Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  That was a right daft thing to say.

  I wasnae a babby, I was eight year old.

  Vicky laughed, but not in a mean way, and she went, ‘Actually Sarah’s too big for that dress now. Would you like it?’

  When we went home we each had a carrier bag with a princess dress in it and we couldnae believe it. Mandy hid them up her coat when we got to our bit. We kept them under the bed in our room and at night we’d put them on and pretend we was Princess Vicky and Princess Sarah and we’d go to our servant: ‘No they diamonds, they ones, you stupid fucker!’ Mandy’s dress was too wee for her and one of the seams ripped but it still looked dead nice. It was purple with shiny blue stripes on the skirt and a blue frill round the neck and on the ends of the sleeves, and tiny wee buttons down the front of the bodice that looked like maybe they were jewels, all sparkly blue. Mine was pink with a white lacy layer over the top and if you looked close at the lace you could see there were the shapes of flowers and that in it, and I’d stand and birl round one way and then the other and the pink skirt under the lace would swirl like it was water.

  Magic.

  Then one day the dresses were gone.

  Must be Ma or Billy found them.

  Next year we stole a wee present for Sarah from Woolworth’s, a box of fruit jellies, and we were that excited counting down the days to her birthday, and even if we didnae get dresses we would get to be in the princess house with the real Vicky and Sarah.

  But she never asked us.

  We never went in that house again so we didnae.

  No reason Sarah Ramsay would ask us again, eh? She wasnae even in Mandy’s class. Sometimes she would say ‘Hi’ in the corridor or in the playground, but we werenae friends or nothing.

  Fruit jellies were nice but.

  And sometimes still, me or Mandy will go, ‘Mind they dresses?’

  I smooth down the skirts of the Elsa and Anna costumes and hang them back in the wardrobe.

  I sit on the bed and give Shrek a coorie and imagine Bekki here, all cooried down under the duvet with Shrek. The duvet’s got Anna and Elsa on it. I can never mind which is Anna and which is Elsa, but the frozen one with the blonde hair, her dress, the icy one with sparkly snowflakes and crystals, it covers half the duvet it’s that long.

  ‘She’ll be back soon,’ I says to Shrek.

  Bekki loved her Shrek. She was that funny, all them would come in to see her chubby wee cheek pressed against Shrek’s, beauty and the beast right enough, and Bekki would hold up Shrek for them to kiss, and they’d all do it, even Ryan. Then when they’d gone, I’d sit on the floor and stroke her hair and her wee face and I’d sing that song It Is You out the film. I knew all the words so I did. Each verse ended the same way.

  It is you I have loved all along.

  And I’m wondering if that bitch Ruth, or Flora she’s calling herself now, is putting Bekki to bed and reading her a story like Bekki’s her fucking wean.

  Does Bekki still have that lemur?

  Is she coorying down with the lemur and that Flora bitch is stroking her hair?

  But I cannae think about it.

  I cannae think about they fuckers or I’ll go mental so I will.

  I put Shrek back on the pillow. The pillow’s baby-blue with a giant white snowflake and ‘Like a snowflake I’m one of a kind’ on it. If Bekki likes all this shite we can take it with us to Spain. Weird but, snowflake bedding and mobiles and that, when it’s thirty fucking degrees.

  I go down the stair and get my coat. I leave the heating on low and a light on in the hallway. Then I pick up my bag and lock up and head off down the wee lock-block drive to the street. It’s a cul de sac with landscaping and grass and bushes and a blossom tree on the corner that you can see from Bekki’s windae. All the houses in this street are brand new newbuilds, some double-fronted detached like ours and some semidetached, all matching in with white walls and red tiles and wee porches. Dead nice.

  I cannae wait, so I cannae, till I’m in the house with Bekki and Carly and Connor. We’re bringing her here when we first get her, and Jed and them will stay at our bit. Then it’s Viva Espana!

  I power-walk to the bus stop and when I get there I get out my phone and take a deek at the photies Ryan took last time he was out there. The windaes are in, and the glass doors out to the patio round the pool. Rooms are massive by the way. Ryan’s getting a sound system put in through the whole house, and the heating’s gonnae be remote-controlled.

  It’s raining and I’m all bumfled up in a scarf and my big coat and boots. There’s no wee neds at the stop like there would be at our bit, bevvying and yowling and chucking Minstrels at the motors from packets they’ve robbed from the shop. There’s just an old couple with a wee laddie, and they’re reading the timetable up on the shelter and the wee laddie keeps going, ‘What does that say, Nana?’ and when she reads out ‘Bearsden’ he goes, ‘Are there real bears in Bearsden?’ like he’s hoping, and the old guy goes, ‘Aye, Christopher, there’s one there look driving that bus’ and the woman’s like that: ‘Silly Granda.’

  Nana smiles at me.

  I goes, ‘There was once a bear in Bearsden, but that was hundreds of year ago. The laird’s sons kept a bear cub in a pit.’ I looked it up on the internet in case Bekki asks. The bear died, but I’m no gonnae tell Bekki that bit. I’ve a wee story ready. ‘But that was cruel, eh, and the poor wee bear didnae like it. It wasnae a proper den, it was just a hole in the ground with nothing for the wee cub to coorie down in. He was cauld. The laird’s sons couldnae be doing with him and hardly ever came to play with him any more. They were more interested in drinking fancy wine and that. The bear cub was lonely. He didnae like it in that pit, so he didnae.’

  ‘Oh, the poor wee bear!’ says Nana. ‘What happened to the poor wee soul?’

  Christopher’s looking up at me with big blue eyes. He’s pure gorgeous so he is, with that soft creamy skin bairns have, and I want to pick him up and squeeze him and pinch his wee cheeks.

  I give him a big smile.

  ‘Did he escape?’ he whispers.

  ‘Oh aye, he escaped all right. He got out the pit one night and ran away, and after lots of adventures he found a nice fisherman with a cottage by the sea who had always wanted a bear for a wee pal, and he lived there in a cosy den lined with wool from the man’s sheep, and he went swimming by the man’s boat when he went out fishing, and just had a rare time altogether.’

  ‘He lived happily ever after,’ goes Christopher.

  Aye, in the version I’m telling Bekki that’s the happy ever after.

  But now I’m thinking: wee fucker, everything’s happy ever after for wee Christopher, eh, and Nana and Granda, off home for tea and fucking crumpets. While my Bekki doesnae even know who the fuck I am. I’m no her nana, I’m just a fucking random.

  So aye I shouldnae, but I cannae help it, I goes, ‘He’s happy aye, but then this big fierce mad dug comes along, and it fights the wee bear and gies it rabies so it does, and the bear goes fucking mental.’

  Christopher’s wee face!

  Nana and Granda’s!

  ‘Fucking mental, and when the nice fisherman comes and goes “Here, wee bear, let’s us go for a swim, aye?” the bear opens his gub like that!’ I pull back my lips and give Christopher a good long deek at my molars. ‘And he jumps on the man and rips his fucking head off!’

  Nana grabs Christopher and wheechs him out the shelter, and Granda hyters after them, but the bus is pulling up. I go and stand at the door but I dinnae get on, I pretend I’m looking in my purse for change, so they have to come back past me. Christopher’s greeting and Nana flings him up the steps and as Granda goes past me he’s like that: ‘Bitch.’ And then: ‘You need help,’ like that’s me telt.

  I goes, ‘Excuse me? I think you should maybe watch your language in front of the bairn, aye?’ real loud. As they move on down the bus I goes, ‘You heard that, Driver? You heard that man giving me verbals, calling me a bitch and that, just because I was
nae quick enough looking out my change? That’s sexist. That’s misogynistic so it is. Are you gonnae respect my right to get on a bus without being fucking abused by a sexist prick or are you no?’

  The driver sighs and gets out his seat and goes down the bus and says to Granda:

  ‘Okay sir. Aff.’

  And that’s their nice wee day out turned to pish.

  Chapter 14

  The corner shop was literally on a corner, the door across the angle of the block, with fresh fruit and vegetables displayed on stands to either side – although Flora never bought any of them because she worried about them soaking up pollution from the busy road. Inside, though, one whole wall contained shelf after shelf of wonderful old-fashioned sweets in big glass jars, all with natural colours and flavourings.

  On a Monday after school she and Beckie always came this way, rather than taking the quieter, more scenic walk through the leafy back streets, so that Beckie could get her treat. Compensation for it being a Monday. She usually chose jelly babies. They weren’t the usual kind, they were smaller and sharper and ‘more diverse’ as Beckie put it. They had counted nine different flavours in total. Beckie’s favourites were the purple ones, and Jennifer, the girl who usually served them, always tried to get as many of those on the little shovel as she could.

  Flora was partial to the jelly babies herself – Atkins was ancient history. They always got a little bag each and ate them as they walked home.

  But today, Flora had come this way on automatic pilot.

  She had no intention of going in.

  She turned and looked at her daughter, who’d been walking a couple of paces behind her all the way rather than bouncing and chattering at her side as usual.

  ‘Are we getting jelly babies?’ Beckie muttered.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it my punishment?’

  ‘Well Beckie, don’t you think you should be punished?’

  Beckie shrugged.

  She’d done a lot of that in the mediation discussion. A lot of shrugging and sighing and saying ‘Yeah’ while little Edith had sat so still on her chair next to her mum, and kept aiming pathetic little mini-smiles at Beckie, identical to the ones her mum, Shona, gave Flora. As if it was Edith and Shona who were at fault here.

  Mother and daughter were both very petite, almost malnourished-looking, with pale, thin hair pulled back from their bony faces, pink scalps prominent along their partings. Like old photographs of Victorian slum-dwellers. Flora had wondered if maybe Shona was anorexic and Edith didn’t get enough to eat at home. Maybe she could give Beckie some nutritious snacks to take to school, with strict instructions to give them to Edith? Falafels or some of those mini-rolls with chicken salad, or houmous and avocado. And dried fruit and unsalted nuts. It could be part of Beckie’s reparations.

  Beckie’s so-called apology had been just embarrassing. ‘I’m sorry I pushed you, Edith, I –’

  ‘Uh, Beckie, I don’t think it was just a push, was it?’ Mrs Jenner had interrupted.

  Beckie had sighed. ‘I’m sorry I “hit” you, Edith.’

  And Edith – little Edith had smiled and said, ‘That’s okay.’

  Now Beckie was kicking at a crisp bag, not looking at her.

  Flora said, ‘You’re not getting any jelly babies, and you won’t be until I see a big improvement in your behaviour generally, and in particular until I hear from the teachers and Mrs Jenner that you’ve stopped being so nasty to Edith. Now come on.’

  Flora started walking.

  At the end of the block she looked back to make sure Beckie was following. She was scuffing along with her head down, the picture of martyred dejection.

  She fixed a smile to her face. ‘Come on, darling.’

  Beckie looked up. She wasn’t crying – Beckie rarely cried. But she didn’t return Flora’s smile.

  Flora walked back to her and pulled her against her side. ‘It’s okay. I’m not angry. I’m not happy about it, and yes you do need to be punished when you do something so wrong, but I’m not angry, and neither is Dad. But you have to talk to us, and tell us the truth, so we can sort it out and work out why you’ve been doing this.’

  If there was a why.

  There hadn’t been a why for Tricia and Rachel.

  They hadn’t been acting out. Neither of them had had problems at home.

  They’d done it because it had been fun.

  It had been fun to scare little Adrian Drummond in Primary 3 so much he skittered in his shorts – she could still see the brown stream of it running down his leg; remember the feeling of amazement that she had such power over someone else’s bowel movements. It had been fun to chase poor Gail round the bike shelter, after they’d found out she’d been born on a Wednesday, and chant: ‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe! Wednesday’s child is full of woe!’ until Gail broke down crying: ‘I am not full of woe!’

  Beckie was glaring up at her. ‘I haven’t done anything. But you don’t believe me.’

  ‘We can sit down and you can tell us your side of it.’

  ‘And you still won’t believe me.’ Beckie wriggled out from under her arm and began to run away up the pavement, rucksack bouncing on the back of her maroon sweatshirt.

  ‘Beckie!’ Flora ran after her. ‘Beckie, stop right there!’

  As it became obvious that Beckie wasn’t going to stop, and that Flora wasn’t going to catch up, she yelled: ‘Be careful of the traffic!’

  God, Flora was unfit. She had to slow to a walk within two blocks, chest heaving.

  Beckie was out of sight.

  She was almost nine. She had good road sense. She’d be fine.

  Flora had handled this so badly.

  Okay, so, despite what Neil might think, it was pretty much cut and dried that Beckie was guilty as charged, given what Mrs Jenner had herself witnessed, but Flora should have heard Beckie out properly. When she’d first broached the subject of Edith on Friday over that jigsaw, she should have said something like, ‘Are you having a problem with a girl called Edith at school?’ and let Beckie talk, let her give her side, and then carefully bring up the hitting, and if Beckie denied it, gently point out why she knew Beckie wasn’t telling the truth – pulling Mrs Jenner out of the bag as star witness – and encourage her to own up to what had really happened.

  At last she was crossing the road and turning into their street, breathing in the fresh green smells, relaxing a little, as she always did, at the sight of trees and hedges and grass and flowers. In the garden of the Tudor-effect house there was a carpet of bluebells on the raised grassy area in front of one of the mullioned windows.

  Rather spoiling the ambience, though, was the man walking a hundred metres or so ahead of her. He was in dirty jeans and a football top which revealed tattooed arms, quite sinewy for a man in, what, his sixties? He looked like he might be drunk, walking with a sort of rolling swagger.

  Further down the road she could see Beckie. She was standing by the privet hedge that belonged to one of the other semidetached houses a few down from theirs, plucking leaves off it. Flora waved, but Beckie didn’t respond.

  Flora increased her pace.

  The man had weaved across the pavement, putting himself on course for a collision with Beckie.

  ‘Beckie!’ she called, and started to run.

  The man stopped a few paces from Beckie and said something to her.

  Beckie shrugged.

  ‘Beckie, come here!’ Flora shouted.

  The man turned.

  He had protruding ears, a long, gaunt face with a stubbly chin and stubbly close-cropped hair.

  It was the face that had stared out at her from the mugshot Saskia Mair had shown her, from the photographs in the press she’d dredged up about his convictions, from her own imagination in recurring, half-remembered nightmares.

  It was Jed Johnson.

  She was running full tilt now, her bag bouncing on her hip.

  ‘Beckie!’

  But Beckie just stood there
.

  ‘Get away from her!’

  As she came running up he lurched towards Beckie, and Beckie whimpered and dodged past him to clutch at Flora.

  ‘I’m calling the police,’ she said, her arms tight round Beckie.

  ‘Aye, call the fucking polis!’ He staggered and half-fell against the hedge. ‘I need to report a fucking theft! Fucking theft of my fucking granddaughter!’

  Flora edged round him, Beckie clinging to her.

  ‘There y’are hen! Wee Beckie!’ He pushed himself upright. ‘I’m your granda! I’m your granda, hen!’

  ‘No you’re not!’ Beckie wailed.

  Flora pulled her along the pavement in the direction of Number 17 and safety, but suddenly there were two more men in front of them, a grinning thug and a handsome man in a suit, and oh God, she recognised them too, they were Travis and Ryan Johnson, and then Flora was screaming, stupidly screaming:

  ‘Help! Please help us!’

  She pulled Beckie towards the road but there was a huge 4 x 4 parked tight up against the kerb, close up to the car in front. She turned round but Jed had moved up behind them. Beyond him, she could see Ailish and Thomas coming along the pavement.

  ‘Ailish!’ she screamed. ‘Help! Ailish!’

  Beckie was clutching Flora’s arm so hard it hurt. Flora pressed her to her chest. ‘Get away from us! Get away! You’d better go before the police get here!’

  ‘Oh I’m so scared!’ Travis Johnson tittered.

  ‘She fucking stole you off of us!’ Jed suddenly roared in Beckie’s face. ‘You want to stay with her? You want that?’

  Beyond him, she could see Ailish’s rapidly retreating back. She had Thomas by the hand and was trotting away in her high-heeled boots. Thomas was staring back at Flora, mouth open.

  ‘Help us!’ Flora yelled, hugging Beckie.

  Across the road there was an elderly couple on the pavement that ran alongside the high hedge of the Botanic Gardens. They had stopped and were staring across.