Scarlett's Secret

by Casey Watson

  But now he had, and had clearly got some grief for it, too. I tried to picture Scarlett flying at him – all five foot two of her – and imagined he must have been as surprised as I was by the idea.

  But she clearly had. ‘Go on,’ she prompted now. ‘Tell Casey what you said to Jade.’

  Carl rubbed his arm again, is if to emphasise that he’d suffered enough. ‘I just said …’ he began haltingly.

  ‘He just said,’ Scarlett snapped, ‘that he’d rather plant his face in a pile of dog shit than pair up with Jade, because at least dog shit wouldn’t stink so bad. That’s what he said to her!’

  There was another heavy silence. ‘Didn’t he, Mattie?’ Scarlett demanded. ‘Thought he was so fucking funny. He just didn’t realise that I heard it, too!’

  She stood up then, and yanked her sister up onto her feet with her. ‘C’mon, Jade,’ she said. ‘We’re going. And we don’t have to come back, either. We don’t need any of this shit.’ They started heading for the door.

  I was just rising from my own seat to try to diffuse this unfortunate situation when Jade pulled away from Scarlett slightly and turned around. ‘Oh, I’m coming back,’ she said, surprising her sister, I think, as much as the rest of us. ‘Take a lot more than that dickhead to scare me off!’

  At which point they did leave, and the rest of us breathed out. Not that the day was quite done. Apart from the incident reports we’d have to file and the words we’d need to have with Carl privately, it was an important function of the course to deal with issues, rather than bury them, so I took the opportunity, once Katie had reassured me she wasn’t actually wounded, to discuss with the team how – as a team – we could best make the situation right.

  Dawn was positive, thinking that now the problem was out in the open Jade’s personal hygiene might improve. And a couple of the others admitted that they felt really bad, and would make a special effort to include, rather than avoid, her. In the end, given that Carl had already received such an embarrassing physical pasting from Scarlett, I decided to leave him till an opportune moment once the residential trip was under way. But, though I was pleased overall that we’d straightened things out as best we could for the moment, it still felt like the tip of that proverbial iceberg.

  And it was. The next morning, I was at the centre at 8 a.m., bright and early, to prepare for the team’s arrival at nine. And as I rounded the corner I was surprised to see Scarlett sitting on the wall outside.

  ‘Hi, Scarlett,’ I said. There was no sign of Jade. ‘What brings you here so early?’

  She stood up and brushed the seat of her jeans off. ‘I needed to speak to you,’ she said, as I unlocked the door, ‘before Jade gets here.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said, ushering her over the threshold. I remembered they lived separately, so perhaps they weren’t inseparable, after all. ‘What about?’ I said, hoping it might be Jade’s problems. That would definitely be progress. I headed straight for the kitchen and she followed.

  ‘Casey,’ she said, ‘can I tell you a secret?’

  I turned to face her as I turned on the tap to fill the kettle. ‘’Course you can,’ I said, keeping my voice casual.

  She chewed on her lip. ‘I can’t really talk about it – not just yet, but, well, me an’ Jade have had some bad stuff happen to us – you know we had to go into care, don’t you?’ I nodded. ‘Well, it involves my dad and mum –’ she paused. ‘And, like I say, I can’t really talk about it, but, well, I’m fine. I’m over it. But …’ she hesitated, as if unsure whether to continue. ‘Well, it’s just that it’s different with Jade,’ she continued finally. ‘She deals with it differently, you know? That’s the thing.’

  Not knowing what the ‘it’ was that Scarlett felt she couldn’t tell me made it difficult to know what to say. So I said nothing. Just nodded, and let her carry on. Which she did.

  ‘She got involved with a druggie, that’s what happened. An’ he was on the sex offenders’ register and she had her kids took off her.’

  ‘Her kids?’ I was trying to catch up, but there were too many questions blocking the route. ‘Kids plural?’

  Scarlett nodded. Yeah, she had two with him. I told her, I did …’

  She tailed off. I could see she was worried that she’d said too much already. I put a hand out and squeezed her arm. ‘You want a coffee?’ I said. ‘I’m having one. Can’t function without my coffee. And, look, you don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to. Not if it’s upsetting you.’

  Scarlett opened the cupboard and got down two mugs. ‘No, I need to. I mean, I just need you to know. That’s what it’s about. I mean, she hasn’t said so, but, well, I think she makes herself smell on purpose. I’ve been thinking about it lots. She hardly ever has a wash or changes her clothes – and she doesn’t wash them either – and her flat’s just as bad. It’s covered in dog shit, and hairs, and she never cleans up, and she says it’s just since the babies went and that, but it isn’t. It’s always been that way, ever since she moved in.’

  ‘You didn’t move in together, then? You know – when you had to leave home?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, that was never happening – she was already seeing that knobhead.’

  ‘So it might have been partly down to him, then?’

  ‘She shrugged. ‘I guess. But I don’t know … It’s just that I wanted you to know. It’s not that she means to make everyone hate her. It’s just like, well, I think she does do it on purpose – you know, wearing her stinking old clothes and everything – so that everyone will hate her. Well, not hate her exactly, but, you know, back off. Leave her alone.’

  I considered her words. And given the background – I was still in a state of shock about those two babies – it made sense, and I was impressed that Scarlett had thought it through and been so perceptive. What to do about it, however, was another matter entirely.

  ‘I think you might be right,’ I said, ‘given what you’ve told me, Scarlett. And thank you for doing so. Yesterday must have been an unpleasant experience for both of you, and your coming here helps me understand better why things kicked off the way they did.’

  ‘And I’m going to say sorry properly to Katie,’ she said. ‘I am sorry, really. It’s just when people like him … well, like I say, I’m really sorry.’

  ‘I know you are,’ I said. ‘I can see that. The question now, however, is how best we can help you both. Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could try,’ she said, looking hopefully at me. ‘It’s just that she’s gotta keep herself clean and fresh and stuff or it’s just going to be awful when we go away, but if I say anything she’ll kick off again. I know she will. I daren’t even say anything to her. It just makes her worse.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ I said, ‘you can leave it with me.’ Because, actually, in comparison to what I’d just heard, that part was easily addressed.

  ‘So,’ I announced, ‘on this eve of our adventure, I can reveal that I have gifts for you all!’

  There was a small cheer as I delved into my bag. It was the end of the day, and we were just finishing off our last-minute tick lists. We’d sorted shopping lists and menus and rotas and teams and I was tickled to see how much these kids seemed to be looking forward to what a lot of people my age would consider a chore – cooking meals for each other all week. But then, for some, these simple things were new experiences. Tomorrow morning would see us heading off to the wilds of the countryside and we were, by now, as ready as we’d ever be. The teenagers were palpably excited. There’d been no recurrence of the unpleasantness of before, and though Jade was still wary, she’d been true to her word about not leaving; she seemed determined to see things through and that in itself gave me hope that whatever the appalling circumstances of her recent past, she could find a way out and go on to something better.

  My gifts, which had been bought out of the residential budget, were a toilet bag for each of them, complete with all the usual toiletrie
s: soap and shower gel, shampoo and conditioner, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, and as I handed them out I made a reference to being a mother with a teenage son, and how I knew all about boys and their smelly habits if left unchecked.

  Everyone knew the truth, of course – after the incident earlier in the week, how could they not? – but it was at least a way to emphasise hygiene without singling Jade out, and I could see Scarlett was grateful.

  And happily, for the most part it worked. For all my worries about how things would pan out in the close-knit environment of a full-on residential week of new experiences and challenging activities, Jade’s personal hygiene seemed no longer to be a problem. No, she wouldn’t be winning awards for Miss Squeaky Clean any time soon, but she definitely smelt less offensive than previously and she did, if not that willingly, shower.

  ‘Group dynamics,’ Katie observed sagely, as we beavered away together trying to load the minibus so that we’d get everything in – no mean feat – on the final morning. ‘I remember learning all about it in college. It’s all down to peer pressure, what we’ve witnessed this week, wouldn’t you say? It’s one thing turning up at the centre every day, in clothes you chose, washed or unwashed – unwashed, in this case – ready to take on anyone who crosses you, but quite another when you’re living cheek by jowl with other people, isn’t it? Makes it so much harder not to conform. Everyone else goes to the shower block, then you go to the shower block. Not showering, instead of being something you just didn’t get round to, becomes an act of defiance. Different thing.’

  ‘Different thing entirely,’ I said, grunting as I tried to shoehorn in a plastic box of bats and balls. And she was also spot on, I decided.

  But my pleasure in seeing how well the week had gone – and it had; it had been a blur of activity from the moment we set off – was still tempered by the knowledge I now had of these poor girls. I didn’t know what had happened to them to make social services take such drastic action (unusual in girls of their age), but what had happened with Jade subsequently made me think the worst. She must have been in a very unhappy place, whatever happened – which would have made her vulnerable to a predatory male.

  I also knew now that it weighed heavily on her sister, and though Scarlett hadn’t sought me out to talk further while we’d been away, I had a feeling she might once we returned.

  I was right. We were back mid-afternoon – a little later than scheduled – and as the kids were in high spirits, Katie and I made the decision that rather than have them start on their folders, we’d let them go for the day. It felt too mean to drag them indoors after their exciting week – time enough to do that on the Monday.

  One by one they dispersed, including Jade, and also Katie, and eventually it was only me left. Me and Scarlett, who seemed curiously reluctant to leave.

  ‘Is there anything I can do, Casey’ she asked me, ‘before I go? To help, like?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I have to clean out the minibus before it goes back. You could help me do that if you like.’

  She nodded, so I threw a roll of bin liners at her, and she immediately tore one off and jumped into the bus to gather up the stray crisp packets and bits of rubbish that still lurked here. I soon joined her, now armed with a bucket of soapy water and a couple of cloths, and we both set about the task in hand.

  We’d been at it about ten minutes, one at either end, idly chatting, when she suddenly said, ‘Casey, you know our dad is in prison, don’t you?’

  I shook my head. Then mentally recalibrated. She probably just assumed that I’d know that. Social services were part of the council; I worked for the council … ‘I didn’t,’ I told her. ‘What for?’

  ‘For what he did,’ she said. ‘For raping and abusing me and Jade.’ I stopped what I was doing so I could look at her. She was wiping a window furiously. ‘He abused us right from us being little girls to just a few years ago. My mum used to go out for a couple of hours an’ he’d make us watch dirty videos with him, then he’d mess with us.’

  She stopped wiping then, and stared out of the minibus window for a few seconds. ‘Both of us, together. In the same room. It was disgusting,’ she finished quietly.

  I didn’t know what to say to her, so I just did what felt right. I stopped what I was doing and went down to the back of the bus, where she was, urged her to sit down and put my arm around her. She began to cry then, and I realised this thing she’d just told me must have been a huge weight she had to carry around.

  ‘It’s okay, love,’ I soothed. ‘It’s okay. I’m here for you to talk to. I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been.’

  ‘I don’t think you could imagine,’ she said. ‘How could you? And you know what’s worse?’ I shook my head. ‘What’s worse is that we think our mum knew. We think she must have, because she used to put us in our pyjamas – stupidly early – and then she’d be, like, asking our dad what time she should come back.’ The tears were streaming down her face now, so much so that I wondered just who she had shared this with before. My hunch was hardly anybody. Her voice was just too full of horror – as if she was revisiting a place she hardly dared to go.

  ‘So how did it end?’ I asked. She gave a little shudder, almost a physical embodiment of what she’d been through. ‘It was me,’ she whispered. ‘I stopped it. In the end, I just had to.’

  ‘Of course you did …’ I began.

  ‘Yes, in the end,’ she said, ‘but you don’t realise. For a long time we thought it was normal. He was our dad, and he’d do stuff, and we didn’t like it – ’course we didn’t – but we didn’t know any different, did we? And then, when we got a bit older – old enough to know we didn’t like it, and didn’t want it happening – we’d ask Mum not to leave us with him and sometimes, if we cried enough, she’d stay at home. But this would just get him mad and he’d be really horrible and pull her hair and punch her about and really frighten us …’ she sighed. ‘We tried everything. We tried saying we were ill, we’d pretend to be asleep. But he’d just do it anyway. And then one day, I don’t know why, but something just seemed to snap in me. And there was this lady who lived next door and she would always be asking if everything was okay all the time, you know? I think she was worried about all the beatings my mum got – maybe she could hear it. Anyway, one day I was at home alone, just sat in the garden. I think Mum was out somewhere with Jade and Dad had gone into town, and I was just sitting in the garden and I must have been crying or something, because suddenly she came out and asked me what was wrong and I just told her.’

  Scarlett looked at me as if she still couldn’t quite believe she’d taken such action. ‘I just told her everything. Just like that. And it all went from there, really. She took me into her house, and she called the police, and then the next thing you know, there was our dad going off to be locked up and me and Jade were put in care.’

  I noticed Scarlett had stopped crying now and that her voice had grown hard and bitter. I put both arms around her and just held her for a bit. The silence lengthened. Which was fine, because I didn’t trust myself to speak. Not for a while anyway. Some things are just beyond words.

  ‘Are you seeing anyone, Scarlett?’ I asked her eventually. ‘Having any counselling or anything?’

  I felt her nod. ‘Yeah, I have been. But not Jade. She won’t talk to anyone. She just refuses. She blames me, I know she does. For splitting up the family. Which is true, and it was horrible – specially having to move out of home. So Jade wouldn’t tell, wouldn’t admit to the police what had happened. She told them it was all me – that it might have happened to me, but it didn’t happen to her. She said if she didn’t then Mum would end up in the nut house ’cos of what I’d told them, and that she couldn’t cope without Dad and that I had ruined everything. She did tell in the end, like, a good bit later, so he was charged with what he did to her, too, and they increased his sentence. But it’s like it never happened now – not for Jade. She just wants to forget it – completely block it
out. But I know she still blames me, and I just don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Scarlett,’ I told her, ‘you know you have done nothing wrong, don’t you? You are not responsible for any of this and you don’t have to feel guilty that your sister can’t face up to her past. It’s not your fault, okay? None of it. Yes, Jade probably does need help to come to terms with it, I’m sure she does, and when she’s ready to accept that, it will be there for her, but in the meantime all you can do is support her however you can.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Scarlett said. ‘I don’t know how to. I know – I just know,’ she said, her voice gaining strength, ‘that if she could just deal with it – talk about it with me – it would help her to get better. But you’ve seen what she’s like. Yeah, I can nag her about her clothes and stuff, but if I so much as mention Dad’s name, it’s like – whoosh! She’s off like a rocket. Like she’s got this switch. Trust me, I have tried and tried and tried.’

  ‘So are you saying you’d like me to try to speak to her for you?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Could you?’ she said. ‘Oh, God, Casey, could you? I don’t know where she’s going to end up otherwise, I really don’t.’

  I had never been so grateful to return to the bosom of my family than I was that afternoon. After the high of the week’s adventures, the thrill of doing a job I so enjoyed doing, the pleasure in seeing this raggle-taggle bunch of largely disaffected kids blossoming, what Scarlett had told me had made it feel like someone had stomped up and ripped the sun out of the sky. I wasn’t naïve; I knew such families, such horrors, such evil characters existed, but at the same time the thought of walking a mile in Scarlett or Jade’s shoes filled me with so many emotions – anger, disgust, compassion, hopelessness, and more anger. Too much emotion to take home to my none-the-wiser husband and children, who were looking forward to their usual smiley wife and mum. So I sat for a good while before heading home to them, just so I could regain some of my earlier joie de vivre.