For all that I wanted to have a few words with Mr Hunt, it was Tommy who I naturally felt obliged to have a stern word with as we made our way back to my classroom. Which did the trick. Almost as soon as I gently upbraided him about his language, his face properly crumpled and this time he did cry.
Which made me feel even worse. And since he was already in tears, I had no compunction about putting an arm around him now.
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he sniffed, pulling a bit of sweatshirt cuff down over his hand and using it to wipe his face. ‘I don’t mean to shout an’ that, but I can’t help it. Me mum would go mental if she knew I was putting up with stuff like that and not sticking up for myself.’
‘And you should stick up for yourself,’ I agreed. ‘Your mum’s right about that. But there’s ways and ways,’ I went on, making a mental note about the ways I might choose to make my own point to Mr Hunt.
‘You don’t know what it’s like, miss,’ Tommy said, recovering his composure a little. ‘She really means it. That’s what she tells us all the time – that we mustn’t let anyone treat us bad, ever. That she didn’t take years of beatings just for us to end up the same. Honest to God, miss, she’d swipe me one. She would!’
I thought it best not to point out the contradiction in what he’d said, not only because I felt a rush of warmth for Mrs Robinson, but also because I completely got where she was coming from; even though I’d not yet met her, from what I’d seen of Tommy so far, I could tell she was a woman who, having lived with fear and violence, was keen to raise her kids to look out for themselves so they didn’t end up in the same boat.
It wasn’t always that way. From what I’d seen in school, and from the vulnerable adults I’d worked with in my last job, for every woman like Tommy’s mum (who I’d visualised in my head as a no-nonsense, Boudicca-like character) there was another that was too broken, too cowed, to be that robust. The children of these mums reacted to the violence they’d witnessed as their mums did, by being nervous, highly anxious and afraid.
I didn’t blame them or judge them. They were all victims of domestic violence – a pernicious canker in society whose effects spread far and wide. Tommy, I decided, was probably one of the lucky ones, in that his mother had found the wherewithal to get physically right away. Yes, he’d missed some schooling, but I thought he’d be okay. To have got away from such a situation, and to have started a new life, would most likely have empowered his mum to be determined that her kids would live differently, and Tommy would surely be better off for it. He simply needed to learn how to handle himself more appropriately.
‘I can understand that,’ I conceded, ‘but, Tommy, you just can’t lash out, with your fists or your tongue. Certainly not in school, or you’ll end up getting excluded permanently and we don’t want that, do we? I think you just need to learn how to cope better in stressful situations.’
But Tommy wasn’t to be mollified. ‘What?’ he huffed. ‘Even though the teacher is acting like a dick?’
I couldn’t help but sympathise. In fact, I wished I could find some clever riposte to slip him; something that would have had the class laughing with him rather than at him. Of course, I didn’t, because to involve myself in such subversive behaviour would be to set off down a very slippery slope – the staff were supposed to present a united front, after all. So instead I sighed sympathetically and said nothing to Tommy. Just made a mental note that I had unfinished business with a certain Mr Hunt.
We returned to the classroom to find it was proving to be a productive morning. I’d not been gone long, but a great deal had been achieved in my absence – unsurprising, since I’ve yet to meet a child in a classroom who wasn’t happy to be creating some sort of art. I’d have liked us to be contributing something else to the Easter assembly, too – a group poem recital, perhaps, or a song – but with my little group so new there wasn’t the time to choose and rehearse anything, plus I wasn’t sure any of them had the confidence to stand up in front of their peers. Perhaps next term, with whoever was still with me.
In the meantime, Tommy was only too happy to don his art apron and get stuck in and, having been greeted by Chloe as warmly as if he had just returned from an Arctic expedition, he was soon looking cheerful again.
My focus now returned to Kiara. ‘You okay, love?’ I asked her as I took a look at her various creations; like the child herself, the array of eggs were all pretty and neatly executed.
She nodded. ‘I like painting,’ she said. ‘You can lose yourself when you’re painting, can’t you?’
It was a bit of pocket philosophy, and I wondered whether she’d heard it said, or had realised it herself as a part of the process. I agreed that you could. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘I’ll be walking home with you later, if that’s alright by you. Your mum’s said I can visit so we can have a proper chat about things. See how we can best help you to get back to your usual self.’
Again she nodded, and agreed that it would be fine for me to do that, but there was something – a flash of something like fear in her eyes. It was gone – or covered up? – in the blink of an eye, too. But not so fast that I didn’t see it. What was it with this girl?
Rather than the lesson I had originally been planning for that afternoon, I decided that we’d do some work on conflict resolution instead, mostly for Tommy’s but for all of their benefit. It was no big deal to do so; being flexible and reactive to issues and situations was, I’d begun to realise, integral to my job. And not just so I could use a situation one of the children had experienced in order to illustrate some aspect of personal growth. It was also because things could be fine in the Unit one minute and the next all hell could break loose. When that happened, any carefully laid plans went to pot, and alternative tasks and lessons needed to be found. I had therefore learned to be savvy, and to have lesson plans for all eventualities; like the best military generals, I always had a back-up plan.
The worksheets I had made up for this afternoon’s chosen lesson consisted of a well-known scenario in any school, and consisted, in essence, of just four questions. They were simple questions, too, the first of them being: ‘Someone who doesn’t really like you is teasing you in front of all your friends. They call you a name that they know will upset you. What do you say and what do you do?’
The idea was that the child would write down their responses, then answer the next question: ‘What happens then?’ That done, they’d be asked to reflect on the consequences of their response, answering a third question: ‘What happens next?’
This step was designed to help them think about ramifications; how the original act and response to it affected people around them – their parents, the teachers, their friends.
Finally, the worksheet asked: ‘Are you happy with this outcome? If not, what do you wish would have happened and if you had the chance to do it again, how could you have handled it differently?’
Whenever I had used this same worksheet in the past it had had the desired outcome. Each child was forced to reflect on something that they would have surely experienced, and really think about the consequences of their actions and those of others. It seemed to be a simple yet enlightening exercise and their answers never failed to impress me. Today was no different, each had obviously thought carefully about it and I had to smile when I saw Tommy’s reflective paragraph.
‘So the geezer called me stinky but instead of getting shirty about it when everyone laughed, I should have just laughed and said, “Not guilty, sir, Harry Evans has just farted and I think he followed through”.’
Not exactly what I had in mind, but at least he saw that by turning the tables he could have avoided some of the humiliation. Putting this into practice, however – well, that remained to be seen.
As the final bell of the afternoon went, the students, as usual, couldn’t wait to get out of the classroom and into the warm, spring sunshine. Within a minute there was only Kiara left behind.
‘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.’
‘Likewise,’ Mrs Bentley said, standing up also and offering me a hand to shake. ‘And sorry about that –’ she rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. ‘You know how things can get when they’re that age, I’m sure. Please feel free to call again, won’t you? Oh, but do phone in advance to check I’ll be home. I’ve managed to alter a few of my shifts, as I told your Mr Clark, but I’ve had to agree to provide cover if anyone is off ill or anything, so I might get called in at short notice.’
‘I will do,’ I said as I opened the porch door. ‘And thank you for the coffee. Will you say goodbye to Kiara for me? Tell her I’ll see her tomorrow?’
Mrs Bentley agreed and stood by the door as I walked down the path and up the road towards the school, where I’d left my car. And as I walked I reflected on the little outburst I’d just witnessed. Perhaps Mrs Bentley was half right; perhaps Kiara’s hair pulling and drifting off were simply symptoms of her distress at the dire state of her parents’ relationship. With her mum so censorious about her dad, and Kiara loving him so much, she was bound to feel torn about where her loyalties should lie. It was a nasty situation and one which the poor child should never have been brought into. And it could be, probably would be, nothing more than that. Which made the business of helping her reasonably straightforward.
But if that were so, why, oh why, was my brain screaming no! at me so loudly?