by Julia Jones
Tuesday September 19th
The boy who’d knocked him down and called him a ‘girl’ was on the same bus. There were about three of them. Year Tens, he thought, but they could have been Elevens. He sat with Anna anyway and tried not to feel self-conscious.
They were going home with Xanthe and Maggi after school to start re-painting Lively Lady. Donny had told Gerald that he wanted to join the swimming club – it was true that he wanted to – and he’d been given permission to buy a pair of shorts from the uniform cupboard.
“Age appropriate activity ... social services sure to agree. Put it on the EX2 form ...” they heard him muttering.
Gerald signed their late-stay permission slips distractedly while Liam had a tantrum about a Man U shirt and Luke stubbornly refused to eat his egg because he hadn’t been allowed to kill it himself. Vicky was strapped in her high chair but Donny had sat next to her this morning and fed her pieces of hi-fibre rusk and played incy-wincy spider up her arm and round the back of her neck. He reckoned he liked babies.
Would that mean he was ... gay or something?
Denise Tune arrived unannounced in Mr McMullen’s afternoon registration session and told the teacher she was taking Donny out of school.
“So he’ll be missing lessons, will he?”
“But Aim authorising the absence so that’ll be alright,” replied the Welfare Officer with a smile that only moved her mouth.
“I was thinking more about his education than about which code to put in the register,” said Mr McMullen who hadn’t smiled back. “Donny’s only joined us recently and I don’t want him to get behind at this early stage.”
“And Ai don’t want any more complaints – from Someone – that he’s been prevented from seeing his poor sick mummy.” She bared her teeth a little more and spoke quietly but very clearly so all the other students could hear her if they wanted. “So Aim taking him to the psy-chiatric unit. Mummy had to be moved to a more secure ward ... for her own ... saifty,” she added, apparently speaking confidentially. It was a great way of getting everyone’s attention.
“Obviously I want to see my mum wherever you’ve dumped her.” Donny turned to Mr McMullen. “Maybe you could write my foster-carers a note, sir, explaining that I might have to stay behind for a couple of nights later in the week to catch up?”
“Hmmm ...” said the teacher. “Now is there anyone else who wants their private family business trumpeted around the classroom or do some of you people perhaps have work to get on with?”
A14, A12 – China Shipping, Cosco, White Star, Norfolk Line, Han-Jin, Maersk. Donny’d never realised how many container lorries were lumbering up the main road. A train overtook them where the road ran parallel with the railway line and he tried counting the containers that had been loaded onto the flat wagons. He’d got to about forty before the train pulled out of view.
He was going to see his mum!
Surely Skye would be able to tell him a bit more about Great Aunt Ellen – and he could ask her about Granny. Find out if she’d known about those other brothers and sisters. Ask her why she’d called Swallows and Amazons Granny’s ‘secret’ book? Even if disgusting Denise stayed in the room it wouldn’t matter because they’d be signing.
He didn’t care if Skye didn’t have any family information. At least they’d have seen each other. He could maybe talk to her doctors. Help them understand her, convince them that she wasn’t mad. Just different ... and frightened, sometimes.
It was hot in the car and full of the Welfare Officer’s syrupy perfume. Her dress today was a short white frock patterned with clusters of flowers that had holes in them. It looked more like she was going to play tennis than visit a hospital. She kept asking questions but Donny didn’t bother answering. He was sure anything he said would get twisted somehow. It wasn’t worth the risk.
The Welfare Officer had a Bluetooth appliance fixed above one ear. She made a brief call as they turned off the main road into the outskirts of a town.
Chelmsford. He’d remember the name for his map. There were roundabouts and traffic lights; people were coming out of schools and going to the supermarkets.
What if the hospital had set visiting times and they were too late?
After a few more miles they came to a halt in an un-surfaced car park tucked out of sight behind massive buildings. There were some construction vehicles in a corner but otherwise it was completely empty.
Except for a police car.
“Aim able to understand that it’s a challenge for a juvenile with your past history to communicate with a Professional. Research confirms that your unsupported background will have left you seriously deficient in social integration skills.”
Donny had been staring out of the window but now he stared at her.
Huh? His past history? His unsupported background?
“So Ai’ve brought in one of my male colleagues.” That gruesome smile again. “I must explain that you will need to answer all his questions before Aim able to take you to see your mother.”
Her threat was unmistakable – no answers: no visit.
Why was he not surprised?
The Welfare Officer didn’t have a large car: it was a sporty soft top in electric blue with light-sensitive glass and a special edition logo. There wasn’t room for Inspector Flint so Donny had to get out and walk across the empty space towards Flint’s big official Range Rover. Denise walked with him looking casual, her glued blond ringlets bobbing slightly as she swayed across the pot-holed surface in her wedge heels. Donny longed desperately to run but had no idea which way to go.
There was no evidence of coercion. And Flint didn’t lay a finger on Donny.
Instead he made him squash down onto the floor in front of the passenger seat. The Welfare Officer got into the back of the Range Rover and pushed the passenger seat as far forward as it would go. So that she had plenty of room to stretch out her fake-tanned legs and tap away at a laptop – certifying that the interim assessment interview was being conducted by Inspector Jake Flint on hospital premises with herself in attendance as duty care worker.
Flint pressed the catch that activated the car’s automatic locking system.
There was a loud metallic clunk.
The car windows were already closed.
Donny was shaking when they finally let him out. Shaking from the discomfort; from his anger, shame and fear. Who were these people that they could treat him like this? How pathetic was he that he let them?
He had been so cramped that he stumbled and fell onto the sharp chippings. Flint’s boot was straight onto his hand.
“One word out of turn, young man, and this’ll be the last time you visit your poor sick mother.” He eased a little more of his weight downwards. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” Donny was struggling not to cry.
“Yes, SIR! You need to learn Respect.” Flint put his full weight on his foot and swivelled slightly.
“Yes ... s-s-s-ir!” He couldn’t not cry now. Couldn’t help himself.
Flint stepped back.
The Welfare Officer was giggling as if she was drunk or something. “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. Go on, little boy. Say three bags full or I won’t take you in to your mummy.”
Donny managed a deep shuddering breath. Gulped back the tears. Felt hatred boost him like a caffeine shot. “Three bags full, then,” he said and followed her like Bo-Peep’s lamb, swinging his injured hand. Whatever.
The unit was called the Cedars. Flint didn’t bother coming in. He was back to his car and away to pick on someone else.
The first thing Denise Tune did – before Donny realised the trick they’d played – was to send him into the gents to wash his hand and face. Gerald had given him a comb to keep in his blazer and Donny ran it through his hair as eagerly as if this were Granny he was about to visit. His heart was beating really fast and he could think of nothing except the hug he wanted to give and receive.
Suddenly he was in too mu
ch of a rush to use the hot-air dryer. He hurried out into the reception area, damp and pink and trembling. With happiness now. All the stuff in the car- park was forgotten. He was here. About to see Skye.
He looked around and read notices, fidgeting, trying to discover what sort of a place this was. It seemed all right.
There were two wards in the Cedars: Avalon and Ennisfree. Ennisfree had people walking around and sitting, though they didn’t seem to be doing much. There were tables and vending machines and one or two other people who might be visitors. No-one Donny’s age, though.
Avalon was completely quiet. Single rooms with reinforced glass all round at waist height and dim spaces inside where people slept. The beds had high sides and places to hang drips and monitoring equipment. Donny had a horrible conviction that they also included restraints. He didn’t want to look too closely.
Avalon was a closed ward.
Skye was in Avalon.
The male nurse who came to meet them didn’t think Donny should be allowed in The Cedars at all. He wasn’t unkind and Donny could sort of see his point. This wasn’t a good place for children.
It wasn’t a good place for his mum either.
“Denise Tune, multi-authority leader worker, S.L.A.G., School Liaison and Guidance,” she said flashing an official identity card and a synthetic smile. “John has been giving cause for concern. My colleague identified a reality check as a possible positive pathway.”
The nurse didn’t smile back. Instead he turned to Donny and began to explain, quite kindly, about medication and reducing doses and the plans they had for transferring Skye to Ennisfree. He couldn’t say exactly when, but he could confirm that it would happen quite soon and then there would be therapy and classes: a structured rehabilitation programme.
Donny didn’t have to worry about signing any of the unfamiliar language to Skye because he never got closer to her than looking through the glass.
There were other people in Avalon and there were Rules.
“Did she get my letters? They were pictures, mainly. I gave them to my carers to send. The first was ‘wawa’, sorry, geese. And then there were drawings of a boat.”
The nurse didn’t know so he went to find out.
He was gone quite a long time. Denise Tune studied her fingernails and read messages on her mobile even though there was a sign asking people to switch off because of hospital equipment. She looked annoyed. That was good. Donny got hold of a leaflet that had the unit’s address and postcode. He could send his letters himself now.
The pictures had arrived, the nurse reported, but they hadn’t yet shown them to his mother. They needed to be certain that they wouldn’t cause any further distress.
“Do you have children?” Donny asked. He was angry.
The nurse nodded. “Two wee boys. Footballers,” he added.
“You’d want to know they were all right wouldn’t you? Even
if you were in ... prison?”
“I would.” From the way he spoke it was obvious that he’d got the point. “I don’t make all the decisions, you understand. But I hear what you’re saying and I’ll talk to my team-leader. They’re grand pictures. I’m sure your mum’ll like them.”
“If she gets the chance.”
Donny could see Denise Tune hitching up her handbag. He decided to trust the nurse.
“I made her something else,” He dug into his rucksack. “It’s called a dream-catcher. You hang it on her bed. Please. It’s not infectious or anything.”
“Aye,” said the nurse, “And why not.” He took the circle of alder twig and looked at it curiously. Donny had made the net by unravelling some wool from the jersey he’d been wearing on their journey down. Then he’d added three of the pale green acorns and a single curl of Vicky’s red hair. “That hand of yours looks sore, laddie. If you’ll bide a moment longer I’ll fetch some arnica. Boys and bruises, eh!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
If Not Duffers
September 19th – 20th
“So what did they want to know?”
“Haven’t a clue. Which was good. Because if I did, I’d have told it. I was 100% ... gutless.”
“Join the club then,” Anna didn’t waste time being sympathetic. “Try to think about what they were asking. Never mind that you didn’t know the answers.”
“Money. Flint went on and on about money. Did Granny give me things – you know, X- boxes, Wiis, PSPs that sort of stuff. Electronic, imported stuff. I’d have laughed except I couldn’t hardly breathe. We didn’t even have a TV! He turned his car heater on part of the way through. Blowing downwards.”
It sounded nothing when he said it – but even the memory made him sick inside. He’d been so helpless, scrunched there on the floor, sweating and trying to answer their questions so they’d let him see Skye.
Who wasn’t there at all. Only her body. And they’d known it all along. He’d been completely suckered.
But why? Why had they spent their whole afternoon on him?
“Describe our house, describe our holidays. We must have had a proper car. Not just the camper. Were there any other grandchildren? I wish there were.” If Great Aunt Ellen rejected them there’d only be Skye and him left, a family of just two people. “It was like he was obsessed with finding out that we were rich ...”
“Well, are you?” Anna, unusually, had not vanished to her room as soon as supper was over. She had followed him into the sitting room where he was looking at an old AA Book of the Road.
“I wish! Otherwise Granny wouldn’t have got benefits for Skye. There was something – when I was listening to Gerald and Wendy that night – about spending everything she had on lawyers so Skye could keep me? I dunno. I feel like I don’t know anything any more.”
“In our situation,” said Anna, “you have to grow up a bit.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Donny. “Anyway – I reckon he was only asking about Granny so he could find out about Great Aunt Ellen. That was who he wanted the presents to come from. Parcels from abroad? In our house? Chinese visitors? What planet is he on?”
Flint had had to believe that Donny didn’t know the answers to these questions because he completely didn’t. Even when the fat policeman had revved the engine and started to drive away from the hospital Donny couldn’t tell him anything more. He had nothing to tell.
If there had been something – between Granny and her sister – she could maybe have thought she was protecting him and Skye by making sure they didn’t know? Like she had hidden the maps on their journeys ...
So what had Granny done to give them a clue?
Told Skye to buy him a book!
As it happened Swallows and Amazons was seriously annoying Donny just now because he’d reached a chapter where John had had to apologise to his mother for going night-sailing. Everyone said it was dangerous! Donny was totally with John. He’d go night-flying if it would get him out of here.
This Book of the Road was well old. Tomorrow he was going to go on the Internet at school and type in the postcode for The Cedars. See if he could reach Skye by water. Day or night. Now that he nearly had a dinghy ...
Xanthe, Maggi and Anna had got together after school without Donny. They’d helped June Ribiero collect Lively Lady from the club and tow her on a trailer to Pin Mill where they’d begged some space in a builder’s shed and painted her hull a dark, sludgy grey. They’d had to take the mast down and she didn’t have her red sails anymore. She was going to have beigy ones. Apparently they were good.
“We could have sailed her there if their mum had known Flint was safely persecuting you. The others wanted to but she’d said they weren’t allowed until we’d changed the colour and everything. Their dad’s put in a complaint against Flint. And he’s going to tell his committee that they shouldn’t let Flint join their club. So she wants to make sure he’s got no chance of taking it out on us. Especially me, she said. She was really nice ...”
Anna’s voice was full of longing. She sounde
d tired too.
“I’ve never hated anyone before like I hate Flint,” said Donny. “And she’s foul.”
“Who? Not Mrs Ribiero ...! Oh, her ...Toxic Tune. Yes, she is. She gets off on watching him. I hate her even more than I hate him.”
“Toxic? Yeah. Great name!”
The first thing the Welfare Officer had done when she’d brought him home was gripe at Wendy and Gerald for posting his pictures to the hospital without checking with her first.
“Quaite inappropriate. Medical staff most inconvenienced.”
Then she’d told them he’d hurt his hand pushing his way out of the car.
It wasn’t only the little lies. Donny knew now that she and Flint had been lying all the way through. Ever since he first met them in that stuffy room. They’d known that Great Aunt Ellen was for real. And there was some reason they wanted to get to her. But they didn’t want anyone else to know.
“What are they about?” he asked Anna. “Why are they doing this?”
“I don’t know,” said Anna bitterly. “There’s a system and they’ve got into it. Like malware.”
Donny wasn’t totally sure what she meant but he reckoned he got the gist. “You mean bugs. Gross, disgusting, evil bugs. Only thing is that Flint’s not so clever as her. Sometimes he goes too far – like on the river when he thought he could scare you and Maggi simply because he felt like it. He forgot she might have parents watching. Anyway, I reckon he said more than he meant about Great Aunt Ellen. Okay he can’t quite put his pudgy fingers on her but he does know she’s for real. And that she’s coming for us. That’s why he wants her to be rich. Or illegal. Preferably both.”
“She might be rich. If she’s bringing an antique Chinese junk all the way home with her?”
“But he doesn’t know about Strong Winds. I was terrified he was going to ask me but he didn’t ... Anna, do you think Flint and Toxic might be running some sort of protection racket? Not Child Protection. Ha Ha. The intimidation and extortion sort. ’Cos then they’d want her to be rich so they could make her shell out thousands to clasp me and Skye to her lonely bosom. Fat chance, obviously, when she’s never sent us as much as a Christmas card!”