by Casey Watson
‘What about your mum?’ I asked, conscious that I mustn’t lead him. ‘What happened with your mum, then?’
He looked from one of us to the other. ‘What about her? Like I said, she just went off on one, big time. Called me a load of names an’ slapped me, and told me to get out of her fucking sight. I kept telling her. I kept telling her I didn’t do anything to Coral. She’s just my little sister, I wouldn’t hurt her …’
‘Your mum slapped you?’ Mike asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Right here. Round my head. And Coral and Harvey were crying and, like, my dad was out now, and saying I should make myself scarce.’ He paused and sniffed. ‘So I did.’ Under his blazing cheeks, he looked pale and oh-so tired.
‘And so you did,’ I repeated. ‘Oh, Spencer …’
One of the policemen cleared his throat. ‘You’ll call and tell the family he’s safe and sound, will you, Mrs Watson?’
I nodded. Except, in the big scheme of things, he obviously wasn’t either of those things.
And it wasn’t just the business of who did what to who that didn’t stack up. It was the timing of the incident, as well.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to go back, not after that,’ Spencer told us. ‘Not if they were going to tell lies about me, an’ that. An’ I did hang around. I hung around all the bloody day, round the corner. Waiting to see your car, Mike, so I could wave you down and take me back –’
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘All day?’
Spencer nodded. ‘Well, from whenever it was, anyway. About an hour from when you dropped me? I didn’t have my watch …’
‘But your father said you ran away about half an hour before we came back.’
‘I never did.’ He looked shocked. ‘It was still the morning, definite. We’d had no lunch or anything.’
‘So why on earth would he say that?’
Spencer shrugged. ‘I dunno.’
‘That’s what young Spencer told us too,’ one of the officers commented. I mentally filed it. We’d have to dig around and see what more we could find out about that one later.
‘So what did you do?’ I wanted to know.
‘I went round me mate’s,’ he said. ‘After I knew I must have missed you – I kept looking out, but you must have been and gone in, like, no time – I went round my mate Dylan’s. He’s safe. He knows how things are at home, so I knew he wouldn’t grass me up. And his mum doesn’t know I’m in care now, so I knew she wouldn’t say owt. An’ we asked if it was okay if I slept over at theirs because my mum and dad were going out. Dylan’s mum’s a bit weird,’ he added sagely. ‘She believes anything you tell her. So that’s where I was. I stayed there till this morning.’
The expression on the faces of the policemen seemed to confirm it. They knew the area, and the people who lived there, pretty well, it seemed.
‘But didn’t it occur to you,’ Mike asked him, ‘that we would be going frantic? That your parents would be going frantic? Not even once?’
Spencer lowered his gaze. ‘I’m really sorry, Mike, I am.’ His expression changed then. ‘But they don’t care. They don’t want me back. I know it. All me mum does is scream at me, and me dad doesn’t stop her. What do they care that I’m off round me friend’s house?’
God, I thought. Still so young, but with so much on his shoulders. Okay, so this time he’d only run as far as his friend’s house. But how long would it be before he felt he had to run so far from his demons that he couldn’t – and wouldn’t – be found?
‘Look, Spencer,’ I said, once we’d been given our case number for social services and seen off the policemen. ‘We all really need to sit down and think hard about all this. We need a plan, don’t we? A plan that’s going to work. A plan that’ll stop you getting into your parents’ bad books – a plan that’ll help mend things with them. Okay?’
Spencer took this in. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But will it take long? I’m tired. Me an’ Dylan played on his PlayStation all night.’
Under the circumstances, I didn’t find this as amusing as I might have. I was still uncertain which version of events I should even believe. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Then it’s probably not the best time to do it. Tell you what, why don’t you get some sleep while me and Mike sit down and think. And speak to your parents as well, because –’
‘I didn’t hit Coral, Casey,’ he interrupted, as I said this. ‘Honest to God, I didn’t hit her. She’s my little sister. An’ I am sorry,’ he said to both of us, Mike having returned from seeing out the policemen. ‘Honest I am. You know, for making you worry an’ that. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
And with that, he toddled off up to bed.
‘So what do you think?’ I asked Mike, once the house was again quiet. It wasn’t even ten yet, but it felt as if we’d been up for hours.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ he said, joining me at the kitchen table for toast and coffee. ‘I mean, we know what a good liar Spencer is, don’t we? And actor, come to that. But even so …’
‘That’s what I thought. But you know what? Both stories sound equally plausible. I mean, we know Spencer’s got a temper, so what his father says is feasible … but at the same time I can visualise what Spencer’s told us, too. I mean, knowing what we know about his mum already … I mean, I know it’s not much, but I have a strong sense she’s hanging on by her fingernails with those kids. And that she’s really got it in for him. You know, taken against him. You just don’t pack one of your kids off into care, do you? And what with the drinking …’
‘I wonder if he’s covering up for her, then?’ said Mike. ‘The dad. I mean, logically, if Spencer’s version of events is true, then that would fit. You know, lying about when in the day the whole thing happened. If he was covering up for her, and they spent all day waiting for him to show again, then when he didn’t, well, he had to lie, didn’t he? Make it look as though it had only just happened …’
‘I think you might be right,’ I said. ‘But what a thing to accuse your own son of.’
‘Maybe it’s an act of desperation. Maybe he felt he had no choice. I mean, given that social services are now involved with the family, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that he’s working on the basis that if she’s found to be mistreating one or more of them she might lose them all.’
‘And that would fit,’ I said, ‘with what Spencer told us about his mum making that deal with him. God,’ I said, ‘this is all looking so much grimmer than I imagined.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Mike agreed. ‘And so much more complicated. The question is, what can we do about it?’
Chapter 15
It was that question, among many others, that kept my thoughts occupied for the next few days. Mike and I had decided that, for the time being at least, Spencer would need to be grounded again. Even though he’d felt he’d had no choice but to run away, he needed to learn, and fast, that this wasn’t an option. Both his safety and our sanity depended on it. I made a mental note to speak to his new support worker, Penny, in the hopes that this would be something she’d cover in her first session with him, and hopefully arm him with some alternative courses of action when he felt unable to face the world and its problems. I also decided that I would once again voice our suspicions about Kerry’s drinking to both John and Glenn. I had mentioned it before but, as it was only guesswork, the matter had been glossed over and not really discussed.
‘But Casey, it wasn’t my fault,’ Spencer had argued when I told him after school the following Monday that he would be grounded. ‘What else could I do? Stay there and get a hiding for doing nothing?’
‘I know that’s how it must look to you,’ I tried to explain. ‘But this is exactly what we talked about last week, wasn’t it? I made it quite clear that we had to work on all this running away malarkey; that we needed to look at other ways. And what about calling us? That was the drill. That you’d go to a phone box and call us. You scared me and Mike half to death, we were so worried about you.’
Spencer’s face was a picture of incomprehension. ‘I know, Casey, but I forgot all about going to the phone box. I’ve hardly even seen any phone boxes, either.’
I made another mental note, to familiarise myself with where all the public phone boxes were these days. That was another worry – soon to become an even bigger one. Public phone boxes were disappearing at an incredible rate of knots. Another thing I should sit down and go through with Spencer, who was too young to own a mobile phone, was the alternative, of asking someone in a responsible position to make a call for him – a shopkeeper, a park warden, a lollipop lady. Not that any of those options would be readily available to a child wandering the streets late at night.
Spencer didn’t really understand the whole concept of people fretting about him anyway. That was all too clear. ‘But why were you worried?’ he asked again. ‘You know I can look after myself.’
‘Love, that’s the whole point. You’re eight years old. You shouldn’t be having to look after yourself. Spencer, love, other kids your age don’t do things like this. They let adults take care of them. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Once you’re an adult, then of course you’d want to look after yourself. But not now.’ He still looked unconvinced. It really did seem completely alien to him, the concept that anyone might be worried about his welfare. Which made me wonder. For just how long and how often had this little boy been left to roam the streets? ‘Spencer,’ I tried again. ‘Yes, you might be able to handle yourself for a night or two, all being well. But is that what you want? Sleeping in bins? Thieving to get food? Being cold and lonely? That’s no life, is it?’
Once again I could see how strongly he felt the injustice. ‘Better than getting a beating,’ he said defiantly.
‘Well, that’s as maybe,’ I said. ‘But while you’re with us these are the rules, and a few nights indoors aren’t going to kill you.’
I might as well have been talking in Swahili.
For all that it wouldn’t kill him, Spencer made it clear that being made to stay in – properly stay in, as opposed to pretending to stay in and absconding out of his bedroom window – was a major challenge. As we’d already noticed, he was an intelligent, energetic child, and keeping him occupied after school each day was beginning to feel like a full-time job. He would prowl around the house, dash up and down the stairs for no apparent reason, stare mournfully out of the window and endlessly moan, while engaged in an activity, about how bored he was going to be when he’d finished it, and how boring the next one would probably be too. Thinking about his mother, and the houseful of children and the probable drink problems, I wondered if she just grew sick of the sound of his endless moaning and flouncing and demanding, and had come to adopt an out of sight, out of mind policy very early on.
But it wasn’t my job to do that, or even an option. And it wasn’t right, either. Children didn’t ask to be born, did they? So we baked cakes, made Airfix models and built extravagant creations out of Lego, the only respite from the relentless round of keeping him entertained being when Riley dropped by with Levi and Jackson.
Having the little ones to play with was one thing that did help, and when Riley arrived for tea towards the end of the week we could enjoy a quiet 20 minutes in the kitchen while Spencer, in the conservatory, set about making them cars out of Duplo, which he told them they could then use for a monster crash derby, in which they could smash them all to pieces again.
The little ones, like many a small boy before them, found this whole idea tremendously exciting. They both giggled excitedly, having readily been caught up in Spencer’s enthusiastic appetite for destruction.
‘He must miss his siblings,’ Riley said to me, as we went into the kitchen to grab a coffee each. ‘Must be hard for him, coming from such a big family, to try and keep himself amused.’ She popped her head around the conservatory door. ‘Hey, Spence, don’t get them over-excited,’ she warned him. ‘We’re off swimming in a bit, and I don’t want them hyper.’
‘I won’t,’ Spencer promised, upending the tub of bricks onto the floor. He grinned up at her. ‘Can I come?’ he said. ‘I love swimming. An’ I’m good, too. I could help you.’
Riley glanced across at me. I could tell what she was thinking: that losing Spencer at a swimming pool would be no kind of fun. ‘Sorry, not tonight,’ I said. ‘Remember, you’re still grounded.’
‘But maybe next time?’ He looked suddenly animated. ‘When you next go? I’m good, I am, honest. Swim like a fish, I do. It’s because I take after my mum.’
‘Your mum?’ Riley asked. ‘Is she a good swimmer then?’
‘Yeah, she was a champion,’ he said proudly. ‘She got trophies and stifficates and medals too. They’re all at ours.’
‘Really?’ I said, trying to square the image of the woman that I knew with the idea of a young sporting star. It was hard.
‘Yeah,’ said Spencer. ‘When she was young and that, anyway. She used to take me swimming lots when I was little, but not now.’
‘Why?’ Riley asked.
‘Because she don’t ever do anything with me no more.’ He started clicking bricks together, mechanically, as if in thought.
‘So how far can you swim, then?’ I asked, keen to change the mood.
‘I done my six hundred metres,’ he said, obviously keen to change it too. ‘I would’ve have done my thousand metres too, last year, at school. But they stopped us going in my year, cos there’s not enough kids for them to pay for the bus.’
‘That’s a shame,’ I said, and as I did so I had a small eureka moment. I should take him swimming. No, it absolutely wasn’t my favourite activity, which was probably why it hadn’t crossed my mind up to now. But it would be perfect. Something energetic, that would tire him out, plus a precious positive link to his mother – a chance, even if it would only be in spirit, for him to bond with the mother who’d given birth to him, who’d presumably, in the early days, cherished him, but who now seemed to find him so hard to get along with.
‘You know what, Spencer?’ I lied. ‘I love swimming too. How about you and I go together after school tomorrow? It doesn’t break the rule about grounding if I take you.’
‘Mum,’ said Riley, ‘why don’t you just come with us today?’
So that was that, and there was no backing down. Time to dredge out my old costume.
True to his word, Spencer turned out to be an excellent swimmer. He could dive superbly too, and also swim almost a length under water – no mean feat for a child of his young age. He had a wonderful crawl, which looked as if it was completely second nature, and really did seem to have genuine talent. Would this be the key, I wondered, that would unlock the door into his psyche? Enthused and encouraged, I vowed that afternoon that swimming would become a regular thing on the calendar, for as long as we had him, and that I’d make enquiries about opportunities to get him some professional coaching, and maybe see about him joining the leisure-centre swimming club. I felt really excited about it. It was like I’d suddenly found a key that just might unlock some secret part of this strange little runaway boy.
I also marvelled, that night, while Spencer enthused to Mike about his swimming, at the thought of his mum being so athletic in her younger days. I wondered how life had turned so terribly negative for her to be at such a bad place that she couldn’t even function sufficiently to care for the middle of her five children. What was it with Spencer’s family? I simply couldn’t fathom it.
And if I felt a pang of sadness about Kerry, I felt it even more for Danny. Spencer’s dad se
emed to be doing his level best to keep things together; how hard must it be for him to see the current version of the presumably driven, sporty girl he had married.
But there was little I could do about the Herrington family – my role was to try and help Spencer, who I was pleased to see responded really well to his new hobby. It seemed to deal brilliantly with his excess energy, and his mood improved immeasurably, and as October gave way to November we were going three times a week, days on which, once home, he needed nothing more than bath and bed – just as my own kids had done at his age. Just as kids did everywhere, in fact, which really felt like progress. Not that I’d get in and swim with him every time. I’d go in with him on week nights, when the pool was fairly quiet, but on Saturdays, when the place teemed with over-excited youngsters, I decided I’d leave him to it, grabbing a coffee and sitting as a spectator at the pool edge, in the little café that was adjacent.
But my confidence in the merits of Spencer’s positive new hobby was about to be thrown into as much turmoil as the wave machine created. And once again, it left me shaken and confused.
It was our second Saturday and, Spencer having been in the pool around half an hour, I decided I’d leave my table and grab myself a second coffee, to warm me up. Winter was really setting in now and, despite the heating, I found I was quickly getting chilly, sitting at the edge of the café, doing nothing. I glanced over before I did so to see Spencer playing happily. He made friends quickly and easily, and here was no exception – he was playing with a group and they were involved in some sort of game that involved swimming underwater and doing handstands. I waited until he spotted me and mimed what I was doing, upon which he waved and did a thumbs up.
My coffee dispensed, I then returned, and naturally looked for Spencer, but could no longer see him among the group of kids. Putting my coffee down, I then patrolled the row of tables at the pool side, and, still failing to locate him, felt the first stirrings of anxiety. It wasn’t fear, exactly – I knew he was safe in the water – just the uncomfortable feeling that something wasn’t right.