by Cathy Glass
Now the other children were looking too; presumably they were used to responding immediately to any request from their teacher. Jodie stared at Mrs Smith, but then, to my relief, she lowered her gaze and plodded heavily over, flopping in her chair with a dramatic sigh.
Mrs Rice gave Jodie a pencil and paper. I crept round the edge of the room and perched myself on a stool by the window. The classroom overlooked the playground, and an older class was in the middle of a P.E. lesson. The room was quiet save for the occasional scraping of a chair and the hushed voice of Mrs Rice giving assistance to her group. I noticed that there were more boys than girls, and wondered whether, with their friendships already established, the girls would allow Jodie in. The poor girl needed to make friends just as much as she needed the education, and children can be very forgiving if they feel it’s justified.
The children finished their essays, and Mrs Smith asked who would like to read one out. Half a dozen hands shot up, including Jodie’s. A boy called James was chosen first, and he’d written about the night-time adventures of a fox called Lance. The story had a clear structure, and used lots of adjectives, and when he was finished the other pupils gave him a big round of applause. Next came Susie, whose story cleverly centred around the observations of a wise owl, from his vantage point high up in the trees. I gathered, from the content of the essays, that they’d been told to write about nocturnal animals. Susie was given her round of applause, and the teacher said they had time for one more. Jodie’s hand flew up again, waving for all she was worth.
Mrs Smith exchanged a glance with Mrs Rice. ‘Come on then, Jodie. Let’s hear yours.’
I cringed with embarrassment; I could see she’d only produced a handful of scribbles. ‘Class, this is Jodie,’ said the teacher. ‘She’ll be joining us from Monday.’
Jodie stood up, and proudly held the paper at eye level, as she’d seen the others do. She pretended to read loudly and confidently, but her story was simply a string of unrelated words, punctuated by the occasional ‘owl’ and ‘fox’, with nothing intelligible in between.
’I saw the fox, to see, and I say don’t, and the fox was him, and he … No. And then the owl. Where he was … He got far, and Mr Owl. Watch it. I told you, over there. So the fox went and in the night, you see, I said! Then they went. Then the fox was at night and the owl, but he was not, and I said. So I go to fox, and the owl …’
Fortunately Jodie was oblivious to the nonsense she was producing. I looked at the blank stares of the other children, and prayed they wouldn’t laugh. After a couple of minutes, with no end in sight, the teacher thanked Jodie and told her to sit down. There was no applause, but neither was there any sniggering, and for that I was truly grateful. Jodie didn’t appear to notice anything amiss at all – in fact, she was full of high spirits and rather triumphant.
The last hour was given over to self-chosen activities, during which the children worked on any aspect they liked of the topics covered during the week. I walked round the classroom once more. Some of the children were on the computers, adeptly cutting and pasting, while others were devising crosswords, stories, or producing pictures to complement their writing. Jodie was drawing a series of large boxes, and colouring them orange, blue, green, red and yellow. She explained to me that these were the class’s different groups. I praised her, impressed that she’d picked up this much, then I wrote the names of the colours beneath them for her. Five minutes before the bell, the children packed away their things, and sat on the carpet in front of the teacher. They chanted, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Smith!’ and the teacher wished them a happy weekend. As they collected their bags and coats and filed out, the teacher asked Jodie how she’d enjoyed her first afternoon.
‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘I want to come every day. For ever and ever!’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Granddad
One of the remarkable things about Jodie that I had noticed right from the start was that she had absolutely no conception of time. She would discuss events from years ago as if they were happening right now. Equally, if we had something planned for a few weeks’ time, she would expect it to happen immediately. The day after the school visit she wanted to go again, and no matter how many times I explained to her that schools didn’t open on Saturdays, she couldn’t understand. Instead, she was convinced it was my fault.
‘It’s Saturday,’ I explained, for the fifth time. ‘No one goes to school on Saturdays. Be a good girl and take off your uniform, and we’ll hang it up ready for Monday.’
‘No! Don’t want to! Shut up! It’s mine and I’m going!’ She sat cross-legged on the floor, with her arms folded, angry and defiant.
I crouched down. ‘I know it’s yours, sweet, and so are all these other lovely clothes. How about you wear your new lacy tights, as we’re going to see Grandma and Granddad later.’ I took the tights out of the drawer, and placed them with a skirt and jumper on the bed. ‘It’s up to you, but they’ll look very smart with your denim skirt.’
I left the room, came downstairs and made breakfast. Half an hour later Jodie appeared in the clothes I’d laid out.
‘Well done, Jodie. That’s a wise choice.’
Every situation had to be handled with infinite care, if there was to be any chance of cooperation. I couldn’t simply say, ‘Put on your shoes, it’s time to go.’ Jodie would have to believe that it was her decision, and that she was in control. I knew where this had come from. When Jodie was being abused she had had no control over anything, so now she needed to be constantly in charge, just to feel safe. Unfortunately for me, the result of this was that even the simplest request would be met with a stubborn refusal, unless she could be persuaded that she herself had made the decision. I had to use diplomacy and coercion if I wanted anything done, and it could be very draining.
A visit to Grandma and Granddad’s was just what we all needed, to smooth away some of the tensions within the family, and boost our morale. Jodie thought the world of my parents, as did Adrian, Lucy, Paula and all the other children we had looked after. Mum and Dad were in their early seventies, and they were the archetypal grandparents, with endless patience, and all the time in the world to indulge their grandchildren.
As we arrived, Jodie was on good form, and greeted my parents warmly. We all went into the living room, when Jodie caught sight of my parents’ dog, Cosmo, a rather sad, passive, old rescue greyhound. Jodie suddenly screamed, then rushed across the room and started whacking him with her fists. The poor dog yelped, but Jodie was on top of him and he couldn’t move. Dad and I rushed over and pulled her off, and I asked her what on earth she was doing.
‘It looked at me!’ she shouted, still glaring at the frightened dog. She had never shown any fondness for animals but she had a particular aversion to dogs. Perhaps it was because of her father’s dog, or that, in the pecking order she was used to, the dog was the one she could kick and hurt without any fear of reprisal. She certainly never had any empathy for anything more vulnerable than she was.
‘But it didn’t mean any harm,’ I said firmly, as my dad stroked the poor animal, then let him out into the garden. ‘Now behave yourself. We said we were going to have a good day, didn’t we?’
Jodie nodded sullenly.
‘I tell you what,’ my father said. ‘Why don’t you help me feed the fish? They haven’t been fed yet, because they were waiting for you to arrive. We can all do it together, if you like. How does that sound?’
Jodie liked that idea, so she took Paula’s hand, and the two of them followed my father into the garden while Cosmo watched from a safe distance. Adrian and Lucy, who considered themselves too mature for this kind of entertainment, sat in the living room, listening to their mp3 players, which had so far kept them mute since Christmas.
I joined Mum in the kitchen, and helped her prepare lunch, as we caught up on the latest news. As usual, I was soon doing most of the talking, and it was mainly about Jodie. I found it very cathartic to discuss abnormal behaviour in
the context of my mother’s very normal existence, and it helped that my mother was a good listener.
‘Anyway,’ I said at last, ‘hopefully we’ll turn a corner soon. So tell me, what have you two been up to?’
She recounted the various hobbies and interests which filled their very active retirement. Eventually the girls and my father streamed in through the kitchen door, while Jodie loudly enthused about the Golden Orbs which had come to the surface to feed. Mum and I served lunch, and I seated Jodie between the two of us. Her plate was piled high with chicken, roast potatoes, three vegetables and gravy.
‘I wish I lived here,’ she said, gazing adoringly at Grandma. Mum believes everyone needs ‘feeding up’, even when it’s obvious they really ought to be on a diet.
As the meal progressed, I noticed Jodie taking more than a passing interest in my father, who was seated opposite her. She watched him intently, as he peered down through his spectacles at his plate, then over them to retrieve his drink or to talk to one of us. I assumed she was wondering about the way he used his spectacles, which were only for close focusing. Mum offered us second helpings, and I limited Jodie’s. She sulked at this, resenting the fact that my father had filled his plate, but he needed it: age had thinned him down, rather than piling on the pounds.
‘Granddad?’ she asked suddenly, setting down her cutlery.
He looked up over his glasses. ‘Yes, dear?’
‘Are you Cathy’s daddy?’
‘That’s right. She’s my daughter.’
She thought for a moment, clearly trying to work something out. ‘So, you’re their granddaddy?’ She pointed at Adrian and Paula. I smiled at Lucy, hoping she wouldn’t be offended at Jodie’s faux pas.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Dad replied. ‘Well done.’
She glowed at the praise, and I was impressed that she’d finally made the connection, which she’d struggled with since she first met my parents. ‘So if you’re their granddad,’ she said, still watching him, ‘did you do naughty things with your willy to them when they was little, like my granddaddy did to me?’
Everyone fell silent. My father stopped eating and looked at me.
‘Jodie! Of course not!’ I said sharply. ‘I’ve told you before, normal families don’t do those things. Granddad is a good man. Now finish your dinner, we’ll talk about this later.’
Jodie, blissfully ignorant of the shocking impact of what she’d said, picked up her knife and fork, and carried on eating contentedly.
My parents were shocked; I could see it on their faces. Jodie had asked her question with such ease, as if it were a perfectly natural assumption. We quickly changed the subject, and talked loudly of other things, but meanwhile I was thinking about what she’d said. Her grandfather? I wasn’t even aware she had grandparents; there was no reference to them in the records. I wondered if she was confusing Dad and Granddad, or if there really was a grandfather involved? Did this mean there was yet another abuser present in Jodie’s life? Was there anyone who hadn’t had a part in destroying her? I glanced at my father, who was still subdued after Jodie’s bombshell, and wondered again at the great divide between healthy and abusive families. Could her perception ever be changed? Perhaps one day she’d be able to accept that what happened to her was abnormal and wrong, and that most families functioned very differently. But at times it seemed a forlorn hope.
I kept a close eye on Jodie for the rest of the afternoon, and Mum helped her with some colouring and cutting out. We were never able to leave my parents without a final cup of tea and slice of homemade cake, and we didn’t say our goodbyes until just after six. There was an accident on the motorway, so it was well past Jodie’s bedtime by the time we finally arrived home. I decided to leave asking her about her granddad until the following day, but as I tucked her into bed and dimmed the lights she suddenly asked, ‘Why didn’t Granddaddy do naughty things to Adrian and Paula? Doesn’t he love them?’
I looked at her in the half-light. She was snuggled deep beneath her duvet, with only her blonde hair visible, falling in strands across the pillow. How could I begin to unravel the confusion between normal affection and the warped gratification that she had known?
‘It’s a different kind of love, Jodie. Completely different from the one between two grown-ups. And what was done to you wasn’t love of any kind. It was cruel, and very, very wrong. You’ll understand more when you’re older.’
I wanted to leave it at that, to go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, then maybe sit in the lounge and read the paper. But if I didn’t follow this up now, Jodie might have forgotten it in the morning, sucking the awful memory back into the black abyss of denial.
With a now familiar surge of anxiety at what I was about to hear, I turned up the light a little, and sat on the chair beside her bed. Her eyes peered over the duvet, and I stroked her forehead.
‘Jodie, pet, did your granddad hurt you in the same way your daddy and uncle did?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Cathy. They was nicer.’
‘They? How many granddads did you have?’
‘Granddad Wilson and Granddad Price.’
‘So there were two then. And how were they nicer, Jodie?’
She thought for a moment, as the lines on her forehead creased, and I hoped she was about to tell me that they’d taken her to the zoo, or bought her an Easter egg, the kind of things normal grandparents do.
‘They lay on top of me, but they didn’t hurt. They just peed in the bed. It was because they loved me, Cathy.’ She said it so matter-of-factly, she might as well have been recounting a trip to the zoo.
‘No it wasn’t. It was wrong, Jodie. Adults don’t show love like that. What they did was cruel. It’s got nothing to do with love.’ But I could see how ejaculation without penetration might have seemed kinder to her, when compared with the other abuse.
‘Were Mummy and Daddy in the room when this happened?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘And Uncle Mike, and someone I didn’t know.’
I held her hand and stroked her forehead. ‘Is there anything else? Can you remember any more?’
She shook her head. ‘Can I have a story now, Cathy? Topsy and Tim’s New Shoes?’
She wasn’t upset, and I found that I wasn’t either. I was becoming as desensitized as her. I read her the Topsy and Tim story, then said goodnight and went downstairs. I made a note of the conversation in my log, then stepped outside for a cigarette. As I stood there in the freezing night air, I wondered if there was a course I could take in basic psychotherapy. I decided not. If I made an amateur attempt to help Jodie, it would probably do more harm than good. All I could do was continue along the same lines as I had been, using a common-sense approach which restated normality, but did little or nothing for the profound psychological damage that had already been done. Not for the first time since Jodie’s arrival, I felt completely inadequate.
On Sunday morning Jodie was buzzing with energy, and I had to deal with a barrage of questions about school. Would she have homework? Was there playtime? Did the teacher have a husband? A daddy? Would it rain? Adopting my usual policy of trying to burn off some of her nervous energy, I took her out on her bike.
‘It’s so cold,’ I remarked, pulling up my collar. ‘I think it could snow again.’
‘What’s snow?’ she asked, as we climbed the hill. I tried to remind her as best I could, telling how much she had loved it earlier in the month when it had snowed over three days, but Jodie suddenly decided that she wanted snow immediately, and became angry when I couldn’t or, according to her, wouldn’t produce it. A full-scale tantrum ensued, and she lay prostrate on the pavement, banging her fists and demanding snow for a good fifteen minutes. It would have been comical if I hadn’t been so cold. When we got back to the house, I sat her in front of a video until dinner was ready. She was just as hyperactive after dinner, and had another tantrum when I wouldn’t go out to buy her some ice cream. I managed to persuade her to take a bath
, and this calmed her down enough for bed at seven. Tomorrow would be her first day at school for more than a year, and I was praying that it would be a good one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Friends
Jodie was up and down all night, but in the morning she was bright and excited, whereas I was just exhausted. She changed into her school uniform, and we only had one small hiccup when she demanded to wear her lacy tights, but I eventually managed to dissuade her.
We arrived at school early, so we sat in the car for a while, listening to the radio. Although Jodie was excited, I could tell she was also a little nervous, and I was nervous too, on her behalf.
I held Jodie’s hand as we walked up to the school gates. I gave it a squeeze, and we entered the school building. Mrs Rice came and met us in reception. Because of Jodie’s learning difficulties, it had been arranged that I would hand her over to Mrs Rice every morning, and she would hand her back at the end of the day. I gave Jodie a hug, and watched anxiously as Mrs Rice led her down the corridor.
As soon as I arrived home, the phone rang. It was Jill; she’d received the notes I’d emailed on Sunday about Jodie’s granddads, and she’d already spoken to Eileen. They had checked the records, and confirmed that there were definitely no grandparents on the scene; it was done with such speed that I wondered if Eileen’s manager had spoken to her. Jodie’s maternal grandmother was alive, but had fallen out with her daughter years ago, and there was no contact between them. Jodie had never known her grandfathers on either side. There was a pause, as Jill waited for me to come to the obvious conclusion.
‘They’re in the same category as the so-called uncles, paedophiles in the guise of family members?’ I said. Jodie had previously described some of her other abusers as uncles and aunts, but it appeared that these were not actual relatives; rather, they were friends of Jodie’s parents, who had been described as family members as an easy way of introducing strangers into the home environment.