Betrayed: The heartbreaking true story of a struggle to escape a cruel life defined by family honour. Rosie Lewis

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СКАЧАТЬ until she had enough momentum to heave herself up. ‘Lead the way, young lady,’ she told Emily, shooing her along with her hand. ‘Come on, Zadie. We’ll take a wander to check your room and then I’ll be off.’

      Jamie flopped himself down on the sofa while Peggy bundled Emily and Zadie into the hall, her leg creaking rebelliously as she wheezed along. Emily led the way upstairs. Zadie followed in silence, her robe billowing outwards so that the hem brushed each stair as she climbed. Peggy huffed her way up next, chivvying Zadie along with impatient little noises in her throat. Each stair groaned under the weight of her heavy footfall.

      In the room, Peggy pulled the duvet back from the bed and pressed her flat palm all over the mattress, a standard check that all social workers are supposed to carry out each time they visit the foster home. It was a routine put in place ever since it had come to light that some rogue foster carers had put children down to sleep on sheets of MDF, with no mattress or even padding on top.

      ‘Everything OK with the room, Peggy?’ I asked.

      The social worker straightened and glanced around, her mouth contorted. Emily looked crestfallen. ‘It’s absolutely lovely, Rosie,’ she said after a moment, her face softening into a smile. ‘Do you like it?’ she boomed, turning to Zadie.

      Zadie nodded, rewarding Emily with her own shy smile.

      Leaving Zadie to settle in and unpack the few items she had in her rucksack, I went back downstairs with Peggy to go through the placement agreement. Half an hour later, as I said goodbye to the social worker, I was already of the opinion that Zadie had ran away because she was at ‘that age’ and was testing the boundaries, perhaps resenting the strict rules her parents had in place at home. Having to leave school was probably the final straw, I thought. In my head I had it all worked out.

      But, as often happens when fostering, my initial assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter 3

      Soon after the arrival of a new placement the structure of daily life kicks in and normality replaces those first few hours of awkwardness and polite small talk – a relief, I think, for everyone. Except that in Zadie’s case, without school, the only routine to her day was the observance of five obligatory prayers.

      The day after her arrival I was woken by the sound of running water. I opened my eyes to a faint orange glow from the street lamps outside my bedroom window. Blinking, I checked the time on my phone; it was just after 5 a.m. I knew it must have been Zadie using the bathroom as Emily was a hibernator, always reluctant to leave her bed in the mornings, and though Jamie still tended to get up early he was drawn by the lure of his Xbox rather than any wish to have a shower.

      I yawned, threw my duvet back and pulled on my long dressing gown. It wasn’t until I had almost reached the bathroom that I realised Zadie was probably preparing herself for dawn prayers. Having taken my Wiki papers to bed, I knew that Muslims were expected to perform wudu before praying, a ritual washing of the hands, feet, face, arms to the elbow and feet.

      ‘Are you OK, Zadie?’ I whispered, tapping quietly on the closed door.

      ‘Yes, sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

      ‘It’s all right, honey. Not to worry. As long as you’re OK.’ Our whispered exchange was the longest conversation we’d had since Peggy had left the previous evening. Zadie had politely declined when I invited her to join us for something to eat, asking whether I minded if she went straight to bed. I knew she must have been exhausted so of course I told her it was fine, but I worried that she might have been staying out of the way because she felt unwelcome.

      Leaving Zadie to get on with her prayers, I went back to bed for an hour but was too alert to go back to sleep. Lying awake on top of the duvet, I listened to the swirling sound of the sink emptying and then the whoosh as the taps went on again. When she finally finished washing I pictured the teenager up in her room bowing, prostrating and then sitting to face Mecca in Saudi Arabia. I couldn’t help but admire her self-discipline. With no adults persuading her, she had still managed to get herself up before dawn. Whatever the problems at home, it was unlikely, I thought, to be a case of the needle on her ethical compass swinging too far in the wrong direction.

      At the more civilised hour of 7 a.m, we all sat around the breakfast table. Zadie, dressed in a black robe and baggy cardigan that looked far too big for her, hung her head in silence. Emily, though friendly, tended to be a bit more reserved when older children first came to stay and so I was missing the noisy banter that usually flew between her and Jamie. If Zadie was a toddler, Emily would have been clowning around and trying to make her giggle, but since she was close to her own age she merely threw the odd smile her way and studied her cereal with unusual interest. I tried to behave naturally and let them all get on with it. Children generally hate being thrown together and time usually smoothes the jagged edges.

      Sure enough, after a minute or two Emily looked Zadie’s way. ‘You were up early,’ she said as she buttered some toast.

      Zadie nodded, lowering her gaze.

      ‘Do you have to get up early to pray?’ Jamie asked before ramming another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He always seemed to eat as if he was expecting a famine.

      ‘Yes,’ she whispered, her gaze lingering on Jamie for a second or two before darting back to the table. It was a penetrative look, as if trying to detect whether he had been mocking her. The flash of suspicion in her eyes reminded me that there was a real person beneath the head scarf.

      ‘And is it true that you’re not allowed to –’

      ‘J-amie,’ I said warningly. ‘Shall we save the interrogation for another day?’

      He shrugged and blew out a huff of breath so that his lips vibrated noisily. Zadie looked up again, her dark eyes sweeping over us. I think she must have recognised Jamie’s interest as simple curiosity because the frozen angle of her shoulders seemed to soften a little. She continued to watch both Emily and Jamie whenever their attention drifted from her but, as is often the way with teenagers until the ice is broken, as soon as they made an effort to include her she averted her gaze, overcome by a sudden urge to examine the back of her hands.

      ‘Not very hungry this morning, Zadie?’ I asked. Her toast, though she had cut each slice into neat little squares and arranged them in lines across her plate, remained uneaten.

      She looked at me warily. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry. It’s very nice though. Thank you.’

      ‘You should try to eat something, honey. How about some cereal?’

      She gave her head a tiny shake.

      ‘When was the last time you ate?’ I pressed. Even though her skin was coffee-coloured there was a pallor to it that I hadn’t noticed the previous evening. She looked awfully washed out.

      ‘It’s OK. I’ll …’ She picked up a tiny square of toast and took a tentative nibble. With her free hand she rearranged the left-over pieces of toast until there was an equal distance between each of them. Her fingers trembled as she worked and I could tell that Jamie had noticed too. He sat transfixed and was about to open his mouth when Emily, always quick to be kind, whacked him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, you. We’ll be late.’

      I mouthed a thank you to Emily as she pushed her chair back. Straightening two fingers, she aimed them СКАЧАТЬ