Torn: A terrified girl. A shocking secret. A terrible choice.. Rosie Lewis

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СКАЧАТЬ there was something sweetly old-fashioned about him that I couldn’t help but find endearing. But it was as he was getting ready for bed that my heart really went out to him. Bobbing around on his heels, his eyes screwed up into small balls, he had seemed so nervous that my own stomach churned in sympathy. At first I thought his anguish must be homesickness, but then after several circuits of his room he blurted out: ‘Have you got any nappies, Rosie? I might wet the bed.’ His relief was palpable when I took him to the airing cupboard and showed him my stock of nappies in various sizes. ‘Phew, I was that worried, Rosie, I thought I was going to have a heart attack,’ he had said, hand clamped to his chest. With his bygone clichés and earnest expressions, it was almost as if he’d strolled out from the pages of a children’s storybook.

      Taylor’s persona, on the other hand, was less Pollyanna, more Stephen King’s Carrie. She was only a child but there was something about her that made me feel uneasy. I wasn’t sure it was all down to her brittle manner either. Sinking down on one of the hard-backed dining chairs with a sigh, I watched as heavy droplets of rain swam down the misty glass, reflecting gloomily on the way I had handled Taylor’s earlier comment. Caught off-guard by the spitefulness of her question and, though it pains me to admit it, irrationally hurt, I had lost my patience and dragged her plate away, telling her to leave the table immediately.

      When I attended the initial foster-carer training course three years earlier, not a single social worker had mentioned that foster carers need to develop a really thick skin. Caught between abusive parents, stressed-out children and occasionally insensitive social workers, the role was not ideal for shrinking violets or anyone with even the mildest inferiority complex. I had a feeling that living with Taylor would challenge my own tendency to avoid confrontation; it was going to be a case of sink or swim.

      I sighed, disappointed in myself because deep down I knew that part of the problem was my own lack of experience. My reaction had nothing to do with Taylor’s comment about my cooking; I wasn’t that precious. But what had really got my goat, if I’m honest, apart from being irritated by Taylor’s assumption that my private life was up for discussion, was that she seemed to have effortlessly located my Achilles heel. Sometimes worried about the effect our divorce might have on Emily and Jamie, I was still sensitive about it. The trouble was that by reacting badly I had given Taylor carte blanche to wind me up, whenever she felt she needed to let off steam.

      Sullen, provocative and cunningly astute, the ten-year-old certainly seemed nothing like her brother. And yet as I had shown her into her new bedroom and said goodnight, I sensed hesitancy there – a brief moment of candour in her body language that showed me she was close to reaching out, if not for comfort then at least reassurance. Of course, as soon as I took a step towards her she shrank away, as I’d suspected she would.

      With a soft groan I forced myself to my feet, telling myself that things would quickly improve. Taylor was probably overwrought with all the emotion of the day and it was inevitable that I, as the nearest adult, would bear the brunt of it. Somehow though, I couldn’t quite convince myself that everything would work out fine.

      There was often a mixture of emotions at the beginning of a new placement; anxiety of course and trepidation, usually overridden by plenty of excitement. But as I heaved the dining table onto its side and began unscrewing the legs, I was tingling with the feeling, a presentiment almost, that things were going to get a whole lot worse.

      What I didn’t realise, at the time, was that by accepting the placement I was putting my own family directly in harm’s way.

Chapter Four

      ‘Taylor,’ I called up the stairs, making an effort to sound as pacific as possible. It was already 8.15 a.m. and with two school runs awaiting execution, I was eager to herd everyone out of the house. Chilled about most things but irrationally petrified of being late, Jamie stood with his hand on the catch of the front door, ready to sprint for the car as soon as Taylor decided to grace us with an appearance. ‘We really need to go now, Taylor, or you’ll all be late.’

      Jamie, bobbing around on the balls of his feet, gave a little squeak of terror.

      ‘Why you indicating?’ Taylor demanded from the back of the car, twenty minutes later. ‘Our school’s straight on.’

      ‘Yes I know, but Devonshire Primary is around here,’ I said, throwing her a quick glance over my shoulder as I took a left at the traffic lights.

      ‘Na, you can drop us off first,’ she said, flicking her right hand at the wrist to gesture a U-turn.

      ‘We discussed this earlier, do you remember?’ I asked calmly. While Taylor had been straightening her hair (a task that had taken almost an hour to complete) I told her that we pass Emily and Jamie’s school on the way to hers. ‘I said that Emily and Jamie will be going in first but in the afternoon we’ll do it the other way around, so you’ll get first choice of where to sit later on.’

      Taylor growled, gesticulating so furiously that Emily, who was sitting next to her, had to shrink away to avoid being slapped. ‘Oh-wah! But I need to hand my project in before the bell-errr.’ I had noticed that whenever she was annoyed, she prolonged certain words so they ended with an ‘er’ sound.

      ‘Let’s get a wriggle on then,’ I said, brightly, checking my teeth in the rear-view mirror to demonstrate that I wasn’t the least bit affected by her negative mood. Ignore difficult behaviour and it fades away. Isn’t that what the social worker on my last training course had assured us?

      ‘Ow, that’s so unfair,’ she lamented, an aggressive growl taking the whine out of her voice. She leaned forward in her seat and flicked her forefinger close to the back of my head, almost making contact (another one of her habits whenever she grew tense). ‘Today is literally the worst day of my life!’

      Beside her, Reece began whining, his arms folded around his middle. ‘Urgh, Rosie, I feel sick. I don’t think I can go to school.’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Taylor bellowed before I could respond. ‘Take no notice of ’im. He says it all the time so he can skive off school.’

      ‘No I don’t, you liar.’

      ‘D’you want me to smash your head through that window?’

      ‘Taylor,’ I snapped, as a large 4 x 4 pulled out in front of me without indicating. I swung my Ford quickly to the left, taking the place it had vacated, and accidentally clipping the kerb with my offside wheel. The jolt nipped at the muscle I had torn in my shoulder when moving the beds around and I winced.

      Taylor gasped and clutched her hands to her chest. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, now I got whiplash!’ She fluttered her hands around in front of her in a parody of shock. ‘I can’t believe you did that, Ro-sie-er!’ she ejaculated, spitting my name out with such venom that it sounded like a swear word.

      ‘Oh, Taylor, you’d make an excellent actress,’ I said, trying to sound more amused than I felt. With only three days left of school before the Easter holidays, I knew I was going to have to find a way to establish a relationship with Taylor before they broke up. The withering glance she threw my way told me that I was going to have to be particularly inventive if I was to have any chance of achieving that.

      As soon as I secured the handbrake Jamie dived forwards, kissed my cheek and leaped from the car. Thankfully, Emily offered to walk him to his classroom and as I watched them pass beneath the wrought-iron archway and into the playground, a pang of guilt rose in my chest because I wasn’t there beside them. СКАЧАТЬ