Blood Family

by Anne Fine

  She wasn’t horrid. It was simply horrid being there, feeling like something she was studying. She’d sit me in the chair, give me a good long look, and then she’d say, ‘Today, I thought that we might talk about—’ And it would be this or that, and all those horrible long pauses after I’d done my best. And it was such a cheat because Linda and Alan had told me so often when I’d woken at night, ‘Those days are gone. They are all over now.’

  And here was Eleanor, just going on about it all, over and over and over. ‘How did that make you feel?’ ‘Did you feel scared, Eddie?’ ‘Perhaps you felt very sad.’ ‘You probably felt—’

  Linda would bring me home. I’d beg her, ‘Read me a story!’ and she would pull out Frog and Toad, or Up the Faraway Tree, or The Smugglers’ Secret. Anything that wasn’t to do with me and how I felt. I loved the way even the words on the page began to make sense. More and more often, Linda would drop her finger to the page and say, ‘You read this line,’ and I would find that I could do it. ‘No!’ ‘Stop!’ or ‘Frog said, “Yes, Toad.” ’

  I read it properly, as well. She said I put expression into it right from the start. I knew how to do that because Mr Perkins often read to us. Never a story, though. We’d come back from the day’s visit and he’d say, ‘Now that reminds me of a poem I learned at school when I was around your age.’ He’d go to his yellow book shelf with the talking bookends, and run his finger along until one of the bookends squealed, ‘That’s right! That’s the right book!’ He’d prise it out, flick through the pages and read us a line or two. And he would always make it sound as if it mattered.

  So even if I was just reading something simple like, ‘“Yes, Toad,” said Frog,’ I put my heart in it. And soon I found that Linda was pointing at the page for me to read not just a few odd words, but a whole sentence. It would be something like, ‘I won’t go there!’ or, ‘He is a fool!’ or, ‘You go home right now!’ And after that, I just took off. (Well, that’s what Linda said.) And almost all of it was suddenly easy-peasy.

  I could read.

  And then, I don’t know why, I wanted to tell Mum. I knew that Linda would be very surprised. She had kept asking and I’d kept shrugging my shoulders and saying nothing. So after I changed my mind, there was a bit of a silence. Then Linda asked me, ‘Do you really want to go? Or is this Eleanor’s idea?’

  ‘I want to go.’

  She squeezed my hand and said, ‘All right. I’ll talk to Rob. He’ll probably be the one to take you.’

  I overheard the phone call. I made sure I did. I played the usual trick of thumping around my bedroom, then crept out onto the landing.

  ‘Rob, is this such a good idea? He’s been so settled . . . Yes, I know. But does it have to be now, when he is doing so well? . . . No, you’re wrong there. I don’t believe he thinks that any more . . . Oh, God! You social workers and your bloody guidelines. What about Eddie?’

  Eleanor Holdenbach, Child Psychologist

  I’d seen the headlines, of course. WILD CHILD. OUR TINIEST SHUT-IN. BLUEBEARD BRUTALITY. MONSTER!!! The usual mix of noisy hysteria and sentimental wallowing. Every front page featured that grainy photo of the boy blinking so fiercely as he shuffled into the light. And, just like everyone else, I’d seen the television footage of Bryce Harris’s hand slipping out under the blanket covering his head to flip the bird at the baying crowd.

  I never for a moment thought the child would come to me. I naturally assumed that this would be the sort of court case – kidnapping, false imprisonment, grievous bodily harm – that meant that Eddie would have to give evidence. Don’t ask me the ins and outs of how Harris wriggled out of facing such obvious charges. I know it was something to do with the fact that young children are seen as unreliable witnesses. And it did certainly seem odd that this man should have had the self-control to keep his hands off the boy while he was beating up the mother.

  Which led to the next problem for the police, for Eddie’s mother was deemed to be incapable of giving evidence. The bruises on Eddie’s legs turned out to be self-inflicted. He’d gripped himself so hard that he’d left marks. So who was to say it wasn’t Lucy Taylor herself who’d stumbled hard into the furniture, pulled out her own hair in chunks and, in her seriously addled brain, decided for herself her son was better off kept hidden in the flat? Admittedly the rules have changed so, if a child’s mistreated, anyone who’s been present can be held responsible. But Harris had been smart, and Eddie Taylor came out of that flat well-enough fed, with nothing on his body that you could photograph to show a jury. And though the child was weirdly innocent of life outside, and sometimes very shy, he did appear surprisingly normal. Everyone said so. One keen, persuasive barrister for the defence, a nice new suit, and Harris could have been acquitted.

  Nobody wanted that.

  So they went at him sideways, since it was obvious the drug dealing and extortion, added to one or two counts of blackmail and intimidation that they rooted out, could clock up much the same sentence. In the end, on the principle of safety first, they went for that, just to be sure he’d be banged up.

  And after that decision, once it was obvious that Eddie wouldn’t have to tell his story in any trial, he came to me.

  There he sat, in that chair over there, his thin legs dangling. He was a serious little fellow, still in the habit of peeking upwards surreptitiously, as though he’d kept that ratty fringe we’d seen in that, the first and only photo. (Judges move fast on a child’s privacy.)

  I wanted to start off with what he thought about the things that had happened since he left the flat. I can’t remember quite how I began, but it was probably along the lines of, ‘So, how’s it going, Eddie?’

  Just an open-ended question.

  That didn’t get us anywhere, but over the next few visits the child did seem to overcome his fear of saying anything at all in case it led to trouble. Gradually he became more and more confident about describing the small excitements of his new life with Linda and Alan. And that did offer some sort of a bridge for going back to talk of earlier days.

  Then once, when I was asking him if he had visited his mother yet, he told me he was going there the very next day. With Rob.

  ‘It’s been a long time since you’ve seen her,’ I ventured.

  ‘When I was little,’ he agreed.

  That floored me. Obviously my first thought was that he’d conflated the mother who had been in hospital (and possibly, in his mind, cured) with the mum he had known so long ago, before Bryce Harris thrashed her into something else.

  That didn’t bode too well. ‘Do you think she’ll be pleased to see you?’

  He nodded eagerly. I will admit, my stomach turned. We’d barely started, and that relentless hope young children specialize in had already sprung up, setting the poor lad up for horrid disappointment.

  I said, ‘She’s been in hospital for quite a time.’

  ‘She’s in a nursing home now.’

  ‘That’s different, is it?’ I asked warily.

  ‘Linda says that it’s better.’ He studied his shoes for a while. ‘We wrote a postcard. I chose it and it was an owl.’

  ‘What did you say on the postcard?’

  ‘I told her owls come out at night. And they eat mice.’ His voice brightened. ‘Their eyes are fixed. That’s why they have to turn their heads round if they want to see the sides.’ He thought for a moment. ‘They can’t see things near to them very well, though. Only things far away. And they have special sorts of wings so they fly very quietly and don’t frighten off what they were trying to catch. And some owls even eat fish. And baby owls don’t all hatch on the same day.’

  I couldn’t help but smile. ‘You managed to fit all that on a postcard?’

  For just a moment, he looked puzzled. Then he admitted, ‘No. Only the first bit.’

  ‘But you know a lot about owls.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Perkins took us to see a lady who kept lots of owls. She showed us a baby that was so tiny it weighed almost nothing.�
��

  Even before the sessions began, Linda Radlett had filled me in on this Mr Perkins fellow. Indeed, she reckoned that the man had salvaged the child’s life. ‘If he’s still on the planet,’ she’d said to me, apparently quite sincerely, ‘I’m going to track him down and write to tell him so.’

  And it was clear that simply telling me about the owls made Eddie feel a little stronger. So we pressed on. They are short sessions and I wanted to prepare him for the visit to his mother because it was so obvious that any hopes he was harbouring were set to crash about his ears.

  Poor little chap.

  So we talked about how she might still be poorly. How it might be a much, much longer time before she would be even halfway better. (It was important not to let him go on believing that she would ever be the old Lucy Taylor again.) We talked about how it was Eddie’s job to give her time, and keep his fingers crossed – yes, I said that. I know it isn’t very professional. But he was only seven, for heaven’s sake. And if the Social Services don’t have the sense to tweak their guidelines about children having the right to see an ‘innocent’ parent more or less on demand, then what am I to do? How could I let him go in there thinking his mum was going to spin around, shout ‘Eddie!’ joyfully and squeeze him tight when I knew it was far more likely that she’d be slumped in a chair, clutching a handkerchief and staring blankly at the wall?

  We talked about how, if he was upset after the visit, he could ask Linda for an extra cuddle. She would understand.

  ‘She’ll give me biscuits,’ he said. ‘And read the story without asking me.’

  ‘Without asking you?’

  ‘To do the easy words,’ he explained. ‘She’ll read it all herself. Till I feel better.’

  My watch was warning me that we were almost over time. I led him to the door. ‘Bye, Eddie.’ I squeezed his hand, but gently, since his finger ends still looked a little pink and raw. ‘And good luck with the visit.’

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ he said.

  Rob Reed, Social Worker

  I put my hand up. It was a terrible mistake, taking Eddie to see his mum. The problem is, the things children imagine, left to themselves, are usually so much worse than simple fact. The times I’ve driven kids to prison to visit a mum or dad for the first time. All the way there, they’re pale as grubs – can’t answer the simplest question or focus on anything. Can’t even taste the burger I buy them on the way.

  Then in we go. All these new family suites have toys and jigsaws, book boxes, beanbags, even bright and cheerful mobiles dangling over the cots for the babies. It’s like a daycare centre. The volunteers tend to be motherly ladies, pressing the young ones into accepting chocolate milk and fancy biscuits. No one is jangling keys or scowling. There are no bars in sight. And when the dad comes in, he and the warder who’s accompanying him are as often as not sharing a joke.

  The child I take home is a child I wouldn’t recognize.

  So when I heard he wanted to tell his mum how he could read a bit, and show her how well he could write his letters, I was very keen. Her bruises would have gone. The bald patches on her head would have grown out. (And, to be fair, most of them had.)

  What I’d not bargained for was her dead face. It was a mask. I wondered if that monster Harris had somehow kicked her into some sort of embolism, or stroke. Lord knows, he’d bashed her hard enough to do permanent damage. She seemed dead from the neck up.

  The woman who had led us to the room said, ‘Here we are, Lucy. Here’s your lovely little boy, come in to see you. Say hello to Eddie.’

  She put her hand out – even touched his fingers – but her eyes stayed blank.

  The minder prompted again. ‘Come on now, Lucy. Say hello to Eddie. You’ve not seen him for a while, have you? But here he is, so let’s try saying hello.’

  She smiled then. Not a proper smile – the stupefied dead sort you might see on a widow’s face as she thanked people after the funeral. She said, ‘Hello.’ The greeting was so flat you would have sworn she’d not met him before, and wasn’t fond of children anyway.

  I’d usually prompt a child to greet the parent back. ‘Well, say hello, then.’ I didn’t, though. I don’t know why. I think I might have been too angry to speak. I know the theory – misery breeds misery. And that is true, and we must understand and try to sympathize all the way up the family line, right back to where trouble began. But sometimes that is hard. Most of this misery is so unnecessary. If Lucy Taylor had only had the simple wits or guts to walk out on that man the very first time he gave her an aggressive nudge, none of this would have happened.

  Sometimes I’d like to punch the parents of my clients really hard. Smash in their faces, in fact.

  Oh, God! Don’t write that down.

  What happened after we left? Well, that was even worse. I got him in the car and waited while he strapped himself in. (He was still clumsy at that, he’d had so little practice on different cars.) We drove down the narrow nursing-home drive, and waited for the barrier to lift. Eddie said nothing, just stared out of the window for a while. And then he broke the silence. ‘Rob, why did that woman call my mum “Lucy” all the time?’

  My heart sank. I could feel it plummeting. I was too down at heart even to pick my way around what I guessed must be coming. Simply to get it over with, I asked the question outright. ‘Because you thought her name was—?’

  ‘Mum. And Harris always called her Bitch.’

  Alan Radlett, Foster Parent

  It worked out well, in a way. Because Rob took that painful little anecdote, along with one or two more, back to the panel, and they agreed that Eddie needed more time in a domestic setting, developing his social awareness and skills, before he could be thrown into the bear garden of primary school.

  I didn’t mind, and Linda was delighted. She had been making such good progress with his reading and arithmetic, explaining things, taking him places. She knew he would find school a massive strain, and every month we kept him home with us would pay off handsomely.

  In any case, I liked his company. Usually I am quite glad, at half past eight each morning, to see the back of the kids we have and know that, unless they bunk off school and are delivered back to us, we’re free till half past three. We’re not spring chickens any more. I need the break. But Eddie was so easy to have around. (In that way, he was like Orlando.) He wasn’t challenging. He didn’t keep tiresomely pushing his luck, or testing the boundaries, like so many of them do. He was a bit like some well-meaning stray who’d had a rotten deal in life, knew it, and had the sense to recognize when he had landed on his feet.

  Oh, he was strange. (I know, I know, they all are.) And yet the strangeness didn’t seem to run right through his personality like letters stamped in red through seaside rock. It just burst out now and again. Sometimes it was almost amusing, like on that blazing hot day I sprawled on the sofa watching Wimbledon for hour after hour. On the last supermarket shop, we’d bought a case of ginger beer, and I must just have taken to the stuff because I sat there in that dripping heat, sipping all day.

  (Amazing I didn’t explode.)

  Anyhow, Linda wandered in some time before supper. Hearing the ‘phut!’ as I prised up the tab of yet another can, she said to me, ‘Blimey, Alan. How many’s that?’

  And then, from underneath my arm, we heard this clear little voice. ‘Seven.’

  ‘Never!’ I told him. ‘Never in your life.’

  Linda went off to count up how many cans were left. ‘He’s right,’ she reported back. ‘You must already have finished seven.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have taught the little beggar how to count.’

  ‘He could count anyway,’ she reminded me. ‘It was the taking away and stuff he’d never learned to do.’

  I squeezed him. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said proudly. ‘I could count by myself even before I came.’ And neither Linda nor I knew any way of telling him it was an odd habit for a little boy, to keep such close track of
the number of times in a day he’d heard a man open a drink can.

  Sometimes it wasn’t funny at all. Take that time in the shed. He’d been in with me for an hour or so. ‘Helping,’ we called it. Our damn electric bill had shot up yet again, so I’d been fitting insulation sheets on all four sides, hoping to save myself from having to use the heater for so many months of the year. I’d fixed all the facing panels up again, and I was hammering back the nails on which I hung my tools.

  Getting the last one in where I needed it was proving awkward. Maybe there was a wood knot in the upright behind. The first two nails bent and I threw them in the rubbish pot, and tried another. Same again. And then a fourth. I will admit that I was getting testy. I rather pride myself on how I work with tools, and Eddie was standing watching. So I reached out for three more nails, shoved two between my lips, and had another go at hammering one in.

  To this day I’m not sure exactly what I said. Clearly I said it from between clenched lips. (Who wants to swallow a nail?) I think it was probably something as simple as, ‘Now you’re beginning to annoy me.’

  I was talking to the nail!

  But he had vanished from my side. Melted away. I didn’t think much of it – simply tapped the nail’s head into the wood slowly and carefully. And when I turned to see what he was up to, there he was, crouched in the corner. He had practically turned into a hedgehog ball, his head buried between his knees. You wouldn’t think that even the smallest child could curl up so tightly.

  ‘Eddie?’