Fifteen years earlier
The boy was so cold he could hear his teeth knocking together. He was sitting on the floor of his tiny bedroom because his mattress, quilt and sheets were soaked through after his new foster mother had poured a bucket of cold water over them. An action she had taken with the expression of a beleaguered saint – See what you made me do.
He pulled his knees up to his chest in the empty hope it might gain him some heat. Then, despite the numbness in his fingers, he bent forward to have another shot at tying his shoelaces. Because untidy shoelaces were just one of the many things that sent his foster parents searching for a way to punish him. A smart appearance was the measure of the man, they said, so make sure your laces are tied neatly and that the loops aren’t any longer than the ends. Which was impossible to achieve when your hands were this cold. But he had to try, because if he didn’t, they’d know. Not trying was next to Godlessness, they said. And the punishment for Godlessness was … well, he didn’t know. He’d managed to avoid that sin. So far.
Being next to it was bad enough.
They were never violent. Not physically anyway. That was beneath them. Words were the currency of their punishment. A constant drip into the mind, letting you know that you were worthless and unloved.
Cold room.
Cold-water bathing.
Bedding doused in iced water.
Tiny portions of food from the fridge. Congealed with fat and often so dry it was hard to chew.
Still, when you’re not worth that much and you’re a burden on everyone, you deserve what you get.
Right?
He could hear a knock at the front door. Footsteps. The creak of hinges, and then a sound swelled into the space. Children singing. Even from here in the half-dark he could detect the pattern of a song about Christmas.
It would be children from his school, rounded up by the teachers to go carolling door-to-door to raise money for charity.
‘Oh, come and see this, dear,’ he heard the man say.
Footsteps, and the woman replied, ‘Oh, how cute,’ with a sing-song tone in her voice he’d never heard before. And in his mind’s eye he could see them arm in arm at the door. The image of the perfect, Christian couple.
He thought of the previous Christmas.
Before all of this.
Before that.
His big brother bounding into the house with a large holdall full of stuff. He couldn’t be bothered with wrapping, so you just got the toy or whatever in its box. Knowing what it was straight away didn’t detract from the pleasure. It was his big brother – his hero – giving him stuff.
‘Five minutes, some paper and tape. That’s all it takes,’ his mother said. ‘Keep the magic alive for the bairn, you arsehole.’
‘Did you nick that?’ his father demanded.
The talons of the memory ripped at his chest, seized his heart and squeezed. They reached into his gut and twisted and pulled and burned. A sense of near-crushing loss built up from his bowels. He felt his bottom lip tremble.
But he didn’t cry. Wouldn’t.
‘Big boys don’t cry,’ his new ‘mother’ intoned in his ear.
And he was proud that he managed not to.
He was a big boy now.
Right?