Broken

by Rosie Lewis

  He lifted his knee and rested it on the cushion, turning slightly towards me. ‘No one will find out,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘There’s no way you can find out. It’s an iPhone. Unless I tell someone the code, it’s impossible to get into it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, though I only had one of those old Nokia handsets. When it came to mobile phone technology, I only had a sketchy understanding. As for downloading videos, I was absolutely clueless.

  ‘Yes it is! Jason says –’ He stopped suddenly, realising that he’d said more than intended.

  ‘So Jason gave you the phone?’ He shook his head, turned away.

  I stared at the back of his head. ‘Archie,’ I said slowly. ‘Have you ever shown those videos to Bobbi?’

  He spun around, his eyes wide with horror. ‘No!’

  I levelled my gaze, my mind returning to the pictures she had drawn when she first arrived in placement, the strange, inappropriate comments to the other girls at school, and the excrement smeared over my mother’s rug. ‘Never? Not any of them?’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that!’ he said, and then he burst into tears. ‘I would never do that, honestly, Rosie. She doesn’t even know I’ve got a phone. I knew she’d say something if she saw it so I kept it secret.’

  He held my gaze as tears spilled from his eyes. It wasn’t one of his halfway looks, where he couldn’t quite meet my eye. It was a direct stare, searing and honest, and I believed that he was telling the truth. ‘I believe you, Arch.’ I put my arm around him, noticing his thinness as I held him. ‘I’m sorry. I had to ask.’ He rested his head on my shoulder, his body trembling as he cried and cried. I held him for a long time, rocking him and telling him that everything was going to be okay. When he went up to bed I recorded everything he had said as accurately as I could, a ball of anger snarling in the pit of my stomach as I typed.

  The telephone rang at half past nine, just after I’d sat down with Emily to watch a new episode of House of Cards. It was Danny, still at work, despite the lateness of the hour. ‘Sorry, Rosie. I tried to get round to calling you earlier but we had an emergency come up. How is he?’

  ‘He’s upset. Defensive. Protecting someone.’

  ‘Ah, he’s not coughed up to anything yet then?’

  ‘He’s admitted showing stuff to the children at school. I think he’s just so desperate to make friends, Danny. He thought that was the way to do it. They all show each other hideous stuff apparently, though I think what Archie had on his phone truly shocked them all.’

  ‘And you had no idea he had a phone?’ There was no reproof in Danny’s tone, but I felt the sting of guilt anyway.

  ‘Absolutely no idea. He must have had it in his rucksack when he arrived. I did suspect. I asked him once if he had one, but he denied it and I took him at his word.’ I knew that the use of mobile phones was the source of much conflict in fostering families. Disagreements about who was responsible for topping up credit and keeping handsets under pillows when sleeping regularly cropped up, but some foster carers had even been filmed when in the middle of a rant, the footage posted up on social media for birth families to access. The more I thought about it, the more foolish I felt. I resolved to make more of an effort to check in future when new children arrived in placement.

  ‘I’m not blaming you, Rosie. There’s no way you could have known unless you’d searched his bag, and we obviously don’t expect you to do that. Where is the phone now?’

  ‘I’ve confiscated it.’

  ‘Good. We’ll pick it up soon, though I’m not sure what can be done about it yet. They’ll be a strategy meeting in the next few days.’ There was a pause, and then he said: ‘I’m pretty certain that the children will be removed and placed separately after that.’

  ‘Oh no, Danny, don’t say that.’

  He sighed. ‘It’s pretty inevitable. It’s not that what Archie has done is that unusual. Believe me, it isn’t. Most kids are exposed to explicit images before their teenage years these days. But when the fact that the kids are sharing a room is brought to everyone’s attention, it’s unlikely they’ll allow it to continue. Just think of the risks. When you think about the way Bobbi’s been behaving at school, it suggests she’s been acting out what she’s seen as a way of trying to understand it. Whether that’s what went on in the past, or what Archie’s exposed her to is anyone’s guess.’

  ‘But he’d never hurt Bobbi,’ I insisted, a band tightening around my chest. ‘He loves her to pieces. He’s so protective of her.’

  ‘I’m sure he is, Rosie. I’m not saying it’s deliberate on his part, poor kid. But I suspect my manager will be thinking trauma bond, and if that is the case, it’s not good for either of them.’ Traumatic bonding is the term used to describe the powerful attachment that often exists between a destructive person and their victim. Siblings that share a trauma bond are usually placed separately to avoid the risk of continuing abuse. As far as I could tell, Archie was Bobbi’s protector, not her abuser, but I also appreciated the difficulty for social workers who had to make snap decisions from afar, sometimes without much personal experience of the children involved.

  ‘I could separate their room,’ I pressed on. I knew that some agency foster carers who provided placements for asylum seekers had separated spare bedrooms into two, sometimes even three separate sleeping pods using four by twos and some MDF. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but the usual rules had been relaxed through desperate need.

  ‘Rosie, let’s see what happens. I’ll say my piece at the meeting, but I’m not hopeful. Not hopeful at all.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Archie spent the next day, Tuesday 4 March, in his room, emerging reluctantly for meals and the school run. Bobbi lashed out at me that afternoon, the first violent episode from her in weeks. While she seemed generally unaware and absorbed in her own little world, I think she sensed there was something amiss. I noticed her watching Archie during dinner that evening, an unusual sharpness in her gaze.

  I spent a bit of extra time playing with her after Megan had gone to bed, and then invited her to join me on the sofa so that I could read My Underpants Rule to her while no one else was around. It was the book that Danny had recommended after I’d told him about Bobbi’s inappropriate language at school. It had been delivered by Amazon that morning.

  Bobbi wasn’t a bookworm like her brother, but she scrambled onto the sofa eagerly – pleased, I think, to have been singled out for individual attention. The book was colourful and she gave the story her full attention while snuggling beside me. ‘What’s under my pants belongs only to me,’ I read, ‘And others can’t touch there or ask me to see …’ I turned each page slowly, willing her to confide in me while at the same time praying there wasn’t anything for her to disclose.

  There were scenarios that children might find themselves in described at the end of the book. Bobbi looked thoughtful but not upset as we discussed how she might react if she found herself in a situation that made her uncomfortable. I watched her as she looked at the lively illustrations, resisting the urge to question her. I wondered what was going through her mind. Did she even possess the words to tell me what she might have endured, I wondered. I let her flick through the book for a while, and when she’d finished I asked her whether she liked it.

  She nodded and looked at me. ‘It’s good. I’ve had it before though.’

  ‘Have you? At school?’ I knew that stay safe lessons had been introduced in some schools for children as young as four, to encourage them to reach out for help if they were suffering abuse.

  ‘Daddy read it to me when I see’d him ages ago,’ she said, plonking the book at her side and climbing onto my lap. I felt a quickening in my chest; an invisible high five. I gave her a hug and carried her upstairs to brush her teeth, thrilled to think that Jimmy was innocent of any allegations thrown at him by Tanya and Jason.

  If Jimmy had ever harmed Bobbi or Archie, there was no way he wou
ld have read a book like that to them. It was a simple yet incontrovertible truth as far as I was concerned, and I couldn’t wait to call Danny and tell him.

  ‘Even if that is the case,’ Danny said over the telephone on the Wednesday morning, ‘Tracy has made it clear she doesn’t want the children. Their house is on the market and they’ll be moving out of the area as soon as it’s sold.’

  ‘And what about Jimmy?’

  ‘I can’t even get hold of him. His phone’s switched off and he hasn’t responded to any of my messages.’

  My heart sank. It was hard to believe that a man who had seemed so fond of his children could abandon them on the say-so of a woman. I hated the thought of the children moving on when we were on the verge of finding out what really happened to them. Archie was close to confiding in me, I was sure of it. I was also certain that moving him on to another foster carer so soon after the mobile-phone episode would feel like a punishment; yet another rejection to increase his shame.

  ‘We’re holding a strategy meeting in the morning,’ Danny said flatly. ‘I’ll give you a ring when I know more.’

  Archie spent much of the rest of the day in his room. Whenever I spoke to him he answered with good manners, his seething anger having been replaced with a lethargic, quiet depression.

  Archie hovered close to me when we went to Millfield Primary the next day. It was Thursday 6 March and I knew that the strategy meeting would be taking place at some time during the morning. Anxiety swirled around my chest as I watched the older children crossing the playground towards their classrooms. Archie looked so tortured about spending the day at school that it was all I could do not to wrap my arms around him and take him back home. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon, honey,’ I said, resisting the urge to tell him he could have one more day off. He dipped his head close to my shoulder and then joined the back of the disinterested throng. My heart ached for him.

  I went on a cleaning mission as soon as I got home. I turned the radio on and stripped every bed in the house of its sheets in an attempt to occupy my mind. I kept the volume low though, keen to hear the telephone if it went. Danny finally called my mobile around midday. ‘Hello,’ I said eagerly when I saw his name displayed, though I could tell by his tone that it wasn’t good news.

  ‘We’re going to have to move them, Rosie. It was a unanimous decision, I’m afraid.’

  I felt a tug at my heart. ‘Oh no.’

  ‘I know you were hoping for better news, but it looks like we might have found a placement for Archie already; an older couple with no children at home. There’s nothing for Bobbi yet, but we’re hopeful we’ll find somewhere quickly for her too.’

  I groaned, my heart breaking at the thought of the siblings being separated. ‘I know how you feel,’ Danny said, ‘but they’ll have supervised contact between them regularly, so it won’t be as bad as you fear.’ It was bad enough, and I could tell from Danny’s tone that he thought so too. ‘The carers have a holiday booked but it’s only a week. They’ll be ready for Archie from 17 March. Until then we’d be grateful if you could be extra vigilant at home.’

  That was only ten or so days away. I swallowed hard, emotion tightening my throat. ‘Don’t say anything to the kids yet. We’ll break the news a few days before they move on. We don’t want to cause them any more stress than we have to.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The girls sang in the car all the way home. It was a proper cats’ chorus, but listening to them brought a lump to my throat. I thought back to the frenzied, agitated child I had collected from Joan’s house on New Year’s Day and my throat tightened still further; Bobbi had come such a long way in the last couple of months. But had she also been damaged during that time, by her own brother, I wondered. I looked at her in the rear-view mirror, her face bright and shiny as she beamed across at Megan, and I felt a clawing in my stomach; an urge to find out more.

  I set some paints out on the table when we got home and as I watched them play I wracked my brains, trying to think of a way of finding out whether Archie was telling the truth. And then it occurred to me.

  My handbag was hanging over the newel post in the hall. I opened it and pulled out the white iPhone – despite what Danny had said, no one from social services had materialised to collect it. I took it into the dining area and sat down next to Bobbi. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, when I held it up.

  ‘It’s a phone. Can I see, Mummy?’ Megan asked.

  I turned it over in my hand and showed them. Megan reached out for it. Bobbi ran her eyes over it with a blank expression and then went back to dabbing her brush in some red paint. I pulled it back out of Megan’s reach. ‘Just a minute, Meggie. Bobbi? Hey, Bobbi, look at me.’

  Engrossed in what she was doing, she lifted her head reluctantly. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know whose phone this is?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Who does this phone belong to?’

  She shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Is it Archie’s?’

  The glaze over her eyes cleared. ‘Archie don’t have a phone,’ she said in a tone that suggested she considered me slightly daft. It was a simple test, but one that left no doubt in my mind that Archie had been telling the truth. I scribbled a quick note on my log, reminding myself to email Danny as soon as I got a chance.

  I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but Archie seemed a little lighter on his feet when we picked him up that afternoon. ‘So your first day back wasn’t too bad then?’ I said as we walked back to the car.

  He shrugged. ‘It was alright actually. We’ve been put into groups to do a book project and Miss Barnard says me and Charlie can help her organise a Harry Potter display since we’re experts.’ I smiled, pleased to hear that Clare was making efforts to draw him into the fold.

  At dinnertime he told me about some ideas he’d already had for the project and I noticed as he spoke that he had less difficultly maintaining eye contact. It was as if he felt more at ease with himself after being found out. He hovered around me as I cleared away the dishes after dinner, though, and I sensed he had more to say. It came out later that evening, when I came back down after putting the girls to bed.

  ‘Has anyone heard from my dad?’ he asked, as soon as I stepped into the room. He was standing between the sofa and the bookshelf, the TV remote in his hand.

  ‘I’m afraid not, honey. Not yet.’

  ‘What will happen if we never hear from him again?’ He set the handset on one of the shelves and ran his fingers over the spines of the books, his face angled away.

  ‘Well, there are lots of lovely foster carers who would love to take care of children as wonderful as you and Bobbi. Long-term carers who will look after you until you’re grown-up.’

  He looked at me and opened his mouth to speak. All that came out was a croak. I took a step closer. ‘It’s okay to feel a bit anxious about it, love, that’s normal.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not that.’ He sounded bunged up.

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘It won’t be you?’ He risked a glance at me. His face crumpled; his voice breaking. ‘It won’t be here, with you?’

  I took a breath. ‘Not with me, no,’ I said hoarsely. I was beginning to feel choked myself.

  His lower lip wobbled and he burst into tears. I was across the room then, taking him into my arms. He rested his head onto my shoulder and wept, his hands clutching fast at my jumper. I held him for several minutes until his sobs began to subside, and then he pulled away, his head level with my shoulder. ‘You don’t want us then,’ he managed shakily, his eyes filled with the pain of rejection. Suddenly he seemed very small and my heart broke for him.

  I rested my hands firmly on his shoulders, battling to keep my own emotions in check. ‘Archie, sweetie, that isn’t it at all, honestly it isn’t.’ I dropped my hands and grabbed his, gripping them tightly in my own. ‘I would love you to be able to stay here,’ I said, surprised to find that I truly meant it. For the fir
st few weeks of their stay with us I had been mentally crossing off each difficult day in my mind. Now, I felt like they belonged, as if they were part of the family. ‘But you’re both getting older and you’ll soon need a room of your own. I’m afraid that just isn’t possible here.’

  ‘I don’t mind sharing. Or Bobbi could have the bedroom and I’ll sleep downstairs.’

  ‘Oh, Arch, it wouldn’t be allowed, honey.’

  He took a deep shuddery breath and nodded. I pulled him close and he started to cry again, softly, onto my shoulder. I thought back to Tracy’s words about children being resilient. I don’t share that view. I think that we’re born with powerful coping strategies to help us survive, but that isn’t the same thing at all. I had little doubt that both Archie and Bobbi would somehow get through – powerless to do anything about the circumstances they found themselves in, they had little choice but to soldier on.

  After a minute or so he pulled away, took a breath and then looked at me: ‘Is it cos of what I did at school? With the phone?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I said firmly. I grabbed his hand and led him to the sofa. He sat down next to me.

  ‘Is it because you think I showed Bobbi that stuff then?’ His eyes, already swollen and puffy, filled with tears again. ‘Because I honestly didn’t. I wouldn’t. I tried to stop –’ He slapped a hand over his mouth and looked away.

  I slipped a finger under his chin and steered his face back to mine. ‘Archie, listen to me. I know you didn’t show those videos to Bobbi. I absolutely believe you. But it’s very important that you tell me where they came from. No one should show a child something like that. It was very wrong. You do know that, don’t you? There’s nothing for you to feel ashamed of.’

  He looked at me thoughtfully, as if taking what I’d said on board. ‘I didn’t want to watch them,’ he said in a small voice. ‘I hate it all. The noises and the things they do. It makes me sick. I thought the kids would be amazed that I had something like that though. I thought they’d talk to me if I showed them.’