A Stolen Childhood (11 page)

‘Will you be having tea with us, miss?’ she asked shyly, and I noticed she was once again tugging, seemingly unconsciously, at a long strand of hair. Did she hope I’d say I was or that I wasn’t?

‘No, love,’ I said. ‘Just a quick “hello” visit, that’s all. I like to try and meet with as many of my Unit parents as I can,’ I explained. ‘Just to help us all get to know each other a little better. Nothing for you to worry about,’ I finished, sensing her anxiety was building, and wondering if I should touch her arm to stop her winding her hair round her finger.

She removed it herself then, to haul on her backpack while I shouldered my satchel. ‘Off we go, then,’ I said brightly. ‘You lead the way, we don’t want to keep your mum waiting, do we?’ Given how terrifically busy she is, I thought but didn’t say.

Kiara and her mum lived only ten minutes away from school in a very sought-after area with broad tree-lined streets and manicured gardens. It was very easy to imagine that it was all peace and tranquillity and that all the children played out in their Sunday best.

As we walked there I tried to get her chatting. ‘So, your mum has changed her hours then? I guess you see a lot more of her now, don’t you?’

Kiara glanced up at me and then immediately looked away. ‘Um, yes, I suppose so,’ she muttered, head down. ‘Did she tell you that?’ she added, after a pause.

I sensed a growing unease in her. Was this a normal response to getting home, or just because I was going with her? I wished I could get some sense of what was ailing this mysterious child. ‘No, I think it was Mr Clark who told me that,’ I clarified. ‘But she must have changed some of her hours otherwise she wouldn’t be at home now, would she?’

‘I s’pose,’ she said, as if her mum’s working hours were something of a mystery. Which was odd. Surely she had a rota of some sort? Surely she kept her daughter abreast of her movements, in the time-honoured ‘I’ll be working till X o’clock this evening. Pop the shepherd’s pie in the oven, see you in a bit’ kind of way?

Or perhaps not. ‘When do we break up for the Easter holidays, miss?’ Kiara asked me. She really didn’t seem to want to talk about home. And that was fine.

‘About a week and a half, love,’ I told her. ‘And then you have two whole weeks off. Won’t that be nice?’

Kiara smiled properly then, and as she did so her pretty little face lit up. I was struck once again by how beautiful she was when she was animated like this. ‘I can’t wait, miss,’ she said.

‘Me neither,’ I agreed. ‘What have you got planned? Anything nice?’

As I spoke I reflected on her apparent lack of friends, which was something that really concerned me. How did this perfectly personable child get to be such a loner? It wasn’t as if she lacked social skills, or had difficulty relating to people. Chloe adored her, and she responded so patiently to her, so it wasn’t as if she lacked empathy. Yes, some kids were natural loners, and happy to be so, but this girl just didn’t seem to fit that mould. She seemed a girl who’d have a best friend that she took through school with her. A BFF to share secrets with, paint her nails with, go to town shopping with. Or did her mum fill that role for her? From what I’d seen and heard so far, I didn’t think so.

She answered immediately. ‘Yes, I’ll get to see my dad loads,’ she said, and the tone in her voice – one of excitement – was unmistakable. She clearly thought a lot about her father, despite (or perhaps even related to) the problems her parents had with each other. ‘Here we are,’ she added, coming to a stop outside a house midway down the road we’d been walking along, and pushing open a small iron gate.

I turned and took it in, making a quick forensic sweep over the area. There was a neat square of garden, full of neatly trimmed bushes and packed full of flowers – the last of the daffodils and crocuses, the first of the tulips, and some other bright flowers I didn’t recognise, with a path down the middle leading to a white, uPVC front door. It was a small semi, and had what looked to be brand new windows. They might not have been, but gleamed so spotlessly that it was difficult to imagine otherwise, and all sported identical bright, white nets, all tied back from the centre with equally snowy ribbon.

As first impressions went, it hinted at the sort of domestic perfection that I had to confess to aspiring to myself, even though, at times, it drove my family round the bend.

And if I was impressed with the outside, I was positively green with envy when Mrs Bentley opened the door and ushered me inside. Again, I did a quick sweep to try and get a sense of Kiara’s mum, this time taking in another set of variables. This woman, who looked to be in her late thirties, obviously liked the finer things in life. Her make-up was immaculate and she had the same elfin features as her daughter; she was strikingly good looking. Her clothes looked as though they’d been bought at some expensive boutique – I’d not seen their like in any of the chain stores I shopped in. Wearing a slim black pencil skirt, a crisp floral blouse and floaty black cardigan, she put me in mind of a solicitor or a magistrate, and straight away I felt slightly intimidated. She worked in a care home? Then she must surely be some sort of manager. Otherwise, it just didn’t compute – because though I had no idea whether there was a particular dress code for a care assistant at the home she worked at, surely comfortable clothes would be the order of the day.

‘Ah, Mrs Watson,’ she said, appearing relaxed and pleased enough to see me. ‘Please come through,’ she added, smiling. ‘It’s so nice to put a face to the voice, don’t you think?’

I let Kiara step through the small porch before me and waited a moment while she immediately took off her shoes and placed them neatly on a wooden rack alongside other female footwear. I bent down to unbuckle my sandal to follow suit but Mrs Bentley immediately stopped me. ‘Oh please, it’s fine, honestly,’ she assured me. ‘I’m sure you haven’t been trudging through muddy fields on your way here! Come on, come on through.’

I followed, but not before I noticed the look of consternation on Kiara’s face, staring at my feet as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. I smiled ruefully. I had been guilty of exactly the same behaviour in the past – telling Riley and Kieron to remove their shoes on pain of death and then pretending to other visitors that, actually, I wasn’t a fussy housekeeper at
all
. Oh, I knew where this woman was coming from.

Kiara’s mum led me into the kitchen, and that’s when I really began to take in the full impact of my surroundings and what they might signify. Everything that had initially impressed me – the minimalistic chic of the place, the absolute spotlessness – was now starting to make me feel slightly uncomfortable. Not only wasn’t there a single item out of place, there was also a distinct lack of the sort of items that made a house (particularly one containing a 12-year-old) a home. Admittedly, I was a clean freak – I knew that well, and had learned to live with it – but this level of clean-freakery was, well, freakish. At a guess, this was a level bordering on being a bit OCD, which, though often said in jest, was no laughing matter. I knew because I’d dealt with kids and adults afflicted with it.

I glanced at the nets – exactly seven pleats in each, and so precise that they almost looked measured, and to the millimetre. The tea towels, coloured to match the pale peach and white of the kitchen cupboards, were neatly rolled and stacked in a pyramid shape at the side of the sink, and there was nothing on show anywhere but a selection of chic kitchen appliances, which looked almost like they’d been curated for a museum exhibition. A dream kitchen? Or over the top, even by my exacting standards? It looked markedly less lived-in than a just-decorated show-home – at least when dressing a show-home they made it looked like humans were occasionally at home. This was practically clinical.

‘Do you eat early?’ Mrs Bentley asked me. ‘You’re welcome to stay for tea, if so.’

I wondered where she might magic a meal from. The only ingestible thing in evidence seemed to be a single lime on the window-sill, and my hunch was that it would be bound for a gin and tonic.

‘Oh no, but thank you so much for asking,’ I answered. ‘My brood eat around five o’clock and I’m under strict instructions to make Hunter’s chicken and salad for them tonight.’ I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to tell her my precise dinner plans, but there was something about the atmosphere that needed filling up, somehow. ‘I’d love a coffee though, if you have some, or a cup of tea.’

Kiara was still looking bemused in the doorway, and Mrs Bentley now turned towards her. ‘Go on, Kiara,’ she said. ‘You look like you’re catching flies, standing there with your mouth open. Go up and get changed. Don’t forget to hang your skirt up and put the tops in the laundry basket. I’m going to have a chat with Mrs Watson here, so hurry along,’ she finished, making a little shooing gesture with both her hands.

Kiara smiled at me, looking distinctly nervous, before leaving. I then heard her feet on the stair treads as she ran up the stairs.

‘Coffee it is, then,’ Mrs Bentley said, filling the kettle, then, having done so, grabbing a cloth from under the sink so she could rub away the drops of water from the worktop. She then pulled out a chair from under the tiny kitchen table, and urged me to sit on it. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I assume you’ve got more questions about Kiara. Is that right?’

I duly sat down. ‘Yes – well, I mean, what I’d really like to do is chat. About the hair pulling – which she’s still doing. Are you aware of her doing it much at home? And – well, whether there’s anything else you’ve noticed. Anything you’re concerned about. And her dad,’ I added, as she pulled identical mugs from a cupboard. ‘I have been wondering about her relationship with her dad, and how that’s affecting her. I know you said that he doesn’t take on much of a role with her, but she really does seem quite fond of him. How are things in that area?’ I finished, watching for her reaction.

There seemed not to be one. ‘Instant alright?’ she asked. I nodded. She duly got some out – from another cupboard, rather than from a canister on the worktop – and proceeded to make the drinks, leading to further enquiries about milk, and then sugar, and if so, how much of each.

It wasn’t until this task was completed that she opted to answer. Thinking time, perhaps?

‘I don’t know what to tell you about the hair pulling,’ she said once she’d sat down herself, carefully placing her mug on a coaster. The kitchen table, inexplicably, was dressed with a white tablecloth, as if sitting in a Michelin starred restaurant rather than a small suburban kitchen. I didn’t imagine she and her daughter were the kind to sit down and eat pizza together on it, that was for sure. Then I checked myself. Appearances could be deceptive.

‘I really don’t know what to say about it,’ she added, sighing. ‘I’m still convinced it’s an attention-seeking ploy. She never does it at home.
Never
. So, to my mind, it must be to do with something that’s going on in school.’ She looked pointedly at me. ‘Are you
sure
she isn’t being bullied?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Not that anyone’s ever noticed anyway, and I’m sure we’d know about it if she were. We try to be very proactive about that sort of thing. How about friends, though? She seems such a solitary girl. Does she talk about friends? Have them home for tea? That sort of thing?’

‘Not these days,’ Mrs Bentley said, shaking her head. ‘Though she did have a little friend for a couple of years. Samantha her name was. They lived in each other’s pockets for a long time. I don’t know what happened but they must have had a fall-out, oh, let me see … six months ago it must have been.’

‘Did she tell you why?’ I asked, knowing how girls could have such cataclysmic friendship crises.

Mrs Bentley shook her head again. ‘No, she didn’t. They just stopped hanging out. I did ask, but well, you know what my daughter’s like, Mrs Watson. If she doesn’t want to talk about something she won’t. And it wasn’t as if she seemed distraught, because she didn’t. Quite the opposite. You have to realise, she’s always been a quiet child.’

‘So there’s nothing you’ve noticed lately?’

‘There really isn’t. So I don’t really know what to tell you.’

‘What about her dad, then? How are things with him?’

‘Oh, when it comes to him there is
plenty
that I can tell you.’

She was instantly more animated and I braced myself for a tirade about her ex. And I got one. ‘That girl’s got rose-tinted glasses when it comes to that man. He’s an absolute waste of space. Never helped us financially – he can’t get off his backside long enough to find a job for a start. And if it wasn’t for her pushing to see him, he wouldn’t even bother with her, whatever she likes to think. I’m telling you, he’s no father, never has been and never will be. He’s good for nothing, that man.’

I had barely gathered my thoughts enough to make a sufficiently non-contentious reply, when a whirlwind entered the kitchen, in the shape of Kiara, dressed in what looked like a pair of pyjamas, returned from her room and clearly in high dudgeon. ‘Just you stop that!’ she screamed at her mother. ‘Why do you always have to bad-mouth my dad? He doesn’t do that about you,
ever
, and you’re
horrid
! Just because you hate him doesn’t mean I have to. I
hate
you!’

I stared at Kiara, shocked. Though I’d heard her launch both barrels at Tommy the first time I’d met her, she was always polite and respectful of teachers, and I really didn’t think she was the type of child who would speak to adults like this. Mrs Bentley, however, seemed completely unfazed, so I recalibrated my thinking. Some kids were angels in school and the very devil at home. And vice versa – you couldn’t second guess it.

‘Kiara, sweetheart,’ Mrs Bentley said, calmly, ‘I told you to go to your room and that I needed to speak with Mrs Watson. Snooping around and listening in to grown-up conversations will only get you into trouble.’ She then gave her daughter a clear warning look. ‘Go on. Do as you’re told. I said room, Kiara,
now
.’

Kiara, crying freely now, gave me a quick, helpless-looking glance, before turning on her heel and flouncing from the room. It was the kind of exchange between mother and daughter that has doubtless been played out in such circumstances for centuries, and would doubtless carry on being played out as well. I decided it was time for me to leave, because I didn’t think there was any more I could usefully do or say, and it wasn’t as if I had learned anything I didn’t already know. I stood up and picked up my bag. ‘I better get going,’ I said, anxious to convey by my light tone that I understood how things stood. ‘It was lovely meeting you, Mrs Bentley – lovely to put a face to a name, as you said – not to mention seeing your beautiful home.’