Nowhere to Go

by Casey Watson

  And it didn’t take a brain surgeon to reach the conclusion that the relationship with his stepmother was probably key. Though I had nothing to go on bar the rather vague detail on Tyler’s file that ‘relations had broken down’ with his father’s partner, I was itching to get an inkling of what form this breakdown had taken. More to the point, when had it started? Had something specific prompted it? Something Tyler had done? I was particularly intrigued by what sort of conversations must have happened early on, between the father who’d been told he had a son who he’d never known existed, and the partner with which he’d had another son in the meantime, and who might have had her own ideas about the situation in which – through no fault of her own – she now found herself.

  I tried to relate it to me. How would I have felt if Mike had come home from work one evening and announced that he had another child I hadn’t known about? What would my reaction have been if he then told me I would have to welcome it into our family and raise it?

  I didn’t know. That was the honest answer. I didn’t have a clue how I’d have reacted. First, I’d have to accept that he really didn’t know anything about it, and then … well, and then I’d have to do a great deal of soul-searching, wouldn’t I? About my capacity to not only accept this sudden cuckoo-in-the-nest into my home but to commit to loving it and cherishing it to the best of my ability; to bringing it up as if it were my own.

  Of course, I wanted to think that, yes, I would be able to do that. After all, falling in love with the kids we fostered was both my blessing and my curse. It was emotionally draining every time, quite apart from anything else. So, yes, on balance, had it been Mike, and had the circumstances been the same ones, I wanted to think that I would embrace the child – because it would have been his child, and a half-sibling to his other children too, which would have meant I would have no hesitation. It would be the right thing to do.

  But this wasn’t me, was it? And life was rarely that simple and rosy. With her own child just a toddler, was this Alicia coping okay anyway? Could it be that, actually, she was managing, but that she really didn’t want to take on any more? Was she pressured by Tyler’s father to take him in? Pressured by social services? Pressured by knowing that if she didn’t agree to have him, she would feel like a bad person for the rest of her life? Not the best reason to take on another woman’s child.

  What with dashing around to help my mum, and life being so busy generally, it was to be another week before the ideal opportunity presented itself. It was almost the end of term now – the long summer holidays looming provocatively, close on the horizon – and as I watched Tyler mooching out of school one afternoon, deep in conversation with another lad, I was idly wondering how it must feel to be him. He’d been with us a few weeks now, and we were managing – just – to keep a lid on his behaviour, but, as for getting close to him, progress was proving slow. There had been so many times when I automatically reached out to connect with him physically, but he’d always shrink back, stiffen slightly, send out unambiguous signals. Had this kid ever been hugged in his young life? Perhaps yes, by his real mother, but since then? I decided probably not.

  And Will had reported much the same. Not that he was offering to cuddle him, but though Tyler had pronounced him ‘cool’ and better than the previous ‘bossy old bag’, Will himself still felt that sense of distance, of careful guardedness in Tyler; that he was only chipping, bit by tiny bit, away. Time, we’d both agreed – that would be the key. Time and patience. He’d surely let us in eventually.

  I watched him now and wondered, though. What went on behind those big brown eyes? Under that mop of inky hair? I wondered something else, too. I wondered what it must feel like to be his stepmother. That, I felt, was key to understanding how we’d got to where we’d got – to her taking what by any yardstick was extremely drastic action – taking her own son’s half-brother to court. I would probably never know that, I realised. It wasn’t my business to know that, anyway. But it seemed that I was about to get an inkling.

  ‘So,’ I said to Tyler, as he threw his backpack into the back seat of the car and tumbled in behind it, ‘how was school today? Okay?’

  ‘All right,’ came the expected grunt of a response.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘At least that’s an improvement on “rubbish”.’ Which was what the grunt of a response had been the previous day. ‘Anyway,’ I added, suddenly hatching a plan. ‘I have good news. You’re coming with me to the supermarket, okay? The big out-of-town one. And we’re going to go straight there. And before you pull a face’ – I added, peering into the rear-view mirror – ‘I’ve had a busy day with the grandkids and I haven’t had time to go yet, so, in fact, it’s your lucky day –’

  ‘Lucky?’ Tyler huffed. ‘Going to buy food and crap?’

  ‘Language,’ I chided, ‘and yes, going to buy food and stuff, which will give you the opportunity to earn some “being helpful” points for your daily sheet, and, if you are really helpful, I might even treat you to a DVD from the bargain stand by the till.’

  I noticed Tyler had already retrieved his mobile phone from his bag and was now busy tapping away on some game or other. ‘And you’ll need those points if you’re hoping to top that flipping phone up at the weekend, won’t you?’

  I wasn’t being completely honest about the ‘falling behind’ aspect of my day. Though it was true that I had been longer at Mum’s than I planned, and that I needed to keep Saturday free to help her with all her chores, it had just hit me that a trip to the supermarket would be the ideal situation for a chat. In the car … pushing the trolley round … back in the car again … And even if he didn’t open up that much – and he mightn’t – it would be good for him to help me out domestically anyway. And perhaps taking him shopping and letting him have some input – choosing his preferred cereal and squash and maybe a couple of choices for dinner the following week – would all help with the business of him feeling less threatened, and realising that our only wish was to take care of him until his life settled back down.

  And, for a while at least, it seemed it was going to.

  ‘You know mash?’ he said, growing more chatty with every aisle we went down.

  ‘I do know mash,’ I said. ‘I’ve probably made more saucepans of mash than you’ve had hot dinners.’

  ‘Well, d’you ever get salad cream and, like, make a hole in the middle and then get tuna fish and put both in the middle and make a volcano?’

  I pulled a face. ‘Erm, not lately, it must be said. Why – is it nice?’

  ‘It’s epic,’ he said. ‘You should try it. It’s me an’ Grant’s most favourite tea in the universe. When we’re on our own, like, and we’ve only got what’s in the cupboards, that’s what we always make.’

  I made a mental note of the word ‘alone’. At their ages? ‘You mean, you peel your own potatoes and everything?’ I said. ‘I am seriously impressed. Remind me to pop that on your chart.’

  But he was shaking his head. ‘Nah, not normally – not when it’s just us. We use the Smash stuff. You know – the one you just put water on and stir it.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I know it well. “For mash, get Smaaaaaaash …”’

  He looked at me as if I’d completely lost my marbles.

  ‘It’s an old TV ad,’ I explained. ‘With aliens and … no. Perhaps not. Never mind. But we will get some tuna fish and some extra salad cream, as well, and … Tyler?’ I finished, realising I’d suddenly lost his attention. I turned to follow his gaze beyond me. ‘Tyler – what?’

  At a pinch, in dim light, you could put two and two together. With us both having black hair and brown eyes, it wouldn’t have been beyond the bounds of possibility to think we were mother and son. Or, okay, if you were feeling less charitable, grandmother and son. It had been Kieron who’d pointed it out and it had tickled me. All those kids we’d fostered – both short and long term – and this was the first time we’d had a child in who looked so much like me. But when I turned ar
ound to see what it was that had so transfixed Tyler, it was to find myself looking at a lad who really looked like Tyler – so much so that there wasn’t a shred of indecision in my mind. In a dim light they could almost be twins. This had to be the very little brother who we’d just been discussing.

  It was. ‘Yo, Grant!’ Tyler called, slipping out from behind the trolley he’d been pushing for me, and jogging the ten feet or so that separated them in the washing powder aisle. It was a perfectly natural and perfectly obvious reaction to seeing him, and for half a second I smiled and thought – ‘Ahh, how nice is that?’ Specially when the two boys briefly hugged.

  It didn’t even strike me as any sort of incredible coincidence; I already knew the family didn’t live a long way away from us, and though that was unusual – you didn’t usually foster kids who lived very close to you – it was always going to be odds on they might shop here from time to time.

  But within another half second I realised that the other boy wasn’t on his own. A few yards behind him there was a woman, not pushing a trolley but carrying a basket, and who was now standing stock still, bar the hand that she’d lifted to her face, and with which she was looping a hank of blonde hair behind her ear.

  Then she spoke. ‘Grant! Come back here!’ I heard her call to him. The tension in her voice thrummed towards me on the air.

  ‘Grant!’ she said again, at which point he turned back towards her, uncertain. And it was then that I knew, beyond any shred of doubt, that we were going to have a scene. That there would be a kicking off.

  I took in the details, realising that she was not as I’d imagined her. She was young – probably late twenties, no more than that – very tall and lean, with the sort of pinched look that set bells ringing in my brain straight away, but which thought I pushed away. Who was I to make assumptions? I didn’t know anything about her, did I?

  ‘Mu-um,’ Grant was saying, as he and Tyler drew level, and I watched older and younger brother greet each other with evident pleasure. I pushed the trolley towards them and plastered on a breezy smile. I wasn’t exactly going to say ‘Well, fancy meeting you here!’ but I felt that something along those lines would probably do. Show the boys that we could play nicely. At least that’s what I’d intended. But something told me she didn’t want to speak to me. She certainly didn’t seem to want to meet my eye.

  ‘Grant, will you do as you’re fucking told!’ she snapped, causing the heads of the other couple of people cruising the aisles to duly snap up in surprise. ‘And come right back here this minute!’

  At which point I might have said something conciliatory – there was really no need for that sort of response, surely? But Tyler beat me to it.

  ‘He can talk to me if he fucking wants to,’ he roared at her, ‘so leave us alone, you bitch!’

  ‘Tyler!’ I started, reaching to grab a hold of him. It was almost automatic. And he was ready for it, and wrestled his arm free.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he screeched back at me. ‘He’s my fucking little brother! I can talk to him if I want to! She can’t fucking stop me!’

  Except, obviously, she could. The aisle cleared, then, one pensioner even breaking into a trot. ‘Tyler,’ I said again, firmly but not aggressively. ‘Don’t make this worse than it already is, okay? Come on, come away …’

  But he completely ignored me. For all the things that he was and might be – he was still something of an unknown quantity – he was never slow in coming forward, and he was brave. He marched up to her and, though she was taller than him by a good seven or eight inches, jabbed an angry finger towards her chest.

  ‘They’ll get you!’ he told her, while his younger brother kept casting anxious glances at me. ‘They’ll get you! They fucking will, you witch!’

  His little brother was by now tugging on the sleeve of his school sweatshirt. ‘Ty,’ he was saying, ‘stop it! Please, Ty – just leave it!’

  ‘Tyler,’ I said, grabbing his wrist again, ‘come on. Come away.’ I looked at his stepmother, who finally met my eyes and rolled her own. You see? they seemed to be saying to me. You see what I have to deal with? And before she could get a word out he played right into it too, swinging a leg back, then hammering his foot into her shin. Now she did speak.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ she said, mostly to me, finally. ‘He’s a fucking animal!’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, because I didn’t really know what else to say. ‘Come on, Tyler. Come on, let’s get you home. Come on, you have to stop this.’

  ‘Too bloody right!’ his stepmother said, bending down to rub her shin. ‘Jesus Christ, I can’t even go into the supermarket without being fucking assaulted … Grant, will you get right here, now!’

  He scuttled to her side and, having at last got a firm grip on Tyler, I left the trolley parked by the fabric conditioners and dragged him away.

  The duty manager intercepted us just as we’d cleared the fruit and veg. ‘Is everything all right?’ he wanted to know, looking anxiously from me to Tyler and back again.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ I reassured him brightly. ‘Isn’t it, love?’ I added. I didn’t loosen my grip on Tyler, not even a little. Then, before the man could ask anything further I sidestepped him and left them to it. We’d perhaps come back and do the shopping another day.

  And as I walked Tyler to the car – he was crying now, but I pretended I didn’t know that – I remembered that thing car insurance companies always say you should do in the event of an accident. That, even if you know the prang is your fault, you should never say sorry, because that’s the same as admitting liability. That you should never do that, because that’s for them to decide.

  This was like that, I decided. Just the same sort of thing. And though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it mattered to me so greatly, I really wished that I hadn’t said that sorry.

  Chapter 7

  It was a 15-minute drive from the supermarket to home, but as I ushered Tyler back up the front path I realised that it wasn’t only him who was still feeling agitated – my own heart was still pumping with adrenalin. No, it hadn’t actually flared up into a full-blown physical tussle, thank goodness, but it had been an ugly, disturbing scene and, more than that, a telling one. It had told me a great deal about the state of affairs in Tyler’s home – none of which filled me with much hope.

  And it seemed events were moving on apace now, as well. As I put my key in the door I could hear the house phone ringing.

  ‘Go on, love,’ I said to Tyler. ‘Get upstairs and change out of your uniform while I get that. Then come straight back down. You and I need to have a chat, okay?’

  Tyler, no doubt glad to be off the leash, ran off up the stairs as instructed, while I made a grab for the phone.

  It was John Fulshaw. ‘Ah, you’re there,’ he said. ‘I was just about to hang up.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I gasped into the receiver, ‘long story. How are you?’

  ‘I have mixed news to give you, I’m afraid,’ John said, without preamble. ‘The good news is that Will Fisher has agreed to do an extra half day a week with Tyler during the school holidays – assuming that suits you, of course – take him off on some outings – swimming, go-karting; that sort of thing. Thought it might give you a bit of extra breathing space.’

  ‘That is good news,’ I said. And for me as well as Tyler. I wasn’t Methuselah, but neither was I a spring chicken these days, and what with the holidays approaching, and with trying to support Riley through those intense early months with my gorgeous but demanding grand-daughter, those few hours a week to catch my breath would be welcome indeed. ‘But what’s the flip side? Go on. I’m braced.’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ John reassured me. ‘Just a little unexpected. I’ve just taken another call from Will – just as I was going to ring you with the first news, funnily enough – to say they have Tyler’s court date, and it’s rather short notice. Which is no problem for them – they already have their case organised, and it’s obviously a
strong one – but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for you and Mike to put something together – you know, as in what we talked about? Just a few illustrative snippets to show how he’s doing; how he’s remorseful, keen to make amends and so on.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But exactly how short are we talking about here?’

  ‘It’s next Wednesday. 11.00 a.m.,’ he said. ‘You know where the courts are, don’t you?’

  Jeepers, I thought. That was pretty short notice. ‘Next Wednesday! That’s less than a week away! Yes, I know where the courts are,’ I added, ‘but, oh dear, I have to tell you that we’ve had something of an incident this afternoon – which I think might just upset the apple-cart a bit.’

  I explained to John about what had happened following our encounter in the supermarket, and how it had given me more of an idea of what we were up against. ‘And the frustrating thing is that this could happen again, couldn’t it? With the family living so close by, we could end up bumping into them all the time.’

  Which, given what had happened, was now becoming a worry, for obvious reasons. The way Tyler’s stepmother had been with him spoke volumes. It was the clearest indication yet that she really wanted nothing more to do with him – not to mention how she obviously felt about letting him near his little brother, which was the thing that had saddened me most of all.

  And made me determined to try and get something more out of him – particularly about the night in question – so we’d at least have a fuller picture of what we were up against, come the hearing. ‘Leave it with me,’ I told John. ‘Don’t worry – we’ll get something together. I’ll also run through the court procedure with Tyler so that he’s prepared for what’ll happen. Maybe after what’s happened this afternoon he’ll feel a little more like talking anyway. I really hope so. That poor lad needs to fight his corner.’