Hush, Little Baby

by Shane Dunphy

  There were nods and noises of assent.

  I took a small set of cards from the back pocket of my jeans. ‘Okay. I’m going to put the stone in the centre of the group, and I’m going to give each of you a card. Each card has a number between one and four written on it. I don’t know who’s getting which number.’ I set the amethyst on the carpet and passed around the cards. ‘Now I’m going to pick a number. Whoever has that number gets to go first. I choose number two.’

  Percy very shakily held up his arm. ‘I have that one, so I do.’

  I picked up the stone and handed it to him. ‘Good. So, Percy, why don’t you tell us how you feel we’ve ended up sitting here, having this talk?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘I was handed a file an hour and a half ago, and I’ve gone through it. But I want to hear the story from all of you. And I think it helps to discuss things out in the open. Sometimes you can see aspects you never noticed before.’

  Percy fiddled with his watch strap. Gertrude was practically bouncing up and down on her ample buttocks, her hand bolt upright like that of a very large schoolgirl. I ignored her.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Percy asked, looking as if he wished the ground would open up and swallow him.

  ‘Tell me what you think has happened to cause your family to be unhappy.’

  ‘Well.’ Again a swallow and some deep breaths. ‘Patrick hasn’t been behaving himself. Gertrude has been very upset, so she has. She’s not a well woman, you know, and this hasn’t been easy for her.’

  ‘I’ve been patient. Anyone will tell you,’ Gertrude said, smirking, her arms folded across her bosom.

  ‘You’ll get your turn in just a moment, Gertrude. I’d like Percy to finish.’

  ‘Oh, I’m done,’ Percy said, visibly seeming to sag.

  ‘Me next, then.’ Gertrude reached over and took the stone. ‘Percy and I have had great hardship with that boy. He was never easy to get on with, even when he was little, and we had him first. But we knew that God had denied us the power to have children ourselves so we could take some poor, unloved waifs into our home and raise them as if they were our own flesh and blood. We persevered, and we didn’t cast him aside. Bethany – well, just look at her – she’s special, and has been my pride and joy right from the moment I first set eyes on her. But Patrick was stubborn. I’d ask him to take his shoes off when he came into the house, but he never would; he’d just leave muddy tracks right across my lovely carpet. I’d tell him to have one biscuit from the tin, and he’d always snatch two. It took us time, Shane, years in fact, to train him to have some manners, and I thought these past few years that our training had finally stuck. But then that stubborn streak came back worse than ever.’

  ‘Gertrude, what you’re describing sounds to me like the kind of thing any mother would say when discussing raising a boy,’ I said gently. ‘I can remember pulling similar stunts myself as a kid.’

  ‘Oh, they’re not the worst of it, not by far. He’s disappeared on us, gone off into town and not come back for hours.’

  ‘Okay, let’s talk about that. Patrick, would you like to tell me about what your mum has just said? Have you been going off without telling her?’

  Patrick gingerly took the stone from Gertrude. ‘I always call her.’

  ‘Sometimes not until he’s been gone a good while!’

  ‘Gertrude, Patrick has the stone. Go on, Patrick, please.’

  ‘Some of the kids in my class go to an arcade in Dawnfield, near the market.’

  ‘Yeah, I know the place,’ I said.

  ‘They have a new game there: Superfighter 3. I’m really good at it, and we have competitions. I got the High Score last time.’

  ‘But do you tell your mum that you’re going?’

  ‘What’s the point? She doesn’t let me play video games, and she thinks criminals hang about in arcades.’

  ‘Those games are awful things!’ Gertrude burst out. ‘And that place he goes to is full of a bad lot. I’ve been down there. I know.’

  ‘Gertrude –’

  ‘All right, I know, not without the stone.’

  ‘So you go and then call her when you get there?’

  ‘Yeah. They have a pay phone. She won’t let me have a mobile.’

  ‘Well, we have a clear breakdown in communication here,’ I said, looking from Gertrude to Patrick and back again. ‘Gertrude, you don’t want Patrick to go to arcades or play video games. Patrick not only wants to play them, he’s really good at them. From what I’ve heard, the way he’s been going about it has actually been quite responsible. He hasn’t been staying out all night, just an hour here and there after football or swimming, and he’s been calling you to let you know where he is. I have to tell you, I think he’s showing a great deal of respect towards you, all things considered.’

  ‘He has me worried sick,’ Gertrude snorted. ‘You don’t know who he’s with down there.’

  ‘I told you, I go there with Harry and Peter and Neil. You know them and their parents. What’s the problem?’

  ‘And those games are violent and disgusting!’

  I sighed and nodded slowly. ‘You’re right: some video games can be violent and unpleasant. There are a few I really don’t approve of myself. But, like it or not, they are a part of the culture our young people have grown up with. Most of what’s in the arcades is tame enough; it’s more the ones for home use that are really bad, for the PC or PlayStation.’

  ‘It’s not right – young men spending their spare hours in those places. Snooker halls and places of gambling and iniquity.’ Gertrude was on a roll now. ‘I know what goes on; you can’t pull the wool over my eyes.’

  ‘We have fun, Mum,’ Patrick said, his voice imploring. ‘That’s not wrong, is it?’

  I needed to defuse things. Both Patrick and Gertrude were entrenched in their points of view. Percy was locked in exactly the same physical position, staring at the floor.

  ‘Bethany,’ I said, looking over at her as she sat, swinging her legs on one of the silly chairs. ‘What do you make of all this?’

  I took the stone from Patrick and passed it over to his sister.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, giggling a little in embarrassment at having all our eyes on her. ‘I just want everyone to be happy.’

  ‘How does it make you feel when your mum and dad and Patrick are fighting?’

  She screwed up her nose as she thought about the question. She was a cutie, no doubt about that. ‘It’s mostly Patrick and Mum. Daddy never really says much about it, except when Mum tells him to give out to Patrick. Even then he never shouts or anything. I think it makes Daddy sad.’

  I looked over at Percy. He did not raise his eyes either to me or to Bethany.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ I asked her.

  ‘Ask him what?’ Bethany giggled again.

  ‘If it makes him sad.’

  She shrugged. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Daddy?’

  Percy looked up suddenly, as if he’d just been poked. ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘Daddy.’ She broke into a fit of giggles. ‘This is silly.’

  ‘No, please, Beth,’ I said. ‘It’s important that we ask one another how we feel. If you were sad, you’d want someone to do something about it, wouldn’t you, to try to help you feel happy again?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, how would I know you were sad?’

  ‘I’d cry, or maybe I’d look sad.’

  ‘How would that look?’

  She did a gorgeous pantomime of looking unhappy, lips downturned and eyes squinted.

  ‘That would certainly tell me you were miserable. I’ll watch out for that face.’

  ‘I don’t always look like that, though. Sometimes, when I’m just a little bit sad, I just don’t smile as much as when I’m happy.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘so that would be harder to spot. And y’know, grown-ups don’t always show how they’re fe
eling on the inside. When you’re big, you’ve got work to go to, and a house to keep clean, and little kids to take care of, and those things have to get done, even if you’re sad. So you know what grown-ups do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They keep it all tucked away, down near their boots somewhere. So the only way to know if they’re happy or sad, sometimes, is to ask them.’

  ‘Oh.’ She nodded vigorously.

  ‘So why don’t you ask your dad?’

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘does it make you sad when Patrick fights with Mum all the time?’

  Percy looked at the child, and then back down at his shoes. They were shiny, made from black patent leather. He stared at them for maybe a minute without answering. I wanted to reach over and shake him, but this was obviously his custom, because the other three just sat and waited.

  ‘Yes, Bethany,’ he said finally. ‘I suppose it does. Yes, it makes me very sad indeed.’

  ‘What about you, Gertrude?’ I asked. ‘Does it make you sad to fight?’

  ‘Of course it does. I’ve had Patrick for seven years. I don’t want to be at odds with him from dawn till dusk.’

  ‘And Patrick?’

  ‘I want things to be normal. Like they were before.’

  I nodded. ‘I think we’ve made some progress.’

  ‘Do you?’ Gertrude asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes, I do. You have all agreed that your behaviour is making you unhappy. That’s a big thing to admit. We’ve identified the main thing you’re disagreeing over, and that’s an important step too.’

  ‘There’s a hell of a lot more than that going on,’ Gertrude said. ‘Percy, tell Shane about when he got violent!’

  Percy took a breath, as if to start talking, but I held up my hand. ‘I’m going to deal with one thing at a time. If we start looking at every single angry interaction, we’ll end up going around in circles all evening. It won’t be productive. No, we’ve done enough for today. I want to give you all some homework.’

  ‘The other fella never left us any work to do,’ Gertrude said, not looking happy.

  ‘The other fella’s gone, Gertrude, at your request, I believe. I’m going to come back in two days to talk to you again. Patrick, I want you to agree not to go out to the arcade between now and then, and to make an honest effort not to annoy your mother – try to take off your muddy boots, don’t hog the biscuits – you know the drill. Gertrude, I want you to agree to try not to get into unnecessary confrontations with Patrick. There’s a saying of mine that I tend to use in situations like these: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Ask yourself if whatever he’s done is really worth a row. All I’m looking for is two days where you both really try to get on. Does that sound reasonable?’

  Both parties nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Now that’s just for starters. I want each of you to write something too. Patrick, I want you to write down for me what you would like out of your relationship with your parents, if we had a magic wand and could make everything right. A wish list.’

  ‘Okay,’ Patrick said. ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Gertrude and Percy, the same, only about your relationship with Patrick. But I want each of you to do it separately, in private – I don’t want you to show this to one another until the next meeting – all right?’

  More nods.

  ‘And Bethany, I want you to write about how you’d like your home to be, if we could use magic to make it all better.’

  ‘Cool! Can I pretend to be a fairy? I could pretend I’m a fairy and write about how I’d make everyone happy again.’

  ‘You’re as pretty as a fairy, darling,’ Gertrude simpered.

  ‘Sure you can,’ I said. I looked around at the family. ‘Are we okay to finish? I want you all to agree that you won’t discuss what has been said until I see you again, and that you’ll all try really hard to get on with each other. Do we have a deal?’

  ‘Yes’ was said in a chorus.

  ‘Good. I’ll see you at the same time on Thursday. That’s two days from now.’

  Gertrude walked me to the door. ‘I hope we’ll see a real improvement now,’ she said as I stood on her step. ‘But he always says he’ll try, and he never does.’

  ‘Now we said no talking about it, Gertrude, and I’m part of that agreement. You have a lovely family. Both the children seem well adjusted and normal – and I want to stress that word – normal. They’re a credit to you. I don’t think that the problems you’re having are insurmountable at all. And you tell me that you all really want to work together to sort them out …’

  ‘Oh, we do. We surely do.’

  ‘All right, then,’ I said, stamping my feet against the cold. A heavy frost was coming down as the evening descended rapidly. ‘I’ll see you soon. I think things will iron themselves out soon enough.’

  I walked briskly back to my car, thinking that Marian was right: I’d be closing the file on the Bassetts in a week or so, and looking forward to Christmas.

  I should have known better.

  4

  Through a two-way mirror, I watched as two women held a dark-haired girl in the same kind of restraint the nurse and I had used on Clive Plummer the day before. My eyes were fixed on the prone child. She was fighting desperately: screaming, threatening and struggling for all she was worth. Beside me, Dorothy Carey, the manager of the unit, stood silently. The girl’s name was Katie Rhodes. At that morning’s team meeting, Ben had asked me to meet her. His information had been sketchy, and all he’d said was: ‘She’s the archetypal “Last Ditch Kid”.’

  The residential unit Katie called home was a three-bedroomed dormer situated on a recent development in the quiet suburb of Rocksbridge. The estate was so new that many of the houses were still vacant.

  I got the impression that the team had moved into the house in a great hurry. The front garden of the unit had not been properly seeded, and X’s of duct tape still adorned the windows. The blinds were all pulled down, and it was only the cars out front that led me to believe anyone was at home.

  Katie was fourteen and had spent most of her young life in one care institution or another. I had rarely seen a face more etched with anger, resentment and pain. Here was a child close to the end of her endurance.

  ‘And this is pretty much a daily occurrence?’ I asked after fifteen minutes of unremitting fury had passed in what the staff at the unit euphemistically called the ‘Time Out Room’.

  ‘Usually more than once a day,’ Dorothy said. She was a petite woman in her early forties, her light brown hair shot through with grey. ‘It’s exhausting for the team. I can only imagine how tiring it must be for her, but whatever’s driving her just keeps her going. She never sleeps through the night without some kind of episode, and she’s up each day at cockcrow.’

  ‘Have you tried medication – Ritalin maybe?’

  ‘I’ve suggested it. I don’t like using drugs on the children, but, I’ll be honest with you: anything that brings her some relief at this stage would be welcome. I’m not convinced she’s hyperactive, though. We’re waiting to have her assessed by the psychologists.’

  ‘Hasn’t she been in care for almost a decade?’

  ‘Yes, but this … ferocity is a new behaviour. She was a quiet child up until ten months ago. Then she changed. It was like something just broke inside her.’

  ‘She began to get violent?’

  ‘Yes, but if it were only that, it wouldn’t be so bad. Her whole personality changed.’

  Katie was starting to exhaust herself now. I could see by the faces of the workers that they knew she was approaching burnout. Her limbs finally relaxed, and her head came to rest on the mat. The woman who was at her top end released a hand to stroke the jet-black hair that was now a tangle of sweat and knots, speaking to her in soothing tones all the while. Immediately the prostrate girl saw her opportunity, and her hand snaked out. Before either of the women knew what was happening, Katie had dug her nails into the nearest limb, which happene
d to be the leg of the woman who had just let go. Using this as an anchor, she started to lever herself free. The staff members suddenly found themselves struggling, both to keep her restrained and to prise loose that vice-like grip. Captive had become captor in a split second.

  ‘That was a stupid thing to do,’ I observed as the three grappled with each other anew. ‘It was way too early to let go.’

  ‘It was,’ Dorothy agreed, shaking her head. ‘Martina’s new to the team. She’ll learn.’

  ‘So what do you see me doing here?’ I asked, turning away from the battle. ‘Are you thinking of putting together a tagteam?’

  She looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Wrestling?’ I said sheepishly, gesturing at the scene in the Time Out Room, realizing as I did so that Dorothy’s sense of humour was probably pretty blunted from the relentless aggression she and her team were facing daily.

  ‘Ah, you think you’re a comedian.’

  ‘I’m still working on the act.’

  She laughed without enthusiasm. ‘Tag-team. I’ll have to use that one myself.’

  ‘Feel free. I’ve got a limitless supply.’

  She forced a smile again. ‘Let me show you the playroom.’

  Katie had been ‘specialed’, meaning she was the only child in a fully equipped house, with her own skilled team of staff. This is something that happens only in cases of absolute necessity. It is expensive and there is almost always a rapid staff turnover, since dealing with only one child, day in, day out, has a peculiar effect on workers: burn-out happens quickly, because you tend either to become unprofessionally attached to the child in question or to start detesting the very sight of them.

  Special units work intensively. Their goal is to deal with whatever issues are causing such extreme behaviour in their subjects, and to bring that child to a point where they can return to mainstream care. And they try to achieve this as quickly as possible. In Katie’s case the plan had gone somewhat awry – she had been wild and unpredictable when she arrived at the unit, and she was still in the same state almost a year later without any improvement.