPERATOR – ‘Okay, sweetheart. That’s great. Now, how old are you?’

  SOPHIA – ‘I’m almost eleven.’

  OPERATOR – ‘Thank you, Sophia. Now, listen – there are some police officers on their way to your house now, so you just stay on the phone talking to me until they get to you, okay? Then you must let them come in. Okay, lovey? You understand that?’

  SOPHIA – ‘Yes, okay. But she’s dead. I think she must be. [Pauses.] She’s fallen down the stairs, I think, and there’s blood. She’s very cold.’

  OPERATOR – ‘Okay sweetheart. I understand. You just keep talking to me, okay? Stay on the phone. The officers will be there in just a minute or two, all right? Is there anybody else with you?’

  SOPHIA – ‘Yes, there is. My friend, Caitlyn. We had a sleepover. I don’t know what to do. Oh, hang on, Caitlyn’s gone to the door. I think it’s the police. Yes, they’re here.’

  OPERATOR – ‘They’re there? All right sweetheart, I’ll let you go and speak to them, you’ve done really well. Could you put one of them on the line for me so I can–’

  [PHONE DISCONNECTS]

  Chapter 1

  Sometimes, I think it pays to trust your instincts. My own, like many women’s, are sound in most respects, particularly that little voice that you hear from time to time which tells you something’s not quite right; something isn’t as it seems. You know, that hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck prickle you sometimes get?

  I had that, right away, when John Fulshaw got in touch. It was early January, and one of those really gloomy days, freezing cold, when, even though it was already two in the afternoon, it felt as if it had never really got light. I’d been standing by the window, looking out into the street, and thinking how dreary everybody looked as they plodded by. All dressed in black or grey or brown, hunched over, looking at the ground, collars up, shielding their necks and hands and faces from the bitter winter cold. I loved December, but I really hated January.

  ‘What’s up, Mum?’ said my grown-up son, Kieron, who was with me, along with the family dog, Bob, and helping to take down the last of the Christmas decorations. I say ‘said’ but he actually had to raise his voice a bit, due to the music channel he and his sister insisted on having blaring out on the TV.

  ‘Oh, don’t set her off again,’ chipped in Riley, my daughter. She was 22 to Kieron’s 20, and had come over to help too. She paused to shake her head and to roll her eyes at the sight of my long face. ‘It can’t be Christmas every day, Mum,’ she said, pulling a face at me. ‘Despite what the song says, okay?’

  I pulled a face back but they were both probably right. I needed reminding of that, often. I loved everything glittery and sparkly, always have, and hated the rest of the winter’s dark days and dull colours. And this January already seemed particularly colourless. Not only Christmas had gone, but Justin had too, the 12-year-old boy who’d we’d fostered for the whole of the last year and whose leaving had left such a big hole in our lives. Sure, he still came to see us, and promised he’d keep doing so, but it wasn’t the same. How could it be? For all the challenges he’d brought with him – and there had definitely been challenges – I really missed having him around. What I needed right now was a new challenge. Something to shake
me out of my post-festive blues and get me all fired up once again.

  And when the phone rang, it seemed John was going to supply one. John was our link worker at the specialist fostering agency we worked for. He’d also trained both me and my husband, Mike, for the job. It had been John who’d placed Justin with us, and once Justin had left us, just a couple of weeks before Christmas, it was John who had warned us that we’d both better recharge our batteries, because there would soon be another child who needed our help.

  The recharging that had taken place, in true Watson style, had naturally involved plenty of parties and fairy lights, and, this year, since Riley and her partner, David, had blessed us in the autumn with our very first grandson, Levi, even more exuberance and cuddly toys than usual. Perhaps it was just the contrast, I mused as I went to pick up the receiver, that was making January seem so drab and dull.

  It wasn’t John on the phone, though; it was Mike, calling from work. John had phoned him there because he hadn’t been able to get an answer from me.

  ‘The kids and their racket, I expect,’ I explained. ‘They’re both helping me get the decorations down and part of the deal seems to be MTV on full blast.’ I pulled the living-room door closed to shut out the noise, so I could hear. ‘So what’s the news?’

  ‘He’s got a child he wants to talk to us about. But I couldn’t talk, of course, because I’m working.’ I smiled to myself. Mike was such a stickler for doing things by the book. He worked as a warehouse manager and he had his own office, but he’d never dream of taking time out for a personal call.

  ‘How exciting! What did he say? Did he tell you anything else?’ Suddenly my doldrums were gone the way of the Christmas tinsel. ‘Did he tell you anything about him? Or her?’

  ‘Her,’ said Mike. ‘It’s a girl, by all accounts. But that’s all I really know, because, like I said, love –’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I interrupted. ‘You get back to work. I’ll call him. A girl! How exciting!’

  I could still hear Mike chuckling to himself as I put down the phone.

  I was on the phone to John only minutes later, pausing only to have a sneaky cigarette in my conservatory (I was obviously banned from the rest of the house, particularly now we had our little grandson around). Suddenly the garden looked very different to how it had. I forgot about the cold and instead mused on how pretty the apple tree looked, covered in white frosting. I finished the ciggie – I really must give up soon, I told myself – and went back inside to fish out John’s number.

  He sounded very pleased to have heard from me. ‘Yes, it’s a girl,’ he confirmed, ‘and a real girlie girl too, so I thought she’d be right up your street.’

  ‘She sounds good already,’ I said. ‘So. What’s the situation? What’s her background and what sort of problems does she have?’

  I was hoping for something quite detailed about her, as Justin, our last child, had come with very little known background, and we’d learned the hard way about how being forewarned is forearmed. With him we’d been anything but. However, John was quick to fill me in and reassure me. ‘That’s the thing, actually,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to have to follow the programme with this one. It’s only short term.’

  That seemed odd. Our kind of fostering was all about behaviour modification, to help re-integrate kids back into the mainstream, so we’d been trained to use a specific, points-based programme with the kids we cared for.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How come?’

  ‘Because she’s already been placed long term with a mainstream foster carer.’

  ‘Oh, I see. But?’

  ‘But she – the carer, that is – has had some sort of mental breakdown, and needs to take extended sick leave for a few weeks.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said. ‘Was it related?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said quickly. ‘Not that I’m aware of. She wants the child – her name’s Sophia, by the way – to return to her when she’s better.’

  ‘So she’s fine, then –’

  ‘Apparently, though I’m told she does have medical problems of her own. But I can’t tell you what they are because I don’t know myself. I did meet Sophia but I was told not to bring up anything medical – not in front of her, anyway, which meant I couldn’t get any proper facts. But I’ll find out more tomorrow and get back to you, okay? Perhaps I could come round and meet with you and Mike on Friday.’

  It was around then that I had that niggling sixth sense kick in. Just the feeling that there might be something John was holding back. I tried to dismiss it, because there was really nothing I could put my finger on. But it was there.

  And for very good reasons.

  ‘Another kid already?’ Kieron said as I went back into the living room to tell them, by now with Levi, who’d woken up, in my arms. Riley cooed and took him from me, talking baby talk at him. ‘Isn’t it a bit quick?’ Kieron added. ‘You know, after Justin?’

  It’s easy to forget, when your children are grown up, that the things you do still have an impact on them. I’d been pretty low since Justin had gone, I knew, and I was touched to see the looks of concern on their faces. They glanced at one another now. ‘Kieron’s got a point,’ Riley said. ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said, meaning it. ‘I’m kicking my heels here, aren’t I?’ Which was true. Before Mike and I had switched to fostering, I’d been running a unit for troubled children in a big comprehensive school. It wasn’t normal for me to have nothing to do but rattle round my house, even with my new grandmotherly duties. Then I paused. Perhaps I wasn’t seeing things clearly. ‘But how about you two? If you’re not up for it, I could always ask to put it off.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Mum,’ said Kieron, obviously reassured by my determined manner. ‘Be good to have another kid in. And if it’s a girl, that’s even better. I won’t have to fight for my games console and footie games this time.’

  ‘And we’ll be able to do lots of girl stuff together,’ agreed Riley. ‘Baby stuff, clothes shopping, make-up and hair … how old is she?’

  ‘Twelve,’ I said. ‘And funny you should say that. John Fulshaw remarked that she was a very girlie girl.’

  ‘So she’s going to love Justin’s bedroom, then,’ Kieron said, laughing.

  ‘Isn’t it going a bit over the top to decorate the whole room again?’ Mike wanted to know, once he was home from work and we were headed down to the chippy. I’d been planning on cooking, but what with getting the house sorted out, plus all the excitement of knowing we were getting a new foster child, I’d been too excited. Plus I fancied fish and chips.

  ‘Oh, it won’t be that much work,’ I reassured him. ‘And Riley’ll help me, I’m sure.’

  ‘Would have been no work at all if you hadn’t gone so overboard doing it up in the first place,’ he chided. That was Mike all over. He was so much more sensible and down to earth than me. A proper thinker. We’d been married fifteen years and I’d lost count of the times when he’d sat me down and said, ‘Now let’s just think this through …’ And he was right. I had gone a bit overboard for Justin, taking my football theme to perhaps rather excessive levels, with green carpet, football borders and wallpaper, a football clock – I’d even painted footballs on the bookcase and dresser.

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ Mike agreed, ‘but look, love, are you definitely sure you’re ready?’

  Him too now! Had I really been acting like a nut job just lately? Because he was looking at me in the same way as the kids had. Yes, I’d been down, but how could I not have been? Losing Justin had really saddened me, but we had been warned to expect that. It was a grieving process I had to go through, no more, no less. Not surprising when you have such an intense relationship with a child. But I was over it and keen to move on now. Justin would always be a part of our lives, but day to day I needed that new challenge.

  ‘I am ready!’ I said to Mike. ‘And I am going to start re-decorating right away. And just you make sure you book that time
off on Friday, okay? Honestly, love, I am more than bloody ready.’

  Which was just as well, because it looked like we needed to be.

  ‘It’s a sad story,’ John told us on the Friday morning. He’d arrived on the dot of eleven, as he’d promised, and come armed with a folder full of papers. I thought back to when he’d visited to tell us about our first placement, and how madly I’d rushed around the house, tidying and polishing. So much water had passed under the bridge since that time. John was very much like a friend now. So no big cleaning-fest; just three big mugs of coffee, as we gathered around the kitchen table to discuss the facts.

  ‘Sophia only came into care about a year and a half ago,’ he went on. ‘Prior to that she lived with her mother – no siblings – who had been bringing her up alone. One-night stand, far as I know. Certainly no father in the picture. And then a tragedy: the mother – name of Grace Johnson – had mental health problems, by all accounts, and had a near-fatal fall down the stairs when Sophia was 11, which was thought to have been a suicide attempt.’

  ‘Suicide?’ Mike asked. ‘That sounds grim.’

  John nodded. ‘There was a difficult family situation, apparently. Compounded by Sophia’s illness. But I’ll tell you more about that in a mo.’ He consulted his notes, obviously scanning them for the important bits. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he said. ‘The mother went into a coma – didn’t die – from which she has never recovered. She’s been classed as being in a persistent vegetative state, from which they don’t expect her to recover. Very sad.’